Path of the Slayer B3 39. Gods & Children

The moment I saw them, something inside me squeezed tight. Doomie, being the natural doom-bearer that she was, increased that sensation until I became short of breath and wobbly on my own legs.

The edges of my vision throbbed like a malignant heart, and I had to concentrate on standing, digging my toes into the soft gravel road, while centering myself.

My focus veered to the halcyon morning, the merry tweeting birds, the sun sliding along a literal wall on a course that would take it across a slightly sloping dome.

I tasted the slight rise in mugginess, reminding me of the last summer I’d experienced back in my old home, back when I had no power. Then with a shake of my head, dreadlocks flailing, the wave of weakness passed.

Doomie’s weight lessened on my soul, and I refocused on the Rank 0 children goggling at me and my friends.

There were a little over twelve of them. They ranged in folk types, from the typical humans to the untypical half-orc.

I knew there were kids and Rank 0, because even the half-orc teenager seemed puny and, strangely, temporary. They all seemed temporary. The lack of magic made them unimportant and short-lived, like the bugs crawling in the dirt.

“Nope,” I grunted under my breath, making the Rank 0 boys and girls jolt upright. They didn’t run away, though. They kept looking at me and my friends like surprised deer.

As Merlin and Thumper watched me curiously, I focused inwardly while putting aside Slayer Intent, because what I wanted had to be replicable for every Pathwalker.

I went into a state that was between wakefulness and unconsciousness. It was almost like meditation, but more aware of the outside. From there, I focused on my energy.

The very basics of Path Energy made it transferable to all energies even if it wasn’t specialized for any significant type. Having fine tune control over Path Energy enabled a Pathwalker to apply power to an action with far less waste outside of the powers in their profiles. 

By all means, it should be more than possible to both limit myself without wasting excess Path Energy and without forcing excess binds on myself.

In a way, I wanted to match the lower wavelengths of this lesser floor, syncing myself with its nature and people, while still having access to all of my power. I was a rising god, after all, and nearly anything was possible for me.

I just had to focus more.

By the time a few minutes were up, the difference in my transformation became more than palpable. When I glanced at Merlin and Thumper, both of them came across as loud and incongruent with the floor. To where the very air seemed to burn or jolt or tremble against their presence.

As for me, the environment felt more accepting, even if tentatively. My presence stopped hurting this reduced world, and when I moved toward the Rank 0 children, their confusion remained clear, but they didn’t look at me as this wild and impossible thing.

“Anyone orphaned?” I asked, keeping close attention to my voice. It wasn’t booming and harsh compared to the locals.

“My pa said having orphans ain’t right, so everybody take care of us no matter who or what,” said a stout dwarf girl, her hair fitted into two massive dark red buns on either side of her head.

“Are you a devil?” asked a dark-skinned human boy. “Are you gonna curse and destroy everybody? You have to tell us if we ask.”

I chuckled. “I’m no devil. I’m the one who makes the devils check under their beds and shine a light into their closets.”

“REALLY?!” all the kids shouted, bumbling and jolting and shoving about.

They crowded closer, and that was okay, because my Path Energy, even with a slight loss, made me one with their existence. I imagined the Veterans had an easier time doing this with their Domains – it hadn’t slipped my notice that neither Zez nor Sharia had struggled being down here.

Before the kids stole more of my attention, I noticed the atmosphere shifting behind me. Looking back, I saw Thumper and Merlin following my example, their Path Energy rippling out of their bodies, syncing them to their environment.

Then they adapted, Thumper doing so the fastest.

Merlin furrowed his brow as he snapped his fingers over the end of his smoking pipe. He took a draft and blew a trail of colorful smoke that wowed the children. “Takes a bit of work, but it’s not impossible. Still, I’m not a fan.”

“But look at how happy Arden is. I’m starting to think he’s the type who works well with kids.” Thumper pointed out, which had my neck heating up.

Merlin tilted his head, his gold smoking pipe hanging skewed. His green eyes lit up with amusement. “Oh, my System, Arden’s got a dad personality!”

“Shut it,” I muttered.

“If you put aside how he attracts ex girlfriends, yeah, I can see Arden being a really good dad,” Thumper said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

“Dad energy!” Merlin declared.

I growled at them, letting a little more of my power slip out. With them in sync with the lesser power of this floor, my growl made Thumper and Merlin wince.

