One of the soldiers stepped forward, aiming his rifle at the distant Phantom. More soldiers followed until the whole company had their guns aimed at the ghost, a row of bristling teeth ready to bite down on the ghost.

The Captain hadn’t commanded them to do so, but she took advantage of their initiative. “Fire!”

They did so, a blast of bullets heading straight for the Phantom. Not what Riven would have counselled, but things had a way of getting out of hand when faced with more than a few Phantoms. They’d seen the other Phantom throwing their own bullets back at them, yet they were still willing to perform the same little trick. It wasn’t going to work.

Sadly, the Phantom proved Riven right. All the bullets came to a halt before the ghost. Then they were shot back with even greater force than they were fired.

“Don’t move,” Riven shouted.

The soldiers listened to him. Having witnessed his abilities earlier probably helped with that. Riven focused, letting the pressure burst free from him as golden lines flew forward, twisting through the air to create a curved golden shield around them all. The bullets crashed into the shield, dozens of little impacts throwing up hundreds of little cracks all over as the white lines intertwined. By the time the impacts were done, Riven’s shield was near its breaking point, whiter than gold with all the fractures.

But they were all safe. That was all that mattered, though cold sweat had broken out all across Riven’s temple. It had come too close to the shield shattering and some of the bullets had even flown in. That would have been disastrous.

Then a rock crashed into the shield, shattering it into a thousand tiny shards.

The soldiers dispersed with a chorus of shrieks, but a few were too late. Two in the middle got crushed, blood and fleshy bits splattering everywhere as their screams were abruptly cut off. The rest of the soldiers backed away, Captain Rett desperately trying to impose some semblance of order into the ranks. Riven didn’t pay much attention, his heart thundering like a storm come alive. He stared up.

There was yet another Phantom at the bend of the ridge where it curved away.

Another rock was already sailing in. Riven was ready this time. He focused, drawing up a shield high in the air at an angle. The rock—a boulder in truth—burst through, but it had been slowed down and its trajectory had been thrown off, giving the soldiers enough time to swerve out of its path. It threw up a cloud of dust and rocky debris when it crashed. Riven created another shield over the area, protecting the soldiers from being shredded by shrapnel.

But they screamed anyway. One of the soldiers was thrown back as though he’d been punched by an invisible giant, his fading scream suddenly ending when he struck the ground. His body bounced and then scraped along the brown, rocky terrain, leaving darker smears along the earth.

“The other one’s coming!” a woman soldier said from the back.

“There’s another too!” someone shrieked to one side. “Over there, to the left.”

Riven barely glanced at the Phantom floating closer into the middle of their path, before following the soldiers’ collective sight. Another Phantom was on the distant scree of rocks to the right, slowly picking their way down the sloped ground. Damn it, how many of the ghosts were there?

One of the soldiers was on the verge of collapsing to the ground. “What do we do?”

Captain Rett turned to Riven. “What do we do, Essentier?” Her face was furious, eyes screwed up in dejected anger and hate. “You’ve led us right into a trap.”

Riven was hardly able to pay much attention. Yet another rock hurtled through the air, thrown by the Phantom high above them and Riven deflected with yet another shield higher up before the rock shattered harmlessly far away. “I don’t know, okay! I have no idea what we’re supposed to do. One of them is bad enough, a handful is a  death sentence.”

“So we’re all doomed, is that it?”

Riven closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to think, not let the panic hold sway and shift his thoughts away from something that might help. “Bring them all in closer.”

“What?”

“Now!”

The Captain shouted out orders for the soldiers to draw closer. Riven had erected an oblong, hemispherical shield over the troops to stop the Phantom in front from picking them off one by one. But it was failing. The ghost’s Spirit was wearing away at it, chipping it away bit by bit as cracks veined out. It wasn’t going to last long. Besides, they were sitting ducks this way. They had to take the fight to the Phantoms, find some way to stop them and kill them.

“What now?” the Captain asked once the soldiers had gathered around.

