NOVEL NEXT Chapter 140: Maelstrom
I stood before the thing that had tormented me. The things that had taken my agency and taunted me with it. That had kept me from my world, that had tried to steal my soul, that were still trying to cut me to ribbons just for a shred more power.
An avatar of a keeper. Eyes. Perception. An infinite amount of blossoming pupils shoved into a body made of translucent glass. A gateway to a place where all was seen, where there was no escape, where everything was watched and known and categorized.
The world was a stage and it was the audience.
Eyes was, in a lot of ways, insidious. It was Perception. It was a finder of secrets, of weakness, of twisting paths down an endless spiral. There was no escape, no relaxation, no privacy and no safety, because at the end, everything belonged to it.
It saw me. It saw Cass, it saw Astraeus, and it saw Ricipia, the spirit in my master's spear. There was nothing to hide from the thing. It knew my fears, my weaknesses, my insecurities, my joys, my interests. If it worked with manipulation, they could make a pretty convincing fake, really.
But they'd never work together.
Because they were, all of them, too greedy.
The avatar before me was, in many ways, terrifying and imposing. It was a symbol of my fear, it was a symbol of the limitations placed on me, a symbol of the cost. That there were creatures out there who would pay blood and misery of any number of people if it meant advancing their goals even a little bit.
Be that the endless legions of the usurpers, sending mindless animals and cruel generals into areas simply not meant for that, or be that the terror of the keepers, making pacts and invading worlds to hopefully dig at the scraps of warfare and death like vultures.
And in that bit of knowledge, there was an epiphany.
The keepers were, at the end of the day… Pathetic.
Rae pointed his spear at the thing. "Look at them," he said. Despite everything, despite their cruelty, their cold calculations, despite the crimes, he still used 'them'. Calling the keeper with the grace that a person deserved. "This is the kind of being, the kind of person that has been defining you for so long."
"This is all they will ever amount to," he said. "Aimless desire. A despicable need to take and rise and collect and hoard. To own. It's disgusting. It's pathetic. It's greedy and it will never be enough to defeat you."
I look at him, and nod, a little.
He grabs my shoulder, shaking me a little. "Listen, I mean this. These? The keepers? You're already beyond them. You don't know it yet, but you are. Crush the glass, break the window, and step out through the empty frame. The world awaits, Fio. Just reach out and walk."
Astraeus hums in my hand, reassuringly. I can feel Cass at the back of my mind, encouraging me to take the step. Rae smiles at me, gently, then looks into the distance. "Okay," I tell him.
"Good," he says. "I'll get going. Need to make sure your friends get a fair fight, too. They'll grow from it, don't you worry. They're rather brilliant, like another thick-headed student of mine." And with a final, mischievous smile, he was gone.
It was just me and Eyes.
Well, me and Eyes and Ion.
My other self crawled out of my chest again, my skin rippling like glass. She stood next to me, swinging that mirrored version of Astraeus, looking so real, and yet out of place. We, I stood in front of the avatar.
An avatar of Perception, of the all-seeing Eye, of invasiveness and discovery and curiosity and knowledge. That was everything it was meant to embody.
So why was it so tiny? Sure, it was sized like a human, yes, but all it had done during the entirety of my fight with the Tiger was mess up my senses a little. Give me a slight feeling of vertigo. Was that it?
Even Manipulation had put up a better fight, a dimension of glass and puppets and strings. Was I stronger now?
The star in my chest thrummed. The answer was really rather simple. Yes. Yes I was.
My gateway had grown again, my seals lifted, the ambient Qi feeding me with power. My wellspring poured out golden glass, my ruinous wings spread behind my back. I was stronger. My numbers were bigger. This avatar was simply not enough.
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I stepped forward, and we fought.
Astraeus crashed out like a thunderbolt, a new talent having blossomed and taken root in my network. Rae had a few of them, I knew that much, yet the one he shared was rather simple. [Mastery]. It increased learning depending on passion and obsession.
It slotted in perfectly for our special band of slightly suicidal idiots. I took a deep breath, feeling the way it resonated with all the rest of the things pushing me forward. The very real danger that Eyes could kill me made my [Precipitous Wings] flare. The star in my chest hummed, spun, and picked up fire.
Sometimes, things slip by your notice. When Astraeus struck with a thunderclap, crashing into the glass cage that kept Eyes trapped, that allowed the keeper to manifest, the physical form of the avatar, that was when I saw how the star in my chest had changed.
A blossoming Nova sat there. Radiant and golden, ready to take to the skies.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, I had long since earned my wings. My path, Stride beyond Inflicted Skies, hummed gently, almost yearning.
Glass cracked, splintered, shattered.
