WIEDERGEBURT Act VI: Chapter 12

The battle started off without warning. Before I even knew what was happening, several hundred arrows were fired from Fray’s bow. However, they didn’t shoot forward like normal arrows. They disappeared, then reappeared around Durmuz and flew at him from every conceivable angle.

Too bad Durmuz wasn’t there anymore.

The Sekbeist Lord appeared in the sky above, the arrows striking into each other instead of him, detonating not with an explosion but with a warping of space. The atmosphere shattered. Cracks appeared in the sky and forest floor, spreading out like a spider’s web before returning to its original state.

By that point, Durmuz had already raised his hand and locked Fray inside of what appeared to be an invisible box. The woman’s body was completely frozen in time. Durmuz slowly clenched his hand into a fist, and as if his fist was the que, the box shrank until it was close to crushing Fray--and then Fray herself disappeared within a portal and stepped out standing several meters to Durmuz’s left.

All this had happened within a few seconds of each other. The space arrows, the time cage, everything.

So this was a high level battle? It was terrifying.

I couldn’t stop myself from feeling infinitesimally small as I watched these two beings fight. They were so far above me, so much more powerful than I that I could hardly wrap my head around what I was seeing. This was what high level concepts could do in the hands of people who had mastered them. It felt almost silly to be proud of what I had accomplished now.

Fray disappeared once more, vanishing within a portal. I searched around to see where she would reappear, but that did not happen, and what instead happened was the entire space around Durmuz collapsing. It was hard to explain with words. The space around him bent, warped, fractured, and then tore apart. What appeared beyond the vast tears looked like a vast and starry sky.

A powerful sucking force came from the tear. Even I could feel it, and I was several dozen meters away from Durmuz, who was struggling not to let himself be sucked up. His teeth were gnashed together as his entire body became warped. It reminded me of what happens when rubbed was stretched. With what appeared to be great effort, he raised his hand toward the tear, and then everything around it stopped.

He had sealed the spatial tear in time.

Before he could celebrate his success, Durmuz was struck several times by spatial arrows. The first one slammed into his chest. It did not penetrate his hardened skin, which had black energy wafting from it, but the second one struck the same place and went through, punching a hole in the Spiritual Power. I realized absently that the overlay was actually the void… so void energy, I guess.

Black blood splashed from the wound. Durmuz grunted as the arrow that pierced his skin suddenly transformed into another spatial tear. Once more his body became warped as if the spatial tear was trying to suck him up, but then he stopped time once more, moved outside of the spatial tear’s force, and then something stunning happened.

His entire body was restored, becoming pristine as if nothing had happened. It was so fast that it beat out anything I could do with the water element. One moment his chest had a bloody cavity in it, and the next it was completely healed. This was not mere healing. He had reversed time on his own body to before he received the wound.

The two continued to battle, trading techniques that defied logic, bending laws and concepts that I only touched the surface of.

Fray seemed more powerful than Durmuz. Her arrows contained more than the concept of space, I soon realized when one arrow struck Durmuz and made his body shatter into a million black fragments. Dimensional and spatial fluctuations burst through the sky. I thought that would be the end of it, but then everything was sucked back in, restoring the fabrics of reality and returning Durmuz to his original body once again. However, he was breathing heavily this time.

“I see you have become even stronger than the last time we fought,” Durmuz muttered with a cough. Blood trickled down his mouth. I see. While he had restored most of his wounds, it seemed there were some internal injuries he wasn’t able to fix.

“Do not speak to me,” Fray said, releasing several more arrows that sailed forward with unerring accuracy.

Durmuz tried to stop the arrows in time, but they disappeared within portals before he could, reappeared behind him, and struck his back too quickly for him to do anything. He released a howl and power exploded from his body. The black and insatiable power of the void covered him and consumed the arrows. When the void pulled back, Durmuz glared at Fray, his breathing even more labored than before.

Hope surged within me as I saw Fray’s unflappable expression as she calmly knocked back another spatial arrow. It seemed obvious to me that this woman was far stronger than Durmuz. I did not think she and I were enemies, so I had hope that she could emerge from this battle victorious.

Those hopes were dashed when the other Sekbeist Lord--Zogarod--appeared beside me and placed a black sword made from jagged edges that looked like teeth at my throat.

“Hey! I don’t know what’s going on right now, but this child is important to you, right?” he asked, staring up at Fray with a grin. “If you don’t want me to cut this boy, you had better do as I say and stop fighting.”

