Blessed Time: The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Adventure Box Set), page 134
His fist burned red, crushing her cheek and leaving an ugly screaming hole in her flesh. It was like cracking open a lantern. The woman’s body was hard and brittle, shattering under his attack and cutting open his hand and arm on the jagged edges of her skin. The wound itself was as inhuman as the creature he was fighting. Rather than sinew and meat, there was only the red, pulsing glow of the angry energy that made up the beast wearing the old woman’s face.
Her flesh squirmed, transforming into tentacles into a half dozen or so narrow tentacles that flailed outward from her restrained body. None of them seemed able to touch the strange woman holding her tight; instead, they sharpened into an array of needles and scalpels that spun in the air of their own volition, still covered in the wrinkled old flesh of the madam as they oriented themselves toward Micah.
“Who!?” she shrieked. “We are in your soul! Only you and I should exist here!”
“Her heart, Micah!” the crowned woman shouted back. “You need to consume its heart. Until you absorb the daemon, it will keep reviving itself and win a war of attrition. You need to strike now while we have the advantage.”
“How!!”
Micah ignored the madam’s shout, channeling all of his anger into his right hand. The tendrils of the daemon’s flesh sprang toward him, punching through Micah’s skin and beginning to wriggle and worm their way toward his heart.
It hurt. He’d been stabbed and bludgeoned, buffeted by spells and even killed, only to be saved by his time magic. This wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever felt, but it was certainly up there. What was worse than the pain, however, was the sensation. The feeling of something alien, snaking its ice cold way through his muscle and veins, made Micah’s skin crawl.
Then his hand plunged downward, fingers piercing through her sternum and into the scalding hot substance beneath. There wasn’t flesh or bone, just unbearable eyeball-watering heat before Micah’s fingers closed around the creature’s core.
He yanked his hand free, letting the madam’s corpse droop downward, only held aloft by the other woman and the strings of flesh stretching from her limbs to Micah’s torso. In his grip sat an angry pulsing sphere of black and green.
“Devour it!” the remaining woman yelled. “It will only find a new host if you don’t.”
Micah didn’t wait or question. It could have been a trap, but he trusted her. Micah didn’t know how or why, but her help had been instrumental in securing his victory.
The core tasted vile. The consistency and taste both reminded him of some sort of viscous rubber, but Micah plowed ahead, forcing it down in one gulp.
A moment later, the burning began. His right arm was scalded from shoving it into the daemon’s chest, but compared to the rumbling tidal wave of pain that consumed Micah, that was nothing. He fell to his knees as his body was racked by spasms, eyes closed and his hands curled into talons as he clawed fruitlessly at his face.
The only spots on Micah’s body that felt anything but heat and agony were the spots where the monster’s tendrils had tried to invade his body. Each of those wounds pulsed with a glacial cold that threatened to break his perception and drive Micah entirely mad.
The world pulsed around him. Micah’s eyes were closed, but he could feel the outside world both expanding and holding firm at the same time. It was something he couldn’t properly put into words, like the space he was in had doubled in size all while every object in it remained exactly proportional in both position and size.
A soft, feminine hand touched down on his shoulder, and cool energy began to flow into Micah’s body. The chaos and conflicting impressions did disappear, but they faded enough that he no longer felt like he was tumbling madly through a blizzard.
Everything pulsed a second time, but this time, Micah felt more in control. The heat in his body was abating from its previously unbearable levels, and Micah finally felt comfortable cracking his eyes open.
Unsurprisingly, the crowned woman was kneeling over him, her hands on each of his shoulders. They were still in the brothel, but they were alone. The puppets and phantasms created by the daemon had disappeared along with most of the room’s color and decoration. It wasn’t quite an empty room, but there were barely any hints as to its former purpose.
He blinked at the woman, trying one final time to place her as he forced words out of his parched throat.
“Who?”
