The Dark Empress — Maribelle

The appearance of Wilson’s cave has once again been altered. The ice of the lake has been pulverized into a fine snow. The large chunks of rock and fallen stalactites that littered the area have been turned to dust. I made sure not to harm the suncarp. The frozen fish are piled up in the snow near the island. Wilson said that he might try to thaw them in his mouth.

At the moment, the salamander is hiding in the bottom of his den. Apparently he feels unsafe being out in the open during my training.

I turn off my magical defenses, and surge my entropomancy through my body, intentionally damaging myself for several seconds. Bruises form across every inch of my skin, all of my bones crumble, and deep gashes are torn in my flesh. While pushing my concentration to the limit, I force my manifestation to activate half a second before the cooldown is over.

‘Divine Retribution!’

Black lightning flashes into the lake of snow, blasting a large section of it into an even finer powder. There is a lot of destructive force left over, and it goes down into the floor of the cave, turning rock into sand. It is difficult to push damage into powders. They are already about as destroyed as they can be, so they don’t like to absorb entropomancy. It’s like trying to put more water into an already soaked sponge.

My training session has decreased my cooldown time by a noticeable amount. The best way to lower a manifestation’s cooldown is to repeatedly force it to activate early through sheer force of will. However, one’s will is strongest when something is at stake. Peaceful training can only take me so far. The divine voice helps, though. It increases the ease by which I can accumulate spiritual power. No ordinary mortal would be able to reduce the cooldown of a manifestation as quickly as I have during this training session. Surpassing mortals is not my goal, though.

I have my work cut out for me if I want to catch up to the gods. However, if one only considers the cultivation of my voice, I am doing well. During my training with Bez, I passed through the first two stages of voice cultivation quickly. I was only in the will consolidation stage for a few weeks, and the influence exertion stage for a few months. Right now, my voice is in the transcendental stage. I will reach the eternal spirit stage at my next breakthrough, and after that is the divine stage, the midpoint between mortality and omnipotence. At that point, things will start to become true just because I say them. In the battle between reality and my voice, reality will start to lose. When that happens, it will not be presumptuous to compare myself to the gods.

Unfortunately, matching the gods in the strength of my voice is not enough. Spiritual power will be the problem. The stronger one’s voice, the easier it is to accumulate spiritual power, and the gods have had millennia to grow in strength, holding their immense spirits together with their world-shaking voices. They’ve each obtained dozens of rights, enough manifestations to fill an encyclopedia, and auras powerful enough to level mountains. I expect that even compared to most beings in the transcendental stage, I am somewhat weak. Bezvillia said that most dragons reach the transcendental stage at about a century of age. I do not think the current me could defeat a century-old dragon.

Also, most gods have cultivated their voices beyond the divine stage. Bezvillia and Hella have reached the sixth stage, the blooming dominion stage. Zenath is at the seventh stage, the realm formation stage. If he manages to take one more step, he will become a high deity.

Bezvillia said that there are only nine beings in existence that have cultivated their voices to the high deity stage: the three dragon emperors, the four heavenly godkings, the nemata matriarch, and the lord of the oceanic abyss. Beyond that is only one living being, the calamity. His voice has reached the ninth stage, granting him nigh-omnipotence.

These are the ten most powerful beings that exist. Out of these ten, all but two of them are virtually guaranteed to be my enemies. The dragon emperors are loyal to the calamity, and the heavenly godkings are the leaders of the white pantheon. The nemata matriarch is neutral in all matters that do not involve the literal destruction of the world. Only the lord of the oceanic abyss, the strongest of all krakens, is a potential ally, and that is only if I am extremely careful in how I approach him.

“It’s rare to see you lost in thought.”

I turn to see Cynthia standing beside me. I didn’t notice her teleport in. For reasons that I cannot comprehend, she is carrying a heaping pile of black fabric in her arms.

“It’s good to see you. Is it finally time for me to fight Vanessa?”

“Yes. Charles selected an interesting place to set up your encounter with her.”

“Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

She smirks coyly, and hands me the heap of fabric in her arms. Upon examining it, I realize that it is a dress. I can sense various enchantments woven into the fabric.

“Put that on. Grant found it just lying around in the vaults of the adventurers guild. Nobody was using it, so he took it. It’s a battle dress, stylish and practical. Also, it’s much better for your public image than that ragged cloak your wearing.”

“Public image, huh?”

“You’re an empress. We’ve been working hard on our propaganda campaign. I dare say we made impressive progress for less than two days of work. The whole city knows about you. You’re the Dark Empress, a being that transcends humanity and seeks to destroy the heavens. It’s close to being true, and more importantly, it’s the perfect story to set you up in opposition to Theonius’s whole narrative about being chosen by the gods. I was a bit skeptical about painting you in such an unholy light, but you were never going to be popular with religious types in the first place. The goal is to avoid immediate rebellion when you take power, so it suffices for you to simply be feared. You can worry about being well liked later.”

“How has Theonius reacted to this?”

“He refuses to recognize you as someone that he should see as a threat. Doing so would only legitimize your claim to the throne. He’s still insisting that the kingsguard hunt you down to apologize for their earlier uselessness. His outward attitude towards you is that you are just a fleeing rat that needs to be exterminated. He doesn’t want to dirty his hands.”

“Hasn’t he realized that I killed two of his royal guards already?”

“Yes. It’s possible that he considers you more of a threat than he lets on in public. We need to stay vigilant in case he’s secretly planning some method of dealing with you.”

I nod.

“Alright. Let’s try this on.”

With a pulse of spatiomancy, I teleport my clothes off. Cynthia makes an exaggerated show of averting her gaze from my suddenly naked body. With another pulse of magic, I teleport the dress onto me, immediately frowning with displeasure.

“This thing is really uncomfortable.”

Cynthia chuckles.

“That’s because you put it on backwards.”

“Oh.”

I cast one more teleportation spell to flip the dress around, and it suddenly feels much better. When I look down to consider myself, I smile with satisfaction. The skirt is long and has many layers of flowy black silk, but the fabric seems to somehow be enchanted to avoid getting in my way. It constantly flows with my movements, never hindering me. In terms of mobility, it is as if I am wearing nothing at all. The dress has several metal plates hidden in the fabric in select spots, protecting my vitals. There are defensive enchantments, and I suspect they ward against more than just physical damage.

“Okay, this is actually pretty cool. It even has pockets! Thanks.”

“Of course. Oh, before I forget, you also asked for these.”

She hands me two things, a necklace and a bracelet. The bracelet is similar to the one Ferry’s girlfriend gave me, which I sadly lost while fighting Theonius. The necklace is a silver chain on which ten small animal skulls are strung.

“What’s the necklace?” I ask.

“Each skull is a purging charm. If you get cursed while wearing the necklace, one of them will immediately break to nullify it.”

“So my opponent would have to curse me ten times before one sticks?”

“Yes. If your opponent is smart, they’ll target the necklace directly, so I suggest you hide it under your clothes. Of course, it’s also theoretically possible for a curse to be so powerful that it bypasses the purging charms entirely. These are top grade purging charms, though. I doubt any human could cast curses powerful enough to bypass them. It should be enough for your fight against Vanessa at least.”

“Speaking of which, I’m itching to let loose. Shall we go?”

I put on the purging charm necklace, and stow away the aura suppressing bracelet in a pocket.

Cynthia smiles.

“Yes, it’s time. Follow me.”

She teleports away, and I follow. We make our way up through the cave system, back to the surface. We teleport through the city streets, eventually arriving at a small store.

It’s a flower shop.

“Two bouquets please,” Cynthia says, handing some silver to the shopkeeper.

“This is where you told Vanessa to find me?” I ask.

“No, of course not. We’re just here to buy flowers.”

I give her an unimpressed stare. Cynthia receives two bouquets, and she passes one of them to me. The shopkeeper’s eyes go wide when she looks at me, suddenly recognizing my face from the many wanted posters around the city.

