Echoes of War, Ch 20: Wind and Water (Patreon)

Somewhere near the Northern Plains

The walls of the chamber were twisted like volcanic stone that had once flowed freely but then hardened into sheets, leaving behind a gnarled but smooth surface filled with bumps and ridges. Here and there, flecks of silver and diamond-like shards shone from the walls, sending a mana-dense light filtering across the room.

At the center of the chamber, a grim-featured bellisagi with skin that was turning white from age stood in front of a slab of stone that was half-buried in the ground. The stone had an arched shape and was made from the same material as the walls, but its edges were jagged from where it had been broken at one point, which gave it a completely different feeling.

Like the walls, points of silver and glittering shards of gemstone light shone from the surface of the slab, but here they were accompanied by floating runes that formed and broke apart. The runes tried to merge together into an enchantment, but failed each time they appeared, breaking apart into a cloud of loose mana that never quite realized its function.

“Still unstable,” the old bellisagi muttered angrily to himself as he tapped on one of the glittering shards that was trying to create a rune. He turned to a younger bellisagi who was waiting on the far side of the chamber, his voice guttural. “Bring in the next.”

The younger bellisagi resembled the older one, except that his skin was the standard steel grey. His bones protruded, giving him an angular and menacing appearance. When he heard the command, he ducked out of the room and came back a few moments later dragging a Second Evolution monster that looked like a bear with stone-colored scales and wickedly curved fangs that were nearly as large as its entire head.

The old bellisagi reached out with one hand and picked the bear up. He ignored the monster’s attempt to tear off his arm as the fangs slid away from his skin. He held the creature over the stone slab as a low chant echoed from his lips.

The runes rising from the surface flared more brightly and the bear began to thrash as a web of dark red energy sprang up from its heart and the monster core in its head. With a savage twist, the bellisagi tore the scaled bear in half, showering the slab with a rain of glowing blood.

He dug out the heart and core and then threw the pieces of the bear to the ground as he held those two items above the slab. Slowly, they disintegrated as aura poured away from them and into the stone. The bear’s corpse turned to dust as well, crumbling at the base of the slab as the energy in it was absorbed.

The runes became slightly more solid as they absorbed the bear’s aura, their presence almost real, but they were still half forms that didn’t join together. The bellisagi rubbed his hands together to brush off the remains of the monster and then studied the slab, his attention on the pattern of silver and crystal light.

“Not good enough,” he muttered, dissatisfied by the result. “Even with the Seal weakening, we won’t be able to reach the true gods like this. Infusing mana and aura separately isn’t enough. Even if the outpost can run on it, I’m unable to make the necessary repairs to the essence magic. Perhaps when the rest of the outposts come to life...”

His muttering continued as he studied the slab, tracing out runes with his four hands. It was an old and familiar task to him. Once, he could have repaired a simple outpost like this within a day, but he was no longer what he was. Even finding this one had taken him centuries.

“Lord,” the younger bellisagi said hesitantly as he watched, “will the ritual truly reconnect us to the ancestors when it works? Will we be able to speak to the true gods and earn our way back into their grace?”

There was a trusting tone in his voice, one that sent a trace of cruel humor across the old bellisagi’s features, stretching his already tight skin until cords of tendons were visible. He laughed, giving rise to a sound like a saw cracking on stone.

“We will earn our way back into the true god’s grace indeed,” he agreed. Then his tone turned commanding again. “Go and bring another sacrifice for the altar.”

It was a control node instead of an altar, but he’d long ago taught his followers what to call it to reinforce their beliefs. The bellisagi were a foolish race, born hunters and scouts, but simple minded. Convincing them to follow him had only taken him a few decades all those years ago.

A brief flash of hunger ran across his features as he bared his fangs in memory of all the races they had hunted back then. It had been thousands of years since he’d had such fun.

Now, the World Core alerted the locals whenever he appeared, and the detection wards on some kingdoms did the same. It meant he could barely leave his lands without being surrounded by enemies and his work was too important to risk his death.

Once had been enough.

At least his followers could still be sent out, like this one. The bellisagi tribes were more loyal to him than ever, even after losing their status as a civilized race. They believed it was the price they had to pay for following the true gods, one of the many things he had taught them over the last 6,000 years and more

“Yes, lord.” The bellisagi bowed his head immediately, but then he hesitated as he stared at the twisted surface of the floor. “We’re having to range farther afield to find high-level monsters. We don’t usually get many Flaws here on the northern plains, but there are even fewer than normal. It presents some difficulties in fulfilling your commands.”

