Ikrei P.O.V.
The thirty-minute conversation with Akathos…
“Do not confuse outer darkness with true darkness or the pits of hell. A twisted reality, memories, dreams, nightmares materialize inside the dark realms.”
“Outer darkness is more akin to the border or the edge of the dark realms in the spirit world. The friendly section or the high class neighborhood were the ruling class spend a great portion of their time.”
“A Soul Trip or more popularly known as Astral Projection, True Astral Projection not a drug induced psychedelic rave. It served also as a test for the illusion. A way out if the type of illusion isn’t good, strong enough.”
‘Please, please, break! Help Great Will, I choose to leave!’
“Chaos roots are equal to darkness affinity for the westerners, just not normal darkness affinity, this one packs a truly powerful godly extra kick.”
Akathos wouldn’t explain further.
My left leg was quivering. Remnants of the ritual, subconscious worry and fear.
Akathos was going be my guide through the training, soul fusion, he would intervene when necessary.
“This way it is a fair shot, as fair as you will get with 7%”
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Ten breaths. My soul traversed through whatever space it did. I felt a pull, the pull of a thousand horses, more intense than when I traversed at inhuman speeds with Pricks Krigs.
A tunnel of bright multicolored light manifested.
The tunnel of light sucked me in and then nothing. Pure absence of said light.
“AAAAAHHHH!”
Contrary to what I was expecting I was able to feel. See, taste, smell, touch and everything just like in real life. But the spiritual place was cranked up to eleven. Everything was intensified.
“There goes leaving the illusion through brute force.”
[It’s alright, we are here together.] Akathos’ voice dispelled all doubts.
One spirit body, two souls.
[Remember, I can read your thoughts, I’ll take over when the need arises.]
One more pointer from Akathos before the real thing. He could overpower me, a dangerous combo.
A vast charred land with rivers of melted and liquefied rock, a cold piercing air that could be felt but produced no physical manifestation. I had no clothes, naked before the spirits.
The seventh strata of outer darkness, just as Akathos had said.
I walked for several furlongs. Travel was lighter and faster here until I reached a puddle of dark liquid. I was able to see my face.
‘What?!?’
A second later it was the face of Eriel. I knelt next to the liquid puddle on the charred floor. The face changes occurred again, as many times as I looked.
Astonishment.
After an unspecified time, I headed where a small light was. A burning fire. It was behind the darkened hills to my right. I was making my way carefully, clearly shaken by my morphing face.
As I traversed the desolate vastness, Akathos’ voice sounded like a voice over inside of me. I was going to learn through experience, a shortcut for the years, decades, centuries of practice Eriel had throughout his lives.
The former me that I rejected.
[From all light comes darkness. The emergence of light leaves shadows in its wake.]
I climbed over a small rocky hill and a valley filled with the carcasses of monsters, humans was seen below. It smelled rotten.
[Everything in creation has a polar opposite. The day versus the night. Love versus hate. Good versus evil. The angels versus the demons. The abode of the gods versus the pits of hell. The creation and the Void.]
I walked in a trance. Slowly making my way down to the bottom of the valley, evading the sulfuric rocks on my way down. The smell of burning metal compounds was evident.
As I got closer, the smell became putrid. I saw crows, thousands of them gliding and hovering over the dead bodies. Some of the crows, crow-ravens were feasting on the flesh.
[Life and death. The right hand and the left hand.]
The closer I got to the center of the valley bypassing, viscous dark liquids, intestines, bones, heads, pierced tongues, bloodied feathers and the smell of lit charcoal I saw a being. A being sitting in a chair surrounded by the skulls of the dead. An ornamental chair.
A fur covering on her shoulders and a maang tikka. Shiny dark skin, lush hair, glowing yellow eyes, and a devilish smile. An elegant white dress with golden borders and black undergarments.
“Woo.” The crow on her lap called out to me.
The crow was saluting. You could understand the beasts inside outer darkness.
“It’s been a long time, in human years, that is.”
She waved her hand and I was instantly dressed, a matching outfit to hers without the regal gold.
‘Master, a little help.’
