"...-key wakey, boy. It's time to get up noww."

A ripple of consciousness slowly rose to the surface of a dark lake, exploring the cavern until it reached the edges and doubled back onto itself. Something, or someone, had been calling to it for the last few minutes, beckoning it to the surface. Willing it to the surface.

A secondary force continued to try and drag him down, calming the surface, yet the beckoning voice stymied it at every turn, sending lances of mana through the void beneath him that disrupted everything the second being was trying to accomplish. As if designed for it. Him.

Intended, in all shape and form, foundation and all, to resist a God. To trap a God.

Damien's eyes snapped open, taking in the darkness around him in the closed-off room. No source of light, no door, no mana lighting up his surroundings with splendor any longer. Nothing.

Yet he could see it all. Every nook of the rectangular room, empty as it was. Nothing on the ceilings or walls, only a rather large stone protrusion in the exact shape of his prone form in the center of the room, where he currently lay, lit up by the mana his eyes gave off. A red hue washing over everything around, caused by his eyes simply being open.

He found it beautiful.

He sat up and watched as the stone contoured around him like water, morphing into a chair of sorts as the back lifted and the area near his feet lowered to match his intent. There was a weight to his back that he was unused to, for all that that weight was supported by the structure of his body.

Dense. Heavy. He felt... different, physically.

And mentally. It wasn't unpleasant. Or at least, he didn't think it was, unsure what he would have groused about prior to the changes that had befallen him.

He glanced around the room, calm and apathetic as he slowly stood. The stone ground met his bare feet with a cold shock that he knew he wouldn't have liked what felt like a few minutes prior, but now, strangely, it was comforting to the overwhelming heat he felt inside. Like he'd been in a sauna for the last year of his life, sweaty, angry... A mess. Laying onto the cool floor seemed like the ideal thing to do, and a portion of his mind begged to - wanted to - would have. But now, the thought revolted him.

He had his pride.

"Ah, I knew it. Compatible," came the voice again as Damien turned his eyes toward where it originated in the right corner of the room. "Perfect. Barely, a bit rushed. But complete. A third to match the other two. The product of its parts."

An explosion of mana shot out from his two extra appendages toward the voice, seemingly forming there easiest. He hadn't directed it in any manner, the mana forming itself into electricity that lanced forward with a vengeance, ripping into the stone walls with abandon.

"A unique existence," the voice wisped from behind him, another explosion of mana tearing the spectre apart moments after.

The runes that he remembered had been surrounding him before were gone, the mana drained. The walls, simple stone once again. No longer charged. He searched around for a door but found none. Sending a pulse of mana into the ground, his mind detected a corridor a few hundred feet above him.

Damien moved toward a wall and slowly terraformed it into a spiraling staircase that he began to move up.

"What will you do?" the voice asked from his side.

Another blast shut it up.

"What will you become?"

More lightning.

He traveled up his stairs, only three things on his mind. Three things he desired and would see fulfilled before anything else. The voice, the presence, Yevlue Nerelle, was no threat anymore. He knew it. Could feel it in the lack of presence, mana, everything around him.

His domain: spent. Gone. The saturation of mana in the air but a fraction of what it had been before.

Miniscule.

Three things, Damien needed.

Soon, he reached the corridor that had been above him and sent another pulse into the ground, much larger in scale than the one prior. The more concentrated vibration exploded through the mountain further than before, detailing the vast underground structure that had been all around him without his knowledge. Rooms upon rooms, hallways, massive caverns, several vents leading upward, and several corridors leading out the sides. Multiple entrances, and yet he was the one that had gotten caught in this... trap.

This home.

"I wonder if you even know who you are anymore," the voice continued.

Each word uttered seemed to tax the being, not even creating a spectre form from mana any longer. Perhaps, incapable of it.

Another blast of lightning tore through the direction the voice had come from all the same, however, disrupting the mana and runes that formed the representation that was Yevlue's voice. Damien took a deep breath and turned left, heading deeper into the mountain down a hallway.

Three things, and then he would find out... whatever else he wanted.

The spectre of a man remained quiet as Damien re-learned how to walk correctly. For some reason, going up stairs had been easier than trying to move horizontally. He needed to hunch forward more, a constant weight dragging him back, and down.

Experimentally, he felt at the two new appendages and felt them move with his chest muscles, if... opposite in place to them, more on his back. Like he had a new group of nerves with corresponding limbs, causing a multifaceted and massively confusing sensation of movement that off-balanced him and toppled him into the wall to his left immediately after moving them around.

