WIEDERGEBURT Act VI: Chapter 34

I decided not to let Shulong make the first move. Swinging my Dragon’s Tail Ruler, I unleashed a powerful wave of fire that had been enhanced by wind. The intense heat was so powerful that the flame was white and the ground was glassed.

Despite the intense heat of the flames, Shulong remained calm, his face placid like an ancient well as he raised his hand and sliced the air. In that moment, a powerful rend cut through the world. I would have assumed it was a dimensional cut because of how black it was, but I could sense the Concept of Negation present within this technique. All of the fire that had been seeking to sweep over Shulong bent and was sucked into the rend. Another wave of his hand and the rend closed right up.

“That is an awfully powerful ability,” I commented. “Your understanding of the Concept of Negation must be incredible.”

“It is better than most.” Shulong shifted his feet along the ground as though preparing to blask himself through the air at him. “However, it is not just my understanding of the Concept of Negation that made me a commander of the forces here. Let me show you how powerful I can really be.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but when the world around me suddenly distorted and disappeared, I understood that this man was far more powerful than anyone I’d ever fought.

Looking around, I stared at the blackness surrounding me. A smattering of twinkling lights graced my vision as I floated in what appeared to be an endless void. I would have probably found the sight beautiful but for the fact that I understood this sight was the result of my enemy’s technique.

“A spatial technique?” I asked.

“Correct,” a voice that seemed to come from everywhere said. I recognized it as belonging to Shulong. “I call this technique Space-Time Prison. It is a relatively recent technique that I just mastered with my newly acquired comprehension of time. By combining time and space, I can send people to another space that is separate from everything else. If you want, you can think of it as a massive spatial prison.”

“So I see.” I paused. “You are being awfully forthcoming about your own abilities.”

“Knowing what my ability is won’t help you escape from it,” came the answer. “This technique not only traps you within a spatial prison, time inside works differently than time outside. Sadly, that is still something I am working on. I can only make it so that one hour in this prison is but one minute outside.”

I tried to move back and forth, which I seemed capable of doing, but it was very difficult. It wasn’t a simple matter of doing a breaststroke to swim through this space. This wasn’t water. I was trapped within what appeared to be a deep void of space. To move, I had to will myself back and forth, which required imagining myself moving.

“And what is the purpose of adjusting time in this spatial prison?” I asked.

“Is that not obvious?” A figured appeared in front of me. It was Shulong. “Time in this world is under my control. I can make you move as slow or fast as I want. Just as I can move as slow or fast as I want.”

At that moment, Shulong appeared before me, and I felt an incredible force smash against my chest. I gasped as I was sent flying. Bile spilled from my mouth as I tumbled through this dimensional space as two of my ribs snapped like brittle twigs.

I worked quickly to heal myself. I channeled the water element through my body to fix my bones. Fortunately, my body was already coated in Life-Death Armor, the black and white armor I could create at will now. No matter how injured I became, nothing could kill me so long as this armor was active.

I wiped the blood from my mouth and narrowed my eyes. I couldn’t see Shulong at all. Sensing him was also impossible. It was like this spatial prison kept me from being able to properly sense anything. I bet that was because he controlled this space.

Since I couldn’t rely on spiritual senses, I decided to rely on my body alone. Eyes were useless. I closed them. Taste was also useless. I blocked it off. The only senses I could rely on in this place was my nose, my hearing, and my sense of touch.

I felt a shift behind me. It was kind of like air currents pushing against my back. I started to turn around, but it felt like I was wading through jelly, and Shulong slammed a fist into my back before I even had time to fully turn. It was a kidney shot. The pain nearly made me cry out, but I bit it back and swung my Dragon’s Tail Ruler with all my might. Sadly, my opponent was not there.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Zurogad and Durmuz,” Shulong said, though I could not tell from where. “They said you were quite slippery, quite sly. Durmuz also mentioned you were very good at sensing and comprehending laws when you were trapped. Sadly for you, this technique is not something you can break from the inside.”

Withholding a grimace of pain, I listened to what he said, to see if there might be a clue about breaking this technique, but it sounded like there was nothing I could do. And that was when I understood why he changed the time within this spatial prison.

