“A third replacement question: in this world, can I become the lance that breaks every shield, the arrow that breaks every armor, and the scythe that slays immortals?”
Annala bit her lip and clenched her other fist.
“A fourth replacement question: can I teach my children to do the same, but not force them onto this path?”
“ALRIGHT!”
Annala threw her arms to either side. The force of the gesture caused the world to shudder to its foundation. She turned back to him, eyes downcast and expression meek. Thoroughly chastened, she said, “I haven’t been true to myself. Rather, I have, but only to this part of myself. You see...there’s a reason why this part of me is the leader of the personalities...”
She touched the top of her right glove with the fingertips of the left. Then she retracted them. Instead, she grasped Eric’s hands and looked imploringly into his eyes.
“After I show you this, do you promise you’ll still accept me and love me?”
“Of course.”
Annala turned to Kallen. “Big sister?”
Kallen grinned wryly. “And here I thought you forgot about me.”
Annala released Eric’s hands to grip Kallen bodily. She hugged the older girl tightly and buried her head in her neck. Mildly surprised, Kallen returned the embrace.
“Auntie H was nice but...flighty. You were the one who anchored me when I traveled to Roalt. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stayed there with me until I made local friends. After I lost my powers, you were my only friend in the whole village. I admit that...”
She stopped. Kallen caressed her back and waited.
“...when I learned you are Eric’s soulmate, I was jealous. Extremely jealous. I said nasty things after Order brainwashed me because that was how a part of me truly felt. Despite that...”
She looked back up at Kallen.
“I knew that Eric couldn’t have a better soulmate, unless it were me, of course, but I knew you could make him happy and so part of me was happy. You are important to me, regardless of either of our relationships with Eric because you are the best big sister in the world!”
“Annala, if your blasphemy against Lady Chaos couldn’t drive me against you, then I don’t know what will.”
“Thank you...Big sis.”
Kallen smiled. “Now what’s under the glove?”
Annala stepped back. She placed her hand on the top of the glove again. She took a deep breath and pulled it off. Eric, Kallen, and Perrault gasped.
The Eye of Order was tattooed on every inch of her skin. The Hands of Order flanked them at every instance. From her shoulder down to her fingernails, Order’s symbol was clear and strong. Annala wept for their expressions.
“Yes, I know, it’s ugly. It’s treacherous. It’s abominable.”
“It’s the remains of Order’s brainwashing,” Eric said in a breath.
Annala nodded miserably.
“Your romantic love is what he used to create the fundamental change in your mind,” Kallen said in the same stupor as Eric. “It’s why there was no strain. You are the reason Annala became a slave and you’re the reason she stills carries a scrap of his influence.”
Again, Annala nodded. Eric and Kallen shared a look and then pincer-hugged her. She looked at them in surprise as they pulled away.
“If your love for me was Order’s only way in, then your personality is otherwise solidly against him,” Eric said. “It is an admirable weakness for a priestess of Lady Chaos.”
“If your love for Eric was Order’s only way in, then it is as pure and strong as that of any soulmate,” Kallen said. “He can’t make you do anything you wouldn’t already do on your own.”
Now Annala wept out of joy and relief. “Thank you. Thank you both.”
She wiped her eyes with her still gloved left hand. The right stayed at her side. Its many runes glowed dimly.
“Forgive me, but there is just one more thing before I will remove this zone from physical reality and return my own physical existence to humanoid form.”
She cleared wrinkles from her gown, adjusted her headdress, and placed her glove back on her right arm. She also checked her jewelry, and when she could delay no more, she said, “I need a guarantee that you will not die when I release you. Not just from Gruffle, but anything else. I know you’re a minor god now, but...I want to hear you say it.”
“I’ll never ever leave you,” Eric promised. “Even if I die, I’ll stay with you as a guardian spirit. If I’m taken to the Abyss, I’ll find my way back to you.”
“Uncle Mori said the same thing and he never came back!”
“With all due respect to your uncle, he was only human,” Eric said. “I am a dark fire god. I will use all my divine power to claw my way back. I will never leave you.”
