Ch: 117.8 (Patreon)

Where the hell am I?

What am I doing here?

Wasn’t I just….

That's weird; I can't remember what I was doing.

I vaguely remember exploring the Endless Forest, but the details feel hazy. And whenever I try to recall any recent memories, I can't remember anything specific.

Looking around, I hoped to spot anything that could jog my failing memory, but there was nothing—absolutely nothing around me.

I was trapped in a dense fog with not even a single silhouette in the distance. The only thing I could see was the ground, and it was just as featureless as the fog around me, maybe even more so. It looked like I was standing on concrete, but there wasn't a single blemish making it look unnatural and too uniform.

It didn’t matter what direction I moved; everything felt the same, to the point I considered the possibility I wasn’t actually moving. Was I trapped in some sort of skill?

I try to scan my soul for anything out of place, only to freeze in place when I can't sense it at all. But that’s impossible, unless….

The fog slowly lifts as I finally realize where I am. “I’m in my soul. But what happened?” With the fog gone, I could finally see my surroundings, and it wasn't the scenery I was familiar with. There were no plants or rocky outcroppings; there wasn’t a body of water stretching into the distance, only a blank canvas stretching in every direction. A world utterly devoid of substance, and even with my memory problems, I knew this was wrong.

“Oh, so you finally noticed,” a powerful voice echoes through my soul, catching me off guard.

“Who’s there,” I swing around to face the direction the voice originated from and immediately come face to face with two figures I wasn’t expecting. “Not you two again,” I can’t help but hiss in displeasure.

“Still disrespectful, I see,” a featureless ten-foot-tall being made of pure light hovers above me. “Maybe I should’ve destroyed you when I had the chance,” Goddess Ilia threatens me, but for some reason, I’m not as intimidated as the first time I ran into the pair.

"Is that necessary, Sister?" An equally tall being made of churning darkness lazily asks its glowing partner.

“But the disrespect,” Ilia’s avatar howls with fury. “We give this mortal our time, and she has the gal to look down on us? Look, she isn’t even kneeling; the audacity!”

“True,” I feel the avatar of death turn her attention to me. Even without any facial features, it felt like she was looking at me worryingly. “Then again, the situation warrants a change in protocol.”

“What situation?” I ask without any hesitance. “Are you two the reason my soul is like this?” The words tumble out of my mouth as if I had no filter. I knew I was talking to two divine beings or at least their avatars, but for my life, I couldn’t muster up a reason to care.

Little has changed since the last time I spoke to them. Hell, I've only gained a few levels in Sense Soul, and yet they felt entirely different to me. Why is that? The first time I met them after unlocking Soul Devourer, it felt like either of them could crush me with a mere thought, but now I wasn't feeling any of that.

The two avatars still radiated power and evoked strong emotions when I looked directly at them for too long, but nothing close to what I remember. It’s almost like, “You two aren’t really here,” I mumble. “No, that’s not right,” I correct myself. Looking up, I notice a distinct lack of any moons hovering overhead. “You two aren’t connected to your main bodies this time.”

Both avatars are visibly taken aback by my claim. “How astute,” Ebeon notes in a cold voice.

Ilia’s avatar scoffs at me. “You can tell all that, and yet you’ve failed to realize what’s happening to you," she says smugly.

“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand,” I stare at the avatar of light until my eyeballs start to feel like they’re burning.

The ten-foot-tall creature of light floats down and leans over until her featureless face is mere inches from mine. “You’re dying,”I can feel the joy radiating off her when she gives me the grim news.

"You're lying," I take a hesitant step away from the angry avatar.

“And why would I need to do that?” Ilia's avatar floats back up next to her sister's and continues to look down on me, literally and figuratively.

I didn’t want to take the psychotic goddesses’ word on it, but she was right; she had little reason to lie to me. Of course, you would’ve expected grim news to come from the literal goddess of death, though from my previous experience with the duo, I learned the goddess of light took more joy in the suffering of the living than her sister. Ironic though it is.

