My body was being taken over. The world outside had faded. The battle, the giants, even Happy. All of it left me was I found myself drowning in more life force than I would have thought possible. I tried to understand it but it was beyond me. The Gem… it seemed like it was a key, a door, to the plane of life itself. A whole… universe, a whole reality, of pure life.

And nothing else.

It flooded my body and slammed into my soul. Konohora had said that she was drowning in it and I fully understood. I could feel me, the me that I was, being overwhelmed. It was like a rising heat, my vitality skyrocketed, I had never felt more refreshed or energetic or as healthy in my life. But it was like I was a balloon rapidly being filled in by a planet’s worth of water.

My soul was going to be submerged until it was gone. Till it couldn’t remain any longer. My body stopped, my aging ended, I felt myself be sustained purely on energy itself. It was too much. Way too much. But it didn’t stop, couldn’t stop.

My soul rallied. It was… not what it had once been. Before I had even known I’d had a soul, it had been altered on a fundamental level, my body and it rebuilt. I was not human but it was only now I realized… I wasn’t just a normal demon either.

My body had been remade from the ground up in a cauldron of eternal suffering, formed to fit its aesthetics as who I was changed at the most fundamental level. It had a lot more to give and take than any normal body.

My soul flashed, fighting the tide like a tsunami. And failed. I felt my mind stutter and stop, myself being emptied. My soul was losing. My body was taking over. I had been a fool, higher rank’s had failed against the gem, I was not able to hold an entire plane’s worth of life inside me.

But it died. It met my genitals and tried to overwhelm but it faltered. I didn’t understand but I Analyzed as fast as I could. The answer came to me.

I could not bring life to exist.

No matter what.

It was more than biology, it was something more. A… an imperative, a concept, a Law. And the energy, the unending life force, had found it’s naturally enemy. It could birth Titans, it could create life from nothing, it could even bring life to the inanimate… but it was struggling to overwhelm the concept resting within my body.

But it was gaining ground fast.

It felt like… a box that was being ebbed away. Or a, a wall. The concept itself was being undone, slowly, by the Gem. When it was done… my body would break down. That shocked me. My body was tied to the concept of being unable to generate life. I didn’t understand but now wasn’t the time for more revelations. I had to win, now. Failure meant soul death, even if my body would probably become a Giant champion of life on par with that panther.

I threw… I didn’t even know. My wishes, hopes, and dreams maybe at the Gem. It failed, like spitting into the sea. I tried again and again and again. Nothing worked. Willpower, energy, thought, it didn’t matter. I had nothing on par with the Gem. I tried to bring myself out of this trance, to let it go. I couldn’t, it was like being caught in the tide, slamming down at breakneck paces. I couldn’t swim up and out. I couldn’t escape.

Whoom

I looked down in shock, but not with my eyes but with my power. In a space that wasn’t a space, a different power had emerged. An energy that made me break out into pure panic, that my soul itself shied away from, that reeked of pain and torment, the screams of an infinite universe, the horror of a trillion trillion souls, all screaming in agony.

The Gem, my Hell gem that I carried in my chest, that I protected from the rest of the world, came to life. It released energy that hurt to look at. Hurt worse than any pain I could remember, like my skin being flayed apart. My pain resistance felt like it did nothing as I screamed.

But that was nothing compared to the life force. Hell did not kill, Hell tortured. The Life force from the gem and even the gem itself reacted like it been flayed alive, immediately trying to explode out of me. It succeeded. I felt my left leg vanish in a moment, the right side of my head blast apart, my brain reduce to mush, my chest simply vanish, but all of it healed in the exact same moment. The energies from Hell chased it down, tormented it, tortured it just by touching it. All while I could do nothing but scream.

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The energy began to flee, chasing it down.

Hell followed. The energies retreated back to the Gem as Hell itself trailed it. It touched the Gem-

A scream like no other shattered me. My body was turned to dust in a moment, then reformed instantly from the remaining lifeforce rampaging through me. Hell had reached the plane of life and it was… my eyes glimpsed the other side, the plane of life, and the horror I had caused. From mere exposure it already seemed to be screaming. A whole plane, larger than a galaxy, was screaming from less than a tea cup’s worth of energy from hell. I shivered, as the Gem cut off its connection.

