The atmosphere in the lodge turned cold as Jake returned the Sword Saint’s gaze. ”Are you saying I can’t beat him?”

”That’s not what I’m saying at all,” the Sword Saint sighed and leaned back. ”But I do believe you consistently underestimate how powerful Ell’Hakan actually is. He didn’t take the second spot on the Nevermore Leaderboards because he was a good schemer. He didn’t manage to battle and earn the recognition of Valdemar’s Image in Nevermore through words and deceit. He did it as a warrior, and while he is certainly the slimy sort who loves schemes and spinning stories over direct confrontations, I don’t believe he is someone you can take lightly once cornered.”

”I’m aware he’s powerful,” Jake said. ”But that doesn’t mean I’m not confident.”

”What it does mean is that you need to go in with a good plan to ensure the battle plays out how you want it to,” the Sword Saint said as he turned to Sylphie. ”Let me ask you something, Jake. Do you believe you could defeat Sylphie in a battle?”

”Yes,” Jake answered, earning him an angry – but not disagreeing – peck.

”But do you believe you could kill her if she sought to do everything in her power to survive?” the old man followed up.

Jake frowned and thought about it only for a moment before answering. ”Well, I obviously wouldn’t want to cause her any real harm, but if I had to lean into your hypothetical scenario, then I wouldn’t be able to kill her easily without her escaping. However, I do believe I would win in endurance, so while it may take some time, I should be able to eventually catch up and claim victory.”

”What if she runs to that frost elemental Wintermaul and teams up with him? What if I, Vesperia, Sandy, and Arnold all choose to take her side and also seek to impede you? Would you then be able to kill her?”

”Yeah, yeah, I get what you’re saying,” Jake sighed.

”Good,” the old man said. ”There is no way Ell’Hakan doesn’t have a plethora of failsafes and trump cards to save his life should he ever be in deathly danger. He also has many allies. So, if you’re truly aiming for his head, you need to do it when the situation is right. You don’t just have to be powerful enough to beat him; you have to be capable of killing him without allowing his escape. And that’s a lot more complicated than just being the stronger party.”

Jake hated that the old man was right, but in his defense, Jake had considered this already. This conversation did make him think, though… Jake didn’t really have any way to properly lock people down for a long period of time. He could disrupt space with his destructive arcane mana, and he could temporarily freeze someone, but he had no way to stop someone with powerful escape skills from just running off.

”I get it,” Jake relented. ”This is part of the reason I would like to strike sooner rather than later. Once the universe opens up again, allowing him to escape to other universes, I see no good way to take Ell’Hakan down. I don’t believe he has many allies capable of protecting him in this universe, but the same isn’t true in the wider multiverse.”

”True, true,” the Sword Saint nodded. ”Now would be an opportune time to strike as long as you find some way to lock him down to at least a singular planet. Limit his pool of allies and potential escape paths.”

”We can’t do anything before communication opens up, though,” Miranda chimed in. ”You will definitely have to discuss all this with the Malefic One and get a green light to go ahead.”

”Yeah, for sure,” Jake said, Carmen also having said the same thing prior. Oh, and speaking of the Runemaiden: ”Hey, Carmen… will you have to ask Valdemar – or more likely Gudrun – their thoughts on the matter?”

”Not sure I’ll have to,” she shrugged. ”Probably even better that I don’t contact them at all. I will have to leave the planet before anything goes down for sure, though. Reasonable deniability and all that. It will have to look like I wasn’t in the know and that Valhal didn’t support this at all. Maybe we can even make it look like there was some disagreement or something.”

”I think the Viper will have more insight on what’s best to do there,” Jake said, a bit unsure. ”But, yeah, the Sword Saint had a good point; I’ll need some way to lock him down and not make it possible for him to escape easily. A way to lock down space or something.”

Arnold, who hadn’t really been part of the meeting at any point, suddenly spoke up with a suggestion. ”Have you considered using a Voidsphere?”

”I’m not sure where we would even get such a thing,” Miranda sighed, clearly knowing what the scientist was talking about.

”Can we even get any as C-grades?” Carmen also questioned.

