Jerome didn’t want to hide inside the void space. He wanted to see how this would end. Deep down he was excited to see the big explosion. The rush he felt from such danger was exhilarating. The drumming of his heartbeat rose, almost deafening in his own ears. He felt a residual strange energy wash over him for a second. His hackles rose and goosebumps rose on his skin.

The light disappeared and the forest calmed. Jerome looked up in the direction of the barrier. There was no explosion. He sighed as his heartbeat calmed. “What a letdown,” he muttered, flying toward the barrier. He had ridden a high, expecting to be rewarded with a resplendent explosion, but got nothing for his troubles. Maybe not nothing.

Achilles chuckled. “I told you they would neutralize each other.”

“You meant in an explosion, right?” Jerome said hovering over the site of the destruction. “‘The barrier is positive energy, and is trying to cancel out the negative energy in an explosion’, you said.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Jerome snorted.

“You should probably let the young succubus out now, Xerae. She might think you dead.”

Jerome pushed his psychic energy and Csala appeared before him. He reached out to catch her before she fell about a thousand feet from the sky, and spread her brains all over the ground.

“You’re alive?” Csala asked the moment she appeared.

“Yes, I am. And your pursuer is dead. You can thank me now,” he said with a triumphant grin. It was no small feat to defeat a being as powerful as a Sage. It inflated his ego a bit, just a bit, and he felt like tooting his own horn.

Yeah. He had defeated the proverbial dragon; he had conquered the mighty Kraken. The sea had parted before him and he had led his own across in triumph. Where were the skalds and scribes? Where was the bard come to sing of his epics, so his name could pass into the annals of Vorthe?

Ah, yes. He needed that boost. Though, it would be nice to get it from someone that wasn’t him. But the person he wanted it from would sooner eat shit than say a word of acknowledgment to him. In fact, she was glaring at him right now.

“And why did you have to trap me inside that place... Again?” Csala snapped at him with a glare that could burn the sun. That snarky side of her rose to the surface with no hesitation.

Jerome sighed. “Here we go again. It’s not the same place.”

“I don’t care if it’s the same place or not! You locked me in there! If anything, you should be apologizing to me!”

“Do you want me to drop you right here?” Jerome raised an eyebrow as he glared at her. “...I would.” That shut her up for good. But she glared back at him.

“Where is her body then? Show me.”

“Here lies your pursuer, the old crone,” he said with a wide hand gesture.

The ground was blackened beyond repair. At least that was how it looked from above. Jerome wanted to descend to the ground to try and search for her remains, but the temperature of the area the barrier had covered was still as hot as the sun. There would be no going down there for at least a few hours. Even for Jerome, such heat was life-threatening.

He thought back to the fight and could only appreciate how lucky he had been to only take one hit from the old crone. He had still won though, so… But not minding the fact that the old hag couldn’t wield essence. If she was a Sage for real, Jerome knew he would have been long dead already.

With an instant pulse of his psychic energy, he covered the whole site of the destruction but found nothing. “Her remains must have been destroyed,” Jerome said.

Csala sighed in relief. “She will not be missed,” she said.

“Hmm. Did you know that she was Tialana’s great-granddaughter?”

Csala’s head snapped in his direction. “What did you say?”

