AN- Hallo!! First of all, this chapter is really short, only about 1700 words. But i promise, the next one will be around 5k words, and it'll be up next week. I had the time today, so i thought i would just write something, and post whatever i got, so your Queen presents you another chapter after a long time (2 weeks?), enjoy~~~
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Darkness everywhere.
Aurora looked everywhere, fear gripped her heart, as she thought she had died again. And that wasn’t the only reason that she felt scared, the darkness seemed to consume her.
Darting her eyes left, and right, she suddenly squinted them while shielding with her hand, as a bright light faded the abyss around her.
Standing before her was an otherworldly beauty with slightly masculine facial features, handsome would be the right word. The figure wore a beautiful golden armor that covered her modest chest till her stomach, and a similar colored short skirt that covered her thighs showing some muscles.
Two large golden wings that glowed brightly spread around covering her, and shielding Aurora who looked with an open mouth at the mischievously smiling woman in late 20s in front of her.
“You came to visit me first it seems”, the beauty spoke in a strong voice as her medium length bright silver hair shined in the void.
Aurora quickly shook off her stupor, and smiled at the words,
“Well you were taking your sweet time contacting me, so I thought I would give you a surprise.”
The goddess laughed, and gave a piercing gaze with her pure silver eyes,
“Haha yes, you gave me quite a shock, and it appears you unlocked that skill.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how it got unlocked, but it helped me a lot taking down that bear”, Aurora said while sighing a little.
She didn’t know whether her parents were alive or not, but she was at least successful in stopping the mayhem even at the expense of her own life.
The goddess playfully smiled, and suddenly dropped the bomb,
“No you are not dead and your parents are alive too, but did you already forget what I told you…...and here I thought you had the brains.”
“What!! I’m alive! But then why am I here, and what did I forget?”, Aurora felt relieved at the news, but then quickly racked her brain to rethink what she had forgotten.
Looking at the perplexed child in front of her, Umbra spoke,
“Hmm I’m not really at good at explaining these things, but it’s like this, your mind is here, but not your soul”
Umbra was not really the thoughtful type; Blood, and battles suited her taste more.
“And the answer is ‘Rage’”
Aurora suddenly had an expression of understanding. Umbra had explained the first time they had met about how her anger fueled her power, but it was quite surprising to see that it can also unlock skills.
“I know what you are thinking but those skills are quite hard to gain and are not many.”
The goddess spoke shattering her hopes of quickly gaining all the skills that she had seen locked.
“Ah those skills have other requirements, not all skills that I've given require you be to be angry, like that ‘Wings of hope’ is a racial skill that only unlocks when you reach the age of 12”, the goddess spoke as she swiped her hand in front of her as if looking at something.
Aurora quickly understood that she was looking through her status, and skills.
“You made quite the progress, better than I expected, huh..”, the goddess suddenly stopped praising her, and squinted her eyebrows.
She made some weird hand movements, but her expression didn’t change. Aurora got a bit worried as she thought if something was wrong with her status.
Umbra looked up to Aurora meeting her gaze, and a window appeared in front of her,
Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:????????%??
“What’s this skill that even I can’t read?”, the war goddess spoke with a hint of curiosity.
Aurora was a bit stunned, “Huh didn’t you give me that skill?”
“No I didn’t, and even if I didn’t, I should’ve been able to read it,” Umbra paused a bit, “But even with my god level identify skill, I somehow can’t read it”
The silence grew more after she revealed the information.
Aurora couldn’t figure out what the skill was, nor could the Goddess. The skill was already present there when she checked her status for the first time.
They both stared at the question marks that the window displayed, but Umbra gave up trying to figure out the skill that was beyond her.
“We’ll not get anywhere even if we bore our eyes into this for eternity.”
Aurora nodded her head in understanding. The window disappeared, and she looked around, the darkness was lashing out towards her, but Umbra’s aura alone dispersed anything that came near her.
“It wasn’t like this when I first came here”, Aurora asked looking back to Umbra.
“The void is trying to get into your mind little girl, the last time I gave you a protective force before your soul came in here. I don’t know how but now your mind itself came here.”
The goddess looked at the mysterious girl in front of her, while Aurora only seemed scared.
“You scared”, Umbra asked smirking a little, and covering Aurora more with her wings.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Aurora made a stern face, and said in a resolute tone, “I would be lying if I said I’m not scared,.....", she stopped a bit, and continued again, "but please let me look inside the darkness so that I can wash away my fears.”