”Ree?” even Sylphie chimed in as Jake sat there, staring at them, confused. He exchanged a glance with the Sword Saint and found himself relieved when the old man clearly also didn’t know what a Voidsphere was. Luckily, Miranda noticed the two of them and explained. 𝑅�

”Voidspheres are one of the best ways to not only stop someone from escaping but having a fight that others cannot intervene. Also, gods battling in the actual universe usually leads to catastrophic damage, which is why they tend to instead clash in the void. There, they can’t break anything, and no one is put at risk besides the ones fighting. From how I understand it, the Void Gods noticed this trend and began offering these Voidspheres that could be used to create a temporary void zone once used, and more than that, they would seal those inside for a period once the void zone was established,” Miranda explained.

”Last time I checked, mortals can’t exactly survive within the void,” Jake pointed out.

”You never truly make contact with the void,” Arnold picked up Miranda’s explanation to flaunt some of his knowledge of the void. ”A Voidsphere creates a boundary that seals within it a small interpreted representation of the immediate environment once used, creating what many compare to a separate space or dimension resembling the real world, but nothing more than a mirror of the real world. Once the Voidsphere runs out of energy, the boundary will naturally fade once more, and the void zone will remerge with real space once more, leaving not a single mark of its usage.”

”So, to summarize, you create a fighting cage for you and anyone else nearby when you use it,” Carmen simplified Arnold’s explanation. ”Breaking out of one is super fucking difficult. From what I was told, when using the most powerful Voidspheres, not even the strongest of gods can escape in a short period of time, and as these void zones are still separate from the actual void, they even prevent gods from fleeing to their divine realms. There really wouldn’t be anything better if you want to take down Ell’Hakan.”

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”Damn… where do you get these Voidspheres?” Jake asked, looking expectedly at Arnold.

The scientist returned his gaze and shook his head. ”I do not have any currently, and I’m uncertain of my abilities to create one capable of sealing in the Chosen of Yip of Yore. However, if communication with the wider multiverse does open up, I shall commune with Oras.”

Jake frowned a bit. ”I guess it’s worth a shot… but why did you bring it up as if we could easily get a Voidsphere? Aren’t they rare?”

”Extremely so,” Arnold answered. ”Creating one usually requires the corpse of a Void Dweller, with the power of the Voidsphere dependent on the power of the Void Dweller used. The version I would create would be nothing more than a weak simplified imitation that is far less capable but should still have potential.”

”… again, why did you bring them up?” Jake asked again.

”Perhaps someone had one,” Arnold answered nonchalantly.

”From where?”

”It could have had my sources,” the scientist just answered.

”Pretty sure you can’t bring items like that from other universes, so…” Jake muttered.

”I’m well aware of that,” Arnold responded.

Jake, knowing he was getting nowhere, turned his attention elsewhere. Because this topic did make him have a thought. ”The Court of Shadows must be frequent customers of these Voidspheres, or do they have some other way to stop people from running away?”

”The Court of Shadows has its own version where instead of the void, they use the shadow realm to lock away a section of reality. We can’t involve them in this matter, though, so we have to look for another solution,” Miranda shook her head.

Thinking on the matter some more, Jake believed that perhaps their best chance was a Voidsphere if Arnold could somehow make one. If not, they could always try with a classic formation. The problem with formations was that they were stationary and usually took quite a while to set up, and Jake had a hard time imagining a world where he could lure Ell’Hakan into one. As for making a formation disc or something to have one that could be rapidly deployed… yeah, Jake didn’t believe he was good enough to do that, and formations like that tended to be far weaker.

”I’ll think of something, but see if any of you can find a solution, and if you manage to make one, Arnold, I will definitely owe you big time,” Jake said, as he moved on with the conversation as he turned to William who had been silent so far. ”What do you think? About everything?”

William, clearly surprised Jake asked his opinion, took a moment to gather his thoughts before answering. ”I can’t really offer much when it comes to killing Ell’Hakan, but I do think you have to consider what surrounds him. He grows based on the bonds he’s created and has armies of faithful who would gladly give their lives should anyone go after him. Isolating him won’t be easy, and while his allies cannot measure up to the two of you, they cannot be entirely overlooked. Also… I may have an idea how to make him less likely to flee.”

”I’m listening,” Jake said as he raised an eyebrow.

”Ell’Hakan relies heavily on the Legacy of Yip of Yore to grow in power, using stories to amplify himself to get as strong as he is now. His legend is his Path, so what if you did something that could severely hurt his Path? What if you damaged his legend and the story he’s built for himself?”

Jake was listening as he was beginning to understand what William was getting at, especially with what he had been up to during the time Jake and others were in Nevermore: he wanted Jake to go after the believers on his planet.

