Waiting could be fun depending on how imaginative your mind could be.

  Ark used to love waiting. He would dream up the most interesting worlds. With stories from Uncle Dorthna that sent him to bed of conquests and wars and rulers and chaos, he could wait for hours without losing his spunk. He would dream up worlds and wishes. In them, he would be a great conqueror, or a small-time soldier rising to the top only to be betrayed by the woman he loved. Poisoned with a kiss.

  Or his favorite—a soldier who had risen to the position of power alongside Melmarc only to become a tyrant. In these ones, he was finally brought down. By his brother, no less.

  Ark could not deny the flair for unnecessary dramatics.

  Then he’d waited with his brother dying in his arms as an intruder beat their mother within an inch of her life. He’d waited as his mother died for the intruder to come for the lives of him and his brother. Then he had waited with his breath in his throat as the same intruder kept him safe from his friends. Then he had waited for someone to find him and his brother.

  The waiting never ended, and he had slowly learnt that no one was above running out of imaginations.

  Then he’d waited every day, sleeping on a hospital couch waiting for his brother to wake up. Waited for his brother to be declared perfectly healthy. Then he had waited for his mother to come home. After a while waiting for his mother to come home had turned to waiting for someone to tell him that she was never coming back.

  Everything had been waiting for so long. Waiting and waiting and waiting. And the stakes had only grown higher with each passing moment.

  Then Ark had run out of imaginations to keep him company. In the end, there had only been nightmares. Nightmares of an intruder who’d chosen not to take pity on his mother. Nightmares of an intruder who’d taken pleasure in finding a child and killing him. Nightmares of a mother who never came home.

  So, yes, Ark used to enjoy waiting. But not anymore.

  “So what? Uncle D put the fear of God in him?” Ninra asked.

  Her face filled up his entire phone screen so that he couldn’t see her background or anything else around her if he was being honest. It was just the way she answered video calls from him for some reason. Well, not for some reason. She’d allowed him to see her background and the friends present twice before and Ark hadn’t hesitated to make fun of every and anything that he could.

  Ark nodded in response to Ninra. “They broke a wall, too.”

  Ninra grimaced at the news. “Mom’s not going to like that. Which wall?”

  “The one in the living room that leads to the kitchen.” He could still recall his surprise when he had heard the sound of the wall breaking.

  He hadn’t seen it, though.

  “Did the spell take care of it?” Ninra asked.

  Ark nodded before realizing what she’d said and pausing. “How did you know about the spell?”

  Ninra executed the trademark Lockwood single brow raise as if she’d been doing it from the womb. It was so pristine that Ark could’ve sworn he heard the ‘duh’ in it.

  “Ark, I doubt there’s anything in that house I don’t know about,” she told him dryly. “I was even present for most of the spells when Uncle D was casting them.”

  Ark sighed. They told Ninra everything and him and Mel nothing. Not that he was complaining. It just made it difficult to one up her on anything. He loved his sister, but sometimes he didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t easy to terrorize her. And Mel, who somehow had the ability to terrorize her, was too nice for it.

  But that wasn’t what was important. “We don’t have a television anymore, though.”

  “No tv?” Ninra pouted.

  Ark nodded. “They basically crushed it under the weight of their disagreement.”

  Ninra burst into laughter. “What the fuck is your dumb ass going to do with a tv? Shouldn’t you be preparing to go to your magic highschool or something?”

  Ark’s eyes widened in shock.

  “Oh, calm your ass down,” Ninra said, still laughing as she read his expression. “I’m alone.”

  She pulled the camera back and turned it from side to side, exposing her entire room. It was a simple room with two single beds spaced out on opposite sides. There was a small reading table decked out with different books and a pink tablecloth. There was just something very pink about it.

  Ninra hated pink so Ark knew it wasn’t her reading table.

