’s Shadow [Nahoa POV]

From the moment she had stepped through the teleporter, she had been in the battle.

Gargantuan plants with teeth were crunching down on Order soldiers. Enchanted armour kept many alive, but some were not so lucky. Flying axes of fire hammered against William’s sword, each driving him back. A few metres away, Moira stood surrounded by magical circles.

Nahoa recognized all three of these spells and the three Lorylim corrupted individuals that were responsible for them. “Oh, we have failed the Master,” Tachia said. She rode down on blackened leaves. The face of the woman hid the corruption of her flesh. Where her skin was exposed beneath the neckline, covered by a living sweater, it was red and raw, as if her epidermis had been peeled off. She had no lower body to speak of, instead balancing on a writhing mass of tendrils. The same mass emerged from the back of her head, fusing with a wide hat.

[Tachia AI: https://i.imgur.com/iOSwwdx.png]

Although the carnivorous plant mage’s corruption was vile, it was mild compared to what had become of her cousins. Tach no longer had a head to speak of. He caught the juggling axes of fire with limbs that merely pretended to still be human. There was no rigidity to the motions, no limitations from joints and bones.

The fire the mage had wielded burst and blubbered in mushroom-shaped plumes from his neck hole. It sat between distorted shoulders, fitting with a torso that was as much burn-scar tissue as it was mycelial spread. He continued to launch his axes at William, driving the patriarch of the Brighton family further and further back.

[Tach AI: https://i.imgur.com/N9xdyYn.png]

Nach’s brown hair had turned black and greasy. His skinny body was covered entirely in black slime, interrupted only by the occasional eye that grew in the wrong place. The constant grinding of his teeth overpowered any word he tried to get out. A distorted third eye sat in his forehead, joining two dark eyes, wide open with hatred.

[Nach AI: https://i.imgur.com/BRHj5wK.png]

“That’s a situation and a half,” Rave said.

“You could say that,” Nahoa answered, her tone matching that of the first of the harem: jovial yet tense. They were not women to let the hard times get them down, but they were not women to treat them as a joke either.

“Hey, Moi-Moi, you need help with that?”

“What does it look like?!” Moira snapped back with more anger than was typical for the Warden.

“Alrighty!” Rave snapped her fingers. Was it a signal or was it mere coincidence that Ehtra and Nia went on the offensive in that moment? One could never be quite sure with the feline Lightbearer.

A wave of anti-magic cleared the traps around the Warden. “FOR THE LADY!” she shouted, immediately rejoining the fight again. The golden halo behind her head flared to a bright light, as she charged to aid her father.

The leaders of the Golden Rose fought Tach, while Nia engaged in combat with Nach, leaving Ehtra to charge at Tachia. “You fought these three clowns before, right?” Rave asked, while they observed a wall of brambles growing in the grey angel’s paths.

Ehtra pulled her wings tight, spiralling her path. Like a bullet, she pierced through the wall. BLAM! BLAM! The shots of her bolt gun rang out. Both struck Tachia in the chest, blowing fist-sized holes into the woman’s torso. She grinned widely, showing off two rows of sharp teeth. A singular gleeful laugh accompanied her regeneration. “Go, my pretties!” she cried ecstatically, summoning disgusting plants that cascaded towards Ehtra.

“I did,” Nahoa responded. “As did you.”

“Only one of them,” Rave responded.

The soil of the monastic courtyard was loosened by something moving beneath it. That something moved with impressive speed towards them, breaking out of the ground in front of the teleporter. Tooth-lined flower petals unfurled, then bowed down to crush the teleporter beneath them.

Rave jumped up. A singular uppercut turned the entire plant creature into scattering fragments, dissolving into spores. She landed back down next to Nahoa. “Don’t they seem stronger? Like, way stronger?”

“They do,” she answered simply. She was constantly scanning for the best way forwards. This wasn’t where she really wanted to be. “They are after the teleporter.”

