Tyr winced, not out of pain but out of surprise. These were not flowers, and this was no meadow. This entire place was a single entity and likely one of the most powerful monsters in the republic, if not the entire world. It stretched on for acres, all part of the same network, one singular mind. Not like the black tree that had called him 'father'. Tyr still thought about that thing. He didn't hate it, and knew it could never hurt him, but it was still horrifying. A deep and incomprehensible intelligence that existed beyond the bounds of human knowledge.
It 'bit' him, this thing. These flowers that were like tongues in the maw of a truly titanic creature. Bending at the stem to grasp at his legs, passing through his armor as if it were not there, sucking at his blood. Vampiric in nature, it seemed... In a way. It would take the blood, strip it of everything non-biological, and then return it. Like those artifacts designed to filter the blood of old nobles who's kidneys had failed them. His mana and spira alike were sucked into the being that it was, but not at a pace his natural recovery couldn't handle. He could still heal, like always, but his arm would not return because of the blockage, and he thought there was a point to that. A test, something the mycelians had left in him for a purpose.
They had artificially sealed these gates inside of him, or... Reinforced them? It was hard to tell. In all humans there was a gate, and through that medium was how they used power many might consider... Unnatural. That is to say it was the conduit by which mana or spira was given form when leaving their body. A primus only had one gate at the center of their core, but some lesser humans had more than that, Tyr wasn't quite sure. But he was well aware that they were the prism energy ran through, and he had a lot of them. More than he could properly see inside of himself, those 'cracks' Abaddon had mentioned were clearly this thing. The phenomena that was supposed to be killing him, leaking too much until his energy would eventually run out of control. Thanatos had given him time, Varinn's meditation had allowed him to build on his spirit in a resistance to the strain, and Agni had warded them in a much more stable way.
The mycelians had done something of their own. Not closed the gates, necessarily, but spread crystallized spira around them until the barriers that these things were had been almost physically fortified. Like supports below the roof of a building, all he had to do was find a way to metabolize these things, and he'd once again get a little more time. Leading him towards some eventuality, whatever it was, he'd stopped sweating the little things a long time ago.
Slowly, that blockage was shaken and moved about, a thing he could not touch physically, nor could a spell remove it. Crystallized spira, he thought. A hard growth on the end of the bone that existed in him in other places – though he didn't know why or how. Spira should not be solid... The process was uncomfortable, but he stripped himself and lay with a flat back in the meadow, letting them have their fill. If anything, just to see what would happen. Old legends pervaded this place about old men who'd lost the ability to see or walk being healed and emerging, young again. There were more bloody and brutal legends of people who died screaming, hence the wall, far more common. Nobody visited this place anymore. The churches patrolled it in lieu of the republic, and would kill anyone who attempted to escape this place with a piece of the monster. What they believed to be as nothing more than simple, albeit magical, meadow of flowers.
Tyr had no interest in taking from it, only observing. Throwing caution to the wind if just to see what happened. And it did. His arm regrew as simple as that, no challenge, barely any cost to it. The thing greedily took what energy it could from him, while his enhanced healing factor existed beyond its ability to kill. Mana deprivation was another thing entirely, but all he was left with was a dull headache where a normal human might've died outright and been left as food for the flowers. Only through this experience was he able to see all the blockages in his body. Little things where the spira had hardened and places where imperfections existed. But as they were energy, it fed on them. All of them. Returning him to wholeness and then some.
Hours passed and he persisted. A will to stay here for weeks or months if it gave him the power that he needed. But the flowers didn't give in the literal sense, they only took. In his case, he was fortunate that it had. It was pleasant at one point, the pressure on his distorted mana core lessening. Giving him a few more years in the likely event that he failed to 'entertain' those gods he'd made deals with. He was still dying, but this was an extension of life well enough. For a normal person, if they could survive all of this pulling and taking... Maybe they'd live forever. This was a refinement process not unlike the cultivation Varinn had shown him, at a speed human beings were not possible of in circulating their energy.
With it... Limitless power might come, if only they survived the process.
Unfortunately, the sensation ended at the mark of the fourth hour. It needed no more, sated for the time being. Rising above the meadow, he watched as it rippled in the wind. Red mist pervaded the place, a slight glow to it all. Like the spray of blood from an arterial vein, only significantly denser and different in the scent.
There was a tree now. A real tree, not the skeletal approximate of the creature from his nightmares. With leaves of a maple, blood red all over. Its bark was red and glassy, well able to be seen through several inches until the opacity of it became cloudy. Before it was a man, and he was staring at Tyr with the tip of his sword pointed sunk into the ground. He was incredibly tall, but not overly wide. Seemingly forged around the ideal of a perfect man, with long blond hair and a violent turn to his features. A strong, refined jaw and piercing gray eyes set into an imperfect face. Tanned skin, covered in a tight suit of burnished black plate, wrapped over with a tourmaline green toga.