  He also caught sight of a wardrobe. It was white, looking as if it was made out of plastic. A bra hung from a hanger that dangled from the door handle. Blue, Ark noted unintentionally.

  “Please tell me you don’t just let your bra hang around everywhere,” he said in a tone of faux disappointment.

  “My bra, my room. None of your business.” Ninra filled the entire screen back up with her face and adjusted the strap of the vest she was wearing. “Back to what’s important. How’s Mel handling everything?”

  Ark shook his head. “I already told you. I can’t tell. His been asleep for the past two days.”

  “Asleep or unconscious?”

  “Uncle D said he’s asleep,” Ark said quickly. “And his breathing is steady so that’s a good thing.”

  “And that’s proof that he’s asleep not unconscious?”

  Ark would’ve easily mistaken her question for mockery or a form of chiding him if he didn’t know his sister. Not only was her tone of voice completely calm and neutral, she also never messed with Melmarc. As kid’s she’d always gotten in the way whenever she thought Ark was playing a little too roughly with—as she liked to call him—the precious last born.

  It had changed as they’d grown, but the rules remained the same. Ark didn’t get to mess with Melmarc and nobody got to mess with Melmarc and Ark. He could still remember the morning she’d stared their father down when he had accidentally broken a vase their mom loved while she was not around.

  A worried line creased Ninra’s forehead. “Ark? You keep spacing out. How are you handling it?”

  Ark shook his head, dispelling the memories so that he could focus more on the call.

  “Can’t complain.” He shrugged. “Mel’s the one that’s unconscious with an injury in his head and a broken leg.”

  “I thought you said he was asleep?”

  Ark paused. “I said that Uncle Dorthna said that he was asleep.”

  “Really?” Ninra stretched the word dubiously before giving him a look of suspicion. She was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “I swear to God if you don’t learn enough about first aid to tell the difference between unconscious and asleep, I’m telling mom and dad to pull you out of the school and put you in medical school.”

  “I’ll flunk medical school,” Ark said matter-of-factly.

  “I know. But you’ll at least learn something before you flunk out.”

  Ark smiled lightly as another silence settled on them. Ninra gave it some more time before she broke it.

  “You never answered my question, Ark.”

  Ark looked at her. “What question?”

  “How are you handling all this?”

  Ark shrugged. “Can’t complain.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Ninra said, sighing. “If I remember correctly, you started saying that when you were smaller.”

  “And my therapist said I should stop,” Ark finished for her.

  “Fuck your therapist!” Ninra snapped. “She gave Mel a clean bill of health and look where that got us. And I’m talking about you right now, not your therapist.”

  “It’s not her fault,” Ark said quietly. “This one was mine.”

  Ninra’s frown deepened. “Ark?”

  “Yes, Nin?”

  “I think you’re beginning to mistake me for Mel or our parents.”

  Ark groaned. “What did I do this time?”

  “You keep trying to push the conversation you don’t want to have aside.” Ninra gave him a look terrifyingly too similar to the one their mother gave when she was in an angry mood. “The first time I said it, you mentioned Mel being unconscious because you knew I’d focus on it after you just said he was asleep.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Now,” Ninra cut him off sharply, “you’re shifting it again to your therapist. I know you do these things on purpose.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Just so you know, Mel knows, too.” Ninra cut him off again. “He just says nothing because being his older brother, he thinks you’re smart enough and you’re handling things in your own way.”

  “I am—”

  Ninra opened her mouth in a voiceless scream or groan, Ark wasn’t sure. But it was enough to make him shut up.

  After a moment of silence, she took a calming breath.

  “Ark?”

  “Yes,” he answered cautiously.

  “You’re my younger brother so, unlike Mel, I know for a fact that you’re a bit stupid.”

  “A bit?” Ark gave a smile. “You’re being kind.” He saw the look on her face and quickly added: “I’m sorry, continue.”

  “I’m only going to ask this question one more time, Ark. How are you handling it? And don’t say you can’t complain because that is not the answer.”