“Yeah, I got that – in both meanings.” Rave rolled her shoulder. In the distance, a gargantuan cross of radiant crystal appeared. This Protected Space was big, but it was no city. The displaced air flowed over everyone. Mycelium was set to golden flame. “And I think we got this fight too. I’ll make sure our route back is still standing when you get back. You’ll have to go alone though.”

Nahoa managed an empty smile. “To survive has ever been in my nature.”

“Then go!” Rave shouted.

Nahoa attempted to leave the Illusion Barrier the regular way. Unsurprisingly, she could not, but she still had needed to test it. She quickly turned her mind to the map of the area. Her memory was so much sharper since he had raised her Stats that it was frankly ridiculous. It put a sharp separation between the hundreds of years she had lived as a demigoddess and her new life as a maid. Then again, the long sleep was a sharper dividing line still, as was the treachery she had witnessed.

The Nahoa that had cured her people was sliding ever further into the distance. The Nahoa that existed now was not ready to let go of that past. She was not ready to lose what remained of her people.

Leaving a streak of purple fog, she moved across the rooftops. The cocktail of diseases within the mist dissolved lesser Lorylim. Unmolested, she made her way to the edge of the Illusion Barrier and hammered against it. The soft barrier of air cracked, like an ephemeral layer of glass. Two more strikes spread the tears, until a prismatic cutout before her was large enough to squeeze through.

Emerging into real space was, as ever, an odd experience. Nahoa was a child of the Abyss. To her, the place where the mundanes dwelled was the oddity. The air was devoid of the smells of the tingle of mana, the people numerous and dull and so weak. It was like a world made out of pulp, so easy to squash.

Nahoa was made the centre of manifold gazes. She had replaced the maid outfit with something less eye-catching in modern times and the markers of her magical nature were hidden. Regardless, people looked at her. They were not aware that she had something that they did not, but they could feel it and it glued their eyes to her.

Nahoa had no care for it. She advanced as quickly as Gaia allowed towards a car dealership that she knew John had an agreement with. The manager of the dealership had not clocked in for two days, another victim of the ongoing war on the Abyssal side no doubt. The mundane workers knew of what was in place, however, and quickly handed her the keys to a vehicle that her Master owned but the dealership took care of.

Nahoa was still new to driving. It was a patience-testing experience while sitting in the traffic of the city. It was satisfyingly fast when she finally managed to get on the highway, making her way to where her people had been housed. Journeys were always a bothersome thing. Whenever her father had migrated the court, she had spent the majority of the time sleeping in a palanquin.

This was faster.

She stopped as close to the place as she could, left the car where it could stand, and marched across a green area to get to the boundary of the Protected Space. ‘If this delay means I find my people dead…’ she began to think.

Then what?

Would she blame Lee for not having a portal ready closer?

Would she blame John for not letting her charge into murky waters without a broader plan?

She clenched her teeth and prepared herself to accept the inevitable once again. It was horrible. The shock of her father, true and adopted, still sat in her bones. She remembered the shattering of her world, the impotence and sadness and rage. Rage was what dominated her thoughts now. She wasn’t that weak anymore. Yet, she was at the whims of fate all the same. The distant heavens mocked her with their indifference.

She stepped into the Protected Space…

…and breathed a sigh of relief.

The street before her had no marks of battle. There were people, moving about, going about their regular business. Nahoa was afraid it was a ruse at first, but she could not catch a whiff of corruption. People soon spotted her, yelling in the language of her home. “Our demigoddess is here.” “The one who sacrificed.” “Our martyr.” Such and similar payments of respect.

Nahoa smiled and leapt to the top of a nearby building to get a better view of the city. From the rooftop, she could spot some signs that a Lorylim attack had happened. A large, withered stalk near the city centre resembled the shape of the First Foe, just diminished to the point of being a gruesome, dead reminder and nothing else. Craters marred the face of the urban environment like pox marks.

