Unwieldy (Fantasy & Hammers)

[Sarius]

Chapter 39: A Welcoming Smile, A Quiet Word

I nodded slowly at this God. It was an interesting gambit. To try and employ hope as a tool to drive the races of this world to survive against the oncoming war, it wasn't the easiest ploy.

"And how are you expecting to do that, exactly. It seems that the races did pretty well last time, all things considered." I said, feigning a nonchalant demeanour. The God smiled heartily at me; the warmness almost radiant.

"We of the Hearth Court have long since played the quiet game. We are Gods of hospitality, of safety," he extended one arm as a scale, "however, we are also Gods of silent politics and quiet conversation." The God extended his other hand, forming an equalized scale. He grinned at my raised eyebrow.

"So you are hidden daggers of sorts?" The God scrunched his face up in distaste.

"No, no. We aren't nearly so uncouth. Well, some of us are, but as a whole, no. What we are, is the largest and most powerful conglomeration of deific information brokers." His grin became radiant once again, filled with sly and cunning.

"So, you collect information by sneaking peeks on people around campfires and in your domains?"

"Precisely, young Maximilian!" He winked at me. He knew my name without me telling him. Great.

"So, if you are successful as information brokers, why is the Lord God of the Hearth Court here to speak to little old me?" The jovial innkeeper laughed merrily and made a show of 'thinking' about his answer.

"Well. Let's just say that some other Courts believe us to be too powerful to be a self-interested party. Other than the divine power we receive as payment for our efforts, of course." He smiled pleasantly, but if I could read anything from him, I could tell he was decidedly unhappy with that fact.

"The other Courts are effectively trying to hold down your power in fear that they wouldn't have a chance against you? Rather flattering." He chuckled dryly at that.

"I admit, it does sweeten the deal a little. However, it does not help when we see the worlds crumbling in front of us and we are powerless to do anything, lest the Courts themselves go to war." He looked dismayed, but it was more acting. He perked right back up soon after.

"So, you have chosen to involve yourself now? For what reason?"

"Why, it is as simple as it could be, young Champion. It is our domain." As he finished the word, I felt a strange alignment in the world that surrounded me, as if the world itself handed over its dominion to the God sitting in front of me, bowing at his feet and awaiting his order.

"You're intending to get personally involved?" The God scratched his full bearded chin at that.

"No, Gods are unable to truly effect the worlds. Influence? Yes." His sly grin returned to his face. He was an undeniably amusing God to be around, so bombastic in his intonation, hand gestures and faces, acting his way throughout the entire conversation. He was a social enigma incarnate, somehow being the person capable of making friends with anyone, hold a salient conversation with everyone and be the whole world's best friend. I just sighed, a bemused smile poorly hidden on my face.

"So, you have come to 'influence' me?" He grinned.

"Well, you certainly were a candidate. We were looking for Mayer, initially—even though he has already been 'claimed' as such." The large man winked at me conspiratorially, not elaborating on the interesting tidbit, "The man is a true war hero. He is well respected amongst the Courts. Even Arun is partial to him." The jolly God scoffed. Arun, the God of Death here. Wasn't he supposed to be impartial?

"He is, of course. He's a Death God. But he's still a living being, capable of just as much, if not more emotional variance than you or I. Though it is hard to win his trust." The smile on the God's face was beyond pleased with himself. I rolled my eyes.

"So you were looking for Mayer and ended up finding me along the way?" He nodded.

"I believe one of us found you during a conversation about goals," He smiled genuinely, "and you spoke words I wasn't sure that I'd hear a Champion ever speak. Some of the Champions are more inclined to protect, but you are far more inclined than the rest. It begs the question, are you even part of the same species?" The God's question was joking, but also holding enough truth in it that it worried me. If a God, Lord God even, found an observable difference between myself and the rest of the Champions, I couldn't help but worry if it was possible for me to relate to them at all.

"Regardless of the other Champions, your mindset has been unique so far, especially when dealing with the common folk. Your strides to ensure the safety of those in your employ, and even those that wronged you was unique in the fashion you approached it in. The letter was genius, by the way. That Jothian boy who attacked you is going to become an accomplished carpenter, it's quite the sight." The God nodded his head to his own assessments. Him knowing these strange tidbits was frankly unnerving. But I believe it just goes to show that the Hearth Court is capable of extensive research, even into the lives of those as small as the Jothians.

"So, I'm an interesting prospective? For what?" This prompted another round of thinking. Although the thinking was simply an act, I could take a small peek into the emotions of the God and see the whirlwind inside. He winked at me, knowing of my intrusion.

"To be truthful with you, you are the only prospective. We are effectively set on you. If you do not accept, then we will recede into the shadows of the divine realms and simply let what happens, happen." He smiled sadly, making it clear what option he would prefer I take. I waited for him to continue, and he sighed, scratching his balding head in what seemed like genuine awkwardness. Awkward and this God were almost two entirely different concepts.

"What we intend to give you is a Court Blessing." The mere mention of the blessing made the air shimmer around me, becoming strange; warm, inviting, pleasurable, safe. I realised it was but a taste of his domain. Just the mundane tip of the iceberg.

"I assume that is a big deal?" I said, acting nonplussed, but entirely failing. Even the God himself couldn't help but look… stricken.

"An incredibly big deal," he coughed into his fist and sighed, looking up to the stars, as if for guidance, "giving even a blessing is a large investment, from a single God. Blessings are usually given by lesser Gods inside of large courts, though Gods without a court sometimes do as well. Mostly so they can gain power for themselves. It comes at a high cost, effectively gambling divine energy with one of the races against the world itself." He paused to take in a large breath of fresh air, clearing himself of the nerves of what it seemed he was about to do.

"However, sometimes there is a blessing given by a major God, even a Lord God in exceedingly rare cases. They do this to create a direct link with their followers, maybe to reforge a church from the ground up if destroyed, to run a crusade or very rarely to handle a social issue. It is almost never done for the benefit of the races as a whole." Gloomy, I had to admit. Gods who care, but don't really care.

"So we have the power grabbing Gods, and we have large and already powerful Gods solidifying their own power within the world and managing it." He nodded heavily.

"And then we have Court Blessings…" he waited for the effect in the air to disappear, looking mildly annoyed, "they are in a totally different league than the rest. A Cour–" He looked up to the stars with an angry gaze, before returning to the conversation, "This sort of blessing," he waited for a moment and nodded contently, "is like going absolutely all in with a fortune that nothing but the greatest of empires can produce in their lifetime, in one single bet."

The jovial God that had initially greeted me was gone. Now, in front of me, was a man that was loading a six-shooter with three bullets, spinning the cylinder and cocking the gun. His immense seriousness was borderline oppressive.

"Why?" I asked simply. He smiled at me with immense sadness.

"It is the only hope we have. The only hope that the second war won't spell the doom of both the worlds and the divine realms alike." He shook his head with emotion and re-focusing on the task at hand.

"We intend to offer this blessing to you. We wish for you to, quite literally, become our living, mortal avatar." I knew it was coming, but I couldn't believe it. The God let me have my moment, intensely gazing into my own eyes. I could feel all of his emotions, and they were all resolute in their conviction.

"What do you want me to do with this power you are granting me?" I asked, the hesitancy leaking into my voice. He only smiled.

"Whatever you feel is right. We have been watching you for a long time now, Maximilian. I myself am the origin for those blessed as Soul-Seekers. You are not one of mine, nor even a close relative, but I can see your emotions just as well as you can, only that I have seen far more than you. I have lived through thousands of generations, looking for those that embodied what I am. You are a young prodigy of what I am, in essence. Almost a facsimile of values. Safety, hospitality, the quiet word, and the convincing smile. I may be a God, an old and powerful one at that, but we are more similar than you might think. The races always seem to forget that we are they and they are us."

I couldn't help but be a little shocked. To be compared so closely to a God, of all things, was frankly baffling. My mouth had dropped agape at some point, but I didn't have the willpower to close it. I was a God's gambit.

"What will you grant me?"

"A seed. A seed that will separate you from the God you are subject to. One that will wash your name as a Champion, and institute you into this world in truth. A seed that will bankrupt us." He smiled, gaining back some of his humour. I smiled weakly in return.

"I'll no longer be a Champion? Will that get rid of the powers I have?" The God shook his head.

"The powers you have are yours to keep. Only your God would be capable of undoing the physical transformation, and once you are bereft of his chains, he will be unable to affect you. You will, however, lose your link to him." I guess that means that I lose the stat numbers and achievements.

The stat system was rigid and uncaring for realistic progression. I received very little progression through practicing the Sharah, and only at a breakpoint in which I managed to shift was there a payout. I shared Ryan's suspicion that the stat system would stop being an ever flowing source of power and begin a decline into shackles that kept us weak enough for the god to bring us back, but powerful enough to destroy the worlds. I hadn't levelled, past the initial one I had received. It was true that it had potential to make me absurdly powerful, but how powerful?

More powerful than a divine seed, gifted to me by an entire court of Gods, willing to gamble their everything on me? Even though the 'everything' was completely abstract to me.

I don't remember much about the God that I presume was God. I'll blame it on the headache I had and total shellshock. But I remember one thing. He seemed self-serving. You could say that making a decision based on what I feel about a God that I know basically nothing about, and only half remember, is a bad idea, and you are totally right.

But what choice do I have?

Do I trust a God that I only met extremely briefly, and sent me to an entirely new world—enacting a war of catastrophic proportions for those that live there? Using those lands as a testing ground for what is tantamount to human nuclear missiles?

Or do I trust the God who sits right in front of me, offering me everything, doing almost everything but literally pleading with me use their power to save their worlds from my own people. People who, while smart, may cause civilisation ending damage to the worlds I now inhabit and will likely die in, someday.

Maybe I was right on the cusp of earning a new achievement that would truly shed light on how powerful and gracious the God I met so long ago is.

But I doubt it.

It's time to lock the door to the old world and throw away the key, no matter how painful. I muster all my bravery I can, in front of the most terrifying decision I will ever make. I raise my voice, shakier than I'd like, but surer than I'd hoped.

"I accept."


A/N: Oooh shit! I wonder how many of you saw that one coming?

 

[N156]

How come the main MC didn't ask just WHY they implement this 'Isekai' plan in the first place, or even why HIM personally been chosen?

Surely an MC that specialized/priorities in Social Intelligence would like to know before they got to the nitty-gritty?

Surely an 'Information Broker' Group of Gods would know and tell him, even if it just a Fuck Off kinda answer if it's forbidden for Champions to know

 

[Sarius]

How come the main MC didn't ask just WHY they implement this 'Isekai' plan in the first place, or even why HIM personally been chosen?

Surely an MC that specialized/priorities in Social Intelligence would like to know before they got to the nitty-gritty?

Surely an 'Information Broker' Group of Gods would know and tell him, even if it just a Fuck Off kinda answer if it's forbidden for Champions to know

Click to shrink...

I assume you're talking about why Earth's God does the isekai stuff. Plain and simple answer is that they don't understand it either and it smells like bullshit to them too. As far as anyone is aware, the only person to know God's plans is God himself. Though, just because the Hearth Court are information gatherers and brokers does not mean they know everything, or hold the most precious secrets. ;')

I believe that I explain more in the next chapter, but before I post it tomorrow I'll check it over and make sure it includes that information, because I definitely intended to include it. Though, fair warning, it may not be much more satisfying than this answer here haha.

Regardless, thanks for being a longtime reader man, its been great seeing your name pop up every now and then, and I hope you enjoy the story as it continues :'))

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 40: Brothers

The God smiled, relieved at my answer. Maybe it was because he was betting so much on the fact I'd say yes, or maybe he was truly interested in protecting the world as it is. However, this mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. The sentiment was almost unimportant when a Lord God was giving me free reign with his Court's power. The God stood a little straighter, his demeanour a little more official. Even before he began speaking the words, the world around me began to shudder with an intensity I had only felt the barest effect of. The intensity of those pure, emotions he had felt exemplified hundreds of times as the God opened his mouth, his eyes beginning to glow with the flame of the campfire.

"I Gallar, Lord God and First One of the Hearth Court, grant Maximilian Avenforth the Authority and Divine Seed of the Hearth Court, with all its members in concert agreement. With words spoken by only those of the First Ones, does this decree hold true, and our Divine Souls put at stake for the future of a mortal. I grant a Court Blessing!"

With those words, whose syllables individually created pulses of pure authority, everything within me changed.

It was with immediacy that I felt a cord being cut and knowing immediately that it was my only lifeline to go home. I had abandoned my home for what I felt was right and I was only beginning to mourn the loss when the next wave hit me.

Something was being forced directly into my soul, and I had no choice but to simply accept. Every moment that passed pushed the strange thing into my soul. I let the small object in, focussing on the acceptance of it as me, creating a spot within myself for it to exist. The words of Gallar's decree continued and, what I believed to be, the seed pressing itself into me, followed by a power that was quite undefinable to me.

It flowed into my soul like water into a pool, totally different from ether which seemed ever present. I felt it fortify my soul in a way that I was under the assumption was entirely impossible. The liquid metal that I view my soul as was reinforcing itself layer on layer, the pure power it was being offered made it reform itself into a protective casing of sorts, surrounding the seed.

It came as somewhat of a surprise to me that I was actually experiencing pain, in a detached sort of way. In fact, it was the worst sort of pain, one that seemingly cut through and defence you had against it, showing you how you truly mortal you were. I could only guess that this was an effect of my soul rapidly intaking this power and the seed at once, transforming itself to handle these things in concert.

The pain, however, was almost a freeing thing. It was like cutting away useless baggage off of yourself and transcending the need for a primitive body part. I started to get the impression that it was, quite literally, a divine ascension of sorts. My soul was becoming almost unrecognisable in its form and function, and even as the power it was being fed began to settle, my soul even felt like that of a different order. Like a highly advanced piece of technology given to a monkey.

The pain had stopped, but the rumbles of authority still surrounded me. It was authority over safety that radiated out of me, the flame of the fire seemed brighter and more comfortable as I sat near it now, my mind calmed by this visceral understanding that this was my place. My home.

I was truly home.

"Astounding. There has never been a Court Blessing granted let alone a Divine Seed, I had wondered if I would ever see it done." Gallar laughed heartily, and I did as well, a clear connection of kinship strengthening us, "Never, in my many millions of years, would I have thought that I would be the First One to grant it." The God, my God, extended his hand to me, glowing with a warm light. I grabbed it, feeling a link form between us on the highest possible level. An energy circulated between our souls, mutually singing in harmony.

"Welcome, brother, to being the first mortal God," he paused for a moment, enough to allow my face to scrunch together in confusion, "well, more like a Demigod at the moment really. You are little more than what you were just moments ago, but with the potential to be everything." His smile was warm, like an older brother greeting a new sibling into the world.

"You, my brother, are the first God to be created, and not born of lineage or of right. You are the only mortal to receive a Divine Seed. A being only theorised in the oldest tomes that our libraries have to offer. You are the only one, of any number of Gods, who is able to reach the heights of Godhood, and remain entirely in the mortal plane." He smiled, his satisfaction with the statement obvious.

"So, I'm a baby God now?" I said with eyebrow raised, a little amused to be honest. Gallar was quite ticked by that and he began giggling.

"I guess you could put it like that, though other High Gods would probably be upset by you not using the right terminology. Boors, the lot of 'em." He continued to chuckle for a moment until he turned to me, more seriousness leaking into his expression.

"I guess I should explain what you get from all of this kerfuffle. The Court Blessing effectively upgraded your soul to be capable to handling a divine seed, though only to a rudimentary extent. It will make it effectively impossible for anything but another Demigod level being to really do much to your soul, so no enslavement is going to happen any time soon." He grinned at the relief I felt, a worry dissipating, one that I hadn't even thought about before, "Other than that, you are basically the same as you were before with two major changes. Your Soul Hammer should be markedly different, and your ability to control a domain."

Changes to my hammer? The instant that I head those words come out of his mouth, I had a spike of worry. Quickly I summoned the thing, and sure enough, it was even bigger than before, and way heavier.

It had grown at least thirty percent bigger in most metrics, the silvery metal now slightly darker, and the wrapped leather of the handle slightly darker as well. However, the runes and engravings that once used to litter the shaft of the hammer and the axe's head and the spike on the back of the hammer. Now those engravings had deepened considerably, and a soft white energy ran through it.

"Ah, I guess that it makes sense that the divine energy would be visible on the weapon itself. That Soul Weapon is probably singlehandedly one of the most dangerous weapons in existence now. Divine weapons of any sort are incredibly rare. Though, good luck on wielding it." He took a look on my face, a mixture between awe and sour defeat, and just laughed heartily, patting me on the shoulder with his meaty hand.

"You'll figure it out, you are my brother now. We of the Hearth Court have always been good thinkers!" He smiled at me, a playful smile that was almost like a bet over a few drinks of who will black out first. I grinned at the subtext that was so in line with his–our domain.

"Wait, one second before we keep going on this train." I held a hand up to the amused God and he gestured for me to carry on. "What about the God from back home? Won't he be mad about this thing?" The moment I voiced the concern, it seemed a lot more legitimate, the anxiety momentarily coursing through me before Gallar's hand rested itself on my shoulder.

"No need to fear. I don't understand your world's God very well, nor do any others within the Divine Realm. We don't understand what he's trying to do, or even what he wants, but we do know that he hasn't cared about our God's blessing the Champions before, so I struggle to see why he would now." He grinned, and with a wink he moved on to the next topic on the roster within his mind.

"And finally, your domain. For now, you really only have safety as a concept in your domain. It's the simplest to bind to a domain by far. Call it out, you shouldn't have any trouble doing so." He was right, a simple thought and I distinctly felt the surroundings around me become gentler, purer of intention. I felt the domain of safety take priority in the intentions of the world inside of my aura.

"This aura of safety, while rudimentary for now, is incredibly useful. Those around you will feel safer, more secure. You will be able to understand them better while they are thinking straight in your aura. And, even though the Hearth Court is hardly combat focused, the safety domain will weaken an enemy's harmful intentions. When you grow powerful enough, you will be able to mediate a conversation between two courts of warring Gods." He grinned in a knowing way. A quiet word, and a hidden power.

It just goes to show how much power over politics and how much we take the Hearth for granted when it comes to civility. Did civilisation not start with those who are hungry and cold huddled around a fire? I smiled, gaining this strange underlying truth of the world was an odd experience. A lens that I could now view the world through.

"I see you are coming easily to terms with all of this. This is precisely why you were the only candidate. You are possibly the only person that is both capable and willing of being granted this sort of power. The only person we can trust with it in its entirety. And so, with that, it is time for me to go." He smiled and stood from his spot at the fire, his form being illuminated by the slowly dying campfire's light.

"Will I be able to meet you or someone else from the Hearth Court often?" Gallar shook his head sadly.

"The other Gods are… very suspicious of us. We had been hording divine energy for millennia, and they have their ways of keeping track of us, just as we have of them. If there is someone of my profile, or any of the others capable of truly appearing here, constantly making appearances in the mortal plane, then I fear we would bring great danger to you. However, keep an eye out, we will keep in contact in our small ways, brother." He smiled, in a way that warmed you to your very core, a true affection no matter how small.

"You keep yourself safe, Gallar. I will do my best down here." The God nodded, as if it were a foregone conclusion, and then walked into the campfire, disappearing into the warm heat of the coals.

It was in the moment that he left that the sounds of the outside world leaked back in. The soft hum of insects and various wildlife, the sound of wind rustling through the grass and the trees, and, quite amusingly, Alena's snores.

Those moments allowed me to think about what had transpired. A God had made me into a Demigod, tasking me with saving the worlds in truth, past my unrealistic expectations and pipe dreams. A God believed in my goal, so now it was a mission. A holy one, at that.

The heavy head of my hammer rested in the dirt near my feet, compressing it terribly. It was a lot heavier now. Before this 'upgrade' I was able to wield it with clever use of summoning and unsummoning as well as using the kinetic shifting to fill the gaps with attacks. Now that the hammer may as well be twice as heavy, I needed to relearn how to even use it properly. I sighed, wondering idly whether I should just use my hands as weapons for the fight against the forest wolves the day after next. I'd easily be strong enough, but it made me feel guilty that I wouldn't be using the hammer in my first real fight, other than against Mayer that one time.

While I was thinking to myself, there was the sound of rustling coming from the tent. After a moment, Rethi came out of the tent, looking relatively well rested for just a few hours of sleep.

"Up for your shift?" I asked, impressed that he was able to wake without me doing so. He nodded slowly, before noticing my hammer. He had seen the thing probably more than Mayer had in total, there was absolutely no way that it was possible to tell him it hadn't drastically changed.

"What happened to your hammer?" He said, with less of the respect than he usually put into his words when talking to me. I just chuckled.

"Well, Rethi. I met a God." His eyes brightened, but didn't seem surprised at all.

"A God! Wow, Master Max. What was that like?" I looked at him quizzically, a little amusement thrown in there for good measure.

"Not too shocked, are we?" The boy shrugged his muscled shoulders.

"I dunno, you're a Champion Master Max. A human from another world, who actually wants to do good. Why wouldn't a God come talk to you?" He had a point.

"Well, I'm not a 'true' Champion anymore," Rethi's face instantly became one of worry, "don't worry, I think I may have gotten the better end of the deal even still." Rethi's hesitant worry became one of sneaking excitement, and I just grinned.

"I'm a Demigod now, Rethi."

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 41: Right Hand

Rethi has basically been vibrating on his horse the entire day. Knowing that his 'Master' was a Demigod seemed to inflate his excitement and self-worth a thousand-fold. It was hilarious to see, though I think Alena had begun to believe that I'd drugged him with something. She had been giving him herbs and plants to eat for hours now. He would always idly eat them without a word, seemingly too focused on the fact that I was now a fledgling Demigod.

Apparently, according to Rethi anyway, Demigods were beings created by a God having a mortal lover. It did happen on occasion supposedly. Usually with someone who was not a priest, but a mortal that was entirely devoted. They had their legends, but they were old and any Demigods that once existed had either died in the first Champion War or gone into hiding. I had mentioned the fact that they could have died of old age, but Rethi just shrugged. It seemed that a Demigod dying of old age wasn't really all that likely.

If a Demigod had abilities anything like what I have, they probably didn't age much, if at all. That's if they actually existed in the way that Rethi said they did—which was doubtful in and of itself.