  It was a bit saddening to know that Melmarc was very much aware of the things he did, the way he dodged questions he didn’t want to answer. Ark had always thought he’d had Melmarc convinced, too. Then again, he knew for a fact that Mel was something of a paradox.

  His younger brother held himself back so much, trying to conform to a peaceful society that Ark couldn’t say for a fact just what his brother was capable of or how much he knew about anything.

  Unable to deflect any longer, Ark gave his sister the answer she was looking for. And since it was Ninra, he knew he couldn’t lie. She always knew when he lied. Well, not always, but enough times not to risk it when she was worried enough about him to be in a mood.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally, in defeat. “What happened was my fault, Nin. Mel clearly didn’t want to talk about what happened, but I knew it was affecting him somehow. He’d climb his bed to sleep, then in the middle of the night he’d start turning and tossing, practically fighting himself to wake up,”

  He sighed and scratched his head. “When he finally wakes up, he’d be sweating buckets. He only calms down when he goes to lie down on the floor. Then he’ll sleep so very peacefully. No one sleeps better on the floor than the bed, Nin.”

  Ninra nodded in understanding. “Then what did you do?”

  “I…” Ark struggled to get the words out of his mouth. What he’d done had been out of character for him as far as anyone was concerned.

  “Ark, look at me.”

  Ark focused on his sister. “I’m looking at you.”

  “Good.” She met his gaze. “This is not a safe space. We judge. I judge.”

  A small smile touched his lips. Ark couldn’t help it. For someone so fit to be a psychologist, Ninra hated therapists. When Ark had told her about his therapist telling him that her office was a safe space and that she didn’t judge, Ninra had said the exact opposite.

  Over the years, it had grown to become their thing. Ark stressed her and she stressed him back. She held him accountable but didn’t condemn him.

  Ark let out another sigh and scratched his head again. “I went online and looked up psychological tricks to make someone talk about what they didn’t want to talk about.”

  “So you went and got the conversation starter for dummies to use on your brother?” Ninra nodded as if it made perfect sense. “I thought you had me for that?”

  “You’ve got school, Nin.”

  “Oh, yea,” she said sarcastically. “And you’re a drop out, right? You definitely don’t have school.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ark apologized. “I should’ve spoken to you.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Nope. We don’t do that here.” Ninra shook her head. “If you’re going to apologize, you have to say what you’re apologizing for and be right about it. Why are you apologizing?”

  Ark frowned. “For not talking to you about it.”

  “And was learning how to do it on your own because you wanted to help Mel, wrong?” she asked.

  Ark knew what the truth was but also knew that it was not the answer. Reality was often times difficult to come to terms with when you had a weight of your own bias bearing down on your chest.

  “It was not,” he answered finally. “But the result was—”

  “Unfortunate,” Ninra interrupted him. “The outcome was unfortunate. You tried, had an error, now you know how to do it better. Never trust a person who tells you that they’ve never failed before, Ark. Never.”

  She let her voice lull back into nonexistence so that there was silence once more. Of course she was doing it intentionally. It allowed Ark a chance to let her words settle in his mind. Even now Ark didn’t know how she knew what to say when to say it as well as when not to say anything. But she did, and he was ever thankful for her.

  “Clean your tears, Tar’arkna,” she said after a while. “You have no reason to be crying.”

  Ark scrambled to wipe the tears from his cheek only for his hands to come away dry. When he saw the half smirk on her face, he realized that he hadn’t been crying and she’d known it.

  “Nin,” he said, turning beet red in embarrassment.

  “Yes, brother dearest,” she said in her best impression of an innocent, cute girl.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Aren’t you sweet,” she cooed. “I care about you, too, brother. Call me when Mel wakes up.”

  “I will.”

  Ark was about to end the call when her next words stopped him.

  “Now, give the phone to Uncle Dorthna. He and I are to have words.”

