Chapter 19 - Lorencia

I decide to stay in Oasis Valley with Yigg for a few days. I want to hurry to Lorencia, but Yigg is such a fountain of knowledge that it would feel like a wasted opportunity to leave early.

“So how did you end up becoming a tree?” I ask him.

Yigg is making roots pop out of the ground, then disappear when Ruby tries to grab them.

“I used to be a Professor at an academy in a nation across the sea called Alexandria. There is a tree there who sometimes speaks to those it deems worthy. I once told it of my secret desire, to meditate alone in peace, for all eternity. It dropped a fruit for me, and told me that if I were to eat it, then I would become a tree. I journeyed to a remote location, and ate it.”

I laugh. “Why would you want to be alone forever?”

“You seem like the type who could never understand. Besides, I am not alone. Why do you think I made an oasis? I want company and interesting conversation, very, very occasionally.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Nope!”

I blink. He’s right. I could never understand.

I draw the moonlight rune all over Yigg’s cave to protect him, and after seven days, Ruby and I are ready to depart north for Lorencia. The night before we leave, we eat fruit while siting on the shore of a lake in the oasis. It’s a full moon, and the light is shining on the lake.

The waves in the water reflect the light beautifully, a hundred little ripples of moonlight.

It’s painful to step out of the oasis and into the frigid wind. I shiver instantly, pulling Ruby close to me as we walk north through the glaciers.

However, we are passed the coldest part. From here on, the mountains get smaller and smaller. Every month of walking, the air is warmer and the wind less furious.

We made sure to keep track of the days since leaving Scree Burrow. I celebrate my fifteenth birthday by tickling Ruby as much as I want, and for Ruby’s sixth birthday, I finally let her fight a pack of monsters all by herself.

“Ha ha! You can’t bite me!” Ruby shadow steps behind the giant spider and brings a flaming Ruby punch down on its thorax. There is a big explosion, and the monster’s gooey remains go flying everywhere. “Fear me, spiders! Fear me!”

I shudder to think what she’ll be like at my age.

After one year of traveling through the mountains, we finally start seeing signs of civilization. Run-down hunting shacks. Arrows buried in the dirt. Abandoned mines.

Then, one clear evening, we crest over a mountain pass, and our destination comes into view.

Lorencia is a vast city at the tip of a pointy peninsula jutting out into the sea. It’s my first time seeing a city so big, and my first time seeing the ocean as well.

It would have been magnificent if it wasn’t on fire, or if undead monsters composed of hundreds of corpses fused together weren’t crawling over its ruins.

There are still flames, which means this happened recently. At Oasis Valley, Sephtis was a couple months ahead of me. I wonder what ate up his time.

“He’s in there.”

A certain unpleasant thread of fate is pointing at the city. Back when Ruby was kidnapped by the harpies, I had used this technique to find her. It took me far too long to realize that I could also use it to track down my enemies.

“Should I stay back?” Ruby asks.

It took nearly the entire journey to convince her not to fight Sephtis with me. Her job in the upcoming battle is simple. Don’t die, and don’t get noticed.

“Not yet. I’ll let you know when we should split up.”

We hike down the mountain. The city is still at least a whole day’s walk away. As the sun sets, we see a small plume of smoke coming up from a valley below, out of line-of-sight with the city.

“Looks like someone’s camping there. Let’s go say hi.”

Ruby and I hike down to the camp. We sneak through the shadows, or Ruby does at least. Wearing a faintly glowing dress makes such a thing somewhat difficult.

“Who goes there?” A man shouts.

Ah, whatever. I step out from the trees.

There are a group of haggard looking men and women huddled around a fire. They all have weapons at the ready. Some of them are injured, their bodies dirty. They look terrified.

I can see it in their eyes, these people have been through hell.

“Hi. I’m Ayla.”

“And I’m Ruby!” She announces herself by shadow stepping into their campfire, creating the illusion of her emerging from the flames in a burst of embers. Her red eyes twinkle deviously in the firelight, her ram horns curled tightly above her wild black hair.

“Devil!” One of the men screams, shooting an arrow at Ruby.

I stop time, walk over to the arrow, and snap it. Time resumes, and the pieces drop down.

“She’s harmless, just has a flair for the theatric is all. You people look like you’re in bad shape. What happened?”

There are mixed reactions. Some of them are gaping in shock, glancing between where I was just before I stopped time, and were I am now. Others are still watching Ruby, and the archer who shot the arrow is staring at its remains.

It takes a long moment for anyone to answer my question.

“Is that supposed to be some sort of joke? Who are you? Where did you come from?”

“I came from Englevard. I just finished crossing the mountains with my sister here. I’m hunting a man named Sephtis whose magic causes that rot.” I point to the roots of a nearby tree. “Tomorrow I’m heading into Lorencia to fight him.”

“You and what army?” A man asks.

“Shut up Carl. Don’t you see what she just did?” The archer says.

