Chapter 311 - The First Cage (Patreon)

“So,” Zeke said, approaching the chained box. “How is this supposed to work?”

“Clearly, you have some notion,” said Eveline in a haughty tone. Or perhaps that was just her voice.

“Smash it with my hammer?” Zeke suggested.

Eveline rolled her eyes and let out a dramatic sigh. “I can already tell this is going to be an annoying journey for me,” she said. “No. You do not smash the indestructible chains with your hammer.”

“Okay, then – that’s kind of my go-to,” he said. “So, I’m going to need a bit more information. Like – why me? Probably should have asked that before I signed the contract, I guess.”

“Most would have.”

“Fine – so? What’s the answer? Why me instead of the thousands of demons running around down below?” Zeke asked. “What’s special about me?”

“Can you truly not guess?” she asked. “Must everything be spelled out for you in plain…English?”

“You don’t even know what English is,” Zeke countered, recognizing her brief hesitation for what it was. He wasn’t sure if she’d simply skimmed the word from his mind – a horrifying prospect – or if she had a similar translation construct that had been provided by the Framework. Either way, it was clear that she didn’t know the meaning of the word.

So, in typical fashion, she simply ignored the comment and said, “You are unique. You must know that,” the child-like demon stated. “Half demon, half human.  And with an attunement to boot. If there’s anyone else like you on this plane, I would be incredibly surprised.”

“I’m a special snowflake alright,” Zeke said. “So? Why does that change anything?”

She sighed. “You really have no idea what being a…cambion means,” was her response. “You straddle the line between both worlds, without the weaknesses of either race. You can come and go as you please, unaffected by the corruption in this realm, but independent of it as well. You are untethered. Truly free of the Great Oppressor’s shackles. You have –”

“The Great Oppressor – you’ve said that before,” Zeke interrupted. “What does that mean? Is that the Framework?”

“The Framework is a tool,” Eveline stated. “A system by which we are controlled and guided.”

“And this Oppressor?”

“You would call it God,” Eveline answered. “An unknowable being with unfathomable power who has pitted us against one another in an endless and pointless war. We must fight because that is what the Framework forces upon us. And God? It created the Framework.”

“But demons are vicious, uncaring monsters who –”

It was Eveline’s turn to interrupt. “We are what the Framework has made of us,” she said. “When I was mortal, I was…a normal woman. Innocent. That innocence was tarnished by a few chaotic events that drove me into committing what the Framework considered evil deeds. And from then on, my fate was sealed. I was reborn in Mal’araxis, tortured until the very essence of who I was transformed, and then sent out into a world populated by unimaginable horror. How could I survive but by embracing the horror? I did what I had to do, just as the Framework intended. The Great Oppressor set the stage. It is no great mystery that we became monsters.”

Before, Zeke might have dismissed her claims as mere justifications for evil deeds, but he’d experienced some small sliver of the life she must have lived. He’d been tortured to the point where his race had evolved, and the only reason he’d escaped was because Oberon had intervened. But for the dwarf’s involvement, Zeke might have ended up one of the mindless demons he’d so casually slain.

Or worse – like one of the more advanced demons he’d fought.

Eveline turned away, staring up at the fiery sky. “For centuries, I played my part,” she said. “Living the life…assigned to me. The more I power I gathered, the less I saw the point. So, I rebelled. I refused to follow that path. And when I couldn’t stand up to the consequences of that choice, I was imprisoned. I have been here ever since. Years. Decades. Centuries. I have no idea how much time has passed. But never once have I regretted my decisions. I will not be corralled. I will not be forced into a role I did not choose for myself.”

The last, she said with a vehemence Zeke had yet to see from her. In that moment, he realized just how outclassed he really was. Eveline was a demon, and one with enough power that her enemies had chosen to imprison rather than kill her. Even if everything else she’d said was a lie, that much was clear. If – no, when – she turned on Zeke, he would have no chance of fighting back.

