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The smell of smoke burned Rio’s nose as he woke.
Blinking the fog from his eyes, he tried to get up from where he had fallen. A fallen beam had landed over his chest, kept from crushing him to death only by luck. Miraculously, he was mostly unharmed, his worst wound being a broken arm that hung limply at his side.
He tried to remember what had happened. The orc had been threatening the host, a cleric in the crowd had sent two holy bolts at the orc, he saw them impact, and then. . .
The scene was lit by a dim orange glow, small fires having spread all across the ruined mansion. Bodies were strewn around the one-beautiful ballroom, a macabre art piece surrounding where the body of the host lay, unmoving.
Rio panned the room, his eyes seeing several just like him, recovering and helping others. Crawling out from under the beam as well as he could, Rio moved toward the nearest figure, a beastkin female that looked a lot like–
“Fuyuko?” Rio asked, a tone of shock on his voice. The figure did not respond, her fur slightly ashen and bloodied, moving in soft waves in the light wind.
Rio crawled over faster, ignoring the pain in his broken arm. He knew that Fuyuko had been sold as a slave, but he didn’t know where. For all he knew, she might have escaped and started a revolution in the south.
He reached the beastkin’s side, rolling her over to get a better look at her.
It was Fuyuko. With his good arm, he pulled her closer, checking her over for injuries. She was alive– he sent a thanks to the Grand Creator– though her shoulder was dislocated, and a shard of wood had pierced her abdomen. Carefully, he pulled it out, and after checking the wound for splinters, cast a healing spell. Unfortunately, he didn’t have supplies on hand to properly reset a limb, and even if he did, with his own broken arm, he couldn’t do it.
Fuyuko groaned softly, to Rio’s immense relief. Hopefully she hadn’t gotten a concussion or suffered any internal damage, but her being awake could be helpful in seeing if she had any additional injuries he didn’t notice.
Satisfied that Fuyuko would be stable for the time being, Rio took the moment to take another look around.
All it took was a glance upward.
Hanging in the crater of the ruptured roof was a body, silhouetted by the moon.
The tattered dress of a servant revealed shredded chains wrapping the figure of an orc. Her arms were scarred from whippings, and her hands were calloused from hard work. Once-impressive tusks had been filed down to almost nothing, and her hair cut to look appealing to those who could never understand the cultural significance of such actions.
The orc’s eyes had been completely and utterly annihilated by the cleric’s attack. Blood poured from the twin wounds, defying gravity and encircling the orc’s head like a grim halo. Rio knew in his heart that she was dead.
He only remembered what orcs tended to do when dead when her face twisted into a furious scowl.
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The palace of the Grand Creator was an interesting place.
Angels flitted about like butterflies, moving from one thing to another with all the energy and focus of a child in a new environment, despite the fact that Saho knew that they had existed in the palace for millions of years before he was even a thought in his parents' heads.
Millions of years. That was a thought. He had barely existed for 14 years before he died, and had only gotten to 15 years of age just before being granted godhood. Now he could change his physical age to whatever he wanted, but he wouldn’t know what it would be like to actually live a mortal life for such periods of time.
He was immortal, never aging or changing unless he wanted to. What should he possibly do now, with all the endless years ahead of him?
He felt an angel tug at his tunic.
“Yes?” He asked. Always best to be polite, even when having a crisis.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Your friends are in danger.”
As Saho would reflect on later, such statements should never be said in such a mundane way.
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Gods have different senses then mortal races. They can sense the power of the universe itself, the ancient will of the creator herself that leaked out as she created everything there was. They could watch it swirl and flow like the ocean in a soft breeze.
Magic was simply the power of the universe, weakened and granted to mortal races. Mortal races, although they could not sense the ocean, they were a part of it. The will that flowed through their veins, no matter how weak compared to deities, but it was there. And their wills affected the universe. It would drip into the ocean, no matter how weak, and dissipate like a drop of milk in a bucket of water.
