***The World***

***Willow***

“Gods, I hate it when he decides to play the evil guy. How can anyone enjoy eating another sentient being? Can’t he practice his culinary perversions somewhere else?” I turn away so that I don’t have to face the music, unable to watch Ascathon chewing on someone. “Turn away, Karin. We don’t have to watch that, even if he says that its to teach you.”

I take my green-faced pupil’s arm and turn her away from the scene.

Of course, Ashley, the succubus matriarch smiles gleefully and changes positions so that she can talk to me while she watches Ascathon proceed with the interrogation.

“Aw, don't be so squeamish,” Ashley chortles and tilts her hips slightly, probably unconsciously, thanks to years of being who she is.

“It's actually quite the ingenious technique,” she praises. “It totally eluded me that biting off a few bits actually works that well on mortals. I assumed that the spy was a cold-hearted bastard after I consumed his companion. The guy didn’t show the slightest bit of fear or hesitation and kept chanting his insults, a fanatic right down to the core.”

I purse my lips. “Well, even if you consumed his friend, I don't think that seeing your colleague spend his last moments in sexual bliss is actually that frightening.” In my experience, some men even think that it's the best way to die. “There are surely worse ways to go than having a femme fatale suck out your life-force while you are on cloud nine and grinning like stupid. It certainly won’t frighten someone who watches the scene as much as seeing his friend dismembered or eaten.”

“Hum.” She pulls at her lower lip, thinking hard. “Come to think of it, that might have been a mistake of mine. It seems like I have become a little too set in my ways after millennia of living on the Plains of Lust. But in hindsight, how could I have known that digesting the man’s soul wouldn’t have brought the desired result? In my experience, that method always worked perfectly until now.”

I shrug. “You couldn’t have known.”

“I think I am getting sick!” Karin complains after listening to the noises of the interrogation, a pale sheen colouring her face. “Just kill him already, Ascathon.” She turns to shoot an angry glare at the god. “Oh, no, not the ear!” Finally, the kid decides to turn away covering her mouth in an attempt to hold back the contents of her stomach.

Smirking, I nudge the girl. “See? I told you not to watch.”

“I think we have a bucket somewhere.” Ashley strolls away, retrieving a bucket from the corner of the room. “I thought you are used to death and gore, girl. Do I have to put you through a wholly different training course before we actually start learning spells?”

Karin takes the bucket and holds it against her chest to be ready, should the urge to retch overcome her. “It’s not about blood, gore or death. I couldn’t care less about those things, or about what happens to evil people. Bad men deserve bad things happening to them.”

I raise both eyebrows. “So what’s the problem then?”

She shakes her head. “It’s the thought of eating something raw! Haven’t you ever bitten into cartilage? It’s so chewy and resistant, even if it’s cooked well. Just imagine the feeling or taste when it’s raw. Oh, gods, I can’t even think about it.”

“That’s actually quite the unique weakness, girl.” Ashley’s attention returns to the prisoner. “Ah, Ascathon! If you are done with him, please don’t kill him off. We still need him.”

“Huh? What for?” Ascathon asks.

Turning around, I find him bent over the crying mortal, his hand on the man’s throat. At least he isn’t going to bite the man’s jugular to end it.

Ashley steps towards Karin, taking her by the arm. “Come, dear. We finally found a test subject for you to practise on. I think you are now old enough so that we won’t hurt your moral compass. He even looks decent.”

Karin shakes her head, looking at the mutilated man. Ascathon did quite the number on him. The prisoner is missing multiple fingers and an ear, combined with several other minor wounds.

I wince. We spent over a decade away from home, so Karin developed into a beautiful young woman. Even though a lot of time passed, Ascathon’s special gifts held her in better shape than most mages. Despite being in her twenties, she still looks like sweet eighteen. A well-endowed teenager whose curves would make a cover model jealous, but everyone can tell that her face didn’t yet lose the innocence of a child.

“Wha- what? Practise?” Karin asks, blinking her cute heterochromatic eyes. Then she realizes what Ashley’s intentions are and shakes her head vehemently. “No! Certainly not! Look at him. He is all chewed up!”

“Oh, that’s okay, dear. Not everyone likes using blood as lubrication,” Ashley replies, causing Karin to gasp in shock. My pupil’s eyes turn towards me, searching for help.

‘Sorry,’ I mouth voicelessly, not having forgotten the promise Karin made with Ashley. I don’t know much about demons, but the little I know is enough to tell that you don’t break a promise with a demon. Much like with the fae and my original people, the fairies, words hold power in their culture. They are incredibly tricky and devious creatures, and you can be sure that they will twist the nature of a contract as much to their benefit as they can. Once a promise is made, they might not honour to the spirit of a contract but will stick to the letter of it with all their might.

