“This thing that you’ve done.” The Oath of Life shook his head in dismay. “It was a wrong thing. A terrible thing. You do not stand between a parent and their child. Ever.”

  Chetam, the Oath of Life, and Ruth were seating in Chetam’s room in a separate wing of the massive building that hosted the meeting of the Oaths. It was built out of the way, winged to the far east for Chetam’s privacy.

  But it wasn’t just for his privacy. Every Oath had their own wing, built with quite the space between each other. Oaths being the chaotic and powerful beings that they were, conflicts could arise from the simplest of differences.

  So, when Chetam had designed the building, he had made it so that the Oaths rarely ever accidentally walked into each other. There were four others like this in Nigeria alone. Fifty-two in the wider continent. Worldwide, Chetam would have to recheck the numbers.

  So here they were, the Oath of Inevitability and the Oath of Shield listening to what the Oath of Life had to say. Shield had spent the night in Chetam’s room. Giving her the bed for her comfort, he had spent most of the dark night on one of the two couches in the room. They were as comfortable as comfort went and he often slept on them even when there was no one on the bed.

  Sleep had eluded him for most of the night as he revised the offer he intended to make to Madness and his wife. Their son had been put in terrible danger so a half-hearted offer of appeasement would simply be nothing but a slap in their face.

  He could inadvertently seal the deal that would kill Ruth.

  Sleep had finally come to him in the early hours of the morning, only for him to be woken up by a knock on his door.

  And that was what had led them here. The Oath of Life giving advice that he had asked for. The man had survived the rumored rampage of an Oath of Madness, after all.

  Ruth was a little bit on the stubborn side of things.

  “His continued service was necessary,” she said, like a petulant child. “We needed him in the next portal.”

  “Needed?” Life asked with a raised brow. “Is that the word you are going for? Remember that in the end, he did not enter that portal.”

  “My point exactly,” she snapped. “He did not enter the portal and it became a Chaos Run.”

  “A Chaos Run that the [August Intruder] dealt with by being present,” Chetam muttered under his breath.

  Life looked from one of them to the other. He had a calculative twinkle in his eye, like a troublemaker asking himself if he wanted to cause trouble. Dressed in a robe of grey, he looked like some lost Kungfu master. He stroked his white beard after a while and shook his head as if dispelling whatever thought had been on his mind.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that this was a part of the reason I chose to reveal myself?” he asked.

  Chetam shook his head. “Your arrival was not inevitable, so I do not believe it was.”

  “If he does not believe it was then neither do I,” Ruth added. “I have come to learn to trust his instincts.”

  “Perhaps it was not a strong enough part,” Life said. “But it does not change the fact that it was a part of it.”

  He moved, old as he was, with the grace of the young and took a seat on the second couch in the room. It was placed strategically at the corner so that whoever sat on it could see everything that happened in the room. A sharp contrast to its position, the one Chetam sat on was placed in the opposing direction so that there was no one that would enter the room that he would not be aware of.

  “How did the fight against Madness go?” Life asked.

  Ruth looked to Chetam but Chetam gave her nothing to work with. Sometimes she wanted his opinion on things. If he didn’t know how much Oaths did not get along, he would’ve thought she liked him.

  “Does this help us in any way?” she asked.

  “If you want my help, perhaps you should consider humoring me.”

  Ruth’s eyes flashed with annoyance. “I never said I wanted your help.”

  “Inevitability over there did.” Life punctuated his statement by pointing his staff at Chetam. “Now, I know that the both of you have always been so close that you allow him a certain level of control over you, but if I was wrong in assuming the same stands here, then you have my apologies. I will rise and take my leave.”

  Ruth’s gaze narrowed as she turned it on Chetam. “You called him here?” she demanded with a tone of accusation.

  Personally, Chetam didn’t have the strength to deal with her displeasure. “I asked him how to handle the situation of dealing with Madness just now, in front of you, ba?”

  Ruth didn’t look confused. “That does not answer my question.”

  Chetam fell silent for a moment, staring at the wall without interest. Sometimes he wondered what life would be like for him right now if he was not an Oath. Would it be more peaceful?

  “Chetam,” Ruth hissed.