Damien raised his arms fast enough to catch his fall, but the strange movement had balanced him so wrongly he was tilting backward as well, slipping down the wall until he fell to the floor. It felt like he had vertigo; every surface around him the floor and every surface around him the ceiling. He laid with closed eyes, inert and experimenting with the movement of his shoulderblade appendages, body tilting about on the ground as they moved until he felt confident enough to stand again, having somehow put them in the same position they'd been in when he woke up.

Turning left and facing the wall, Damien braced his hands against it and continued to move the things extending out his back until they were angled slightly forward, offsetting the weight they added enough so that he only needed to hunch just a bit forward when walking. Moving sideways or running would likely ruin this balance, but walking had become simple finally.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He continued down the corridor.

"Do you have any aspirations?" the voice asked again from directly ahead of him.

Damien almost responded, but remembered he didn't like this thing that was bothering him. Another lance of mana flew out, piercing through the construct.

"Any plans for the God that lives inside you?" it asked again from behind this time, ignoring his outbursts.

That gave him pause, finally. He'd forgotten about Rai. The presence had been so apparent before, but now... it seemed almost inert. The only indication that there was even a second... something inside of him was a small, miniature really, tendril of mana inside his mind that could open a door fastened by what he felt were hundreds, if not thousands of locks, entirely under his control.

And one massive window that he could look through.

"He is in there, raging against my cage. It changes, warps with every attempt; a puzzle he cannot solve quickly enough. I wish I could watch it as I did with Ceris; it must be hilarious. How does he scream, boy? Do you know how angry they get when you trap them?" the voice asked with mirth.

Damien chose not to destroy it this time, listening.

"You will learn, I imagine. Eventually, he'll try to bargain with you, even. It's your choice when you let him out, but know that in... oh, I don't know, two thousand years or so, he'll break through the locks. Gods are... magnificent, in a way. I could never escape from one of the cages I designed. Though, perhaps even I could be considered a God, for who could trap one but another? Anyway, at the point he's free, I imagine he'll return to his true form and descend to murder you. That's what she did, at least."

Damien paused then, trying to even consider how long two thousand years of being alive would feel like. He hated the thought. Reviled even the slightest chance to be alive that long.

Shaking his head, he instead peered through the small window in his mind. There, he observed a silver humanoid figure shouting up at the walls all around it, rampaging against everything and eventually noticing Damien was observing it, redoubling its efforts.

Trapped, angry, and defiant. Sporting a grey cloak.

If he wanted, Damien felt he could listen, or even talk to the being beneath him.

He chose not to.

"Hmmm... so quiet. Is it your newly gained immortality that you're finding hard to accept?" the voice called out.

A burst of mana found its way into it, finally destroying the runes behind him.

New ones formed inside the wall to his left immediately, a muffled sound coming from within.

"Haha! I knew it! Poor guy, lost his love and doesn't want to imagine life withou-"

A fist exploded into the wall then, tearing the skin off Damien's knuckles as the wall imploded and ruptured, torn apart with destructive mana and electricity. The voice went silent within moments, but still too long as Damien hunched over, breathing hard with his arm impaled into the wall before him.

"But what will you do?" the voice called from behind. "Another still lives, and your life is bound."

He ripped his arm out and turned to attack, only for the voice to teleport behind him again, far down the hall.

"She is immortal as well. Will you kill her to die?"

"Never," Damien growled out, another beam of electricity shredding through the construct hundreds of feet behind him.

It surprised him how... easy it was to keep the bolt from grounding into the corridor around him.

"A poor existence you are. How ill-equipped!" it laughed out from above and below, though quieter. "A mind, so suited for a hundred years of existence, yet now you are forever. Even I can't change that. Will you break, I wonder?"

Damien continued down the hallway, doing his best to ignore it at this point despite the rage building within. He wanted to tear the mountain down if it meant stopping whatever was tormenting him, finding the last vestiges of Yevlue and murdering him. Destroying the mana keeping his existence alive. He wanted it so badly it almost kept him from moving forward; he could feel the man's last vestiges were ultimately rooted in something behind him.

But he could also sense Kastra in front of him. And where she was, was another target of his hatred.

Two was better than one.

"Or maybe, you'll embrace what I gave you?" it questioned after a few moments.

Damien ignored it, or tried to, shifting his body forward once again and healing his light wounds. His mana had completely re-filled from the fight with the Hellials before, finding himself brimming with energy and strength. Even without charging his body with mana, he'd managed to plunge his fist elbow deep into stone without much pain, giving him something to wonder on as he moved forward.

