The sharp, echoing sound of boots pounding against stone shattered the silence that hung thick in the passageway air.

Pale light flashed from countless passing windows, tinged only subtly with the composite colour of the thousand mosaic fragments that combined to form scene after scene.

Each was a work of high artistry in its own right, but Dorian had studied the compositions before and found their beauty to be hollow. A gallery of perversions. Twisted re-imaginings of sacred ideals which – at their heart, stripped of the dogma and institution – the boy regarded as deserving better than such easy defilement and corruption.

As such, he paid them no mind as he raced down the corridor with all the strength of will his legs could channel, following the steadily growing sound of distorted singing. It wasn’t strength that mattered in this place, nor size, nor constitution. It was determination. Resolve. Versatility of mind.

Dorian gritted his teeth as he skidded to a halt at the entrance to the cathedral proper and beheld the titanic false seraph that loomed over the altar ahead of him. He’d had plenty of experience learning how to bend this world to his advantage, but, unfortunately, he was hardly the only one.

A strikingly human cry of pain broke through the demented canticle of the gathered congregation, and Dorian’s eyes soon found the source: a girl held high in the air between the seraph’s claws. The missing dreamer. He set his jaw and yanked the half-realised blade over his shoulder and into full existence.

The sharp steel glimmered under the flickering light of the cathedral’s chandeliers. Seemingly too long and too heavy for a young man of Dorian’s stature, the blade had once resembled that of a claymore, but had grown broader and more vicious in line with its master’s technique, sacrificing one of its cutting edges for a subtle curve and a serrated spine.

He set off into the transept at a hurried jog, eyeing up the cathedral’s architecture for ideas. Facing the false seraph in a fair fight would have been foolhardy. Usually he would avoid creatures like that altogether if he could, but someone else’s wellbeing was on the line here, not just his own. He would need to leverage stealth and distraction if he was going to stand a chance of saving her.

Very nearly missing a congregant on the floor that seemed to have managed to escape its cocoon, Dorian twisted at the last second, barely dodging the creature’s thin, grasping hands as they reached for his ankle.

A hurried, one-handed swipe of his blade coursed between the thing’s head and its neck, its emaciated body collapsing and quickly breaking down into a dark, dusty mist. Some of the others would have seen him now, but their hoarse cries of alarm were no match for the clamour of the remaining congregation.

Shrugging off the close call, Dorian tilted his head back and squinted up at the chandeliers. There was his distraction.

Continuing his jog and breaking into a sprint, the boy leapt for the nearest pillar and gritted his teeth as he made to kick off. This dream wasn’t his. He didn’t fully control it. All he had true power over here was himself and his own constructs. It was a limitation that became a little less rigid when his was the only will at play, but, with other wilful entities nearby, he couldn’t rely on anything in the environment to do him any favours.

Whereas, in a world he controlled, he might well have been able to fly or hover as he pleased, here everything was a battle between the rules of the dream and his own subconscious rules about himself. The leap up and across to the opposing pillar would have been superhuman in the waking world, but Dorian just about managed to meet his target, free hand and the treads of his boots clinging briefly to the dusty stone before he pushed off again and flung himself up, far above the false seraph’s head.

Twisting around as he sailed through the air, the boy took his last opportunity to press the world around him into his service before he drew too much attention to do so again. He put as much faith into the power of his sword as he was able, and stifled a grunt as he heaved the weapon’s flat side through the air between him and the row of chandeliers with which he was now in line.

An unnaturally strong gust of air whirled forth from the motion of his blade, washing invisibly across the dripping candles and extinguishing them as it went. The nave and the congregation were cast into a heavy darkness, leaving only the candles by the altar illuminating the apse.

Holding its prey aloft and midway through making to tear her apart to feed to its flock, the false seraph paused in its ritual – struck by the sudden darkness behind it – and turned to investigate. The monstrous creature’s grotesque, bone-beaked head tilted in puzzlement, looking anywhere but up as it presented the boy above with the target he had been hoping to see.

Dorian’s blade descended from on high like an avenging raptor, whipping through the seraph’s arm and emerging cleanly out the other side. The creature let out an ear-splitting shriek of pain as the sword cleaved its limb away at the elbow, leaving it with only one hand still holding onto the captive object of its ritual.

The boy landed heavily at the top of the steps leading to the altar, immediately forced to throw himself backwards and raise his sword to catch the wild swing of his target’s processional staff. Sparks flew as gold met steel with enough force to rattle the boy’s teeth. He slammed his off-hand into the flat of his weapon’s blade to keep it steady, but quickly backed away out of the staff’s reach as the seraph came in for a second swing.