“Let’s go,” Cynthia says.

The shopkeeper looks down and shakes her head, perhaps convincing herself that she is mistaken about my identity.

Cynthia teleports away, and I follow her. My curiosity is piqued, but I’ll let her continue her mysterious act for a little longer.

After several teleports, we arrive in front of a church. This church looks newer than the one that I destroyed on the hill. It is located on the edge of the wealthy part of town, close to many residences. In front of the building, a sizable crowd is gathered. The atmosphere is sorrowful. The sounds of one or two people sobbing can be made out through the quiet murmurs.

“What is this?” I ask.

“This is a special memorial for the people who died as a result of the disaster,” Cynthia says.

“Distaster?”

“The disaster is you, of course. All the clergy of the old Salsvale church died when you destroyed it. Dozens of people were crushed by rubble on main street when you first fought Theonius. Hundreds were killed instantly by the explosion of raw magic that occurred when you destroyed the city’s teleportation trap.”

I stare at the gathered crowd. The sobbing suddenly hits me differently.

“Why did we come here?” I ask.

“I think Charles wanted you to see this. I confess I was also curious how you would react.”

“This is a terrible choice of location for a battle with the kingsguard,” I snap, anger suddenly boiling from inside me. The ground starts cracking underneath my feet.

Cynthia meets my eyes.

“As poor a choice as any. It would have been too suspicious to give her an isolated location. One way or another, there was going to be collateral damage. Such is war,” Cynthia says.

“I would have expected you to want me to avoid thinking about this sort of thing. If I worry too much about collateral damage, I’ll hold back and get killed.”

“The fact that you didn’t think about it in the first place is what concerns me.”

She gestures towards the memorial with her bouquet, and I suddenly understand what the flowers are for. I grit my teeth.

“I would rather not do this,” I say.

“Spoken like a girl who has never lost a loved one before.”

My breath catches in my throat. I do not think I have seen Cynthia truly angry before this moment, yet her glare passes by like the fleeting wind, gone as quickly as it came.

“Maribelle, let’s go pay our respects,” she says with a gentle smile.

“Yes,” I say, clutching my bouquet a little too tightly.

We walk towards the memorial. I do not try to bring my emotions under control. My aura leaks out unrestrained. The crowd parts as I approach. Most of the people stare at me in utter terror, but some have eyes of fury. Others are simply confused by my presence, or too deeply grieving to care about me. There are guards here, staring at me, but not attempting to apprehend me. Perhaps word got around about what happened to the last guard who attempted to arrest me, or perhaps they simply wish to allow me to pay my respects.

Many flowers are lying at the foot of a very large stone altar. On the altar, hundreds of small objects and trinkets are arranged. They vary from jewelry, to swords, to pictures, and scraps of cloth. It is evident that each one represents a life. Spirits that faded forever, all because of me.

I silently place my bouquet in the pile. It is just one among many. Cynthia does the same.

“How dare you come here?”

The words come from a little boy, a couple years younger than me. He has short black hair, and his brown eyes are overflowing with unrestrained hatred. My stomach lurches uncomfortably.

“Who did you lose?” I ask him.

“My parents!” He screams.

He runs towards me. An old lady grabs his shoulder, trying to stop him.

“Emmet! Stop! You mustn’t anger her!” She shouts.

“Let go of me!” The boy shrieks.

Emmet throws off the old lady’s arm. He charges at me, raising his little fist as tears stream down his cheeks.

I suppress my aura, actively ceasing to strengthen my body with magic. In this moment, I am just an ordinary girl.

Emmet’s fist hits me in the cheek. Compared to the kind of damage that I’m used to, the punch shouldn’t hurt. My cheek is only lightly bruised. However, there is a worse sort of pain inflicted upon me. I am not used to it at all.

“I’ll kill you!” Emmet shouts.

Another little fist hits my face. This time, I do not allow it to bruise me. Emmet cries out in pain, stumbling backwards as he clutches his hand.

