Amara, the reincarnation of Nemesis, goddess of Judgement and Vengeance, held her legendary weapon, Nemeseikon. A weapon she’d wielded in a past life and kept in a tomb in reserve. Unlike Akamori’s blade, which reincarnated with him, Nemesis stashed her weapons away in her previous life. Amara knew now that it was because Nemesis felt that she’d made a critical error in failing to learn more about being a weaver and magic. Her past self had committed fully to the art of war and martial combat at the expense of her skills in magic.
A failure you’ve remedied rather well , Nemesis said.
“Thanks?”
She channeled some aether into the reforged hilt of Nemeseikon. A massive blade of pure energy erupted from the hilt. It reminded her of Thanaton, but with pure magic instead of a metal blade. Nemesis nodded approvingly next to her.
This will do nicely.
Amara flicked the blade out, severing the tethers holding down countless souls. She felt a small breeze as a hush of air blew past. The untethered were free to rejoin the cycle, and the necromancer had lost a fraction of its power. Revulsion and rage set in when she could see that the tethers didn’t just anchor down the souls, but drained them of power as well. The necromancer was using them like batteries.
Such is the darker side of necromancy. Bindings forged against a user’s will, and then parasitizing the connection.
Nemesis spat next to Amara as she continued to sweep Nemeseikon broadly, slashing free the bindings holding down so many anchored souls. Amara moved with a majestic and practiced grace. She could have been practicing alone in a dojo or in a training temple back on Eryn.
Amara surrendered the mental flow of the work. She tuned out all the stress and all the worry. All the unanswered questions she’d been holding onto. She let go of all of it. When she finished, she stopped to reassess the situation. The environment shifted subtly. The walls faded, going opaque and hazy.
“I feel like I’m standing in a mirage now.”
The soul plane is shifting. I believe we are being indirectly challenged by the necromancer. We must succeed.
Amara relaxed, standing fully and taking a deep breath. She found it odd that the soul plane had air. She was about to ask Nemesis about that.
No. It doesn’t. It’s just your mind manifesting the notion. Because you believe it does, it does.
“I can alter reality like that?”
Only for yourself. Because the change is on such a small scale you aren’t necessarily rewriting reality for anyone else. Just yourself. So your divinity takes care of that easily enough. It’s possible to do so on larger scales, but such feats are divine works, and require the expenditure of worship.
“oh. You’d think there’d be a user’s manual for this.”
There is. You left me.
“You didn’t have anyone?”
No.
There was an emptiness and loneliness to Nemesis’ response that drastically altered her initial perceptions of Nemesis as some kind of revenge driven mad woman. She still thought the whole revenge kick was odd, but she couldn’t imagine having to discover everything she’d been fortunate enough to learn like she had without her main source.
“Thanks.”
Nemesis paused and gave Amara an appreciative nod. Amara got the impression her past incarnation didn’t get thanked for a lot. A strange notion, considering she was a justice goddess. Ahead, she saw a dwarf emerge as the surrounding area slowly morphed into a battlefield she didn’t recognize at first.
“Not bad, lass. Not bad at all. Certainly much better than yer meat head friend back in the Astral.”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Karnifex. Son of Anorax.”
“Anorax as in the massive water dragon that was living on Hidros?”
“One an’ the same.”
Amara blinked and rubbed her eyes.
“Oh, don’t let the body fool ya. I had to swap a few times over my thousands of years. This is just the latest. I was actually plannin’ to trade in once yer knucklehead buddy in the Astral ran outta gas. Till you showed up anyway. Not as powerful as yer friend, but you’ll make a good temp until I can sink ma hooks into his flesh.”
Pallid green soul magic poured from the dwarf’s eyes as he grinned widely.
“Akamori won’t be so easy to stubborn.”
“Oh, quite true. He’s a bit stubborn that one. But in the end, they all break. Just gotta wear em down. An’ I’ve got plenty of souls and bodies to hurl at the poor kid. Unless you can stop me, that is.”
His body rippled, and he suddenly grew larger, his body changing, looking more spectral. She got the impression she was seeing him as the iron ranked Soul god that he was now, and not the body he used in the Astral.
“Do you get it now? Just how well an’ truly screwed you are? You’re but a fly in a spider’s web.”