"Am I really dying?" I ask the more level-headed of the two sisters, hoping this was all some sick joke. Technically, mortals are constantly dying; we just usually do it slowly.

“Yes,” Ebeon's single-word answer hits me harder than any blow I’ve ever taken. But the sad part was I had no idea why I was dying or why I was in my soul in the first place.

I’m about to ask what happened, but Ebeon’s avatar holds up one of its hands in a waiting gesture. “Your soul is struggling to keep up with Soul Devourer. It’s the reason why you are here. Anybody else experiencing what you are now would’ve had their soul shatter from the shock, but your skills saved you.”

“I don’t understand,” I struggled to follow along because I still had no idea what led to this happening.

Ilia’s avatar makes a scoffing noise, despite not having a nose or mouth. “Like all mortals, you bit off more than you could chew.”

“I thought you enjoyed what she did, Sister?” Ebeon comments.

“Oh, I did,” the avatar of light radiates joy. “Such dedication to your friend. Refusing to let her die,” Ilia’s avatar brings its hand to its blank face and mines blowing a chef’s kiss. “Such strife, absolutely delicious. However," the light coming off Ilia’s avatar dulls. “Your friend has already come to terms with what’s happening. I thought she would fight harder, but apparently, everyone has their breaking point.”

“You can’t blame her,” Ebeon defends whoever her sister is talking about, and I feel the need to do the same.

“Tabitha would never give up!” I shout angrily, and suddenly part of my memory returns to me. I didn’t enter the forest alone; my teacher Tabitha came with me. Clutching at my head, I groan as weeks’ worth of memories starts to return to me. I remembered all our adventures, the ups and downs we faced together, and finally, our encounter with the winged serpent. However, there was a noticeable blank space after that.

“You’re just now remembering your companion; pathetic,”Ilia does not attempt to hide her contempt for me. “Though I suppose it is funny, you tried so hard to save her, and yet in doing so, you’ve doomed her to a fate worse than death.”

“I don’t,” I stammer.

“Perhaps this can help,” Ebeon’s avatar turns toward her sisters as if asking for her participation.

“Your generosity is wasted on her,” Ilia growls.

“But it is mine to give,” Ebeon replies in a collected voice.

“Fine,” Ilia reluctantly agrees with her sister, and both hold out their hands toward the surface of my soul.

I'm forced to turn away as a blinding light erupts from the ground. The light quickly fades, and when it does, I'm standing overlooking a dimly lit room. I could clearly see Tabitha lying in the center of the room, and she wasn’t alone. Multiple silvery ghost-like creatures were trying to get to her, but Tabitha had someone protecting her, me. And like that, the last missing parts of my memory snapped into place, and I remembered everything in its entirety.

I remember tearing apart the first couple of soul horrors, and then I was suddenly here, suffering from memory problems.

Reaching down, I try to interact with what I was seeing, but the surface of my soul was still there, only invisible. Other me was in the middle of tearing apart one of the ghosts, but everything was moving in slow motion. Oh yeah, I almost forgot time moved slower when I was inside my soul. When I started fighting, there were dozens of soul horrors, but counting the one other me was fighting, and only four were left.

In slow motion, I watch myself use Soul Devourer to rip apart the ghost in my grasp easily. "How is my body still moving if my consciousness is here?" I asked Goddess Ebeon, as she was the most likely to answer me.

“We already explained that,” Ilia's avatar crosses its arms in front of its nonexistent chest.

Thankfully Ebeon doesn't share her sisters' disdain and answers me. “The best way I can explain it to you is this, though the soul horrors you’re absorbing don’t have souls, the experience they’re made of contains high levels of emotions which simulate a soul. Your soul can’t process them fast enough, which is why your soul currently looks like it does.”

"All the experience you're absorbing is covering your soul and crushing it. Your soul used your skills to draw your consciousness in to save itself and prevent it from crumbling under the weight. With your consciousness and soul closer together, the two can better weather the storm," Ebeon explains.

“But that doesn’t explain how my body is moving,” I point out the obvious.