[Bayl, first King of Hell, The CrowRaven King.] Akathos spoke within me.
‘He is a woman, master.’
[The leaders are controllers; they can be whatever they want to be in here. These are their realms; they can change reality. Just be polite.]
“Salutations and greetings, oh great, irresistible, Queen Bayl.” I added an eastern bow.
“Oh, ho, ho. Glad you appreciate the effort my boy. How’s my child?”
[She is asking about Zaraki.] Tricking puppet master said.
“He is in good spirits, Queen.”
I wasn’t really sure which Zaraki she was referring to. 9002 or 10002. I felt a little uneasy.
“You are weaker and your core is unstable but your gains are impressive.” Her yellow eyes were shining.
‘Crazy masters, treacherous order, rotten chosen and now a King of Hell. Long way from the forest, wouldn’t you say?’
“I can hear your thoughts, my boy. Quite a pickle you are in, no?”
Stunned into a momentary blank.
‘Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that, yes. Yes, let’s do that.’
“Yes, your highness. Perhaps you can allow me to train here for a time?”
“Feel free, we don’t get too many unplanned visitors in the seventh strata and if we do, most are broken by the time they arrive. I’ll let the others know you will be spending time here. But I must warn you, the others will not be forthcoming.”
Everything went close to Akathos prediction. I bowed and turned to leave.
“If my child dies, I’ll send his brothers after you. Be careful during your war.”
‘What!?! What?!? Triple, quadruple what?!’
[This illusion of yours isn’t that simple Ikrei, don’t you think?] Akathos pricking, bothersome.
I dashed to a faraway mountain where there was a plateau, I wanted some distance from the King of Hell.
‘Inhale, exhale, release.’
“What gives, elder Akathos?”
[Two things, the only one fighting against his past is you. You are Eriel, you are just playing the chairs. Second, time to check a few things.]
‘Is this how talking to the gods feels like?’
[Focus and follow.]
I did as I was told, closed my eyes and waited for the info soul transfer. The mountain plateau offered a serene, dark and quiet ambiance. In my twisted sense, even with the cold breeze that existed without moving the rocks, it felt right.
One breath.
Five breaths.
Ten breaths.
Thirty breaths.
“Shit! Nothing master, nothing!”
Elder Akathos tried to transfer the information of the dark arts through our soul fusion inside the spirit world, this was the retesting. A huge failure, every time something entered my mind, it disappeared just as quickly.
I did try reading the Void book in my ring. As soon as I read something, I forgot it.
[A death seal, and an oblivion seal. Good news or bad news first?]
“Hit me with the sickness.” I was getting considerably more adept at taking negative results.
[Eriel screwed up, big time. He got himself doubly sealed. One lesser god to kill upon awakening and an oblivion seal, to make sure you cannot practice Eriel’s dark arts again. Both seals strong enough to travel through reincarnation. Mindboggling.]
‘I have no clue and you are elder Akathos, year 9002 rendition.’
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“What’s the good news?”
[There are entities that can undo the seal here. It will be laborious. The problem for you is that once the seals are undone, your old self could manifest or a portion of him. Who knows how the oblivion seal was setup? Eriel and the arts were one, that’s why he was considered for discipleship, he needed a new challenge. The other drawbacks were his other affinities and his body. Something that you have fixed.]
“I see. That’s what you meant with one of you or both of you?”
[You either amalgamate as one being or one of you swallows the other. We need to test the waters with the beings here, though.] I felt the truth in his words.
“Hundreds of years and many lives versus a small time forest hunter that has problems with a devious authority figure, what could possibly go wrong?”
[Cheer up, you got me. I’m one with your soul for now.]
I couldn’t even think that he was the devious authority figure I was referring to or I would get in trouble.
“Say great master, how does this work then? If all this isn’t an illusion, then what are you?”
[Reality materialization, maybe. My future self, loves Eriel very much. And I am giving you a chance, soul splinter, even despite that, be thankful. An alternate dimension, powered through the Will. The gods exist outside time and space. There’s much more but this is sufficient for you.]
‘Really?! Love me enough to kill an innocent child willingly?’