“Calm down, calm down. I’ll tell you,” Jerome said. “We need to find somewhere to rest.” He looked around and shot forward, heading for another large tree. “And I need to prepare to heal the forest.” He sighed. “If I can,” he muttered.

~~~

They settled a few miles away from the scorched scene of the battle site. After building a fire, they settled down for the night. The night was colder the closer they got to the Northern Hemisphere, so the fire this night was bigger than that of the previous night. Jerome also had to create a barrier around their campsite to keep predators out.

It was going to be a long journey tomorrow. Jerome sighed as he thought about all the essence he had to gather again tomorrow. He had had to push himself really hard to stay on course. Using Godspeed was like running a 100-meter dash, only it’s a marathon, and you’ve got to maintain your speed.

“Tell me about Tialana,” he asked after they had rested.

Csala remained quiet for a while gathering her thoughts. Jerome waited patiently. This might be a touchy subject — or not. He couldn’t tell. He knew Tialana must be a historical figure among her people. And from their interaction so far, Csala was not one to talk about her people.

“She was considered the savior of our kind. The most powerful succubus to walk the dark earth of Terra Praeta. She helped many of our kind escape the Rumbling—”

“The Rumbling?”

“Ask your spirit to tell you about that,” she responded curtly. “Apparently two powerful figures were fighting and the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. Tialana gathered the succubi under her wing and fled south. She used her powerful psychic energy to pave the way for the rest of them while protecting her own daughter…”

Jerome waited for her to continue. He could see the little frown of concentration on her face. She had gotten lost in thought. As though she was still trying to get her thoughts together, or pick what truths to tell.

“She’s probably thinking about Tialana’s daughter,” Achilles said in his mind.

Is that because she stopped talking after mentioning that Tialana was protecting her child?

“That, and succubi don’t just have babies. It means giving up their freedom. Remember, succubi are taught never to trust men and never to give themselves to men.”

Jerome nodded lightly. It meant they would be owned by said men. Jerome sighed. Then why would Tialana have a child? Was she forced? Who was powerful enough to force her? Or tempt her? The workings of Mother Nature were beyond him. The succubi should have had thousands of years to evolve their specie but somehow, they remained with this one flaw. No one wanted to become a slave…and Achilles wasn’t answering his question. Achilles?

“I have no answers to those questions, Xerae, as I did not exist in that time period.”

I guess you aren’t all that then, Jerome thought, giving Achilles the mental equivalent of a smirk. The AI snorted, clearly insulted but said nothing.

“Well, there is artificial insemination,” Achilles said.

But did they have that in that time period?

Achilles had no rebuttal so Jerome focused his attention back on Csala. It was best not to spite the AI too much. Else his suit malfunctioned or something. Jerome cringed slightly at that.

“Anyway,” Csala continued, coming out of her reverie, “there were over 30,000 succubi that migrated on that day. My mother only told me that bit. And that Tialana slept forever afterward. Maybe because she was too weak from using too much psychic energy. No one remembers.”

Jerome nodded absently as he digested all that she said. “30,000 people, that’s a lot! It must have been very tough. I can only travel so fast because of essence. To depend only on psychic energy to travel such a distance — and I bet she must have led your ancestors over hundreds of thousands of miles of land from the northern hemisphere, and at the same time protecting them from the battle.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

~~~

Csala watched Jerome, trying to decipher whether his concern was genuine or a mask. He was unlike any other male she had ever met, granted she had never taken time to know any of them, only consuming their vitality. What they all had in common was that they wanted to ravage her, and make her theirs. Jerome on the other hand had restrained himself, even when she was at his mercy — well, she still is at his mercy.

His interest in the history of her people was not something she expected and as such she didn’t know how to deal with it. She had thought she’d just tell him a little so she could get Muna’s words out of him. She never expected to look so concerned and fascinated with her people’s history though. It may be that he just wanted to get close to her though. Csala frowned and tightened the guard around her heart.

“And what did the old crone say?”

“You said Tialana was protecting her daughter while fleeing with the 30,000 succubi, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Tialana’s daughter was the old crone’s grandmother.”

Csala took her time to digest this. The human had no reason to lie so her first thoughts weren’t to try and prove if the information was correct or not.

“Which begs the question,” he continued. “How old was the old hag? And how the hell was she able to survive for over a hundred thousand years.”

Csala gave Jerome a sideways glance. How in Odin’s great hall did he know that? But of course, he would. He had learned how to speak faerie in but five moons, why would he not have learned about something so significant in Terra Praeta’s history? She felt he was testing the waters. Testing how much she was willing to reveal. She still hadn’t truly come to terms with what Muna did to survive for so long on her own. To some extent, she wanted to find the old succubus’ corpse and then hit it to shit until it rose again so she could get the answers to questions she hadn’t made up her mind to ask or didn’t know how to ask.

