Once Ceres had opened the door, Maxra and Venza were enveloped in a blinding radiance. At first they heard nothing but tranquil silence, as if they were floating on a cloud. Shortly after that feeling passed, the darkness of night replaced it. The whispering of fire elementals in the woods. The unblinking stars overhead. The blood splattered across their dead clanmates’ bodies. The roaring of the crimson river beside them. They were back home, but not the version of it that they so dearly missed.
Burning the piles of their comrades were men and women dressed in heavy obsidian armor. Their swords and other weapons were doused in slick oil, and atop them danced sinister purple flames. Their eyes burned the same color. One of them, much larger than the others and wearing a horned helmet, stomped across the field to confront the two anisai women.
“Two remaining? Who has forsaken their duties? I ordered all of you to cleanse this forest of filth, did I not?”
“Yes, Adjudicator! We have failed you, I’m afraid.”
The dark figure tightened the grip on his flaming greatsword. Whether it was out of anger or excitement was unknown to all. “No matter. The more filth cleansed, the safer we are. Lower your heads, fiends! I, Halsta of the Dark Court, shall execute you swiftly. See it not as mercy. I merely seek to wipe away all traces of anisai in sight as quickly as humanly possible.”
“What…? No…”
Maxra looked to Venza at her side. She had become deathly pale, and her legs trembled something fierce.
It was true. They were back. At least, it appeared that way. Almost as if they were dropped into the memory itself. Everything was just as she remembered it, though Maxra had tried desperately to forget the past. Some memories permanently scar the mind as a physical wound marks flesh.
Venza had lost her previously cocky attitude. She stared at the Adjudicator in abstract terror. “But… he’s dead!”
Halsta let out a low, coarse chuckle. “Dead? Far from it, inhuman. Though I do like that look in your eyes. The fear you feel… I can almost taste it.”
The rest of the armor-clad humans chuckled as well. They all turned to face what they assumed to be the last of the anisai they had come to eradicate.
“Nah, you’re dead. That’s for sure. Sawed your head off myself to save this runt.” Maxra bared her dagger. Her eyes shone the same vibrant, jade color. “So… whatever you are. Illusion, or trick, or whatever. I’ll just kill you again.”
“I have no clue as to what you are babbling on about, anisai. I’m surprised that even an inhuman has the mental capacity to fall to insanity. Did any of you know this?” He peered back at his subordinates with a half-threatening, half-knowing glare.
“No, Adjudicator!”
“Hmph. Well, the Dark Court isn’t suited to treating the mentally unwell. But we shall kill you all the same. However, for threatening an Adjudicator such as I, we shall have to torture you to death now. It is stated here…”
Halsta opened a palm, and after a second, violet light appeared above it like a hologram. It depicted a huge, iron-bound book. It opened to a certain page, and a line of text was highlighted for the anisai women to see clearly. “Title 9, Chapter 312: Any who dare insult, threaten, injure, or kill an Adjudicator of the Dark Court shall hereby be sentenced to death by torture. As it is written.”
“As it is written!” The rest shouted in unison.
Halsta closed his palm, and as a result the book faded from view. He grasped his greatsword tightly with both hands and raised it slightly above his shoulders in a fighter’s stance. “Then, despite your mental deficiencies, I shall henceforth take the role of your judge, jury, and executioner.”
The hulking dark mass of a man lunged forward and swung his colossal sword in a low arc. The air almost seemed to distort against its weight.
Maxra pushed Venza away and hopped over the Adjudicator’s blade, all the while throwing several objects past her foe’s head. Once she fell back down to the floor and Halsta had completed his swing, half of the dark knights behind him crumpled to the floor. Pools of blood formed from underneath their heads.
Venza came to her senses somewhat and a strange expression formed on her face. After a moment, she patted herself up and down, then turned to Maxra with an absent look. “My knives…”
Halsta briefly turned to examine his fallen allies, and just as Venza had eked out, in every single one of their heads was a razor-sharp knife half-dug into their skulls. Their hilts stuck out of each one’s helmet like some crude representation of a unicorn. “Leave this dishonorable one to me, fellows. I require no help in this enactment.”
