Paladin 4: Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Darren finished evolving Sobek’s item with one eye open the entire time. He took one look at it, and to his relief, it looked like it would satisfy Sobek’s requirements. He didn’t really have a whole lot of control over his Limitless Evolution skill. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he liked to think he could guide it with his thoughts to nudge it in certain directions. But on the whole, the skill produced whatever product it wanted to, and the result was partially up to luck.

But whether his skill had listened to him or he’d simply gotten lucky, the result was the same. He’d crafted what he wanted.

Absolute Analysis: Item Analysis

• Blessed Nemes of the Crocodile (Mythic)
• This headdress, crafted by Darren Heavengrace, transforms the wearer into a humanoid crocodile, granting massive increases to toughness, regeneration, and all abilities relating to large lizards.

“I’m done,” Darren declared as he stood and held the headdress aloft.

Sobek yawned a bit, blinked, and then turned to Darren with a bright and very toothy smile. “Wonderful! Let’s see it in action.”

Darren wrapped the headdress over himself, and his skin turned green and covered in scales. He was abruptly transformed into a being much like Sobek himself. A crocodile with human arms and legs. Only Darren, in his crocodile form, was a little taller than Sobek. His teeth were a little straighter, and his scaled skin was a deeper shade of green. Several of the female crocodiles perked up from where they swam in the swamp nearby.

Sobek’s expression turned sour. Something about the transformation made it far easier for Darren to read the subtle changes in the lizard man’s expression. He met Sobek’s eyes and sensed the mind behind them harden. For a moment, he thought Sobek was going to attach him then and there.

Darren took the headdress off, reverting to his human form. The tension in the air evaporated as soon as Sobek was once against the most handsome crocodile man in the room, and the female crocodile’s swimming in the swamp around them went back to doing whatever they’d been doing moments before.

“Now, about that Spirit Origin Stone?” Darren asked.

Sobek nodded his head twice in quick succession. “It’s this way. Follow. Astarte, put this on so I don’t have to look at your hideous mammalian form while we walk.”

Astarte shifted back from her crocodile form to her human form and then put the Blessed Nemes of the crocodile on to turn into a crocodile woman, much like Sobek. The humanoid lizard forms were much better at walking than the natural quadruped form of a normal lizard, and she hurried to cling close to Sobek as he walked. Darren followed from close behind.

The hairs on the back of Darren’s neck stood on end, and all of his senses were tuned to their fullest. The fact that he had multiple ways to resurrect himself after death did a lot to ease his nerves as he followed the crocodile god to the item he so desperately needed.

“The Spirit Origin Stone shines down and brings light to the mortals of Marsa,” Sobek explained. “To them, it is a second moon. Losing it will be an ill omen.”

“There are other ways to light city streets at night,” Darren said. It wouldn’t be hard for him to craft something to that end. He had plenty of the glowing skulls demons used to light up the darkness on the deeper layers of the Seven Hells. They still worked after purifying them, and after evolving them too, they’d probably get considerably brighter.

But Sobek didn’t seem interested when Darren made the offer to replace the light at a later date.

“No, it’s fine...” Sobek muttered, eyes ahead. “We’re nearly there.”

The swamp they were walking through abruptly turned to polished marble tiles. It was like there was an invisible line in the earth where one area came to an end and the other began. Sobek stepped over that line, leaving a trail of mud and leaves in his wake. Astarte followed close behind, and Darren came shortly thereafter.

“Your pantheon’s main hall?” Darren asked.

Sobek murmured a wordless noise of agreement. “It’s up ahead.”

A shrine in the style of Marsa’s architecture stood within the wide marble-floored chamber, and Darren saw bright white light emanating beyond the doorway. It was the same color and shade of the light he saw from the base of the ziggurat back in Marsa.

“That’s it?” Darren asked. He found it strange to be the talkative one in a conversation, but Sobek had turned awfully tight-lipped. Darren didn’t like it.

Sobek nodded. “Take it.”

Darren stepped into the shrine. The Spirit Origin Stone hovered in the center of the shrine, emanating light in all directions, including through dimensions and into the mortal world. The light was blindingly bright, so much so that it looked almost like a sun standing here in person. Darren had to squint just to see it.

Beneath all the light and the waves of magical power emanating from the stone, he sensed a blue crystal filled with potential. This certainly felt like a powerful magical artifact. But was it what he was looking for?