“Now, we fight back,” Riven said. “But first…”

Riven took a deep breath and focused. His attention was drawn in three different directions—at the approaching Phantom, at the one higher up pulling out boulders to pelt them with, and at his larger shield just overhead which he was trying to repair even as the first Phantom did their best to tear it apart.

And now he had yet another distraction with the soldiers. Good that he had already done this once with Viriya. Though there was ever the question on whether having so many subjects would make it weaker or not.

Either way, he didn’t exactly have  a lot of choice.

Riven focused, drawing up even more Essence. With the soldiers this close, he didn’t have to use his own Sept much. They had a ton of ammunition, and it was fitting he was using their own bullets to protect them. Golden Essence flew off Riven and attached themselves to every soldier standing near Riven. In rapid seconds, the whole company was outfitted in a simpler version of the same golden Essence armour that Riven was. Just like Viriya had been in that fight against Wenster and Lacelle.

“The Chasm is this?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Your defence against the Phantoms,” Riven answered.

The Captain raised her hands, inspecting the armour critically as though she could tell just where its weak spots were. “It’ll protect us?”

Riven jerked his head at the shield overhead. “It’s been protecting you so far.”

“Are you sure, Essentier?”

“Yes of course. Listen, this is the best I can do on short notice, and you’ll have to make do. The thing is, we can’t wait here, hoping to hunker down until the Phantoms get bored and wander off. We’re stuck, and we’re going to stay that way unless we fight our way out of here.”

“We couldn’t even beat a bunch of demons,” someone piped up from the back. Riven frowned, unable to see who it was in the crowd of bodies. So easy to be critical when one couldn’t be judged right back. “How in the Chasm are we going to beat a bunch of Phantoms.”

Riven glared at them all. Another rock tried to crash in, and the Phantom was close enough now to see that the ghost was female. An older woman, the white of her hair giving an ethereal quality to her. “That’s up to you. You’re soldiers, aren’t you? Maybe the demons overran you back at the bastion, but these are just a few Phantoms. Powerful yes, but not unbeatable. You’re supposed to be able to fight back and win.”

Captain Rett stepped up, maybe trying to insert order before someone else voiced their stupid doubts. “That’s right. We’re soldiers of the Crane Regiment! If we can’t handle a few Phantoms, then what in the Chasm have we been training for? We’re going to beat back those damn ghosts and we’re going to win. That’s an order!”

It took a moment for her words to sink in. Then one of the soldiers clapped, followed by another, then another. Seconds later, they were cheering and shouting, eager for Phantom blood all of sudden. Or Sept, rather.

“Take the ones on the ground,” Riven said. “I’ll deal with the bastard on the mountain.”

The Captain grabbed his shoulder before he could dash off. There was a curious look in her eye, a hardy one as though she was reappraising him for something. “Be careful. And thank you.”

Riven nodded, trying for a smile. It came out wonky and he gave up. “You and your soldiers too.”

Then he charged away, dashing through the shield that broke as he let it go. Even as he ran towards the side of the ridge, the Phantom above threw down another rock. Scions, did that thing ever need to pause? Riven focused, deflecting the boulder with yet another shield.

The ridge was basically unclimbable. There were hand-and-legholds aplenty on its rough, rocky surface, but Riven didn’t want to be shot off the ridge’s face with the Phantom continuing to throw down boulders. He also didn’t want to end up facing the ghost after having wasted all his energy climbing so damn high.

Instead, he had his golden plates of Essence. They rose along the slope, forming a staircase for Riven to jump one by one. This climb was tiring too, but at least it wasn’t as bad as literally crawling up the slope like a monkey on a tree.

And it let him avoid everything the Phantom threw at him too.

Rocks came pelting in like enormous cannonballs, air swirled in with murderous twists like miniature cyclones, and Riven avoided them all. It was easier to jump out of the way and climb to the next high step than try to block the Phantom’s projectiles directly.

He rose higher and higher, doing his best to ignore how the figures on the ground grew dizzyingly small. Riven just needed not to look down so much. Up was his aim, and that’s all he needed to keep an eye on.

