Chapter 40

I  realized a couple of things in quick succession as panic hit and I wrestled against the Ethereal assault that had surged through from Earth.

The first was that by linking Falritas so strongly with Earth, I’d removed the physical distance between myself and the cleaver that bonded me to Hakan.

The second was that Hakan had clearly realized that that I’d jumped up through Ethereal Stages 9 and 10. And judging by this reaction he wasn’t a happy bunny as he attempted to siphon power from me.

I swiftly brought the flow away from me under control, wrangling it back down to the size it had originally been. But I wondered just how much power he’d gained from that short haul.

I saw my Ethereal Neuma had been depleted by around 6,000 EN, but the draw of power took from more places than just my EN store.

With a vain hope that Ethereal Stage Ten would give me the power I needed to sever the bond, I tried again to rid myself of it.

Bond Severing skill not compatible with selected Bond.

Please choose another bond.

“IMBECILE!” came Hakan’s voice unbidden into my mind. I recoiled mentally for a second before I replied.

“For fuck’s sake, Hakan. If you’d just talk, we could work it out.”

“Talk? You should not be. You cannot be. I will see you soon.” And then he was gone.

Those words, “I will see you soon,” sent a chill down my spine, but nowhere near as much as the emotionless words of my next mental intrusion.

“Clive,” Aly said drawing out the sound. “Creator Hakanilaris, has emerged from the Abyssal Plane to re-entered Universal Territory.”

“Oh, god, no,” I muttered.

“Keep me updated Aly. I need to know the speed he’s traveling at, and the ETA, on Earth.”

“I will alert you as soon as I have verifiable data,” She replied and then I felt her presence disappear from my mind.

Sania was shaking me as I came to my senses. She stopped when I placed a hand on her arm and met her eyes. “Hakan,” I said simply. “We need a Pantheon meeting.”

“What’s up like?” Mal said, sauntering back through the portal with Joel, Elsbeth and Boris.

I lowered my voice to answer. “Hakan is back in the mapped universe. Aly’s working on an ETA, but we don’t know anything more. I’m going to talk to the other gods now, I don’t know what that will bring, but we need to make sure we’re secure on Earth. Joel we’ll need plenty of space for people to live.”

“Mal, if you think you can up your Ethereal Stages then fucking do it. When I get back, I’ll teach you what I know to push you higher. You too, Sania. We need you both as strong as possible.”

As I spoke, Danivra touched down with Sophie. “Sania told me.” She said simply.

Sophie looked confused, but I would have to let someone else fill her in as the gods were arriving in our pantheon space.

By the time I entered to speak with them, they were all there. Rather than beat around the bush I came straight out with it. “Hakan is out of the Abyssal Planes, and into the Universe proper. I’ve just reached Ethereal Stage 10, which must have alerted him, and he managed to wrestle control over the bond from me for a few seconds. He grabbed some of my Ethereal Neuma before I could stop him. I think he used it to move faster.”

“This is not good. Can he still take power?” Devotion asked.

“No. I’ve got the bond locked up stronger than ever.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not really. Just that he’s coming to fuck me up.”

“He was always coming, and you are now Stage 10,” Destruction said with stony resolve and a surprisingly positive attitude that buoyed me.

“We are still on track even if he returns a little faster,” she continued as I nodded at her words. “Though, perhaps it’s time to drop your bond with Light and slaughter your way through her people. That could be an excellent way to increase your Mortal Core size.”

“Shit Destruction. You were doing so well until then. I can’t slaughter millions of people for the level and that’s final. If it takes my doing that, then perhaps it’s not worth fighting for. What I need to do is to create the powers that give me the best bonus’s. I need you guys thinking of any and every skill you’ve used that came with a decent XP boost. Hell even shitty XP boosts will do if there’s enough of them.”

“You haven’t properly practiced with necromancy yet,” Death said. “There are some avenues still to explore with that, though I can’t vouch for their bonus Experience Potential.”

“Sounds good,” I’ll try anything you can teach me.

“You’ve already done healing at a comprehensive level,” Devotion said. “And I do not have many other skills other than tidal manipulation and some weather creation.”

“I’ll take them,” I repeated.

“You’ve already done a lot of killing too,” Destruction said. “But perhaps there are other options. How would you feel about destroying a planet?” She added casually.”

“How do you think I’d feel about destroying a planet Destruction?”

She tutted. “Uninhabited, of course. There are a lot more desolate planets in the universe than there are with people on.”

“Then I’ll have a go. I’m up for anything that isn’t going to fuck up my agreement with Aly.”

She rested her hands on her hips, her slitted yellow and black eyes narrowed at me. “And we can’t upset Aly now, can we? The entire universe is burning, but as long as Aly is…”

“Don’t forget,” Death said, interrupting her half way through. “We can still donate Ethereal Neuma to Clive.”

That prompted Peace to clear her throat. “Don’t forget that you were supposed to be providing Inez with Ethereal Neuma so I could bring her back, and she has at best three more days before her core fully disintegrates.”

“You can’t be serious,” Destruction snapped at the blond goddess. “The life of Inez, over the life of the entire universe?”

Despite Destruction being completely right, I had promised Peace that I would do what I could to bring her back. And I had promised myself that I would bring Inez back.

“No, I have to do it,” I replied. My tone as forceful as her own.

“Clive, it’s a senseless waste of Neuma and time. If you waste Ethereal Neuma for this, why should I sacrifice even more of my own on such a fool’s errand?”

“Because Clive made a promise,” Death said coldly, meeting Destructions furious face. “What kind of precedence would it set if he went back on his word now? It is only through Clive’s unique way of looking at things that he has come so far. It is only his nature that has brought him to a position where he could even consider taking on Hakan.”