Absolute Analysis: Item Analysis

Spirit Origin Stone (Legendary)

Once the heart of a Realmbeast, this Spirit Origin Stone possesses an intimate connection to its surrounding space. Used in conjunction with other items, it can draw on that power to greatly enhance all magical effects within a domain.

Darren laid hands on the Spirit Origin Stone. This was a legendary item. Even now, he didn’t have many of such quality. He was surprised Sobek had parted with it for anything less than another legendary item. A mythic sword, a mythic item, and a few barrels of fountain of youth water shouldn’t have been enough to purchase such a thing.

But Darren reminded himself he wasn’t home yet. He put the Spirit Origin Stone in his Inventory, and the brilliant light winked out. He stood a few moments inside the empty shrine, waiting and listening. There was silence outside.

He emerged and saw Sobek standing there with his arms crossed.

“Follow,” Sobek said. “The exit is this way.”

Darren couldn’t help but notice that Astarte was nowhere to be seen.

“I can show myself out,” Darren replied. He remembered where the exit in Sobek’s domain was, but Darren had a much simpler way of getting out of here. He could just cut open Dimensional Rifts until one of them led back to Marsa. That would be the fastest and easiest way out of here. Since this pocket dimension didn’t have multiple layers like the Seven Heavens and the Seven Hells, it would likely be much easier to escape.

“No, this way is faster.” Sobek gestured for Darren to follow him. Reluctantly, Darren did so. But then he sensed another presence lurking behind him.

He discreetly reached out with a Divine Aura tendril. Hiding it in the gaps between the tiles was difficult, but he had a lot of practice concealing his glowing strands of light in the darkness of the Seven Hells. Concealing them against the floors of this brightly lit marble hall was easy by comparison.

He’d hoped to sense Astarte spying on them from afar. In his best-case scenario, she was just putting some distance between herself and Darren.

But the person he found wasn’t Astarte. He was even taller than Darren himself. His body was covered in fur, and he had a head of a lion, whereas Sobek had the head of a crocodile. And from the looks of him, he thought he was sneaking up on Darren.

If Darren had any lingering hopes that he was going to get out of here peacefully, those hopes were gone now. He was going to have to fight.

He would have a moment to act so long as he did so before the lion man struck. They expected to have the element of surprise on their side, but if Darren acted first, he could take that for himself.

So that was what he did. Wasting not a moment longer, he pulled Melancholy into his hand and flung. He swept his sword through the air and activated Dimensional Rift. The cut opened a vertical tear in space, and through that tear, he spotted a patch of rocky ground overlooking the water adjacent to the city. There were even a few ships in the process of setting anchor, and a few sailors looked up at the hole in the sky that had appeared above him.

That was good enough, and Darren jumped through.

“He’s getting away!” Darren heard Astarte yell from behind him. He would have been content to let her live if she’d just minded her own business, but if she was going to stir trouble for him with the gods of Marsa, he would need to deal with her eventually.

And Darren was never one to put off for tomorrow what could be done today. He activated Fists of Peace, and they wrapped hands around Astarte’s crocodile form, dragging her through the rift behind Darren.

Astarte’s eyes went wide when she realized she was falling and no longer had Sobek to hide behind. Her fingernails lengthened into claws. In her crocodile form, they were far more reptilian than before.

But they did nothing against Melancholy’s edge. He cleaved straight through her claws and then through her hand behind them. Astarte glanced at her wound and barely even had time to register it before Melancholy was coming for her head.

She ducked out of the way just in time, but her fate was already sealed. Darren’s powers had grown by leaps and bounds since they’d last fought, as had Melancholy’s. Against a demon of the Fifth Order, Darren and his sword were their true bane. Already, the wounds he’d given her were festering and growing. They spread up her arm and to her torso in sickly black and purple veins. Melancholy’s power was tearing Astarte apart at the seams.

She closed her eyes, giving in to the destruction. She couldn’t survive this fight, so she planned to get away the same way she’d escaped him the last time. Her body dispersed into motes of black light, scattering in all directions. But this time, Darren was ready for her. He produced one of the eggs he’d stolen from Kalaziel’s subordinates and held it out. Just like during Kalaziel’s fight with Asmoth’Koteth, Astarte’s Demonic Aura swirled inward and was absorbed by the device. This time, not a single mote of blackness escaped.

