Chapter 1049: Reaping the Whirlwind (Patreon)

Jason stood with Shade and Gordon as a humungous plume of ominous smoke rose from the centre of town. It was thick and mostly dirty grey mixed with dark purple, hard to see in a gloom-filled sky, but the sheer size made it hard to miss. It started at the width of a football field and expanded from there, forcing Jason and his familiars to back off almost to the city walls. From right next to it, they couldn’t get a better assessment of the plume’s height than ‘big,’ but it was taller than it was wide, and still rising.

From within the plume came flashes of sickly yellow lightning, like smog turned into a storm cloud. Streaks of red cut through the smoke like blood splashing, as if something was somehow cutting the sky. There was a background rumble of thunder, muffled as if something was wrong with the lightning, only the occasional loud crash coming through clearly.

Jason felt the space right in front of him warp, as if someone had grabbed the boundary between dimensions and twisted it in their fist. Suddenly Raythe was standing in front of him, and he pulled his hood down to reveal his face.

“That’s a bit more than a regular teleport,” he observed.

“That’s what you want to discuss right now?”

“It’s rude to answer a question with a question. And if you’re talking about the giant doom cloud, you’re the one standing there with your back to it. I bet you walk away from explosions without looking, don’t you? You think that makes you cool?”

“It does make her cool,” Gordon said.

“Don’t talk her up! Whose team are you on?”

“Can you take anything seriously?” Raythe asked.

Jason’s easy smile took on a hint of cruelty.

“You should be very glad that I can still have fun, Raythe. You think I didn’t realise that you were provoking me? Pushing me to reach diamond?”

“You allowed yourself to be provoked. I made the wind blow, but you rode it.”

“True. I’m the man you made me, but you should be grateful that’s not all I am. You weren’t trying to make a guy that has fun, and you don’t seem to understand how important that is. What I would be without it. You should be more careful when you sow the wind, Raythe.”

“This isn’t me provoking you, Jason. If you’re done making your speech, there is a rather drastic issue at hand.”

She gestured at the plume without looking back at it.

“I’m well aware that a fight is coming,” he told her.

“This won’t be a fight. That thing has broken the limits of this realm, limits to which you are still subject. Even if that wasn’t the case, your rapidly degrading avatar wouldn’t hold up to a night on the town, let alone battling something like this.”

“I know. It’s the very basis of my plan, in fact.”

Raythe narrowed her eyes.

“You want it to kill your avatar, so you take a phoenix form and use it to break the realm limitations on you.”

“That’s part of it.”

“It won’t be enough.”

“That’s why it’s only part.”

“Even in your phoenix form, it won’t be enough to face demigod-level power, which whatever comes out of that cloud is going to have.”

“You don’t think I can win.”

“This afterlife has been corrupted for billions of years, and you ranked up today. It can wait for you to come back once you’ve consolidated your power.”

“And all the people I’ve freed?”

“You can free them again.”

“No. You were there for my last big speech. Diamond-rank is declaring to the cosmos who you are and making it listen. I’m not going to do that only to immediately turn around and prove I’m the exact opposite. And if I abandon the people here to be corrupted all over again, that’s precisely what I’ll be.”

“Pride will cost you.”

“Getting the job done always costs me. It’s kind of my thing.”

“Paying the price without accomplishing anything isn’t getting the job done.”

“Oh, ye of little faith. Also, you might want to turn around.”

She did, and saw the cloud was dissipating to reveal a colossal figure concealed within. This made the previous giant look like a handbag dog, a mountain in the shape of a person. Contrary to expectations, that person was not a copy of Jason’s features but of Raythe’s.

“That’s a surprise, not going to lie,” Jason said. “Why do I get the feeling that it’s going to pick up those giant god weapons lying about and try to whack us with them?”

“Why does she look like me?”

“Does she?” Jason asked. “Hard to tell from this angle. I do think she might be taller.”

“I am watching from a nearby vantage with Mr Mercer,” Shade said. “I can assure you that the resemblance to Miss Raythe is quite strong.”

“Why does it look like me?” Raythe asked again, more rattled than Jason had heard her. “I’m not sure you understand exactly what this is, Asano. This is a wound on the cosmos, and it’s wearing my face.”

“It tried being me and I kicked my own butt. I think now it’s trying to be the person I answer to.”

“If it thinks you answer to me, it’s going to be very disappointed.”

“It’ll get worse than disappointed today.”

“How do you intend to beat it?”

Jason flashed her a grin, then pulled his hood back over his head and opened up a shadow portal behind them.