  Ark looked from the phone to the reading table in the room. Uncle Dorthna had been sitting in the chair the entire time. Their almost indomitable uncle who’d fought against Melmarc and broken a wall and a few other things was shaking his head frantically, eyes wide in terror.

  I’m not around, he mouthed silently in panic, gesturing wildly with his hands. I went out. Tell her I went out.

  Ark looked back down at his phone. “Uncle Dorthna wen—”

  “I swear to God I’ll shove you into a portal of my own making if you don’t put that old man on the phone,” she snapped at him. Then she raised her voice. “UNCLE DORTHNA, PLEASE BE NICE ENOUGH TO COME PICK UP THIS PHONE BEFORE I STOP BEING POLITE!”

  If that was her being polite, he definitely didn’t want to see what she looked like when she was not polite.

  Uncle Dorthna got up with a groan, like an old man.

  “Why did you have to go call her,” he grumbled as he walked up to Ark.

  Ark held the phone out to him.

  “That’s why I said to call her when Mel was awake,” he continued to grumble. “I swear you never listen.”

  It was almost funny seeing their uncle so worried.

  “Alright,” Dorthna frowned. “Here we go again.”

  He took the phone, turned the camera to his face and gave the warmest smile Ark had ever seen on his face. It was always reserved specifically for Ninra.

  “Hey, Nin,” he said cheerfully. “How’s school?”

  “Good morning, uncle D,” Ninra replied politely. “Now that that’s out of the way, what the hell did I just hear that you did to my brother?”

  Dorthna winced, shrinking away from her slowly rising voice.

  As Ninra gave their uncle an earful, Ark was left with a new contemplation. In a house filled with Gifted strong enough to break walls and survive portals, how the hell was the only ordinary human ruling all of them with an iron fist?

  …

  Elijah could not believe his eyes.

  One moment his blast had been going straight for Madness, the next he was held up by the neck. Dangling from Aurora’s hold he was starved for air. He hadn’t seen the former Oath move.

  If she was a [Dreadnaught], then she was probably one of those Delvers who funneled all that they could into diversifying into speed. It was rare but Elijah had seen a delver or two with the [Dreadnaught] class who were faster than they were powerful.

  One, if he was being certain.

  But the lack of air would not hold him down. It would not dissuade him from his purpose. Grabbing Aurora by the arm that held him up, he threw his legs around it, locking her into an armbar. Most people would try to avoid it, but Aurora was not most people. She was a [Dreadnaught].

  Elijah would’ve scoffed if he didn’t need all the air he could muster. With the ten points to strength that becoming an Oath had given him, her pride as a [Dreadnaught] would be her demise.

  At least he thought so, until he pulled and twisted and her arm still did not budge.

  It left him incredulous. Wondering just how many points she had in strength and constitution, his mind scrambled for a new strategy. With most of his skills designed for outright destruction, using any this close to her would all but kill her.

  She was an Oath, he chided himself. The only thing more shameful than giving his all to win was losing to her.

  Sucking in a deep breath, his interface came to life. It informed him of his skill as he activated it.

  [You have used skill A Breath of Fire]

  Elijah felt the heat rise up from within him and watched Aurora’s eyes widen as the blast swallowed her whole.

  When her grip stiffened, Elijah almost felt bad for her. Almost.

  But he had greater things to do, larger threats to deal with. Extricating himself from her stiff hold was easier to deal with than he thought. He fell from the height—it felt higher than he would’ve liked to admit—and hit the ground. His feet were steady beneath him, compliments of the balance stats that came with his class.

  “Elijah, no!” he heard Inevitability cry out. But he did not listen. It took a great will to do what had to be done. And sometimes, it took a person who wasn’t heavily invested in a situation to see what was wrong and cut it out.

  Elijah knew what had to be cut out.

  He turned, looking past a burning Aurora—she had died on her feet, a respectable thing for someone who was once an Oath—and moved to attack—

  Every fiber of Elijah’s being froze.

