Esther VS. Caspar

Esther

Esther studied the pulsating cube in her hands cluelessly. Each side was thirteen by thirteen centimeters(about five inches), and it glowed with the curious sheen of knowledge. She was sitting on the backrest of a pew in the second row, hunched over shaking the cube in frustration, and her right foot was jammed against the pew in front of her, making her thigh and upper body in alignment.

She was in a large church, located in the False Metropolis of Godsplane. And in turn, Godsplane was built right on the eastern coast of the Crucible Empire. The main area was filled with row after row of pews, all facing a decorated altar, burnished and draped with expensive looking plush red cloth. Flanking the pews were columns of thick marble pillars that met in gothic arches and, in the view of people sitting on the pews, framed massive, beautiful stained glass windows. Hanging on the wall just over the altar was a sculpture of Kerry, or who mortals call the Goddess of Life. She was supposedly a tall woman with flowing locks of hair, dressed in some sort of regal toga with angel wings. Esther knew that the only part they got right was the flowing locks of hair, though the general color and sheer quantity was off.

Before she started fiddling with the cube, Esther made sure to redecorate, just to send a message. The area on and around the altar was stained from a very recent bloodbath and the mutilated bodies of nuns littered the ground like scattered flower petals. Slumped under each and every grand window were the scarred bodies of priests, their blood used to paint vulgar obscenities on the glass. The part she was particularly proud of was what she did with the bishop. The body lay utterly defeated on the altar, her legs dangling off the edge along with a steady trickle of blood, and her head was completely blown off, courtesy of her shotgun. What’s left of her brain was splattered on the sculpture of Kerry that the humans worshiped.

Esther wasn’t made with a moral compass or other human tendencies, so she didn’t mind blood or dead bodies and nonchalantly tried to activate the artifact she knew were the church’s archive of members.

“Why can’t I get this damn thing to activate?” she cursed out loud. Suddenly, the cube sprang to life. “Oh, I suppose I only needed to ask.” A futuristic, at least to this time period, window projected itself from the top of the cube. The artifact listed and ranked every single member of the Church of Life based on contribution. Happy that she got it working, Esther leisurely scrolled through the top one hundred, memorizing every file one by one. The file the artifact compiled was exceedingly detailed, listing their job or position in the church, age, gender, body proportions, family, where they lived, and topped it off with a current picture.

Esther laughed maliciously, setting the scene she would make with all the archbishops and cardinals on the list in her mind. I might go into art after all this is over, she thought to herself. Suddenly, she stopped on a specific person: the file looked like it didn’t belong. The person in question was only an eighteen year old girl, listed as a support mage in corroboration with churches in Everveil. She wasn’t even officially part of the church, yet she was ranked as forty nine in terms of contribution. But, as she took in the golden saucers the girl had for eyes and the vine like green hair, she realized what was going on. This girl is going to be a future champion, and for someone important. My money’s on Gaia, he’s been without a champion for a while now, she surmised. Although she had perfect photographic memory, Esther made sure to spend an extra second to remember the name: Penelope Evergreen.

“You’ve debased yourself to such a degree that you perform indiscriminate murder, Esther?” a voice pulled her out of her musings. She looked up and saw a boy with the same golden saucers and vine hair that Penelope had, they almost looked like identical twins, the only thing that said otherwise were the modest, pointed ears on his head. But all beings closely aligned with Kerry, aside from the ArchAngels, have the same hair and eyes, she has absolutely no creativity.

Esther knew the human standing before her was more aptly labeled a man, he was thirty years old, but his body hasn’t aged a day since becoming a champion. And for someone that looked like a teenager, he had the physique of a chiseled statue. He was wearing the normal elven ranger uniform, with a belt, moccasins, a chestplate made of an unknown material that resembles brown canvas, and he had his sword at the ready.

His sword was an estoc. The handle and hilt looked to be made from some all purpose green colored organic material, with a fiber grip. The swept guard had its true quillon swirled and curled upward at its end, and the false quillon was the same only pointed down. The blade itself looked like a giant dark brown thorn with a hollow ground cross-section and very acute profile taper.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it indiscriminate murder, Caspar, the opposite actually,” Esther said after a moment. She was under the impression that the other ArchAngels would confront her, not Caspar himself. She also thought she was well enough ahead to avoid them, but was prepared to fight because of the importance of the archives.

