by Dakota Krout
Tom fell over, his balance completely destroyed. He tried to roll to his feet, but in his haste, he forgot that he had no leverage and fell again. The armor drew back its sword, preparing to decapitate the half-risen man.
“Oh, abyss, no,” Rose growled as she launched a fat-tipped arrow. With the force enchantment active, the arrow flashed across the distance faster than the arm could swing down. The arrow impacted with a harsh gong sound, and the empty armor was knocked back several feet. Impossibly, it twisted again, landing on its feet and seeming to glare at Rose.
Tom hurried to his feet, glad the sword had only grazed him. He was bleeding freely from the head wound but still held a battle stance. “Can someone shove my arm back in its socket? I cannot grip nor swing a weapon as it stands.”
“Fall back, I’ll get it,” Adam called as Dale and Hans converged on the armor. Hans lashed out, scoring a shrieking line on the armor but failing to penetrate the metal. Dale began throwing heavy punches but may as well have been hitting a wall. He thought that the force enhancement Rune on one of his hands would be more effective, but the armor would pivot to absorb the force of every solid hit, its knee armor allowing it to fall to a ninety-degree angle before springing upright.
All the while, the armor was swinging its sword. This too was moving in a bizarre way, the arm holding the weapon rotating freely at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. This allowed for a dizzying array of potential movement, and the two fighters had to be very careful to watch the weapon as it was swung.
“Dale, duck!” Dale heard, dropping to the ground as an arrow passed where his head had been a moment before. The arrow whined as it impacted and bored through the visor of the armor, which subsequently clattered to the ground.
“You really felt strongly that I would listen, huh?” Dale took a deep breath as he stood up. “That arrow was… wow. Nice shot.”
Hans patted Dale. “You have good listening skills. Good boy!” Dale shoved the offending hand away with a chuckle.
Adam looked over, eyes widening. “Look out!”
Dale and Hans launched forward in a synchronized roll, barely avoiding the writhing darkness that had swung at them. Seeing what had attacked, they started sprinting toward Adam, who sputtered as he tried to cast a banishing Incantation.
The man-shaped cloud of evil was barreling at them, claws of hellfire reaching outward, when it just… stopped. Tom was panting, the only sound the men could hear. Dale moved carefully away from the extended claws, which had been inches from his eyes. He looked at the crawling darkness, noticing chains of violent, shifting light encircling it.
“Guys! Adam!” Rose shrieked as they just stood still. “Banish it! I have no idea how long that will last!”
All of them came to their senses, yet as expected, Hans was still the first to react. His hand dipped into his satchel, and a dart-like knife flashed between him and the consuming darkness. The dagger stopped inside the still body and began glowing quickly. With a paradoxical flash of darkness, the being and knife vanished.
“I knew those demon busters would come in handy.” Hans shuddered in disgust.
“What was that?” Dale looked at Rose. “How did you stop it?”
Rose sank to the floor, trying to catch her breath. Her hands were shaking from the adrenaline, but a wide smile stretched across her face. “You aren’t the only one in training, Dale. That’s a technique unique to people who can combine celestial and infernal Essence. It is called ‘bindings of chaos’ and is a last resort of sorts.”
“What do you mean?” Dale pestered her. “Does it take a huge amount of Essence to use or something?”
“Not so much,” she admitted. “It is just that… the uh, bindings? They will ensnare whatever they catch, holding it perfectly, flawlessly, for an… indeterminate amount of time.”
“What does that even mean?” Tom joined in, rotating his arm to try and reduce the pain of having it pushed back into its socket.
Rose flushed the color of her namesake. “It means that it will be held anywhere from forever to less than a second. There is no way to know for sure. Whatever is caught won’t be able to move, but the captive can still cultivate and think. It just cannot activate abilities or move on its own.”
“So it could be really useful or totally useless,” Hans clarified in a slightly freaked-out tone. “Next time we see one of those, we have demon busters handy, yeah?”
“Agreed!” Tom nodded fervently. “In the meantime, we should have this armor inspected. It has a repulsive feel to it, like bathing yourself in a latrine during midsummer.” He held up the breastplate of the fallen Mob like a person holding a dirty loincloth.
~ Chapter Fifteen ~
My aura was condensing down nicely. While I didn’t think the ambient Essence was being reduced, it was strange to have my senses diminished to this level. Right now, I was retracting my aura from the third floor, and a large group of Goblins had gathered to wish me luck with my ascension.
Bob stood forward as the last tendrils of my mind were flowing out of the floor, slinking down the stairwell. “Safe travels, Great Spirit!”
I sighed.
He bowed, a grin on his wide mouth. “At least once more, Great Spirit.”
I jokingly threatened him.
“Yes, yes, now we get to the whining portion of today’s talking.” He laughed as I started drawing Runes on the ground. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good!”
