Eric looked up at him. “You could have said ‘Lady Chaos-tainted soul.”
Tasio looked down at him. “You could have figured it out without me having to say anything at all.”
The two gods stared each other down. Then Tasio made lightning spark between their eyes, just because he could. He broke out into a fit of giggles and Eric shook his head.
“Zettai,” Eric said. “As a sort-of necro priest, she can track souls. We can bring her here, use her sickle to find Annala’s soul, and then send her back.”
“Already done!”
Kallen jumped out of the airship and bolted away as lightning. Tasio blew bubbles while waiting and arranged them artistically around Eric. The younger god didn’t rise to his bait, but his slit pupils showed his irritation. A lightning bolt struck the ship’s hatch and Kallen tumbled in with a tiny form in black. Zettai untangled herself and then hugged Eric. He patted her head and said, “Thanks for coming immediately.”
“Anything for you,” Zettai said. “Uh...I mean...You’re my teacher! So it’s student loyalty...and...what do you need me to do?” Kallen pointed and she speed walked to it. “Zeroing in on powerful spirits is part of my job now. Except... I’m not sure how to uh...use this thing...”
Kallen put a hand on her shoulder and watched the machine’s display.
“All you need to do is place the sickle on the side—yes, right there—and pray for the location of the soul to appear. Holy magic typically isn’t as complicated as academic magic, so you should be able to do it.”
Zettai muttered a prayer as directed and an ethereal black aura enveloped the machine. Its runes rearranged. A black color scheme spread over its surface.
“By overlapping the highest concentrations of mana, i.e. chaos, with the special soul wavelength generated by chaos priests,” Kallen was giddy as she explained the process, “we will have a much narrower scope!”
Points of light raced across the screen as the ship’s computer crunched the data. Eric fidgeted with his fingers and stepped in place as the seconds drew out. Kallen remained calm and focused, but when the screen settled on “ready,” she moved like lightning to display the result.
A single point of light appeared on the map of the Latlis Sea. The map increased focus to the specific area and then further to the specific square mile and then further still to the length of a city block. Finally, a steel and orichalcum pod appeared.
Kallen grabbed Eric’s arm before he could jump out of the airship. His arm became a grendel’s and hers became a chimera’s.
“Stop letting your amglayla hijack your pre-frontal cortex,” she said. “In layman’s terms, look before you leap.”
Eric took a deep breath. “Am I a sapient or a monster? Hope or despair? Where have I come, where will I go? The Trickster grins. The Trickster grins. The Trickster grins.”
Tasio was indeed enjoying the scene.
Now in a calm and focused state of mind, Eric said, “Instead of diving towards it, we’ll clear a path and land next to it.”
He pulled out his staff and focused on the area represented by the screen. The sea-blue light responded by pulling a square mile of water away from the pod. It took away all the fish and nereids too, so the latter would be less able to attack him.
“Wait here,” Kallen said to Eric. Then she crouched and hugged Zettai. “Thank you.”
Zettai enthusiastically hugged back. She wasn’t used to receiving so many hugs from so many people. She liked it even more when Kallen picked her up and carried her to the ship’s hatch. A bolt of lightning later, and they were gone. This time, Tasio entertained himself by turning himself into increasingly silly hats for Emily to wear. Eric laughed despite himself by the time Kallen returned.
A relieved Emily put Albatross IX down next to the pod and Eric bolted out of the hatch. Kallen beat him there by teleporting. All four of her true form’s heads examined the pod. Then her tail tripped Eric when he tried to rip the thing open.
“Wakarimas booby trap?” the snake head asked.
“You’re really cautious, aren’t you?” Eric asked.
“I’ve been on Order’s hit list since I was five,” Kallen’s green goat head said.
“The tricksters helped me,” Kallen’s golden dragon head added.
“Only when I could not help myself,” Kallen’s grey lion head countered.
“Finished!” all three of them stated. “First, we need to make a pillar so you can release the water. This could take a while.”
