II-116 A Respite

Hate. Hate and rage. It took me a long while to let that go. It took me a long while until that stopped being a part of me.

During that time, I hurt a lot of people. I burned a lot of things.

A lot of them deserved it. Some of them didn’t.

But at the end—at least—I learned something. A faint consolation for all the people I’ve hurt and killed, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

But I’ll tell you this, dear reader: hate isn’t a bad thing in itself. It isn’t a bad thing even when it controls you sometimes.

Sometimes it’s motivation. Sometimes it’s giving you clarity. Sometimes it’s just better than bloody despair.

Hate, however, eventually needs to be mastered. Eventually, you’re either going to take it by the handle as a sword, or it’s going to set its fangs into you, biting deep and poisoning your blood.

And then it becomes like a drug, and you can’t get enough of it.

Hate. Learn to use it. And when you’re done, put it away. Block it deep until it’s needed once again.

But between that… remember to temper it all with a little love. That’s allowed too.

-Agnesia of Dawnrest

II-116

A Respite

Wei and the others returned to the base. He dispatched most to separate locations, capturing more sinners for his grinding camps—more lambs to fuel the slaughter. Some tried to speak to him. Vendrian approached, but Wei simply ignored the man. He had no urge to speak, no urge to discuss, to contemplate, or to ruminate on anything anymore. Right now, he wanted to break something. He wanted to break a lot of things.

But the young master was nothing if not pragmatic, and he felt nothing if not responsible for his foremost disciple, the one with the greatest potential. Now, after so much invested in her, Agnesia was a titan in more ways than one. She strode across the land, and her draconic shadow—that avatar now turned goliath—could be summoned at any time to bring ruin down on the unsuspecting adversary. And so they did.

He took her aside, away from all the others, and for the next few days they simply rampaged. But they did not rampage recklessly. No, they moved to Wei’s commands, to Wei’s whims. He watched for the whims, scouting and using Omniscience to ensure there was nothing they couldn’t handle. Despite all his power, despite all he had achieved, he knew there were threats beyond him still—beyond all of them. There remained Princes of Hell. There remained Counts and Countesses that could still contend with his might. And there were the Kings and Queens, high up in a loft, the crown jewels of every circle. They still remained. And, before this was over, Wei intended to knock on their door.

“How much is going to be enough?” Agnesia asked during a brief moment of silence and respite.

A draconic shadow loomed over them, its size rivaling the Solar Leviathan, its power unbound. With every movement it shook the land and sundered the earth. With every breath it cast flames of purest destruction—destruction upon destruction—for her amnesia was a Scion, and gifting her that form of the Leviathan had only increased her might. Every time she flared her draconic wings, entire portions of the world seemed to dissolve. Even Wei could feel the sting of the heat, the lick of the pain. It pleased him, but it didn’t pierce deep enough to rouse him from his angered state.

His shell spoke to him as well, demanding that he focus. And Wei did focus, but he didn’t respond to the skill. He had no desire.

“We will finish,” Wei said, “once we have broken enough. We will finish once you have been refined enough.”

She opened her mouth, as if to complain, but to Wei’s surprise—even through his stupor—she restrained herself. She halted her words in place and simply nodded.

“Fine then,” she said, making a fist.

The shadowy Leviathan that now served as her draconic avatar mirrored the gesture, bringing its massive claw down on the land. The earth shook and sundered. Wei remained still, creating a realm from his concept core, shrouding himself from the flying debris. He shattered fragments of broken earth—massive columns of debris, barbed wire, soil, and trapped sinners. From it, he procured new shards. Agnesia looked at him with a slight wink and a smile.

The young master wanted to remain sullen, but he simply chuckled.

“Now we have to move again,” he said to her. “They will come looking for us.”

“Sure,” she replied. “But isn’t running part of the exercise?”

He considered her words and grunted. “Fine. We go where Greed resides.”

“Oh? New targets?”

“Yes. Something MacArthur wants. He’ll perhaps offer us something special in exchange for a few slain.”

“Is it going to be a new gun?”

“Maybe something bigger than that.”