That, and the Phantom.

“You little monkey,” the ghost cursed, its voice reverberating through the air. “ Fall already!”

“In your dreams, you spook.”

The Phantom growled, and the entire ridge started to shake, cracks growing through the sloped side like a dozen snakes tearing open the earth. Maybe Riven had offended the Phantom by calling him a spook. Or maybe he was just getting frustrated that Riven just wouldn’t die. Whatever the case, the ghost raised his Spirit to another level, broken earth and massive rocks jutting out of the ground and rising into the air.

Riven paused on his golden plate hanging on nothing in mid-air. It was compressed air after all, though there was still the question of what allowed it to hold his weight like that. This was Essence though, and the natural laws governing the world didn’t exactly apply to it.

He didn’t get much chance to think about it either. The Phantom yelled, throwing the barrage of enormous rocks at Riven.

This time, he did need his shield. Riven focused, letting his pressure grow to a torrent inside him before allowing his Essence to burst free. Golden lines shot out everywhere, forming a large, curved shield in mid-air in front of him. The rocks sailed in and struck his Essence, the sounds of the impact alone making Riven stagger. Thankfully, it held. Cracks popped at every impact though, and several rocks got lodged as bits of the shield fell away. But none of them made through. Riven was safe.

It also gave him the perfect series of steps to climb higher on. Riven focused, shifting away the Essence plates from their original direction to lead to the shield and rocks. He rushed forth, trying his best not to flinch or worry as the Phantom restarted his process.

Riven was going to make it to the ghost in time, no doubt about it.

Sadly, it looked as though the Phantom had other ideas. Instead of rocks, it was the air that whirled far overhead. For a second, Riven thought the ghost was forming a tornado like that Deadmage at Welmark had, but he was sorely disabused of that notion soon enough.

Pockets of air rained down with the weight of the boulders that had been thrown earlier. Damn it, Riven was so screwed. He formed another shield over his head as he jumped, but he didn’t need to look up to know it was useless. The blobs of heavy, turbulent air rammed down like giant sledgehammers, shattering his Essence shield with ease.

Riven had leaped though, landing on another Essence plate a dozen yards away. Then he jumped on the next. Then the next. Motion was what would save him. He couldn’t defend himself against this barrage, but he could do his damnedest to avoid being hit.

The final jump took Riven to the ridge, where the crash of the air pockets sent up shrapnel shooting like bullets. His armour was there to stave them off. Despite that, he still flinched every time there was contact, the high-speed rocks leaving cracks everywhere.

Riven ran forward, trying his best to avoid being hit again. The Phantom’s face was twisted in a mix of anger and hate, and it made Riven’s skin itch too. Damn it, he needed to get to that ghost before he was hit with something else. The torn ground wasn’t helping matters. Riven had to pause every now and then to jump over a crack or swerve past a wide trench or crater.

The ground around the Phantom cracked even more, rocks rising in the air and floating all around him. Behind Riven, the barrage of air meteors was finally slowing to a stop.

Riven forced himself to a standstill. There was no way he was reaching that creature on time like this. He pulled out his gun, took a fraction of a second to aim, then fired. The bullet tore through the air, hitting one of the rocks and falling harmless to the ground. Good enough for what Riven needed.

His aim had been for the Phantom’s head, and the rock that had come to stop the bullet blocked the ghost’s view. Perfect. Riven focused, sending out more golden lines flying at the Phantom, shooting them out faster than thought. Instead of air, this time they latched onto the rocks floating all around. Then the golden Essence pulled them in, drawing out more rocks from the ground to form an earthen cocoon around the ghost.

The Phantom was encased in a shield of earth.

Riven didn’t wait for the Deathless to burst out. He formed more horizontal plates in the air, climbing higher and higher with every step. He glanced down once or twice, glancing at the trembling cocoon of rocks and farther below, the soldiers battling with the other Phantoms. Riven had to hurry so he could help. In moments, he had reached a height a couple dozen yards above the Phantom.

