Azura’s eyes opened to find himself in a large grassy plain. Alaya’s large blue eyes pierced through him as the wolf spirit stalked in front of him. “This is a little different from where I usually see you?” Azura had expected to be called into the spirit world at some point. He still had the ritual to perform after all.
“In order to properly complete this ritual, we are going to need a lot of space.” It was a welcome relief to hear the wolf spirit’s motherly voice again. He glanced around to get a better grasp of his current surroundings. Well if it was space they needed, then it looks like they had plenty of it. “Your tether is even stronger than I anticipated, that’s good it makes the chances of success much higher.” Alaya paced back and forth releasing mana in a very specific manner. He felt the air begin to thrum with magic as whatever the wolf spirit was doing began to take effect.
“So what exactly is this ritual?” All he knew about it was that if he hadn’t obtained a tether to the spirit realm he would have most likely ended up in the land between, which was as bad as bad got.
“The land between is a place of nearly infinite power, matched only by its danger. This ritual is something spirits have been doing since ancient times that allows us to steep in the magic of the land between without actually going there. In theory if we steep in the magic together our bond should strengthen to the point where it would exist even if our contract is to end, and possibly even if one of us was to die.” His eyes widened. Bathing in power from the land in between?! That was impossible right? The place that no mortal could ever see and live, was a means for spirits to grow stronger?
“I thought spirits couldn’t survive in the land between any more than humans can?!” Surely if they could he’d have known right? His father dealt with dragon spirits every day, there was no way that the man wouldn’t know if they could. Then again, that didn’t necessarily mean his father would share that information with him.
“We can’t, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t a bit more resilient to its energies than mortals are.”
“Oh… I suppose that makes sense, spiritual beings do tend to be quite a bit more resistant to foreign energy as I’m starting to understand myself. The extra resilience has come in handy a few times already.” Still, extra resilience or not, he had a feeling the world in between wasn’t exactly something to trifle with carelessly.
“Indeed, though be warned only the strongest of spirits typically take part in this ritual, and for good reason. Even among those that survive, most are driven into madness just from the glimpse into the world between. I myself have lost many friends who attempted the ritual too soon.” He could feel Alya’s sadness through their bond. It wasn’t quite the same as a bond with a familiar, the contract's bond only really came into play in moments like this where they were in close proximity. “Are you sure you are prepared for this?”
He could feel her will for him to change his mind even if that meant dissolving their contract. He appreciated the concern, but he also knew there was no way he was turning back now. Besides he had some practice dealing with things trying to break his mind and will by now, and he wasn’t going to let this one end any differently than those. “Sure as I can be, all things considered.” He got the impression Alaya frowned, but she continued to set up the ritual. Now that he knew what the ritual was supposed to do, he was paying it much greater attention. He wouldn’t get many chances to see the rituals of the spirits, so he studied it closely during this once in a lifetime opportunity.
“Very well, then brace yourself. It is about to begin.” He fell to his knees as the carefully set mana began to explode with energy. The pressure from it proved more than enough to send him to his knees, and the sky above them tore open revealing a blood red world of horrors. Alaya curled around him, her very presence soothing the pulsing energy. He grit his teeth as he valiantly tried to withstand the pressure. “You have to look, if you don’t you will die.” He forced his eyes open against the howling wind and stared into the tear. The monstrous visages within were far more terrifying than anything he had encountered before, and easily put even demons to shame. Masses of flesh that bled and reshaped, and had rows of teeth that would tear into other creatures increasing the mass of the misshapen lumps of flesh and bone, Monsters with thousands of eyes across their dragonesque visage, and other horrors beyond his ability to describe.
Seeing them should not affect him like this, but somehow just the sight of them was filling his mind with fear. Yet despite that he didn’t look away. He had a mission here, and no amount of fear would make him fail it. If he could withstand pain the likes of which most mortals couldn’t even comprehend, then this terror should be a piece of cake. He defiantly glared into the blood red hellscape, and refused to avert his gaze for anything.
“Set us free!” Thousands of voices rang out at once, some deep and gravelly others high enough to shatter glass, but all loud enough to burst his eardrums. Blood dripped from his eyes and ears as the monstrous chorus continued to grow in volume and insistence. “We’ll grant you power, and knowledge, just let us feast, let us free.” The words echoed across his consciousness, and it took all he had not to pass out. It didn’t hurt, worse he felt good, stronger than ever. His body absorbed the energy the tear released without issue. He could actually feel his bond with the wolf spirit growing stronger the longer they sat under the tear in the sky.
“Don’t talk back, no matter what they say.” The calming voice of Alaya in his head eased his tension somewhat, but it didn’t quiet down the chorus of horror that continued to come from the tear. Nor did it relieve the immense pressure on his body, and in his head.
