Three hours earlier

"I'm pretty sure I can hear a bunch of people calling out to me."

Zoey stared at Rory for several seconds, slowly tilting her head.

"What?" Rory asked, still trying to shake off the buzzing sound of Architect being constantly spoken in his ear.

"Did you hit your head?"

"Uh, yeah?" Rory said. "I mean, the Queen got a few good hits on me."

"Facetious, I was being facetious." Zoey sighed. Given her attitude, it was hard to consider that only minutes prior, she'd been on the verge of death. "Rory, think for a moment."

Rory frowned, still annoyed by the weird buzzing, calls from voices he'd never heard before. It would have been one thing had it come from Apostolos or perhaps from-

"Ohhhhhhhhh," Rory said, hand smacking his face.

"Yeah."

"I tend to forget how long sixty years is."

"You're a moron," Zoey sighed.

Upon putting actual brainpower into it, it quickly became obvious.

Rory had left Ehkorrus seven years after the start of the siege waves, a fresh tier seven.

Now, he was just shy of tier eight, a few years off at most.

Decades had passed, and while Rory really didn't think that much of it, decades meant two things.

One, Ehkorrus had likely grown. He wasn't sure how he was hearing voices, but it seemed likely that sheer numbers or something related to that was the cause.

Two, and more importantly, it was specifically the timeframe.

When Rory had left, the siege waves were no tougher than tier five monsters, weak enough that even his walls on their own could have held back a massive amount of the monsters, so long as they weren't led by something like a Bane to act out what could be eloquently summed up as 'bullshit magical fuckery.'

After thirty-three years, the waves would have reached tier six. No problem, while the walls of Ehkorrus couldn't hold back a bunch of tier sixes on their own, even a few tier sixes working in tandem with them would have been enough.

But sixty-six years? That meant one thing.

Tier sevens.

"I fucked up," Rory admitted. "You know siege waves, right?"

Zoey's eyes shifted, the clear sign she was reading something from an interface invisible to him.

"I do now," Zoey said after a moment. "Actually, I sort of forgot I got a notification about these long ago. My group never bothered, sounded like courting a bad idea."

"My group did. Originally, I hadn't planned to be gone for as long as I have been. Still, honestly, I never committed to any specific timeframe. Also, just sort of assumed they had things under control, and then we got swept up doing our own thing."

"Basically, you forgot," Zoey said, cutting through his excuses.

"Yeah, basically."

"Moron," Zoey muttered. "Alright, so, for whatever reason, you can hear your group calling out to you. That's probably a bad sign."

"Very."

"How are you getting back?"

"I… I don't know." Rory admitted. Returning from whence they came would take years at a minimum. If only there was a route out that-

Eyes widening, Rory's gaze shot toward the massive column of magma coursing upward through the cavern, like an upward-floating waterfall.

Magmafall, whatever.

"What?" Zoey asked, her gaze following his own.

"My way out."

"The lava? That's not terawa."

"I'm aware, but that's not the point. Remember, we're still in the volcano. I'd bet that magma there is literally part of the main chute."

"Meaning it's a way out," Zoey said.

"Yeah."

"But how does that help you?"

Mind racing a billion miles a minute, Rory stitched together a plan.

A stupid, incredibly untested plan, but a plan nonetheless.

"Staff, Stage, Void Diamond. The same way we managed to teleport directly into the final altar room? Yeah, that."

"I feel like there is a scale difference between jumping from one spot inside this volcano, not just the same floor, but the same planetoid, and jumping to god knows how far away."

"And that's where the volcano comes into play. Think, how did the terawa bridges form between the floating isles?"

"I don't know, magic?"

"Well, yeah," Rory admitted. "But the principles of the magic, I mean. I think volcanic energy concentrations are the basis of it. So… why not tap into that directly?"

"You're going to force a bridge that far?" Zoey questioned, credulous.

"Well… A bridge might be putting it perhaps too kindly. I need more… oomph than just a bridge."

"Wait," Zoey's eyes widened. "You don't mean-"

"Yep," Rory said, beating her to the punch. "I'm going to blow this Popsicle stand. Literally. If I instigate a volcanic event, the literal energy combined with the conceptual forces should give me the oomph needed to cross the distance from here to my home."

