Music for today:
Rok Nardin - Rose (feat. ZALI)
https://youtu.be/lZtC0T0_8QI
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Chapter 469: Rose
??? - ??? : Year ??? : Delphi
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My senses sharpened, fur flared, and instincts screamed in that instant.
He was serious. Right before me was a landmine that would reduce everything I knew to ash, and neither of us were strong enough to survive it...
But even still.. knowing there was something more to it only made my mind burn. -He knows something.- My pupils tightened as I continued to spread my space mana farther and farther through the magma. "~What is this star system if it's not just the planet that's alive?~"
"~Your arrogance knows no bounds.~" Coiling like a snake, the small serpents that had run out to eat began squirming back as if by command.
It was a warning—like the rattle of a snakes tail in dry leaves—but I hardly backed away. "~You merely don't believe another being could remain confident before you...~"
Hesitance instantly contaminated his aura. "~Your strength is irrelevant from your arrogance.~" Seeing my eyes following his young, his body tightened and twisted. "~Whether you are an ant or a wolf, in the face of the universe itself you aren't even a grain of sand. If you stick your nose where it doesn't belong, you won't just doom yourself, but this planet as a whole.~" *WOOM* Gathering his mana, the fabric of space bent and warped around him. "~You are an intruder. What gives you the gall to think you can risk its destruction?~"
He was right.. but I bit my tongue, pushing my space mana closer and closer to the core as the color and composition of the magma began separating and shifting. "~I may be an intruder now... I may still be too weak to save this world from whatever it is you fear, but...~"
Finally reaching her core with my space mana, I was met with an oceanic wall of enriched mana akin to a mana core larger than the moon, fluctuating between between solid and liquid with rhythmic ripples akin to the echoes of heartbeats and breaths.
Its scale.. power.. and beauty... Nothing could describe any of it... No string of words could do it justice...
It simply broadened my horizon so rapidly it was like I had fallen under a spell... Like the clouds that had always loomed over the mountain I was climbing finally cleared to show me the sky...
To show me a glimpse of fate...
By the time I came back to my senses, time had frozen entirely, my space mana had pushed all the way into the core, and I found myself gently caressing the edge of a small, quivering black hole at the center of it all.
It was tiny.. hardly even the size of a fruit.. yet was the source of every ripple, breath, and pulse that granted the creatures of this world life...
It was the true heart of Delphi, and as if I had awoken her from a deep slumber, the moment I came to, and stopped the caress of my space mana, she seemed to finally respond.
-W..what..?- For a moment I felt eyes.. the flicker of a presence so far beyond mine I couldn't even recognize it.
...But it wasn't aimed at me...
Watching a thin tendril materialize from the scattered ambient mana as if the flow of time were irrelevant, it moved, morphed, and twisted through space, guiding itself between the frozen atomic maze between us before coming not to me.. but to my ear...
...To the place I stored the artifact containing and preserving Hera's soul...
-Is it.. responding to her..?- The moment I passed that thought though, the thin tendril tensed, and another, far larger one formed in front of my chest before piercing through it. *Crunch....* Bone shattered, flesh tore, and the heat of pain ripped through everything...
But none of it registered...
Piercing my reserve as if wishing to touch my soul, a blurry surge of memories brought forth the wave of warmth I had been searching for since losing Hera.. my surroundings disappeared.. and a shapeless figure appeared before me in an endless white space.. sitting in silence...
Though I couldn't tell how, it wished to speak.. its shapeless expression heavy and burdened, yet laden with warmth...
But it wasn't words it granted me... No, something greater kept its mouth close...
Instead.. it merely granted me a glimpse of itself...
Within that being was love, so vast and unconditional its mere presence brought on memories of my childhood.. forcing the recollection of sleeping in Mother's gentle, warm embrace during cold and dark times...
The love was so deep it made my heart feel like it was being crushed, made my stomach churn with sickness, and my mind loop with regret.
It was the kind of love that masked desperation... A plea for help I had never managed to recognize.. whether when Mother protected me from invaders, hiding the cuts and gashes covering in her body to keep me calm.. or when Hera gave her life to protect the life she cherished on the surface.
She.. Delphi.. was desperate, yet didn't know who to trust or who to ask, suffocating her cries for reasons unbeknownst to me while merely wishing to protect those who walked her surface...
Something was going on... Something much deeper and darker than anything I could ever fathom.. but the moment I finally recognized her plea, everything changed...
That was it. That was my purpose. The reason I travelled across the universe, pushed through endless hardship, and fell victim to silence... It was all to begin the formation of a foundation capable of understanding the being before me, and save her from those who had chosen to abuse her love to sate their own greed.
It wasn't just the fate the universe had chosen for me.. but the path I had chosen for myself.
Snapping back to with , I found myself back in the magma as if it were all an illusion.. Hera's soul remained still in the artifact.. the hole punched into my chest was gone.. and the presence from within the planet's core had vanished again.
But none of it was merely a facade...
Watching the cells, muscle fibers, ligaments, and blood vessels realign themselves in my chest with the help of nudges from the 'ambient' mana permeating my body, my focus thinned to a needle, the flow of my thoughts steadied like a ray of light in a vacuum.. and a target landed on Jormungandr's skull.
