A New Star Chapter 74 (Patreon)

Emmanuel

I settled down, not happy at being reprimanded by one so young, but that was the danger, was it not? Forgetting that she was not one so young, but instead an ancient power that defied all reason and common sense. Still, to think in this day and age, that people had forgotten the terror that was the Windblade, the dreaded reaper of the battlefield, and the greatest swordmaster to fight against combined armies on his own. It was madness. Madness, I say!

“Now as to these people you keep referring to as ‘they’,” Alex continued, staring at the young assassin like a prime slab of meat ready for cutting.

“I-I can’t say, exactly, they-“ the woman began but Alex held up her hand.

“Are you sure?” she said, but she was no longer looking at the assassin.

“I-“ the assassin began but Alex made a stopping motion with her still upraised hand.

“Not you,” she said caustically. “Is it a touch?”

Alex nodded to herself several time before saying, “Are you sure you can do it?”

After nodding a couple more times, she said, “If you’re sure. And you don’t mind it?”

She glanced over at myself and Jeanne for some reason, and the two of us exchanged a glance, confusion clearly written on our faces. We didn’t have to wait long as Alex stood from her chair and took a slight step forward before stopping and looking at the young assassin. It was a long second, in which I was about to inquire what was happening, before everything changed. There was an unbelievable thrum of power and a woman, or the spirit of a woman, stepped out of the form Alex and took a step back, standing beside the chair and crossing her arms. Her presence was astounding, overwhelming, crushing the air in the room and putting out a pressure that I could feel as an almost tangible thing. It wasn’t even from her emotions being stirred up or her using any kind of affinity or any such thing; it was truly from her sheer astounding power alone, just her very existence warping the fabric of reality around her. She had eyes of molten silver and hair of spun gold, and her ghostly form was wearing armor of pure white with gold and silver accents, and every part of her radiated control and precision.

“Who-?” I started, but the intimidating woman held up her hand. That simple, precise gesture carried so much meaning and force that I immediately shut my mouth.

Alex had changed too, though it was in a more subtle way that I had noticed at first. The other woman, perhaps the other Alex, or the other soul, or whatever it was, just had such an impossibly overwhelming presence that it was hard to even pay attention to the physical body, or the other, or…well, I had a lot of questions and I was hoping to get quite a lot of answers, and sooner rather than later. Alex’s physical form had black irises, indistinguishable from her fresh-ink colored pupils, and a strange air about her. Something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

She moved forward to the assassin, leaning down to look her in the eye, reminding me just how tall she was already. She wasn’t doing in a manner that was intimidating, but instead seemed to be closely examining the young woman. After a moment, power swirled around her and she reached forward, her hand hovering for a moment before suddenly thrusting forward into the assassin’s chest. The assassin gasped and tried to grab Alex’s arm, but her arm only only made it half way before stopping as she spasmed. After a moment, Alex withdrew her arm, looking slightly incorporeal, holding some item that was mostly insubstantial, dripping just a small amount of fresh blood.

“An ingredient?” Alex said, turning to the shining woman.

“Not worth it,” she said coldly.

“Then what? Destroy it?” Alex asked.

“Here,” the woman, who had her arms crossed, uncrossed just her right arm and gestured with it.

Alex threw the marble to her, it shooting across the room in less than the blink of an eye. Whatever was going on, Alex’s physical body certainly wasn’t diminished in strength, and just as I was thinking that, the phantom clenched her hand around the marble. The amount of force she was able to exert, especially considering she was an ethereal being, was truly horrifying, the space around her fist twisting and bending as she squeezed the marble. There was a cracking sound, followed by a sharp shattering sound, then there was a grinding sound as the marble was crushed into fine powder, sealed finally by a terrific booming as everything was vaporized. The ethereal woman opened her hand, showing that not even dust was left of the marble, before recrossing her right arm over her chest.

"You’re free now,” Alex said to the young woman.

“What is happening?” I asked, unable to stop myself at this point.

“No time, now,” the phantom said to me, giving me a look that I easily recognized. It was like I was looking at Alex’s facial expressions looking at the phantom, and Alex was now an entirely different woman, which only raised far more questions than it answered.

True to her word, I watched as Alex took a step back and then the phantom turned into a stream of light and merged with Alex. Alex shook herself for a second and it seemed like her eyes became brighter, as in her eyes literally lightened from a shade of pure black to a kind of dark red with extremely, extremely faint hints of silver in them, something I hadn’t really noticed or paid attention to before this. Alex seemed fully in control of herself again, if this even was Alex, and I had a thousand questions at this point, but the woman stepped forward and sniffed the foolish assassin, a strange action in my eyes, before reaching out and blasting the young assassin with electricity.

“I say!” I exclaimed, moving to interpose my cane between them, but Alex was already moving. “Hang on a moment!”

“No time,” Alex said, looking back over her shoulder. “Alex has the scent.”

After saying that, she fell forward, a trick I had seen her perform before, falling into The Dark with a small explosion of shadow and darkness. I was now left with so many questions I was having a hard time processing them, and it seemed Jeanne was in the same sort of boat. The Silver Lady had reached out with her affinity and healed the young assassin, or at least checked on her, and I waited a moment for her to be finished before speaking.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I’m more concerned with who was that?” Jeanne said. “That presence…I’ve never felt anything close to that. Even being a spirit or a soul, she was…well, I just don’t have the words.”

“Overwhelming doesn’t really cut it, does it?” I asked, stroking my beard while looking at the young assassin. “Our young guest is still alive?”

