Chapter: 371 - The Familiar White Void (Patreon)

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Tala laughed maniacally as magics rained down upon her.

She stood, arms spread wide as those who feared her, fed her their power.

Her aura—empowered by the devourer bound to her will, her soul—splintered any remnant energies before drawing them into her stoneward core of power, while her very being consumed the material parts of any attack.

Her starward gate let forth a deluge of her own, pure power. Her deeply established, natural magics pulsed and flared as she methodically targeted each of those arrayed against her before crushing them to paste.

Before, when she was incomplete, she had struggled to match those of a greater advancement than herself.

Now, the stoneward core of power added more weight to her every action than a dozen Paragons could bring to bear. Soon, she’d be able to out-muscle a Sovereign.

Then, finally, she’d get some truly amazing meals.

Around her, the remnants of a city lay broken, toppled, and half consumed.

Her every flicker of power not devoted to crushing the Mages rising against her was directed toward amplifying the pull of surrounding things toward herself, drawing them in so that they could be devoured.

She didn’t require anything as crass as a mouth to do so. The material simply vanished as soon as any part of it touched her.

Yes. More.

There was one who opposed her—the wielder of the local City Stone—whose attacks she could not resist, so she simply shifted herself out of existence whenever one of those attacks came her way.

In the worst cases, Tala had to move herself before allowing her physical form to remanifest.

Inconvenient, but hardly relevant. Soon, she’d be able to overpower those magics as well, and then, the City Stone would just be more food for her.

Guards ran up to her with mundane weaponry or fired arrows or bolts from a distance. They didn’t matter.

Not even the highly tuned magic in the weaponry was able to undo her. Not anymore.

All was consumed.

All was devoured.

On a distant mountaintop, a purposely dormant man stirred, seemingly irritated that someone had disturbed his long-suffering anticipation.

A sovereign would soon—

+Nope!+

-Yeah, no.-

The world flashed white.

*  *  *

Tala was in the familiar white void for only a moment.

What was that?

-It seemed like an unholy abomination of your tendencies to… overachieve… directed towards devouring everything around you.-

The void vibrated as a storm of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and visualizations slammed through her mind, threatening to overwhelm her. In order to make sense of them, her consciousness compacted the storm down to their core meaning, and words came to Tala’s mind, DEVOURER OF ALL

What?

-Devourer of all. That’s what I got from it at least.-

Yes, Alat, thank you. But what does it mean?

-Fine. It seems a rather apt description of what we were doing in the vision.-

+Yeah… I did not like it.+

The white of the void swelled, overriding her and taking her into another vision.

*  *  *

Tala moved through her enemies striking with fist, foot, blade, and magic.

As she made space around herself, she would throw out her left hand, opening it to reveal a great mouth that was far too big to fit where it was housed.

The mouth simply didn’t exist when her hand was closed, but when it was opened…

Tala grinned hungrily.

As the mouth opened in a sort of reverse roar, everything before her, be it magic, material, or monster, was violently dragged in for her to devour.

It wasn’t a perfect devouring in that it was only drawing in from one direction. Moreover, she was locked in place while the mouth was drawing in her prey.

It didn’t matter, though.

She was strong enough to overcome the inconvenience.

Enemies came from the sides, trying to remove the arm on which the great fanged maw was anchored.

She fought them off with Flow and her own magics for as long as she could without moving before closing her hand, hiding the maw, and allowing herself to move once more.

A minute of quick work allowed her enough breathing room to reopen her hand and devour everything in another direction.

On and on the battle went, everything falling before her with a little time and effort.

Excellent.

+These are… weird.+

-And very similar…-

+Yeah… I say ‘No’ to this one as well.+

The white of the void swelled, overriding her and taking her out of the vision.

*  *  *

Tala grimaced, floating in the white void once more.

This is not very ideal. It seems like we’re working on a theme, here.

-It does indeed.-

The void vibrated and the storm of mental images and senses came again. Tala’s mind and enhancement magics once more distilled them down to words that came to Tala’s consciousness.

DEVOURER OF ALL

Tala sighed. This is going to take a while.

-So it would seem.-

Great…

*  *  *

The next dozen visions were all similar in that they depicted Tala as the central figure, devouring anything and everything around her with extreme prejudice.

To be fair, though, the methods and techniques involved in the consumption were varied.

Finally, in the last potential merging, Tala had had it.

These visions were not getting better, and she would never agree to anything like she was being shown.

Currently, the vision version of her was massive, corpulent, and basically sloshing over the landscape as she stuffed anything her many, many hands could reach into her perpetually gnashing mouths.