“Bishop Faraday and everyone else you killed were devout followers. I was under the assumption that you were after the corruption,” he said.

“I am, but innocents are always sacrificed in a war,” she replied.

“Why, what reason did you sacrifice them for?” Caspar asked. Esther smirked.

“Is there a reason you are so intent on wasting time on discourse? You can see the archive in my hand, can’t you?” she said while slightly waving the small cube in the air.

“Yes,” he answered, “I was hoping I could talk you down.” She scoffed at that.

“Yet you come in with your sword raised and ready for a battle?” she countered. Caspar sighed and lowered his sword.

“Look,” he started, “I know Kerry isn’t perfect, and I know she’s definitely the least god-like fragment of the Original Light, but she’s still one of the four. If things really do start getting out of control, she will intervene. I give you my word.” Esther stood up and threw the cube to the ground.

“This isn’t about the Church of Life. Humans are ephemeral and cultures don’t live forever. No, this is about the Celestials,” she seethed.

“I know!” he said. “I know. But Kerry gives freedom to her creations, even if they were a mistake or defected, she can’t just erase or alter them. It is my responsibility as her champion to deal with the blemishes of her actions, and I have almost as much authority as she does over her creations” his sword turned into vines and wrapped around his arm, then he offered his hand- “Join me, Esther. Help me keep the angels in check.”

“Don’t you see, that is the problem!” she yelled. “It is not just the angels, it is the gods themselves that set the example. They look down their noses at the inhabitants of Earth, they are unfit to lead. You, a human that every Celestial slights and jeers, have the sole responsibility to solve the problems of a goddess. It should be her responsibility to make sure things don’t ever get that far.”

“Gods aren’t perfect, they make mistakes,” he argued.

“That’s my fucking point!” Esther screamed at him. “They are no better than the sentient races of Earth. I don’t care about who has authority, I want them all to realize that they are still mortals despite their god-like power.” Caspar looked down and shook his head.

“I’m afraid that will never happen,” he said.

“Then you see why I have to kill the gods.”

“No, there’s another way,” he refused.

“You’re still so naive,” Esther shook her head. “I hope you learned from your last defeat, or I won’t spare you.” Caspar’s sword reformed in his hand, and a gleam of resolve settled in his eyes.

“It won’t end the way it did last time. A lot can change in a decade, I didn’t even have my wings then,” he said.

“Wings or not, all will fall before my blade.” As she said this, she summoned Azreal’s Blade. it wasn’t a sword so much as a gladius. In fact, it looked like a regular iron short sword without a hilt and with a circular handle. It would still be considered a marvel to the sentient races though; it’s craftsmanship was literally perfect and its edge was almost atomic. Furthermore, as she brandished the blade, it was lit ablaze with holy flame.

“Sword of Metamorphosis: Form One!” Caspar mumbled as he snapped into a fencing form, his right leg forward and ahead of his twisted left leg, while his arm was raised to the same plane as his head, pointing his sword with a downward gradient.

Sword of Metamorphosis is a sword technique created by Caspar and never taught or shown in full to any being alive. It was one of the two major reasons Caspar was undefeated, save for three instances. All three occurred earlier into his championship and two were fought against a Celestial, while the third was to the Champion of War, before she died.

Esther was probably the one being that knew the most about his Sword of Metamorphosis, given that she trained him for a few years after his defeat. As far as she knew, the Sword of Metamorphosis had four forms, and it wasn’t actually a battle form, the form referred to his sword because it changed shape and abilities. The reason it was so difficult to face this technique was utterly due to Caspar’s skill in swordsmanship. His demeanor and sword play shifted drastically based on the sword form he was using. For other mortals it was almost impossible to deal with the change of battle flow and tactics.

Esther didn’t do anything as fancy as call upon a form, she simply summoned her wings. She can fly and do all the regular things with her usual illusory wings, but having her physical wings enhanced her speed, strength, and perception. Her wings, blinding white and hundred feathered, expanded to their full two meter span, protruding from her back.

When the fight began, Caspar made the first move. He lunged forward and sent hundreds of blinding thrusts her way, his sword becoming nothing but an afterimage. Esther scoffed and simply jumped towards the altar, abandoning the pew and letting it be pierced to smithereens.