Something had stopped the Lorylim attack. It did not take Nahoa long to spot what that something was. A structure of grey stone and skeletal design had settled near the Lorylim stalk. A green glow surrounded it, swirling around like disembodied souls. A visual effect typical of necromantic magic.

Nahoa moved across the city with rapid leaps, making her way to the city centre. She landed before a small army of skeletal warriors, armed to the teeth with artefacts forged over the ages. “And behold!” a flamboyant voice greeted her. “For the one that would have been the rider 4th joined those that would be her comrades in a different circumstance!”

“Sir Glory,” Nahoa bowed her head respectfully to the leader of the Horsemen. Like always, the wraith presented himself as a resplendent undead. His ornate armour gleamed, white and gold, while his spectral form surrounded his skeleton in such a way that presented the handsomeness of his once mortal flesh and the pristine condition of his bones simultaneously. The white horse beside him courteously returned her bow alongside the rider.

The other two Horsemen were not as nice. Famine lingered in the shadow of a building, coughing and moaning endless complaints to a servant that then ordered food on his behalf. War just existed in the space, standing with crossed arms in his rust red, battleworn armour.

The master of the three horsemen knelt by a flowerbed. It had not survived the proximity to the Lorylim. Spectral versions of the flowers remained where the soil had blackened with Lorylim spores and the plants had been eaten to near nothingness.

“Can the souls of those taken by the Lorylim still be saved?” Nahoa asked.

“If one acts fast enough.” The Grim Reaper was an unassuming figure, next to the riders and armed undead. A black-cloak with skeletal hands, nothing more, nothing less. “You are admirable. You have verified the safety of your people and now you wish to know if I could let those left behind talk to their loved ones one more time.” A skeletal finger brushed over one of the flowers. It crumbled to dust. “I can. I will not.”

“Why not?” Nahoa wanted to know.

“Because **** is the end.” The Grim Reaper stood up. “That is the rule. I bend it, for I am the embodiment of the idea of ****. I am that which is feared. You would ask me to ease that fear out of the kindness of my soul? To provide a service to all of the world?” Within the utter darkness of the raised hood, something shook its head. “No. **** is the end and all those that are not prepared to rebel against that law will be subject to it.”

Nahoa bowed her head again, deeper than before. “I thank you for the wisdom, great teacher.”

“You are receptive to my words. A rare happenstance.” The Grim Reaper walked forwards. “Do you know why I saved your people?”

“Because many of them pledged themselves to you.” Nahoa remembered. After Macuil had been defeated and the great depression of her people had settled in, many had chosen to follow the Grim Reaper over her and John. At the time, the God of the Fear of **** had told them that he would come to collect them when the time was right.

A nod. The Grim Reaper gestured at the flowers, all of which were now crumbling away. “A soul damaged by the Lorylim is capable of being called forth. It is not stable enough to remain. My promise to them was that they will join me. To do so, I must assure that they live properly. I saved them. The rest of your people, I saved by happenstance.”

“Two questions, if you permit?” Nahoa asked, humbly.

A raised hand stopped her. “I know of both. I will not aid Fusion nor will I make an exception to my rule for the parents of your beloved.”

Nahoa felt anger rise in her chest again. She swallowed it. As much as she cared for John, she knew that arguing was pointless. “Then your next move will be to do... nothing?” A bit of disappointment snuck into her voice anyhow. “You will stay here?”

“If I am offered a pact that I consider advantageous for my people, then I might aid Fusion.” The Grim Reaper’s gravely dark voice hushed through the air. How mighty it still was. How much mightier it had felt when the gulf between them had been so much wider. “I will defend your people, because that is according to my principles. You may rely on this.”

“…Then I will be grateful for the boon I receive.”

“That is wise.”

Nahoa stepped away from the Grim Reaper with one more bow. She walked lighter now. To have the Necropolis’ aid in the war itself would have been preferable, but to know that he was protecting her people alone assured that she could concentrate on the war itself. She turned on her heels and shouted back, “I AM REALLY, REALLY THANKFUL, GREAT TEACHER!”

He waved over his shoulder.