+ENOUGH!+

*  *  *

Tala floated, panting, in the white void.

NO. THIS ISN’T WORKING.

Emotion, a sense of self that was other washed through her, DEVOURER OF ALL

NO! We are not… Then, she understood, but that is you.

DEVOURER OF ALL. The storm seemed contented somehow, like it was pleased that she’d understood, finally.

But I am not. I am not devourer of all. So, we cannot be.

DEVOURER OF ALL? Even the question in the torrent of mental impressions was hard to understand, but Tala thought she was getting the hang of it.

She hesitated at the question, as it was, at long last, a change. NO. We don’t devour all. We devour what we want to devour, that which we can claim, the loss of which doesn’t harm those we care about.

DEVOURER OF…? The hanging implication made the mental images and sensations discordant and painful.

Tala felt almost compelled to finish the statement, Enemies! Resources to make us stronger.

She was scrambling; she didn’t know what to do.

-Kit showed us what she is. Show her us? Who we are? Who you are?-

That was an idea. Tala gathered up the thoughts, sensations, and memories that she felt represented her, and sent them to the other thing in the white void with her. Kit. The ‘thing’ is Kit.

There was a moment’s hesitation before Kit responded, RAVENOUS, JEALOUS DESIRE!

Tala sighed internally. No… wait—

Kit took Tala’s mental impressions that had represented her and meshed them with Kit’s own, RAVENOUS DEVOURER OF ALL!

No, no. Tala grimaced, fighting against the pounding within her own head. That’s going backwards. Not everyone is our enemy.

The sheer quantity of information flowing back and forth in every exchange was actively painful to Tala, even with her newly upgraded enhancement scripts.

She dumped more power into the enhancements, and that helped some. These are going to set much faster than usual…

Kit devours anything that it is able to… No… that isn’t true. That might have been how Kit started, but it isn’t true any longer.

Tala sent the conglomeration of her interactions with and feelings toward Kit.

It came back from Kit recontextualized and in the form of a question, DEFENDER OF…HOME?

Yes, that is how I see you.

NO! DEVOURER OF ALL!

Tala growled internally. No. She wracked her mind, trying to blend herself and Kit, Ravenous, jealous devourer of all who would oppose us or that which would make us stronger.

There was a long pause at that. The combination was clearly much, much too long.

Then, another wave of impressions and emotions struck Tala, RAVENOUS, JEALOUS DEVOURER.

Tala almost said no, but then considered it more deeply.

Jealousy implied that the thing in question was something, or somethings, that she had a right to.

Envy would have been the feeling that she should have, or a desire to have, that which belonged to another. So, it was good that they avoided that.

Jealousy, at its root, was the feeling that she had a right to what was hers.

Jealous actually fit her rather well.

-So does ravenous, if we’re being honest. You approach the possession and improvement of what you believe is yours with great hunger and voraciousness.-

That’s true.

-And devourer is just a step beyond desire. It is a statement that you use what is yours.-

More that I use up… I don’t like that implication.

-Not necessarily. You can devour a book, and the book is fine when the devouring is done.-

Tala hesitated. That was true, and so much of this was about mindset.

Alright, let’s see what we can do with that.

RAVENOUS, JEALOUS DEVOURER?

Ravenous, jealous devourer.

-Yay…-

*  *  *

Tala’s aura washed out across the landscape around her, carrying her iron spikes to drive into the ground and propel her aura ever onward.

Whenever there was anything of note, anything that might strengthen her, a small trapdoor opened beneath it, dropping the item or creature into her sanctum for processing.

Before her, Leshkin raged and fought unknown humans as Tala’s aura rolled over and around them, leaving the human fighters untouched while laying oppressive power down upon the plant-creatures.

With the might of her will and focused attention, she either claimed the creatures where they stood, or she distracted them enough to let the humans slay them, allowing her to claim their corpse after death.

It was a sweeping victory.

+Hey, this isn’t bad.+

-Yeah… it seems too good to be true.-

The battle was won without a single human casualty, the largest injury barely more than a scrape.

The Leshkin in this area were overcome.

She had achieved total victory.

The humans who had fought by her side were no longer assets.

Her aura was already spread across the surrounding plains, and so it was trivial to clamp down and claim their still living bodies, locking down their souls as she dropped the still live specimens into her sanctum one after another.

There, their bodies were broken down into their constituent parts, and their gates were locked into an ever-growing grid of power that constantly fed her advancement.