“That’s gonna be your last mistake.”
Maxra dashed toward Halsta like a demon, but the Dark Court official was ready for her. Holding his blade straight and pointed upwards, he chanted something unheard. Once he’d finished, a violet blaze erupted all around him. With a quick stomp, the ground rumbled and grasping flames manifested from his foot to claim Maxra’s life. The blast knocked Maxra backward, sending her careening across the nightscape and directly into some decrepit housing. She smashed through the wall, sending broken wooden planks flying off to be lost.
“Maxra!”
“These anisai love to boast, don’t they Witness Vrey?”
“Yes, Adjudicator. A trait they could have only picked up from their human counterparts, to be sure.” An odd, cloaked man wearing an assortment of silver ornaments and jewelry snickered beside Halsta. On his sleeves and on the blindfold he wore were white symbols depicting an eye.
“Perhaps it is to match their powerlessness against the might of magic. For so long they preyed upon us, but once we humans had mastered the art of the arcane, all they had left was their physical prowess. It is unfortunate that they cannot use magic as their ancestors could. Unfortunate for them, of course.”
“Except for their filthy, parasitic powers.” Malice dripped from the Witness’s lips.
“Hmph. Quite.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut your damn mouths!” Venza the Unseen glared at the two men with unbridled fury. The fear that had clogged her heart was quelled and smothered, and all that remained after Maxra’s fall was a deep-rooted anger.
“Silence.” Vrey spoke, his palm outstretched. “As Justitia is blind, so too am I. Be silenced and lay your neck for execution.”
A resonant chime shook Venza’s mind. Very quickly, she realized what he had done. It wasn’t simple mind control, as he needed to keep his eyes fixed on her, but he moved her as a puppeteer would nonetheless. She couldn’t willfully move a muscle. Against all her strength, she knelt down silently, bowed forward, and displayed her neck for a clean cut.
“Fine work, Witness. Lady Justitia will be pleased indeed.”
Venza struggled as much as she could, but all of her efforts were truly in vain. No matter how much she felt she had moved and made her rage known, on the outside she hadn’t moved an inch. Like a faithful dog, she still laid silently on the bloodied ground with her neck ready.
Halsta calmly walked toward the woman with thunderous steps. His colossal blade rested on his shoulder, as if he didn’t have one iota of fear in his heart. He reached down and tore Venza’s visor and hood from her head and threw them to the side. Gripping her hair, he wrenched her head backward to examine her face. “It’s true, what they say. I’ve only seen two anisai women in my life, apart from these two, and they truly are beautiful. More so than any human could ever be. Such a shame.”
In an act that surprised them all, Venza managed to spit in the Adjudicator’s eye. It seemed like an action of very low effort was able to slip past the Witness’s controlling gaze.
Halsta crammed his fingers into his black helmet, wiping the spit from his face. In a fit of rage, he raised his fist in retaliation, but it never came down. “What the-”
An onyx claw unlike anything the man had ever seen before had gripped his left arm and was holding it in a vice. If he hadn’t had such thick armor on, its daggerlike nails could have easily impaled him.
“Think you can try to hit a girl and get away with it!?” Ceres tightened her grip, and in response Halsta’s armor began to crumple and dent. An intense pressure began to crush his arm, sending intense pain his way.
“Aaaahh! Who the hell are you!? Who are you to defy the Dark Court!?”
Witness Vrey, keeping eyes on Venza’s bowed form, motioned for his subordinates to return to the fight. A dozen or so knights marched forward with their ebony blades drawn.
“Submit or be executed!” They shouted in unison.
Halsta stomped and lunged to bash Ceres with the spiked side of his shoulder. The hybrid ducked and let go of the man’s arm quickly, picked up Venza, and ran to where Maxra had been flung.
“Get back here! Aaah!” Halsta’s arm was half-crushed. He could feel the bone start to pierce through the outer walls of his flesh. “Heh… guess I’ll have to do this one-handed. No problem.” Suddenly, he swung his sword to the right as if assuming another stance for a spell. “May our Lady give us strength. May our Lady give us the power to enact this judgment.”