“You are hoping to dispose of me before Kari and Siv are done destroying even a single siege tower,” I declared.

“That is correct.”

The voice came from behind me. I spun around and swung my weapon, but Shulong was already got. I received a powerful blow to my lower back. A cry of agony escaped my mouth as I felt my spine snap, though I quickly healed it with the water element.

I tried to remain calm as my wound healed, but I’ll admit it was difficult. This was my first time seeing such an advanced technique that used a high level concept. All the other techniques I’d seen were simple attacks that could be destroyed with an overwhelming amount of Spiritual Power, but this seemed to be something that could not be destroyed so easily.

I looked around again, trying to sense the concepts that created this technique--and I was struck in the face as a reward. My nose exploded in a spray of blood. I was certain my eyes went crossed when the attack struck, but fortunately, my wound healed within a split second.

“I see. You are using the Concepts of Life and Death to keep yourself alive, while you use the water element to heal yourself,” Shulong said. “That’s a very fascinating use of concepts and elements. I’m impressed. However, a technique like that must use a lot of Spiritual Power.”

“No more than this space-time technique of yours,” I shot back. “I also noticed you haven’t used any void attacks. Could it be that you can’t use the Concept of Negation while using this technique.”

My words were right on the money, but all I received for my correct answer was a powerful blow to my torso. It not only hurt, I could see the way my chest caved in as all the ribs snapped and several punctured my heart. Fortunately, I could not die right now, not for as long as I had Spiritual Power. I quickly healed all of my wounds and placed a hand against my chest, grimacing.

There were a few things I had learned about this technique while I was trapped inside. The first was that Shulong could not use any attacks other than physical ones. My guess was that keeping this technique going required all of his not-so-insignificant Spiritual Power and concentration to maintain, leaving him with only physical attacks.

That was an advantage I could use.

I changed the energy I was channeling into my armor, removing the life energy and using only death energy. The black and white armor went to purely black. It was not the blackness of the infinite void or the darkness of space, but it was still a vile and powerful black energy that wrapped around my body like a suit.

Another blow slammed into me from behind, but this time, the person who struck me screamed as the death energy from my armor bit into his hand. Shulong jerked backward as I turned around. His left hand was drying up, becoming shriveled, like what happens to a corpse after it has been decomposing for hundreds of thousands of years.

Shulong gazed at his hand for a moment, then shifted his glare to me. The hatred within his eyes made me smile.

“You know that this armor is not just something I can use to defend myself with. It is also used to attack,” I said. “Of course, you can’t wear your armor right now because this spatial prison is taking up all your concentration and power. Feel free to keep attacking, by the way. I would like to see how many limbs you can afford to lose before you have to cancel this technique.”

“It seems I greatly underestimated you. I had not realized you’d be so adept at creating counter strategies to my techniques after only being within them for a few seconds,” Shulong murmured.

I shrugged. “I have always been adaptable.”

Shulong seemed to realize he couldn’t beat me with this technique. The spatial prison around us vanished, the world returning to the one I was familiar with. I didn’t take my eyes off my enemy as the ground appeared beneath my feet again. That said, I could have kissed the ground in that moment.

Blessed, blessed ground.

Spiritual Power exploded from Shulong, black and vile. As it swept over me, my entire body shivered at the disgusting feeling coming from him. This man’s Spiritual Pressure made me feel like someone was raking my body over hot coals covered in acid. The black Spiritual Power turned into negation energy, which covered his body in armor once again.

Shulong shot off the ground the moment his armor formed. I narrowed my eyes and changed into my Life-Death Armor as he appeared before me and lashed out with a fist. His fist struck my Dragon’s Tail Ruler, which I raised just in time to block. I gritted my teeth as the powerful negation energy ate into my weapon and armor, erasing it.

I leapt back. Skipping backward along the ground took me several meters from Shulong, but then the man vanished, and I suddenly sensed his presence behind me. His attack this time was a fist coated in negation energy. He tried to strike my back, but all he did was travel through my after image as I used the Illusion Step to move faster than human (or Sekbeist) eyes could follow.

