Judith saw the scene. Honestly it was pretty ridiculous. How did these guys get summon stones, specifically demon summon stones?

She sighed and took a glance at the girl with white hair.

Gods was she beautiful. She was like the moon, radiant and gentle, but it’s like she had that deep power welling inside of her.

Also she could kind of see a concept word peeking out.

Hmmm, so that’s her word huh.

Judith snapped back at the scene, and saw two necromancers forming a spell.

NECROMANTIC ART: MIASMA

A wave of deathly aura tinted smoke spread and obscured them. She could feel the two dimming soul signatures start to flee. They took a chest filled with spikes with them and ran as fast as they could.

I guess it took too much out of them to use this spell.

The miasma quickly touched the flesh of the people trapped inside and slowly rotted them. Purple veins started to spread all around their bodies.

In an instant she stabbed everyone involved, BLEEDING the miasma out of their bodies and air around them and into hers.

The two necromancers were directing ghouls to her in an attempt to widen the gap, unfortunately she just ran and pierced every ghoul with ease. The ground littered with bodies of unearthly creatures made from deathly magics.

She zapped and reach the two necromancers in the blink of an eye, as if she was bled from one moment to the next. She reached into their very souls and simply drained them of any memory and power pooling it into her own hungry soul.

She smiled showing her fangs, and simply bit their necks. She let go and saw their bodies flop and mummify instantly.

Ah bliss!

She enjoyed the moment a bit longer before her apprentice came running.

“*Huff* Master *huff* please don’t go running on your own *huff* I couldn’t keep up!”

Tower was heaving and panting, leaning to the wall for support.

She smiled and poked him, bleeding his stress and fatigue into the air. She smiled and ruffled the hair of her sweaty apprentice.

“Don’t worry, one day you’ll be able to do things just like me. Now keep running, no use wasting your time. Build up your stamina and what not.”

Tower’s face sunk. He’s been running day and night with absolutely no rest. He kept doing exercises until he passed out, only to be refreshed by his master’s ability. Honestly it was hell, as every moment was waking torment. He hasn’t slept for three whole weeks straight.

Tower mumbled something.

“Damned monster..”

“Hmm? Did you say something?”

“Nothing”

“Oh, well keep running then. Run through the sewer and kill more rats and dog sized roaches.”

Tower, absolutely covered in filth and bug guts just nodded and walked away. He has given up trying to complain, as his master had a particular brand of selective hearing.

“Also when you’re done, two more laps around the city.”

Tower sobbed softly, a sound completely unheard by Judith.

Judith stretched her hands and lifted the two necromancer corpses on her shoulder and put the chest between her other arm. She strolled back to the room where Alicia was. They were fighting the remainder of the ghouls. With the last one having it’s face caved in.

They were truly exhausted, most of them leaning on the side of the walls and in each other’s shoulders for support.

Their eyes immediately locked on to her.

They were still tense despite being utterly tired. Three women who looked similar were busy stitching up people with the help of heavily modified individuals, like four arms and glowing metal eyes. Really she should probably see if Charles wanted to come here, he loved these type of stuff.

An old woman caked with makeup peeled her very skin out and immediately removed any signs that she was damaged. Several women, who appear to be related to her were helping her get up from the ground.

A guy holding a cluster wand panted on the floor. He had a large stitched up hole in his stomach. Well, that’s gotta hurt.

A gnome, a rogue, and a druid were busy lifting up the corpses and rummaging to find any survivors.

A half-orc and a slime kin was investigating the dead demons, while a horned man was checking out the dead necromancer.

A certain white haired girl spoke first.

“I thank you. I am Alicia Ulthizar, heir to the Ulthizar mercantile company. May I ask who you might be brave warrior?”

Judith ramained stoic, not because she felt nothing. Quite the opposite, she was standing too close to her and she couldn’t help but freeze as a survival response.

Why is she so close? Is that smell jasmine? She smells so nice. I want to hold her hand. Maybe she was looking at me a while ago. Do I stink? Gosh, was tower saying the truth that we’re gonna kiss? Will she let me brush her hair if I ask nicely? Her lips look so soft. I wonder how they taste like.

Her mind was preoccupied by the errant thoughts, while she just stood there and stared at Alicia.

Seconds passed, then ten, then a minute. She just stood there while everyone was tense. They were wondering what the insanely powerful individual, who currently had two corpses and a box of dangerous weapons, was doing just staring at them. Everyone was silent, honestly it was too awkward to put to words.

Then Judith began getting a nosebleed. It dripped out of her nostrils trailing down to her chin, then finally dripped to the floor.

Eventually Alicia mustered her bravery and spoke.

“Umm...warrior are you alright?” She was sweating buckets, that her pits and forehead were soaked with sweat.

This snapped Judith from her trance of imagining Alicia and her without clothes.

