The Final Trial [Layla POV]

They were back on the ‘Forbidden Isle’.

Layla found the very idea of a ‘forbidden’ place preposterous. Well, it made sense for other people that weren’t John. John could go where he pleased, because he was perfect. Layla could go wherever John went, so she could go wherever she wanted by proxy. That was just logical.

Stupid society, thinking people ought to be treated equally or whatever.

Nihau was small. Nihau was barren. Nihau was painted red by the setting sun. Nihau was the place where Veridion had dared to harm what was rightfully John’s.

It was only fitting it would be his grave.

The groups stood outside the small house that they had found Veridion in. Around it, a Natural Barrier had been grown by the locals. Lee followed the whole process with rapt attention. Layla hardly cared about the mechanics. She could see the flow of the auras of the natives, people and creatures of the Abyss alike, feeding into the edges of the Illusion Barrier. It was slow. The walls of the Natural Barrier shimmered prismatically as they expanded further. They would contract again once the power stopped flowing.

Veridion stood truly isolated that day, though it wasn’t all because he had pissed off all of his allies. No, he stood on his own, surrounded by a semi-circle of his allies, for a simple reason.

“The trial is combat,” Veridion declared. “I, as the judge of these trials, will fight an opponent of my choosing. Layla Viorica, step forward.”

The justified stalker flashed John and her fellow haremettes a certain smile, then let all of her joy die. In its place streamed the simple certainty of what she had – no – what she WOULD do. Her fingers tapped on the grip of the weapon on her waist. The dagger rested in its black sheath. The mixture of polished wood and crystals that made up the handle felt perfect under her fingers.

Was this exactly what Layla thought would happen?

Yes, this was exactly it. Her facing Veridion in combat on this very island. That was everything her mind had circled around. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. It had also happened.

Layla stood before Veridion. The brown-haired man smugly adjusted his glasses. They stared at each other. She hated that he was taller than her. Once she carved through his knees, that would be fixed. Her vengeful soul sung in glee at the mental image of the half-legged god crawling, leaving a trail of his own blood. It made her giggle with mad delight.

“This is ridiculous!” John declared and stepped forward. “I have accepted your trials on their word so far. For this one, I must protest. You cannot consider this a fair contest.”

“I must agree,” Kamehameha declared, “and we have already discussed this with Veridion.”

“I was getting to that part,” the god of oaths declared.

Was there ever so superfluous an existence? Who needed oaths in a world where John could decide everything. His track record showed that his was the only word anyone needed to listen to.

“To give you a chance, the following factors are in place,” Veridion continued. “This match is non-lethal, meaning that I must restrain myself from striking you with such **** that it would kill you. Secondly, to win you must merely make me surrender or immobilize me for 10 seconds. This is my oath. Do you understand?”

Layla grinned wider, seeing the fluctuations in the god’s aura as he made his vow. They spread into the surrounding reality as threads spun so thin that they disappeared into the mesh of atmospheric mana. A background static that even Layla would have found difficult to see, had she not witnessed its weave.

“I understand perfectly,” Layla responded, her voice flat with rage and vibrating with glee.

“Then the fight shall begin once I have finished the countdown,” Kamehameha declared. “5.” Layla tensed and relaxed her muscles, shaking out the last bits of inflexibility. “4.” She shifted to Veridion’s left. He was right-footed, after all. “3.” She kept glaring at her prey. “2.” She tensed up completely, preparing herself for the inconsequential pain. “1.” She glanced over her shoulder again. The worry on the others’ faces filled her heart with delight. “0.”

Pain bloomed in Layla’s side. Veridion’s shin was already digging into her soft flesh, folding her around his leg. She knew of her own weakness, she knew exactly how this would start and how this would go. All she could do was try and control the direction she was flung in.

The world turned into a blur. Adrenaline increased her perception and dulled the pain. She was thankful for both. The sheathed weapon on her hip banged painfully against her hip as she rolled over the ground. She came to a still. Against the protest of her bludgeoned midriff, she jumped to her feet. She did not have to look at Veridion to know he was following her slowly, hands in his pockets, a slight, infuriating grin on his face.

The ’god’ was predictable. Layla had watched him carefully, plotted him out in every psychological theory she had studied, and then discarded most of that for blunt intuition. If Layla was obsessed with oaths rather than John, if Layla was a smug asshole, if Layla was bitter at the fallen world, if Layla was retardedly certain of her victory, if Layla was in Veridion’s shoes, then she would play with her opponent.