Before Shulong had a chance to recover, I slammed a palm into his chin, lifting him into the air. He flew high above my head. I bent my knees, gathered my Spiritual Power, and leapt after him, appearing right next to him as he continued traveling. Using wind and fire to grant myself some torque, I spun around and slammed my heel into his stomach.

Shulong exploded into flames of darkness.

In desperation, I overloaded my armor and let it explode off my body. The void fire was blown away, overpowered by the Spiritual Power I had pushed into my attack. Taking several rasping gasps as my shoulders heaved, I looked warily around for my opponent--and then released a cry of pain when something punched through my back and out my chest.

It was a hand.

I turned my head to look at the hand, then gaped when I saw there was no one behind me. A portal barely big enough to fit an arm through was present. Protruding from the portal was an arm.

“He created… a spatial portal… to physically attack me from a distance…”

It was a method of using the Concept of Space that I had never seen before, but I didn’t have time to admire Shulong’s usage of this concept. My life was already slipping from me. His fist had not just punched through my body; it ruptured my heart, turning it into mushy pulp. I could no longer feel my heart beating within my chest.

Just before darkness could engulf me, I coated my body in death energy and took it into myself. It was easier to use death energy when on the verge of death. This kept me alive… though I didn’t feel like it. Even so, With an enraged cry, I grabbed onto the offending limb protruding from my body and channeled even more death energy.

Shulong must have realized what I was doing. He tried to pull his limb back, but I had a firm grip on it, and I was not going to let go for any reason. I grinned as the hand turned black, shriveled, and eventually crumbled into dust. All that was left was a hole in my chest and a quickly closing portal.

A loud howling sound echoed from beneath me, and I turned to see Shulong screaming on the ground as he clutched his missing arm with his rotting arm. If he had mastered the element of water, he might have been able to heal his dead arm, but there was nothing he could do about his missing arm without having a complete understanding of the Concept of Creation. Even I could only create a temporary arm made by combining multiple elements together.

Ignoring the hole in my chest, I shot feet first toward Shulong, building up speed until the friction from my descent ignited my foot. I channeled the fire and wind elements to increase the ferocity of my attack.

Shulong noticed me coming, but it was far too late for him to do anything. I doubted he could concentrate enough to use any techniques anyway.

I slammed feet first into his chest. The power of my attack was far greater than I anticipated. It didn’t help that his armor was gone. His body exploded into two halves. His torso went one way, his waist and legs another, and I continued on until I hit the ground. I skidded from several dozen meters. When I looked back, his two halves were several meters apart.

It looked like this battle was over.

With a sigh, I channeled the life and water elements into my body, healing my heart. I grimaced as I felt the pulp my heart had been turned into slowly came back together. I was very lucky. There would have been no recovering if my heart had been completely destroyed.

I walked over to Shulong’s torso as the wound on my chest closed. The Sekbeist Lord was somehow still alive. He stared up at me with a pained grimace.

“I cannot believe… I lost to such a young Guddomelig,” he muttered as blood dripped from his mouth. I think the reason he wasn’t dead was because my attack had cauterized his torso, so he wasn’t bleeding out despite his intestines being all over the ground.

“Age has nothing to do with power or ability.” I glared down at him. “You lost because I’m better than you. Simple as that.”

“Tch. Don’t be so proud of yourself,” Shulong muttered. “I’m not even close to the strongest among us in the grand scheme of things. Our strongest lords are spread all across the nine realms, seeking a way into Miðgarðr. When you face them… you will… understand… how powerless… you…”

Before he could finish what he wanted to say, the light faded from Shulong’s eyes, he stopped breathing, and his heart stopped beating. The Sekbeist Lord who had been attacking Lindwurm for however many months before I arrived was finally dead.

***

Tora and Chloe attacked Durmuz in tandem.

With a ferocious howl, Tora swung her sword and created a powerful line of light that would have sliced Durmuz in half had he not countered her technique with one of his own. Creation and Negation clashed and disrupted each other. While Durmuz was distracted by her attack, Chloe attacked from the left with a thrust of her spear. A powerful burst of dimensional energy threatened to sever him. He raised a single hand toward the dimensional attack. It slowed down before it could reach him, allowing Durmuz plenty of time to back off.

