Jerome stood up quickly, his brain starting to think of how he could help. Achilles was in trouble. From what he glimpsed, Dashani, or whatever the creature he saw through Achilles’s mind was… consuming him!
The monsters poured out of the dark forest snarling ferociously as they came. They had become too much trouble now, he stopped caring whether he hurt or killed any of them. Achilles needed him more than anything right now.
It’s a mental battle, isn’t it, Achilles? That much, I can sense.
He heard Achilles groan in his mind.
Guide her to me, Achilles. Remember how you can’t read my mind at certain times? Well, the Sovereign of Vorthe can’t read my mind as well. That means I can stop her — whatever it is that she’s doing to you. And if I’m right, even hurt her psychically.
“Too dangerous,” Achilles replied.
Dashani wants me, Achilles. There was no way you could have protected me from her for long. But trust me, I can get her to back off for now.
The monsters were close now and the ground shook as they charged toward him. Jerome shot into the sky. They stopped to watch him hovering over them. Some jumped to catch him but they couldn’t jump high enough.
So none of you can fly, he thought. That was good. He kindled a flame in his hand and projected his voice. “Listen, all of you. Muna is dead. The one who held you captive and bound you to herself has been defeated. Whatever impulse is urging you to take my head, can you not resist it?”
A monster roared from below. “Probably didn’t understand a word I said,” he muttered. But he understood what the monster was trying to communicate. It was a challenge — a challenge to come down and fight them.
“I don’t have time to deal with this,” he said. He was already wasting time as it were. The glow from the ball of flame intensified for a split second. Jerome stretched his arm toward the monsters, palm facing the mob. Recognition flashed in some of their eyes and he saw those with quick reflexes dash away a moment before a blue laser tore through the mob of monsters.
The felines did something creative. They grouped themselves in twos and one in each group flung the other into the air in his direction.
He snorted. “If you can’t fly, you’re just as harmless as pigeons in the air.”
He felt the need to teach them a lesson. Jerome flew toward the nearest. With a punch, he sent it sailing downward. He made sure not to punch too hard so as not to kill it in an instant. He shot downward and caught it, before hurling it into another. They both panicked. They were on a foreign battlefield now and had no footing.
Jerome shot after the last. It had already passed in an arc through the point he was hovering in the air before. He caught it and smacked it on the head. The feline passed out from the blow. The remaining two were struggling to untangle themselves as they raced toward the ground. They made some very comical noises as they struggled with each other.
Just before they hit the ground, Jerome hurled the one in his hand at them. It crashed into them and they hit the snow-covered ground with more force than they should have.
Another group ran out of the forest from his right, the fear seeping out of their pores was almost overbearing. They were running away. Nyx shot out into the sky and torched them with a single breath of fire. The day turned to night for a split second as she did that. Her huge dragon body filled the sky and blocked out the evening sun.
Jerome watched in awe, his own battle forgotten, as she flapped her giant wings and gathered black flame in her jaws to fire again. The ball of flame left her open jaws, surprising him — black as the night, it blackened the sky with a flash of darkness as it left her jaws. And burnt up everything it touched in an instant. His pursuers that were still left didn’t have the time to scream before they were vaporized. The heat bathed him but did nothing to him.
One thing came to mind as he watched the destruction below him. Noir’s Black Flames. He’d heard that phrase twice and now was seeing a living manifestation of black flames!
“You’re welcome!” she shouted excitedly. Her voice, though deeper with a little more guttural tone, still sounded softer than the image of the dragon she portrayed… and the carnage she wrought. She noticed his concentration and flew towards him. “What is it?”
“Achilles is in trouble. I need to concentrate to help him.”
She looked at him like he had grown another head. “If he can’t solve his problems then you have no hope in solving them for him Jerome.”
In the light of day, her dragon form was even more… more. It was the image of a true apex predator. Nyx gave off a very oppressive aura that was hard to ignore.
Which was what he most definitely did; he ignored her. He closed his eyes to calm his mind as he hovered in midair. He could only hope that none of his assailants could fly. It wouldn’t be pleasant to take a beating while he was vulnerable. At least he still had his full armor on.
All around him, the battle continued. Nyx’s laughter and the blaze of her flames were all he heard. The essence in the air had turned chaotic, chasing away their on-lookers.
If he could only find a way to connect to Achilles. Achilles was the one always connecting to him. Now was the time he needed the mind-calming stone to work some of those mysterious miracles. He hoped he could get it to do so. His concentration slowly bore fruit and little by little, the noise of the battle receded to the background.