“You ever hear of a city called Boko?”

***

Thadwick watched from his vantage point on the hill, looking at the distant town, waiting for whatever the corruption turned into to show itself. One of the multitudinous bodies of Asano’s shadow familiar stood next to him.

“How do you think it’s going to go?” Thadwick asked. “I’m not sure this plan is going to work.”

“I have been with Mr Asano for some years now, and seen him in many situations. When cosmic power is being thrown about, in some impossible place that no living person should be, that is when he is in his element. Also, barbecues.”

“This plan is madness, though.”

“They always are, Mr Mercer. If you could do the impossible with sensible plans, no one would call it impossible. In my experience, Mr Asano’s methods are less about being clever and more about doing something so absurd that they would never occur to the vast majority of people. His plans that don’t involve almost certain death involve completely certain death.”

Suddenly, darkness swept across the sky, turning the land into a twilight realm of sinister gloom.

“What just happened?” Thadwick asked, looking around warily.

“Mr Asano turned the sky dark.”

“How?”

“He looked at it.”

“I’m beginning to see why the previous Thadwick considered Asano to be unfair in what comes his way. As an energy vampire, I have a handful of powers that the sun makes a lot weaker, and he can just turn the sun off?”

“It is actually not one of his more unconventionally sourced abilities, but a common essence power. His first, in fact, and one very typical to dark essence users. It simply requires a high rank to reach such efficaciousness. It is not Mr Asano’s advantage but simply the fact that essence users are, rank for rank, amongst the most powerful wielders of supernatural abilities. That, of course, presumes sufficient training and a level of diligence I’m told the original Mr Mercer sorely lacked.”

“Yeah,” Thadwick said with a grimace. “Even from his heavily biased memories I could tell that he was given everything while convincing himself he was consistently being passed over. I try not to dwell on him these days.”

He nodded in the direction of the now twilight-shrouded town.

“What’s going on down there?”

“The corruption has become an army of simulacra in the shape of Mr Asano. It is not a strategy that is meeting with success.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yes, although I suspect we shall find that this is merely a prelude.”

They continued to wait, the events in the town too distant to make out in the magical darkness. Thadwick tried anyway, his eyes glowing blue but the simple presence of walls meant he could see nothing.

“Is he still fighting those things?” he asked.

“We are,” Shade replied.

“It doesn’t look like much is happening from here.”

“We are quite far away.”

“Right, yes.”

Thadwick stood, watching the town as he threw occasional awkward glances at Shade.

“So, the shadow man who sent me here. That’s your brother?”

“Not exactly as biological mortals understand the concept, but yes.”

“He doesn’t seem to like your summoner very much.”

“He believes that our kind should not be bound to the whims of mortals through familiar pacts. Many astral beings do this, Shadows of the Reaper included, although none as habitually as I have. He demonstrates his distaste by repeatedly using my own summoners to entrap me in various ways. Your composite soul is comprised of Thadwick’s along with that of one of my summoners. Umber convinced them to betray me, which I can at least comprehend, as our relationship was not the best. How Umber subsequently convinced them to become the raw materials in his soul engineering is beyond my ability to reason out. Do you truly have no memories that could shed any light on that mystery?”

“I don’t, I’m sorry. I have most of Thadwick’s memories, so far as I can tell, but none of this other person’s. I’ve often wondered if they had no influence on me at all, or if it was just more subtle. Perhaps the influence of the other soul is why I am not simply Thadwick reborn, in which case, I am extremely grateful to your summoner. I am sorry I cannot help you.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t mean to offend, but your brother doesn’t seem like a good person.”

“There are many dangers inherent to immortality. One is letting it change you beyond recognition. The other is staying eternally the same. An affliction that Umber suffers from. As did the Builder, until Mr Asano put a stop to that.”

“The Builder, as in that dimensional entity that invaded our world?

“Great astral being, yes. The one tasked with creating new universes.”

“And Asano did what to it, exactly?”

“Apologies, Mr Mercer. I have become accustomed to people versed in the larger cosmic aspects, forgetting that most neither need nor want such information. Mr Asano repaired something called the Cosmic Throne, a mechanism that embodies the fundamental laws of the cosmos.”

“Well, I’m in a broken afterlife right now, so I guess it makes sense that something like that exists. How does a thing like that break, though?”

“The details of its breaking matter less than the ramifications, so I shall skip over them. The consequences were many, but one was the advent of a new Builder to replace the original. The other great astral beings wished to control him, so they granted themselves the power to reset his mental state to that of a teenager. This served to erase the wisdom of ages that an immortal should accumulate, although there are exceptions, like my brother.”

