The Grand Weave

Mana rushed through his armor and Teddy jumped to his feet. His aura retracted, the halos fading as Teddy pushed his skills toward his companion. In that moment, despite all the training engraved into Teddy over the years, he ignored the enemy and rushed to Arturous's aid.

No. No. No!

The world turned grey and all but Teddy and the demon remained in my vision.

No!

Arz'odral raised another hand and summoned a third javelin. Smaller than the others, with fewer screaming faces twisting along its shaft, but it burned with enough mana to level a village.

My friends—my companions—they were all out there, fighting for their lives while I stood like an ant. Just standing. Doing nothing, protected while they bled.

I wanted to scream. Maybe I did. Memories blurred and slipped away as my vision tunneled. All I saw was the tip of that spear; and Teddy's back.

Inside my soul realm, my familiars released their cries. Even Magnus, disconnected by whatever the demon did to silence the connection, roared with the others.

No. I have to stop this. I have to-

"Then stop gawking, and get to work."

I- what?

Arz'odral sneered in delight, the spear spinning ever so slowly. But it didn't launch.

A squeezing in my chest grabbed at my core, my being. With a shout, I was torn from the physical and pulled, slamming down upon the cold black glass of my soul realm's island. I shot to my feet and gripped the neck of the demon scowling at me.

"Put me back!" I snarled..

My fists tightened, pressing my claws into his skin. Spots in my vision flickered in and out, going from bright colors to despondent grey. I readied my tail, already aiming for an eye before Mordred raised a brow.

"And do what?" Mordred sneered. "You so desperately want to watch Teddy die? Have front row seats to the death of your friend? Arturous?"

I screamed in rage and smashed my fist into Mordred's nose. I heard the satisfying crack and felt it beneath my hand, but his eyes—my eyes—never left mine.

"Let me go! I have to do something!"

Mordred continued to stare, unimpressed. Cold, silent. He didn't even attempt to pull free.

That sent another wave of anger surging through me, and I cocked my hand back for a second hit.

Whack!

I looked up and watched the tail that had struck my cheek flick a droplet of blood away. It snaked through the air and cracked my wrists, impacting my arms with enough force to cause me to stumble and release my grip.

I growled and slapped aside a second swing of the tail, but Mordred's claws lifted my chin as he pressed his face against mine.

"You still do this? Run around like a toddler throwing a tantrum?" he seethed. Color started to leech from his face, leaving only his glowing eyes. His fingers gripped my cheeks and pulled me even closer until our eyes were nearly touching. "If this is how you act, I'll kill you myself and take over. The world has no use for a child!"

The spectrum of colors in his eyes swirled, forming vague outlines of runes and glyphs before fading as quickly as they appeared. My heart thumped, a single lone beat that didn't really belong in this space.

All the rage narrowed to a thin point. With deliberate slowness, I pushed the other me away and stood up.

"They're dying," I said.

"They're dying with or without your intervention. You heard Teddy, felt his mana, his soul. You think anything you do will stop that?"

I grabbed Mordred's collar but resisted the urge to punch that sneering visage. "Then why the fuck are you interfering now?"

Mordred pushed me off and adjusted his collar. With a flick of his tail, a panel appeared similar to the one conjured by Arz'odral. Instead of showing my friends, it showed the demon, still in place from before I was dragged into my soul realm.

The spear had spun a tiny bit, the head of crystallized blood an inch forward from when I last saw it.

I frowned and motioned to the screen. "How are you doing all this? We don't have access to time magic. We'd explode from the sheer amount of mana needed if what Cal told us is correct."

"It's not chronomancy, you idiot. I simply supercharged our thought process. Sped up our rate of thinking."

"How in the—"

He snapped, the sound ringing loud enough to create waves across the mana lake.

"Focus. You haven't touched upon half the shit you acquired. I'm merely using what we have available. Including this right now. I sped up our perception, but you'll be in misery when we're done. Have Áine dump her mana pool. It's the only way we are living through this."

I ground my teeth, staring at the lance of blood. In the same panel, I could see Teddy's back. I could even feel the defensive aura of his loosened like wet cloth rather than the firm steel it should be.

The top of Arturous' head was just barely visible beneath the cloud of dirt kicked up from his fall. Along with it, fine droplets of golden blood glittered in the air, looking almost pretty.

To my right, heat surged, and I turned to find Zharia clutching her pedestal. The golden flames around her body funneled high into the realm. Erebus and Galarion were there too, their mana flaring; not with the same rage as the little phoenix, but present.