I was also a bit nervous. Until I extended my aura–my influence–again, anything that died in the dungeon would just… go to waste. Bodies would pile up, and the Essence from dying creatures and adventurers would just be released into the air. I really expected to have to give myself a thorough deep cleaning when I came back. Conversely, I was very intrigued about the heady power I was gaining as I brought myself to my Core. My aura was normally too diffuse to affect things directly around non-dungeon-affiliated creatures, but as I condensed, my aura started to become threatening.
I would bet that if I had gathered all of my aura into a single room, I could snuff out a D-ranked adventurer as easily as eating moss. Sadly, there was no way to test this, as people that weak didn’t bother to venture down this far anymore. Well. Almost no one, but Tom wouldn’t get here in time. My aura retracted along the walls of my labyrinth, leaving behind a sense of emptiness. Ick. I really didn’t like not knowing what was going on around me.
I caressed Snowball with my mind as I passed him, getting a sleepy look in reply. Eventually, I was in my Core room, alone but for the Silverwood tree. Soon, I passed even that. My Core was glowing with an intense light, brighter than I had ever made it. I looked like a blue star and would have blinded non-cultivators if they looked at me too long. Sinking into meditation, I focused on my cultivation technique. This next part made me nervous.
I opened the hole beneath me to a far wider degree, and instead of a stream of evaporated Essence, liquid Essence poured out of the reservoir and started replacing the water in my puddle. It didn’t take long–the water boiled away in a few seconds–but I didn’t notice through the agony I was experiencing. The liquid Essence was dangerous; it attempted to force its way into me, not wanting to follow the paths of my cultivation technique. I fought, hard, to force it along the pathways. Allowing it to win would mean my destruction as it ruined my Chi Spiral, entering my Core as a mass instead of a neatly ordered Chi thread. If I could sweat, I would have been soaked.
With constant force of will, I held the power back, only allowing it to go where I wanted it to, even as it started to sur
round me fully. Soon the hollow formed in my stalagmite was overflowing with liquid Essence. At least it would have been, but it was vanishing into the air as it left the confines of my rocky depths. It would be pulled back to my reservoir by the Runescript surrounding me, so I wasn’t overly worried about the loss.
As I worked to control this power–which I was only able to do thanks to long hours of practice and controlled breakthroughs of my Essence to this point–I sank deeper and deeper into my cultivation technique. Hours passed. I needed to meditate and retain control, which is harder than it sounds. I finally reached the center of my Chi spiral, and the hole in my soul that it hid. I passed through the hole, pulling a wash of dense Essence in with me. The hole widened, agony for me as my soul was stretched. I looked around, and even in this time of tribulation, I was reassured by the beautiful galaxy of hypnotic Essence this place was made from. In each point of light, I saw Dani and what she had done to help me, push me, and guide me to this point. For this moment. I steeled my will, and pressed forward against the mental barriers holding me in the C-rankings.
My Core, the physical shell that held me in this world… vaporized. I was awash in Essence, my soul bared to the ravages of the elements. Essence no longer had a physical medium to pass through and slammed into my cultivation technique from all sides, doing all it could to destroy my mind, my connections to everything I have created. The world seemed to darken as I was compressed, driven deeper and deeper into the pocket dimension of my soul.
I screamed in mind-shattering agony, an unprotected soul being torn asunder. As I was flayed, the realization of my fate if I was to let this continue entered my thoughts. I steeled myself and fought back! No! I would not be torn apart! I would not cease to be! I. Would. Ascend!
The world was instantly dark, and mercifully, the pain was gone. Oddly, as if through a veil, I could see myself still being slowly destroyed by the corroding forces of untempered power. It was oh so very slow though. I looked down and saw a beautiful mosaic of interconnected power. I looked up and saw a tower that was higher than the tallest point of my mountain. I tried to move and around me six paths of various colors appeared. I looked at the paths, and they seemed to be angled toward a floor above this one. There was no other floor in range of my sight, so I was confused.
I looked again at the paths, noting their color and feeling the impressions they exuded. The light that created the chroma for each differing option flared, and at their endpoints, they combined to create a globe of accumulated power. As I watched, that globe released a beam of light, creating a spiral that led higher. That light connected to the light from another, forming a new globe, in reality a ‘node’ of various combinations of Essence. Mana? Something else? Those pathways branched again, connecting, connecting, and connecting. The light reached higher and higher, coming to rest against the ceiling of the immense tower.
Each place the paths connected had created a node, and each node level with me was whispering into my mind. Luckily they were arranged in tiers, and the higher tiers were silent, else the whispers would have been overwhelming. I looked upward, trying to get my bearings, and the combinations appeared limitless. I looked deeper into the lights and smiled. The paths were not limitless. There was a finite amount of possible combinations. If my calculating mind was reading the combinations correctly, there were six factorial tiers, meaning seven hundred and twenty different levels of unique combinations. Each tier except the first–where I was–had exactly twelve options, meaning I had the affinities and control to choose one specialization out of… eight thousand, six hundred, and forty possibilities. Plus, of course, the six on this level.
For some reason, I was not able to stand at the highest tier from the start. I had to climb. Somehow. This proposition was troublesome for many reasons, but the most compelling is that the nodes made offers that were hard to ignore.
