Chapter 8

The red, maned giant, with muscles on his muscles, damn near shat himself when I appeared in front of him. He probably would’ve if not for the glowing sword sticking through his guts. I snarled right in the bastard's face. “I was wondering when I’d get to have it out with you again.”

“Glarggh,” he replied and tried to back off the glowing blade.

I followed him, twisting the blade and ripping it up a few inches to bury deep into his core. Then I set to draining him. “You’ve dodged me a few too many times now haven’t you, War?”

To my complete and utter surprise his expression changed, and he let loose a pained laugh. “Not today Clive.”

A second later, a shield lapped around us, and both War and I were bathed in burning light. My powers failed me, not from being blocked, but by being utterly overwhelmed much like both my physical and spiritual senses.

Dazed though I was, I didn’t stay still. Not only because I was falling, but because I threw out my wings to alter my descent, but smacked into something solid a fraction later. The shield around us. Not the ground. I was trapped in here with something and it felt like it was burning my very essence away.

“What the fuck is going on, Aly?” I screamed mentally at the AI.

It appears there is a portal in the shield with you and War. The other end is very close to the Nexus. Too close.

It explained so much, yet left me with no answers. “What do I do? I can’t access Neuma.”

Totem?

“Void Storage.”

Then I am sorry Clive, I do not have an answer for you.

I barely heard her as my body was literally being ripped apart. But I couldn’t go out like this. It was too easy. Too pathetic. I tried to calm down. The Nexus was powerful. But we were part of it. An idea took hold of me, and without giving it much thought because my mind was growing less and less capable of that, I broke up my body into air, much like I had with Light’s quarantine shield. The relief on my body was palpable, but it was far from over. Unlike the move in Light’s Sphere, I was still held by the shield around me. But I could sense it now. Bright gold. Pure Neutral Neuma and nothing else. There was no complexity to it. But I understood how it held the power of the Nexus, which was essentially Neutral Neuma itself in reality. A full mix of all the Neuma’s combined.

None of that helped, but for one thing. If I could get this close to the Nexus and survive for this long, then I could get this close to the Nexus and survive for this long.

With a sudden force of will, I did the only thing left to me, I pushed all of the particles of my body toward the portal and the Nexus.

My awareness was limited still, but I knew when I’d passed through. I could feel the lack of atmosphere as my body began to drift apart. Thankfully away from the Nexus, carried by the currents of its power. I attempted to pull myself back together, and though it proved impossible, I was able to hold the particles that made up my body together in a loose Cloud of Clive.

I couldn’t say How long I was like that, slowly drifting away from the Nexus, slowly drawing my body closer together until snap! I reformed.

Miraculously I wasn’t in too bad shape considering what I’d been through. I felt like I’d just had a solid electric shock, but otherwise okay.

“Aly! What did I miss? How long have I been out of action?”

Only ten minutes Clive. I took the liberty of watching War and Hakan for you. They searched for you in the area for a while once Hakan dropped his attack on you. He was not happy you escaped, but I assume he doesn’t know how you did it as he isn’t there to greet you.

“Yeah. That checks out. Probably assumes I teleported away. Did they leave after that?”

No, they are mercilessly slaughtering any of Devotion’s followers that they can find.

“The fuck! Aly why didn’t you lead with that.”

A second of speech hardly matters to the outcome and you are not at 100% health.

I cast out my senses to find the Admin Headquarters and was relieved to find they were within Portal reach. Once there, I sped through to Onnekus.

Should you teleport there without a plan, Clive?

“Those people have no chance, Aly. What do you think I’m going to do?”

She didn’t reply. And I teleported to where I sensed War and Hakan.

The first thing I noticed was that War really didn’t look well and the horror on his face as I appeared spoke volumes. Hakan hid his surprise better, but it was still there. I got the sense they thought they might have killed me, or put me out of action for a good while.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t fucking care. With my left hand I threw down a Spicy Ball of Epic proportions into the army below, With my right, I threw a shield around the two of them and with my mind, I focused on War and in no uncertain terms forced the thought of killing Hakan into his mind.

As hundreds, possibly thousands died below, and Hakan dismissed my containment Shield, War’s Servant Bond fought against my will, and it lost. War swung his sword at Hakan in a wicked slice and in that moment I felt War’s real emotion toward the Elder god. He didn’t like him one little bit.

Hakan blocked the blow, severed my mind link to war, and then the fucker teleported away deserting his entire army.

War looked around in a frenzied horror for his master, then realizing what had happened he portaled away too.

The army responded in two ways. Half of them opened fire on me, as if they’d all been given the command at the same time, while the other half opened portals to escape through.

I didn’t much like the idea of them all just running off to cause trouble elsewhere so with a strafe of power I struck a number of their portals further away from me. The ones closest I began closing down.

