Chapter 82

Aspect's Chosen (II)

“Who are we if not the scattered bones? The silent ones praying on our toes! For when the night comes, we shall be the Thrones! The crowns unmatched by the Stones!”

Bard Songs Collection, Vol. II

Unlike with when he was drawn into the realm of bones, the new transition was far gentler, as though he was carried by the softest of winds, placed into a new reality with a divine hand. It took him a moment to open his eyes and intake the scene; it was far brighter, and far less macabre than the place he’d just left, but it still left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

The scene was a battlefield, one wide and spacious, located on the crusted plains surrounded by sheer cliffs and mountains. The stench of death was remarkable, reminding him of many places he'd shared a similar experience with back on Earth – those times when the corpses stretched so far and wide even he questioned whether any of what he was doing was worth it.

Tendrils of thick smoke wafted into the air ever so often, the ashen, clouded skies belting out thick droplets of rain. Bodies of the dead lay strewn about the plains, weapons ranging from ordinary swords to giant cleavers scattered about, some pointing up toward the sky in defiance, and others laying flat-faced in the mud.

Noah’s eyes finally landed on the central part of the plains, where he witnessed yet another scene that left him speechless; in the distance, he saw a well-armed, well-organized army segregated into neat rows of squads. Upfront, shieldbearers led the charge, followed by the spearmen, the flanks controlled by quick and nimble swordsmen, while the backend of the army was dominated by the eight lines of archers. Normal – perfectly normal, even.

What shocked him was the other side, the one closest to him – it wasn't an army. It wasn't even a group – it was but a single figure standing there, their cloak whiffing in the wind. They bore no arms, and no armor of note, yet stood steadfast in the face of the overwhelming force.

“His name was Urun,” the familiar voice of the creature crept into Noah’s mind from seemingly nowhere, startling him. “He was the second to last of Our Chosen, before the Aspect withdrew, and before the Fake Gods came. He’d only lived till the tender age of twenty-three, twice your junior. Right now, during this battle, he was seventeen.”

“… seventeen? Fuckin’ Christ…” Noah mumbled, sucking in a cold breath.

“Who are you, you asked? You are this,” the creature said. “Not a tepid, timid rat cradling the shadows of the high statues. You are the Dark, welp.”

As the creature’s voice faded from Noah’s mind, the scene exploded – the army from afar marched, their battleroars exploding out into the sky, shaking the timid earth beneath their rapidly moving feet. Noah stared tongue-tied, wondering if even a fully-armed squad of mercenaries from Earth would be able to win this battle, armed with guns, grenades, and all, let alone a single child.

Right then, the boy moved; beneath the soles of his feet, tendrils of darkness exploded out into a ring-like structure as one of his arms reached out, hand unclasped, a bubble of darkness liquifying into a ten feet long blade entirely made of the incorporeal. He sped, like the wind, leaving behind a blurring trace of his dashing figure, heading straight for the army without any reservations.

The shieldbearers upfront turtled, ducking down and forming a forty-feet long line of vanguard shields while the spearmen behind them crouched slightly, their hips taut, ready to burst out with momentum of a thrust. The boy, however, didn’t seem to care, throwing his body directly at the shield formation.

The dark blade in his hand spun and drew a crescent array that sped off, like a muzzle flash of a gun, tanking against the shields and exploding like a bomb. Pillars of the darkness erupted on the spot, swallowing the world, accompanied by the wails and cries of pain and horror. The boy thrust himself into the darkness and spun, like a dancer, the insanely large blade in his hands behaving less like an oversized claymore too cumbersome to wield, and more like a simple dagger.

Up and down and around the blade went, splitting armored heads as though it was cutting through pieces of paper. Right then, the spearmen thrust their weapons at the boy in a unified formation, yet, to Noah's abundant shock and horror, the weapons sliced into the boy… and through him. However, no blood was ejected, and no cry of pain was heard. Rather, tendrils of shadows whiffed around the rapidly healing holes, and the boy seemed less made of flesh and bone and more akin to the smoke itself.

He stabbed the blade into the earth as it exploded outwardly, forming a straight crevice in the ground that repeatedly ejected clouds of darkness that swallowed everything like the blazing inferno.

Right around then, the flankers arrived, tossing and stabbing and slicing and cleaving at the boy; yet, seemingly ignorant of them, the boy pressed onward, all the attacks passing through his body as though he was merely a hologram, a projection of something real, rather than the real thing itself.