Layla put on her best fearful act. It wasn’t very good, she was aware of that much. She hated him too much, hated him, hated him, hated him and… had to shake her head to stay on target. Victory was not far away. It was all very simple. All she had to do was lull him into that sense of security. Everything was in place.

Quivering steps backwards failed to grow the distance between them. Veridion closed in with long, self-assured strides. Layla turned tail and ran.

On purpose, she stumbled over a stone in her path.

Veridion appeared beside her, his superhuman speed too much for her to follow. His knee rose up, then suddenly stopped. He would have hit her in the thigh if she had continued sprinting at the proper speed. Half-falling, as she was, his knee would have instead struck her temple, all but certainly killing her.

Poor little god of oaths couldn’t do that!

Layla repressed her cackle and continued her ‘flight’. “Run all you want,” Veridion stated, watching her retreat. “In the end, you are just deadweight to the Gamer.”

The words pressed into her soul like a scalding iron. Simultaneously, they meant nothing. They were but petty little remarks compared to the torrent of blame that she had repeated in her soul the days after they had first set foot on this island.

“If it weren’t for you, John could have taken me out when we met.” Veridion effortlessly kept pace with her. A flick of his wrist made her left upper arm burn with pain. She almost fell again from the light slap of the god. “But you were right there, a perfect hostage.”

Layla screamed in rage and pain. Her feet kept pounding the dry ground. He was right. He was totally right. This was all because of her. Because she was weak, too weak to be useful, because she hadn’t proven yet she deserved that mark. No matter how much every part of her being insisted she DESERVED it, the reality was that they did not see it that way yet. She had to prove it. She had failed. She had made it all worse by being there. She had delayed Nathalia’s big day because she thought she could play in the big leagues. A woman of the Gamer had to do that much, right?

But she was not a woman of John Newman yet. She was just an above average Abyssal. The truth of that cut through her obsession-filled wishes with every light, tormenting strike that Veridion pelted her with on the way. Chops, smacks and pokes, the playful gestures of a sadist tormenting a helpless animal, wore away at her body.

It was all nothing compared to the guilt and hate she carried with her. For three days, she had stewed in these emotions, let them control her entirely. It had felt right. It had been right. Then, she had been saved. She had been pulled out of it all. The perfect man offered to her not a single word of blame, just a smile and flirtatious comments. He was impressed with her. She had failed him and he was impressed with her!

That stupid, perfect fertility idol of a man!

She NEEDED to have his children so bad!

The positive emotions were pushed aside, replaced once again by pain and hatred. The dual emotions fuelled her, kept her teeth clenched and her eyes on her target.

Layla placed her hand against the rocky wall to her left. She had run a fair bit now, making it down to the bottom of the cliff that Veridion’s house stood on. Stumbling two steps forwards, she stopped when she felt a particularly sharp bit of stone under her palm. Veridion kicked her from behind the moment she stopped running. The stone sliced open her palm. A triumphant rush of euphoria filled her veins in that moment.

Despite all the bludgeoning, her cut hand was the first open injury she received all this time. Falling forwards, she landed flat on the ground. For a moment, all energy left her. The relief of having succeeded was temporary. There was so much more to do to Veridion. Blood soaking into the soil, she began to laugh.

She didn’t hold back this time. The sound began as a series of pained, rhythmic grunts and gradually escalated into a shrill symphony of her delight. Finally, she could allow all of that loathing to turn into victorious glee.

“Did you break?” Veridion asked plainly. “If so, give up already. Your ploy to make me an oath breaker by killing you won’t work.”

“What?” Layla asked, her laughter cut short by her surprise. “Are you mental?”

“No, but you are.” Veridion was as immune to being corrected as always, simply observing his fingernails. “You would die for the Gamer’s ambition and he would happily sacrifice you. He is that kind of-“

“HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!” Layla screeched at the top of her lungs. “Youthinkyouknowyou… you think you…. That he would… that you… HAHAHAHAHA!” Layla stumbled over her words, trying to get out the comeback. He was just so wrong, just so absurdly off the mark, that she could not formulate a single proper sentence and instead simply laughed again. She rolled onto her back. Her bleeding hand dug into the soil. Her soul quivered. “Oathbreaker!”