Nemeseikon melted back into her gloves. Against the contrast of her spell armor, it did a good job of matching the aesthetic. She might be a spell weaver, but she was still a girl. Her gloves or gauntlets? Gauntlets. They rippled with her power. Soul, mind, air, and Light magic radiated from her hands. Then she allowed herself a smile as she felt the line between herself and Nemesis blur.
He’s forgetting one crucial fact. He’s merely a god strong mage. You’re the goddess of justice and revenge. How many people pray to him? And how many pray to you?
“Did you know that on Honshu, there is a wasp that hunts orb weaver spiders? Its carapace is coated in an oil that makes it difficult for the webs to adhere to it. So it intentionally flies into their webs, triggering thier hunting instincts. And when the spider approaches, it lunges out and stings the spider. Inverting the Predator/Prey relationship at the last crucial moment. So tell me Karnifex, do you still feel like a predator here? Or are you just the prey and don’t realize it yet?”
Oh, that was good. Nemesis said.
“Thanks.”
Karnifex however, glared at her. Unable to parse out if he should be enraged or afraid of what she was capable of. It was clear she needed to explain further.
“Let me put it this way. You’re an iron ranked god, yes. And I’m merely a demi god. True. However. There’s more to divinity than simple raw strength. Tell me Karnifex, who worships you?”
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“I have followers.”
“True. I’m sure you’ve scraped together some kind of cult. Now tell me. How many worlds have the followers of Sauridius razed across the sector? How many lives have you torn apart? How many people crying out for justice? For vengeance?”
Uncomfortable realization settled into Karnifex before he schooled his features neutrally.
Small motes of golden divine power appeared around Amara like fireflies. She slowly waved a hand through them. She kept her attention on Karnifex the whole time, as she did.
“I can hear them. All the whispered pleas. All the prayers. All the requests. All the desperate cries for the wrongs against them be to be made right. I couldn’t before, but now that my ears have been opened, I can’t turn away from them. Not that I would have before, anyway.”
“Make your point, child.”
“I have been. This whole time. You came to this fight thinking you were the predator. But you’re wrong. You’re the spider, and I’m the wasp.”
“An interesting theory. Let’s test it, shall we?” Karnifex said.
“There won’t be any tests. Just a singular lesson.”
“In what?”
“You’ll know when the lesson is done.”
All the motes stopped, floated, then darted into Amara as one. Her aura exploded outward, blanketing the battle space. It was layered with authority and vengeance. In an instant Karnifex knew he’d been judged and found wanting.
All the lives snuffed out and used as fuel and fodder for the Sauridius necromancers on New Xinjia now weighed against his soul. It suddenly didn’t matter how strong he was, or what the disparity was between them. The retribution of all those lives added up exponentially. Fear and panic set in as their eyes met.
Amara blurred into motion, almost impossible to track. Her right fist streaked as it moved to crash into the Karnifex’s jaw. The impact hurled him across the expanse of the nondescript battlefield, spinning as he did. The necromancer slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his jaw with a look of revulsion and horror.
“That…hurt! How did that hurt?”
Amara’s hands flared with her aura. “I have come to level the scales of justice, Karnifex. There is much blood on your hands, and I’m here to make sure you pay for every drop spilled. I am justice. I am vengeance. I am Nemesis.” Her voice boomed with authority and divinity. Her eyes glowed golden. She possessed Maetrayopts.
For an instant, the past incarnation of Nemesis flashed behind Amara, and Karnifex truly knew fear. Nemesis was not a popular god. Or notably very powerful, because she was a concept god, not an aspect or planar god. Her power came more from her worshippers. And because she was a concept domain god, everyone knew of the concept of revenge and justice. Which meant she had entire civilizations at her back, making this up jumped weaver, one of the most dangerous gods in creation.
He moved to retreat, but she cut him off, a sneer on her face as she read his actions and motives plain as day.
“Going somewhere?”
“Get away from me!” Karnifex howled.
Amara appeared in front of him a millisecond later, hands crashing into his body like a fist firing machine gun. His body vibrated from the impacts until she hopped back a step and hit him with a point blank blast of pure astral energy that hurled him from her. Karnifex grunted as he crashed into the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Amara let him get back up with as much grace as he could muster. She remained in a ready stance. Hands up, feet shoulder width apart, pointed towards her target. Her magic shimmered around her hands even as she studied the necromancer.
