Super Soldier in Another World

Alistair fell to his hands and knees, huffing and puffing as he stared down the massive canyon, a grimace on his face, dirt and sweat matting down his blonde hair. His gold-colored plate armor had been eschewed becoming far more of a burden now that there was nothing to fight here in the Fiendwood. Not that it should be called that anymore, considering that it was now a land of pure ash. His corded muscles ached, his head pounded, his blue eyes bucked as he hurled into the massive abyss below, a massive Golden Flame below roiling below.

The Pustule, a canyon carved from the Blade of Zodd at the beginning of this age, the flame below a remnant of Draoi wreathing Zodd's blade in the Flame. This had been intended to halt the spread of the Spiral Curse, eternally burning the deepest part of the land so it could not spread easily. Alistair wasn't sure how it was this was stopping the spread exactly, but now that the curse was gone, another problem was unfolding.

He grit his teeth as the Flame in the Pustule began to rise, licking the edges of the rocky walls as it began ascending slowly. The continent would be incinerated in eternal Golden Flame if he didn't keep it in check… Alistair stood to his feet with a cough, adjusting the blood red headband at his brow before he reached out with his own, raw Flame. The tendril of Golden Flame sped down to meet the rising Foundation, connecting with it and easily filling his reserves to bursting. The Pustule shrank as Alistair let out a cry of agony, feeling himself near the point of Singe as he drew in ever bit of the rising flame that he could.

Once it shrank back down to acceptable levels, Alistair collapsed again, immediately burning the excess Foundation before it could permanently ruin his connection with the Flame. Theopalu approached, shaking his head.

"This won't work, it regrows every time you expunge it." He told him, "You must disperse all of it at once, or it will continue to rise."

"Shut your damn mouth, I don't want your help!" Alistair shouted, teeth bared.

"Alistair," Twindil said, putting a hand on his shoulder, Afina's peace beginning to come over him, "Calm yourself."

She'd gotten a lot better at projecting her peace as of late, likely due to Theopalu's specialized training. Of course, she was the one that was trained, Alistair had to suffer attempting to extinguish the Pustule. Which Flame would go out first, he wondered, himself, or the Pustule? At least he wasn't a damn crab any longer, but the caveat was that he had to absorb the Flame below. If Alistair tried to flee, then Mazeek would find him, turn him back into a crab, and toss him into the sea, to live the rest of his life as a demi-god-crab.

But it's impossible.

"It won't stay down, I can't draw in any more." Alistair huffed, "Taking in the whole thing will cripple me- no, outright kill me. I thought my reserves would grow larger the more I attempted to draw it in but it hasn't grown whatsoever." He told her, the frustration subsiding.

They'd been here for a long while now… he wasn't sure if it had been days or weeks, but this routine had become his life in that time. It felt pointless, he wasn't getting stronger from doing this, but Theopalu seemed to expect him to do something with the Pustule… but what? He pondered this as the Flame below began to slowly rise once again. If he let it grow further, it would eventually be right up to the canyon rim, as they had found it initially.

He stood up, staring down at the growing flame with narrowed eyes. What Theopalu said was right, the Pustule needed to be extinguished all in one go, else it would grow back forever. He could draw it all in, but again that would burn or kill him if he tried… his eyes widened, and he stepped closed to the canyon's edge. He felt Twindil's hand grasp his forearm tightly, the blonde half-elf tugging him back toward her.

"What do you think you're doing!?" Twindil asked him, "What if you fell in there?"

He hesitated, before saying, "I think… I think I need to."

"You've become suicidal." Twindil frowned, shaking her head, "Think clearly, what would be accomplished by you diving in there besides death?"

Alistair looked down the canyon, before back to Twindil, smirking as he removed her hand from his forearm.

"It would be… an Act of Arrogance." He said, before diving into the canyon headfirst.

Wind shrieked past his ears, tearing away every thought except the one: survive. The air was so hot with raw Foundation that it burned his lungs even as he screamed. No, not burning, like normal flame, this burned a different way, his skin was unmarked, but he could feel ice inside him, burning at his soul with he force of a blizzard. The walls of the canyon blurred past, and then the world was nothing but Gold.

"This is regrettable, I had hoped our partnership could last longer." The angel said, sounding saddened.

So even his own angel was certain of his death… and hells, maybe he was right, but Alistair needed to get this done, and an Act of Arrogance was clearly the key to wiping out the Pustule! He sent out tendrils of Golden Fire, each one seeking the Flame below before they connected. Alistair let out a cry of agony as he began to draw it all in, he wasn't going to try to be conservative, he would either die here, right now, or he would become stronger than ever.

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The Flame shrunk away under his feet as he fell, screaming in agony as he felt his connection to the Flame strain, yet not Singe. It was almost too much, he could feel his eyes beginning to roll to the back of his skull, the corners of his vision beginning to blacken as unconsciousness threatened to overtake him. Just as he was on the brink of darkness however… he remembered what she had done.

What Lithia had done to Nolvi.

