I will be the virus that will poison the parasite.

Her words crashed into my mind like a wrecking ball. For a second, the pressure of trying to save my family was lighter. I finally felt like I could breathe. The truth in her divine voice was mesmerizing, as if it really could happen. Then that moment was over, and I had to pay attention to details.

“How?” I asked softly.

“When you’re ready, I’ll merge together with Her Will,” Goddess explained. “Then you will carry me to the parasitic planet. Every planet has a ‘heart.’” She motioned with her right hand, the soul star staying perfectly in place over her palm, behind her. “This is my heart. The beginning of my world, where I stayed while my world was being created. Earth’s is the Garden of Eden, which has always stayed hidden from humans. The parasitic planet has one too. If you stab Her Will into the altar there, I can inject myself into the parasite and fight it from the inside. That way we can bypass any defence the parasite has set up.”

I stared at the glowing kindjal. It sounded possible, but there were a couple issues. “I don’t even know how to find the Portal to the parasite. Do you?”

She shook her head. “It hasn’t opened up yet. So there’s no reason for you to take a trip to Siberia.” A smile touched her mouth, as if she thought of a funny joke.

My mouth twitched. “We had to check,” I muttered.

“And that’s the right idea.” She sounded like she was soothing a sulking child, but I didn’t actually hate her tone. Maybe it was because she was the Goddess of the Warriors of Mist, but I doubted that I’d ever hate anything she did. It felt like it was programmed into me, and I didn’t mind. Because I instinctively knew that she wanted the best for me, even if I had to learn the hard way.

“Like a fly, who spews acid onto its food, then extends a straw-like mouth to suck up the decomposed food, the parasite is much the same. It won’t open a direct Portal to Earth until it is ready to absorb Earth,” Goddess explained. “I’ll be able to feel when that happens. If we move fast enough, we can intercept it before it damages Earth beyond repair.”

My eyes widened and I took a step forward. “You … care what happens to Earth?” It was almost too good to be true. After all, I’d talked circles and circles around Kesstel, trying to get him to care.

She laughed. “Well, it’s the birthplace of my only child. If we succeed, it will be the land where my children will live until I can make another world for them. Which will take a long time.” She paused. “If things go as planned, I’ll have leverage over Earth to convince it to host my people for a time. After all, if not me and my person, Earth won’t exist in the future.” She laughed again and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m talking about the future. I’ve lived in the past for so long.”

I smiled and nodded. It was still a little weird to hear a woman younger than me keep calling me her ‘child.’ Hell, it was weird to hear anyone other than my mom call me that. But at the same time, it slipped off Goddess’s tongue so naturally that it didn’t make me uncomfortable. It was actually very reassuring how much she cared about my well-being.

When I first got the System, I had to work for what I got. It would give impossible requests and I’d have to fulfill them. It almost didn’t feel like the System and Goddess were the same person. Maybe it was because in the beginning, we didn’t know each other. We were both simply using the other person to get what we wanted. I wanted to be strong enough to protect my family and give them a better future, and I was willing to pay any price. Goddess wanted revenge and didn’t care what “tool” she had to use.

“I know what you mean. The future was always so bleak before I met you. Every day I woke up thinking that I might just die today. I wanted to live, I just couldn’t see how. But ...” I looked around at the palace features barely visible in the hazy mist. “What about Vapria? Are you going to try and rebuild it?”

Her own gaze swept around the sparse garden courtyard and elegant palace. She looked so sad, like she was going to cry, but her eyes stayed dry. “No. My beloved Vapria is dead. And has been for a long, long time. I’ll never be able to repair it. When we leave to go back to Earth, it will collapse and cease to exist.” Her voice trembled.

I bit my lips. My experience with this world was short and, honestly, not pleasant. It was more like trauma, even with meeting Goddess. But I could understand how hard it was for her to say that. She was going to be just like Kesstel, someone who lost everything. “I’m sorry.”

Goddess drew in a breath and composed her expression, her silvery hair fluttering around her. “I am too. But finally, there’s hope for the future. For the both of us.”

She stepped back until she stood in the middle of the garden. The kindjal and her soul light lifted into the air, rising until they were floating ten feet above our heads. The crystal in the blade of the kindjal started to glow brighter until it was as bright as the soul light.

“You have a choice now,” Goddess said. Her flowing white dress — so different than my most black armor — danced in the air more than ever, revealing peeks of the silver sandals on Goddess’s pale feet. “When you get Her Will back, you will have access to the other seventy percent of the energy that you have collected. Until the time when I need it to infect the parasite.”

I paused. “That was a lot of energy.” If I got to level 54 with only thirty percent of the energy, how many levels was I going to get in one go?

