The door to Nuriel's study opened with a gentle hiss. Isin went to lower his head but was stopped by Nuriel's hand which held his face. Isin didn't see when she approached. She was in her human form a perfect faux-human appearance that would drive normal men wild but only discussed Isin. Her perfect face was twisted into deep self satisfaction.With a wave of her hand the Ophanim was dismissed and vanished without a trace.
Isin swallowed, forcing his voice to remain steady. "My Divine, I have come at your summons. How may this servant—"
"Slave." Nuriels correction was soft, but it cut like a blade.
"How may this slave serve?" He forced the words past his teeth, stripping them of any hint of disdain.
Nuriel's smile deepened, her amusement shining in her inhuman eyes. She released his chin and circled him slowly, the predatory grace of a being that did not walk, but glided.
"You continue to leave me astonished, love," she murmured, pushing him forward into the study. "What you are, what you are capable of… every time I think I know your limits, you show me something new. This time I will give you a little surprise."
If not for the wide open door the space would look endless in all directions. Nuriels study was blank, featureless white aside for a single metal desk. There were floating holographic screens filled with unreadable text at the workstation. From his vantage he couldn't make out the text on any of them. He knew better than to ask about them.
Strange, soothing music played in the background—a melody unlike anything Isin had ever heard. Ethereal, almost hypnotic. It wasn't human music. It was something else that moved through aether instead of air. Something that pressed against the edges of his mind.
Isin forced himself to focus. "How could this slave be worthy of a surprise from you?"
"That is true. However, consider it a reward for bringing me that canister. Oh and…" She motioned two boxes over to him. "This is also your reward."
The boxes snapped open and lunged toward him like beasts seeking flesh. Pain exploded through his arms. Blinding, electric agony. The devices latched onto the raw stumps of his severed wrists, metal tendrils burrowing into his nerves. He felt every wire, every connection, as the foreign material melded with his flesh.
He refused to scream in pain, he refused to give Nuriel the satisfaction. He looked her in the eyes as the boxes melded with flesh and dug into his nerves. In moments they started to form themselves into obsidian hands.
He didn't watch the process. The entire time he grinded his teeth and stared daggers at the Angel. Nuriel looked even more smug at his resistance; however she returned to her desk and sat down as a golden throne materialized and the desk fell away.
"I thank you, my Divine." Isin said.
"That is more like it, Number 293. I am quite pleased you returned and my gifts do not end there."
"I am not worthy of more." Isin said. "I simply performed what was expected."
"True, but this is not a gift you can refuse. You see, there has always been something that has eluded me. The secrets to your birth, how you were created. There is no precedent for a human to carry the seed of the Divine. Our power would not do well in the body of a slave woman. You should have died in gestation if that was the case."
"I do not know how Bazaath created me. I would assume it was through normal means, I did have a mother." Isin said.
"I didn't expect you to know. I have figured it out and this is my gift to you. A child, one born of a Divine and a Nephilim."
Isin froze in place as a vat rose out of the ground. It was bathed in light so brightly that it took several moments for him to make out the form of a growing fetus inside. Nuriel reached out a hand and glowing lines of aether fed into the vat. The fetus inside grew rapidly quickly developing before their eyes.
"This will be the next generation of your kind. I believe Bazaath called you a Greater Human. He made you and we made this. This new slave race will be the empyrean."
"This is why you." Isin looked at the vat with a mix of rage and confusion. "This is why, for so many years you—"
"Did you think it would be for any other reason? I have seen how useful you are, how driven the son of Bazaath is. What a good submissive slave you are and now with this I can have more. More like you to do what they are told."
"This is your child, you fucking monster!" His voice was raw with fury. "You would curse your own blood to slavehood?"
He knew that they were evil. The Angel's were nothing more than monsters from the Higher Planes, yet he didn't really know how twisted they were. This was something truly evil, it didn't seem like the right word, it didn't fully encapsulate everything Isin felt at that moment.
Nuriel merely gave him a slow, amused blink.
"This? This is no child of mine." Her voice dropped, icy and full of disgust. "Nothing that carries blood as muddy as you mortals will ever be mine." She exhaled, as if speaking of it tainted the air. "No, this is merely the beginning. A new creation—one only I possess."