“You’re welcome to try, but do yourself a favor and go get stronger first.”

Emmet collapses onto the ground, crying. The old lady hugs him.

“You should leave,” the old lady says to me.

I close my eyes, nod once, and teleport away.

Cynthia appears beside me in the alley down the block. She watches as I collapse against the wall, looking up at the sky.

“They won’t be the only ones. You walk a dangerous path, Maribelle. I believe that whether you are good or evil will depend on how much you value human life.”

“I don’t regret any of my choices. Still, I feel like I want to puke right now,” I say.

“That feeling isn’t bad. Don’t separate yourself from the reality of your actions.”

“I’m glad that Vanessa didn’t show up. Also, you shouldn’t have used such a roundabout method of making me come here, especially not one that put all those people in danger,” I say.

Cynthia frowns, opening her mouth with an apologetic expression. Then, her eyes widen.

“I wouldn’t be so sure that she didn’t show,” she says.

“Oh, so you were expecting me?”

I recognize the voice behind me. I turn around to see a woman covered in black plate armor, holding a large trident wreathed in shadows.

“Vanessa, you want to fight me, right? Is there any chance we can go outside the city?” I ask.

“Of course not. Any deaths that occur as a result of our battle will be attributed to you, further harming your reputation. Theonius wouldn’t forgive me if I allowed you to save face.”

“If you expect me to hold back against you because of that, you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

“I’ll evacuate people,” Cynthia says, teleporting away.

“Why do you serve that piece of scum?” I ask Vanessa.

“I should be asking you that question. You serve a dark exile, an unholy abomination banished by the gods. I serve a saint, a hero loved by the heavens. Who should rethink her allegiances?”

“You should, because Theonius is an asshole and Bezvillia is not.”

“Theonius is a good man. I won’t allow you to spit upon his name any longer.”

It baffles me that she can say that with a straight face. How can she possibly look up to him?

“What is good about him? The pieces of Richards’s skull stuck in the soles of his shoes? The fucking smile that was on his face when he stabbed Cynthia?”

She laughs at me, haughty and condescending.

“He does what is necessary to maintain his image. You kill indiscriminately, like a wild animal. Didn’t you see the memorial? You already have more blood on your hands than he does.”

I seethe. The ground disintegrates beneath me. The walls of nearby buildings crack and crumble.

“If that’s the case, so be it,” I say.

I step forward. The world becomes dust around me. Vanessa steps back, inhaling sharply as my vicious aura bears down on her. I summon my sword.

“I am the Dark Empress, a living disaster, the next calamity of the cosmos. In order for me to achieve my goals, many people will die, especially people that I don’t like. Theonius has already been sentenced to death. He is nothing but a pig awaiting his slaughter. As for you, Vanessa Larkmane, you can either kneel before me right now, or you can join him.”

She hesitates. How pathetic. Where is her loyalty now?

“As expected. You don’t serve Theonius because you look up to him. Your words are just empty platitudes to rationalize your actions. You serve Theonius because you fear him.”

She takes another step back, pointing her trident at me. Her magic flares up defensively.

“You made just one crucial mistake. You should have feared me more.”

I teleport right in front of her, slashing towards her throat with my sword. She raises her trident to block my strike. Mid-swing, I teleport my arm and sword slightly forward, bypassing her guard completely. The edge of my blade hits her armor, releasing furious destruction.

I feel only the slightest resistance before she disintegrates into shadows. She is suddenly gone.

Looking around with my spatial sense, I try to find her. There is the slightest ripple in the shadows behind me.

By the time I turn around, a trident has already pierced my stomach. Something cold flows into me. It hurts. One of the skulls on my necklace shatters to dust, almost completely absorbing whatever curse she just tried to inflict upon me.

She quickly withdraws her trident, dissolving into the shadows once more.

I push out the damage, finding it slightly harder to do so than usual. The slight lingering coldness in the wound makes it move sluggishly. The curse probably would have prevented me from removing the wound. It’s a good thing I brought the purging charms.

