Standing in front of this stranger who made gods look pathetically weak by comparison, Jack was at a loss.
“What should I do?” he asked Zachias in his mind.
“It does not matter” the alien proclaimed solemnly. “You have no secrets from him. Including this conversation right now. He learned your language by glancing into your mind. Intelligence like that is beyond your comprehension. It is beyond even mine.”
The famous beastkin, or Fenris as he was apparently known, smirked and nodded as if to agree with Zachias’ thoughts. He began to speak again.
“That little bird was wrong you know” he said glancing at the body of Emrys’ opponent. “I see much that is special about you. Healing and vitality that is a match even for my own children for one thing.”
He furrowed his brow and studied Jack. Green eyes met green eyes. “Are you one of my descendants?” He gave the air a sniff and then continued. “You don’t smell like one of mine. And your DNA looks different as well, but I suppose you could be a distant descendant.”
Before he could offer any response, Fenris resumed his listing of the things that Jack kept as closely guarded secrets. “The Inheritance of a Celestial being.” He tilted his head to the side as he inspected the human in front of him. “Why have you not broken that Inheritance down yet?”
As he waited for an answer, Jack realized that stunned silence was no longer a viable option. “Break it down?” he asked softly.
The dreadlocks shook as the big man nodded. “Yes. It is a process by which you take on all of the memories and knowledge of the Inheritance. You need only crush the residual will, which you seem to have already proven capable of.”
Jack was reminded of the first time that he and Zachias had met. The alien had tried to steal his mind and body. “What will happen to…”
Fenris understood and responded casually. “Once you have smothered the will, yours will be the only voice left in your mind. I could even assist you if you would like.”
Abject horror radiated from Zachias’ presence in his mind. He did not appreciate the direction this conversation had taken.
The thought of taking Zachias’ will did have the ring of poetic justice to Jack. It was exactly what the big blue meathead had once tried to do to him.
“No thank you.” Jack finally decided with a sigh. “We made a deal.”
“Ah yes” the wild-looking man held up a finger. “You promised to find him a new body if he helps you to save your friend Arthur. But if you take in his memories and knowledge, then he would in fact have found a new body within you, correct? You never promised that he would control his new vessel.”
Jack considered this for a long moment. Technically, Fenris was right. By giving Zachias’ mind a new home, he would have held up his end of the bargain. And his knowledge and memories would certainly help Jack accomplish all of his goals, including rescuing Arthur.
“I appreciate the offer” Jack said sincerely. “But I will have to decline.”
He was worried about the effect that absorbing Zachias would have on his mental state. The heavenly soldier had lived for thousands of years while Jack had only two and a half decades of life behind him. Would his identity drown under the incredible weight of Zachias’ thoughts and memories?
Even if that hadn’t been the case, it just didn’t feel right.
Fenris chuckled. “You would rather stick to the heart of your agreement rather than get out on a technicality. How… honorable.”
The wolf studied Jack for another moment before continuing. “There is such contradiction within you. One part of you is a guardian, and the other a conqueror. Righteousness and nihilism constantly at war. A strange combination.”
It was extremely unsettling to be understood so deeply by a total stranger. Jack remembered that he was dealing with a being who had advanced to the peak of the universe. He may look like a bodybuilder, but his intelligence was surpassing the level of comic book geniuses.
“Why are you bothering with me?” Jack couldn’t help but ask. “I can’t be worth your time.”
Fenris nodded his agreement and answered with a question of his own. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
Jack shook his head.
One of the Universe’s most powerful beings leaned closer to him with a dangerous smile. “I see competition.”
This only confused Jack more but the wolf-man went on.
“The number of beings in our universe that have reached the same level as me can be counted on your fingers. Besides myself, almost all of the others are the leaders of their of their own major factions. They will not fight me because they fear losing territory while they are distracted. And if I move on any one of them without provocation, the others will combine forces to eradicate me. Do you see my problem?”
Jack had a feeling that he would have been completely lost before he had advanced. But now that his mental capacity had been expanded, his thought processes were more refined. He approached the question from multiple angles before hazarding a guess.
“You are like me” Jack wagered. “You only advance through conflict.”
“Exactly” Fenris’ eyes flashed a glowing red like an animal looking into a spotlight at night. “I need combat to progress. And it has been denied me for so very long.”
As the ancient being grew more passionate, Jack felt a subtle change in the environment and he couldn’t tell if it was from his normal senses or his supernatural ones. It was as if Fenris’ mere presence was pushing up against the world and bending it in unnatural ways.
Fenris closed his fingers in a fist and held it in front of himself. “Whatever they will tell you, the Transcendent Realm is not the peak of the mountain. It is merely another step on the path.”
Jack filed that statement away for later. He would ask more about this previously unheard of Transcendent Realm.
The powerful warrior looked more wild as he went on and Jack could see the unfathomable ferocity behind the intelligent man he had first seemed.
“You are correct in thinking that you are far beneath my notice. But I stopped by to bear witness to another battle fated to occur here. There is a certain path that interests me.” He looked off into the distance and then turned back to Jack.