“I have no quarrel with you,” Eveline stated, turning back to face him. She held out her hands. “We needn’t be enemies. In fact, that contract we both signed says we’re allies, if temporary ones. So, you don’t have to fear me. Do what you’ve agreed to do, and we will both win.”

It didn’t matter. The agreement was sealed, and as far as Zeke knew, there was no way to get around it. That was the point of a Framework-enforced contract. Still, that knowledge didn’t exactly make him feel better about his situation.

“But to answer your initial question, freeing me without the key requires the power of both worlds,” Eveline said. “You are uniquely suited to do just that.”

“And how do I do that?” Zeke asked.

A smile spread across her face, and she asked, “How much have you explored your natural gifts?”

“Very little,” Zeke admitted, guessing that she was referring to his racial abilities. He used his ability to manipulate his weight often enough, mostly because it assisted his preferred fighting style, but imbuing his attacks with soul-flaying energy had always felt wrong to him. Likely, that was a remnant of having such an ability turned on him by the succubus who’d tortured him, but even knowing that didn’t make using his own version any easier.

“That has to change,” she said. “These are the weakest bindings, and breaking them will only require a smidgen of demonic power. But the next cage will be sturdier, and the next after that even more so. The closer we get to the Spear of Dominance, the stronger you will have to be.”

“I don’t level quickly,” Zeke said. “Just so you know.”

Indeed, he’d gotten quite a boost by killing the golems, but that had been a special circumstance that he knew could not be repeated. The rest of his journey through the Eternal Realm would follow a long, arduous path.

“I do not refer to levels,” Eveline said. “I am speaking of control. To break the chains, you must utilize your dual nature by braiding the Gift with your attunement, creating something that is more than the sum of its parts. It is the only way.”

“Gift?”

“The demonic power to cause pain,” she said. “It is the natural version of Soulflay, and it is a Gift received by all demonkind upon their rebirth.”

“Doesn’t feel like a Gift,” Zeke muttered.

“That’s because you never completed your transition,” she said, stepping forward until she was only a few inches away. Looking up at him, Eveline continued, “You never truly know someone until you see who they become under the effects of the Gift. And you certainly never know yourself until you have endured the exquisite agony of true, soul-deep pain. Without it, you are an untested, unenlightened animal, scuttling along in pursuit of the most basic form of survival.”

Zeke swallowed hard. If he’d forgotten that Eveline was a demon, her little monologue was a great reminder. What’s worse, Zeke agreed with her – at least to a certain degree. Comfort was, for a lot of people, their life’s goal, but for Zeke, it was an eternal enemy lurking just out of view and waiting to pounce. Even before his rebirth, he’d spent his entire life pushing himself to ignore pain, fatigue, and the monotony of constant training.

And since then? Nothing had changed except the stakes. Where before, failure meant losing a game, now, it meant pain and death. But in the depths of that struggle, Zeke had felt more alive than at any other time in his life. Either of them, really.

But more than that, he’d begun to look down on people who’d chosen to settle for comfort. Rationally, he knew that was unfair, that he was wrong to think of people in that way. Had that begun before or after his transition into a cambion? Or had that attitude existed even before his death?

“It was a part of you even before you were reborn,” Eveline said. “It’s why you were Chosen by one of the pretenders. That attitude drives you forward. It is your potential. The dogged pursuit of power is what separates you from everyone else. In you old world…Earth…it manifested in the mundane quest for success. By hitting…a ball with a club…curious, that. But here? The…stakes, as you say, were much higher. Demons have this same attitude, but it is completely untempered, even before our…”

“Torture.”

“That, yes,” she agreed. “That is what separates us. That is what the Oppressor uses to determine who goes where. Certainly, it is dressed up in deeds, but at its core, the decision comes down to nature. Demons pursue power at all costs. Angels mitigate that pursuit with selflessness.”

“Angels?”