Magnus stirred inside my thoughts—more of a faint echo—but he too made his emotions clear.

Slowly, I approached the throne resting in the center of the island and looked up to where my last familiar rested.

Chomperz met my eyes and nodded.

I breathed in and sat on the throne, watching as all the colors on the island drained away. Exhaling, I willed the panel to appear and stared at it. Every detail, every tense muscle in Teddy's and the demon's face was scrutinized. Blood, crystals, viscera, and gore. Even the edges of the panels meant to taunt me from Arz'odral barely hung at the edges of my vision.

I finally saw a thing I had missed.

A thing I missed, but the other part of me hadn't.

"You think this will work?" I asked, looking to my right where Mordred leaned against the throne.

"Who knows. Either way, we die if we don't do something. At least this way we have a chance," he replied.

"That's not certain."

"Baah!" Mordred laughed. "We are the Weave's cockroach. There's a good chance we survive this as long as we try."

Once more over my familiars, receiving eager nods from Zharia and Galarion. Erebus tapped his legs excitedly, more subdued but ready, while Chomperz stretched his wings.

I closed my eyes, searing the image of Arz'odral in my head. Every tooth and wrinkle, every cut and hint of emotion that played across that bastard's face was embedded into my mind.

I opened my eyes and exhaled.

"Let's kill a demon."

Mordred laughed, jumping to his feet. "Then listen up because this will only work once!"

***

Willing myself out of my soul realm, I was shoved back into the confines of my body. In the soul realm, I had been more of a conjured avatar, a figment of my will made manifest. Now back in the physical, I could feel the aches in my bones.

The stressed channels of my mana simmered like a volcano ready to erupt. Blood on my tongue tasted like copper and bile.

With a final second to adjust, the manipulation of my blood, Magnus' skill, and the rune on my chest started to fade.

My world became pain as every orifice above my neck bled while a metaphorical giant tried to crush my head. My eyes stopped working as my brain malfunctioned, and blood coated my irises. My hands flailed as my fingers spasmed along with my limbs, each tiny flick a new layer of agony.

None of that stopped my body from moving, as while I suffered, the other me carried out the automated command.

Blood pushed from the receptacle and into my hand, conjuring a shiny orb of glowing blood the size of a baseball. In the same instant it was created, it shot into the air and directly before the demon's eyes.

It was the last thing I managed to see before what willpower I had lost the war against the damage done to my head.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Thankfully, Áine, while justifiably freaked out, was already pouring her mana into me. It was bad enough that she activated her new skill just to have another avenue for mana to flow, the general wave working as emergency stopgaps while she worked on correcting the overused neurons in my head.

Truthfully, it was probably beyond her, because even with my knowledge of anatomy from college classes on Earth and her experience being a healer since I acquired her skillstone, the brain was too delicate.

Except my body wasn't mortal in the way I used to be. With four of my familiars out, my passive skill helped bolster my physical resistance and allowed her enough time to fix me before I bled out.

Thump!

I blinked as blurry vision slowly refined itself into clarity.

Arz'odral held me up, with the pointed tip of the crystal spear snagged under my jacket. He cocked his head and licked his tongue against the blood that coated my neck.

"Aaaaah. To think I almost forgot about you, fledgling." He licked his lips and grinned. "Now what you did was foolish. You might have been able to run and hide. So tell me, why? What was the point of that pathetic attempt of an attack? Hmmm?"

I coughed and tried to lower my head but felt Áine panic. Settling for lowering my gaze, I made sure to look lower than Arz'odral's own.

"It… wasn't an attack," I coughed. Blood filled my lungs but I swallowed it and sucked in a shaky breath. "It was… Grab your… Attention."

The demon cocked his head. "And so you have it. Why though? Here to beg for your life?"

I didn't dare shake my head but instead raised my hand and pointed it to the left. "No. Not mine. His."

Arz'odral glanced to where Teddy stood over Arturous's body. His hand rested on the big lug's head while Arturous drew in shaky breaths and whimpered. Blood crystals were forming both black and gold from the spear embedded into his chest. They cracked with every shift of the bear's stomach.

I nearly released my aura, the flames threatening to explode as I wanted to shove their tips into the demon's eyes, but I held it in.

The confusion on the demon's face turned mocking as he dismissed them.

"There is no saving them. They burned their souls for power. Fleeting. Temporary." He cackled and savored the final word with drawn out venom in his voice. "Useless."

I breathed in and spat more blood, coating the demon's face with it. "A deal. I… offer myself, to you. Everything. Don't touch them. Ta-ke the city, but not him, or my fr-friends."