  A sudden pressure filled the air. It was not like an actual skill. It was not like the aura written into the cartoons or the movies. The air did not suddenly grow heavy and a heavy weight pin him to the ground. No. It was something else. Something different. It was primal. It felt like waking up in the woods and realizing that not a single living thing made a sound. It was the sudden end of movement you experience as a child when you are doing something wrong and hear a sound that you should not hear, followed by silence.

  It was the predatory urge to pretend at being anything except a living thing in order to survive the passing of a predator. Even the crackling sound of fire consuming what was left of living flesh sounded hollow and empty in the silence.

  So, no. There was no aura. The world had simply stood still in the presence of something worthy of being feared.

  Elijah’s attention fell first on Inevitability. He found the man frozen halfway through clearing the table. Shield was partially pale beside him. Life was a little too far away from the entire table. But in everybody’s different placements and stances, they all shared two things in common: the wary look in their eyes, and the focus of their attention.

  Elijah followed their gazes, knowing yet fearing what he would see at the end of them. He locked eyes with the Oath of Madness who no longer had any interest in his gaming console.

  Then Madness stood up.

  Despite the distance between everybody. The man towered over the entire room. He was a massive figure, so fitting of the class that Elijah wondered if he, too, was a [Dreadnought].

  He was still frozen in—he hated to admit it—fear when the dead breathed life. His attention snapped away from Madness at the sound of footsteps. Elijah turned just in time to see a burning woman charging him down.

  Startled out of his momentary fear, he raised both hands and aimed carelessly.

  [You have used skill Welcome of the Dreadnought]

  The Gifted brings to their opponent the Gift of fire, welcoming them as all Dreadnoughts should.

  He felt the flames gather to his hands in the blink of an eye once more and he released it forward. Consumed in fire, Aurora ducked to the side, dodging the blast.

  Elijah backpedaled. He had been in countless fights. He’d even won more than a handful of fights against humanoid monsters that the system had designated as S-ranks.

  When Aurora got to him, she came at him with a low tackle. Elijah had been in enough fights to know how to defend against such attacks. Without hesitation, he raised his leg to meet her. Knee high, he braced for impact. He would shatter her shoulder, or she would crack the bone of his leg.

  Whatever happened didn’t matter because once they clashed, he had two more skills he would use.

  [You have used skill Mountain of the Dauntless]

  The Gifted becomes fifteen times their body weight, granting them the fearless stability of the mountains.

  There was more to the skill than its description. It didn’t just increase weight, it hardened the body, bones and muscles alike. Over time, he had upgraded it until in addition to its description, it was also multiplied by his constitution stats.

  Elijah felt his muscles tighten as the skill took effect, felt his body grow heavier. Gravity took hold of him as his weight increased and it claimed him as its own. He wouldn’t be able to move even if he wanted to. His next skill was primed in his mind, ready to be unlea—

  Aurora slammed into his raised leg and picked him off the ground in her violent tackle. Elijah felt three things crack and couldn’t be sure of what they were. He was too stupefied by the fact that he was flying through the air.

  When he landed, it was on a hard surface.

  His instincts for survival kicked in as his body flared a warning to itself. He watched two hands come down in an axe blow and he rolled away. The action let him know that his body was at an odd angle. He hadn’t fallen to the ground. Aurora had tackled him into the edge of the table.

  The table shook from the former Oath’s blow as Elijah rolled to the side, deactivating [Mountain of the Dauntless] so that he could move his body.

  He fell to the ground, his head braced up by the edge of the table. Actions came alive in his periphery and he tossed himself to the side once more. Aurora’s knee drove straight into the edge of the table where his head had been.

  The table moved. A terrible tremor went through it. The sound of the impact shook the ears of everyone in the room and Elijah heard something crack that was not inside him.

  Aurora was trying to kill him.