“The Flaws are being drawn to the Dimensional Convergence,” the old bellisagi said indifferently as he glanced at his follower. “It’s like a whirlpool gathering them up. Seek outside of our territory if you need to, into the Kingdom of Aethra. Our agreement with their king is nearly complete, so even if you’re seen, it should not cause much trouble. Use your stealth and take an assassin’s contract if you can find one. Bring back any monster or prisoner you find along the way, even if it distracts you from the contract.”

He waved a hand in dismissal, his attention returning to the slab in front of him.

“For the true gods, my lord, it will be done.” The younger bellisagi bowed and then slipped away, swiftly blending into the shadows as he disappeared toward the exit.

Alone in the chamber once more, the older bellisagi let out a raspy sigh as he looked around the room. A wave of his hand activated one of the few working functions of the old outpost and the walls flowed together, sealing over the entrance.

“If I still had essence, you would bow to my command,” he growled as he stared at the slab. “This pathetic rebirth has only given me the divided mess of mana and aura.”

With a flicker of will, he pulled up what the cursed World Core called his status sheet and hissed at it, his fangs bared. Every time he saw it, he felt insulted. He didn’t require a broken artifact to explain his soul to him, much less to quantify it in every degree. At least it was quick.

He didn’t look at all of it, only a few lines. Even those were only because they gave him a certain feeling of reassurance, a reminder of what he had once been.

Vastes

Level: 399

Class: Lord of Wind and Water

Subclass: Alchemist of the Dark Storm

Race: Bellisagi (Uncivilized)

Status: Soul Remnant, Exile, Lawless, Oathbreaker, High Threat, Banished One, Fragmented Soul.

He dismissed the rest. The lines he focused on the most were the same as ever: Soul Remnant and Fragmented Soul. A weak name for the truth.

In the early days of this world, he had been a lieutenant to the Goddess of Shattered Skies herself, the Sixth Evolution being that the locals called a demon. His powers had been on a level this world barely understood. He had walked the skies, summoned the rain, and slaughtered armies with a wave of his hand. Then he had been killed and his essence was stolen by the World Core.

His soul.

He bared his fangs again with a snarl, but the sight of the control node in front of him eventually brought him back to himself. The bits of the past that he still remembered filtered through his mind like meditation as he became calm.

He didn’t remember everything, but over the years, he’d dug out every fragment he had and reassembled them. Then he’d combined those with what he could find of the world’s history to fill in the blanks. He’d gathered records from all over the world, from myths to histories, and used his own understanding to filter them for grains of truth.

The real guide, however, was in the Flaws that opened in the world. Each of them was a window into his old home, the land of essence and majesty, where battles raged like wildfires across the stars and only the strongest could call themselves king. That was his true home.

He had stood beside the Goddess of Shattered Skies when she walked onto this world so many years ago, and he had fought beside her when the locals tried to stop their progress and keep them from their goals. He should have died forever in that war, but somehow the World Core had collected his essence and bound it to this world.

He remembered his death, and then he remembered this life where he’d been reborn as a bellisagi, seemingly tens of thousands of years later. He didn’t understand how it worked, but he’d studied the same process in monsters and how they were reborn, each time forming a core with part of a fragmented aura that was linked to their original nature from the true realm.

He’d even met a few other Soul Remnants over the millennia, although none were as powerful as him. Some of them he’d killed himself, just to see what would happen, and others because he saw a trace of essence in them to seize. Unfortunately, he’d never managed to regain his ability to use essence.

He should never have been reborn in an intelligent race instead of a monster one. That was probably a result of the damage that the World Core endured in the war. It had given him an opportunity to take control of the bellisagi for his own purposes. That had led to their exile from the civilized races and their current home in the wild plains and mountains to the north of the Kingdom of Aethra. It was better this way, since an uncivilized race could gain experience from killing the civilized ones, even if the same was true of them. It put them further outside the World Core's control.

That exile was almost 6,000 years ago now, during the last major dimensional surge. Some of the humans called it a Breaking, but it was a false one at most. The Seal hadn’t been fully torn apart and the astrals hadn’t stepped in to fix it. It had eventually reformed itself once the Flaws were closed by the locals.

During that era, he’d done his best to damage the seal further, destroying every artifact he could find connected to it or that supported it. He’d led the bellisagi to slaughter the civilized races and open the way for the Flaws to grow, but despite his best efforts, none of it had worked in the end.

