Chapter 52
Relief fills me at her acknowledgement. At least then I will be the only one to die.
But then, staring right into my eyes, she smiles and mouths.
“No.”
That one word changes everything. The inevitability of my death becomes something unacceptable.
Because despite everything… Moe can’t die.
And in that instant, something inside me breaks.
The world distorts. Sound dulls. The cathedral blurs. Then sharpens…?
Something is wrong—utterly, impossibly wrong.
Because suddenly I do not merely see Eragon’s power.
I perceive it.
Every thread of shadow pouring through his hand appears before me not as darkness but as structure—as layers of woven force, interlocked currents, fragile seams and unstable joins stitched together into a construct of overwhelming complexity.
And within that complexity, I see it.
The weaknesses, the fractures, they’re running through the architecture of his power.
My breath catches.
W-what? What is this?
The answer comes not in words, but instinct.
Abyss.
The name slams through me like revelation.
The pressure of his domain against my chest no longer feels like an unstoppable force. It feels like a breakable structure. Something I can fight against. And with that, renewed hope blossoms in my heart.
His attack surges toward me. This odd confidence growing inside of me urges me to go against it instead of away from it.
My hand shoots upward and strikes the single weakest seam in the woven shadow. A heartbeat later, his entire construction collapses and Eragon’s power breaks apart instantly.
I blink, shocked that it actually worked. Despite acting on instinct, the thinking part of my brain is still in disbelief; still unable to fully understand what’s happening.
Eragon is equally surprised. His eyes widen in shock, his entire composure showing cracks for the first time.
He’s probably thinking the same thing as me: he was one second away from ending this battle.
I attack before he can recover—before shock leaves his face and discipline takes its place again. This new and strange instinct guides me through it all, telling me when and where to strike.
He jerks back. His shadows are back in formation, in the shape of black spears and all aimed at me.
My sight has changed—or at least I think it has.
Instead of weapons shaped out of darkness, I see threads, structures and converging currents of energy.
This is the architecture of his power, what lies beneath the seamless execution.
My body moves before conscious thought catches up.
I twist through the first barrage and strike the weak seam of the nearest spear with a shadow blade of my own.
His entire construct collapses into useless wisps of dark as if its foundation has been ripped from under it.
And when the next shadow spear strikes, I pivot and hit it in the same spot, effectively dismantling.
One after another, his shadows lunge toward me, aiming for a weak spot to finally deliver a deadly blow. But one after another, this newly enhanced sight of mine notices the flaws in each shadow. With one strike in the perfect spot, they cease to exist.
The crowd behind the barrier erupts in stunned cries. Some are now cursing Eragon for seemingly making them lose tokens—people are placing bets now? Some are cheering for me, the underdog, to emerge victorious.
My sudden solution to his attacks makes Eragon to finally snap. His previous calm is nowhere to be seen as he grinds his teeth and growls at me. “What did you do?”
If I knew, perhaps I’d answer him—if only to offer a taunt like he did to me before.
But I’m just as confused as he is. Every pulse of his domain is visible to me now, every activation, every construct, every place where his powers still requires balance and structure to form. And in turn, every flaw.
His power has not weakened—far from it. It is still monstrous, his spiritual energy alone ten times that of mine.
By all intents and purposes, I should have already been vaporized.
But perhaps the fates are smiling upon me today. And because I’m carrying Moe in my heart, I’m never going to give up again—not while I still breathe.
Eragon attacks in earnest, channeling so much spiritual energy, the atmosphere in the cathedral becomes suffocating.
Shadows pour from every corner of the arena, ripping themselves free from pillars and walls until the entire battlefield becomes a whirlpool of darkness. Blades, spears, tendrils, beasts—constructs of every shape surge toward me in a violent storm meant to erase my existence.
Instead of running away, I run straight into it.
Every movement is agony. Blood streams from my wounds.
My vision pulses at the edges. But I trust that instinct and let it guide me, cutting not at the largest threats but at the weakest seams holding them together.
Where conscious thought only slowed me down before, this newly emerged instinct not only saves me, but shows me how to be victorious.
One after another, the constructs collapse around me in violent bursts of disintegrating shadow.
