ALL NOVEL Chapter 393 - Heroes never die. They only ascend.
“Intruders have penetrated our inner sanctum! Hunt them down at once!”
The corridors rang with the roars of Ogre Magi and the snarls of elite kobhold kill-squads as panicked goblins barked desperate commands beside their madly blinking electromana consoles as the air filled with the ozone stench of discharged plasma cannons and death flashed through the air.
“Don’t look! It will blind you!” Howled one desperate voice as flickering after-images of transcendent flame seemed to leave great big gaping holes in reality itself, causing more than one goblin to shriek as its mind was inundated with twisted realities and incomprehensible concepts before tearing out its own eyes, banging its head against multiple banks of monitors as death coldly walked the corridors, impossible fires flickering from the blade it held in a two-handed grip, a squeaking bone carriage rolling of its own volition right behind him.
“Enemy spotted!” Roared an ogre fully kitted in power armor, raising a Tier-3 Hyperion minigun with absolutely no regard for the shrieking goblins tripping over their own robes in a desperate effort to flee the area before they were chewed up and spat out by Bronze-tier plasma fire.
Then there was a brilliant flash, cutting through the room. An awful scream, as if reality itself was snapping back from awful compression, and the massive ogre’s body flaring with higher order concepts of Fire and Ice a split second before it exploded in frigid shrapnel that tore into the ranks of the snipers behind their armored guardian, before they too were cleaved neatly in half in sprays of flame so hot that reality itself bucked and shivered as ice more frigid than the deepest reaches of ancient space tore through the endless cubicles of bureaucratic nightmares that Eric found himself in.
Countless thousands of documents radiating the foul magics of entrapment and dominion fluttered through the air, before erupting in colorful flashes of flame and fleeing souls as Eric whispered words that sent panicked goblinoid barristers shrieking about breaches of contract as they were set ablaze by their own incinerated legalese, the battleship-grade soul-steel of which the entire citadel was made warping and cracking under the weight of Eric’s whispered words, carefully modulated to do nothing to the precious carriage or the cargo it held, even as the entire citadel began to thrum with the weight of so many trapped souls locked in torment, desperate to break free.
“There he is! Malice has given the order! The night is over, the girl must also be—”
“Repudio.”
A simple word resonating with higher order concepts of Dominion.
Transcendant Abjuration immediately showed the weakness of Malice’s corruption when the massive steel girders over the quartet of power armored mercenaries gave out with a sudden creak and countless tons of soul steel raining down upon the final handful of guardians Eric’s spiritual interface spotted before the grand sweeping corridors of gaudy excess and gilded greed gave way to ancient decrepit halls that spoke of filth, decay, and rotting things.
“Quarter, Quarter!”
Eric gazed coolly down at the massive pile of shattered soul-steel girders and bitter sharp spikes of brittle decay that had sheered as sharply as bitter souls finally fleeing torment, absolutely perforating the Excelon-Class power suits his erstwhile foes had been wearing.
Eric and his stroller moved effortlessly past the massive mound of doomed mercenaries, even when cries for quarter became desperate pleas for help, their power suits being crushed by the impossible weight they were buried under, sensors and nodal skills all that allowed them to sense Eric’s passage… and he was more than content to leave them to their fate.
For his prize wasn’t the men even now wheezing their last, but the monster down the decrepit maintenance corridor that tried to twist out of his sight entirely… before a whispered word shattered the illusion and Eric’s measured walk became a desperate run, all too painfully aware that they were all running out of time.
***
“Come, Aurelia. Why do you hesitate? Our child is safe and as pristinely innocent as the day he was born! All his excesses of the last couple centuries, ha ha, forgotten with the Gold tier treasure he consumed of his own volition!
Malice’s melodious chuckle echoed through his inner sanctum, ancient skills and charm at last asserting itself after countless centuries of neglect. Eyes that were strangely gentle gazed fondly upon his wife and child in the center of that chamber now filled with gentle mist and the memories of happier times.
Gentler times.
Promises made ages ago.
“And promises that can now be kept. Don’t you see, Aurelia? All this, I did for you. You and our child! For only now are you strong enough to care for our beloved firstborn son. Only now can you give him the foundation, the strength he needs to survive the nightmare crucible that our existence all too often is.”
