As soon as Ethan grabbed the Prophet's paw, he felt himself pulled forcefully toward Argwyll at incredible speed. He became a comet trailing toward the planet's surface—parting the clouds and boiling the seas. Beneath him, he now saw the world as it was—scarred by conflict, but still beautiful in its own way. The Prophet took him through vast mountain cities and sprawling towns in the East, bazaars the size of Lucent itself, and a great desert oasis that stretched across the land like a sand-caked hand.

"I summoned you," Jun'Ei said as they traveled through the opulent lands of Eastmarch. "But I could not give you form. You did that, Ethan. You, and your System working in tandem. And the power you have is just what you need. It is what this entire world needs."

She took him to the very end of the continent, where the land stopped and spilled into the raging seas. She pointed to an island at the very edge of the world, and they were both instantly catapulted toward it.

"In a place forgotten by time," she said. "The Sisterhood of Mistborne Isle have been conducting a ritual in secret. They have been preparing for the hour of your coming at my command."

Ethan blinked through the fog-coated island to see jagged mountains stretching into the skies. At the isle's peak, the towers of a great monastery rose toward the heavens—composed of crumbling stonework far, far more ancient than anything Ethan had ever seen on Argwyll, even within the bounds of Sanctum.

Past the veil of fog, shapes moved. They emerged from underground caverns and looked up at both Ethan and the Prophetess as though they could see them.

Their amber eyes stared unblinkingly from their black, scaled faces.

"Tialax," Ethan said.

"The Umbral Order," Jun'Ei told him. "One of the oldest of the Sisterhood. My Order."

Ethan watched as the robed Tialax, in a manner so, so similar to Lamphrey, bowed low to him, each of them offering up a prayer chant from their dry throats.

"They have been waiting for you," Jun told him. "Their ritual is almost perfected."

"What ritual?"

The mists parted again, and Ethan was taken to the highest spire atop the monastery nestled in the highest mountain's peak, far beyond the ancient walls that lined its perimeter.

There, he saw light—a place where the energies of the Weave that ran through all Argwylian magic were practically bursting at the seams.

And within the light, there was a piece of black stone that looked like nothing else ever seen on this earth.

"This," Jun'Ei said, "is Kaedmon's Cradle. It is a piece of the vessel that carried him to our world."

Ethan balked, his eyes burning as they landed upon the seemingly insignificant piece of rock.

"We have kept this place a secret from his eyes," the Prophet explained, "and have succeeded, largely, because the Master of Mankind does not wish to be reminded that he was once bound to the earth before he ascended to his plane of Divinity.

"And the ritual of the Umbral Order has one purpose," she continued.

But Ethan could already finish her thought.

"His essence… is still attached to this stone."

"Correct, Archon. Kaedmon shed his physical form to achieve his ascension, but he left behind traces of his old 'skin.' This is the only such trace we have found. And it will suffice."

"…to bring me right to him."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Before the words had even left his mortal mouth, the Prophet led him into the blazing light that the Sisters of the Umbral Order were channeling into the black stone. He felt himself flying, pulled by a beam of radiance past the clouds, past space, past time, and even thought itself.

And then he appeared in a plane that was nothing but an expanse of emptiness—a black void looming high above the entire cosmos.

He saw someone—a man—sitting at the very edge of this plane, as if in silent meditation.

The man turned his head, and Ethan saw six diamond-eyes find his in the dark.

"This is where he waits," Jun whispered like a ghost in the void—her voice fading away as she reached the very pinnacle of her power to show him this.

"He waits… for you."

The being's head turned independently of his body. His bald head sprouted gray hairs that formed into a mane of purest white—light that shone brighter than the sun behind him.

Ethan could barely stand to look in his direction. But those six eyes—they saw him.

"How do I beat him?" he asked abruptly. "How do I change his Law?"

"You know the answer, Ethan."

He forced himself to breach the light. He looked past the horror of Kaedmon's eyes and the amorphous body he was attached to, and he saw…the spot just above his forehead.

A spot that looked like it was made just for him.

And as though his Archon willpower was reacting to that spot, he saw exactly what he needed to see:

Possession (Grade A)

Unlocks Possession of deceased beings.

[The H-Bomb] Cancel your hold on the mind of a Host to cause an explosion that deals up to 4000 Spirit Damage in a 50 ft radius.

Spirit Core Cost to Upgrade: 50000

Possession (Grade S)

Unlocks Possession of Divine Beings.

[Mass Enthrall] unlocked: Sacrifice 3000 Spirit Cores to possess one additional Host.

Divine…

The eyes of Kaedmon narrowed. Ethan felt the danger radiating from that body—a body that held the fates of untold millions at its whim.

"Yes, Ethan Hawke," the voice of the Prophet said. "If you wish to change a God's mind… you will have to sit atop his head."

"This—this is what I was made for, isn't it?" he asked, no longer shielding his face from the godly light. "This is why you needed me."

"Exactly as you are," Jun'Ei told him. "And nothing less."

Ethan almost wanted to laugh. The Spirit Core cost of 50000… it almost seemed like a grim joke. To reach such a Core level, he'd have to burn through an entire army… or maybe even half the world. He'd barely survived one castle run…

"As you were," Jun'Ei told him. "But not as you are now."

He felt the Prophet's mystic pull on him again, growing stronger, more pronounced as Kaedmon's stare became more piercing. It seemed as though the God truly saw him now.

"We must go, Ethan. We must—"

Suddenly the Prophet's voice fizzled into ash in his ears. Kaedmon's eyes blurred, bulging strangely before they did so. Just before darkness enveloped him, Ethan could have sworn the deity was trying to reach out and grab him—to halt the Archon in his tracks.

But then a new pair of eyes pierced the cosmos: pupilless, lambent green eyes that flared with an unnatural flame.

They glared at him from on high, and Ethan felt flames lick at his legs, curling around him, trying to capture him…

And in the next instant, he was back on Argwyll. Back in Griffon's Watch.

He was staring at the closed eye of his hat-form as it rested upon Jun'Ei's floating brain, while the rest of his team gathered around him. Even the massive, hulking Revok.

"W-what was tha—?"

"Interference," Jun'Ei told him as her spirit form materialized at his side. "I took a risk in bringing you there, a risk I deemed worth it. Kaedmon's eyes are omniscient, and he is quite curious to see how I spend my final moments in our world."

Ethan turned to her slowly, regarding her with new insight.

"So you really are dying."

She bent beside Klax and stroked his chin, her form no longer able to affect the real world. The wolfman didn't move. He remained with head bowed, while Tara tried to console him.

"He had such dreams for us," she whispered with a sad—a genuinely sad—smile. "But those dreams were never the path I had to walk. I couldn't tell him. I should have, but I didn't."

She let out a heavy sigh, and Ethan saw the hem of her robe begin to fade from view.

"I have one question to ask you before I depart, Ethan," she said. "Do you hate me for what I have done to you?"

Ethan considered her words. This Lycae—the woman they all cherished—had indeed brought him here. He might call her the architect of his pain.

Yet she'd spoken the truth when she said she only took those from Earth who truly wanted to leave. She never forced them. In fact, if she had been upfront about the "Archon" business from the start, many of Ethan's predecessors would likely have volunteered for Argwyll anyway.

She was someone who worked to better her world, aware of how cruel it could be, and of the people walking its surface.

She had endured all this time, waiting for him to arrive and see the truth. He wasn't about to call her a hero. And he wasn't going to call her the villain of this story either.

So he extended his mortal hand and shook hers.

"This world needs a new antithesis," he said with a faint smile. "Leave the rest to me."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.