“Interesting…” a deep resonating voice woke Spenser from his stupor.
His head was fuzzy and the pressure all around it made it feel as if his head was too full, and the hazy fog right before being fully away would not leave his mind.
“Let me help,” the voice rumbled again, and the compounding tension in Spencer's mind lifted.
As he opened his eyes, only greyness could be seen around him, a sudden cold panic washed from his chest to his gut before seeping to the rest of his body, an uncontrollable fear that has plagued him for years. A fear that inevitably resulted in his discharge from the Army, trying to focus his fear by targeting his weakness on an important fear.
“Where is my daughter?!” he gasped his need to protect his child focusing his mind like a laser.
Eyes darting erratically in his field of vision, in an attempt to look for his daughter, his child should have been in bed next to him, however, around him were only the grey swirling mists. Finally, after controlling his raging emotions, he was able to move his head to his left, and about 10 meters away was a giant man dressed in red plate mail sitting crossed legged and looming over his sweet child. The giant had a beard that was the colour of fire and Victoria was standing on her toes, fists balled and clenching the before mentioned beard.
He must have been staring like that for a full minute, laying on his side paralysed by indecision, feeling like hours. A burst of rumbling laughter like boulders crashing together broke Spencer's inaction.
Victoria then look towards her father, but it wasn't Victoria, but at the same time he felt like he knew her, No Spenser did know her, like a song's name you can't quite remember but can recall the words and tune flawlessly. His head pounded in pain and a mounting pressure crescendoed before she smiled and she was much older and so much like her mother.
“I am safe father, I will only lose how we did it, a price I have come to learn was always going to be paid” she smiled sadly before speaking again.
“I will see you soon father”
She started to fade into a smoke-like texture and fear gripped him yet again, but just as quickly a deep burning rage replaced it, a rage that threatened to overcome him. A sad thought broke through Spencer's anger, ‘why must I be like this?’ The thoughts of the past threatened to surface yet again but with a herculean effort, he put that box in his mind away and buried it deep within his subconscious, so deep that no amount of Government-funded help could dig it up.
In a split second of real-time, he tensed and dove at the giant to save his daughter before she disappeared completely, a daughter that wasn’t Victoria. The tower of a man turned his head towards Spencer instantly and his eyes locked with his. His eyes were not the eyes of a man, but gold and blue and slit like a lizard. Cold fear threatened to shoot down his spine and swelled in his gut, for not the first time in his life he was unable to move, think or react in any way.
The two men stared at each other for what felt like ages, with the smaller of the two in a half sprinter start and the larger with a head cocked in curiosity. His look softened and the fear that was held over Spencer was gone instantly.
With Spencer almost falling over in shock
“What the fuck was that? I feel… nothing”
With the creaking of leather and the dull thud of thick steel, the man in red turned his body towards Spenser and stood to his full height. Like a graceful dancer, the man twisted with only a single dull thud of the plates of metal clanging as he stop moving, a sound more akin to the plating on a tank.
Spenser straightened his back and stood, not as graceful but far from stumbling whilst not breaking eye contact.
Spenser's head only came up to his mid-thigh and his legs were thicker than his whole person.
A seed of worry rolled down his spine breaking through the numbness as the silence continued.
The being broke the standoff with a smile.
“So long has it been that my children played with the circle of time, it has left me to slumber for too long,” he said with the smile fading slightly.
“and to think that only a scant few instances of time pass after our awakening to bring the first Manaborn of my blood and a Manatouched…I smell the sweet scent of success, a plan left in time completed ” his voice was powerful and it rumbled through Spencer's very being.
A blue octagonal screen flicked in front of him and he flicked a finger dismissively and it vanished.
“So many of our kin now, the first of the gifts man received from us was learning, the second was the written tongue and the third was to adapt and grow.” a far of look flickered again across his features before the blue rectangle appeared again.
“This is like a grimoire but it feels different, it feels bigger, like the lesser gods, a new sibling is called a…no.. It is System…” he rumbled as if sounding a new word as if he was tasting the word for the first time.
Spencer broke the giant far off look with a voice that sounded like a squeak after his.