Soon they were stranded and worse, I was livid with all of those they’d slaughtered. With grim determination and heavy heart, I began building power in my hands. I kept building and compressing until what was undoubtedly the most powerful attack I’d ever created hovered, crackling, hissing, and spitting between my hands. And threw it down at them.

Whatever was left of my humanity had crept in at the last instant and the blast went wide sending. I just couldn’t bring myself to slaughter people under another’s control and so much weaker than me. It was such a waste of life.

Especially when I could drain the bastards and push the Ethereal Neuma into my own people.

So, instead of blasting I built a Shield of Draining and threw it over them. Then I ignored them to look out for Hakan or War’s return.

They never came to save their people, and as I sensed the first about to drop, drained utterly, I changed the shield structure and ceased the syphon.

I just couldn’t do it. But what I could do was to cut their slave bonds to Hakan and give them all an ultimatum. I changed the shield structure again to sever their bonds.

I’m proud of you Clive.

The thought of an AI being proud of me was strange. That I was happy to hear it was perhaps stranger.

“It’s not their fault is it? This is down to one man and one man only. My main worry is that if I let them go they’ll cause harm to those I’m trying to protect. Any ideas?”

“I’m afraid I do not. You could put them in your void storage and then imprison them in the Admin hub?”

My first instinct was that I didn’t want anyone who had anything to do with Hakan inside the Admin Hubs. I listened to my instinct. “That won’t do. I… I’ve got it! Though it’s not nice. I’m gonna slave bond them myself and then hide them somewhere. Oh! I’ve got it. In Destruction’s fancy dungeon! That’ll do nicely.”

“You intend to use a slave bond? Are you sure?”

“Fuck yeah I am. These people are my enemy and the enemy of my people. Once I’ve dealt with Hakan, I’ll look at it again.”

“I will concede to your judgment on this as I have no viable alternative.”

As Aly’s finished, I amplified my voice to speak to all of those I had trapped. “Alright you bunch of miserable bastards! As you probably guessed by now, your bond to Hakan is broken. You also might notice that I haven’t killed you… yet. But you’re not out of the woods. You have a choice to make. You can follow me…”

“That wasn’t part of the offer you told me,” Aly remarked with curiosity in her tone.

“I just realized that some of these might have been Death’s followers.

They might want to join me, which is a win all round.”

I see.

“… If you want to follow me!” I continued. “Then get to praying because I don’t have much time.”

It seemed my guess paid off and a flurry of prayer bonds reached me from those inside the shield joining the steady flow of fresh bonds I was already subconsciously accepting.

As the last of them hooked into place, I spoke across their bonds this time. “You will be able to pass out of the shield where other’s cannot. I suggest you do so as I place servant bonds on the others.

Within another fifteen minutes, I had around five thousand followers lining up outside of the shield.

Inside, I had around twenty thousand new slave bonds. I reached out to speak with Destruction.

“Hey! Have you emptied your dungeon yet?”

“Almost. Are you coming back already?”

“Kind of. How many people will your dungeon hold?”

“If they are smaller breeds in their smallest forms and you don’t mind it cramped, then perhaps a thirty thousand.”

“Big bloody dungeon, then?”

“Off course! What kind of goddess of Destruction would I be with a small dungeon? I have pride in my role Clive.”

“Oh, I’m happy about it. I have a bunch of assholes I need to store in there. Servant bonds from War’s army.”

“Why not just kill them? While they might be safe for a while here, won’t Hakan just cut the servant bonds to you and reclaim them for his army?”

“Eventually. But it buys us time.”

“Time we wouldn’t need to save if you just killed them. But I will say no more on the subject providing you do not expect me to show the same lenience.”

“I don’t.”  I replied flatly. “I do expect you to learn faster than anyone else how to use these powers and help me kill Hakan, though.”

“We can certainly agree on that.”

As she spoke, I opened up a portal to her dungeon and commanded Hakan’s army through it.

I continued to watch for either of them to make an appearance, but soon they were all gone, and it was just me and the soldiers I’d converted.

I flew down and noticed quite a few Dokalfar among them. “Hey guys. You made the right choice back there. How many of you are Death’s followers?”

A wave of affirmatives came back followed by a huge swell of relief that I hadn’t just nuked the poor bastards.

“Well I’m glad to have found you all. We’ll get you set up some place safe. Is there a leader among you?”

An elderly Dokalfar stepped forward and I did a double take:

Athel Agar: Level 214. Dokala (Dokalfar III)

“For what it’s worth, that would be me. Though the circumstances are dire, we are honored to serve, Lord Clive. We have all heard of your name and your exploits. Our god, and my sons truly respected you, and I can see that respect was not misplaced.”

“Well it’s a bloody honor to meet you too, Athel. Anyone who raised men like Andalar and Aslin gets my respect. Now come on. I’ll get you all to safety. Are there many people left around Death’s old Sphere?”

“No, my Lord. If they are alive, they are here.” That was somber news and I felt a well of emotion I had to swallow.”