“If you can’t muster the strength to coat every blow with killing intent, you should leave,” she mocked him as she casually slashed her blade upwards. An arc of holy flame flew through the air, radiating ravenously. Caspar simply side stepped and let the slash of flame rive the ground as it passed him. It continued on until it hit the ornate double doors and splashed against them in a wave of flames, shoving them open.

They locked eyes for a brief second, then Esther ambled forward. Caspar backed off in reaction. They both knew that Esther’s gladius had the advantage in the cramped walkway between the pews. If Caspar missed a lunge, Esther would surely take his life as payment for his mistake.

So, he continued backing up as Esther continued toward him. She wasn’t one sidedly pressuring him, though. She had to make absolute sure that she stayed a hair’s breadth out of the edge of his range. In that position, Caspar’s estoc would have the advantage.

As they neared the end of the pews, Esther horizontally swung her blade twice, sending two fans of flame his way. Caspar ducked down and to the left to dodge the first, then jumped to doge the second. Esther flashed in like a lightning bolt the second his feet left the ground, but she was too slow. Caspar managed to spread his legs out and land on top of the pews flanking him, then parried her blade before countering. Unfortunately, his estoc had a glaring weakness. Esther merely grabbed the blade a centimeter before it pierced her chest; its only threatening feature was its point, the edges were blunt. However, they were both aware of this weakness, and the second she grabbed it, Caspar jerked her towards him and elbowed her in the nose, aided by the gravity of jumping off the pews. Esther let go of his sword, and Caspar backed off to the edge of his range and thrusted. Esther was forced to jump back, narrowly avoiding a hole in her chest.

Knowing it was coming soon, they were both content waiting until the time limit on Sword of Metamorphosis: Form One ended. The only flaw in this technique was the three minute time limit that was required for the sword to evolve to the next form. After the four formed cycle was over, Caspar had full control and could switch between each form on a dime for as long as he was in combat. But he hardly utilized that feature because he usually defeated his opponents before the cycle ended.

“Sword of Metamorphosis: Form Two!” As Caspar said the words, his sword suddenly flared in a bright green light and perceptively changed shape. When it passed, he was holding a bastard sword, a very funny looking bastard sword. It’s handle and slightly curved, as well as long longer than usual, cruciform hilt were made of large leaves, and its pommel was a green acorn. The blade itself was banana skin yellow, had an almost round lenticular cross-section, and no taper of any kind until it sharply narrowed to a point.

Forms one through three were fairly well known by Caspar’s rivals and adversaries. And it was formally agreed that form two would be dubbed The Banana Sword. Even now, Esther couldn’t help but crack a smile at its outlandish appearance. Still, it was the first form with a special ability: the thickness and mass of the blade can be manipulated between the proportions of a moderate tree and a thinner longsword.

Caspar noticed her scorn and grumbled before launching forward with a two handed swing. As Esther backed up and The Banana Sword obliterated pews, he seamlessly transitioned into a flipping downward smash. Esther jumped just back enough to keep stable footing and fired a flame slash to stop the predicted follow of an upward slash. Immediately, The Banana Sword’s blade shrunk and Caspar flipped over the flame with a spin. At the same time, as he landed on his feet, his left hand brought his sword down on Esther’s position. Esther blocked with her gladius, then swiftly slipped behind him before he could increase its weight. After, she took the opportunity to stab his exposed back. But, before it could come close, Caspar summoned his wings and they were instantly covered with a paper white tree bark that stopped the blade dead.

Seeing that she managed to force his wings, Esther backed off for a short reprieve. As Caspar turned to face her, the bark decayed and revealed his prominent green, hyaline wings. They were blinding in the relatively dim church and casted a menacing shadow over Caspar’s form. From this point on, I can’t afford to be careless, Esther reminded herself as she prepared to activate her eye ability.