The day was pretty long, constantly feeling the need to monitor my soul. It was like receiving a transplanted hand and having to relearn the back of it. A strange thing, something so foreign, yet so truthfully yours. Just looking at the soul was enchanting in its own way, where my old soul I was able to visualise conceptually, generally as the metal that flowed out of my hand, but now when I closed my eyes and introspected, I was able to properly see my own soul.

It was like seeing an organ on a table and examining it. It was weird, but also enthralling to examine. It was manipulatable as well now, I was able to temporarily change its form, changing the flow of the divine energy that courses through and around it. How that would help me in future was totally over my head, but I could do it.

Sighing, I called a break for the last time today. The horses needed a good break or else they would slowly deteriorate until we effectively killed them with exhaustion, though they have been valiant companions throughout the journey.

Rethi had ended up naming his Darksteel, an obvious allusion to the steed's dark coat, intermixed with a silvery colour as well. Apparently dark steel was a mythical metal used generally for weapon making.

Alena had taken the liberty of naming my horse, mostly because it was really her horse now. I don't think I'd ever find that much use for a horse, unless I could find a special one, maybe a monster or divine horse. That'd be fun.

Anyway, the horse had been named Lily, the mare seemed pretty chuffed with the name.

As the two teenagers diligently took care of their companions, just at Mayer had enforced back before we had been sent on our little journey. It didn't take long for Alena to bustle on over towards me with a cross look on her face, leaving Rethi behind to absentmindedly pet his horse.

"What did you do to him!" She whisper-yelled. I was surprised at her restraint, honestly.

"Nothing like you're thinking. I don't even know why you'd think that I'd drug him with anything." I said, eyebrow raised and quickly sitting down on the ground cross legged. She did the same, staring right at me the entire time, trying to assert dominance.

"Then why does he look like he ate a kilogram of sugar?"

"Ah, well. In short, he got a promotion." She looked at me dumbfounded.

"What do you mean he got a promotion?" Incredulity leaking into her voice. I sighed.

"I'm going to be moving up in the world, and I'm going to need help. I'm going to make him my right-hand man." She looked flabbergasted.

"Right-hand– But he's just a kid!" She exclaimed, stumbling over her own words. I shrugged at her nonchalantly.

"Are you a kid?" I asked her. She hesitated.

"Yes?" Her eyebrows furrowed, unable to pick where I'm going with this.

"Well, it certainly isn't stopping you from doing everything that Rethi is currently doing," I laughed, her face losing a bit of its harshness, "besides, Rethi is possibly the most competent fourteen, almost fifteen year old I've ever met. Honestly, he could probably fight with the best of them. He was hand trained by Mayer. If I didn't have all sorts of wacky powers, he'd crush me ten out of ten times." I let that info sink into her for a few moments. I didn't even need to look into her eyes, I could see the struggle on her face, fighting between love and protection, and pride in someone she loves. I smiled at her gently.

"You still seriously underestimate just how powerful he really is." I get up from my spot on the ground and walk over to Rethi, coming close to Lily and giving her a good rub with my strength, something she thoroughly enjoyed. Me and Alena fight for her affection and she gets all the benefits.

"Oh Rethi." I said, rousing the boy from his stupor.

"Ah! Yes, how can I serve you, Master Maximilian." He said, his voice far more official than even the last time he had spoken to me around Alena, I just rolled my eyes.

"You've been out of it all day, and Alena has been feeding you herbs to reverse poisons. I understand that it's exciting for you to know that I'm a Demigod," the boy's face lit up again in excitement, "but, you need to act a little more human for me. I had to fib to your girlfriend so that she doesn't simply learn that I'm a Demigod." Rethi nodded furiously, trying his best to return to what looked slightly less out of it, but then his face scrunched in confusion, my last words finally processing though his excitement addled brain.

"What did you lie to her about?" He was suddenly very concerned, I just laughed.

"Nothing important. By the way, you've got a promotion. Congratulations on being my right-hand man." I stick out my hand, a goofy grin on my face. It took a moment before it registers, and then another second or two before a massive goofy grin spread on his face. He grabbed my hand and shook it as hard as he could.

"It'll be a pleasure." He said, his eyes alight with a whole new excitement. I laughed and yelled out to Alena that we were going to get back on the road. She nodded from afar and in minutes we were up and running again.

Alena seemed even more concerned about Rethi now, paradoxically. The entire time they were riding they were having a secretive conversation. Further and further into the day Rethi got frustrated multiple times, the whispering getting a little louder at points, the offending party always looking over to me to see if I had noticed.

Of course I noticed.

Soon enough It came to the part of the road that those that passed through these areas were talking about being dangerous, potentially where the forest wolves came out to play.

"Alright guys, enough secretive chatting, we are at the spot Mayer talked about. Let's backtrack for a while and set up for the night." The other two were momentarily shocked at being called out like that, then they quickly realised their surroundings, looking deep into the woods as if eyes would stare back.

Following me, we took it back a kilometre or two, and then moving out further into the fields than we had before, giving us more open space so we couldn't be surprised by something coming near us as easily.

The camp was set up routinely, everything in its proper place and order, and as night fell, I created a safe campfire that wasn't going to burn down the fields of grass and our tents during the night. The warmth of the fire was different tonight than it was the nights previous. Warmer, more fulfilling, the road rations were easting tasted better even. The novelty of eating was something I indulged in at least once a day, merely because the sensation was nice, rather than any actual benefit. But now, with me being a Hearth Demigod, a Blessed of the Hearth, whatever you wanted to call me, I felt a far stronger connection to the act of eating around a fire, like it was far more integral to me being now.

But even while the fire was warmer, I could feel a cold wind of discontent flowing over it. I extended my domain of safety and it soothed the discontent but did not stop it from existing. I gave it a few moments, then looked up, directly at Alena.

"Would you like to talk about anything?" I said, my tone neutral and warm. She was shocked by my initiation of the conversation, something that I hadn't bothered to do with her for a while.

"What do you mean?" She asked suspiciously. Rethi looked at me oddly as well.

"You are spending a lot of time talking about topics that are obviously sensitive with Rethi. I have a feeling that those topics involve me, and Rethi's involvement with me." I stated calmly and clearly. Her face grew red in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

"Of course I am!" She shouted.

"And why are you doing that?" I said, unperturbed entirely by her shouting.

"Because you are obviously taking advantage of him! He's only a kid! You can't just make him your right-hand man and call it good!" I looked to Rethi who deflated. He was clearly hurt by her words and how she disregarded his opinion and choice. However, I simply nodded towards her without any specific emotion on my face.

"I see. How do you believe that I am taking advantage of him?" She looked confused at my lack of fighting back but she allowed her anger to keep rolling.

"You force him to fight, to train to fight. You trained him to be this monstrous, brutal thing when he picks up a sword. You want to turn him into a sword slave!" Those words rang out over the fields like a gunshot. I, personally, was effectively unperturbed I had known her opinion of me for a long while.

However, for Rethi, this was something that he had never encountered before. Because I believe, as I looked at his heartbroken face, that he didn't know that the issue they were having was never really about me, it was about him and her relationship with who he wants to be.

I simply nodded at her words.

"I understand that you see it that wa–" I began to speak but my sentence was cut short by Alena.

"How could you possibly understand, you are a slaver–" I fixed her with a look that stopped her dead in her tracks. Not one of aggression, but extreme disappointment. I know, from simply looking into her eyes, that the expression was both not one that she expected, and one that hurt far more that one of anger.

"I understand that you are very passionate about this specific topic and that you love Rethi very much, but I will not accept anyone being talked over in this space. I let you speak, now I would like to speak. Is this understood?" My voice was flat and authoritative, nothing if not neutral. After a moment both Rethi and Alena nodded. I let the domain of safety I held within billow out, the strange and esoteric power covering the ground we sat on, calming those within and sharpening our minds while it eased our anxiety.

"Alena, I understand that you see Rethi's change as something negative, and I feel as if you are unsure if the boy you once knew as Rethi exists anymore," Rethi's eyes went wide, turning to look at his girlfriend in befuddlement as Alena simply looked down at the ground, "Alena, it is important to note, that the time in which you knew Rethi most, was when he had nothing and was entirely destitute with no reasonable way forwards. I gave him a chance at rising above what he once was, and he took it with both hands and pulled. He has done a miraculous job, becoming stronger in personality, body, and mind. He is nothing like the destitute, starved little boy that I asked to show me around town."

There was silence around the campfire. Alena was looking down at the ground and Rethi was looking at her, tears welling up in his eyes at the hurt. I could see little droplets falling to the ground underneath Alena's bowed head. I could feel that each word harmonised with what she felt, and that she was scared and worried and hopelessly in love. I smiled at her bowed form.

"But Alena. There are few things that haven't changed in Rethi. One is his drive to always do better, to reach for higher peaks," Rethi's cheeks reddened despite himself, "his devotion to his mother, despite her pushing him away," Alena let out a little sob, "his wild theories and obsession over long lost legends," that gained a snort out of both of them, even I laughed, "and finally, his love for you."

Alena looked up at me, her face red and warped into one of intense sadness, tears streaming from her eyes. And as our eyes met I understood. I fully understood the problem. I smiled gently to her as she spoke.

"I know! I know all that… But he's going to leave me behind. And then I have to worry if he's going to ever come back home to me, if he will come back scarred from some war he ran headlong into, or if he'll ascend into the history books, left to some place I can never find him." The sobs were heart wrenching, the window into her emotions. No, into her soul. Rethi was crying in earnest now, his eyes overflowing, and his arms extended, desperately seeking the body of she who he loves, but finding himself unable to wrap his arms around her, unable to truly dispute her words and telling her it's all going to be okay, and that he would never leave her. But he knew he'd be lying, and it hurt more than anything.

I simply smiled at the two young lovers, lost in their emotions.

"Whoever said that he would leave without you by his side?"


A/N: Happy new year!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 42: A Teaching Moment

The two teenage lovers looked at me quizzically, their emotions instantly becoming even more conflicted with a strange bourgeoning hope. I smiled at them, relaxed and uncomplicated in comparison.

"W– What do you mean?" Alena said, her voice wavering with the words. I put on a show of thinking about the words I was going to say and then turned to the two, face a mask of serious.

"I don't believe I ever said that I'd disallow any particular person from joining me on our travels. The only thing that they would need to display is their worth." Alena's face scrunched, eventually equalising to dismay.

"But what do I have to give? I don't have anything valuable–" I shook my head.

"Not what you have, but what you can provide." Alena's face reddened with anger.

"I don't have any of that either, unless you are speaking of bedtime 'duties'." Her expression was scathing, but I just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"You thinking that you do not have worth is frankly absurd," she recoiled slightly at that, confusion marring her face, "you are a life shifter, as well as someone at least rudimentarily trained in the sciences, including knowledge necessary for being an accomplished physician. These skills are incredibly valuable, far more valuable than what your father currently makes it seem to be by wasting his life away in this town of nothing."

"Skills I can't use because no-one would trust me to use them, and taboo shifting abilities that I would be killed on sight for!" Her voice continued to increase in volume, anger overtaking the overwhelming array of emotions. Rethi just looked dumbfounded, staring off into space with his eyebrows furrowed. I looked at Alena with a continually unimpressed expression.

"You are only devaluing yourself and your abilities here. I'm sure that you've tested your medical and shifting abilities in small animals and other specimen, likely at the behest of your father? At least to some degree?" She swallowed down a snarky line at seeing my unimpressed visage and just nodded. I nodded along as well, placing a hand on my chin.

"Then the solution to many, if not all of these problems, is to find a willing subject."

"A willing subject?" Alena shot to her feet, the anger radiating off of her in truth now, "Are you out of your mind? Who would willingly let me experiment on them and accidentally turn them into a monster?" I looked at her dryly, rolling my eyes all the while. I picked up a simple knife out of one of my many side pockets and stabbed myself in the arm, easily going all the way down to the bone.

Internally, however, I was telling my body to not regenerate, something I had worked out I could do in training when Mayer had relented the fact that I would never learn to truly fight with an injury. As almost a joke I had tried to resist the urge for my body to regenerate and I was wounded 'normally'. I don't understand why that would even be allowed, but this was a particularly unique situation where it was actually useful.

I pulled the sharp but common knife out of my flesh, carving a massive chunk out of my arm without even flinching, bleeding profusely from the wound that was staying stubbornly unregenerated.

"Oh gee, it seems that I suddenly have a massive wound that is not healing, in comparison to it normally regenerating in less than a few seconds. Who could possibly help me?" My tone was exceedingly dry, entirely monotone. The two teenagers looked to the self-inflicted wound, and then back to me over and over again. Alena specifically was extremely put out, glancing at the massive chunk of flesh that had fallen into the dirt. I sighed heavily.

"Alena, fix the goddamned arm." I growled, motivating her to snap out of her daze and rushing forward, grabbing a full waterskin from Rethi and quickly dumping the water on the wound, washing away some of the quickly drying blood so that she could see the wound better.

"I'm going to–" She started, looking up to me to explain what she was going to do, but I waved her away.

"Just do it." I said, my voice calm and devoid of the strain of pain. She looked at me, worried by the abruptness of the situation. She closed her eyes, placing her hands on my upper arm and my wrist, leaving the wound between the two hands. She gripped my arm tightly, probably tightly enough to cut of circulation relatively well if I were normal.

Suddenly, energy began to be pushed through the hand that was clasped around my wrist, flowing into my arm with haste that felt hurried and somewhat reckless. I could feel the energy burn through my arm, analysing and surveying its structure haphazardly before reaching the wound.

The energy began freaking out, desperately trying to fix the issue in any way that it could think of. Suddenly it started to draw on the reserves of my own energy which was, as far as I am aware, endless.

The flesh started growing exponentially, faster initially than what I usually regenerated at without pushing it, but as soon as the flesh filled back into the space that was missing, it began to overflow, massive tumours began to form on my arm, Alena's power still drawing on the energy within me to create more and more flesh on my arm. The tumours of fat, muscle, some bone, covered in various layers of skin.

I looked to Rethi, whose face had gone completely white with horror, and smiled.

"Can see why they call them Abomination Makers, huh?" His eyes turned to my smiling face with confusion, and then understanding, followed by a calm curiosity at the rapidly growing pile of tumours. It was an interesting sight to see, the mass growing bigger, slowly taking over my body. It was a curiosity case, really.

Alena opened her eyes and screamed, horror filling her completely. She took her arms off of mine, but it was too late, her own energy was still remaining in my arm, the process now having even less oversight. I realised that it had begun moving further up my arm, closer and closer to my chest.

I wasn't going to let it reach my chest and play around in there, that didn't sound like much fun. I swiftly grabbed my upper arm and yanked. With relative ease my arm, from my shoulder down, had been entirely ripped off. Alena's power went even more berserk, consuming the flesh of the arm to run its own processes due to not having my own energy to run on—eventually self-destructing and turning the remains of the arm into a blob of tumours.

Alena looked at me, horrified. She fell to the ground, too unsteady on her legs.

"Oh– Oh Gods, what have I done." But I didn't let her rest, pulling her up from her kneeling position.

"Be quiet and watch what happens next, Alena. Not everyone gets to see an arm regrow itself every day." I chuckled as her eyes went wide, watching as the bone itself regrew before her eyes, forming like a crystalline structure. The regeneration was normally extremely fast but if I could stop the process altogether, I could both slow it down and speed it up. I had become a master of doing all of these things. I even created a Sharah kata for it, where I would do moves that broke my bones to complete them, and then regenerate before the next step.

The ligaments came back next, bonding the bones together, allowing the bones to hang limply at my side. Next, the layers of muscle starter to come in, as well as the nerves and blood vessels. The nerves were always the worst when growing back, but I was well and truly used to the pain by now. The hand was forming simultaneously, the small bones all neatly fitting into place with a precise perfection.

In only another few seconds my entire arm and hand were fully formed once again.

"There you have it." I said, my voice nonchalant. Rethi looked on in amazement like every time Mayer had done that much damage to me. Rethi hadn't ever managed to entirely take off an entire arm before, though he had mangled my hands a few times.

Alena, however, was borderline shellshocked. Looking at my arm like it was black magic, and then looking down at the puddle of tumours at my feet.

"H– How did you even…" She trailed off, her mind wandering. I just smiled at her ultimately confused face.

"Sorry to break it to you, girly. You aren't the only special one in the world. There are quite a few more that are just like me, as well." I laughed at her shocked and also morbidly curious expression.

"You may not know how to use any of your abilities and skills right now, but what about if you met someone who is nigh unkillable, can heal from almost anything, has infinite energy reserves, and can deal with unimaginable pain like nothing?" I smiled gently at her.

"I am going to make you the greatest life shifter that has ever lived." Her eyes lit up like beacons. And for the first time since I've met her, the maelstrom of emotion that continually whirled through her stopped in its tracks, being entirely subsumed by one emotion.

Hesitant, oh so very hesitant, determination.

I patted her gently on the shoulder. Passing her by and moving into my tent.

"You two can take first shift tonight. Rethi, make sure that you are rested enough to go trapezing through the woods looking for a fight tomorrow." Rethi nodded, a shit eating grin returning to his face as he turned to his girlfriend, probably getting ready to rub in her face how shocked she was, and how he was right all along all that time.

Alena just looked stunned, the girl still trying to process all of the events of only past five or so minutes.

The hours passed in my tent, simply meditating like usual. Before long, Rethi moved into my tent and lightly tapped me on the shoulder before leaving, signalling the beginning of my shift.

I quietly moved outside, my eyes tracking the shadows through the trees, letting my brain be overtaken with the simple task of detecting predators and attacker. I certainly heard things from the woods, my senses sharp from doing similar tasks for thousands of hours. There were definitely wolves, and quite a few of them too. Maybe even multiple different packs.

But they were too close to the edge of the forest, they usually dwelled way further in, preying on smaller prey animals deeper in the heart of the forest. It worried me. It was becoming more and more apparent that there was something else in there, something that I'm sure that Mayer was aware of, but didn't tell us going into it.

I wasn't sure if it was something to be worried about, at my level of strength, but I was now pretty sure I didn't have much of an ability to wield my hammer, bringing down my ability to fight quite drastically.

I summoned the hammer from within me, forming rapidly in my hands before the head thumped into the ground. The soft white light that the runes glowed with illuminated the earth it was lodged in.

I stood and tried to pick up the hammer, struggling with all my might. It was basically pointless. No matter how hard I strained, the hammer wouldn't move enough to actually be a viable attack.

I managed, after a few seconds, to lift the thing to a point where I was able to swing the hammer down into the earth by just letting it fall, which got the head stuck deeply into the ground. I just sighed, looking intensely at the hammer, as if it would float up out of the ground for me.

An even heavier hammer wasn't something that was on my to-do list, and now that it had happened out of nowhere, I suddenly had to figure out how to wield the thing without spending thirty minutes on a single attack.

I unsummoned it and made an attacking motion, swinging like normal, and summoning the hammer into my hands on the way down, which worked, and was the most viable attacking method I had, but when it came down to it, it broke up the flow of the Sharah severely, which was terrible for my combat ability.

At the moment, it was looking more and more like I'd simply be using the hammer for massive attacks to kill something in one hit, and for everything else I'd just be punching them.

Good thing that I was just about as proficient as a pugilist than as a hammer wielder.

I started creating a new Sharah kata to accentuate the odd big hit from my hammer, along with the majority of punches, along with a kick or two. It flowed relatively smoothly but was nowhere near as efficient a kinetic shifting sentence structure, just a little off. It was like if someone was speaking in a second language with almost perfect grammar, but it was just bad enough to entirely break the illusion of their fluency.

It was heartbreaking to see all the work for the Sharah kata, created for usage with my hammer, to go to waste like it had.

If I could wield this new hammer, I was entirely certain that I would be many times more powerful, even with the access to raw kinetic potential at all.

But none of this mattered as I watched the sun creep out from behind Orisis as it slowly orbited Virsdis.

It was the dawn of a long day of battle.


A/N: Jeeze Max, wanna chill out with the whole 'tear off you whole-ass arm' thing?

 

[LokKi]

Learning lifeshifting is much more interesting than being just test subject, can he do that?

 

[Sarius]

Learning lifeshifting is much more interesting than being just test subject, can he do that?

Click to shrink...

It'd certainly be interesting, though there are a few reasons that Max can't really learn to life shift.

firstly, life shifting is a hereditary trait, one of the rare few that are almost exclusive to bloodlines, similar to the Soul-Seekers of old. Maximilian trying to learn life shifting could probably be equated to trying to surgically operate on someone without eyes.

Secondly, Max is kinda obsessed with the Sharah. When everyone else is sleeping, he is doing something related to the Sharah; thinking about it, performing it, theorising, etc. Doing the same with life shifting, compounded with the decrease in learning ability without having the necessary 'limb' for it would be a huge timesink, something that Max is coming to realise he has little of. Focusing on the Sharah and combat ability is Max's best bet, in his eyes.

Thirdly, Max isn't confident in his ability to learn to be what amounts to a practicing surgeon in what he believes is such a small timeframe, so instead, why not help cultivate the girl who has been preened to become both a classical surgeon, with the abilities of a life shifter? To Max, this seems like a way better time investment. Max can't be everywhere at once, doing everything at the same time, so having another set of helping hands is a massive boon--in theory, anyway.

Regardless, most of this will be answered in the story somewhere at some point, but thanks for taking an interest. I hope you've been enjoying the story, and that I'll see you around again sometime! : )

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 43: Slaughter

I had woken Rethi only an hour or two after the sun rose. The boy needed rest even if he was sturdy; if he went into battle tired, then his injuries would fall on my head.

This was likely as much a test of our physical and fighting capabilities as how well we manage ourselves out in the field. Resources were scarce and sleep was hard to get a lot of, or in a good quality. The only real upside to all of this was that I could totally rise above any of those needs, allowing for those that travelled with me time to rest and relax with minimal fear that anything would happen.

If anything did happen, then I was there to deal with it first.

The boy was getting ready, putting on rudimentary protective gear that wasn't really armour. It was a lot of tough clothing that was flexible enough to not restrict the boy's movements. I myself didn't wear armour. There was no real need to. If I did wear armour, past just generally protective clothing, then it'd have to be magical in some way, maybe give me strength or something. As of now, how quick I could move, and the preciseness of my movements was truly paramount.

"Nervous?" I asked idly. The boy gave the barest nod, his face stoic.