“You want our power, set us free. You want knowledge, set us free. You want freedom, set us free. You want control, set us free. Carnage and death at your command, just set us free.” The voices echoed endlessly in his head. The force of their wills making the cursed dagger look like a children’s toy. If Alya wasn’t there he wasn’t sure he would have been able to resist it. The wills of the eldritch horrors clashed against his own, with unbelievable force.
He winced, but didn’t look away even as his head began to pulse, and he struggled to resist the commands the voices continued to slam directly into his head. “Coward, weakling, pathetic fool. You judge us, you scorn us, you fear us. Hypocrite, you belong with us, you’re no different.” He grit his teeth, He was barely able to maintain his form as the magic grew denser and denser. It took every ounce of focus he had left just for him to stop his body from dispersing under the mental, spiritual, and physical onslaught.
“Set us free!! Or we’ll tear you apart, devour your flesh, but not kill, never kill. Set us free!! We’ll torment your enemies, make them suffer. Set us free!!! We’ll grant equality.” His head had gone full circle, and now it just felt numb. He was dizzy, and couldn’t even feel his body, but he didn’t submit. The horrors behind the tear began to fight to get closer to him to whisper threats and promises. He now knew why the world was blood red. Blood and flesh, bones and limbs went flying as the monsters tore into each other, all while they continued to scream at him.
The slowly growing bond was the only thing keeping him sane in this madness. He reached his mana out to the wolf around him, who reached out with hers all the same. “Monster, Naive, Liar. Set us free!! Don’t ignore u-” The voices finally began to quiet as he and Alay’s bond exceeded the strength of the vile monsters to interfere with. It wasn’t much longer before he was finally greeted with blissful silence as the tear in the sky began to close. He sighed in relief as the pressure began to alleviate.
One last shadow appeared in the tear. This one oddly normal. The shape was of a human man, but he couldn’t make out any of the features. “This isn’t the path meant for you. Follow it at your own risk.” The voice was soft and gentle unlike all the other beasts that had been howling at him. He didn’t have any chance to think about the words before the shadow disappeared along with the tear, leaving a bright blue sky in its place.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Well… That was awful.” Somehow it seemed like agonizing pain was better than what he had just experienced. He wasn’t even sure how to describe it. It was like he was constantly on the brink of madness, and it had taken everything he had just to maintain some semblance of rational thought in the fear that had nearly consumed him. He had almost responded to them more times than he cared to admit, and without the tear present anymore he couldn’t remember why he had even considered it.
“Indeed it is, but the ritual has served its purpose, and you are unharmed. You’ve done very well child.” Alaya got up from where she had curled around him, and once more stood at her imposing height. He felt their contract stronger than before, but also different. This ordeal didn’t make him stronger the same way the initial contract did, rather the bond itself had strengthened. He could probably draw power from Alaya or vice versa now if they tried to. Perhaps some kind of summoning ritual could even be worked on for them to call the other to their location.
“Physically unharmed maybe, but I’m far from top condition.” He looked down at his hands to find them shaking horribly. His will was strong, but no one was immune to fear, especially when it was strong enough to force most into madness. He probably wouldn’t have made it if not for Alaya’s presence, and that terrified him. Even now she looked at him with concern, and that eased the shaking. The only good thing that came out of all this, was he knew what his new greatest fear was, so maybe the guardian of the forest would accept that as an answer. “Thank you for your help, but I have to go back, school is going to start soon.” Alaya lowered her head to him and disappeared without a word.
***
Azura woke up, back in his room at the academy. His wolf ears twitched as his friends quietly argued about whether to wake him up or let him sleep. Katy at least should know better, her hearing was as good if not better than his. Then again, she hadn’t had too much time to get used to him having a spirit contract before he had to go to World’s End.
He rolled his eyes, but went to open the door with the barest hint of a smile. “Do you guys have to make so much noise this early in the morning?” He stretched his arms as he yawned, his sleeping clothes changing into the school uniform as he did. That was another bonus of being made of magic, his clothes were whatever he wanted them to be. His shaking hands slowed even more, now that he was among his friends.
“We do if you want to be late to your first class in months.” Katy said with a raised eyebrow.
He smiled and shrugged. “I’ve been to plenty of classes, I remember them quite well even.” Speaking of, he made his 4 copies, and sent them off to different classes. He got the feeling if they were arguing about whether to let him sleep or not then they had something important to say.
She rolled her eyes and made to retort, but Lily cut her off. “As much as we love seeing you 2 bicker, we have more important things to talk about. Like that Elismera chick you pissed off. She reported you for having a cursed item, and apparently even filed the report outside of academy channels, so investigators are coming from outside the academy to do an investigation, even though the principal denied the item’s existence.”