  Chetam was suddenly tired. A part of him wanted to abandon Ruth’s case to her to deal with. Since what she’d done with Madness, he had looked at the possible outcome almost every day. And every day his Oath skill told him that the chances of her coming out of this situation without serious bodily harm was less than ten percent. The chances of her coming out alive was higher than ten but less than fifteen.

  She had a higher chance with his presence, an almost nonexistent one with his absence. It was the one secret that he kept from her. The fact that she walked a thin line between life and death and she didn’t know it.

  “Chetam?” Ruth’s voice rang a little softer this time, as if she knew she was getting on his nerves. It dropped another octave. “I’m sorry.”

  Somehow her words only annoyed him more. “Sorry for yourself.”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. A frown wrapped itself around his lips. Chetam ran a frustrated hand over his head. Unlike the other Oaths, being Nigerian did not allow him the grace of running a hand through his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said into the silence that had preceded his response to her. “I didn’t have a good night’s sleep on account of all the new Oath and threat of Madness and [August Intruder].”

  He looked up at Ruth and saw that her eyes had grown rheumy. But she did not cry, not a single tear slipped from her eyes.

  She nodded once as if to say that was enough and she understood. “The Nigerian in you tends to come out when you’re in a bad state.”

  The Nigerian in me. Chetam always wondered at that. All his non-African friends liked to say that. It was almost as if they did not understand that even the good and simple part of him was Nigerian as well.

  Then again, he could understand a bit of what they were saying. He spoke English with a simple enough accent. He articulated his words well enough that it did not have foreigners squinting when he spoke as if sharper eyes would make them understand him better. It was a benefit of coming from a family that traveled over the seas a lot growing up.

  Then there were times when his brogue corrupted his words. Times like this, when he was stressed and cranky. Times when he saw something meant to be inevitable and fought against it. There was a part of him in a corner where his Oath was responsible that wanted him not to fight the more inevitable things seemed.

  Fighting against that side of him left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Was what you said true?” he asked, moving the conversation away from fighting the inevitable.

  Life rested his staff across his lap. “About being the revered Melchizedek from the bible?”

  Chetam shook his head. Left to him, the man could claim to be Adam from the garden of Eden and he wouldn’t care. “I meant the Madness that killed her Oaths. Was it true?”

  Life nodded. “It was a sad thing to watch those children devolve into such a state.”

  “And what were you doing through it?” It was a genuine question, devoid of accusation.

  “You may not know this, but while I am long lived and the Oath of life, I am not necessarily immune to death. And I am not designed for combat. Not by class or by Oath.” He said the words slowly as if trying to pass a message Chetam could not decipher. “I have lived as long as I have—which is very long—because I have learnt to stay away from trouble.”

  “Does that mean that in the event of problems we cannot count on you?” Ruth asked, suspicious. “That’s a worrying thing to know of another Oath. Even Grace fights, and she is not a combatant in any way.”

  He looked between the both of them, a touch of surprise in his eyes. “Pardon my confusion but do the both of you actually not know how her Oath works?”

  They did not. In fact, the only things they knew about the other Oaths were known simply because they had found out about them in combat situations. Almost all the Oaths had combat use. It was part of the reason Inevitability was still a bit mysterious to the other Oaths. He fought, but there was more to his Oath than combat.

  “Grace,” Life began, getting his answer from their silence, “is the Oath of God’s benevolence. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be. But she is not, because for her to be the Oath of God’s benevolence implies that there is a God.”

  “Aren’t you a priest?” Ruth asked, confused. “Isn’t the entire thing about God supposed to be some kind of shtick for you?”

  “If there is a God, child, he does not bother himself with the likes of beings as lowly as us.” He gave her an elderly smile, a kind one. “So, if we dispense of the concept of gods or a one true God, that means that the Oath of Grace is nothing more than the world extending some level of benevolence to her. She is, in a simpler term, partly immune to the negativity and karmic retribution of her actions.”

  Chetam looked at him flatly. “How is that a simpler term?”

  Life paused, then nodded. “Fair. It is not. But, as I was saying, the way Grace works is by accumulating the good that the world has to offer and wielding it for herself. Haven’t you noticed how no one has an issue with her. Ever?”