Though she knew exactly what expression he would make at her accusation, she still loved to see it. The smug smirk, first replaced with a dismissive eyeroll, then with a slow darkening of his features. His eyes dashed to the wall besides them, then Layla’s hand.

“You have done your research,” he agreed. They both knew that Layla was telling the truth.

It had taken a bit of digging, but really not too much by Layla’s standards. Veridion had said he had been invited to this privately owned island. Veridion knew the natives. Veridion was the god of oaths. There had to be a spot somewhere on these islands where he had made a vow to assure neutrality. Something along the lines of ‘never spilling blood’.

Layla had dug through history records. She had Fianna acquire bits and pieces of the landscape, bringing them to Lorelei to scour for visions of the past. Oooooh, how wonderful it was to work with her fellow, hyper-competent haremettes! It had barely taken her half a week to find out how to defeat Veridion. He had made it so easy too. Putting that neutral ground right beneath his home in the area? Pathetically predictable!

“Time for you to get your due,” Layla hissed, dragging herself up on the stone wall.

“What do you think this changes? The enforcers of oaths is I and- Urgh!” The god suddenly clutched his chest. Eyes widened. He tilted forwards. His glassed dropped from the intensity of the jagged motion. Beads of sweat instantly formed on his forehead, as the full body pain spread.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Layla hissed with vengeful glee, further adjusting the shell of her aura. It resembled that of Veridion more by the second, harmonizing more and more with the oaths threaded into the ambient mana. “It was such a big promise too, wasn’t it?!” she exclaimed, laughing yet again.

Veridion sunk to one knee, incapable of responding. His own power was cycling into him. Layla only facilitated the process. Sure, adjusting her own soul was a bit taxing, but that was fine by her. It made the god squirm under the pathetic mediocrity of his own divine power.

“And you are thinking…” Layla was interrupted by her own uncontrolled giggle. “Ooooh, you’re thinking: ‘This changes nothing! I can just outlast her! I am not immobilized, I can stand on my own will!” Veridion proved her right by pushing himself back up. “’I am a god!’” she continued to read his mind. “’She can’t hurt me! I will endure this pain until she starves if I have to!’”

Layla stepped closer and then, with the sweetest of certainties, pulled the dagger from its sheath. The lead grey of the wavy blade glinted in the last rays of the sun as it dipped behind the horizon. It was a gorgeous yet simple weapon. A handle of dark oak and blue crystals. A pommel made from a vampire’s fang encased in clear amber. A small guard, separating her hand from the blade, created from ancient scrap.

The weapon slid into Veridion’s flesh. Oh, it was so delightfully sharp and he was so delectably sturdy. It wouldn’t have been boring to just stab him. She wanted to feel every second of parting his obscene flesh. Deep red ichor ran around the waved edges of the blade. An invisible **** pulled it up the channel into the hilt. It yearned to drink god’s blood.

Veridion turned pale. He stumbled back, the weapon slipping out of him. He fell to the floor, landing on his back. Layla did not make his mistake. Layla would not play with her opponent, Layla was not going to take the risk that he could wiggle out of this if given time, Layla was happy with the world that waited for her after this, Layla had no superiority to prove and Layla was obsessed with John.

This was keeping her from him.

With another delighted giggle, she jumped on top of Veridion. The god was pinned down by a woman less a tenth his power and half his size. The god was squirming in pain. The god was made to bleed a hundred times more than Layla as she stabbed his chest over and over and over again with the weapon her fellow haremettes provided. It drank the essence of the god and that of the human, squeezing into the handle by her tight, double-handed grip.

“S-stop!” Veridion croaked, finally managing to get a word out.

Layla stopped mid-motion, staring down at the so-called deity with wide-eyes. “You surrender?” she asked, voice flat. She could not give away how much she anticipated his response. When he nodded, she let out a happy squeal. “Oh, oh, yes!” She raised the dagger a little higher. It wasn’t satisfied yet. It wouldn’t achieve its true potential until it had been baptized in the oathbreaker’s breast. “That means we are done with the trial! No more promise of keeping this non-lethal!”

Veridion’s eyes widened in shock, the realization dawning on him. To lose his control just because of a bit of pain. So pathetic, so unworthy of being John’s enemy. The only regret Layla had about this situation was that she couldn’t watch him do it for her. Taking vengeance herself was a close second though.

With a last triumphant laugh, Layla brought down the dagger. She had it aimed squarely at Veridion’s throat.

Then, the ocean came alive.