Wahum appeared behind Malik with a spear.

CLANG!

He blocked it without turning, his stone sword holding firm.

But that block forced him to remove the sword from the glass, continuing his fall.

Seeming to have expected that outcome, Malik pushed himself at the last moment, falling onto another mirror, this one less fractured, enabling him to stand on it.

Unfortunately, however, another crack had formed on the blade, forcing him to push more Rukh into it to keep it intact.

Wahum blinked. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"...How are you—"

"Quiet, boy."

Malik turned and stabbed him in the chest.

But Wahum was already gone, his body dissolving and reforming ten feet away.

His smile lost some of its smugness, but his eyes gleamed with apparent understanding.

"You aren’t weakened. Your skill remains. It’s just that you have issues with holding onto Rukh. That’s it, isn’t it? You still can use your other Runes, but you’re just too afraid to use them in case your Rukh reserves run out!"

The snake-eyed bastard was both right and wrong here, though Malik wasn’t going to bother correcting him.

"How pathetic. An Angel afraid of a Class Five."

No matter the insult, Malik didn’t rise to the bait, prompting a frustrated Wahum to add:

"You won’t make it out of here alive!"

He held up a hand.

Every single mirror shattered, the floating shapes dissolved, and the strange world broke.

It ’broke’ into another, for suddenly Malik was falling through an endless castle.

Wahum fell with him, his body stretching and elongating.

His arms became blades while his legs became spears.

All four stabbed at Malik, forcing him to dodge midair.

Around them, the castle kept twisting, spiraling into an upside-down labyrinth with doors that led into upside-down hallways that led into sideways rooms.

It made no sense at all.

Malik hit a falling staircase, rolled off it, hit a falling pillar, bounced off it, and then landed on the back of a falling stone statue, only to ride it down.

A quick fire blast kept him balanced.

’This is utterly insane.’

Malik was barely surviving, but he didn’t say it, nor did he show it, just staying focused.

At the same time, a part of that ’focus’ was directed at Wahum, whom he never stopped watching.

The skeletal man’s movements were deadly, but there was a... tremor in his hands. A flicker in his snake eyes. His skin—what little of it was visible—was... cracking. Yes, cracking.

’Is his Holy Relic taking life from him?’

Malik’s gamble had succeeded.

One of his enemy’s cards was now visible to him.

But, of course, that didn’t mean that all had ended already.

Wahum appeared in front of him again, floating perfectly stable.

"Rukh or not, you’re quite durable. But you see, durability means little when your mind breaks. And without your full power, you’re just a man with a rock stick that is breaking."

Malik, without bothering to reply, kicked off the gargoyle he was surfing and launched himself forward.

A fire burst from both palms, rocketing him straight at Wahum.

Wahum’s abdomen split into eight long legs like a spider, each tipped with a blade.

They stabbed at Malik while he was directly in front of the skeletal man, and yet none hit.

Malik had twisted away from four at the last moment, blocked two with his stone sword, slashed one, and let the last slide off his arm, finally reaching Wahum.

But Wahum was faster.

A centipede-shaped extension of his spine kicked Malik away.

’...dammit!’

Malik spun through the air, cursing under his breath.

He crashed into a wall and then quickly used his stone sword to cling to it—the blade cracking again, even more Rukh pouring in—and launched himself back into freefall.

At that same moment, Wahum’s spider-limbs pierced the spot he’d just been.

Malik twisted through the air once more, raising his stone sword to—

SNAP!

Reality jumped, cutting off his actions.

The very next moment—

"Ugh."

He landed right onto a massive carpet.

Pushing himself up, he blinked.

"...where the Hell—"

Move!

That was his own instinct, and it was good advice, because the soft carpet suddenly bulged beneath him and erupted, spikes bursting up from it in rapid-fire rows.

A whole maze of black spikes surrounded him, all angled inward.

At him.

Wahum had repeated his earlier trap, only better and a lot more hidden.

Malik, now high in the air in the middle of it all, stared at the nearest spike and moved.

His stone sword flashed, cutting through the first wave of spikes. Then another. Then another. Fire bursts from his feet kept him airborne, dodging the ones he couldn’t cut.

But they kept coming, faster and faster, and Wahum’s laughter echoed everywhere.

"Getting tired yet, Sultan? Please say no. You’re quite fun! But I must admit—I’m disappointed. I expected more from a supposed Angel!"

Malik braced, withstanding tens and tens of spikes at once.

His arms felt like they were about to fall off, but he didn’t stop.

And as he fought, he confirmed his earlier finding.

Wahum was aging.

It wasn’t enough for mortals to notice, but he did.

Rather, as someone used to such change, he especially did.

The fine lines creeping across Wahum’s skeletal face were all he needed to see.

’No doubt about it. His lifespan. His Holy Relic is burning his lifespan to power his illusions two-fold.’

That was the catch. Every strengthened attack, every reality-bending trick, it was all being paid for with years of Wahum’s life. The more he fought, the faster he died.

’He can’t keep this up forever.’

But Malik didn’t have forever either.

His Rukh was low. His Shifting Ground was long since spent, used for the cocoons and the sword, which was only kept alive thanks to what little Rukh he had outside the Soul Glyph.

The blade in his hand was barely holding together.

He needed to change tactics.

Seizing a small stutter between bursts of spikes, Malik jumped out of the killing field and, once far enough, dismissed his crumbling stone sword.

No more figuring the bastard out.

It was time.

He raised both hands.

The peak Ember’s Touch Soul Glyph activated.

White fire erupted from his palms, a sphere of pure, devouring flame that expanded outward in all directions, boiling the air, melting the spikes, and turning the carpet to ash.

The illusion shattered.

Everything popped.

Malik stood in the real cave again, the walls glowing red from the heat.

Wahum was there, ten feet away, his body bleeding from a hundred cracks, his white hair now streaked with black.

"There it is... There’s the Angel. Finally—"

Malik didn’t let him finish.

"Fall."