Everfrost!”
The moment she uttered the word, something resonated with the world, a command that was imposed by the will of an impossible force upon the world around it. Wintry plumes that had formed around her exploded, covering the terrain with genuine sheets of ice. The freeze extended, stretching and thickening, coating everything in near inch-thick sheets of frozen shelling. The ice erupted in spots, forming enormous teeth-like stalagmites, swelling and erupting with violent force. In a few seconds, a veritable ice age stood guard against the incoming blast.
And then the powers collided.
Where the red energy touched, the ground melted and flaked away, scorching at the edges and bursting into flame. When it touched the wind, the temperature rose so high that the air itself caught fire. Mountains shattered, hills exploded, and the terrain cracked and belched out lava of the darkest crimson, as the world around her was pushed beyond limits by an overwhelming pressure. Flames ran rampant. Fissures exploded. A roaring tsunami of pure force thundered through the mountain terrain. Pure magical energy surged out with it, expanding out in a radial burst, in a wave of such breadth and power that five minutes ago, Lukas would have considered it impossible.
But the domain of ice held.
Fire was stopped by Frost.
Lukas watched in fascination and disbelief as a cold, blue light formed around Tanya, a sphere of diamond radiance that deflected against the incoming wrath, like an angry tide crashing against obdurate stone. And in that withering light, Tanya stood, a being of pure defiance, a silhouette, unbreakable and unmovable, against the tide.
And then it was over. The blast ended. She had done it. She had stopped it. With her Frost. Lukas only had a moment to see the smoke arising from her, remnants of black soot forming all over her, held back by an armor of frigid ice from touching her skin. Tanya turned and looked at him.
Angry.
Her eyes shone bright white.
And then she fell. Boneless, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Lukas barely grabbed her before she fell, realizing that there was nothing to protect him from another blast. Oh he had power, a fuck ton of it, and could dish lifeforce and mana a magnitude more than he could when he had faced the bylestyr, but something told him that power wouldn’t be able to manage the gap this time around. This energy, this destruction… this wasn’t an attack.
This was a herald of something awakening.
“We—” Tanya croaked, trying her hardest to get up, “We need to get out of here. We need to—”
But Lukas wasn’t listening anymore. A dizziness hit him suddenly, attacking his whole body with nausea.
“Ha—guh!”
His stomach crawled around, his senses felt reversed, and his vision was engulfed with crimson. As if blood had seeped into his eyes, and everything around him was turning red.
“Ha—ah!”
The temperature hadn’t changed, but his body… It felt strangely hot.
“What is this?”
His feet were trembling. Whatever was happening to him, it was throwing his body into disarray. Lifeforce, mana — nothing was working. The Screen was going frantic, throwing one crazy contradiction after another. Prophylaxis thought nothing was wrong with his body, which freaked him out even more. Had sucking in that much energy fucked up with his anomaly system? There was no way to tell. All he knew was that he was suddenly weakening like an hourglass, unable to stop it. It was as if he was breathing out his insides with every breath.
He really had pulled the shortest straw this time around.
“GUH!”
A scream escaped his lungs. Just shifting his gaze made him feel like he had run a marathon. Tanya, too, looked like she was suffocating. It wasn’t just him. But what was causing this?
Why?
How?
His throat hurt like nothing. Like someone had just vanished the very air from his lungs, and left him incapable of breathing more.
“URKUH—!”
An alien rage lit up his mind. Like a white fiery blade, it cut into his conscience, threatening to overpower reason, threatening to undo the tranquility within. He struggled and tried to wrestle it back. But it was a living thing, this anger. The entire borderland broiled alongside under this strain, the very air writhing in tormented agony. Whatever it was, Lukas could feel its power surging from every direction, the rage within him giving it strength, swimming through her veins and saturating everything inside and outside of him.
After what seemed like an eternity passed when it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, the volatile emotion gradually ceased. The anger ebbed away, gone like a tide, and Lukas, almost subconsciously, looked up and saw —
Primal
TERROR.
“... fuckme!”
The sky simmered like heat, the stench of sulfur overwhelming everything else. And in that mist, among the crimson clouds, a massive eye opened, something around it, writhing….
A bolt of pure red scythed out, tracing a massive arc through the field of devastation across the terrain. Wherever it touched, it atomized things. There was literally nothing left — no land, no lava, nothing. Every single thing evaporated. Turned to gas.