Of the ancient decrepit nightmare of a rotting corpse, there was no trace. In its place stood a powerfully built man wearing form-fitting silks with a silver swept rapier at his hip. He then favored the young woman before him with the gentlest smile any girl could wish upon the countenance of her lover.
His appearance was striking, flawless. The handsome lead that every director hungered to have on his set, and countless starlets ached to have in their bed with his charming, roguish smile, and only the slightest grey tinge to his perfect skin the only sign that he was anything other than a strikingly handsome man, or perhaps a High Elf a single generation removed with the slightly muted points to his ears. And by the time one noted the silvery horns on his head, hidden by the curls on his brow, one was all too likely already being swept up in passion’s embrace.
“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”
His smile was both mischievous and rueful, his powerful hand reaching to caress the shoulder of the once blazing ember that could have obliterated him in a heartbeat… before somehow becoming a wide-eyed young woman, hardly more than a girl, gazing down upon her newborn infant.
Sensing with both awe and wonder the absolute sincerity of her husband’s words.
The little boy before him was indeed pristine and perfect, his soul glowing with a soft golden light as he smiled up at his mother’s cooing form.
“Valiant,” whispered the young woman, clearly younger even than Eric, now racing for all he was worth through overlapping corridors of misdirection and nightmare. Aurelia now looked as young as Elonia had, just a few short years ago, when predators had first shattered her innocence. And by some immutable law of transcendence, Aurelia now WAS that young. This truth somehow becoming the only truth, countless thousands of years of strife and struggle merely a nightmare, an awful dream she was finally slipping free of.
“His name is Valiant.”
“A fine name for our little boy,” Malificent declared. “Now open the gate, my love, and let us leave this tragic tale forevermore.”
The young mother’s joyful gaze as she gazed down upon her sleeping baby boy, so filled with an angel’s innocence, lit up in sudden alarm. “My daughter. Where is my daughter?”
The deadly charmer gave a regretful shake of his too-handsome head. “You only ever had the one child, my wife. Do you not recall? You, me, and our son. The prophesied number. All else is but purgatory’s dream. Now come. It is time for us to break free of nightmare’s hold. We three and we three alone are destined to return to the home we left behind.”
Eric’s heart lurched in his chest, somehow sensing the scene entire as it played out before him, even as he raced through corridors seemingly without end.
The pristine innocence of a child who truly had been reborn.
The desperate hope of a mother far more than Eric could have possibly conceived of before this night, who had both transcended in ways beyond even a Golden Phoenix, now radiating an aura that blazed with light that had synergized higher order concepts of Ice and Fire to incorporate that of everything in between.
From Phoenix to Seraphim, an eternally beautiful girl with golden wings now free of any flame.
Because his mother truly was ascending, in directions Eric would never in a million years have suspected. Yet even now, he sensed the gate opening even as he howled with voiceless frustration as the air rang with malice all about him.
Pinned in a trap that he, a mere ghost of a phoenix, little more than a boy, couldn’t hope to make his way through.
Compared to Malice’s diabolical complexity, he was little more than a rat trapped in a maze with all the exits blocked, and death coming to consume him in the end.
Yet even as he howled, stumbling to a halt, realizing that all directions begun and ended in that same tiny stretch of corridor, he could sense a revelation manifesting that brought life, hope, and meaning to every empty shred of pointless existence that his reality ultimately was.
Replacing chance, quantum flux, and higher order complexity manifesting in complex cellular structures and neuronal networks that he now realized only aped sentience, awareness, passion, joy, and love. Mere biochemical echoes of what truly was the real thing.
A world of poetic synergies and wonder.
A miraculous ascendant dream of living, breathing joy. Consciousness manifest. A truly magical world where existence was a tale of wonder scribed by a gestalt sentience that savored every treasure blossoming within their realm. Because they too were of that realm, and every last character within.
Eric’s heart was filled with sudden aching poignancy so acute that a pain-filled sob slipped free of his stunned lips. The feeling was akin to waking up from a halcyon vision filled with laughter and adventure and impossibly perfect friends who he had felt a kinship and closeness to, beyond anything ever experienced before. The friendships and comradeship everyone secretly yearned for. Only to realize that it had been naught but a fading, barely recalled dream leaving a nameless ache in his heart, reminding him of so many mornings he would shudder awake, wiping away strange tears from his eyes as he sobbed for glimmers of magic already forgotten, before rubbing away strange, unfathomable regrets, and going about his day.