“Oh um sorry...um.. yeah” She realized she was having a nosebleed and wiped it with her clothes.

Alicia moved a tiny bit closer.

Judith took a step back.

Alicia took out a handkerchief and gave it to the red-haired woman.

“T-thanks” Judith took it and blushed, though it couldn’t be seen with all the blood.

“So, may I ask what your name is warrior?”

“It’s Judith”

Judith looked around and dropped the box of spikes and the two corpses. She somehow calmed herself down.

The old woman in makeup spoke first.

“Who brought you here warrior? How did you know of the attack?”

Madame Asheba was always wary of such coincidences. Of all the years she’s spent inside the slums, she believes that moments like these could be traps

“Who hired you young girl?”

The old woman’s eyes glared at her.

Judith smiled and chuckled. Suddenly relaxing her jaw and put some herbs in her pipe.

She simply used her fingers and snapped fire into existence. Her eyes suddenly glowed like a ring of light as she took in a breath filled with smoke. And exhaled slowly.

Her eyes picked out a head of a dead man, one with marks and ritual symbols, a warlock. She put it between her hands

She bled out her life-force and let it flow outwards, like a dam that was keeping an oceans worth of water suddenly broke the walls that supported it. For a moment the little men and women that made schemes and plots that shook Sha Hanshas saw a being that could trample all their plots with but a moment of whimsy.

Today they saw something divine.

The red-haired woman grew feathers of fire and life. She glowed and glimmered in the tunnels of the sewers. She shone like filtered sunlight in a prison of stone, like a candle in the darkness of night. All eyes saw that this being before them was something majestic.

She smiled at the old woman.

“Hmm, young... It’s been ages since someone said that.”

She suddenly plucked a feather from her fiery plume and placed on the head.

Suddenly a fire consumed the corpse, creating a small pillar of conflagration.

“Mathias!” The rogue spoke.

The flame shaped itself into the form of a man. Two legs that let it stand tall and two arms that let it grasp the world around it. A head formed from the flame, one that bore no damage or wound. Then a neck, then a chest, a torso, then the limbs. The fire spread to the shape of the warlocks fingers and toes. The flames birthed a man, the warlock, nude, whole and alive.

She brought him back from the dead, back from the clutches of the reaper.

The warlock gasped a breath. He opened his eyes and looked around, seeing the image of people dumbstruck and in awe at the miracle that just transpired.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

He spoke.

“What happened?”

The rogue and the druid immediately rushed to his side and hugged him. Sobs could be heard as they thanked the woman profusely.

“Hmm, it’s fine.”

Judith scanned the area and held a hand to the box of spikes and simply willed it to enter her inventory.

“I’m taking the spikes.”

The people around her were still speechless. Revival was the stuff of fables, stories that were only said to happen to heroes. They knew that this woman was something that lived through those fables, something older than them or their country.

Judith spoke again, this time a plan forming behind her eyes.

“But instead of leaving you all empty handed, why don’t I give you all something nicer than these things instead.” She winked.

She suddenly burst into divine flame, one that looked like the birth of a galaxy and the end of one coexisting in a magnificent dance. Sparks flew and hugged her very form as streams of starlight formed a halo around her.

She channeled her life-force into a point. A miniature sun burst into her palms. It glowed like a globe of fire, a dancing gentle flame.

Descend heavenly fire

Give life to those who lost them

Give salvation to the grieving

Light their way with your gentle flame

नित्यं ज्वलन्तं स्वर्ग

This technique was the culmination of her eons of grief and sacrifice, the ever-burning heaven.

She solidified a flame that would never die, a spark that would never lose it’s meaning.

The area pulsed with divinity and light, due to her using almost all of her life-force in this technique. It might take her a few weeks to recover, but she believes in what her apprentice said.

When tower told her of the spikes, she knew how horrible the price would be to use such a thing. So much death and agony. So instead, why not bring something that does not kill them.

The flame she cradled sparked and showered all around her. Fireflies of sunlight spread and enveloped all the people inside, men, women, guards, friends, family, all of them connected to the light. It sunk into them and they now had thousands of years worth of her life-force with them.

She gave all of them the ability to heal, to ease, to revive.

Her spark grew significantly dimmer and smiled. This will all be worth it one day.

“I have given you all a flame of me, one that can do what I just did. Do with that however you wish.”

She lazily waved them all goodbye.

“Till we meet again.” She hummed a cheery tune.

She turned around and started to stroll back to her apprentice when a hand reached to hers.

A soft hand held her fingers, tight and loving.

“W-wait!” Alicia spoke with a fire that she never knew she had, like a part of her that she was missing had just been found. She was closer than she intended to be with the woman. Too close.

Judith saw this and stuttered.

“W-why are you holding my hand?!” She was hyperventilating. Her face was flushing and her ears were red.

Judith pushed her.