Eric bit back a retort because she was right. He was feeling fishy from using water avatarcraft on such a large scale. Switching gears, he pointed his staff at the ground around them and the airship, and a pillar of rock arose. It soon reached fifty feet above the waves. Then Eric released the water. With the waves splashing around the new rock formation, Eric and Kallen discussed their next move.
“If we try to force our way in, it will blast us with Annala’s own power.”
“Her divine chaos power?” Eric asked. “The power that can kill anyone, including newly immortal gilded spirits like ourselves?”
All three forward heads nodded.
“Cheap immortality...What else?”
“The pod might shrink while blasting us, which would compress Annala into ever smaller spaces.”
Eric slouched. “Nothing’s easy anymore. I don’t suppose there’s some kind of interface?”
“None.”
“Could we bypass the walls in our spirit forms?”
Kallen shook her heads. “Chaotic energy is used to ward this thing. Mere souls aren’t getting in or out.” She returned to human form and pulled her scry out of her pocket. “I’m calling Nunnal. She might be able to figure something out.”
Only one beep passed before Nunnal picked up.
“Hey, Mom. Good news and bad news. The good news is that we’ve found Annala. The bad news is that she’s trapped in a prison pod.” Her scry sparked and exploded. “She’s coming.”
BOOM!
An explosion of space between the two tossed their hair and rustled their clothing. An elven woman stood in their midst and everything from her hair to her shoes was stained black with soot. Her clothes were smoldering. She patted them out and shook herself.
“Is this it?”
Her voice was deadly serious. They nodded and Nunnal began her examination without another word. She sat a backpack next to the pod and pulled an endless stream of equipment out of it. Eric hadn’t the foggiest idea what they did, but he imagined they were either scanning or safe-cracking devices. Finally, she threw up her arms and shouted, “Abyss take you, Gunrai! May Order damn your soul to eternal and mindless servitude! May Chaos erase your vile existence! The foulest level of the torment plane of Pox is still too good for such abhorrent scum!”
Then she fell to her knees and wept. Kallen hugged her and reminded her that she was a brilliant scientist despite this failure. Eric took it upon himself to find the next solution. He dialed the number and sidestepped the blade of a scythe without looking. Then he caught the blade by the shaft and tugged it out of its surprised owner’s grasp.
“Give it back!” Gruffle demanded.
He lunged for it and Eric sidestepped again, and with each step, Eric struck the ground with the scythe. After five rounds of this, Eric lifted the scythe high over his head and Gruffle found himself in the middle of a dark fire magic circle. He had time for a single curse before it fried him and his screams were music to Eric’s ears. Eric tossed the scythe into the sea just in time for Kasile to pick up.
“Eric? Why are you using a magical line?”
“If I used our private line, then you would feel the tremendous amount of hatred and frustration I feel right now, and I didn’t want to burden you.”
“That’s considerate of you. What’s the problem?”
“I need your ordercrafters to get my girlfriend out of an ejection pod that Kaiba Gunrai trapped her in.”
“Send me the data and I’ll
ask Kimberly if her team can do it,” Kasile said.
“Sure,” Eric said. “If you could put a rush-delivery priority on this, I’d appreciate it.”
“Where are you?”
“On a self-made pillar in the middle of the Latlis Sea.”
“I can’t send my team so far away on a favor. There’s the safety of my realm to consider.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eric said. “Kallen can bring them out here and back in seconds. I just need to know if they handle this or not. I’ve seen them at work and they work fast. It’ll be five minutes tops, and you’ll still have that scary sentinel of yours.”
“You love having a queen for a friend, don’t you?”
Eric cracked a smile. “It comes in handy.”
“Fine. Send Kallen and...You weren’t kidding! She’s in the room with me right now.”
“Hi, Eric!” Kallen said over the scry. “I’ll grab the ordercrafters and be back in a flash.”
Not a minute passed before lightning struck the pillar and Kallen stepped out of it with Ataidar’s Royal Ordercrafter Security and Compliance Team. Kimberly issued orders to her subordinates and they obeyed at once. After four minutes, they made their report.