  And rightfully so, a voice inside his head declared. All things must come to an end. Even life becomes desolate.

  “Aurora, stand down!” someone shouted in the distance. Elijah couldn’t place the voice to an owner. All he knew was that it belonged to a woman. “Don’t kill him!”

  Elijah flared in anger. That they worried for his life against a former Oath was insulting. He was Desolation. Death was a part of his purview.

  He rolled away once more at the last second, feeling a numbing pain in his side. A leg came down where his head had once been.

  The axe hand. The flying knee. The leg stomp. Aurora was only aiming for his head.

  Scrambling to his feet he opened his mouth and roared.

  [You have used Oath skill Herald of Desolation]

  Desolation comes to those who wait. The Oath begins the first step of desolation, clearing a path before them in one blow.

  The wave of his roar shot forth from his lungs and tore through the air in front of him. Aurora’s charging approach did not end. He ran forward like a battering ram.

  A little belatedly, Elijah realized what he had done. His target was Madness, but he was caught up in a fight against the Oath’s wife. But that was not the problem. The problem was what was about to happen. Aurora had proven herself to be fast, faster than he’d ever thought a [Dreadnought] could be.

  She could easily evade his attacks as long as she saw them coming. The problem now was that the Oath of Grace occupied the space behind her. Elijah paled in fear as he realized what was about to happen. Once this skill was over, he would become an enemy of the Oaths.

  He had perfectly screwed himself with his own two hands. Unprovoked.

  Aurora tanked the blast from his skill with two arms held over her face. The roar shattered on impact, not even driving her back or stopping her charge. [Herald of Desolation] fell apart and Elijah only had time to be confused before she slammed into him.

  Elijah’s head bounced of the ground as they went down only to hit a hard surface as it came up. His head bounced off the hard surface, going back down. Bouncing off the ground once more, his head was met with a hard surface. Again, it knocked his head back down. Twice more, then thrice more.

  The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Then the smell of it filled his nostrils. Pain filled his head so that it was difficult to even process the smells. No skill came to mind that could save him. He had more than enough skills, though. An arsenal of skills designed to kill and destroy.

  But he had only the one Oath skill. The single gift that had come with becoming an Oath.

  Someone shouted something in the distance but Elijah did not hear it. He was too busy trying to hold onto his life as it slipped from his grasp. Death came to him slowly.

  As it did, he came to a single realization. He had fought with all that he was capable of in the time given to him. He had used his class skills and his Oath skill. He had given it his all.

  But Aurora had brought desolation to the Oath of Desolation without calling up a single skill.

  It seemed his earlier opinion about [Dreadnoughts] always being consumed by the hubris of thinking they were special did not only apply to other [Dreadnoughts]. It applied to him as well

  As the world slowly faded to black, Elijah realized that there was nothing peaceful about dying.

  At least not the way he was dying.

  Perhaps there really was a massive difference between dying and being killed.

  …

  Madness be damned, Pain leapt over the desk. He’d watched Aurora deliver a one sided massacre to the new Oath. Despite the mild curiosity he’d had at the beginning of the fight, he could not say that he was surprised. The woman had been an Oath for almost fifteen years before she’d lost her Oath-hood.

  Desolation had only been an Oath for less than a week.

  So when she’d started handing his ass to him, Pain had not been bothered. When Desolation had broken a rib, his leg and his tailbone, he had felt the pain as well and had been more than happy to leave it.

  Then Aurora had finally brought him down and had begun raining blows on the Oath, bouncing his head off the ground with each punch. Even then, Pain had been feeling the Oath’s pain.

  Until it had started dwindling slowly and gently. Any more and the Oath would feel no more pain. And Pain only knew of one thing that felt no pain: things that were not alive.

  “Stand down, Aurora!” he bellowed, repeating the words Grace had used not too long ago as he scaled the table. “You’ll kill him!”

