Jerome’s head spun at Tialana’s words. His mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to store away and figure out much of what she revealed. If Ilyrrah was a reincarnator, did that mean he came from Earth like him? He realized now more than ever that there was a deeper meaning to him being reincarnated; a deeper purpose, even. What that was, he’d have to figure out himself because he doubted Tialana knew it. As soon as his gaze landed on her again, she held up a hand, as if knowing his intent.
“Don’t ask… I don’t know why you were reincarnated with memories of your past life. Ilyrrah didn’t know either. But he assumed it was for a greater purpose. You should assume the same too,” she said, looking pointedly at him. “Come.”
She flew upward toward the battle. “We have to stop whatever it is Dashani is doing.”
“She’s consuming Achilles… Achilleia,” he corrected.
“What?!” Tialana exclaimed, looking back at him in shock. She shot forward, increasing her speed. Jerome had to push himself to catch up with her. He looked to his side to see Csala following with less of a struggle. But she struggled nonetheless.
“Don’t look at me like that, I’m struggling to keep up with her too,” she said with a cute grunt.
Jerome focused his attention on the goddess-looking succubus. From his point of view, her ass was directly — if at a distance — in front of him. He was grateful he wasn’t in his body, else he’d probably be getting a hard-on. He snorted, shaking the thought away.
“It’s that bad, isn’t it?” he called out to Tialana.
“Oh, it’s bad,” she responded, not looking back. “Very bad. What she’s consuming is not Achilles — you called her Achilleia? What Dashani’s consuming is her Authority. And with it she could control Sanctum!”
“Shit!” Jerome pushed himself even harder. But flying here wasn’t as easy as it was in the material plane. Space seemed to push back oppressively the higher he went. The pressure was much more powerful than in the material plane.
“What’s Sanctum?” Csala asked.
“It’s the mountain,” he said, struggling to go even faster. The dream aura that formed the breastplate he was wearing right now didn’t give him as much control and speed as he wanted.
As if hearing his thoughts and intent, the breastplate glowed a bright purple and Jerome shot forward, leaving both of them both in the dust. He reached the battle in no time and shot through a little opening he was sure the demons had created themselves to trap him.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was getting Achilles — Achilleia, he reminded himself — out of there. He had expected to feel that same disorienting feeling he felt when he was near the battle the first time but he didn’t.
His breastplate hummed, sending him its intent.
“Much appreciated,” he said, taking a second to observe himself. A purple aural barrier clung to him like a cloak, protecting him from the dangerous concussive energies.
Jerome sighted the Kraken-looking monster and took a deep breath. He felt his insides expand — the depth, farther than was normal. The white warmth of energy pulsed inside him and he felt its warmth begin to spread. Its heat began to intensify and Jerome felt hope at being able to confront the Eldritch-looking entity.
The Kraken whipped out a tentacle in his direction. Jerome took a deep breath in the same instant. The strange energy blossomed in his throat, a warmth that put a slight pressure on him but was harmless nonetheless. He spat it as the tentacle got within twenty feet of him. A white flash of light encompassed the world for a split moment and Jerome swerved to the side as the white hot energy collided with the tentacle.
The world exploded before him and the shockwave of the explosion knocked him backward. He heard the space around him vibrate as if electromagnetic pulses were interfering with sound equipment — it sounded very techno. Which shouldn’t be but he couldn’t concern himself with such a paradox right now. He was trying to keep his avatar from falling apart and there was only so much he could do to keep himself from nearly shattering to pieces.
Someone broke his momentum for which he was thankful. Motes of white light left his body and he shuddered, weakening. What had left him was no small amount of energy.
“That was incredible,” Tialana’s voice reached him. “But you need to be careful Jerome, or your soul could take too much damage.”
“You have my thanks, Tialana. I can call you Tialana, right?” he said, looking back into her pretty face.
She scowled at him. And cursed. “I’m not Tialana,” she growled.
“Ah!” Jerome couldn’t help but laugh. “You have a whole lot to spill, Achilles — no. ‘Achilleia’. That’s your new—”
“Incoming,” she interrupted him… and threw him into the air. Jerome had to fight the instinct to panic.
The world exploded a second time and he found himself fighting with space to regain his balance. Jerome groaned. Whatever it was these people did to fly with the dexterity of a dragonfly in this place, he would love to know.
After a long while he regained his balance and shot after Achilles — Achilleia’s copy. He drew in his breath again, timing it with the tentacle he was sure the Kraken was about to lash out at Achilleia. He could see Csala in the periphery of his vision, attacking its flank. Somehow, the Kraken paid her no heed, which was surprising.
A beam of pink energy burst through the air, hitting the Kraken in the jaw… or mouth. He couldn’t say. But the Kraken let go of the orb containing Achilleia’s true avatar.
