And what lies those to survive beyond despair but freedom; and the most delicious indulge of mastered sin…
-Mepheleon the Harbinger
93
Naturalization
The first thing that pierced through the darkness gripping Wei was cheering. Raucous cheering. Cheering that built volume and intensity with each passing second as the blackness peeled away. The impact the massive Demon of Gluttony inflicted still reverberated in his bones, and so numb he was that for long seconds, he wasn’t sure if he was still living or dead.
But as the clench of spatial Essence parted around him, his Omniscience slowly expanded to behold a vast open, thoroughfare standing before him. The ground beneath him was polish of pure white ivory, and they reflected shifting shapes looming far above. Still raw of mind, body, and spirit, Wei took a shaking step forward as he struggle to process any information at all. The world was growing brighter, louder… There was wind brushing over his flesh and… and…
He was alive. Despite everything, despite all the Hearted Realm directed against him, the Dying Queen’s machinations, and the dark deeds of Harlon Seever, he and the others were alive.
They had survived the Trial of Despair. Most of them, anyhow. His brain, mauled by exhaustion and torture, remembered Ellena and his heart twitched with agony. He had thought her dead but moments ago, and now… Now he wasn’t sure what to think. He moved more on instinct than conscious decision, and he held his Broken Crescent at the ready, prepared for anything, keeping his companions stored at protected.
Brilliant rays of light brushed over his vision, and Wei blinked as he continued staggering forward. Through the haze of his senses, he began to discern words from the clamoring cheers. Someone was talking. His name was mentioned. And vague shapes loomed before him. Three archways rose in the horizon, each larger than the one before. Their architecture resembled gleaming obsidian veined with burning tendrils—the same color as the Incubators. Hellfire rose as wisps from the snaking veins covering the arches, and the formed a translucent veil at the center.
Staring into the bright orange coloring, Wei could feel a presence beckoning him forth—a resonance passing through his Eidolon. His spear hummed, sensing a matching source of power within those gates, and Wei felt something almost akin to hunger resound from within its Concept Core.
“Congratulations!”
Wei staggered, blinking his tired eyes as he found who was speaking to him. About twenty meters overhead, a strange demon waved at Wei. It was not alone. Countless others hovered by its side, extending onward through every gate that awaited Wei, each of them holding a brass horn decorated with delicate patterns and encrusted with shining gems.
“Congratulations!”
“Congratulations!”
“Congratulations!”
These demons resembled three-headed infants. Well, they had three-infant heads anyway. Their body was that of a muscular looking back, and their wings resembled parchments of skin that sported ritualistic scars shimmering like Essence circuits. Some of them began blowing their horns, the tune sweet and restorative, like a soothing balm for Wei’s wounded psyche. Others simply clapped and cheered on, but they weren’t the only voices.
Apprehension remained high in the young master. He had been through more than enough madness to never trust anything the Claimed Hells presented, but at least they weren’t attacking.
“Go forth!” the infant-headed bat demons sang. “Go forth!” The pointed toward the arches. “Pass the gates; experience your final three trials. Finish your naturalization and embrace your well-earned citizenship, o sinner of these Claimed Hells.”
Wei stared on for a moment. The music filled his flagging mind with purpose, and his awareness rose from a sea of thick fog. As Wei utilized his Omniscience once more, he did a double take as he realized what he was standing on. This wasn’t a thoroughfare. This was a furrowed section running along the base of the Black Tower. He was standing on its side, with a twin-toothed spired holding spatial Essence behind him.
The way ahead cleared before his eyes as well. The three arches were as if Essence-infused gateways. Their purpose was unclear, but Wei remembered his still had three more trials to complete, and so he assumed they were likely tied to those. Strangely, he sensed nothing related to the Concept of Space within their threshold, so he didn’t think he would be shifted elsewhere again.
Wei also noticed other major items of note beyond the welcoming demons. A few hundred other Towers also extended behind them, and a hovering chain of small planetary bodies passed between. From them, Wei could hear rapturous music and raucous celebrations, and he got the faint that he was looking Moongraves used for something other than testing sinners.
Suddenly, Wei recalled his plan to get the rest of his sect through and placed down a Liminal Bridge. Doing so held major risks—especially if he were to be attacked soon, but this ensured he could return to this point with ease and go back for the—
“There is no need for that, dear boy. You’ve impressed me enough that I’ve decided to ferry your little “disciples” over for you. Their special exemption made in part due to your valiant labors. Of course, the fact that the Inheritors had a hand in meddling with my trials made this a thing of spite on my part as well.”