Lukas stood up and crossed Tanya’s body, standing before her like a shield, raising his arms. It’d have been a very sweet gesture, but given the scenario, it was stupid. If even a speck of that beam hit him, he’d be incinerated, and so would she.
The bolt came for him.
Throwing all caution to the wind, Lukas let out a yell and threw everything at it.
Their powers collided.
A horrible pressure hit him, a body-crushing agony, like he had suddenly been displaced to the bottom of the sea. He had as much chance of standing against it as a tiny grain of sand had against the might of a rising tide. But the tide had tried to wash him away before, and Lukas had some experience battling beings way above his pay grade. It was true he was nothing but a grain of sand compared to that ocean, but pound as it might, the ocean could not destroy that grain of sand. Not if it was stubborn enough to hold itself together. The ocean could shove the grain of sand here and there, could batter and rage at it, but when the rage was gone, and the water was serene again, that grain of sand would remain.
All it had to do was hold himself together and survive the onslaught.
—Move forward. It’s the only way —
So he took the pressure. The snarling, alien rage of those flames threatened to engulf his mind, evaporate him, turn his limbs and brain to jelly. The trick was not to face it. Oh no, he’d be toast long before he even registered it. Instead, he did the first thing he had learnt from Inanna’s skill.
Deflection.
He couldn’t stop the energy, but he could always, always deflect it. It was the nature of any force to travel the path of least resistance, regardless of its strength. This beast, whatever it was, could have all the power in the world, but it would still have to obey the laws of physics.
His job, as a kinetomancer, was to pave multiple avenues for exactly that.
—You wish to stand in defiance of the God of Fire, and yet here you are, trembling before this —
Shut up, Inanna! He thought in protest. He really didn’t need her inane commentary to distract him right now. But there was this nagging feeling that it wasn’t Inanna whose voice he had just heard, but someone else from a half-forgotten dream. The rest of his thoughts vanished as lifeforce, magnitudes more than he had ever used, surged out of his arms, out of his very skin, forming a tangible layer of pure energy, shielding him from the raw heat exuding from that atomizing beam. Inanna’s skill helped him to deflect it in two directions, crafting a concave shield before him to bear the brunt of impact. With careful construction, Lukas expanded the surface, decreasing the pressure,and pushed it further and further, increasing the angle of deflection.
And then, just like the receding tide, it was over.
He had done it.
Precious silence reigned for the next several seconds.
Lukas knew better than to trust it. It was the false serenity at the onset of a vicious storm. The eye of the hurricane.
The moment of silence dragged on.
And then….
A long, vengeful howl broke through it. It shattered the plane of reality and gutted the foundations of the world.
Dark clawed hands reached out. Grasped the edges of existence. Pulled.
The head came first. Fire meshed with bone. It peered through the hole in reality the hands had just torn and laughed. It was a monstrous sound, deep and resonant with bloodstained mirth. The body slipped through. Emerged in all of its gruesome glory. The hands erupted into five draconic serpents, each of them belching flames from its maw. Wings, three pairs of them, dark and scaly and ending in crimson flames. There was no tissue, just bone and fire. Standing, it felt taller than the biggest mountain. The flames twisted and writhed below the rib cage, forming a monstrous tail. The wrongness that emanated from its frame was a physical thing, and just looking at it was enough to drive a normal human insane.
There were no words. No glorified phrases or statements laden with purpose. It did not need them. This creature… it proclaimed its intent from its mere presence, leaked it out just by existing.
This was a destroyer.
A beast of the apocalypse.
A titan.
The beast raised its skull-maw, and a second howl ripped free.
Hills shattered. Volcanoes erupted. Pulverized by the sonic boom. Atomized into fine powder. Ground to dust by sheer, unrelenting force.
“So…” He muttered, “this is how it ends. Not with a whisper, but with a bang. An apocalypse.”
He turned his neck to look at Tanya. One last time. Logic would have him look around for escape options. He could’ve used tachypsychia, divided a second into several minutes. There must have been something, anything, within his Prototype array that could’ve offered a way out. Maybe Blob would help. It was aqāru, and the metal was powerful against the elements. Maybe he could use the bylestyr prototype. They lived in lava. Surely that would help him.
But Lukas did nothing.
There was nothing he could do. He had given his everything to deflect that hit. And that was just the trailer. This beast… it would crush him. It would obliterate him, and he would have no more chance than an ant had against a boot.