For all I know, this development might be good for Karin. During the whole time which we spent in that other world, she didn’t even look at boys. At first, the natives were staying away from us, but after getting used to us, Karin quickly collected a harem of male admirers who all got rejected with vehemence.

Instead of interacting with people her age, she threw herself into her studies and sucked up my teachings like a sponge. I actually think that she wasted a bit of her life, throwing away a chance like that. Sadly, she didn’t listen to my advice.

The two or three girls she was ever talking to never managed to get her to come out of her shell. They were distant friends, no more. Karin didn’t even spare a second thought at saying goodbye when our chance to depart arrived.

“I don’t like giving others my own life energy, but sometimes a teacher has to prepare the ground for the student. Pay good attention, Karin. This is called Greater Healing Kiss and it’s a very important spell if your prey is weak.” Ashley digs her fingers into the whimpering man’s hair and pulls his head back. Bending forward, she places her lips on the man’s mouth. A pink aura surrounds him and his injuries seem to magically disappear. His eyes glaze over and he starts drooling in complete bliss, his body relaxing visibly.

Letting go of her victim, Ashley starts instructing her student on various naughty techniques succubi use to befuddle their prey’s mind.

Turning away from the two, I step closer to Ascathon who seems deep in thought. “Have you learned anything useful?”

He shrugs. “Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to go proceed with care. Just as a good spy should, the guy doesn’t know much about the Alliance of Light’s military and economy. The orders he was given were to gain as much information about our capabilities and intentions as possible. Something that’s to be expected from a spy.

“What’s troublesome about it, is that they were encouraged to take great risks in acquiring information if the reward was equally promising. It’s the only reason why the two were caught. They spent seven years building their identities in order to gain access to Luxley’s palace. That takes dedication and patience. They even have families back in their districts. For all we knew, they were loyal citizens of the empire. But even as minor district officials, they were not permitted to rummage through the palace’s administration offices. That’s where they were ultimately caught.”

I wet my own lips, weighing this new information with my experience. After years as an assassin, I got quite good at judging political developments. After that, I helped to build the Mirai Empire, serving in various functions, playing always close to the ongoings of political events. It’s not that hard to compare the current events to those of the past. History tends to repeat itself. “Usually, when a country gets very pushy with their spying activities, something is up. Is the Alliance of Light actively preparing for war?”

Ascathon nods. “It’s always something like that when someone wants to know exactly where the enemy’s troops and garrisons are, not just a general estimation of how much they have. The fact that they were instructed to take risks is also pretty condemning. Someone high above them must have a tight timetable.” He scratches his chin. “What puzzles me more is how Myrm did it.”

“The immunity to mind magic?” I ask.

“Yes. I have an idea on what happened to the spies, but it’s mind boggling, especially since Myrm apparently achieved it through mundane means. There is no magical signature whatsoever, but somehow the connection between the physical body and the soul was loosened, making it almost impossible to get a firm grip on their soul’s anchor, which is necessary to get to their minds and their memories. I assume that’s also the reason why Ashley can’t read their soul’s memories properly. Their connections to the physical world are too damaged.”

He shakes his head. “Myrm must have found a way to damage this connection through mundane means. The spy said that he was given some potion which is apparently responsible for his resistance to mind magic. That’s as much concerning as it is exciting. I would have to spend a day or two playing with someone’s mind to achieve the same thing.”

I look at him, forcing my eyes away from the scene of Karin trying to kiss the prisoner with a disgusted expression on her face while Ashley is trying to get her to loosen up and smile while kissing someone.

“I’ve never heard of such a technique. Why did you put me through all that rigorous training to fortify myself against mind probes? If it’s as easy as having a professional fumble around in-”

He raises a hand to stop me. “It’s not as easy as fumbling around in someone’s mind. The body and soul of any sentient being is a very complicated thing. Imagine the body as the hardware, a hard drive with limited capacity. The soul is the cloud on the internet which regularly draws backups and restores what’s lost in case the hard-drive suffers a malfunction. Damaging the connection between the two can result in a myriad of bad things. The least thing that would happen is that the person will lose the ability to ascend; or will be damned to a standstill until the damage repairs itself. At worst, the person in question will lose their grip on reality, should the connection malfunction and ‘download’ memories from other lifetimes they aren’t supposed to have.”

“So… what was done to them should only be done to someone who is expendable? But if ‘downloading’ memories from this soul can be so harmful, then how are we immortals able to handle it?” I ask.