He jumped. As he descended, he focused to draw a spherical shield around himself. It wasn’t hard work, and Riven wasn’t ready to land on the Phantom with only his armour to protect himself.

Just as he’d suspected, the cocoon of earth burst apart. Rocks shot away in every direction, a few lodging into Riven’s shield. The Phantom saw him descending too late. Riven was too close for him to bring up any more rocks or push out more air—

Riven froze. The jerking stop made insides scramble and he nearly bit his tongue off at the sudden halt. What in the Chasm was happening? How had the Phantom stopped him like that? He was so close too. At this distance, Riven could see how pale the ghost’s face really was, how washed out and murky grey the whites of his eyes had become. He struggled, and his limbs had no trouble moving, but he wasn’t getting forward either. Riven was stuck mid-air, and air had nothing with which he could push himself off with.

With a frustrated snarl, Riven focused on making a plate of Essence behind him, but the ghost acted too fast. Riven was swung down with the force and speed of falling elephant, and his outer shield shattered upon impact. But only his outer shield. His armour wasn’t even touched. Riven charged up, shoving his fist at the Phantom as fast and with as much strength as he could muster. Too fast for the Phantom to react again. His punch landed on the ghost’s chest, surprisingly corporeal despite being a ghost. The Phantom went flying back, Riven’s jaws pressed tight enough against each other for his teeth to be on the verge of cracking.

But even as the Phantom flew back, he jerked his arm at Riven. There was no time to draw up another shield, not when the ghost was this close.

Riven went flying back as well.

Shit. The Phantom was giving himself space to shoot at Riven from a distance again. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Riven focused, drawing out more Essence and sending it behind him. A golden shield formed at his back, a plate which he collided with as he flew backwards. His flight stopped, the shield shattering at the impact. Riven dropped to the ground, focusing his Essence on his armour and repairing the backside. He couldn’t see it, but it was inevitable there were cracks and broken pieces all over after that impact.

Then Riven charged forward. No way was he giving that Phantom any space to work its accursed magic.

But the ghost had arisen too. He jerked his arms at Riven again, and his invisible Spirit roiled out. The ground trembled for a second, but Riven didn’t stop running. He couldn’t. No matter what that Deathless threw at him.

The Phantom threw more earth. Not rocks this time, instead, the ground itself rose in a forest of pillars before Riven, all so congested together there was no way Riven would be able to keep running at his current pace unless he wanted to smack into them. He focused again as he ran, forming more horizontal shields in the air that he jumped on and did his best to get to higher ground. It worked, somewhat. He got over the rocky outgrowth, landing on top of the forest of rocky pillars.

Riven ran on. The “ground” was uneven, but he did his best not to step not one of the holes between the pillars, or trip on one of the pillars jutting above the others.

Didn’t help when the Phantom started shooting them up.

The first shot right in front of Riven and he was moving too fast to stop himself, crashing into it as it scraped along his armour in its rise to the sky. He fell back, but only for a second. Another at his back shot up, throwing him up and forward. Riven crashed into the pillar top a few yards ahead, his armour cracking all over at the impact. Damn it, he needed to stop being thrown everywhere.

Good thing about being thrown forward was that there were less pillars being shot up here. Bad thing though—the ones shot up were starting to rain down again. His shield would be little to no defence against them. Riven scrambled away, now trying his best to avoid the ones coming up from below and crashing down from above. Cursed Phantom had him trapped.

There was a gap though. All those thrown columns meant the forest’s canopy had made the holes in-between much larger, and Riven slipped into the first one he came across.

He slipped in and fell. The fall was longer than he’d anticipated, and he created a spherical shield around himself to stop from being smashed against the ground at the bottom. His shield shattered at impact, but Riven wasn’t hurt, or even jolted. He stood in a pool of sunlight, most of the pillars too huge to enter the hole straight through. They did break apart against the rocky columns that still stood, crumbling on impact and falling as shrapnel of various sizes on Riven. He had brought up another shield to protect him though.