Despite how Durmuz appeared to be holding his own, all three of them knew he was just barely hanging on. Against one of Ásgarðr’s strongest warriors and the most talented student at the Hall of Heroes, a single Sekbeist Lord would not stand a chance. All he could do was hold on until Shulong arrived to help him.

“I’m impressed you can hold on for as long as you have,” Chloe said as she attacked Durmuz with a spear engulfed in spatial energy. Any one of her attacks would have sliced his body apart if they hit. However, Durmuz’s body appeared to speed up considerably as he dodged her attacks.

“You do not live for as long as I have by being stupid,” Durmuz said as he leapt back. Sweat drenched his forehead and got into his eyes, but he kept them open despite how much that must have stung. This also saved his life when Tora sheathed her sword and created what appeared to be a star right next to his chest.

Seconds after the bright light formed, it went nova.

A nova was a transient astronomical event that caused the sudden appearance of a bright and very new star. The sudden increase in energy expelled the atmosphere into interstellar space, creating an envelope seen as a visible light during the nova event. In this case, the nova happened on this place. The expulsion of energy would have been enough to destroy a good chunk of this mountain range, but Durmuz gritted his teeth as darkness erupted from his body and engulfed the nova. The explosion that would have happened was snuffed out seconds before it could travel outside of the small, self-contained space.

“Are you crazy?!” Durmuz shouted. “That could have destroyed us all!”

“I’m not fucking crazy. I knew you would contain the attack, and I needed to distract you long enough for Chloe to attack you,” Tora said with a grin as a spear covered in spatial and dimensional energy suddenly pierced through Durmuz’s back. Durmuz eyed the spear in his chest for a moment before his eyes glazed over. Chloe retracted her spear and let his body fall to the ground. Her weapon was coated in blood, but she swung it around in a powerful arc that caused all the red fluid to fly off.

“Nice fucking job,” Tora said. “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

“Durmuz is not that powerful, as far as Sekbeist Lords go,” Chloe said as the spear she wielded disappeared into a separate dimension. “However, he was quite tricky. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to kill him.”

“Well, he’s fucking dead now. Let’s not worry about him and help the others.” Tora looked over to where Commander Vitra, Bynnus, Othios, Naki, and Rega were fighting against a nearly limitless horde of Sekbeists. “It looks like our comrades are getting fucked.”

“You have such a way with words,” Chloe said, though she did not disagree.

Tora and Chloe joined the battle, which helped bolster their defenses. With their aid, Commander Vitra was able to push the army away from the long-range fighters. Bodies dropped by the hundreds. They practically created a pile of corpses as they fought in grim silence, the only sounds being the clash of weapons, squeals of pain, and grunts of effort.

Tora did not know how long they were fighting, but an explosion of power suddenly went up on the other side of the mountain pass. She narrowed her eyes as what appeared to be a spatial storm swept over the army toward the back. When the storm evaporated, the Sekbeist who had been engulfed were gone.

“It looks like they did it,” Chloe said with a small smile. “Our objective has been achieved.”

Commander Vitra also seemed to recognize what was happening and shouted. “Master Eryk, Lady Siv, and Lady Kari have succeeded and come to reinforce us. Let us crush these monsters!”

The four Drakvar with their group cheered and fought with renewed ferocity, which seemed to cause the already low morale of the Sekbeists to drop further. They tried to run, but with Eryk, Kari, and Siv on one side and them on the other, they no longer had anywhere to run too. What was originally meant to be a mission to destroy the siege towers, soon turned into their one squadron routing most of the army.

***

Several days passed in the blink of an eye. I spent most of that time sleeping or sparring with Kari and Siv. Sometimes Chloe and Tora would join us for our spars. Tora would often challenge Kari, and she won more often than not, but it became harder for her to achieve victory after each time she won. Kari was scary smart. The more she fought, the more strategies she developed to counter everything Tora could throw at her. She soon became so adept at dealing with Tora’s Concept of Creation that their spars could last hours at a time.

