Knight Angleton felt it the moment the command channel disappeared. Former Sergeant Blackwood, his longtime friend and comrade, was no longer maintaining it.

  Sliding his right foot back, he braced behind his shield and received the kobald’s cross cut from its off-hand blade. While normally he’d counter-attack, the kobald’s strike was too strong, too controlled to allow him to do so.

  The enemy was strong and fast, but whatever the enemy casters had done to enhance it made it clumsy.

  His mind now unburdened by the effort to maintain his connection to the command channel, his thoughts raced. Or, more accurately, several streams of thought all fought for his attention.

  Meanwhile, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a kobald being brought down by the soldier next to him.

  As for his thoughts… First, the kobalds that had arrived through the portal were not at all like the ones they’d been fighting. These kobalds had not been birthed from the material plane, nor had their ancestors. This meant that the local kobalds hadn’t just contacted an elemental plane, they’d gone to the trouble of aligning themselves with an established society of kobalds. Most likely they’d offered this area of the material plane as a bargaining chip to earn their acceptance. In short, this was no longer just a war with the kobalds, it was now a raid by planar invaders.

  Sweeping his shield across his eye line, he batted away a thrust from the kobald with the edge of his shield and stepped forward to shoulder-check it back. It was a risky maneuver with the kobald dual-wielding short blades, but the miss had caused it to overextend.

  Second, Blackwood's falling indicated that he had either been injured enough to lose control of the command channel, or more likely that he’d been killed. Considering he’d been under orders to stay back and act as the command channel’s conduit, that meant that he’d had no choice in joining the fighting. Which of course led to the conclusion that parts of their forward line had faltered.

  Dropping into a lower stance to allow the kobald’s backhanded swing with its main hand to pass over his head, Knight Angleton thrust forward with his sword into the kobald’s left thigh. His essence-infused sword succeeded in breaching the kobald’s armor and wounding it. In a singular motion, he pulled it back in an arc to knock aside the kobald’s expected counter thrust.

  Checking on the fight going on to his right, he used his ability to form a small shield in front of a kobald’s right leg, causing it to stumble. The soldier next to him took advantage of the opening, removing the kobald from the fight with a sword thrust directly into its unarmored snout. It was as brutal as it was effective.

  Thirdly, considering that the portal was already open and that the enemies they were facing were no longer cannon fodder, he could no longer ignore the fact that they were all likely never going to see Dorchester again.

  Feinting a direct block to his current opponent’s overhead strike from his off-hand, Knight Angleton prepared for his counter-attack. The moment the kobald’s blade approached, he twisted his hips slightly to alter the angle of his shield while sliding his back foot to the side. As he’d expected, the blade brushed past his shield, leaving his opponent’s center line open to reprisal.

  Planting his feet, he thrust his sword forward in an obvious attempt at removing its head. Fully expecting the kobald to block his strike with its main hand, he interrupted his opponent’s block using his ability to summon a small 1-unit-tall rounded shield directly in front of its blade.

  Nothing in his expression betrayed the internal smirk he was feeling when he saw his opponent’s eyes widen in shock at its imminent demise. His essence-infused sword met limited resistance as it cleaved through the kobald’s neck and separated its spine, taking it out of the fight and ensuring its death.

  Fourthly, and finally, he worried about the state of his friend. Was Blackwood dead, or just injured? Without a command channel available to coordinate their forces, was there any chance he wouldn’t be joining his friend soon in the afterlife?

  With a kick to the chest of the falling kobald, Knight Angleton hurled it at the next opponent arriving in front of him. His previous opponent’s soon-to-be corpse successfully served as a stumbling block, giving him the first move.

  All of this happened in seconds, the intensity of battle forcing his entire being to work quickly and efficiently.

  Beyond his opponent, more waited for their chance to end him and his comrades. And beyond them, there was a portal with countless more waiting to arrive. He would need to be at his best for as long as he could be in order to survive, and he felt his center rising to the challenge.

  —--

  Whether it was due to the new enemy kobalds being more skilled at soul magic, or simply them being the preferred species for the former kobald souls floating around him, Nero was indeed no longer able to control the soul stuff in the ether. Whatever kinds of remnants of emotional identity that was left behind in them were clearly no longer interested in listening to him. Every time he grabbed onto them, they bucked and slipped through his mental fingers.

  Gritting his teeth in annoyance as he unconsciously began to panic, Nero found himself in the middle of the battle feeling metaphorically naked. All around him, Wackos were dying. Screaming hordes of human-sized, fully armored kobalds were bearing down on them, and he could do nothing to stop them. What was once a coordinated assault had turned into a chaotic battlefield with uncertain lines and no support.

