[???]

A concentration of absolute white light erupted from the spell circle, so thin it was nearly invisible to the naked eye. Nearly a hundred spells, both useless and powerful, compressed into a single mass of pure energy.

"Incredible..." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The archmage opened his mouth, then stopped. He recognized the danger. He was powerful, yes. He could survive those spells individually without issue.

But the compression was the problem.

A point so thin that even the strongest defensive barriers couldn’t protect him from it.

"You’ve surpassed my expectations."

The archmage laughed, then began to teleport away.

But before he could, a sudden throb pulsed through his mind, and his escape stalled.

[Demonic Transformation]

Evelina’s horns emerged from her white hair, her wings spreading wide enough to fully enshroud a human. Her choker responded in kind; the succubus within materialized beside her, wings and horns just as vast as her own.

[Euphoria Bloom]

[Sense Impairment]

[Tempting Pulse]

"I’ll overload his mind with lust," Evelina called out. "Just focus on your attacks."

A pulse of demonic magic vibrated from her, then another, this one directed at me.

[Succubic Host]

The effect was immediate. Horns and wings sprouted from my body, mirroring hers, as my flickering spell circle and the energy it had unleashed compressed even further beyond its limits.

The light intensified.

Not gradually, but all at once, a supernova contained within a space no larger than my fist. The archmage’s blind eyes widened, and for the first time since we’d entered this chamber, I saw something that looked like genuine concern cross his elegant features.

He tried to teleport again.

The space around him rippled, warped, then snapped back into place like a rubber band breaking.

"What—"

"Your mind isn’t your own right now," Evelina said, her voice layered with something deeper, something that resonated in the archmage’s chest. "And neither is your magic."

The succubus beside her pulsed with crimson light, her form flickering between solid and shadow, her lips curved in a smile that held no warmth at all. Between the two of them, the waves of demonic energy saturated the chamber, thick enough to taste.

The archmage’s hand rose to his temple.

His composure, perfect and ancient, cracked.

"You’re... in my head."

"Just for a moment," Evelina agreed. "That’s all he needs."

The compressed mass of energy between my hands had begun to scream. Not audibly, but I could feel it, a vibration in my bones, a resonance in my teeth, a pressure behind my eyes that threatened to split my skull open.

The hydra’s minds were burning through themselves, sacrificing the most useless memories, fake personalities, fragments of fake identities from my past life to fuel the calculations. I could feel them fading, one by one, their whispers going silent.

I had more than enough useless memories to last a lifetime!

[???]

The archmage’s teleportation flickered again, stuttered, died. He stood frozen in place, one hand still pressed to his temple, the other raised as if to ward off a blow that hadn’t been thrown yet.

"Clever," he said, and his voice had lost its amusement. "Using the demon to distract me. Using the compression to bypass my barriers. Using the hydra to calculate the impossible."

"Compliments won’t save you."

"Who said I wanted to be saved?"

His blind eyes found mine, and despite everything, despite the demonic influence and the compressed death hovering between my hands and the swords still frozen in the air above us, he smiled.

"Show me," he said. "Show me what a mortal can do to a god."

I didn’t correct him. He wasn’t a god. Not quite. But he was close enough that the distinction barely mattered.

I opened my hands.

The compressed mass shot forward.

Not fast. Not slow. It moved at the speed of inevitability, a beam of white light so thin it was almost invisible, cutting through the air like a needle through silk. The archmage’s barriers, the ones he hadn’t even bothered to raise, flared to life in front of him, layers of magic that had held for centuries.

The beam pierced them like paper.

One layer. Two. A dozen. A hundred.

The archmage’s eyes widened.

He tried to dodge, but Evelina’s influence held him in place, her demonic magic wrapped around his limbs, his thoughts, his will to move. The succubus beside her laughed, a sound like breaking glass.

CRACK!

CRACK!

CRACK!

Barrier after barrier shattered, each one drawing closer to his heart with every passing second.

CRACK!

The final barrier shattered.

The beam struck the archmage in the center of his chest.

For a moment, nothing happened. He simply stood there, blind eyes wide, mouth slightly open, the white light pressed against his royal attire like a spear against stone.

Then he coughed.

Not blood. Something else. Something that glittered in the torchlight like powdered starlight, scattering across the floor in a shower of silver dust.

"You..."

He looked down at his chest. The beam had pierced clean through, a hole no wider than a needle, but deeper than it should have been possible. Through cloth, through skin, through flesh, through whatever lay beneath.

"It hurts," he said, almost wonderingly.

"That’s the point."

The beam faded, its energy spent, the spell circle behind it crumbling into ash. My arms dropped to my sides, trembling, the hydra’s minds still burning through themselves to keep me upright.

Evelina’s demonic influence wavered, then withdrew. Her horns receded, her wings folding back into nothing. The succubus beside her faded, merging back into the choker at her throat with a final pulse of crimson light.

The archmage touched the wound in his chest.

"Too bad this isn’t my real body, or the two of you might have done the impossible. Still, all four of you passed..."

The archmage’s fingers traced the edges of the wound, still glistening with that strange, powdery light. His blind eyes lifted from his chest to the four of us, sweeping across Kevin’s slumped form among the shattered bookshelf, Vivianne’s wind barrier flickering as she tried to catch her breath, Evelina’s trembling hands still raised from the demonic assault.

And me, barely standing, the hydra’s minds still smoldering in the back of my skull.

"Passed?" Vivianne’s voice cracked. "That’s it? We nearly died, and you just say ’passed’?"

"What else would you like me to say?" The archmage’s smile returned, thinner than before but genuine. "Congratulations? Well done? You’ve exceeded expectations?"

He pressed his hand flat against the wound, and when he pulled it away, the hole had closed. Not healed, exactly. Just... gone. Like it had never existed.