It was too dark to tell where the Phantom was. Riven stared around, but wherever he looked, all he saw was light and shadow between the pillars, no sign of the ghost anywhere.

He ran forward. The Phantom had to be outside the little forest of pillars. Soon as Riven got out—

The Phantom loomed out from behind a pillar. Riven jerked to a halt, his hear seeming to shoot out of his mouth as though its momentum wouldn’t be denied. The Chasm was the ghost doing here?

Before Riven could react, the Phantom jerked a hand at him. Several pillars cracked and blasted forward, a cannonade of rocks slamming into him and throwing him back. The spark of an idea shot up in the haze of pain, a haze of memories telling him what to do before he was smashed to bloody pulp. Riven focused, drawing up his Essence and flinging behind him, golden lines latching onto the air and pulling it closer, congealing it without turning it into a hard, tightly-compressed surface like usual. Riven and the rocks started slowing, the air resistance rising by orders of magnitude as the space behind him grew to the consistency of gaseous honey.

The broken rocks dropped to the ground, and so did Riven. He groaned. Riven had blocked the rocks with his right arm and the armour there had cracked. It hurt, bad enough to make it feel as though a blacksmith had been using it as an anvil. But Scions, he was lucky not to have hit a pillar.

He stood up. There was a crack right in front of him, and one step forward would send him tumbling into the darkness, deep now that the Phantom had sent up all those rocky pillars.

Riven stared in front of him. The darkness was relieved by rays of sunlight, shadows swirling underneath the rocks swimming in the air. Somewhere in the gloom, the Phantom was hiding. Waiting for Riven to pop out so he could make his next move. Probably more rocks.

Unless… Riven looked down at the cracks. They were now wide enough to let him walk within them, albeit with his body squeezed in. It would be hard, but not impossible.

Then grinding started. More rocks were breaking apart, twisting and tearing off each other. It had to be the Phantom. The shadows swirled again, and Riven recognized it was the ghost trying to get to him. Damn it, there was no point diving into holes and cracks, only for them to be clogged up by a bunch of rocks. He had to be free of these damn pillars everywhere.

Riven charged forward, wincing against the pain afflicting his right arm. He jumped over cracks and swerved past holes, making sure he didn’t trip or fall. Easier said than done in the half-light, half-shadow. But he found his mark in no time.

The Phantom popped up from where he’d been hiding behind a rock column.

Riven already had his gun in his hand, raising his left arm to aim at the ghost. The Phantom had already whirled, the air twisting around it as its telekinetic Spirit weaved through. Pieces of earth and broken rocks were swirling around him, ready to block any bullets Riven fired.

He shot anyway. As expected, a rock whirled in to block the glowing Sept bullet. It was the same trick as before though. His bullet had been aimed for the Phantom’s face, and the rock that blocked it also blocked the ghost’s line of sight.

The Phantom never saw Riven focus. Never saw the golden lines flying from him and concentrating into the bullet that had lodged into the floating rock.

Never saw the shield that snapped outwards.

An orb of golden Essence blasted out from the Sept bullet as Riven poured in as much Essence as he could, the pressure within him as strong as a torrent from a broken dam. His Essence shield blasted outwards, every inch of it hitting everything in the vicinity with the force of a cannon. Just as Riven had planned. The pillars still standing broke, crashed, and were flung back. The rocks littering the broken ground went flying as though they’d been launched with rockets attached to them. Even the Phantom was hit, thrown back straight into one of the most distant pillars that promptly crashed on top of him.

Riven had focused so that his expanding shield left a small hole for him. It passed him by harmlessly, giving him a little time to enjoy the now-serene area, bereft of any damn rocks, pillars, or Phantoms. The only disturbance was the ground, cracked and broken everywhere.

But Riven only had a moment. He jumped into the hole in front of him before the Phantom could rise.

It was just as tight a fit as Riven had expected. He shimmied forward as best as he could, silently thanking the Scions that he could fit here in the first place. Good thing about being too busy to get regular meals was that Riven was far from being too girthy for situations like this.