They had lost.

He ran his bony fingers over the symbols on the control node, fragmented memories mixing with his studies. Perhaps it had been the best to lose that war. He’d been younger then, more naive about returning home. With his current form, his old people would probably kill him as soon as they saw him. He was no longer a lieutenant of the goddess, not even an essence user, and his people had always been savage.

It left him with a dilemma.

He knew how to use this outpost, how to bring it to life, but it was too broken. If it were in its original state, he could use it to open a gate to the true realm and contact reinforcements. Without his old power, however, that would lead to his death. The only solution was to find a way to power with his current form. Then he could return home on his own terms.

He’d explored alchemy for a long time, working to gather the natural essence in the world. Even in this realm, it still existed, although none of the civilized races used it. He’d created many pills and even artifacts that could handle it, some of which he’d spread out through his followers.

In the end, they’d never given him back the ability to use essence. The best he’d managed was to temporarily empower himself. Now, there was a different opportunity on which he’d set his sights.

The answer was the Astral Titan.

He knew of them in the past and that they’d been the leaders of this realm, but he only had a few fragmented memories about them, including that there should be none here. If this one had just appeared, he might have gone unnoticed, except that someone had been kind enough to put a bounty on his head.

That had pointed Vastes right to him.

He didn’t think much of it at first. It was only when he’d sent a small group of assassins to fulfill the contract and they’d failed that he’d really begun to gather information. He’d taken the risk to send a spirit form following along with the next group he sent, something he did from time to time when he became curious.

Much to his shock, he’d discovered the titan and something else.

He smelled like the Voidborn, the true people of power that Vastes had once been! It was an old and fading scent, but it was still there. It was the Titan’s power over the elements, however, that truly made Vastes’s soul shake. It was the power of the Goddess of Shattered Skies!

The titan didn’t know how to use it well, but he had it. Those two things, combined with his fragmented memories of the ancient war, led him to the truth.

Somehow, the titan had found an inheritance of the goddess.

Vastes stared at the stone in front of him, his mind filled equally with hunger and hatred. He had watched the goddess die before him. He didn’t remember who had killed her, but he knew she was trying to leave Aster Fall, retreating to one of their fortresses in the deep Void where they planned to regroup.

He hadn’t expected her to leave her essence behind. Some of their people did that to leave a heritage for their descendants, passing on part of their own abilities and memories to them to continue the bloodline, but he hadn’t thought she was the type. Somehow, the titan had found it and gained her powers. If he could do that, perhaps Vastes could as well, but one heritage was already more than he'd believed existed.

Killing the titan was essential to his plans.

The idea sent an impatient thrill through his veins, making his hands clench on the stone slab. If it worked, he might be able to seize the heritage for himself, dragging it out of the titan’s blood. Heritages took time to settle in and it could still be there. If not, then he would make do with whatever he found.

The titan's blood might also be the route to regaining his power that he’d been searching for. Besides a few beasts, the Astral Titans were the only local race that used essence, so there had to be a secret somewhere.

A pale bone dagger appeared in his hand, followed by a series of other bone artifacts, from long and deadly spikes to plates carved with a bowl-like hollow at the center. Each of them was heavily engraved with dark runes that twisted in on themselves. A violent and devouring energy emanated from the artifacts as flecks of blood left over from the scaled bear rose up from the floor and flew toward them. Vastes watched it with a dark smile.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d extracted a bloodline.

He wasn’t sure how strong the titan was, but no inheritor of the goddess would be weak. The idea only made him more set on his path. There were few existences on Aster Fall as old as him and who had as many secrets. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed something that shouldn’t be able to die.

His current body was limited by the cursed World Core to Level 399, as the thing called it. It was just under the Fourth Evolution, which was the same both for his old realm and this one. Whenever he tried to absorb energy to go past that, it stole it away.

As a Soul Remnant, however, he carried certain gifts that others did not, powers that came from his old self. They placed him in a category all his own. Some of those powers were over Wind and Water, the two elements he’d once mastered. As a lieutenant of the Goddess of Shattered Skies, who commanded all the elements, he had to be capable of at least that much.

A tendril of razor-thin Water condensed around his hands and ran between his fingers. It was joined a moment later by a similarly thin and twisted current of Wind. The two elements darted around each other, wove into intricate webs, and separated again.