“Even bigger than a gun?” Agnesia looked thoughtful and smiled viciously, regarding her draconic avatar, the Solar Leviathan. “Maybe something big enough for a little friend here to wield.”

Wei blinked, regarded her avatar, and to his immense displeasure, broke out in laughter. It was absurd. It was ruining his attempts to be dour and stoic. And despite everything—despite everything—he couldn’t be mad at her. He just couldn’t.

“Stop. Focus on your training.” The Shell’s command honed Wei’s focus. Agnesia asked for another break from their onslaught, but he waved her off. She pouted slightly. He spent a little longer looking at her face. He rather liked that pout.

“Wei…” the Shell sighed.

“Yes, yes—training. Come on, there are more people we must break.”

“Aye, patriarch,” she said, and so she did. Wei felt a shudder run up his spine. For a moment—just a moment—the rage he felt towards the Inheritors, towards his entire life, abated.

***

“I do not have years to give you skill,” Wei said, pouring more shards into her, “so we will have to make do with power and speed. Your mind—” he paused, choosing his words tactfully, “your mind is vulnerable. You are wounded in a way.”

“I was wounded too,” Agnesia said, leaning in a little closer.

Wei swallowed and then drew back, to his own disappointment and hers. He saw it in her eyes. “I was wounded,” he continued.

“You’re still wounded,” she said.

“No,” Wei said, shaking his head. Something about the way she said that made him angrier. “I am not. I am merely focused and enraged and motivated to see this done.”

He brought his glaive down, piercing the head of some demonic banker. He never forgave them for what he experienced in the Hearted Realm. And so he instructed Agnesia to unleash her full fury—with no hesitation, with every bit of focus—all to the end of destroying the enemy before they could ever react.

She was getting faster—much faster. Thanks to all he had invested in her, she was now terrifying. She moved at the very limits of her class. Her strength was immense. Her constitution respectable. Frankly, aside from a few other aspects, she was nearing the capacity of her class level—her essence could only sustain so much. And to achieve Hell’s Vanguard, one couldn’t go into count. That’s why Wei remained bottlenecked in some ways, focusing on his system now.

“I feel like a bloody natural disaster,” she said. Behind her, an entire stretch of No-Demons Land had been burned down to bedrock—a swath about ten kilometers long and twice as wide, now nothing but glass. She had crossed it in seconds. To call her a flying natural disaster wasn’t an understatement anymore, but in the aftermath the girl looked behind, took a breath—and something in her eyes shrank. He caught her holding herself for a moment, a shiver passing through her—a small voice that wondered if he was doing the right thing.

He received messages from the rest of his sect, asking how they were and how things were going. He replied tersely to everyone except Ellena. She spoke to her daughter several times at length. Agnesiaa put on a brighter, more arrogant façade with her mother, but after it was over she returned to her contemplative state.

By the fourth day, Wei stopped their excursion entirely. They were being hunted by multiple forces—some dedicated, led by specific counts; others just loose coalitions trying to figure out who was hitting them, who was slaughtering them wholesale. He found himself and Agnesia taking cover in an abandoned bunker—made abandoned due to them, because everyone alive within a hundred-kilometer radius was no longer so.

“So,” Wei said, “are you going to tell me what’s happening?”

She stared at him. “I don’t much feel like a person anymore,” she admitted. “I see things. I hear things far, far away. When I move, the ground breaks. I’m larger than I used to be—much larger.” She looked at her hands. “But even so, I moved the mountain, I pushed through it, and it came apart like a sandcastle. The world doesn’t feel as real to me as it did before.”

“It feels like everything’s slowly becoming glass,” Wei said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “People especially. I think I’ve killed more people in the past few days than I ever have. I can’t remember most of them—they just disappear, vanish.”

A long silence followed.

“Do you think—do you think we have the right?”

“What?” Wei asked, surprised by the question.

“The right,” she said. “We’re killing people, Wei. We’re butchering them wholesale. They’re sinners, they’re monsters, supposedly. So many of them take slaves, so many of them have done worse—but what are we doing? Are we becoming worse?”

