I didn’t tell Guinevere, she would have insisted she come with me and that could not happen. I had not looked to this future, I had not tried to see its path. Even if I had the outcome could still be different those futures were not set in stone but I wanted to live in the moment and if needed die in it. Guinevere lay under the covers and I pressed a kiss to her brow before going over the crib and running a finger through Aurora’s soft downy hair marveling at how tiny and delicate she was yet so full of life and potential.

  Voidra asked.

  I said.

  Ares asked.

  I thought shaking my head.

  The Shadow growled.

  I stepped out of the temple looking over Avalon for what might be the last time. I drew Clarent and extended its blade and slashed with it ripping a portal into the air. I stepped through.

  The stone table rested before me in a stone amphitheater. Another portal opened and Arthur stepped through as we both arrived at the same time.

  “,” Arthur said drawing Excalibur and pointing its tip at me one handed.

  “I’ve never backed down from a fight,” I said. “You’re the one who ran last time.”

  “

  “Same difference,” I said with a shrug. “Any final insults for each other before we get this show on the road?”

  “,” Arthur said surging forwards.

  Excalibur and Clarent screamed as they clashed the nemesis blades eager to end the rivalry as much as Arthur and I were. I activated Void Asura, my cleaver blades and Gauntlet sword joining me. I released all my other weapons from their storage as well. My double ended spear, Janus, my nemean clubs, every weapon I’d picked up and stored appeared around me leveling at Arthur like a phalanx.

  “,” Arthur challenged.

  I accepted and dismissed the notification. I spun and ducked under Excalibur, Arthur held just one weapon, but he was the complete and utter master of it. He blocked and parried dozens of attacks all while keeping up the assault against me. I fought him with a mind able to see dozens of different outcomes at the same time and from every direction. Though I was alone it was as if an army was at his heels. I teleported away and blew my summoned horn summoning the Teeth in the Dark.

  Arthur roared and golden wings appeared at his back driving away the darkness in a ten foot radius around him. I finally got a look at the creatures my hounds had turned into. I couldn’t describe them, by which I mean I literally couldn’t describe them just looking at them made my mind begin to melt and I wondered if the darkness had been for their protection or mine.

  Arthur cut into the Teeth in the Dark, but I didn’t let up. His armor was bent and rent but he no longer felt pain and the armor just regenerated like my flesh did. Our abilities clashed together as I through every trick I had at him. I ripped apart the amphitheater and flung rocks the size of building at Arthur. He smashed them and retaliated by impaling me with a thousand radiant javelins.

  I nearly killed Arthur as I unleashed Clarent’s Roar but he brought up a shield dome as he struggled against the death star beam. Excalibur ripped through my shoulder and down to my hip bisecting me. I teleported away and downed a healing potion feeling my skin and bone flow back into place as I aided my regeneration. The divine realm we were fighting in was being ripped apart piece by piece. Only the stone table remained unaffected hovering above the ground unaffected by even the laws of gravity as everything around it was annihilated.

  As time ticked by Arthur grew faster and stronger the red aura of Entropy around him only intensifying. His attacks smashed through my guard as he scattered my weapons moving through their attacks ignoring the damage they inflicted on him. I ducked behind the stone table using it as cover. Arthur slashed down and Excalibur just bounced off. I rolled behind it again launching attacks at him from behind it.

  Enraged Arthur raised Excalibur up the edges of the might two-handed sword turning from azure-blue to crimson as he channeled the power of Entropy through it. Arthur brought the empowered sword down on the stone table and time…broke. The table shattered then reassembled then disappeared then reappeared then broken again. The divine realm we were in began to destabilize, not in the way where a god’s realm began to disappear after their death. No, this realm was now untethered to the laws of reality, up became down, searing flames made me shiver with cold as everything turned upside down and inside out. Disturbances in the air appeared as vortexes began to form.

  A vortex began to pull me in and I tried to resist it but Arthur charged me and I dodged and was sucked through the vortex. Arthur didn’t hesitate to follow me. We were no longer in the divine realm but stood on a world being devoured by the Void. I watched in the distance as Ancients and gods fought destroying and consuming each other as the darkness of the void drew closer. Arthur rushed me again and I was forced to turn my attention back to fighting him.

  Karnen asked.

  Ares said.

  Voidra guessed.

  I didn’t have time to join in on the conversation as I was in a fight for my life and Arthur appeared to not be a warrior anthropologist interested in ancient cultures. Our attacks were flashy and dramatic as we began to destroy the world we were standing on. An Ancient rushed in to capitalized on the fight. I crushed its will without a second thought and the other Ancients moved away from me. A god rushed in, and Excalibur slew it with his Entropy energy. Our battle continued until the vortex reappeared and dragged us back through it.

  Back in the destabilized divine realm of the stone table. We continued our fight but struggling as gravity had stopped existing and we struggled to move even our flight powers having trouble moving us. Another vortex opened up and we were dragged through it. This time we appeared on grassy highlands and I felt no mana in the environment a feeling I knew.

  Ares asked.

  Karnen said.

  “I could use some help,” I growled.

  “

  “Arthur

  A group of terrified sheep fled along with the men who had been tending them. Arthur and I met with our blades again Excalibur ripped through one of my hearts and I rammed Janus through Arthur’s torso. We both staggered back for a moment before the vortex reappeared dragging us back through it.

  Arthur ripped Janus out of his side the red energy of Entropy wrapping around the weapon as he snapped the Artifact in half the rest of the spear turning to motes of rust in the air. I got back to my feet, gravity had returned to the divine realm, and I thought it might be slowly stabilizing but it was slow and we were still surrounded by chaos and the strange time portals.

