by David Walker
“Thank you, son,” Aamir said, responding with a warm hug. He examined the gift in wonder. “Have you finally come to accept the truth about the blessed prophet?”
“Well...I don't know about that just yet,” Zoltav answered honestly. Aamir responded with a hearty laugh.
“You will make a great scion of the Prophet one day, my son,” Aamir said, tousling Zoltav's hair. “Now, can you watch over the house while your mother and I go to the market?” Zoltav nodded as his parents left the house. He lay down in his bed and took a nap for the afternoon. His sleep was interrupted by a thunderous boom.
Zoltav instinctively took cover underneath his bed until the cacophony of explosions and gunfire ceased. He nervously looked out of his window and saw foreign soldiers roaming about, rounding up people for questioning. Terror struck his heart when he realized that it was dark and his parents were still not home from the market. Zoltav got on his bike and rushed to his parent's favorite market. He was horrified when he saw the market reduced to smoldering rubble. He screamed in horror when his parents' lifeless bodies were retrieved from the wreckage.
Something inside of Zoltav died that night. It was the day that the Unified Republics invaded Orion in response to the Allied Embassy bombing. The suspected bombers came from a militant faction that was supposedly located in Orion. A Unified Republic rocket misfired into the market, murdering his parents. The Ghemezian Royal Council did not resist the Unified Republic army, despite the devastating collateral damage that their activities inflicted on the Orion population.
Zoltav watched his younger self sobbing on his knees. He remembered the despair that he had felt on that day. Reliving this moment used to fill his heart with pain. Now it only served to fill his heart with rage. He descended into the Obfuscation base of operations in the Golden Badlands. Their headquarters was located underground, inside of a deep cavern.
In the spirit realm, Zoltav always concealed his face with a royal-purple mask. It matched his royal-purple sash, which was only worn by the strongest spell blade. As the powerful leader of Obfuscation, he donned it with pride. His guild had come a long way since he had established it. They played a pivotal role in his rise to political power. His opponents were no match for Obfuscation's carefully orchestrated espionage and assassination operations.
Obfuscation's hidden attacks even frustrated the Unified Republic military forces, causing most of them to leave Orion. Operation Janus was supposed to neutralize their final remnant in Orion. Though a careful and meticulous planner, Zoltav would never have anticipated that his operation could have been ruined by a small, insignificant guild named Ordered Chaoz. The turn of events forced his hand, prompting him to enact his recent executive order. He never liked to make moves out of compulsion.
Zoltav was concerned about the apparent breach of his security. It was likely that the deployment details of Operation Titan were compromised. There were particulars involved in Operation Titan that prevented him from rescheduling it. He opted to employ outside help to ensure that Operation Titan would be completed successfully. Splitshadow, the renowned mercenary of the infamous Talon Clan, stood before him, ready to offer his services.
* * *
Splitshadow, masked and shrouded in black, stood silently across from Obfuscation's leader. Since his entrance into the Obfuscation facility, he had been sizing up the place, taking note of every guard's position and armaments. He could roughly gauge how powerful a spirit body was by viewing its aura. Spirit auras were always faint and only visible to experienced eyes. Splitshadow knew that nobody in the facility posed a threat to him with the exception of their leader, a man they referred to as 'Lord'. The Lord of Obfuscation's aura burned with violent might.
“Thank you for accepting our job offer. I take it that the advance has already been deposited into your account?” the Lord of Obfuscation asked.
“Yes,” Splitshadow answered.
“Excellent. The remainder of your payment will be deposited after we've verified the completion of your mission directives. Now, let's review the mission details.” the Lord of Obfuscation continued, activating a holographic display above his desk. “The United Kings of Ghemeza have collaborated with Fleece Oil to build an underwater oil pipeline. It reaches as far as the northeastern continent. The United Kings are coming on-site to personally oversee the final stage of the pipeline's construction. It must be destroyed in front of them. Careful measures need to be taken to ensure that they are unharmed during the operation.”
“Protecting bystanders will make the mission more difficult, especially since we're already expecting outside interference. I will have to charge you an additional twenty percent,” Splitshadow said.