I expect Ebeon to berate me for interrupting, but her avatar just nods its head. "The answer is much simpler than you think; just like your soul used your skills to bring your consciousness here forcefully, it also used them to keep your body moving. So you see your body moving on pure instinct using your many skills.”

“Mainly the one we warned you about,” Ilia adds in an I told you so voice.

“Indeed,” Ebeon says remorsefully.

“Why is my body moving on its own a bad thing?" I ask, confused. "As long as I protect Tabitha, I don't care what happens."

“How short-sided of you,” Ilia's avatar chuckles in a way that worries me.

“Your body isn’t protecting your friend,” Ebeon clarifies. “It’s responding to all the threats around it. And once all the soul horrors are dealt with, it will turn its attention to her.”

“And once that happens, you know what will happen.” I never thought a being of light could sound so dark.

“No problem, I’ll just wake up," I close my eyes and focus on leaving my soul like I've done hundreds of times. Only this time, nothing happens.

“Oh, still here?” Ilia jokes as I crack one eye open, expecting to be back in the real world.

I quickly closed my eye again and focused on leaving my soul, but I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t leave.

“Fuck, why won’t it work,” I curse and stomp my feet in frustration. Underneath me, my body slays the third to last soul horror. The battle was still in slow motion; my body was just killing them far too quickly. One of the remaining two was huge, but at the rate my body was going, I didn’t have much time before it killed the last of them and moved on to Tabitha.

"Help me get out of here," I fall to my knees and slam my head into the invisible ground and beg the two goddesses for help. I didn't care how I looked as long as they helped me stop myself from ripping Tabitha's soul out.

“This is how you should’ve been acting from the start, mortal,” Ilia patronizes me, but I never really expected her to help. It was Ebeon I was pleading to, and we all knew it.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t,” Ebeon’s remorseful reply makes me feel like I was dunked in a sea of ice.

“Why not?” I shout, trembling at the prospect that in a few short minutes, I would kill Tabitha with my own hands and damn my soul to an eternity of suffering and eventual destruction.

“It is as you said,” Ebeon reminds me. “With the state of your soul, our connection to our realms is severed. We are, but fragments cut off from the whole. Only together can we show you what’s happening outside, and even that is draining on us. And we aren’t as free as you might think.”

“Sister, I believe you’re saying too much,” Ilia cuts her sister off.

“Why does it matter?” Ebeon retorts. “You believe she will break the taboo and her soul corrupted? So why does it matter what I say?”

"Because our business is our own and not meant for mortal ears,” Ilia almost sounds like she’s threatening her sister.

"It didn't always use to be,” Ebeon responds in a composed manner, but her statement has a lot of bite to it.

Seeing two goddesses arguing before me was something else, but I had bigger things to worry about. So, while I half pay attention to the two, I continue trying to force myself out of my soul. But it isn't easy, with the two discussing major events as if I weren't here.

“We used to bestow our powers to mortals all the time,”Ebeon reminisces.

“And they destroyed each other,” Ilia counters.

"Only because He spurred them on," Ebeon says darkly.

"He was destroyed, and his cities wiped from existence,”Ilia’s avatar glows with righteous fury.

“Obviously, not enough. Where do you think the mortals are now?” Ebeon's retort sends her sister's avatar reeling.

“Fuck!” I scream at the top of my lungs, grabbing the attention of both goddesses. “If the two of you aren’t going to help, can you piss off? I can't concentrate with the two of you distracting me.” I point an accusing finger at Ebeon, “Where were you days ago when I had a million questions about the ruins in the crater!”

"How dare you talk to us like that," Ilia's avatar expands to over thirty feet tall and looms over me threateningly, but I cut her off before she can finish.

“Shut up,” I stand my ground, a mere speck in front of a giant. "You're just a fragment; you said so yourself. You have no power here. I do.”

“You!” The avatar of light deflates like a balloon leaking air until it's back to its original size.

Stomping around, I curse the two. They had all the answers I wanted, but I hadn't the time to sit and listen. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch my body kill the last ordinary soul horror and grit my teeth when it starts fighting the final one.

