Chapter 9

As Daelyn followed the feeling of familiarity, he became trapped in a daze. Unable to snap out of it and only able to walk towards the origin of the feeling, his mind wavered more and more as the feeling grew stronger. The closer to the origin he went, the stronger the feeling was. As he was mere meters away from the origin, he looked in a cage, and saw the most magnificent being he had ever seen. He thought that he would only be able to see such a being once in his life time, the being opened its mouth and started talking with a soothing yet almost ethereal voice. He could only describe something like this as something divine, something god like.

“Good that you have come this far, youngling. Now come closer, so that I may hold you, and that we may become one in body and soul.”

Daelyn’s mind warped at the possibility. Such a beautiful being wanted to become one with him in body and, and what now? Doesn’t matter, it sounded very good.

Daelyn drew closer and closer as the feeling became stronger and stronger until his mind was dominated by it, and he was unable to put up any kind of resistance. His state of mind completely levitating towards the origin of the sensation as his body walked towards it like a drunken sailor, trying to support his wavering legs by gripping the walls and bars of the empty cages next to him, Daelyn made the final steps towards the doors of the cage.

As his hand approached the mechanism enlaced with runes that kept the goddess locked inside the cage, Daelyn regained his senses for but a moment. His senses were overwhelmed with the power that radiated from a presence at the end of the hallway, it was so strong and aggressive, that its intent depicted an image of a hungry and bloodthirsty beast, feasting on its victims. This image was quickly overruled as a feeling of pleasure overwhelmed him once again, and compelled to continue his actions of opening the door. As his hand clasped the mechanism and was about to open it, he was returned to his senses by a feral roar.

The roar shook his mind, and pulled him from his daze induced by the being in the cage. As his mind was returned to his control, he could finally look upon the being that he earlier saw as godly. The being was stricken with fear and unable to move, it was clearly shivering from the roar the presence at the end of the hallway had released.

The being itself seemed to be made completely out of the bark of a tree, only the head and some lines along its body adorned with blue lines, that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. The pulse accelerated as the presence at the end of the hallway howled. The being had lost its god-like appearance and seemed quite normal.

Daelyn had but a moment to stare at it before it snapped out of its daze, and made its move. It had not tempted Daelyn towards it without a goal, its bark like fingers moved together, and formed its hand into a bladed weapon made from wood. The blade like hand penetrated Daelyn’s skin, but luckily didn’t puncture any of his important organs or arteries.

Daelyn felt that the energy inside him was being sucked out, he could quickly feel himself become weaker by the second. He could visibly see the being’s blue lines pulse with power as his own was taken away from him, he could only fear for the worst as he felt his consciousness slipping. During that time, he could hear various loud noises, iron creaking and finally breaking, something large stomping on the grounds and making its way towards them, and finally just before he lost consciousness, Daelyn heard wood being torn apart. The last sensation that registered in his brain before he lost consciousness, was the touch of soft fur. He revelled in it, with his last thought being ‘finally, a warm bed.’.

As the small being resting against the creature fell from consciousness, the creature observed the resting being and noticed its wounds. As it was about to circulate its mana through it, it stopped, it did not know what its mana would do to the small creature, and it asked the other two beings present in its mind. It asked for their help, and received an unwelcome answer ‘Why would we help you, you have only tried to supress us. Why would we want to help that little creature? He isn’t important to us.’. The original and dominating being, stopped his request, and forced his will. He used the energies that were true to him, and used them to have them do try and dominate the other presences, if only this worked. The other two presences in the mind retaliated with a fiery scorch and an icy chill, this left them at a stalemate. The domination presence answered their question, ‘He is important to us, he is like us. He is something that has been deformed by something else, I felt his affinities, and he did not have both of those from birth. I don’t ask that you respect me, but pity him.’. The other presences became aware of their position, and decided to comply to the dominating presence.

They had never heard the dominating presence express such feelings, while they could not directly feel his emotions, they could feel his strongest emotions. These emotions were not some ordinary ones which did not have a large impact on the presence, these emotions were so strong that they radiated to the outside, so strong that they would come from the presence’s deepest parts. The other two understood this, and decided to help him, as such a spectacle was unbeknownst to them.

Besides that, they were also afraid of what the domination presence would do if they refused, while he did not engage them in open combat because of the damage he would sustain, he could erase them. They have only been able to live due to their own power and his desire to conserve his own. They knew this, and they knew that such deeps desires could change upon meeting heavy resistance, and that change could mean the end of them.

After they complied to his wishes, the other two presences started their work. The first started with rinsing the wound and cleaning it thoroughly, the second one followed this up and scorched the wound, the first presence followed this up by accelerating the natural healing process and the second presence circulated its own mana through the system of the small creature, making sure that the process was successful and not too taxing on the small creature’s body. The presences continued this for a while until the wound had fully healed.

As they came close to finishing, they noticed how taxing it was. The two presences didn’t have enough mana to finish the procedure, so the dominating presence had to convert its mana to them, which cost him a lot. They had finally finished as the mana of all three was completely exhausted. They took the small creature by the collar, walked back towards their cage, and let it rest against their side, drifting into sleep.

As they drifted away from their physical form and entered the dream realm, they noticed something peculiar. All three of them were in the same dream, and this dream was not a normal one.

They came in a dream where they were in their natural environment. These environments were either those that they grew up in or a version of these attuned to their element, the dream consisted of sparse and dead forests, icy plains, and fiery volcanos. Each of these environments were inhabited with one of the presences at the top of the food chain. They had had this dream many times, and were accustomed to it. This had been since their consciousnesses were put together, creating the abomination they were today.