His pain turned to wrath as his eyes refocused, glaring at the sea of fire under his feet as he plummeted, sucking it all into his reserves as he felt his veins popping within him. His eyes bulged but the rage within him made him not care as he felt himself growing more powerful as he fell, the Act of Arrogance kicking in as he had planned. Soon an ocean's worth of Foundation was filling him now, but it didn't burn him, instead, his reserves grew to match the influx, and when finally the canyon was emptied of the last bit of Foundation, Alistair sent out massive jets of Raw Flame from both hands to slow his descent, his skin steaming as he reached the rocky bottom of the Pustule.

He fell to his hands and knees, summoning Baomiel who appeared in a torrent of Golden Fire, the upper human half staring down at him with concern in his black eyes. The monstrous lower portion reached it's massive arms toward Alistair, chewing on it's massive tongue as it lifted Alistair toward the upper half.

"You truly survived…" Baomiel said with genuine awe, "You absorbed the Pustule in its entirety."

Alistair let out a sound that was half-cough, half-cackle, the raw air of the Pustule burning his lungs as he gasped for breath. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled under the strain, and instead he fell sideways onto the ashy ground, clutching a fistful of the stuff and letting it grit between his fingers. His vision swam, pupils dilated and wild, black flecks swimming through the golden haze that now filled his sight. He felt close to death, but in the same instant, closer to living than he had ever been—as if the entire world was now a thin membrane stretched taut over a living, burning core… it hurt, but he loved it.

"I did it," he whispered to himself with a grin, voice hoarse from the screaming, his lips stretched into a grotesque grin. "I did it! By the Pillars… I did it." He repeated, over and over again, a wide smile still on his face.

Baomiel stood before him, the angel's upper half crossing heavily muscled arms, head cocked with a mixture of concern and awe. The monstrous lower half was silent now, motionless, as if even the creature's hunger had been sated by the spectacle alone. Alistair himself could feel a new hunger rising within him, not the angel's, but his own. The Foundation within him sloshed and burned, furious and seeking release, for Alistair to use it, to bend Ahkoolis to his very will… to become the greatest Pillar-God the ages have ever seen.

He rolled back onto his knees, still grinning madly, extending his arms wide, as if to embrace the vastness of the empty canyon. "I am becoming a proper god!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the charred walls, reverberating back at him in a thousand distorted tones. Each echo was a little more twisted than the last. "You hear me, Baomiel? A god! Hahahahahaha!" He threw his head back and let the laughter pour from him, raw and wild, until his chest ached and tears streamed down his cheeks, carving twin trails through his ashy cheeks.

The air around him shimmered and bent then, a golden haze radiating from his skin as he struggled to keep the power within him contained. Baomiel, who had lingered at a respectful distance, now drew closer, the upper human face contorted in a grimace of uncertainty. "I have become near a god, don't you think?" Alistair asked, still laughing. "Tell me, isn't this what we've craved? Power! The means to decide everything! The means to—" His voice broke, overcome by a fit of coughing and spittle, and for a moment he tasted ash and blood together on his tongue.

Baomiel did not answer, but the eyes—those inscrutable, black eyes, watched him with a careful intensity, as if waiting to see if Alistair would break or simply combust.

Alistair's mind began to race ahead, fueled by the new ocean's worth of Foundation coursing through his body. H-he could set it all right now! The clarity, the possibilities, the sheer magnitude of what could be done. He could slaughter Lithia, crush her to pieces with this new might, and scatter the remains to the winds. He'd murder the Dragon of the East and feed him to Twindil, to save her mind and soul from the creeping poison of divinity. He could give Jason to Kid'ka as well, to save his mind from the brink of madness.

It would be so easy, now. A single gesture, a flick of his wrist, and the world would bend to his design.

But what about me?

The thought slithered in, quiet at first, almost lost in the tumult of the overwhelming joy he felt, but growing louder with every new surge of power. What about me? It was almost like a child's voice, plaintive and small, at the back of his mind. He tried to ignore it, laughing harder, rising to his feet and pacing the cracked stone of the former Pustule.

He would simply have to become a god, wouldn't he? There was no other path, no other destiny, not with what now burned within him. He had to lean into it, to seize the mantle, to become what he was now fated to be. Why had he been so scared of this? It was what he was meant for, to become a Pillar and end this pathetic age once and for all!

The thought, much to his horror, brought a smile to his lips. He stopped pacing, planting his feet and staring out over the vast, empty chasm, like a king surveying his damned kingdom... All of Ahkoolis would look like this, very soon, cracked stone, no life, all nothing but ash. Above him, the rim of the Pustule burned with a lingering golden light, the residue of his own Act of Arrogance, or the last bits of Foundation vanishing from the canyon? No matter, either way, all the power was his now to command, his to wield…

And yet for all his power, for all the Foundation he now possessed, Alistair felt overwhelmingly alone in the world. He looked to Baomiel, but the angel had nothing to offer—no comfort, no direction, not even condemnation. Just that careful, waiting look.

Sanity returned by degrees, like water trickling into a dry well. The world, so recently painted in endless possibility, now seemed smaller, more brittle, its edges sharper and more defined. The joy of victory faded, replaced by a deep and echoing dread. The foggy madness he'd tasted in the moment of his apotheosis did not recede, it lingered, a cold and constant pressure at the back of his skull, attempting to push him right back over the edge.

He had every right to be, especially now that Alistair knew that his descent into madness had truly begun.