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(Vol 5) Chapter 53: Dimension On the Shifty Axis
🕑 Added 2024-06-26 14:30:55 +0000 UTCTo Zadkiel’s statement, Sammy was a bit mystified. “You mean… Hell?”
Azure meanwhile, looked as if she were staring at a ghost, her breath caught.
Zadkiel scrunched his face and shook his head. “Eh, that word is irrelevant. We only use it ironically. Even ‘Other World’ — as we found — was insufficient to describe the incredible realm we’d discovered. Well, technically him, but the place was not meant for him, after all. He could only support me indirectly in the exploration, he couldn’t go there.”
“Wh-... what did you find?” Azure asked, voice breathless and almost mumbling. She was clearly disturbed by this.
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked her mentally, but there was no response.
“A twisted, disturbing reality,” Zadkiel answered. “Dangerous in the extreme. My first trip was quickly aborted as the corruption touched me and I was swarmed by bizarre, screaming shades. I barely escaped, and took something of the realm with me. A warping, a taint. We couldn’t get rid of it, either. So I said: fuck it. Embrace it, become it. Through mine and Glae’s magic, and my prodigious willpower, we were able to steer and satiate the bubble of the warp to affect my body only, leaving my psyche intact.”
He held up his big, clawed hand and made a fist, grinning at it. “A transformation bloomed! The sharp mind of a previously frail warlock given incredible durability and strength! I’d been made unstoppable. Haha!” He slammed his fist down on the wooden table, cracking it again. “Not only that, but I was more deeply connected to this realm through a wider doorway. Ironically, as it turned out, I didn’t get to enjoy it very long in the purer, natural sense.
“When I went back through, it was like the realm embraced instead of pierced me. The screaming horde still swarmed at me, and I lashed them with magic, but there were too many. But they grabbed me not in hatred, but in wonder! They crowded just to touch me! I was unharmed though I could feel energies within us rubbing against one another. Well. This strangely happened to turn me on, and when the results of that were noticed, well, they kindly began-”
“Alright! Zzt!” Sammy interjected while snapping her fingers repeatedly at Zadkiel. “Zzt zzt! No need for those details! Skip the weird sex part, thanks.”
Zadkiel grinned as devilishly as ever. “If you insist. After I was completely expended and woke up from a nap, they had seemed to accept my unconscious presence and re-distribute across the realm. Space was strange there… I felt as if I could go anywhere with one step, yet it was vast. I was bewildered and called out to those I saw nearest. At that point, they all converged on me at once again. Like a million faces rapt for my attention all at once!
“What was more, they’d completely changed. Like I’d, hehe… like I’d impregnated the realm! Before you roll your eyes” — it was too late for that — “note that the first encounter was a one-time deal, because what was before a realm of strangers had birthed a realm of my children — in a way. It was different enough that attraction had changed with it into an altered form of fondness.”
“That’s a relief,” Sammy replied. “The idea of you… nevermind. Continue.”
“Right. I was able to converse with them, though it still felt a bit like them screaming at me. They told me they used to touch the world for another. One who led their hands to mortals, to make something new out of shadows and light. Not the exact words, as the translation is not perfect from them to us. Like the word for the realm I mentioned! I spent a long time deciding the right one, and it still isn’t perfect. They like it, though. Chimera.
“But anyway, I figured it out! The progenitor! Naug. He’d created Chimera, or shaped it, or was born from it, and used them to birth the Naugite mortal race! I’d found the true demons of our ancestry!”
The sudden sound of shattered glass made Sammy jump. Azure’s drink was broken in her hand. She seemed surprised herself as she looked down at it, wild-eyed. She immediately dropped the remains and shot onto her feet, the wooden chair legs screeching. Sucking in air, her eyes fluttered around and she muttered, “Sorry. I need to go for a walk.”
Sammy rose immediately. “Azure, I’ll-”
“No! No. Please. Let me be alone.” She turned on her heels to head down the walkway toward the lake’s shore.
She. She’d created Chimera. That realm still exists, and Zadkiel became its master… oh, Azure. I’m sorry.
Sammy sat down, though she watched Azure’s retreating back all the way down the wooden ramp until the beautiful blue Naugite began walking along the edge of the lake.
Zadkiel cleared his throat. “We could pick it up later if you like. This must be… difficult to accept for more spiritual Naugites, depending on their beliefs.”
Glancing at Zadkiel, Sammy shook her head. “It’s alright. So, you… exploited this realm for power in the Land of Naug?”
“When I tried to step back into the world, I found I couldn’t. Instead, a new demiplane bubble was made and a god was born in some ‘underspace’ of Calrenazzod. The old me was completely gone, my new spirit incompatible with the natural world. I managed to contact Glae and we hatched a plot to formulate a better cover story for a Naugite deity that was to their tastes. We secured a small core of those in-the-know and eventually birthed a new heroic character in the hinterlands.
“The rest is history, as they say. Once I had an Avatar in-world, I began kicking ass and taking namesakes. We hid my deific status until the right time to claim heroic ascension, at which point we exploded and the Church of the Endless Rise was forged in fire and blood! Haha!”
“So you were an ascended mortal, but not by the means everyone thought. Huh. But what about your domains?”