“I intend to fight him alone, but an army would be appreciated. Do you happen to know where I could find one? Is there a resistance I could join?”

“We’re what’s left of it,” Carl says bitterly. “The city is destroyed. Those abominations are completely unkillable. All we can do is pray the aid will come soon.”

Where have I seen this before? It’s almost funny.

“I guess I’ll fight alone then. Unless you want to help?”

Carl stares deep into my eyes. “You’ve seen the city?”

I nod.

“And you think you stand a chance?”

“I do.”

“Damn. Then you’re either crazy, or exactly who we need. Got nothing to lose anyway. I’m in.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Carl,” the archer says.

“She’s just one girl,” says a young man.

“So is Serena Ambrose,” says the woman across from him.

“She’s a Hierophant of Alexandria! That’s different!”

“Who?” I ask.

“The aid I mentioned,” Carl says. “She was here a couple months ago, but left the city shortly before the attack happened. We sent boats to catch up to her and ask that she come back.”

“Well I’m not waiting for her. If Sephtis only attacked after she left, then he was probably waiting for her to leave. He might run away if she comes back. I can’t risk that,” I say.

“Besides, we don’t even know if the boats reached her,” a man says.

“Sephtis is smart. He might have taken countermeasures to ensure the boats were destroyed,” I say.

“You seem quite familiar with him,” Carl says.

“He hurt my loved ones.”

They exchange glances.

“I’ll fight with her,” a woman says.

“Me too,” people echo, but not everyone.

“Those of you who don’t want to fight, you can stay with Ruby,” I say.

“I’ll protect you with my super Ruby punch!” Ruby says, raising a flaming fist.

“The devil isn’t fighting?” The archer asks.

“She’s six,” I say. “If you don’t think you’re stronger than her, you shouldn’t come anyway. You’ll just end up getting in the way.”

That causes several of the people who volunteered to back out. In the end, I just have three people who are going to fight Sephtis with me tomorrow. Carl, Patrick, and Olivia.

“What are your abilities?” I ask them.

“I know the wind rune. I also have a greataxe and know how to use it. I can use wind magic to project my axe slashes out a great distance,” Carl says.

“I know the water rune. I’m decently strong, but only if I’m close to the sea,” Patrick says.

“I’m a lightning mage,” Olivia says. “What about you?”

“I’m a lightning mage too. I can also purify the death rot, manipulate destiny, and control time. Oh, and I have a sword.”

They stare at me.

“Will you take us back to a time before this all happened?” Carl asks with grim chuckle.

“No, I’m sorry. I can only go back in time an hour or so at most.”

“You can actually go back in time?! Gods. I was joking, lass.”

“So if we die, you can just rewind?” Olivia asks, eyes wide.

“Up to a point. My magical exhaustion will carry over, so it could be dangerous. I can’t promise you that I will do that.”

“I see,” Olivia says.

“Here’s my plan. I can locate Sephtis through fate. We push into the city along the coast, getting as close to him as we can. Then I’ll engage him while you provide support.”

“What about the abominations?” Carl asks.

“You said they’re unkillable? What’s the problem exactly?” I ask.

“They just keep reforming. The bodies are connected by tendrils of rot. Hitting them does practically nothing.”

“I’ll deal with them. I don’t think they’ll be a problem.”

“Not a problem, she says,” Carl mutters.

“I hope you’re as good as you say you are,” Olivia says,

I gulp. “Me too.”

The next morning, I leave Ruby behind with the others, and they watch from the top of a mountain as the four of us descend towards the city, moving quickly.

It isn’t long before we encounter the first walking corpse. Carl draws his axe, but before he has a chance to do anything, I shoot it with a moondrop and it collapses.

“What was that?” Patrick asks.

“I just purified it,” I say.

Two more walking corpses come out of the trees, and promptly collapse as I purify them too.

“Okay. I like her,” Olivia says.

We continue towards the city, with me taking care of all the undead, and we reach the coast just after midday. There’s a large wall around the city that extends a short distance into the sea.

“I’ll get us through the wall.” Patrick reaches his hands out towards the sea, and a torrent of water is pulled towards us. It smashes into the wall, bringing a section of it down. We quickly run through the opening as the water recedes.

Sephtis’s thread is still pointing into the city. He’s here.

Once we’re inside, we run down a street of charred buildings by the sea. It’s so sad. This place must have been so beautiful before all this.

“Abomination! I hope you weren’t kidding us, lass!” Carl says.

The monster lumbers towards us, crushing buildings in its wake. It’s vaguely human-shaped, but made of hundreds of rotting bodies, sewn together by mycelial threads. It reaches out towards us with a massive, deformed hand.

Luminous Authority!

Over the last couple years, I’ve improved my range to more than a hundred paces. As the hand enters the vast bubble of gentle light around me, it falls apart into individual bodies, each one of them rapidly purified of the rot.

“Holy hell,” Carl says.

