There is suddenly silence again across the expanse. The Aarkiel and the alien man stare at each other with a look of mutual respect. As they stare, you are suddenly freed from your invisible bonds with a soft yelp. Falling to the cold, white ground, you stand between two titans, capable of things undreamable by your human mind.
You inch away, these displays of such power revolt a part of you. Nothing should have this much destructive ability.
“I commend you, Faen. Constructs of greater magnitude than you have not survived strikes similar to those.” Sero says, the dark, alien, ancient being speaking from within the man of lightning.
The Aarkiel lets out a short gasp, swinging an arm as if he is standing up with the height of the world on his shoulders. “S–survived?!” He hollers, and you blink as he says this.
His mouth moved. Against all previous evidence, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul speaks like a man.
“Is that all you have in you, child of the void?!” He shakingly stands up, a defiant message of rebellion. “What say you? I am Tyrr’olni’nel’mul. Scourge of the Northern Titan Clusters. Son of L’Oos, who is God!” His hands stretch to the white sky, all five fists clenched in violent abhorrence to the not-man before him, who looks on, cold as the snow of the sky.
Five hands come down, grasping full-handedly upon the wood-like horns of the Aarkiel’s head. The creature’s crown, his mark of tyranthood. And like the noir arms that he pulled before, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul tears them from his head.
Silver blood splatters upon the ground, dripping like dew from a gory crown. The creature before you takes them and brandishes it, a weapon of pain and defiance. He holds a staff made of wood, and a spear made of his horns. It glistens, as long as its bearer is tall, arcs and twists of the grain standing out against the purity beyond.
So came a whisper. A strong, sure, cold whisper. “And so you will die, Son of the one known as L’Oos.”
Thus begins a storm.
A blinding flash of sky-blue light erupts from Sero as he charges, his hair becoming the same blue that you saw when you first chased him.
He rockets silently, resolutely, toward your patron, afterimages the color of the open sky telegraph his past movements, hanging in the air before fading into dust. The Aarkiel throws a black, powerful hand out as if to grasp ahold of you.
Flicker.
The chasm opens between you and him, and you instantly find yourself standing between these two monstrosities, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul’s outstretched hand grasping the back of your head, his long, eerie fingers tousling your chestnut brown hair. This next instant suddenly slows to a near stand-still, Sero’s flying fist mere hair-breadths away from your face.
You feel yourself breathe in this slowed state of perception, the wind mightily loud in your ears. You feel everything, see all you can, hear the voice of Travelspace watching playfully, feeling your patron’s fear and desperation through his fingers. Fingers that wrap around much of the back of your head.
Time resumes, suddenly, ending this strange, co-mingling state of connections. Sero’s arm ends where his fist was not an instant before, and you suddenly feel the Aarkiel behind you recoil from being hit, his grip on your head loosening.
Thoughts occur to you as you struggle to comprehend what has just happened.
Your patron had just used you as a shield.
But another one settles inside yourself, this knowledge given through him holding you, your contact transferring information.
Tyrr’olni’nel’mul has two souls. Exactly like you.
Sero flies through you, passing by as if he were a ghost with a flicker, continuing forward to finish what he was locked into. A contest of death. A contest not begun by him, but one that he would finish himself.
He slams into the Aarkiel like before, and the two of them trade blazingly fast blows on one another with more riotous and grandiose fervor than ever before. Cylinders of solid light and javelins of spewing ink, Buster Pulses and Spears of God, deathly in their purpose, blast around, annihilating whatever they strike.
They careen across the whiteness, their attacks carving up vast chunks of white earth, slabs the size of the branches of the Titan Trees that rise and shatter with great, cacophonous booms.
They flash around each other, Black against Blue, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul backpedaling against his terrifying foe.
Flicker.
You find yourself amid the battle again. Hanging in the air with the two, suspended far above the white ground of Travelspace, you are once again placed before the oncoming man, a human barricade designed to deter an ally.
The tactic initially seems to, again, fail, Sero simply folding space to put his blindingly fast strike behind you, but your Patron is ready. He shoves you to the side, parrying the alien man’s kick with a pale hand, pushing him past his target, as the three of you fly.