Jerome shot forward. A tentacle lashed out from the Kraken to catch the falling, transparent orb. He wouldn’t be able to reach it before it does. Jerome willed his intent into his breastplate. A whip stretched forth in his right hand and he spat the white flame at the tentacle.
The shockwave that ensued was even larger than the first. He forced himself through the turbulence of the explosion, feeling his face practically melt away. The pain was next to unbearable but he pushed on. He heard Csala groan in pain from a distance. His ears rang and he felt like his body was going to shatter.
His legs gave way, shattering before his eyes and turning into motes of white light and diffusing into space.
Jerome pushed on. In no time, he reached the orb. But so did another tentacle. Jerome was ready this time. He imagined the white energy gathering at the tip of the whip and the mind-calming stone reacted, flooding his whip with the white warmth. He whipped it out at the tentacle — at the girth that was still a ways away because the tip of it was almost to his head. The tip of the tentacle opened up in a gory display of thorn-like fangs and slime but before it could attack, Jerome’s whip cut it off from the Kraken.
The Kraken roared!
An unholy sound, the likes he’d never heard before. It was a terrifying thing, the roar. Filled with pain and rage… and oppression! He felt his awareness slip for a moment.
“Shit!” he heard Tialana curse and fly in the direction of Csala. Jerome saw Csala drop from the sky, unconscious. He panicked. He wanted to go after her but the Kraken seemed to focus its rage on him. Fear gripped him, paralyzing him. Achilleia’s orb fell from his embrace. He remained still in the air as the Kraken unwound its many tentacles, shifting towards him with an eerie slowness. Jerome tried to move but found he couldn’t even twitch. He was powerless even to escape.
“Little bug,” a female voice spoke up from the Kraken. The voice had an underlying growling tone — as if a wild beast was speaking in the human tongue. Its jaws didn’t move so it looked like it was communicating telepathically. “Why do you concern yourself with a battle far beyond your capabilities?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Jerome said. His bravado was only a facade though; the Kraken scared the shit out of him. He would have spat at her but his mouth suddenly couldn’t move anymore.
Figures, he thought. She had briefly allowed him the chance to speak — to show off her complete control over him, most likely.
“You are but an insignificant mote of dust in the grand scheme of things.”
Its tentacles grabbed him, wrapping around him like a snake, but also spinning him slowly to face away from itself. Jerome’s hackles rose. What was she going to do, eat him alive? But he quickly realized this was also just a scare tactic. Before the slimy tentacle could completely wrap around him, a strange sensation took over him. From deep down inside him he felt something open up. It overwhelmed him with its intent to kill — which was sharp as a blade that could utterly destroy him.
Jerome lost himself to the presence. This ‘presence’ must be the mind-calming stone, he thought.
He had guessed his artifact was very powerful. But now he didn’t know what to think of it. Somewhere along the line, he had started noticing it had a personality of its own. But here… in this strange realm of the mind… the mind-calming stone showed its true powers.
Jerome came to the realization that what he picked up all those years ago was beyond what one could call an artifact. It was an entity of unimaginable potential and power! He could feel it. And from the looks of things Dashani could feel it too as her tentacled-monster immediately unwrapped him and put a distance between them.
Jerome saw something in the eyes of the monster he’d never seen before.
Fear.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice feminine, yet growly, but also laced with fear.
Jerome watched the Kraken watch him. But he could tell it wasn’t speaking to him but the mind-calming stone. But how? How did she sense it? Maybe the mind-calming stone wanted her to sense it. He didn’t know; couldn’t make any assumptions.
The might of the mind-calming stone seemed to grow even more, threatening to blow him up.
“Jerome!” he heard Csala call out to him. Her voice sounded far away. He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice only to squint from the bright light he was emanating. So bright was the light, that all he could see was white.
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Just when he thought he was going to literally explode from the intense power, the world around them suddenly thrummed with the sound of electromagnetic energy and stilled. The battle below ceased and the combatants looked stunned. A pulse of invisible power shot out of him and the world shuddered.
The Kraken roared.
Jerome recognized that sound. It was the sound of a dying animal. He watched with bated breath as its flesh imploded. The mass of flesh shrunk to the size of a car-sized boulder before warping into human shape.
“Stand back, Jerome,” Tialana said from behind him. He knew it was her because Achilleia always called him Xerae.
“What’s happening to her?” he asked.
The succubus hefted a passed out Csala on her shoulders as she observed the phenomenon going on.
“Dashani has always been a mystery to all. A very powerful mystery no one wants to mess with.” She turned to him. “So you’d do well to stand back. You’ve done admirably well already — which makes you another mystery the Ouranai have come across now.”
So in other words, she had no idea what was happening with the Kraken. Jerome raised an eyebrow at her and she gestured with a tilt of her head for him to look behind. He gasped as he looked back. An innumerable army of fae decked in glittering armor stood hovering in the air — well, space — behind him. Dashani’s army of demons were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are…” he began to ask.