“Tyr Faeron.” The man said. His mouth moved in an odd way while speaking, as if it were half frozen and stiff. Talking out of the corner of his mouth in a deep, raspy voice. There was a thin scar on his lips, but all it did was enhance him. Everything about him was like a prince or shining king from the fairy tales, but not that sound. All it communicated was a supreme exhaustion, maybe even sadness. “It's a bit late, but I'd like to welcome you to my humble kingdom. Not mine, I've no desire to lead or constrain, but it is what it is. My territory, I suppose.”
“Alexandros.” Tyr's expression hardened, a shiver of honest fear rolling up his back. He'd seen enough primus' in his lifetime to be able to recognize a true member of their number with but a momentary glance. “You look a bit different from what I remember.”
“Why are you here?” Alexandros asked without preamble. “Did your father send you?”
“Wanted my arm back.” Tyr replied, waving the returned limb around while ensuring that he was well and prepared to draw his weapon. Jartor, Octavian, Vidarr... There was something so natural about the way they existed. That wasn't to say that Alexandros was unnatural, he was just different. Tyr did not truly fear the others, but the 'falcon' terrified him. Like their natures were so... Distinctly opposed... Their aspects were not compatible in the slightest, it was primal, they might've been sworn enemies in any other era. “Guess I found it, so I'll be going now.”
“You fear me.” Alexandros said, his voice alone enough to root Tyr into place. Not a question, an observation. He'd never met the boy, officially, beyond their brief encounter in Haran, and didn't care to. Alexandros remained a busy man, and did not participate in politics as the others did. But for all of his reservations regarding Tyr's nature, and brutal reputation, the boy wasn't half as bad as he'd expected. Not so inhuman, this product of eugenics that Jartor had bet his whole legacy on, until he'd managed to have two sons... “Why is this?”
“Don't you think it might have something to do with the fact that you were wholly willing to accept my execution? Or, alternatively, that our entire world was almost destroyed and you were nowhere to be found?” Tyr asked, edging away and thumbing the blade on his hip. He'd lose, of course he would, but at least he'd die screaming.
Alexandros' face betrayed no emotion. He was as still as a golem, assessing Tyr, naught but a shallow nod to indicate he was a thing capable of moving. “I was about a similar business, except I did it alone. Nowhere to be found? Hardly, you had powerful friends. As for your death...” He shrugged noncommittally. “I am the primus of liberty, or freedom should they be independent concepts. Freedom to choose, and freedom to act of ones own accord. Funny, isn't it?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“...Funny?” Tyr raised an eyebrow.
“Of course. A primus exists solely to protect and regulate, to control. All of them do it, just in different ways – all of our kin. And yet here I stand, in complete contradiction with the entire reason we exist. It is a curse, you know.” He said with a wistful sigh, loose hair waving about in the wind like some kind of desperado. “Free will. I live in a state of constant question of my own existence. Humans who are free build places like this. This republic, bastion of liberty, and yet it is not free in the slightest. Cursed by inequity and greed, my duality is that I can do nothing about it. I spend most of my time in or around the astral spaces dotting this land, because I can do nothing else. Unless they overstep too much, I am... A slave, I suppose, which is where the comedy comes from. My mien is to be freedom incarnate, as your father is strength, and Octavian is endurance. This is my objective here on this world, and yet the powers that be who stuck me with this are silent to the fact that I have no freedom of my own.”
“Okay.” Tyr frowned. “And...?”
“You're coming with me.” Alexandros asserted, stony faced and absolute in tone. “I need you to agree to come with me. You should not have visited this place and you've caused quite a mess because of it, but I cannot force you to do as I will. Duality, remember? You are free to do as you like, and I am free to kill... No, I suppose I'd strike you down and carry you there myself, though I'd be forced to set you back on your feet if you protested, striking you down again. It is exceptionally irritating, that is why I do not deal directly with humans unless I have to.”
“Where?” Tyr asked.
“Doesn't matter.” Alexandros replied. “Helenia is closer, but Leygein is where you've spent the most time. If you agree to go there, I will leave you be and forgive you for disturbing this sanctum. No need for an escort, after all. Behave yourself, I am a very busy man these days and do not wish to be disturbed over things like this. Unlike the others, I act.”
“And when I get there? And what even is this place? How did it--”
“My people will find you.” Alexandros was gone, and so was Tyr. Face to face with Jura and somehow still surprised at his brief interaction with a primus.
–
Alexandros exhaled, staring at the 'tree of life' before him. A very rare phenomena, and one that wasn't supposed to have been tampered with like that. It was no monster, nor a beast. Strictly speaking, as per the wider consideration men gave these things, this was an old god. The slumbering corpse of one, in any case. It's nature was easily divined by anyone who looked deep enough to see the raging core of spira below the earth. That which defined it and sustained it, made it immortal. It had been here long before man had colonized these lands, and slept still through the ages before they'd returned and made a real nation out of it. In the time of his father, fathers father, and so on, it had existed. Sleeping, slowly feeding on the wildlife that entered its domain. Or humans and other things, it didn't discriminate, but it also didn't grow beyond the rate it was supposed to.
A brittle crack split the glassy surface of the tree, spreading along its length. Alexandros went about plucking the fruit from its boughs. Things that when eaten would lead to an incredible boon of spira, divine fruit, something that could make a man greater than ever before. But there were side effects. Bad ones, hence why he'd always monitored this place even when the churches insisted they had it 'under control'. More slaves. Slave to man, slave to a god, it didn't matter. One was either free, or not, and Alexandros had the least freedom of them all.
