Chapter 30: A Bit Like Me

“What will you do?” A voice resounded in Annabelle’s ears, a voice she recognized, but couldn’t understand how she heard it. With those words came countless others.

“What is your purpose, I wonder?”

“Two paths… lead, or rule.”

“Are you prepared… no matter what must be done?”

“A thousand, a million deaths… yet no matter… statistics.”

“Tragedy… a single wilted flower.”

“Power… man knows not what it is.”

“Without... nothing but wail impotently against the unfairness of the world.”

“Grovel helplessly in the hopes of salvation.”

“Power overwhelming cannot…”

“For that unfairness… is in the deepest depths of the human heart.”

“The sin of pride.”

“The first, and the last… evils of mankind.”

“They all lead to… disappointment, resentment, rejection,”

“And finally, they take on that clearest form reserved for the deepest circle of hell: betrayal.”

“Their purpose is opposition… destruction”

“The clearest enemy that can be faced, and also the most difficult.”

“To perceive the darkness that disgusts us so totally that we instinctively reject it.”

“Yet… So too can they be defeated by conviction surpassing that doubt.”

“Not in a self, or an individual, but in an ideal that stands beyond mortality.”

“I wonder, do you have such an ideal?”

“So tell me, child:”

“What will you do?” That question resounded in Annabelle’s mind, echoing in the nothingness of her thoughts, clearing out pain and suffering, anguish and despair.

“What… will I do?” She asked herself, her voice surprisingly clear although weak and nearly gone. The Black Prince and Jasmina turned to look at her again, their eyes displaying disbelief that she is still conscious.

“What will you do? Roll over and die, I hope.” Jasmina spat, shaking her head and looking away with her ears laying flat again, her arms folded as she watched the Rose kingdom perish.

The Black Prince said nothing, but turned away as well, obviously uncaring of anything she did, believing her a beaten enemy. So Annabelle was left alone to stare into the sword and talk to herself, forming the conviction she so badly needed.

“To lead… to rule. No, I am unfit for that. I cannot protect… I cannot save.” Annabelle said softly to herself, staring at her reflection in the sword, seeing the broken body and bloody face. “I am no savior.”

She gasped in pain as her shift put weight on the broken arm, agony filling her for a second before withdrawing. Panting, she continued to talk to herself, feeling this to be important beyond imagination. “I fight… over and over again. My conviction… because I was told to, because it was needed… never for myself. How pitiful… indeed, how foolish. I am weak, am I not? So all I can do is grovel in the hope of salvation… yet none will come.”

She chuckled to herself, madness in her voice. The Prince heard that and looked at her again with curiosity, only to see her staring at the sword with a broken expression. “I cannot be saved, nor can I save. I am a failure… pride. What pride? I have no pride left. I am nothing… useless… pointless. If there was anything to save me, they’d turn away in disgust.”

Snorting, the Black Prince returned his attention to the battle, sending bursts of cultivation into the air to command his army or smash the Rose positions. Screams of agony and the dying echoed between the smoky air and the burning city, the sun obscured once more by the dark shroud of battle.

“Betrayal.. Jasmina betrayed me. She betrayed my father… I can’t understand… and yet I do… disappointment, resentment, rejection… towards the one who denies her pride. Me… me… me.” She repeated like a broken record, chuckling in despair and madness, holding tightly to the sword that appeared as the only light in the darkness that was all she could see. “It was all my fault.”

“I see it… that darkness. It’s horrible. Why would anyone embrace it? Why does it even exist? Why do I exist, if it is in me as well?” Annabelle asked, her voice dripping with disgust. “I hate it. I want it gone. Conviction… no, I have no conviction to banish that darkness. So… I guess I’ll make one.”

‘If, heavens forbid, you fail; if your enemy is beyond you, and all hope is lost; if you must triumph, and there is no hope for survival but straight ahead…’ A voice, different from the one before, yet also the same, repeated itself in Annabelle’s head. Perhaps a memory, perhaps something more, it gave her the last piece she needed. ‘Call my name, and ask. I don’t know if it will be possible, but… if I am close enough, I will hear you. And there will perhaps be something I can do.’

