Caster turned his head to look at her. His face was a mask of pain and terrible, dark power. His eyes were half-black. The humanity in his face was slipping away, buried under the heavy, cold weight of the Ash Plane."I cannot stop," Caster growled. His voice was changing too. It sounded deeper, layered with the same grinding sound that the golems made. "If I stop... they break the shield. They take the children.""If you keep casting those runes, the Warden wins!" Lysane cried. She slammed her hands against the inside of the white dome. She wanted to pull him inside, but she knew the golems would follow. "You are pulling the Ash Plane directly into your own heart! It is eating your humanity!"Caster looked at his trembling, black hands. He could feel the cold, absolute intelligence of the Warden pressing against the inside of his skull.Let go, the voice whispered. You are tired. You are broken. I am the law. We are one.Caster closed his hands into tight fists. He looked back at the

When Caster accepted the memories, the second wave hit him. Entropy is the law of nature that says everything must eventually break down. It is the law that turns mountains into dust. It is the law that makes iron rust, wood rot, and stars die.The raw entropy flooded into Caster’s body.He felt his own physical cells screaming. He felt his bones trying to turn to powder. He felt his blood trying to freeze into solid black ice. The cold was so absolute, it burned worse than a raging fire.He felt the dust of a billion dead planets. He tasted the ashes of burnt forests."Break me, then," Caster thought. "If I must break to hold you, then break me."The entropy rushed into his chest.Every Tower mage is born with a mana core. It is a small, invisible engine of blue light near the heart. It is the muscle that pumps magic through the body.Caster’s blue mana core had been small and tired for many years.When the raw entropy of the Ash Plane hit his blue mana core, the core could not hold

Caster Spellbound floated down from the high mountain peak. He did not fall. He did not fly like a bird. He simply told gravity that it did not apply to him anymore, and gravity obeyed.He was a pillar of pale, inverted fire. The bright white flames cast deep, pitch-black shadows across the dark blue stone of the mountain. Behind him, the forty-nine giant Ashbound Sentinels marched in perfect silence. Their heavy stone boots crushed the rocks, but they did not make a single sound. They were completely bound to Caster’s new, terrifying will.As Caster descended toward the dying capital city, the world around him began to warp and change.His presence was no longer human. He had opened his soul and drank the raw power of the Ash Plane. He had become a walking dimension. And reality did not know how to handle him.A massive chunk of broken white marble, the size of a wagon, fell from the splitting Sage Tower high above. It tumbled through the dark air, spinning violently, heading straig

"I see it now," Caster whispered into the empty air. He sent his final thoughts up the orange rope to Lysane. "Lysane. The Tower forced the magic to stay awake. The Warden just wants the magic to sleep."“What are you talking about?” Lysane asked frantically. “Caster, focus! The core is about to blow!”"If you fight a river by building a dam," Caster explained, his mind perfectly clear and perfectly calm, "the water builds up. The pressure grows. Eventually, the dam breaks, and the flood destroys the whole valley. That is what Archmage Vane did. That is why the core is going to explode."Caster raised his hands. The pale white fire burned brilliantly against the dark sky."But you do not have to fight a river," Caster said. "If you dig a new trench... if you give the water a safe path to the ocean... it will flow exactly where you want it to go. It will not destroy the valley. It will just find its rest."“Caster, you are running out of time! Your soul is collapsing!” Lysane screamed.

"The Runic Inversion Sigil must be alive," Caster said. "It must be written in motion. It must spin."Lysane understood. Her brilliant mind grasped the complex math instantly. "A three-dimensional rune. A living gear made of magic.""Yes," Caster said. "And I am going to draw it right now."He stepped into the exact center of the blue stone platform. He stood directly under the broken brass telescope. Above him, the stars shone brightly.Caster raised both of his arms. He spread his fingers wide.He was going to do the impossible. He was going to rewrite the oldest law of nature."I need three things," Caster said. His grinding voice echoed across the mountain peak. "I need an anchor. I need a counterweight. And I need a stabilizer."Caster closed his eyes."First, the anchor," he declared.He reached into his own chest with his mind. He grabbed the new, pitch-black diamond mana core that he had forged from the Ash Plane. It was heavy. It was unbreakable.He pushed the power of his bl