“...I suppose that is reasonable,” The Lord of Obfuscation conceded with narrowed eyes.
“I'll report back when the mission is complete,” Splitshadow said as he vanished in a thick pillar of smoke.
Noguchi rose at dawn and immediately entered into his morning exercise routine. Afterward, he rinsed the sweat off of his athletic body with a cold shower. This was followed by an hour spent in meditation. Rising and training early were his oldest habits. His father Hayashi, head of the Talon Clan, expected nothing but the best from him for as long as he could remember.
Noguchi stepped into his armory, the largest of the many rooms inside of his enormous mansion. He stared musingly at his collection of weapons. They each had their own story to tell, reminding him of the arduous years that he had spent training in Project Theta. Shun-Mai's defense minister had needed a combat asset from the Talon Clan for their awakened covert operations unit. Hayashi offered them his greatest combat asset, his only son. Many years later, Noguchi returned to the Talon Clan donning the alias Splitshadow.
Splitshadow entered a rift into his private enclave within the astral plane. There, he practiced the secret shadow arts of his clan. Splitshadow spent as much time honing his spirit body as he did hone his physical body. It was almost time for him to oversee Operation Titan. He coated his slender, slightly arched sword with a debilitating poison.
Splitshadow entered a rift to Operation Titan's deployment area, an astral plane realm above Tamtas, Ghemeza. He used a shadow art to mask his aura, rendering his spirit body invisible to everyone else in the realm. After scouting the realm's terrain, he patiently waited in an elevated nook, scanning the area for the arrival of Ordered Chaoz.
Splitshadow saw five members of the Ordered Chaoz guild arrive in the realm. They flew to the tallest mountain near the center of the realm. Their leader had shimmery white hair and possessed a strong, yet unfocused aura. One of their members was armed with the same style of weapon that Splitshadow used. His aura was bright and powerful. It had a golden glow like nothing Splitshadow had ever seen. The auras of the other three members indicated that they posed no threat whatsoever.
Splitshadow, still concealed, met up with a half-dozen of Obfuscation red sashes entering the realm. They rushed to the specified mission area where they were confronted by Ordered Chaoz. The red sashes shot elemental rounds at them from their gunblades. One of the Ordered Chaoz females threw a flaming, curved blade at the red sashes. Splitshadow's sword deflected the curved blade with a fiery clang, breaking his shadow art camouflage.
The warrior with the bright aura dashed at Splitshadow with startling speed, and they clashed sword to sword. Splitshadow was amazed that the warrior was nearly as fast as he was. Finding an opponent whose speed came anywhere near his own was a rare occasion. The warrior's slashes, parries, and ripostes were unconventional, yet efficient. The warrior's swordsmanship lacked the proper form that Splitshadow was intimately familiar with, yet was effective in its own right. It was clear that the warrior was naturally talented and disciplined, but lacked proper training and experience.
The excitement of the duel caused Splitshadow to momentarily lose track of his mission. He glanced at the other Ordered Chaoz members who were engaged in a melee with the red sashes. He knew that the red sashes w
ere no match for them and would be overwhelmed soon. Splitshadow used a shadow art that caused his spirit body to disperse into a cloud of smoke. The warrior with the bright aura thrust his sword through the smoke, as Splitshadow reformed his spirit body behind him, and stabbed him in the back. The warrior fell to the ground as Splitshadow's crippling poison neutralized his spirit body.
Splitshadow hurled a smoke bomb into the center of the melee, disrupting the heated conflict. He darted into the smoke and quickly pulled a layer of the astral realm down into the first level of the spirit world, dragging everyone down with him. When they landed, Splitshadow immediately fused their temporary realm with the physical world, dropping everyone near the oil pipeline's control center.
Splitshadow used his shadow art camouflage to conceal his spirit body again. He ambushed the bewildered Ordered Chaoz members with a series of rapid, stealth strikes. He could have easily killed them all, but Obfuscation did not pay him to execute assassinations, so he left them all lying on the floor, incapacitated by his poison.