Jerome felt everything drop away and all that remained was his thoughts about the mind-calming stone. Its presence stirred in his mind like a giant waking up from deep slumber. He sensed a shift in its… he had no words to describe what he sensed. Its presence grew in his mind. It was almost suffocating to feel. It wasn’t overpowering him, just… smothering him.
All of a sudden, Jerome felt his mind sharpen, becoming crystal clear. The sounds of the battle that had receded to the back of his mind poured in again. His mind felt like it twisted around him and… lifted? He had no way to describe the sensations he felt. All he knew was that he had clarity of thought and perception.
He could sense Nyx. She was like a blazing bonfire in his mind — or more like a nuclear bomb. Others were shutting down or… winking out before his senses.
These are souls! He exclaimed to himself. He was sensing souls! Though he could see nothing, only pitch black.
“You are in the realm of the mind, Xerae…” Achilles’ voice reached him like an echo. As if he was hearing the AI from inside a long tunnel. “It’s like your mind plane… only it’s on a global scale and contains all minds…”
Achilles! Boy, am I glad to hear your voice!
“You should not be here, Xerae… It’s too dangerous and I wouldn’t be able to protect you…” His voice sounded closer this time around.
I have protection.
“Then open your mind’s eye if you can and see…!”
Jerome felt the weight of Authority in that last word! Suddenly, it was like scales fell off his eyes and the world shone brightly around him. No, not the world. This place was… he looked around, trying to see if he recognized his surroundings. The ground was like darkness given substance and the sky?! It was a vast space filled with myriads of colors swirling and twisting together — not just blue!
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The dark ground rose and fell in some places like hills. It formed towers that were high up in the air, some even breaking through the colorful clouds into the space beyond his sight. Jerome turned to take in the vastness of his surroundings.
Everything moving in his view was either glowing or shining with energy — strange contraptions, monsters the likes he’d never seen before, even the people, many of them fae, though they were too far away and too busy fighting to notice him. There were more beings in the distant sky doing battle. Their battle shook the sky — if one could call it the sky. It was a colorful storm of chaos.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Xerae.” Jerome turned at the sultry voice. A beautiful woman stood before him wearing the strangest armor he’d ever seen. She was glowing just like her armor, which shifted around her continually.
And she had called him ‘Xerae’.
Jerome stared — gawked, really. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Tall and dark-skinned, with long, inky black flowing hair like the darkness beneath his feet. Her pouty upturned lips drew his eyes but the rest of her body was just as beautiful. Impossibly large, perky breasts embraced by her breastplate, slightly toned stomach, and curves that went on for days. Her long legs were full and her thighs thick and sexy.
Jerome shook himself free of his stupor. He remembered when he first made contact with Achilles. It was a sultry, yet robotic female voice that greeted him before it deepened into the voice Achilles used now. A voice he was certain sounded like this one. There was no way this could be—
“Yes, I am, Xerae,” she said with a sigh.
“Achilles?” he asked in unbelief. She nodded. “How is it you look like a succubus?”
~~~
Csala
Sleeping off in the dark forest was the greatest mistake she had ever made. She’d thought capturing Jerome was her biggest mistake but no. She did something even worse. She tried to console herself with the fact that the strange sleep had come over her all of a sudden and for some reason, she couldn’t hold back. Someone… or something must have caused it.
Now she was trapped in her own mind, unable to leave. Csala could sense the psychic workings of her prison. It was unlike anything she had ever seen or experienced. It was woven too tight, and with dream aura that was on par with Muna’s.
She panicked. Maybe Muna had found her! Jerome said something about her Spirit still in existence! Csala tried to move but found movement impossible. She pushed her psychic energy to its limit but her prison didn’t budge. She was cocooned inside some sort of spherical pod — or at least that was how it felt. But it only felt so because she couldn’t feel her body. She felt immaterial.
She kept pushing, trying new things that might work. Nothing worked. When she got tired, she stopped to rest her psychic energy for a while. This went on for a long time. She exhausted herself trying to find a way out more times than she could count. She passed out from exhaustion so many times that time lost its meaning.
After so long, so many attempts without success, she wanted to give up. Frustration set in. All her life she had never suffered to this extent. Why was all this happening to her?
Csala screamed.
Suddenly she heard a voice. “Csala…” it said. The voice was an echo of the real thing. Like it reached her from afar, through a tunnel. Feminine. “Do not give up, Csala…”
“Who are you?” she called. “Why am I here?”
“That’s good… keep talking...” it sounded closer. “The more you speak, the better I can sense you to free you…”
Csala clamped her mouth shut. Fear took over her again. Whatever this entity was, she wasn’t going to blindly believe it.
“Don’t be like that, Csala. I’m here to help. And Jerome needs your help too. Please, speak.”