"And your home is…?"

"Ehkorrus," Rory finally admitted. For decades, they had been together, and for decades, Rory had kept information pertaining to Ehkorrus to a minimum. "I'll show it to you when I return."

"You seem awfully confident it will work."

"Doubts won't help now that I have a plan of action," Rory said matter-of-factly.

Hearing the certainty in his voice, Zoey's own face split wide with a grin. "That's more like it. Unfortunately, though, I won't be able to go with you," Zoey said, her eyes looking down on her current state. "So, do me one favor."

"What's that?"

Watching her lips move, Rory snorted.

"Yeah, sure, sounds fun."

The actual set-up required for the ritual was surprisingly simple now that Rory had attempted a 'similar' teleportation ritual before.

Now, it was also dialed up to one hundred because he was also setting off a volcano, but ehh, minor details.

Planning out the runic array needed to support each bound circle that he drew around the magma chute, Rory frequently paused for a moment or two, dropping in and out of his Mind Palace like second nature in the span of a second.

Good thing we already forced one teleport. Honestly, the bigger question is how to get this bad boy to erupt.

Or so he thought, but as he calculated the energies and concepts needed, a smile spread across his face.

Yeah, never mind. It doesn't take much to prod an already active volcano into action.

While the ritual itself didn't require much inventive thinking, it did require quite a few gems of varying types to compensate for what he couldn't handle himself. So much so, when Rory pulled the final gem needed from his inventory, a mental glance inward revealed only two final gems rolling around.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Huh. I really was low as hell.

Restocking his gems was a secondary priority for the time being. After checking his ritual, a matter of three hours of work was all but ready for blast off.

Literally.

"Alright," Rory said, dusting himself off. "Either this works, or I'm about to be some seriously well-roasted Architect."

"I'm a vegetarian," Zoey said as Rory rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Also fuck you, no, you aren't."

Snorting, Zoey swept her hands as if shooing him away.

Or what had been hands, they were more like disgusting meat lumps; her healing hadn't yet taken care of them.

"Alright, get going. I'll find my way back to the workshop. Oh, I'll also handle any rewards."

"Oh yeah, we cleared the floor," Rory said, having honestly forgotten that. "Tell Eia that-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it," Zoey said. "Now git. Oh, and don't forget our promise!"

I can't believe that's what she's fixated on.

Rolling his eyes one last time at Zoey, he turned around, facing the column of lava, a wave of his hand sending threads of pneuma through the entire ritual. The scepter, stage, and horizon mirror had been strategically placed to maximize their effectiveness, as he wouldn't need them to return, given he had the Null Window in Ehkorrus. Not like they would be helpful anyway, given the lack of terawa in Ehkorrus.

Here goes nothing.

The ground had begun shaking, like tectonic movements localized entirely to the floating volcano range.

No turning back now.

Spreading his arms wide, a protective film wrapped around him, as with one final step, Rory stepped into the lava.

There was no reason that Apostolos should have known that the strange occurrence high overhead was related to Rory. Still, strangeness followed the Founder of Ehkorrus like a fly on shit.

Still watching, Apostolos saw as the winding column of lava-like substance speared through the sky faster than the fastest arrow. Hundreds of miles crossed in seconds, the gathered monsters finally sensed something wrong, their leader looking into the sky. While there was not much of a facial reaction to read, Apostolos knew the Blight Commander was alarmed.

"Ready yourselves."

Unable to help himself, Apostolos began to laugh.

"What do you laugh at?" The Blight Commander demanded, turning to Apostolos.

"Because you guys are so screwed now."

The commander had no more time to respond, as the lava jetstream crashed down upon the earth, the force tossing Apostolos back toward the central wall of Ehkorrus, kicking up a storm of dust and smoke as it did. Blinking madly for several seconds, Apostolos finally managed to blink the dust from his eyes. Eyes cleared of dust and debris, Apostolos took stock of the impact site.

There, within a small scorched bowl formed in the earth, posing with his fist and one knee to the ground, was the long-lost Founder of Ehkorrus.

"Superhero landing, just like promised," Apostolos heard Rory mutter to himself as he rose to his feet, one man against a legion of tier seven monsters.