“Karin Dakkora,” she replied, still infusing Micah with her cool energy. “But on some level, you already knew that. After all, we’re the same, you and I.”
“Do you mean divine candidates?” Micah asked with a cough. “By the Sixteen, you’re familiar. How do I feel like I’ve known you my whole life when you died centuries before I was born?”
She snorted and removed her hands from Micah’s shoulders. Pain began to creep back in as she stood up and crossed her arms.
“Come on, Micah Silver. We’re smarter than that.”
TWENTY-FOUR
MAN IN THE MIRROR
“No,” Dakkora replied, barely suppressing an eye roll. “I am not an evil spirit haunting our crown that is trying to possess your body.”
“I apologize,” she continued, slipping to a seat in one of the couches. “I said that we were smart enough to know what was going on, but apparently, I was wrong. I failed to account for the fact that, at times, you’re as clueless as a brick.”
“I was kidding,” Micah responded, running his hands over his body to make sure that none of the daemon’s tendrils were still attached. All of the creature’s human forms had disappeared the moment he had consumed its core, leaving him alone in the brothel with Karin Dakkora. “I know we’re connected on a deeper level than that. I’ve… been having these flashbacks. ‘Remembering’ things that never happened where I’m pretty sure that I’m you.
“Of course,” he said, locking eyes with the sorceress, “you’ve dropped some pretty big hints. If you keep referring to me with first-person pronouns enough times, I really would have to be clueless as a brick not to figure it out.”
“I just can’t figure out why you’re still around. As best I can understand, reincarnation is supposed to completely wipe a soul clean. Even if we’re the same person, I shouldn’t be able to talk to you directly like this,” Micah finished.
“Plenty of people talk to themselves,” Karin replied, stretching out her right hand. A glass of white wine appeared from thin air in her thin fingers. “You’re just a little crazy, Micah. Nothing wrong with that, and something that you’ve suspected since you left Basil’s Cove.”
He glared suspiciously at the glass of wine in her hand for a second, debating whether or not he wanted to try his luck with a drink of his own before ultimately deciding against it. Micah might succeed, but if he knew on an almost instinctual level that if he struggled or failed that Dakkora would never let him live that down.
“Have you been watching this entire time?” Micah asked, trying to keep his tone diplomatic as he redirected the conversation. “I’d imagine watching me play in the mud and take baths as a small child would have gotten boring after the fiftieth time.”
Dakkora swirled the wine in her glass, pausing for a second to take a deep sniff before sampling the drink.
“Arofoncce Vineyards 622,” she said happily, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the drink. “One of the underrated benefits of being a disembodied spirit. In a proper soulspace like this, I can create whatever I want so long as there are proper memories to give the thought shape.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, pausing for a moment to take another sip, “I ordinarily can’t see out of our eyes. I’m stuck in a place like this, ruminating over my life’s mistakes with only the occasional treasure trove of repressed memories for me to rummage through. Usually, it's all boring stuff: childhood trauma, breakups, weddings, and major life traumas. Every once in a while, I get to see a new technique or piece of research, but that’s changed with you, Micah.”
“Is it because I pursued your legacy?” he questioned. “I know you have a connection with the scepter and the crown, it would make sense that they unlocked some sort of connection between the two of us.”
The woman chuckled, reaching out and placing her now empty wineglass on an end table that appeared out of thin air. She leaned forward, face in her hands and elbows on her knees as she contemplated Micah. One second ticked into another as she watched him, and just as Micah began to squirm under her gaze, she spoke up.
“You are the only other human I’ve ever seen that has combined my recklessness and inquisitive mind. I do not think another blessed can approach my knowledge on Elsewhere and daemons, and you literally went there yourself. Admittedly, you had some help from the goddess in surviving, but you still survived the mists for a fraction of a second.”
