198: Strength of the Gods (Patreon)

Vir learned that a battle between god-entities was neither short nor simple. It was an epic, drawn-out affair.

The battle in the sky had raged for the better part of a day. If there were days in the Mahādi Realm. Which, of course, there weren’t, which only made the time feel longer to Vir.

The time had allowed him a nearly full recovery. The pranites had stitched his arms and legs back together after only a few hours, and after a couple more, he was walking again. Soreness remained, but at least he was back on his feet.

Also, the three surviving Ashfire wolves had rejoined him. Vir was elated to discover that the runt—their leader—was among them.

They’d moved to the top of a nearby roof to watch the fight unfold, and had been there ever since.

As for why Vir continued to stick around… The case inside the vault held two prana cores. The Yaksha guardian likewise had sources of power, leading Vir to believe that the Yaksha might have cannibalized those very cores. If it lost, there was a possibility that Vir could recover those cores.

The chances were slight; he knew. Wyrms tended to consume everything down to the tiniest bit, though from what Vir had seen, they consumed only organic matter. Would they want to eat the Yaksha? Could they?

Vir might not even have the chance to find out. The two were surprisingly evenly matched, with the Wyrm having the advantage of numbers, and the Yaksha invulnerability.

It was hard to tell from afar, but thus far, the Yaksha looked no worse for the wear from when it had started the fight. The Wyrm, on the other hand, was less than a third of its initially colossal size.

Still colossal, but less godlike. Cirayus might have reprimanded Vir for relying on wily tactics instead of confronting his enemy with his own strength, but hadn't the demon used similar tactics himself? It wasn't weakness... It was just being smart. He was sure Cirayus would agree.

Vir observed keenly, knowing that nothing came for free. Like Ashani, the Yaksha consumed energy from its prana cores.

It was a race against time. Would the Yaksha’s energy cores deplete before the Wyrm died? Or would the avian abomination win this battle of attrition?

Beams of red and blue blazed through the sky as the Wyrm was whittled down further and further.

Vir retreated to a more distant rooftop, barely keeping the combatants in sight. It helped that the Yaksha had grown, standing nearly forty paces in height, but at this distance, both looked like tiny specs. Vir didn’t dare linger any closer.

The battle that had raged unrelentingly suddenly came to a stop. The Yaksha slowed, and froze, its six blade arms freezing mid swing. It shrunk back down, out of sight. The Wyrm, now barely ten paces long, hobbled away. Victorious.

Notably, Vir hadn’t seen its constituent mini worms drop down to feed on the Yaksha’s corpse.

Vir waited ten full minutes, scanning the distant tower for any sign of the Yaksha’s signature, or any indication that the Wyrm might return.

There were none. The rooftop remained lifeless.

Hesitantly, he dropped down, approaching the building in which the vault sat. Vir scaled the outside with his wolves, leveraging handholds to Blink his way up.

His heart beat with excitement… and fear. What if the Yaksha was still alive, biding its time? It was foolish, Vir knew, to tempt fate. Especially knowing what he now knew of the guardian’s full potential.

And yet, would the Yaksha simply give up like that? After hours and hours of fighting? Why expend its precious energy?

A theory formed in Vir’s mind. He’d already suspected the guardian’s mind had broken over the years. How would such a being behave? What would it want?

Vir reached the roof, finding it pristine. The battle between the two gods hadn’t so much as left a scratch on the building.

The Yaksha stood stock-still, staring off into the distance with its eyes unfocused. To Vir, it looked undamaged. To Prana Vision, it was well and truly dead.

When the guardian had mimicked the form of the wolf earlier, it had masked its signature, but even then, it hadn’t been able to completely hide its twin hearts.

Now it was invisible, without even the faintest hint of prana, not even from its cores.

Vir carefully circled the guardian, ready to Blink away should it show even the faintest signs of life.

But even when he touched it, it remained unmoving. All three of its faces looked… content. Their serene expressions reminded Vir of how one might look when they passed on, if they left behind a life lived without regret.

Or if they’d finally found the release they’d so sought for so long.

It sounded so unlikely at first, but now Vir couldn’t say. Was it so outlandish for a guardian to go mad, having spent its entire life alone in this blighted wasteland? In the deepest part of the Ashen Realm, where prana poisoning was at its worst?

Vir recalled Ashani’s words. Ashani is affected, but in mysterious and esoteric ways.

He thought she’d just been playing around, but what if this was what prana poisoning did to Imperium Automatons?

What if it hadn’t been toying with me? What if…

What if it was yearning for someone to come along? To release it from its prison?

The guardian protected the vault. Vir was a clear threat—perhaps the only sapient being to venture there after Ashani had. It could not leave, and yet it could not die.