+Rust, I spoke too soon.+

-Just a bit, yeah. Moving on, then?-

+Yeah… but I’m so powerful like this…+

-…-

+...+

-Are you sure we haven’t been seeing options that are actually tempting to you?-

+Hush you. I don’t want to be fat.+

-That’s the one you object—!-

+Rejected!+

*  *  *

Tala was only in the white void for a moment before she growled out within her own mind, NO. We will not eat people.

She sent memories and senses from the times that she’d enjoyed being with her friends and colleagues.

We will not use people and then take from them what we want. We are better than that.

She sent the times that she had protected those around her, and they had gratefully accepted her help.

We will only take that which is ours by right.

She sent her claiming the iron in the blacksmith and the barrels that Master Cazor had provided. She shared the times she’d given things to Kit to devour.

We will defend ourselves, and take the spoils of those battles, but we will not harm those who mean us no harm.

Tala pushed along memories of conquering her foes and looting the remains, keeping some, and feeding Kit other parts.

After a moment’s hesitation, Kit responded, RAVENOUS, JEALOUS DEVOURER

Yes, ravenous, jealous devourer.

And Tala was overwhelmed once again, falling into another—hopefully the last—vision.

*  *  *

Tala was… herself.

She could detect no discernable change in herself, as the vision of her moved about her day.

As she came to an alley, Tala gestured and a door blossomed into existence, allowing her to step into Kit, into her sanctum.

The perspective of the vision stayed outside of Kit for a moment as the doorway vanished, leaving no evidence that Kit had anchored there.

Tala could see in the vision that the sanctum was still there, stoneward of the wall that had held the door into Kit.

+Oh, that’s amazing.+

-Isn’t it just? That makes it an almost impenetrable fallback point.-

The vision fuzzed, and Tala was suddenly in a battle, ducking and dodging around opponents.

With a thought, the Tala of the vision caused a ring of leather to appear out of nowhere. Within it, a portal into her sanctum manifested, no light coming from the inside.

It was a small opening, just large enough for what needed to pass through.

With an act of will, Tala changed the target of the gravity amplifications placed on her siege orbs waiting inside the hole that was tucked deep down in the foundation rock beneath her home within Kit.

Even as the orbs tore their way out, the connection—the portal—was already gone.

The speed of the whole action was such that from the beginning of Kit opening until all traces were gone took less than the intake of a sharp breath.

+Ooo…+

-Hush, you. Don’t rust it.-

The orbs devastated several of her opponents, even while Tala, herself, called Flow out of another very-temporary portal.

The weapon snapped into her hand even as she was already swinging to sever all those within reach who opposed her.

The vision shifted again, and Tala was fighting along with others.

Small openings into her sanctum appeared to drop weapons into their hands, or to allow them to throw broken weapons or shields away.

An archer’s quiver was filled between draws, a warrior’s hand found a new sword in his scabbard after his first one had been struck from numb fingers, and a wounded man suddenly fell out of the way of an incoming attack, drawn into the sanctum where a healer began patching him up immediately.

Tala was a one-woman logistical genius even as she tore across the battlefield with her own destructive might.

With her pervasive sight, she was able to keep all those fighting alongside her equipped and in the fight or remove them from the fight with efficiency and timing that kept them as safe as possible.

Throughout, she saw—highlighted in the vision—Kit consuming that which was unneeded.

Blood from the wounded within vanished before it could stain anything, and the stains that were already there slowly faded.

Tala started to get an odd mental picture of something lapping up the blood even as it left the wound, but she suppressed that with a shudder.

+Nope! I’m not conceptualizing that.+

Weapons broken beyond salvaging were devoured before they landed in the repair pile, and enemies that were dispatched were drawn in and consumed without delay or regard, only their most valuable parts finding their way to the treasure vaults in the sanctum’s depths.

The Tala of the vision never had want for magical power, but her every drop of magic that was not used for workings—other soulbonds or to push against her own density, increasing it—gushed into Kit, drawn by a ravenous need to keep all that which was theirs.

Her power was theirs.

It did not belong anywhere but with them.

To use it was fine, but to leak it was unacceptable.

And Kit was an endless reserve, taking everything with room to spare.

The artifact was so expanded by Tala’s advancement that Kit’s reserves of power seemed like an empty ocean being fed by a single spring.

But there was no desolation in that ravenous, jealous consumption.

Nothing was wasted.

Everything was used.

All had its place whether as a part of Tala’s kit or belonging to someone else.

That was fine.

There was enough that belonged to Tala to be getting on with.

There was enough that she could claim.

After all, even when Tala didn’t seek enemies to fight, they found her more often than not.

+Yes.+

-Oh, stars above, yes!-

Assent trembled through the vision, Tala’s mind, and her very soul.

YES.

The vision vanished in another saturation of white.

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