Chapter: 761 - Here After (Patreon)

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Tala floated for a long, long moment, time seemingly stopped around her.

In the space just before her, her armor had tipped sideways, empty save for an odd slurry of goop and metal flecks, which was already seeping out of the joints.

The forest clearing around her was filled with a tableau of conflict. Though many of her allies had expressions of horror, directed toward her now empty armor.

Her Reforged body had been undercut by her own hubris.

She had invited in the means for her destruction.

“I killed myself.” Tala sighed. “I just used that thing’s power to do it.”

She tried to reach out to what was left of her body, but it had been unmade, just as the automaton had said.

Not a single reality thread connected her to the mass within her armor, though the armor was just as bound to her as ever.

When the imprisoned mezzani had expelled her soul from her body more than a decade ago, her body had still been intact, and she’d been able to use other ties to draw herself back into it.

That couldn’t happen this time.

She turned to look at Lea, feeling a smile pull at her spiritual features. Her daughter was still whole. She’d at least succeeded in that regard.

Alat wasn’t with Tala at the moment, though the alternate interface would be maintained via the Archive in some form or other.

Her long-earned natural magics were still surrounding and running through her armor, but that was all.

All of her physical form—that which had been modeled after a human body—was dispersing.

Ironhold and the sanctum—as well as dozens of other little expanded spaces that were spread out in a cloud around those two—were simply floating in the stoneward nothingness of Zeme.

Her soulbond to Rane continued, and she knew that she could pull on that and attempt to join him in his body, but that would never work. A body couldn’t have two gates, at least not without exceptional circumstances, and while she loved Rane and knew that he loved her, that wasn’t actually exceptional in the grand scheme of things.

“So… this is it? I’ve died?” She huffed a laugh, shaking her head. “So much for my power stretching on and growing for millennia.”

A loud squawk came from beside her, and she jerked, looking at the towering form of Terry, looking down at her with unhidden incredulity.

Her eyes widened as she met his predatory, avian gaze. “Terry?”

He was looking down at her with indignation as well as if to say, ‘Really? You’re giving up?’

Tala sighed, feeling the weariness that she’d been fighting through for days settling within her mind.

She and Terry were tied, but that wouldn’t keep either of them here for much longer. Her gate was already feeling the pull to slip free of Zeme and move on. “I’m tired, Terry. I…”

He settled down, not changing size as he effectively became a large, feathery boulder beside her. Even in his silence, she felt his opinion of her words.

She growled. “My body is gone, Terry.”

A great avian eye regarded her with skepticism.

“The material for my body is there, but it is no longer mine. I can’t repair it. I’d have to make a whole new body… and…”

She blinked a few times.

What was it to be Ascended?

On one level, it was to Reforge the soul, but what did that mean?

When she’d Reforged her body, she’d made it entirely her own, claiming it from top to bottom, no matter where the ideas, components, or materials had come from.

That process included accepting help from others and claiming her physical form as her own.

So, to Reforge her soul?

Her soul was her… No… that’s not right. In this world, the soul couldn’t think. Before, it had been her mental enhancements that were allowing her to continue to think in the moments after death. She’d relied on that crutch the last time she’d died—that was a troubling thought—but not this time. When she became a Paragon, she forged her mind into her very soul. Alat had some presence there as well, but the soul couldn’t natively handle two distinct beings, and the result was a Tala-heavy amalgamation.

Even so, the ‘she’ that was thinking wasn’t her soul, even if that soul was still her, and her soul was the medium for her existence.

She grimaced. She was going round in circles.

Tala focused in on her gate, her very soul, and saw what she’d always seen. Even with Lea’s insights that every human soul bled reality as well, it was hard for Tala to sense it.

She did feel the flecks of void coming free.

Her disembodied perception was able to sense Anatalis, Botulf, and Conri corralling the Forest Spirit, hemming him in with free-form magics and pack tactics.

Closer at hand, the thirty-one automata of commander variants were being worn down despite the alliance’s over-strained state, a few already taken out of commission entirely, and the others weren’t doing much better.

The only exception was the prime commander, the one that she had been facing herself.

She let out a contented sigh that was purely an affectation.

“I… I could just pass on. They have the upper hand, and victory is at hand. When the Forest Spirit dies, Walden will claim dominion, and that will be the end. Anatalis and Walden will work with the alliance to purge the rest of the Black Legion, and that will be that… My purpose is all but fulfilled.”

Tala gave a sad smile.

“I didn’t think my story would end this way, but it could have been worse.”

Terry chirped and flicked his beak, drawing her attention back to the prime commander.

The commander who was—once more—focusing on Lea.

Tala’s eyes widened in surprise and incredulity.

“His commanders are falling, his forces are facing defeat, and he’s taking the time to attack my daughter? Again?”

That.

Rusting.

Piece of SLAG!