Isin's hands clenched, nails digging into the blackened metal of his new prosthetics.
He turned back to the vat, to the infant that was now fully formed and he could see that she was a girl. He felt a thread of aether that pulsed between them, binding them in a way he had only ever felt with his father. This was real. This was his daughter.
His stomach twisted with rage, grief, revulsion and the emotions clashed and burned inside him like an inferno. He saw red, he was already going to be a father with the woman that he loved, with the woman he wanted to return to. Now even that was tainted, now that happiness was scared by this Angel.
"This child will be your responsibility. Raise it well." The liquid in the vat slowly drained but the newborn remained suspended in the air. "Oh looks like a girl. Give her a good name as well. She will be a good slave and breed a nation."
A sharp, piercing cry filled the room. The baby was lifted from the vat, cradled by Nuriel's unseen power, and then she was placed into Isin's arms. His whole body tensed as he stared down at her, feeling the pulse of his own aether weaving with hers. He could feel her breath, the warmth of her tiny body, the way she stilled in his hold, soothed by his presence. Something in him broke at that moment. Tears blurred his vision before he even realized they had formed.
"Mihr." His voice shook.
Nuriel's amusement didn't falter. "Her designation will be M-1, then," Her tone was clinical, disinterested. "She requires aether not milk at this stage. Take care of her. But if you fail…we can always make another one."
***
Bjorn woke up in pain and darkness quickly receding as his heads lifted up. He saw the goblin and several other 'people' ripping flesh from his body. A goblin. A merchant. A child. A warrior he supposedly fought beside. Familiar faces. People he should have known. Except he didn't.
The memories they tried to force into his mind were hazy recollections of encounters, of names, of past conversations that meant nothing. Each of his heads sprang into action. There was fire, poison, water, magic disruption and a roar that froze them in place raged out from each head. The sound wasn't just fury—it was power, dominance, a command written into the bones of the world itself.
Bjorn's savagery only rose more and more as his body knit itself back together. Instead of primana which had a diminished effect on his Hydra Regeneration he used Aether. Ever since he had gained Primana he had used it near exclusively. It made his attacks, his defenses and his healing slower but hid him from the monsters. Aether was too tempting and would draw them in like flies.
In his rage he didn't care. He unleashed everything he had in its pure aetheric form. He didn't stop until every one of the Sanguine Travelers were dead. His body radiated aether as wounds healed, patches of flesh restored and scales regrew. He was done being hunted.
There were a few long minutes of silence as Bjorn stood there thinking about the memories he obtained from his dream. His thoughts swirled around Mihr, his daughter. When he remembered her his heart ached. The connection he had with her was so pure. Yet now he felt regret, loss, pain though he didn't have the memories that came with those emotions. He just had echoes from his past self, from events that happened later on.
"Are you okay?" Failsafe asked.
Bjorn didn't answer right away. He just sat down and lowered his heads.
"When you get a chance, look at your core. I don't know what you did, but it is amazing." Failsafe said.
Bjorn wanted to lash out at something his mind was awash with conflicting emotions but that could wait. He was on a timetable. The longer it took for him to get the mana tree and mana crystal the more damage is done to the world.
He took a deep breath and plunged internally into his inner self. At first glance he didn't see any changes and was getting ready to leave his innerspace when he saw spider webbing cracks flowing from his core throughout his body. The power of his core was spreading rapidly. Even as he watched the strands of power grew in size. Whatever this was, it seemed similar to the mana baptism he had seen both Tanisha and Aurelius experience. However unlike them it wasn't an overflow of mana from their core into their bodies. Instead it was a gradual pulsing of power that was breaking through some unseen limitation on his body.
"What is this?" Bjorn asked.
"You are loosening the animal magic restriction on you." Failsafe said cheerily. "It is kind of like how a snake sheds. You are outgrowing this version of our core."
"What how? Age?" Bjorn asked.
"From what I can tell that had something to do with it but mainly it was the stressors of this place. You used a spell-an actual spell, not animal magic!"