The first time I've seen him in decades… And he hasn't changed a bit.

"Announce yourself," The Blight Commander ordered. As unknown as a factor that Rory was, it wasn't about to turn tail and run; it wasn't even as if he carried the aura of a higher being, such as a tier eight, that would have made victory impossible.

Dusting himself off, Rory glared at the monster.

"To some, I'm known as Precursor." Rory began, his tone carrying the threat of ice-cold anger, that acted not in passion, but in calculated rage. "To others, Founder. To others still, The Architect. But really? The name's Rory, and you're attacking my god damn home."

A chill passed through Apostolos as he watched Rory raise his hand, a bolt of lightning striking down as Rory suddenly held a staff carved of bone.

The fact that his former master had summoned lightning so casually was already new, yet compared to the absolutely titanic golden circle that erupted beneath them, it was far less interesting. Stretching hundreds of meters in any direction, it took his breath away.

What is that!?

It would have been one thing if Apostolos had felt his master drawing on the pneuma reserves of Ehkorrus, or what they had left, but he felt none of that. Instead, it was as if the pneuma for as far as he could sense had instantly been brought to heel.

No… It's as if it wants to obey him.

"You know, I wanted to take some time, rest, and rejuvenate. Lord knows I just spent the last few decades on quite the expedition after all," Rory said. "But no, I have to clean up pests."

From the ground, spires began to rise, tipped with red colored crystals, forming a perfect circle around them.

"Attack!" The Blight Command ordered, as its horde of powerful tier seven underlings charged.

Energy began to crackle as the spires lit up with power, and overhead thunder clouds seemed to gather instantly.

Rory, meanwhile, was muttering something.

Is he… reciting something?

Uncertain of what he was doing, Apostolos could only watch as every monster except for the Blight Commander and its top 'generals' waited behind. Moving with the speed of tier seven monsters overflowing with bloodlust, Apostolos couldn't lie when he felt a flutter of uncertainty seeing so many tier seven monsters charge as one.

And yet it didn't matter.

Finishing his muttering, his former master held his free hand high before clutching his open palm into a tight fist.

"Descend, Empyrean Fulmination!"

Instantly, the world went white; not just sight, but every single sense had been overwhelmed at once. Even the earth shook with such force that Apostolos felt like it could tear apart even a mountain.

When Apostolos finally found his eyes fluttering, clearing the blinding light as it faded into white spots before vanishing entirely, he found himself dumbstruck.

Where… what?

Rory was a fresh tier seven when he left Ehkorrus. Yet, when adjusting for the tier difference, Apostolos hadn't really felt that much weaker.

That wasn't true anymore.

In the sixty-odd years or so since he had last seen Rory, his former master had grown. The evidence was the empty, smoldering field.

Keyword being empty. As in-

Every.

Single.

Monster.

Gone.

One strike. Gone. Just like that.

How?

Rory hadn't reached tier eight yet, Apostolos felt reasonably sure of that. He should have had the same attribute load as when he'd left. It was one thing to adjust to your attributes, giving the 'illusion' of physically growing stronger, for example, but what Rory had just demonstrated was something entirely different.

It was mind-boggling.

And clearly, he wasn't the only one baffled. The nigh emotionless Blight Captain, its face hidden behind a visor of hardened pus, might as well have been a sputtering mess.

"What sorcery did you enact to transport my army?"

"Transport?" Rory clicked his tongue as he shook his head. "I didn't transport them anywhere, unless you count the afterlife. They're dead."

"Lies. I can sense your aura. You stand near the top of the seventh realm, but you are still of the seventh realm."

Synergy, not mere addition.

It was a phrase Rory had said from time to time, all while explaining concepts behind his projects, how a product could be greater than the sum of its parts.

Looking at Rory now, Apostolos believed that his master had taken that principle and applied it inward.

"Well then, if you don't believe me, try me," Rory said as the bone staff vanished, alongside the golden circle beneath them. The only thing that remained was the spires of stone that he had raised so casually, arcs of vibrant electricity bouncing between them like a warning to the monsters that fleeing was pointless.