Vir pressed the cold metal plate on the Yaksha’s back. It hissed open with a puff of steam, revealing three black orbs. Empty cores.

He reached out slowly and grasped the first one, twisting it from its receptacle.

It was only when he removed the second core that he was sure.

It was trying to die. That’s why it didn’t kill me.

Perhaps that was why the Yaksha hadn’t vanquished the Wyrm, either. Whatever will it had left must have compelled it to fight, but had it dragged the fight on intentionally? All to drain its cores?

“Rest in peace, guardian,” Vir said softly. “You’ve served your purpose.”

He stood there a moment longer, wondering what its life must have been like. Four thousand years was an inconceivably long time to live. Patrolling that building its entire life in the darkness…

He looked around at the dead city. At the falling ash that now piled up on the Yaksha’s dead body.

Does Ashani feel the same?

Such a calamity had befallen her people. Such utter devastation. Vir now felt foolish for agonizing over his own issues. They seemed so trivial compared to the extinction of an entire people.

What did it matter if he took a few extra weeks to cross the Ash? What significance did human hatred for demons have next to an apocalypse of this scale?

Vir couldn’t say how exactly, but his experience here at Mahādi had changed him. Of that, he was certain. When he left, he would not return as the same person he had been. How could he? He’d seen too much. He’d seen how gods lived. And he’d witnessed their terrible fall.

How many years would humans need to construct something as advanced as the Yaksha? As Ashani? A thousand? Five? Ten?

Vir’s fingers tightened around the prana core in his hand. He had to save Ashani. She might have been the most precious being in all of the three realms.

“Let’s go.” Vir called to the wolves and jumped off the roof.

— —

Returning to Ashani’s home came with more relief and security than Vir had expected. Tension that had knotted itself up into balls came undone, and he breathed easily the moment he arrived back at familiar territory.

It was no wonder—he’d delved deep into the depths of hostile territory, after all. The land where monstrous demigods lurked.

His relief was short-lived. The wailing screech of a Wyrm in the distance prompted him to search the sky. It was the wyrm from the fight—the one that had nearly died.

Why’d it have to flee here, of all places? Vir thought, groaning.

Still, the wyrm was some distance away. It hadn’t noticed him. There was little he could do against such a beast other than hiding indoors.

“Thank you,” Vir said to the wolves, crouching down—mainly for the benefit of the smaller leader. “Thank you for guiding me. I… I’m sorry about what happened to your friends. I truly am.”

The wolves regarded him silently. He couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Were they judging him? Did they blame him for their brethren’s passing?

If they were merely Ash Wolves, Vir wouldn’t feel as bad. But these were obviously highly intelligent beings. And they were friends of Ashani’s.

“Their sacrifice was not in vain,” Vir said firmly. They had done their part. It was now on him to make good on those words.

Vir took the lift up to the door, then made his way down to Janak’s pristine white lab.

Three empty cores. Three chances to get it right. Ideally, he wanted to fill all three for Ashani, but knew he’d destroy at least one in the process. There was the issue of understanding why the core he’d filled had crumbled, but moreover, he needed a way of charging them even faster.

There was a risk there—what worked at a lower rate might stress the orb too much when pushed faster.

Vir was sure that the method he’d used to fill Ashani’s core was similar to how he used prana to power Talents. Until he’d learned Prana Channeling, which guided the prana carefully where it was needed, he’d simply thrown prana at the muscles in question, without fine tuning the exact amount that resulted in the most optimal result.

Three filled cores were a success, but two was Vir’s minimum. With another two cores, Ashani would have enough power to stay awake, even without her hibernation cycles.

That way, she could tour the realms with Vir, just as she wanted. He could fill her up whenever she ran low, but even if she spent years on her own, she wouldn’t run out with two cores.

He laid each core out in front of him, then took a deep breath and got to work.

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NOTE: That's all for this week! See everyone on Monday!

Btw, the $10 tier is now 40 chapters (2.5 months) ahead of RR, and will shift to a 4x a week cadence as preciously announced. Thank you again for all of your support.

Small edit note: I added a blurb to chapter 158 (see here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63958/ashborn-primordial/chapter/1313594/158-limited-progress) about how Vir survived the trip across the Ash as a baby. Pasting the relevant lines below:

“I suppose,”  Vir said, cracking a small grin. “Say, how did I survive the journey as a  baby? If I had this much difficulty now...”

“We carried  with us an Artifact that protected you. Some of the other demons did as well. The bracelets were heirlooms of your clan.”

“Sure would've been handy to have that,” Vir said.

“Aye. But not possible, I'm afraid. We couldn't risk such precious Artifacts falling  into the hands of humans. I sent them all back with one of your  retainers.”

“Well, I suppose I won't be needing it any longer. So, what now?”