  Now that Chetam thought about it, that was true. Grace was the one Oath that regardless of her opinions, no one tried to have a spat with her. He had just always assumed that even when the other Oaths disagreed with her, it never devolved to the threat of violence because they knew that she was not combat based.

  “So it’s advanced mind control?” Ruth asked.

  Life held up a finger to correct her opinion. “Not mind control. More of goodwill. If she walks into a forest filled with monsters from this world, they would neither bite her nor attack her. That is because of her Oath. She is Grace. She is quite literally the embodiment of the world’s benevolence. Earned or unearned.”

  “When you put that into perspective, it’s rather deep.” Ruth pulled herself up on the bed and crossed her legs beneath her. “But what does that have to do with the fact that she fights?”

  Chetam felt like he had the answer to that question.

  “Because the world is in her favor, her chances of survival are high.” It made a little bit of sense when he thought about it. He had seen Grace on a battlefield, and she moved as if the world was her friend. As if she was forgiven of the sins she had committed or would commit. “She is… powerful because she is not a threat until she is.”

  Life snapped a finger at him. There was so much youthful movement in fingers that looked so old. “Correct.” He turned his attention to Ruth. “Now you see why she can walk in a battlefield even as a noncombat Oath.”

  “I can,” Chetam mused.

  A being that was loved by the world, forgiven even before her crimes. No. In spite of her crimes. It was as terrifying as it was glorious. Would he be able to win a fight against someone like that?

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  Chetam’s Oath worked on the variables of reality. He was the inevitable outcome. At least he worked towards being that. But there was a downside to his Oath. It did not make him invincible but directed him towards being inevitable. As daunting as it sounded, the inevitable was not always in his favor.

  For instance, what would it mean to be inevitable when standing against an opponent with the benevolence of everything on her shoulders.

  Chetam shook his head. The thought was truly daunting. Almost as daunting as mind control.

  “I don’t like it,” he found himself muttering.

  Life made a sound that could’ve meant anything. “On a subliminal level that even you do not understand, the Oaths are aware of how daunting the others are. War to Grace. Inevitability to Madness. Shield to Desolation. Fear to Sloth.”

  “You’re saying that they cancel each other out?” Ruth asked, surprised.

  “No.” Life met her eyes. “I’m saying that they are a threat to each other.”

  Ruth looked at Chetam as if she’d just heard something truly important. “Inevitability to Madness,” she said.

  “War to Grace,” he repeated.

  Life looked at the two of them. “Fear to Desolation?”

  Chetam and Ruth looked at him. Had the man just posed it as a question.

  Life shrugged. “I don’t know what was happening. You guys were just repeating things.”

  “We were not,” Ruth refused. “We were just saying that these are counter points.”

  “Counter points?”

  “Oaths that were a threat to the other Oaths.”

  Life laughed like a child at a stupid joke. “Oh, God, no. Not counter points. I am so sorry for the misunderstanding. I’m just saying that some Oaths work a little too differently from the others, not that they were counters. Like War seeks to punish and take and give. They are guided by the actual rules of engagement. Meanwhile Grace is the opposing concept of it. Grace seeks to forgive and forget and live with and without. Oh, they aren’t counters. Especially not to Madness. Madness is just a freak that you should all be very worried about.”

  “Are you an advocate of Madness or something?” Ruth asked, annoyed. Chetam couldn’t deny the man’s constant glazing of Madness was also getting on his nerves.

  Life opened his mouth, then closed it. “Maybe I have lived in fear of Madness for so long that I haven’t even realized it,” he said in the end, as if coming to the realization. “I have always just thought of the Oath as the one that keeps all the other Oaths in check. Once they acknowledge just how terrifying it is, they begin to do things with Madness in mind.”

  Chetam could not deny that Life was saying the truth. Whenever the Oaths did things, they always wondered if it would affect Madness in any way. If it did, they were always careful about it. Why? Because you never knew what would annoy the Oath and have him walking into your house prepared to choke you out with an undersized teddy bear.