  To his surprise, Aurora stopped pounding away at the Oath that was now unable to put up a fight. Desolation had been beaten bloody. His face was covered in blood and his nose was bent in all the wrong directions. Not in the wrong direction but all the wrong directions. A part of his face was even caved in and Pain knew that the Oath had two broken eye sockets.

  Aurora had sought to ruin him. But Pain could not blame her. He doubted anyone present in the room could. Desolation had struck first. He had gotten what he deserved.

  With her hands covered in the blood of her enemy, Aurora looked down at Desolation without any expression. The simple clothes she had worn to the meeting were completely burnt off, but she was not naked. She was wearing a tactical suit designed to be worn under her clothes.

  Pain knew the design. It was made from the skin of a guardian and every old Oath had one. It did nothing against physical attacks but increased resistance to elemental attacks. It did not get wet. It did not burn. And it did not freeze.

  She cocked her head to the side as if studying Desolation. After a moment, she drove a straight fist into his nose.

  “Aurora!” Pain roared.

  Aurora got up from Desolation's unconscious body and stepped away as if she wasn’t currently stained by his blood.

  Pain reached out to Desolation with his senses and felt the pain wracking through the Oath’s body. It was a good thing. The Oath was still alive. They’d never had a case of an Oath killing another Oath, and they hoped to never have one, not even with Greed running around.

  The crisis was averted and Pain let out a sigh of relief as he leaned against the table. On the other side, where Aurora had driven her knee into the table in an attempt to take Desolation’s life, was a crack.

  The single crack gave Pain a new understanding of just how strong Aurora was even now that she was not an Oath.

  Pain turned to look at Life. “Tell me that your Oath has the ability to heal people.”

  “It does,” Life confirmed.

  “Then heal him so that we can get this meeting over with.”

  Life shook his head quickly. “No, can’t do.”

  “Why?” Pain asked, confused and mildly enraged.

  Life wasn’t the one who answered him. In fact, no one did. Only a single voice crying out told him why Life was in no hurry to help.

  “Madness!” Inevitability’s voice filled the room. “No!”

  Pain turned and found Madness kneeling over the Oath of Desolation, straddling him. He was looking down at him with the same absence of expression with which he looked at everything.

  This time, Inevitability scaled the table as Madness cocked a hand over his shoulder and brought it down. Aurora did not move a muscle from where she was standing. It didn’t look like she intended to. Grace simply closed her eyes, mourning the Oath even before his death.

  Pain knew for a fact that Inevitability would not get to Madness in time, so he did the one thing he could.

  [You have used Oath skill Relief From Pain]

  Pain is best shared. The Oath releases a wave of their own pain, awakening the pain in those around him, old, new, hidden or fresh.

  He heard Grace cry out to the side and wondered if the pain she felt now was physical or emotional or both.

  Aurora’s reaction to the skill was to bare her teeth in barely controlled rage. These were all side effects. Pain watched for the main effect and was glad to see his plan had worked.

  Madness’ fist had stopped barely an inch away from Desolation’s face. Pain had just saved the life of the Oath.

  Madness stopped, ignoring Desolation, and rose to his feet.

  Unsure of what was happening, Pain increased the intensity of the skill and he saw a trickle of blood drip from Aurora’s nose. As for Madness, he simply turned and faced him.

  Pain had saved the life of Desolation but at a great cost.

  A towering monstrosity of physical presence, Madness walked through the wave of the pain that [Relief From Pain] shared, and approached him.

  Pain had just garnered the undivided attention of the Oath of Madness.

  Fuck, he swore.

  But he was an Oath. He did not intend to simply lie down and die.

  [You have used Oath skill Despair in Pain]

  Pain is not the enemy. It is simply an attribute of life. The Oath converts the pain of the world around him into physical attributes. Stat point gained is based on the intensity of pain.

  Pain tapped into Desolation’s pain, knowing a simple truth.

  It seemed an Oath just might die today.