Though the fact that situations like this cropped up this often was another kind of unlucky.

He crawled forward, trying not to make too much noise. Riven had taken off his Essence armour since the glow might alert the Phantom where he was. Couldn’t have that. Stealth and surprise were his greatest allies to ending this damn fight.

Too bad he couldn’t hear what was happening either. The Phantom hadn’t said much at all, so it was unlikely he was about to go on a shouting spree to determine where Riven was. But there was no sound of movement either. No tapping on rocks, no brushing of cloth against anything, no footfalls. Everything was silent. Riven simply recalled what Mother said and forged on. Faith. That was the only thing he had to battle his doubts.

It took far too long to get to where he needed to be. At least, he figured this was the right spot. People in distant chilly Folstarn used a little thing called periscopes when hiding underneath ice. It let them see things above without revealing themselves as blatantly as their bodies or heads might have. Riven wished he had one.

His faith would have to do. The Phantom had better be nearby. If Riven was wrong, he’d be caught and his whole schtick of surprise would be ruined. All for naught. Riven was right. He pushed against the rocks and rose a little to peek over the edge of the broken ground.

The Phantom was standing nearly right on top of him.

Riven pulled himself down, breathing hard and fast. Too close. He’d almost been caught Thank the Scions—yes, even the Fifth Scions who was supposedly behind all this mess—that the Phantom hadn’t looked down just then.

But it was now or ever. Riven focused, letting the pressure build within him, halting it just beneath his skin. It was much like damming up river rapids, forcing the Essence back until he was ready to unleash it with his full force and intent. With a little shout to empower himself, Riven charged up out of the hole.

The Phantom whirled, the air twisting around him as he summoned his Spirit . Riven was too quick, surprise making the ghost react too late. One moment’s tiny focus, and Riven let go of the grip he had on the pressure inside, letting his Essence flood out and around him. His fist blurred as he rammed it forward with all the force he could muster, wrapped in layer upon layer of golden Essence armour.

Idiot ghost never got any chance to react. Riven’s fist rammed right into the Phantom’s chest, hammering him to the ground at his feet. Scions it hurt like mad, but the force of Riven’s blow made his fist punch right into the Phantom’s chest.

“You bastard!” the Phantom screamed. He spat at Riven but of course, damn Deathless didn’t have any.

The air swirled with this Spirit but Riven was ready. He focused again and a shield went up, the golden Essence barring entry to the ghost’s Spirit. The Phantom cursed as he tried to move, but Riven had him pinned. There was no way he was getting away.

“Now you die,” Riven said.

The fear in the ghost’s eyes did nothing to dissuade Riven. He raised an armoured arm and smashed it down into the Phantom’s face. There was nothing to stop him.

Then the space around him twisted.

Riven was thrown back as the air cavorted in front of him. He collided with his own shield, the shock staggering him in place for just a second before he leaped on the Phantom again. Bastard wasn’t getting away that easily.

The whirl of space and air rammed into Riven again, but he pushed against it. It was like fighting against the winds of a hurricane. His armour was starting to crack, and so was the shield around them, white fractures spreading all over like the same cracks the Phantom had made on the ground. With a growl, Riven pulled out his gun and got a quick shot away. The bullet tore into the ghost’s right eye, and he fell back with the shriek, his Spirit fading as well.

But though Riven jumped at him to seize the opportunity, the damage had been done. Riven’s shield fell apart into golden shards that faded before they hit the ground.

He didn’t pay any attention. Lack of focus could very well be fatal. He dived to the ground, grabbing the Phantom’s leg as the ghost tried to crawl away. The Phantom kicked him in the face, masking his Essence armour with a patina of white cracks but Riven wasn’t about to let go for such a little thing. He tried to scrabble over the Phantom, but the ghost’s Spirit rose again.

Then it hammered down. Riven had his armour to protect himself, but the ground around him had no such defence. It cracked, then shattered. The whole side of the ridge suddenly shifted as a delta of cracks spread everywhere, rocks starting to fall at the edge as the fissures worked their way inwards.