“Arcane.” She said, her voice suddenly clear and loud. The Black Prince and Jasmina whirled around in surprise as she rolled herself over to face the obscured sun, her paws clasped about the glass sword in prayer. “I ask of you, with all my strength. I don’t care what it costs, not my life, not my nation, not my very soul. Grant me the power to destroy this darkness, to banish this evil from my world. Grant me the power I so desperately need, to fulfill the purpose I have finally realized. I beg… no, I pray of you; please.”

Far above the world, the words were heard. A cyan haired head bowed towards the world, sealed eyes tightened suddenly as it heard the clear voice of the dying girl with neither ears nor mind, but her very soul.

Darkness surged behind her, space separating as four dark beasts swam through the void to stop around the hardened piece of space. The first and largest swam closer to the girl standing in front of them, great voice rending the void to speak to the being it saw as it’s pet.

{{Have you finished with that world?}} Shaitan rumbled through the void.

{{It is in the void, Shaitan.}} Romeo rippled with condescending amusement, speaking as if it was obvious. {{Why else would it be here?}}

{{Hush. Maybe it needs a moment or something. We have time.}} Juliet scolded him, before looking at Arcane generously.

“... The contract is proposed.” Arcane said in a resounding voice, filling the space with sound that was not sound, a language that was not language. “Let the terms be declared.”

Shaitan drew back, as did the other three dark beasts. They understood the words she was saying, as well as the fact that it was not said to them. And somehow, they all sensed the terrible intent, the power behind them. Like an ancient devil of myths, buying the souls of mortals and twisting their fates towards darkness or light, she spoke with words that shaped the very nature of reality.

{{What is this?}} Nemesis screamed, feeling the power gathering around the words, but the rest remained silent in thought.

“The contractee, Queen Annabelle of the Kingdom of Roses, offers everything of herself. Her life, her nation, her very soul. When the terms of the contract are finished, she will sacrifice all of it to the contractor.” Arcane declared, and the power took shape into words describing exactly the same thing. Shaitan and Juliet examined it in awestruck wonder.

{{Shaitan, is that?...}} Juliet trailed off, her spatial rumbles weakening at the unbelievable sight.

{{A divine oath.}} he answered, filling in what she could not. Yet his voice held the same disbelief and confusion as hers. {{But that’s impossible… only an ancient god could have…}}

{{What?? A divine… then this mortal is really??}} Romeo reacted to their conversation, myriad eyes focusing on both larger beasts and the tiny girl between them.

{{I can’t believe it…}} Juliet said the obvious, shaking her entire body in the gathering storm of power.

“In return for this, the contractor, Arcane, shall provide the power to fulfill the purpose so declared: the destruction of the darkness, and the banishment of evil from the world of Annabelle of Roses.” Arcane ignored their awe and surprise, and filled in the second line of the forming words with her voice. The power stopped increasing, shaping into a single stream of light as the words flashed and twisted around each other.

Shining with glorious power, the beam of light stood in front of Arcane as she reached out to touch it, filling it with more and more power.

{{Shaitan, she is a god?!}} Nemesis screamed, darting behind her father in panic.

{{I think not. This is not the same as those contracts…}} Shaitan said pensively. {{Yet, it is still far beyond what a mortal could do.}}

{{Should we stop her?}} Juliet asked, swimming closer before being repelled by the force surrounding the beam of light. Groaning with pain, she twisted herself around to face Shaitan, who rippled negation.

{{We will not. I am interested to see where this goes.}} He said.

{{You would.}} Romeo muttered in discontent, looking towards the world in curiosity. Seeing the other end of the contract, he rippled in disdainful surprise. {{It’s just a mortal?}}

{{Only a mortal would be so foolish.}} Juliet agreed.

