Lukas was not disturbed for the next several hours.
With the resident goddess effectively tongue-tied with his standing offer, there had been precious little for him to do within that little room. Sleep would not come to him no matter what, and the door on the side had remained shut. Hell, not a single entity had encroached upon his Scan Radius—a whopping twenty feet in all directions ever since the upgrade.
It was as surprising as it was confusing.
Naturally, he had turned toward studying his schema, getting as much information as possible about it. If his math was correct, his lifeforce and mana levels were already at the brim, and the Prophylaxis function had already healed every single wound that needed attention. That meant that if he were to be attacked right now, he’d be fighting in peak form.
Prey found you.
Lukas looked up as the door opened and a young woman came into the room. She had long, sleep-tousled dark hair, dark eyes, and a face a little too lean to be conventionally pretty. She wore a kimono of red silk belted loosely enough that gaps appeared as she moved. Evidently, she wore nothing underneath.
She was followed by another male soldier—armor-clad, brown bangs, with a long metallic spear resting upon his right shoulder. He had a trolley covered with a sheet of cloth that he was dragging behind him as he followed into the room with her.
Lukas gave the second newcomer a closer look. Even in the dim light, he could spot the strangeness of the man’s expression. It was an odd contrast between happiness and downright hysteria. The muscles on his face kept twisting, even as he stood as if he were trying to say something and keep his mouth shut at the same time. The constant state of tension seemed obvious in the way his fists remained clenched, even though the man stood in complete silence.
Another one of those possessions? Reiki?
He scanned the soldier.
BREMETAN
Bipedal, lifeforce-producing organisms. 99.9% similarity with the HUMAN species.
That was both good and bad news. Good because it had confirmed that there existed a race that was identical to humanity as he knew it. Though unlike humans, bremetans were perfectly capable of using lifeforce—then again, he could too. The bad news was that he was currently being held captive by a predatory species that switched bremetan bodies left and right.
Then there was the fact that the Screen had not sensed any reiki. The Scan and Analyze functions operated at the soul level. They registered the presence of a soul within the established radius and identified it through cross-checking. The identity of this “database” was beyond him, but he was certain the answer would be mind-boggling.
If the Screen hadn’t registered the reiki, it came down to two options.
Either the Screen was incapable of spotting a possessed spirit, which made no sense since the possessor’s spirit didn’t merge with the victim—something he could confirm from his rather recent firsthand experience. Or…
Lukas carefully considered the girl.
REIKI
Soul Architecture shows 100% similarity to REIKI from Monster Prototype Array.
BREMETAN
Bipedal, lifeforce-producing organisms. 99.9% similarity with the HUMAN species.
Soul Architecture damaged. Extreme signs of possession.
Well, wasn’t that just alarming?
Possession didn’t just override one’s hold over his body, but also caused significant injury to the victimized soul itself. It was clear that the armored man wasn’t possessed any more. But what happened to him to make him like that? Were these the aftereffects of being possessed for significant periods of time?
His fingers twitched, and an overwhelming desire to crush this girl—more precisely, the reiki that possessed her—rose to the forefront of his mind. To trap her. To consume her. To add her to his ever-growing collection of—
Lukas blinked, wondering what had just happened.
“Greetings.” The girl spoke in a strange, accented Felleisen, yawning and stretching cattily. “I be called Mizo. Food and water I brought for you, and…” Her eyes traveled all over his body. “Attire to cover form.”
The mention of food made him feel painfully, desperately hungry. He glanced at the cloth-covered trolley and then met the girl’s dark eyes again and spoke in Ualbesh. “I don’t speak Felleisen.”
The edges of her lips twitched. “Silly game you play, Outsider. Mizo be told that Outsider says this. Leader says ‘Outsider understands but pretends not.’”
His fingers twitched again.
Mizo continued in Felleisen. “Leader be waiting until Outsider feasted.” She turned around and walked away with the soldier in tow, until she was out of the room, and shut the door.
Lukas felt her leaving his Scan Radius and sighed. So much for deception.
Still, it wasn’t like Solana had him completely pegged. Maybe she’d been telling the truth about the reiki being capable of speaking in Felleisen. She was probably thinking that he had absorbed the reiki, yurei, and the kasha for that matter, and gained the ability to comprehend and speak the languages they knew in return. It was bullshit as far as reasons went, but what else was she supposed to think?