"Same." I said, smile resting on my face. The boy looked up at me sceptically and I returned the look. "Rethi, I've only ever killed one other thing, and I almost died last time." Rethi pondered while he finished up adding the protective padding to his assortment of protective gear.

"But you could survive anything that these wolves could do to you." I nodded in agreement.

"Sure I can. Doesn't make me any less nervous though." Rethi looked down into the dirt, examining the toe of his shoe with a sudden ferocity. "Just because I know I can do something doesn't make it any less nerve wracking. Especially when it matters."

"This is just another training exercise though?" Rethi questioned, I snorted amusedly.

"Mayer said to us pretty clearly that traders were being attacked along this road and weren't making it to the town. It's more than a test or training, Rethi. This is people's lives." Rethi and I made eye contact, a seriousness washing over us.

"This is the beginning, isn't it?" I just nodded, the task of moving a mountain starts with but a pebble.

"Have you said goodbye to Alena?" Rethi looked at me, his eyes full of iron.

"No need. I'll be back." I nodded. She would be angry with him, but maybe that eventuality is better for him than making a promise and never coming back. I began to walk towards the road, a mental map forming of where I wanted to enter the forest a few kilometres down the trail.

Rethi followed me, sheathed sword at his side. A truly sharp and entirely deadly sword this time around. Rethi's hand rested on the hilt of the sword and as we drew closer and closer to the location we had reached the previous day, his grip tightened on the pommel.

"We're here." I said, standing in front of a particularly large opening in the trees, an open maw to our anxious minds.

"Forest wolves are nocturnal, I think. They rest in open areas in large groups during the day, soaking in the sun. We are looking for an area without canopy covering." Rethi nodded in acknowledgement. We stood in front of the gaping maw of the woods, steeling ourselves to what laid within, the battle and finally the return.

I just hope that we are able to return sooner rather than later.

Without a word I began to move into the forest, the shade quickly covering my body, hiding me from the bright sunlight and plunging me into a much dimmer world. The air inside of the forest was still excellent, just like it had been the first day I arrived on Virsdis.

The air and the feeling of the forest was electric. Maybe it was because of the way that I perceived the environment, overlaying it with how I felt inside, projecting the uneasy emotions. But this feeling was different.

There was a nervousness in the air that pervaded my thoughts. Maybe it was my natural empathy? I wasn't sure, but it was worrying me. I had thought last night that there was something driving the wolves towards the fringes of the forest, but something that made enough beings nervous within the forest such that I could feel all their anxiousness in tandem was very worrying to me.

We walked through the forest, keeping mindful of how loud our steps were, making sure to get a good look of most angles before taking a path forwards through the increasingly dense forest.

Me nor Rethi had trained our ability to sneak around, but there was a certain amount you learned by simply practicing in footwork and just learning to be mindful of where you stepped. Something that wasn't at all as difficult as it seemed when it came down to it, especially in comparison to something like the Sharah.

I began to hear things off in the distance, and Rethi seemed to as well. Small growls and yipping could be heard from beyond the few layers of trees that stood in front of us. It was noticeably brighter, bleeding through the various obstructions that laid in its way.

I turned to Rethi, giving him a gaze of warning and received a nod in response, and we proceeded further, taking extra care of each step, approaching to what seemed to be the resting spot. Wolves were more likely to smell us before they heard us, but we could only hope that not giving them any more sensory input would help with not being discovered and sooner than need be.

It was only a few seconds until we reached a girthier tree that block sight from the opening in front of us, a clear hole in the canopy above shining the light through this opening in the forest.

I took a peek around the girth of the tree and saw the collection of at least eleven. It immediately became obvious that they were starved, clearly exhausted. They had a few young with them, who were being fed by one of the adult wolves, yipping and playing, fighting over the strip of meat they had been given.

The rest of the pack were sleeping, shifting ever so slightly in their sleep. I looked to Rethi, seeing him nervously look out to the group of wolves. I tapped him gently on the shoulder and pointed out towards the group of wolves with a commanding expression. His face blanched, but he managed to steel himself to the anxiety. I counted down, with my fingers. Three, two, one.

Then we sprung from cover, moving forward at a speed that we had rarely reached when training. I took only a few steps before I was standing above the sleeping form of my first victim. There was no time to contemplate their deaths, or the morality of killing them. This was a battle, and in a battle, decisions were split second, without the limitations of anything but self-preservation and your goal. I raised my foot, the eye of the wolf only just opening from its sleep, and I stomped my foot down on the poor creature's neck with enough force to create a terrible crunching sound, an instant death.

Rethi had managed to do similar with his first victim, though he had simply drawn his sword and slid it in between the ribs of the beast, letting out a squealing sound signalling the end of its life. I just about cringed before a growl came from my immediate left. I managed to turn to look at the beast that was trying to go for my ankle, likely to try and pull me down, but I simply whipped my foot out and kicked it with a large amount of force to the thing's jaw, a crack of bone dislodging, the feeling of the bone bending and cracking across my foot.

It was a disturbing feeling, but another point of information I was able to collect. The blow had destroyed the wolf's jaw and most of the left side of its skull. It had been well and truly knocked out, if not outright killed. I moved forwards toward the group of wolves in front of me.

I made efficient work of it, not allowing myself to slow down to think about the killing, and turning my brain off and allowing it to simply allow me to dance between the waking beasts and swiftly kicking each one once in the skull. I continued reproducing that first kick over and over, making it a rote attack, only rarely having to stray from the predetermined attack I would use.

In one such case, two wolves thought themselves smart and jumped at my sides, attacking at the same time. Likely to only allow me to tackle one at a time while the other would tear me to shreds. Though, I simply grabbed both of the wolves by the throat and made a fist in their flesh, the fur and skin giving way underneath the strength of my hand, easing my fingers deeper into their flesh and then quickly tearing out their throats with my bare hands.

I didn't stop to see if they were dead, I didn't need to. Each wolf I killed was dead in a single hit. I wouldn't let them live a single moment longer than they had to with the extreme pain that I was sure to be giving them. It was when I reached the pups that I stopped. I had killed eight of the wolves, Rethi was still fighting with the last adult wolves, taking only a smidgen longer to kill half of what I did.

I looked down at the pups, mewling at their dead. I felt the moral person within me experience a piercing pain like nothing I had ever felt before. But the me who was now in control knew that this was the way of this world and the only way that many could survive.

Some would have told me that killing those pups were the only reasonable choice. They might rationalise it from their armchairs, explaining that the forest wolves were vermin, that their attacks on humans were reason enough for them to be exterminated.

But as I looked down at the pups on the floor of the forest, one desperately nipping at my ankle, another nuzzling one of the adult wolves and the rest simply cowering, I decided that I couldn't let that mentality overtake me.

At first it was the wolves, exterminating them for the good of the town, for those that travelled to and from in their business. Then it was the opposition in a war. It was a scared farmer boy who was all but forced to join the army, a spear thrust into his hands and told to give his life for the crown, deceived with illusions of a grand adventure and an honourable battle.

I imagined myself standing on the battlefield, looking into a trench that was hastily dug, and looking in to see five terrified boys, cowering away from a man who could either kill them in a moment, or pass them by and allow them to live.

Maybe it was idyllic. Maybe it was going to get me killed.

But I wasn't sure I cared.

I extended my aura of safety for the first time in battle, quickly mollifying the poor beasts. I reached down towards the growling pup that had been attacking my ankle. It resisted against my touch, but before long it leaned into it.

It was after which began the mourning wails. The little beasts laying down, pacified by the safety aura that surrounded me, began to mourn those of their pack who had been lost to our hands. I heard the soft footsteps of Rethi approach me.

"What's wro–" the boy began, but interrupted himself, staring down into the small group of pups and wailed for their lost ones.

"Look." I growled at him in a commanding tone. The boy carefully looked towards the keening pups.

"This is the beginning. The start of what we do. We leave them alive, realising that it is a poor decision tactically. We know that enemies that we slay will have friends, and we will always leave them alive in the off chance that they survive and thrive despite the risk. We will commit ourselves to the unreasonable decision of sparing the son and knowing that he will return to avenge the father. Am I understood?" Rethi didn't need to nod, a wave of accepting sadness resonated through me.

The moment left as I walked away from the pups, back into the forested areas, receding into the darkness once again, seeking another enemy to lay waste to with a heavy heart.

I knew, then and there, that the wails of those pups would never leave my ears. I would hear those wails in every pained cry, every person slain. It would haunt me as an ever-repeating lesson, a disparagement against my own morality that broke and reformed so completely that day.

I sighed, the boy beside me doing the same.

It was no matter.

We moved through the forest with a newfound and bloody confidence.

Our work was not done.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 44: Bisect

Time passed in a fugue state. My instinctual response had been to shut down completely, my body becoming a slave of the decimation that we wrought.

But no, I didn't allow myself that luxury. I struggled against my own mind that wanted so dearly to recede into the back of my skull, to ignore the violence and the pain that my every movement whispered, promising my targets a final end.

Each blow added to the revulsion and horror that laid within me, but I accepted and embraced those emotions, clung to them so dearly in the face of my actions, to make sure that I never truly lost my sympathy. The mortifying empathy for those that I killed.

The first wolf that I had killed wasn't so bad. Its death was practically pre-ordained by God. It was truly me or it, with no room for emotional arguments. At that point, my mind could only believe the world was a constructed game of sorts, stupid ideals of the world still clouding my mind.

But here I was now, so clearly more powerful than the poor beasts that I hunted, with otherwise no danger to me. It left a lot of mental power for me to consider my actions.

What I was doing could be considered horribly amoral, or moral due to its service of the wider community. Whichever one it was, almost didn't matter to me. I felt bad anyways. If this is how I felt when killing a wolf, a beast about as low you could get on the totem pole, how would I feel when I killed something with human equivalent intelligence?

Would it feel worse? Would it feel better? Did it matter?

No, it didn't matter.

What mattered was that me and Rethi had spent a lot of time doing the hunting, taking turns in between packs. We weren't going so far as to make a sport out of the exercise. But we were trying to kill them more efficiently, with less hassle. It was not only important for the time we spent on the actions, but also for the beings we were killing. I had made it obvious that there was going to be no playing with the beasts, and Rethi didn't argue, basically standing in lockstep with my opinions on the matter.

It didn't, however, stop there from being accidents. Thankfully, none of mine were terrible, only once or twice did a blow of mine glance and not properly kill in one blow. It may not have been terrible, but I could only think of the disrespect I'd be showing someone by allowing them to die painfully with needless moments from an inevitable death. It was something that I slowly, but fiercely tried to rectify in myself.

Rethi's accident was something more severe than mine. While Rethi may have taken to killing the beasts with less qualms than myself, though the boy could barely stand to look at the pups we inevitably left behind. At one point, while he was set to hunt the entire pack himself, he accidentally cut the stomach of a pregnant wolf.

The sight was horrific, and while it stood to make me deeply sad, I think it quietly broke something in Rethi. I still wonder if we would have left the animal, so deeply pregnant that is was of no practical use to kill it. Maybe it, along with the pups we left behind, could have helped populate the forest once again after the issue had been brought into line.

From then on out, each swing of his sword was more careful, more calculated. He used to swing with such fervour and a disregard for what it was that met the bade. Maybe it was a product of training with two people that were so completely above him, someone capable of healing from anything and someone a hell of a lot more experienced than himself. But now that he was facing true living beings, it had drastically changed how he acted.

He leaned further into the preciseness of the Sharah that I had slowly taught him, rather than the pure power that he had sought out of the steps. I nodded approvingly. I wasn't a master of the Sharah, or of battles, but the way he approached a fight now was far superior to how he had only hours ago. The blessing and curse of practical experience

My hands were sticky with blood, holding them far to the sides of my clothes and the rest of my skin that had remarkably seen very little contact with blood, leaving me basically unscathed from blood or injury. It was partly due to my aura of safety that I had not been hit even once. I probably would not have been hit a single time without it, but the aura undoubtedly made it easier. My enemies just a smidgen less alert, less reactive than they would have been otherwise.

It was something that I also felt bad about. I was using an aura of safety, tricking those within it to feel as if there is less danger than there was, and then killing them. It was necessary, I knew that much. I was going to see battle, and not using the aura in battle was a good way to get myself and others killed. But I felt a severe opposition within me.

That opposition was a divine thing, less a moral quandary. The source of my power, my domain, was looking down on my actions. It wasn't condemning them, otherwise I expect that my powers would be entirely shut off, but the domain itself was at odds with the actions caused within it.

I couldn't help but wonder if the other Gods of the Hearth Court felt like this when they killed. Or maybe they weren't capable of doing so, the price that their more powerful Divine forms demanded of them, in contrast to the freedom of choice a mortal existence might offer.

Rethi quickly finished up the rest of the killing, leaving the few pups and another clearly pregnant mother, something that we'd silently decided was appropriate. He quickly walked further into the forest away from where I stood. I followed him slowly. Rethi had started to be more and more effected by the hunt that what he let on. His face was still as stoic as ever, but the emotional toll on him slowly increased and increased, leaving his emotions in a twisted coil, his stomach churning from the strain.

I found him couching by a tree, hand up against it, bracing himself. He was dry heaving, so desperately trying to keep the bile and undigested food down. His bloody sword had been thrown into the grass by his side, too much for his overstimulated mind to handle in his weary state.

I picked up the sword and slashed it through the air, splattering the forest off to my side with speckles of blood. I felt a familiar tingle in my fingers, one that only appeared when I picked up and started to use a weapon other than my soul weapon. It was an insidious feeling, one that slowly crept into an intense pain and writhing disgust, similar to what Mayer had once subjected me to all those months ago. I gently laid the now shockingly clean sword down next to the boy, who had managed to keep his stomach contents down, and now simply looked drained.

I reached over and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. The protective clothing rigid under my fingers, but he could obviously feel the added weight. The boy quickly stood and turned to hug me. He was so much taller than when I had first met him that you could easily consider the boy to be a short man.

Rethi didn't cry, or even speak. In fact, neither of us did. There was no point, after all. He just hugged me tightly, gripping the back of my shirt hard enough that the weaved fibres strained and a few snapped sharply. We stood there for only a few minutes before the environment changed around me.

The forest had been getting quieter and quieter from the empathic point of view, the emotional weight of the wolves had reduced the anxious energy in the air significantly, but in only a moment the world burned with anger and fury.

It was hard to nor fall into the emotion myself, its weight was truly tremendous. I tore myself away from Rethi and began to listen, and Rethi immediately caught onto what I was doing and turned the opposite direction, searching deep into the forest, instinctively seeking the source of my distress.

We heard it before we saw it.

In only moments, a thrum began to quake at my feet, the forest floor transmitting the charging steps of something big.

"Max!" Rethi called, his voice stripped of anything but urgency as he called me. I turned quickly in time to see a massive tree shake and, with an ear-piercing crack, fall heavily to the ground with a thunk.

I moved forwards, pushing the boy away from me. This was clearly something that Rethi wasn't capable of handling. The fires of rage that surrounded me gave me a good idea of what its temperament was.

The massive steps continued towards us as I prompted Rethi to run a good distance away, seeing the shadow of the beast emerge from between the trees. As soon as I saw its form, my mind took me all the way back to the first night I had been on Virsdis.

As I was wearily dragging my hammer down that river side, I had seen the form of a huge, bull-like figure. This beast, if I was correct, was the same one as I had seen so long ago, returned from the past to face me once again.

It was hulking, its face was twisted into a cruel and vicious snarl. The bestial appearance of a gigantic bull hid the very real and wicked intelligence that it possessed. As soon as I set eyes on the beast, I knew there was no choice but to kill it.

I raced forwards toward the beast, quickly going through a set of words that have become second nature to me on very short notice. I approached with a speed I wasn't able to fully display in any other situation, and just before I reached the beast, I slammed my foot into the ground drawing on that kinetic force and blasting it in the face. The exemplified force brought its full charge to a dead halt in a split second.

The beast and I looked directly at each other just as it began to shake off the admittedly minor force that had actually been used in that kinetic blast, and it let out a screeching roar only metres away from me. The roar left my ears ringing, blinding me to the thing's vicious headbutt that sent me scrambling across the ground.

The beast continued to approach, trying to get its hooves to crush me as I nimbly propelled myself from the leaf-littered forest floor, and slipped away from the beast's advance.

I quickly dusted myself off, the dirt coating my clothing coming off in droves. We circled each other, the anger in the beast's mind subsided minutely to allow it to think more clearly. I could see it start to take me more seriously, despite the fact that I looked no more dangerous than a forest wolf in appearance alone.

The beast took a lunge forward, probing me with its mighty tusks, but I simply met it head on, punching the tusk directly and forcing the lunge to a standstill, following up with a good knock to its head, the beast was forced to retreat. I don't think I had ever truly realised how practically strong I was until then. I was able to fight a creature that was the size of a small elephant like nothing, matching it blow for blow.

The anger returned with a vengeance, the beast was furious at its inability to defeat me as it had its other prey. I extended my aura of safety, but it was only momentarily confused before it snarled and reasserted its anger. The beast charged again, but I just caught it and tried to flip it to its side, hoping to allow for an easy kill.

The beast didn't let that happen, using my grip on the tusk and the force of the charge, it tried to lift me off the ground, trying to fling me away from it. I didn't budge, however, my grip on the tusk too strong for it to shake me off or give me anything more than a rattle around.

The beast had begun to realise just how hard it'd be to kill me, and I felt that it was considering its retreat, so I decided to give it what it wanted. I gave the beast a mighty push, the tusk pushing and twisting in an odd angle, making the beast roar with pain, but beginning to capitalize on its sudden freedom despite what had to be searing pain.

Its freedom was not for long.

With the beast running away, I took a deep breath in and prepared myself. I could easily catch the beast, and bludgeon it to death with my fists, but that was hardly the clean death that I wanted to grant it. I gave a brief thought to letting it go, but that really wasn't an option. It would continue to perpetuate the same issue as long as it lived here.

So I took a powerful step forwards. I drew on the energy that existed inside of me and empowered each step with meaning. The first step was to approach, covering meters with simple steps, the second was precision, the third was of strength, and the fourth was an offering.

With an offering, I swung my arms down from over my head, pulling from my soul deep and fast, the usually cool liquid was burning hot as it leaked from my hands and formed the familiar shape in them. The massive hammer hit the floor with what I'd swear was the sound of a gong being hit. Deep and resounding, the kinetic energy—far more I had ever handled before—coursed through me, and multiplied on multiplied, the force going from formidable to terrifying in moments, and then it was pushed forwards with the exact edge of a razor.

I heard the sound of trees and flesh being cut, but I didn't let my eyes open for at least a minute. When I did, I saw the gruesome splatter of blood and the neatly bisected beast laying on the floor, cut longways, leaving a legged half whose hooves were still twitching with the suddenness of its death.

I just sighed, mind weary and laden with the weight of empty emotions.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 45: Demigod

Our walk out of the forest was long and quiet.

We retraced our steps, the trail of carnage we had left on our path through the forest. It was a deeply unpleasant thing to experience, but I feel as if it was required. To see what we had done after the adrenalin had faded from our systems, leaving only weariness and an overwhelming melancholy.

Rethi hadn't commented on the bisection of the beast that had attacked us, but I think he gained an insight into just how powerful I had become. There were not many that would be able to survive a blow like I had dealt to the beast.

I wasn't even sure if Mayer would be able to survive that blow head on, though I'm sure he'd be able to dodge it with practiced ease.

I was convinced that the beast I had slaughtered was weak, only a step or two up from the forest wolves themselves. The power that I had used to kill it was unrefined at best and needed to be trained correctly before I could possibly face something stronger than that, if the danger factor of these sorts of beasts scaled exponentially.

I could probably win against stronger beings, but it would be a more brutal fight, one that was unlikely to be solved by be sending out a kinetic blade and bisecting them. Especially if they had a more significant intelligence or the ability to shift at all. Any mitigation to my own power would mean that I'd be reduced to a really good punching bag.

We finally made it back to the camp, emerging from the tree line and quickly venturing down the path to our small collection of belongings.

Alena was there, of course. She looked furious. No, incensed. But she took one look at Rethi, who was coated in drying blood, and she began to fuss over the boy in a total shift of temprament. I walked down to the river only a few minutes away from the camp and washed my hands of the blood.

It was a sad action, difficult and frustrating, but something that I was sure would punctuate every battle I am in. After my hand were clean I laid back in the damp grass and just let the sounds of the water soothe me, as if being close the gently meandering water cleansed how I felt inside.

I heard yelling and argument from the camp. Probably an emotional moment between the couple. It went on for a few minutes before it became quiet, and I could only hear the soft sobbing of two children who really shouldn't have to tortured by the world like this.

Impending wars, terrifying monsters lurking in the further reaches of Virsdis, taboo magical powers, and a fragile, juvenile love being strained by a duty to the world and to a strange man with a silver hammer.

We had originally intended to move off as soon as we were done with the wolves…

But I think the town can wait, if just for a night.

---​

I didn't return to my tent that night. I spent my time by that river and relaxed under the dim moonlight, unworried by anything that might lurk in the darkness. I stared up at the other world that circled this one, what was displayed to us mostly shrouded in the dark on night-time. I wondered what life was like there, what was happening on that pearl in the sky.

Had the Champions already started to stake their claims? Had there already been battles?

I couldn't possibly know.

The hours passed as I contemplated, looking up at the stars and into the other world. The sun slowly began to rise, lighting up the worlds erratically at first, and then slowly bringing a more complete shine a few hours later.

I tore myself from the comfortable patch of grass that I had laid in for the night and moved towards the little camp. Alena was awake, keeping watch over a small mound of quiet coals. I nodded to her, and she did the same.

No words were exchanged as I prepared the horses, something that very quickly became second nature on the trail, despite my disuse of the horses themselves. I slowly gave the horse a clean and a brush before preparing the saddles and strapping much of our items to them. Rethi was up by now, being helped by Alena in taking the tents down and packing them up. Before long, the horses were fully packed, and we started our journey back to the village.

After the afternoon of melancholy, Rethi, Alena and I began to joke around again. Idly chatting the trip away. There was lots of discussion on what had happened, and Rethi managed to keep the even remarkably genuine for Alena to understand. Though he did leave out his mistake in cutting a pregnant wolf's belly.