A child’s game for practice, but far beyond what the local mages seemed to be capable of. They relied too much on the World Core for their abilities, abandoning the basic elements of strength. With a flick of his hand, darts of both elements flew outward with a crackling roar and slammed into the far wall, driving through it like spikes hammered home by a force of nature. The holes were a dozen feet deep, but he ignored them. The outpost would seal over the damage soon enough.

Basic manipulation to condense the elements was nothing much. The real power of the elements came from their connection to reality, the concepts they could embody. The range of possibilities there was nearly endless. Water could crush or soothe, uplift or drown. It was good for healing and for killing, and its concepts covered nearly everything. A current of Water could wipe away memories and turn into dreams, flow into the illusion of a rainbow realm, and give life to elemental golems that were invulnerable to most weapons.

Wind had its own powers, some of which overlapped with Water. Its basic nature granted flight and transportation, shields and barriers, but also rarer things, like the ability to extend his senses across thousands of miles and hear what was said. Water could do that in some places, but Wind was better for it. Together, he could use the two elements to project himself nearly anywhere.

If he’d been at the Fifth Evolution again, he could really make the most of those concepts, but even at the Third, he had the strength to use some of them. It left him bitter to always know that he could be more, even in this worthless body, and to be blocked from becoming it.

That was one reason he supported anyone else who was trying to escape from Aster Fall. They were seeking something in his interests, and if they managed it, he would benefit, one way or another. He’d given them insight into many things over the years, from artifacts to ways to boost their strength, but they hadn’t managed it yet.

Wind and Water flowed around his hands again, but this time it was a far more intricate use of the elements. A web of energy shimmered in the air as he created an image of Aster Fall and the World Core, letting them float in front of him above the stone slab. Behind them, the Nexus to his homeland shone with a tantalizing luster.

It had been a very long time since he’d come through that, but he was sure the Nexus still existed in his home dimension. If it had failed there, it would have failed here too. It meant the path home was still open.

Unfortunately, as an inhabitant of Aster Fall, however unwilling, he couldn’t pass through a Flaw to return. Most of them didn’t lead to the other side anyway, not unless it was a grand gate that opened during a Breaking. The Flaws led to sub-dimensions within the Seal, which themselves only occasionally touched upon the far side.

The model in front of him shifted, turning into two separate spheres of water. Smaller spheres were compressed below them in a layer, floating randomly back and forth under an unseen current. Some of them had more freedom than others, which were locked in place, but it was rare that one of them had the ability to touch both sides.

The smaller spheres were the sub-dimensions beneath the two main ones. Their movement was measured in centuries, if not millennia or longer. When a Flaw appeared, it was usually one of these sub-dimensions bumping into the main dimension. Then the stress built up until a hole appeared.

As for the monsters in them, they were shoved out of the smaller dimension by the difference in force between the two sides. Some of them had been in there since the First War, but others were newer, trapped in the Seal when they tried to go through the Nexus and then confined inside one of the sub-dimensions until a shift let them out.

Whenever the dimensional forces built up to a peak, the sub-dimensions converged, releasing a torrent of Flaws at once. That was a problem created by the Seal, since the normal pathways to release dimensional stress had been blocked.

Vastes let out a dark chuckle as he thought about the one happening currently near the titan. Those ruins the titan was playing with had too much unstable dimensional magic in them. They drew Flaws like a hole drinking water.

Frequently, if the creatures in the Flaw were intelligent and understood enough about dimensional magic, they would try to stabilize the connection while using the sub-dimension as their lair. The simplest method was to kill a bunch of Aster Fall citizens inside. They had a unique link to the World Core and when enough of them died, it would temporarily stabilize the connection itself to reclaim the energy it had invested in them.

Vastes scoffed at the idea. The artifact was too damaged to know what was good for it.

The model of the dimensions shattered into a spray of water droplets and faded away as he looked back at the slab in front of him as he considered the best way to kill the titan. A low, grinding sound echoed through the chamber as he cracked the knuckles on his four hands.

Fortunately, there were ways to boost his strength.

He’d spent a long time working on that project, with more than fair results. Sometimes other races had come to consult him about it, offering large prizes for the bits of information he threw their way. Their gifts had fueled further research.

He wasn’t at the Fifth Evolution like he used to be, but if he poured all of his efforts together, he might be able to reach that level for a little while. The titan was young and weak. More importantly, he knew the Astral Titans’ weaknesses.

He’d fought them before.