His eyes scanned the trolley again. Pushing himself off the bed, he tore off its cover. Inside were several china cups, steak, something that looked like mashed potatoes, and some kind of soup. The aroma was exotic and made his stomach gurgle.
Hunger is the real enemy, he thought as he grabbed the cup closest to him.
After heartily finishing his meal, Lukas slipped into the attire that was provided. It consisted of a sleeveless tunic crafted out of a fabric that could have been mistaken for cotton for how soft it was and a pair of thick trousers crafted out of monster hide, given the thick and scaly exterior on the outer side. There was a leather belt to tie it in place, and two slots that likely went for pockets in this world and would serve as a snug fit for a knife-sized weapon. There was also a pair of strapped shoes, which Lukas would have ditched for his own shoes had that been an option. He looked like a slave merchant from the Roman Empire.
Inanna was right, Lukas thought as he followed Mizo to Solana’s office. He wasn’t being treated like a pig for slaughter. This was…something else. They wanted something from him. But what?
Well, I’m suited up for my meeting. Do you intend to drag the silence on for the rest of the day?
“Does it not strike you that I simply do not wish to constantly commune in your thoughts?”
Knowing a lost cause when he saw one, he let it go. Let’s go see what Solana wants from me this time.
“Already so familiar with your captor. I wonder if I should have forced you to bend right from the start.”
Guess we’ll never know.
“A pity.”
Lukas walked toward the end of what seemed like a very long corridor. They had already crossed two sets of stairs, and he could’ve sworn that he could see squarish rooms arranged in horizontal stacks going on for at least a mile. It made him wonder just how massive the Crypt of Fiendish Worms must have been if these people were occupying a mere portion of the entire thing.
Mizo went through the door first, and Lukas followed, mentally preparing himself for combat should things head south. But nothing came screaming at him from the shadows. None of those lifeforce-restraining manacles either.
Like the one he had just left, this room too was mostly spartan. Like every other surface in this damn place, it had sigils engraved on its surface, except for the portions covered with moss graffiti. Several of those floating flames hung along the walls like light bulbs, illuminating the room more brightly than any others he had seen so far. On the far end, he could see Solana sitting on a rocking chair. A few feet away from her sat a large, sprawling table with a dog laid spread-eagled on top, unmoving.
The sight gave him pause.
A waft of intense cold breeze blew across the room, chilling him to the bone. The air smelled like mildew and felt like a very cold, very old, death.
“Charming place,” he said in Ualbesh.
Solana smiled pleasantly, beckoning him to the sole remaining chair on the other side of the table.
Lukas looked around and found Mizo standing stiff at a corner in the room, alongside several of those soldiers. He tried to meet the girl’s eyes but found her avoiding his gaze.
“So, what’s with the security?”
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“They will leave as soon as you take a seat.”
“I prefer to stand.”
Her dark eyes glinted. “Perhaps you didn’t understand me earlier. I said sit.”
A powerful, invisible force grabbed him by his shoulders and physically pressed him down. Despite his struggles, he was forced to bend his knees as something flat with sharp edges rose up to meet him. Before he knew it, he was sitting on a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Such prowess in Terramancy,” Inanna murmured with approval. “Gugalanna would have been envious.”
Why? What did Solana do?
“Terramancy. On a symbolic level, it represents the manipulation of terrain, stability, strength, force, and resistance. The creature disintegrated the chair and simultaneously reconstructed it behind you while maintaining absolute control of the room, and perhaps farther beyond.”
Lukas sat wide-eyed, his fingers scratching against the smooth surface of the chair. “Uh, five words or less?”
“She is stronger than you.”
The statement left the coppery taste of blood on his tongue. It carried with itself the cold affirmation that Soul Siphon or not, he wasn’t immune to these creatures, especially the one sitting in front of him. He had used his fear of these unknown beings to keep himself ready on his feet. He had used his anger to put steel into his spine and push his resolve into taking action.
But Solana had just snatched those two emotions out of him, leaving him naked and vulnerable.
His exterior facade was calm, but inside, he felt hollow.
“You listen, but you do not understand,” Inanna chastised. “She is employing Terramancy upon you. So long as you stay within her territory, you remain calm and resilient. Prone to logical thought instead of remaining your usual self.”
