World Seal, Ch 19: Khaes and Yeria (Patreon)

Khaes narrowed his eyes at Sam’s threat and a trace of doubt appeared, but it was only there for a moment before he smiled.

Blood energy poured away from him, forming a silhouette like a fanged shadow around him. Its limbs were longer than they should have been and tipped with bladed claws. More threads of blood energy merged into it, turning into blades and spikes that covered its body.

It was a massive thing that covered Khaes like a suit of battle armor. The demon was only slightly taller than a normal human, but now he stood inside its chest. Its total height was even taller than Sam.

A long curved red scimitar appeared in its hand, its edge shining with force.

“It’s more fun if you have some fire,” Khaes said with a laugh as he raised his blade and stepped forward. “Your essence will taste better. I’ve always wanted to kill a Titan, but your kind is too rare. When the God of Blood walked Aster Fall, he took all of you for himself. But late is better than never.”

Beside him, Yeria was making her own preparations. She was surrounded by a web of glowing orange essence like a moon. Flashes of illusions that seemed like people meeting, speaking, stabbing each other, and dying in painful ways appeared and disappeared inside of it.

Her eyes were bright and fixed on Sam.

“I’ve heard your hearts are like the Void itself,” Yeria said with a wide smile. “I want to see what that looks like inside.”

“For you two, dreams will always remain dreams,” Sam said calmly as silver flames flowed away from him. Runes were burning in those flames like stars as he shaped enchantments. “You need the power to bring them to life.”

He knew how strong these two were, but he couldn’t let them get away, so he was going all out.

It wouldn’t be an easy fight, but Khaes and Yeria were wounded from the comet’s explosion, so this was the best time to deal with them.

Plans from his other avatars flowed through his mind as he combusted the last few auras he had, bringing his essence to nearly full, and spirals of astral flame burned like miniature galaxies orbiting him.

Each of those spirals was a compressed enchantment that he’d made just now, a spell waiting to be used.

With a wave of his hand, all the scrolls he’d given to this avatar appeared around him, floating in his aura as well, ready to be used in an instant. There were only a dozen of them.

A Scroll of Runic Ice turned into ethereal frozen armor across his body, making icy runes drift across his features.

Then his Battle Aura surged around him, making his muscles swell, and a golden blade of astral flame appeared in his hand.

There was no time for more.

Khaes lunged forward in a blur of bloody energy, his scimitar slicing toward Sam. Dimensional energy and some law of blood was merged into it, making it feel like a guillotine as it closed in. The Void around Sam turned denser, like a whirlpool that was hard to move in. It wasn’t just a dimensional compression. It felt like sharp blades were stabbing into him even before the attack arrived.

If it hit him head on, it would probably tear his avatar in half.

Instead of dodging, Sam’s hand glowed with silver runes as he sent one of the condensed spells around him forward.

The miniature galaxy expanded in an instant, becoming a sweeping expanse nearly a thousand feet across. Powerful waves of energy circulated in it, locking together.

Then the scimitar slammed into it. The bloody edge tore through the first ripples of silver light, but as it reached the center, it suddenly slowed, like space was compressing around it and the distance to reach its destination was fixed and unchanging.

The Void chimed like it was struck by a massive hammer.

The red scimitar was flung backwards at the same time as the spiraling enchantment exploded outwards, turning into a storm of dimensional fragments that swept across the Void toward Khaes and Yeria.

All of the compressed force of Khaes’ attack had been absorbed by fragments of dimensional walls that Sam had gathered in front of him, and now that force was rebounding.

It was like a hundred dimensional spears had suddenly been launched forward, tearing through the distance, and Khaes staggered back as he raised his blade to defend. His other hand clawed at the air, his jagged nails creating a wave of red runes that hardened into a shield around him.

Beside him, Yeria’s bizarre orange moon surrounded her like a cloak, as two ethereal hands reached out of the interior and cupped her between them. The hands were feminine and pale ivory, tipped with delicate claws.