  As much as he would’ve liked to say that it was an exaggeration, it was not. Madness had once attended a meeting with War and had actually come with a teddy bear that was a little too small for an adult, something fit for a toddler. They had converged to punish one of the old Oaths that was no more for something they had done. Even though the punishment had ended up being something nonviolent, there was no one who had not been more than aware of the teddy bear throughout the meeting.

  Madness, Chetam was coming to realize, might just be more of a threat than he had thought.

  “So you see why someone like Grace can grace the battlefield while I do not,” Life said with a touch of satisfaction. “Because she isn’t an enemy of conflict, neither is she averse to it. Anyway, let’s hear what you have as compensation for what was done to Madness.”

  Chetam sighed.

  For all the old man’s age, he was just another confused Oath among Oaths.

  …

  Dorthna held his hand out in front of him and stopped Melmarc’s charging form with it. The boy’s head ran straight into his arm and pulled to an abrupt stop. On a lesser person, it would’ve broken their neck. But the boy was not a lesser person.

  The boy’s reaction to being stopped was to pull his head back and send his arm swinging. Dorthna leaned away from it. The fist swung past him, and he stepped into Melmarc’s space.

  Before Melmarc could react to the sudden change of pace, Dorthna slapped him.

  He swung his hand a little too hard that the sound of the impact cracked through the entire house like a giant whip.

  [Skill A Father’s Love is in effect]

  Dorthna was glad for the skill as Melmarc stumbled away and crashed into the wall. Hairline fractures filled up the entire wall, cracks that heralded the crumbling of a structure. Then the cracks reversed, sealing themselves back up.

  Melmarc pulled himself away from the wall and swung. The distance between them was too large for him to be trying to hit Dorthna, so Dorthna wasn’t surprised when the ring of pure mana that encircled the wrist of the swung fist detached itself and came flying at him.

  Like any knowledgeable being with half a brain, Dorthna hated fighting against pure mana. In reaction to the attack, he held his hand out.

  [Skill Authority of Man is in effect]

  The pure mana around him expanded a little, swallowing the ring of mana. In the blink of an eye, the ring vanished, sent to some point in the world where it would not take a stray life. [Authority of Man] gave its owner a level of control over the world around them. It moved reality in different ways. At a certain percentage of mastery, it was even rumored to move time.

  In the wider cosmos, Dorthna could count on one hand how many beings possessed the skill.

  Melmarc charged at him once more, moving with a speed that was unfair forhis size. As he came, Dorthna felt something go through him and knew that the boy had used [Knowledge is Power] on him. Dorthna checked his eyes from the distance and found them still glazed over.

  [Grace of Existence] was really taking its time to work.

  [Knowledge is Power] working at the same time as [A Father’s Love] would explain how the boy had gotten up so easily after the slap. With [Knowledge is Power] acting to mitigate the damage and [A Father’s Love] taking more than half the effect of the pain and damage from Melmarc, he would’ve basically felt nothing from the slap.

  Dorthna was almost impressed. Even mad as he was, Melmarc was making intelligent battle decisions. Maybe he did have a commendable level of battle IQ, Dorthna thought as he deflected a flying fist with a raised hand.

  Stopping the punch, he redirected it to the side, hoping to send Melmarc staggering once more. It didn’t. In fact, Melmarc felt a little too heavy, and the punch hadn’t been thrown with as much force as he’d expected.

  [Weight of Jupiter]? He wondered. Had the boy used it at the last minute, trying to circumvent the disadvantage of speed by throwing the punch and activating it at the last minute?

  Melmarc spun into his redirected punch, moving with a speed that was fitting for his larger frame and tried to smash an elbow into Dorthna’s face. Against a lesser opponent, it would’ve been effective. But Dorthna was not a lesser opponent. He had fought Mad gods far more superior to Melmarc.

  But that was at my peak, he reminded himself as he caught the elbow in an open hand. The boy was certainly heavier. Dorthna wondered if he knew that [Weight of Jupiter] also used pure mana to work.

  The elbow disappeared from his hand and a ring of mana suddenly appeared right in front of Dorthna’s face. He grabbed it before it made impact then it exploded in his hand.

  His interface came up in front of him.

  [You are confined to a space of concentrated pure mana]

  [Skills will not work as intended]

  Dorthna chuckled as he looked at Melmarc. Eyes in an empty trance, the boy raised his arms in preparation for combat.