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The blonde woman met his eyes. He could spot the same resignation in those blue orbs. She knew what was about to happen. He knew what was about to happen. And she knew he knew it.
This was the end.
His life had run its course. It was time to return to oblivion. There were hopes, dreams, unfulfilled wishes, but none of that mattered. Not in front of that.
The apocalyptic beast raised its arms wide, the serpentine structures hissing like frenzy, rendering a sound no human should ever hear. As its arms went up, so did the lava. The terrain shattered. So did the sky. Raw, swirling mana of pure flame condensed. Lava bound it together.
Yes. I will die. But I won’t go out without a fight. Not before this vermin—
Anomalous behavior detected!
PRIME HOST accessing ███ █████
Breaking existing conventions.
Safety Off.
Lukas could not bring himself to care. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
The gigantic hands came together. Lukas raised his own in laconic defiance.
“I,” He yelled, “Will. Not. Give. Up!”
A universe of crimson crashed on him from all sides. The power to stop motion itself faced its wrath.
The last thing that flashed before his eyes was a tiny mug that looked all too familiar.
----------------------------------------
Lukas Aguilar was gone.
No, it was more accurate to say that the data representing Lukas Aguilar had been overwritten. A viral presence had infected the Anomaly System and the data of the ‘Prime Host’ had been corrupted beyond recognition. When the Anomaly tried to call forth any of the data, all that came to mind were fragments of randomized information from what was once ‘Lukas Aguilar'. It was a strange and nigh impossible conundrum, because the Prime Host enjoyed Level-5 Alpha Condition, a state that guaranteed extreme resistance against any forms of mental pollution. Trouble was, like all rules, Alpha Condition too suffered from its absoluteness. It had not counted for three tiny facts.
The presence of Divinity inside an otherwise mortal soul.
A relic capable of actualizing a Truth in a world.
And finally, the mortal facing a situation that resonated with the Divinity lurking within.
Surrounded by flames on all sides, Lukas Aguilar had resorted to using his strongest card — Kinetomancy, the power of motion manipulation. He had used the bedrock of Inanna’s power, and brought it forth in a blind attempt to protect himself from the strongest fires he had ever faced. The blinding wrath, the impossible heat, the certain death and the extreme helplessness — Lukas had used the power of motion to put up a last stand against them all. And in doing so, reenacted a similar situation that Inanna herself had faced.
An experience that had become the bedrock of Inanna’s meteoric rise to power.
What Lukas Aguilar was doing wasn’t even something unique. He had done it twice before — first when trying to exert Motion Negation for the first time, and the second, when facing the army of muspel. In both cases, his instincts had meshed with Inanna’s, allowing him to do something beyond his capabilities.
Maybe he was expecting something similar to happen.
But it didn’t.
Instead, something more, much more, happened.
In that one moment, two events existed. The mortal Lukas Aguilar employed Kinetomancy against the fires of the muspels, while in the other, the mortal Inanna had employed Kinetomancy against the fires of the Vikahl Ashlands.
Two distinct events. Yet so similar.
Two distinct people. Yet employing the same skill.
Two different fires. Yet the defiance facing them both was the same.
Each of the above could not be accounted for beforehand. Adding in the factors from earlier, there were simply too many variables that simply couldn’t be considered. To begin with, the probability of such a unique meshing of equally unique factors arising was so minuscule that it couldn’t even be considered as an eventuality.
Level-5 Alpha Condition was programmed to protect the Prime Host from all forms of extrusive mental pollution. It did nothing to protect him from what was already inside.
Like the Divinity that was used to reforge Lukas’s soul after it was sundered apart.
Anything that was part of the data belonging to ‘Lukas Aguilar’ was still ‘Lukas Aguilar’, and it was the nature of creatures to alter their constitution through experience, gaining skills and Leveling-Up. Any corruption from the Divinity would also count as ‘change’ and ‘growth’.
Call it a miscalculation of Fate itself. A chance of one in several billions. An eventuality so remote that even the Origin itself would have overlooked it.
And so it happened.
----------------------------------------
Lukas opened his eyes wide in confusion.
It was natural. He was sorta expecting to be dead by this point.
Instead, he was…
Was…
His thoughts vanished as a strange blue light attracted his gaze. It was the pendant. Inanna’s pendant. His grandfather’s gift. His only connection to the world he left behind, and the goddess that brought him here. The ornament was glowing with an eldritch sheen, radiating with a power so impossibly hot that the crimson wave felt like a warm shower compared to it. And yet, it left him uncharred, like being kissed by a winter sun.