Of course, I kept that directed away from the kids, who were now looking up at me with peculiar glints in their eyes.

“Isn’t Mrs Merrybell in need of a new husband?” asked one elf boy.

“Mrs Merrybell can take Sir Arden. Can I get the really tall and beautiful one over there?” One tiny half-goblin girl pointed over at Thumper. “I’ll be a great wife! I can cook, clean, and everything!”

I barked with laughter as Thumper’s mischievous smirk dropped, mouth slightly parted in horror. As he fumbled on what to say, I realized the shadowy royal prince wouldn’t have much experience dealing with kids.

“Ah, yes, Thumper is painfully single. I wonder when he’ll settle down. You know how it is with the pretty ones. Always so hard to catch.” I reached over as Thumper’s face stretched longer with mortification. Grabbing him by the elbow, I muscled him up and center. “Maybe what he needs is a proper wife who can wrangle him into being a proper husband.”

“OHHHH!” shrieked the young and hopeful girls.

Seeing this, the boys glowered up at Thumper as if he were a great threat.

Merlin turned away and choked on smoke and laughter.

Thumper looked down at me with slight venom in his eyes.

I didn’t mind. It was funny. And joking around with Rank 0 children made me realize this was par for the course.

How else would children start? Again, that made me think of Veteran Zez and Veteran Sharia having an easier time because of their Domains. The parents would know, wouldn’t they?

“Will I ever be as strong as you when I grow up?” one boy asked me. “I don’t want to be a Rank 0 heretic. Pa says I’ll be put away if that happens.”

All the humor and fun left me.

The same happened to Thumper and Merlin, but my reaction felt worse.

Instead of snapping, I checked myself, ensuring that I maintained a oneness with the environment. My friends followed my example as the kids kept gaping up at us, probably wondering what we were doing.

Our mystical and divine processes of ensuring we could coexist with Rank 0s and not kill them by accident were probably too complicated to explain to children. But they must’ve known we were doing something with how their reality warped slightly around each of us.

Once I had a better grip again, something else stole my attention.

“My gods! Sir Arden the Nomad!” shouted Dinky, dashing down the road, his sweaty face twisted with fear. He threw himself down on the gravel road before our feet, sliding to a stop.

I barely noticed how I positioned myself in front of the kids in case of danger. Merlin and Thumper followed my example just as smoothly.

“Carry on,” I ordered.

While all sweaty and shaky, Dinky raised his head and spoke with clear enough urgency. “The criminal organization, the Hatchet Gang, they’ve struck back! There are more of them than the adventurers had realized. They’ve got nine towns under their control, and they taken over the big city! The local adventurers are spread so thin they’re throwing in Rank 1 bronzes and asking for guards to arm up!”

“What are the usual Ranks of the Hatchet Gang?” I asked calmly.

“They range from Rank 0 heretics to Rank 4s! It’s the Rank 3s and 4s leading everything, the strongest, especially the Hatchet Gang Boss. They figured he was Rank 4, but I fear he might be greater than that!”

“Sounds like they knew your adventurers were gonna bust them, so they set a trap to turn it all around,” Thumper said. “Smart but also dumb. You need loads of confidence or a big ego to think you can go from ruling in the dark to ruling in the light.”

“Well, well, well, sounds like another violent adventure with Arden and friends. I do love it when a Saturday morning cartoon stays predictable.” Merlin blew out another stream of colorful smoke. “So, do we head straight for the big city before working our way out toward the small towns?”

“That depends. How much is karma a factor when facing the weak?” I asked.

“A small amount,” Merlin explained. “You can’t outright avoid it when we’re this strong. Even bad guys are afforded some protection under the Realm Verse System, or Pathwalkers would go in and mess with things too often, disrupting the natural flow of the ecosystem.”

“If you don’t mind carrying some negative karma, it wouldn’t last long,” Thumper said. “As long as we don’t make a habit of intervening too much. That, and we’ll probably be able to wipe out the negative karma by facing the Embassy of Defilement.”

“So, this is the perfect time to be gods,” I realized, sensing the machinations of the System. She was probably encouraging this in the background, even if it meant I’d accrued some bad debt on my existence. “I’ve never had negative karma.”

“Me neither,” Merlin said.