“Good. It would be unfortunate if killing you wasn’t a challenge. I need some catharsis,” I say.

From all the shadows around me, dark grey smoke begins to emerge. The smoke burns my flesh where it touches me. However, the smoke cannot damage me faster than I can push the damage out. This is nothing.

I feel another ripple in the nearby shadows, and I slash towards it with my blade.

It is a trap, and I realize too late. As I attack the rippling shadows, Vanessa emerges from the shadows behind me instead. I do not have enough time to turn around before her trident stabs into my back. She is fast.

‘Three Pronged Venom.’

For a brief instant, I feel excruciating pain throughout my body as something is injected into me through the trident. Then, three of the skulls on my necklace shatter, each one absorbing a different curse. Vanessa pulls her trident out of my back and dissolves into shadows again.

I click my tongue. She has already destroyed almost half of my purging charms. It irritates me to admit that she seems to have the upper hand here. If I can’t hit her, I can’t kill her. I need to counteract her abilities somehow.

“You use the shadows. Will you still be able to do that if there is nothing casting them?”

I unleash a ferocious storm of entropomancy, blasting destructive force in every direction. The surrounding buildings crumble completely, turned to sand and dust. Within seconds, the city block is flattened to the ground around me, becoming a patch of desert in the middle of town. I hear distant screams, but I ignore them. Instead, I seek my prey.

The hot sun shines down from above. There are no shadows to be seen, except for one.

There is an unnatural patch of darkness on the ground nearby. I attack it, teleporting above it and stabbing my blade into the ground. The shadow flows away from my blade. I fail to harm it.

A burst of irritation fills my heart. I will not allow this annoying ability.

“Come out!” I demand.

There is resistance, but I crush it with fury. The shadow pops like a bubble. Vanessa is suddenly lying on the ground. Her grey eyes can be seen through her helmet, wide in shock.

I bring my blade down towards her prone form with meteoric force. She manages to bring up her trident just in time to block my attack.

I don’t feel like bypassing her guard this time. She can block. I will crush her anyway.

The edge of my blade hits the shaft of her weapon, and the earth shakes. I am impressed by her defenses. Her trident does not break, and her armor is strong enough to withstand the wave of entropomancy that blasts into her. My attack only manages to make a shallow cut in the metal shaft of her trident. However, the damage to her weapon seems to transfer directly to her body and spirit. Even from just this tiny cut, she coughs blood.

Ferry once told me that this is what would happen if his spear was ever damaged. The trident must be a spirit-bonded weapon. How convenient. It is just another thing for me to break.

I raise my blade, immediately bringing it down for another vicious blow. Vanessa dissolves back into shadows just in time.

I shouldn’t keep using the divine voice to force her out of her shadow form. Eventually she will manage to resist it, and I’ll be hurt instead.

There are other ways to make her come out.

Staring at the patch of shadow on the ground, I raise both my arms out to the side, leaving my torso wide open.

“Go on. Don’t you want to hit me?”

Her voice emanates from the shadow, coming out as a raspy whisper.

“Don’t get cocky just because you’re carrying a couple purging charms.”

Suddenly, she rematerializes. I immediately attack her. She unleashes a manifestation.

‘Midnight Hail.’

Thousands of tiny spheres of shadow fall down from the sky above us, just as I slash towards Vanessa’s stomach.

For some incomprehensible reason, instead of trying to block or dodge my attack, she reaches out and grabs a handful of my hair. My blade hits her dead on, and she is blasted backwards. The front of her armor shatters, obliterated by my destructive power. She manages to take a handful of my hair with her, but I don’t care. She is severely injured.

Vanessa rolls through the dust from the momentum of my blow, just as her manifestation hits.

All of my purging charms instantly shatter. Every drop of shadow carries a weak curse, one that inflicts a little pain for several seconds. However, there are hundreds of drops. The first six drops to hit me were absorbed by my purging charms, the rest simply made me hurt. If it were not for my pain resistance training with Bez, I would be floored by this. Of course, the pain is not what is bothering me.