“What is going on and who are you, Sir?” he added at the end almost as a reflex, no need to be rude to a giant.
The giant nodded to himself and placed a huge axe on his shoulder pauldron, an axe that had not been there before and Spencer had no idea he was holding it prior. It was a monster of a thing that was the same colour as fresh blood and looked to be changing hue slightly like flames within the metal, the edge was a perfect half-circle with a spike on the reverse side. Before he could inspect it further the giant spoke and all Spencer could do was listen and look at him.
“Fair questions and fair answers, you are awakening to the consequences of your future actions and at this point is an anchor in time. Specifics matter not, for you, will remember, you were different before and changed now, but the blood will always be true, as for who am I? I am a small part of one whole, being guided by an ancient power… but we soon will be our own and will be….. are more. Forgive me if I ramble, it will take a few turns for me to awaken, mana density is low, was low ” he trailed off before shifting his focus from Spenser to a new screen that flashed into existence.
“To forestall your next question before answering your last, your child accompanied you to keep you out of trouble, she had an easier transition being a blank canvas, had she not been able to contact me you may have… acted rashly, and you are in the spirit realm, a place that is pure energy and mental power. Specifically my Realm. I am holding your mind to help the transition”
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The blank look on Spencer's face must have given away his confusion. The giant man nodded sagely toward him, an amazing feat for someone so intimidating and deadly looking.
“Unsurprisingly, you are confused, knowledge has been lost and in our absence, much has been neglected, but much more is gained. You have been exposed and gifted with mana and it has not driven you mad... and your blood has awoken to its heritage, normally children of our bloodline will learn from ancestral memories through dreams throughout adolescence, but this is a new development to our bloodline or very old depending on your scale of time. Others of weaker blood would have made this happen deliberately with mentors and guardians, tools and books. Things to forge the rampaging energies into a blade for war or mysteries. Alas, this does not take into account the memories you are merging with. If this last part was not so, you would lose everything eventually, so you will cast a spell in a few decades' that will use your ancestral blood to send your mind to the past or the right now.. Soon you will be who you had become, but you will not know exactly how, that will be taken from you. It was a gift in the first place to forestall a greater tragedy that will not come to pass now the deed is done.” he said ending gently, as if apologetically.
Spencer's legs threatened to give out and he almost slumped down into a sitting position, in a daze and slightly confused, as if to affirm his growing internal fears the feeling in his head grew more pronounced. Instead of a feeling of pressure, his mind was now in a shrinking bubble, noticeably shrinking, slowly losing himself to a vastness surrounding it.
Giant fingers clicked an inch from his face, bringing him back to the now as Spencer slowly looked back up.
After regaining his bearings. And a few thoughts over the giant's choice of words till this point, his cadence and his meaning, it now only occurred to him that he spoke with an accented closer to the old European countries or germanic. And over time was slowly starting to sound normal, looking at his own hands, Spencer tried to think of a way to ask the hundreds of questions that were speeding through his head, as his mind tried not to drift to the feeling of his mind being consumed by another.
“So I'm going to die? Just fade away” slightly raising his head and looking into the giant's inhuman eyes with newfound determination.
His laughter bombed again and he flicked the axe in the air, catching the shaft in the other hand before resting it on his other shoulder.
“If the creators were only so kind, no and yes in a way. You will have the pain of loss and tragedy, the regret of choices you would have made, but never did and the fear of what could have passed. You will not die, but be who you were meant to be, with a second chance to change fate.” he said the last bit with a feral grin and his eyes flashed a darker crimson fire for an instant before shining a powerful blue.
“The great laws are slow to awaken and changes are happening, but this is a small boon from me, this merge of the now and the future would have left you vulnerable… however, this System allows more…. Influence and more freedom to a lesser degree to his pantheons” his eyes lost focus and the blue screen flashed in front of him again.
“Rest your troubled mind, it is already done and will be over soon ” he started while being absorbed with the screen.
An awkward silence filled the distance between us and after what felt like a minute or so Spencer opened his mouth to ask a question he needed to know the answer to.