Wei froze. A tall, thin, bespectacled man wearing an ash-colored suit and smoking a cigarette manifested next to the young master. There had been no warning of his arrival; not of Essence; not of physical movement. One moment he wasn’t. The next he was. And with his coming come a crushing power that dwarfed all others Wei experienced—a crushing presence he knew too well.
“Mephelelon,” Wei said, turning to face the Harbinger. He clenched his spear tight and hardened his expression. “You have been absent.”
“Hm. Yes. Unfortunate. But the Inheritors grew truly desperate. And brazen. Tell me, boy, how long do you think it will take you to punch your way out from a collapsing star using that system of yours?”
Wei went quiet, unsure if the Harbinger was speaking in jest or actually being genuine. If the latter, Wei truly have an answer either. To face power of such a scope was beyond his comprehension, let alone estimation. For now. Instead, he directed his efforts to studying Mepheleon’s presented guise.
The body he used was tall. Tall enough that Wei had to lean back if he wanted to meet the Harbinger’s face. Unnaturally gaunt. Large-rimmed glasses sat upon a narrow nose, and Wei found the Harbinger staring back with pitch-black eyes. His teeth were like pearls and his hair was short and tidy. There was a leather patch stitched into his suit, and inside was a lighter. A mundane lighter that had been used to light the Harbinger’s cigarette if judged by the lightering heat it emanated.
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“You should let your companions out. This is as much their moment as yours. And I believe that one of them is in desperate need of a… mortal remedy.”
The young master swallowed. “She said you were the reason she was still alive. She said you can—”
“Yes, yes, come now, Wei, let us skip the wide-eyed questions and move on straight to the miracles.”
Wei hesitated for but a moment longer before the last of his reservations melted away and relief flooded in its place. Relief, weariness, and acceptance. With a thought, he let out every single companion he had stored in his Inventory, and they materialized beside him in unfurling pockets of essence.
They responded much as Wei did at first: with disorientation and overwhelmed expressions. Agnesia spun round with blade already drawn, looking for enemies to face but finding only a welcoming party. A few ciphers hovered beside Rafael and Roggi was looking over Agate while the Trine sang restorative magics into his wounds and broken armor. And then there was Ellena. The former queen materialized in the Lord of the Claimed Hell’s grasp, and the lithe man grinned at the blinking head.
“Alas, poor Queen Ellena. How I knew thee once. How the fates have spurred thee.”
Agnesia’s attention shifted over the Mepheleon, and upon seeing him clutching her mother’s hand with a single hand, her eyes widened in outrage. “Who—you—give her—”
“Calm, girl,” Mepheleon interrupted with an impish grin. “I mean her life. Only life. After all, just as it wasn’t her lot to live a nice, long life unmolested by the Dying Queen, it is not her lot to perish in my Claimed Hells.”
“You’re…” Agnesia’s eyes widened. But still she held the tip of her bone-blade at the Harbinger’s throat.
“Yes. I am. Now. Walk with me. Let’s get the rest of your naturalization concluded so we might actually get to the debauchery and festivities. The rest of your sect is waiting at the end of the line.”
Without further preamble, Mephelon walked on with Ellena balanced on the palm of his hand. The Queen of Dawnrest blinked and breathed as she faced the rest of the group, and from her mouth came a set of wheezed words: “Do as he asks… he means no harm… no ill…”
Wei felt a faint flow of power trickle from the Harbinger into Ellena’s head. How Mepheleon kept her from dying, the young master didn’t know, but if the Harbinger hadn’t intervened at the last moment.
“So,” Rafael said, stepping beside Wei. “There is the man whose father I will someday cuck.”
It took a full second for Wei to process that. He turned and faced the lich. “Now? You speak ill of him now?”
“He heard it before; he knows my way,” Rafael said.
“And it makes me laugh,” Mepheleon said, wagging a finger in the air. “Now, come on, you’re all falling behind.” With a few twitches of his fingers, the ground beneath Wei and his companions shuddered, cracked, and began to move. It carried them close behind the Harbinger like a moving platform, and Roggi struggled to keep his footing.
“Agh, rust-damned gobshite.”
“Wei,” Agnesia breathed, looking around. Her face was matted with sooth, blood, and sweat. Her locks of ethereal white hair clung to half-clotted wounds in bloody clumps. Her heart was hammering. Her pupils were still dilated. “Did we make it out? Did we truly… is it done?”