“Our word for people like you,” she said. Then, she grinned, adding, “Well, not like you. A demonic angel? Who ever heard of such a thing. And yet, here we are.”

“I guess,” Zeke said, though he didn’t feel good about the explanation so far. He didn’t like what it said about him that she’d likened the core of his personality to something characteristic of demons.

“Don’t look so glum,” Eveline said. “As I’ve told you, the categorizations foisted upon us by the Oppressor via the Framework are not true judgements on who we are.”

“You just told me the exact opposite,” Zeke stated. “Isn’t judgement kind of God’s whole…thing?”

“It…is not the version of God you know,” Eveline replied. “It does not want what is best for us. It doesn’t seek peace or love or anything of the sort. Instead, it thrives on pure conflict. Good and evil. The others…the pretenders, they believe they are fighting a winnable war. I know the truth, though…”

“And what’s that?”

“That it is eternal,” she said. “Once one race is extinguished, another will take its place. And then another after that. On and on, one seed blooms while another tree dies. A neverending cycle of war and death. No winners. No losers. Just endless conflict.”

For a few seconds, Zeke remained silent as her words sank in. In some ways, her explanation was easy to believe, and the cynical side of his mind was easy to get onboard. That was only accentuated by the fact that Oberon had never explained the nature of the war in which he was supposed to fight. Nor had he spoken of what would happen if either side won. All he’d said was that it was a war that needed to be fought. Not won.

But on the other hand, Zeke didn’t like the idea of his entire existence boiling down to the whims of a God. He was his own person, and nobody could tell him who he was supposed to become.

Of course, Eveline’s word wasn’t precisely trustworthy. Because of one of the stipulations of the contract, she couldn’t outright deceive him. However, that didn’t preclude her from making claims based on her own skewed perspective. Certainly, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that she’d be a bit bitter about having been thrust into a world of demons rather than somewhere like the Radiant Isles.

So, Zeke would have to take her explanations with a grain of salt.

“We’re getting a little off course, here,” Zeke said. “You need to –”

“The truth makes you uncomfortable,” Eveline said, once again interrupting him. “That is understandable. It took centuries before I could accept it. In time, you will too. But you wish to…get on with it, I suppose. Also understandable. Follow my instructions, and perhaps we can make quick work of these chains.”

That prediction – or hope, perhaps – turned out to be completely inaccurate, and it took Zeke nearly two days before he fully grasped the concepts behind the process. After that, it was another day before he managed to braid the two powers – the so-called demonic Gift and his attuned energy – together. It only lasted an instant before the entire thing unraveled, but that brief success lit a fire beneath him, driving his efforts to fanaticism.

All the while, Eveline coached him through it. The problems were threefold. First, his attunement was almost untouchable within the demon realm, and it took incredible concentration to even grab hold of that tenuous connection. Once he did, wrangling the energy felt like wrestling a oily noodle, and it kept slipping out of his grip. By contrast, the Gift had the opposite problem. Embracing it was too easy, and the energy was quick to overwhelm everything else. So, keeping the two in balance presented a significant challenge that required Zeke to frame his mind in a very specific way.

The second issue came from the Gift. Embracing his demonic side forced Zeke to endure the effects of the corrupting atmosphere, which in turn pushed his aggression into a dominant position within his mind. Couple that with the difficult process before him, and it was a recipe for disaster. More than once, he’d found himself banging his hammer against the black chains in frustration.

When that happened, Eveline stepped in and mentally smothered his anger and frustration. Zeke wasn’t entirely comfortable with the intrusion, but even he had to admit that it was necessary. Without her efforts, the process would have been impossible to master.

Finally, the third issue came from his errant thoughts. The longer he spent in the demon realm, the more he worried that the rest of the world – and his obligations – were passing him by. Was Pudge okay? What about Talia? Tucker? Even Abby occupied a corner of his thoughts.