He cleaved his way through the lines of spearmen and shot toward the archers who desperately shot rain after rain of arrows, only for the few that managed to hit the boy to pass through him instead and lodge themselves into the wet ground. It took but a few seconds before the boy was in their midst, spinning and cleaving like a whirlwind, each one of his movements sending several heads flying, causing countless cries of dread to explode out into the gloomy sky.

It was a scene Noah had never witnessed before – rather, he’d never witnessed anything close to it. Back on Earth, his highest point of pride was when he managed to defeat four guys after being trapped in an unfavorable situation, yet, even then, he’d suffered two bullet wounds that chained him to bed for nearly three months.

What he was witnessing now transcended common sense, and even the sense beyond it. It was a one-man army – the ilk that the governments back on Earth dreamed of when they synthesized Augua. Yet, even the supposed ‘supersoldier’ could at most outperform a well-trained one by a third, and not even touch the realm of what the boy was doing.

Soon enough, most of the archers were dead, and those that were not were running away with all their might, as did the swordsmen who halted their chase, spinning around and bolting away from the fear of being the next ones to fall. The boy, however, didn't chase, focusing on the slightly elevated hill before him, where a small squad of tremoring, armored people were standing, surrounding a palanquin.

“… your defiance will be short-lived, Chosen,” a low, humming voice sprung out from the palanquin as a figure stepped out, graced in the unblemished light. No, not light, but Light. It was remarkable – so much so that Noah found himself breathless once again. The Light that he sensed from those in the Kingdom… no, it would be a blemish to even call that thing Light. Golden, warm, all-encompassing, pure, imposing, undaunted. “Your struggle in vain.”

“… don’t preach to me, soulless queen,” the boy’s voice revealed his immature age, high and cracking, yet still full of defiance and determination. “Imprisoning the Aspect, yet inviting the Fake Ones into your heart like a slave. Before my days end, I will free them all. All.”

“And what if you do?” it was a woman, Noah realized, though he was too far away to see her features. And, he suspected, if he was closer, he would still miss them as she was entirely coated in light. The only thing he could say was that she was almost seven feet tall, shocking him somewhat. “The Ages of Aspects draw a curtain now, o’ ye Chosen. They have had their reign, yet look at the world they left behind. So what if they are Fake? At the very least, they’ll reforge the world better than it is today.”

"You don't know anything! What about--##??#--and #$--" the boy's voice suddenly distorted as the world before Noah collapsed into the tiny shards that burst out into star-like explosions, a flash in the pan beauty. Soon enough, Noah found himself back in the ocean of bones, the creature indifferently staring at him from well above.

“… you just cut off some really important information there, didn’t you?” Noah asked.

“It would do you more harm than good.”

“Ah, yes, the information that does more harm than good,” Noah sneered. “You want me to become like that?”

“I don’t,” the creature said. “That’s who you’re supposed to already be. I suppose, however, part of the blame is on us – you are not of this Astra. Who knows what Dark represents whence you came from?”

“…” Noah frowned – this was the first time some identified his ‘Outlanderness’ more precisely than just ‘somewhere far away’. The creature seemed to know that he came from an entirely different planet rather than just somewhere beyond the peninsula. “You’ve injected my mind with a lot of information. I’d really like to clarify some things.”

“… two.” The creature said.

“Huh?”

“Ask two questions, and leave.”

“…” Noah’s eyebrows twitched but he quickly calmed down. Even two was realistically more than he was expecting. If anything, he was surprised he wasn’t yet kicked in his ass and booted back into the Brightfloods. “The first one is… who are the Kindled? And the second one is… who are the Fake Gods?"

“… for Light, they are Illuminated; for Dark, they are Enshrouded; for Ruin they are Baneful; for Fire, they are Kindled.”

“…” Noah’s eyes lit up in the glint of understanding. “And Fake Gods?”

“The Fallen Chosen,” the creature replied directly. “Who uprooted and corrupted their Aspect.”

“… w-wait, so that means that, uh, my… god? My god isn’t fake, right? If so, aren’t there more non-fake ones?”

“I have answered your questions,” the creature said. “I truly hope, against my better judgment, that, by the time we see each other once again, you’ll have understood it all. If not, it will be the last thing you will ever see. Don’t grow too comfortable in the shadows, welp; you are Enshrouded, not Enshadowed – shade is not your realm."