‘Come to me! I am healing and light. Your pain is over; ascend to the heavens and you will know righteousness.’ This promise came from the pathway leading to the node made purely of celestial energies.
I scoffed, and immediately ignored all the murmurs coming from the singular paths, and they went silent. They were the weakest laws of the universe, if the most individually pure. I wasn’t ascending to only reach for the basics! As I made this decision, I started floating. Oh? This is how I climb? I ignore the offers of the nodes? Seems easy enough. I’ll be out of here in twenty minutes. Tops. Twenty-minute adventure!
‘Come! Grow with me! Alter reality with the plants! I bring patience and encourage life!’ Another weak node on a short path piteously begged. I wouldn’t become a plant Mage! I ignored this tier of paths, climbing ever higher toward where true power lay waiting. Moving to the next tier drained a small portion of my Essence, and it continued to slip away as I was forced to interact with this next level.
‘Burn! Consume it all! Reduce the world to ash!’ The third tier, and already hellfire was screaming to me. I reluctantly swallowed, turning from this path of all consuming anger. After hearing all the other descriptions from the nodes, I was allowed to move higher.
Each tier took more Essence to reach, and each node called out with more compelling offers; the laws of the universe dangling hidden knowledge, secrets that hadn’t been seen in the age of mankind. But… I wanted more than these low levels could offer. If only I weren't forced to listen to all of the offers before moving on! My progress began to slow. At the halfway point, I was nearly trapped by my strong connection to the universal law of disease.
‘Rot the flesh from your enemies… let the world be born anew in the fertile soil they will provide.’ A dark grin was in my mind, and I almost, almost, gave in. Then I remembered the standards I held myself to. There was no way to outsmart a disease, no way to grow as a person from the loss that it brought to others far away. I steadied myself, and once again moved upward.
I climbed higher and higher, striving against the oppressive, universe shattering offers. Some of the ideas volunteered left me sobbing. They professed peace and wholeness of soul once again. I reached out… no! I would only take the best, for celestial sake! I turned away. I was weakening though, and using Essence at a prodigious rate. I tried to hurry.
After months of so, so slowly climbing the tiers, I was nearing my breaking point, listening a little too intently to the offers. When I had arrived, I had assumed that the nodes were just accumulated power. I was wrong. They were the embodiment of universal laws. Complex, immutable. They were also… alive, after a fashion. They had goals and personalities. I was only one tier from the top, but the laws of space and movement were tickling my mind, invoking my long-held fantasies of freedom and flight.
‘Flight? Why be satisfied with mere flight? I will teach you how to remove your bonds, how to move in a straight line, or not at all. Do you know what happens to a planet that hits an object that is not moving at all? The planet is obliterated. Why settle for such a lowly goal as flight?’ This law almost had me. I had taken a step on the path and was ready to take a second. A mental step. I still didn’t have feet.
Luckily for me, the whisper had made a fatal flaw in its attempt to ensnare me. I stopped, finally silencing this tier after a month of being here. I pulled myself up to the highest tier, the most complex laws that I would eventually bind my very soul to. My mind was on the verge of breaking; the intensive exhaustion I was feeling was trying to get me to pass on to eternal slumber.
I stood on the top tier and looked at the twelve highest laws I could attain. They searched me as well, and a few willingly went silent. These were the oldest laws of the universe, and everything below them was simply a dumbing-down of their intricacy, a single facet of their being. Only three still whispered, but each syllable was a planet’s population screaming for my
attention. The words beat against my battered form, and I nearly faded then and there.
‘I am creation! I am the brush that forms a line, the hammer that beats the iron, the chisel that shapes the stone. I am creativity, and insight, and thoughtfulness. To bring into the world, to make something new, is my purpose. Step on my path, join to me, and it will be your purpose as well.’ My mind was elated at this offer, and I went to joyously throw myself along the path. I was stopped mid-lunge by the next, a breathy voice.
‘I am love.’ I turned, waiting for more. That whisper had brought me to tears, and I didn’t even have eyes. ‘I am boundless, endless. I am what brings together others. I am the end to loneliness. Join me, and you will never be alone again.’ Laughing with happiness, I turned toward this voice.
An organic, disturbing mutter brought me to my senses. It seemed to be speaking to itself. ‘Loneliness?’ A sound followed, a laugh like feces hitting water. *bloop* ‘Loneliness is success. It means everything has fallen to you already, that you have killed them all. Bring all things to their end. Give yourself to me. Through you, I will reduce the world to nothing.’
I turned slowly to this voice, a voice I knew well but somehow had forgotten.
‘I am so much more. Madness is only the least of my names. I am the end of all things, the final destination of the long-lived. I am Kings and Queens. I am all things forbidden. Release me into the world once again, young one.’
I slowly shook my head.
‘No.’
I was startled enough that I nearly toppled over. Before now I had been able to silence every susurration. I looked over the other two, but Madness continued to breathe into my ear like a lover. I did my best to ignore the disturbing feeling.