{{To sacrifice everything, in return for power?}} Shaitan rumbled through the void, reading the contract as it swirled about the pillar before it was consumed by light. {{If only that were so.}}

“If both parties assent to the terms, let the contract be made.” Arcane declared, letting her hand fall along the pillar. “I grant your prayer, Annabelle.”

With that the pillar of light fell from the sky, ripping through the air with terrifying speed and shaking the void behind it. Arcane continued to look down at the world, while the void beasts looked at her with new understanding.

{{You are strong, aren’t you?}} Shaitan asked suddenly, to which Arcane merely smiled.

“Tell me when you want to hear the answer.” Arcane said to him in the language of gods. “Of how that star died.”

Shaitan rumbled in discontent, but also with a note of something else. A trace he didn’t even notice, of an emotion he had rarely known throughout his millennia long life. An emotion mortals called fear.

“Power? You pray for more power? Haven’t you realized it’s pointless yet?” Jasmina scoffed, kicking at Annabelle again yet missing and hitting a rock. Growling in anger, she narrowed her eyes and laid back her ears with even more anger.

“... The last words of the mad and broken, Jasmina. Ignore them.” The Black Prince said, pushing her away. “Still, I am surprised you had the strength to say them.”

Annabelle remained silent, the light fading from her eyes as she saw no reply. Yet suddenly, she heard words in her head that caused her to sit up again, making the Prince take a step back.

‘The contract is proposed. Let the terms be declared.’

Yes, she thought. It was her voice, the voice of that child she couldn’t understand. Why she merely heard her words, why there was no help forthcoming, she didn’t even ask. Somehow, impossibly, Arcane had answered her desperate prayer. No matter what came of it, she was happy.

“Have you truly gone insane?” The Black Prince wondered, watching her antics. Then he looked up in shock as power surged from the heavens far above him, power he couldn’t understand how he could feel.

‘The contractee, Queen Annabelle of the Kingdom of Roses, offers everything of herself. Her life, her nation, her very soul. When the terms of the contract are finished, she will sacrifice all of it to the contractor.’

Those were my words, Annabelle thought. That was what I was willing to give. But, Arcane… I didn’t think you would want them. Or is this merely a formality… if so, why? What are you planning? And what is that power… is that truly you?

“To arms! Watch the skies! An enemy could be coming! Be wary!” The Black Prince shouted, looking at the sky and the roiling power flickering as light across the dark sky, penetrating the shroud of ash and smoke. His ears were laid back as his tail flicked in anger.

“My prince, we should kill her!” Jasmina snarled at Annabelle, preparing to do so. But the Prince shook his head.

“This isn’t her. She isn’t a threat to us any more.” He reprimanded, kicking Jasmina out to the window and putting her between him and the opening to the sky.

‘In return for this, the contractor, Arcane, shall provide the power to fulfill the purpose so declared: the destruction of the darkness, and the banishment of evil from the world of Annabelle of Roses.’

Annabelle had nothing left to think, only a feeling of hope that swelled throughout her body. She could defeat that evil, destroy every trace of it, grant her world perfect and light for all eternity. She only needed that power, that power gathering in the sky above in answer to her prayer. Power unbelievable in magnitude, before it suddenly disappeared.

“What?” The Black Prince scowled. “Was that it?”

“Perhaps a trick of our senses.” Jasmina proposed.

Annabelle knelt on the ground, the faint hope inside her consumed by all consuming rage. Again, she had been betrayed. Again, she had been abandoned. She couldn’t trust anything, could she. There was nothing left for her, nothing but suffering before being killed. Perhaps it would be for the best, to leave this broken world behind. Yet as her despair grew, she saw a pillar of light fall from the sky along with the final words.

‘If both parties assent to the terms, let the contract be made. I grant your prayer, Annabelle.’

