Lenna felt like she was coming apart at the seams. She felt like everything that was her was being stretched and diffused over an area far too large. It was like her skin was being pulled away in all directions, but it wasn't her skin, it was her soul. Lenna's strand of fate felt like a connection point directly down into the top of her spine and then into her core, that part of her was messed with by something that she couldn't perceive. Her strand of fate was disconcerting but not something that she had the spare faculties to think about. Her soul's integrity was being stretched thin until it covered nearly as wide of an area as Isaac's

Her cry of agony, the one that she usually stamped out in her throat whenever she was put into excruciating pain, echoed out through her mind and soul as she was being forcefully put into alignment with Isaac's soul. She could feel his soul trying to shrink and compress to keep hers from being stretched as far but it was a fruitless endeavor. Her soul was fraying as the soul healing that she had just gone through was rapidly undone in new and more jagged ways.

—

Isaac wanted to help Lenna but he had no idea how. He tried everything that he could will into existence but nothing that he tried to do actually mattered. Her voice, her cry of pain, was heard not through his ears but rather reverberated off of his very soul. Eventually, after what felt like hours, Lenna's soul finally fully meshed with his and he heard her whimper in pain through his ears. He also felt something strange, he could feel his own soul aching from the damage that hers had received and he could feel how much mana she had left in her mana pool. He felt almost like if they got close enough then they would merge into a singular entity but he somehow knew that it wouldn't actually happen.

Isaac suddenly felt very hot as his internal temperature continued to rise. He tried to open his eyes but found that he couldn't. He tried to move but found his body unresponsive. No, instead, all he was met with was fire. Rage, fury, searing and smoldering wrath. If he had been able to see, his vision would've blurred as the pure desire to destroy anything and everything threatened to overtake him. The longer it went on, the hotter he felt until it felt like his insides were being cooked while he was alive. It was the opposite of getting cooked over an open flame, his soul was cooking him from the inside out as it was tempered in the fires of Lenna's broken oath. Panic started to set in when every single part of his body started to cry out in agony and his temperature showed no sign of going down, or even stopping its constant rise as if it were attempting to reach the heat of Gia's core.

Eventually the heat and agony reached a level where his mental faculties just couldn't keep up anymore and everything faded to a brilliant burning orange.

—

Lenna had finally gotten through her ordeal when she felt Isaac start to be subsumed by her broken oath. She wanted to reach out to him, to try and help him brace and bear through what she knew was coming, but her body wouldn't respond any more than to let a soft whimper escape. Everything about her ached to a degree that she didn't even think was possible, but her mate was about to have a blood transfusion with a vat of lava and neither of them would have any say in it. She felt his soul next to her and she could tell that it was taking some of her soul's damage for her, but she really wished that it hadn't considering the ever increasing temperature as her oath rebelled at a level that it never had before. It was only then that she realized that they may have made a mistake. If only she could have reached level twenty before their souls were bound, then it wouldn't have been an issue. The issue in question was the rebellion of her ancestors at her actions.

No dark elf would have ever thought about merging their strand of fate with a human of all beings. Humans were below dark elves in every way but spunk and bad ideas. To willingly give a human nearly half of her remaining lifespan was idiotic at best and downright heresy at worst. They would not stand for it. Their anger, their rage, boiled and rose until it boiled over completely and she was forcefully given a level up while still conscious. The level hit her and Isaac at the same time and she felt Isaac's consciousness start to slip after an intense wave of panic. She wanted to yell, to cry out, to beg Lua to save him before he was scorched out of existence but she couldn't. She was barely still existing herself. Then, slowly, as if the goddess was trying very hard to be as delicate as possible, a slightly cool breeze washed through their souls, but mostly Isaac's, in order to answer Lenna's prayer.

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Lenna's relief hit her nearly as hard as the wish itself had when she felt Isaac balancing out and could tell that he was just asleep and would survive. It was not a feeling that she understood its origins, but she knew it to be true nonetheless. As the relief settled into her very core, all of the tension and willpower that had been keeping her conscious quickly faded and Lenna too lost consciousness.