“Mortals are unable to handle such memory flashes because the anchor to their soul isn’t strong enough. Immortals have grown sufficiently in strength to handle the shock. Still, sometimes a mortal is faced with a situation they are unable to handle, something that’s so emotionally devastating that the memory carries over to other lifetimes. That’s why there are some people in the loony bin who are, at least physically, completely healthy. I hope that you understand why I won’t do something like that to people who I care about.”

I press my lips together. “Is that how you are stopping me from ascending?”

“No. The mental training sessions I taught you are exactly what I proclaimed them to be. Techniques to tighten and limit your control over magical power. Should you ever want to ascend, you just have to reach for as much power as you can. That’s how an immortal normally ascends. They find themselves in a challenging situation and they refuse to yield to fate. Instead of going on to the next reincarnation, they channel more power than their anchor can handle. Which results in either them failing, or ascending to godhood by unlocking their potential.”

***The World***

***Seria***

“What do you two think of the current developments?” I ask, eyeing Nazareth and Marigold. The two brothers went into hiding after our little excursion into the Council’s facilities. It shows that they may not be on the Council’s side, but that their desire for survival is stronger than their will to fight. I probably shouldn’t try to recruit them to my cause. They are the type of people tend to roll over as soon as the odds aren’t in their favour.

Quite the unusual trait for gods, but there are surely stranger things. Not everyone ascends through strife and hardship. Some take the long way, slowly going step by little step until they ultimately crawl over the finish line. “Also, isn’t it time for you two to stop hiding? It’s quite certain by now that the Council didn’t catch onto our identities, or they would have already come after us.”

“It’s never wrong to be careful,” Nazareth protests. “And it’s not like the two of us have any connections or special traits that the Council is interested in. The both of us are a dime and a dozen when it comes to skills. My brother is a talented fighter, but that’s nothing special as far as the Council is concerned. They have more than enough guards.”

“Yes,” I admit. “But a few weeks after the deed it slowly gets ridiculous. To be honest, if Tjenemit catches onto the fact that the two of you are behaving like two schoolboys who shattered a window, he might get suspicious. By behaving as if you have to hide something, you are painting targets onto your backs.”

“She is right, brother. We are drawing a different form of attention by going into seclusion. It’s quite the unusual behaviour for us. We should be glad that nobody but our friends noticed,” Marigold admits. He furrows his forehead and allows his attention to wander, taking in the seemingly endless wasteland all around us.

We are in the desolated zone in the centre of the continent. A huge, roughly circular area of radiation and polluted soil, previously called the Enternal Battlefield where two nations fought an unending war for riches and political reasons.

That is, until a person by the name of Joyce arrived on the scene, later known as Nova Mirai, the Necromantic Empress. She pulled the strings of friend and foe alike, steering the mighty and powerful to assemble their forces in this area. She dangled irresistible prices in front of the faces of mortal and immortal foes alike, having them march to their own doom.

Then, in a single, mighty strike, she eradicated the main forces of the Alliance, the Empire, and the Consortium. At the time, those were the superpowers of the world and with their forces crushed, they couldn’t stop Nova’s rise and her achieving world domination.

The price she was willing to pay was the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and innocents, and a huge blight in the middle of the continent that didn’t heal millennia afterwards. This world was always a pool of discontent and a playground of the many immortals who happened to reincarnate in it. But she/he was the only one who stood above them all.

Finally, the huge half-orc stops his silent brooding and shares his thoughts with us. “History repeats itself. Myrm and Ascathon are assembling their forces once more, and whether they realize it or not, they are recreating what they fought so long ago.” He chuckles. “They are even calling it the Empire and the Alliance. Maybe they are subconsciously remembering the past.”

I shift around on the stone which I chose as a seat. Just now Marigold sounded like he realized something inconvenient about Myrm. Does he know who her soul belonged to? “I hope that you won’t do something unnecessary. As I already explained, Myrm can’t be trusted at the moment.”

He nods.

“Good,” I continue. “As for the names, they are quite unfortunate, but fitting for the political structures they are trying to enforce.”

“Whatever.” Nazareth huffs. “I want no part in it. If they want to use the mortals for their squabbles, then they can do so. I have no particular love for this world, but all of us can probably imagine that this won’t end with mortals fighting mortals. I know Myrm well enough, and I had enough time to observe Ascathon. Neither of them is the type of person to back down from a challenge. Mark my words.”

The little gnome pulls in his legs, changing his sitting position to a cross-legged one. Then he looks up at his brother. “They will continue to escalate. At one point, either of the two will raise his hand against a mortal of the other side. The other will retaliate in kind and things will slide out of control until the two will face off against each other.”

He looks at me. “You probably shouldn’t think of that happening as a 'possibility'. It’s not a question whether it will happen, but when.” His face crunches up in a displeased expression. “And once that happens, we should probably be prepared for Tjenemit entering the scene.”