The claws were coated with a hissing green liquid that turned to faint smoke in the Void around here. Where that smoke rose, it turned into contorted ghosts and wailing spirits, all of them in agony.

The dimensional fragments from Sam’s spell slammed into their defenses and were deflected, shooting off into the distance. A couple of them broke apart, their energies dissipating into unstable ripples in the Void, but most were completely undamaged.

Dimensional fragments were durable things.

“A dimensional law?” Khaes snarled as he recovered. He wasn’t injured by the explosion, but he was angry that he’d been forced back. “How can you use the energy of the World Forger here? It shouldn’t be possible inside this Seal! She locked it all down.”

Sam didn’t pay any attention to the question. A blade of golden light swept out from him, slicing through the Void toward Yeria. A web of silver runes flowed along with the attack, wrapping around it.

He knew that Khaes was stronger, so he planned to get rid of her first. If he could reduce the fight to one-on-one, he’d have a better chance.

Yeria bared her fangs in a vicious smile as she saw the attack. She’d already been stepping forward with her own. The two delicate hands around the moon reached out and seized the blade of golden light.

Then they snapped it in half. Shards of astral energy flew away to the sides, streaming past her as the blade dissolved into nothing.

Her smile grew wider as the orange moon around her surged with light. A twisted scream rose up from it, combining with a stream of hazy moonlight that drifted across the Void toward Sam like smoke.

It seemed slow, but it covered the distance in an instant.

Khaes’s attacks were sharp and obvious, but hers were the opposite. This one promised howling madness until its target clawed out its own eyes and choked to death on their own blood.

Sam’s eyes narrowed. He was familiar with the Spirits of Madness he’d hunted down on Aster Fall after they escaped from the Gate of Passion, and Yeria’s energy was similar.

Her attacks all targeted the mind and heart.

The glimmering light in Yeria’s eyes and her enraptured expression told him everything he needed to know about her.

His hand rose in front of that orange smoke and before it could reach him, it slammed into a hardened dimensional wall that gleamed with starlight.

The shield was fragmented, with cracks all across its surface where silver flames burned, but his essence was only there to fuse the dimensional fragments into a barrier.

Dimensional Stabilization was his strongest defense in this fight, and one of the main things that gave him confidence. The essence it took to block those two attacks was relatively low.

Yeria’s attack was less direct than Khaes’s however and it didn’t dissipate easily. The smoky moonlight built up against his shield like a fog bank, hissing as it met his silver flames. Some of it evaporated, but the rest tried to push through the cracks.

Where that energy met his, he got flashes of crazed passion, families killing one another, and worlds turned upside down. Every mad act and instability he’d ever thought of surged through his mind, trying to drag his thoughts away.

Just touching her energy was enough for it to begin affecting him, but at the same time a surge of astral flame incinerated every trace of the mist that tried to get too close.

Instead of dealing with that fog bank she’d summoned, he stepped to the side and disappeared in a flash of silver light.

He appeared again behind Khaes and Yeria, making the two demons spin around as they reoriented on him.

With a flick of his hand, two scrolls hanging nearby him ignited. Runes floated up from them and merged into one of the spiraling galaxies by his shoulder, creating a frozen world of ice that was filled with stars.

The spell swept forward, heading for Yeria as it expanded into a storm of astral ice and fury. As it moved, it gathered loose dimensional fragments and dragged them along as well, turning them into frozen blades.

Two more scrolls ignited, merging into another galaxy, and this time their energy dissolved into the spell, making it grow stronger. A massive Astral Strike shot outward like a lightning bolt, tearing across the Void.

It was surrounded by a dozen rotating runes for Ice that augmented its strength.

Khaes’s angry shout roared across the Void, but Sam ignored him. He couldn’t sustain this fight for long, so he needed to do as much damage as possible, and that meant killing one of them if he could.

The rest of his scrolls ignited, but before he could attack again, Khaes leapt between him and Yeria. The demon’s massive red outline crackled with blood-red flame that turned into a thousand blades of red light.