However, this dream was slightly different. Instead of three areas, there was a fourth area. The three presences all noticed this and made their way to the edges of their territory to look upon the newly created area, seeking to gain superiority over it, and over the other two presences.

They reached the edge of their territory at the same time, and as they looked upon the fourth area, one had an urge to conquer everything present there, one had an urge to make the area its own, and one could only feel worry as it saw the area.

The new fourth area was unlike all the others, it wasn’t a sparse and dead forest nor a blush and life one, it wasn’t a fiery volcano nor a silent mountain, it wasn’t an icy plain nor an endless sea of water. It was simply empty, there was nothing there apart from three objects, and five lights adorning the border of the territory. While the three presences were occupied with the other two, they did not notice that these lights were slowly closing in on the centre, on the three objects.

The three presences eyed the other two from their respective territory, they waited for the other to make the first move. This quickly became a game of patience as the three presences released their aura and tried to intimidate or make the other parties waver. After continuing this game on for a short while, the presences noticed two things, firstly, the presences found that they were equal in raw strength and that trying to intimidate the other individuals was meaningless, secondly, they noticed that the lights adorning the border of the territory were pushed away by their aura’s, and made way for the three presences to claim the territory that had come free as their own.

They all noticed this and started to focus their aura on the fourth area to claim as much as possible of it as their own. The presence that was filled with worry was the most vigorous in this, it reasoned that if it was the first to reach the centre, it could save the three objects from the other two.

The presence filled with the urge to make it its own, wanted to get to the centre first to make the three objects its own. It was filled with determination as it wanted to possess more than the other two ever could.

The presence filled with the urge to conquer, wanted to assimilate the three objects in the centre and make itself more powerful. It was filled with strength as its desire to erase the other two presences became stronger and stronger.

All three had the same goal, all three had similar powers, and all three were directing their powers at each other. They directed them at the others and the central area, they were giving in more and more to their desires and focused too much on the other two and the land they could possibly gain, so much that they could not see what was happening inside that land.

As the lights adorning the border came closer and closer to the centre, they seemed to shine brighter and brighter, feeding of the ambient power the three presences gave off, it accelerated towards the three objects at the centre. As the three presences saw this, their urges roared, as they expended more and more of their aura and their power to reach the centre of the empty void.

The continuously brightening lights reached the two floating objects on either side of the centre, and they seemed to force the floating objects with them towards the centre. This seemed to slow the process, which only served the fuel the desires of the three presences and increased the amount of aura expended by them. The lights became brighter and brighter, as the light they exuded started to compare to the sun, they dragged the two objects with them as the lights crossed the final meters towards the centre and the last object.

The three presences were too occupied with their desires and urges to even notice this, even the one filled with worry was only focused on gaining more territory. He had lost his original goal and thirsted for power, they were all dazed by their thirst for power that they could not see what happened inside the territory they were trying to conquer. They went berserk to gain more and more land as to do better than the other two.

As the final meters were crossed and the lights that seemed to be brighter than the sun pushed the two objects with more and more speed towards the object in the centre, until they reached it. The brightening lights were grinded to a halt as the three objects smashed into each other and kept pushing. The two objects smashed into the one in the middle under the influence of the brightening lights, and as the brightening lights tried to keep accelerating, keep increasing their speed towards the centre, more and more pressure was added on the middle object by the two objects who were under the influence of the accelerating lights.

The object in the centre seeped to warp, steadily bending until it seemed to resemble a donut pressed in by the two other objects, and the lights that were now comparable to a blazing sun. As the centre object seemed to enter breaking point, it seemed to gain a will and fought back. However, it did not fight back in a logical manner, it did not try to resist them, instead the centre object changed form, it swallowed the other two foreign objects by altering its form and swallow them as the two objects were encased by the centre object.

The blinding lights not obstructed by the floating objects, were able to reach the centre object now. As they made contact, all the power from the lights was transferred into the centre object, causing its thousands upon thousands of tendrils to grow thick, until that power was directed manipulated. The thousands of thick tendrils split into multiple thousands each, creating a few million tendrils. These tendrils struck out against the two objects swallowed by the mass of it, breaking them and letting the tendrils assimilate them.

This caused a strong reaction inside the being, a reaction so strong that it changed all of the tendrils inside the being to either one of the colours of the two objects, and it achieved something amazing. The energy that radiated from the centre object reclaimed the territory it had lost and more, it changed the empty space to one that seemed to be permeated with blood and death. A space where a gory, bloody and cold end was natural, a space that only knew life as a bloody, gory and dying mess. A space filled with agony, desperation, and power. Power was filling the space, power that made the air hum with a strange tone, power that seemed to seep out of the centre and permeate throughout the whole area. Power so savage, deadly and uncontrolled that it ravaged the area, making it barren. A place filled with slaughter, filled with blood and death.

The centre object was subject to a worse treatment, it seemed as if the black and red tendrils inside of it had the same destructive and uncontrolled power. The being itself could not resist the power from both inside and outside, and it would soon be torn apart slowly, piece by piece before being torn asunder. The tendrils inside of the being could not hold the power, the tendrils were like a string of wool that was being pulled apart, it was only seconds before the power would snap the first cord, after which the being would be lost forever. It would die from its own power. It would rip itself apart from its inability to control or even resist its own power, the energy that permeated it and the surrounding area would ravage anything in existence as its light would go out.