To his right, Splitshadow saw Ghemeza's United Kings and their royal guard who fired assault rifles at the red sashes. Splitshadow dropped his shadow art camouflage and swung his sword in the direction of the incoming projectiles. A magnetic field emitted from his sword, ejecting the bullets safely away from the red sashes. He flipped his sword in an upward arc, causing the magnetic field to yank the royal guards' rifles right out of their hands. He looked at them and slowly shook his finger, the way a parent would reprimand a child. The royal guard scurried away from the area, securing their kings.
The red sashes surrounded the pipeline's control center and began to form explosive seals. Once completed, connected, and activated, the seals would destroy the control center with an explosion that would not extend beyond the sealed barriers. Suddenly, Splitshadow heard a booming thunderclap behind him. Turbulent winds encircled the warrior with the bright aura, as he stood before him with lightning, violently crackling along his sword and spirit body. His eyes sparked with determined rage. For the first time he could remember, Splitshadow felt fear.
* * *
Shade did not know what to expect when he connected to his Maelstrom's Edge relic weapon. An entity that resembled a sparking cloud emerged from the weapon's blade. The sapphire-eyed being looked Shade directly in the eyes as if to offer an unspoken contract of partnership. Shade accepted the silent bond. The creature enveloped Shade's spirit body, energizing it with powerful electrical energy.
Voltaic energy purged the poison that had nearly paralyzed Shade moments ago. Desperation had forced his hand. He saw that Aftershock's life was in danger, leaving him no choice. He finally gave in to the vast power of his relic weapon. Hopefully, its power would be enough for him to defeat Obfuscation's cunning warrior in black.
Shade lifted his Maelstrom's Edge into the air and bolts of lightning struck its blade, causing it to glow with a bluish hue. The weapon felt heavier in his hands. He slashed the Maelstrom in the direction of the red sashes. Lightning arced from his blade, striking them with shocking blasts. The spell blades dropped to the ground, each having only a sliver of spirit vitality to keep their physical bodies alive.
Shade shifted his gaze back to the black-clad warrior. He was the finest combatant that Shade had ever matched blades with. Shade had learned a few moves from him until his sneak attack left Shade impotent. Shade could not help but admire his assailant, despite his underhanded tactics. He was the image of the warrior that Shade aspired to be.
The black-garbed warrior attempted to conceal himself again, but the trick no longer worked. Shade could see him with singular clarity. Shade closed in on the warrior and they resumed their duel. The electrical energy that surged within Shade made him much faster than the stealthy warrior. Shade ran circles around the warrior, slashing him up and down in his rear and his flanks.
Drunk with power, Shade entered a frenzy. The Maelstrom was in control now. Shade easily grounded the warrior in black. He moved his Maelstrom's Edge toward the warrior's neck, sensing that the warrior's spirit vitality was nearly gone. Shade saw terror in the warrior's eyes, which served to snap him out of his growing blood lust. Shade pulled back, horrified at what he had been about to do.
“Leave,” Shade demanded.
The warrior created a rift and quickly escaped through it. Disgusted with himself, Shade dropped his Maelstrom's Edge to the ground. The electrical energy seeped out from his spirit body and coalesced into the sparking, cloud entity. Its gaze pierced Shade with what felt like a disappointment. The entity flew into the sky, creating a thundercloud. Lightning cracked throughout the sky, immediately causing it to rain.
Aftershock laid still on the ground, her blue and white uniform was torn in multiple places. Shade rushed over to Aftershock and confirmed that she was not lethally injured. He had barely been able to sigh with relief when multiple black whirlpools began to rise up from the ground near his fallen comrades. Four black-hooded figures slowly emerged out of the rift-like whirlpools. Shrouded with darkness and armed with scythes, the figures exuded a palpable sense of dread.
Terrified, Shade clutched his Maelstrom's Edge, but he could no longer sense its pulse or connect with it. The hooded figures attacked Shade from each side. He spun in circles, desperately swinging his sword to keep them at bay. Shade's fear intensified as the hooded figures cut him with multiple sharp swipes. They were empowered by Shade's fear, growing faster and stronger as the fight went on. It did not take long before they had drained him of most of his spirit vitality.