Defeated for good this time, Darren stuffed Astarte’s soul into his Inventory. Though the fight had taken moments, he could sense Sobek and that lion god close behind him.

While Darren had to fight Astarte, he wanted to avoid fighting any of the gods of Marsa. He didn’t have bonuses against them like he did against demons, so victory wouldn’t be so certain, especially when facing more than one. Once he’d done so and dealt with Kalaziel, he could take care of any trouble left behind in his work. He unveiled both pairs of his wings just before he struck the water, bringing himself to an abrupt stop. A moment later, he was running across the water’s surface to pick up speed. Once he did so, he’d take flight and head north, back to the Sacred Seas.

Or at least, that had been the plan.

Sobek and the lion man sneaking up behind him didn’t look like the type of god adept at flight. Darren couldn’t really imagine a winged crocodile, and lions typically didn’t fly. They might have items or abilities that would let them take to the air, but neither of them should have been adept enough to keep up with Darren.

Unfortunately, fortune was not on Darren’s side. A second tear opened up just ahead of Darren, and from it flew a man with giant brown wings. They were nothing like the brilliant white and metallic wings of a seraph. These had a hawk-like bestial feeling to them, made all the greater by the bird head adorning the man’s head where a human face should have been.

Darren reached out to feel him and cursed when he realized the bird man was at the sixth order. That meant he was probably another god of Marsa, and this would be one that he wouldn’t be able to lose through flight.

The bird god darted forward, covering ground twice as fast as Darren was. He might be able to fight the bird god off, but to do so would take more than enough time for Sobek and the lion man to arrive. He needed to lose this bird.

Darren turned to the water beneath his feet. He hoped all his training for underwater fighting was about to pay off.

He came to an abrupt stop, and the surface tension that let him run over the surface of the water gave way. He sank downward like a missile, kicking his legs to speed the process. The bird hovered overhead, circling like a bird of prey looking for fish.

Darren swam ever deeper. The light faded away around him, but he could make light of his own with his Divine Energy Projections. Soon, the sea floor was in sight. He set foot upon it and did his best to run along the surface. Doing so felt like running in slow motion compared to walking on land. He had to shove a huge amount of water aside to run at anywhere approaching the speeds he was used to, and he knew from experience that doing so without precautions would cause a tidal wave on the surface that would tell the gods of Marsa exactly where he was.

He’d trained for this exact situation in the Blackwind Empire though. He shaped a teardrop of Divine Energy around him, reinforcing it to hold against the weight of the water around him. He filled it with air from his Inventory, making a little bubble for himself inside it as his legs stuck out underneath it and helped him race along the sea floor.

Fish scattered in every direction as a giant, golden glowing Darren-shaped fish raced past them at tremendous speeds. A shark came by to investigate, only to be battered aside as Darren ran forward without bothering to swerve. The blood in the water from the blow attracted the attention of other sharks, and soon there was a swarm of them tearing chunks out of the wounded predatory fish.

He wasn’t sure how far he traveled racing along the depths of the sea, but it wasn’t nearly far enough to get clear. He knew this when he sensed another presence approaching him, and this was no fish.

It had the head of a shark, full of jagged pointed teeth and snarling maw. But that blended smoothly into the torso of a tan-skinned man wielding a trident. He pointed his empty hand at Darren in accusation.

No words came out, though Darren wasn’t sure if that was because he had the head of a shark or because he was trying to talk underwater. But whatever the explanation, he was pretty sure this was another god of Marsa coming to stop him.

He’d underestimated Sobek and Astarte. He thought they would rally perhaps one other god, maybe two. But from the looks of things, they planned on bringing their whole pantheon down on Darren.

He enlarged the Divine Energy Construct around himself and pumped in more air from his Inventory. He rose abruptly, returning to the surface at great speeds as the water pressed in around him. He burst forth with his wings already on his back again and took flight, leaving the shark man behind.

Sobek and the lion god he’d sensed were nowhere in sight, but the eagle was right above him. Darren grimaced. They must have some way to communicate. Neither sea nor air would be a haven for him, so he headed for land. While he bet the eagle could outrace him on the wing, he was pretty quick on his feet, and they’d be hard-pressed to chase him once they ran past the desert.