“I need something to support that! Please, Eric, reassure me that we won’t be a repeat of Aunt Tris and Uncle Mori.”
Eric put a hand to chin in thought. He glanced around the room and muttered a wind spell to draw something to him. Once the object was in his hand, he went down on one knee and took Annala’s hand in his other one. The princess gaped.
“I’ll never ever leave you, Annala.”
A third time, she burst into tears. She nodded, and Eric placed the ring on her finger. He stood up and she hugged him about the neck. Kallen clapped for the happy couple. Perrault sighed and tapped her foot while she waited for the zone to dissolve.
It pixelated as its goddess dismantled it. In its place was the area of the Latlis Sea as it was before Annala’s action. Princess Annala herself was also disappearing. After all, she too was a creation of the zone. Only a minute passed before both were gone completely. A pillar of light announced the true Annala’s return.
Her physical body was once again an elven priestess. She held up her right hand and Eric’s ring gleamed in the light.
“Now you don’t have to buy, err, not-steal me one,” Annala said, grinning. “Wasn’t that nice of me?”
“I have this terrible suspicion that was your goal all along,” Eric said, also grinning. “What devious vixen have I been ensnared by?”
“No flirting!” Perrault shouted. “Reapers are trying to kill us!”
Chapter 19 Your Final Wish Has Been Granted
All this time, Gruffle had been hacking away at the dome-like outer wall of the Inner World Physical Manifestation. He might as well have tried to cut through the bark of Noitearc itself, but he couldn’t stop. The overwhelming power flowing through him and his frustration at this latest obstruction drove him relentlessly forward. As soon as the dome vanished and he saw his prey, he swooped in to snuff out its flame once and for all.
Annala intercepted him with a jab to the stomach, and just as quickly, he flew in the opposite direction. Then she turned and blocked Samael’s Reaper Cleave. The Right Hand of Death pressed down with all her divine might, and Annala grunted with the effort required to hold her back. Her body trembled but ultimately held firm. Samael and Gruffle disappeared, and she and Perrault became golden blurs as they fended off attacks too swift for mortal eyes to follow. Five seconds later, all four reappeared and Annala was only slightly winded.
“I just shared a special moment with my boyfriend, no, my fiancé,” she declared. “My love amplifies the divine chaos within me, which has already been amplified by direct contact with Lady Chaos herself. It would take a million reapers to challenge me now!”
Gruffle snarled. “A million? A million! A MILLION! A MILLION! A MILLION!”
He raised his scythe high and it fired a necrotic beam into the sky. At its highest point, it stopped and sent out a pulse. Then it fired a new beam southeast. There it connected with the Grand Obelisk in Latrot’s capital.
“Execute Reaper Command: Royal Rite of Annual Decimation!”
“Wish Reaper Gruffle!” Samael shouted. “You are not permitted to use such authorities until you have formally been sworn in as this world’s resident reaper. Eith
er refrain from this action or renounce your Final Wish. Persisting on this path will violate your probation.”
Gruffle didn’t look at her. He didn’t acknowledge her. He only had eyes for his scythe and the action he had primed it for.
“REMOVE ONE-TENTH OF THE POPULATION!”
The Grand Obelisk released a pulse that combed the country. Every city, town, village, farm and hermitage was analyzed to account for every living thing within its borders be it animal (human or otherwise), plant, spirit, or bacteria. It calculated how much each area could lose before its local stability was affected. Then one-tenth of them fell dead immediately. Their kon and paku traveled to Gruffle and flowed into his scythe. From the scythe, it coursed into Gruffle himself. The look on his face was euphoric.
“Mom!” Kallen shouted.
Nunnal stepped out of Albatross IX. “Yes, sweetie?”
“Grab Emily and fly as fast as you can. She will not survive being near this fight.”
Nunnal nodded. Transforming herself into a dragon, she grabbed both Emily and the wrecked airship and flew away at the speed of sound. The sonic boom she created rattled the stone pillar, and a bigger wave was incoming.