The voice remained silent finally, and within thirty minutes, he reached the cavern they'd first been forced into. Before him lay the catwalk, lifted higher than it had been before and with the bottom hollowed out, making it so there was a suspended platform that ended in stairs reaching down to the small island that two figures currently sat on.

Around it, the lake filled with death.

He hesitated.

"Don't worry; they are stupid creatures, the Certhils, if too powerful for their own good. Before, they could and would murder and eat you when you came within reach of the walkway, before you could even blink. Now, however, they won't even notice you leaving. And you civilians wonder why there is always a miniscule chance a vessel never returning from sea... It took me twenty years to find one of these creatures," the voice around him mused.

Damien trusted it, despite hating it, and moved forward steadily. He paid extra attention to his surroundings and body, making sure he felt steady with each step despite how calm he felt he appeared on the outside. His presence.

Pride.

Kastra looked up when he began to descend the steps, a brief moment of joy flowing through the pact that was suppressed by confusion and... disgust, a moment later. Both were immediately replaced by love and again, joy.

He smiled down at her, relief and rage flowing through his end of the pact in almost equal measures.

"The prodigal son returns! Gifted murderer!" came a mocking voice from the opposite end of the platform.

Damien's face twitched slightly, but he managed to ignore the wench and moved toward Kastra once he'd finally reached the bottom of the stairs, wrapping his full-sized wife in a hug that would crush a normal Human. Her scent entered his nostrils as he rested his chin on her shoulder, overwhelmed by the sense of comfort he felt in her presence. Something he knew, despite the confusion he'd been wracked with since waking.

Home.

"Thank god," he whispered, holding Kastra as close as possible.

"That is my line," came a quiet response, holding him just as tightly after a moment of surprise when he hugged her. "You... are different," she said after a few seconds, face rested into where his left arm met his chest. "Does it hurt?"

"No," he responded.

"I'm glad, then.... And Rai?" she asked.

"Gone. Or, suppressed. I'm not-"

"A loving, touching reunion. How precious. Two-"

A bolt of lightning lanced into the Dresmyr's body instantly, bowling her end over end until she stopped tumbling a few meters back. Damien continued hugging Kastra, not glancing in the other woman's direction for even a moment.

"I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I think he's trapped for now," Damien continued his earlier sentence, this time without interruption.

Kastra nodded into his chest, having jumped slightly with the discharge of lightning, but continuing to hug him all the same. The sound of coughing began in the distance, causing a slight irritation to build up in Damien's chest.

"Good," she whispered. "Good."

They stayed like that for another minute, then three, as the coughing continued in the background sporadically. Irritation continued to build up inside of him, slowly turning the rage he'd been suppressing toward the Dresmyr into a tide of anger that even the most experienced monk from Earth couldn't handle, in his opinion.

"What's wrong," Kastra asked after a moment, pulling away and looking up at him.

The tide stemmed for a moment, Damien feeling guilty for having let it slip through the pact enough to annoy even her. Yet, it was true that the irritation was still there, would remain there and surface again, so he looked down at her in his arms and spun around until she was on the opposite side of him to Krissa.

"Just some clean-up to do, love. That is all," he muttered, letting go of the one remaining woman he loved in the world.

He walked slowly across the platform, wondering at the changes he could feel in himself.

"So this is what it would be," the voice mused in wisps all around the cavern, growing quieter as it chuckled and Damien ignored it. "A cursed existence. Love, hate... what have you become, boy?"

He paused briefly before continuing. He knew that before, in this situation, he wouldn't have let go of Kastra for anything, at least for the next hour. Not after having almost lost her yet again. But now...

Now it felt like he would hold onto her for hours, just the same. But if something was interrupting their time...

"Well, I'd remove it, obviously," he muttered, staring down with a bit of surprise at the Dresmyr being lifted up by his right hand holding her throat.

"Like... my brother then," she rasped out.

He hadn't even really... felt when he'd picked her up.

"Damien," an apprehensive voice called out to him from behind.

"It's fine, love," he responded, the choking woman before him trying but failing to scratch at his wrists as laughter echoed about the cavern, wispy, disappearing. "This will never happen to us again."

A loud splash sounded out, followed by a torrent of noise and screaming as he turned around, walking back to the Fae.

His Fae.

No smile on his face, yet a drop of calm had finally entered his heart. A drop immediately consumed by the endless pit it had fallen into.

Two things, he needed now, instead of three.

Keep her alive, and the removal of a race.