Riven shouted as he tried to rise but the Phantom kicked out again and he lost balance. He fell. Damn the stupid Deathless bastard.

The sea of cracks reached them both, and the rocks under them collapsed. Riven cried out as he fell, his hand gripping the Phantom’s ankle as tightly as he could as though it was his sole lifeline. It wasn’t. Rage and annoyance flashed white hot. If he was falling to his death, he was taking this bastard down with him.

They struggled in the air. The rocks fell alongside them, swerving past on either side as their weight pulled them down faster. Riven managed to pull the Phantom down closer to his level. Then he punched the bastard. It didn’t do much. The Phantom wasn’t even dazed. He was muttering a litany of curses, and the air was swirling around him as he tried to pull up his Essence again. It wasn’t doing much. Maybe Deathless needed to focus to call in their Spirit as well, and Riven knew for certain he’d be hard-pressed to call in his Essence while he was falling to his death and struggling with a Deathless at the same time.

Really, someone needed to award him some kind of medal for being the foolhardiest of fools.

But no, he couldn’t let the Phantom get away. As Riven and the Deathless fell, he twisted around until he was on top of the Phantom. Cold hands shot out, grabbing Riven by the neck and squeezing down harder than a Sept-filled corpse should have been able to. The golden armour around Riven’s neck started to crack. Shit. He didn’t have much time.

It was all Riven could do to focus on the pressure within him. Every time he tried to bring it out, the golden Essence sputtered and left him. He was falling too fast. Riven had brought his hands around the Phantom’s neck as well, the ragged hole in its chest throwing up dying Sept. but it wasn’t enough. He needed his Essence to finish this.

Riven closed his eyes and focused again, doing his best to summon and throw his Essence far below him. The pressure burst free like an exploding bomb, and he opened his eyes to see golden lines shooting everywhere. He hastily grabbed a few streams and redirected them to form a shield around himself, keeping the Phantom and his hands around the ghost’s neck inside of the small, golden sphere.

The Phantom’s eyes widened in realization. His struggles renewed, his Spirit trying to claw at Riven. But it fizzled out too soon. Not that there was time to do much of anything. Riven was able to take only a single breath to prepare before they struck the bottom.

His shield shattered on impact, but then, so did the Phantom. Rocks and dust exploded outwards along with a gout of fading Sept as the ghost’s body shattered to tiny pieces. Riven howled, aware of nothing but livid pain taking over his very soul. He wasn’t sure where he’d struck, or where he now lay, or what in the Chasm he was looking at, aware of little but the wave of agony shooting up his arms at the slightest motion. Fuck. The pain was going to kill him.

It didn’t kill him. Time seemed to pause in that moment where his hands feeling like they were melting and tearing themselves apart was all he knew. But awareness of the rest of the world returned in fits and starts.

Riven raised himself a tiny bit to look at his arms. If he’d thought blocking that rock the Phantom had thrown was bad enough, crash landing right on his wrists hadn’t been the best of ideas. His arms looked battered and broken. His armour was still there somehow, though the cracked white meant he saw little of his actual golden Essence, but none of it hid how red his arms had become around his wrists. He tried to move his fingers, which worked fine enough. Then he tried to move his wrists and shouted again. Thank the Scions no one else was around to hear his whimpers.

Nevertheless, Riven did his best to stand up. Even tiny little motions made his wrists scream until he was sure mouths were forming on his palms and forearms. But he needed to get his bearings.

He was still a few hundred yards above where the soldiers were fighting the Phantoms. Still fighting. Riven’s fight with his Phantom had seemed to take ages but maybe it hadn’t been that long in truth. He was about to look for a way down—and figure out how in the world he was supposed to do anything with his wrists useless beside him—when he spotted it.

A little rise in the distance, and a figure at the very top. A white-haired figure dressed in vivid purple. Riven swallowed, agony momentarily receding all on its own.

Mhell wasn’t as far off as he’d initially thought.