Fray’s face in that moment became so frightening I thought she might attack Zogarod anyway, but then the Spiritual Power around her dissipated just a little.

“If you lay so much as a hand on that child, I will send you into space,” she said, her voice so sharp it cut my ears. The hatred coming from her was almost palpable. It made me wonder what sort of relationship I had with this woman. What was I to her?

Regardless of our relationship, I understood that this situation was not good. They were at a stalemate. I did not believe Fray would let these Sekbeist Lords take me when she knew all that awaited me was torture and death, but she also couldn’t risk attacking them carelessly.

Neither side moved at first. Durmuz and Zogarod had her in a stalemate right now, but that could change the moment they created an opening. However, someone had to do something soon.

I decided I would be the one to do it.

While the battle had been going on above, I hadn’t just been locked in time. My body might have been frozen, but my mind was working perfectly, and I used my mind to analyse the Concept of Time that surrounded me. This prison, for lack of a better word, was made up of multiple threads that gathered together and wrapped around me like chains. It was not locking me in time so much as locking the space around me. If I could unwravel those chains, even just a little, then I could do something.

I had been working to that end, carefully infusing my Spiritual Power into one of the chains. There was no way I could wrest control of this technique from Durmuz, but with my Spiritual Power seeping into the chains near my chest, I was able to unlock more of my Spiritual Power, which had been partially sealed thanks to the time around me being frozen.

Durmuz was the first to notice what I was doing. He probably felt when the chains weakened. His eyes went wide as he gawked at me.

“He’s comprehending the Concept of Space?! Zogarod! Kill him now!!”

Zogarod seemed confused. “Wha… kill him? But didn’t you want to take him alive?”

“Nevermind what I said before! Just kill him before it’s too late!”

“It’s already too late,” I interrupted their conversation.

The chains around my chest had weakened, creating cracks in Durmuz’s technique, and I quickly externalized all my Spiritual Power. It erupted underneath Zogarod, a giant spike composed of the earth and overlaid with death energy.

To his credit, Zogarod was very quick to act. He leapt away and cut the spike with his void sword. However, while the spike was indeed destroyed, he’d been forced to move away from me, which allowed Fray to warp to my location. The moment she appeared at my side, she created a black knife that somehow sliced through the chains binding me.

I landed on my feet as Zogarod rejoined Durmuz in the sky. Because of the situation, I did not look at the woman beside me as I glared up at the two Sekbeist Lords, who seemed to have realized the situation had turned against them.

“Sorry, Durmuz. Looks like I underestimated that brat.”

Durmuz sighed as Zogarod rubbed the back of his head, but his eyes had yet to leave Fray’s as the woman once more aimed her spatial bow at him. This time, however, it looked like the bow had been upgraded. Black markings covered it. I realized they were runes, though I had no idea what they did.

“I will deal with you later,” Zogarod muttered. Then he spoke in a louder voice, addressing the woman next to me. “I see you really have improved. Even among the Sekbeist Lords, only a few of us can combine two high level concepts like that. If the two of us fought you right now, we might not win.”

Fray did not speak. It seemed she had no intention of bantering with her enemy as she released a black and white arrow that seemed to shatter reality around it. Durmuz screamed as he launched a black sphere from between his palms. It struck the arrow. The two forces clashed in the center, tearing each other apart and eroding the atmosphere around it. Perhaps the oddest thing was how this battle of powers didn’t extend past a certain point. What formed in the sky was a strange black ball from which Spiritual Power lashed out like destructive waves. Several of the trees that I had assumed were invincible disintegrated when the arches of energy struck them.

“This will not be the last time you and I meet, god child,” Durmuz’s voice echoed around us. “I imagine we will meet each other again eventually, and next time, I will make sure to kill you.”

I extended my senses in all directions but couldn’t feel any presences aside from mine and this woman. Fray also seemed on the alert just in case there was a surprise attack coming, but she eventually relaxed after several seconds.

Then she turned to me.

I suddenly felt extraordinarily self-conscious as the woman stared at me. I wanted to say something, but no matter how many times I opened my mouth, nothing would come out. All I could do was look at this woman as she gazed at me.

“Uh…” Finally, I was unable to stand the silence. “Thank you for rescuing me, Miss… Fray?”

My words snapped the woman out of her daze. However, rather than speak, what happened was she began crying. Tears streamed from her eyes. Panic surged through me for a moment, but I didn’t get the chance to say anything, because that was the moment she lifted her hands and placed them on my cheeks. Her hands were warm, and soft, and felt familiar. I could have sworn I’d felt something like this before, but I knew that was impossible. No one had ever touched me quite like this.