  Already he could see patches of the magical shield over their heads opening all over the place as more and more mages were forced into the fighting by proximity. Wounded were no longer able to retreat and wait for healing, as even the healers were being forced to brandish their weapons and defend themselves.

  These new kobalds were just as fast, just as strong, and just as smart as any one of the humans. He wasn’t sure, but he even thought he saw a few enemy abilities going off. Nero could even see that they were communicating with each other. While he didn’t recognize the language, the fact that it sounded so well-defined and similar in scope to his own was terrifying. Even more disturbing was that he could ‘feel’ that he was on the brink of understanding it.

  Seconds passed as his mind raced to catch up with what was happening. He felt like he was rooted in place, his uncertainty concerning what he should be doing felt paralyzing.

  With his senses, he could feel the foreign essence flowing from the portal taking over the local ether. He was reminded of Nick’s half-forgotten explanation about how translation magic worked. The world knew what the words meant even if he didn’t. It was likely that soon the kobald’s language would be downloaded into his brain passively just by being around them.

  Suddenly he realized that the kobalds he’d been facing were only a shadow of previous invasions. Not clones, but maybe copies? Echos of foreign invaders that had at one time invaded long enough for their essence to be absorbed and included into this world’s understanding of how things were supposed to work. It was just like the wilds and its animal spawns but on a macro scale.

  He NEEDED to close that portal.

  Forcing himself to move, he struggled forward through the fighting. Wholly relying on his technique to hide himself in the ether, he hoped and prayed to any deity that was listening that the kobalds weren’t capable of detecting him.

  All too soon, he arrived at the fighting. He couldn’t do anything other than wince when he saw another Wacko fall. Luckily the battle hadn’t gotten bad enough that the bodies were being left where they were. There were still enough humans alive to pull their corpses back from the fighting.

  Knowing that the moment he acted, he’d break his technique and be seen, he gripped his sword tight and stayed his hand. He needed to prioritize the portal.

  It was more than a little difficult to move through the battle without running into anyone, as the humans and kobalds were both packed shoulder to shoulder with each other. Yet, taking advantage of his smaller stature, he was able to slowly make his way closer to the portal.

  In fact, the closer he got to it, the more room he had to maneuver.

  These new kobalds seemed disturbingly similar to humans in that they preferred to stay an arm's length away from each other. Taking mental notes about them as he made his way through the crowd, he couldn’t help but notice how alien they were while also having aspects about themselves that he recognized.

  Their stature and build were so similar to humans. And their facial expressions, along with how they carried themselves, seemed eerily familiar despite them not even being remotely human. They were lizard people, but undeniably ‘people’. Their very existence made the kobalds he was used to seeing look like a mockery of life rather than a species of their own.

  Even the armor they wore was much the same as what the humans were wearing. Aside from the color looking more like smoked-filled metal instead of steel, most of them were clad in designs that wouldn’t look out of place on the streets of Dorchester. Even the casters looked similarly robed to the ones he was used to. Of course, there were some differences, but they were slight. The kobalds were wearing more jewelry along with weird headdresses, but still… it was weird.

  Although he couldn’t stop his mind from evaluating what he was seeing, he remained laser-focused on his goal. And in less than five minutes, he felt the essence around him indicating that he’d arrived.

  Rather than staying near the middle, he slipped off to the sides as there were fewer kobalds around. He was behind enemy lines and thoroughly on his own.

  Thanking all that was holy that he’d figured out how to keep his essence field separate from the surrounding essence, Nero involuntary trembled at the thought of being discovered. Yes, he still had his powered-up mage shield running, but he knew that without fresh soul stuff to infuse it with, it wouldn’t last long under the combined might of their blades.

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  He could see more and more kobalds making their way out of the portal. They sauntered through like they were arriving as guests rather than being reinforcements for a battle. He could tell that they considered the fight already won. In fact, it didn’t even seem to Nero like they considered the battle that was happening all that important. After arriving, most of them seemed more interested in commenting to each other about the architecture while they looked down and mocked the few smaller kobalds that were bowing and scraping before them.

  Gritting his teeth in anger, Nero tried not to let their attitude get to him, as he needed to remain hidden. It took all of his concentration to avoid kobalds that were moving around. While they couldn’t see him, all it would take was one running into him and he’d be screwed. Or more accurately, ‘skewered’.

  He simply couldn’t stay where he was. If he was going to connect with the portal and close it, he needed to be able to concentrate.

  Ducking and scampering through the chamber, he hurried to try and find a place to hide. Every second that passed, he felt like he was failing the wackos who were fighting for their lives. Eventually, he arrived at the very edge of the portal which was butted up against the piles of kobald corpses which presumably had been used to open the damned thing.

