Chapter 29: Short fight

“A white aura…?”

Sarah was looking at that scene in amazement, it was so powerful that it could bend the space around it; what truly surprised her was the owner of that aura, it was the same girl who had that black and nauseating aura. The sight of that pure flame made her forget, for just a moment, she was the same person who talked to her through Mom’s body and she pinched herself on the cheeks just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming that sudden change; it was still there.

Now that she knew it wasn’t a dream, there was something else to worry about. That aura was familiar, but instead of charging at her enraged as she would usually do, she instead took a huge breath to calm down and ask:

“Where you…the Goddess who cursed Mom and her ancestors?”

Nysilia, before that question, didn’t speak at all but was waiting for Sarah to speak and just stared at her coldly; when that finally happened, she smiled, as she already knew her question.

“Yes.”

Sarah slowly closed her eyes and simply said “I see.”

There was anger in her heart, a lot of questions in her mind and didn’t know where to start, but eventually, emotions started taking over.

Before rushing at the Goddess, she gently put Dai on the ground, whose burns were slowly healing and then she opened her eyes, which now were full of rage while her arms transformed into blades.

“Do you seriously want to fight?” asked Nysilia while keeping her cold stare.

There was no answer to that question ”Why?” her voice was full of anger and echoed in that wasteland, once full of people “Why did you do that!? What her ancestors did to deserve such a cruel curse?!”

“You already know the answer. They and others betrayed someone we, Gods, loved. That’s it.”

“Someone you loved…? Who could be so important to curse someone else!?”

“If you really want to know” Nysilia opened her arms “then let me test if you are worth it!” blood started pouring out and fluctuating from Nysilia’s back while quickly taking the shape of a spear and then the same happened again, again and again, until over 100 spears were gravitating around the Goddess. Her aura changed colour to black and embed the surrounding area, with her, Sarah and Dai in it; even with no light entering, that place was illuminated somewhat.

Sarah’s blades started going on fire, her feet were freezing the ground and the wind, which was slowly rising her body, was also freezing, creating floating platforms of ice at every step she took, meanwhile, her hair was standing on because of electricity flowing in her body.

“Are you going all-in? Aren’t you worried to die because of those untrained powers of yours?” Nysilia asked and Sarah responded before rushing at her

“Mind your business.”

With a jump boosted by the wind, she quickly went towards her opponent, whose spears started going against her on their own. The girl tried to cut the first one but it resulted impossible and the only thing she could do was to deflect it.

‘Is that seriously made of blood??’

While thinking that, tens of spears were already flying towards her at insane speed; she dodged them but those immediately changed direction and went back, with one of them being able to pass through her right shoulder, causing it to completely shatter and her arm fell off. In response to that pain, she made the wind blow stronger around her, causing the creation of a tornado and redirecting all the spears coming towards her; while in there she checked the injury.

‘The arm isn’t regenerating…’ she grasped on the injury ‘Not even 2 minutes since we started and I’m already in this state…’

She let out a “Tsk” out of frustration, which would have been impossible to hear from outside the tornado but, somewhat, Nysilia heard it and said

“Already frustrated about this situation?” she waited for an answer but nothing “Not going to talk uh?” she pointed a finger towards the tornado “Let’s see what are you going to do now-”

Suddenly, from the tornado came out a big snake with human teeth and bit her hand, not with enough force to tear it off but enough to keep a grip on it; shortly after, Sarah quickly came out of the tornado using the wind as a boost and the snake as a grappling hook. Once close enough, she transformed the snake back into a blade and tried to pierce through the Goddess’ chest…but her whole body stopped moving right before the attack.

‘W-What the fuck is happening??’

Nysilia giggled at the panic in Sarah’s eyes “Sorry, I had to stop you from hurting yourself but it was fun while it lasted.” she said while touching the blade and it transformed back into an arm, which was full of burns due to her overusing her fire powers.

‘H-how did she-’

Before Sarah could finish that thought, she felt a huge pain in her chest as the Goddess’ left hand came close to the girl’s chest and it was moving in rhythm with her heart, giving unbearable pain every time she tried to close her hand.

‘It’s like she’s grabbing my heart-!’ Sarah thought while trying to contain any scream; she never felt something like that, it wasn’t just pain but also a sense of oppression surrounding her.

Nysilia slowly raised her right hand at the height of the girl’s head and she started having a headache.

“Mmh…I wonder if I do this…” the Goddess said as her right hand moved a bit and with her thumb started touching something, which was causing the girl’s headache to worsen.