The numerous lives augmented Gruffle’s power far beyond anything he’d ever dreamed of. The total number of stolen years reached the thousands. The teeming souls melded with his own spiritual body and transformed it.
It grew fourteen times bigger. It grew more limbs in more places and all of them as rotten and decayed as the original pair. It grew more wings, each as ratty and bat-like. It grew two more heads; one at the front center of mass and one in the back. Gruffle roared like a monster and his Divine Presence rippled through the area on seven planes of existence. The monstrous reaper faced down the trio of chaos warriors, who braced themselves against its power.
Then the Door of Death opened between them. Neuro stepped forwards with his scythe held in both hands. Annala and Eric grimaced at the sight of him, but he shook his head.
“Fear not.”
Turning around, he spread his wings and ascended to Gruffle’s new eye level. Brandishing his scythe, he proclaimed, “Wish Reaper Gruffle, you are hereby under arrest for breaking your probation via claiming authority you are not permitted. If you surrender yourself to my custody, then you will receive leniency. Otherwise, you will be punished to the full extent allowed by the Laws and Customs of the Abyss. What is your answer?”
Gruffle roared in his face and swatted him with a dozen limbs. Neuro cut them all off without appearing to move. The deathly monster withdrew to nurse his wounds. Neuro took the opportunity to rise to Samael’s level and point his scythe at her.
“Overseer of Necrocraft, is not what I said what you were about to do?”
She smiled her cold smile at him. “If it is necessary to complete his Final Wish, and given the circumstances involved, namely that his target is a fire god body-guarded by a semi-divine chaos priestess, and that the target still possesses a stolen reaper podesta, then I am able, within the authority granted to me by Lord Death, and in an example of his boundless mercy, to make an exception. I shall punish him after he has completed his Final Wish.”
“Reapers like him,” Neuro pointed at Gruffle, “inspire me to be more selfless and hard working. Reapers like you inspire me to be more honest and law abiding.”
Tasio played a brief tune on his ocarina. “Final Boss Fight: Gruffle the Rogue Reaper!”
By the time Tasio finished speaking Gruffle had regrown all his limbs, and this time, each of them was curved like his scythe. With them, he attacked all four of his enemies at once.
They dodged, deflected, and blocked, but the sheer number of attacks made completely avoiding injury impossible. They took damage at an alarming rate. If this continued, then, godhood or not, all of them would die.
“Annala!” Eric shouted. “Medic duty in the rear!”
“Got it!” She dashed to the far end of the platform away from Gruffle and prayed for the good health of her companions. Immediately, their wounds healed and their stamina rebounded.
Eric thrust forward his right hand and created a dark fire wall to burn away limbs that tried to entangle him and then flew away from Gruffle’s scythe combos.
“Perrault! Cover me!”
“If you insist...” She reverted to her wolf form and watched for attacks on Eric instead of opportunities to strike Gruffle. Spotting seven, she lunged so quickly she appeared to teleport as she bit through them.
“Kallen! Attack from the other direction to split his attention.”
“So this is teamwork...” she muttered as she teleported to Gruffle’s back side. Once there, she alternated between white fire blasts and mana bolts tainted with chaos. She kept her distance so she would have plenty of room to dodge his counterattacks.
Neuro descended like a thunderclap on Gruffle, slicing through him on his way to Eric. There, he stopped and saluted. “Third Class Rookie Reaper Neuro reporting for duty.”
“Do that again, from as many angles as you can.”
Eric twirled his spear around to deflect and cut limbs while Perrault fired beams of chaotic mana to force Gruffle to back off. Neuro nodded and flew to the heavens once more.
Eric slashed the reaper with his mage spear, leaving a long gash through its midsection. Spiritual mist flowed from the wound and its astral shriek resounded in the area. Its attempts to swat him were in vain. The ones he didn’t dodge he burned with a fiery aura.
Kallen peppered its back with white fire. Each one scored a hit and the giant spirit monster returned fire with spirit pulses. She proved as slippery as Eric as she teleported. Charging up her own mage spear, she strafed its flank with chaos bolts.