I also began to force Alena into healing self-inflicted wounds, or wounds that I obtained through training spars with Rethi. Most of the attempts were for naught or doing far more damage than the initial wound, but every once in a blue moon, in tens of tries, the wound would heal almost perfectly, disregarding scarring and a certain amount of function loss depending on the injury.

What was impressive about the healing, was not that my flesh was being healed but that the injuries that were being healed were the sorts of injuries that medical science back on Earth had nightmares of. Massive amount of muscle, nerve, and spinal cord damage.

In one extremely exciting example, Alena managed to heal a severed spinal cord, right at the base of my neck, effectively making me a quadriplegic. I don't even need to say how extremely impressive that is. The only issue that I seemed to have retained was a slight numbness in the outer fingers of my left hand. Why that was, I couldn't possibly tell you, but going from entirely functionless to slight numbness in a few fingers?

It was those few days of travel that I think Alena came to understand just why I thought her healing abilities were so impressive. Sure, a generous seventy percent of the time, she turned the wound into a self-perpetuating tumour that would consume any regular person's body in a matter of minutes and effectively eat itself to death or turn you into a totally different organism. But the few times the healing worked, it would turn a person from entirely uncapable of movement or control over parts of their body, all the way to only minorly inconvenienced by their disability.

I had even let her try to heal a brain injury once, a pretty severe one that Rethi had caused by accidentally shoving his sword too far into my eye socket. I was left very confused and unable to find my balance, having difficulty with speech. Though I somehow made it obvious that I wanted Alena to try heal me before I let my 'natural' healing take place.

Let's just say that the feeling of a tumour suddenly exploding inside your skull, and rapidly leaking out of your eye socket isn't the most fun experience in the world. She didn't heal for the rest of that day. Thankfully, I can regenerate my brain from basically any amount of damage at this point, my divine power not being as precious about the head as my other regeneration factor had been for whatever reason.

Though the next day she managed to fix a concussion really easily, so there is definitely potential of healing more advanced or complicated brain injury, which would completely change the landscape of injury as this world knows it.

Alena now willingly does her healing on me whenever she gets the chance, slowly becoming just as excited about the possibilities as myself. Though I wasn't fooled, she still had that deep set of swirling emotions that constantly assailed her mind when the thought was brought up, kneecapping any progress severely.

Otherwise, the ride home was remarkably quiet. No signs from Gallar or anyone from the Hearth Court, which was a little disappointing. I had felt such a strong connection to the man when I spoke with him, it was almost like being separated from an older brother you never knew you had.

As I mused about my Divine brother, the path slowly became better and better maintained, slowly progressing into the road that passed through the destroyed and derelict outskirts of the town and progressing inwards towards the centre, where the road was in far better condition, having been frequented with just about every human and animal that the town had to offer.

I tasked Rethi and Alena with the stabling of the two horses, which was really just a good excuse to leave the two of them alone for a while, say their goodbyes after the weeklong trip. I myself made my way towards Mayer's home. Oddly refreshed by finally being back 'home'.

The sound of the wooden steps up to the door, and the familiar creek as I opened it. The warm and scented air inside, washing over you as the door opened, the smell of tea and the warmth of a clean fire almost ever present. I pulled off the shoes I had been using for the past few days, letting them flop to the flood. Though I had taken time to wash myself each night, even having the luxury of a bar of rudimentary soap on our trip, my feet still smelt terribly from the general sweat, something I unfortunately hadn't managed to overcome, despite my sudden divinity.

I walked down the hallways and poked my head into the lounge room and immediately growing a grin. Mayer sat in his luxurious chair, behind him the fire crackled gently, warming the room against the creeping chill of the eve.

"Good afternoon, Master Mayer!" I said, putting on my hammiest posh accent, drawing out the words in an overly conciliatory way. The older man, bushy eyebrowed and stern face cracked into a smile that you'd swear didn't suit him but did even so.

"Good afternoon to you too, kid." I waggled my finger in front of his face, moving closer teasingly.

"Tsk tsk. I'll have you know that I am no longer a 'kid'! I am a bonafide, newly minted man of faith!" Mayer's right eyebrow rose, posing a question with it.

"Oh? Meet a God on your little adventure did you?" He jabbed. I laughed raucously, and he began to join me, finding hilarity in the notion until I cut him off.

"Of course I did, old pal!" Mayer went very still. The whole mood instantly changed, and his suddenly widened eye bored into mine.

"Who?" He asked.

"Gallar." I responded. His brow creased in half remembrance.

"Court?"

"A First One of the Hearth Court." The older man's eyes widened still with my response. He quickly set down his tea and requisitioned his hand to his lap because it began to shake. I had never seen the man so perturbed, and it was starting to worry me.

"A First One, Max?" He placed a hand against his forehead and kneaded his scalp with the ball of his palm. "I haven't heard of a First One of any Court greeting a mortal on their first interaction with Court." The older man's eyes darkened with worry.

"Well, he did make it pretty obvious that it wasn't exactly normal for a God of his status to go walkabouts. Especially with all that 'the other Courts are watching my Court' business." I said, treating the situation with a little more levity. Mayer was taking this harder than I expected. Maybe interaction with Gods was a little less common than I had brought myself to believe. Mayer was fiddling with his fingers and rubbing against his hair with a look of pure consternation on his face.

"What did this Gallar want? I hope you didn't take any deals, Max." I looked up into Mayer's eyes and he knew instantly from my awkward smile that I had, indeed, made a deal.

"In my defence, the dude seemed genuine…" But Mayer didn't let me even finish my sentence.

"Maximilian. He. Is. A. God." Mayer thundered. I had never seen him so angry. Not even remotely close to when he had mentioned the last Champion War. But this was a seething, explosive anger.

"I understand that, Mayer." I said, a steel working itself into my voice.

"I'm not sure that you do, Max. Making deals with a God isn't something to be flippant about! Gods are historically conniving, almost regardless of their domains." Mayer sighed heavily and got up to pour himself more tea, motioning to me if I wanted some and I nodded. Well, hopefully that meant he wasn't too angry… I better wait until I get my tea before I tell him more of what happened. I might get my cup thrown at me.

A minute later we were both sipping from hot cups of tea, Mayer silently processing.

"What was the deal?" He demanded. I agonised over how to frame the situation, trying to make sure that he got as complete a view as he could of the context.

"Well, honestly Mayer. I think it was more that he was pleading for a deal with me." Mayer's eyebrow twitched.

"He wanted something you have?" He questioned, and I shook my head.

"I mean, in that I don't think he could have forced it on me unless I wanted it. It seemed… steeped in tradition, to say the least of it." Mayer grumbled, but nodded.

"So, what were the conditions?" I shrugged emphatically.

"Everything I was already going to do." He gave me an odd look, his expression stuck between bewilderment and darkening.

"So they just wanted a Champion on their side? You've made yourself a pawn in their game?"

"In a way. I think they've been planning for this eventuality for a while. From what I could glean, it seemed like the Hearth Court has been forced into a 'subservient' role to the other Courts." Mayer thought for a moment.

"Is that simply an effect of their domain?"

"No, I don't think so. I think they may have been forced into subservience because of their political power and their ability to gather information. I think that they have had to sit back and watch horrors committed and ignored by Gods that are too vain, power hungry or paranoid to act.

"They want me to save the worlds from another Champion War."

 

[LokKi]

Bragging about new deal is not very smart, what if some god overhear it and hire other champions or supernatural hitmans to kill him before he became powerful? Good chapter! Thought that the brain was controlling regeneration and still was his critical spot. So only soul based attacks will work on MC then?

 

[Sarius]

Bragging about new deal is not very smart, what if some god overhear it and hire other champions or supernatural hitmans to kill him before he became powerful? Good chapter! Thought that the brain was controlling regeneration and still was his critical spot. So only soul based attacks will work on MC then?

Click to shrink...

Not very smart indeed! The brain was a soft critical point, where if you totally severed it from the body or destroyed it, you'd be able to kill a 'regular' champion. However, along with his newfound divinity, he's become quite a bit harder to Kill haha

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 46: Gods and their Involvement

Mayer looked at me, holding back his suspicion while thinking through this supposed 'help' from the divine.

"I don't know the past between the wars and the Gods, but I can have a guess and say probably not good." Mayer nodded solemnly.

"The Courts treated it as a power grab. Most of the Upper Courts controlled a very powerful Champion, blessing them with some mundane power and using the Champion's drive to get home to achieve their own ends. Which, conveniently, has been disregarded as a few priests getting uppity and supporting Champions. Most God involvement in the wars has only made things worse…" Mayer growls but gives up his anger with a frustrated sigh.

"Well, honestly, as far as I can tell this 'deal'—if you can call it that—was in good faith." Mayer scoffed but I just shot him an unamused glance, "I think they were gambling on me."

"A gamble? Gods are too 'wise' to gamble. What's the catch?"

"The catch is that there is no catch. I think they are putting all their money on black and crossing their fingers, Mayer." My seriousness started to dissuade him from his scorn, slowly bringing him to the important questions.

"You say that, but how can you know that really did bet everything on you. It seems remarkably stupid for a court of Gods." I shrugged.

"Maybe it is stupid, Mayer. But maybe the lack of 'smart' and 'tactical' decisions is what saves the world, rather than appealing to the conservative route. I wouldn't be surprised if the Hearth Court was currently up in flames, having a collective existential meltdown because of the massive risk they just took." The man was well and truly serious now. Almost scared by the thought of Gods being that willing to take a risk on the scale that I was describing. And then it hit Mayer's brain that he had forgotten to truly extract out of me what I'd gained from the 'deal'. With no small amount of worry laden in his voice, he asked:

"What, exactly, did you get out of this, Maximilian." I felt like I was about to get dressed down by the principal. I put on my grandest shit eating grin and, with no small amount of bravado, exclaimed:

"I, Master Mayer, have been made into a living Demigod."

One second passed, then two, and before long it was clear that a fuse had well and truly fried within Mayer's brain. I huffed with mock offense.

"Honestly Mayer, Rethi dealt with this news better than you." With a laugh, the man started to slowly smile, before manically cackling for a good five minutes.

"A Demigod! Honestly?" He said between peals of laughter My own laughter his only affirmation.

It took far too long for the both of us to calm down to the point where it was possible to have a halfway reasonable conversation. Even then, most of it was a babbling mess.

"Well, what did becoming a Demigod do?" The first reasonable question to come out of Mayer after his laughing fit was a good one. Something I'm not all that sure of myself.

"Well, a few things. One is that my Soul Hammer is even heavier, which kind of pisses me off," Mayer let out a harsh bark of laughter, "other than that, my soul is apparently unable to be enslaved by anyone under Demigod level themselves. Can't imagine there are too many Demigod level beings just walking around, enslaving people willy-nilly." Mayer assumed a thoughtful expression.

"I don't really know what constitutes as a Demigod level being, Max. I'd still be careful about it, because I have a few people in mind that could probably count as something similar in strength alone. What else?" I screwed up my nose at that. Don't be worried but be worried anyways. Perfect.

"It totally mucked around with the structure of my soul, and also planting a soul seed in there. Not sure what it's going to do, or when it'll happen, but we'll get to that when we get there." Mayer looked perturbed about someone 'mucking about' with a soul, but just nodded, "Along with that, I gained access to the domain of a Hearth God. Which makes sense, seeing as I'm effectively a baby Hearth God." Mayer chuckled at the thought of a 'baby God'.

"So no major jump in power then?" I shrugged.

"Well there is definitely some power gained, mostly in utility with the domain aura I can use. It makes people feel safer in the aura, which is pretty handy in social situations, obviously, but it can also be used to help in battle, though it feels icky to use it that way. Apart from that I think my regeneration is more powerful now." Mayer nodded solemnly, understanding the sentiment.

"So that's it then, just adding to the potential you already have." He hummed at the thought for a few seconds, "Gotta say, not the worst divine deal I've heard of. The only better deals I've heard of at pure legend. No idea if it ever happened." I snorted indignantly.

"I'll have you know, Gallar specifically said that he'd never seen someone be given a Court Blessing before, let alone a divine seed. So I think we are safely in uncharted territory." Mayer raised a questioning eyebrow, "I'd trust the guy that threw around statements like 'millions of years' without a moment pause, Mayer. He is a First One, after all." Mayer just rolled his eyes, about to quip back before I stopped him with the clearing of my throat.

"I guess there is one more thing. I think being Court Blessed and having that seed put in me cut me off from the God of my old world. I have no access to the screens anymore, or any achievements. I gained nothing from killing the wolves or the big boar-like thing in the forest. So I think that's the last line cut off." I smiled, more bitterly than I intended. Mayer, in his absolute seriousness, took the information in stride. He got up from his seat, walked over to me, offered me a hand which I took, and pulled me out of the chair and crushed me in a hug.

"That wasn't an easy sacrifice to make, Max, no matter how you spin it. The sentiment you spoke to me about all those months ago convinced me of your virtuousness, but this…" He patted me heavily on the back, "you are nothing short of a hero. If anyone was going to become a God, I don't think I could complain with it being you, Max. A man willing to leave behind his entire world for another." I hugged the man back strongly and we stood there for a good few minutes.

I had already come to terms with never going back home, leaving my friends and family to live without me, and truly cutting myself of was merely the funeral after the death. In a way, it was barely an emotional topic anymore, it was almost relieving, knowing that I was unable to be tempted, to be entirely committed to my own word. It was the most terrifyingly overwhelming decision I could have made… but now that it was made, I felt focused.

I parted myself from the man's embrace and smiled cheekily.

"I'll treat you good if you keep serving me tea, Mayer." We grinned at each other as we both sat back down.

"So, how did the actual subjugation itself go?" Mayer asked, finally getting around to the proper discussion he was intending to have.

"Well enough… and incredibly unpleasant." Mayer nodded knowingly.

"Rethi?" He asked, question implied.

"Same as myself, really. Lost a bit of his bluster but came out of it better than he was before. I think he found a new respect for his sword and what he was doing with it."

"Good. I was worried about that. The kid is a savage when it comes to fighting us, but fighting that way against things that you are actually hurting and killing is very different. You said something about a big boar?" I nodded

"Was what was causing the forest wolves to push further out, I'd guess. Terrible thing, full of all sorts of rage. Ended up killing is pretty easily, especially with the upgrade to by hammer."

"You actually managed to swing it?" Mayer asked, eyebrow raised.

"Just once, summoning mid-swing of course. Managed to bisect it." Mayer grimaced.

"Can't have been pretty. Groust, the boar thing you fought, are massive pests. All they do is disrupt and destroy. I had a good feeling that it'd be what you'd find but, well, it's Virsdis. Could have been anything, really."

"Well, either way, the day was a harrowing experience, as well as an interestingly romantic experience." I grinned as Mayer looked at me glumly.

"So she was with you two then? Did Rethi smuggle her into a pack or something equally as silly?" He asked.

"Nah, apparently she ran behind us the whole first day." There was a small hint of surprise in the man's eyes. "Obviously, I let her tag along after that little display of madness. I didn't feel like adding another two days to the trip when I could just prop her up on my horse and I could run beside the two of them. Lots of teen romantic drama that I managed to mostly avoid."

"But blew up in your face anyways?" He gave a knowing grin.

"Of course." I nodded sagely. "But I did find out some interesting information either way. Turns out that little miss Gram has a specialty of her own, she's a—"

"She is a life shifter, I know. I've known for years." I was left with my mouth hanging open, words slipping from my lips. I pouted and crossed my arms childishly.

"You're no fun." He grinned, full mouth of pearly whites gleaming with mischievousness.

"Hey, you just dropped a world changing bomb on me, I can at least know about the Apothecaries' daughter." I rolled my eyes and waved away the conversation.

"Anyway, just giving you a heads up that I've been letting her use my body as a test case when I get hurt." Mayer exploded from his chair.

"What?" He said, dangerously low.

"I said I—" I began smugly before I was so rudely interrupted.

"I know what you damn well said. Gods, kid, Life shifters are dangerous! One accidental move on their part and they've created—"

"A massive walking tumour who is constantly eating itself, mindlessly wandering under their indirect command. Yeah, got that one from the mediocre rundown on why life shifters are bad from the girl herself," I scoffed "it's all semantics anyway."

Mayer looked at me flabbergasted for a moment before sitting himself back down in his chair and rubbing his brow in a vain attempt to combat the aneurysm waiting to happen in his head.

"So what, in your infinite wisdom, have you let her heal, Lord God Maximilian?"

"Oh, you know, just a few minor arm injuries, fingers, broken bones," he nodded, breathing a sigh of relief, "A spinal cord injury and a severe brain injury as well. Y'know for prosperity." Mayer groaned, I just snickered.

"Honestly, it wasn't even that bad. When it all went wrong and tumours started to grow out of my eye socket, it was actually pretty easy to wait for the pressure inside my skull to pop the top, with a little help from Rethi's sword, and then excise the tumour out of my brain, along with a bit extra. Easy peasy."

"You could have properly died, Max. I know you have healed from minor brain injuries before, but one as extreme as that could have crippled you." He said, but his tone was defeated.

"I know, Mayer. But I think I might be as close to immortal as I ever could be while being actually mortal. I'm not sure that anything short of some crazy shifting stuff or having my body literally annihilated could kill me. Even then, I might just regenerate from a small bit of errant flesh. The regeneration is probably linked to my soul itself, so that's handy." Mayer let out a long sigh mixed with a humourless laugh.

"Well, at least I don't have to be so worried about you dying on me then." He took a few moments to recentre his thoughts, "What do you intend to do with the girl?" I shrugged.

"Nothing special. She can tag along if she wants." Mayer rolled his eyes forcing a grin out of me, "But when she does, because she definitely will, I'm probably going to try and make her into the world's greatest healer that has ever existed with a side of medical revolution. You know, the standard Demigod fare." Mayer considers for a moment before hesitantly nodding.

"I can… certainly see the logic to it. She'll be fighting an uphill battle against public opinion though." I shrugged nonchalantly.

"She can change that. Especially when she will one day be able to cure whole villages of fatal diseases and immunise the entire future population against that same disease, effectively wiping it out forever." Mayer had that look on his face that just meant that his head was hurting from all the bullshit I was throwing him.

"Goddamn Champions and their innovation." Mayer jokingly shook his fist at me.

"Hey, I'm not a Champion, I'm a God, I'll have you know!"

"Curse the Gods and their meddling." He said, now shaking his fist at the roof.

I laughed, Mayer laughed.

And then the fireplace laughed.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 47: Unsettling News

Mayer whipped around, quickly springing up from the chair and staring at the fireplace, hands glowing with a cool light.

"Now, now, no need for that, Mayer." A jovial voice, not too dissimilar to Gallar's, but reedier and more bookish than the heavyset innkeeper's.

"Who are you?" Mayer said quietly, though underneath the level-headed dialogue was a fiercely caution.

"Well, I can't tell you that, Mayer. Unfortunately, the other Gods have become very good at tracking us, and with our First One coming to greet young Maximilian over there, they've become highly suspicious of our activity." The fire crackled, as if adding a full stop to his sentence. Mayer nodded slowly clearly still suspicious, but I had another plan. I took in a breath and slowly extended my aura of safety outwards, reaching towards the fireplace and felt it snap to another domain, like a magnetic piece of metal.

"Ooh, very good little brother! I was just a bout to ask you to do just that." The pleased voice thrummed through the fire, then after a moment a feeling of relation was sent through the connected auras, just for a moment, and then cut off.

"What was that?" I asked, cautiousness gone, replaced with curiousness.

"Bah, nothing complex. I believe that a similar technique is possible with shifting. I believe the kingdoms use it to verify the blood of an heir to the throne. I may be mistaken, the topic frankly bores me to no end." I turned to look at Mayer, a questioning look.

"A bloodright ritual?" He inquired of the fireplace.

"Ah, yes that is the one. Though less spilling of the blood and more swapping of the divine energy that lies within us. If the divine energies are mutually compatible, you are of the same Court, it's as simple as that. Some courts simply connect their divine energies together permanently." There was a motion in the fire that you could have sworn was a shrug.

"Why doesn't every God do that?" I asked, earning a look from Mayer that said something along the lines of 'Is this really time for question and answer?'.

"No, this is the perfect time for question and answer! Well, for the limited time I'm able to be here before the other courts start sniffing in the right direction. The answer to your question, brother, it that it comes with the benefit of true connection, but with the downside of individuality and physical freedom within the divine realm."

"You can use the bloodright ritual to take over someone's identity?" Mayer asked, perturbed by the possibility.

"Absolutely not. The worst you could get from a bloodright ritual is a blood curse." The fire said firmly, "Though the basis of the ritual itself is nigh identical, divine energy is a fundamental part of a God's being. To link yourself to a collection of Gods for a long period of time is to sacrifice identity for power. Somewhat like an army versus a small mercenary group." Mayer seemed mollified with that.

"I can imagine why the Hearth Court isn't interested." I said with a knowing grin.

"Of course! I couldn't dare to sacrifice any of my superb intellect and charm!" I could feel the grin through the fire. Mayer laughed heartily, finally putting down his guard and moving his chair to face the dancing flame in the fireplace.

"Oh Gods, I can't possibly understand why you decided that Max was a good fit for the Hearth Court." I did the same to my chair, pulling closer to the fire.

"Hey, that's hurtful!" I say, smiling all the while.

"Yeah, Max was a perfect fit." The unnamed hearth God chuckled, "Though we only found him because we were trying to track you down, Mayer." Mayer's head quirked to the side in surprise.

"Why would your court be looking for me? I can't imagine that I ideologically fit with the hearth court very well." The flames stopped dancing for a moment.

"Do you want to save the world from the impending war with the Champions of Earth?" The voice asked, curiously. Mayer's nose scrunched up.

"Of course I do." The fire made another pseudo shrugging motion.

"Then we were willing to deal with any other ideological difference. We wanted a warrior, a Champion of our own cause." There was a crackling hum as the God on the other side of the fire thought. "Though, I don't believe you would have been given a divine seed. You wouldn't have been compatible with our domain closely enough to have survived implanting it within your soul. Maximilian was exceptionally compatible, which lead to a rather last-minute decision on our part."

"I see, so I would have been given this grand blessing by itself, then?" The fire does a facsimile of a nod.

"Indeed. It would have made you quite powerful. But after seeing Maximilian and his work throughout his time in our worlds, as well as his aspirations? Well…" The God paused thoughtfully, "you could say that we had the longest and most intense argument the Hearth Court had ever seen. I believe that it lasted a total of two months, if I remember correctly." Mayer chuckled along with the fire.