[Enough to preserve your life at any cost. Make sure his sacrifice is worth it!] There was power in those words.
I trembled.
“Er…thanks, I guess.” Another moral dilemma.
[Rest a while, let me think on a road map for this conundrum.]
“Do we have enough time?” I wondered.
[One day outside is six hundred years in here. Time is different, it almost has no meaning. Getting your soul here is pure torture. This is what it is meant when the experts say, for an eternity, Ikrei.]
‘Our sleeping bodies should be okay; Darin is there.’
“Before I forget, was Eriel a bad, evil person?” I needed this answer.
[Lawful neutral, but he had to go through a very dark period to master some of his arts.]
“Couldn’t you say yes or no, master?”
[People are not something to simply categorize and compartmentalize, we are mosaics. The answer is always nuanced. A serial killer? A perpetual saint? Someone like you? Complex answers. Those who distill a person down to raw streams of information in the name of logic are unbeknownst artifacts themselves. Cold hard logic without feeling devalues life. That’s why, I’ll never be a sage.]
A lot to ponder with the master. It was a considerably improved version of the Iru library service.
“Thank you elder Akathos, 9002. I like you a little better than your future self.”
[Ha, ha, ha. Less conversation and more meditation. Let me think.]
‘All in a day’s work, right Yun Hee?’
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Seventh Strata of Outer Darkness. One year inside the realm.
I was in my customary lotus position with my white attire, sensing everything around me. Even the arts palace of Bayl far into the distance.
[What is meditation, Ikrei?] It was teaching hour with the elder.
“Clearing one’s mind, detachment from all things.”
[The voice in your head, is it your own? Intuition, conscience? The whisper of the gods? Can you tell?]
“The Will is hard to detect, almost like a falling leave on your knee, a thin blue thread is the image I see. Malgrun is like a fire, a warm gentle crackle sound. The darkness just wants me dead but cannot kill me, cold, merciless and resents my ability to use it, hateful ice in your cheeks. My intuition is the consequence of my experiences and training: fear, desire, regret and some hate. It feels like a preset memory crystal. Suggestions coming like an artifact with my voice.”
“Phew!”
‘I hope, I answered properly this time!’
I had turned very cynical. Talking to one self and an elder, who you can’t fully trust for a year, will do the trick every time.
I was far more stable after a year in the strata; the soul fusion was helping considerably. Not all things were good, this place isn’t suitable for long term stay and other considerations but mostly one single thought.
‘I miss that ass.’
[Two things Ikrei, first, this strata welcomes you, it allows you to train freely, this will not be so in the others. Remember.]
I felt a very small pricking in my soul. Akathos way of saying, don’t ever forget this!
[Two, the blessings of the gods carry over, your physical core does not. Great place for training your soul and absorbing the energy of the stratas, if one can manage it. You are here to increase your control, you cannot increase soul power through me, we can share soul power but only by absorbing from the stratas can you grow, as many as you can manage, for as long as you can hold on. You are ready, let’s head to the river.]
Being a chaos magic practitioner that couldn’t practice the arts was defeating. Akathos decided that I needed a new training regime to compensate. I was about to see, whether or not my master was worth more than two Ucra.
Dashing through the desolate plains, hills and mountains that had barely any luminosity, the light here was provided by the white palace of the king. We reached a dark water river that traversed the entirety of the strata from north to south as far as the eye could see in either direction.
A large, unnatural stream of flowing water, The Black River of Nightmares.
Reaching the borders, I stared at my soon to be habitat. You couldn’t drown but that didn’t mean you couldn’t die.
We were uninvited beings on a plane of existence outside of physical reality. Another type of physical reality that connected to the inner realm of a god even. Eriel used to train here, where Zaraki was born.
That last bit was a puzzle unto itself. The bird.
SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!
The currents were intense, like icicles, dark blood icicles. The river was black blood. The blood of the dead the beings here had eaten over millennia, souls condensed into water or whatever the substance was. The river was suffering, wailing, abhorring.
It ate at me.
Visions, screams, scratches, madness, a conflagration of thousands of souls continuously trying to drown me in their feelings and their despair.
