“You poor deluded little child. I’m going to peel your soul free of your body, and use it as a decoration for my spell ship’s bridge.” Karnifex said.

Amara assumed a ready stance ahead of the soul god.

“I’m not deluded. This is the soul plane. You believe we are within your realm of power. Purely on the merit that you’re a necromancer.”

Amara’s eyes flashed with iridescent golden light. Her maetrayopts shimmering in the almost painful glow of the realm of the dead.

“But my domain transcends simple concepts like planes and realms. Because the dead don’t forget when they’ve been unjustly murdered. Or shackled against their will. My covenant supersedes the Astral plane’s boundaries. Justice extends to every corner of the system.”

Karnifex scowled, blurring forward and slashing at her with inhumanly long claws made of bone. As they cut arcs through the air, they blurred, and Amara could see they’d cause soul damage and physical damage. She blocked, parried, and evaded Karnifex’s attacks. While he may have been heavily soul aspected, his attacks were precise and dangerous.

No matter how accurate Karnifex’s attacks were, however, the goddess of Vengeance eluded him. She could read his moves, follow the flow of magic through his body, and anticipate its use. She’d trained on a world full of air aspected warrior mages. She’d faced down countless necromancers and soldiers. And now she’d ascended with the aid of Lord Death itself. And on top of all of that? She possessed the eyes of Maetraya, eyes that revealed all truth.

Karnifex lunged, and she batted away his strike. His large talons sank into the ground with a thick thud. She countered by attacking the aetherpoint nexus in his forearm, and the limb fell limp like dead weight. Karnifex slashed at her with his other arm, drawing sparks against her bracelet shaped shield. A pair of Banshees shrieked at her from opposite flanks.

Forced to either take the attacks or block them, Amara went with the best of two bad choices. If she’d had the Captain’s gift of seeing the future, perhaps she could have expected the scenario. As it was, he thrust her forearms up and blocked the shriek attacks that hammered at her from both sides. Golden white wards flashed to life, discoloring at the edges under the strain as cracks began to spiderweb across their surface.

Sure enough, as soon as she blocked, a binding spell flew towards her only for a golden warrior with a sword to emerge from her body and slash the spell into motes of spent aether before it shrank back into her. Surprise as much as joy and awe rattled through her.

Karnifex was after her instantly, lashing out with a kick that connected square in her stomach. She tumbled back onto the ground in a mess. Stumbling back to her feet, she shook out of the soul chill debuff that was sinking into her bones after Karnifex’s strike landed. She had to be swift about this and do it without suffering too much damage.

The two clashed again, exchanging blows that were blocked or parried. But this time Amara went on the defensive with a focus on concentrated parries and retaliatory strikes. She never struck an open and clean blow that would leave herself open and exposed. Instead, she would slip a quick strike inside the soul god’s guard, systematically eroding his defenses and ruining his aether point pathways. It was a long and drawn-out process that saw her needing to take hits in sacrifice. But she had a tactical plan to win the war, and thus could cede to him the battle of strikes.

A great deal of time passed before realization began to slowly dawn in Karnifex. His magically imbued strikes were landing with less ferocity and causing less damage than their initial opening salvo. At first, he wrote it off as a budding Nemesis, having taken his measure, and she was content to let him think that. But only when it was too late did he discover that she’d been baiting him in exchanging blows so she could continue to dismantle his ability to cast. Enraged, he lashed out with a roundhouse that caught her cleanly in the jaw and sent her spinning.

“What have you done to me, you foul witch?”

Amara grunted, rising slowly from the numbing pain in her chest and face. She sniffed at the blood that drained from her nose a few times before wiping it along the bracer of her armor. It wasn’t elegant, but she wasn’t concerned about looking ladylike in the moment. Her vision blurred a few times, and she swayed as she fought to maintain her balance.

“Nothing more than you’ve allowed me to do.” She said with a wince.

Karnifex flexed his hands, trying to channel magic, but it refused to listen to him. It took a great deal of will power to circumvent the damage. Like rerouting the flow of a river around a dam. It cost him a significant expenditure of divinity and he was lesser for the act. And then he realized she’d planned this all along. Worse still, the bitch had been waiting patiently for him to reach this moment. She’d been playing with him since she came here.

He sucked in a dignified puff of air. “How long?”

“Since our first exchange. I knew you wouldn’t be able to pass up playing with your food, so to speak. So all I had to do was keep you baited with the promise of pain and victory. All while disabling your AP paths. Either you left the damage and fought in a diminished capacity, or you reversed the damage and spent divinity to do so.”

A troubling feeling took root in Karnifex. For far too long, he’d enjoyed playing with people and things. And now, he was the one being toyed with. It was fear. The stark realization that he was no longer the biggest fish in the pond he played in.