Just how is she… Analyze.
Insufficient Data
This was getting worse. Absorbing the souls of the reiki and kasha had done nothing to help him scan her, and he had no idea why. Was he missing something about the way the Analyze function worked or was Solana somehow shielding herself from his discerning gaze?
“Are you done?” Solana asked.
“…Done what?”
“Discerning things, I imagine,” she replied casually, her lips twisting slightly at the slight widening of his eyes. “I have good eyes, Aguilar. I know you do more than merely see who stands before you before interacting with them. I am curious, though. Is that trait particular to you or is it common amongst your people? Just what is it that you can see?”
Lukas closed his eyes. If Solana wanted him stable, then she’d have to reap the consequences of that. “I don’t know what to tell you…but it’s a wide universe out there. Though you’re right; people from where I’m from do tend to register a while when something unfamiliar hits them in the face.”
Solana snorted. “Levity. Good, you’ll need it.”
He glanced at the unmoving dog corpse on the table. “Always do. But what am I doing here?”
“To the point then,” she replied, crossing her fingers and placing her chin on top. “Tell me, Outsider, how well are you acquainted with the Asukan Empire?”
Lukas relaxed into the chair. “Never heard of it.”
“Never?”
“What part of finding myself inside the cavern because of a mishap was unclear before? I told you, I don’t know anything about this world. Hell, I couldn’t even understand your language before I—”
“Was possessed by my troops.”
“The yurei, yes.” Lukas cocked his head to the right. “I’ll admit, I did pretend to not understand Felleisen earlier.”
“And Faecani?”
“What about it?”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” She spoke in perfect Faecani.
Lukas didn’t have an instant answer for that, so rather than lie, he decided to say nothing at all. In the end, it seemed enough for Solana to draw her own conclusions.
“I see…” She sighed, sounding almost fond as she did, her lips twitching into a small smile. “I suppose we all are entitled to keeping our secrets. In the end, it does not matter.”
Her eyes met his, and Lukas did not look away. He knew it couldn’t have been more than seconds, but it felt like hours. The more he gazed at her, the more he thought he could see something beyond those dark depths. A flicker of movement. A shadow that hid behind shades of black. And though he couldn’t discern what it was he was, he was almost certain it was staring back at him and—
Solana was the first to break her gaze.
Lukas let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Slumping back into his chair, he stared at his own hands as if he had never seen them before. They were open, and there were two pulsating balls of pure lifeforce, the largest he’d ever created, surrounded by a cloak of crimson flames in the center of both of his palms. He could feel the lifeforce that had already saturated his hands, as if—
It hit him like icy water. He had been ready to attack her. To attack Solana, while sitting in her room, from the chair she had casually constructed for him with no effort.
“That,” Solana said at last, “was a surprise. I have never had a reaction like that before.”
Lukas decided he must’ve gotten a few screws loose from that alien experience because, for a fleeting moment, he thought he heard something like sadness in her voice.
“Tell me, Outsider, do you know what I am?”
Lukas shook his head. “I’ll admit that these bremetans—” He turned around, only to find the room empty. “They look very similar to my kind. Maybe we’re the same race, only living in different worlds.”
“I assure you,” Solana replied, her tone bitingly sharp, “I have never encountered a bremetan immune to possession.”
“Maybe we evolved?” he suggested casually. “I mean, leveling up is a thing in this world, isn’t it?”
“What you describe is a path of progress. To augment what exists and become a better version. But that’s all it is. Copper cannot evolve to gold. You cannot alter the soul to such a degree without losing your original identity.”
“You’d know, given how you twist bremetan souls while possessing—” Lukas paused, suddenly realizing he had given away more information than he’d intended. And now it was too late.
Solana had noticed it too, as the edges of her lips quirked up. “Twisting bremetan souls…interesting choice of words. It makes me wonder if you can actually see it.”
Lukas wisely kept quiet.
“No,” she affirmed, “you are not bremetan. No bremetan could do what you can. Not even their so-called Pathforgers. But let us return to the original question. Do you know what I am?”
“A dominatrix with a penchant for flashy displays?”
He heard Inanna sigh and mutter something along the lines of doomed.