The rogue reaper lashed out with its multitude of limbs and fired spiritual pulses in all directions. It smashed the pillar in its fury. Miles of ocean were disrupted by its power. Local nature spirits fled in fear, but its three foes evaded its attacks. In frustration, the creature unleashed its immense spiritual pressure, but all five of its assailants were able to withstand it. Thanks to Annala, they didn’t suffer any lasting damage. Unfortunately, neither did Gruffle.
Eric baked him with dark fire and Kallen with light fire. Perrault bit and slashed every part of its body that approached Eric and fired chaos beams at its main body. Neuro slashed it with Reaper Cleaves from every direction. The spirit beast screeched with each hit, but none did meaningful damage.
It buffeted Kallen mid-teleport and rocked the ground Eric ran upon. It smacked Perrault away from Eric and endeavored to keep them separated. One of its heads devoted itself to watching for Neuro and blunting his approaches. Its spirit pulses made them all wince. A blade cut across Eric’s chest and he bled both blood and spirit. Annala’s prayers mended it immediately, but then three more replaced it. Gruffle was getting smarter about his strikes.
With every passing second, he became more skilled with his new power. It was getting harder to dodge and harder to stay fully healed. He was wearing away at them, but he didn’t appear injured in the slightest.
“Eric Watley, you cannot cheat Lord Death forever,” Samael said from on high. “He always wins eventually.”
“Neuro,” Eric called while dodging Gruffle’s main scythe. Every swing of its blade came within inches of his head or waist. “Did she suspend his death?”
Neuro swooped down, feinted his final approach, and then cut off a large swath of Gruffle’s limbs and several of his wings. They grew back by the time he reached the height of his arc. He dived again and, this time, he cut off all three heads. They too regrew quickly.
“Maybe,” the clerical reaper replied.
Eric evaded another swing of Gruffle’s scythe and Perrault baked the central body in a golden-brown breath attack. Eric pressed her advantage by slicing an X formation in the fiend from shoulder to waist. It disintegrated and then reformed. He looked around at his teammates.
If the five of us fought together long enough, we might eventually win,
but at what cost? He narrowly avoided a beheading three times in one minute. Invoking Wind Avatarcraft, he blew Gruffle and his scythe limbs far away enough for momentary breathing room. What if they don’t survive? Is my own survival worth it?
“Neuro! Tasio!” he shouted. “Do you know the story of Orpheus?”
Tasio nodded instantly. Neuro paused briefly and then resumed his part of the battle. On his next pass by Eric, he whispered, “I understand, Mr. Watley. Do what you must.”
During Gruffle’s next attack, Eric allowed it to connect. The deathly blade cut his body cleanly in half. His spirit, divine though it might be, could no longer inhabit it. A sense of impending triumph spread across Gruffle’s face as one of his hands darted into his cloak. He pulled out a gourd and unplugged it.
“Eric Watley!”
“That’s me,” Eric said with a sad smile. “Momento mori.”
The gourd sucked in air and Eric’s soul was pulled in with it. Kallen, Annala, and Perrault all grabbed him, but the power of death ripped him from their grasp. He disappeared inside the gourd and Gruffle plugged it. The jubilant reaper stuck a paper seal over the stopper and on the gourd’s side, he wrote, “Eric Watley, killed to fulfill Benjamin Gruffle’s Final Wish.”
Annala charged, but Samael intercepted. The greatest of reapers blocked her strike on her shaft. She swung left and right with great passion, but fatigue and injury slowed her down and sapped her strength. Focusing on her allies kept them in peak condition and left her with many wounds infected with necrocraft. Even now, her Seed of Chaos struggled to heal them, then Samael made them worse.
Utilizing her authority over necrocraft, Samael forced Annala’s wounds to deteriorate. They festered and expanded until Annala could no longer lift her staff. She glared at Samael and Samael looked down her nose in return.
“This is the cycle of souls, Priestess. To obstruct it is to do Order’s work.”
Annala dropped her staff and kicked Samael. “Let me pass! Eric didn’t want to go!”
Samael stoically deflected her kicks. “No one wants to go, except suicides.”
Transcending Limitations Page 57