But that made little sense.
“Not everything does. Not everything must.” Came an impossible voice. Lukas froze on the spot, his mind unwilling to accept the implications. He must be hearing things, reminiscing about her. He did that a lot. Maybe he had let out another spark of her memories. Yes. That must be it. That had to be it. There was simply no way—
“For there are more things in the universe than the paltry laws that govern your perception.”
A warm breeze touched his face as an ethereal hand grasped his own. A warmth surged within him, a feeling similar to being on a lifeforce high, only a thousand times hotter and more intense. He could hear the thunder of clouds, flashes of lightning, and chirping of birds — all very disconnected in their own way and yet forming a musical melody that soothed the spirit, like an after-tone of some vast gong, or a summer afternoon shower.
He was wrong.
He had to be.
Because the alternative meant—
“Mortal.”
She stepped up right next to him. Clad in the heavenly attire that befitted the Supreme Queen, she stood, grabbing a familiar ax in her right arm. Motes of light kept falling out of her as more motes of similar energy kept rising from within, making it appear like her entire form was an ever-constant waterfall.
Lukas opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him. Instead, he watched, dumbfounded, caught in a strange dichotomy of surprise, awe, and happiness.
“...Inanna…” He breathed. “Is this— Are you—?”
The goddess turned towards him, her expression softening slightly. “I am… not Her, mortal. A shade of a shade. A reflection of a reflection. The lingering Presence of One that holds your faith. An incarnation of the Divinity that forged your existence. And yet, I am Her.”
She paused in appraisal, her emerald eyes studying him before a slow smile asserted itself on her beautiful face.
“You did not bow when She offered you tutelage. She offered you power that was beyond your imagination, and you still didn't bow. You even courted death to allow her the chance to seek what she wanted. And now, despite her fading from the greater Reality, you hold her vigil and seek her return?”
Lukas shrugged, giving her a lopsided grin. It was surreal how easily he shifted from near-death to conversation. Maybe he was dead. Who knew? And honestly, did he even care?
“I gave my word.”
That brought a smile to her face. The smile that made flowers bloom and bards create songs. “That you did. They say you know a man by his deeds. You’ve defied Her for no more reason than your own defiance. You’ve bowed your head to neither power nor manipulation and have put yourself in harm’s way to defend those that you thought needed your protection. And the problems you’ve invited for yourself in doing so are hardly inconsequential.”
“Wait! What problems?”
Inanna smiled. “She used a spell that spanned across the Universe, mortal. Nothing of that magnitude remains unspotted. The Gods of this world must have sensed it. Other beings of significant power and presence have as well. The infinite darkness of the In-Between, and Those-That-Dwell-In-The-Darkness have felt it. Many of them can sense the origin of that power within you. You, Lukas Aguilar, have danced about in the shadows at the edge of life. It is no small thing, to go into those shadows, and come back again, forged in true divinity. Thank the Anomaly within you, for without it, you’ve no idea the kind of attention you’d have attracted.”
“Oh,” Lukas said, “Good. Because the pace was starting to slow down so much that I was getting bored.”
At that, Inanna tilted her head back and laughed. Then her left hand moved up and touched Lukas’s cheek. Just that action made all pains go away, like taking a breath of fresh air after an imprisonment of a lifetime.
“She chose well.”
“Not as well as you think. I still have no way of getting her back.”
Her lips twisted downward by a bit. “I am not surprised. Especially with your incessant self-crippling nature. Paths of great power lie around you, beckon you to grasp them. But you, in the same air as a child playing with a pail of water, lie oblivious to the vast ocean before you.”
Lukas wanted to refute; to claim that she was wrong; that he always had her at the forefront of his mind. Whether it be his dealing with Zuken, or the svartalfars, or even his relationship with Tanya, it had all stemmed from his desire to get Inanna back. It was why he was studying about the old gods. It was why he had gained the deal with the svartalfars, why he wanted to activate Blob’s functions through Rollback Protocol.
“You misconstrue my words, mortal. You’ve grown since She last met you, but your path ahead is long and arduous. And yet, in your relentless trials to gain what you seek, you’ve forgotten a very simple truth, one that is the bedrock of your existence.”
“Which is?”
Inanna smiled. “You are a world.”