Violet rays of light appeared all around Halsta’s body and in a circle on the ground surrounding him. The same repeated across all of the Adjudicator’s knights and around the Witness.
Halsta swung his greatsword wildly, as it to show off his newly gained power. With just one hand, he carried it effortlessly just as Arkiel had done with her mortal blade. He barreled forward, violet wrath burning in his eyes, when a black cat stepped out from the darkness before him. Its eyes were missing, giving the man a momentary shock.
“Quite embarrassing to be sure. The anisai losing to such a lowborn human?”
Halsta took a step backward in disbelief. “This some… kind of trick? What’s happening? What are you? Who’s that girl? Explain yourself, inhuman!”
“As I thought. So lifelike, just as the Lily we met outside. However, these aren’t quite there. More accurate to wax figurines compared to a doll.” The cat grinned.
“Out of my way!” Halsta swung at the cat, and then he swung some more, but after the first swing there was nothing left at all. With mad eyes, he looked down at his right arm, or what was left of it. All that remained was a violently bleeding stump, and his sword had fallen to the ground. “Wh…at…?”
“Do tell. Do you know of a woman named Nia? Or are you no more than a replicated memory?”
“I… No!” Halsta coughed up viscous blood. It stained the face of his helmet and the ground between them. “This… doesn’t… make any sense! Lady Justitia! Hear me! Save us! Save us from this madness!”
Archizend sighed. “I suppose that answers my question. Begone, waxen one.”
Halsta let out a cry, but it was abruptly silenced. Without the cat moving an inch, jagged rips in reality tore across the Adjudicator’s body. Ephemeral and iridescent, the claw rippled and rended the false Halsta from existence. A horrible sound rang out, then muted. Nothing was left and nothing remained. The cat licked his paw twice.
Vrey, still locked onto Venza being carried by Ceres, stumbled backward and fell to the ground. He began to shake uncontrollably. A terrible fear enveloped him. Though he was truly blind, he could see in a sense. Through magic, he could sense auras and use such auras to bind people and bend them to his will. However, once his ally had vanished from sight, something else came into view. To call it an aura would do it a disservice. It was as bright as a star, and closer than any star could ever be. It blinded him. Though he could still see faint lights, and see Venza’s faint form, the star before his view grew brighter and brighter, searing its overwhelming eminence into his very soul.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Be calm, for your erasure is at hand o waxen one. Be joyous that you will no longer be stuck in this ever-repeating play as an undying actor. Of course, I can kill the undying with no issue.” The cat had set its sights on Vrey, all the while slowly and menacingly making its way to him.
“What…!? What are you!? Nothing on this planet exudes this amount of energy… nothing but the very earth itself!”
Archizend ignored the quivering man’s words. “Where is it? The core of this pillar?”
Clearly without one bit of knowledge of what the cat spoke of, the Witness tore his eyes from Venza and instead attempted to lock Archizend in place. He regretted the decision almost immediately. As soon as he shifted his gaze to the feline clad in nightshade, his pupils erupted into flame. Screaming like a banshee, he covered his eyes with his hands, but the damage was already done. His eyes burnt out of his skull, and his face began to melt in response to the sudden rush of intense magical heat.
“You should have listened to your instincts. Now, allow me to demonstrate true domination over the mind.”
A vorpal, half-translucent claw tilted Witness Vrey’s head back upwards and severed both of his arms in an instant. Even with abyssal, burnt-out eyes, Vrey’s mind was overcome with eyes even blacker and devoid of life. Unseen hands reached and squirmed their way into the defeated foe’s mind, searching for the source of this part of Nia’s distorted world. Finally, the hands retracted and Vrey was left dead on the ground. If he could still talk, he’d agree that it was a better fate than what the false Halsta had received, even if it wouldn’t make much of a difference in the near future.
“Are you okay? Both of you?” Ceres asked, her claw calmly placed on Venza’s shoulder.
Maxra eyed the two wearily. “Yeah, I’m okay. Been a while since I’ve been tossed like that.”