  The poor fool was trying to engage him in close combat. In a normal situation, Dorthna would be at a disadvantage. Melmarc had the physical strength of [Weight of Jupiter], the ability to still use pure mana and the grace of [Rings of Saturn] still active in the rings that now wrapped around his wrists.

  It was, by all accounts, an unfair fight. Unfortunately, Dorthna by his simple existence was an unfair fight.

  [World skill Child of The World is in effect]

  Perhaps he would have to teach the boy what types of skills were not confined by things like raw mana.

  With the skill in effect, Dorthna felt every trace of his mana leave him. It absorbed itself straight into his skin and bones and muscle. It exchanged every single drop of mana he owned, for human physical attributes.

  In this moment, Dorthna did not have a single drop of mana left within or around him. The activation of [Child of the World] was the death of all mana-based skill. It cut him off from mana and left him in a state existence called [Unbound].

  Dorthna disappeared from Melmarc’s view for a quick moment, surprising the boy even in his maddened state. When he appeared, he grabbed the boy’s face in his hand and slammed his head into the ground.

  Melmarc’s eyes remained fixed on him within the domain of his skill [Secrecy].

  “You are still awake,” Dorthna noted. “It is good to know that you can take the pain.”

  Melmarc reached up with a hand. With a longer reach than Dorthna, he grabbed Dorthna by the face and tried to pull him in.

  “Disrespectful,” Dorthna muttered, smiling.

  He slammed the boy’s face back into the ground once more. Then again. And again. And again. As if knowing that his strategy was not working, Melmarc took his hand from Dorthna’s face and grabbed his arm. His legs moved next, throwing themselves around Dorthna’s arm.

  An arm bar? Dorthna thought with a teacher’s curiosity.

  From their current angle it would be interesting to see how the boy intended to pull it off. And he almost let him, if he didn’t have more worrying things to avoid.

  So he lifted Melmarc off the ground with his coveted arm and slammed him back down. The impact boomed through the building, shaking it as a small crater formed in the ground. Melmarc’s hold slackened but did not wane.

  Come on [Grace of Existence], Dorthna thought as he lifted Melmarc once more and slammed him back into the ground. Do your damn job.

  Melmarc released him on the second slam but Dorthna grabbed a fistful of his shirt before he could escape. He lifted him up once more, eyes on the only place in the room that remained devoid of mana, and slammed him back down.

  [Existential skill Grace of Existence is in effect]

  Finally, Dorthna sighed, releasing Melmarc and walking straight into the space without mana.

  The moment he walked into it, he felt the weight of everything around him grow steady, take form. He felt order taking dominance over everything. It had been a last minute decision. In truth, at one percent mastery, the skill was more of a gamble.

  [Grace of Existence] was similar to the World skill [Grace of the World]. It just worked on a larger scale than its world skill companion. At its current mastery, Dorthna had no real control over it. It reverted everything to its original state at best it could, chipping away at anything it considered an anomaly.

  It was the reason he’d been watching Melmarc the entire fight, checking to see if the skill had been chipping away at the anomaly that was his madness. Once it really started to take effect, however, it did it in a single strike.

  Dorthna had chosen that strike to be the thing that puts Melmarc down. But the fight had interested him a little too much, so he’d changed his mind. Instead, he was using it on the path the Envoy of God would use to arrive on this world.

  Standing within the space, he felt existence realign itself. He grinned as mana refilled the space, sealing off the anti-portal that was being created.

  “Not today, Jabari,” he gloated, addressing the envoy by name.

  There was always a possibility that the being would hear him. But even if he did, with the skill in effect, he wouldn’t be able to track him to what world.

  Best of all, the man did not know how to hold a grudge to save his life.

  Most likely, the only reason the man’s arrival had taken this long was because Melmarc had put the world in a state where it fought off the presence of anything trying to get into it. The envoy was probably also preoccupied with whatever it was that he was doing.

  Whatever the real reason, Dorthna was glad he didn’t have to deal with the headache that was Jabari. The man carried good and evil in both hands and used each one simply as a stepping stone in the direction of where he wanted to go.

