"What''s going on?" Morrigan asked once she saw Altair''s gazee into focus again.


    Altair folded his arms. "War. Do you think this has anything to do with the Golden Crucible?"


    Without a moment''s pause, Morrigan said, "No. That is highly unlikely. Terra is simply too valuable to have you killed."


    "She''s right," Tasha added. "You are in possession of a talent that''s rarely seen, even amongst devils and demons. So unless your existence threatens that organization, they wouldn''t want you dead. They wouldn''t even want a war. After all, War is the dumbest form of diplomacy."


    "She''s right," said Morrigan. "War requires an enormous amount of resources. Think back on how easy it was to kill the king and queen of Earth a few months ago. Do you think they were ready for any major conflict?"


    The memory was indeed still fresh in Altair''s mind, and it was a clear reminder of his vulnerability. At the time, all that was required was the prowess of a Ninth Circle to infiltrate the Sunset Pce with a single skill that transcended mortal understanding. It was only after forming a contract with Zelos that he learned the truth behind Earth''s state of being.


    Despite his wealth, none of that mattered if hecked the authority and connections to purchase certain items.


    Lord stair Dawn, the Archeon of the Seventh Tower Bios, was a High Imperial of such authority that his presence alone amidst the Council of Omnis constituted a level threat rivaling that of a King of Hell. The same went for those born under his banner. To be born a High Imperial meant one was born above the masses.


    As the firstborn within the House of Dawn, Zelos held a level of authority that trivialized the systematic monopoly to control those at the bottom of society.


    "What about this Elder Grim?" Altair coldly pointed out, his voice tinged with a calm that left others ufortable. "Could he have gone behind the crucibles back to—"


    "No," Morrigan expressed, not as opinion but as fact. "He''d not be so stupid. He''d have kept the fighting in-house. You have my word on that."


    Altair could only eat his words. He hadn''t much time to understand the inner mechanics of the Golden Crucible. To his knowledge, it was simply a fanatic group forcing hundreds of candidates topete over a single task.


    "Let''s leave it at that then," Altair remarked, passing his hands through his hair. He closed his eyes, imagining the cost and time required to send his troops across the multiple systems, Nexus Lanes or not.


    ''Thann will handle things.'' he thought, turning to Tasha. "Do you, by chance, have a devil soul?"


    "Of course!" Tasha said. "He''s weak enough for you to use as well. Although, this particr soul has been broken by me."


    "What did he do?"


    Tasha touched her lips, looking skyward, thinking, "Hmmm, it was a few hundred years ago when I was born, but he tried to rape me. Father taught me the ropes of torture then. She showed me how to use the Hell Pits, the Nine Infernal Commandments, and the Seven Sins to obtain the ultimate forms of torture. Since Tarvak here was my first, he''s a little… broken."


    "Broken?" Morrigan asked.


    She scratched her cheek, a little embarrassed. "Torture in the hell is a little different than what people think. We don''t really focus on the body but the soul. In a way, we try to torment the soul without damaging the soul. It''s a bit of a paradox, but that takes practice, especially for young devils like myself.


    It''s still a devil''s soul, but Tarvak if you can still call him that, is at the stage of eptance. A rather nasty stage, where the ve begs the master to be tortured." She blushed a bit. "Little Tar is such a good boy. Did you know—"


    Altair stopped her then. He didn''t need details. Tasha''s expression alone was all he needed to grasp the cruelty Tarvak was going through.


    "Well, he''s currently in his eleventh iteration of the self. One could say he was born to the life. That is especially true since Devils are immortal, at least to anyone without the angels Sacred me. So do be careful not to—"


    "I''m going to wipe this Tarvak soul nk and bind him to my sword," Altair told her. "Now give it here."


    Tasha looked a bit hesitant. "You''ll take care of him, right?"


    "What?"


    "Tarvak… you''ll still torture him, right?"


    "Is he your fucking child? What the hell?"


    "He''s my first!" Tasha retorted. "Everyone remembers there first. His screams were so sweet; I came so hard—"


    It was Morrigan who covered her mouth as Altair thanked her. After a bit of back and forth, Tasha reluctantly reached into her Soul Space, where she kept all the souls that gave her a boast to her attributes each day, and handed it off to Altair with a bit of tears in her infernal eyes.


    ''Crazy bitch,'' Morrigan whispered.


    Tasha only nodded. "Thank you for making me feel better. I needed that."


    "I was insulting you."


    "It sounded like forey."


    "..."


    "..."


    "I like her!" Raven said suddenly, giggling. "It''s like none of you can win against her!"


    Altair knew better than to touch that topic and stared at the radiant ck soul me aze in his palm. He felt sick holding it. The soul itself felt naked as if someone had torn the flesh off of it. It was such a strange sensation; Altair wasn''t sure if he was holding a soul or a vaporous existence.


    ''Tasha is he crazy…'' he told himself, unsure why he was looking forward to reaching the next floor.


    He shook his head, refocusing on the matter at hand.


    "Oh! I almost forgot." Tasha suddenly eximed. "Tarvack is a Devil of Wrath. So he''s very attached to anger. If you''re not careful, whether he''s your thrall or not, he might steal or influence your consciousness negatively."


    Altair kept that in mind as he poured Vale Qi into the soul, though not before dismissing a Shadow Raven he''d kept to do recon. The pain of releasing a Shadow was always something that left him pale. Even Ashen Blood did little to deter the visceral pain that came with such actions, but the sensation of pain was quickly reced with a newfound warmth that came from his newly assimted soul.


    When Altair summoned the soul me back into his hand from his Astral Sea to gauge the feel, Tasha was surprised to see just how much it had recovered. The soul itself was nearly twice as radiant, burning like a ck sun in the emperor''s hand.


    "He recovered…" said Tasha, her voice trailing off. She watched, fascinated, as Altair pulled out one of the longswords Hephaestus had forged for him. The de itself was nothing short of perfect, nearly matching the infernal smiths forced to hammer away within the pits. It was faint, but the nameless sword carried a level of sharpness that allowed it to cut space itself.


    It was the sign of any master de.


    ''Father always said if a de didn''t carry the ability to cut space, then it didn''t deserve to grace our hands.'' Tasha studied the de for a while, thinking of her own sword she''d forged using her immortal soul as a base. It had been traditional for all Royal Devils to do as such, usually requiring one to sacrifice at least two-thirds of their life force.


    A negligible sacrifice since Devils were immortals. It still left them bedridden for a few years. Tasha herself spent a hundred years in aa after deciding to sacrifice a little more than two-thirds, forcing the High Elders to take action.


    Altair couldn''t exin why he did what he did; in a moment of understanding that came from deep within his being, he slit his finger across the edge of his silvery de that seemed to illuminate the darkness of this ruined world like the sun, and began drawing runes.


    To Tasha''s surprise, it wasn''t anguage she spoke, a fact that stunned her as all Devils were born with an understanding of allnguages known to the Myriad Heavens. The onlynguage they had not been privy to was Primordial. But she''d seen the intricate mannerism of Primordial before, and what Altair was drawing wasn''t that.


    It was something older. It was ancient. Tasha could feel the time nodes around her rapidly aging and dying off one by one, ensuring only those in the now-watching were pervy to such a shocking movement.


    By the time Altair had returned to himself, the world seemed a bit darker as his blood had sheathed the de in front of him. The sigil in his eyes shone a strange light resonating with the marking. Once again, his arm moved, with the practiced grace of a master, as he began merging the Devil Soul into the nameless de.


    Vale Qi spilled from out his being as three stars, alongside the shadow of the fourth, made its appearance.


    "Arise, Oh Rotten Vale of the Abyss"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om