A cry of surprise echoed out from the half-liberated prisoner, but Dorian was too busy keeping his attention on the monster before him to pay her any heed. One twitching, grey-furred arm may well now be lying draped over the altar, but the seraph still had three left, and that was more than enough to tear the boy to shreds if he wasn’t careful.

A swipe of claws from his left scraped down the length of his sword. He ducked low, quickly uncoiling and leaping over the same arm as it swept back to knock him off his feet. A satisfying spray of rotten black mist enshrouded the altar steps as his weapon scored a glancing hit before the arm could fully retreat.

‘Watch out!’

The unexpected voice pulled Dorian’s attention up and towards the captive, his eyes widening as he saw the full length of the false seraph’s staff bearing down above him, descending with enough weight and force that it would have surely crushed him flat.

He threw himself forward into the space between the monster’s feet, wincing as the staff made impact where he had been stood a mere second before, crashing to the ground with enough force to crack the stone underfoot.

Wary of spending too long tarrying by the creature’s sharp lower talons, Dorian redirected his momentum downward, collapsing into a backward slide as he passed beneath the false seraph’s age-worn cassock. His blade scraped along the floor as it trailed behind him, leaving it in the perfect position for the boy to run its entire length across his adversary’s ankle as he passed.

Another scream shook the air as he forced himself to his feet. His blade had made short work of the creature’s leg, and it collapsed down onto one knee. Preparing to leap up at the seraph’s now-lowered neck and deliver the killing blow, Dorian instead found himself tumbling through the air as the lowermost of the monster’s wings slammed into his side and sent him flying towards the congregation.

He let out a cry of pain as he crashed down into the pews, jarring his shoulder against the battered wood and knocking his head hard enough to leave him dazed.

The pungent smell of rotting seaweed and the feeling of rubbery fingers clawing at his body from all angles was enough to stir him before the surrounding congregants fully descended upon him, but he was still forced to cut down more than one of them in order to fight his way clear and out into the aisle.

Panting through the exertion and the pain, Dorian did his best to ignore the din of clamouring voices, as well as the sea of grasping hands reaching vainly for him from both sides. The false seraph was standing again now, leaning on its staff for support, and making its lurching way towards him.

His shoulder burned as he hefted his sword back in front of him and fought to focus through the disorienting throbbing in his head. He may have dealt the creature more blows than it had him, but the one hit it had got in on him had been a good one. The boy clenched his jaw. He didn’t have the strength to deflect another strike and, judging by the triumphant look in his adversary’s dark, twisted eyes, it could tell as much just looking at him.

The seraph came to a stop as it reached the front of the aisle. Leaning heavily on its good leg, the creature regarded Dorian for a moment before fully unfurling all six of its wings and raising its staff high above its head.

The boy winced, doubting his ability to evade what came next, and not looking forward to just how awfully it was going to hurt. He quickly glanced around. He needed an opening, but – surrounded by the congregation on both sides as he was – his only options were forward and back, both of which kept him neatly within the false seraph’s striking range.

Unexpectedly, as the creature’s staff reached its highest point, the seraph let out a gurgling squawk of pain, recoiling away from Dorian and seeming to overbalance as it did so.

It took the boy a moment to see the small blade glimmering in the distant candlelight, but as the creature’s captive plunged the knife she must have wormed herself free enough to conjure into the side of its palm for a second time, he realised that this was probably the last opening he was ever going to get.

The false seraph’s enormous wings flexed to keep it upright. It wouldn’t fall as it might have without them, but the brief moment of instability was all that Dorian needed. Summoning what was left of his mental strength, the boy pulled his oversized sword back toward his body and launched himself up at the monster’s chest.

By the time his adversary noticed his second wind, he was already past the easy reach of its talons, and the tip of his weapon was pressing at the flesh between its ribs. His aim had been shoddy on account of his disorientation, and he fell short of the seraph’s heart, but his blade sank in all the same, and the force of his blow was enough to overpower the efforts of its wings.

With an almighty crash, the false seraph collapsed down onto its back in the dead centre of the cathedral floor. Wise enough to know not to celebrate too early, Dorian wrenched his sword back out from between the foul creature’s ribs, planting his boots on its chest, and plunging it down once more, this time into the seraph’s neck.

There was a pitiful, gurgling gasp as shaking talons reached up to claw at Dorian’s side, before the creature finally fell limp, and, mere moments later, began its rapid decay into dust and mist.