“You want to know why I took an interest in you?” Fenris asked. “It was not your physique or the sentient Inheritance or even your natural talent for techniques.”
He leaned closer to Jack. “I looked inside you and found a man who has worked tirelessly for months without a single break. A mortal who thinks it is normal to hardly sleep. Focus. Energy. These are the ingredients of victory and power. I glimpsed a future where you stand in front of me an equal.”
Jack was not sure how to take that statement but the wolf was not done.
“Should that tiny sliver of chance become reality, only one of us will walk away from that meeting.” He smiled fondly down at Jack as he said this, as if nothing made him happier than the thought of a good old fight to the death.
Jack nodded his agreement, knowing that there was no other answer that would allow him to leave with his life. “Sure thing. Sounds like my kind of party.”
“I know it does” Fenris said with a smirk. “But I will not wait forever.”
That sounded ominous. Jack furrowed his brow. “If you want me to fight you on equal terms, it’s going to take me more than a day or two to climb that high.”
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Fenris nodded. “Well you had better get started then. Do you know why they call me the Wolf of the End?”
Jack shook his head.
“Because they know that the fragile balance between the major factions will not last with me around” he explained with a determined smile. “This universe is too small to hold my ambition. I would rather die than stay at the same level forever.”
It took a moment for Jack to work out what Fenris was talking about. It sounded like he was planning on starting a war that would roll over the entire Cosmos. Jack could not imagine the scope of the death and destruction that would cause. He was horrified by the thought.
Of course, Fenris read Jack’s mind like a picture book.
“I see your thoughts. You think me evil. But how many people do you believe die in the perpetual conflicts that are fought by the factions now? At least my war will end in peace for a time.”
Jack didn’t know enough about the state of the universe to have an opinion about the subject, so he simply agreed with Fenris and tried to keep his reservations hidden in the back of his mind. He really didn’t want to piss off this particular beastkin.
In an attempt to think about anything else, Jack looked away from the mythological wolf for the first time since he had jumped off of the wall. Jack turned to see Emrys on his knees with his face to the ground arms held out towards Fenris. Jack raised one eyebrow and looked back to the large man.
“Uh. Should I be doing that?” he asked pointing to the prostrating druid.
“It is a bit late for that” the beast answered with a chuckle. “Besides, would you want everyone you meet to do that?”
“I guess not” Jack answered thinking of how tiresome and boring the constant groveling would be.
Fenris nodded and looked like he was about to say something before he froze and looked sharply to the right. He held one finger out and Jack watched in awe as the fingernail visibly grew and sharpened until it felt dangerous to even look at.
The wolf swiped the single, razor-sharp claw in the direction that he had been looking and a profoundly complex fractal symbol appeared in the air that hadn’t been there a moment before. It was drawn on the world in luminous lines of dense grey Qi. The pattern’s intricacy gave Jack a headache just by glancing at it. As soon as the shape was revealed, it fell into two pieces and dissipated into nothing, slashed in half by a casual swipe of Fenris’ claw.
Jack hadn’t even sensed any use of energy. It was as if the wolf had cut the fractal just by his mere intention.
“The Rune King is growing bold if he thinks to spy on me.” The wolf seemed to consider something before looking back to Jack. “You had better be on your way. If you are still here when the real battle begins, you will have no future at all.”
Then, the great beastkin seemed to look right through Jack for a moment before smiling sadly. “Look at what has become of you little Zachias. The ‘one who climbs’. There was a time when I thought you would one day give me the competition I crave.”
With that statement, Fenris blurred and was gone. It was like he had never even been there at all. Jack was stunned for a long moment, staring straight ahead and trying to order his thoughts. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Had he gone crazy?
He looked down to Emrys who was still face down in the dirt, his long black hair spilling all over the ground and hiding him from the world. Although he couldn’t see the druid’s expression, Jack could tell he was rattled by the way his back shook with each breath and by the feeling of his mental presence.
“Are you okay?” Jack projected into his mind. It took Emrys almost a full minute to respond but Jack didn’t want to pressure him.
Finally, he peaked out from his hair. “Is he gone?” Emrys shakily asked.
Jack shrugged. “Who knows? I’m pretty sure that guy could be standing in front of us right now and we wouldn’t know it if he didn’t want us to.”
The druid got to his feet slowly and nodded his head. Jack still wasn’t used to seeing him in his human form. Emrys’ dark brown eyes were wide. “Do you know that being?” he asked shakily.
”Nope. But I can say for sure that I won’t soon forget him. I do think we should listen to him and get out of here though.” Jack was looking up at the three hundred foot tall scripted marble wall thinking of how to pass it.
“He told us to leave?” Emrys turned back towards his home forest and looked as if he was ready to take off in a sprint.
“Woah Nelly” Jack grabbed the druid’s shoulder. He only now realized that Emrys wouldn’t have understood his conversation with Fenris as they had been speaking English.
“It was more of a suggestion than a command” Jack explained and then pointed back towards the wall with his thumb. “And we need to go that way. That is… If you are coming with me?”
He looked at the druid questioningly. He had assumed that Emrys had left his home forest to accompany him on his journey, but they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it yet.
