After passing through the corrupted sea of white, Gi returned to his body. Strangely, he felt more whole here than he did as a soul in the afterlife - perhaps, the immortal soul craved mortality, or perhaps, it was the balancing of order and chaos.
His mind spun with the explanations of Aether, Chaos, and Order that the First One had provided. At that time, it felt like it made sense in the same way that bread, cheese, and sauce was delicious. Now, he felt like he understood it in the same way that pizza was delicious.
Having experienced and remembered death, reality was a more known quantity. Life was no longer a philosophical debate; it could be felt.
He raised his paws in wonder at the feeling of life pumping through his veins and did a double take as he realized that he had full use of both his arms. Having both arms working felt strange due to just how natural it felt.
He wasn't healed. He was whole.
Notifications blinked idly in his awareness, but he ignored them for now. His surroundings required much closer attention than he'd given them.
He'd watched the fight using the powers of the gods. The log house missing part of its wall didn't surprise him. Tiria stared at him with awe, relief, exhaustion, guilt, and a hundred other emotions that warred on her face.
Samba still lay partly conscious on the ground. His newly Defiant Soul had hit an impassible wall at his first roadblock and that injury of his Soul wouldn't be so easily healed with Aether.
Worst of all, Mark's wife, Alice, and her daughter, Rae, were pinned to the wall still staring at the body. He knew now wasn't the time to talk to them. Their wounds were too fresh to even be raw like the surprise of being stabbed before the pain hits.
But he couldn't leave them like this either.
As he approached, they didn't shrink in fear away from him. Maybe it was his aura that now fell heavy that kept them frozen or again just the shock of what they'd experienced.
Gi ran a claw through their bindings, freeing them. He knew that now wasn't the time to talk to them, but it felt wrong to not at least acknowledge them. Giving them the sign of the Mother, he bowed low.
"You've given us more than we could ever ask and more than you ever should. If you ever have need of us, simply speak the word and the Underbridge clan will aid you."
They didn't respond, but that was understandable. His voice had come out in both the monster language and the human language thanks to the Amulet of Many Tongues that Plutus had procured for him. It was convenient for what he must do, but probably didn't help the shock of the situation.
Tiria, likewise, hadn't moved so he turned to address her. "Thank you for your diligence and your faith in me. I know that it has cost you, but you've given everyone a path forward on something that is much bigger than all of this."
"Th-thank you," Tiria mumbled and then bowed low in the sign of the Mother. She'd always had a bit of hero worship with him. It looked like since his death and rebirth that might have grown worse. There would be time to address it, but not now.
There were far too many things to set in motion.
"Please take Orchid and leave for now. Find Nori if she will work with us and then move to collect Georgia. We will need everyone for what is to come."
"Y-yes, Progenitor." She instantly turned to leave, but her thoughts caught up to her and she started directing Orchid who still lay in wait on the ceiling.
Gi stepped out of the hole in the wall. Nearly an entire town of humans stared at him. Some remnants of fear still lingered on their faces, but they too were subdued either from his aura or shock.
"You've been through much this night," Gi called out to them, his amulet translating to human tongue. "You don't need to run anymore. I know it doesn't mean much, but I have brought you troubles this night. The least I can do is ensure that you have time to grieve."
Gi looked from human to human, but none of them spoke. It might be convenient for now, but he hoped that this rapt silence didn't become a trend. He'd work on his aura control after this.
Smoothly, he swam into the air and left the gaping humans behind to fly north.
****
JR's Aether had been churning for weeks as his army [March]ed along his moving platform of sand. Without his [Aether Gatherer] Skill, he'd have never been able to keep up with expenditure. As it was, he was still mostly full on Aether.
There was a cost that came with using that much Aether for that long, but it wouldn't stop him from crushing the humans and their little pet. His pride was only part of the reason that he wanted to end them. It was also his duty.
He couldn't allow any threats from the south to interrupt the demons' campaign against the humans' Western Empire.
His Demons had [March]ed for a long time, but they were well trained and each of them had a minimum requirement of Constitution. Whatever humans remained at the settlement should be fodder compared to his army.
A light that JR had unconsciously mistaken for a star caught his attention as it grew larger in the sky.
"Halt!" JR roared.
All of his demons stopped instantly and JR let his churning Aether stop. He peered further into the night, pushing [Devil's Sight] as far as he could, but he couldn't quite make out what it was other than a vaguely humanoid form.
That human had fought with light, but could he fly? Why hadn't he flown during their encounter?
If it was the human, he'd made a mistake. Even if he could fly, JR would crush him here. Without his pet otter, neither of them could do anything even remotely threatening to him.
He waited.
[Devil's Sight] worked best to pierce darkness so it wasn't until the figure grew very close that JR realized that it was an otter. The otter wore an all white robe with a shining breastplate made of steel. Light dripped down his fur like water and a small kernel of worry slithered in his mind. Who was this?
An aura fell on him like a hammer.
The weight of a history that made the Demon Empire's reign seem like a small blip in the annals of time pressed down on him and some of his demons literally fell to their knees under the weight of it. If that ancient weight was all of it, JR could have shrugged it off. He'd been a part of his Pa's court for a long time after all.