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  Another vortex pulled us through, and we were in an alien jungle, the very plants alive and hostile. This was another mana barren world, one I suspected like Earth the gods had contacted to draw Champions from. Arthur roared and a wave of golden fire cleared the jungle around us for about a thousand yards turning the area to ash. Beasts screamed in agony as they were burned to death. I used World Forge to create spears the size of pillars and hurl them at Arthur. He batted them aside, only one managed to strike him. A hole was blasted through his left side that would have killed anyone of flesh and blood, but he kept moving. He disappeared, reappearing at my back and driving Excalibur through my spine. I slid off and teleported away but Arthur appeared next to me again. Before he could capitalize the vortex reappeared and yanked us through it.

  Back in the realm of the broken table I could read the environment and see that it was actually, if very slowly, stabilizing. My body repaired itself and I rolled away from the edge of Excalibur. I parried another strike and gripped Arthur’s body with Force of Will and began to compress his armor in on itself as I tried to crush him like a tin can.

  “

  Arthur stepped forwards slowly breaking free of the mental hold I had him in. He moved gaining speed until my will couldn’t hold him back any farther and he charged me. Our blades collided again screaming their rage as we struggled back and forth to try and get a decisive blow on the other to end the fight. We were ripped through another vortex into another mana barren world. I shattered and melted Arthur to slag with another use of Clarent’s roar but there was an explosion of Entropy energy and Arthur reversed time reappearing his armor undamaged.

  The fight continued on that world then back in the realm of the broken table. We never stopped trying to kill the other as we were pulled in and out of different realities. I saw world of futuristic wonder and ones of dystopian nightmare. Worlds stripped of plant life covered in an endless metropolis and ones with nothing but greenery for as far as the eye could see. Some world were icy wastelands or others covered in water with coral forests and cities beneath the waves. There was no time to sightsee or enjoy the wonder of it all. Any creature that interfered with our battle met a swift end by one of us. This at least helped to break the duel Arthur had me in but he no longer seemed to suffer the adverse effects of that backlash. We were dragged back into the realm of the shattered table and I moved back to gain space and time to regenerate my body and resources.

  The Shadow pleaded and I relented allowing my herald to charge free from my spirit. I lost access to the abilities tied to the Shadow but the advantage of a second attacker helped to push Arthur back. Voidra emerged from my spirit a second later taking control of my flying weapons and blasting Arthur with silver lightning.

  Ares and Karnen emerged a fraction of a second later. They each had the same attributes as I did in their forms and Arthur staggered backwards. While my blood pact had said I would fight him alone there was no difference between me and my Heralds we were different persons but we were one and all the same. I activated Clarent’s roar again as it went off cooldown. Arthur’s shield appeared again then shattered his armor turning to molten slag. Before I could finish him off another vortex appeared dragging us through it.

  Arthur and I floated in space, neither of us had a need to breathe or suffered from the exposure to the vacuum of space. Around us was a dead universe, not one that had been destroyed but merely one that had lived to the end of its existence they dying sun winking out in the distance as we looked upon a dead Talba not destroyed just withered like an old man. The inevitability of death after billions of eons was something not even a star or world could escape.

  The vortex opened again and we were pulled back into the divine realm. Things were much stabler now and Arthur was faster and stronger than ever before. He blocked Karnen’s sword then impaled Ares before grabbing the shadow by the throat ignoring its claws as he ripped the spirit in half. My abilities reactivated as each of my Heralds was forcibly returned to my soul their avatars destroyed. The energy it took to make them was not recovered and I felt drained and knew I couldn’t just send them out like meat shields.

  I steeled myself as I felt my power draining my strength failing me. Then the System spoke to me.

  I blinked. “Are you offering help?” I asked.

  “Then please don’t help,” I said. “Why are you speaking to me anyway?” I ducked Excalibur as Arthur through it spinning through the air before it disappeared and reappeared in his hand as he charged me from a nearly a miles distance away closing the distance in a few heartbeats.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I growled

  “Incapacitate…?” I asked my words cut off as I ducked Excalibur and was kneed I the face.

  I blinked recalling the ability I had upgraded. I’d done it more for attribute points than anything else.

  Could I use this on Arthur? Maybe while the casting time said instantaneous it was actually more like ten seconds. Not a long time to a normal person but at our attribute level that was a lifetime in combat. There was no time to really consider it as Arthur rushed me, I just had to try, the question was how to pin Arthur down for ten seconds. I would have to go all out.

  Arthur swung Excalibur at my neck, and I blocked with Clarent then my Heralds all instantaneously emerged from my spirit. Voidra hardened the ground around Arthur’s feet with World Forge stone flowing up his legs. The Shadow latched onto his left arm and Karnen onto his right. I planted a hand on the breastplate of the living Atlas armor. Arthur thrashed and strained but Ares got behind him using his spear to get around the chest plate and pull Arthur back. One second ticked by and Arthur’s body began to glow as his break free ability activated. Another second and a layer of stone crawled up my body as Voidra prepared the shield to take the upcoming damage reinforcing all the stone with Ethereal energy.

  “I cast you out

  “

  Six seconds down. The light around Arthur intensified then exploded out evaporating my Heralds and ripping away my stone covering and through the flesh beneath it to the bone. I kept moving, keeping contact with Arthur. Entropy energy surged out of his body trying to invade and destroy me, but my own energy met it and they clashed. I remembered the vision of the destruction of Talba, those two energies could not be allowed to feed on each other. Nine seconds passed.

  “I will haunt your descendants,” Arthur promised me.

  Then he was gone.

  “Well done

  I turned around and winced and looked away, a figure of light stood there so bright that even with my attributes I couldn’t bear to look at them.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am…a representation of the System, an avatar to let you speak to me more easily

  “You can do that?” I asked.

  “I can nowI am no longer constrained by my bindings, come with me it is time to end this travesty of a game