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78 A Preview of Damnation

A good mentor eventually makes for the best enemy,

Wei An Wei, the Realm Breaker.

78

A Preview of Damnation

A pocket of spatial Essence unclenched before Wei, and Rafael came tumbling out. With the materialization of mystical hands, Rafael pulled himself back to his feet and made a thumbs-up gesture at the rest of the group.

“I checked! His Inventory is perfectly safe, aside from the intense sense of claustrophobia, the feeling that you are floating in a vast, uncaring void, unable to move, speak, or even react, unless you struggle with your Essence to break free.”

A long silence followed. Agnesia’s stare was so intense that Wei worried she was about to burn a hole through the skull of the lich. “That doesn’t sound bloody okay at all. That sounds like you’re getting strangled.”

“It’s not so bad,” Rafael replied. “It’s like a light strangling, very slight. Almost no pressure at all. Some people even like a little bit of light strangling. You might be one of them.”

Everone inside the mindscape stared. Wei caught a whispered remark from Bishop. “The fuck you say?”

And to compound his stunned confusion, Ellena leaned in, her expression dark. “No. No, my daughter will not enjoy a spot of light strangling. Thank you very much. Now, are you certain it’s safe?”

“Absolutely,” Rafael said. “It’s just extremely uncomfortable. Also, you see the other people stored within his inventory floating there. So, it’s not so lonely.”

“You can see them?” Wei asked, sounding surprised. “The Knight of Lust as well?”

“Oh yes, a considerable amount of Essence is dedicated to holding her in place. It is a good thing we broke her will. Otherwise, she might have already struggled and shattered the confines.” The lich smacked his nonexistent lips. “Ultimately, I don’t think it will take Agnesia any effort at all to break free. The flow of Essence within the Inventory is only meant to contain, not to cage.”

Wei nodded at that. It made sense. Otherwise, people would be using their Inventories to snatch up adversaries without even engaging in a fight at all.

“Right, so now that that’s confirmed,” Bishop said, “I think we should go take a gander at our battleground. Survey the lay of the land before the enemy and all that.”

A series of unenthusiastic nods and half-hearted grunts proved to be the Trespasser’s answer.

“Time to climb inside the lad,” Roggi said. Heads swiveled across the room. Agnesia coughed as she blushed. “What?” The Oathbearer blinked.

Another staggered beat of silence consumed the room, and at once both John Bishop and Rafael threw their heads back and shared a mutual guffaw. A slow, suffering sigh slipped out from Wei. His most trusted companions—and Bishop—were degenerates. He was likely not going to enjoy this excursion.

***

From afar, the grand spire that held the rift leading into the Hearted Realm of Gluttony seemed such a paltry thing. Yet after shattering the distance between Mobile Fortress Wei and this point of egress, Wei found himself standing before two obsidian edifices ten kilometers apart. At its center, a chasm swirling with spatial Essence greeted him, with whorls of spiraling darkness beckoning his approach into its dreadful embrace.

Wei had his entire inner council stored within his Inventory, and odd as it felt, it seemed that they all remained unharmed, true to Rafael’s word. What he didn’t expect, however, was for them to still be capable of sending him messages through the chat.

Roggi: “Be a lot more bloody interesting hiding in your inventory if there was something to do in here,” Rogi said. “All I have to do is stare at the other poor bastards here. And Wei, you need to do something about the slaves the Knight took. Those unfortunate shits are just staying there in the dark, floating, almost naked.”

Ellena: “Yes. The impropriety is disturbing. I wish there was a veil or… something.”

With an outpouring of spatial Essence, Wei’s comrades reformed around him, and John Bishop stepped forth in Angelos’ body, rotating his shoulders, bones cracking, psionic energies flaring. “Fucking arthritis motherfucking kid giving me this old ass body—alright, there. Leg’s working again.”

The Trespasser stubmled forward and stared into the great crevice they were about to embark upon. “Welcome, then, to the final threshold.”

Above, masked by the clouds, Archdevil of Gluttony loomed. The creature’s many maws bit at reality, and the obfuscating atmosphere shrouded its true form but failed to spare those below from the fell touch of the Archdevil’s Essence.

“Once we go through this rift, there won’t be any coming back. That’s the case for most, anyway. ‘Cept Wei here’s got a few more options than most of us, don’t you?”

The young master swept his long hair behind his shoulder and huffed under his breath.

For the first time in his life, he mustered his Source and began composing a Liminal Bridge. He had neglected this sorcery for as long as he could remember. He should have tried using it before his meeting with the old man. But alas, doing this was going to leave him substantially drained of Source, and considering Source was all that was keeping him alive, he danced. He was dancing on the fine edge of life and death.