Without letting another breath pass, I raised my volume as if hoping to announce it to the world itself, "~Even if I must die and be reborn a thousand times to grow enough, I will understand Delphi's troubles and ease her burden.~" No matter what it took, I was going to protect her from the leeches that wished to consume with greed, and help resist the powers that suppressed her even if that happened to be the universe itself. "~You, Jormungandr, are an intruder just the same as I, yet guilty of letting maggots infest her flesh while feeding off her heart like an overgrown parasite.~" Feeling the mana grow prickly, I matched his gaze through hundreds of kilometers of magma. "~You have no right to speak of preventing risk like you aren't exactly what must be purged.~"
*VWOOOM* His aura, filling the space around me, instantly collapsed, closing on my body with a planet crushing force before I disappeared through a gate, and released myself over an endless sea.
Jormungandr was strong.. so much so he was next to immortal, an unkillable creature, even for me.. but he had made his stance clear.
He was a parasite no different from the void eater larvae.
And he needed to be purged.
-I simply hope you can forgive me for doing what you cannot bring yourself to, Delphi...-
*Crackle* Mobilizing more mana that I had ever even known, light warped, the atmosphere crackled with resonance, and no being on the planet failed to pause and raise their heads.
The world was doing something... The mana atmosphere froze, the oceans stilled to mirrors.. and the grand winds pushing ships across seas settled.
Delphi was bracing.. and all life on its surface, no matter how primitive, held their breath with her...
Parting the seas beneath me, I spread my aura out over a tectonic plate tens of thousands of kilometers across, set my eyes on the oversized leech lurking far beneath it, and used the very fabric of reality to sling myself into it at nearly the speed of light. *Flash...*
The section of crust I spread the impact across was sheared from the rest of the planet instantly, plunging hundreds of kilometers into the mantle and releasing a shockwave through the planet's core that shattered the planet's crust from the inside.
New lands rose from the sea, vast oceans shallowed, and endless depths opened to magma.
The entire surface of the world changed in a blink, and within, the void eater larvae were atomized under the crushing pressure of the shockwave, while all but the largest leech near the core were pulverized just the same.
It was a cataclysm... A planet shattering impact that reshaped continents, drew new borders, reset the progress of every species' generation, and shattered the balance that had settled.. sprouting a mountain thousands of kilometers wide from the depths on the other size of the world like a monument of divine will.
Tsunami's rampaged, temperatures rose, and chaos spread with the glow of molten rock. The death toll was unimaginable...
It was.. a truly unforgivable sin...
But as I sank into the magma once again, with all but a section of my skull and ear pulverized from the impact, I was caught by a bed of gentle tendrils, and wrapped in a blanket of warmth so blissful it soul-tearing pain ripping through me...
I should have died... She should have left me to be reborn as one of her own.. to let me no longer be an invader like the monster that lurked around her...
Yet millennia later, I woke again...
Pushing through the earth that had settled over me, I found myself laying beneath a grand, living forest, with a world tree greater than anything I had ever seen growing over my chest, and a strong stream of mana embracing me from the planet's core.
Though I knew I didn't deserve it.. she forgave me...
Hearing the chirp of birds, the chatter of elves, and the rustling of leaves as my ears scanned the forest, I came to question if it wasn't just an illusion.. just a dream...
But such was Delphi's unbreakable will... Though reshapen, life had bloomed within its new mold, my flesh had been rebuilt with her own.. and a connection had been formed between us.
She was still quiet.. still not allowing me to see beyond the surface.. but unlike before, the desperation beneath her warmth had settled, and as I looked through our tether, the mana embracing me tightened, and a wave of relief echoed though me from the easing tension in her heart.
She was sharing herself with me, speaking with raw emotions, feelings, and desires rather than words, while keeping her true presence as suppressed as possible.
But that was hardly a problem. As if we had formed a new language entirely, I came to learn a lot about her despite her seemingly knowing everything about me. At first she was shy, caring, and endlessly loving, able to hear and respond to my every passing thought as if never wanting to let that consuming silence settle over me, but her meager demeanor settled with time.
After a number of years, she had even softened me, and eased the depths of the scars time had carved into my soul.
I had truly been enchanted.. I had fallen in love...
But while it only made the desire to strive for the strength to help her more intense, I took it slow by her order.. cultivated strength.. asked her questions.. and listened in hopes of painting an image of understanding on a greater canvas.
For a long time, I didn't know what to do.. where to make my next step... Watching over the elves my brother had begun ruling, the humans the Aesir controlled, and the life Delphi blessed, I simply wandered.. letting my heart drift until one day, I found myself sat before an ancient.. dilapidated marble shrine overgrown with vines and foliage.
It was Hera's.. the place she would always return to, and pray...
When I was still travelling with her, I found it odd... -For a god to pray...- It was ironic beyond all belief, but now.. thousands of years later, I understood...
Unlike the rest of the Pantheon, she wasn't merely a coincidental formation from scattered, accumulating souls.. nor was she born with flesh as the Aesir were...
She.. was different... Even back then I knew it.. I just couldn't put my nose on it...
That was until the day I sat before that shrine, and felt a wash of warmth well from my core. -I see...- My gaze fell, and expression softened as I looked down.
I finally understood.
-She.. was your avatar, wasn't she...-
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