“That and your Arcana skill were what woke me, Micah,” Dakkora continued, tapping her index finger to the side of her head. “I have to say, I was going a bit crazy in there with nothing to do but simulate experiments and talk to the others. Even if half of your life was teenage melodrama with you mooning over that ridiculous Jo girl, it was certainly a step up from chatting with the old man about his grandchildren and failings.”
“Oh no,” Micah breathed out, his eyes widening. “You watched me fumbling around with Jo.”
“And those dramatic stunts you tried to pull with the Durgh,” Dakkora replied with a chuckle. “It all seemed so important to you and silly to me. After all, if I wanted a man or a woman, it was a simple matter to summon a brensen and nab them from their beds. Then I would cast a will-binding ritual and have the perfect partner for a month or so until the spell consumed them. Clean and without any loose ends.”
“That doesn’t… sound terribly ethical.” Micah did everything he could to keep his voice diplomatic, but evidently, it wasn’t enough, as Karin rolled her eyes at his discomfort.
“Ethics slow research,” she said dismissively. “The gods in their infinite wisdom created a world where everything recycles. Every spirit lives countless lives, slowly developing and growing so that it can take on greater and greater burdens with the goal of eventually ascending altogether. Ending one mediocre life early to advance research that will last for generations? That is a logical sacrifice that anyone could understand.”
He looked around the room. The colors were faded and details were starting to disappear. Ever since Micah had consumed the daemon, their surroundings had begun to lose cohesion. Maybe it was the extra energy running through his body from consuming the monster’s core, but he felt like he could single out the individual motes of energy that formed the walls and furniture around him. They were burning out, slowly but surely. In five to ten minutes, there would only be embers left and he would awaken.
“The last time I killed a greater daemon,” Micah spoke slowly, reasoning out loud as he kept his eyes locked on the sorceress. “I woke up immediately and there was a hole ripped in space that was letting daemons in. Somehow, given our limited time in this space, I doubt you kept it from dissolving simply to lecture me on the nature of good and evil, especially because we both know how vehemently I would disagree with you.”
“Good eye,” Dakkora replied. “I knew there was something of me in you.”
“Now tell me, Micah.” Her face transformed into a wolfish grin as she leaned toward him. “Tell me what you know about souls?”
“They look like spheres?” Micah hazarded. “Spheres covered in chains and runes so intricate that even after years of research, I can barely understand a tenth of what they mean.”
“You’ve seen them directly!” Dakkora’s eyes lit up. “For all of my skills, I’ve never managed to secure something like your Arcana skill. I can’t even piggyback off of you. The only time I couldn’t see through your eyes was when you were casting your gaze inside your research subjects. It was like Mursa herself came down to tap her foot impatiently while staring me down. I just wanted to stick my tongue out at the old hag.”
“Hag!” Micah burst out before he devolved into a fit of coughing.
“Well,” she replied, “maybe not a hag, but we both know that young and beautiful body of hers is as real as the bodies that the daemon made in your soulspace to try and lure you in. As best I can tell, the real forms of the gods aren’t that much different from the daemons themselves.”
“Mist and power,” Dakkora ranted excitedly. “Just a marginally friendlier sort. Of course, at the end of the day, that’s what we are too.”
Micah opened his mouth to contradict her, but deep down, the power that he associated with his major Arcana skill throbbed. It was the same as the limitless power of Elsewhere, but rather than a rabid dog, it was tamed. Watchful and under control as it curled around his heart, just waiting for Micah to call on it.
When he finally spoke, it wasn’t a shout of indignation or denial. He was beyond that. Micah could feel the truth in her words even if he had never directly made the connection before.
“I don’t understand. Deep inside, I know you’re right, but I’ve seen souls. That’s not at all what they look like.”
“That’s the seals keeping them in place,” she responded, eyes bright. “I suspect that’s what the chains and locks you’ve observed actually are. When the gods made us, we were little more than scraps of mist stitched together. If a soul was unleashed before it was ready, it would simply fade away. After all, you’ve already seen it happen with those forgotten that the Third Prince has modified. It damages and redirects their seals. Instead of growing and nurturing their soul over a lifetime, they burn it out in a few scant years.”