Cocky and prideful as the Blight Commander was, it wasn't an idiot. Tilting its head toward one of its 'generals' holding Marcie, the commander stepped forward.

"I have your people. Lay down your -"

"Bzzz," Rory buzzed, for the first time injecting his own aura into his voice, the words resonating as if he had shouted them. "Wrong."

Ever the showman, Rory snapped his fingers, and instantly, red crystal chains lashed out from golden circles that had appeared from nowhere. Instead of ensnaring the Blight Commanders' most elite level monsters, they simply shot forward, spearing them through like needles repeatedly stabbed through a piece of fabric.

All of that in the blink of an eye, Edward, Marcie, and Violet all fell to the ground without ceremony, their bodies more than tough enough to survive a fall of a few feet while unconscious.

"Come. Here."

The chains, which had just finished off what remained of the Blight Commander's forces, instantly wrapped around its arms and legs, dragging the towering monster before the comparatively diminutive Rory, dragging it down to its knees before him.

"I will admit, I'm not always the most responsible," Rory said, his voice back to normal. "And sometimes I can be forgetful."

Understatement.

"But you attacked my home."

The chains holding down the Blight Commander vanished as it rose carefully to its feet.

"What games do-"

A crackling fist lashed out, landing square into the Blight Commander's midsection. Heavily armored as the Blight Commander was, Apostolos fully expected it to take the strike without flinching.

Instead, it bent over as if it had just had the wind knocked out of it.

Standing over its form, doubled over in pain, Rory glared down at it, his fists still crackling with electricity that would jump between them at random.

"No games. Just need to vent."

His fist striking upward in a devastating uppercut, once more, Rory seemed to bypass the natural armor of the monster.

What proceeded was hard to call a 'battle.' The Blight Commander was a monster that, even if Apostolos were fresh and well-rested, would have been a coin flip.

And yet Rory beat it down with unrelenting force, methodical and measured in pace so that it had enough time to gather itself, only to be brought to its knees once more.

How?

It was awe-inspiring. Genuinely inspiring. As if Rory had gazed into depths they could not imagine and discovered secrets of the universe that elevated him to levels once thought impossible as a tier seven.

Continuing his dismantling of the wave boss for several minutes, finally, Rory sighed, crossing his arms as he looked down at the Blight Commander, oozing blood and pus from the fist-shaped indents and cracks in its body.

"Why do you feel so…. Flimsy. Is your level a lie?"

Flimsy? What does he mean by flimsy?

Rory seemed lost in contemplation. So lost that when the Blight Commander attacked, three yellow colored claw marks slashed through the air toward him, Rory didn't even bother dodging.

The slashes struck Rory, only to break upon his hauberk of crystal scales.

"Hmm. You know that might be it," Rory snapped his finger. "Your foundation is weak. Like an astronaut in low gravity, except instead of low gravity, it's low pneuma. God, like eighty percent of the monsters we dealt with over the last few years, would have eaten you up for breakfast."

Rory began mumbling to himself, chains appearing and binding the Blight Commander in place.

Leave it to Rory to ruin his triumphant return by finding some random interesting tidbit to get distracted by.

"Rory?" Apostolos finally found his voice, calling out to his former master, who seemed intent on studying the monster.

"Yo, what's up?" Rory turned to Apostolos.

Yo, what's up? Really!?

"Six decades, and you act like it's been a week!" Apostolos suddenly found his temper flaring. Calming himself, he shook his head. "Is now the time to get distracted?"

"Oh, right," Rory said, nodding to Apostolos as if that was something he hadn't considered. "You're in the middle of a wave, aren't ya?"

The chains raised the Blight Commander as Rory pointed his fingers at its head, the same as when he was about to unleash a salvo of pneuma bullets.

Except instead of pneuma bullets, electricity arced off from his hand. For a moment, Apostolos noticed Rory wince before his thumb cocked down; whatever had elicited the wince wasn't enough to slow him for more than a heartbeat. From the pointed fingertips, a lance of lightning shot forward, spearing through the Blight Commander's head, as a moment later, gravity dragged the corpse to the ground.

As much as Apostolos wanted to question what the wince was about, instead, he felt a wave of relief wash over him as a notification appeared.

Wave Cleared.

It's over.

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