Zoey’s arrow plunged into one of the sand creatures and it howled in pain before it exploded in a spray of golden sand. She pulled the bowstring again to kill another, but the sand swirled and gathered together. Zoey watched in shock as it reformed and screamed up at her it stretched its left hand up and a whip of sand lashed up at her, trying to knock her down. She sent arrows down on the monster. Its limbs shattered where her arrows hit and the last was its head. It exploded again and this time, Zoey drew on more essence to shoot into it again, but something launched at her. She wheeled around mid-air, string pulled back to shoot it down but was too late.

  Gis’ arrows tore into the flying monster. Its remains fell down in a large lump and scattered against the sand. She twirled before a large palm made from compressed sand could slam into her. She dove out of the way, rolled to her knees, and fired five quick arrows that hissed through the air and plunged and shattered another sand monster. They looked humanoid, except they looked like poorly made golems and there was no end to them.

  David groaned, on his knees, with his hands buried in the sand. His eyes were red with tears and something gnawed at him from the inside. The pain was raw and alive. It ate at him constantly and he gritted through it, clamping down on the scream trying to push its way through his lips. They were dying. He couldn’t keep count of how many had died, and the damage was stacking up, pulling him down. He finally saw what Balek had done by connecting him to all of them.

  They were parts of him, burning away like dry, old parchment. How many more could he take before he lost it? His mind was stretched with the agony, the suffering, the fear. Terror was hell. It was a prison and David felt caged within it. He couldn’t breathe. Every breath was altered by the pain or death of one of those connected to him. He wasn’t affected by only the dead—he felt the pain of the wounded, temporarily, but it was there, burning his mind with a looped memory.

  Another man died quietly and David carried it with him. He looked up, tears wetting his face. He couldn’t tell where he stopped and the others began. Somehow, Balek had used the number against him.

  “Why did you think you could outsmart a god?” Vith asked. David tried to ignore the mockery in her voice and focus his mind. If he could push through the force of emotions igniting within him, he could help his people and his family.

  “Chl…” his voice broke as another died. A woman. She had begged as large hands of sand choked the life out of her. Another dead, and it was his fault. He should have left them back on Earth, where they would have been safe.

  David shook his head. His eyes came to focus and he saw Elisha split into three, his daggers moving like blurs of sharp death. The sand army exploded, bathing him in sand as he tore through their ranks.

  “Chloe!” David yelled, but his voice didn’t go far. He couldn’t find his sister, not after the attack began. Carlos blurred in and out of sight, and Ben the giant smashed one sand monster after the other David watched them as if he were staring from a distance. He needed help but he wasn’t sure what they could do

  You have to do something yourself, Ignis said, the dragon’s voice reaching his core.

  “Vith,” David called, the spirit’s presence was there like the echo of a memory in his mind. It watched them perish and David knew her silence was supposed to teach him something, but their lives weren’t worth it. “Vith, bloody help!”

  He heard nothing back and felt no stirring within him. The more chaos he saw, the harder it seemed. If these things couldn’t be killed, then his people were going to die. And he’d noticed none of the creatures were coming for him. Where he knelt on the sand, groaning from the pain and deaths he shared, none of the creatures had tried to kill him.

  Balek seems to want you to watch as he takes them all, Ignis said. David grunted. Once again he called for Vith. Not because he needed her for what he wanted to do, but with her help, he was stronger. His control of essence was strong, but it wasn’t precise. With their merge, David realized how flawed his perception of essence was. He was, perhaps, the strongest of them, but he was still far from perfection.

  With no choice, he pushed himself up, watching the battle in front of him. He couldn’t understand how Carlos was fighting but the man’s punches seemed to shatter the sand creatures. But through the connection, he could feel him get weaker, as if he’d been running all day without rest. Soon he’d be extinguished like a candle flame. Gis was the same too. The Guide, Alice, seemed to move like a phantom. She flickered from one position to the next, evading death. They were fighting hard, but many had died, and more were injured.

  “These things don’t die,” David said to himself. He walked into the battle and felt it split, making way for him. The sand monsters stopped when their hands reached for him, or their sand weapons. They shatter into dust when they graze him and reform to attack again. They were everywhere. Many had climbed up the sand cliff since the wind faded.

  It is what you are thinking, Ignis said. You know what to do, David. Any more delay will cost the lives of these people you now lead. You don’t have to wait—

  “For her,” David finished for the dragon. He knew that, and yet hesitated.

  He was in the middle of the battle. In that position, he felt like a tree with roots spread about the desert. The golden sand sparkled and the warm air blew against his exposed skin and face. There was no smell here, not even one of blood. Only the reverberation of the dead and the dying, their silence and screams. The shrieking of monsters as they exploded mixed with the cries of humans dying.

  David let himself feel it all as he contemplated the facts of the scene before him. There was something hidden within all of it, a message that he couldn’t parse yet. Something he wasn’t seeing. Balek was as powerful as Amareth. A god. This place was his creation. He trembled, the gravity of the task he was about to take on filling him with dread. He thought he heard a whisper from a voice unknown.

  David pushed it away as the thought formed into a thought-out assessment of the situation. This was no ordinary battleground. The wind had been a distraction and he was beginning to think the endlessness of the desert was the same. There was nothing in the distance behind them. The Gatekeeper’s realm was gone. Around them was sand like gems reflecting the sun.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  What does that mean? Ignis asked. If the space is a distraction like the wind, then where is the real threat? What is it?

  “There are no mages here,” David said. “No mage sand creature. I thought there was because the wind was obviously not natural. But these things don’t have the intelligence to do that. Which means they were set to attack us immediately after we appeared here. Like the wind, they were conditioned and programmed.”