“I originally chose to slowly give you the energy, not only because I needed some, but because there is a chance that your body couldn’t accept the energy and you would have exploded.” It was amazing how she could say such heavy things with such a matter-of-fact voice. She looked me in the eyes. “Now I think your body is strong enough to handle the weight of the energy. You can choose to continue to slowly absorb the energy level by level, like you have so far, or you can accept it all at once. I won’t lie, it will be painful. And there’s a fifty percent chance that you won’t be able to handle it, physically or mentally. You and I will both die. And the parasite will win.”

“But Earth doesn’t have a lot of time left, right?” I asked. I didn’t even need to see her nod before I made up my mind. There was no telling if I had enough time to slowly absorb it. I could risk not being able to handle absorbing the energy or risk Earth collapsing before I was strong enough to protect it. I didn’t have time to play it safe anymore. “I’ll take it all at once.”

A proud smile spread across her face. “I knew you’d say that.” She lifted her hand into the air. Bright white magic covered her fingers and then arced up until it touched the sword and the floating ball of light.

A tremendous magical pressure spread out, whipping her long silvery hair and white dress around. The thick mist started to swirl around us like a tornado, the obscure features of the palace going in and out of focus as the water vapor pooled and sifted around it. I flinched as it hit, and I bent my knees to brace against it. My ponytail lashed at my face, but I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening.

Goddess’s eyes started to glow with the same bright magic. Slowly, she brought her hands together. As she did, her soul light and the glowing kindjal grew closer. The closer they got, the more pressure flooded the area. The ground began to shake, and all the pedals on the flowers were ripped off their stems. The bright colors joined the cloudy tornado, flashing pops of colors in the off-white wall.

Instinctively I held out my hand for my kindjal to anchor myself to the ground, but it was useless. With nothing else, I bent down a little lower so that I didn’t catch as much pressure.

Goddess touched her hands together and the kindjal and soul light merged. A blinding pulse of magic exploded out, nearly blinding me.

I covered my eyes and bent over, but I could still see the afterimage behind my closed lids. After a second, I became aware of the stillness around me. I opened my eyes and quickly blinked away the tears that lingered in the corners of my eyes.

The cloud funnel had stopped. Instead the mist stood unusually still, like it was a form of art, instead of water particles in the ever-moving air. Light beams stabbed into the mist, giving high and low light shades to the wall and bouncing off the random marble features hiding on the other side.

In the middle of the garden, Goddess levitated three feet off the ground. It was like a picture from an art book, how her dress and hair floated around her. Above her raised hands was the still-glowing kindjal, but it was different. The blade was no longer half steel, half crystal. It was all crystal, and the inside of the blade was slightly cloudy. The inside of the blade shifted and moved, as if there was a real cloud inside the blade. The handle was bright steel with a whimsical cloud-like pattern that I’d seen on the palace columns. It was hands-down the most beautiful weapon I’d ever seen.

The glow started to fade from the kindjal until it was just a faint light, barely more than a trick of the light. Slowly, Goddess’s body began to fade, as if she was turning into mist herself. She lowered her hand and brought the sword down to float horizontally, level with her chest. Then she drifted over to me, as if she didn’t care that her body was fading away.

She smiled gently. “The parasitic planet has made many Bosses. But you are mine. The Boss that I have made for our end goal.”

My eyes widened. “I’m … a Boss? I thought you would be the Boss of this world? Or the Red Orc King?”

She shook head. “I can’t be a Boss since I don’t have an energy crystal. The Orc King is the Boss that the parasite put here, but you are my chosen Boss. As soon as you take Her Will, Vapria and my existence will be tied to you. A portion of my power will still be withheld from you, to be used only when you are in desperate need of it. After all, I’ll need that energy to infect the parasitic planet. As for the rest of the energy you will receive … bare with it.”

She held out the kindjal.

I stared at the glowing sword, so familiar and so foreign at the same time. It was like standing at the edge of a building, knowing there was a net down there somewhere, but I was going to have to freefall for a long time first. Freefall while I was in pain.

Still, what else was I going to do? Walk away now that we were at this point because I was scared of the pain? Since when had I ever had that option?

I reached out and gripped the smooth handle. It still fit like it was made for my hand. The pattern-weld steel was warm against my skin and, for the first time, there seemed to be a … current in the sword. Almost like the handle was pulsing while the mist moved and swirled inside the blade. Alive. This sword, with the soul of Goddess inside, was alive.

But I didn’t feel the pain I was expecting. Just the calming feeling that I always felt when I held the kindjal. No, it was more than that. It was the reassuring feeling I had standing in Goddess’s presence.

Goddess reached out and wrapped her arms tight around my neck. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here with you,” she whispered in my neck. “Don’t resist, and don’t give up. Be as strong as I know you can be.”

Before I could ask what she meant, or even hug her back, she vanished in a ball of light that was absorbed into the kindjal.

Pain — mind-numbing, incapacitating agony erupted in my body.

*****