  Dorthna had once watched him destroy an entire world simply because he was killing a being on the cusp of advancing to [Creator]. He was, in his own way, like an Oath of Madness, guided by rules no one but himself understood.

  When the hole in existence was finally sealed, only then did Dorthna turn his attention back to Melmarc.

  He found the boy standing in a healing crater in the ground. Cracks reversed themselves and the ground swelled back to its normal form.

  “Alright then,” Dorthna said to him even though he knew Melmarc would not understand him. “Now that we’re alone, let’s get to it.”

  Once more, Melmarc disappeared from sight and Dorthna remembered what Ark had said about the reason he didn’t think he was better than his younger brother.

  In just a few exchange of blows, Dorthna could agree with one thing as Melmarc appeared above him with a falling fist.

  He has definitely been holding back.

  …

  On a distant world devoid of reach a man sat staring at a dying sun. He wore simple clothes. A cassock of the deepest black he had been told often seemed to swallow the light of the sun. Beside him, rested comfortably on a piece of rock, was a very long sword. An Odachi. In some worlds it was called a tachi. Masamune, it was named by its creator. A sword that purified the mana of its wielder.

  Once upon a time, not too long ago, he had used it to purify the mana of a simple boy. That child was grown now, eighteen years, maybe nineteen. But his training was not done.

  The boy’s story had slowed but was not ended. So, the man in the cassock sat here, waiting for what would come next. Alone on a desolate solar system with a dying sun. The failed work of a sentinel trying to advance to the level of [Creator].

  A slight tingle touched the man’s hand, and he looked down at it. The dying mana of this world moved away from him, and he tilted his head to the side in curiosity. Something was calling to him, pulling him.

  Out there in the cosmos of existence it seemed a universe was begging for his assistance, calling to him for help.

  He raised his hand, held it out in front of him and studied the call for help. He was here to witness the end of a failure, but this was pleading to drag him from it. Was it worth it, he wondered. Curious, he tapped into the call and felt the presence of two beings fighting.

  One was strong and young, a little too strong for how young he was. The other was weak and old, older than far too many universes in existence. Far too weak for how strong he was. A limiter, the man noted. A seal placed to keep him in check.

  A curious thing. The limiter was eerily familiar to one of many limiters the man possessed.

  The man in his cassock was still watching, a part of his attention fixed on the events in a universe somewhere out there while another watched this solar system die. And another part pondered on whether the creator of this failure deserved a visit from him.

  As he watched, the pull on him slackened. It waned until it was almost gone. Then there was only a sliver of it left.

  The man turned his attention away from it and returned to it to the dying sun. If the universe had wanted him badly enough, it would’ve fought hard enough. It did not fight hard enough, so it—

  “Not today, Jabari,”

  The words caressed his ears from too many worlds away. So intentional had it been that the man knew he had been addressed directly. And he knew the voice, knew it as a man knows an old friend. As a man knows his brother.

  The man latched onto the last sliver of the world that had called to him before its call disappeared and trapped it in his mind.

  Once the call was gone, he rose to his feet and picked up the weapon, Masamune. It would be a long trip, but he wasn’t bothered. He currently wasn’t doing anything worthwhile except watching a world die.

  So, a trip to a world that had begged for his help at some point didn’t seem like a bad idea. After all, it had been too long. Perhaps it was time to see an old human. It was time to visit the standing owner of the [The Garden of Eden], the man who had planted Yggdrasil, the first [Namer].

  With the weapon, Masamune, he split the air before him and tore a portal in this world. When he stepped through it, his action was the last of any action that would be taken on the failed world. Its weight plunged it into its final ruin.

  Leaving the solar system, Jabari realized that perhaps he was wrong. In some random world in that failed universe, something that had not grown to decide on what it was took its first breath. It was the first sentient creation on that dying world. Sadly, its first breath was its last.

  It died with its failed universe.

  If Jabari had spent enough time knowing it, perhaps he would’ve mourned it. But he did not know it, so he did not mourn it. Besides, there was something a little more curious to handle now.

  As he crossed the path between worlds, he acknowledged one simple truth…

  It would be a long journey, spanning days, maybe months. Potentially years. But it changed nothing.

  It was time to meet the man who had named him Jabari.