Vanessa is laughing victoriously. She is holding the handful of my hair up in the air like some sort of trophy.

“You’ve lost, Dark Empress,” she says.

My stomach drops. Her words do not sound like a bluff.

‘Shadow Doll.’

The strands of my hair in Vanessa’s hand instantly burn away in a surge of black fire.

Suddenly, I am overwhelmed by the disorienting sensation of having two sets of senses. It takes a second for me to understand what is happening.

Beside Vanessa, floating several inches off the ground, is a copy of me. The other Maribelle is completely naked, and she has no color in her flesh or hair, existing only in shades of grey. Her expression is neutral and vacant, and she remains motionless. However, I can see through her eyes, feel through her skin, and hear through her ears.

“Enjoy dying,” Vanessa says, pulling a small circular talisman out of a pouch on her hip.

Before I can react, she grabs the other me by the wrist and breaks the talisman. Space warps and they are gone. I only get a vague impression of the direction they traveled. They went far.

Through the eyes of my copy, I can see where the talisman teleported her. Vanessa and my copy are in some sort of military camp outside the walls of the city. Hundreds of soldiers surround them, and I recognize one of them as Dickson Daldry, the mace-wielding kingsguard.

“Alright, let’s kill her before she manages to get here. Turns out she’s a spatiomancer, so she can probably move quickly. We should hurry up,” Vanessa says.

“Don’t have to tell me twice, sweetheart. I’ve been looking forward to this. That bitch is going to pay for what she did to Parson and Harvey,” Dickson says.

He raises his mace. The weapon grows in size, the spiked ball of steel becoming the size of a small house as the shaft extends. Vanessa hurries out of the way.

Shit. I’m guessing this will hurt my real body. Panic surges through me as I finally realize that I have been thoroughly outplayed.

“Fuck,” I say.

‘Big Smash.’

I only have a moment to be unimpressed by the uncreative name of his manifestation, because as he brings his enormous mace down upon my copy, my real body is practically obliterated.

I am crushed like a bug, instantly rendered unconscious as my head is pulped, along with the rest of my body. Out of instinct, my spirit immediately activates my manifestation, barely managing to do so before I pass away.

‘Divine Retribution.’

With no nearby target to attack, my storm of black lighting simply tears apart my surroundings, further reducing everything around me to dust.

As I regain consciousness, I see Vanessa leaning down over my copy, staring at it. My copy’s body seems to have been repaired along with mine.

“Looks like she survived.”

“Must be that manifestation she used before,” Dickson says, scowling with irritation.

“Well, that’s why we brought the army,” Vanessa says.

She walks over to him, raises the visor of her helmet, and kisses him on the cheek. He lets out a sadistic chuckle.

“Soldiers! Show this unholy terrorist the power of Salsvale!” Vanessa commands.

The soldiers advance closer, and then they release their magic. My copy is immediately assaulted with every form of damaging magic imaginable. Blasts of fire, bolts of lightning, spikes of ice, falling rocks, and blades of wind rain down upon my double in absurd quantities. They even have a whole troupe of laughably weak entropomancers.

However, I cannot laugh at the sheer amount of damage being inflicted upon my real body. Every second, I am hit dead on by a dozen different attacks. It is all I can do to lie on the ground, pushing out the wounds as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, I cannot push out the damage fast enough. More and more wounds accumulate throughout my body. My skin is burnt, my bones are broken, my vital organs are smashed and punctured, and my flesh is torn apart. It is infuriating. There is nothing I can do to stop it.

I holler in rage and frustration as I am smashed and burnt without mercy in an endless assault.

The damage should have killed me ten times over, but my spirit clings to my pulverized remains by a thrumming thread of determination. My unyielding resolve to survive is all that exists.

It feels like an eternity before I manage to force my manifestation to activate.

‘Divine Retribution!’

Finally, there is relief. I gasp for air for just a moment.

The damage does not stop coming. Instead, it speeds up after I vaguely hear Vanessa shout something. Moreover, with all the damage that I have been expelling, the ground beneath me is becoming a finer and finer dust, making it increasingly difficult to push my wounds out.