“It’s… really you…” she said in a soul-rending whisper that made me want to cry for some reason. “You’re… really here…”

“Uh… do I…”

“Know you” was what I had been about to say. I never got the chance. Without warning, Fray pulled me into an embrace. My already frozen body locked up further, my mind skidded to a halt, and every nerve in my body became hypersensitive as I felt her hug right down to my core. What was this? Why was she crying? Why was I crying? I didn’t understand anything, but in that moment, I felt a desire to hug this woman even though I was certain I didn’t know her.

I did not hug her, however.

I didn’t know this woman, after all.

But I didn’t stop her from hugging me.

Standing there in the embrace of a woman shedding tears into my air, I felt more confused than I ever had before.

***

I wasn’t really sure how long I stood in this crying woman’s embrace, but I felt like it was at least a few hours. Several times I wondered if I should say something. Yet I never did. For whatever reason, I could not bring myself to speak as Fray cried.

She fortunately did stop. Eventually.

“I’m sorry,” Fray said, taking a few steps back as she wiped her eyes. “I did not mean to put on such a terrible display. You must think I’m odd.”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged as if that would let me shrug off what happened. “I’m not bothered, and I don’t think you’re odd, but… um… may I ask what that was all about…?”

I believed my request was perfectly reasonable. Some random lady just cried all over my head. My hair was still wet, though a little application of the water element let me evaporate all that in seconds.

“I… would rather not say…” Fray clasped her hands together so tight her already white knuckles turned veiny. “I… I am sorry… it’s not that… I don’t want to… it’s just…”

Taking a deep breath, I decided not to persue this matter for now. I would later because it seemed like this was something semi-important. However, there were far more important issues right now.

“That’s fine.” Fray visibly relaxed. “Anyway, my name is Eryk. Eryk Veiger.”

“Fray Vanir,” Fray introduced herself.

“You are… a Guddomelig, right? One of the God Race?”

“Yes, as are you.”

“So I am a Guddomelig.”

I had always wondered about what I was. Ever since my first meeting with the Sekbeist, I had known I was not fully human. Everyone called me a half-breed. I assumed that meant I was half-human and half-something else, but it seemed we had all been incorrect.

“When I began fighting the Sekbeist, they always called me half-breed,” I said, a question in my statement.

“I assumed they believed you were a half-breed because you were in a different realm. The dweorgs sealed off the Nine Realms from each other over a thousand years ago, so the chances of a Guddemolig being within any realm aside from Gudeverdenen, Vindenket, and maybe Ljosalfheim is quite slim. Which realm did you come from?”

“Miðgarðr.”

Fray nodded at my answer like she had expected this. “The Guddemolig have long since left Miðgarðr. Not one of us has stepped foot in that realm since the Great War a thousand years ago.”

“So how do you explain me?” I asked.

“If I had to guess… I would say your mother or father sent you into the future.” Fray paused as her eyes watered again, though she quickly wiped them and continued. “It is quite possible to send someone into the future, though doing so normally requires a great sacrifice.” I pondered her words for a bit, but I was not able to ask any questions, as she continued speaking. “In any case, I believe we should leave this place. Since the Sekbeist know you and I are here, they will come back to search the area. I am strong, but I do not want to fight against a battalion of those monsters.”

I agreed to leave with her, but there was something I needed to do first.

“Wait! Before that, I need to go salvage the Great Prismatic Wyrm I killed!”

Fray looked confused, though she didn’t say anything against it and merely followed me as I led her to where I had killed the Great Prismatic Wyrm. It was fortunately still there. No one and nothing had tampered with it. I sighed in relief.

“Um… that’s not a Great Prismatic Wyrm,” Fray replied hesitantly.

“It’s not?” I asked.

Fray shook her head. “It’s a Lesser Prismatic Wyrm. They are a weaker sub-species varient. Great Prismatic Wyrms are usually one hundred meters in length, but this one is only twenty. Give it another thousand years, and I imagine this would have evolved into a Great Prismatic Wyrm, but…”

“Ugh… so this thing really is just a baby.”

That was disheartening, but I tried not to let myself get too depressed and got to work. These scales were still sturdy and could probably make a good armor, and the claws, teeth, and bones would make excellent weapons. If I could bring these back to Miðgarðr with me, I was sure the dweorg’s could make some amazing weapons and armor.