“Unless you two can take away Soul Devourer or have a way for me to escape, I don’t want to hear anything else from you!” The two avatars stare at me, dumbstruck; obviously, unused to having a mortal being so disrespectful to them.

Ilia’s avatar looks like it wants to crush me, but Ebeon’s just continues to stare at me with its featureless face. Then, finally, Ebeon speaks, but it isn't to argue with me. “I would if I could, but even if we were connected to our hosts, neither Ilia nor I could take away a skill once it’s been obtained by someone. Especially not a skill created by another.”

“Ebeon!” Ilia shouts in shock.

"Wait, when I first met you guys, you said Soul Devourer fell under both your domains. So what's this about it not being yours? How does that make any sense?”

“Ebeon, don’t!” Ilia warns her sister.

Ebeon’s avatar lets out a sigh. “I suppose I’ve said too much. The only thing else I’ll say on the subject is that we are merely managing the skill and many other similar ones for another. It is your skill; you must be the one to control it.”

“I’m trying,” I plead. “I’ll take anything at his point.”

It's hard to read a face of shifting darkness, but I felt Ebeon's avatar was giving me a sad look. She seemed like she wanted to say something more but was hesitating to do so.

"Do I need to pledge myself to you?" I offer when I see she's on the cusp of helping me. "Help me save Tabitha, and I'll do anything you ask."

“That won’t work,” Ilia answers for her sister. “There are rules even we must follow, and one of them is that we can no longer freely give mortals our boons. You must earn everything yourself.”

“My sister speaks the truth.” Ebeon reluctantly nods.

“A hint; anything,” I continue to press.

The two avatars stare at me, unmoving, not saying a single word.

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” I start clawing at the ground.

“Not if you do that,” Ilia haughtily comments, but I ignore her and focus on trying to dig my way to my soul.

I was panicking but wasn't so distraught that I missed the clues the two had already given me. Of course, it was mixed in with all the arguing and back and forth, but they subtly hinted at what I needed to do.

The avatars told me they were disconnected from their hosts, meaning there were no moons to stare up at to escape. Similarly, they weren't there to pull me out of my memories if I somehow made my way to the ocean, so that was a no-go. So that left only one way I could get out of here; I needed to force my way out. And that's what I've been trying to do.

Usually, when I'm not forced out of my soul space, it's because I stopped and triggered a specific reaction between my soul and my conciseness; but with all this crap covering my soul, the two couldn't resonate as they should. So I needed to punch through and make my way to my actual soul, and I needed to do it fast. But that was easier said than done.

The ground didn’t just look like concrete; it was solid like it too. I try to use Soul Manipulation to shift the stuff aside, but because my skill wasn’t that high of a level, and technically the crap wasn't yet part of my soul, it resisted all my efforts to do so.

If only I had access to even a sliver of my soul; if I did, I could shape it into something to help me cut threw the soul horror experience, but alas, I was alone.

Wait, was I alone? I glance up at the two avatars, silently watching me struggle. Could that work? "You two said you couldn't actively help me, right?"

“That is correct,” Ebeon quickly answers.

“But you can be forced to help me,” I counter.

“And how are you going to do that?” Ilia laughs at the notion but freezes when she sees the crazed look in my eye.

“I’m just guessing, but I’m assuming the two of you were left in my soul after our last encounter.”

“That is correct,” Ebeon confirms my suspicions. “But we can in no way affect you, as it would go against the agreement. We fragments are merely here to better allow our patrons to observe you easier,” she adds.

Putting aside the fact the goddess of death just admitted to spying on me like I was some reality tv star, I move forward with my plan.

"Then the two of you are basically the same as foreign skills,” I look at the duo hopefully.

“In a word,” Ebeon starts, but Ilia takes offense to my reasoning.

“We are nothing like the pitiful skill's you mortals use. On the contrary, as you can see, we are autonomous. How else would we be able to avoid this filth,” Ilia gestures to the ground I'm trying to break through.

She was right, of course; unlike other foreign skills I've interacted with, the two avatars were in a class all their own. There was no way I could use them without their consent, meaning it was entirely up to them if my plan worked or not.