"When I escaped the golem right? What spell was it?" Bjorn asked.
"It was a Flash Step and Mana Muscle Saturation combination. So, uh… hmm. We don't have a name for it yet. It takes your momentum and shoots you in a straight line. It also makes you really durable during the duration. It would be a good ramming attack. How about the Juggernaut Stampede?"
"I am fine with anything. Does this mean I can cast spells like a normal mage?" Bjorn asked.
"We need to widen these cracks, then, yes. Right now we are limited to probably one more spell."
"How is the spell that will finally let me talk coming along?" Bjorn asked.
"If you want me to use these new pathways it will go alot faster but, shouldn't it be used for something that will increase our survivability out here. The monsters aren't very talkative."
"You're right, I was just curious." Bjorn let out a long hissing sigh. "For now we will continue on. We have to find the material quickly."
"Do you want to talk about the memories?" Failsafe asked cautiously.
"No, it doesn't help us right now. We have to find out how to make the cores, nothing else matters."
Juggernaut Stampede
Primana Cost: Variable
(I) Low cost, 10 Primana. Instantly launch forward in a straight line using Flash Step and light muscle infusion. Grants minor impact resistance and momentum-based damage. (II) Medium cost, 15 Primana. Increases speed and durability; impact damage now knocks back targets and breaks minor defenses. Reinforces muscles and bones during movement. (III) High cost, 20 Primana. Fully saturates the body with mana, turning the caster into a living missile. Crashes through solid obstacles, ignores most knockback, and causes area damage on impact. Bones, muscles, and tendons are reinforced to withstand even high-velocity collisions.
Bjorn's senses expanded outward, mapping the cave's layout with practiced ease. Well, that wasn't quite right. They had already been extended. Even as he spoke with Failsafe inside his core that was only what he considered his main consciousness. His parallel minds had been working in tandem, operating independently. It had become so natural, so seamless, that he hardly even noticed when it happened.
One mind conversing with Failsafe. Another mind observing, analyzing, calculating. His other heads had already mapped the terrain. He was in a cave network with a single viable exit that was a near-vertical shaft leading straight up. Most likely, it was the same way the now very dead Traveler had dragged him down.
Luckily he could see in the dark so even the pitch blackness was not a problem for him. He was reading himself to climb up when he tasted something in the air. It was mana, faint but definitely present and definitely further in the cavern. If he wasn't so sensitive to mana he would have missed the purity. It was not a monster, nor the typical corruption present everywhere. He followed the scent into one of the many passageways. Soon he came to a wall of corrupted stone. It wasn't corrupted with mana though, it was maya.
"We are under the Blood Maya lake." Bjorn said.
Bjorn's claws scraped the surface experimentally. At the slightest disturbance, black maya spilled outward, slithering through the air like ink spreading in water before rapidly sealing itself back up. There was something there that was unmistakable. It was the scent he had been following mixed in with the maya. Bjorn was sure of it, there was a mana crystal in the center of the blood maya and it was large.
"Woah, what's going on out here." Failsafe said.
"I found the mana crystal." Bjorn said.
"You did? But I was just talking to you in your core." Failsafe said.
"My main consciousness, yes. But while you two were occupied, another mind followed the mana trail."
"Wait, wait. Did the shedding also allow your mind to separate more?" Failsafe said contemplatively. "I will need to create my own parallel if I am going to keep up with you now."
"You can do that?" Bjorn asked.
"Kind of. I wasn't designed for it, but I can create subroutines that run in the background. That's how your translation works. Or how I compile spells while still talking to you but, those aren't fully me."
"We'll add that to the list of things to look at later. Right now I need to know if I can survive contact with this much Blood Maya."
"As long as you don't try to absorb it. I suggest surging your body with as much aether as possible to keep it from trying to integrate into your dormant maya core. The most important thing is to keep it out. I'd say five minutes then we have to get out. If we don't find the mana crystal in that time we need to make sure we purge any lingering maya before going back in."
"Well, never thought at the start of this journey I was going to swim pure demonic energy but here we go."
Bjorn activated his defensive magic and armor before stepping into the black inky void.