The abomination unleashes a deafening guttural roar, and pulls back, as if in pain.

Moondrops!

I unleash a volley of moondrops at the monster, each one exploding into a burst of purifying mist on contact, and causing bodies to fall from the mass in droves. The monster collapses under the barrage, dissolving into a pile of death.

“See, not a problem. Anyway, Sephtis is this way,” I head down a wide road leading away from the coast. We’re close.

“The town square is down this road,” Carl says.

Sure enough, we come into a large square with a fountain in the middle. Instead of water, the fountain is spurting putrid blood. There are pieces of corpses everywhere, and stalks of rot are coming up from between the cobblestones.

Sephtis is relaxing in the shade of a restaurant awning, eating a loaf of bread. “I thought I heard someone making a mess. One of my pets died. You’ve managed more than the locals at least.” Then he looks up at us, and there is a moment of surprise in his eyes. “It’s you?” He chuckles. “The assault on Ymirskrod went well, I take it? What was your name again?”

I stop time, walk over to him, and cut off his head.

“Ayla,” I say as time resumes.

“How rude,” his head says, flopping onto the restaurant table.

Then despite being under the suppression of my Luminous Authority, both his body and severed head explode into spores. These spores are different, far more difficult to purify than the regular rot. I can’t purify them all. Some get on me, and others spread in the wind.

The spores land on the corpse chunks strewn about, and then from each of them, a new body grows like a fungus, grey robes, leather boots, and all.

There are now hundreds of him.

“Fine. I’ll kill all of you.”

I stop time.

Lightning!

I rapidly fly to every single copy and cut off its head in stopped time. I have plenty of time before the weight of the moon catches up to me. I land on the roof of a church to look down and make sure that I got them all, then time resumes.

Hundreds of heads plop to the ground.

“You’re just making this harder on yourself Ayla,” the closest head says.

Then they all explode into spores, a hundred times more than before.

“How are we possibly supposed to help in a battle like this?!” Carl asks.

“Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you,” I say. “I think I just didn’t want to fight alone.”

“Emotional support then,” Olivia says.

“Kick his ass!” Patrick shouts.

“Also, I kind-of thought you three would be stronger,” I say.

“Hey!” Carl shouts.

There are perhaps a thousand copies of Sephtis now, growing out of the various corpses throughout the city.

I decide I need a different approach. I liked it better when there was just one of him.

Time Reversal!

“The assault on Ymirskrod went well, I take it? What was your name a—oh dear,” he pauses.

Hold on. This is different from before.

“My patron is telling me you rewound time. Have we already had this conversation?”

“I cut off your head the first time.”

“I see. Well I’m being asked to tell you something… Ah, that you have already lost.”

My blood runs cold. Vorfaul the Soul Defiler remembers. Of course it does. If even I am unbound by the flow of time, why would an Old God be? It isn’t even in this reality.

“Please tell little Vorfie that alternate timelines don’t count,” I say.

“Oh! You are familiar! Perhaps we have more in common than I thought!” Sephtis says.

“I thought you were going to fight him. Did we come all this way to chat?” Carl says.

“You’re right.”

I dash forward.

Celestial Mercy!

My slash cleaves Sephtis down the middle, and his eyes contort in agony. The two pieces of his body explode into spores, but much fewer than last time. I smile. Progress.

However, just like last time, the spores resist my Luminous Authority and land on the various corpse parts strewn about. About twenty new Sephtis copies grow this time.

Celestial Mercy is exhausting. If I cut all the copies down with that, I’ll run out of stamina fast, and they will still proliferate.

No. I need something better. I need to utterly annihilate him in a single attack. Ideally I would want to stop time and hit him with Celestial Mercy many times, but Celestial Mercy requires time to be moving forward, its weight carrying my blade.

An image comes to me, the ripples of moonlight, reflected in the waves of a lake.

This idea, it’s utterly mad. I don’t know if it’s even possible. No, I will make it possible.

Time Reversal.

“The assault on Ymirskrod went well, I take it?”

I dash toward him, and rapidly move forward and backwards in time. Faster and faster, I vibrate time back and forth, until the alternate timelines all layer on top of one another. Then, within dozens of layered timelines all at once, with every conceivable direction and angle of attack, my blade slashes with Celestial Mercy.

Moonripples!

Sephtis is obliterated. All that remains of him are a few random bits of his body, a finger, a lock of hair, a chunk of some organ.

They explode into spores.

Luminous Authority!

I focus my moonlight on the spores, and with so few of them, I manage to purify them away.

“Was that it? That was quick,” Carl says.

“No. I have a bad feeling,” I say, catching my breath.

I’m panting heavily after that. I still feel the drain on my stamina from each and every timeline. That one cast of Moonripples was as exhausting as doing Celestial Mercy a hundred times.

And Sephtis’s strand of fate is still there, pointing to a single spore drifting through the air.

A spore I cannot purify.