Lightning Incarnate had already been activated, although I barely held this spell from fully manifesting.

I allow this spell to fully manifest, and I become lightning.

The bolt fired by Commander Rel passed through the space where my chest had been and struck the metal wall behind me, but it was deflected by the alloy without leaving a mark, sending a shockwave through the chamber.

I reassembled two metres to the left, inside her guard, so close to her that I was able to see every pore in her face, feel the heat of her body, and smell the scent of her soap.

My mind pushed all these details into my head as if to remind me again that I was going to kill a living, breathing human, and it refused to allow me to relegate them to beasts or call them bastards.

If I were going to kill, I would be feeling the weight of it in my soul.

Commander Rel’s eyes went wide and began to turn towards me. Her staff was still extended, the configuration dissipating, her body still braced for the impact of a spell that had not landed.

My right hand, still crackling with the remnants of the lightning field closed on her chest, above her left breast.

The body of an Adept Mage was strong and elastic, able to live for two centuries without any sign of aging until the twilight of their life, but the Celestial Marrow in my bones gave me strength that should not have fit in my frame.

I was tall, around six foot two, and I still had a few more growth spurts left in me before I reached eighteen. I was not very muscular, but that did not matter when it came to a body like mine.

The channels in my arm conducted voltage directly into the muscle, augmenting every fibre. Mortal Shell held the connective tissue together under the strain, and for a moment, my right hand glowed blue, with parts of it directly transforming to lightning.

My fingers pierced her field coat, her skin, and her ribs. I felt a pressure against my fingers, but the heat in my hand was so intense that the resistance turned to ash.

I could feel certain enchantments and passive defenses on her body, but my hands were literally lightning, and Commander Rel was not a particularly powerful Adept.

She screamed in pain and fear, a sharp cry that sounded too much like a child.

Then the cry was cut off by the shock of what was happening.

Her staff fell from her hand, and she began to claw at my arm, but her fingers were burned to the bones as she tried to grab my hand, yet she could not. In a second, she no longer had hands, just empty nubs on her wrists.

I found her heart, and it was beating fast; my fingers could almost taste her panic.

In my hand was the small hot engine in the dark of her chest.

Her eyes looked at mine, and there was so much inside them.

In the stories I have read, killing your enemy was so easy. You did not see the light slowly leave their eyes, or feel the warmth of their breath on your skin... you did not see that fear.

Count the graves...

My hand closed around Commander Rel’s heart, and the lightning that cloaked my fingers discharged into the organ, and for a moment, Rel’s whole body convulsed.

I had risen too fast, and I could no longer judge how much voltage was flowing through me, but even the body of an Adept could not take the raw power in my hands at the moment.

I could feel her heart struggling in my grip, denser than the heart of any normal human, and I gripped tighter before I pulled.

Her heart came out in my hand, still beating, pumping red blood that splashed across the metal floor.

The wound in her chest was clean; the lightning had cauterised it as I withdrew, and she did not bleed out.

She simply stood there, staring at the thing in my hand, her face gone grey, her mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land.

"If you can, remember this," I said. "When you wake up in your tent and the porridge is still hot, and the demons haven’t come yet. Remember this."

I held her heart up so she could see it.

"Because I told you I would rip out your heart. And I did."

Her knees buckled. She fell forward, and I stepped aside, and she lay on the metal floor with her chest open and her heart in my hand.

Her eyes were open, staring at me, and there was a profound lack of understanding inside them.

It did not take her long to die; she was not like me, who could struggle at death’s door even when my head was cut off... the loop had made me abnormal, and I had expected that others would cling to life as hard as I did.

I dropped the heart, and it landed beside her body with a wet thud, still beating once, twice, three times, then slowing, then stopping.

I looked at Rex, and his face was grim, and he had a calculating glow in his eyes.

"You killed her," he said. "A Force Adept, with your bare hands. I never knew you were an Arcanist, Magus Voss. It is no wonder you survived the demon and the Essence Dampening Ritual did not work on you. Are you a member of the Darkwatch? Did the Council suspect Caelith Mourne was already opened? Is that why they sent you?"

I blinked and did not reply. I began to slowly charge Lightning Cascade inside me. I may be too late to stop whatever was happening from taking place, but I could disrupt it.

Rex’s mouth curved at my silence, but it was not a pleasant smile. "You cannot stop the Harvest, Arcanist Voss. This body is not the only Focus; there are thousands more like him, and you would need to cross the entire continent to stop it."

I continued to charge up my spell, and the world around me began to turn bluish white. I kept mute due to the fact that I was learning far more truth than when I spoke, because I would not know the right questions to ask, and that was very important.

Rex’s eyes tightened, his face had gone lean, and even though it was the only part of his body that still had any skin left, the flesh inside was being swallowed.

"Voss, you are an Arcanist, you spent centuries to reach this state, are you going to tie yourself to a ruined continent and a falling Academy?"