The reinforcement army arrived, though they were no longer really needed. Instead of moving to reinforce the army already there, they ended up replacing the Drakvar who had been fighting against the Sekbeist for so long.

Commander Vitra would remain with the army. Captain Nidhogg, however, was being sent back to the capital with us. I was not sure I appreciated that since it meant having to deal with his constant glares, but that was something I had grown used to, for better or worse.

Because we were an army of Drakvar, our forces did not travel via land but soared through the skies. I could have flown with them, but myself and Kari had decided to simply ride on Siv’s back. We sat on my wife’s head as she flapped her wings. While she was much bigger than any dragon, she was still small compared to most of the Drakvar around us. This was due to her young age. I learned from Schnee before I left for Lindwurm that Siv was only 56 years-old. That might seem old to a human, but that was barely considered a teenager in Drakvar years.

Tora and Chloe did not fly on Siv’s head. She would not let them. My wife would only let me and her sisters ride her like this, and while that caused Tora to curse up a storm, no amount of vulgarity would convince my normally shy Drakvar to concede.

We arrived in Drachenguarde fifteen days after leaving Lindwurm. A messenger had gone ahead to inform Schnee of our return, and we found her standing outside of the city limits with an entourage that consisted of several Drakvar honor guards and a smiling Fray.

“Welcome back. I heard about what happened. You did a great job in beating back the Sekbeist Army,” my aunt said as Kari and myself alighted from Siv’s head. She eyed Kari and Siv speculatively as Siv transformed back into a human.

“MOMMA!”

“MY DAUGHTER!!”

Siv barreled into Schnee the moment she transformed into a human, hugging the woman for all she was worth. The two immediately began shedding tears of joy. It occurred to me only now how hard this experience must have been for Siv. She had been reunited with her mom, only to leave her again because she wanted to prove useful. The fact that she had not shied away from doing what she could to fight the Sekbeists was a testament to her growth.

“Thank you for your kind words,” I said to Fray.

She sighed a bit. “I kind of wish you would just come up and hug me. Why can’t you be more like your wife?”

“Because it’s not in my nature.” I shrugged before gesturing to a nervous-looking Kari. “Anyway, Fray, this is my wife, Kari. Kari, this is Fray. She’s my aunt.”

“I am very honored to meet you!” Kari, in an out of character display of nerves, bowed at the waist. “Thank you very much for looking after my husband! You have no idea how happy I am to know that Eryk has a family member that is still alive!”

Fray seemed bemused by Kari’s reaction. I was a little shocked myself. My aunt shook her head, smiled, and placed a hand on the woman’s chest.

“There is no need for that. If anything, I should be the one thanking you. Thank you for giving my cousin a family when I was unable to.”

“Uh. Oh. You’re, um, you’re welcome,” Kari mumbled as she straightened up, her ears and cheeks turning back. Huh. It had been quite a while since I’d seen her embarrassed like this. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time she was truly embarrassed.

While Kari was nervous about meeting my family, she was still a princess of Nevaria and calmed down quickly as she remembered her training. Her placid and polite smile returned as she spoke with Fray. When Siv and Schnee were done crying against each other, I introduced Siv to Fray as well, though she almost hid behind me as she greeted my aunt.

Tora and Chloe stood off to the side. While Tora pouted and grumbled expletives under her breath, Chloe merely smiled.

“It seems you have all been through a lot,” Fray said at last. “We will grant you a few days of rest. However, we won’t be able to remain here for long.”

I nodded. “The Warp Gate?”

Fray smiled bitterly as she said, “I am afraid the Warp Gate in Gudeverdenen has been destroyed. Something bad has certainly happened on the other side, so we must return. There is another Warp Gate we can use to travel back home, but it is located in the ancient Drakvar capital.”

“I see. Then…?”

“Yes,” Fray answered my unasked question. “We have no choice but to storm the Home of Dragons, activate the Warp Gate, and fight through the largest Sekbeist army on Gudeverdenen to reach Ásgarðr.”