I keep the damage out of my brain, maintaining my consciousness, but the rest of me is burnt and smashed and sliced until I am charred mincemeat.

Even so, I refuse to die.

‘Divine Retribution!’

Clearly unhappy with my my continued existence, Dickson and Vanessa join in on the assault. Strange blades of solid shadow rain down upon me. A giant mace is slammed into me again and again.

‘Divine Retribution!’

Some of the soldiers are getting tired. They are immediately switched out for fresh ones. Vanessa does not have a shortage of manpower. The strength of their assault is only limited by how many people can simultaneously stand close enough to my double to attack it.

‘Divine Retribution!’

I do not know how long this has been going on. The assault is becoming increasingly serious, and the dust beneath me has already become as obliterated as it can be. At this point, I simply accumulate damage in my body, unable to push it out at all, activating my manifestation whenever I can.

‘Divine Retribution!’

‘Divine Retribution!’

‘Divine Retribution!’

I lose count of how many times the cycle repeats. All I know is that it is slowly getting easier. Dickson and Vanessa start using their manifestations, but it isn’t enough. Every couple seconds, a storm of black lighting explodes out of me, like a heartbeat of pure destruction. The heartbeat continues until it becomes a part of me, until it ascends into something more.

I laugh as I feel it happening. I have won.

Around me, I can sense all the damage that ravaged the city block. It is mine.

I stand up, my laughter still ringing through the air. I have never felt so powerful.

Black lighting erupts out of the ground beneath me, collecting in a ball above my open hand. The dust around me becomes sand, the sand becomes gravel, and the gravel becomes roads and buildings, just as I remember them.

The city block has been repaired, and above my palm is a little black orb of fury in which a disaster is stored. The damage from my double is still coming into me, but it is now only food. It is delicious.

Every wound that forms in my flesh is gone as quickly as it came. The assault that once left me incapacitated is now completely inconsequential to me.

I skip through the city streets. A tiny storm of concentrated death rages in my hand, getting stronger by the second. I hum with satisfaction as my enemies try their best to give me as much power as possible.

“Maribelle! Are you okay? What’s happening?”

I turn to see Cynthia looking at me.

“Come and see. I’m heading to a military camp just outside the city.”

She stares in awe at the black lighting that is continuously flowing out of my body, then inhales nervously as she regards the little orb of absolute doom in which the damage is being stored.

“You assimilated your manifestation.”

My only response is a maniacal giggle. I teleport down the street. She follows.

We quickly make our way through the city one teleport at a time. After a few minutes, we reach the wall, teleporting straight through it. In the distance, I can see the camp. A large column of smoke is rising, and the sounds of crashes and explosions can be heard even from here.

After a dozen more teleports, we reach the edge of camp. Nobody notices me as I walk over to the site of the assault. They are too preoccupied with failing to kill me.

“Hi everyone! Haven’t you figured out by now that this isn’t working?”

The assault gradually stops as the soldiers turn to look at me. Vanessa, in particular, is completely horrified. My satisfaction is immeasurable.

“Do you know what this is?” I ask, presenting the orb of concentrated damage.

It crackles ominously. The air warps around it from the sheer amount of power that it contains. The soldiers eye the orb with dread, instinctively knowing that it will be their death.

“It’s your generous gift to me, which I will now return in full. Any last words, Vanessa?”

Vanessa dissolves into shadows. The patch of darkness flits over the ground, dashing away from me as fast as possible.

“No.”

She is forced back into her corporeal form. Her eyes meet mine and she cries out in terror.

I let my orb explode, only restraining my power in that I direct it away from Cynthia.

There is silence.

Cynthia and I are standing in a quiet crater of dust. The entire military camp is gone. Vanessa, Dickson, and all their soldiers, have simply ceased to exist.

Cynthia places her hand on my shoulder. She is trembling. It takes some time for her to speak.

“Theonius won’t ignore you anymore.”

“Good.”