Threshold: Stories from Cradle by Wight Will

Author:Wight, Will
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hidden Gnome Publishing
Published: 2025-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

[Class Two!] Cirian’s Presence screamed. [Class Two Fiend, attempting to…contact…] The blue cube flickered, and Cirian felt its confusion. [Mental breach. Devoting focus to preserve necessary systems. I am sorry.]

The voice of his Presence vanished as it buckled under the Reaper’s mental assault, reassigning its resources to protect Cirian’s thoughts and the mental enhancement that all Presences provided.

Cirian would have found that more alarming if he weren’t fighting for his own life.

The streak of lightning from the Reaper’s nine swords lit up the entire world of Threshold. If not for protective measures worked into the planet itself, unleashing an attack like that would have boiled the atmosphere.

And Cirian took it on his own shield.

He braced the full might of his attention against the attack, and the Way crackled around him as it bent reality to keep him intact.

Cirian was lifted high above the ground, but he stayed safe. In theory, a Titan barrier was invincible, but “invincible” was a more flexible definition than most realized. The shield was based on Cirian’s own abilities, which would fail before the protective field itself did.

Vall had followed up while he absorbed the major attack, and she brought her own shields in for close combat. She lashed out, the shields of blue light slashing at the Reaper like swords.

Cirian didn’t need his Presence to see the problem. She had no Wolf rating, and ascendants from Cradle were all experts in hand-to-hand combat. Someone Ozriel had personally recruited into his first generation of Reapers would be unstoppable in a duel.

Before her first swing landed, Vall’s Presence took over the job of keeping the Abidan in contact.

[We’ll keep him tied down,] the twisted knot of rings said. [Pariana, lock him in place. We fight to escape.]

Cirian understood the plan then, though Vall was putting herself at the most risk. She saw that the enemy was more powerful than expected and had pivoted to share the burden of his attention with Cirian.

The Presence rated her plan highly until a white hand seized her wrist.

One of Vall’s shield-strikes had landed on the floating shields, but the other was seized by the Reaper. An instant later, he was beating her with hands faster than Cirian could track without the aid of his Presence. Shards of broken armor flew away from Vall in the first split second.

With a roar and a surge of will, Cirian shoved the bolt of shining lightning away from him and out of the planet.

Powerful the Reaper may have been, but Cirian was no stranger to combat. Nor was Vall.

A Ghost technique erupted from the gaps in Vall’s broken armor; a trap she’d laid in advance. Colorless tendrils slithered up to the Reaper, past his defenses, seeking to trap him in time itself.

Cirian stepped through the Way in an instant and struck with his shield, reinforced by a Wolf technique.

A black disc formed in the sky: pure emptiness reflected in the Way.

Vall’s Ghost technique evaporated, and the Reaper seized one of his floating, black shields and put his full willpower into a block.

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