Niiya tried to scream and struggle out of Yugal’s grip. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to leave her, just like Tyren. Yugal might not have shared a parent with Niiya, but he was every bit as precious to her as her twin had been. Now he was going to disappear, that man was going to take him away.
“No!” She shrieked in denial, and the cocoon forming around her shattered. “You can’t have my brother!”
A surge of ash erupted out and engulfed Yugal as the edge of the sphere of annihilation touched him. She became hyper aware of the terrible state of Yugal’s physical form as her skill fed her his data instantaneously. An epiphany struck her in that moment of pure desperation. It was almost as if some outside voice was guiding her, instructing her...
She followed the impulses, not seeing any other options. She created a spiritual tunnel between the giant’s collapsing body and her own. As Yugal’s spirit lost its purchase on its vessel, Niiya reached out with her domain and all her heart. Yugal’s entire self, an existence as mighty and massive as the Ragnarok Titan himself joined Niiya’s domain. A thousandth of a second later, the destructive light engulfed Niiya, and everything went white. She knew nothing for some time, then a strange sensation crept into her unconscious mind. Something was... licking her face?
“Mr. Yugal!” She screamed and sat bolt upright, as if waking from a bad dream. She looked around, desperately struggling to clear the fog from her mind and vision. A blurry blob slowly came into focus. “Frosthowl..?”
The huge wolf’s face was indeed the spitting image of Mr. Yugal’s familiar, only now he was black, with glowing eyes of solid sapphire that poured dark blue smoke. A deep, challenging roar followed by a concussive boom ripped her attention away from the menacing wolf. It was then that she finally was able to process her surroundings, and her eyes and mouth both opened wide in shock and awe.
Endless rolling hills of blackened sand, each littered with corpses of every shape and size rose like islands from a sea of blood under an overcast sky where clouds of flame churned and roiled. Bodies fell from those clouds - some were screaming in terror, others fell silently as though dead.
“Ah!” A familiar voice drew her attention. “You’re up!”
It was definitely Yugal, but he had been given the same ash makeover as Frosthowl. Niiya’s memories came rushing back then. She had taken him into her domain. The coal black titan casually swung his flaming sword which was an inky silhouette of its former self as he walked toward her. The shadowy flames touched the orc-like demon that had risen up to challenge Yugal. The creature’s maniacal babbling was cut short as it exploded into flaming fragments that evaporated into nothingness before they could even reach the ground.
“Mr. Yugal... What’s happening!?” Niiya asked, desperately touching her face to verify that this wasn’t yet another terrible nightmare.
“We lost our battle with Kutris.” Yugal said, reaching a finger down for the cat girl to grab hold of. “I remember a voice telling me to hold onto you, then I woke up here. You were asleep under me, and all of them were protecting this mound.” Yugal gestured down with a sweeping gesture toward the small army of ashen death knights and werewolves that had formed a phalanx all around them.
Anything that ventured too close was eviscerated in cold silence, and apparently a great many things had indeed ventured too close while she had been unconscious.
“I flew up a little ways, but I can’t go very high. Those clouds are just as deadly as they look. I sent Cinderwyrm to scout further, and confirmed a few things...” Yugal trailed off when he noticed Niiya had disappeared and reappeared on his shoulder.
A ridiculously hard punch to the side of his cheek from a tiny fist made the titan lurch and nearly stumble. Then he felt her hug his cheek and yank his beard and mustache. Niiya was bawling.
“You big jerk!” She accused between ugly sobs. “You tried to leave me behind!”
Yugal grimaced gently and lightly rubbed the shaking child’s back with his index fingertip. It was too easy to forget because of her great power and her rapid physical development due to the Age Stasis - Prime effect, but Niiya was still very much a child.
She calmed down after a minute or so, and wiped her eyes.
“Know where we are?” Her voice was hoarse and small, almost like she was embarrassed about the outburst.