When Hifumi had first transformed into a mortal race, she was disorientated by the lack of vision. She couldn’t see the ocean of the universe anymore, couldn’t feel it at all. Through the centuries of living as various mortal races, she had gotten used to the sensory deprivation, and could live comfortably without it.
Now, the ocean of the universe was all that she could see. The ebbs and flows of the current, the swirls and waves of the creator’s leftover will.
She searched for the shape amongst the fallen bodies. She would have to. . . thank the cleric for returning her godhood. Then her former ‘masters’ for how they treated her during her service, then the elves for enslaving her in the first place. . .
She had a lot of people to thank.
But first the cleric. She didn’t get a great look at them before she lost her eyes, but clerics tended to have very different magic signatures than other mortals, mainly because they use holy magic.
As soon as Hifumi felt the cleric– who was awake and preparing to cast another spell– she lashed out, her will flowing over the cleric’s body.
After a few seconds, the smoking mass of what once was flesh stopped moving, and Hifumi continued her search. The cleric didn’t deserve even half of what she was going to give to her ‘masters’, so she went easy on them.
Her senses slipped over a dwarf cradling a half-conscious beastkin in his arms.
And suddenly, it felt like a boulder had been dropped into the ocean.
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As a rogue, Fuyuko was used to waking up ready for a fight. Even after 9 months of slavery, some things simply couldn’t be unlearned.
So when she was woken by the feeling of an explosion going off a short distance away, her eyes shot open, and her hand went for her dagger. Or it would’ve if she had her dagger, and if her arm was working.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rio, face pale and eyes wide. Above them, the orc servant floated in the air, her tattered dress flowing in an invisible wind, empty eye sockets pouring blood that surrounded her head, power and malice spilling from her frame. And Across the room–
Saho stood in pristine golden armor, holy light emanating from his body. He held no weapon, but his mere presence met the furious power of the orc with unmatched determination.
For a long moment, neither Saho nor the orc servant moved, the air still, and the room quiet.
Then Fuyuko heard the child of the host whimper.
The orc’s head snapped to the source of the sound, rage painting her face, teeth bared. With a lash of her arm, the target of her hostility was yanked upward, the air around them turning as hot as an open furnace in an instant.
Saho, crossing the ballroom in the blink of an eye, pulling the host’s child to safety before leaping towards the orc.
Before he could come close, she batted him aside in a move all too similar to how the demon king had thrown Fuyuko through a wall.
The air burned with hatred. Those watching held their breath as Saho rose once more, facing a raging storm.
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Saho knew this wasn’t a fight he could win.
The power of the universe was affected by emotion, and the stronger one was, the more control they had over it.
In her madness, the orc’s emotions were leaking into the universe with the force and subtlety of an enraged bear.
Hate, Fury, Vengeance, and the all too familiar feeling of crushing determination. The will to fight until there was nothing left to fight, and then to keep fighting after that. The feeling that once poured from the demon king now poured from the orc.
Saho’s will could not match it, and eventually he would fall as well, and then nothing would be there to hold the orc back.
He could not beat her.
But he could banish her.
He remembered the tales he had heard of how the Grand Creator had exiled the Dark One from existence, forever barring it from threatening the universe. Even though it had made the demons, who had broken through and done untold damage to Asyke, the creator of such evil was unable to do so itself.
And so he gathered his power. The strength of his will, and the will of his patron, and acted.
The fabric of reality tore, and through the hole. . .
Nothing. A great, grand nothing. A lack of feeling so wrong that it caused his gut to clench.
Acting on instinct, before his opponent could react, he pushed with all his might, and ousted the orc from the universe, casting her into the empty abyss that lay beyond. The wound in reality sealed itself behind her.
Out of breath, chills running up and down his spine, he took a step towards his two friends, who lay frozen on the ground.
“Are you alright?”
They just gaped at him.
Saho was reminded of what had happened the last time he asked that.
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