“What are you gay or something?! Stop touching me!”

“I- what?”

“I like MEN! NOT GIRLS, MEN! M.E.N. Men! Go away!” Judith yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Go away you lesbian! D*ke! Stop being so obsessed with me!” Judith ran out of the room then out of the sewers as fast as her legs could take her.

Alicia was still stunned at that. She didn’t know what just happened.

Everyone was silent. A mix of emotions filled the air, but mainly an overwhelming tone of confusion.

Suddenly as if to break the ice, Noren spoke.

“What the fuck just happened?!”

-------------------------------------------------

A week after Judith’s revelation of an apprentice, Charles tried finding one of his own.

Charles has recently formed a pregnancy spell, one that gave men wombs to give birth. It was a novelty that he kept casting randomly in a crowd of people, farm animals, and monsters. Judith’s apprentice, Tower, gave him the idea. Honestly it was brilliant, he showed it in the church and in front of his Goddess and they were so overjoyed that they planned to make a holiday centered around it called Pregg day, on account that it makes people lay eggs.

He was currently flinging it haphazardly in a battle of two opposing armies. It actually gave them womb cramps, the womb was located at the anus just behind the prostate.

The armies were huge and he thought it would be funny to make all of them gain the ability to make babies. So much so that the two armies halted to a standstill when he preggified the two generals that fought.

After using the spell on a bunch of rabbits, he sped up the growth of one and found out that it was an inherited trait. This meant that he gave every person in their bloodline the capacity for period cramps.

Interestingly when it is used on women, they lose period cramps altogether.

The roach man looked at a sack of live rabbits that he bred and aged up. He grabbed one by the ears and swallowed it.

Yum Yum

He grew bored of zapping people after a while and also he ran out of rabbits.

Now where should he go to get an apprentice?

He’s the pope of the church of Biolendia, the great Goddess of life. He’s been around for a long time and he honestly needed help finding an apprentice.

Oh I know, why don’t I just find the first orphan I see and kidnap them and make them my apprentice!

He smiled, or an equivalent of a smile that a roach man with teeth could make. The scene would honestly freak out anyone who saw it. Seriously it was horrifying and it would make anyone faint at the sheer sight. His warped and grotesque roach features made him repulsive to any humanoid creature, except maybe insect kin where he’s actually considered extremely attractive.

Quickly he used his keen vision to spot the closest village from above his vantage point, still overlooking the groaning army of wombed men.

Aha!

He peered and saw a spire, a city made up of buildings that stacked itself upon each other creating a mass of stone, wood, glass, and metal. A breathing set of architectures that spread and suffocate. It tries to reach up to the sky to claim more space for itself and it spreads to make more room for it’s inhabitants. A hive city, an arcology that pulses with life. He looks and sees the pathogenic nature of organization as it grows to fill a size that has no limit.

He smiles.

He grants the ground he’s stepping on with life. The rocks become teeth, the dirt become flesh, the air compresses and solidifies to become it’s nervous system, and the many forms of detritus become it’s moving parts. He creates another set of species from scratch. It had the shape of a crab crossed with a centipede and a thirst for blood.

He zaps it with the pregnancy spell too, because why not?

He sits on top of it and points eastward.

“Go Crabdirtipede Go!”

“SCREEE!!” The creature makes a sound as if to communicate it’s confusion at it’s spontaneous birth. It follows instructions anyway.

He leans back and relaxes as the Crabdirtipede carries him on it’s back.

Many people usually define life as anything that could do a set of arbitrary things, something Charles thinks is ridiculous. Cities and structures are just as much alive as any organic conglomeration of cells. They can reproduce, respond to stimuli, metabolize other people, pass on traits. They have cells just like any other creature, but it’s just that it’s made up of brick and stone. It evolves, grows, and regulates.

Charles laughs. So many things are alive and people refuse to acknowledge it as such, the ignorant fools. Cities, countries, machinery, information, and many other things are all alive, just in a different form.

Life is a collection of functions that organizes itself. That is the very essence of it. And so he feels the air filled with microscopic life brush against his chitin and the rumbling of life below the ground, and relishes at the flood of hidden life.

He flicks the air with his antennae and creates a few airborne seeds and maybe some mushroom spores that never existed till this point. He spreads it in a trail behind him, seeding every path he crosses with life. A virulent, creeping, and all consuming flood of life.

He chirps at the thought of finding an apprentice who sees the same things he sees.

After a bit of waiting, Charles reached the arcology. He was outside the wall of the hive city and saw the long line of people and wagons waiting to enter. Charles tried standing in line just to see how fast it would take, before tapping out after a minute.

He tried finding an empty area near the wall and simply touched it.

In a moment, the monument of stone and brick now had a sphincter of meat. He entered the opening, managing to somehow fit himself inside. He was wet with wall sphincter juice and popped out with just a bit of effort.