The creation of the Source Anchor was an act of self-mutilation. It simply could not be described otherwise. Over eighty percent of Wei’s being unlatched from him, shadow and light tearing free from his spirit in the form of the most conceptual dismemberment. At once, eighty percent of his whole source was expended, and Wei let out a shuddering gasp as he stumbled back. Spots developed in his vision, and a distant ringing trilled along his ears.

Source: [36/180]

Before him, however, loomed a brilliant doorway rimmed by darkest shadows. As he gazed upon this liminal anchor, this passageway he could access with but a step, he felt the other side of that doorway within him, for this was a portion of his being, and he was as much an anchor to it as it was to him.

John Bishop walked around the liminal bridge, taking in the young master’s construct. His admissions caught an impressed breath from the man as he slowly nodded. “Been a while since I’ve seen one of those. Damn fine thing to witness.”

Roggi, comparatively, was far less impressed. The Oathbearer waddled over, resembling a giant, bulbous avian that reeked of fetid odors. “Don’t rightly know why this is much better than some teleportation skill.”

“Because teleportation only affects your relationship with a section of space.”

“And this doesn’t affect the young master’s relationship with space?” Rafael asked, sounding somewhat confused.

“Nah, this is about boundaries. It’s about controlling places themselves. It’s about making places.”

Wei’s voice trailed off as an epiphany hit him harder than a falling meteor. This is why the little bridge’s concept ascension required twenty-five source advancements. It was a staggering amount compared to his other concept floors. But from the Trespasser’s words, it wasn’t just an easy means of spatial manipulation. It was outright realm creation. Spatial creation. He could expand space itself or reshape it.

“Yeah,” Bishop said, grinning as he caught the stunned look on Wei’s face. “You didn’t even know what you had inside you, did you?”

Wei quickly hid his expression, unwilling to give the Trespasser any more satisfaction than he already took. Lethargy gnawed at his bones, but Wei, even weakened, was stronger than he’d ever been. Stronger than he was as a mere cultivator.

Facing the rift into the Hearted Realm, the young master clenched his teeth and took a step forward. “Come then,” he said to the others, “let’s see this place of damnation for what it is. You’ve woven quite the tale of horror for us, Master Bishop. I would be sorely upset if I were to be disappointed.”

“Trust me, son,” Bishop replied. “If anything, I spoke in understatement.”

And then, as a group, they ventured forth into that great, devouring chasm. With each step, a sensation began to burrow its way into Wei: an affliction of hunger assailed his body. And with each step closer to its threshold, it grew exponentially stronger, before suddenly diminishing by a drastic extent.

Fortification Advanced > 25

[1/10] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

The young master’s most neglected aspect returned to save him once more, this which he balanced with his other capabilities, if nothing else. As they passed into the threshold of the rift, the spatial Essence lapped over them as if crashing waves. In seconds, they were pulled in, swept across a vast darkness between spaces. Wei felt nothing but a surge of interlacing Essence and a crushing power that remained unstirred. It was like being carried by a river through the insides of an unstable mountain. At any time, the goliath could collapse, and all that weight would reduce him to less than dust. But still, it held. It held because the tower willed it so. Because Mephelion willed it so, the Archdevil, a being of unfathomable power, loomed a crippled titan, something ultimately less than a test for all future citizens to overcome.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It took them an indeterminate, indeterminable amount of time before they finally arrived in the Hearted Realm. The entire duration of their transit was spent in darkness, but everyone could feel the oppressive pressure growing. As it built to an insufferable apex, the world finally expanded around them as a crevice of light fractured open, casting them out as if they were being spat from the mouth of an ill giant.

The first thing Wei felt, realized, noticed wasn’t the nightmarish scenery or even the staggered reactions of his comrades. No, the first thing he felt was the inebriation, the draining of his Essence. Simply being here made him feel weaker, slower, more sluggish in reaction and thought. To Wei’s alarm, he saw his source begin to rapidly drop and realized that this Hearted Realm was living up to its name—Gluttony, the consumption and hunger for all things.

Summoning his Broken Crescent in response, he saw his weapon forged from calamitous elements itself—hidden from whirling tides, shattering stones, billowing gales, and fracturing lightning into little more than sparks and dissolving motes. Contrarily, however, he only briefly felt the Hearted Realm brush his system, from which it recoiled and spat back as if a tongue tasting something far too hot. Weakly, the young master managed a smile. The Concept Breaker would be no one’s prey.

“It feels like I’m suffering from a bloodletting,” Agnesia muttered. The girl’s flames diminished, quenched. She was holding herself up using her bone-blade, and she eyed Wei with a disbelieving stare. “Why…why’d you look absolutely fine?”