The keeper took a heavy blow, staggering back, fragments of the shell pinging off, leaving tiny cuts in my skin. When the world shifted and my Perception betrayed me, Cass was there, righting it. Astraeus guided my hand to deflect an oncoming attack that I could not see, even if I tried. Ion fought in front, taking hits.
My parallel self was already forward, ready for me to trade places, and I did just that, appearing next to the keeper. I lashed out with my spear, carving another wound. My vision went black, and I called my parallel self on top of me, stacking out bodies, superimposing my resilience and doubling it.
An attack struck my shoulder, digging into the heavy coating of Qi, resonating, echoing, and then reaching my shoulder. It dug barely half an inch in.
When my vision cleared, I cut off the weapon that I could not look at. Eyes was stopping me from seeing their attacks. They were messing with my perception, with what I could see, making my every sense unreliable. I heard Matt yell for me, I smelled burning car tires like in the crash.
And yet, and yet…
My heart beat, steadily, one after another. Qi poured out of me, coated me, and Ion flew forward. She crashed into the avatar, sending it flying like a ragdoll. "It's funny, y'know?" she said. "I died a thousand times over in a half million worlds… and never once did this wretch kill me."
Will shaped Qi, coalescing it into spears behind me, darting forward. A barrage of golden glass, chipping and breaking away at the avatar. The glass grew thin, eyes inside pressing against it.
For a moment, my vision sprawled again, but I was ready, adjusted. Cass instantly adapted, and it took only a split second for me to regain my bearing. This keeper, like all of them, simply wasn't a fighter.
I breathed, and stepped forward, tapping to the [Wanderer's Key] as the world blurred. My glass cloak billowed behind me, shining golden in the light of the setting sun. It was dusk in the fragment of a world, and it was pretty.
My spear went through Eyes, shattering the avatar with a dull pop. Astraeus pierced a million pupils all at once, shattering them as they fell apart into fragments of crystal, then dust. The avatar broke against me.
It broke so easily, I was almost disappointed.
But, way above that, was the knowledge that I'd won, again. That the Tiger, Manipulation, Perception, the keepers, the usurpers… none of them were good enough.
The sun set.
My star budded and bloomed in my chest. Petals unfurled like feathers on a pair of wings made from disjointed fragments of a broken mirror. Ruin and radiance weaving and winding in scintillating smears of golden glass.
I breathed.
They weren't enough. They never would be. No one would ever be enough, anymore. Never.
Conviction came from conflict. A burial of glass bones within my soul as I stole what the keepers had gambled. My gateway grew, and I was stronger yet. My star glowed, screaming against the confines that held it, unravelling more and more as it was meant to be a network, a supernova, a galaxy all at once.
And I let it.
For the first time in so very, very long, I understood. The fact that while I needed to fight for it, to go to war to maintain it, that it wouldn't be easy… that, at the very same time…
I was free.
[Congratulations! You have broken the bounds of the sky in your Stride. You are free. Soar, to where none can hold you, fly, to where you are absolute. Take the freedom that belongs to you into your Maelstrom.]
[Golden Glass Core advanced to Maelstrom Realm!]
[You have acquired the path [Soar through endless Freedom] at Maelstrom realm, 1st step.]
The sky broke. My inner world morphed, and the glass ceiling, the arduous path, the suppression… it all shattered in the wake of my maelstrom. Qi bubbled out of the center of that dreadful power, then circled, spun, and drew in more. It was as though I'd become the center of a small world, and in an instant, the glass ceiling was eaten up by my power.
My Qi raged in a torrent, eating at anything that opposed me. That was what it meant to go beyond wellspring. It was why my attacks had never reached the Tiger. His Qi simply superceded mine. It was how my master flooded the whole world with white radiance, how his storm so easily ate up Whiter Tiger's light.
A maelstrom, an endless thing that drew in everything around it. A little like a domain, perhaps, yet different. It eroded any power who would try to influence me, and yet it welcomed my allies. Astraeus and Cass were bathed in its wondrous power, my spear growing stronger, sharper, ruthlessly powerful.
Each muscle in my body was stronger, and I felt the amount of realities I existed in double. Now there was me, and three more parallel Fios. And, of course, Ion, and three parallel worlds for her. And then, with my gateway even stronger after devouring what remained of Eyes… I felt that another manifestation could be called upon. Another one of myself with yet more parallel worlds.
It was reflected in my maelstrom, too. It was of golden glass, refracting, breaking the light, turning its center into a glittering cacophony of chaotic radiance. There was no end to it, simply shining rainbows, like glass shards. My wings grew, my talents soared, and the budding nova in my chest exploded into motes of stardust.
I advanced. I breathed.
And freedom found me at last.
Faced with the choice of what to do when the world finally felt open, I got to make choices. And my very first choice was to see Ann.