"Causing problems for everyone was he?"

"Ooh yes, we were deciding the biggest bet that had ever been made in the entire history of the universe, barring the initial creation, I presume. We are betting millions of years of wealth on our little brother, no pressure." The fire smiled, laughing at my now slightly more pale face.

"That's a lot to be betting on a kid." Mayer said, seriousness creeping back into his voice.

"A kid you say?" The God questioned, "A kid would be hard pressed to make any difference whatsoever in even a town as small as this. During being here, he has managed to employ a poor beggar and help turn them into a capable warrior, deal with a complex social issue that has been inbuilt in the culture of Virsdis and Orisis for thousands of years, manage to set a child who tried to kill him on the correct path, leading him to find a talent in woodworking, convincing those on their deathbeds to give their bodies to science, creating a culture of being conscious of the greater good, and then convincing a young girl that she is capable of changing the world? I'd consider that something a man would be capable of."

Mayer turned to me, amusement clearly written on his face, his thick eyebrow arched high.

"That's quite the rap sheet you have there, Max. Even I didn't know about a few of those."

Even I had forgotten about a few of them. The woodworking one I definitely didn't know about. It was the Jothian boy who had come to attack me, and somehow I'd managed to scare the kid straight. I had said that I'd go check up on him, but I honestly forgot entirely. Good to hear he was doing well for himself, though. Other than that? When you put it that way, it sounded pretty damn impressive. Though I couldn't help but feel that the God was trending towards the more story-telling side of things. I just rolled my eyes in response.

"Either way, we found him exceptionally fitting for our cause and our Court. We had been searching for a long time for someone in the mortal world to properly embody out domain, and our First One has been searching far, far longer. To see him so excited about Max…" The God's voice took on a fond tone, "It was compelling to us. Many of us see him as a father. To see him so excited to bring another of his own ilk into the world? It was compelling in and of itself." I could feel my cheeks reddening as the seemingly endless supply of flattering remarks were made.

I certainly didn't feel impressive, even after I had legitimately become a Demigod, I felt no different than I had, bar some mundane qualities. It slowly reinforced within me just how much I needed to accomplish, if not for me, for those that seemed to trust in me and see that degree of potential within me.

"Oh look, you're making the boy blush!" Mayer said, a grin drawn across his face.

"Of course! We are the next closest things to seducers you know! It's out Godly duty to make people feel better about themselves." The warm but slightly nasal chuckle from the fire just made it hit home how quickly the conversation had been shifted from the immediate suspicion that Mayer had shown. I guess Gallar didn't remark that the Hearth Court were the peacekeepers and Gods of quiet political intrigue for nothing.

"Regardless, I just wanted to let you know that we are here, and I'll likely to be the one contacting you in future. Other than that–" There was a sudden cut off in the God's voice, which seemed odd at first, but over the next few seconds the concern became a real worry when the fire flickered and the voice returned.

"Maximilian, Mayer. A sister that is helping survey your surrounding area just told me some potentially worrying news."

"Go on." Mayer said, not a lick of anxiousness in his voice, sounding entirely task focused. His emotional state was quite similar. In a way, he felt uniquely at home in this sort of situation, which would be more odd to me if I couldn't feel the man radiate his emotional state to the world.

"A few towns over, maybe ten day's ride, there is a–and I quote–'man cloaked in shadow' wandering in your direction. She managed to catch a conversation between a farmer and another man where the farmer recounted being asked by the cloaked man about inn prices. He had no horse of companions, and talking to him seems to have given the farmer a bad case of the shakes." Mayer thought for a moment and then nodded.

"Any more information you can give us?"

"Nothing. That was the only lead we have. We don't have much time, and I won't be able to contact you again for a good while. We won't be able to get you any more information. Be careful, Maximilian." The fire suddenly disappeared, somehow sucking the warmth out of the room with it.

Mayer and I sat there for a few moments, staring perplexedly into the quiet fireplace.

"That didn't sound good." I said dumbly. Mayer didn't bother to respond, his affirmation obvious. A moment later, the man clicked his fingers and a small flame sputtered to life, floating mid air, somehow surviving without wood to fuel it. A testament to Mayer's shifting abilities that he can read and to other tasks and maintain a completely safe burning fire in the other room, even.

"I believe I know who is coming towards us and if I'm right, there is no amount of running that would get us away from them." He said as he stared into the fire.

"What do you mean we can't run away from them? Surely I could." Mayer just shook his head in the negative.

"If this were anyone else, I'd have a large amount of confidence that you could get away from them. But if this is who I think it is, then there are few people who could dream of running from them." Mayer sighed deeply as he slouched back into his chair, "You are fast in a very mundane way, Max. You can run forever at a truly impressive speed. But when you add shifting into the mix, and the sheer amount of experience that they have with it? No. We can't run." He began to rub his forehead gently in a circular motion, an action that seemed to calm him slightly.

"So who is this person then?"

"A Keeper." I turned to the man, eyebrow raised.

"Keeper? Like a beekeeper? Do they keep monsters or something?" Mayer chuckled dryly.

"Close enough, but no. Keepers are a small collection of people that have sacrificed everything to protect the world from what they keep." I rubbed my chin in thought.

"Does that mean there is, or is not a Keeper for monsters?" Mayer just shrugged.

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised. But, I haven't ever heard of one. They seem to focus more on singular categories of things, generally very destructive or harmful, especially in the wrong hands."

"So they go around and collect crazy dangerous stuff? How do they even determine what is dangerous and what isn't and what should be kept from the world and what should be left to help us advance?" I asked, trying to understand the morality of it myself.

"The Keepers are pseudo priests of the Court of Mysteries." I was about to ask how he knew that, when the Court of Gods of Mysteries were involved, but he waved my brewing question away, "They are an open secret. They have their own fairy tales associated with them. Rethi would probably be able to recount a good amount of legends off of the top of his head." You both share a smile at that. The boy loved his stories. We had a bet going that he'd try his hand at writing his own at some point. I took nay just for the sake of it, but we both know he will try at some point, if he hasn't already.

"So, their Gods tell them what to take and where it is?" I concluded.

"Basically." He sighed again and then turned directly to look into my eyes, "Now, the question is, whether they are here for you or me."

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 48: Keeper

I learned much over the next few days, after the dire warning from whatever Hearth God had communicated that a Keeper was coming in our direction.

Mayer had called a group meeting between myself, Rethi and even Alena, to discuss this new info.

The reaction from Rethi had been that starstruck look he always got when Mayer and I discussed some legend in a realistic capacity. It's frequency was slowly declining, as he got used to the fact that his 'Master' was a bona fide Demigod and ex-Champion, for what it was worth. This moment of amazement was quickly washed away when Rethi started to recount what the Keepers actually were to the rest of the group.

The Keepers were a group aligned with the Court of Mysteries, their sole purpose is to track down and take control over dangerous items, artifacts or even beings within their own purview. They were positively legendary, true fairy tale material, according to Rethi.

Mayer, however, thought differently.

"They are entirely real, and have been around a hell of a lot longer than our records of them show, though they have been busy for the last few decades." He had said.

Alena, who wasn't given precisely clear information on just how I got the information, didn't seem to understand why she was involved in this situation all of a sudden. She simply sat her chair and gawked, being thrust into the presence of Mayer himself and learning that the Keepers are real, and not just a feature of a bedtime story.

"How… close are they to their fairy tale counterparts?" She had asked timidly, unsure of how impolite she could get away with being in front of Mayer. Mayer, however, didn't take note of the girl not referring to him in full politeness.

"Fairly close. Though they are far less giving than they seem in the stories. They do not dole out swords and magic items like a merchant would, asking for something in exchange. They take far more than they give, but when they do give items of power out, it's almost always at the behest of the Gods that they work for. They are also far more dangerous."

Which was about all of the information that anyone got out of those hours of discussion.

Mayer knew more, and I suspected he'd actually met a Keeper before, but he didn't elaborate on any past experience he may or may not have had. Though he had said that he was questioning whether the Keeper was there for him or for me, which I found interesting.

Mayer had all sorts of things that a Keeper could potentially want, like that wand for one. Being as valuable as Mayer had said it was gave it a certain possibility, but he had also alluded to people being able to actually make them and I wouldn't be surprised if they were relatively commonplace amongst certain shifting types in Orisis.

I had learned next to nothing about Orisis during my time with Mayer. Too busy doing literally everything else and devoting my time to making pretty footprint patterns in the dirt. But now that it was becoming clear that the day where I would leave was drawing ever closer, it was becoming a point of interest.

However, the days drew closer to the approximate ten days that the hearth court prescribed before the Keeper himself made it to the small nameless town we were anxiously waiting in.

It was indeed nameless as well, in fact this conglomeration of towns along the road Rethi, Alena and I had travelled along were simply called road towns. They rarely lasted longer than a few decades and there were constant influxes and outfluxes of people due to immigration between towns, most likely because of constant issues with bandits and monsters. I didn't even actually know what kingdom I was in, or if there was a kingdom owning this land at all. Mayer would probably know, but if I asked the man every possible question I had about the outside world, his brain would start leaking out his ears from boredom.

It was day eight of the ten-day approximation when the town was set alight with whispers. Apparently, a mysterious man had rented a room at the bar the night before, which happened infrequently enough that the townsfolk actually cared. Especially when they were 'spooky', as the innkeeper had so eloquently put it.

Rethi had brought that information back with him after he made a trip out to Alena's home, being told by Michael Gram who seemed to almost be the towns secret seller, probably for the man's own amusement if nothing else.

"Well, looks like we'll be having a visitor in the next few hours then." Mayer said calmly. Very calmly in fact. You'd be entirely fooled by Mayer, thinking that he had everything well in hand, but I could see into the man's head, so when I took a peek and saw what amounted to factory creating contingency plan after contingency plan blazing with all the speed of anxiousness, I gave Mayer's statement a nod and pretended I had never looked.

"Rethi, I'm going to ask that you sit this one out, mate." I said, trying to put on a similar anxious less guise. Rethi looked at me, scandalized that he was being sent away.

"What do you mean sit this out? We went and mowed down a forest full of wolves, but meeting one guy is too much?" I was pretty obvious he was just being petulant, and even he himself knew that the two things he was comparing wasn't even remotely comparable.

"You've heard what Mayer told us, Rethi." I said warningly. I wasn't going to let the kid convince me that it was a good idea for him to stay while this went down. Rethi huffed, irate. There was that clear frustration that I could feel, the one that everyone has felt once or twice, exclusion. I just raised my eyebrow and the boy rolled his eyes and walked out of the door, probably going over to see Alena instead.

Rethi was usually respectful and understanding, but I can see why he might not be happy with me excluding him from something so big. But I couldn't risk the boy's life if this Keeper really was just as dangerous as Mayer says he is. Mayer walked into the lounge room and plopped himself down into his chair, reclining into as comfortable position as he could.

"Managed to get Rethi away?" He asked quietly. I just nodded and the room was absorbed with the silence.

There wasn't anything to talk about, just waiting for something to happen. The warmth of the midday sun was leaking through the windows, brightening the magnificently crafted wood structure that was Mayer's home. The small trinkets and warm carpets covered the walls and floors, a bookshelf full of books that I had no doubt contained some advanced knowledge on history, though I had never read then and really should have at least tried to.

This room had slowly become one of the only places on Virsdis that I felt I could relax, if only for a moment. For months I had been so consumed by the need to empower myself, feeling distinctly underpowered and overwhelmed by the new world around me. Maybe the other Champions had made better decisions than me, choosing to read and learn and train all at the same time. But I didn't have the mental capacity for all of them, so I chose one and it was learning the Sharah at the cost of everything else.

The silent relaxation that I was able to experience in this room calmed my anxiousness, allowing me to simply think. I knew that at any moment the man we had been anxiously awaiting would arrive, and with him there would be more craziness thrown my way, and that it may very well be the tipping point that will begin my journey across the worlds.

A nail was put in that relaxation, suddenly killing it when the sound of the front door opening and closing rung out through the hallway and into the lounge where we were waiting. I saw Mayer take in a deep, slow breath and look up towards the doorway.

"Keeper." He greeted. I turned to look and saw a tall man, maybe six foot and a bit tall, entirely cloaked in an exceptionally dark travelling cloak with its hood pulled up.

"Mayer Renue." The man said. As soon as the Keeper opened his mouth, his dry and cold voice ringing in my ears, I could feel something distinctly familiar yet so very foreign about him. As I dug deeper into that feeling, I started to be able to sense a sort of aura surrounding the man. It was quiet and understated, secretive almost, but visible enough to know it was there but not enough to know what it truly was.

"A domain." I said without meaning to, surprised to see another domain so soon. The Keeper's head turned towards me slowly, the face underneath the hood totally obscured from my vision. When he looked at me for a few moment I felt that same domain make contact with me and, as if it were blind, feeling over every centimetre of my exposed body.

I felt the need to make the domain stop, but let it happen anyways. I could tell that the domain wasn't doing anything malicious, just incredibly invasive. The tendrils of the domain aura pulled away from me, but with a whoosh the Keeper stepped closer to me, steeping over me like the towers on a gothic cathedral.

"A Champion." His voice boomed with a quiet might that made every hair on my body stand on end. In that very second I realised just how dangerous this Keeper was. He was, no doubt about it, a Demigod level being.

"Keeper Armament," Mayer said calmly, "what are you here for?" The Keeper continued to steep over me, sweat glands that hadn't been properly used in weeks—if not months—started to fire up again, leaving my hands clammy. I desperately tried to see inside the man's head, see any emotion at all, but there was a shroud covering his thoughts and feelings, and without being able to see his eyes at all I wasn't able to pry any further.

"Many reasons." He said unhelpfully. Mayer nodded, as if the answer was entirely reasonable.

"There are many things that are coming to light in recent months, especially on Orisis?" Mayer questioned and the Keeper nodded, shifting to look at me out of the side of his hood for a moment.

"Some are more secretive than others. One is dead. I have their weapon in my care." The Keeper pulled a hand from his cloak. What caught my attention first was not the weapon that he held, but the hand that held it. It was horrifically scarred, mangled almost. If I had seen anyone with injuries even remotely close to the Keeper's I could only believe that they had been flayed or been tortured.

But I didn't keep my eyes on the man's hand for very long, because I soon saw the crossbow that he held. It was mostly a silver looking metal, covered in runic patterns, and a fine wooden stock that was almost silvery as well. It was almost like…

It was. It was a Soul Weapon of another Champion. One of the other fifty that had been brought over to these worlds and one was already dead. I couldn't help but gawk at the weapon. I had assumed that the other Champions were so smart that they couldn't possibly die so early, but apparently they weren't immune to the dangers of this world as much as I had thought. That just meant that I was even less immune.

"They died to the hands of a death shifter a day after their summoning. The death shifter was summarily killed." Mayer just nodded, hiding his surprise. If a life shifter was as dangerous as I knew it to be plus the stories of them creating living abominations, I couldn't imagine what a death shifter could pull off. Apparently they were dangerous enough the be able to kill a Champion.

"Do you know the locations of other Champions?" Mayer asked grimly. The Keeper was still for a while but managed to shake his head.

"No, they are illusive to us. Except for this one." He turned to me and I swear I could feel a blade slicing through my skin, with the same pain as I used to experience before I had become accustomed to the pain of battle.

"And what do you intend for him?" Mayer asked, his tone darkening. The cloaked Keeper turned to look back at Mayer, and in an instant the air was on fire. As they looked at each other, fire shimmered in the air, becoming by far the hottest temperature I had ever experienced. The two men, however, stood stoic against the fire that hung in the air around them, licking at their skin to no effect.

The Keeper, Armament, took a step forwards toward Mayer and the heat rose even further, singeing my hair and lapping at my skin like a ravenous dog.

"I intend to take his Soul."


A/N: Hey there guys, I'm sorry about the short and unintended hiatus. Unfortunately my pup passed beyond the veil, and I've needed some time to just spend time with her before she passed.

Hopefully I will be able to return to normal schedule from now on.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 49: The Successor

"I see." Mayer said, tone agreeable, but expression stony. "However, I do not think that would be in your best interest, Armament."

"Oh?" The ghastly form intoned.

"Maximilian over here, is not a Champion, but an ex-Champion." Keeper Armament was silent for a while, the heat of the room cooling ever so slightly.

"Explain." Mayer nodded taciturnly and I stayed thoroughly silent, sweating bullets.

"Another Court of Gods reached out to Maximilian and blessed him and cut his ties with the God of his world." The cloaked Keeper turned towards me, giving me a long, hard look from underneath his hood.

"What relevance does this have? Others were blessed by our worlds' Gods, yet they remained Champions in action and principle. Cutting ties with his God, while intelligent and perhaps a correct step, does not change much to my mission."

"Indeed, it does not." Mayer agreed, "However, you might find it pertinent that it wasn't just any blessing that court gave him." The Keeper stopped dead still, the heat and flame leeched out of the air entirely.

"A Court Blessing?" He said softly, and Mayer nodded.

"A Court Blessing and more, Armament. He is a mortal Demigod, the first of his ilk."

In fact, the flame and heat wasn't just leeched from the air, it was getting colder and colder as time went on. Then he spoke to me, his voice the sound of shattering ice.

"Summon your weapon." His order was almost overwhelmingly powerful, a mixture of anger, surprise and possibly… hope? I pulled my hammer from my hand in record speed, leaking from my palm like liquid fire. The fully formed thing was gigantic, even against my own form. The slightly darker silver contrasting with the extremely bright divine light that coursed through the runic markings that adorned the flat, block head to the horn at the back, and travelling down the haft towards the wrapped hilt and pommel.

I laid the hammer head on the floor of Mayer's home with as much grace as I possibly could, the wood groaning under the stress of the hammer's gargantuan weight, though Mayer probably had the floors super reinforced on the odd occasion you might need an immensely heavy Soul Weapon summoned in the lounging area.

The Keeper immediately moved closer, scouring the hammer with his obscured eyes. He seemed specifically interested in the markings on the hammer themselves, silently analysing it. Though it wasn't long before a hand came up to touch the hilt.

I started to open my mouth to tell him to not touch, but it only took a quick shake of Mayer's head to keep my lips sealed tight, especially with that doomsday expression on his face.

As the Keeper's scared and mangled hands caressed the dark silver metal gently, I realised that his touch wasn't unpleasant. I don't know what it was, but he managed to make it a not entirely uncomfortable experience, despite him quite literally touching the manifestation of my soul as a weapon.

"It is true then. This is undoubtedly divine energy, much greater in quality then what a God themselves could provide another, so it can only be your own energy." He mused, even as he picked up the hammer by the furthest end of the hilt easily, hefting the unknowably heavy hammer without even a hitch in his voice when he did so.

"Which Court granted you Godhood, child?" He spoke softly as he admired the hammer in his hand. Even the floors underneath his feet didn't groan with stress as he swung the hammer without so much as a worry that he might hit something within the home.

"I don't think it'd be fair of me to say, Keeper Armament. I'm sure that a man such as yourself would be able to hazard a guess." I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible in the face of the terrifying man swinging my hammer around more skilfully than I had seen Mayer wield a short sword.

The Keeper's clouded hood turned to me, and for just a moment I could swear that I could see the barest hint of a face, smiling.

"Ah, the Hearth Court then." I managed to school my own expression, though I couldn't be sure it escaped either Armament or Mayer's notice.

"What leads you to that conclusion, Armament?" Mayer asked, as if her were only curious. Armament deftly laid the head of the hammer down at his side, letting it rest while he thought.

"There are not many who can hide from the Court of Mysteries, Mayer Renue, and far fewer still that can hold secrets from them. In fact, I believe the Hearth Court to be the only Court to hold a secret from them for more than a few thousand years. This, however?" He hefted the hammer and tapped at the side of the hammer head, where the larges conglomeration of runic patters were inscribed.

"This is a far larger secret than I could have ever expected. I had always suspected they held something just out of the Court of Mysteries' reach, but to manage this right underneath their noses…" The Keeper trailed off.

"Do you mean the seed?" I asked. Mayer gave me a look, but I ignored it. This man was easily strong enough to wipe all of us off the map, and I'm not even sure that I could bet on Mayer and be confident. He also already seemed to know everything that was important. At this point, it felt stupid to ignore it. Maybe it was my Domain of safety, which I had unknowingly extended after things started getting sketchy, but I was willing to risk it.

"The seed, is a Divine Seed." I nodded at the man, already knowing that little factoid, "But it also isn't any normal Divine Seed."

"How so?" Mayer asked, a hint of worry making it into his voice.

"A 'true' Divine Seed is something far too powerful to plant into a mortal's soul, even those as strong as Champions. Even mortals as strong, or stronger than I." I scrunched my nose up at that.

"Then how could it have been planted into mine? I know that Ga–" I stopped myself, "the God who granted my Godhood said a lot of it had to do with my connection and alignment to the Hearth domain." The hood bobbed in acknowledgement.

"You are correct, it did. However, even still it would have surely killed you. However, this seed is far different. This is manufactured, somehow, someway, to be a seed of a seed."

"So wait, does that mean I am or am not a Demigod?"

"You are, in every sense of the word. But to move past simply being a Demigod, this seed will have to grow to become more than the precursor of the Seed of Divinity." I couldn't help but let a confused expression leak onto my face, desperately trying to unpack the Keeper's words, but he seemed content to let me question.

"Though I will note that not just anyone would be able to meld this seed to their own soul. For I would most certainly perish within moments of this seed being planted within me, any energy my soul contains being drawn till it was dry and then dying with me. I only know of a handful that would survive the process, even fewer that would wake up from the endless sleep they would find themselves in faster, and no-one that could possibly stand before me like you do only days, maybe weeks since the seed was planted." The man picked up my hammer and placed it back at my side gently, almost reverently.

Honestly, I just took it all as a compliment. It just seemed that I was an anomaly of an anomaly, and to think that I legitimately though that I was nothing special, huh?

"Regardless of the Demigod's hammer. I also wish to speak to you Mayer. Of Hindle." Mayer froze at the word, though made no other expression.

"What of it?"

"The sword has been in your possession for far too long. I gave it to you during the war, however, the war has long since ended. The sword is far too likely to end up in the wrong hands the longer that it stays out of my care." Mayer took a deep breath in and slouched in his chair.