“They were destroyed when you did… whatever that was you did. You look awful though,” she eyed him up and down, noticing his missing lower body. “Not exactly confidence-inspiring.”
Jerome didn’t like the look in her eyes. She was looking at him like an interesting piece of specimen she wanted to dissect in a lab. He cleared the throat to ease the awkwardness. Dashani burst out of her cocoon just before he spoke, saving him from answering. She had her eyes closed as if in meditation.
Dashani was beautiful. Well endowed in the chest and hips, but stick thin everywhere else — and tall. Very tall. At least for an avatar. Jerome had known fae were tall but not how tall they could grow. She was easily seven feet and more. She had a harsh kind of beauty; held her head high with a noble and disciplined countenance. She reminded him of the whip in an overseer’s hand, waiting to bring its wrath on any found wanting. Funnily enough, he expected to see a tiara on her head.
But then his gaze traveled down her body.
“And this… is her?” Jerome asked, open-mouthed.
“Yes,” Tialana said.
“She looks like…” he babbled. “Am I right to say that she looks like…?”
“Yes, Jerome, she looks like a chimera,” Achilleia said, flying close to stand on the other side of him.
“Who’s she?” Csala asked, looking between the both of them. Well, three of them as Achilleia rose to join them. She’d woken up without his knowledge and was hovering close-by. Csala’s gaze was now switching between the two Tialana’s she was seeing.
“Are you twins?” she asked, befuddled.
“She’s Dashani — the one we’re battling, I mean,” Jerome replied, answering her earlier question. He didn’t bother to explain the ‘twins’ — didn’t understand their situation himself. “And I’m guessing she’s dabbling in Solon’s creation… probably why they’ve begun reproducing asexually.”
“You hit the nail on the head, Jerome,” Tialana said, eyeing the Fae fearfully. He was still getting used to seeing her and Achilles… Achilleia close together. They really looked like identical twins.
“Who’s Solon?” Csala asked again.
“Fae from the past,” Jerome said, studying the many crab-like legs that were moving like a centipede’s in her lower half underneath her dress. She was wearing a long, black ballroom gown with a low v-neck to show off the valley between her gigantic tits. The gown should’ve flowed down past her legs but it couldn’t conceal the myriad of appendages she apparently had below.
“Built a phallus-looking tower on the western continent. The same continent she occupies,” Tialana said, gesturing with her chin at Dashani.
“Phallus-looking?” Jerome muttered. “Very apt. But all towers look like phalluses — maybe.”
Dashani hissed… or growled — or maybe it was a mixture of both. It sounded like a cross between the sound of a reptile and a big cat. She opened her eyes and the bright gems of purple she had for irises twinkled brightly like stars on a dark night.
“You are one to talk, ‘Dark One’,” she hissed.
Jerome’s eyes bulged in shock as he heard those words. How did she even know that?
“Do you think you’re any different from me?,” she sneered. “What is that I sense in you? Is it the soul of a human?... a fae? Feels a lot like an incubus’ soul to me. Oh, I sense a beastkin’s too.”
“That… puts a lot of recent happenings into perspective,” he said thoughtfully, unprovoked.
Dashani growled. He didn’t know what she was expecting but it definitely seemed like she wasn’t happy with his response to her goading — or lack thereof.
“I will rip your soul into shreds after I’m done passing you around to my children. They’ve hungered for…” she took a moment to study him in detail, “flesh as fine as yours.”
He was sure she was talking about another kind of hunger. Jerome had expected someone with some ‘grand vision’ for this world when he heard of Dashani. Now that he’d seen her and heard her speak, he couldn’t help but think she was just bitter… and petty… shallow. Only wanting to stroke her over-inflated ego as best she could. He scrutinized her from head to toe.
Of course, he said none of his thoughts out loud. But Dashani glared at him with a deathly stare. If eyes could consume one’s soul, hers would consume his in an instance. Her glare let him know that his facial expression couldn’t have been more clear.
“You insolent bug!” she snarled at him. “You dare think little of me!”
Jerome opened his mouth to speak but words failed him. He realized at that moment that the ominous evil that had haunted Terra Praeta for eons was just a mentally ill, demented psychopath who should be locked away in the depths of the ocean… or put down for good.
Jerome looked at Tialana and twirled his right index finger beside his temple. “I don’t think she’s right in the head,” he mouthed.
Dashani shot toward him with speed that defied everything he had come to understand about this place. The army behind him shot forward immediately, stopping her advance. But they dropped like flies as they got closer to her. They swarmed her, trying to overwhelm her but she blasted them aside. Those at the forefront were most unfortunate as they turned into motes of multicolored light the next moment. A second wave arrived but she flew around them so fast it was like they were standing still.
“You have to get out of here!” Tialana said.