He would then go for days streaming and gaming without rest, dreading the thought of sleep, lest he be tormented with the flickers of what he had feared was a nightmare… but in truth had been a dream of such grace and adoration that he couldn’t bear to slip free of its loving embrace for the cold, apathetic world that was the doom of all mortal races spat upon the earthly realm by chance alone
Only now, it was as if that wondrous, miraculous dream was awakening in all its clarity and it was this mundane dross of a bitter life that was the nightmare. Yet soon he would soar in endless adventure besides boon companions filled with nothing but laughter and love that had always been waiting for him… just as single revelation away.
All he had to do was break free of the stupor, to follow the light now blazing in his soul.
He fell to his knees in that horrific unending corridor of bitter steel, ancient curses, and regret, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Not of regret, but of fierce exhilaration.
Remembering who and what he was in that instant, his mind illuminated by golden light as his mother prepared to fly in directions beyond even the miracles they had shared for the precious moments. For their forging had been in perfect synchronicity.
Her path his own.
Heavenward.
His mother was preparing herself to ascend in ways barred even to the Emperor and all those who achieved Gold in this tiny corner of the cosmos.
He could feel it then, an ache of eternal longing in his heart.
His mother was going home.
Eric blinked free the tears in his eyes, sensing just how close he was to the miracle of a gate forming, and just how close Malice was to ascending in ways no demon should ever be permitted.
Eric touched the steel wall before him… and why had he ever allowed brittle iron torments binding so many souls to direct his movements?
Yet all it took was the softest whisper of one who had achieved Rank 30 in so many forbidden arts… one who now glowed with the same golden light he sensed coming from his mother… the same golden light now radiating from the cradle of bone he kept his sister safely within… for a single touch against the black steel corridor to send it igniting in a brilliant golden light.
“Be Free,” Eric whispered.
And it was so.
Transcended Abjuration has been successfully FUSED with DIVINE insight!
Congratulations! You have created a Divine art!
NOTE this art may only be used by those embracing heavenly epiphanies or with the blood of Seraphim within their veins!
Divine Abjuration has been successfully quantized at Rank 10.
Divine-tier perk automatically chosen!
Transcendent Mercy
All trapped souls that feel your touch or hear your cry will be FREED of ALL Bindings.
There is no counter to this art.
Eric shook with both wonder and horror as words that were as much providence as System echoed through his skull. Gazing at his own trembling hands in disbelief. Shaken to his core when he noted the wings to his sides. Now as much angelic gold plumage as the memory of transcendent flame.
Golden wings he then wrapped about the fragile broken shell of his sister, knowing that his carriage of bone could be no more. He swallowed the lump in his throat, cradling the dying angel in his care, softly kissing her brow as he faced the bitter black steel wall that would dare exist between himself and woman who had given him life.
The angel who had given him life.
Bitter black steel fused with countless wards and seals and the twisted strings of fate that Malice had had countless centuries to invest in misdirecting, foiling, and throttling all of his foes.
Yet all it took was two words to change absolutely everything as Eric’s wings blazed with fresh golden light.
“Be Free.”
Words that echoed endlessly through the corridors as gunshot-like cracks of shifting steel echoed through the entire citadel. Yet it was nothing compared to the desperate shrieks washing over Eric, his eyes glowing with tears as he gently placed his glowing fingertips upon the impossibly dense barrier now trembling before him, and whispered the words once more.
“Be Free.”
Contest of skills between Rank 10 Divine Abjuration & Rank 42 Silver-tier Soul-Binding.
Critical Success!!
(There is no counter to your art.)
In a flash, the barrier erupted, exploding to cataclysmic effect in a dozen overlapping dimensions, all of them somehow impossibly far away from Eric, the precious young angel he held, and the contents of the chamber he now calmly stepped through.
And it was all he could do not to crash to his knees, tears streaming in wonder as he glimpsed firsthand the gate promising such joy and wonder that he had but sensed spiritually, a world away. A diabolically trapped geometrically overlapping corridor away.
Just feet away.
Malice spun around, impossibly handsome features that were absolute perfection save for the tiniest of horns glared his way, beauitful violet eyes so much like the eyes of the sleeping girl in Eric’s arms flashing crimson with hate.
