XIV - VOID

Ancient temple [https://res.cloudinary.com/dxtl7maxi/image/upload/v1662038177/Art/Pourpre%20Conspirary/ancient-temple-avrip-and-the-machine.jpg]

Ancient Temple of Zaman - Avrip & The Machine

“There you are! Now you won’t escape me, scum!” yelled Feyd-Rautha.

Nestor watched with surprise the astral projection of Feyd, dancing with his knife in front of him.

They were inside an open room, an ancient temple with large pillars surrounded by deep desert.

I can feel the Wind here, noticed Nestor.

“The voice has denied me her throne. I will kill you and take the throne from her!”

“This will never happen, Feyd!”

Feyd turned around him with his knife and attacked on the left.

Nestor avoided the stab by a fast move on the right. He tried to launch his fist at him, but he quickly recalled that Feyd was still a good fighter, even in this astral world. No bare hands, but he has a knife! What can I do?

“Think Wind,” said the little voice in the mind of Nestor.

He blew with his open palm to his left hand and shaped a long sabre with the wind. The blade was shiny and iridescent. Great, this will help.

Feyd, shocked at this, realised that it was time to be smart. He rushed Nestor and said, “This will not fool me, spy!”

Breezily, Nestor parried the strike with his blade, and removed the knife from Feyd’s hand. The knife fell to the ground. Feyd took advantage of this moment to strike Nestor. Surprised by the blow, Nestor inadvertently blew wind from his throat. The vicious Feyd inhaled the wind and kept it in his mouth. He then escaped Nestor’s claws and stepped back.

Feyd blew the wind he stole in both his hands, creating two poisoned daggers.

“Thank you, Hector, for the wind. You will perish by this poison.”

Nestor attacked first on the right with a big stroke, but Feyd blocked the hit with one hand and launched his left dagger in Nestor’s stomach.

The poisons touched the astral form of Nestor and created a little void in him. He fell in pain, struggling to move. Why do I have this much pain? Does the wound here mirror with my physical wound? In a moment of profound lucidity, he took a handful of sand from the floor, and blew it until it was iridescent. With this new melange, he filled his wound like a bandage.

“You will not trick me again in this weird world. I bet you are a demon of some kind. My initial goal was to unleash the Pourpre Army against my uncle and the Emperor, but I have a bigger opportunity, now. I want to have your power and the seat of the voice. I will take it from you by torture, if necessary, Hector,” explained Feyd.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“That’s a good plan, but you have something wrong.”

“And what is that?”

Nestor stood up, “I’m not Hector. I am Nestor Karfo.”

“But, but I killed you in the arena!”

“No, you killed my brother, Hector. He saved me that day, but you have cheated to win. And I will avenge him!”

Nestor attacked Feyd, but he countered with a series of sharp strikes with his daggers. Nestor agilely avoided the hits. He moved on his right and then on his left to avoid everything, like his mind was in perfect synchronisation with the incisive symphony of Feyd’s daggers.

While continuing to defend himself against his attacker, Nestor gradually retreated to the end of the sanctuary. He saw behind him the deep sand, with a gigantic grey shape moving in and out of the surface. He controlled his fear and pushed back, putting his blade in position to hit Feyd’s right legs.

“Agh!” Feyd screamed in pain, as he stepped back to the centre of the arena.

Nestor moved slowly toward him, with his sabre ready to strike. He felt a little motion on the ground. He looked at Feyd, and his eyes indicated that he felt it, too.

They refocused on the fight and moved around each other in a circle, but the motion grew bigger and wider, sending a little patch of sand in the air.

“Aaah!” shouted the little voice.

The colour of the world vanished, everything was now grey.

“What happening, Alia?” asked Nestor.

“I sense something bad happening now in the material world,” she explained in a choked voice. More shaking came to the ground with a crumbling sound.

Both fighters continued to stare cautiously at the other one, ready to strike at any point.

“I’m dying—” she said. “I have given all my power left to Her; she is our future, now.”

Nestor saw a blazing bird, majestic and full of hope. He knew it was Her, Clémentine. She was reborn from the ashes by the Wind.

“You have to destroy the House that has destroyed my family. The House and the men who have killed my brother and father, the House that has taken the soul of my mother, the House that has killed your brother, Nestor, the very same House that destroyed your first life, Clémentine. Don’t let them do this, or they will repeat the same thing to everyone else!” Alia said breathily. “Now, Nestor—you need to,” the ground and the sky broke into a huge fracture, “blow,” the sky opened into a cosmic void of pure blackness, absorbing the matter of the astral world and dissolving this plane, “colour,” finished Alia.

I feel it. She is dead, Nestor realised.

The sand of the deep desert flew up to the sky, eaten by the dark void that descended with great speed to reach the ground. Then, the astral world was decaying, the pillars decomposed themselves and rejoined the sky. The ground also followed it, piece by piece.

I need to focus for Her and me, thought Nestor.

Feyd used this moment to run to Nestor and jumped in the air in an ultimate attack with all his energy left.

Nestor focused himself and closed his six eyes. Then he blew a powerful melange of colours from his hand all around him and he picked up his blade, which was again gleaming in all colours. He ran and launched himself in the sky against Feyd, and in a brilliant spark, he cut him in half.

The spark created a radiance of colours that struck the black void.

They fell back together, but the ground of the temple turned into an endless dark pit, leaving them in free fall. A maelstrom of colour counteracted the growing emptiness that tried to consume them. They escaped the blackened void that followed them as they reached a new floor.

Nestor’s two eyes opened to the sound of Clémentine over him.

Clémentine rolled Feyd’s body to the left.

I am alive? wondered Nestor, he saw Feyd on his left, still immobile.

“Wake up Nestor! We need to get out of here,” she said to him.

Nestor smiled at her, then he felt the shaking here, strong and noisy from the deep. It’s not only in the astral world.