“That all sounds like god business.”

“It’s a bit higher level than that, although the throne does include the rules governing divine behaviour. The removal of those rules is the reason many gods and great astral beings have been running amok. Even with the throne restored, the repercussions are ongoing, but some things have been put aright, such as the other great astral beings no longer being able to influence the Builder as they once could.”

“Is that why Asano can be in this place while he’s still alive? He got involved with that throne that governs everything?”

“Yes, although the throne does not govern, as such. It does not make the rules so much is it is the rules, like a tablet of laws. Compared to gods or great astral beings, it is without a will to act beyond the explicit and exacting enforcement of its rules. This allows it to be absolutely objective, but that rigidity was its undoing. Fixed rules inevitably have exceptions, allowing their misuse to the point where the rules themselves were destroyed.”

“But Asano restored them somehow?”

“Yes.”

“Why would your brother believe that someone who could do that would be threatened by some energy vampires? And he wasn’t, not really. I mean, he’s starting fights with gods. Who even is that lady that came into the meeting? How did she end up in the afterlife?”

“She is the prime vessel of the great astral being who governs time.”

“Of course she is. I feel like a child in a cattle stampede, trying not get trodden on by all the giants around me.”

“You won’t be, Mr Mercer.”

“I’m still not comfortable with that name. I try to be a son to original Thadwick’s mother, but the rest of them don’t know me. To them, I’m a monster walking around in their family member’s skin, and they aren’t entirely wrong.”

“Would you like me to address you in another fashion?”

“No. It was mother who told me to use the name. With her, anyway. There are people still hunting me.”

“You will be safe, Mr Mercer. Mr Asano has placed you under his protection.”

“How reliable is that?”

“He is an adventurer, Mr Mercer. You may have every confidence in him.”

Thadwick pointed at the town. His eyes glowed blue again as he got a better look, his power making plain the vastness of the cloud rising into the sky. They watched as the smoke cleared, revealing a titan in the shape of an elf so tall that an overcast day would have hidden her head in the clouds.

“If I’m being honest, Shade, that doesn’t give me every confidence in Asano. I’m really not sure that this plan is going to work.”

“You’re about to do your part and find out. Get ready, Mr Mercer.”

Thadwick looked down at the black and red gauntlet and vambrace covering most of his right arm. It responded at a thought, reshaping itself into a heavy sword, the hilt sharing the same gothic design as the gauntlet had.

“When?” he asked. His answer came in the shape of an archway that rose from the ground before filling with shadow.

While Shade stepped through without a word, Thadwick hesitated for a long moment before following. He stumbled slightly as he emerged from the portal. He hadn’t been through many in his life on the run as an energy vampire or as the young master of a backwater noble house, so he was unused to the disorientation that came with dimensional travel. He shook his head to clear it and looked up, the creature dominating the town looming like a mountain. The others were standing in a row with their backs to him, likewise staring up at the colossus. It was Jason, Shade, Raythe the time lady, and the strange thing with all the glowing balls. A couple of the balls swivelled to look at him with their eerie, nebulous stare.

“It’s a city in Pallimustus?” Raythe asked Jason.

“Used to be,” Jason said. “When I die, my avatar’s destruction becomes a portal to my astral kingdom, letting a bunch of power through. This creates a celestial ghost fire phoenix, a kind of a liminal state that I can run around in before it recreates my avatar. Normally, this happens in a nice, controlled fashion. When someone stabbed me with a copy of the sword that Thadwick here is holding, that control went out the window. My avatar opened way too big a hole into my astral kingdom, and the resulting energy surge turned Boko into a crater. Now, I’ve got more power and the sword isn’t a knock-off. Should make for a pretty big boom.”

“That’s your plan?” Raythe asked.

“Yep.”

“That seems reckless.”

“I warned you to be careful when you sow the wind, lady. You should probably go through that portal to watch from a safe distance. Thadwick, do your thing and scarper as well. I’ll try and hold off the detonation until you’re through, so jab me quick and then leg it.”

Raythe frowned, but went through the portal without another word as Shade and Gordon vanished. Thadwick looked at Jason’s back, steeled himself and ran his sword through it, immediately bolting for the portal. He stumbled back onto the hilltop, looking out at the town. Blue and orange light was shining from somewhere beyond the walls, building up rapidly.

“Are we sure this is far enough away?” he asked. Before Raythe could respond, the planet exploded.

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