And then Solana did something surprising. She threw her head back and laughed. It was warm, genuine, with a lot of belly in it. “You wear your lack of concern like an armor. I admire that.”
“And now you flatter me,” Lukas replied.
“I’m not exactly sure what it is that you are. I know you—or rather, some of your kind—are parasitic and possess bremetans. I know your possession damages their soul architecture to the point that they become little more than living corpses. I know that some among you, like that kasha Quonnan, are capable of manacrafting, and the yurei can create false constructs. Have I missed anything?”
“You have us all figured out,” Solana replied dryly, her expression almost amused. “Except for one thing. We are not parasites.”
“So Quonnan was trying to give me a spiritual cuddle?”
Solana snorted. “What I mean is, we are spiritual predators not because we choose to be, but rather because the Empire has left us with no choice.”
Yes, and wolves kill sheep because they are backed against the wall. Lukas was about to say it, but a mental kick from the resident goddess stopped him before he could open his mouth. It was enough to make him sigh.
Stuck between two powerful women. One was currently in his mind, and the other looked like she wanted to possess his body for herself. One had him in a bargain he couldn’t get out of because of his principles, and the other had him effectively caged inside her place of power.
“You look like you have something to say,” Solana said.
“Not really. I’m fine with just thinking about it,” he replied.
“Be that as it may, I was not speaking untruth. The Eternal Light outside weakens us. That is why we have sought shelter for centuries in the desert.”
“And the soldiers?”
“Greed drives people to do all sorts of things. Greed for the resources of this underground anomaly has prompted the bremetans from the edges of the desert to encroach upon our lands.”
“So you possess them.”
“We have to look out for ourselves,” she huffed. “The Eternal Light does not affect us when possessing bremetans as it does in our spiritual forms.”
“And what is your spiritual form?” Lukas asked. “That soldier had been a reiki. Quonnan was a kasha. That jolly Mizo you sent earlier, another reiki. What about you?”
“Oh?” Solana imperiously arched an eyebrow. “What an interesting question. One I will entertain. I am what is called a yosuzume. A skinwalker. Does that sound familiar to you?
Oh, it did. It certainly did. Not the yosu thing, but he knew what skinwalkers were. Granted, the name was reserved for the mystical theriomorphs in Native American myths, whereas the other terms—kasha, yurei and reiki—sounded a little too eastern to fall on the same side of the world.
Lukas schooled his features. “No. I’ve never heard of any of you, or of spiritual predators for that matter. Unless we’re talking about ghosts.” He hesitated, before pushing forward. “What are you all, really?”
Solana sat up straight, her back stiff as she spoke in a voice colder and harder than frozen stone.
“Who are…we?”
As she said those words, Lukas felt an immense pressure fall upon his senses. Like he was trying to breathe underwater. Like he had just died and come back.
“The bremetans called us Outlanders. Strangers. Walkers from the Other. We came from a distant world, one very unlike this one, our fates mingling with bremetans. We came from the skies. We settled upon these lands. We created our kingdoms. These bremetans…worshiped us. Feared us. Welcomed us. Embraced us. But deep down, they resented us.”
Something terrible flickered across her features.
“And then, they betrayed us.”
An icy feeling spread across Lukas’s chest as her words invoked all sorts of dangerous thoughts.
“The…Other?” he asked, the term feeling strangely familiar, like he had heard it before. Somewhere. “What is the Other?”
Solana stared at him with wide, open eyes, her alien face void of expression.
“The Other is of the ethereal, Outsider,” she said, her voice softer and far more terrible than a moment ago. Her eyes grew colder. “What is visible is Sight. That which is beyond Sight is the Other. That which can be heard is Sound. That which is beyond Sound is the Other.”
Lukas felt his whole body shudder. Like a guitar’s string quivering when the proper note is played near it. Every single word seemed to pull at his consciousness. About an ethereal world that seemingly existed parallel to the real. A world that did not follow any rules applicable to the real, and yet, consisted of several species that mingled with humans to such an extent that they became an accepted part of the real world.
“That which pumps lifeblood is the force. That which is beyond it is the Other.”
Solana’s inhuman eyes raked at his face, gleaming in a deathly glow. A feeling of emptiness surrounded him like a thick blanket, as if wanting to conceal him away from the world.
“We are of the Other, Outsider,” she whispered. “We are…yokai!”