“Are they still alive? We have to get out of here. I don’t understand it, but we can’t stay here. Never wanted to come back. Have to leave. Get the hell out of here…”
Maxra shook Venza out of her stupor, eyeing her with a bit of anger, but more worry than not. “Hey! It’s alright. Looks like Master has taken care of it, like always.”
Sinking into herself, Venza’s eyes regained their luster as if to say she’d come back to reality somewhat. “I don’t care about that damned cat… just get us outta here.” She dusted herself off, got up, and went to retrieve her cloak and visor hidden in the surrounding darkness. It fit perfectly back onto her head, once again hiding her true features with featureless metal and wavy, black cloth.
Glancing across the burning bodies, there was Archizend fighting off the legion of knights remaining. To call it a fight wasn’t quite right, however. It was terribly one-sided; the cat razed the black-clad ranks with every few seconds that passed. Even still, the others rejoined their ally and fought alongside him, finally destroying the Dark Court materialized from the two anisai women’s minds.
Maxra wiped the sweat from her brow, and Ceres swung her arm to throw the blood off of the tips of her claw. Venza stood silently, eyeing Archizend who looked upon her in the same way.
“Cloaked anisai. Though I’m sure my words mean very little to you, it is good to see you.”
“Can’t say the same. We might be here out of circumstance, but I didn’t miss any of you one bit. If anything, I should fill your body with daggers for indoctrinating this little girl into your suicidal troupe.”
Archizend cackled with his same, death rattle-like laugh. “We’re all mad here. Your mind is too clouded by the real that you cannot even realize the imagined world we find ourselves in.”
“Quit the cryptic shit. How the hell are we at the Rapids? There’s no way we teleported halfway across the continent.”
Ceres came forward and explained everything that had happened once she’d opened the door.
“A world… made from Nia’s mind? And we’ve all been trapped in smaller parts manifested from our own minds? Sounds like a dumb fairy tale…”
“That’s why we have to find the other students and put them out of their misery,” Ceres said. “Not just for them, but for us to escape too.”
“I don’t give a damn about some kid nobles. Whether or not they rebuild that shithole of a city, the rich are just going to come back and reap what they’ve sown. I don’t think they’d be too happy, either, once they find out what the Sorceress’s been doing.” Venza let out a cruel chuckle.
“So you knew? You all knew what she was doing and you-”
Maxra grabbed Ceres’s shoulder and pushed her back a couple steps to talk to her in private. “...You want to save your sister, right? Isn’t that all you really care about?”
“I wouldn’t-”
“Ceres.” Maxra stared deeply into the hybrid girl’s face. “I don’t know what Master wants with you. I don’t even know what he’s planning. But if you want something, you have to devote yourself to it wholly. The Sorceress won’t just give your sister back if you ask nicely. She’s just as hellbent on saving her sister as you are.” She placed her palm on her forehead. “Block out everything else. If you aren’t prepared to make any sacrifices, then you’ll be her sacrifice. Understand?”
“I love Asteria. More than anything. But if I just accept these things and move on without a care for anyone else, I’d be no better than Nia. That’s why we’re here in the first place. We’ve got to save everyone. Even if, at this point, saving the students means killing them.”
“Hey,” Venza interrupted. “I mean… I meant what I said. But I shouldn’t have said it like that. It’s not that I don’t feel for them at all. I do. I’m not that heartless.” Venza nervously scratched the back of her neck through her clothing. “We all were with Nia for some selfish reason. Mine… I wanted a surefire way to bring our anisai brothers and sisters back to their former glory. If you knew, little girl. If you knew what our ancestors were capable of, you’d despair at the sight of us now. We may seem impressive at first, but we’re nothing but a disgrace to our heritage.”
Ceres looked up at Maxra expecting some lackadaisical rebuttal, but she got none. Maxra only nodded silently, a constricting frustration pushing against her throat.
A coarse, raspy voice ended the short conversation. Then, a number of voices spoke out in turn.
“Lady… Justitia…”
“Cleanse… inhuman scum…”
“Fire… kill…”
“What the hell?” Venza, along with the others, all turned their heads to see the Dark Court knights they had slain slowly rise to their feet. They were murmuring half-intelligible words, fragments of things they may have said in life.