Emrys smiled and nodded before he turned back towards the massive marble structure and looked to the top. Clearly, his mind was on other things. “If he said we should leave, then we should hurry. When a being like that gives you a ‘suggestion’, you take it as an absolute command.”
Jack thought he should just agree with the druid rather than argue. He turned his mind back to figuring out how they would climb the black marble behemoth hanging over them. Jack didn’t think they had time to go looking for a gate. The wall was not perfectly vertical, and it had scripts and sculptures etched into it all over, so it should be possible to scale it.
The problem was the waterfall that poured out of the grate in the wall about twenty feet from the bottom. Even if Jack skipped across the rocks jutting out of the rushing river, he would never be able to climb past the falls despite his greatly enhanced strength.
Apparently, Emrys had it covered. Jack suddenly found himself lifting off the ground and hovering in the air. His stomach lurched and he turned to see Emrys reaching out to him with his right hand curled into a fist like he was grasping something. His eyes were open and his face was calm. It didn’t even seem like Jack’s weight was straining his Chakra at all.
As the druid moved his fist towards the wall, Jack moved with it. He looked down into the deadly waters that he was hovering above and his heart pumped faster as his adrenaline surged. Maybe a water artist could survive in there, but he certainly couldn’t.
Emrys telekinetically lifted Jack above the waterfall and set him in a spot where he had a good hold. He made sure that Jack’s position was sturdy before releasing him to take his own weight.
Jack began to ascend immediately. The sun was setting and he did not want to be climbing a dark marble wall at night. He found that the sculptures made easier hand and footholds than the thin lines of script. Whenever he reached a place where there were nothing but the thin scripts, Jack was forced to use his own Chakra to reinforce his grip and keep himself from falling.
This close to the wall, using power was far from easy. The power radiating from the marble script was deafening. It was overwhelming to all of his spiritual senses. Opening himself to his Chakra was like staring at the sun.
It took so much of his focus that Jack didn’t realize how far he had ascended until the top was only ten feet away. There were no more scripts or sculptures above this point so he worried that he wouldn’t be able to finish the climb.
He was surprised when Emrys leaned over the edge and looked down at him. Had the druid flown up there? Jack hadn’t seen him since they were standing on the riverbank. He was aware that most beings could use their Chakra to fly at some point during the Spirit Realm, but Zachias had dismissed Jack as childish when he had excitedly asked about it.
Once again, the druid reached out a hand and Jack felt himself levitating the last ten feet. He crested the wall and Emrys set him down on the twenty yard wide flat surface of the top.
Jack could not believe how utterly massive the structure was. He looked to the right towards the sunset and the wall stretched on for dozens of miles curving in a circle that wrapped around the so called village.
When he looked towards the middle to find the civilization capable of building something so impressive, Jack’s breath caught in his throat.
“Zachias” he projected to the warrior who hadn’t said a word to Jack since Fenris had spoken directly to him.
His presence had been chaotic and disordered, so Jack had given him some time to settle down. But now he needed to talk to the alien.
“In what world is this a village?” Jack asked incredulously.
The city, for it was clearly a city to Jack’s eyes, was unlike any that he had ever seen before. The setting sun shone on the dark buildings that appeared to be made of a similar material to the wall. Lights of every color reached his eyes from all over the city. It looked like white colored lights were a lot less popular here than it had been on Earth.
Instead of a collection of skyscrapers that Jack was used to seeing in a metropolis, this one was made of what appeared to be one single structure which looked like the dark skeleton of a titanic beast curled around itself.
Everything was connected by branching tunnels and skywalks that reached across the entire city. It looked like you could travel through every individual room without going outside even once.
And the scope. It was difficult to determine exactly how big the ‘village’ was from so far away, but it was clearly dozens of miles wide. It made Tokyo look small by comparison. Jack couldn’t imagine how many people lived there.
Zachias took another moment to collect himself before answering him. “This is a village by the standards of the Universe. And not a particularly large one either. Why do you think I always referred to you as a barbarian or savage? Even your planet’s biggest ‘cities’ would barely be considered tribal hovels where I come from.”
Jack took a minute to let that thought settle in. As he was staring at the city in amazement, something else caught his eye. Some of the lights appeared to be moving around.
When a bright green collection of twinkling lights rose above the city completely, Jack ran just a little qi through the sensory tattoo on the back of his neck. This enhanced his vision enough to confirm his thoughts.
He couldn’t make out the shape completely, but it was clearly a flying vessel. As it continued to rise straight up into the sky, disappearing into the heavens, Jack stared in wonder.
”Was that a spaceship?” Jack asked his mental passenger.
“What were you expecting? Even your little world has sent people into space.” Zachias said condescendingly.
“I don’t know. I guess I was expecting Warring States China with a WoW twist. Not this. I swear if I just did all that walking to find out I could have called a fucking flying cab, I’m gonna be so pissed.”
It was finally starting to dawn on Jack that his dreams of becoming a space cowboy were more plausible than he’d thought. And most importantly, there was a real chance that he could one day meet an actual ninja turtle.
As he looked out towards the incredible marvel of civilization and ingenuity, he smiled in wonder.
End of Part II