He slashed out with his scimitar, but the attack this time was nothing like before. The Void screamed as the area around Khaes filled with sanguine light that formed into blood red blades.

A mind-crushing feeling of cold blades cutting to the bone and drawing blood filled the space, and as that feeling spread outward, it felt like the entire world was turning red.

Actually, it was.

All around Sam, the dark Void like an ocean was being invaded by red light, and with every moment that he looked at it, it felt like his avatar was being stabbed to the heart.

Lines of starlight appeared on his body as the essence he’d imbued into this avatar began to escape. His avatars didn’t really bleed, but the law of blood that Khaes was using didn’t seem to care.

It was forcing that reality on him anyway.

He’d faced laws and concepts in battle before, especially against the Vos’Rekan, but Khaes’s was particularly dangerous. Before he could gather his strength to react, a quarter of the energy he’d infused into the avatar floated away like starlit blood.

Yeria’s concept was something to do with madness or twisting hearts, and Khaes’s was something to do with blood as a blade.

At the same time as he realized that, Khaes arrived in front of Yeria and slashed at Sam’s spells. The frozen galaxy and the Astral Strike exploded against his scimitar, which somehow bent space to intercept them both at once.

The shards of dimensional energy infused into the storm exploded outward like shrapnel, flying into the distance, and the frozen storm was cut cleanly in half. Then the Astral Strike slammed against the blade, erupting into a fury of silver flames.

Khaes’s hand came around as a blood-hued claw and tore through them, his fingers tipped with red sabers. Despite the energy infused into the attack, it didn’t seem to bother him much.

The only result of the spells was a scorched layer on the edge of his red aura.

“You’re not even here, are you?” he snarled as he looked at Sam, his doubt growing. His eyes were sharp and he’d apparently noticed the difference. “My domain should have torn your body apart, but there’s no blood in you! Is that why you feel so weak?”

He growled as he shook the remaining flames off his blade and stepped forward again.

“No matter. I’ll destroy this image of you, and then I’ll hunt down the real version.”

Sam ignored him as he ignited the rest of the scrolls, fusing them into the spells that were hanging around him. It was too bad he hadn’t given this avatar more artifacts. He could have used them right now.

Now that he’d reached Level 400, his avatar was as strong as a normal fighter in the middle of the Fifth Evolution, perhaps even one on the higher end, but that wasn’t even close to a Primordial race in the same level.

It was lucky that Khaes’s domain didn’t affect his avatar as strongly as it would a body of real flesh and blood. Otherwise, it would have already been destroyed.

The demon was twice as strong as his avatar, perhaps two and a half times. That wasn’t as strong as an Astral Titan in the Fifth Star, but it was stronger than any normal Fifth Evolution being.

Despite that, he was noticeably weaker than the Astral Guardian.

Perhaps it was because the Cer’Aleth was so close to his Sixth Evolution breakthrough, or just because of his great age, but the crystal elemental had been much stronger than Khaes.

As Sam waved his hand, the spells around him shot forward, turning into another storm of astral ice and two more Astral Strikes. The streams of escaping starlight around his avatar were still there, drifting away from his body as he began to turn faint.

Khaes let out an angry laugh as he stepped forward. His scimitar sliced at the Void, releasing a massive wave of bloody light. A wave of curved red blades filled the sky, each of them pulsing with energy that beat at the Void like a heartbeat.

With each beat, the energy tore at Sam’s avatar in waves of crushing pressure that sliced into his body and ripped more streams of starlight from him.

As the spells exploded around the blade, Khaes’s free hand came around in a claw, stretching across the Void as it tore across Sam’s chest. Four giant rifts ripped across his chest, nearly tearing the avatar into five parts.

Despite that, a glint of humor shone in Sam’s eyes as he just smiled. Then he ripped the emerald pendant off his neck and tossed it into the air, where it floated like a tiny star.

A moment later, his avatar exploded into starlight, sending a wave of displaced energy across the Void.