“We’re definitely somewhere in the hells.” Yugal replied with bright certainty. “That means we died at the hands of our enemy.” Yugal’s voice was firm, and there was no hint of fear or despair to be found.
“Why do you sound happy about that!?” Niiya couldn’t help but laugh at the juxtaposition of it all.
“We’re in the hells with our memories, and powers intact!” Yugal’s eyes glowed with a strange pride. “That means we can go back! If the universe had deemed us unworthy, we would have either been reborn with new bodies and no memories or dispersed to Oblivion. But now, like my great ancestor Behemet we may struggle and conquer our way back through the layers. Where he chose to stay and make a kingdom here, we shall return to where we belong so that we may apologize for our failure in battle.”
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“We died... but we can get back?” Niiya’s face screwed up. She knew that Leza and the others had made it back but had always just thought that was because they had been banished there by magic rather than actually dying.
“It may take a very long time, and it will be a path paved with the bones of countless foes.” Yugal sobered just slightly. “But yes, miss Niiya. We can indeed go home!”
Niiya felt her own despair dissolve to be replaced by a firm resolve. She looked around at the crowds of seemingly mindless demons, and felt a tiny surge of power as yet another was cut down by one of her death knights. Mr. Yugal would never lie to her. That meant she could get back to Gray, back to EDEN and all her dear friends. If these feeble demons were all that stood in her way, then pity the hells.
Her power seemed far greater here. She had been expressing her full domain even while unconscious, a feat she never could have managed back in the living world. Every creature that threw itself into her domain simply added to it. If she sat here, she wondered if she could simply cultivate more and more power for as long as she wanted. She dismissed the thought almost instantly. Spending even a second longer in this pit of blood and sulfur than necessary was simply out of the question.
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I was falling through a fractal tunnel of innumerable colors and incomprehensible geometry. Something had intercepted my Bloodwalk, and none of my spatial based skills were working which unfortunately included my Astral Vault. I couldn’t sense anyone connected to me via Soulbrand, and I could only pray that Yugal and Niiya would pull through their predicament. The aura I had briefly sensed was enormous and I imagined it must have been either Kutris himself, or an extremely powerful minion.
I berated myself for underestimating my enemy, and quickly slipped into my Fallen Dominion form. Just because I had been caught didn’t mean I had to make it easy for them. A few furious beats of my wings made me drift toward the fractal wall which passed by in a rainbow hued blur. This was definitely going to sting. I extended my claws and plunged both hands into the wall with a grimace. The expected pain didn’t flare up, rather my claws tore long ragged furrows into the surprisingly delicate surface. It was more like cutting thick plastic than the crystal or glass I was expecting.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, FOOLISH APE!?” A panicked voice boomed through my thoughts. “HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF SELF PRESERVATION!?”
“Fuck you.” I replied out loud.
My movement slowed drastically, and a chaotic vortex was forming in the breached tunnel. The black hooded toga that came with this form fluttered upward wildly. It was like the cabin of a commercial jet when the door flew off in the movies. I finally came to a halt and looked above me, the tears were being knitted back together seemingly on their own. Then I noticed it, a slight humanoid shaped distortion that would have been invisible had I not been staring at just the right spot.
It was desperately trying to mend the tunnel when I furiously began clawing my way back up (or what felt like up, at least) the tunnel. I reached the distortion in a microsecond, and slammed my claws into the outline with all the force I could muster. It shuddered and a surprised and agonized shriek split the air even as the atmosphere was being sucked out into the void outside of the tunnel. Whatever concealing skill it was using failed, and I got a good luck at the creature.
It was as alien as anything I had ever seen. Like literally if its head was more banana shaped, I’d say it was a dead ringer for everyone’s favorite Jodie Foster terrorizing space monster. My hand was currently wrist deep into its back, having punched through the extremely hard exoskeleton.