Tyrr’olni’nel’mul pulls you along, a sable hand around your shin, dragging your helpless body through the air, backward, falling after the deflected man.
“I am sorry, my daughter,” the Aarkiel murmurs, slicing a wide swipe at Sero with his horn spear, held with two of his five hands, tearing into the skin and clothing of his back that mend themselves as quickly as they are destroyed, “I do what I must.”
The white ground rushes up to meet the two, wind whistling in your ears. A sudden, horrible jerk erupts through the world, the rapid deceleration from falling in the direction Tyrr’olni’nel’mul was facing pulling your body up, bending it backward so it becomes parallel with the white ground. Every muscle in your body strains, desperately trying to keep yourself together.
You grit your teeth as your spine pops and cracks, your legs holding onto themselves for dear life. As your head is leveled with the world, you and Sero make eye contact again.
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Light envelops you, converting your flesh to golden-ness. Your patron’s grasp loses its hold on your skin with your skin no longer having substance, and you slip out. You recollect a short distance away, the pain still racing through your over-stretched muscles.
You look between both titans, who look between the two of you. All of you are at your limit, the Aarkiel is breathing heavily, his usually grinning, toothy mouth hanging open with exertion, his many shoulders heaving up and down.
Sero’s violent, blue aura disappears in another flash, this one weaker than its initiation. He blinks multiple times and shakes his head, his breathing is mostly normal for a human. You can hear him whispering, “Not going to be able to re-enter Full Sprint…” He comes to, grimacing. His fight was over, yet how he did not kill his foe, he does not know.
Your head snaps to the Aarkiel, and he looks at you. The place on his blank face where his eyes should have been creases as if he was blinking.
Tyrr’olni’nel’mul raises himself, gazing at his daughter tenderly. “I…” He settles back, his sable hands placing the spear of himself into his white ones, “... am not worthy.” He huffs, taking the spear and holding it in one clenched hand. He sighs so deeply, as if relieving himself of the weight of the sky, and the inky arms dislodge from his sides and back, splashing into the pristine floor, staining it with their murkiness.
You look at him, confused. “W-what?” You ask, stepping toward him.
His heavy breathing slows, calm spreading through his aberrant, wounded body. “You have taught me something, Nova.” He grips the spear tightly, “This old, broken man cannot be the one to carry Julia any longer.”
You breathe in sharply. Tyrr’olni’nel’mul knows about what Oblivion said to you?
“You carry yourself, Nova, and that boy L’Neeri, just as I carry myself and my first daughter. But now, I am broken and unfit. I have slackened in my duties, and forgotten my place. We are all one person, you know that already,” He shakes his hornless head again, swallowing and planting his feet in the black puddle below.
He begins again, this time in a voice more than just resolute, a voice filled with all the certainty of the universe. “I give you this Soul of mine…” He brandishes the wooden spear with both hands, its terrible point aimed at its wielder’s gut, “So that we… MAY BECOME WHOLE AGAIN!” He roars a final, triumphant roar, plunging his purpose into his heart.
“NO!” You scream, scrambling forward, hand outstretched, bare feet splashing in the inky pool.
Your patron holds the spear protruding from his chest with a limp hand, silver blood pouring out of the wound around the wood. He looks to the horrified Sero, who stands there, utterly confused, but unmoving like the Titan Trees. The Aarkiel scoffs quietly, giving a weak, eyeless, mirthless grin at the man. A good fight, it seemed to say, but don’t think you won.
As soon as you make it to him, he collapses, thudding heavily into the stained, wet ground, the spear being driven through his back.
You fall on top of him, one hand on the spear. You feel its nobby, ridged texture in your hands, its grip sure on your skin.
“Why?!” You yell at the dead Aarkiel. You breathe shakily, unsure what the next step is. It comes to you, given by familiar hands. Both yours and a dead man’s.
You scowl, resting your hands on Tyrr’olni’nel’mul’s back, which already feels cold, like the stone of your Token.
You know what to do.
And, like last time, the floodgates of the soul open.
It begins with a warm, satisfied trickle, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul had accepted that he had served his purpose. He passed on with no regrets.