“I like it,” she finished. “Every time I kill someone, it makes me angrier, but it speeds up my heart and I like it. It nourishes me, it refreshes me. I don’t feel like a person anymore.”

By this point, Wei was close enough to place a hand on her arm. He hated the fact that he had to look up at her, but her vulnerability still commanded his attention. And to Wei’s dismay, he gave in. Something inside him surrendered.

“If you do not feel comfortable,” he began, “if you are unwilling to continue—”

“No, no, I’m not—I’m not a coward,” she cut in.

“I’m not saying you’re a coward,” Wei said, keeping the steel in his voice, “but people can grow tired, distracted. They might need a moment’s rest. They might need to focus on something else for a while. This war—we will kill astronomical numbers. And we’re doing this because, alternatively, someone else would do the same to us.”

“It’s like—like we’re animals,” she said, “fighting in a large cage, breaking from one confine to another. We used to be so small—have you ever seen a marmot?”

“A what?”

“A marmot. It’s a small animal.”

“Never mind.”

“The world is too small,” she said. “Even lions are too small for me now.”

And then the first Skills struck near their position, and Wei cursed.

“Come,” he said, offering his hand. “Time for us to use the anchor. We depart.”

“We don’t fight?”

He shook his head. “I feel more than one count—they are coming, and they will bring ruin to this place very soon. We find some more soft targets, and we continue. I think I am… working through this rage.”

Agnesia snorted. “I think I’m just getting angrier.”

***

By the fifth day, Agnesia was starting to show major improvement. As he said before, he couldn’t teach her all the fighting techniques in the world. He couldn’t give her all the experience she needed to become a master duelist. But he could make her an engine of destruction. He could make her a titan. And so that’s what she did. She fought like a titan, but a clever one—striking fast, never staying in one place, causing chaos, then vanishing. She was, for all intents and purposes, a rampaging storm that disappeared moments later.

As she fought with Wei, they developed a sort of rapport—her as a strong haymaker in his arsenal, something he could throw or reposition across space using his Realm of the Harvester. Due to the brutal efficiency of their constant attacks—and for all they killed—the armies of each circle enforced a lockdown and a ceasefire. Across the sector, all battlefronts went silent, as scouts were assembled between Circles to keep a lookout for the Dead Whirlwind. Such was Agnesia’s name among those of Pride: others called her the Black Flame Titan—confusing her for one of Mepheleon’s experimental demons.

Wei called her improving.

On this day, though, they found themselves in a rare place of peace—a place they stole after emptying out the remnants of Lust. A bright emerald waterfall spilled down in front of them. Floating islands drifted along. The sound of seagulls echoed in the distance, and a sun—created of essence, but actually just a small mote of fire—shimmered in the sky, offering a relaxing radiance to the tropical vista. Agnesia stood in the waves, soaking in a moment’s rest. Wei allowed her a longer rest this time—longer still. A shell was chiding him, saying they were wasting time, that he could be claiming more shards and putting them to his aspects or the rest of his sect, but Wei didn’t listen. Wei was tired. With each passing day, his malaise grew greater. The initial rage he felt had turned into something akin to burnout—a strain that simply didn’t improve.

He would get to Earth. He would do everything he said. He would hurt Haythem. He would butcher everyone who stood against them. But then—what then? What was the purpose after this? What was the goal? Where was he going to go? Once he had Earth under his sway, once he did all he promised—turning them to his disciples, shaping them to his whims—what then? Provided that he won, what was the point of Earth? What was the point of the vaults? What was the point? If he was going to have eternity, what was he going to do with it? And with the power of the Concept Breaker, what did he truly want? What did he want?

It had been a while since he thought of that. His mother had a path for him as patriarch. Things were simple on his realm. The great mystery—the final threshold—was ascension. And his journey began with ascension. Here, now, he was adrift, watching Agnesia stand in the water, looking up at the sun, taking it all in as if she hadn’t been part of a massacre earlier.

“You should come in the water,” she said, turning to gaze at him. “It’s not that cold.”

“It is,” he shrugged. “Coldness does not bother me.”