Yet, I continued my descent. Their pain felt like an extension of mine, a natural occurrence. A fish in the proverbial water, literally, this time.
“Die!” “You are mine!” “Igreish!” “Ute!”
Many, many more shouts in the same manner.
“You first my friends, I get you, I do!” Sarcastic remark four hundred and two.
I reached the bottom, the currents pulling me forcefully away, but I persisted.
I scrapped the bottom floor until a dark unknown metal piece appeared.
[“That’s it Ikrei. It is a very small piece but it’s a good start.]
I kept searching for more pieces of the strange metal while the souls of the dammed pressed for an opening that I would never give them.
Three days later, I had collected three pieces. A material spirit body is a strange thing.
Then again, the darkness and hell are places for torture.
‘All that talk about incorporeal beings is shit!’
[The rules for the spirit world and the afterlife vary from world to world, Ikrei.]
My accompanying encyclopedia always took the opportunity to teach a little. We had no artifacts or pouches only the spirit cloth granted by Bayl. So, I dashed through the expanse until I reached the white palace.
“Yo, chaos child!” The demonic spirit attendant of the third under floor gave me the customary salutation.
“Please put these little pieces inside a vault or something. I’ll keep bringing more.”
“Sure thing, chaos child. You playing a little later on?”
A little later is always measured in years in the stratas.
Before you ask, I traded rock music for the services inside the place. A bed and a blanket made you feel somewhat human again. They love their music in the seventh strata.
“Yeah, when I’m done with this.”
We always came back here for a time for a soul recharge and discharge. Soul music, control, absolute control of the inner flow. Outer darkness slowly drives you mad, and I was in home turf, so to speak.
I waved and got back to scavenging the bottom of the River of Nightmares.
“Hey master, how come there’s that stuff in the bottom of the river?” One couldn’t help but wonder.
[Conflicts and wars have existed everywhere, even here. That metal is imbued with the power from the river. Let’s speed up, we got a long way to go.]
SPALSH! SPLASH! SPLASH!
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Seventh Strata of Outer Darkness. Fourteen years inside the realm.
[Filled with evil feelings, Ikrei?]
“Need to ask the obvious?” The water inside the river was finally getting to me.
[We are done collecting the pieces. Let’s relax a little.]
‘Good, the last two took a whole year. We took everything, right?’
I sped like a bolt to the palace.
“Yo, chaos child! You playing this time?”
“I believe I am.”
“King Bayl has been making noise with those instruments he built. He even communed with a medium in Turgan for the information on them.”
“Really? I’ll head over.”
‘Should I take the chance to ask, master?’
[Yes, it is a good time, give him something, get something.]
I entered the musical space very respectfully.
“Greetings and salutations, oh, handsome ruler.” Another polite bow.
A man, an androgynous man with red eyes and dark long hair with all the trappings and cloths of the high nobility of ancient eras. Puri history classes are useful without exception.
The palace was grand, monolithic. It couldn’t be any other way; it was the only structure in the entire place. Fourteen floors up, fourteen floors down in an area that covered three hundred furlongs all around.
Rooms, gardens, libraries, training circles, an entire bestiary, deadly flora, grand halls, two throne rooms and the most expansive and carefully curated music room with hundreds of instruments from all the ages.
“Come and show me a proper riff. This is a six string ketar. I did some changes.”
I did as he asked and played sitting next to him for a whole hour. The warm yellow light underscores the difference.
“I have a proposal King Bayl.”
“Speak, my boy.”
“We could write some rock songs together. You do the music, I have a few lyrics and melodies that might interest you.”
“Tempting. What do you want?” Intense eyes with a closed fist under his chin.
“I need an alchemical grandmaster blacksmith; I want to create a soul weapon.”
King Bayl gave me something similar to a blue flask but it was weirdly shaped, empty.
“Fill that with water from the northern end of the River of Nightmares, near the dark mountain, the one that has no end and continuously goes up. Now, show me.”
[Give him something, Ikrei.]