“You shouldn’t be here. YOU SHOULD BE DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! A THOUSAND TIMES OVER, YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!”
Malice’s roar howled through the chamber like purgatory’s wind, only to wash over Eric’s golden wings, protectively wrapped around his sister, already infused with runes of protection, warding, and abjuration that he had scribed with his own golden blood.
The roar dispelled the mist hiding so many grotesque horrors of vice, torment, and decay.
Yet what broke Eric’s heart as much as seeing the scores of twisted steel statues depicting hapless victims locked in torment… torment that those encapsulated souls truly were feeling… was the thought of his impossibly perfect and beautiful teenage mother having her innocence torn free by this monster once again.
Yet when Aurelia’s gentle golden gaze met his own, Eric’s heart stopped, so sharp was the ache through his soul. To know that he had been birthed by this wondrous creature… and that he was just a mortal echo of a shadowy, barely remembered dream of a woman filled that had once been filled with such bitterness and torment… for the Aurelia he had known all his dreaming life was just a platonic shadow of her ultimate ideal, manifest here and now a the glorious creature she had once more woken into being.
Eric swallowed the awful lump in his throat. Knowing without question that he was a mortal of dross and cosmic dust and no more than that. Yet the precious sister he held, sired by both angel and demon, was so much more than he could or would ever be.
And she was his sister still.
So Eric forced himself to walk toward the girl who held his gaze with a love and an adoration that sent tears streaming down his cheeks, before kneeling before the divine queen he had once dared to call mother.
And somehow Malice, for all his devious schemes and vile hate, could do naught but glare, his handsome, shadowy features somehow avoiding the golden light of Aurelia’s direct gaze.
“Eric?” The young teenager shook her head in confusion. “I dreamed… I dreamed of a beautiful little boy so like my Valiant.”
Eric swallowed the lump in his throat, eyes filled with tender rue for what truly was an innocent child in her arms, and perhaps always would be, when not shaped and tortured for centuries by a demonic abomination of a father.
“You know boys. They always fight. But… That’s not the brother I want to be.”
Aurelia laughed, her every syllable an exercise in overlapping harmonies that Eric would have done anything to be able to record, to keep close to his heart, the sound of her voice. “I always dreamed of a perfect boy and girl. Just like the two I had first given life to…”
She froze, her impossibly beautiful brow furrowing, turning to Malice, glaring in the shadows. “But my husband said we only had…”
“Her name is Seraphina,” Eric softly said, forcing himself to hurry forward, his golden wings opening to reveal the wilting blossom within.
Aurlia’s golden eyes lit with desperate wonder and dismay, to see the broken, horrifically used child in Eric’s arms.
With a wordless cry she claimed the exhausted child, so broken that Eric’s gifts couldn’t help but sense just how crippled she now was, spiritually, magically, cognitively. Malice having gone to such insane efforts to destroy Aurelia’s firstborn daughter in every conceivable way with the burden of a Silver Phoenix Talisman.
Eric had to choke back tears at the tragedy, bracing himself for a maelstrom of such righteous fury that it would absolutely destroy them all.
Yet even as he took a deep breath and wrapped his wings about himself… his mother did naught but whisper the gentlest of lullabies for the broken child. And much to Eric’s awe, his sister began to glow all the brighter, before shifting from worn adolescent to sleeping pre-teen to little girl to an infant no older than Valiant, and there were now two beautiful babes sleeping against their mother’s breasts, wrapped in protective wings that no mortal force could harm.
Aurelia sobbed once, diamond tears streaming down her cheeks as she kissed both their brows. “Come, children. It’s time for us to go home.”
Malice’s eyes widened with sudden alarm. “Beloved, wait! I am no longer by your side. We must needs make this journey together! For the sacred number shall still be honored, yes?” He said with a painfully desperate smile. “For we are married! Two conjoined halves of a whole! Us and the children still make three!”
And the look Aurelia gave Eric’s spirit then struck him to the quick. Feeling her tender, unconditional love in the smile she gave him. Even as she completely ignored Malice, who’s placating smile turned to a sudden snarl.
“Don’t you dare forget me, wife! Don’t you dare pretend I’m not here!” His eyes glowed with furious hate. “You can’t forsake me. Not ever! We are bonded for all time!” Yet when he reached to claim her, his arm passed right through her.