It hurt for her to even believe. Surviving the Hearted Realm had been an ordeal, and she stood on the verge between shock and collapse. Wei reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
“We are through,” he said. “We are through. And there are just three trials left.”
“Three.” The word left her as a whisper. She looked on at the gateways drawing closer, and she shrank. “I don’t know if I have the strength for three more of these.”
“They’re more like the final stages of your naturalization. I am to gift you with a Title, a lawyer, and then have you all Swear an Oath.”
That caught Wei’s attention. And spurred his worry. “An oath?”
“Yes. To yourself.”
“What?” Rafael chimed.
“Indeed. Whatever contracts you may have to the Circles or the Lodge or any other ridiculous little group is business. Formal. Official. Documented. Something your Class-Bound lawyers will soon see to resolving. But here, through the Hearted Realm, you have shown promise. Promise that by fortune, choice, and your own grit, that you can rise above your sins.” Mepheleon turned his face slightly, and eyed Wei. “Or at least know to follow another with the capability. I do apologize about being drawn away for so long. It was… most unbecoming of me. I fear my reputation has taken harm; I have been too soft with too many for too longer. Such a problem will need a unique remedy. Ah. There’s the first part.”
And as they drew close to the first archway, Wei found himself halted by a most grisly sight. There, upon the structure, were thousands of bodies, flayed of skin, mutilated of limbs, with eyelids removed and organs exposed. They were caked into the surface of the gateway and as one they wept, moaned, and begged. And from how the Essence bled out of them, Wei knew their spirits to be in worse conditions than even their bodies. But they weren’t just adults. There were children there too. Children fused to the bodies of the others, suffocating, clawing desperately with small hands to breach nests of gore and flesh. Wei could feel them writhing beneath the mess of bodies, and he involuntarily swallowed.
“Ignium, what is this?” Agnesia gasped, staring in horror. Pieces of offal, spills of waste, and trails of intestines dropped out from the atrocity. Somehow, the air wasn’t foul—it was even fragrant. The stench had been removed somehow.
“These are Inheritors and their families,” Mepheleon sighed. “I found everyone in their embassy tied to Preceptor’s Descent: The first ring-city of my Claimed Hells. I had a little chat with those responsible for my temporary delay, and uncovered a great many horrible truths. So many were overcome with guilt and sadness at breaching the sacred laws of hospitality that they requested this fate for them and their young. Just to make things right.’
“Wrongness,” the Trine sang as one, their melody filled with genuine terror. “Wrongness.”
“Ah. I suppose I did give them a bit of a mental push and some of them… broke. But consequences and consequences, and it wasn’t like grief they felt wasn’t real.” Mepheleon came to a stop at the first gate, and slowly, he turned to his side, gesturing forth through the gateway. “Now. After you.”
The ground stopped moving beneath Wei’s feet. He met the Harbinger’s eyes once more, ignoring the writhing masses coating the archway above. “We need to speak. About Earth. And the Inheritors. And the vault. The Dying Queen as—”
“Oh, she’s gone. Avatar or not, that poor girl cannot stand to sullied in any fashion. And poor Starmater is left to their own devices once more. But yes. The other things are worth discussing. And I think your future is looking very, very bright, my boy. But that is not here yet. And there are glories you must see to right now. So. Step through. And embrace what is rightfully yours.”
Staring into the threshold composed of writhing tendrils, Wei felt a strange composition of Essence twisting in place. It wasn’t connected to Mepheleon—or his deployed avatar—directly. But there was something here. A power that called to Wei’s spear, that wanted to be a part of his Eidolon.
And so, tentatively, Wei pushed his Broken Crescent through, and felt the power pour down through its tip. For a moment, his weapon trembled—the sheer influence of energies nearly sending it to overload. But then the power began to settle, crystallizing somewhere deep instead of just swirling, seeking an outlet. Wei felt his Class Level leap once more, and found himself staggered he finally read the notification.
Class Level > 73
And that wasn’t all.
Title Gifted>[Citizen Invictus] (Legendary): You have overcome the Moongraves. You have walked through the Hearted Realm. You have survived the nature of sin and proved yourself against horror, depravity, and despair. And more than your fellow citizens, you have done this without overtly binding yourself to a Circle or faction. Your fate is truly your own. Grants you the [Invictus] Blessing. Renders you entire immune to mind control effects from entities within 200 Essence Levels of yourself and deals severe backlash to anyone that tries to bend you to their wills.