“Mr. Watley,” Kimberly said, “the summary of my subordinates’ findings is that while we have the ability to disarm this pod, we lack the strength. It is powered and protected by a shade of the highest level of divinity as well as mortal clerics outside of our jurisdiction. It would be like cutting through plate mail with a butter knife. All I can do is give you our sympathies.”
“Thank you for your help.”
Kallen took them back and, as soon as she returned, she said, “Tasio, we are officially out of options.”
“FINALLY!”
Tasio’s form shimmered and his clothing shifted into robes of the purest white. They covered his hands and swamped his feet. The only visible skin was his face, and that too was bleached. Only his eyes and hair retained their golden-brown color and they stood out all the more. Now in his guise as The Formless Beginning, Tasio placed his hands on the pod.
Intense beams of golden-brown washed over it and equally intense white mixed with it. The pod’s mechanisms didn’t have a chance to react. The conflict, if it could even be called that, lasted only a moment. Tasio returned to his standard guise and said, “All done. This pod is nothing but scrap metal now.”
“Thanks.”
Eric transformed into a grendel. Then he punched both fists through the pod’s walls and tore them apart. Inside was his precious maiden. She looked so delicate in her sleep, and so vulnerable in her spread eagle position. Gingerly, he entered the pod, snapped the remaining physical restraints, and then lifted her into his arms. As a human, he carried her out of it.
“Annala,” he whispered. “Annala, wake up.”
She didn’t so much as stir.
“Annala! Please wake up!”
She still didn’t respond.
“She can’t be... We found her by tracking her soul. She’s still here. Still alive. What do we do now?”
He directed his question at Tasio, who shrugged. “I’m not a healer. I truly don’t know what to do about this.”
He turned one of his arms into an ax and brought it down on Eric’s head. Eric sidestepped and the ax cleaved Gruffle in two. The reaper poofed again. Eric frowned at the new black spot on the pillar.
“I usually get more time between Gruffle attacks...”
“Give her to me!” Nunnal demanded. “You’re a target!”
“You’ll have to pry her out of my cold, dead, fingers.”
Nunnal shifted her arms into swords. “That can be arranged!”
Kallen jumped between them and pushed her barrier out as far as it would go. Pointing towards Nunnal, she said, “You need to sleep.” Pointing towards Eric, she said, “You need to calm down. Eric can carry her inside the ship while Nunnal helps me watch for Gruffle.”
Eric was already on his way in. He lowered Annala onto the bed in the back and tucked her in with all the tenderness as if she were a porcelain princess. He stroked her hair and whispered her name, hoping for some reaction. At last, she smiled and leaned into his hand. With a smile and renewed resolve, he joined the rest of the party in the cockpit.
“We’re going to the best healers on the planet and we’re going to make them drop whatever they’re doing.”
Emily stared at him, speechless. Tasio elbowed her ribs. “Jealous?”
She scoffed. “You should know better.”
BOOM!
A beam of kon blasted through the hull of Albatross IX and all its wards. There was only an instant to react. Kallen shielded Emily. Nunnal jumped to the bedroom to shield Annala. Eric, its target, shielded himself. His barrier was now divine in nature, but his arms still stung from taking the full blast. Floating outside the hull was an ominously glowing Gruffle.
“Knock knock, Eric.”
He zoomed inside to strangle the boy. Eric deflected his hands upwards with his own and then pushed him away in the next motion. His right hand plunged the chaos claw into the reaper’s chest. It made him howl, but he didn’t poof, so Eric fired a mana beam through the chaos claw. This forced him out of the ship, but he still didn’t die.
“You’re as tenacious as ever, Grunt,” Eric said as he jumped out of the ship.
“I’m death.” Gruffle’s eyes shined red with his hatred. “You can’t stop me! No matter how many times you kill me, I’ll keep coming back!”