Karnifex winced as he tried to stand upright. Amara could see the aether flow points she’d sealed off. Channeling his aether would cause him more strain, resulting a net loss of double his AP for any spell cast now. A magnitude one spell could now cost 2 AP and rose exponentially. Worse still, Karnifex now realized this and had no recourse. Being a necromancer, he had no light magic to heal the damage she’d caused to correct his aether pathways.
“Terrifying isn’t it? Almost like being a zero and facing the unjustified wrath of a wannabe god,” Amara said in a husky voice tinged with anger.
Anger boiled through Karnifex’s entire being, terminating in his hands which were weaving signs. He went through an elaborate summoning spell. Amara watched him silently, waiting the whole time. He knew her speed was great. And yet she allowed him to cast. Was she taunting him?
As soon as he entertained the thought, Amara winked at him with a cold smirk. She was almost a different person from the woman he’d seen briefly speaking with Akamori in the Astral. This woman was like a wolf.
“You are god touched. I’ll grant you that. But you’ll never be able to bring your worshippers to the fight the way I can,” Karnifex crooned coldly. When his spell resolved, a dozen different spirits appeared, hundreds, until they were like ghostly snow with different faces. All blank and expressionless save the runes etched into their foreheads, denoting them as his.
Just as Amara had ingested the worship of her people, so too did Karnifex. He literally consumed the souls. Horror and revulsion etched across Amara’s features as she watched him consume a large score of followers. With each soul consumed, he felt that small fraction of power add itself to his own. Like pouring millions of drops of water into a bucket. Eventually, the bucket would fill.
She was shaking as the last soul whipped by her and disappeared into his maw. Bright green veins of soul energy tracked along his body and Karnifex grinned.
“Ahhhh. That’s more like it.” He crooned slowly. “Nothing like a quick meal during a sparing match to loosen one up.”
Karnifex soared in, lunging with pallid claws that left painful streaks in the air to look at. Like staring at a sun too long. He feinted a lunge, and she ducked right into a rising knee that lifted her up. He caught her with the other hand and spun, hurling her into a mob of souls.
“Don’t you get it? Death can’t stop me. I am untouchable. We all are.”
Amara chuckled. An honest, full-hearted chuckle that spilled into contemptuous mocking laughter. She carried on for several minutes, toppling over and rolling side to side while clutching her stomach from the strain until Karnifex grew angry.
“Stop it! Stop laughing!”
She shook her head, waving aside the demand with one arm while wiping away tears with the other. “I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s just when you say such stupid things? I can’t help but give you the laugh they deserve.”
When she finished speaking, her voice was back to the same old cold tone she’d assumed with him. Her stone cold demeanor had returned. He surged forward, seizing her by the throat. A manic grin on spread across his draconic features. His soul looked more like a pale version of Anorax in a more humanoid form.
“Not so funny now, are you, little girl?”
In a blink, she clutched his hand with both arms and wrapped her legs around his neck. An instant later he was on the ground and she had his arm in a very painful position with her legs acting like levers threatening to pry his arm out of its socket.
“I’m glad you were stupid enough to maintain a body. Usually only wargods do that. The obvious benefit is a powerful and nigh indestructible body to work with. The downside is they tend to still come with weaknesses. As much as I’ve grown to dispise Sauridius I have to commend it for being smart enough to make itself raw magic. Even in a broken and distributed fashion, he still lives on, even if he is functionally unconscious.”
She grunted and applied more tension to the arm. It was so close to popping out.
“But you? No. Sauridius could be torn to pieces and still be Sauridius, just disconnected. But you? Your body comes with rules. Rules that are ingrained into our heads and even reality. Like bones and sockets, nerves, aether flow points, and so on. Some of these systems are easier to ignore than others, but bones and aether flow points are harder to ignore and thus, usually more persistent than the others. Translation? You can be an undead soul god, but still need bones and an aether flow system to regulate your magic.”
She torqued a little more and there was a very loud dull pop. Karnifex’s mouth opened in a soundless scream that never left his throat. He just lay in pure agony. Amara rolled off of him and upright, hands up again in a ready stance. Magic lacing her hands and feet again like spectral fire.
“Ready to give up? Or are you thirsty for more?”