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He wasted no time in accepting the offer. Immediately, a change began to take place. A familiar verve flowed through him. Ancient and powerful. The inky blackness of the Darklight enveloped him, both body and soul.

As expected, it was ferocious and hungry, but that, too, was no great departure from his own spirit. Whenever he embraced the Darklight on his own, it felt just the same as this.

The only difference was intensity. There was more now than he’d ever felt before. More than he’d anticipated, even.

This Kallmakk had harbored greater strength than he’d realized. In their multiple days of combat, they’d apparently not breached the true depths of its power.

Intoxicating.

If he had not already been possessed of a single-minded pursuit, this would have almost certainly been too much to endure. It would have tempted him to all sorts of ends, no doubt. To take its power and run free. Do as he pleased, the master’s will be damned.

Perhaps it also helped that he’d already experienced such indulgences. Already seen what fruitless ends they amounted to. Thanks to Ettol’s interference.

Yet another lesson from the Child Trickster. Koh intended to remember it well.

This slowed space was a problem, however. The merge was being slowed along with it. In order to complete it within a timely fashion, it seemed he would have to release himself from this place.

And frankly, he was not entirely sure how to do that. Moreover, there was the additional concern of the cage’s suppressive effects on his mind. The cage had not actually disappeared or diminished. He could still sense it all around him, clear as day. He very much did not wish to rush headlong back into it.

So he had to break it first, then release himself from this strange state of consciousness.

Hmm.

He felt, perhaps, that he could simply wish for it, and it would be so. There was enough dormant power here now, even disregarding that of Kallmakk. Power all his own.

Power that he’d been holding back, subconsciously, for years now. Decades, maybe.

Yes. Storing and waiting. Biding his time until a day like today. Even under Ettol’s influence, he’d managed to keep something to himself.

He gathered it up. Let it pierce his soul and embolden it. And then he made his wish known.

The cage shattered. Time moved quickly again. And the rage of his body filled his mind once more.