”He has spent his entire life, way before the system, carefully curating his false legend on his homeworld. They truly believe he is a godlike being without any rival,” William continued. ”So what if you break that legend?”

”I thought you said their belief was utterly unshakeable?” Jake questioned. ”That even if I beat him, it won’t do shit as they are too deep in the sauce of delusion.”

”There are more ways to combat a story and discourse than arguing and proving it wrong…” William said, obviously not fully comfortable with what he was about to suggest. ”If there’s no one left who believes in a legend, does the legend truly exist?”

And some-fucking-how, they were back to discussing planetary sacrificial rituals. Or, in this instance, it was more accurate to call it a planet-corrupting ritual. The worst part was that Jake had already considered something similar himself. Not that he was going to admit that openly.

”Perhaps destroying an entire planet just to bait him into fighting you is going a bit too far…” the Sword Saint muttered.

”I don’t believe it is,” Vesperia decided to also join the conversation. ”From how these fanatical believers of Ell’Hakan have been described, they sound more like faithful drones of a hive rather than independent and free-thinking creatures. What do you think will happen when someone kills their king? That they will simply accept his death and move on? I find it far more likely they will strive for revenge until put down. Getting rid of them first seems like the most logical order of things. If it succeeds, it, at the very least, helps weaken the Chosen, and even if all it does is force him into a fight, that, too, can be considered a win. I see no obvious downsides to this strategy.”

The Sword Saint clearly didn’t like the suggestion but didn’t say more as he mulled on her words. Jake also sat silently for a while as no one spoke.

”I guess we can’t really do much before you discuss things with the Malefic One…” Miranda said after a while. ”Only make preparations should you get the go-ahead.”

”Right,” Jake nodded. ”Can you work on making a list of the hyper-faithful he’s gathered? It may be a good idea to also target some of those at the same time I go for Ell’Hakan. Also, if avoidable, we shouldn’t get into a direct confrontation with the Holy Church and their forces. With how much influence they already have in the galaxy, not being able to find a more peaceful way to make them fuck off or at least only get their own little corner of the Milky Way would be extremely annoying.”

The others nodded, and Jake finally also turned to Sandy. ”I may need your help when it comes to actually taking him down. If we have to chase him or something, I could definitely use a ride.”

”Sure, sure,” Sandy agreed, not really having cared about this meeting at all, but instead subtly used all this time to steal every single banana off the musa outside the lodge using space magic.

There really wasn’t more to be said after that. They stayed a bit longer to discuss some details, including other potential traitors on Earth and the people they needed to keep an eye on during this period, but honestly, Jake felt pretty certain that Ell’Hakan had no idea anything was being plotted against him from Jake’s side.

After another hour or so, the meeting was adjourned, and everyone left to return to their own matters and to prepare. Everything had to be done slowly and steadily and without raising suspicion, but they didn’t have too much time. If all things went well, they would make their move the second the Viper gave them the go-ahead. Maybe they would delay a bit if Arnold said he could get a Voidsphere ready, but if not, Jake had been working on something on his own already.

He’d been thinking for a while about the best way to take someone like Ell’Hakan down. Not just him, but anyone powerful, really. Jake knew that his Path was on the simpler side compared to someone like Ell’Hakan, so with a thought process truly in line with his Path, he had been working on a little something during this period of weakness.

Jake knew that his most powerful strike in the battle was pretty much always the first one. Protean Arrow, alongside all his other bonuses from Stealth Attack and whatnot, were all just ridiculously powerful, especially after Lone Hunter helped boost everything even further.

So, he’d thought to lean even further into that.

Down in his lab beneath the lodge, Jake went into a large room where he’d set up some extra barriers of his own to stabilize the space using his arcane energies, allowing nothing to leak. Entering it slowly so as to not disturb the energies within, Jake went toward the center of the room where a long object was floating.

It was an object resembling a Protean Arrow but still only halfway constructed. It was more complicated than anything he’d made prior, and the reason wasn’t the mana itself but what the mana surrounded. Because encased in the Protean Arrow Jake was constructing, a black spear-like weapon floated, giving off curse energy even in this stabilized space.

Jake was happy to see the structure he’d constructed still hadn’t fallen apart yet, and that Eternal Hunger continued to not prove a problem even while summoned outside his body for this long. He still had a bit to go, but he still couldn’t help but smile as an end was in sight to do something he’d hoped to make for a long time:

The Supreme Eternal Hunger Arrow of Instant Death.

… name still a work in progress.