She was definitely not going to be telling him about how Muna stole other succubi’s bodies over the millennia. That was just…her gut tightened. She didn’t know what to think about it. If she ever lived to be that powerful would she have the stomach to do such a thing?

“...Csala?” Jerome asked, bringing her out of her rumination. “Are you okay?”

She relaxed her shoulders and breathed out a long sigh. “I don’t know how she was able to do such a thing and I’d like to find out myself. Too bad you killed her before I could find out anything.”

“Well, should I have left her alive then?”

“Hm-hm.”

“Right,” Jerome said, dragging the word out playfully. The sarcasm wasn’t lost in his tone. “When the next succubus comes along, I’ll leave her to you to deal with.”

Csala chucked a pebble at him, chuckling. The pebble didn’t meet its target and stopped mid-air, Jerome having halted it with his psychic energy. His actions made them remember his training and they both stood up with a start.

Chuckling, Jerome said, “I guess it’s time for training then.”

“Yes, it is. And you may call me Yana while I teach you,” Csala said with an air of authority. Or at least that was the atmosphere she wanted to command. The human didn’t take the cue though.

“Yana?” he snorted. “You’d have to earn that.”

“It is tradition to call one whose tutelage you are under mistress in Terra Praeta, you know?” she said with a raised eyebrow, a mocking glare gracing her stunning face.

~~~

“Bite me then,” Jerome rebutted with a chuckle. “I’ve taught you some things too. I didn’t ask to be called Ikana, did I?”

“Doesn’t make me wrong,” Csala bristled. “And I’m not going to call you master.”

“Touché,” Jerome said with a pointed look.

“Huh?” Csala tilted her head at him, looking puzzled. “Tou…ché?” She tested the word on her tongue.

Jerome smiled at her. She looked so cute sitting there in layers upon layers of red fur with her arms folded, and a puzzled expression on her face. Everything she did always seemed so graceful. When he first met Csala, she moved with a lot of grace, just as she was sitting across from him right now with that otherworldliness — with so little effort, it amazed him, mesmerized him even. The ancient succubus he killed was leagues above Csala in that regard. He never saw her move. She was just there when he looked and away when he blinked.

“You have many foreign words in your vocabulary that I never read…err…heard from other humans. What does that mean?”

Jerome smirked at her. “It’s used to point out a cunning observation made at one’s expense.”

Csala blushed, her face just a few shades lighter than her hair.

“And did you say read? As in you can read human minds?”

“You caught that didn’t you,” she muttered, her blush deepening some more.

How red could she get? Jerome wondered. He felt like teasing her some more but decided against it. She might just snap again.

“Can you read my mind?” Jerome asked. If the Sovereign found it impossible to read him passively, does that mean a succubus would too? Or were succubi different from humans and could just read anyone they wanted to? That would probably be a fair trade for their lack of ability to wield essence. Jerome made sure to think about the mind stone visualizing it in his mind. He felt that unique sensation deep in his mind, as if another consciousness was waking up.

Csala observed him for a while, her gaze never leaving his. “Let’s get back to your training, itmayeela.”

Jerome chuckled. She had called him ‘student’ to regain control of their little banter and she couldn’t read his mind. She was definitely opening up to him. Which he guessed was a good thing. He closed his eyes and stimulated his psychic energy, pouring it like invisible wine down his throat. He stirred it in his throat for a while, hoping to glimpse something he had missed before. Nothing. Might as well just practice until I get it.

“Interesting, Xerae,” Achilles said in his mind.

What?

“You did it again. For a few seconds, I couldn’t hear your thoughts.”

Jerome grinned wickedly but didn’t answer. He went back to meditating and whispering, practicing how to transmit his voice, over to Csala.

Csala shivered lightly. He opened his eyes to see the domed shield almost covered in snow. How long had he been meditating? It felt like only a few minutes had passed. The shield kept the cold wind out by heating up the air inside the dome, but the snow was going to be a problem. It could dampen the heat the shield generated, causing the inside of it to grow cold.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said and went to tweak the barrier a little.

