Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Julia reached out and grasped the thread connecting her to the Etherium as though it was an actual rope. As soon as she touched it, the battle stopped. Both the Nashiin's attacks and the Etherium's defenses ceased as though they never were, the immense still of the boundless Ether falling over the space like a heavy, silencing blanket of snow.

"What have you done?" he asked, his robe blazing out of control like wildfire.

He'd clearly not enjoyed the back-and-forth, growing increasingly incensed with each unsuccessful attack.

"I couldn't help but notice that when you described your ideal 'emancipation' from the crystal, you never mentioned detaching from it fully.

"Would that be because you have no personal power? Everything you are—everything unique and special about you—was stolen. The power you call your own, that you identify with, is the Etherium's—not yours. Once I sever your connection to it, you'll return to who you actually are.

"Nothing. Nobody," Julia declared with finality.

The Nashiin floated there, silently contemplating. His eyes glowed beneath his hood, and the flames around him took on a different energy, fluttering about, shifting back and forth—was he nervous?

"You know where we are, yes?" he asked suddenly.

"I do," Julia replied, hands still firmly gripping the connection.

"Do you know what happens when you die?" he asked quietly.

Julia was surprised by the question. It was not something she thought much about. He continued without waiting for her response.

"I do not know if it is the same for all creatures, but I came here when I died," he explained, motioning generally around him. "I have no memory of it. One moment I was alive, and the next…nothing. Oblivion."

He looked around, thoughtful. Julia could only see his eyes, so she couldn't read his expression. However, he seemed…mournful?

"When I was summoned, I was reborn. I just…'woke up' with an enormous gap in my memories. That was distressing beyond belief. It took me many years to put the fragmented pieces together and figure out what happened to me.

"I almost wish I did not.

"I tell you, the knowledge that there is nothing after death but a silent void disquiets me more than the most horrible afterlife imaginable. At least that would be something.

"I do not want to go back. I do not want to simply…cease. I do not want to be a memory stored away forever like a cup on a shelf," he said almost pleadingly.

He floated down until he was eye-level with Julia, though still a few strides away.

"Please, I do not want to go back. Do not send me back," he begged, staring straight into Julia's eyes.

She was almost rattled, though she still held tightly to the connection. She did not expect to be begged. Fortunately, while connected with the Etherium, she had an intimate connection with the Ether itself. It wasn't quite like the way she and Lumenfall were connected, but it was enough to see through this ruse—to see his form tensing for an attack.

The Nashiin suddenly lunged, his hand outstretched, shrouded in a death so concentrated, so virulent, that she knew instinctively that it could kill her if it so much as touched her. It was truly the hand of death.

Julia planted her feet and spoke an untranslatable word that only she knew the meaning of.

A crackling fury of white-hot energy poured down her arms and raced up the connection, incinerating it as it went like a rope on fire. It was over in an instant, the energy consuming the connection faster than a bolt of lightning flew.

The Nashiin screamed.

The noise was the most horrible thing Julia had ever heard, far surpassing any shrieks or wails his undead minions had ever made. Julia instinctively clapped her hands to her ears, but by the time she did, it was finished.

The Nashiin was gone.

All that remained was the oppressive silence of the Ether's nexus.

Julia blinked.

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She stood before the gigantic Etherium crystal, her hand still atop it. The intense and ever-present song was now dramatically lessened in severity, and it lacked the note of urgency—of demand.

All was right with the Etherium, it seemed.

The Nashiin stood hunched just a couple strides from her, his hand outstretched. Though, he didn't seem to be attempting to reach her any longer.

He stared at the ground, a look of shock on his face, visible despite his emaciated and desiccated flesh. His mouth hung slightly open, as if frozen mid-word by shock, and his body was stuck in an unnatural pose—a position that would be physically taxing on the living.

Julia's sword appeared in her hand.

"You—you've...severed me," he stammered, as though in disbelief.

"Indeed. You didn't die. The Etherium seems to have done the impossible—shifted your soul into your current anchor. In other words, you're very nearly alive again.

"Well, you're still undead, but now you're a resident of this world rather than a visitor. Now would be a great time to turn a new leaf—try to make amends for all the damage you've done, the lives you've taken," Julia offered, though she suspected she already knew what his response would be.

The Nashiin lifted his gaze to meet hers, and Julia watched as rage overcame him.

The ground began to shake, rocks and pebbles lifting and floating into the air as his fury manifested. His Domain—though weakened—remained a potent force that engulfed the space around them.

He bellowed a feral yell, his rage overtaking him completely, and lunged for Julia, his hand still outstretched, as though to make good on his previously failed attempt. That familiar cloud of concentrated death surrounded it, infusing the space with a primal dread that the fear of one's imminent demise invoked.

Julia barely moved, sidestepping his lunge and swiping quickly with her sword. She stopped and stared at the Nashiin, who now had his back to her.

He stared at his hand as his pointer and middle finger fell to the ground, severed at the first knuckle.

This time the wound didn't heal.

In a flash, Julia was directly in front of him. There was no sense dragging this farce out any longer. This was who he was without the Etherium: weak.

Time moved slowly for her as she brought her blade to bear, the Nashiin slowly lifting his head from staring at his lost fingers in shock.

Julia prepared for the downstroke, but the Nashiin's face twisted into a visage of unmasked fear. He raised his hands to defend—the way an untrained civilian might. He crossed his arms over his face, as though they would protect him.

It was pitiful—her sword was an alloy of Adamantine and Orichalcum, wielded by an Eidolon. His frail bones would offer no resistance.

Julia had prepared for this moment for so long. She'd bled and cried and sweated and suffered for it. She'd seen countless people die. She'd been betrayed. She'd been beaten. She fought tooth and claw to get to this point—to not just be the agent that brings death and retribution on the Nashiin, but to be the name they whispered in fear.

She'd wanted them to fear her.

This was the leader of the Nashiin—the creature that was responsible for the death of over a million elves. This was the creature that was responsible for the abhorrent conditions of the still-living elves down below. This was the creature that had been terrorizing her for almost two years straight.

And he was cowering.

Julia had worked so hard, and for so long, to be feared by the Nashiin. Now, faced with the fruits of her long labor, she found no triumph, no joy. She found only bitterness. Had she worked so hard to defeat the Nashiin…or become them?

She hadn't prepared for what she was feeling. She had no resilience built for such emotional conflict. She didn't want to be feared, she realized. She didn't want to kill and destroy. She did it because she had to—nothing more. And now, the pure evil before her was unarmed and cowering.

These conflicting feelings raged in her mind in the microseconds that had passed. The bitter taste of bile stung the back of her throat.

She was unsure—unbalanced.

And she hesitated.

Suddenly, the Nashiin's face twisted back to fury, as if the fear had been nothing but a mask. His hand, glowing with the malevolence of death, was a finger-length from her chestplate in less than a blink of an eye.

Fuck!

She shifted her sword down to intercept the hand—it wouldn't make it. She would have to slow time even further—

Shink!

A huge battleax—one she recognized—suddenly split the air between the two, severing the Nashiin's arms completely before slamming into the floor several strides away, cracking the ground where it landed.

The Nashiin stared at his severed arms on the ground as the concentrated death left them. Julia wasted no more time, shifting her sword into an upward strike.

The Nashiin's head landed next to his arms, but it wasn't good enough for her. As his Domain receded, she ignited a fierce tornado of plasma that burned and scoured all traces of the Nashiin from this world.

When she released it, only the glowing ground remained. There was nothing to remember the creature by, not even ashes.

A blue window popped up at the edge of her vision.