He then cried out, gazing with dismay at his own withered limb.
Yet Aurelia continued to pay the furiously screaming Malice no heed at all. The words she whispered were for Eric’s ears alone.
“I won’t forget you, my beautiful dream of a son.”
Eric gasped, shaken with sudden terrible understanding, knowing what his mother meant as so many things clicked. He had earned no experience save for the skills needed to save his sister, because he wasn’t really alive.
He was a spirit who had already passed on.
That he had accomplished as much as he had in this state was beyond him. And it didn’t even matter.
All that mattered was seeing his beautiful young mother turning to face the gate glowing with the promise of endless adventure, love, and joyous wonder, and he could follow right behind, knowing that like an impossible miracle, a glorious gift, he was welcome! He, and the sister he loved, just one half of his soul, would then fade from this reality and fall into a gentle sleep. And when they awoke, a century or a thousand years later, they would be reborn in a world of such glorious excitement and wondrous possibilities, their souls and psyches infused with higher dimensional wonders he couldn’t even guess at, only knowing that the most exciting and magical lives imaginable awaited both him and his twin.
He laughed at the momentary twinge of fear he felt, knowing that the instant he touched that gate, the gate his mother was now passing through, that he would cease to exist in this world. Yet it wouldn’t be death, merely sleep. He would wake up one day by his twin’s side, and they would know joy and happiness in the arms of a mother who loved them with all the tender care and wisdom of a goddess.
A lifetime of incomprehensible possibilities and wonder, was now just a single leap away.
Even as Aurelia proceeded to cross the gate, Malice gazed on with horrified dismay, begging Aurelia to take him with her, going so far as to fall to his knees, his screams turning to pleas as his impossibly handsome shell cracked and shattered, revealing the old bitter husk within. Yet Aurelia gazed at him with neither contempt nor pity.
His crimes against her and her children had earned him the ultimate punishment. He was now less than nothing to her, and would forever be shunned by heaven’s embrace.
“No! You cannot forsake me! I summoned and bound you to mortality’s vices! I plucked free your innocence and made you my slave! I own you, Seraphim! Body and soul!”
Eric flashed what he suspected would be his final petty smile of this life or any other. “Are you forgetting something, you malicious fuck? The System censored your ass. All contracts your vile faction forged, such as the one you used to pull my mother from heaven and bind her to your scummy ass, are now nul and void.”
Malice’s eyes widened with apoplectic hate, now entirely focused on Eric.
“You! You unwanted abomination! You vile horrific excuse for spawn that each and every prophecy swore would be my doom if you were not OBLITERATED! You and your twin should never have been permitted a single breath of life!”
Eric felt an awful jolt with those words that almost tore him free of the glorious epiphany, the wondrous dream of ascension that could also be his own.
Before he shook his head, smirking to himself, refusing to take the bait. Refusing to let that vile abomination claw its way into his mind, cause even a tiny sliver of doubt. For Eric was NOTHING like that vile demonic piece of filth, and he would give Malice no purchase upon his soul.
And he could tell by the bitter curl of his lip that Malice expected him to respond. NEEDED him to respond. So Eric said nothing at all as he passed the decrepit ancient Silver, glaring such bitter hate. Save for two final words as he spread his arms wide, taking in the entire citadel before stepping into the light.
“Be Free.”
Malice’s screams were drowned out by the sense of countless millions of souls ripping free of impossibly corroded bindings with the strength of Eric’s final abjuration in this life causing the moon-sized fortress to collapse in a glorious cascade of supreme destruction. Yet all that mattered to Eric was the brilliant light promising such adventure and wonder in his next life as he raced for the gate, happy to end his tale as the hero he had always dreamed of being as his sworn foe, the monster who dared to imply that he was somehow Eric’s father, was buried under endless tons of corroded steel and eternal regret.
Yet his joy turned to horrified dismay when his soul bounced off that gate, having time only for a single despairing wail before he was ruthlessly torn free and sent hurtling back to Earth. As if the galactic pathway through the stars had been a rubber band stretched impossibly tight, now snapping back at speeds far beyond light, spacetime itself scrunching up as he was hurtled right back into his shattered dying shell in the ruins of the city he had actually managed to purge of threat and peril… just as his heart skittered to a stop, the glories of heaven a dream that would never be his.