Lukas frowned. “I don’t understand. I know I’m an anomaly, but what has that to do with this?”
Inanna said nothing.
“Honestly,” said Lukas, “as much as I’m glad to be praised, could I, you know, swap these accolades for… I dunno, a solution that could bring you back?”
Inanna laughed again. “She was a reflection of the True Supreme Queen. Just as I am of Her. I sense the Bond you shared with her, memories of a life I do not remember living. The Scrying Spell claimed that nothing pertaining to the Supreme Queen exists in the Universe. Either that means that all of this is a giant illusion, or someone has gone to extreme lengths to seal the Supreme Queen away from all attempts.”
“Who?”
Her face sobered. “Only one comes to mind. Ereshkigal.”
“Your sister? I — I don’t understand.”
She just looked at him. Then she said, “Let me help you understand.”
And then she thought at him.
The flames and the lava ridge around him vanished. Lukas stood in a dreary, dark cavern he knew from a half-remembered dream. Bluish flames lighting the walls, with a maggot-infested corpse hanging on the wall. The very next moment, he was down on the ground, gasping like a landed fish.
“What?” He gasped. Even breathing was agony. “What was that?”
“The solution. The answer to your question. My advice is to consider it at your leisure. I cannot aid you any further. What I can do is help you survive.”
Lukas stared at her. All she had done was show him a flash of a dream he had once seen. The entire thing had been less than a second. There was absolutely nothing in it that would grant him any answer to any of his—
Lukas stiffened.
A flash of memory. Just enough to remember that something had been there, but the rest of the information was absent. Either that or…
A different thought struck him. The death of his own world was also a memory he had once experienced, but Inanna had hidden it deep within the recesses of his mind. For his own protection.
Had she done the same thing again?
Consider it at his leisure, she had said. At his leisure. Not now. She wasn’t being rhetorical, but literal.
So the next viable question could only be —
“Is this where you offer me a deal?”
Inanna let out a throaty laugh. “The Supreme Queen is not without benevolence, mortal. Especially to those that hold Her vigil. The One you knew promised you power beyond imagination, a promise she could not keep during her lifetime. To break Her word is beneath Her.”
“She didn’t break her word,” Lukas defended. “She used her divinity to reforge me. Bring me back to life, sacrificing herself in return.”
“It was necessary. An investment, with high stakes, made on one she trusted to see things through till the end. That she had to sacrifice herself to ensure her investment survived does not undo her word. The Supreme Queen’s word is bond, even if the sky falls and the earth shatters on it.”
He couldn’t believe his ears. “You’re going to help me?”
“I am going to keep my word, mortal. You’re bold, clever and, from time to time, lucky. All of those are excellent qualities to have in battles. But against this power, you cannot prevail. The Anomaly within you will choose an ethereal Host and survive the day, but you, Mortal will not. With your passing, the Frost girl will perish. And your desire, and the Supreme Queen’s plans, will be ruined.”
“You’re saying that my Anomaly problems are far from over.”
“I’m saying many things. Do you have a chance to master the budding world that has taken root within you? To command its powers like the Origin once did? It is unprecedented and impossibly difficult.”
“But it’s possible.”
“Anything is possible.”
“Ah,” said Lukas. “We’re not really talking about me.”
“We are, and we are not.”
Inanna smiled at him, and it felt like the first warm day of spring. Her eyes were deeper than time. And then she just clammed up.
We are? And we are not?
Lukas barely kept a straight face while his inner Neanderthal spluttered and went on a mental rampage. He hated trying to be smart under pressure, but something told him his problems wouldn’t be vanishing any time soon.
“Follow your instincts, mortal. And for this once, let me take the reins. Allow this world to witness Goddess Inanna at war. And when it is done, retreat, reflect and find the answer you seek.” She studied his face. “Remember. You have what you have for a reason. The power and knowledge and allies She has gotten you are for a reason. Trust in yourself, and in the Supreme Queen you swore fealty to. The only way to do it is to do it.”
Lukas exhaled. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
Inanna smiled. “Everyone is. Always. The only difference is that now you know it. I will aid you out just this once, but beyond that, everything is up to you, Lukas Aguilar.”
“Aid me… against… that?”
Inanna turned away from him and looked ahead. The world of crimson faded.
A small smile flashed upon her heavenly face. “It’s been eons since I’ve brought a King down to his knees. I think I shall enjoy this bout.”