Fray said nothing as she watched me take everything apart. By the time I was done, the carcass had been stripped clean. I dissolved the meat with death energy because I couldn’t figure out a use for it. Now the only problem was…

“How am I going to transport all this?” I asked myself.

There was a lot. At a guess, there were several tons worth of scales, bones, teeth, and claws separated before me.

“I can help you with that,” Fray said, stepping me.

“You can? How?”

“Like this.”

With a smile, Fray waved her hand, and the area around the parts I’d salvaged distorted. I blinked once and everything disappeared. Vanished. I wanted to rub my eyes to see if I was seeing things right, but I didn’t, instead turning toward Fray.

“That… you just used the Concept of Dimension, right?”

“That’s right.” Fray looked happy for some reason. “What I did was create my own dimension--you can think of it as a pocket space--and then I stored everything inside of it. This is just a simple application of the Concept of Dimension. Once you’ve mastered this concept, it is even possible to travel between different dimensions.”

I remembered the Sekbeist Overlord talking about he traveled to different dimensions. This woman seemed quite knowledgeable. Maybe this would be my chance to finally learn about high level concepts from someone who had mastered them. I was tired of floundering around on my own.

***

It was nice having someone to finally speak with. I’d been talking to the drones I made for so long that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have someone who would respond back to me.

Fray was incredibly kind and very informative, answering whatever questions I asked, and I had a lot of questions. Most of them revolved around high level concepts. I wanted to know more, to expand my knowledge so I could become stronger.

“You might have noticed this already since you’ve begun comprehending high level concepts, but some concepts are more complex than others,” Fray was saying. “We divide concepts into simple and complex. The Concepts of Life and Death are simple concepts. If you’ve attained full understanding of the seven main elements, then it won’t be too hard to understand Life and Death. The complex concepts are Dimension, Time, Space, Void, and Creation. These are harder to understand because they have no connection to the seven main elements, so you cannot use your previous knowledge to understand them.”

At the moment, we were flying through the Ironwood Forest on our way to a place called Ásgarðr--the capital of the Guddemolig and one of their last bastions. Fray described it as a wondrous place that was several times the size of this forest. I found that a little hard to believe. This forest was huge.

“I see.” I rubbed my chin. “That does explain why I was able to comprehend Life and Death so easily, and why I’m having trouble with the others.”

Fray’s smile was amused. “You say you are having trouble, but during the battle, you were able to begin comprehending the Concept of Time just by coming into contact with it. There are very few people who can do that.”

I rubbed the back of my head, feeling my cheeks heat up at the compliment. I didn’t know why. However, I felt embarrassed being complimented by this woman.

We continued traveling for a number of hours, but we eventually stopped because Fray said it was getting dark. That made me a little confused. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, why couldn’t she just warp us there. Her wry smile when I asked this made me flush. Just a little.

“It is very difficult to bend space and warp from one point to another,” Fray explained as we set down. “It requires connecting two separate spaces together. This first requires a lot of concentration. Most people can only warp to places they can see with their eyes. While I can warp across vast distances, it requires a lot of Spiritual Power, and it would take even more Spiritual Power if I am warping another person with me.”

In other words, it wasn’t feasible to warp two people across however many hundreds of kilometers we’d need to cross to reach Ásgarðr.

“I understand,” I said. “Well, that’s fine. Anyway, let’s set up camp.”

“Very well. I will catch us some food,” Fray said. “I won’t go far though. Just in case.”

“That’s fine.”

Since I was no longer worried about running into Demon Beasts, I tapped my foot against the ground and created a dome-shaped building out of the earth. I didn’t like the shape, so I manipulated it until the dome looked like an actual building. It was only one-story. When I entered, I found this place had no rooms. It was just a large and open space. That was fine.

I channeled Spiritual Power into the ground and a square depressed formed in the center. It was about half a meter wide and twelve centimeters deep. Then I tapped my foot three more times and created three human-shaped golems. They didn’t have any faces, but they didn’t need any as I infused them with life energy to animate them. Each one was already born with an order to follow. I left one to stand guard outside and the other to gather herbs, while I created a grill from the earth above the firepit.

Fray returned a few minutes later with several deer Demon Beasts in hand. I soon learned they were called Bull Deer. Each one was the equivalent to a SS-Rank Demon Beast back on Midgard, but they were still a little on the weaker side, closer to an S-Rank than a true SS-Rank.