“Got you.” I said menacingly. “Take me back, or I take you back. One of those options is going to be more painful than the other, I promise.” I sent a small wave of discordant aura flowing through the alien body and it spasmed.
“What has the ape got, exactly?” A synchronized chorus of hundreds of voices buzzed from just above, sounding like a sentient beehive.
I looked up with growing dread, and found the tunnel above was infested with exact copies of the monster I held in my hand. They crawled along the wall in a spiraling swarm that moved almost like a liquid. In an instant they were upon me. I could only use my natural weapons, and even though I sent dismembered corpses tumbling down by the dozen I was taking more wounds than I could heal with regeneration.
I abandoned the melee as I kicked off of the tunnel and angled my momentum to impact the opposite wall further down. I attacked the wall directly, leaving a massixe ‘X’ shaped tear that bled out into the void. Before the swarm could catch up, I kicked away again. The beings reacted as though the damage to the tunnel was causing them physical pain. My suspicion was growing that the tunnel and all these bastards was actually part of a single incomprehensible creature. As I attuned my senses with that in mind, I felt an all encompassing aura. It struck me then, I was inside a Domain skill.
I was enjoying the apparent suffering my attacks were causing, and I got the very distinct feeling that the type of damage my claws were inflicting was foreign to this creepy thing.
“If you destroy the passage, you will die.” The metallic chorus promised as I slashed yet another long gash in the strange material.
“Fuck you.” I repeated smugly.
Just as I was about to leap away from my handiwork yet again in my ricocheting descent, a three fingered claw as large as my entire body reached in from the void and engulfed my torso in a grip that sent dark blood spurting out of my mouth. I was then yanked out of the tunnel and into the vacuum of the void.
Things got a little discombobulated after that. I couldn’t see or sense anything other than the crushing force that was pushing me closer and closer to true death. Then there was a distant sensation of movement at a terrifying velocity at the same time the pressure vanished.
Had I just been hurled like a baseball? A pinhole of light returned to my vision as a single tic of regeneration brought me back from the brink. The second tic returned my senses more fully and I came to. I was falling yet again, only now I was falling through a bright blue sky. I oriented my body, catching a glimpse of my normal hands and my lion headed cuff links.
I rotated in the air and nearly retched. I was at least two miles in the air. Below me was an endless sea of dark green forest laced with a network of wide rivers. In the distance there was a tall mountain with a peak nearly level with me. Atop it was the ruined remains of a white fortress.
I was deeply familiar with most of the continent, and this was absolutely foreign. I focused on summoning my shadow wings, and exhaled a deep sigh of relief when they appeared. My exhale turned into a sharp curse when i felt my Soul Energy plummet for every second they were active.
I was going to have to free fall until the last moments and only use my wings to soften the landing. Did I mention how much I hated flying? Well it turns out I hate skydiving even more.
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“You ‘lost’ him?” Kutris growled through clenched teeth. “Do elaborate.”
Kutris had already been in a foul mood. The premature destruction of his duplicate body had cost him a tremendous amount of energy and left a new scar on his spirit body.
“You failed to mention that the man was of the Dominion rank. His claws contain both the Soul and Astral elements.” Neferthotep replied evenly, dropping all pretense of servitude toward Kutris. “As my queen was crossing the planar boundary to Blödgard, that monster began eviscerating her pathways. To save herself, she ejected him before we could reach the prison layer.”
“Where did that bloated nexus cockroach send him?” Kutris’ voice dripped with venom, his insult daring the alien to challenge him.
Neferthotep leaked a bit of killing intent into his aura, but did not cross the line.
“He was ejected somewhere near the outer rings, likely in the Primordial Hunting Grounds.” The buzzing voice finally answered.
“Lobius.” Kutris spoke to an empty area of the circular stone room, and a shadowy revenant materialized. “Activate the guardians of the outer rings, send the orc to lead them. Hunt down the fugitive, you may break him but DO NOT kill him.”
The apparition bowed silently and melted into the floor.