Well that wasn’t ideal, but also much less bad then it could have been. There was no way the principal hadn’t noticed the cursed dagger, so she was definitely covering for him which was nice, and it wasn’t cursed anymore, so by the time they did the investigation any traces would be long gone. Still he’d have to worry about his grimoire. His other magic items weren’t an issue, but the grimoire was an artifact at this point, at least in terms of its power, so that might pose a bit of concern. “Thanks for the heads up, but I’m not especially worried about that. There is only one thing they could discover that would cause me problems, and it's not exactly something they could simply sense, they would need a very specific set of skills to unravel its true nature, on top of knowing to use said skills in the first place.”
“Do you truly believe that simply getting rid of the cursed object will prevent you from getting caught?” The dismayed voice came from around the corner. He wondered if she had heard Lily call her ‘that Elismera chick’. Because if she had, then she was doing a remarkable job of not letting her anger show.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have any cursed objects, surely if I did an elf such as yourself would sense the taint wouldn’t you?” Perhaps he was taking things a little far. Their meeting was stupid, and the elf girl was no doubt in the wrong then, but that didn’t really mean he should gaslight her like this. Then again, her sputtering in confusion was pretty funny.
“Of course I… what? How, that’s impossible. You were thick with the taint only yesterday. There is no way you managed to rid yourself of it in just one day! No matter how far you hid the object.” He made a show of looking at his friends in confusion, who were all barely suppressing their smiles.
“You're right, that would be impossible, so surely you must have the wrong person. I’d be happy to help you search for the culprit if you like. Surely if there was a cursed item on campace there must be some kind of trace.” Was he laying it on thick? Absolutely. Was it funny watching her shift between rage shock and confusion? Most definitely.
Elismera took a deep breath to calm herself. He had a feeling that it wasn’t her letting it go. “I have classes I am obligated to attend, but this isn’t over. Without your cursed object I’ll crush you just as I promised before you passed your trials.” She walked away quickly, emanating magic pressure strong enough to even make Lily stumble a little. He didn’t even flinch. He had just dealt with magic pressure on a level beyond anything even his father could produce, for several minutes. A few seconds of this was nothing.
“Was it wise to antagonize an older student?” He laughed. The first confrontation with Elismera felt so long ago, but Roran had said that exact thing back then too. Well if it was a nostalgia game, he could play too.
“Probably not, but it sure was fun. Apparently picking a fight is a great stress reliever, I feel so much better.” He and Roran laughed again, while the rest of their friends just looked at them with raised eyebrows. It was good to be back.
***
They had all decided to take the same first class, and it was a pretty decent one to be taking now. It was a class on the many cultures that exist in this world. Luna rather liked this kind of thing. It definitely helped that it was a rather peaceful class. She was especially glad to just be able to stroke the feathers of her recently hatched familiar. Stella was still just barely bigger than a normal chick, but her wings were already formed, and small stars spread across her midnight black feathers.
She held in a chuckle as the culture of discussion shifted over to the elves. She wasn’t a huge fan of Azura’s behavior with the elf princess, but she wasn’t about to let him get caught out for having a cursed item either, especially when she hadn’t said anything when she first saw him with it. She trusted he could handle it, and honestly hadn’t really considered the difference between a copy and the original.
Still, he hadn’t hurt anyone aside from himself, so he hardly deserved to be imprisoned because of it, so she, like the others, was more than willing to play dumb and pretend he had never had it in the first place. “Now as I’m sure most of you know, Elves very rarely leave the forests in the east. Now can anyone tell me why?”
To no one’s surprise Azura was the only one who raised his hand. The teacher sighed. He was an older man, who wore plain tan clothes, and sometimes wore an odd wide brimmed hat. He said it was something he got for desert areas to fend off the sun. Professor Dillain, taught a wide variety of less magic based topics, and was probably a little tired of both the much smaller number of students in his classes compared to magic or combat ones, and the fact that for the most part it was only ever the one student who volunteered to answer his questions. “Yes, Azura.”
“It’s because they are more in tune with nature than humans, and they find areas that we have built things over disconcerting.” She wondered if it was the lack of nature around the school that made Elismera so aggressive or if that was simply her nature.
“That’s part of it, but there is another reason too.” Azura looked surprised, and that in turn surprised the rest of them. Azura didn’t know everything, but he was about as close as they figured a human being could be. At least in topics like this. “It’s also because we're much more impatient than they are. Elves live thousands of years even without interference as such their magical education is much much slower than ours. In terms of power just the people in this room would probably be able to fight hundreds of elves. In other words the strength of their kingdoms pale in comparison to ours on average. As such they are afraid to leave because they would lose their home field advantage.” Azura seemed to have some kind of realization. She knew this class would be a good idea.