“Oh, sure it doesn’t. That’s why you’re sitting there, just staring off blankly. Come on, Wei, we didn’t kill all those succubi for nothing,” she giggled. “I couldn’t believe you could fight with your eyes closed!”

She approached him, and he tried not to notice how soaked her blouse was. The armor she was wearing and the Ferromagnetic blade were both left under the shade of a tree nearby.

“I can’t believe they started throwing their breasts at me,” he managed. “That would be another mental scar to endure.”

“They were literally ripping off their reproductive organs and pelting me with them,” he continued. “It was horrifying—and degenerate.”

“I do remember you peeking at one or two.”

“I did not,” Wei said. “They were just—it was most upsetting. It was good that you burned them. I felt like I was dishonoring my scythes.”

“I’m glad I could help,” she deadpanned. The princess promptly smirked. And then suddenly, he realized he wasn’t on the ground anymore. Instead, he was in a pair of very large, very strong arms.

“Agnesia—put me down,” Wei said.

She was walking fast toward the water. He really shouldn’t have given her that many speed advancements.

She flung him like a little ball into the water. He cursed as he bounced and skipped across the waves before finally sinking. The wetness splashed over him and he exploded in outrage—only to see her laughing. Then, to his surprise, she shrank—shrank down closer to her original size, just a little bit taller than him.

He couldn’t decide between outrage, surprise, and disbelief. “Hey… how… how dare you shrink?” he managed as several thoughts clashed together.

“How dare I shrink?” she asked, taking a step closer. Then she smiled. “Do you want me to be bigger? To be in my gigantic form all the time?”

“No!” he cut her off. “You—you can get smaller?”

“Yes?”

“Then, why…”

“Because I like your expression when you’re insecure and jealous.”

“I—” Wei didn’t even have the words.

“Let’s take a swim.” Agnesia picked him up again.

Now Agnesia started using force against him. Something inside Wei switched on—she was planning to bully him with all the Strength advancements he had given her. He snorted a breath of defiant air and with casual ease swept the princess off her feet. It wasn’t like he was weak—and she was still without technique. but unlike her, he didn’t slam her into the water. He was in control. As she splashed down, he saw that she was smiling. She was still holding on to him, and she pulled him closer.

Of all the things Wei expected, that wasn’t it. Cursing himself once more for making her so strong, he snapped off his feet and crashed against her. Wei was faintly aware of how fast his heart was beating. He swallowed and realized that her arms were no longer hooking under his or gripping his chest or neck. Now, one was on his cheek, and the other was behind his head, pulling him closer. There was an expression on her face—one that affected him. Wei’s mind started going haywire.

“I—This is—” Wei swallowed. “Not—this is not propriate. Not propriate,” he stammered.

“A new word from you,” she laughed. “What do you want, Wei?” she asked, and slowly she reached down, and Wei heard something unclasp on her blouse. He swallowed. “What do you want?” It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a challenge. I know what I want. I think I’ve known for a little while, and I think I’m no longer willing to wait.” 

Wei hesitated. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“We should.”

“I—this place is of lust, it’s affecting us.”

“Maybe. But I want it to.”

“Ag—” 

“You’re just a foolish boy,” she said, and then she kissed him.

Wei tried to inhale and he breathed in only her. His thoughts were lost entirely. His system was flashing notifications before his eyes, and he couldn’t focus. Everything was reeling.

He was tired. But this felt like relief in some way. Then he reciprocated, and he sank down into her. When they finally needed to breathe, he found himself dazed and her grinning. “Well. Looks like your tongue does work to some extent.”

The young master shivered.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I can be your master if we do this,” Wei managed. “I don’t know if this isn’t what a student should do with her master…”

And then she silenced him again with her lips. This time, they went longer and longer. When they parted, she was giggling.

“We weren’t ever going to be just that,” she said. “And I think you knew that. I just think you were too scared to go for it.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then decided, “I’m sorry.”

She held him closer. “For what?”

“It should have been me. I should have… Wasn’t the… I… the responsibilities of sect and—I can give you more shards.”

“Oh, shut up, Wei. You’re not bloody good at this talking thing. Just make me feel.”

And for a long while, there wasn’t much talking. But there was a lot to feel.