He might possess seemingly unlimited spiritual energy, but for every contrast he forms, I destroy two.
Even out of energy as I am, I don’t need to expend too much to lock onto weaknesses and strike at them.
Where he’s using burst of energy after energy, I use only crumbs of mine—well, that’s what’s left anyway.
This back and forth continues for minutes on end. At first, I can see he’s hoping to exhaust me into not being able to move anymore. But when that doesn’t happen, it finally dawns on him that something has changed—potentially, the very outcome of this battle has changed.
Panic flickers across the audience beyond the barrier. I hear them shouting now, their disbelief crashing together in a wave of chaos.
“He’s destroying them—”
“How?”
“What is that?”
Even Lis has gone utterly still. Her face is unreadable.
Moe pushes at the barrier with both hands, staring as though she has forgotten how to breathe.
Eragon sees it too. He underestimated me.
Hell, I underestimated myself.
The more the crowd bashes him, the more his composure seems to break.
Then all his restraint suddenly vanishes as he shouts, “Enough!”
That word shakes the cathedral. A gust of wind tears through the space, strong enough to be felt even outside the arena as the crowd is pushed back from the barrier.
Eragon summons his shadows once more, this time, pouring all his remaining energy into this attempt.
The walls blacken and columns disappear beneath writhing darkness.
The floor itself seems to liquefy as his domain expands outward in a flood so vast it swallows nearly the entire battlefield, converging above him into something enormous—a towering mass of shadow and screaming faces and bladed limbs, a construct so colossal it brushes the cathedral rafters and turns the whole arena black beneath its presence.
I drop to one knee from the overwhelming pressure he exudes.
By the Seven…
In a way, this reminds me of the individual from the Lake.
My senses begin to falter: my breathing slows down, each inhale raking on the inside of my throat. Even my vision starts to swim.
What is this…
Within that darkness, Eragon’s shape is distinguished by a dull glow within muted shadows.
“You should have died quietly,” he snarls at me.
The he unleashes hell upon me. The entire monstrosity crashes toward me in a wave of annihilation large enough to erase half the cathedral.
My eyes widen. My body is in too poor of a condition to be able to avoid that incoming cloud of pure power.
But once more, that strange new ability within me manifests. Something swirls in my vision, and I see it.
Buried deep within that monstrosity’s core, something glints beckoningly.
It’s a small fault line, almost imperceptible even to my new sight.
But somehow, I know. It’s a convergence point where too much energy has been gathered too quickly, too recklessly.
It’s his weakness. And my chance to escape this madness.
I pull myself to my feet. My body protests. The wounds that had started to heal rupture again, bleeding profusely. Every drop of blood that falls to the ground is a drop of energy lost.
Still, my confidence never falters.
I glance at Moe and give her a small nod. She smiles uncertainly. That’s all I need to see this through.
The monstrous darkness descends at incredible speed.
Stone explodes all around me, pillars crashing to the ground. One shadows catches my side and rips flesh from rib. Another opens the skin on my back. Then a third nearly severs my arm.
Still I run forward, towards the belly of the beast.
Eragon’s eyes narrow at my daring move, his brow quirking in a mocking gesture as if he’s thinking I’m running straight towards my death.
Wrong.
I gather shadows around my hand, shielding my knuckles as I dive forward, aiming for the center. This strange new ability guides my motions in minute details as I strike at the base of the energetic fracture.
Eragon’s dark world detonates. The ensuing blast is deafening as his construct implodes inward. Every unstable thread of power tears itself apart at once and the entire mass collapses in a catastrophic surge of backlash that rips through the cathedral.
Eragon screams in pain. But the sound is cut short as the backlash hurls his body through the air like a broken doll. He crashes hard enough to crater the marble.
I land on my knees not too far away from him. I’m breathing hard as I also feel some of the effects of the recoil. My bones feel as though they’re one poke away from shattering.
Eragon is still alive, but barely. He drags himself upward, choking on his own blood. One arm hangs uselessly at his side, broken in a myriad pieces. HIs left leg is cut at the knee, laying in a pool of blood a few steps behind him.