The Black Prince and Jasmina were thrown away by the impact, an explosion that shattered the castle and left Annabelle in an open crater with a floating pillar of light standing before her. It seemed to ask if she truly meant what she said, if she truly desired to sacrifice everything in exchange for her wish.

All around her, the remnants of Rose and the army of the Boreal soldiers and the Faceless turned to that pillar of light and the girl kneeling before it with a shattered arm and a hole in her side.

Before the eyes of everyone, ally and enemy, friend and foe, Annabelle extended her arm and grabbed the pillar of light, forming her absolute conviction and casting everything else aside.

“I agree to the terms. My wish is unchanged.” She declared in a strong voice that everyone heard, even when it was clearly impossible. “Now grant it to me!”

The pillar flickered in answer, and a blinding light entered the sword. Annabelle saw within it knowledge and experience she had never known before, details on a cultivation technique light years better than any she had used before. She started to use it, channelling energy through her entire body from the pillar and the surroundings. Somehow, she felt that it was not enough; that if she continued, she would drain the lives of all those near her and still not have enough to finish the technique. Yet she didn’t care.

Somehow, she knew it would all be alright, that she was not abandoned yet. As knowledge and power flowed into her from every direction, she closed her eyes and smiled as the light destroyed her vision forever.

Arcane watched, along with the dark beasts, as Annabelle accepted the contract and took into herself power beyond what anyone that world had ever had before. It was still low for the dark beasts and Arcane herself, but it was impressive nonetheless.

But that had not been the contract. Something else was needed, something more. It had not been a contract that Annabelle first made, not an agreement.

It had been a prayer. Pure desire, devotion, groveling on the ground for salvation. So in answer Arcane let power she had withheld for far too long flow through her, power gained not from her own overwhelming might but eons of belief and devotion. Belief in ages long gone, and the ruler at their helm. Belief from those ages themselves, eons of kneeling at a stone throne that merely radiated energy as a guidepost in a language long since forgotten, that waited for eternity for an answer that none remembered was desired.

What was called the race of gods was nothing more than a false name taken from the memory of the descendents of man. What was called divine had long since lost its meaning, referring to a realm of strength, a significance of power, a meaning in history. None of those were the original intent; none of those were the true meaning.

A god was not merely something strong, not merely something overwhelming in strength or mysterious in nature. It was a controller, a reservoir, a guardian. It was the administrator of a world, created by prayers, fed by devotion, mollified by belief. It sent disasters to the unfaithful, and benefits to those who served it. Fed by the purest love of man, strengthened by the knowledge and studies of countless priests, it was the representative of the first magic any universe had known.

Arcane connected to herself, a reservoir of power beyond mortal comprehension or understanding. Emotional power, mighty beyond belief, and yet incomplete. For this was not a reservoir of a true god, a being beyond space and time, but a pseudo-divinity born from the life of a single human. It was the results of Arcane’s endlessly long life, from the worship of nations before legend, before myth, before the universe itself.

A tiny fraction of that power, a drop from an ocean, was extracted. That drop was sent along the conduit of a prayer, granted to a being who devoted her entire self for a single moment to a being closer to a true god than almost any other. And with that power, she broke through endlessly.

Annabelle felt the power Arcane sent her, in return for faith. Smiling, she felt the power shatter the bottlenecks she had struggled with all her life one after another as if they were nothing. Eighth tier. Ninth tier. Tenth tier, eleventh tier, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth. Sixteenth. Eighteenth.

Slowing down, it took her through the nineteenth. Concentrating, she felt herself come up against one last barrier, a slightly larger step she had to struggle to surpass. As she pulled herself up over it, she saw a great wall, a barrier larger than anything she had overcome before without a peak in sight. This was not something she could overcome, she knew. It was the first great step of cultivation, the power Arcane called the first divide, she knew from the knowledge of the sword.

Even so, she was a cultivator of the twentieth tier of her own world. The Black Prince, the entire Boreal nation, even the entire western world would not be enough to stop her now. The wound on her arm healed with a fraction of the power raging within her. Her side closed up, her blood regenerated, holy light flowed through her and recovered the fatigue she didn’t even realize she felt. Light as a feather, the sword in her paw danced through the air, the glory of her new power overcoming her.