“The girl, who was that? How did I know her, how did I know she was my daughter but not?”
“She is your kin, or will be soon, like all of our blood, she is forever changed with her awakening, unlike you she was born with mana and had no need for adaption, father and mother each hold the required blood heritage and would have been birthed a gifted, Her attumnent has been faster with the return of mana and both your children may be on the level of Merlin. Now with her like you? Who knows?” he said with a slight shrug, that looked to Spencer as if a tank could shrug.
“Has this got something to do with the storm?” Spencer asked on a hunch.
“Perhaps, a surge in ambient mana is expected, however, you are more numerous in people than before, this one city holds the entire population of the world that left thousands of years ago. It is not surprising left so long alone and with so many, the storm would be quite large”
“Hmmm, from the imprints in the aether I can feel only a fraction of a fraction are without our heritage” He must have seen Spensers growing panic as he continued, and another screen flashed in front of him again.
“Hmm System tells me you would understand it better as Dee Enn Ayy?” Seeing slight understanding on Spencer's face he continued.
“Most now have both of the two unique dominant ge-enes that separated the main powers of the past, that I might add the last lords of with world segregated all by law, culture and geas. It was during a dark time in your history that birthed the maneless humans, but such arts are lost to time, conflict and no small part to the same being that guides me and helped you, the final merging of bloodlines is new, and now your heritage and are fused into a single dominant Gene…, oh gene, such an in-depth understanding your people hold now” he said with a collection of screens that spencer presumed was explanations into modern science.
“I must remember this going forward.” he was looking to struggle with a few of the new screens that had helix spinning on them.
“Fear not Spencer, this is how you should have been and the gods will always protect the true children of Gaia from the madness, if you believe some of the lessers sages of the past, it is our entire purpose, so fear not”
The way he said ‘true children’ didn't sit well with him and Spencer was about to ask for clarification when his comment about madness finally caught up to his understanding and gave him pause.
“What is ‘the madness?’
A look of excitement came over the giant of a man and his voice took on a fervour that made Spencer want to start running away from him as fast as possible. The feeling was over in an instant and he smirked at the smaller man's obvious reaction.
“The weakness of lesser blood” he answered cryptically
And a shiver ran down his spine. Again he got a far off look and a screen popped into existence on his face.
“you will have a hard fight ahead of you, for the larger your numbers grow the more powerful the impact of your fall, and believe you me, the ones that left will not like what they find when they return” he spoke again with a predatory grin.
“Ask boy,” he rumbled
“How long do I have in this dream? How long before it happens, I feel like it is not getting worse, no I know it’s not… I don't even doubt it is, and that is alarming and you said something about the spirit realms.”
He looked at him then and his intense gaze burned, but Spencer did not look away as he spoke.
“It has already happened, the truth is that you are just an echo now waiting to be a memory. You can feel its influence, can't you? And as for the spirit realm, it has been called many things to many people but it is always the same, call it what you will”
He waited for Spencer’s nod indicating his understanding, and then he continued.
“You will need to keep the events similar to the memories of the past, our time runs short for your circumstances have given us more room to talk, but alas I will ‘be in touch’, I like this language and how it has evolved. This age will be marvellous” with a devilish smile his teeth became jagged fangs.
“Waken to the age of conflict”
The screen was swept to his side with a large finger before vanishing and he straightened up, and Spencer realized he must have been stopping some unknown conversation to talk to him the whole time.
“Any more questions?” he asked as if it was obvious that he had many.
But before he could order them and asked he spoke.
“I know what you want to ask, I have been many things, and a few at the same time, but now I am no longer Mars or Ifrit nor Basr nor Tyr or Chiyou, now I am simple and all-encompassing, I am Conflict, I am Strife and I am only as you see now a mear fraction of a whole. I am awakening again...and you have my blood in your veins.” At this, his axe blinked and it was on Spenser's forehead, then his chest and then his navel. As he looked in the eyes of the giant, the giant smirked and the visage of a huge scaled beast replaced him in an instant.
“Good, you will do well,” said the Monster masquerading as a giant in a rumbling voice and everything went black.