Jerome grabbed Csala and Achilleia. It was a bit difficult moving with just his upper body but he managed. He could tell his pelvis was already growing back. He shot downward as he asked, “Is this your original avatar, Achilleia?”
“I don’t think I can get used to the name change that easily,” she snorted.
“Quit being a snark and answer!” Jerome increased his speed.
Csala tried to cover his mouth to keep him from speaking disrespectfully to the AI but he was having none of it.
Achilleia pouted. “Yes, I’m the real avatar.”
“Then how the fuck do we get how of here!”
“You need to relax, Jerome. That way your soul can calm itself so it can… take the plunge.”
“‘Plunge’?”
“Yes, plunge.”
He had a feeling there was more to that single word than he understood but he got the idea. But that wasn’t their problem; their problem was actually finding a place to hide so their souls can relax.
Csala cleared her throat. “Sorry for the interruption esteemed…”
“Achilleia is just fine.” Achilleia smiled at her. Jerome snorted.
Csala was quiet for a moment as if gathering her thoughts. But Jerome could almost sense her fear — which surprisingly he couldn’t, here. Perhaps his senses weren’t as sharp in this plane as they are in the material plane.
“There is a depression in the ground a few miles away. Right in that direction.” She pointed.
Jerome shot forward, increasing his speed. He was technically just sending his intentions to the breastplate he wore but it was nice to think he was doing the flying himself. He couldn’t wait to leave this damned place.
“Xerae, faster—!”
The world stilled even before Achilleia completed her sentence. Jerome turned around to see the swarm of fae soldiers frozen midair, drifting in all directions like they were in space. He also couldn’t move a limb — compounded with the fact he only had two. Achilleia grunted, trying to pull out of his arms; trying to get rid of whatever spell Dashani had used against all of them. Her grunt was the only thing she could manage though.
Jerome was in a daze, seeing the scope and might of Dashani’s working. He suspected an Authority was at work here. Muna had had the ability to imprison her victims like this, but it was not in this scope. This was millions of souls drifting around in the mind realm — the First Heaven, like Tialana called it.
Dashani calmly moved toward them. Everyone in her path was pushed aside by an invisible force. Jerome noticed he had stopped drifting and was facing her as she flew his way. Csala and Achilleia were pulled out of his arms and he could do nothing to stop it.
Dashani took her time studying him. And he studied her as well. She smiled at him — a sickly sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes which was set in a scowl. She stopped a few feet away from him. Close. So close and so oppressive. He felt his consciousness begin to slip. A few dozen feet away, she wasn’t spreading her aura around her but chose to do it now? What was her end game?
“Enough!” Tialana screamed. A small pulse of power pushed out of her but only freed her. Every other person was still imprisoned in Dashani’s working.
Jerome’s eyes opened a fraction but a splitting headache assaulted his senses. His head drooped and he saw his legless body hovering midair.
“Stop me then,” Dashani’s voice reached him and Jerome tried all he could to hold on to consciousness. She was closer. “You can’t… because you are weak. Your chosen dies here today, Tialana.”
He felt slender fingers wrap around his throat in a choking grip. The mind-calming stone stirred inside him. Warmth spread in his soul and began to intensify. He felt the intent of the mind-calming stone sharpen again like an assassin’s gaze.
It was waiting. Patiently. Under the surface. Ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
“You should have chosen me,” Dashani spoke again. Then closer to his ear, she whispered, “There will be no more lives for you to live… ‘Malakai!’.”
An invisible force blasted out of Jerome’s avatar, warping space as it exited his body. Dashani’s head snapped back like she’d been shot in the head. The world shook and the working of her power broke. Her grip on his neck loosened and Jerome took in a deep breath like he’d been struggling for air. She still held on to him though.
“How…? My connection…” Dashani muttered, hysteria evident in her voice. “What did you do?”
Her pupils were dilated and unfocused. She began pulling at her long, wild hair with her other hand, not letting go of him — as if some deeper part of her knew not to. Space around her seemed to bend and warp with every movement she made. Jerome’s avatar contorted; his shoulders were crushed under the onslaught of her power while she kept rambling. She was losing control of her powers in her hysteric state.
Jerome didn’t want to wait to hear what she had to say. He powered through the pain and fatigue he was feeling to push her hand away from his neck. It was just a long, slender hand but he felt like he was trying to push away the world! She was immoveable!
Tialana grabbed him, pulling him away — or was that Achilleia? He couldn’t tell. One of them was carrying Csala again. They shot downward once again, leaving Dashani to her madness.
“Heavens only know what she will do when she regains her senses,” one of the look-alikes said.
Jerome could feel the strength leave him. He wanted to stay awake but couldn’t find the will to lift his eyelids. He was already leaning against Achilleia or Tialana as it were. Soon darkness took him and he felt his body no more.