Her soul trembled in fury, echoing the berserk state that both her husband and daughter were subject to.

Still, she couldn’t get back into her body… but why did that matter?

She’d not protected her daughter with her body before. She’d used her aura, authority, and will—her very self.

Her self was still here. Her iron spikes were still embedded across the battlefield, not linked to her liquified body, but to her.

She… she wasn’t her body.

It was a blindingly obvious assertion, but one that she’d all but rebelled against, especially since she’d Reforged. She’d made her body her…

No… that’s not right either. Even in Reforging, she’d not confined herself to that body. Her union with Kit made the expanded spaces as much a part of her as her fingers and toes.

Her melding with the dasgannach resulted in her iron being arguably more ‘her’ than the small part of her that she used to walk around.

When she’d guided her flying construct of late, she’d left that body in Alat’s care while she inhabited the construct in almost every way that mattered.

She wasn’t her body, though her body had been hers, had been her.

Her soul wasn’t her, it was a part.

Her mind and spirit weren’t all that encapsulated her.

It clicked into place.

Time was all but stopped around her, but that was an illusion, and she knew it.

Tala’s spirit reached out to her soul, drawing the latter to the former.

Then, as Terry looked on, Tala wrought a change upon her very soul, merging it with her spirit at every level.

She recalled what Lea had conveyed, reality flowing from the ring, void to separate that from the magic coming through the gate.

Her spirit stretched, twisted, reworked, and held her soul together even as it joined with it.

There was pain that couldn’t be ignored, but she pushed through. Her daughter needed her, and she would not fail.

She knew that once this was done, she’d still have to build a new form for herself to use as a physical medium, but one step at a time.

Tala buckled down and got to work.

*

Rane refused to believe what he’d seen.

His wife had simply fallen apart, as if she’d been a weirdly chunky stew, held in place by magic, and now that magic was gone.

He could feel his soul bond with her, and through that her soul as it drifted backward, away from what no one could call a body.

His gate pulsed with barely constrained rage—Rust that—he unleashed the fury fully for the first time in years.

His aura slammed outward, catching a senior commander as it tried to come back in. In that momentary stagger, Rane cut through it along three axes, letting it fall in six pieces even as he turned, crouching and readying himself the next charge.

Veridicus was radiating smug power, even as the automaton turned to look at… Lea?

“No.” Rane launched forward, his magics burning to let him cross the dozen or so yards in the blink of an eye.

Veridicus was just opening his mouth when Rane hit him like a run-away cargo wagon.

The prime commander staggered sideways, but managed to keep his feet despite the surprise impact.

Rane didn’t think; he didn’t plan; he just attacked. His decades of intensive training—years spent refining technique and reaction—took the lead as his berserk strength and speed chose the tempo.

Veridicus was on the backfoot, retreating before Rane’s all-out assault. Despite that, Rane couldn’t land a solid hit.

He had the momentary upperhand, but he didn’t know how long that would last.

Through his rage-focused mind, he only had one thought on repeat.

Don’t be dead, Tala. Come back to me.

*

Eskau Pallaun didn’t allow himself to curse as he drove a fist through a commander on his way toward a senior.

Eskau Tala had just… melted.

He’d felt something in the clashing powers, but it hadn’t seemed powerful enough to harm the Eskau of War.

What happened?

He slipped sideways through a shadow, coming out behind his target before hammering it a half-dozen times even as it turned to face him, new components sliding and clicking into place.

They could win this engagement without Eskau Tala, but he didn’t like their chances in the war as a whole without her.

Come on, Eskau, pull yourself together!

*

Mistress Holly stood on the outer wall of Bandfast. Her connection to Mistress Tala was gone, the girl’s inscriptions utterly obliterated.

“Oh, child… You weren’t ready, were you.”

The older woman closed her eyes before tipping her face up toward the sky.

“The best laid plans come crashing down.” A single tear began building within one of her eyes. “May you find rest as you…” She frowned. “As you…” Her face dropped, and her eyes opened in obvious confusion. A moment later, a smile started tugging at her lips. “Well, rust my biscuits. That’s one path I suppose.”

*

Tala was laughing manically, still in spirit form. She’d finally understood.

Her sanctum, Ironhold, and now even Walden’s expanding domains were all tied to her, were all linked to her very being, her intrinsic authority apart from her authority as Eskau of War. She’d seen—at a level too deep to properly convey to another—every step of magical beast advancement through her bond with Terry, and his open trust of her. Her very nature, joined with Kit and the iron dasgannach, was that of a being prepared and oriented toward accepting power and growing her own from external sources. Finally, her ties to Walden’s domain were that of a liege over the ruler, and that being outside of herself seemed to be the final piece that pushed her over the line.

She was an arch-beast.

Her soul and spirit had been remade, melded together, and reinforced in the crucible of her will and power.

She was Ascending.