"I understand, Armament. I'm not as young as I once was, and fighting in the war will only kill me, now. But…" Armament looked at Mayer, graciously allowing him to ponder for a moment before returning to his thought.

"I understand that the sword is dangerous, and that it should be kept in the correct hands. But I think that I may have a successor." Armament walked towards Mayer, a chilly breeze following him.

"This was not in our agreement, Mayer. The sword was for you and only you. The Court of Mysteries lambasted me for that decision even still."

"I know. But I think he has a better chance of making a difference in the new war than even I." The Keeper stood very still, you'd almost believe that he was a mannequin if he hadn't walked around and swung my hammer about.

"This successor. Where is he?" The Keeper demanded. Ever since the whole 'I'll take your soul' thing, he seems to be far more agreeable than before. I feel like Mayer and Armament know each other better than they let on.

"Right outside, of course." Mayer said casually, "Rethi! Get yourself in here."

I watched silently as, after a short pause, the front door softly creaked open and a set of nervous footsteps travelled down the hall and a black-haired youth popped around the corner. I gave him an unimpressed look, and he responded with a wry smile.

Then Rethi saw Armament. The bolt of fear that hit him as he did was almost amusing, if I hadn't been experiencing the overwhelming presence of the man since he walked in.

"This is your successor? A village boy?" Armament asked, though decidedly without the derision that you'd expect.

"You and I both know that being a village boy has nothing to do with how well you can learn the sword. And I can tell you that, while Rethi is… unexceptional in his swordplay," Rethi grimaced at that, unable to argue, "he has the ruthlessness and drive that he needs to be truly great. Besides, we both know that skill was hardly ever the requirement to wield Hindle."

Armament stood, unpersuaded. He looked towards the young man that stood in front of him. He was slightly taller than the average for his approximate age, and was well built, clearly having put in an inordinate amount of work to create his physique.

"But he is just that. Unexceptional. In my travels I could find others just like him. I'm likely to find another in this very village." The Keeper countered. Rethi was well and truly pale by this point. Apparently being argued over by a Demigod level being and Mayer wasn't pleasant. Though I guess I had my own taste of that.

"True. But none are dedicated to serve a Demigod of the Hearth, to aid him in his quest to save our worlds from destruction." Mayer shot back. Keeper Armament, if I could see his face, probably looked suitably unimpressed.

"What is the real reason, Renue?" The older man looked thoughtful for a moment before he returned his gaze to the Keeper.

"Because he has what it takes. All he needs is the opportunity."

The resulting silence lasted a long, long time. Minutes maybe, but the look the two men shared was it's own sort of intense conversation in and of itself. I could pick up some of the emotions coming from Mayer, mostly a stubbornness and pride, but still nothing from Armament.

"I see." The ghastly Keeper said after a long while. "I will take this risk, if not for what you have given the Court of Mysteries in the past, then for honouring our agreement for all these decades." Mayer nodded thankfully, not one to become exuberantly excited when things go his way.

"However." The Keeper continued, "I require to see Hindle passed on in front of me. I will not let it happen on your leisure." Mayer's jaw clenched, the muscles tensing up the side of his face in an almost-grimace.

"Of course." Mayer said slowly, which Armament seemed to take as good enough. The Keeper turned back to look at Rethi, scouring his eyes over the young man like he had for my hammer.

"You are in for an extremely unpleasant experience, young warrior. I hope that it is worth it. For both of our sakes." Then he walked right past Rethi, footsteps absolutely silent and cloak barely moving. You'd swear he was floating.

"I, uh, what?" Rethi stammered out. With all of the heavy conversations and clashing ideals, the bou hadn't even managed to get a word in edgewise.

"'What' is the word of the hour it seems." Mayer said, sighing heavily as the Keeper closed the door on his way out.

"What's this about successors and 'Hindle'?" The boy said frustrated, looking to me for answers. Come to think of it, neither Mayer nor Armament explained what was actually being discussed to Rethi, and even I was blindsided by all this talk.

"Don't look at me. This was all sprung on me as well." Rethi's frustration grew as he turned his fiery gaze towards Mayer.

"Tell me." He said commandingly, and Mayer just chuckled ruefully.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 50: Hindle

Mayer had told Rethi and I to walk out towards the open plains where I usually trained to wait and so we did.

The young man beside me was seething with indignation, furious that he'd be left out of something that was integral to him. I wasn't anywhere near as worked up, maybe because it didn't concern me as much, but I could see when the boy was coming from. It's entirely possible that I simply expected this sort of stuff.

Mayer, at his core, was a man of mystery to us. His history was largely opaque to me, and even the parts that I did know about were convoluted and highly specific at best. I knew about his involvement with Ryan, the Champion from the last war, and knew enough that he was a soldier of some note during the war itself and, obviously, came to Virsdis from Orisis for unknown reasons.

For him to have a powerful blade was almost a no-brainer and being told that he was going to pass it on to Rethi was pretty par for the course. In a way, I was more Mayer's equal than an apprentice, Rethi was the one to truly fit that role.

I learnt most of what I know myself, though Mayer did spark most of what I did learn. Rethi had grown close to the older man, treating him almost like a grandfatherly figure. Mayer taught the boy everything he knew of combat, mostly against me as a practice dummy. The sword style Rethi was taught was 'standard, military grade stuff', in Mayer's own words, though it was easy enough to see that was an understatement.

Mayer had refined that sword style through Gods know how many battles and experiences. To say that it was a standard sword style was almost an out and out lie. Though Mayer was humble to a fault, generally, and hadn't exactly been jumping at the chance to give his own personalized sword style an actual name. Though his student has a different idea about that.

The poor boy seemed blindsided by this, and I had the instinct to reach out and comfort his confusion and frustration, but I thought that it might be best to just let him find his way through it, along with learning more about Mayer's plan for him.

In the distance I saw Mayer slowly walking towards us, in his hands an object wrapped in rough cloth, like you'd find made into a potato sack. Rethi and I waited patiently for the man to finally stop in front of us, silent and sporting a dour expression.

"Rethi, Maximilian…" The older man began, "there is much that I have not told you of my past. Some of that past I will talk about here." I nodded, unperturbed. Rethi's jaw and fists clenched, but he had the sense to wait for the man to continue.

Mayer started to unwrap the cloth from about the sword. It was a slow, methodical process, and it was only due to my natural empathic abilities that I was able to see the man's feelings.

It was… confusing. This blade was something that he never wanted to see again. It instilled in him equal parts of hope and strength, will and fear. A relic of his own past that terrified even him.

The cloth wrapping slowly unfurled from the blade, revealing an odd, but entirely mundane looking blade. It was maybe a little bigger than the standard sword that Mayer had trained Rethi in, though it was a lot wider than normal. The usually thin blade made for manoeuvrability and lightness was replaced with a wide and thick double-edged blade.

There was seemingly no grip, leaving only a raw tang to grab. No pommel or even a handguard, though the wideness of the blade served similarly anyways. The colouring was odd, even in the light of the sun slowly setting. It was a bronze colour, but looking like it was severely burnt, dark scaling covering the blade. Honestly, the blade looked half finished.

Looking towards Rethi, I could see the confusion and disappointment on his face. He felt like he was being cheated, for sure. Maybe even being tricked, not that Mayer made a habit of that. Though Mayer didn't let the silence linger too long.

"This blade is named Hindle. It is the Divine sword of Light and was my companion through much of the Champion War, as well as for many years after that." Mayer grabbed the metal tang of the blade, and in that moment we Rethi and I both saw the blade in truth.

The blade roared to life, the metal shining brightly, though not gaudily. It looked no different in form, but it now shone with the light of the evening sun, warm and confident even as it slowly hid behind Orisis. The metal that looked so tarnished before glowed with a radiance I didn't know was possible, as if it were a window to the sun itself.

"This blade was created untold millennia ago, gifted by the First One of the Sun to who he considered his mortal son. A warrior of untold might and unparalleled greatness. However, all must die, and so the blade fell into the hands of a Keeper—and thus the Court of Mysteries. Hidden from the world." Even as Mayer spoke, I could see the man change. The smile lines that coursed through the old man's skin like dried-up river beds slowly crept away, leaving the man who looked in his sixties fall in age to ten years younger. I could feel the bewilderment from Rethi, his eyes wider than dinner plates, staring at the man he had known to be impressive all this time, but realising just how impressive was still a shock.

That was the thing. Mayer radiated power like nothing I've ever seen. The only other comparable people are Armament and Gallar, a First One himself. Mayer's presence was overwhelming, standing in the field and radiating like a miniature sun, an ironclad monolith of security and a symbol of hope.

Suddenly I could understand why the Hearth Court's first pick was Mayer.

"However,' Mayer said, his voice just as radiant as his presence, "I can no longer use Hindle." The light sputtered and died, the radiance that had so quickly become normal disappeared, leaving me feeling cold in spite of being resistant to the climate in general.

"W–" Rethi started, confused, "Why?" Mayer grinned sadly.

"It's nothing special, Rethi. It's not that I am too old, or too weak to use Hindle, but that I don't have the will for it anymore."

"The will?" I asked, gently probing the man. Mayer nodded, a dark cloud of emotion shadowing his thoughts.

"I was a strong young man, prideful and righteous. I'm proud of who I was, even now." He looked out to the distance pensively. "I was like that for many, many years. Decades upon decades. And when the Champion War began in earnest, Armament appeared before me and granted me Hindle."

"Wait, how old are you exactly?" I asked, eyebrows scrunching up. Mayer's grin broke through the dark cloud of his emotions.

"Old." He replied unhelpfully, "I was close to dead when the first Champions arrived, life being extended because of my ability to shift, but I was night on close to one-hundred and thirty. After Ryan came and Hindle was granted to me, well…" He gestured to himself. The de-aging from earlier had mostly diminished, but there had been a noticeable permanent effect. Hindle had de-aged him from an age where his deathbed was just around the corner to a middle-aged man.

"You're saying that sword makes you immortal?" Rethi gaped, but Mayer laughed.

"Not immortal, child, but pretty close to it. It's nothing like Campion healing, or whatever Max has now, you'll still die from having your head lopped off, but other than that you can't die from old age or sickness and become highly resistant to ether of all sorts." Mayer shrugged casually. The effects of the sword were great, but nothing of interest to me. Though that put my brain onto something else. After doing some quick mental math, I realised that Mayer was a whopping one-hundred and thirty years old before he received Hindle, roughly, and that was around when he met Ryan. It's been seventy odd years since then, according to the man himself.

"You're two-hundred years old, Mayer." Mayer just snorted.

"No need to make me feel any older, Max." Rethi gaped at his teacher's age.

"I'm not even close to the oldest person you've met. The both of you." Mayer accused jokingly, as if his pride was being assaulted.

"That Keeper? Was he the same Keeper that took the sword from the original wielder of Hindle?" Rethi asked, dumbfounded. Mayer shook his head.

"No. The Keepers are ancient but are still mortal. I do not know much about Armament, but from the way the depictions of the Keepers change over time, Armament has been a Keeper for quite a few thousand years." Rethi still seemed mind boggled by that, and honestly, I couldn't help but to be either. I had expected the age with Gallar being probably millions of years old, but Mayer? He was almost ten times my age. I may as well be a two-year-old in his eyes.

"Anyway. It has come the time to return the blade to Armament. It was something I always knew was coming, but for it to happen in conjunction with your appearance on Virsdis is simply bad luck. However, Armament seems to be allowing me to let the sword go to the next generation. And I have chosen the next wielder of Hindle to be you, Rethi." Rethi knew all this but was still dumbfounded by Mayer's declaration.

The pure power that Mayer had shown, just holding the blade totally recontextualized Mayer passing it onto Rethi. In essence, the man was offering a young boy true power and agency. As for me? I felt blessed in a totally different way than I already was. In the past few hours, I had felt so many unique emotions from other people. Awe, fear, anger, sadness, elation, happiness…

"Are you seriously crying, Max?" Mayer said, his face morphing into a wry amusement, Rethi spinning around and looked at me, shocked. I chuckled as I wiped the tears from my face with my sleeves.

"What's with those faces, guys. Can't a man cry?" Rethi just looked concerned.

"W– why are you crying?" he asked anxiously. The boy hadn't ever seen me cry, and I could feel his emotions flare strongly. I was a strange and alien creature to Rethi. A literal Demigod. I can't fault him for thinking that I'd be above emotions.

But I wasn't.

I walked forwards towards Mayer arms outstretched. He rolled his eyes at me, but he put the Divine Weapon aside and returned the gesture. I hugged the comparatively small, and much older man strongly.

I could feel the emotion well in him, and I started to get a real idea of what passing on this blade meant to him.

In some ways it was an absolution. To give the blade to someone else, for some else to take the burden of its power and the weight of the actions taken with the blade. But in other ways it was an act of mourning. This blade, however estranged he had become from it, had been his partner in truth, the last symbol of himself left after the war.

He was passing everything that he was worth down to Rethi, and even then he knew that he didn't have the time. We were on a schedule that finished with the worlds dying. He didn't even have the luxury of training the young boy for years to come, to allow him to perfect the blade and surpass him in every way.

With that I pulled back from the man, nodded to him solemnly, and left, leaving them to speak properly.

---​

Maximilian had left a few hours ago and since then Mayer and Rethi had been sitting across from each other, the divine blade he was set to inherit, Hindle, laying between them.

Rethi, the beggar boy. He was going to wield a divine blade, of all things.

Every word out of Mayer's mouth was unable to quell that excitement. The massive number of options that opened due to that ragged looking sword was mind fuddling.

"Rethi." Mayer said gently. "You need to understand that inheriting this blade… it isn't fun, or good. It feels so at first. The power at your fingertips is astounding, the ability to do anything." Mayer recounts wistfully.

"But it doesn't stay that way forever. Soon it becomes chains that bind you. In every moment you wonder how you could be using that power better, more efficiently. How could you save more lives, defeat more foes. The obsession will destroy you, if you are not careful."

Rethi took it in. He understood, he really did. He understood the risks of power. In fact, Max had talked about it at great length. He had taken in what the man was trying to teach him, but always thought that it was a worry for the actually powerful, not children with a sword, like him.

His mind couldn't help but wander back to the tall form of Max, strongly hugging the old man in front of him, tears leaking from his eyes. Did Max know that he was going to get this sword? That he was going to find this power somehow?

"I understand, Master Mayer." Rethi said to the older man softly, "But what choice do I have? For months I've wondered what use I'd be to Master Max, out there on the battlefield he'd find himself on. I have no doubt that Master Max would find something for me to do, maybe even something great. But now Alena is a life shifter…" He stopped, the silence laying heavy on my shoulders until the wielder of Hindle looked up at Rethi with a small smile and spoke.

"That's good. To feel useful, to contribute, to be accepted amongst your peers is a valuable aspiration, though as all-consuming it may be. Know that Maximilian will need you just as much as you need him. He will always be more powerful than you, in one way or another, but you will one day stand amongst the most powerful people alive, as I once did. And your commitment to use that power for your friends…"

"That's what you need to hold on to, potentially at the cost of everything."


A/N: And here we sit at 50 whole chapters. That's a few chapters, my guys. Thankfully I've still got quite a few in the tank ; )

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 51: A Pact

I watched Rethi prepare for the passing on of Hindle over the next few days.

It was mostly a meditation type exercise, consisting of Rethi and Mayer sitting down cross legged silently for hours on end. I'm sure that Rethi would find it boring beyond boring if a divine sword wasn't the end goal, but I wonder what the use of the meditation was for.

Rethi had been taught very limited shifting, so it wasn't as if meditating would significant boost his capabilities, and even then, what would he use it for?

Master and student were inseparable for a few days, and I kept to myself during. This was Rethi's moment to shine. I've had my moment for months now, and the boy's emotional state was wired with anticipation and jubilation. If I butted into that with any reason less than absolutely necessity, I'd just be an asshole.

So, instead I put myself to other uses. Number one on the list was swinging by and having a conversation with Alena who, as far as I can tell, has been out of the loop since she got back.

I made my way easily towards the Apothecary, not much in the way of traffic, everyone busy at work. Gram's Apothecary was open, as usual, the scent of dried herbs and a mixture of what must've been thousands of potent smells leaking out of the door and into the unruly streets of the unnamed town.

Now that I think of it, it's pretty impressive that Gram managed to put together a collection that big, maybe he managed to get word out that he wanted medicinal herbs through the travelling merchants that swing by on occasion, something that should become more common now that Rethi and I dealt with the main reason people didn't dare make the trip.

I took a step into the store and saw Michael Gram rifling through the numerous bottles and drawers, obviously searching for something.

"Good afternoon, Michael." I said happily. The man in question froze, jumping slightly at my voice. He turned towards me without even a smile.

Since the time I caught Michael Gram taking a peek at an exhumed corpse that was not given to him, the man has been nothing but cordial and exceptionally frightened of me. I got the distinct impression that whenever he looked at me, he saw a snake, eyeing a chirping chick in a nest. This time, however, the man was clearly angry with me, only supported by a hint of fear.

I didn't try and reinforce the man's perception of me, but it seemed to only grow over time, which meant that every time I dealt with him, I came out feeling more and more like a villain, not something I really liked about myself.

"Avenforth." He began, his jaw clenched, and body tensed, which was almost comical on his scholarly frame. I quirked an eyebrow, sensing the ensuing argument. I turned back to the door and pulled it closed, and closing the blinders on the windows as well, leaving the room far darker than before, the light forced into golden bands, bleeding through the gaps.

"What is this about, Gram." I said quietly, and the man practically exploded.

"What do you mean! You convinced my daughter that her… abilities are perfectly safe! Are you insane?" Gram yelled, incensed. I crossed my arms over myself and looked at the man sternly.

"Perfectly safe?" I chuckled, "Hardly. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you could be a legendary killer with her exact skillset." The man gaped at me, anger rushing forwards to overtake the shock of my words.

"But," I continued, "the same could be said for your own abilities. Many of your own kind have committed horrors, you even contributed your own to that pile, did you not?" My accusing tone dissuaded the man for a moment before he pushed forward.

"You have no idea the kind of horrors that her abilities can breed. You had no right to tell her to use them!" I took a few steps closer to the irate man and stared deep into his eyes, purposely turning off my safety aura which I typically kept on.

"Gram. Who, exactly, do you think she has been experimenting on to learn to use her abilities?" I asked darkly. I wasn't angry, and neither did that show in my voice, but the man wasn't going to listen to me if he was running high on all the anger that he had. I needed to assert myself.

And it worked. Confusion filled the man as his anger drained.

"Who?" He asked dubiously. I shook my head ruefully.

"Me, Gram. She has been experimenting on my body since we learned of her powers." His eyes widened as he frantically looked me up and down, searching for something.

"H-how? You couldn't possibly survive a failed shift!" I thought for a moment on how to answer the man.

Fact is, not many people actually know about me being a Champion, or anything of the sort. I spend most of my time with others that know my status that I've almost forgotten the fact that I need to hide that from the outside world. But, even if I cannot tell just anyone about being a Champion, or a Demigod for that matter, I can keep things vague and let them fill in the blanks themselves.

"I am Mayer Renue's nephew. My origin past that is none of your business. What I can do is none of your business. But I can assure you that there is almost nothing your daughter could possibly do to me that would permanently harm or kill me." I said, my voice like iron. Gram nodded his head shakily, not wanting to dig deeper into that conversation more than he needed to, probably fearing that he'd displease me.

"Why, though? My daughter, she is young and… if anything happened to her…" He trailed off, worry clouding his mind.

"The why is simple, Gram." I lectured, as if speaking to a child, "You should know just as well as I that life shifting has astounding potential. Where I come from, such an ability could only be dreamed about, the endless possibilities." My wistful tone seemed to sway him ever so slightly. He was a doctor. Exceptionally advanced for, frankly, a backwater like this. It was impossible that he hadn't gone to sleep and dreamt of what could be done with that power.

"However, the other point is muddy. But I think something is clear. You cannot protect her from herself." Gram's body tensed and anger rose to fight me, but I waved it away with a hand, reasserting my safety aura, "You couldn't stop her from following us on a trip she knew to be dangerous, to follow a boy she loves. She would hardly be content to watch Rethi drift away into her memories, forever gone on an adventure away from here. She is young, yes. But, how long can you keep her bottled up in this little nowhere-town?" I asked genuinely and found the answer on Grams face. I didn't even need to look into the man's emotions to know that he felt defeated.

He walked around the counted and reached underneath, finding two cups and a bottle of some alcohol. He placed the two cups down and poured a small amount into the bottom of each, pushing one across the counter towards me.

I took the glass and smelled it. It smelt strong enough to sterilize a wound. He might even have it for that reason. I downed the drink in one blow, my unnatural constitution the only thing stopping me from coughing my lungs up afterwards. The other man didn't seem to notice the slight strain on my face as he downed the glass soullessly.

"I know." He said mournfully, "I always did. At the start—when her mother was still alive—it was a secret even from me. I never knew that life shifting was passed down through bloodline, and her mother was an exceptionally powerful one and a brilliant doctor, in her own right." I smiled at the reminiscing man, softly urging him to continue with my aura of Safety.

"After years of learning, studying and practicing medicine I heard rumours. A tribe in the far reaches of Orisis that collected those with the ability to life shift, teaching them to become the greatest life shifters on the planet—a far cry from the horrors we learned about in bedtime stories.. I wanted to know about them terribly, to learn what they knew and bring that back with me, to advance understanding of medicine for the benefit of everyone, rich and poor of every race. I went there and found her mother, the youngest daughter of the tribe's priestess, and then we eloped against the wishes of our families. I was, from then on, the dark horse of my family to all except my father." That was odd, atypical even. Usually the fathers were the ultimate adversarial force in families like these.

"It wasn't until my father died years later that I learnt that he had left me everything medical he owned. Suddenly I owned one half of the greatest repository of medical knowledge on Virsdis, the other was in the hands of my wife's sisters." The man poured another glass, offering to refill mine, but I declined.

"My wife was a paragon of kindness. Truly something rare, and when I learned she was with child, I knew she would be a great mother." A silly grin tinged with old pain grew on the doctor's face, a remembrance of a happier time.

"After Alena was born, things became odd. Indescribable things started happening that I couldn't help but clue into. I would find small rodents covered in tumours around out house, our pet dog at the time miraculously healed from an injury that I had determined was fatal. I confronted my wife and was told the truth, that my daughter had inherited life shifting. Young children with life shifting aren't capable of controlling it, which is why my wife's tribe would take them from their families, with life shifters capable of counteracting a small child's missteps. We began to run from place to place, seeking refuge from those that began to question things to closely." The middle-aged man sighed deeply, downing more alcohol, and rubbing his hand against his lightly haired head.