“They’re… coming back from the dead?”
“Protect… clan…”
“Slay… intruders…”
“No…” Venza eked out, her gaze firmly fixed on the burning masses. They were beginning to crawl and stand as though nothing had harmed them. Their melting, burning, rotten flesh hung and fell from them as they stumbled towards the only sign of life in sight. “Not them too…”
“Hmm…” Archizend pondered. “It is as I thought. These lifeless, waxen creations really are nothing more than actors on a stage. If we do not hurry to the core now, we may have to fight them all again.”
Maxra bared her dagger and sighed deeply. “Ah man~ Let’s get a move on, Master. We’ve gotta get out and find Zenzi before it’s too late. You know where that thing is, right? The student or whatever?”
“Yes. Follow me.”
Past the burning refuse that once served as a refuge for Maxra and Venza’s clan, the group fled into the cragged woods that surrounded the place. The moans of the dead called out from the abandoned home, crying for their clanmates. A sharp pain pierced their hearts, though it soon calmed when the voices began to fade. Through black branches and the utter darkness of night, they finally reached a small clearing, and amidst the clearing was a grand lake that stretched to the far horizon. The dense trees clung to the side of it as if it was their only source of light. Perhaps it was what it reflected.
Hanging directly above the middle of the still water was a bright, full moon in a field of stars. In front of it, wiry tendrils lined the sky and led their eyes to the center of the lake. Another crude throne, with yet another flayed student sat atop it. As if to defy the very laws of physics, the throne did not submerge into the water even an inch.
“There it is! Come on!” Ceres ran forward without another thought.
“Wait, idiot!” Maxra called after the girl, but after a second, she went silent. Ceres had run out of the clearing and onto the lake, as if the water was no more than some hidden wizard’s illusion. She sighed again. “I can’t believe this.”
Venza punched her shoulder. “You’ve made it this far and you can’t believe this? What I can’t believe is how I lost to you. Guess I’ll have to surprise you more.” She ran to catch up to the decrepit cat and the hybrid.
Maxra shook her head and scoffed, then followed along, walking on the slightly rippling water.
It was truly a sight to behold. More so a sight that Ceres had wished to never see again, but it had become painfully obvious that it would be something that she would see again without fail. With the looming moonlight caressing the mutilated being in front of them, Ceres lashed out with her dagger and cut the wretched wires supporting both the student and the world around them.
The wires fell from the night sky and into the water, except they began sinking. The metal throne, too, began to slowly sink into the shining water below.
“Think we should run? What if we fall in, too?” Maxra asked.
“No. No one move. Not a soul.” Archizend ordered the three women with a coarse half-whisper. “Don’t speak.”
A deafening silence fell upon the lake and gripped the group. The surrounding woods trembled. Their black, spiky branches reached upwards as if to herald the coming of something unknown.
“Look up. The stars.” The cat’s small head, devoid of eyes, pointed up at the stars and moon.
At first, they noticed nothing. The sky was as it had always been, at least since they’d reached the lake. Though, after a moment or two, they each in turn noticed the discrepancy. One by one, since Ceres had pulled the plug, the stars began to vanish from the sky. It started slow, but grew faster and faster as each second passed. All around them, the twinkling lights fell into darkness and disappeared, as if they were all candles in a flooding monastery. Eventually, their eyes fell on the last star, and it too vanished without a trace. They then set their eyes on the final light in the pitch-black sky. The moon, once bright and brimming with reflected sunlight, dimmed into a gray orb littered with craters.
It darkened. And darkened. Painted with tar-like ichor, the moon became an ominous, unknowable ball of nothingness. The missing stars, too, were replaced by the same vision. Endless dark orbs dotted the atmosphere, all small and insignificant when compared to the once-glowing moon before them. The moon had grown darker than the blackest black, darker than eyes could perceive. Darkened into a color beyond understanding. Even so, they could look into it, and in turn the abyss stared back. It could be compared to a mirror, but at the same time comparing something so existentially nightmarish to a common item like a mirror would be an insult to metaphor.