She looked back into Umbra’s eyes whose face was just a few inches away from her. Umbra gleamed, happy with her champion’s resolution, and moved away her large wings which were obscuring Aurora’s view of the Void.
Aurora flinched a little as the black tendrils tried shooting at her face, but would disappear into the darkness again just a few breaths away.
Minutes turned into hours, slowly but surely the darkness around her seemed to be repelled as it tried to eat her away.
Umbra had a thought watching all this, and she weakened her protective barrier around Aurora a little bit. And again the battle of minds started.
Sometimes when the darkness seemed be too much for Aurora to handle, Umbra would increase her barrier’s strength, and sometimes dwindle it as Aurora would get used to the darkness.
Aurora was mentally tired, it required a lot of mental prowess to keep her mind sane from all the visions that the darkness showed her. The visions were terrible; sometimes her family getting killed by some monsters; and sometimes Aurora,herself, killing the ones she loved, ripping apart their limbs as she soaked her body with their blood.
She started huffing as the images grew more in intensity. Umbra was about to dispel all the darkness around Aurora, but suddenly Aurora cried out her lungs as a bright aura covered her whole being.
“You won’t control me!!”
All the darkness around her faded as if it never existed in the first place.
Umbra couldn’t hide her ecstasy, as she started laughing loudly,
“Hahaha who would’ve thought you could push back the void that even gods fear”
Umbra supported the child whose legs started giving out from all the energy that she had just wasted trying to fight out the inner demons in herself.
“huff….huff..thank you”, Aurora started getting back to her feet, as she let go of the warm feeling that she felt from Umbra’s embrace.
Aurora trained for what felt like months but in reality on 4 days had passed. She had grown closer to Umbra over the time as she would encourage her to keep on fighting the darkness.
She steadied her breath, and looked back to see Umbra’s happy expression. Aurora had thought that gods would be haughty beings, but the war goddess in front of her didn’t seem like that at all. ‘Umbra feels like an elder sister, a little mischievous but someone who would stand up for her loved ones’
Aurora smiled back at her, forgetting the fact that Umbra could read her thoughts. The goddess laughed a little as she read the feelings of Aurora, while Aurora seemed a little confused at her sudden giggling.
After a short moment, Aurora spoke up, “So how can I go back into my body now?”
Umbra stopped her giggling, “Oh I can send you back.”
But before she could, Umbra suddenly halted her magic,
“Ah I almost forgot, I’ll be now able to talk you in your thoughts, but not at all the times. It still would take a lot of mana just to form the connection.”
Aurora only nodded in response. A goddess providing her information would be better than any book that she could ask for.
“Oh by the way, why did you make me into a girl?”, Aurora suddenly asked the question that she had wanted to ask from her birth in this new world.
Umbra just looked back at her as if she was stupid, and spoke when she saw that Aurora was serious,
“Sigh…..really I don’t know whether you are stupid or just unaware….”
Aurora puffed her cheeks, and knitted her brows together in a cute manner,
“Who are you calling stupid! I even have ‘The Genius’ title”
Umbra just looked back at her with pity, and answered,
“Valkyrie is a woman only race. I thought you would know, as you have more knowledge from your previous world.”
Aurora just closed her eyes while sighing out loud, ‘Just as I had thought, well whatever it’s not like it’s the end of the world…’
Umbra smirked, and got close to Aurora, placed her hands on Aurora’s cheeks, and brought her face up to meet her silver eyes,
“I’ll talk to you in the living world now, grow stronger my champion, more than anyone else......”
She kissed Aurora's forehead. But before the light engulfed Aurora completely, she saw the lonely expression on the previously proud face of Umbra.
Aurora felt herself being pulled herself into her body away from the soft touch of the Goddess’s hand. She tried to extend her hands, and voice her thoughts
‘Don’t cry’
She wanted to say that even when there were no tears in Umbra's eyes, but she was already back in her body again.
Slowly opening her eyes, she was suddenly pulled into an embrace.
“Aurora!! Aurora *sob*”, she heard her mother.
Returning the hug back, the emotions kicked in, and started overwhelming Aurora. Tears fell down her eyes, relieved to see her mother alive. But her cries were not only for her mother, she also wept for Umbra. She was only in the void for a few days, but felt that she would have gone insane if not for the fact that Umbra was with her. Aurora couldn't even imagine the solitude that Goddess of War must have felt over the thousand years....
‘Umbra...I’ll definitely free you from that hell, I promise’
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Again, please tell me if there are any mistakes. I don't know if should get a PR or something to help me edit but if you guys want, i'll get one.
Oyasumi nasai~~~