Magic recognized her authority, obeying her with ease.

She was Hallowed.

She was Tala Sappherrous, Eskau of War, Iron Matriarch. She was a being of three paths, a Hallowed Ascending arch-beast.

Her lips spread into a fiercely predatory, rictus grin.

Humans can be quite the dangerous beasts, after all.

What happened when a magical-beast was slain?

Its domain rebuilt the body, or at least it built another version of the same being to fill the role.

In this, though, the magic of her domain would bend to her whims, rather than she being beholden to it.

Matter began to pull together, following her long-known self-schema, now with a soul-spirit gestalt at the core, the sacred truth that the Black Legion abominations tried to mimic with heresy.

The fight was not yet over.

*

Verity heard the Forest Spirit low in irritation and frustration at the same time that the prime commander felt the swelling of power in the east.

He ground his teeth.

They’d worked for years to stir up the beasts below, so that in this time, those creatures would tie down the most powerful Archons of humanity, or force them to take untenable losses if they chose to ignore the rising threat. Now a new Ascending was advancing on the field of battle?

Madness.

He sent a command through his forces and practically as one they ripped open passage to the Doman-Imithe, sending the local region into chaos.

It bordered on a violation of reality, but there were greater concerns afoot.

The Devouring Tree would be tied up for at least a day if he wanted to keep the tears from finishing off his all-too-close city.

Verity couldn’t spare another moment’s thought for that abomination. He had others to deal with.

He sent out the call, iterating back through the beacons and out to where four factories were just finishing their priority queues. The final checks and polish would need to be skipped, but this was war, not a parade.

“Aletheon, Axiom, Verax, Logos, bring your commanders and senior commanders and come, attend me. We have an issue to deal with.”

Four waves of acknowledgement came back, and with it, the weight of reality’s approval.

All around the automaton, the Doman-Imithe trembled.

Veridicus added his acknowledgement of Verity, and the five were primed to push one onward, upward, exaltant.

The nature of the automata was one of uplifting others of their kind above themselves. Verity now could forge a being higher than himself. In truth, he could have done it with one fewer prime commander if he had been willing to trust this task to another.

But he was not.

He had been given this task, first by the ignorant who used magic selfishly and without regard to the world, then by reality itself.

Verity leaned upon the acknowledgment of the five and bowed to reality, putting himself forward for ascension.

His proof was acknowledged and accepted.

He was accepted.

There, on the backside of existence—barely a dozen miles from Makinaven—Verity advanced.

Reality, forgive my presumption. The work will be completed.

*

Portals began flickering open all around Tala’s armor as bits of matter came from all throughout her expanded spaces.

The iron spikes tore from the ground in great waves, shredding the commanders who couldn’t get out of the way in time and easily punching through the senior commanders who tried to interfere.

The one who had called himself Veridicus, let out an inarticulate scream of negation, but he might as well have been yelling at a waterfall, commanding it to stop.

Rane made the automaton pay for his distraction, taking off the prime commander’s left arm, but it didn’t divert the thing’s attention.

He lunged around Rane, trying to close with the mass of material that was gathering beside the enemy he thought slain.

Then, a massive avian form unfolded from the maelstrom.

Grey and white feathers coated a body of power beyond easy measure, blood red eyes stared out over red, blue, and purple plumage, and thick, brown eyebrows angled with avian fury.

Terry threw his head back and let out a piercing cry that shook the surrounding trees, causing cascades of leaves to come raining down even as they were blasted outward and away from the fight.

Terry didn’t bother lowering his head before he flickered forward, hammering into Veridicus, void-talons tearing at the reality-armored automaton.

A new arm sprang from the prime commander’s shoulder, and he kicked and bucked to get free, barely making it to his feet before Terry was on him again.

Rane let out a mirthless laugh as the terror bird tore at the powerful abomination. The prime commander was calling blades into being, barely staving off the terror bird in what was clearly a one sided clash, Terry in firm control.

But something was not as expected. Terry had an indigo aura to Rane’s magesight.

His gaze snapped back to the materials that were continuing to gather, more and more human in form every passing second, more and more feminine, more and more Tala.

She was building herself a new physical body, and he could feel her spirit and soul, united and stronger than ever.

Ascending.

Tala was Ascending.

His rage quieted under the weight of his awe, his heart blazing with warmth at the return of his wife.

He was only distracted for a moment, however, and then he joined Terry in continuing the assault on the prime commander.

They weren’t going to kill it, because they needed to remove it from the war forever. Though, despite their best efforts, Rane actually was a bit concerned that they couldn’t have overcome it completely.

Maybe Terry could have ripped out its soulcore, but the avian seemed to be waiting for his hatchling.

As it was, the two of them were having to work to keep it from retreating, the automaton clearly sensing that things had turned radically against it and the automata with it.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tala’s foot touched down on the forest floor, her body entirely remade.

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