—

Walter, and the others watching, all observed as the air itself froze over the ritual circle. Light of every grey shot up out of the spell sigil drawn out across the room. Isaac, Lenna, and Cainen were completely hidden by the blindingly bright light of Fate at work. Nothing happened for a long few seconds and then all of the red string started to lose its color. It only took ten seconds for the string to turn from a vibrant red to black and then for it to break apart and turn to dust. The scent of ozone hung thick in the air as a ridiculous amount of gold was entirely consumed by the spell. A few seconds later, the soft glow of moonlight intensified as it gathered into a visible beam that came down from the celestial body of a true divine being. Once the beam had reached a point where it could still be seen through the near blinding bright grays that shot up out of the ritual, all of the irises started to whither. It only took another few seconds for the irises to all fade into withered husks and then to be disintegrated as well.

A few moments later, the moonlight softened and then returned to normal as the gray light from the spell itself started to fade. In all, the entire ordeal had taken a mere twenty seconds. Once the lights had all returned to normal, there were three figures collapsed in the middle of the ritual circle. At the same time, everyone watching felt a dull ache in their cores and the weaker among them were even brought to their knees by the sudden wave of weakness. The amount of Soul Integrity Degradation that each onlooker took was the same, which meant that those without levels would be bedridden for at least a few days. The rest of them, the high level combatants and royals, all just felt like they could use an extra hour of sleep and a hot bath.

Walter looked over the ritual circle as he felt the last of its power fade away, he hadn't wanted to enter until everything was mostly back to normal. Everything was gone with nothing but a wide circle of black, gray, and white ash and scorch marks smeared across the ground. Xlen took a step forward and Walter took that as his cue to do the same. The two quickly hurried over to the three downed powerhouses who all laid unconscious. They were all still breathing so Walter wanted to get them all to the hospital or, at the very least, their rooms, but he stopped when he saw Shamesh. Shamesh was frozen in place, still animated, but he looked like he thought that if they moved then they and he would die.

"What is it, Shamesh?" Walter questioned Isaac's familiar.

Shamesh didn't answer right away and Walter was about to get up to go check on him before he tried to move Isaac or Lenna, but then he finally spoke: "One thread… so weak and fragile… and I am dangling from it over the abyss."

"Shamesh, what do you mean? Can we move them?" Walter pressed.

"Carefully, slowly." Shamesh replied in what sounded like a whisper spoken at the normal volume of conversation.

Walter nodded. "Can you get their stuff?" Walter asked Lord Ashborne with a nod towards it. "Shamesh, can you move?"

"I don't know." Shamesh said with clear worry in his voice. "I do not want to use too much mana or get any further from them."

"We need to leave them here." Lord Ashborne declared. "Bring Jina and Priestess Tina. Fill them in before bringing them. They may want some of their equipment." He ordered the two guards who had been watching everything from the doorway. Both of them gave him a respectful nod and left to fulfill their new orders. Lord Ashborne was about to take a step towards the middle of the room when he froze in place.

Walter, who had been looking in his general direction, caught the sudden lack of movement and it only took him half of a blink to realize that something was wrong. He instantly knew that the Ashborne patriarch had felt something was wrong and got on guard. Xlen saw Walter reach into his duster's pocket and rose into a ready stance. "What's wrong?" Xlen asked the other two maximum level combatants that were with him. Because all three of them were elves, they were all still working towards being in their prime, even Lord Ashborne who probably had less than a century left to live. He would probably hit his prime right before his health started declining from his strand of fate wearing out.

"Your Majesty, I beg you to reconsider." The Ashborne Patriarch spoke in a tone that was full of warning without an ounce of pleading involved. It was not a plea but a statement that if His Majesty the King were to enact his assassination attempt on the duo, he would not stand idly by.

"Your Majesty, these two are the ones whom the gods and the Last Fate Weaver decided were to receive a wish. Lua and Fate intervened directly to ensure its success, to attempt to undermine their divine plans would be tantamount to heresy." Xlen actually pleaded. "I will protect my ward until his final second in the realm of mortals and that extends to his investments." He continued and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Where are they?" Walter whispered with a first level spell that caught and brought his voice forwards up to hundred feet away. He only sent it twenty two feet to reach Lord Ashborne's ear and the blade dancer just subtly shook his head.

Lord Ashborne wasn't sure where the assassins were but he knew that they were present. He just hoped that the ruler of the kingdom would not be so short sighted as to actually try and assassinate the demigod and his mate who had just had their strands of fate connected. If Isaac was actually a demigod, and they both died, there was a decently high chance that they would both come back to life, together, inside of his divine domain. An event like that would spell the end of their kingdom as they knew it, an entire millennium before the next dragon surge was likely to happen.

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