He popped out the other side just like a slimy bullet, colliding with an alleyway.

“Waah!” A squeaky voice said.

Charles, with his force resistant and dexterous physiology, managed to grab the wall with the hairs in his arms, stick to wall, then flip his bodies orientation in 0.40 seconds. He immediately swerved his eyes to stare at a sickly orphan girl.

This orphan girl however had the top half of a hominid and the lower half of a spider, an arachne. The girl carried a basket of rotting cheese and moldy bread. She had a small shiv made from a shard of glass wrapped with a ragged piece of cloth.

Charles took a step forward in the most disgusting way possible.

“AaaH Monster!” The child stabbed the shiv forward in panic.

Charles, with his years of martial arts training and with the help of his sensitive hairs, summersaulted and perfectly avoided the attack while grabbing the basket the girl was holding.

“Wait no give that back!”

Charles was outraged, why should he? He stole the food fair and square.

“Why should I?” The roach man crossed a pair of his arms.

“Because it’s not yours!” The arachne yelled.

Shit, she’s good.

With no good retort, Charles gave the basket back to the orphan girl.

She wearily took the basket and slowly backed away from the seven foot roach person with teeth. When she lost sight of the roach man, she quickly ran away to the winding passages below the city.

Charles amused by this, instinctually climbed the nearest wall and stalked the child from behind.

If wherever she goes has food, then it’s fair to steal it from her when she’s not looking.

Charles was convinced of such faultless logic that he turned his body into the perfect stalking machine in order to follow a little girl through a dark alley.

They went down winding paths of pipes, brass, stone, and smog. Several sketchy locations hidden from sight lie small cracks or holes that let in only the most dexterous of insectkind. Charles compressed himself to a point that he could pass through such gaps with ease.

At the end of the maze of metal and smog, lie a hovel made out of patchwork webs, insectkin silk, various other material, and is that a hollowed out beetleman skull?

The small arachne opened the cloth covering the entrance of the hovel to see four small and sickly children. A snail boy who looks like a raisin, a centipede girl who has a lot of missing legs, an ant boy who only had one functioning eye, and a worm girl who looks like a burn victim.

What the hell was this depressing scene? I only came here to steal some food and now I feel bad for even thinking that.

“Sis!” “Sister!” “Dina!” “You’re back!” They hugged the small arachne.

Ever so faintly, a voice called from deeper in the hovel

“Di...na..”

Charles changed the physiology of his eyes to see better inside and he saw a saw another arachne. She was bigger than the others, but she was more bone than person. She hacked and coughed blood on a deathbed.

“Mom..”

The young arachne ran closer and hugged the dying woman.

Okay, in hindsight maybe I was a bit too impulsive. I can probably head back if I run now.

His acute, modified, and physiologically altered hearing could sense anything in a mile. So he heard this with perfect acuity.

“Dina, go live your life with your siblings somewhere far, far away..... *Hack* *Cough*”

“Please, just wait for a bit longer mom! I..I already know how to get medicine for you. The locust gang told me they could help me.”

She brought out a small sack of clinking metals, money. She also had a small vial of a suspicious red liquid.

The larger arachne’s eyes opened larger than dinner plates.

“Dina no!”

“But they told me I could get us all out of here! Please let me help you all!”

“Dina, what did you do?!”

“It’s nothing mom, I just have to do some things for them is all. They promised me they’d give me the money tomorrow, but I’ll just be gone for a while.”

The arachne hugged all of them.

“Dina no.....Run away, far, far away. Don’t do it Dina, I am a dying woman already. I want you and your siblings to find a better life somewhere.”

“No!” The smaller one cried. “Please mom, we can still build a life here. What about dad?!”

The mother frowned.

“Dina.....your father is dead already....it’s time to let go. That old beetle is in a better place.*Cough* Run....while there’s still time. *Cough*”

Suddenly the older woman started coughing even harder than before.

Charles just stood there.

Ughh, I didn’t want to hear any of this!

Something was heavy in Charles’ chest, some kind of emotion he’s never experienced. He sighed and turn back to the hovel. This new emotion forced him to do the unthinkable and actually want to help someone.

Oh boy, I hope I don’t regret this.

He crawled and creeped from the shadows, soundlessly reaching the entrance of the pile of trash that is also a hovel.

He breathed deep and prepared himself, then went inside.

“Hello I wou-”

The children saw him and immediately on instinct, brandished their shivs. They had sharpened wood, one made of glass, one made of stone, a skewer, and a really slimy one that he doesn’t even know what it was made of.

“AAAAHH!”

They all screamed as they stabbed the roach man in the head, the crotch, the kidney, his chest, and his crotch a second time.

Charles was so shocked by what happened that he fell over and froze in the floor, making him look like a corpse.

“Oh Gods we killed someone!”