~~~

The night went on silently. They focused on his training, with Jerome asking questions from time to time and Csala doing her best to answer with the little knowledge she had. They continued till the first rays of the sun lit up the sky, oblivious to the passage of time.

Jerome looked up at the sky. He wondered if the heat from the battle scene would have cooled. Achilles teleported him there instantly. The ground had cooled. But more than that, there was something beautiful waiting for him. The soil had turned to glass. Cracked in some places and without form in others, it still gave the surroundings an air of mysticism. He reach down to touch the glass and pulled a small shard up with him. It was thick and heavy, reflecting his image back at him.

“Your hair has grown too long, Xerae,” Achilles said.

“True, but I need to get to the northern hemisphere. How are they doing?”

“Still safe, but they’ve lost another teammate. Mostly due to carelessness.”

Jerome sighed. There were still two more days before the pack of unbound caught up with the Itakars. Jerome had made sure Achilles kept an eye on them before he left Sanctum. It was time to focus on the journey now and make sure his new friends didn’t become fodder for hybrid magical beasts. Was that the best description there was for them?

“In a way, Xerae. But no. They’re evolved magical beasts — not moon howlers; an ancient species that has lost its pure form. Their evolution over hundreds of thousands of years has made them more intelligent and cunning hunters.

“Their bodies also evolved so they could shift to run like moon howlers, or stand and walk like bipedal beings. They are bigger, stronger, and smarter than the average moon howler. And are capable of commanding packs of moon howlers.”

Reminds me of chimps, Jerome thought. They would be really tough to deal with then.

“You know, Xerae. I could just transport you and Csala there right now. Instead of spending essence to get there. This way you conserve energy and are ready for the fight, whenever it begins.”

Godspeed was unlike any other spell he had ever used. Even the Dragon’s Wrath, as powerful as it was, didn’t exhaust him. It was risky to use it again now that he knew the drawbacks and possible dangers.

No, Achilles. I’ll get us there myself. If he couldn’t do just this himself, then he wouldn’t be able to persevere in troubled times. He had to do it himself. Without help from Achilles. “It’ll be proof of my struggles and growth,” he said.

Jerome took in a deep breath of fresh air. He could almost hear the trees singing in appreciation of Mother Nature. He wanted to help regrow the portion of the forest he had a hand in destroying but it seemed all was well. The soil was nourishing itself beneath the glass field. Seeds were germinating deep inside the soil and soon nature would invade the glass little by little until the forest became whole again. There was nothing he needed to do here.

He flew back to their campsite, wrapped his hands around Csala, and shot into the sky, flying northward, even as she ranted about how he just disappeared into thin air.

~~~

Deep down inside the earth, where no eyes think to look. Where the air was too thin for most living things to survive. A body rose from the mud with limbs cracking as it crawled out of the dark earth.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Muna roared and her mud-covered frame was immediately cleansed. The mud covering her was flung away, leaving smooth, young skin in its place.

She had just been bested by a Sprout. A human who shouldn’t be as powerful as her last finger. Muna growled in anger. This body she took was meant to be a last resort. Csala’s body was what she desired. She was young and her vitality would help her last longer than this body she took. It would have given her enough time to find another suitable body.

Time was against her. Her new body was already beginning to decay. It may not show outwardly, but she could feel it. And the more she pushed herself, the faster it decayed. She wouldn’t have lost a fight if her previous body hadn’t decayed to the extent that it would fail to function if she pushed too hard.

She had to find Csala, and fast. Muna disappeared on the spot and reappeared on the surface, the scent of nature assaulted her sense of smell as she stood there naked but unashamed. Lush green trees field her vision. “Over 20,000 miles,” she muttered to herself, recognizing where she was. If it wasn’t for her very powerful soul, she wouldn’t have been able to cover that distance without a body. Her previous body had disintegrated in the blast when she fought with the human kid.

“When I get a hold of you kid,” she clenched her fists and gnashed her teeth in anger. The trees around her seemed to lean away as if dreading her wrath. “Odin would not be able to save you!”

Muna disappeared on the spot.