But there was a sense of divinity to it.
That sparkling otter felt like he was gazing upon the First One made flesh. There was an unreachable, otherworldliness that cut through his measured defenses and left him to do nothing more than to gaze upon this otter's beautiful divine form.
He didn't come to his senses until the otter was standing just before him. His fur looked as though it could have been spun from gold itself such was the richness of it.
"Who- who the fuck are you?" JR managed to spit out. His Heart trembled at such harsh words for this divine creature, but he wouldn't bow down before a monster with a heavy aura. There was no guarantee that he could fight.
The otter swept his gaze over the demons and a touch of regret entered his eyes. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to surrender and join me in the fight against your Empire?"
JR didn't have an awakened Soul so it was difficult for him to fight off the influence of this monster's aura, but eventually, he did. It was still oppressing and it felt like JR carried a boulder on his back, but finally, that oppressive weight was without rather than within.
He growled. "You think I'm gonna just abandon my Pa cause some monster with an awakened Soul demanded it? I'll crush you and the rest of your clan. Whatever resistance you're trying to mount will mean nothing against our might."
All around him the demons were starting to recover as well. The ones that had been brought to their knees initially were doing the worst, but the rest, like him, had shaken off the worst of the effects of the otter's aura.
JR scoffed. "Did you really think that your aura would be enough to defeat us here? I have over seven hundred demons ready to attack you. Unless you have more sneaky otters looking to ambush us?"
JR studied the trees off to his right from the western forest, but all he saw was more trees. He was confident that if they had more fighters then they'd have brought them when they marched north. He was also confident that between his [Shifting Sands] Domain and his demons' [March] Skill that there was no way that their existing army could keep up with him.
He'd seen signs of the human and his pet otter sprinting south, but there was no way that their lessers could keep the same pace.
No, this Otter was alone or close enough to it. Yet, he didn't seem worried.
"I didn't expect you to," the otter said. "She probably won't care, but tell the First One, I'm sorry."
JR's Soul senses were rudimentary having not been awakened, but even he could feel the massive amount of Aether that was activated in an instant. In a blink, JR's army had become surrounded by all-white otters, each wearing a simple white robe.
More Aether thrummed in the air and the steadiness of JR's Heart shattered. "KILL HIM!"
The demons launched into motion, drawing upon their own skills to fling rocks, spout flame, or whip water from the gourds upon some of the demons' backs.
The otter's ancient aura was joined by the force of a hundred beams of light, all radiating that same force of antiquity. The light was so bright from the attack that he saw stars afterwards.
Over a hundred demons fell from that single attack.
The demons hadn't maintained their empire for millenia on the backs of weak soldiers. Each of them were well trained and equivalent to an elite in a lesser clan. In the face of death, they attacked.
The surge of Aether driven elements lit up the night in a lesser display than the otter's massive attack and the summons slipped about in the air, showing much greater Agility than what JR would expect from a summon.
Even as their attacks were dodged, the demons drew their short swords and threw themselves at the force that surrounded them.
Giant arms made of golden light appeared from each otter, slapping each of the demons away and placing them back into the kill zone. Another burst of light wracked his eyes and when his vision return another hundred demons lay dead.
Even as well trained as they were, to have the force of their entire cohort be defeated so easily made his warriors hesitate.
Instead of hesitation, his own powerlessness spurned him to action and he sprinted right towards the source.
If I can just kill him...
That small hope was killed just as easily as his troops. A golden hand wrapped him in a crushing force, pinning him in the air.
JR struggled and pushed. He was stronger than the golden hand, but only just. If he wasn't so used to the constant struggle against the top five demons, he might have given up then, but he was used to fighting against those stronger than him.
He just had to get himself a chance to fight. "How?" he demanded.
Another flash of light indicated that more of his army died all around him. The terrifying otter with his ancient aura and divine presence walked towards him as though he wasn't currently battling an entire cohort on his own. JR's Heart quaked, but he didn't stop his desperate struggle.
That wasn't who he was.
"I've decided that I don't much like violence," he replied, another blast of life snuffing out the lives of another hundred of his warriors, "but there are things at stake greater than just you and me and I know that your immortal soul will survive just fine."
Jr pushed every ounce of his C strength to the limits and his efforts won through. "I'm not dying just yet!"
He burst through the golden hand, shattering it into a shards of light. He'd gathered his Aether as he fought and used [Shifting Sands] to launch spikes from the earth directly towards the strange otter.
The otter sensed his attack and swam up into the air to avoid it. Another flash of light fired off and a burning hole appeared in JR's gut before he was snatched out of the air by the another golden hand. The otter gave his dying struggles a sad smile.
"I'm sorry, my friend. You have a sense of strength that I'm sure the First One would love."
With JR's C Vitality and [Giant's Constitution], it took two more flashes of light for him to die. The whole interaction hadn't even taken five minutes. When up against true strength, that was all that his life was worth. Not even five minutes.
I wasn't supposed to die. I was supposed to become the strongest...
Both his regrets and the otter's aura seemed to ferry him across the veil, his soul cast into a great expanse of white veined in corruptive darkness as he searched for the light of his god.