The warrior didn't look at Deborah. She turned her cold, piercing gaze toward me, her eyes like chips of frozen violet. She didn't bow. Instead, she drove her massive black blade into the white sand with a bone-jarring thud and leaned her weight against the pommel. She scanned me with a mixture of suspicion and a strange, deep-seated recognition, as if she were looking at a ghost she'd killed once before.
She was terrifyingly beautiful, but her aura was pure, unfiltered malice.
"That face... and those sigils etched into her cuirass," Deborah whispered, her voice cracking as she stumbled back, her face draining of all color. "There is no mistaking her. She is the Scourge of the West... the Dark Knight, Lady Zeraphis D. Umbriel."
The name hit the courtyard like a physical blow. The novices screamed, scattering back toward the stone walls. One of them fainted outright.
"Zeraphis?" I muttered, looking at the scarred warrior. "The name sounds like something out of a history book."
"She isn't just history, Lord Karl! She's a nightmare!" Deborah hissed, her hand trembling as she gripped my arm. "Four hundred years ago, she nearly wiped every mage from the face of the Four Continents. She hunted the Sisterhoods. She burned the Great Libraries!"
I stared at the creature I had pulled from the dark, my blood turning to ice. She didn't look like a spirit; she looked like a monument to genocide.
"Fuck..." I breathed, the word caught in my throat. I was supposed to be the "Lord of Convergence," the savior destined to break the Black Emperor's grip on the world. Instead, on my very first try, I'd summoned the one woman who had historically done the Emperor's job for him.
"Fuck! What do I do next?" I hissed at Deborah.
The quiet of the courtyard was shattered by the sound of heavy boots and the crackle of gathering energy. A contingent of high-ranking mages burst into the square, led by the Raven-Haired Pillar. Her hourglass figure was tense, her dark eyes wide with a mixture of terror and fury.
"What in the hell is that?" one of the mages screamed, her hands glowing with a jagged blue light.
"The Lord summoned Zeraphis?" another cried, her voice rising in a panicked pitch. "It's impossible! She was sealed in the deepest layer of the Void!"
"Lady Deborah, stand away from him!" the Raven-Haired Pillar commanded, her fingers weaving a complex pattern in the air. "Sisters, focus your mana! If she breaks the circle, we burn the square!"
In an instant, the atmosphere turned lethal. Fire roared to life in the palms of some; others called the wind until it whipped the sand into a blinding frenzy. These were the Elementalists—the heavy hitters of the Sisterhood—and they were primed to incinerate the threat I had brought into their home.
"How the fuck did I summon a villainess?" I muttered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Zeraphis didn't flinch. She didn't even acknowledge the mages threatening her life. She kept her violet eyes locked on mine, her head tilted at a predatory angle. She looked like she was enjoying the chaos, her lips curled into a faint, mocking smirk.
She was waiting.
I could feel it through the thin, vibrating thread of the bond—a dark, pulsing hunger. She wasn't afraid of their fire or their water; she was bored by it. She was waiting for me to make a choice. One word from me, and she would paint the white sand red with the blood of the women who had just finished worshipping me.
"Master," she whispered, the word dripping with venomous irony. "The sheep are bleating. Shall I silence them for you, or do you intend to let them strike your property?"
The Raven-Haired Pillar stepped forward, a bolt of pure white lightning coiling around her arm. "Karl! Dismiss her now, or we will be forced to destroy both of you!"
The chaos reached a fever pitch until a sharp, rhythmic tapping silenced the crowd. Lady Isobel emerged from the fortress shadows, her emerald robes billowing. Far from being terrified, the High Seer's eyes sparkled with a disturbing, feverish excitement.
"My, my," Isobel mused, her voice cutting through the crackle of elemental magic. "Look at what our Lord has pulled from the depths. The Dark Lady herself? Zeraphis D. Umbriel?"
"Karl, listen to me," Deborah whispered, her hand tightening on my arm until it hurt. "What happens next is entirely up to you. If she starts fighting, we won't win. Even if we somehow take her down, this courtyard will become a graveyard. Everyone here is paralyzed by her name, but if they think you've lost control, they will strike to save themselves."
I looked around. Dozens of mages stood with trembling hands, their spells aimed at the scarred woman who looked like she was bored by the prospect of a massacre. I was the only thing standing between a peaceful training session and a bloodbath.
This was it—the ultimate test of the Second Law: The Balance of Will.
Zeraphis was a high-ranking calamity, a spirit that should have been draining me dry within seconds. By all rights, I should have been on my knees, gasping as my mana was sucked into the Void to sustain her presence. But as I checked my internal "battery," I felt… nothing. The pool of mercury in my gut was as still and deep as a lake. It wasn't draining. If anything, it felt like the more she stood there, the more the air itself was feeding me.
Was my mana pool infinite? Or was the "Lord of Convergence" simply a bottomless well that the laws of physics couldn't empty?
"It will be truly fascinating to see how the good Lord handles this," Isobel added, leaning on her staff with a predatory grin. She wasn't going to help. She wanted to see if I was a master or a snack.
Zeraphis shifted her weight, the black glass beneath her boots cracking. She looked at the Raven-Haired Pillar, then back at me, her violet eyes challenging me to blink. "The air is getting thin, Master," she purred, her hand shifting on the pommel of her sword. "Do you wish for me to kneel… or shall I show them why they were right to fear the dark?"
I stepped forward, moving away from Deborah and into the dead space between the mages and the monster. I needed to impose my will, but Zeraphis wasn't a dog—she was a queen of killers.