Then, the flow of memoria intensified quickly, growing from a bubbling brook to a roaring tide, an ocean of the eons determined to wash you away.
You manage to contain it at first, curling up on your knees, gritting your teeth, and writhing in the puddle of the dead Aarkiel’s ink and blood, his body disappearing suddenly as L’Neeri had, however, it keeps going, harsher, redoubling its efforts.
You begin spasming, breath rushing in and out through your teeth. You clasp your hands at your chest and groan, your writhing becoming more violent as the Aarkiel’s memories clamor to be seen, to be known.
A growl begins building in your chest as more and more of your patron’s soul is shoved into your own. The growl builds, clawing its way up your throat.
Your back arches, and, as your body is thrown back, you scream.
A guttural, throat-tearing scream erupts from your mouth. A howl to scar the ages. Arms, black, ink-slathered arms burst from your skin, shooting out of you like cannons in all directions. They clasp and grope at you, grabbing your limbs, your face, and each other, in a clamorous frenzy. Their slick fingers jitter and spasm over your skin, coating it with their wetness.
More and more memories, thousands of years worth of Tyrr’olni’nel’mul flood into you, a torrent unlike any other. It rips you apart. Tearing you asunder with the weight of his actions. You feel his unfettered hatred of himself, you feel his loneliness, his love for his adopted daughters. You and Julia. You feel his pain of killing his brethren, his joy at being praised by his mother. Everything, all at once.
You scream more, over and over, as your body contorts again and again, your bones breaking and reforming, growing and reshaping to befit the King of all Aarkiel. You grow, your stature taking on his tall, malnourished, broad, twisted stature.
His wooden horns burst from your scalp, jutting up to the white heavens, the six of them.
Then, a different stream of self filters through the eons. A small, hapless girl. Sacrificed before her prime, given as a trade for something that never came: Rain. As your body breaks, her Soul enters your broken, scarred one, a Soul barely held together. Hers is calm, like the eye of some terrible storm. It lilts across your shattered mind, a comforting, soothing rain after a scorching blaze.
L’Neeri accepts it, embracing it, allowing her to enter calmly into the crumbling temple.
The temple devolves into a mass of wriggling arms, interlocking into a net. The eons have subsided, only the memories of the past few hours trickling in, but the torrent has left you nearly annihilated.
You stare forward, blankly, eye unfocused. There is no pain, there is barely any sensation, anymore. Your mind is simply too tired to even reel from what happened, and so you stand, a shell filled with more Souls than one has ever had.
Your left eye is covered by a stray hand, another clasping its black fingers across your mouth. Arms wave in the air, stemming from every conceivable piece of your open skin. You sway slightly, horned head atop a body you don’t know or understand, white hair, now shoulder length, rippling in some unfelt breeze.
Time passes. How long? It could have been centuries, hours, or even no time at all, but then, a voice rang out amidst the silence.
Her voice was sonorous, yet airy. It almost felt like what a giant, majestic bird would sound like if they could talk.
“Julia.” L’Oos, Goddess of the Sun, Freedom, Expression, Self, and many other things, spoke. It was heartfelt, it was bittersweet, it had a depth that one may never understand, backed by lifetimes of waiting for this moment.
You look up, single, open eye gazing to the heavens, illuminated by golden, radiant sunlight. A tear, silver, like the blood of the Aarkiel, falls from your eye as you see her. Goddess, Mother, Patron, L’Oos, and your final piece, descends from the white sky.
Your many arms reach out, grasping for her sunlight like starved plants awaiting the fall of water from the sky to quench their thirsty cells.
She alights, embracing your scarred, broken body marred by inky limbs, whispering in your ear like a proud mother.
“Oh, Julia, I truly hate to see what the millennia have done to you…” Her whispers cause feeling to wash through you, a healing balm to aid a burnt woman/man, “We have waited for this day for so long.” The arms, your arms, cease their wriggling, stilling from a living cascade to an alien, bizarre breathing statue of black. L’Oos’s tone shifts, now slightly resentful, “What comes next is inevitable, but both of us will be free.”
She hugs you tighter, “Come, Julia. Let us take the Universe back, let us be what was stolen from us…”
And with one final, glorious flash of golden light…
You are reborn, whole, once again.