“Same,” Thumper confirmed.

“Let’s see what it’s like then.”

With a quick gesture, I directed Merlin to cover Dinky and the kids.

Once the wizard bubbled them in a blue telekinetic shield, I walked away about a dozen feet down the way we’d come and slipped my fingers into my mouth.

After a sharp and shrill whistle, I watched the coming of the apocalypse in eleven forms, nine of them being overtly destructive.

Hills were turned into flying chunks. An entire stream was diverted off its normal course. An old and abandoned barn burst apart into splinters. A small forest was turned into splinters, the small animals pulverized.

The world shook so hard it felt like a group of titans were approaching. Then, the very air screamed violently as my squad came to a stop in front of me, their godly existences a major incongruence with the world. Enough so that I had to wait on a knee or I would’ve gotten knocked over.

“Elder Arden! What happened? Why do you and the other elders feel so weak?!” Grimmy asked, her voice like thunderclaps.

My ears bled.

Shaking it off, I got back to my feet and maintained my oneness with this reality. “It’s something you can all do. It’ll make it easier to interact with folks without hurting them. But I first must ask if you all are okay with attracting some negative karma.”

Their every shift, breath, twitch, or expression verged on being mini calamities. I endured it all as I explained the situation before giving them all a chance to decide.

“There is no life without sin. But one can always find forgiveness through prayer and action,” said Kroker.

“Finding oneness doesn’t make us too weak. And we’ll still have power. That way, it’ll feel better when I twist the knife in my prey,” Noodles said.

“Let’s do it,” Grimmy whisper-shouted.

Nodding, I directed them together while staying on our feet. This wasn’t practice for the Spirit Blaze technique or complete soul journey meditation. This was a wakeful meditation that required awareness of ourselves and the surrounding world.

Going over it again made me realize the emphasis was more on our surroundings than ourselves, even, which inversely bent our personal realities to warp ourselves.

Earlier, I thought it was the other way around, but now I knew that wasn’t truly the case. Seeing each of my juniors achieve oneness with the more mortal reality reminded me of how incredible Path Energy truly was.

“Does this mean I can hold the cute Rank 0 kiddies?” Redfang asked, gawking down at her body of oneness.

“It’s a bit dreadful having to lower myself for another’s comfort. But I suppose I shall endure for the sake of the children,” Weaver grumbled.

“This is wonderful. It costs Path Energy, but I don’t feel so stressed and out of control like before,” Marnarka bellowed cheerfully.

“I was wondering if y’all would figure it out.” Veteran Sharia had a big grin on her face. “Once you get a Domain, you can cheat. Without that, we’ll end up splattering our babies all the time, so it’s advisable to become a Veteran before having kids. But the trick you just pulled off is another way of doing things, even if only temporarily. Makes it easier to have relations with Rankers or even Rank 0s.”

“Do keep in mind this does make you more vulnerable,” Veteran Zez warned. “If you suffer lethal damage and your Path Energy spills out too fast before you patch yourself up, this could kill you. Becoming attuned to the more mortal plane will reflect mortality at you further.”

“Does that mean our accrual of negative karma will be even smaller?” I asked.

“You’ll barely get any for something like this,” Veteran Sharia said.

“Maybe a teensy amount if you do leverage more of your grand powers. But I dare say no Pathwalker should go about godhood without knowing what it’s like carrying a bit of negative. In fact, this is truly the perfect time to see. Now go forth, young ones, and bring reckoning to the evildoers!”

“What Veteran Zez said,” I added, turning to the bubble containing Dinky and the children.

Both the guard and the kids helped explain the locations where we would be needed.

Because of the real danger of a Pathwalker ending up at the wrong location and killing the wrong folks, Veteran Sharia and Veteran Zez split off with three juniors each to help position them properly.

Thumper took his rogue team – Velira, Weaver, and Noodles – to ensure they were properly placed. I imagined the rogues were the least likely to get lost, leaving me and Merlin with tackling the big city.

As everyone went out, I noticed how they moved with blurring speed that a majority of the locals couldn’t compete against. But their movements weren’t as destructive and overwhelming as before.

The landscape wasn’t terraformed so casually or accidentally. It was like I discovered earlier – we could shift our personal realities enough to act more kindly on the lesser planes.

Almost like being able to regress ourselves, even if temporarily.