When Shade had lost his ability to defend himself, the hooded figures stopped their assault on him. Two of them lifted him up by his arms. Another one of them opened up a dusty grimoire and began chanting in an eerie language. The last hooded figure held his scythe in the air and it began to pulse with a crimson glow. Is this some dark ritual? Shade was overwhelmed with the realization that he was going to die.
Shade fell to his knees after four luminous arcs of light flashed before his eyes. His assailants dissipated into thick clouds of sulfur. A white-hooded figure with a flaming sword stood before him. His countenance was so bright, that Shade could barely look at him. He had six massive wings that protruded out from either shoulder. His shimmery wings bore each color of the rainbow. They matched the prismatic halo that hovered gracefully above his head. Is this an angel?
“The King of Heaven has decided to spare you. Choose your path wisely or perish in the realm of death,” the angel said with eyes aflame. It vanished in a blinding pillar of light. The realm fusion ended, bringing Shade and his allies back into a temporal realm above Tamtas. Shade was both frightened and relieved, as he pondered the angel's dire message.
Chapter 6
Overlord Pythius's yellow, vertical-slit eyes shifted carefully along the lines of his celestial matrix. The matrix mapped the entire fifth level of the spirit world, granting him access to the mysteries of time. His six, scaly hands rearranged the vertices of the floating dodecahedron, modifying the matrix and revealing new possibilities. His peerless calculations had been able to predict the proper future streams for ages. As Lord of Shadow House Jupiter, Pythius was a master of time.
In contrast to his peers' macabre throne rooms, Pythius's royal hall was bright and sterile. His azurite throne stood high upon a shiny, black-and-white checkered floor. His seat of power was within the gaseous sphere known to humanity as the planet Jupiter. The notion of planets was his design, of course. Pythius had molded the philosophies of mankind for millennia.
He was amused when they thought that they had come up with their own ideas. Humans were unwitting slaves to cosmic forces that they did not understand. Pythius monitored these forces with his matrix. To him, humans were predictable and easy to program. However, every so often, one of them caught him by surprise. Such humans frustrated his otherwise perfect, predictive models.
Recently, Pythius had been monitoring a fiery soul located in Shadow Queen Terra's domain. Since aw
akening, the soul's energy had increased exponentially. Such growth was not unusual in and of itself. However, the soul had attracted a conflict between Daniel, one of heaven's strongest guardians, and the reapers. Daniel was never assigned to protect an average soul. Pythius could always predict, and appropriately account for, the birthing of a significant soul. Yet, this one had gotten by him.
Pythius flew out of his shadow blue orbit and entered the black cube of Sheol, the realm of death, in the eighth level of hell. Sheol was governed by the Black Seraphim of Death, Metatron. Pythius loathed speaking to Metatron, who was the only one in hell's aristocracy that refused to join the Order. No one dared to question him, however, as Metatron's power was on par with the King of Hell himself.
Sheol's atmosphere was teeming with pungent, black smoke. The realm was dimly lit by smoldering embers that continuously scorched lost souls. Fearsome demons tormented the souls, feeding off of their anguish. Pythius ignored the shrill screams of pathetic human souls as he made his way to Metatron's ghastly, skull throne. Metatron's blackened, lidless pools zoomed in on Pythius. Metatron stroked one of the heads of Cerberus, his triple-headed canine guardian.
“Forgive me for the disturbance, Lord Metatron. It's come to my attention that you had dispatched four reapers to a Ghemezian dynamic realm,” Pythius said.
“What of it?” Metatron growled.
“Your target was a soul that I had been monitoring. Why did you try to reap it?” Pythius asked. Metatron laughed.
“The mastermind of the Order isn't able to see why I tried to reap that soul? What's the matter, did you lose track of the pillars?” Metatron mocked.
Metatron's words hit Pythius hard. Pythius had been unable to predict the latest eclipse of hell. As a result, he had lost track of the pillars of life in the current life cycle. The pillars of life embodied the twelve astral gates. They were essential variables in Pythius's predictive models. He assumed that he had recovered the pillars. Had he been wrong all along?