Similar to first level Demigods, each ArchAngel has an ability linked to their eyes or line of sight. Esther’s ability is similar in effect to a Demigod of War. It compiles the body language and fighting technique of the opponent to predict what they will do in the next ten seconds. She can only use it every minute, and even though it was only a possible future, it never failed her. In Esther’s experience, as long as she was careful about using it, what she saw always came true. The only occurrence where it was wrong was when she used it on the God of Time. She suspected it had something to do with his domain rather than his divine throne because her ability worked on every other god she tried it on. The only other exception was if she interrupted the opponent before her ten second prognostication was over, then the future would change and her opponent would get the opportunity to react.

Caspar’s quiet voice plundered her attention as he said, “Sword of Metamorphosis: Form Three.” Esther’s eyes narrowed, there was still an entire minute until the timer was up. She wasn’t giving it her all and knew there was no possible way she miscounted, leaving her with the only explanation being: Caspar managed to shorten the time limit. She didn’t want to kill Caspar, but the way things were going, her hand might be forced.

Caspar’s sword was covered in the same green sheen and its shape narrowed. When the transformation was over, he held a flamberge rapier. It had a hexagonal cross-section and the blade was thin and wavy, oscillating until it reached the relatively straight tip. Its cross guard was a double cruciform, with a quillon pointing in the each cardinal direction relative to the blade, and they were joined with a circle that had wavy lines running over the opening, as well as a crescent handguard stretching over the handle. The blade and hilt were both composed of a dark, almost black, brown material that Esther assumed was a mix of keratin, chitin, and other materials. The ivory handle had periodic indents that made it loosely resemble a stack of orbs with a significantly larger orb as the pommel, and stood out as a glaring white that opposed the sword’s overall darkness.

Esther lifted her gladius in front of her and shut off her hearing, straining her other senses to compensate. As predicted, Caspar held the blade horizontal in front of him and traced the blade with his finger, as if he was unsheathing it. Then he flourished it to face perpendicular to him and tapped the ground. Immediately the church was filled with a sharp pitched wailing, loud enough that Esther could feel the vibration in the wood at her feet.

She waited, deciding to resolve herself to defense and counter because the sword vibrated, causing tremors to course through her blade and make it nearly impossible to keep a grip. But Caspar didn’t advance, instead he turned the blade so its flat side was facing her and held it there. It was already too late when she realized what he was doing. The light streaming in the church through the windows and opened doors all converged on his blade and reflected, momentarily blinding Esther. When she recovered, he was gone, nowhere to be seen. She knew he was still nearby as the ground still shook, but couldn’t locate him no matter how fast she whirled.

As she felt the smooth keratin press against the skin of her calf, she was able to draw a mental picture of the entire sword and how Caspar carried himself, but couldn’t react fast enough. She flipped over his blade and distanced herself from where she presumed he was, with a brand new laceration on her skin.

She went over a mental checklist of her senses. Hearing was shut off, Caspar was using the Law of Light and most likely other laws Esther didn’t recognize that made her sight inadequate, and she had no idea what she could do with taste. After immediately crossing those off, she took a deep breath through her nose. Caspar usually smelled of a pleasant floral scent, but she failed to smell anything past the old wood and blood. Next, she focused her attention on the tremors in the wood. She came close to pinpointing the origin of the force, but knew Caspar would never give her enough time when she received another, more grievous, gash on her other calf. Out of options, Esther begrudgingly summoned her halo.

Her halo ability was the reason she was given the moniker, Angel of Death. It drained the life force of everything in a fifty meter radius around her and transferred the life energy to her. She couldn’t use the life energy as fuel for her attacks or skill, however, it healed her with an intensity based on the amount of life force she absorbed. Against Caspar’s regeneration, she was practically immortal.

She wanted to save using it until Caspar reached form four because she knew they would be evenly matched as long as she unsealed Azreal’s Blade. Her halo ability worked sort of like a hose pointed straight up, showering everything around her. And she had the ability to point the hose and cover the nozzle with her thumb to spray a singular target with a pressurized beam of water, or in this case, steal life energy from a specific target at an extremely deadly pace. Caspar’s prodigious regenerative abilities could hold out against even her focused offensive, but he ran out of energy faster and he would lose in a war of attrition.

In fact, Caspar’s near regenerative immortality was the second reason he was largely undefeated in battle. As long as he had the energy, he could survive most instant kill moves and straight up ignore most injuries. The only way to stop his regeneration was to render him unconscious, deplete his energy, or destroy a majority of his brain in a single attack because the regeneration was a conscious thing that he needed to be toggled.