“What are you-” Sarah tried to say before her body started trembling while biting her tongue unintentionally and, even when Nysilia lowered both her arms, that situation continued for several minutes; when it ended, it left the girl in a state of confusion.

The Goddess kept a satisfied smile for the whole time and when it looked like that Sarah was recovering(obviously quicker than a human) she put a fist in front of her face and raised two fingers.

“How many fingers do you see?” she asked and Sarah, in response, spit on her face.

Silence fell on both of them for several seconds; after that, Sarah’s body was repelled away by an unknown force and crushed against the ground.

While her body wasn’t blocked anymore, she felt exhausted. She tried to get up but a lance quickly went flew towards her, stopped right before hitting her throat and the girl could feel the cold point of the weapon touching her skin.

“If you admit you have lost, then the test will end but you won’t have answers. So, what do you say?” Nysilia asked while still smiling and Sarah’s answer was a middle finger; nothing else.

The Goddess sighed and a lance pointed at Dai, who was still unconscious.

“Last chance.” she said

That move completely surprised the girl for a second and promptly said

“Wait a minute! What does he have to do with this test?”

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“Nothing.” Nysilia said.

“Then why-”

“Give me an answer!” the goddess raised her voice and assumed a serious look on her face “Do you want to stop?”

‘It’s impossible. She won’t kill him just like that, right? She won’t kill someone she knows!’ Sarah thought for a while and then answered while acting tough

“Fuck you. You would never do that and I don’t care about him. I won’t stop until I have an answer from you!”

Nysilia sighed again “Maybe you don’t care…but someone else will.” said that, the lance flew towards Dai and while for the Goddess that moment lasted for less than ten seconds, for Sarah time literally slow down in front of her eyes.

As she was looking confused at the lance flying slowly towards its target, she heard a whisper.

“Please”

The girl didn’t look around. That was different from the other whispers she heard in the past; it wasn’t her voice anymore but someone else’s and it was coming from the soul.

“Help me save him…let meborrow your body…”

Dai’s appearance and the place around them changed for not even a second. Visions started flashing before her eyes, being about places or people unknown to her. Right after that, her body started moving on her own and in the blink of an eye, she was there, blocking the lance with her left hand, which was now black with red stripes and pointy fingers and the time was flowing normally again. Her gaze, enraged, moved towards Nysilia and she waved her hands to salute whoever was controlling Sarah’s body and said

“Don’t worry. You know how I am!”

A sigh was let out by whoever was manoeuvring the body before the control returned to the girl and her left arm returned to normal.

She looked at it and asked “What…just happened?” She looked back at Nysilia, who had a melancholic smile on her face.

“Nothing serious.” The goddess answered while shaking her head “You passed the test.”

After saying that, the black aura surrounding them disappeared and all the lances transformed back into liquid blood, which returned to the Goddess’s body.

Sarah, still not understanding what just happened and why that woman’s expression suddenly changed, said

“You know…you are probably the weirdest person I’ve known so far.”

“Don’t say that or she’ll start playing with you again…”

Sarah turned around hearing that voice; was Dai and he was slowly getting up.

“You shouldn’t move, your legs haven’t fully recovered.” she said as she went close to help him.

He tried to reassure her “I’m fine.” but completely failed.

“ “I’m fine”, said the guy who has risked being burned alive. You are such an idiot.”

“Said the girl who wanted to fight a goddess and was thrown on the ground.” he responded.

“Wait- you saw everything??” she asked surprised

Dai nodded “I thought of helping but I knew it would have been useless.”

“You fucking coward-”

Before they could start arguing, Nysilia intervened while slowly fluctuating down.

“Sarah, didn’t want to ask me something?”

“Mh? Oh right! Answers!” She almost forgot her reason to fight her.

Nysilia nodded “But I’ll answer just three questions and I can choose whether I want to answer or not, if that happens you’ll have wasted a question.”

‘Obviously, it was all too good to be true.’ Sarah thought and was too exhausted to argue with her rules.

“Plus” Nysilia added “I’ll answers three of Dai’s question too, same rules obviously-”

“Wait wait.” Sarah swung her arms forward to grab the Goddess's attention “Why? He didn’t do anything to deserve them!”

“Call it favouritism!” Nysilia promptly said.

“...Are you serious?” she slowly looked towards Dai, who seemed actually confused by that decision.

Nysilia ignored Sarah’s question and the look of incredulity in her eyes.

“Then, what’s your first question?”

“...Who was that person you Gods loved so much?”

“The Emperor, one of the First Zonnikies. He was like a son to us.”