“What’s happening, cat? What is that…?” Ceres trailed off, the abyssal depths of the massive orb’s face mesmerizing her and stealing her focus.
“The Black Moon. So you are still here, staring down at what your actions have wrought.”
The moon sang. “Li lyx ypvysh. Ymgczx boerr eq kr mvh dbmcxh. Jox wyypcijp hpsjr srry e Zvmqcjsv Wjoin.”
“Afraid not, brother Scion. Or… perhaps you are a fake as well? Though, perhaps even a caricature of you would hold some amount of power.”
The moon observed.
In a flash, all was made pallid and pure, and the realm crumbled around them.
Ceres opened her eyes. She was back at the circle of towers. The tall, gleaming towers of light at the center of Nia’s lonely world. This time, not only the cat but the two anisai women were with her now. “Yes! I saved you guys!” She breathed a sigh of relief. “All by myself, too!”
Archizend glared at Ceres, or at least he attempted to do the equivalent of glaring without any eyes to speak of.
“Nakir, look!”
“My word! Ceres!”
Both Grovalt and Nakir ran from a corner of the spires to join the tired group. Nakir outstretched his wings as if to give Ceres a hug, but Grovalt beat him to it.
“I’m glad you’re all okay. I didn’t know what to think when you opened that door.”
Ceres, even with her dragon-like strength, was crushed under the warrior’s muscly arms. “Okay, okay. Let go of me and let’s talk about it.”
Slightly dejected, he let go of the grumpy girl and took a few steps back. Nakir, in turn, looked around them.
Multiple, shining towers of light surrounded them at the center of a monochromatic world. The ones that him, Grovalt, and the women had come from had faded into indistinguishable black husks. The two remaining, still alight, had gateways on them that depicted different places. One of them looked like it led to a wavy desert of some kind, and the other was dark and featured infinitely huge, skyward trees.
“Anyway,” Grovalt continued. “I was back in that dream. Back when that bastard… what was his name? The squid guy?”
“Ilzathk, I think?” Maxra scratched her head. “If only Zenzi were here…”
“Yeah, that’s right. Back when Ilzathk messed with my head, I was sent back to a long time ago. Back in my homeland in the north. It was the same there. But that doesn’t matter. I got out of it no problem, and ended up here.”
“The same as I,” Nakir said. “I had to escape the pesterings of my younger sister, but I eventually made it here.”
“What!? That’s all you guys had to go through? A bit of snow and… family troubles!?” Venza wanted to punch the two confused men with all her might, but relinquished her outrage. Maxra wanted to as well, and she did not relinquish anything.
“Oww!”
“Arrgh!”
The dragon and the warrior were left with severe bruising. The others eventually explained to them everything about where they were and what they had to do.
“Yeah, I figured. Took me a while, but once I found that… that student, I knew it had to have something to do with it.” Grovalt shuddered. The thought of the tortured child injected him with a gross unease.
Ceres turned to Archizend. “Hold on, aren’t we forgetting something? Didn’t something happen at the end there? I was going to ask about it.”
“At the lake?” Maxra asked.
“Yeah. Didn’t something happen after we freed that student?”
“Hmm… now that you mention it, I feel like something did. Whatever it was, I can’t remember. Weird.” She shrugged. “Well, let’s get going, huh? Can’t keep Raum and Zenzi waiting.”
“Which first, though? That is the question.” Nakir furrowed his brow.
“I think we better split up,” Grovalt proposed. “How about me and Archizend look for Zenzi and you guys go for Raum.”
The others looked around and nodded affirmatively. Except for one.
“No way! That desert looks way too hot. Plus, I’m not just gonna ignore Zen when she might be in trouble.”
“Fine by me.”
Thus, Maxra, Grovalt, and Archizend walked through the shimmering light depicting Zenzi’s prison. Ceres, Venza, and Nakir walked through the tower depicting Raum’s endless sand dunes.
As they left Aretztikapha temporarily, an eye opened and looked upon them with apathy. At the same time, a dark looming force turned its gaze toward the imminent future. Sounds of all kinds were ringing, and something beyond the light and dark, deep beneath the earth, began to stir.