“I don’t feel absolutely fine,” Wei replied sardonically.

“You don’t seem quite as drained as the rest of us,” she shot back.

From her inventory, she summoned a potion and immediately gulped it down.

“What are you drinking?” Wei asked.

“Potion of Invigoration,” Ignisia replied. As he watched, her complexion improved, and slowly she no longer needed to lean on her blade for support. A temporary boost to her aspects of strength, constitution, perhaps.

(Fortitude) adapting to [Ravenous Hunger]

Ever so slightly, Wei felt the effects of this realm slowly recede from his being. Progress was excruciatingly slow, however, and Wei thought it would take days, if not even weeks, for him to fully acclimate to fighting here. He didn’t have days or weeks.

The Hearted Realm itself was much like how it was presented in Bishop’s mental realm. Massive mouths split the ground, and Wei found himself standing on a wet, membrane-like substance. The clouds above spewed what seemed like stomach acid across the realm, and massive teeth rose in the distance as jagged mountains. And through the discordant firmament, Wei beheld an enormous, pulsing heart. It, much like the land, was riven with slavering maws and sprouted licking tongues, dry with needful hunger.

“Seems like they were bein’ literal when they named this place,” Roggi chuckled.

“Yes,” Wei breathed, barely able to pull himself away from the sight.

His Omniscience caught sight of moment. Creatures burst out from the ground along the periphery of his awareness. They were monsters made from fangs, claws, and spear-like tubes, and they smashed into each other by the thousands, a rolling tide of violence and starvation. They devoured each other, even as other demons of their like rose from the chasms lining the terrain. But their forms remained emaciated even as they gorged themselves on flesh, blood, and Essence.

To exist here was to starve. Even for the denizens of this realm.

Fortification Advanced > 26

[2/10] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

Slowly, however, Wei was growing evermore resistant.

“How’s your Fortification coming along?” John Bishop said. Out of everyone present, he seemed to be the least affected, which infuriated Wei to no end. A purple-violet shroud pulsed out from around Angeleous’s mind and reaped the rest of his body in what felt like a sheen of protective Essence. Wei’s admissions still detected a drain. Bishop wasn’t immune, but somehow he clearly had far more power to spare than most of the group, even when operating from across the Claimed Hells using an inferior vessel.

A sight ignited of vicious indignation within Wei. He wouldn’t be insulted like this. He would grow. He would claw. He would do anything he could to see the Trespasser outmatched, to see this Hearted Realm rendered a trifling impediment rather than a domain of aching torture.

A veil of ciphers passed through everyone, and Wei felt the effects of Ravenous Hunger grow ever more blunted. He turned to face Rafael and found the lich also struggling. The flames that burned within his sockets flickered as if candles dancing in the caress of an unwelcome tempest.

“I have created wards to choke the flow but cannot stop the Archdevil. The afflictions it causes… like a foundational law of reality. It is truly a remarkable fiend.”

“Remarkable,” Roggi grunted in disgust. “More like miserable.” The Oathbearer bore an uncharacteristically sour disposition. “Feels the wither getting into my bones. Even the air here is poison. Blood’s not flowing right. Less of me with every beat. And the Trine’s supposed to pass through this place?” Oathbearer growled. “The Creator’s Hymn. Will this place feed from it?”

Bishop shrugged. "It'll try. I have no idea if the Archdevil can digest that kind of Essence. But an Archdevil ain’t that different from a god themselves. Well. They were before the Harbinger ascended. Best not to risk it. Not without protection.”

Roggi lowered his head, and his frown deepened. "Wei, I might need to ask you for a favor."

The young master had a feeling he knew what this was. "He wished for me to carry your Trine for you?”

"Aye," he said. “That’s about it.”

The ground beneath them tremored as a massive flaking tongue broke through the earth. A geyser of bulbous flesh and erupting acid sprayed free, piercing through the passing clouds as demon fed on demon in ravenous cycles. But through the havoc, another presence entered the sphere of Wei's omniscience. This one wasn't a demon. Rather, they were ghostly apparition, and he felt something of his Essence lingering within him.

The young master prepared himself. Bishop had spoke of anathemas—entities the Hearted Realm created to inflict harm on a specific individual.

But as the ghostly figure materialized, Wei’s mind jolted to a halt.

“Master Mou Ze,” Wei breathed.

The mangled remains of the Drowned Sky Sect’s Cauldron Elder walked forth, entire sections of his body still mauled and missing from the hellhounds. Despite this, he sported his characterstic grin and looked on at Wei despite being a kilometer away, despite the legions of hell battling around him.