I took one of the nearby parchments and used a delicate blood magic artifact pen and wrote down the lyrics for Sinner’s Lullaby and the chords plus a few other scribbles I created for my debut album.
‘The Song Remains the Same would not and will not be turned into a rock song. This is my baby.’
“Here King. Someone of your intellect can surely do better than me.”
“Highly protective of that little thing, no? I’ll play around with it.”
For a split second, I forgot the king can read my thoughts and emotions in the strata. Too much time underwater.
‘What will I do with the other powerhouses here. They’ll see right through me.’
[Bayl likes you, well, Eriel, a whole lot. Zaraki was the prize for Eriel’s success. The others won’t do it; it is beneath them to search a human, unless you give them a reason. Pride before the fall.]
‘Akathos’ teacher mode is exceptional.’
He took the parchment and read while speaking.
“Bà Kim is currently residing in the Fifth Strata. She likes lamenting soul fire for her creations.” King Bayl waved me away as he sat down to play some more.
I slowly and deferentially left. It was time to pick up the water. Not before retrieving the many metal pieces I had taken from the shady, turbulent stream. In a big bag of strange material, a weight of a thousand small stones.
I ran at the top of my speed, the river is long, too long and the bag unhelpful.
“Who is that, master?” Curiosity was getting the better of me.
[A small easterner country’s goddess of metal and blacksmithing.]
I did as I was told. Retrieved the liquefied souls, filling the strange flask and headed for the tunnels that master had shown me.
Four hundred breaths.
[I’ll take over until we reach her, Ikrei. Pay attention and learn, feel everything that’s happening in our soul fused spirit body.]
‘I still don’t trust you elder Akathos, 9002.’
[You should never, not with everything that has happened to you. But it is the price of your path and the inevitability of probability for chaos practitioners. Magic is not without a price and ours even more so.]
I felt the soul energy, the blessing of the Will combined with another familiar energy expand and overtake me. I was finally able to tell.
I had soaked inside the dark river for far too long.
‘Large dark affinity!?! You!!! You are a chaos mage, too!’
[Ha, ha, ha! Let’s go!] With elder Akathos in control, we entered the spirit world’s tunnel system, the one that connects the different strata.
An even stranger place, the edges of every distinct portion of this spirit realm. Tunnels of energy just like the one that brought us to outer darkness.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Crossing at speeds that defied my understanding. My thoughts were transmitted to my master. The tunnel wanted to compress and absorb us within. The place was unwelcoming.
‘How? We are outside of our bodies?!’
[The blessings of the gods reside in our souls and transfer themselves to our bodies. The foreign strands of energy you feel when you think of a singular cute little ass.]
I was blushing without being able to blush. Repetitive was becoming insufficient.
‘Ahem.’
[The unbound Magi can tap into the world’s energy directly but they cannot come here, not without proper preparations or they would be powerless.]
‘Our chaos energy is of godly origin?’
[Not exactly but if I go into details you’ll forget them. Need to eliminate that oblivion seal. Instinctive use of the energy it is for you, my murmuring, future kotari.]
I wanted to ask many more things but a soul chilling roar was felt. Just outside the tunnel.
“ROOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!” The tunnel wobbled.
[Rahab’s here.]
‘What?!’
[He is formless but we call him, the Void dragon. He is hungry, we need to leave.]
‘How do you know it is a he?’
[Too angry to be a girl, don’t you think?] He gave me a smirk.
“ADOHI!” Making strange hand sigils master chanted.
Inside a continuously compressing, energy sucking tunnel with an unknown beast roaming outside looking to feed, we turned into a doubly colored streak of dark and blue energy. Chaos and the Will.
The velocity and speed of a man that can destroy a continent. One of the great elders, an Ascension Master.
Constantly changing directions evading a formless claw while moving towards the exit. A stomach turning experience. In the spirit you just know things, it is like the information is relayed into you by the realm.
‘That is why, master tried passing the dark arts here, a failed attempt.’
ZHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZH!
For reasons that need not be listed, the predictable outcome transpired. Even under a double soul, single body type communion.
Remember, truly strong emotions can and do, cross over.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” We screamed.