“Not many people have mastered the concept of life to the point where they can mix it with the seven elements like you have,” she said. “I am very impressed.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Fray had already skinned and bled the Bull Deer, so all that was left was to cook it. After slicing it up into a variety of cuts, I ground up the herbs, rubbed it them over the meat, and then placed them on the grill as I used my Spiritual Power to create a fire so they would cook. All of this was done under the watchful eye of Fray.

“May I ask… about your life on Miðgarðr?” she asked carefully.

I was a little hesitant tell this woman more about me when she wasn’t willing to tell me about our connection, but I realized if I wanted to get anything out of her, then I’d have to be the one who extended the olive branch. Besides, she had already provided me with a lot of information regarding high level concepts. The least I could do was share some of the more harmless information.

We ate dinner as I told Fray about myself. I told her a bit about my life as a child, but I honestly couldn’t remember my childhood very well. That happened when you had essentially lived two lives. Instead, I focused on what I had done in this timeline, telling her about my sect, my wives, and my son. I probably spent more time talking about my wives and son than I did my sect.

Fray looked amused. “To think you’re so young and you already have four wives. You’re quite the ladykiller. Just like…”

“Just like who?” I asked when she paused.

“It’s… no one.” Fray’s lips trembled for a moment as she struggled with something, then changed the subject. “Anyway, it sounds like you’ve been doing a lot. I’m a little shocked that there are still Sekbeist on Miðgarðr, though. When the dweorg sealed off the nine realms, we had made sure to clean out all the Sekbeist we could from your realm.”

“But not the other nine realms?” I asked.

“It can’t be helped.” Fray shrugged. “The Sekbeist are numerous. Their slaves, in particular, breed very quickly. Within Gudeverdenen alone, they have an army of maybe twenty million Sekbeist slaves.”

I sucked in a breath. “That is… a lot.”

Back on Miðgarðr, the biggest army of Sekbeist we had faced was maybe two hundred thousand. That was the army that invaded Vahn in my past life. There had not been a force that big since I came back to the past--unless I was willing to count the Sekbeist/Demon Beast army that marched on Nevaria. I wasn’t.

“We have done our best to make sure the Sekbeist cannot travel beyond our realm, though I know they have invaded Útgarðar, Ljósálfar, and Vindenket.” Fray picked at the food on her plate with a fork crafted from metal I’d found in the earth. “We were unable to destroy some of the Warp Gates in time. They’ve since made the bases with those Warp Gates their home. We fortunately did manage to destroy every Warp Gate leading to Miðgarðr.”

“Because the Great Overlords are sealed there?” I asked.

Fray almost dropped her fork in shock. “How did you know?”

“It wasn’t that hard to figure out.” I took a bit of my deer shank, savoring the juicy bite as it melted on my tongue. “I’ve already fought Ask and Führer. They were both overtaken by the parts of the Sekbeist Overlord sealed inside of them. Ask led an invasion of Sekbeist and Demon Beasts on Nevaria, and Führer attacked my home not long ago. It was actually my battle with him that caused me to end up in this place.”

“I see.” Fray’s eyes widened. “Your battle must have been incredibly vicious for it to tear through the boundaries between realms. Long ago, it was possible for higher level beings like us to traverse the nine realms with ease. Ever since the nine realms were separated by the dweorg, travel should have become impossible. There is also a chance that the seals are weakening. I will need to speak about this with Tor--oh. He’s our current leader. He is among the strongest of the God Race and has been our protector for the last thousand years.”

We spoke for a few more hours as our dinner digested. I created several cups and served purified water that I drew in from the atmosphere. I’d been doing this for so long now that creating everything I needed from the earth had become as natural as breathing. That made me wonder how long I’d been out here. I really didn’t know, but I was scared to discover that years had passed.

“Do you think my wives are here?” I asked as we laid down to get some sleep. The golems would alert me if anything attacked.

“I do not believe so,” Fray said after a moment. “You said that… Kari and Siv, right? You said they were together when Führer--no, when the Sekbeist Overlord--overloaded his body and tried to destroy you with him. Since Siv is a drakvar, she and Kari were likely transported to Vindenket.”

“And do you think I can go there?” I asked.

“Let’s wait until we arrive at Ásgarðr before talking about this.”

I sighed, but there really was no point in discussing this now, so I shelved the discussion. Closing my eyes, the tension I’d been feeling ever since the Sekbeist Lords attacked me suddenly drained from my body, and I fell into a deep sleep.