“Of course,” Dakkora rambled, barely even focusing on Micah as she talked to herself, “that’s the only real sin. There are infinite lives on Karell, but a finite number of souls. Death and torture build character while the daemons are the only thing that actually and truly destroys. I might not agree with the gods, sanctimonious monsters play-acting as moral paragons, on many things, but that is one spot where we are perfectly in tune.”
“Karin.” Micah leaned forward, snapping his fingers in front of the woman’s face. “Focus. We both know that we have limited time here. You need to tell me something. What is it?”
“Right,” she replied, shaking her head. “Souls. Where were we? Souls, souls, souls.”
Micah struggled to keep his face even. The walls of the brothel were… thinner. Almost translucent. As interesting as the theoretical conversation with the spirit of Karell’s most powerful ritualist were, they were running out of time.
“Micah,” Dakkora interrupted herself. “Do you know why you are able to talk to your past life like this? Other than the trauma related to your efforts in Basil’s Cove damaging your psyche and driving you very slightly mad, of course.”
“I’m not kidding about that, by the way,” she continued, tone exuberant. “You’ve managed to heal most of the wounds, but they’ve left scars, and those scars have damaged the seals on your soul. It’s a strange phenomenon and one I would suggest you try to replicate. Maybe by torturing orphans? They’ll thank you if they survive long enough to unlock their full potential.”
“Err, not really,” Micah replied, reaching up to itch the back of his head. “If you could-”
“Focus, right, focus.” Dakkora was speaking faster now, her eyes wild. “Micah, I figured out how to ascend. The big goal of the gods? Becoming very powerful isn’t enough. Eventually, around level 100, the chains on your soul will begin to dig in, to suffocate you. Once you reach that point, further growth is actually harmful to your mortal body. You’ll kill yourself. The only way is to throw off the shackles and release your soul.”
“Of course.” She didn’t stop to breathe. Not as a metaphor, Dakkora simply was beyond the need for oxygen and too excited to pretend any longer. “You need to have the force of will to reform your soul after you release the seals. Otherwise, you simply turn into mist and return to Elsewhere. Without any cohesions, you would lose the ability to think or perform any conscious action. Like the rest of the lesser daemons like onkerts and brensen, you would become nothing more than a wisp of emotion, like anger, hunger, or lust.”
When Dakkora said the last word, she motioned to the room around them. Micah opened his mouth to interject, but she cut him off, continuing her unending torrent of words.
“That was the stage where we failed, Micah. I had the power and the will to ascend, but I wasn’t complete. Only after releasing the seals did I discover that. Although my soul had grown in power, it wasn’t balanced. I was only barely able to reapply the seals before I dissipated, but I lost almost forty levels in that half second where I left my body.”
“That,” she spat the word out, “was when Luxos champion found me. The rest is quite literally history, except for one important fact that the books left out. I was able to perform one last ritual, preserving my memory and will along with those that came after me.”
“There is a reason why the gods have failed innumerable times,” she continued. “It is true that a being like you or me only comes around rarely, but we are always squandered because the act of transforming your soul requires perfect balance. I am too aggressive and impersonal to ascend on my own. I realize that now, but at the same time, our soul is more than just me. You and I are at opposite poles with the child and the elder between us. With the added energy from greater daemons of hunger and lust, we are almost where we need to be. We are almost what we need to be.”
“You want us to merge,” Micah said quietly. “For you and me to blend with these other lives you’re talking about so that we can achieve balance and ascend.”
“Not yet,” Dakkora responded, a mad smile on her face. “But when you perform the youth rituals for Sandrovok’s elite? Then you can loosen the seals. Don’t remove them entirely; we’re not strong enough to survive ascension yet, but I can perform the ritual inside us to fix the fracture.”