Amara blazed with golden fury. A righteousness born from the mountain of dead Leviathos, Sauridius, and their followers like himself and Ominek had caused directly and indirectly. Even in the muted, pallid wash of the soul realm, she was radiant and lively. As though she carried a pocket of the Astral with her. The radiance stung at his eyes like needles rammed into his retinas.

“You’ve defeated me. Now what?”

Amara approached him. No, not the little priestess she’d been. This was a war goddess who kept a ledger of reality. Nemesis advanced.

“Now? I set you free.”

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Confusion rippled through him, but before he could respond, she placed a palm to his chest and she slammed a pulse of radiant power through him that felt like she’d just punched his soul with a runaway truck. She snatched a spectral being up by the neck from behind him. It was withered, gnashing its teeth and feebly clawing at her, to no avail.

Then she squeezed. There was a loud keening, and the sound of glass shattering. Disembodies moaning as the shattered soul shards glittered in the spectral winds until eventually they were drawn into the distant maw. With the aberrant soul driving Karnifex’s body removed, he shuddered and convulsed. His spectral form changed.

Claws and malformed limbs reshaped to normal proportions. An elegant white draconic tail emerged from his back, as well as a pair of wings which folded up after stretching out. Karnifex’s body lowered back to the ground, and he fell to his knees, sobbing softly.

“How were you shackled for?” Amara asked, kneeling down.

Karnifex stared vacantly into the distance for a moment, so Amara gave him time to process his rapid change in circumstance. Finally, he glanced up to her, relief and tears filling his eyes.

“Thank you.” He whispered weakly.

Amara nodded to him with a smile. “It couldn’t have been easy. To be trapped inside like that. Bound by a shackling spell and an invasive soul.”

“I resisted at first.” He started and trailed off. Overwhelmed by the influx of thoughts and information, he now had to process himself. “But over time, it felt like a lost cause. My resistance only caused me more agony. Eventually I gave up hope.”

Amara’s maetrayopts shimmered iridescent and gold. Small rainbows contained within gold colored orbs. She was completely different now from when she’d left the temple on Hoshun years ago. Karnifex studied her quietly for a moment.

“Why help me? It would have been easier to just destroy me and put down the threat together. I can sense the expense of divinity purging the binding cost you.”

He was right, after all. She was dimmer than she’d been. It was a costly expense, but it was the right one. And she’d gladly do it again. She smiled and squeezed his shoulder encouragingly.

“Because it was the just thing to do.”

Karnifex bowed his head. “I owe you my life. And so. If you would have it, I would take a covenant with you.”

“I would be honored.”

The two finished the covenant with each other. Karnifex would stand up for those down trodden by injustice, and in return he could gain access to a radiant bolt attack that harmed evil souls. Tears fell from Karnifex’s face as he looked at his hands trembling.

Amara took his face into her hands and brought his gaze up to meet hers. “You’ve weathered untold atrocities. You’ve endured so much darkness. But the light is returning. Stay strong. And maybe go see your father.”

“I can’t.” He choked out between sobs.

“Why not? You’re his son. He has so little left. I think it would be good for the both of you. If nothing more than to know you’re finally safe.”

“I almost shackled his soul.”

Amara nodded, understanding. He’d been a binder at the ritual on Hidros. He must have slipped out by a soul portal in the fighting. Or rather, the soul that had bound him was.

“You weren’t in control. That was the soul driving your body. I know if you had control of your body, you’d have been out there fighting with us, too. I can see it on your soul, plain as day. That’s why I could dispel the binding. Justice and Vengeance. It’s my domain now.”

Karnifex nodded. His aura was turbulent with so much emotion he was still trying to process, but it was clear he’d make the recovery in time. He gripped her forearm with an intense look.

“Make them pay. For all of us.”

Amara nodded solemnly. “I will. Before, it used to be about revenge. But it’s more than. The system is out of balance. I believe it’s my job to help restore it.”

Karnifex nodded. “I have no purpose. For so long, I was a prisoner in my body. Freedom is almost terrifying. Now that I have control again, I don’t know what I want for myself.”

She smiled ruefully and patted the human shaped dragon on the shoulder. “You remind me a lot of my friend.”

“Did he ever find his way?”

“Eventually yeah. I think so. We didn’t talk for very long, but he looked better than I remember. Like something finally clicked into place for him. Something he’d been missing for a while. It was a good look for him. Hang in there, you’ll find your own way.”

Karnifex nodded, rising and giving his wings an experimental stretch. Then he flapped them several times and rose into the air, before the murky haze of their battleground swallowed him whole. Amara watched as the sickly white and green haze swirled in his wake before turning back to what she imaged was the way she’d come. She needed a way back.

Her eyes glowed with a radiant aura as her hands wove the signs and runes necessary and a portal opened back to the Astral Realm.

In time, such actions would no longer be necessary, Nemesis said.

“I know. But it’s good practice, and I always enjoyed weaving.”

Without further delay, she strode through the portal.

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