Zadkiel gestured with his arms out wide, smiling grandly. “So we come to the final point, hmm? The domain is [Chimera], which has some vague similarities to the stereotypical [Hell] — as in, it refers not to just a meaning but primarily to a realm. It seems to be missing Afterlife potential as a trade-off for its various unique capabilities, including interconnectivity. It’s twisted into Calrenazzod, mixed with it, and I can bridge things through it. Gates, essentially. Summoning.”
“Well, that certainly adds up, yeah. So you’ve had the domain the entire fucking time?”
“Mm-hmm. The very first domain, and flexible to bridge. [Might] was the second to create legendary warriorism, [War] the eventual false ‘first.’ [Fighting]... I didn’t want to take it, but it was necessary to gain enough of an edge to defeat and impress certain key champions in combat, in order to snowball my conquest aspirations. I am close to lining up my fifth domain, but at this point, I’m going to need to reassess it.”
“What level are you?”
“I’d appreciate your discretion in telling you this?”
“Of course. Leaders in my realm only.”
Zadkiel’s face twitched once. “With the completion of the last Sacrifice quest, which was for a duke, I attained level 8, just in time for the battle I got smoked in. I am also a level 14 [Wizard] and a level 11 [Warlock]. I’ve focused on strong self-buffing for many years to be a more effective fighter and leverage special bonuses. I punch up! I’d say I’m just a few notches short of World Class.”
Sammy felt a pang of annoyance that he was a level higher than her deity-wise. I’ll even him up before he levels. I might even crest him since he’s cut off for a while and probably neutered even after. “Wait, you sacrificed a duke?” Oh shit, it’s-
“Indeed! That moron Duke Kenstrom is no more, serving a purpose at least with his spilled blood. Ha!” Zadkiel laughed and bounced a knuckle on the table.
So he did kill Marjorie’s brother. Great. “I remember how much you patted yourself on the back about that whole thing. This is off-topic, but of curiosity, is Burnstire still useful? Or neutral?”
“Hmm. Good question. He prefers to hedge his bets and is completely unscrupulous. He wouldn’t fully commit until the Unbroken Fortress was, well, broken. He probably wouldn’t send out in force against armies I lead because we have an agreement. He would only send token forces. This is preferable to invading as the land is a never-ending hive of castles. All assuming he wouldn’t stab me in the back. He’s smart enough to know the risk, but I’m not sure if the Dominion could offer him something worth it.”
“Right. And if that battle had been won and the Dominion routed, he’d never dream of trying it.”
Zadkiel just nodded grimly. They hadn’t won despite killing two major sages, so the Demon King did not look invincible anymore.
Sammy studied Zadkiel as she took another sip of her well-iced drink. She decided to create another drink for him — a huge mug of ale. “How do these demons of Chimera work? Are they even demons, really?”
Zadkiel smiled in pleasure at the ale, taking it up and downing half of it in one go. He slammed it down after with a loud ‘Ahh!’ and then burped loudly. Finally, he shrugged at the question. “They’re weird wraiths that enjoy doing things in Calrenazzod. Fucking and fighting primarily.”
“Gee, I wonder whose influence that was.”
Zadkiel smirked wickedly. “It’s a true mystery. I can bring them over as wraiths, but they are very, ah… weird. Confused, hard to direct. They try to possess things. It’s best to direct them into a prepared vessel.”
“Please tell me you aren’t torturing people…”
“Glae arranged experimentations of various kinds, but I found hybridizing existing psyches distasteful… We soon made it obsolete efficiency-wise anyway when we discovered that directing them to corpses and bones would suit them just as well. With some tweaks from necromantic spellcraft, some very effective bodies could be fashioned. Many of them could breed, too, and create new hybrid mortal beings. I, ah… kept this particular aspect limited and made the default sterility. The imps, for instance — made from monkey bones — bred like rabbits.”
Sammy said nothing, stunned for a long moment. Then she blurted out one laugh. “Ha! Holy shit, that’s flippity-damned amazing, dude!”
He squinted his eyes suspiciously. “It is?”
“Yeah! It’s ingenious and makes use of basically just waste that’s just going to feed worms and stuff, which though also important, you’re probably not even putting a dent in for medieval army numbers and you’re not mutating people or Naugites or whatever so I’m relieved about that and like have you found dragon bones and elephant bones and stuff like that, that would be insane if you could bring some crazy awesome construct to life!”
Sammy, out of breath, took another deep one, then blinked as she realized the tirade she’d just blurted out. “Er, I mean… nice… job. Good. Good boy.” She winced at the end.
Zadkiel raised an eyebrow, but shook his head and laughed as he took another glug of ale. “Mmn. I’m glad you understand. As I said, we made it very efficient. And yes. We did find large creatures to adapt and utilize, but it isn’t easy finding a perfect set and people that extract the shit correctly, nor were they as powerful as we’d hoped. Behavior can flavor things unfavorably as well. The greatest and most efficient lines are monkeys, apes, vultures, crows, lions, dogs, bears, and buffalo.”
“Not Naugites, eh?”
“No. Most clans prefer cremation, and those that don’t wouldn’t exactly appreciate the tactic.”
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