He made his way to shore while the eagle god circled around to cut him off. Perhaps the eagle got too used to Darren simply running away, or perhaps he’d heard from Astarte that he was only at the Fifth Order. But now the eagle god was far from his friends and trying to block Darren’s path on his own. He drew Melancholy.

Ashe shot out a bar of brilliant white energy as thick as Darren’s arm but with enough force to cleave the top off a mountain. The eagle god crossed his arms over his chest, thinking he could block the attack. The beam punched right through his arm and took a chunk out of his chest.

The eagle god squawked like a bird in both shock and pain. But Darren pressed the assault. Before he could fall out of the air, Darren brought Melancholy down on the eagle’s head.

A gust of wind rose up to stop him, but Darren battered the weak and frightened blow aside as he went for the eagle god’s throat. The belt around the god’s waist glowed, enveloping him in a shield that stopped the attack.

But Darren had never expected to put the eagle god down with that sword. The moment of distraction was all it took for him to form chains of Divine Aura using his Divine Energy Construct ability. They wrapped around the eagle god, dragging him under the waves as his Fists of Peace skill tugged on the chains.

The eagle god kicked and screeched, but a heartbeat later, he disappeared beneath the water. That probably wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but Darren was certain it would slow him down long enough for him to put some distance between him and the gods of Marsa.

***

He flew as quickly as he could, putting the city far to his rear. He was headed north initially, back to the Blackwind Empire. But in the distance behind him, he could sense several gods still in chase. The eagle god was with them, but battered and wounded as he was, he wasn’t racing ahead of the others.

Why were these gods so angry? He’d traded for the Spirit Origin Stone in good faith. They were the ones who had picked a fight with him.

Darren was beginning to suspect that perhaps Sobek didn’t have the right to sell him the stone after all.

But looking back at them, he was pretty certain they weren’t in the mood to negotiate. The eagle god in particular was staring at him with a look that would have killed a mouse with a single glance. There was no way they were going to be talking through this.

So he turned left. He didn’t want to lead the gods of Marsa into the Blackwind Empire. If this had happened months ago, he would have done so without hesitation and made these gods the Prime Saints’ problem. The eagle wasn’t all that strong, and he wagered Synthia would have been able to take him down with a few well-placed arrows, let alone someone like Kalaziel. But the Prime Saints of the Seven Heavens were nowhere near their full strength. He couldn’t rely on them to do much of anything, and he doubted he could trick these demons into flying to the depths of hell on a visit to see Laura.

That meant if he returned home, he would have to deal with them himself, and they’d destroy half the Blackwind Empire in the fighting. No, that wouldn’t be any good. He needed to lose them before returning to the Sacred Seas.

So Darren headed East. There was supposed to be a lot of wilderness in that direction, so it would be a good place to lose his pursuers.

He turned, and the gods of Marsa followed close behind in hot pursuit. With the eagle god wounded, Darren thought they would lose sight of him. Anywhere in the Sacred Seas he probably would have succeeded, but the deserts surrounding Marsa anywhere except by the coast made that far more difficult. The land was barren and empty as far as the eye could see, and a few sand dunes wouldn’t be enough to hide behind.

But the deserts didn’t stretch forever, and before long, Darren sensed them growing thin up ahead as the desert gave way to rocks that grew larger and larger until he was headed straight for the base of a mountain range. He recognized these mountains though he’d always seen them from the other side before. They were the enormous mountains to Limedeep’s southern border. He’d wondered about what lay beyond them more than once.

He bobbed and weaved through the mountain peaks, hoping the gods of Marsa would finally give up, but they continued their pursuit. He was putting distance between himself and them, but every time he grew too far away, they pulled out an item that let them jump ahead by a few dozen of miles and close the distance with him again.

The pursuit was starting to grow truly frustrating, and Darren was growing increasingly fearful that he was going to have to truly fight them off. That would be difficult, and even with his Pheonix’s Blessing, he’d probably lose this body.

But all in all, he was fairly calm. The gods of Marsa would be a tough foe, but he almost looked forward to the challenge. He’d outwitted them so far. Fighting them as well would be an even greater test of his skills. Perhaps it would be worth dying just for the challenge.

At least, that was what he was thinking until the mountain he was peeking out from behind turned to look at him. An enormous and extremely powerful presence washed over the entire area. It seemed fate had other plans for him.