Divine Apostasy Book 11 - Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Ruin appeared near the mountain he’d created as a barrier between his inner and outer mind. Golden bamboo wrapped the base like the gilded bars of a prison. The stalks swayed to an invisible wind under a light with no source. Red and white serpents coiled threateningly around the bamboo, their scales reflecting the same soft glow that permeated the forest.

The air held a strange mixture of burnt air and incense, and Ruin checked the sky for signs of a thunderstorm. But only the mountain filled the heavens—along with the same even light. Where the bamboo ended, blood-red maples began, and they covered the mountain like a bleeding wound. Only the peak with its small wooden structure remained bare and exposed.

Ruin didn’t study his golden skin. He’d copied the appearance of the golden statues of his twenty-nine classmates. Stepping onto the path that led to the mountain, his bare feet made shallow prints in the packed dirt. The silence gave this place a solemnity that reminded him of church.

As Ruin approached the bamboo grove, a figure appeared just off the path. Prythus sat cross-legged with his eyes closed in meditation or sleep. Ruin sensed the entity he’d come to confront somewhere down the path he’d just walked, but he acted ignorant of its presence.

Sitting down, Ruin mirrored his friend.

Golden eyes opened and locked onto Ruin’s. Prythus flared two large golden wings and the intensity of the guardian’s gaze created tension, causing the air to grow heavy, like a silent warning. Prythus obviously recognized Ruin despite the disguise, but didn’t give any indication that Ruin was special.

The hidden intruder released two bursts of energy. The first manifested itself as a twenty-foot tall Saraph that ran at full speed toward the bamboo grove a hundred feet to the right of the path. At the same time three hundred feet to the left a shadow slithered along the ground completely shrouded by the short grass.

Two golden figures, wings spread, stepped out of the bamboo, one on each side. The pair waited calmly for the two attacks to reach them.

The shadow snake immediately slowed and changed direction, taking a more angled approach instead of heading directly for the bamboo.

The golden warrior on that side disappeared back into the forest.

On the right, the massive Saraph didn’t hesitate and quickly closed the distance. Ruin could feel the strength of the manifestation. The intruder had poured a significant amount of power into this construct and a pang of worry entered his thoughts.

The construct-Saraph attacked the golden warrior. In a graceful move that resembled painting more than marital arts, the protector grabbed the descending fist, turned, and threw the giant Saraph into the bamboo.

The large construct had considerable momentum from its run, and the golden protector had added its own strength to the throw. This resulted in the construct hitting the bamboo with the force of a siege bolt.

Instead of snapping bamboo and cracking bones the delicate sound of wind chimes filled the air. An explosion of golden motes replaced the body and they drifted into the bamboo. The golden warrior returned to the forest and disappeared, the whole exchange lasting a handful of seconds.

Ruin had equipped the twenty-nine guardians of this mountain with access to considerable mental energy and he should have known they could handle even powerful attacks with ease.

Just as the shadow snake made it to the forest threshold, a golden guardian appeared and casually swiped her foot across the ground, snuffing the shadow out of existence and replacing it with more golden motes.

The quick defeats belied the massive output of mental energy the intruder had expended to create the attacks. This invader had far more mental strength than anyone Ruin had encountered before. Still, it didn’t even stress his forest guardians.

Ruin felt the intruder latch on to his shadow. In the Destruction Realm, he might not have spotted it, but here, literally in his mind, nothing escaped his notice.

As if the attacks had never occurred Prythus spoke. “How fairs the path, Brother?”

“Straight and narrow,” Ruin responded. “How fairs the grove?”

“Calm and quiet.”

Ruin placed an open palm on his fist and bowed. Prythus returned the gestures and Ruin stood. Without a backward glance he strode into the bamboo grove.

Bamboo leaves covered the ground and whenever they encroached on the path Ruin would pause to remove them. He ignored the vipers that filled the forest around him and the snakes never ventured off the bamboo.

Eventually the bamboo thinned, and the incline steepened. Golden stalks faded, replaced by Blood Red Maples with leaves so vibrant they gleamed in the pale light. The trees stretched their branches like twisted arms, their canopies blocking the sky but failing to inhibit the ever-present light.

Golden motes drifted and swirled here as well, though not as densely.

Occasionally, a golden guardian appeared among the maples, the golden particles helping them to blend with the forest. They strode gracefully through the trees, their Step mastery evident to anyone with martial training. Power radiated from them, coiled and controlled, like the snakes in the bamboo.

Through it all, Ruin monitored the intruder. They kept their main form hidden outside the bamboo but the anchor on Ruin’s shadow remained, along with the thin thread that connected it to the entity below.

Near the peak of the mountain, the trees disappeared, and a small shed came into view. In addition to the path Ruin had taken, eleven other routes ended in this clearing. The plain wooden shed looked like a ten-foot cube. The structure didn’t possess any intricate carvings, and no hum of power warned of danger. A simple latch secured the closed door.