Horrifyingly, I watched as the Hell energy traced its way back, going through me and back inside the gem.

I fell to the ground, gasping for air. The pain had vanished in an instant. I was whole, my body was whole, I was whole, my body was whole, I was-

I was not okay.

Healing energy surged within and I glanced behind me in a panic.

I nearly attacked. A bloody wraith was staring at me. It took me longer than I wanted to admit for me to realize it was Konohora.

“Konohora! Are you okay?”

She looked at me in shock.

“Are you crazy?” She said.

“What?”

“I saw your body be torn apart into pieces and then come back together. And you’re asking me if I’m okay? Derek, I briefly thought you died. I’m alive. What happened?”

“I-” Then paused as I felt a pulse. I looked down at my hand… seeing a green Gem in it. But it didn’t seem as… bright anymore. I shivered as that realization sunk down. The Gem contained a whole galaxy, as the door and key to it, a whole plane of a pure element. Life, in this case. Did all the Gems? Did they hold dominion over something specific, leading to a whole living plane of it? The black gem… had acted on its own but was it just the plain of life that was alive?

Either way, from merely brushing against Hell, the whole existence had been tortured and not slightly. The idea of Hell tormenting and corrupting something so… massive by just a touch left me shaking. I had been there but… to see the full power of it even briefly… how had I survived that? I was suddenly very glad at my lack of memories, as I remembered how it felt like I was being skinned alive simply from it traveling through me. And that was with pain resistance from experiencing Hell itself.

It went beyond neurons or the physical, it was the torture of the soul.

“Derek.” I blinked back at Konohora.

“I’m… struggling with… it all. I need time. The Gem is… dormant.”

I’m hoping if we found more, I didn’t need to let that horrible energy torture them to cause it. There had got to be other ways. I tried to pull myself back together. There was a battle going on right now.

I turned towards it and… huh?

Everything had stopped. The horde of monsters and animals just… stood there. Not moving a muscle. No wonder Konohora had gotten here so easily. Hiyark and the warriors were all alive, as were the Gaieldr. It hadn’t been noticeable but I saw that they were entirely naked. They’d left The Lost they had been wearing near the entrance. No wonder. The fight had clearly been brutal, judging by their wounds.

Actually… were they mov-

They collapsed. I let out a gasp. The Lost at the entrance, the monsters, the animal, they all collapsed at once. In moments, the Gaieldr were by The Lost, panicking, trying to figure out what was happening.

I looked at Hiyark, who caught my eye. She nodded and resolutely headed towards the silver haired tribe leader. I didn’t know what future awaited the Restante or the Gaieldr but I hope they could find some way to continue together. Either way… that was none of my business.

I looked towards Konohora.

“Where’s Happy?

“He disappeared.”

“Where?”

“No.” She said. “He disappeared. He vanished.”

I frowned. That wasn’t good. He had tried to grab the Gem at the last moment and him getting ahold of it, especially after seeing all the power and damage it could cause… yeah not good. I looked down at it. Alright, now… how are we going to get back? I was hoping for some kinda tele-

My hand began to glow. But not just mine. Black markings appeared on the back of my hand and Konohora’s.

She blinked in surprise.

“Huh. I did not think this would work.”

“What? You didn’t think this was going to work? We went threw all this trouble to get out of here and thought we’d fail?”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t think it would teleport us. I thought we would have to find alternative means of escaping this jungle. Most likely on foot.”

“Well… I’m glad it all seemed to work-”

At that moment, there was a terrifying crack in reality and a cold like no other began to seep out of it. I stared in shock, my whole body unable to move. It was so cold. I’d have believed anyone if they said it was -100. Konohora went rigid next to me as the crack widened and on the other side…

Tyler and Riary! I could see them and they seemed to be… turning to ice? And…

A pit seemed to swallow my stomach and terror filled me.

Was that another Gem?!