  What does that mean? Ignis asked, even though David could feel him arrive at the same answer he had. David answered as he reached out to the ambient essence in the place. He had to see if his assumptions were right.

  “If this was a programmed spell, then there is only one thing to do. The real problem would be the authority binding the spell together. If this is Balek’s doing, then I don’t know if I can sa—”

  He stopped talking as he pulled at the essence flowing like a thick mist in the desert. With his new perception for essence, he could sometimes see them as clusters of energy, or individual strings of light. Now, he saw it as a million strands woven together with such perfection that it took his breath away. Pure essence, golden sparks, all meshed together, knitted so tightly that it was impossible to reach in to pluck one strand or undo a seam. It was a smooth working. He watched it in awe as one sand creature died, their death was undone, reversed. The spell was a complicated one, but beautiful nonetheless.

  “Is this what gods can do?” David asked. He felt himself enraptured by it. He sensed something, a pluck with him. Vith? No, the spirit wasn’t so subtle. She was a small storm whenever she emerged these days. As if to make him understand her power within him. This was different, something was connecting to him in ways he’d never experienced before. But not deeply either, Vith would have stopped it. David heard the voice and knew he was right.

  “What do you think?” Balek asked, or a part of him? David felt none of his divinity as if he’d locked that part of himself away so as not to destroy him from the inside. “You have no way to stop them. Your understanding of essence is limited. Surface. You are tethered to a part of it, a core element of essence, and yet, you have very little comprehension of it. You look at that in awe, but that was the working of a lesser, like you.”

  “Go away,” David said, trying to focus. He gritted as another death rolled through him like a wave of thorns eating at his insides. He shuddered as someone wailed, their final moments passing through him like a memory of ash. He closed his eyes and wondered how many were left. How many could he save?

  “I can save them all,” Balek said, his voice smooth as honey. “I can bring those you have lost back. This is my domain. I can stop the horrors and move you all to the end. I can make you the king of this tower and show you how to conquer the others. I am Balek, after all.”

  “Go away,” David said weakly. His thoughts were strained. He needed to figure out the mechanics of this spell and how to stop it. “I will not bow to you, Balek. I…I don’t bow.”

  “Admirable,” Balek said with a hint of smugness. “But you are human, and all humans do is bow. You will.”

  David blinked the thought forming in his mind away. He couldn’t let himself be pulled down by temptation. Balek laughed. David groaned. He hated having people in his head. And worse, he couldn’t push the god away.

  “Perhaps, I could convince you by killing your siblings?” Balek threatened. “It will be as simple as whispering a word. How many can Zoey fight again? What about Chloe? Her Song of Hornbrush is magnificent but do you think she is strong enough to fight against a host of creatures like this? They are self-sustained and endless. They will keep coming until you are all buried in this sea of sand. I ask again, how long can you survive?”

  “Times up,” Vith said, her voice harsh like nails in David’s skull.

  Balek’s irritation flowed through David, but before the god could say another word, Vith banished him and David felt a huge weight slide off him. Vith snorted.

  “You could have done that,” she said, annoyed. “You have the power to do that and more, but you didn’t. You listened to him ramble, distracting you from what you must do. Why have all this power if you won’t use it.” There was a brief stretch of silence. “You know what to do now?”

  “Yes,” David said. “But how do I do it?”

  “He just told you the secret to the spell, David.”

  David went through the conversation again, trying to catch what Balek had said that would help. He swore when he realized it had been so simple, so clear.

  “He didn’t make the spell,” David said, and that uncovered something else for him. He was lacking insights. He should have been able to feel that there was no authority on the spell. He should have known immediately he saw the arrangement of essence in this realm.

  Summon Skill: Left Hand of Chaos

  Chaos has been tamed!

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  Chaos has been tamed

  David watched in awe as his gauntlet disrupted the many layers of the spell. It was extraordinary. He hadn’t even thought that was possible. The spell tore and the ambient essence restructured automatically, its flow moving in a different order—slow and calm, like a settling sea. The sand creatures fell one after the other, turning into heaps of sand.

  David fell back, sweating. He let himself lay on the hot sand. Tears tracked his cheeks as his chest heaved and settled. He felt no exhaustion from what he’d done, but there was something else, fingers wrapped around his racing heart. He’d been arrogant. He thought with his new skills and ascension, he could do miracles. But he was no different from when he walked into Amareth’s tower. Somehow, this was worse. This god was out to get him one way or the other. He had to be vigilant.

  “Are you alright?” Gis asked David as he moved his arm from his eyes to look at the woman. There was no smile on her face. “That was you, wasn’t it? They just…disappeared. What were those?”

  “Carnites,” David said, pulling himself up to see the others coming to meet him. “Sand creatures. This was a test.”

  “Many died,” Carlos said and David glared at him. The man looked confused but didn’t say anything more. Zoey frowned. Her skin was back to normal and her bow had vanished. She folded her hand.

  “You could feel their deaths?” She asked. David looked away. No, past these people he could see the dead. Some were half buried in sand. He gave Gis a hand and the woman pulled him up.

  You have overcome Balek’s trial!

  Your boon awaits!

  Lord Balek’s blessings pave your path in your journey!

  David wished he could reject it. But the stronger he got, the better. He’d cleave Balek’s head someday. Perhaps, not soon. But one day, he’d make the god pay for playing games with so many lives.

  Behind him, two pillars of rough black stone crackled into place. Between them, a thin film of essence formed slowly until it connected one pillar to the other. From within, a bald man stepped out. His hands clasped behind him, his feet hovering a few inches from the sand. His robe was a rainy dusk sky and David watched tiny stars flicker on the fabric.

  “Come, children, your insights await,” he said. His mouth moved, but his voice came from all around David.