Then there were the kobolds. And Jasper. Eta. The other slaves he only knew in passing. Did he intend to save them all? In the beginning, he hadn’t. He had no obligation to any of them. However, his conversations with Eveline had sparked a need to act selflessly. To do something that established that he wasn’t the person she thought he was.

And over it all, the fiery sky loomed, bathing everything in flickering light. Soon, it would descend, and the realm would evolve into chaos. Eveline claimed she could protect his mind, but Zeke couldn’t help but wonder if she could even protect her own. She was a demon, after all. Didn’t that mean she would be just as affected as all the other denizens of Mal’canus?

So, with all that fighting against him, the process took far longer than it probably should have. Still, he persisted, and through sheer endurance, he finally achieved a result Eveline labeled as passable, adding that he would need to continue his practice if he had any hope of overcoming the other cages.

At last, with the technique hovering in his mind, Zeke pushed the simply braided powers into [Unleash Momentum] and swing his hammer at the huge, black lock. There wasn’t much force behind the blow – he hadn’t had the opportunity to store much momentum since his last usage – but that wasn’t important. All that mattered was the black-and-gold energy infesting the skill.

The moment Voromir’s head landed upon the lock, an explosion of sheer power erupted, sending an enormous shockwave across the plateau. The marble floor cracked and was stripped from its coral foundation, and the pergola disintegrated into splinters only to be washed away by the wave of force.

Zeke remained rooted in place, entirely unaffected by the power. In fact, he couldn’t have moved even if he’d wished it. Energy streamed out of him, completely out of his control. Eveline screamed in his mind, but he couldn’t understand her.

Sluggishly, his mind spun. He knew something was wrong. There was too much power, and it was far too uncontained. If it kept going, not only would the mountain of coral be destroyed, but his body would fare no better. He needed to control it. To force it…

Force.

That was the key.

Not the flavor of his Will – that was unimportant. Instead, the Will itself was the missing ingredient. The two powers – his attunement and the demonic Gift – were opposites in so many ways. But that wasn’t accurate, was it? They were just incompatible. Like oil and water. No – that wasn’t really true, either because it implied a relationship. Instead, there wasn’t even a foundation upon which to base a comparison.

But Will, it could act as a guide, just as it had with [Unleash Momentum]. The skill had once manifested as a simple explosion of force. However, he’d managed to direct it via an application of his Will. The same could be done with the power slowly ripping the world apart.

Or that was what he hoped.

If it didn’t work, Zeke had no idea what he would do. Probably, he would be killed.

With a surge of his mind, Zeke embraced his Will, and green energy joined the black-and-gold braid. At first, it was a diffuse cloud, but in an effort of determination, Zeke managed to force it to wrap around the warring powers. Then, with a shout, he clamped down, and as suddenly as it had begun, the explosion ceased to exist.

Gravel and splinters of black wood fell to the ground, and powdered coral clouded the air. But when Zeke looked down, the lock had been shattered.

So had he, and his body sported a thousand tiny wounds, but he was used to being battered and bloody, so his injuries were easily ignored. Reaching down, Zeke grabbed the remains of the lock and pulled it free. The heavy chains were next, ending up in his storage. A quick check of his quest told him that he’d been given credit for his quest, though just as Eveline had explained, he’d only gathered a sixth of the necessary black adamantite.

The moment the chains were free, the chest creaked and then opened. A black bolt of lightning emerged from the depths and raced toward Eveline, striking her directly in the chest. She flew onto her back – the first time she’d ever been affected by anything, so far as Zeke could remember – and he ran to her side.

Sure, she was a sliver of a demon’s soul, but she still looked like a child. And besides, she was supposed to be his ally, wasn’t she?

Before Zeke could reach her, though, she sat up and coughed. A black starburst pattern had appeared on her chest where the lightning had hit, and smoke wafted from her body. However, a broad smile decorated her cherubic face.

“Oh, that burns in all the right places,” she said. “I have to admit – I didn’t expect you to figure it out. But I’m happy to have been surprised.”