“We will not help you,” Ilia continues to stress.

“I don’t need your help,” I snap back. Underneath me, my body was slowly overcoming the final soul horror, and that was in slow motion. I only had a few precious minutes left. “I just need the two of you to stand there and not resist.”

Ebeon’s avatar reels back in shock, understanding what I was trying to get at, while her sister's avatar stares at me confused, though she refuses to admit as such. I don’t have time to explain my plan in detail, so I just jump into it. Reaching out with Sense Soul, I try to find the core of the two avatars.

“You dare!” Ilia’s avatar exclaims, but Ebeon reaches over and places a placating hand on her sister’s avatar.

“Wait, Sister, let's see where this goes." Ilia’s avatar continues to grumble, but she doesn’t resist me.

Looking at the pair with Sense Soul was like looking into the core of a nuclear reactor. The avatars were bodies of pure power, the likes of which I'd never seen before, but I didn't need to understand the type of energy to use it.

My mind felt like it was splitting in half as I zeroed in on the cores of the two avatars' power. Their bodies were massive, but at the center of them was a single whisp of the goddess’s true power. Now for the hard part, if they resisted me at all, my plan would fail.

Reaching out with Soul Manipulation, I try to take control of the two whisps of energy. It's hard to do, as, like the soul horror experience, it wasn't my power I was trying to control, but someone else’s. But because they were projected into my soul like any other invasive skill, small parts of my soul had been mixed in with the whisps so they could anchor themselves properly. Which meant I had something to grab ahold of.

“This crazy!” Ilia exclaims, but again Ebeon holds her sister back.

“I think we should let this play out,” Ebeon suggests to her sister. “Neither of us gains anything from letting his skill corrupt her."

“But we aren’t supposed to interfere with mortals,”The avatar of light flickers unsurely.

“And we aren’t,” Ebeon assures her sister. “We told her she had to use her skills, and that is what she is doing."

“Our main conciseness’s aren’t going to like this,” Ilia says doubtfully.

“Maybe yours, but I don’t think mine will,” Ebeon’s avatar corrects her sister. “You gain divinity through their suffering; I only gain it through their death and subsequent rest. And I doubt my progenitor wants to lose access to either of the two individuals, especially one who was denied a proper rest after their last life. So we should let her save herself."

“I don’t like it,” the avatar of light grumbles in an oddly human way.

“I’ll take responsibility if need be.”

“So be it,” Ilia reluctantly agrees.

As soon as the deities finish their little exchange, they drop their guard, and I can finally control the two whisps of power.

“Good luck,” Ebeon’s avatar wishes me well as her avatar starts to fade.

Oppositely, Ilia’s avatar is less joyful. "This is only a one-time thing," she stresses as her avatar disappears.

Soon there are just two whisps of energy floating in the air, both no bigger than a sewing needle; one pitch black, the other a blinding white light. I pull the two whisps into my hand with Soul Manipulation and look down. When the avatars disappeared, so did the portal showing me what was happening outside my soul.

In my hand, the two whisps circle each other in perfect harmony. “Thank you,” I mumble to them. Despite all my misgivings, the two were saving my life, whether indirectly or not, and I was extremely grateful.

Shit, was I going to have to start praying to them?

Ignoring that train of thought, I direct my hand containing the two whisps toward the once again plain ground beneath me. The two whisps float downward, and the ground, which wasn't scratched by any of my previous attempts to escape, disintegrates when faced against the swirling energies.

The whisps don’t even need to touch the ground, to obliterate it, so I spin them faster and push harder. I had no idea what was happening outside my soul, but I knew I was cutting it close.

“I promise I won’t let you die,” I repeatedly tell myself as I dig toward my soul.

Toward freedom.

*********

4,200 words.

Holly crap, this chapter took on a life of its own. I will take a small break and do some chores, so while I’m doing that, please tell me what you think of the chapter.

When I'm done, I will start working on the first chapter of 118, so if you think of anything important, don’t hesitate to mention it.

Thanks for reading, and as always, stay safe.