Again, he zoomed toward Eric, and this time with his scythe cocked and ready. Eric barely had time to dodge, let alone counterattack. Gruffle spun in the direction of his swing and struck Eric in the stomach with the scythe’s butt. This set him up for another slash. It clashed against Eric’s barrier. He pressed forwards with a jab from the end of the shaft and then another slash. He repeated this combo over and over; too fast for Eric to evade every blow. Even after he memorized the pattern, there was no gap large enough for him to exploit.
Tasio rushed to his aide, but Samael appeared in his path. Without pause, he swung his ax arm at her head. Just as fluidly, she grabbed his arm and tossed him aside.
“Listen to me, Trickster King. If you do not interfere with this final battle, then Lord Death will reinstate the Trickster’s Choice Immunity. Gruffle may then be killed with impunity and Eric Watley will never again fear reprisal from reapers or death clerics.”
“Are you going to help Gruffle?” Tasio asked.
“The two of us shall be bystanders. If you interfere anyway, then Lord Death himself will come to even our odds.”
Tasio grit his teeth. “Eric...kick his butt!”
Gruffle was damaging Eric’s barrier faster than it could heal. Large gashes appeared and they grew deeper and more numerous by the second. Eric tried to exploit an opening and his right hand was cut off for his trouble. Gruffle’s eyes flared and his smirk stretched at the triumph
“Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley. Kill Eric Watley.”
Kallen threw white fire at him, but he ignored it. His own divine barrier protected him from it. Kallen increased the intensity and Nunnal pulled out an enormous magic gun. Their united assault cracked his barrier. Then Gruffle unfurled his spirit enough to floor them and knock Emily unconscious.
“He is empowered by the kon that clerics of Momento Mori all over the world have collected in the last two and a half local months,” Samael explained. “I commandeered it on his behalf. He is more powerful now than he has ever been. It is only a matter of time.”
Eric’s barrier shattered. He blocked with his staff, ducked his head, sidestepped a strike, and prepared for the next attack, but it didn’t come. Gruffle swept his feet instead. He landed hard and Gruffle rushed in for the kill.
At that moment, Annala woke up and shouted. Her eyes blazed golden-brown light and the area was encompassed in a Chaotic Zone.
&
nbsp; Chapter 18: This is My World and I am Its Goddess!
Eric opened his eyes onto a gilded world. The sky above him was a golden canvas. The grass he lay in was soft gold and the trees around him were works of golden art. Hanging from their branches was golden fruit. He could see puddles of gold water nearby.
He rubbed his eyes and it remained the same. He wanted to look around, but the urge to lie asleep was stronger. Laziness overcame curiosity. That struck him as odd; a spirit feeling fatigue? He left his body behind, but the feeling remained. In fact, now it was acuter. Then he realized that it wasn’t fatigue at all. It was tranquility.
He felt at peace in this area. There was nothing he needed to do: no missions to take or quests to undergo. He could rest forever and never become bored or uncomfortable.
“Is this Elysium?” he asked aloud. “Did Gruffle finally kill me?”
No one answered. He was alone in the gold-plated countryside.
“Tasio! Tasio! Tasio!” Not even the trickster god appeared. “Either you’re being contrary or you really can’t hear me. If not for recent events, I’d be inclined to think it were the former.”
He floated to the edge of the area only to find himself back at his body. He floated in another direction and arrived at the start again. Returning to his body, and fighting off drowsiness, he started walking in a third and then a fourth direction. Always, he returned to the spot he marked.
“A loop in space...Someone is trying to keep me here.”
The air in front of him shifted and a golden-brown wolf appeared. Eric smiled and waved. She pounced on him, knocking him down. Now that she had him pinned, she licked his face.
“Get off...I thought you were a wolf, not a dog.”
Perrault shifted into her wolf girl form and sat next to Eric. “I’m neither, but that’s not the point. I’m here to put your fears to rest.”
She made a sweeping gesture across the landscape. “This is your sanctuary. No one can reach you here. Death himself is forbidden and so Gruffle’s Final Wish will go unfulfilled.”
Transcending Limitations Page 52