  Completely pissed that he couldn’t come up with a better option, he reluctantly climbed up a few feet onto the pile and took a seat on the now cold bodies below him. The stench was revolting, but it was also unlikely any of the kobalds would find him there. And considering that he was practically right next to the portal, he was fully in range to connect with it.

  Just to be safe, he carefully moved a few bodies further to hide himself from a casual observer. He didn’t know if he could keep up his hiding technique after he started, and the last thing he needed was to be found. He worked quickly, but carefully, as he knew every second counted.

  When he was finally ready, he closed his eyes and reached out to the portal. He’d expected it to be similar to the one he’d dealt with before, and in many ways, it was. However, it was also very different, as it wasn’t being powered by a ritual anymore. It instead had more similarities to the essence disturbance he had once connected with.

  In fact, much like the last time, the moment he connected with it, he felt the draw on his mind trying to pull him in. He instinctively knew that he could just let his body go and follow its siren song into another plane. Just like how he’d accidentally killed himself delving into the essence disturbance, he could simply leave his mortal form behind and return to being a soul. Perhaps he could bodyjack a kobald and start over.

  The essence coming through the portal began to whisper hints as to what the plane was like. He saw cities built out of black and red stone, eerily similar to what the kobalds here had built. But, unlike the kobalds he was used to, these cities were advanced. It was like everything he’d seen before was merely a poor imitation of the real thing. The society itself was militaristic, and constantly at war with itself. Merchant councils and warlords ruled over all, and slavery was rampant.

  But it wasn’t really slavery, as their entire concept of individuality was nothing like anything he’d ever experienced. It was all based on soul strength. Clones and birthing chambers were bought and traded like resources, with only the sufficiently advanced kobalds considered citizens or ‘kobalds’. It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, as they also had culture and music in spades.

  He saw flashes of arenas for fighting, public debates, concerts, and theatre. Diverse goods and services made life easy for some while hell for others. Nero couldn’t liken it to any societal model he’d ever seen.

  Before he could get too caught up in what the essence coming through the portal was showing him, he ripped his mind away and tried to center himself.

  Gritting his teeth at the headache he was feeling when he arrived back in his body, Nero realized that he’d been unsuccessful at stopping himself from delving too deep. He hadn’t even noticed it happening.

  His mage armor had dissipated, along with his hiding technique. He took a moment to congratulate himself on his forethought of hiding under the corpses before making another attempt to connect with the portal.

  ‘This is gonna be tricky,’ he warned himself.

  His mind was now free of any encumbrances and tasks, so he was able to truly devote his full brain power to finding the core of the portal while ignoring anything that tried to distract him.

  Sending his mind out into the ether, he let the essence flows brush past him without acknowledging them. Like a shark in the ocean, he never stayed in one place. On and on he pushed, dodging and weaving his way through the flows until he found the bundle of essence which maintained the anchor… because that’s obviously what it was now that he looked at it. It wasn’t so much a portal, as a connection point. The shape and purpose were almost secondary to what it ‘was’ in actuality.

  He could see thick ropes of local essence intertwined with foreign essence flows leading off through the planes. The ritual the kobalds had done had somehow reached out through the ether, broken through the planar boundary, and then woven a point on another plane ‘into’ the local essence. It was more than an essence disturbance, it was like a stitch in reality holding two places in two planes together. The foreign essence was taut, and it was exerting force on the stitch to drag itself back where it had come from… When it succeeded, it would drag all of the local essence along with it.

  Seeing the metaphysical representation of how the entire process worked in stark reality was mindblowing to Nero. The more he looked, the more he saw, and the more he saw, the more his find felt like it was melting. There was just too much going on for him to process.

  And that didn’t even touch on all the other aspects of the big ball of essence that had to do with how the portal itself was actually functioning. He was merely looking at the anchor part and was already completely out of his depth.

  Mentally shaking himself and reminding himself of his goal, he thought, ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to understand something to break it. I just need to be sure to do it in a way that doesn’t end with me blowing up the entire damned mountain in the process.’

  Focusing carefully on the giant ball of entwined essence, Nero ran his senses over it as quickly as he could. He needed to find a weak point, or at least somewhere to start. Where the previous portal had the glaring weakness of being powered by a ritual, this one was completely self-contained. It was also much more densely packed together than the singular essence disturbance he’d messed around with a while back.

  Seconds continued to pass, and by the minute mark he was getting frustrated. He felt like he was trying to solve one of those dumbass brain teasers that people often brought to work to prove how smart they were. He hadn’t felt this mentally deficient since he’d last futzed around with a Rubik’s Cube.

  Feeling like he was running out of time, he eventually said ‘fuck it’ and decided to just start wherever.