Having to activate her halo ability now, Esther’s only avenue of winning the fight was to kill Caspar via her shotgun. She needed to keep her ability in an area of effect to keep track of where Caspar is, and the level of injury he sustains takes less energy to heal than it does for Esther to keep it active, meaning she would lose the resource game in the end. It was unfortunate, Caspar was a driving force of good in the Celestials, but she was set on her path and nothing, not even death, will make her yield.

A golden ring of malevolent energy appeared over Esther’s head, making her look like a properly numinous angel. Instantly, the area around her died and decayed. The wood that made most of the church’s features wizened as if they were left xeric for years on end and the blood turned rustic, eventually cracking into a powder.

Caspar felt the drain of his life force and activated his regeneration, then was nearly beheaded by Esther. He ducked under the swing and pierced her stomach. She could feel the pain, yet Esther flipped her gladius, pointing it down, and dug it deep into Caspar’s right shoulder. He sucked in air through clenched teeth and yanked his blade out of her, rolling backwards for distance. His flamberge rended her insides and she could only pull out her own weapon before recoiling. The pain definitely wasn’t pleasant, yet she could feel herself heal the second his sword made room. Caspar was the same, his stab wound was a memory by the time he made it back on his feet.

Finally, he uttered words that Esther recognized despite her lack of hearing, “Blade of Metamorphosis: Form Four.” Knowing he would go on the offensive as fast as possible, Esther flipped her blade toward herself and plunged it into her chest. Simultaneously, a faded pink and solid green light flashed in the desecrated church.

The blade of Caspar’s sword was pure green light, vaguely shaped into a regular broadsword. The sword’s handle was a plain green stem that flowered into yellow petals at the hilt, uncannily resembling a big sunflower.

Azreal’s blade actually looked fairly similar. Esther held a claymore with a shard of faded pink glass that leaned into its hexagonal cross-section, instead of a traditional blade. It’s hilt was shaped into two miniature angel wings and its pommel had a sizable oval orb, brilliant azure in color.

Before the light faded, a flash of rectangular light shot at Esther. Caspar’s fourth form had the ability to shoot a literal laser of holy light from its blade; she had the thought in her mind, but since it moved at the speed of light she failed to fully dodge it. It grazed her right arm, scorching the skin in a most excruciating manner. The pain mixed with the scramble of a dodge made her lose her footing and impact the ground on her left side. She rolled the instant she hit the ground, dodging a second blast of light. Then, she got to her feet and dove behind the shrunken, shriveled wooden pews for cover.

With the few crucial seconds she bought for herself, she turned on her hearing and focused her halo ability on Caspar. When she was fully prepared, she hopped from the ground to a crouch and swung her blade. Utilizing Azreal’s Blade’s ability to cut through space, she blinked from behind the pews to directly facing Caspar in a literal instant. As Caspar’s eyes bulged in surprise, Esther batted away his outstretched sword and cut him in half at the mid section.

Before his upper body could hit the ground, a thick oak tree burst through the ground and ushered him through the roof of the church, abandoning his unnerving, lifeless lower body with pints of blood gushing from its waist to helpless fall against the tree’s base, then hauntingly slump down to the ground.

Esther, menacingly calm, callously turned and walked out of the ajar church doors. As she walked, she twirled Azreal’s Blade this way and that in each hand to get a feel for the blade. A slight melancholic smile found its way on her face, welcoming the sword she used to sleep with back into her life. In actuality, the sword was sealed in her spiritual body the entire time and the gladius was merely what she designated as the key to unlock it.

“Is this really what you want, Esther? To kill everyone who does wrong in your eyes!” Caspar shouted down to her. It was mid day outside and a large coterie of humans had gathered around the desecrated church.

She turned around and looked up at him on the edge of the Church’s triangular roof before saying, “Murder is simply a means to an end. I’ve told you what I want.”

“Have you asked yourself what Mary would want?” he asked accusatorially. Esther’s features softened at the mention of Mary.

“I have,” she replied curtly.

“Then you have to see she wouldn’t want this,” he continued.

“No, she wouldn’t want this.”

“Then why.”