Khaes paused his attack. His expression was dark as he looked around. Whether it was from Sam’s calm expression or his own instincts, he could tell something wasn’t right.

He looked around the Void, his glance shifting to either side as he began to back up, but at that moment, silver streams of light appeared in the Void.

There were seven of them, shooting down like falling stars from the direction of Aster Fall.

“What is this?” Khaes stepped back, his face contorted as he bared his fangs. The red aura around him bared its fangs as well as its monstrous features looked up into the Void, but there was a trace of hesitation in it.

The seven streams of light shot down, stopping not far from Khaes and Yeria on the spot where Sam’s avatar had been.

Then they coalesced into seven towering Titans, each of them an exact replica of the one that had stood there a moment before.

The one at the front radiated with a force that was almost twice as strong as the others. He reached out with a golden hand and picked up the emerald pendant that was hanging there.

Then he turned to Khaes and Yeria, his expression fierce.

Behind him, six avatars formed the rest of a seven-pointed star. Lines of astral energy blazed around them, linking them all together.

“You could defeat one, but how about seven?” Sam’s expression was still calm as he stared at Khaes and Yeria. “I am not as easy going as the Astral Guardian, and this time, you will not be able to buy your freedom with information. It is time to end your invasion of Aster Fall.”

His Battle Aura roared around him, making the Void bend under the force of his attributes and the dimensional space shuddered as it became as hard as steel. Fragments of dimensional energy began to fly toward him, forming into walls that closed in around Khaes and Yeria.

As soon as he’d noticed these two, he’d begun gathering his forces. Then he’d linked together all the avatars he could gather on short notice and come in person.

One avatar might not be enough to face these Voidborn, but with his real body and six more linked together in a seven-fold star formation, he was confident.

“You have this many avatars?! How is that possible? Even the God of Blood had trouble creating more than three!”  Khaes’s eyes were wide, but then he snarled and raised his blade. He stepped forward threateningly.

It looked like he was about to attack, but as he took a second step, he suddenly spun around and grabbed Yeria. His form blurred as the massive red aura around him concentrated to a flare of bloody light and he began to flee.

His speed was quick and within moments, he was receding into a pinprick in the distance. There was only a trail of red runes left behind him, marking out the trail as they left a warped signature in the dimensional space.

From that trail, it was obvious how familiar Khaes was with the World Seal. He was gathering some of the energy here to speed his escape. It was probably a special technique that would only last a short while, but it was enough for him to get some distance.

Sam watched him go without chasing immediately.

Instead, he studied the signatures from the battle around him, getting a feeling for the laws that Khaes and Yeria had used. It was only when he had some understanding of them that he nodded.

Then he spoke over his shoulder to the six avatars.

“Follow them,” he said. “Stay on their tail and keep them running into the Seal. I want to see where they hide.”

He had a feeling that Khaes would be running to some safe hideaway, and he wanted to know where it was, and if there were any others there. He had no intention of letting him escape just to pop back up again.

His six avatars nodded and then disappeared in streaks of silver light as they began the chase.

Sam waited for a moment and then began to recreate the avatar that was just destroyed. When it was back, he handed it the emerald pendant and then some more auras.

That avatar gave him a short nod and then it disappeared after the other six as it headed to join them.

Sam looked into the distance and then vanished in a streak of silver light. When he reappeared, it was on the other side of the gate at Portal. He was taller than the gate itself, towering over the anchoring pillars and the city.

He restrained his energy carefully as he looked around, but just the fact that he was here and at the Fourth Evolution sent a quick smile across his face.

With Dimensional Stabilization, as long as he was careful, his main body could still visit Aster Fall. The ability was part of his aura and his presence alone helped to solidify the dimensional space, which prevented damage to the World Seal.

He looked around the city, giving it a brief smile, and then he looked upward into the Void toward Silverguard. A fragment of dark crystal infused with silver lines appeared in his hand.

The battle against the two Voidborn had been short, but it had given him another insight into laws of the Void. Now it was time to find his own.

Once he did, then it would be time to chase down those two for real.