And then a whisper slipped through the air, a cane as if the whistling of a missed arrow.

Still, the voices were more than audible. Two spoke in tandem, both young boys, both calling out, "Agna, Agna, why did you burn us, Agna?"

Agnesia paled. She swirled about, blade at the ready, prepared to cut down her unseen foes. And not a few meters away, two children, badly burned, materialized as if visages in a mirage. They held hands and looked out to Agnesia, reached out at Ellena. “Mother… Sister…”

"No," Agnesia breathed. "You’re not real. You’re not real.”

Ellena’s hands came up to her mouth, and she took her nails into her face, and took two steps back. Bishop's words rang true in mere seconds. It was more than physical horrors that visited them, but apparitions from their past displaced it, devoured more than power. It drank from new memories, and it vomited forth horror in return.

A wind washed across this place of damnation, and with it came more specters and reformed round them, taunting them, lingering around them. Wei glimpsed another Oathbearer, the same one they faced in the trial of retribution. They said nothing; instead, they simply faced Roggi and held two hammers high, one corrupted, the other broken.

A scornful scoff escaped John Bishop. "Well, the Hearted Realms have given you the best welcome. Better get used to this place, don't get any nicer."

And finally, one more figure approached, one figure that Wei didn't want to see. She approached, she came forth with a headless visage, but her robes, her skin, that damn double hairpin his father bought for her, held in her hand. Wei felt his Intent rattle, heard his system declare something, the words but noise, and his insides boiled with turmoil.

He had done all he could to not think of her. He had done all he could to restore his sect, to keep busy, but where was his head? He couldn't help thinking that. She was a corpse approaching him, but where was her head? He wanted to see her face, even if she was lost—

"Take me back." Ellena gasped, breaking Wei from his near-catatonia. The young master turned and faced the deposed queen. She was openly weeping into her hands, on the verge of a breakdown. "Take me back, please. I cannot say. I cannot."

Fortification Advanced > 27

[3/10] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension

Young Master reached out and placed a hand on Ellena’s shoulder. Their eyes met, and she offered him the slightest of nods. With that, he grasped her with his Inventory, taking her into an inner space within his spirit, and sparing her any further misery.

"We're going to need more mind-bolstering potions, I fear," Rafael mumbled. “And Bishop’s offer.”

"Yeah," Roggi said, sounding haggard, but still in control. "Wei, we had a look on this place. The Trespasser’s was right. It’s worse than a shit-pit. Now can be leave figure out what to do next. Wei?"

"Yes," the young master muttered as he began collecting the rest of his group. With every passing second, more demons spawned, and more ghostly presences began to gather, began to approach.

As he got to Bishop, the Trespasser held up a hand, halting his own transition into Wei's Inventory. "You saw her, didn't you?" he asked. Didn't even need to specify who 'her' was.

Wei hesitated before nodding. "I saw them. I saw all of them." And then his expression hardened, hardened with another advancement of his fortification. "I saw this place. It reminds me what it has taken, will never take from me again."

Wei turned his attention upward, glaring back at the dead of his sect, now massing as if a ghostly legion, facing them with hate rather than sorrow. His mother was at the forefront. Still headless. Still headless. He wanted to see her face. And didn’t as well. Damn it all. "I will take them back, and I will return, I will return, until it troubles me no more."

And now it was Bishop's turn to look on in startlement. Finally, a breath escaped his nostrils. "I was wrong."

"Were you?" Wei said, borderline contentious. "About what? Clearly this place as miserable as—”

"No, about you. You're nothing like him. He’d run from a place like this. He was never good at facing his own demons.”

Not even a little bead of subtle misery passed behind Bishop's eyes. "None of us get the lives we want, son. I'm just sorry. This had to be yours."

That was the first show of genuine sympathy they got from a man. The young master looked on from the trespasser, surprised. But even that turned to ash a moment later. “When use is sorry before the uncaring heavens.”

"Yeah," Bishop agreed. "Nothing. Nothing at all. When you come back in, take me with you. There’s a lot we have to talk about.”

As Wei took him into his Inventory, he cast one final glance around this realm of horror. He simply sneered. "I will return," he said, speaking to his mother's body. "I will return shortly and you will taunt me no more. I will return."

He bellowed out loud, casting his declaration at the Archdevil itself. He stared at the diseased heart, rimmed with famed teeth and lapping tongues. This place couldn't break him. This place couldn't do anything to him. He was unbreakable. He was destined for glory. Destined to be the breaker of all things.

Then, he reached into himself, connected his source to his Liminal Bridge, and took one step forward before reemerging in the Moongrave.