"When my wife died something was lost, a link between Alena and I." The man didn't need to talk about the circumstances of his wife's death for me to feel the emotions triggered by remembering it. First was the fear, overwhelming and all encompassing, like watching the world shatter beneath your feet. Then came the hopelessness, and the tough decision. The decision that brought finality and an intense sadness that never truly left.

I closed my eyes to the emotions, finding myself slightly overwhelmed. It was something that was both band and boon. I was able to empathise with someone's very emotions, say that I could truly understand, but the cost was clear and all the more heart wrenching when you could do nothing.

"You're right." He said after a long moment of silence between us, staring down into his empty glass. "I can no longer protect her from the outside world, from the persecution she would face if someone was to find out that she was a life shifter. I know that she will leave, as I once did with her mother, but knowing that she will be actively trying to learn to actually life shift?" The man shivered like a cold breeze had hit him suddenly.

"Michael, I cannot guarantee that your daughter will face no persecution, nor will I be capable of protecting her from all the world's dangers." The man slumped slightly, "But, I can say that I will do everything within my power to keep her safe." Then the room was flooded with light.

I was overwhelmed with a sensation of something tying itself to me, to my soul, in a powerful way. It was an inherently anxiety inducing feeling, much like when someone was manhandling my hammer, but with no pain whatsoever.

The man before me looked at me with wide eyes, radiance beaming from me like a warm fire. He swallowed dramatically, speaking with a shaky voice.

"Well, that was a touch overboard, don't you think?" I just smiled, no knowing what happened at all, but assuming that the other man did.

"Either way," I said as the warm light beaming off of me died down, "I will protect your daughter the best I can, especially in learning her own abilities. I hope that one day she will be the reason why the world accepts life shifters and wishes to train them rather than shun them." The sighs heavily.

"Alright, alright. You've made your point. Why don't you leave me alone with my thoughts for a bit. I'll…" The man paused, searching the bottom of his glass, "I'll talk to Alena about this. I need to tell her many things."

I found it odd the man was so easy to convince after the light but I nod at the man and, with a silent farewell, leave him to his drink.

Now that I was outside of the man's storefront…

What the fuck was that?

"You made a Divine Pact." A cold, hard voice replied to my inner thoughts. I snapped around to look at the cloaked Keeper.

"Armament." I greeted quickly, "A Divine Pact?" The hood nodded.

"Those in connection to the Gods," he said while walking in the direction of Mayer's home, "find themselves capable of creating Divine Pacts, which holds their soul ransom for that which they promise. It seems, Demigod, that you have accidentally made a promise you must keep." I swear that I could hear amusement in the man's stone voice.

"I– well… I guess it doesn't change much." I said hesitantly, "I was going to do it anyways, ransoming my soul or not, but the pressure is on now, hey?" I asked rhetorically, and the hood just bobbed in agreement.

We walked in silence after that, the path quickly losing out to the beaten road that finally made its way to Mayer's home.

"Come, little God. Today we see the birth of a great warrior."

 

[LokKi]

Hmm, good story so far, strange that few people are watching this

 

[Sarius]

Hmm, good story so far, strange that few people are watching this

Click to shrink...

Such is the plight of a (relatively) new story! Also, it's an original so that's harder to sell to people in general haha
I'm glad you're enjoying!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 52: Midday

After our short conversation, I followed the Keeper into the home I had spent most of my time in after I had managed to get myself interdimensional-ly teleported to Virsdis, and found it distinctly different than normal.

Instead of the regular casual and relaxing atmosphere, it was now almost a place of sacrosanct worship. The Keeper and I walked quietly through the corridor and into the loungeroom, where both Mayer and Rethi were, sitting on the floor, having moved all the chairs and other furniture aside.

Mayer sat across from the younger man, his eyes closed and expression stiff, like he was fighting off pain. Rethi looked similarly, thought the grimace seemed like it was more due to his discomfort than any pain he might be feeling. It occurred to me that, for the good part of the few days the Keeper had allowed himself to wait, all they had been doing had been meditate.

It was clear enough to me that they were participating in a ritual of some description, fitting for a divine blade like Hindle was.

The blade was nowhere to be seen, as of yet, but it probably would show itself soon enough, especially now that the Keeper himself was here and was fixated on the ritual in front of him. I looked deeper, trying to see what he was, but came up empty. I don't know if he has the ability to see ether, though I hadn't had it mentioned that it was at all possible, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it was possible.

Mayer, prying himself from his meditative slumber, stood and turned towards the fireplace behind him, and moving a few logs around, revealed the cloaked form of Hindle itself. Thinking about it, it made sense. The longs never needed changing because Mayer created the fire that heated the lounge out of his own shifting, so it was hardly surprising that he'd hidden Hindle in there.

A bit on the nose if you ask me. Hindle was a blade of light, not heat or flame, but still. I almost chuckled but felt that it'd be wrong to do so. Everyone was taking this very seriously at the moment. It might be why Rethi hadn't deigned to tell his girlfriend that he was going to come into possession on a Divine Blade of Light and invite her to the ceremony. She probably would be able to stop herself from asking about everything they were doing, straight to the extremely powerful Keeper.

Mayer moved back towards Rethi, slowly unfurling the cloth from the blade, being inordinately careful around the edge of the blade. I could only assume that it was extremely sharp, otherwise it being a Divine Blade kind of lost its purpose. If it wasn't sharp, it may as well be a club.

As soon as the full blade of the sword was revealed, if began to shine softly, but there was no mistaking it's radiance. Rethi opened his eyes to look at Mayer, who seemed to search his pupil's eyes intently. Though, whatever he did or didn't find, he was pleased with, and nodded towards Rethi's eager visage.

Rethi gently reached out towards the blade, placing his hands underneath the older man's as if ready to catch the blade from falling, which just so happened to be the case, as Mayer dropped the Divine Sword into Rethi's hands.

Though, despite physical appearances, this was something that I felt in my very core. In a way it was similar to what I had experienced not even an hour ago. The forming of a soul bound contract. Instead of forming, though, Mayer was unmaking his.

The unmaking of this contract was not without its own fanfare, as a light surrounded the man similar to how it had earlier for me, and less intensely than he had shown when he had revealed the blade to Rethi and I. Though, as soon as it had appeared, the light surrounding him shattered like a stained glass window.

The man slumped backwards, letting out a soft groan as he fell back, having to support himself with his elbows. I almost moved forwards, concerned for the old man, but the powerful arm of the even more ancient Keeper held me fast, a short shake of his head enough warning. I held fast and simply resigned myself to observe what happened next.

Which wasn't much at first. Rethi was deadly still, unnaturally so. You'd swear that he was a statue, and if not that some macabre puppet. But, without even so much as breathing, holding the sword like you saw mortals holding divine items or children in renaissance paintings, almost lazily allowing the cloth that had surrounded the sword to drape over his arms.

It wasn't until the boy started to pulse with divine energy that I realised that he was offering himself to the blade, his soul and all. Which, obviously, immediately worried me, but Mayer knew what he was doing, and questioning him right in the middle of something of this magnitude was just about the most arrogant thing I think someone could possibly do.

The boy before me, now pulsing, started to also flow faintly in a similar light, though it was distinct from Mayer's earlier light. This light held the heat of a hot afternoon sun.

Armament reacted…somehow. I wasn't sure how, but I know that he did. My natural empathy told me so, just not what. He seemed somewhat impervious to my emotional sensing. I couldn't tell if it was a good or bad reaction, just that it was a reaction at all.

Rethi's light continued to grow, slowly leeching into his skin and his body as a whole, infusing its power into him. I had expected something like this, but when the power started to manifest as tearing skin, and flame spewing forth from within the boy's body, shock took over.

I desperately tried to get a mental read on Rethi, but I came up with nothing. He was immune to my empathic senses while in whatever state he was in currently, which just meant that I had no idea if he was in pain or needed help or not.

Mayer, who had managed to recover himself, if only slightly, now looked like he had been stabbed…

Wait, Mayer was bleeding from his stomach, the blood soaking through his simple shirt. His body covered in a thick coating of sweat, only just holding back gasps of pain and exhaustion.

How had he been stabbed? And why? I thought, before I almost hit myself on the side of the head from how dumb that train of thought was.

Of course it was the not-so-damned sword, exacting its own revenge for abandoning it to another master. I wondered, then, if Hindle was sapient or just sentient, to the level of a dog or something similar.

I wouldn't put it past the Divine Blade to have some measure of intellect.

Turning my eyes away from Mayer with some difficulty, I looked back to Rethi, whose body was now spewing even more fire. Interestingly, while the fire definitely being present, and it feeling hotter in the room, I had a sneaking suspicion that it only felt that way, and wasn't truly the case.

The flame spewing from the boy's body would have licked something by now, and knowing it's divine origin, I wouldn't put burning something to char on contact past it. Something well and truly terrifying,

Burns are something that cause a lot of damage to the body, and even with healing capabilities as good as mine, it'd always be easier and faster to simply cut out the burned part of my flesh than let it heal back from the extremely damaged state it was in.

Turning flesh into char on contact, especially considering that doing that much damage effectively made the entire limb a write off, just meant that other Champions, if not even I, had to be careful around it.

If used correctly, the blade could easily allow for someone to kill a Champion, especially if you could catch a Champion's entire body in a strike somehow. I'm pretty sure that would kill me.

I watched on in a concerned awe as the young boy I had picked up all those months ago now sat before me, beaming in divine light and flame bleeding from his skin, power radiating like the aura of light that surrounded him.

This intensity only grew as the blade resting in Rethi's hands silently became a mini-sun, emitting flame from the blade in enough quantity to encapsulate Rethi's hands and leave the pieces of the cloth that wasn't in the small sun's radius falling to the floor. Initially I was worried that the ball of flame had taken his hands as well, but as the ball floated upwards and revealed his hands I sighed, relieved that the stupid thing hadn't handicapped its own weilder.

The sword began to thrum its own divine energy tune, at first being discordant with Rethi's but slowly, over about a minute, became in synch as could be, layering over each other in a harmonious fashion, making it sound as if there were a third note being sung with the sacred energy.

Then, in just a moment, the sun split in half, as if cut, revealing the blade forged anew from a new soul, a new flame to be tempered by.

The sword still had its odd blade shape and size, but now it had a hilt, elegant but powerful the hilt was made of a crafter metal and wrapped in a dark leather, bright yellow gemstones that whispered of the sun's light, about having bathed in its warmth for millennia set into the eyes of a fanged dragon's head that served as the blade's pommel.

The gloriously bronze blade itself was almost untouched, apart from a more distinct fuller down the centre of the blade and the polished and maintained. If someone with an untrained eye looked at only its physical appearance, basically myself, they'd assume that Hindle were simply a showpiece blade, commissioned by someone with a bit of wealth because it looked cool. And I definitely would.

But while I couldn't speak about the actual practicality of the blade itself, most of which is probably negated due to it being divine in nature, something I was relatively good at was sensing emotions.

Hindle had emotions, or whoever or whatever lived inside of Hindle was capable of emotions. How could I tell?

Overwhelming joy and pride. It radiated out from the blade exactly like it's light, assailing my eyes and mind at the same time, making it impossible to even close my eyes to the intruding light. Rethi, who had previously been covered in heat and flame, was now simply glowing like Mayer had, his flesh bright and golden, like someone was shining a light through his muscle.

Rethi's eyes opened, and his eyes, which used to be a mundane green colour, were now a brilliant gold. The boy radiated just as much joy as the blade had when it had released itself from itss cocoon of a sun, revealing its newfound form to itss weilder. Rethi himself looked… stronger. Much, much stronger.

In fact, from what I could feel, Rethi's aura was qualitatively different to Mayer's.

Mayer's aura while holding Hindle had been the gentle but warm evening sun, the beginning on the sleepy night waiting around the corner. It held a lot of light, but not much heat or strength behind it. It was the end of the day, the quiet disappearance of the smiling sun.

Rethi, however, was the midday sun, radiant in both heat and light, overbearing but also ultimately benevolent with its power to give life to that which we rely on. Its intensity overwhelming in every facet it could be, for midday is its moment to give its gifts of light and warmth, to spur life to evolve and live on, if only to see the next dawn.

It was intense to look at.

"W-whoa." Rethi said finally, after sitting there like an idiot, staring at his own glowing skin, the faint outline of bone underneath his flesh. I couldn't help myself from laughing.

"Seriously Rethi? You pull that stunt and that's the best you've got?" I chuckled, and the boy turned to glare at me, a blush appearing on his radiant features.

"Shut up!" He said with false anger, but Mayer cleared his throat, ignoring the two of us. Our gazes turned towards the man who was now sweating even further, his silver hair dripping with sweat as well, a look of exhausted amusement written across his usually stoic and stern features.

"Rethi." He said quietly, but with a strange power that made me almost believe you could hear those whispered words hundreds of metres away, "You are now the wielder of Hindle. You have assumed the title Midday, for you are the second to hold the true power of Hindle, unlike I who had only wielded a fraction of its strength, being Evening. Welcome, Midday Orsen." Mayer spoke ceremoniously, bowing his tired and struggling form towards the ground.

Rethi, realizing himself, seemed prepared and placed the sword beside himself and bowed similarly towards Mayer.

There was a powerful thrum through the air, and this time I didn't need to even look at Armament to know he was smiling.

The next Divine Warrior of the Sun was born. Midday Orsen.

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 53: Fisticuffs

Keeper Armament didn't allow the boy his excitement for long, though. The dark, hooded man walked over to Rethi and pulled him up from his place on the floor like he was as light as a feather and placed him on his feet.

"Let's see how well you fare in combat against the Demigod, shall we, little Midday?" Rethi, though surprised, simply nodded and looked at me with a set of hungry eyes. I couldn't help myself and grinned back at the boy. Rethi had been wailing on me for months, and now it seemed like I was going to be able to get a good fight out of him.

Rethi rushed out, barely able to contain himself from running towards out usual spot. I took a backward glance at the kneeling form of Mayer, and he waved me off with a grin that told me that he'd be fine. I nodded at the man, making sure to keep an eye on his emotional state. For the most part, though, he felt relieved that the blade was passed on.

Good enough for me.

I ran after him, following the ball of sunny excitement that was Rethi, followed closely by Keeper Armament, his footsteps silent even on the hard dirt road beneath our feet.

It made me reminisce on the first time that Mayer had brought me out here to learn 'footwork', a singular even that sparked a change in who I was. The Sharah had been formative for me and Rethi both, most of our every movements somehow reminiscent to the strange dance I'd once seen Mayer perform on dark grass. Now, a walk that used to take forty minutes now only took a few as we raced out to our regular spot.

Then, all of a sudden, we were standing across from each other, wide grins plastered onto our faces. Rethi's excitement was addicting, a warm and sunny emotion by nature, and my mind was bathing in it with reckless abandon.

The Keeper stood between us, shadowed form turning to look at each of us intensely.

"No weapons, just fists." We both nodded, taking the Keeper's words as law. If anyone was qualified to officiate a match, it was Keeper Armament. The intensity of the upcoming match burned between us, our eyes blazing with that same intensity, scouring each other for possible movements and stratagems.

"Go." And when the Keeper called the start of the match, the world slowed to a standstill. Rethi was the first one to make a move, pulling himself tight and rushing forwards, feet blazing with the speed. But I waited, seeing his movements a mile away.

He may be a hell of a lot faster than before, but he still fought the exact same way. Let's see if I can show him how true warriors fight.

As the boy drew close enough, my legs bent, breaking Rethi's belief of what was possible with the human body. Because of course, I didn't have a human body. By now, I was a little past that.

My legs bent, lowering myself to an angle that was irrecoverable with regular human strength and flexibility, but with my overpowering strength and decent agility, I was able to bent and twist myself, using momentum to swing my body around and towards the boy's legs.

I let go of my grip on the ground, sending my body hurtling forwards, ever so slightly removed from the ground, allowing me to grab onto Rethi's leg and use my own force to pull him to the ground, forcing his legs out from underneath himself.

But he didn't allow himself to go down so easily. As soon as his body started shifting downwards, he put his arms out, digging his hands into the dirt and using that anchor point to pull his body forwards, pulling me along with a surprising amount of strength. Then, in one smooth motion, he straightened the leg I was holding onto and pulled his body up into a flip, launching me up into the air like a catapult.

As I was flung into the air so easily, I somersaulted, repositioning myself to look at the boy that had flung me. Our eyes met and out grins grew even wider.

Finally, a real challenge!

Mayer had never truly fought me head on. Maybe he wasn't strong enough without using Hindle, too many years of not wielding the blade and its power having faded, forcing him to use his powerful shifting to compensate. But Rethi had just been infused with the power of the Midday Sun itself, his flesh blazing with an unmistakable golden warmth.

My feet hit the ground and, without a moments reprieve, Rethi was onto me. His fists pummelled against my body like hammer blows, rupturing skin and muscle only to heal moments later. I grabbed one of his wrists, flipping him over myself in an adapted jiu-jitsu throw, but he was too quick for that.

His feet hit the ground before the rest of his body, allowing him to pull into himself, forcing me to let go of his wrist or he could pull me down with him, but I was already up on my feet and simply turned towards the boy and began to pummel down on him, using my almost foot longer reach against him, slamming him with kick to his own legs that brutalized my legs as much his own.

Thing was, Rethi's regeneration was far slower than mine, but observable. It'd probably take him a good few minutes to recover from a broken bone, but minor flesh wounds would be the downfall of him.

Rethi quickly learned this as well, meaning that he knew that he wouldn't be able to win a battle of attrition and he needed to go on the offensive. He pulled into himself like an upturned beetle and then rocked forwards, allowing him to get onto his feet and dashed forwards underneath a punch I'd just thrown.

The boy went straight for the chin, his uppercut reaching upwards with the sound of wind cutting under the speed of the blow. But I was faster.

I blocked the powerful blow and grabbed it with the other arm, clasping it in my iron grip. The boy struggled and pulled against it, but I didn't budge at all, my strength far overpowering his own.

Then my elbow slammed into the side of that arm and, with a sickening pop that reverberated throughout his arm and into mine, his forearm dislocated. I let the boy pull away, grasping his arm tightly, his knuckles white with the force of his grip.

He growled against the pain. This was one of the worst injuries that he'd suffered while training me, and he looked at me and only saw a predator's grin. He had spent so long cutting me to pieces, sending swords through my stomach, bones, even through my eye and into my brain. Now it was time for the boy to get a taste of his own medicine.

I was no longer the same man as I had been, tentative and squeamish around violence. In six months of training, it had become a second nature to me, pain as much a part of my day as any other sensation. It no longer debilitated me like it once had, paralysing me with the searing sensation.

Rethi popped his own arm back in, me giving him time to do so. After only another second or two the pain seemed to have faded from the boy's expression and the grin regrew.

"Let's kick it up a notch then, shall we?" I goaded, cracking my neck loudly. The boy's grin turned vicious once more.

He raced towards me once more, running headlong into me. I wasn't an idiot, however, and when he darted off to my side trying to get me at my flank, I turned my back to him as a kick flashed out and slammed him right in the chest, ribs breaking underneath my powerful kick, sending him hurtling away from me.

"Come on now, Rethi." I said as I walked towards the fallen boy, "How many times have you pulled that exact move in training. Remember, I can hit you back now." I said, a mixture of mockery and instruction.

It was true, the boy was a natural born fighter, exceptional instincts and an eye for combat. Back on Earth he would have been an excellent sports player, or the same with e-sports, but with sport, there is no death at the end of the day. For months he had been fighting against someone who's only goal was to dodge, with the occasional bout where I pulled all my punches.

But now the boy was tougher than a bull, and if I give him a solid kick, his insides won't be obliterated along with his bones. The boy struggled to his feet, the wind having left his lungs something fierce.

"I-I know. Didn't have to hit me so hard." He protested, but his heart wasn't in it, a grin still on his face even as the bones underneath the muscle and skin slowly realigned themselves. Though it was far slower than I had thought it would be for the moment. Might need some training first, like my own body had needed time to actualise its limits.

"Let's wait for a while until your bones are fully healed. Tell me when." Rethi nodded amiably, and Keeper Armament didn't seem to care, silently observing from the sidelines. We continued to size each other up as Rethi's bones healed squirmed and reset under his skin. The boy grunted in pain on occasion, face fighting against showing too much pain, trying to keep his mind active and assessing.

In the end it took almost fifteen minutes for his bones to fully reset, which wasn't good. It sounds great, and it would easily stop the boy from dying to anything stupid and save him from Gods know how many things on his journey with me, but let's just say that I'm thankful that Alena will be coming along with us.

Theoretically, Alena will be able to totally fix up bones, muscle and skin in only a few seconds, though for the moment it takes a few minutes of pain. Intense pain, but worth it for a whole new arm in only a few minutes.

Alena had told me that there are other shifting techniques that able to heal, almost every element has their own botched version of it, nature shifting being the most potent outside of life shifting, though it amounts to sparkling someone with fairy dust and hoping it heals them. Most tend to rely on healing potions, which are prohibitively expensive, taste disgusting, and only really work on physical damage, accelerating the body's natural healing. It's been observed that healing potions accelerate some cancer's growth.

Just another reason that life shifting was criminally misunderstood. All you needed was some incredibly rare and advanced understanding of human anatomy, simple!

"I'm all good now." The boy said excitedly. I sneered at him, playing the villain.

"Well, with recovery times that long, you better hope your girlfriend gets good at healing you." I snarked, making him growl angrily, but with a grin regardless.

"Angry, are we?" I goaded, "Come on then, little Sun." Rethi's grin widened at my taunting and then, with nothing but his grin as forewarning, the boy shone a brilliant gold, light radiating and streaming off of him like golden water.

Power radiated from him as he rushed forwards at a speed even I found difficult to keep up with. This time he came straight at me, a look into his mind telling me that he wasn't able to control the power very well, only the beginning of his conception of it.

I shot my knee forward, hoping to catch him in his chest, he jumped, lifting his own knee to intercept, the blow causing a resounding crack as my kneecap exploded under the force and our knees slammed together, though Rethi seemed fine, the power reinforcing his body to be far more durable.

