The golden light was eating him alive.
That was the honest description.
It wasn't a gift, it wasn't grace either. It was just a fire that had been locked in a box too small for it, and now the box was breaking.
Raziel's hands shook.
His vision pulsed with each heartbeat.
The power coming out of him was real and enormous and completely out of his control, and Seraphina was standing there watching it like she'd ordered it from a menu.
"SO THIS WAS WHAT YOU WANTED?!"
His voice came out wrong. Too deep, too loud that even the stone walls vibrated.
Lucian, still pressed against the shelf, went pale.
"Raziel?" he whispered. "What is happening to you?"
Seraphina took a step forward. Her figure rippled at the edges, like heat off summer stone.
"I needed to confirm it," she said. "The next Paragon. I had to be certain."
"Now I know."
[MISSION COMPLETE: Gather Information on the Paragon]
[Assigned by: Seraphina Blackwood]
[Reward: +200 EXP | +1 Forbidden Knowledge Token]
[Note: Mission completed successfully. Congratulations.]
Raziel stared at the notification floating in his vision.
Then he looked at Seraphina.
Then back at the notification.
She assigned me a mission to find out if I was the Paragon. I completed it by being the Paragon in front of her.
The System had the audacity to give him congratulations.
"Paragon?" Odessa's voice came from the wall, strained, fighting the shadow holding her.
"That's a myth."
"Myths are usually just history that made someone uncomfortable," Seraphina replied, not looking at her.
She raised both hands. Dark energy coiled around her fingers like smoke.
"I'm sorry, children but you can't leave here."
She moved.
The blast of darkness hit Odessa, Kiera, and Lucian simultaneously.
They slammed into the walls and stayed there, pinned by shadow, struggling and failing to move.
Raziel took a step toward them.
"That won't work," Seraphina said. "They can't help you. No one can."
He stopped.
She was right.
He knew she was right.
"Why?" he asked. He kept his voice level. "What happened to you, Seraphina? You were the best scribe in the academy. You were—"
"I was a tool," she said, and for one second, something real crossed her face. Grief, maybe or exhaustion.
"The Church gave me gifts and then told me exactly how small I was allowed to use them. I found a different path."
"Necromancy."
"Power," she corrected. "The kind that doesn't ask permission."
The golden light around Raziel flickered. He felt it pulling away from him, like water draining from a cracked vessel.
'I can't hold this. I never could hold this.'
"You can save them," Seraphina said and her voice had gone soft, almost kind. "If you really are the Paragon, you can break my binding. You can get them out."
She took another step forward.
"But you have to stop fighting what you are."
Raziel looked at Lucian.
His friend was straining against the shadow, jaw clenched, refusing to stop fighting even though it was doing nothing.
He looked at Odessa, her sword arm was shaking with the effort of trying to move.
He looked at Kiera, who had her eyes closed and was praying.
'I've watched people die before and I'm not doing it again.'
He threw himself at Seraphina.
It wasn't tactical or a smart decision either.
It was the decision of someone who had run out of better options and was running on something older than strategy.
The golden light came with him, wild and unstable, and he threw it at her in blasts that she dodged with insulting ease.
She moved like smoke. Every attack hit nothing.
"You're making it harder," she said, sidestepping a burst that scorched the stone floor.
"Embrace it. Stop fighting the darkness inside you, It's the only way you'll be strong enough."
"Never," he said, and tasted blood.
His legs were going. The power was burning through him faster than he could channel it.
Lucian managed to get one arm free. "Raziel! Hurry up!"
Raziel's mind went cold.
He couldn't overpower her. He'd never been able to overpower her but there was one thing he hadn't tried.
He stopped fighting.
He dropped his defenses completely.
Seraphina's next attack hit him full in the chest.
The darkness drove into him like a spear, looking for his heart, and Raziel grabbed it. He forced his own light to crash against the intrusion inside his own veins.
The pain was the worst thing he'd ever felt.
[SYSTEM ALERT] The entity "Raziel" is attempting to fuse[Divinity: Incomplete Paragon] with [Rank A Corruption]. [ANALYZING...] Compatibility: 0%. Physical Integrity: CRITICAL. [EMERGENCY SOLUTION ACTIVATED] The System recognizes the user's "Suicidal Will". Enabling Protocol: [MARTYR CATALYST] [EFFECT:] Converts all damage received in the next 3 seconds into Pure Unstable Energy. [COST:] Severe Burn of Magic Circuits + [Sanity Erosion: 15%] (Warning: Mental erosion may cause hallucinations and loss of "Self").
ACCEPT? [Y/N]
He didn't answer.
He just let it happen.
Something tore in his mind but not a metaphor, an actual tearing sensation, like fabric ripping, like a page being pulled from a book.
BOOOOM.
The wave of energy swept the chamber. Stone cracked, the altar split down the middle and the shadows holding his friends shattered like glass.
Time stopped.
Then started again.
Raziel was on his knees, his hands were on the floor, he couldn't feel his arms.
He looked up.
Seraphina was standing ten feet away.
The cruel smile was gone.
She was staring at him with an expression he'd never seen on her face.
Shock a pure, unguarded shock.
And underneath it, something that looked almost like pride.
Then she was gone. The shadows took her.
Odessa hit the floor running and was at Raziel's side before the dust settled.
"Raziel. Hey. Look at me."
Raziel looked at him.
"Good," Odessa said, and her voice was shaking. "Good. You're still here."
Raziel opened his mouth to say something useful.
What came out was nothing, because the floor came up to meet him and the lights went out.