It split, the trunk. The blood amber it consisted of crunching against itself to open like a door, revealing a blanket of flagella, slender veins melding together to cast a vaguely humanoid form. Slowly, it took shape. Sucking all of the life from the tree and leaving the entire meadow black and dead. It had served its purpose, and now it was ash, all for the birth of the thing inside of it.
“The air... Ah...” It sniffed, whispering to itself, tasting the atmosphere and finding this later age to be much to its liking, shaking all over with excitement. “So sweet. So full of life. Finally. I have awoken, and all the world-- GUK!” Alexandros smashed it into glassy shards with his sword. Swinging only once with the full force of his spira before it could fully materialize. Not for the purpose of killing it, no. A nature spirit as ancient as this one could not be killed by a primus. There were things on this world that might be able to do so, but spira could not destroy a celestial being, that was a rule. There were few things beyond a primus, but they existed out there. “What the hell was that for? Oi... How long have I been asleep? There shouldn't be any nephilim on this planet... I was just joking, by the way!”
“Quite a while.” Alexandros replied calmly, offering a hand to lift the spirit up. All of its shards collecting together in a rough mosaic before fusing again. Appearance wise, she was quite beautiful, a stark naked women with red skin that grew lighter until it settled into a healthy bronzed tone. Her body was muscular and shapely, standing just over six feet tall with luminescent eyes of an emerald green and long, wavy red hair the same color of the flowers and tree. “Thousands of years, at least. Who or what are you? This is my domain, answer truthfully or I will ensure you sleep for many eras beyond this one.”
“I'm a celestial, obviously. I guess here I'd be a nature spirit, but to be honest there was never any difference.” She huffed, materializing a set of skin tight black outerwear from the ashen remained of what had composed her pseudo-chrysalis. “Obviously, but you knew that much – I'm sure. Alyx. And you are Alexandros, son of Ardwulf and a higher nephilim, albeit an unimpressive one. I had not expected to remain at sleep for so long, but... I suppose you woke me for a reason?”
Alexandros shook his head slowly, still observing its motions. He was primus, aware that gods could not be trusted. “I have heard of no god bearing your name, and I am not the one who summoned you.”
“And for what reason do you assault me? Challenge?” Alyx looked disappointed when he shook his head again in the negative. Alexandros could feel the waves of insane power held within her frame, a god that was actually capable of traversing the world in mortal form, breaking all the rules that should prevent anything like her from doing so. They needed an avatar, or some kind of absurdly powerful anchor to manifest, and those did not exist on this world with any commonality. The whole reason for the Anu nexus towers was to prevent such a thing from happening.
“Better to see what kind of curse has befallen my lands before it destroys them.” Alexandros shrugged. “Your entrance confirmed most of what I needed to know.”
“Curse?” Alyx snorted. “I am no such thing, I am a... Hmm, it seems I have forgotten. Somebody has taken on my shard and manifested it. How many nephilim populate this world?”
“Nine.” Alexandros replied flatly. “As far as I know.”
“...So little?” She frowned. “No, that's not true. There are millions of nascent nephilim blanketing this land, any many more awakened ones. Your devolved mind just doesn't know how to see them, though it is fortunate to see them so plentiful. Suffice it to say that I am a celestial, related to the sun that warms your primitive planet. Part of one, I think. I do not know why I'm here, only that I wasn't meant to awaken so suddenly. In any case, as this appears to be your domain, I will submit to your authority, though I will do no such thing as kneeling.”
“I've never been a fan of that in any case.” Alexandros pursed his lips, staring at the woman skeptically. “Submit to my authority? I will fight you if you wish to bring calamity like the ones that came before, but I would not presume to be your superior. This is not quite what I expected.”
“Never expect anything when it comes to my kind, and I am not one of them. Your gods and divines are not of my blood. I don't know much right now, but I know that.” Alyx said, sniffing at the air and seeming to identify something in it. Her eyelids fluttered in an approximation of pleasure, her pupils slitting to a serpent-like appearance as the chill shook her. Returning to normal after a brief moment. “I will do no making of trouble. But as the steward of this region I am bound by custom to request your leave to remain here for the time being.”
“You are free to do as you wish.” Alexandros replied. “Behave, and be free. All in these lands are given that luxury as best my ability allows.”
“Appropriate, I suppose. Strange, though. I've never seen a nephilim with such a bizarre aspect as yours. Are you unique among your kind here?”
“Relatively speaking.” He nodded. “And your plans?”
“Find the one who put me in this place so long ago, as it seems he is here, walking among your people.” She mused quietly, allowing Alexandros to feel a wave of trepidation settling in his mind. “No making of trouble, though, you have my oath.” She added, vanishing in a cloud of radiant red sparks.
Alexandros had a feeling that he might regret this, notifying the others of her arrival after a brief pause. “Back to it then.” Back to work, back to the astral spaces that he constantly hunted. Back to an enemy with no free will to cause him pain when he harmed or destroyed them.