"But fledgling, you are already mine to have. You will be my slave for the rest of eternity. Don't worry, a few centuries of torture to fix your disobedience, and I'll even take you under my wing after a few centuries more of faithful servitude. How does that sound?"

"Won't work." I retorted. Before he could respond I hacked up more blood, and shifted my hand. He watched it closely as I tapped my chest. "I have a perk… Granted from… Eraztis. Soul god. I can die, whenever I choose. No soul, no body."

"Liar."

I shook my head, doing so slowly as the world still spun with even that. "Not lying. But if you spare them. I'm y-yours."

Arz'odral was silent for a few seconds before he hoisted the spear up and the snapping of bones sounded as another limb emerged from his back. It raised its palm and conjured a small, thin needle of red crystal.

"Then you're useless to me. I'll just kill you now."

"Wait!" I said, letting desperation bleed into my voice. "I'm… a Keeper. With information from my god. If I'm yours, you can use me. I only want their lives spared, nothing… more."

"Really now? I suppose that isn't that surprising. A soul like yours is already soooooo special." Arz'odral dragged me closer and ran his claw across my cheek. "For just their lives? Even though those two will die?"

"Yes."

"Even knowing you'll be tortured? Forced to serve their killer?"

"Yes."

Droplets dripped down, the first bit of rainfall sliding across my forehead and down over my eye. More came, but I didn't move, didn't speak.

Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to move into action. If he–

"Very well, fledgling. I'll do you this kindness, just this once."

My eyes snapped to the demon's palm, where the blood needle expanded and morphed. More blood flowed from the surroundings, including my own, as a glowing ritual circle formed around us. Slowly, Arz'odral extended his palm, extending a single claw toward the center of my chest.

Ghostly chains rose from the ritual circle, black as shadows. They slithered across my body and wrapped around my legs as Arz'odral moved closer.

When he touched the tip of his finger to my chest, I pulled on the remnant link bound in my soul. It was distant, far even. But I pulled and activated a command I had never used.

Somewhere in the city, in the midst of battle, my familiar's physical form shattered in a painful wail as his soul fragment was forced to return to my soulspace.

My chest spasmed, and my mana flickered. Arz'odral paused, but as I slumped in the chains that held me up, the first line of another ritual circle started to scratch itself into my flesh—line by line, rune by rune. Blood bled freely from the injuries but was quickly snatched by the ritual to further fuel itself.

Groaning, I slumped and grabbed onto Arz'odral's arm.

"Don't worry, once you've paid for your insolence, you'll look upon this day with nothing but joy. This marks your moment of greatness, fledgling. You will–"

I tried to whisper but blood dripped from my mouth, muffling the sound.

Arz'odral leaned closer. "What was that?"

I finally looked up and met his eyes. "Bind!"

All the mana I had stored, flowed through the receptacles as was either discarded or allowed through. The injuries, the curse, the wretched blood and crystal, it all served to fuel a single command.

The blood that hadn't washed away from Arz'odral's face and hand moved to do my bidding. Each droplet became a link. The chains formed equally thick as the ones holding me up. Pulling the demon closer, he tried to pull away but found that the chains were crystallizing even as they attempted to poke past his skin.

It failed, and the demon smirked.

"Is that all? Such fruitless efforts. We'll move your penance to a millennia for disappointing me so. Foolish Fledgling."

I pulled at the chains and released my control, letting my aura billow out as the grey overtook the area around us. Where the demon's mana glowed, prismatic sparks blossomed against it, becoming the only source of color in the null bubble we were in.

Arz'odral started to tear into my shoulder with his free appendage, but I ignored it and turned skyward to the source of the storm, to where lightning gathered and condensed into a single, glorious bolt.

Eodyne's arms trembled as Sturmrorex wrapped around her limb and added his strength to hers. The massive missile and bow looked ready to explode from the sheer amount of power held within the confines of Eodyne's manipulation.

"Do it!" I screamed.

Eodyne screamed, as did my familiar, as thunder shook the city and the Arturouos-sized bolt of electricity and rage zipped through the sky.

Arz'odral roared in fury as he tried to teleport away, but the blood that bound us did its job.

It held us together for a moment—a single half-second of time needed for the bolt to reach its target and coat us in a pillar of plasma.

"Noooooooo!"

I started to fade, as black overtook the white realm in my vision, but clawed hands similar to my own took over and dragged me and the bound demon out of the physical and onto the island in my soulrealm.

Slam!