The voice was so much closer now, searching for her. If she made a peep it would find her. She heard it sigh.
“I know you can’t see. Everywhere must be dark around you.” It took a deep breath. “See…” it said.
Csala felt so much power behind those words, she had no idea a being could wield power like that. But the next moment, it was like the darkness around her was peeled off her eyes like a cloth.
She saw… a battle going on in the sky! Myriads of armored beings, the likes of which she had never seen before clashed above her, shaking everything around her. Even the very air vibrated like it was exploding in her ears. She clamped her hands over her ears and groaned.
“There you are. You just had to make a sound to manifest fully, was all.”
Csala looked up at the being. A dark-skinned succubus smiled down at her. She was tall. Almost as tall as Jerome. And the rest of her… Csala frowned, looking away. She wasn’t the jealous type but this succubus was a lot more beautiful than she felt. Like a goddess. A goddess in armor, fighting a war. Strange, glowing, shifting armor.
The succubus chuckled. “Do you know where you are?”
She looked around but didn’t recognize the landscape — the ground was darkness given substance — or the strange sky for that matter. It was the strangest place she’d ever been — and she’d been to strange places.
“Is this another void world?” she asked. Everything was strange to her senses too.
“No. This is the realm of the mind. We call it the First Heaven. It is where souls come to be purified after death. Well, that location is still higher up and completely on lockdown.”
Csala gulped. “Am… am I… dead?”
The succubus laughed. “No, you’re not. But your body isn’t really a body. It’s the avatar of your mind. Muna has been working for someone very powerful and very dangerous. After Achilles, who’s over there,” she pointed into the distance, “destroyed her body and banished her soul here. Her spirit sought refuge in Dashani’s embrace.”
“Achilles; I think I’ve heard Jerome mention him. But Dashani? Who’s Dashani?”
“You must have heard about the Mother, right? Devourer of males? Slaughterer of infants?... no? Nothing?”
Csala shook her head.
“Why do you think there are so few males on Terra Praeta?”
Csala nodded in comprehension. However, she still didn’t know who this person was. And she hoped never to meet them.
“She’s after Jerome.”
Csala’s heart stilled.
“Calm down, Csala. He’s safe,” the succubus said. “For now.”
“Then he’s not safe,” she shot back. “Is he here?”
Csala took in her surroundings once more. She resisted the urge to cover her ears against the din of the battle going on above them. It did things to her senses that she had never felt before.
“You need to leave this place. I can send you back to your body. It’s tucked away somewhere safe inside the dark forest.”
The darkness covered everything she saw on land, rising in some portions of the land like hills and mountains, and dipping in others.
“Are you listening to me?” the succubus asked.
“What is your—”
Something crashed into the side of the hill they were standing on. Csala jerked, clenching her hands into fists to grip her swords. She gripped empty air. Shit. her swords should have appeared in her hands. She looked down at her fingers in panic. There was no storage ring on her.
A simple-looking sword materialized in the succubus’ hand and with a flick of her wrist, the… creature?... was destroyed and turned into motes of prismatic light.
“We should find somewhere a little more private to talk,” her savior said. She watched as the sword in her hand turned into motes of light as well but were absorbed into her hand. “I have a lot to tell you.”
“How did you do that?” Csala asked dumbfounded. The succubus had no storage ring on her as well. She took another look at the succubus again as if seeing her for the first time.
The dark-skinned succubus only smiled at her and walked her a little distance away.
“What is your name? Are you… are you dead? You sound like you’ve been here a long time.”
The world suddenly muted. Csala jerked away in fear, noticing the sudden silence that enveloped her. The succubus looked at her with a smile. Then she drew her close and hugged her. The succubus’ bigger bust size smothered her. She was warm and felt motherly. Safe.
Csala unintentionally embraced her back.
“The barrier is to make sure some people don’t hear my true name,” the succubus said. “Here, true names have so much power and hold over the fate of a soul. It is considered forbidden among the Ouranai to give out one’s true name. But there are ways around these things so I would not be breaking any grave rules by giving you my true name. And it’s fine to use my name in the material plane but here, it could become an existential crisis for me…”
The succubus’ gaze seemed to sharpen like a dagger piercing into her soul. “I do not give you this gift lightly, little Csala… You must swear to me by the heavens of Terra Praeta that you would not speak it here.”
Csala gazed into her eyes as the weight of what the succubus said settled on her. Golden orbs of swirling light met her eyes, unblinkingly. She swallowed. “I swear to you by the heavens of Terra Praeta that I will not use your true name here.”
Bands of colorful light descended upon her the next moment, tightening around her, and were absorbed into her. Csala panicked a little but settled down.
“My name is Tialana.”