Surprisingly, as Destruction was notoriously hard to sway, his words seemed to be having an effect on her, so he continued.

“I suggest that we all bond together to assist him in not only returning Inez to life, but in helping him raise his levels as swiftly as possible.” He turned to me. “I will donate whatever I can, whenever I can to you Clive. When we are finished here, I will send a message to my Spiritual Leaders to spread the word across all of my followers to pray as often as they can.”

I felt a chill of emotion and gratitude course through my body.

“I will do the same,” Devotion said, and the chill grew stronger.

“As will I,” Peace added. “Bring Inez back and I will give you all the EN I can lay my hands on.”

Destruction let out a very loud and very un-god like huff. “I can’t really not do the same now, can I? But I still think it’s stupid bringing Inez back.”

“It won’t cost too much for Inez,” I replied.

“And I have the Available EN,” Peace pointed out. “So it’s not as if Clive is surrendering his own.”

Destruction nodded, but still didn’t look happy.

“If you have the necessary amount, Peace, then let’s go do it now.

Is Inez’s core with you on Onnekus?”

“She is yes.”

“Then I’ll come immediately. I’ll have to go through the Admin hubs, but it shouldn’t take me so long. Which actually reminds me of something important. One of my new Ethereal Evolution powers is Teleportation. It means I can teleport to anywhere I have an anchor point created. It’s different from the portals, so in theory I should be able to teleport to you immediately if I need to.”

“How interesting,” Death said. “And how is an anchor point achieved?”

“By absorbing a small portion of an item or person’s Neuma Matrix into my own core. Not entirely sure what that means.”

“It sounds very personal,” Death replied. “Would that mean you had an actual piece of us that you could potentially do something with?”

“I don’t know. I have Sania’s and Danivra’s anchor points but haven’t tried to do anything with them.”

“It is not even noticeable,” Sania offered.

“But! I completely understand if you don’t want to agree to it. It’s just something we have in our arsenal. If you did agree, I would obviously absolutely not do anything dodgy with it.”

“I will allow it,” Devotion said first.

There were no other immediate takers until Destruction agreed with a sigh. “I will do it also, but once we have dealt with Hakan I want it back!”

“Sure, sure, I agreed, then turned to the other two.”

“I will think on it,” Death replied. “I would like to understand better what the process involves.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, looking back to Peace. “I will visit Devotion and Destruction first, and then portal to you. I don’t expect you to agree on the anchor point either. Just let me know once you’ve thought about it.”

With further promises to gather Ethereal Neuma for me once they had all had time to build up their supply, I left the Pantheon soon after. As my mind returned to my body, I was facing Sania. She smiled. “That went quite well. You better get going though, Clive. The sooner we can get you boosted the better I’ll sleep.”

“”The better we all will,” I agreed. “hopefully I can get back for tonight so we can spend some time.”

“I hope so too. But it will be in my temple. I have a lot to show you.”

With another hug and a passionate kiss, I summoned the travel totem for the admin hub and activated it.

Once in Onnekus, I moved swiftly out of the distortion cloud, directly to Devotion’s Sphere of influence.

She was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a long flowing blue dress that was practically see through. Her golden hair seemed to sparkle with a vibrance all of its own. Flashing a prefect smile she spoke. “So you’ve come to take a peace of me, Clive. Who would have ever thought this would happen only a few short years ago!”

I grinned. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Which is probably why I feel like I’ve been in Falritas sixty years.”

She chuckled at that. “So, what do I need to do?”

“Nothing, it’s all part of the upgrade. I accessed my Teleportation skill and focused on Devotion. Much like had happened with Danivra and Sania, a tendril reached out and removed a perfect, miniscule marble of her core.

“There. All done,” I replied.

“Truly? I felt no change.”

“Yeah, it’s an odd one. You’d expect such a move to drain you of at least a little power, but it’s more like whatever it takes is completely devoid of power.

“Very well. I feel safer knowing we can come together if needed. I hope Destruction is kind when you visit her next.”

“I think I’d feel suspicious,” I said with a hint of humor.

I opened up a portal from the courtyard of Devotion’s Temple and moved into its mirror opposite as I stepped through to Destruction’s home. It looked just as dark and dangerous as ever, and I could see the resemblances of my own new temple.

“Take it and go Clive. I am still upset with you for going to save Peace’s Chosen.”

I offered a warm smile and activated the Teleportation Anchor retrieval before responding. “Don’t be, like that. It’s the right thing to do and I’d do the same for you, if not more.”

She folded her arms and delivered a withering look to me, but I could feel across our bond that she didn’t hate me nearly as much as her glare said she did.

I decided to wind her up a little more. “Just remember Destruction. Our measure is not just about what we do, but how we do it.”

As she snorted in response. “Do not spout your ethical nonsense at me, Clive. Take your anchor point and then go and rescue the pointless woman.”

“It’s already done. Did it while we were chatting.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Then I think it’s time you left.”

“No problemo!” I opened a portal to Peace behind my back and stepped through waving all the way before dropping the portal on a very unhappy looking Destruction.

“Is she still not buying this?” Peace asked appearing at my side almost immediately.

“Not in the slightest,” I replied. “But then did you really expect here to?”

“Now About Inez’s core?” I said holding out my hand.

Peace shook her head. “No. It’s too weak to hand over. I will have to come with you.”

“Oh, right. I didn’t realize that was the plan.”

She bristled at my response. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No, not at all,” I said placatingly. “I just didn’t expect company. It’ll be nice.”

“Then let us go. Inez is stored within my personal storage.”

“We’re gonna be like a Russian Doll then,” I chuckled opening my storage for her to step inside.