“Mh…you Gods surely love to do favouritism…”

“Tha’s not totally true…” Nysilia said while looking away with guilt.

“At least, make it more believable…” Sarah argued and then changed the subject. “Anyway, next question. This Emperor you are talking about, why is he so important?”

“The answer was in the last memory you two saw. Our objective was to create auto-sufficient humans by sharing the secrets of the soul and aura, that was The Emperor’s job.”

“Wait-” intervened Dai, who has been deep in his thoughts until now. “You told me that 3 Gods fell into a slumber and from what we saw in that last memory, there was a fourth one who escaped…does that mean you are that one?”

Nysilia simply nodded.

“Ok. I won’t ask you about your reasons but at least tell me; did you Gods want to create auto-sufficient humans because you knew already you would have lost the war?”

Nysilia smiled “You wasted your question.”

“Oh come on!” Dai said exasperated.

Sarah looked at him confused “But she smiled…Isn’t that like a yes?”

“Yeah, it could be. The problem is that she loves to lie and confuse people.”

“Hey, don’t say that! That’s not true at all…” Nysilia said while looking away with guilt again.

“Again, you are not believable!!” Sarah and Dai argued in unison.

The Goddess watched her right wrist, faking to have a watch and said “Would you look at that! We don’t have much time. You have to be fast with your questions!”

The guy sighed “Ok, my last question is: What’s the point of seeing those memories?”

“It’s because your souls are connected to them. You probably already know who I’m talking about. And those memories are just a consequence of your souls slowly closing the gap between you and your counterpart.”

That question only worsened the state of the guy’s brain, which was storming with questions and when he was about to ask something else, the Goddess interrupted him

“You finished your questions. It’s time for Sarah to ask her last one.”

“...Can I at least have a bottle of water?” he asked with tired eyes.

“Sure” as she replied, a bottle of water appeared out of thin air right in Dai’s hands, meanwhile he looked at Sarah, as a way to give her a hint on what to ask. The girl noticed him and nodded, then looked back at the Goddess and asked

“I remember The Witch’s memory and with your answer to Dai’s question, I now have a doubt.”

“Go on then.” Nysilia said.

“...If they were together like a couple and our souls are connected to them…does that mean we’ll have to fuck one day?”

That question caused Dai to almost choke on the water and had to spit it.

“W-What kind of question is that??” he asked embarrassed.

“Why? It’s a fair question! Imagine if one day we end up hating each other and because of some weird shit we HAVE to do it we have to be mentally prepared no?”

“...Your imagination is scaring me…”

“Hey.” She crossed her arms “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it with me?”

“I-I-I mean-” I mumbled out of embarrassment ‘How am I supposed to answer???’

“Mh?” she was waiting for an answer and got closer to him. “So?”

“E-ehm- I-”

That situation was suddenly put to a stop by Nysilia’s laugh and both Dai and Sarah looked towards her. Her smile was a genuine one and that laugh was so contagious, it lead the guy and the girl to laugh about what just happened. Once finished, the Goddess had to take a huge breath before speaking

“Sorry, you reminded me about those two again and something that happened on their birthdays. You must know that they were born on the same exact date and it wasn’t something we Gods calculated” she sighed “Fate is seriously unpredictable eh?”

Dai could only smile and think ‘I’m finally starting to see something from her true nature…’

Meanwhile, Sarah was looking at the sky, thinking of something with a serious look on her face and right before Dai was able to ask her what was worrying her, a crack in the sky, like it was made of glass formed and within seconds it opened, forming a fracture. From the inside of it, something that looked like a red vortex was visible.

“Shit. Is he already here?”

Hearing Nysilia being worried, both Dai and Sarah both became alert and looked at the fracture

“What is that?” Dai asked Nysilia.

“A spatial-time fracture. It can be created by Wanderers, the same entities you saw in the last memory…but they only create those when they transport others, like Zonnikies, which shouldn’t happen in the first place.”

“So…that means…?” Sarah asked.

“That the real troublemaker is coming now, that Arismis was just the point of the iceberg…”

From the fracture, a group of ten people come out, nine of them were Zonnikies and had white masks while the tenth had a brown robe which covered almost their entire body; eight of the Zonnikies had light metal armours which seemed custom-made to perfectly adhere on each body type, with five males having short hair or being bald, meanwhile the five females all had short hair or long ponytails; meanwhile the one who was ahead of everyone in the group was of big stature, had a low fade haircut and was wearing a work light blue shirt, blue pants, thick soiled beige shoes and a black coat over his shoulders.

Nysilia looked at the man with spite “You finally show yourself, Samriel.”