Ruin turned but kept his shadow locked in place. He studied the tiny anchor the intruder had left. “Is this what you wanted to see?”

The distant intruder used the anchor to teleport themselves and Ruin allowed it.

A Saraph appeared standing five feet from Ruin, their skin completely black and lacking the shifting patterns that covered Ruin’s body.

“What is this place?” the intruder asked.

Ruin glanced around. “It’s a type of limbo. A place of transition. It’s called Purgatory.” After a second, he continued. “Why are you here?”

The intruder pulled their black eyes away from the shed to focus on Ruin. “The overlay is an anomaly and this place even more so.”

“In what way?”

“In every way. The children of the void do not possess such abilities. Few wyrms and fewer humans can create an overlay let alone project it into reality.”

“Who are you?”

“That is the wrong question,” the Intruder replied.

“You’re the Dark Tower,” Ruin said flatly.

The Saraph in front of Ruin was a disguise, no different than the one he wore.

The Tower nodded slightly. “A vast simplification, and fundamentally incorrect in a hundred ways, but for all intents, yes, I represent the Dark Tower.”

“Why are you here?” Ruin asked again.

The Saraph shrugged. “Curiosity, boredom, perhaps violence. Does this Purgatory belong to the entity that overpowered us?”

Ruin assumed the Intruder meant when he’d pushed the five Towers aside or possibly when he’d yanked them all a thousand floors into the air. “Can you expand on what you mean by violence?”

“Summon your creator.”

“That isn’t within my power, but you can summon him yourself. Open the door and he’ll appear for sure.”

“What does the shed contain?”

“That’s complicated, but we can just call it an entrance.”

“You won’t try and stop me? Or summon the other guardians?”

“I promise to stand quietly right here.”

The Saraph leaped toward the shed, grabbed the latch, and yanked viciously.

The fragile-looking door didn’t budge.

The intruder funneled power from an external source, likely the Dark Tower itself, and channeled it to the Saraph body. Ruin could have stopped the attempt or the transfer, but he let it occur, curious to test the limits of this new mental realm.

The intruder now felt like a lump instead of a mental itch, and Ruin didn’t care for the sensation of all the foreign power inside his mind.

Ruin considered warning the Dark Tower not to attack his mind. To tell it that Ruin’s natural defenses would reflect a large portion of the damage back on the Tower. But he wasn’t completely sure those defenses would work in this pseudo mental world that bridged his inner and outer minds. Just like the Dark Tower, Ruin was curious.

Power surged in the Dark Tower’s avatar, and it yanked viciously again on the latch.

The door didn’t even wobble.

The avatar smashed its fist into the shed and immediately vaporized into a cloud of golden motes.

Ruin detected the outside world shaking and he hoped he hadn’t destroyed the Dark Tower for the sake of curiosity.

Alone on the peak, Ruin walked to the door, turned the wooden latch, and peeked into the shed.

An octagon shaped portal nine feet high hovered a few inches off the floor. On the other side of the portal, the four-hand platform was visible sitting inside the original forest inside Ruin’s mind.

Ruin closed the door and slid the latch down. He checked the door for damage, but it looked unharmed. It relieved him that some of his mental defenses worked out here as well.

It took two full minutes before the Dark Tower had recovered enough to place an avatar into Ruin’s mind again. He scooped up the Saraph and brought him to the mountain peak again.

“By the way,” Ruin said, “I’d avoid directly damaging anything around here.”

“How?” the Dark Tower avatar asked.

“You’ll need to be more specific. I have a lot going on up here.” Ruin circled a finger near his temple for emphasis.

“You’re the creator,” the avatar stated.

Ruin spread the four wings on his golden body and then dropped the disguise. He retracted his wings and gave the avatar a small bow.

“Ruin Val’dor,” he said.

“Our presence in these distant Towers is small, only a trace of intent survives the trip through the void. Your powers are strange. No, impossible. And yet I sense no disguise. You are a child of the void. The marks of that ancient passage left scars generations cannot erase.”

“My situation is complicated.”

The avatar looked at the forests below and then studied the shed before turning back to Ruin. “Your external overlay is primitive, but this place, Purgatory, is beyond our experience. When will you return to the origin?”

Ruin guessed the Dark Tower meant the gigantic old Towers in the capital. He wanted to tell them the truth, which was never, but he didn’t want to make gathering all the hardening runes difficult because he’d upset all the Towers. So, he went with something a bit more open to interpretation.

“I haven’t finalized those plans yet but will let you know when I do.”

The Dark Tower avatar bowed, and then disappeared.

Ruin glanced around. This had turned out to be a good idea. Or at least, not a terrible one. He needed to check on Overlord, Uruziel, and Sivart. Hopefully they had finished all the dungeon creatures so Ruin could collect the loot and pick a Meridian hardening rune.