He forced me to lower my regenerating knee to bolster my stance against a flurry of blows to my face, chest and arms. His elbows, knuckles and pals assaulting me at a ferocious speed. Though, ultimately, they lacked what it'd take to truly take me out.

In a split second of calm between blows, I let my elbow shoot out on instinct, catching the younger boy right in the chin, smashing into him with his mouth open and slamming his jaw closed and knocking him out in and instant.

The boy was knocked out, crumpling to the floor, a piece of his tongue falling out of his gaping mouth. I quickly turned the boy on his side, making sure that he wouldn't choke in his own blood as his tongue healed itself.

"Good thinking." Keeper Armament commented, "Too many rookie duellists and pugilists are ignorant to how to recover an opponent." I chuckled at that. It only made sense, especially if you were somewhere backwater like the string of towns along these roads. I lifted the boy's legs above his centre mass to help him recover a bit faster, relaxing for a little while.

From this short fight alone, it was clear that Rethi was far more formidable. Mayer had commented many times over that he was an exceptionally good duellist, most likely from fighting against me for hundreds of hours. We had easily spent likely more than a thousand hours combined, fighting and training together in total. Not a massive number, by any means. But to progress so quickly he had pulled out every stop, pushing his body and minds to its limits to become the best warrior he could and fulfill the dream that he stored somewhere deep in his heart.

"Midday Orsen, huh?" I question the Keeper that stood only a few metres from me, carefully keeping watch of the boy as the bleeding form his tongue slowly stemmed itself and began to heal itself back.

"It is a title afforded to those that have been granted the full power of a Sun-blade, the ranks of the Divine Weapons created by the Sun Gods. Hindle being the most powerful and first of its brethren." I nodded thoughtfully.

"He's going to be a big deal, isn't he?" I asked, almost rhetorically, but the Keeper answered regardless.

"It would be more surprising if he did not."

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 54: A Plan

Rethi awoke from his forced slumber only a few minutes later, and we sparred for the rest of the night, brutally destroying each other's bodies. The boy still needed to get used to copious amounts of pain, and I was going easy on him. He knew that I was, of course, he had been dealing out pain on me for months, so he was as much a maestro of it as I was.

Tearing ligaments, breaking minor bones, damaging sensitive organs, obstructing breathing with force. It was interesting to be the teacher now, rather than the pupil, but as the hours passed, it seemed like the boy still needed to sleep. At least for now.

I trained long after Rethi went back to the house for rest, returning myself to the katas that I had formulated oh so many months ago—to get myself used to the weight of my hammer. Now, though, the weight was enormous and impractical.

It didn't help that the hammer scaled with my strength, so I wasn't sure, apart from formulating some shifting trickery, that I'd ever be able to wield the thing without looking like a drunk man swinging around a stick he picked up.

Hours passed as I trained, a usual occurrence. My brain had long since recalibrated to my twenty-four-hour schedule, almost allowing me to fast forward through my own actions as I repeated and tweaked my training on autopilot.

Before long the sun had emerged from behind the orb moving through the sky, the rays of light always a captivatingly beautiful sight over the glassy plains, with the condensation of morning dew resting gently on the blades of grass—stretching over dips and rises that formulated the landscape.

I let myself train comfortably for a few hours longer than I usually did, enjoying the silence and clear headedness that came with the warming morning air.

Interestingly, I caught sight of a singular person all the way out here, an unusual sight. Not many went out past this way, especially because of the threat from the forest wolves that way. Only travellers and merchants really came out this far. I squinted my eyes to try and get a better look at the person, dressed in farmer's clothes. For what reason they were out here I couldn't possibly understand, but I just gave the farmer a polite wave.

The farmer gave a hesitant wave back, and walked their way back towards the town centre. I wasn't really worried about hiding my hammer around the townsfolk, there really wasn't any reason. The education level around here was abysmally low, and even if they potentially recognised the hammer for what it was as a part of a legend, my word would overpower theirs by simply spinning some bullshit.

I sighed as I decided to walk my way towards Mayer's home myself. Last I'd seen of the ex-weilder of Hindle, he'd been bleeding from a stab wound and seemed like he had everything under control, at least form his emotions anyway.

I plodded my way along the dirt path, making it to the homey wooden structure and stepping inside. An immediate check of my surroundings with my empathy told me that Mayer was in bed in his room, probably the only time I'd ever seen him in bed outside him actually sleeping.

I walked to the kitchen first, making the man some tea and a small breakfast using the ether powered cooking implements. Though Mayer rarely bothered to even use them, just using his own flame for whatever reason.

I bustled my way into the old man's room, holding a few plates stacked with a not-at-all healthy breakfast of pancakes slathered in a syrup that wasn't anything that I had ever tasted before coming here, but it was powerful and overwhelmingly sweet, so it served its purpose.

"How's it going, cripple?" I asked jokingly as I walked into Mayer's room. Clean, orderly, and barebones would be a good description of his room, though there were a few personal items strewn about the place.

"Bah," the man scoffed with a painful grimace, "I can still give you a hiding, kid, don't you worry about me." I laughed as I handed him the tea and place the food on his side table, for him to attack later when he felt up to it.

"You wish, old man." I said, truthfully in a sense of the word. Mayer could probably still kick my ass three days from Sunday with shifting, but not physically anymore. Maybe not anymore at all, a somewhat sad thought.

I gave the older man a once over. Mayer still retaining his mostly youthful appearance that had gained from whipping out Hindle a few days ago, looking more like a thirty-five to forty-year-old man than someone in their early two-hundreds, but that certainly didn't change the fact that the man felt far frailer than before.

Beforehand he was a physical powerhouse, even without wielding Hindle. Now he had been stripped of that power, left to be just an abnormally fit and healthy man. Some of the attacks that I had trained with the man in the past would eviscerate the man now. Though I suspected that he was just as strong with his shifting as he was before.

I looked down to a large piece of cloth that was securely bandaged to the side of his stomach, where he was bleeding from after the ceremony. Mayer saw my looking, and with a crooked grin, ripped away the cloth and showed me the wound. Or, in this case, a lack thereof.

"Do I wanna ask?" I said, perturbed. After a moment, the place where the not-wound was began to trickle with blood, welling up through the skin with seemingly no regard for the barrier of flesh and skin. Mayer pulled the bloody cloth back into place, grimacing as he did.

"Magical revenge wound. All the pain and annoyance with none of the death. Gut wounds are a bitch." He said between gritted teeth. I nodded, amused.

"So Hindle is a vengeful blessed blade, huh?" I asked, and the man nodded, a wry grin on his face.

"Hindle has its own mind. Not a complicated one, mind you, but one either way. I'm not sure if it'll ever get to the point of human intelligence, but it did seem to get smarter over my time wielding it." Well, that could either be a good or bad thing, depending how it panned out. Typically giving items sapience, let along sentience it regarded as a bad move, but what can you do.

"That'll have to be Rethi's problem, hey? Mr. Midday will have to deal with sapient Divine Swords and Demigods while you get to sit back and drink tea till the end of time." I chuckled and Mayer nodded.

"Not quite till the end of time. This old man will have an expiration date soon enough." I raised an eyebrow, worried, but he just laughed painfully, "Don't you fret, kiddo. It'll be decades till that point. Hindle was nice enough to let me keep this youthful body, even if it did stab me in the gut."

We let he room slowly sink into a companionable silence between the two of us, something that over the months had become a staple of our time together. Rethi sometimes called me an old man wearing a twenty-year-old's skin for it, but over time I'd taken to Mayer's way of thinking. There was always time for talk later, but silence could achieve just as much as inane claptrap.

Looking into the man's emotions, I found a puddle of a few different intermingling emotions. There was sadness there, maybe even a slight tinge of regret. But there was also an overwhelming sense of relief and… happiness. He was comfortable, even when he was in immense pain. Content. I sighed deeply.

"You aren't going to come with us." I stated. Of course, I had known this from the start, really. He had come to this small little, nameless town to get away from everything. Mayer nodded, confirming even when he didn't need to.

"I thought I'd always be needed. A warrior for the people. A people that I loved and cared about more than even myself. A people that I sacrificed everything for, lost friends and men and women that I had known for decades for. Soon enough, when I sat atop the tower, praised to the high heavens, having become the champion for the people I loved, it all changed." Mayer looked out the window thoughtfully, staring at the wind that was gently glowing through the leaves of a tree. He took a sip from his tea, letting it sit in his mouth and letting his muscled relax against the pain in his stomach.

"The war was over, my usefulness depleted. The unity that we had found, allying against the horrors of the Champions shattered once more, even if everyone pretended to be under one banner. I was sent on skirmish after skirmish, land wars that meant nothing except for the poor bastards that ended up on the wrong side of a blade they couldn't have possibly deserved." Mayer's eyes closed as he saw far too many men, their faces garbled and smudged in his memory, but small features still returned to him. The chill that they caused him to experience transferred across my empathic link well enough for me to know just how deeply he regretted those days.

"Before long, I found myself in a world that I didn't recognize anymore. People I was detached from, no friends except those young enough to be great, great grandchildren, none of them remembering the war that reformed the world itself. All pushed aside in the name of moving forward." He turned to me, a dry amusement on his face.

"So, like a disenfranchised teenager, I ran away as far as I could and found myself here with far, far too much time to think for my own good." We shared a mutual chuckle at that. He didn't need to recount the rest.

He had come to the decision to leave Hindle to someone else, or not at all if necessary. He didn't have it in him anymore to fight wars that were so far removed from himself. He was a man stuck in a strange grey area where the world he lived in wasn't really his own anymore.

I'm sure I could argue all day with the man, to try to convince him that he could regain his connection to the world once more, but that'd be naïve and, frankly, insensitive. The only other frame for reverence that I had for those that had lived a long time was Keeper Armament, and he hardly seemed like he was connected to the world.

We let the silence reign for a while, but eventually I left. There wasn't much else to talk about really. The man had made his decision and deserved to have at least some peace and quiet while he was recovering from a phantom stab to the gut.

I wasn't sure what else I'd do that day, aside from training, until I walked out Mayer's front door and almost walked straight into Rethi. Managing to stop myself from pushing the boy over by grasping onto his shoulders, I took a step back from the boy.

"Morning Rethi." I said with a smile, "Come to see the old man himself?"

"Ah, not quite. I already talked to him last night before I went to bed." He said, scratching the back of his head, "I was actually here to talk to you…"

I quirked an eyebrow as the boy trailed off. Quickly, I delved into Rethi's emotional state and found myself very worried, very fast. Without making any fanfare of it, I nodded and started walking in towards the centre of town, where Rethi had come from.

"Let's talk as we walk, shall we?" Rethi nodded taciturnly, though the sad expression on his face was anything but the stoic façade that he'd been trying to emulate from Mayer for months now.

"We are leaving soon, aren't we?" he asked softly, and I nodded affirmatively. He sighed heavily.

"What am I going to do about my mum? I can't just leave her here." There was a note of iron will in his voice. He wouldn't budge on this, I had to find a way to fix this before we left or Rethi either wouldn't leave, or would be very, very angry with me.

Admittedly, I'd been rather hands off when it came to his mother. Rethi had told me bits and pieces of what was happening with her, and all of it was bad news. She was dying, and fast. Six months ago she could barely walk, now she was far worse, losing memory and sleeping most days all the way through. Her caretaker, Arren Smithe, knew the signs from her husband's progression. She was going to die in a few months, at most.

I let my brain speed into a frenzy, trying to come up with something. Rethi looked at me, a sort of questioning hope as I let my brow furrow into a look of consternation.

"Ah." I said as a possible idea came to mind. Rethi's eyes widened as he saw the grin widen on my face. "I have a plan."

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 55: Chances

Being alone with Rethi was surprisingly unusual.

Most of the time we were accompanied by Mayer, being taught or fighting half to death. But now? We were simply walking someplace, a goal in mind, yes, but a more casual encounter than the intense training and focus we displayed just yesterday.

In fact, I realised I hadn't had a heart to heart with the boy for a good long time, and aside for the trip to the forests our time together, alone, has been filled with a mostly companionable silence with no real conversation of substance.

Now, I was starting to realise that I had been neglecting a prominent emotion in the boy's life. Worry. Worry for his mother, for her future without him, and for a world where he can't afford to help her against the mothers, fathers, daughters and sons of thousands more than just his own.

I sighed as we drew closer to Michael Gram's home. This was going to be an interesting conversation and I was realising that the boy wasn't truly prepared for it, not yet. There was only so much that could be achieved by dragging someone else along on your adventures, like I had unceremoniously done to Rethi, and though he has managed to find his place into being the successor of a divine blade, he was not guaranteed that, by any stretch of the imagination.

"Rethi, let's talk for a moment before we go in." I said quietly, turning into a side path and down behind the row of shops that lined the main through road in the town. Out the back was a severe lack of homes and more than enough space to sit in a patch of grass.

I sat in the grass out the back of Michael Gram's house and shop, and patter the grass next to me, prompting the boy to sit.

As Rethi sat down next to me, I could feel a slight warmth radiating from the boy. His skin had begun to look sun-kissed, instead of it's usual only slightly tanned colour, his dark hair almost inheriting a shine, and I was sure that the hair would be warm, like black hair under the sun. The boy seemed to either not take notice of the changes in his body, or he didn't care.

"How is your mother, Rethi." I asked, keeping my voice low rather than it's usual boisterous loudness. I could feel the boy's mood darken further.

"Not well. Even so, she won't let me see her. I…" He swallowed against a particularly unpleasant memory, "I tried to force my way in once, but it didn't go well." I nodded gently.

"Rethi, we are going to leave, likely in a matter of a week or two. WE have stayed in this small town for far too long, maybe it was my own fear of facing what was out there that stopped me from leaving earlier, but now we have to wrap everything we have up here, and leave for a world outside." The boy's emotions turned into a troubled mess as I spoke, though he didn't vocalize any of those emotions. "Speak, Rethi." I commanded lightly. I needed him to speak to me, at least a little.

"I… I've spent my whole life here, but even so, I have only one thing I need to wrap up." He said, his conviction growing slightly. "My mother is sick and dying, and she won't even let me see her, and there is nothing I can do."

"Of course you can't." I said, plainly. Rethi looked back at me with sad eyes, a disappointment rushing through him, even though he'd said the words.

"That, Rethi, is why we have friends." He barked out a dry laugh.

"Rethi, your girlfriend is a practically preordained to be a master healer like the world has never seen before. I will make sure with all my power that it happens." I said a small smile growing on my face, despite the plummeting morale of the boy in front of me.

"But that doesn't help me now." He growled, almost yelling. I sighed deeply.

"You're right, it doesn't help you right this second. But it will soon. Very soon in fact." He turned to me, a barely concealed anger hidden behind a questioning eyebrow. "I do have a plan, one that I think could really, actually work. One that could possibly save your mother, at least for now."

"What is it? You know that Alena can't heal my mother, right?" Rethi's anger melted away, leaving behind a mix of excitement and worry. An overwhelming sense of worry.

"She can't at the moment." I prefaced, and then sighed when the boy drew a blank, "Rethi, you have to understand that we are going to have to convince two people that will object to this extremely hard." Rethi furrowed his brow.

"What are you going to do, exactly?" He asked again, drawing out the words cautiously. However, before I could respond I heard the sound of a wooden door clacking against it's frame from behind me, causing Rethi to turn away from me.

"Well, what perfect timing Alena, I guess we will be all learning together." I said jovially, almost dreading the next few minutes.

"Okay… what's going on, exactly?" Alena said, concerned.

"Max has a way to help my mother!" Rethi blurted, and I cringed heavily, my eyes scrunching together. Sometimes I forget that Rethi is still really young, only just a teenager and excitable.

"Max. What exactly does this plan involve?" She asked dangerously. Who could have guessed that a young girl could be so terrifying. I turned around to her, an apologetic smile already on her face.

"No. Absolutely not." Her voice was hard and brittle.

"Wait, what?" Rethi said now baffled.

"You cannot make me do that!" She yelled at me, but I looked her dead in the eyes.

"So you will just leave her to die?" I intoned darkly. She froze, and Rethi's eyes bounced between the two of us, not sure whose side he should be on.

"You think I should just take the chance? Roll the dice with her life? You sicken me!" Her voice was dangerously close to screaming, and she turned heel and walked away.

"Woah, woah. What just happened." Rethi said, shock flooding through him, his mind desperately backpedalling, trying to keep up. I laughed humourlessly.

"I just asked your girlfriend to do something that I knew that she'd be against." I grimaced at Rethi's look.

"Your whole plan was to ask her to just... heal my mother?" I rolled my eyes at his disbelieving look.

"Of course not. But it won't matter how much I try, she will see it that way. I need you to help me convince her of my plan." He scrunched his eyes up in frustration.

"What is the plan!" He yelled, frustrated at being left out of my plan. I decided to take pity on the poor boy, and with a grin I began to explain my plan.

"I'm going to intentionally infect myself with Rhy disease."




Now, I'm sure you could hazard a guess as to how Rethi took that last statement. A mixture of surprise, disbelief, calling me a fool, and once I had explained my reasoning, grudging compliance.

The boy had stumbled into the house to convince his girlfriend two hours ago, confused and not entirely sure how to feel about my proposition. But more than anything I saw that he was determined. He knew that this was probably the only chance that she had, outside of a fairly powerful nature shifter randomly coming to town.

Not that I'd be against that happening, but I think we've had enough surprise visitors to last a lifetime. A two literal Gods and a many thousand-year-old Keeper. An interesting track record so far.

Behind me the flimsy wooden door flew open, slamming against the outside wall of the house, and making a mighty cracking sound as it rebounded back into its frame. I turned my face to see an incredibly angry Alena stomp across the grass, right up into my face, and winding back her open palm and slapping me right across the face.

There was obviously no effect, but it still surprised me. She was fuming, face red and what had to be the remnants of tears staining her cheeks.

"You think you can guilt me into healing her? You know the risks, I could turn her into a walking, breathing tumour by mistake!" she growled, barely holding back a wave of tears.

I furrowed my brow. I had expected her to be angry at me, but not also so incredibly hurt. It was a different hurt, old and healed over, but cut anew. I sighed.

"I intend to get you to the point where the risk is acceptable."

"Acceptable? You're saying you think that any level of risk of me turning Rethi's mother into a brainless monstrosity?" I looked at her, seeing past the rage and hurt, past the roiling emotions and seeing the bottom of the lake, the emotion that the water settled on. Fear.

"Alena." I said, a calm overtaking me, "what is her chance of survival?" There was silence for a while, before she opened her mouth, but I could see the acid dripping from her mind before she spoke.

"No, Alena. I do not want a snide remark. I want you to tell me; what are her chances?" There was no response this time, not a movement, though her emotions continued swirling.

"You're right," I said to the unspoken answer, "nothing. No chance at all. She will die, and there will be nothing that anyone can do about. Anyone, except you and I." I felt her emotions swell, anger sapping away and simply becoming fear.

"I can't. I can't do it." I shook my head.

"You can. And we are going to test it over and over until the chances of you failing are so low that you would have to be stupid to not try. Because if you are going to follow me and Rethi around the worlds, this is the price you'll have to pay, do you understand?" Stony faced, I looked at her, analysing her facial features.

She tried to school them into something that wasn't just pure fear, with a healthy dose of hate, what I'd expect when someone was forcing you into doing something you had been terrified of doing for her entire life up until not a few days ago.

"What if I can't? What if it's still too dangerous to heal Rethi's mother?" I let the question hang in the air for a long time, longer than it needed for me to consider it. I could answer it in any hundred different ways, but all of them simply sounded more manipulative than the last, and I was already manipulating the poor girl enough for my tastes. In fact, I was being the asshole here, blatantly manipulating her into a terrible situation. But I had no choice, the only other 'choice' being to let Rethi's mother simply die.

So, instead of a long and impassioned speech about how it wouldn't be her fault, or manipulating her with the death of Rethi's mother, I simply gave her a little, sad smile.

"Can you please get your father for me? I'd like to discuss some things with him, with you present." We stared at each other for a long moment, before she clenched her jaw and walked back inside to grab her father.

They re-emerged only a few moments later. Michael looked unhappy with me, decidedly angry in a way, but much calmer than his daughter.

"Maximilian." He said, his voice dark with emotion. I nodded back to him.

"I'm going to cut to the chase. I want you to infect me with Rhy disease as a test dummy for your daughter to learn how to combat, if not immunize against it." Michael's expression became even darker, though I could see a small light of excitement inside his mind, though it was overshadowed by the darkness of fear and protectiveness of his daughter.

"Why do you want to torture my daughter with this? You are trying to cure Rethi's mother, yes? What use is that, to put a young girl in the position to be the only hope, the only saviour? What if something went wrong? What if she dies because of a freak accident?" I could feel the father and daughter unite against me, but I shook my head sadly.

"Michael. When have you ever had that choice?" I sighed as he narrowed his eyes, "A man appears on your doorstep, bleeding from a knife wound. You know that he has to be treated in the next hour or he will bleed out and die. However, you also know that there is a likelihood that you doing what you have to do, without the correct tools, will kill the man just the same. What do you choose?"

"This isn't even remotely the same as that! I have training, experience, a lifetime of understanding and perspective. I have been working around the sick, dying and dead for decades! She is a child, barely considered a teenager and you want her to make a decision of this gravitas?" He yelled, truly enraged. When I had approached him not days earlier he had been angry, but this was a different level. I understood, I really did, but…

"How long will it be before she holds the hand of the dying, of someone she desperately wants to save, and she cannot? How long before she tries her best, and in the worst possible moment she accidentally creates an abomination? How long until the palace of glass that surrounds her inevitably shatters and there are no other chances?"

"If not now, when?"


A/N: Hey there guys, Sarius here.

So, this is a relatively big milestone! I've posted twenty new chapters, over three different stories no less. It's a pretty wild feat, in my opinion. It's something I've been working towards for months now, and I'm glad that I've finally delivered.

But that brings me to a little announcement. I'll be opening a Patreon where you could potentially gain advanced access to 30 chapters of each of my stories. At the highest tier, that's a total of 90 chapters covering all of my serialising stories. If the service were available right now, you'd be able to read Chapter 85 of Unwieldy and Chapter 50 of Fixture of Fate and Ribbon!

It's a pretty big deal, and it's not ready yet, but it will be soon. If you want to get in on this, I urge you towards my little discord server!

Hope you all have a great day, either way!