“She only knocked the young reprobate out,” Jeanne confirmed. “Not really necessary, given my bindings, but it seems she’s someone who is rather thorough.”

“Which still leaves us with the question,” I said, “of who is she?”

Xera

‘You’re sure,’ I asked Alex in my mind, standing on the roof and overlooking a large, ornate building.

‘Who has the death affinity with a five hundred percent compatibility? You or me?’ she replied.

‘Point taken,’ I returned, falling from the roof and plunging into The Dark before I hit the ground.

I had to be careful of what I was doing here, as this was not a building I wanted to just trammel around through without any planning, as that could be rather dangerous. The fact that the death stench emitted from that young fool led here was not something I was thrilled with, but I was just following the trail. Or rather, I should point out that Alex was still lightly tapping into my senses to follow the trail while I piloted our shared body to where she directed. The building had a ton of security and was heavily warded, but I was rather confident in both my strength and in the oddity of my skills, that no one could really block The Dark in this day and age was simply becoming more and more apparent as time passed.

Breaking into the Royal Guard headquarters hadn’t been on my docket for the early hours of this fine day, and I wanted to wrap this up quickly so I could be in time for when my armor was complete, but giving the smiths a bit longer might not be all that bad. I snuck through The Dark and into the first floor of the building, not having to go through the windows or anything so mundane, but simply using my strength to brute force my way through the warded wall. That only really worked because of the special plane I was occupying, but it was still a massive advantage I would lean on as long as no one had yet developed a good counter.

I found myself in a rather dreary office, the Royal Guard not being ones for much pomp and grandiosity, despite their prestigious position. None of that interested me, however, as we had a trail to follow, and I was able to vaguely get the sense of where the death mana led even without Alex pointing over my shoulder. Well, pointing over my shoulder in the proverbial sense, as she was back to a recess of my mind, though as clearly demonstrated early, she was far from a figment of my imagination. The scent, as we both thought of it, led throughout the building, but was more concentrated in certain areas; clearly, the person we were tracking was rather mobile within the building, which was interesting to note. Some people might only use two or three rooms in such a building, and the connecting hallways and walkways, of course, but this person went everywhere, though it was clear they were in certain rooms more often.

Following my nose, and Alex’s affinity, I reached the second floor, still in The Dark, and moved down two hallways before coming to a room that just absolutely stank. There was a difference even in the same type of mana; for example, when we had met Glorious Death some time ago, the feeling and sense and even smell of the mana around him had been old, but not stale or rotten. It had carried the weight of age, honor, respect, and a cold, certain finality that met a warrior in their last moments, whether those were bitter or triumphant. The feeling of this death mana, in contrast, had a slimy, oily texture that cause my skin to crawl a bit and felt like there was always a film of snot or gunk on my tongue. Not at all pleasant.

I moved into the room, passing right through the door, pondering on the irony of my living self acting more like a ghost than many of the ghosts that were out there, including the ones strung along by all of Death’s aspects. Within the room were a series of desks, which was problematic; I had been hoping to find something like a janitorial closet. Finding that our next link in the chain was some low-level worker, or posing as one, would have been pretty typical of such infiltration operations. Instead, it looked like this person had a secretarial role, at a very minimum, which meant much greater accesses at a base level, and possibly authority to make impactful decisions including resource allocation and personnel assignment. I was starting to get a headache, not looking forward to unraveling this twisted knot, not with my currently limited time. Maybe I could set the twins on this, but then again, they were still a bit weak, nor did they have my ability to track these specific affinities.

One of the six desks in the room had the scent about more strongly than others, the room thankfully being empty at this time of night, though it would only remain so for another two hours. The Royal Guard was often at work early, and late as well, burning the candle from both ends, as the saying went. Hazards of one of the most prestigious and powerful jobs in the entire country, I supposed. I mostly left The Dark, just keeping one foot in it as I interacted with the physical world, opening the drawers to check what was within the desk. I found a whole lot of nothing, frowning as I went through all seven drawers, three on each side and one wide, thin drawer in the center. Giving a disgruntled humph, I bent down and checked through each drawer carefully, trying to find anything out of place.

I might have missed it, had it not been for a combination of our affinities, Alex and I working together seamlessly to find what we were after. In the bottom right drawer, at the very back, was a small section that looked different when I used my affinity for ice to inspect it, and it triggered something faint with Alex’s sense for death mana. Tracing the lines and mana very carefully, I found that there was something in the thin drawer in the middle of the desk, carefully opening it and looking through to find a little switch, just a small square of the drawer that was almost perfectly blended with the rest, but I could just make out the difference. I wasn’t foolish enough to just push it with my finger without preparation, and so I was very careful in how I went about it, layering several types of mana over not just my finger, but all of me as I did so, ready to fall back further into The Dark.

My caution proved warranted, as there was a hidden needle within the button, something that struck at my finger as soon as I put noticeable pressure on the little square. Fortunately, it was designed to prevent less capable or cautious individuals from accessing the secret compartment, or more likely, put in as a ‘fuck you’ to whoever was investigating. A trap like that made little sense as a preventative measure, as, unless the poison was somehow instantly fatal, the person could and likely would still open the secret compartment before even feeling the effects. If the person were very strong, a healer, had a poison affinity, or several other scenarios, they might not even be affected at all. I was even a good example, as I blocked both the needle, and the payload it carried, with a few simple affinities. I finished manipulating the switch after the needle was dealt with, opening the secret compartment in the lower drawer and carefully peering inside. What I found, while unsurprising, was yet more proof that we had a bigger problem on our hands than one inexperienced assassin may suggest.

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