Muttering a prayer of strength, she stepped into the air and let herself fly for the first time. Hovering, she looked down on all the cultivators she saw below her, too weak to even imagine standing against her now. Yet she realized she didn’t really see any of them, only forms of light in the darkness. She smiled anyway; her sight was a cheap price to pay for this power. And more than that, in those scattered lights of cultivation energy she could sense, she could finally see it trying to hide: the darkness she had wished to destroy with her own two paws.

So even the eternal darkness was a part of her new gift, she thought as she raised the sword and activated its power, ready to begin her purpose.

{{You gave her power.}} Shaitan said, seeing what was going on on the world below. {{With it, she will destroy and destroy and destroy.}}

“Is that a problem?” Arcane asked, raising an eyebrow at the oddly humanitarian dark beast.

{{Of course not.}} Shaitan scoffed. {{A world ravaged here and there is the nature of our existence. It just seemed… odd.}}

“For a mortal to do so herself?” Arcane asked with a smirk on her face.

Shaitan rippled, conveying disbelief. {{I no longer believe you are mortal.}}

“We are all mortal, void swimmer.” Arcane said. “Elfbeasts, dragons, mundanes, cultivators. Some are slower, some are faster, but in the end we all die. Even the people are not exempt, much as they’d like to be.”

{{Perhaps.}} Shaitan rumbled, watching the Rose Princess continue to absorb the power and grow stronger while the world around her merely watched. {{Still, some are more mortal than others.}}

The other dark beasts simply sat and watched, not understanding the conversation they could only hear one side of. They too watched the world below, something unlike anything they had ever seen playing out among the mortals there. Unlike Shaitan, they had little context for this sort of thing, a relic of the age of gods and the creators before them.

“... I cannot say you are wrong, but neither are you right.” Arcane said after a moment of silence. “Even if you measure time in quality rather than quantity, some live more than others. This, I cannot deny. But I do not believe you understand correctly which ones are given more, and which are given less.”

{{Nor do I.}} Shaitan replied. {{I have no idea to what you refer with that.}}

Arcane smiled, shaking her head. “You always throw me off, void swimmer. Most do not like to admit they know nothing, even when they do.”

{{A foolish practice. If one always pretends to know, how will they learn?}} he asked.

“I do not know, swimmer. I do not know.” Arcane agreed.

{{Hmph.}} Shaitan snorted, rippling the void of space around his mouth. {{Well, it seems your part is done. Shall we leave this place behind us?}}

“I will remain a little longer, void swimmer. To see the contract fulfilled, if nothing else.” Arcane replied, not looking towards Shaitan while her sealed eyes remained on the world below.

{{Very well.}} Shaitan said in assent. {{We will wait as long as it takes. Time is nothing to us, after all.}}

The other dark beasts agreed, fascinated by the rising power below and the divinity of the girl in their midst. In silence, they waited while her power rose until it peaked and leveled off, watching her rise from the ground to look down on the elfbeasts around her and raise her sword into the air.

{{I am curious about something.}} Shaitan said in the silence before she struck.

“Hm?” Arcane asked, tilting her head towards him to show she was listening, though the gesture was lost on the vastly different dark beast.

{{Why did you grant that prayer? I cannot see any benefit towards you, even with those terms.}} Shaitan asked. {{Even her soul is essentially nothing compared to the power you gave her.}}

“You’re right.” Arcane admitted easily, but she remained silent after that before finally shaking her head. “I don’t really know, to be honest. Perhaps… It’s because she seems a bit like me.”

Shaitan looked at her and rippled in disbelief. {{I don’t think I’ll ever understand you.}}

Arcane smiled mysteriously, still watching the goings on of the world below as Annabelle finally swung her sword for the first time with her new power.