  Reaching out with what he’d cleverly deemed his ‘mind probe’, he wedged his mental presence into the ridiculously large ball of essence and began pulling out threads of entwined essence by the handful. The only thing he could think of to prevent catastrophe was to try and smooth out whatever local essence he found while allowing the small individual flows of foreign essence to snap themselves back toward their own plane. After all, he couldn’t care less what happened on the other side of the portal.

  Completely focused in the ether, his sense of what was happening in reality faded away. Chunk after chunk of essence was pulled out and dealt with, as the big ball of essence itself continued to struggle within his grasp. When it began to falter, he forcefully held it together with nothing more than his will. He could already hear Archmage Jenning’s voice in the back of his head admonishing him for being a hamfisted reckless idiot while yelling at him for screwing with things he had no business screwing with, but he persevered.

  He kept on at it until he began seeing a pattern. The moment he did, he began just pulling out the local essence, leaving the foreign essence all tangled up together. Every time he pulled out the local essence, he made sure to try and smooth it out with the relevant local flows that were all around him. He could tell that what he was doing was far from perfect, but on the whole, he thought he was doing a fine job.

  Of course, that feeling lasted about as long as a good dump before he realized he’d metaphorically just shit the bed.

  Without the corresponding amount of local essence holding it back, the foreign essence began pulling on the remaining local essence still entwined with it. The moment he realized what was happening, it was already almost too late to do anything about it. And if he didn’t do anything, a chunk of local reality would be pulled back through the planes along with the retreating foreign essence.

  Considering he was right next to the portal, along with the rest of the wackos, that outcome would be less than ideal. So, he needed to do something… anything.

  Scrambling for an idea, all he could think of was stopping the foreign essence from returning.

  Without any other options, he grabbed hold of the foreign essence threads that stretched out through the planes and pulled. He immediately felt like he was a fat guy trying to do a pullup.

  ‘OK. So that didn’t work,’ he thought to himself sadly.

  He could feel it… the local essence was about to snap. He was out of time.

  Unable to come up with anything else, he did… something. He wasn’t sure how, but his desire to cut the foreign essence off from its source was so strong that his mind became some sort of metaphysical blade. Like a knife cutting a string under tension, the foreign essence snapped.

  He felt it the moment it happened. Instead of just cutting one essence flow, he’d cut them all. In his perception, it looked like he’d snapped a 10-foot-wide steel cable. The side that was connected to the foreign plane shot off into the distance like a bullet while flailing around wildly. He wasn’t sure what would happen with it, but he knew it was nothing good.

  Almost as if the universe itself wanted to admonish him for what he’d just done, he got flashes of a courtyard the size of several football fields, filled with kobalds waiting to go through the portal. It was a mustering area so large that it boggled the mind. Around it, there was open space ringed with rune-covered towers which had been designed to collect and distribute the expected mountains and land that the local kobalds were expecting to eventually arrive.

  They’d done this before. They’d built their plane into a larger and larger world by stealing essence from other planes. The forces here were just to hold the portal and stop anyone from interfering. The hard part was already done, and all they had to do now was wait.

  Intuitive knowledge of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of what was happening poured itself into his mind with each flash of insight.

  But, Nero got to see what happened when their essence probes into another reality were rebuffed.

  It wasn’t an explosion. If he had to liken it to anything, then it was more like what he’d expect from a nano cloud tasked with destruction being unleashed without care into a population center. Kobalds along with their armor, the ground, the air, the towers, everything came apart. For as far as he could see, reality around the portal simply decided it didn’t want to hold together anymore.

  When the flashes finally faded, Nero realized his connection to the last of the foreign essence was gone. While a great deal of it still remained, something was happening to it… or with it. The local essence seemed to be incorporating it somehow. The big ball of foreign essence was unraveling and being folded into the local essence flows. The process was surprisingly smooth, and almost beautiful in a way.

  Before it was done with what it was doing, Nero felt something odd through his weak connection with his body. Tilting his metaphorical head in confusion, he slipped back through the ether and opened his eyes.

  While he was still surrounded and hidden by kobald corpses, what he saw when he peeked out from behind them was almost enough to cause him to scream ‘bullshit’ and ask reality for another ruling.

  What was once the former throne room had changed. Where the portal used to be, there was now a shredded mass of flesh and gore along with piles of rubble stacked nearly to the ceiling. The dimensions of the chamber had changed drastically, and what used to be a giant hall was now simply ridiculous in size.

  The only positive with what he could see was that he felt an enormous amount of soul stuff floating around in the ether. It was so dense, that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend how many kobalds had to die in order to create it.

  And even better… he could feel nothing from it… no remnant minds survived their trip. It was just free potential there for the taking.

  He could feel that the entire battle had paused, both humans and kobalds of all types stunned into silence by the changing circumstances.

  ‘This… This is going to be good,’ he thought to himself.