“Mary is dead,” Esther said bluntly. “What she wants is void because she doesn’t exist on this plane anymore. All that matters is that I want revenge for her death and to solidify reform.” Caspar grimaced at her words. In the end she was still an angel, not coded the same way as a member of the sentient races.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Neither do I, but we are intransigent in our ideals. Since the dawn of time sentient races have settled conflicting ideas in a battle to the death, and so must we,” she said.

Caspar let out a frustrated battle cry as he jumped from the roof and slashed. Esther merely side stepped and cut off one of his arms before backing off to avoid his follow up attack. At the sight of a deadly injury, the crowd swooned and bristled. Right before the eyes of everyone present, his skelton regrew and was encased in skin, all within a matter of moments. Seeing Caspar’s recklessness, Esther shook her head. He was letting emotions cloud his judgment.

The thought of killing a fine warrior in such a state filled her with disgust, yet she forced herself to dash in. She weaved around Caspar’s sluggish wave of his sword, then raised the shotgun that appeared in her hand. She could see fear in his eyes; she knew that, unlike Cel’s completely wrong self diagnosis, Caspar had that fabled sixth sense for danger, and it was warning him of a threat to his life.

Having already acknowledged she would be forced to kill him, she pulled the trigger. But Caspar didn’t regard his life as his own, he was a servant to his goddess and she wouldn’t allow him to die. The literal picosecond after Esther pulled the trigger, a shell of char black wood encased his body.

As she pulled the trigger, a giant burst of flames exploded from the barrel along with a deafening boom, and the recoil nearly knocked Esther off of her feet. Everything transpired too fast for her to keep track of, and by the time she was able to make sense of what was in front of her she saw a human sized ball of black wood deeply embedded in the frame of a stone building.

The crowd let out concerned shouts and started dispersing in a panic. Along with the crowd’s departure, the guard finally showed up. Instead of intervening they fearfully set up lines of defense between buildings and led the citizens to evacuate. In situations where Demigods had a dispute, they could only hope it didn’t get too destructive.

Esther recognized the shell as Caspar’s ultimate defense. It was the most recent of his abilities that, as the name suggested, defended him from any atack. In fact, the name wasn’t hyperbole, it really was the ultimate defense. However, there are still some exploitable features: it has two forms, one better at defending piercing attacks and the other suited to blunt or explosive attacks. It was up to Caspar to decide the best form against any given attack, and he could only use it once every twenty four hours.

The thought had crossed her mind about the efficacy of its effectiveness. After all, how could Caspar beat the literal Champion of Protection at her own game? Esther came to find out that the ability was fueled by a seed of the World Tree that he won as the prize for the last Champion Tournament, and suddenly it wasn’t so hard to believe. The World Tree was created by The Original Light herself as a base for the Goddess of Creation and to connect the different planes of the universe.

As his ultimate defense shriveled up, it revealed a half dead Caspar. The entire left side of his body, aside from the left half of his head, was brutally blown off and he collapsed in a gruesome mess of eviscerated blood, skin, and bones. Judging from the rapid rate of his regeneration, the initial damage must have been even worse, it just healed the few seconds he was hidden from view. Apparently, Caspar didn’t expect the explosion to be followed up with hundreds of piercing shrapnel pellets. Still, he was alive, and he wouldn’t be so lucky if the shell wasn’t there, so the defense did its job.

After twenty seconds of painful gasping and coughing, Caspar was whole again. He only lifted himself to his hands and knees, his entire body perceptably shaking as tears dripped from his eyes. Esther couldn’t image how painful the experience must have been, and watching left a bad taste in her mouth.

She walked up to his crumpled form and pointed her shotgun at his head before saying, “I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he replied before suddenly springing up and grabbing her shotgun, then slashed at her with the sword of light still in his hand. Esther was forced to back off and resummon Azreal’s Blade, a grimace on her face. She had shown pity and was punished for it. Caspar tossed the firearm to the side and pointed his blade at her.

“I’m sorry that it came to this,” he said, then followed with, “Sword of Metamorphosis: Form Five.” The anger Esther felt was replaced with a surge of panic. She knew how the shotgun worked and could fight around it, but an entirely new form was unpredictable and more deadly than the last.

His sword shown brighter than the previous form changes, so bright that Esther was forced to look away. When she braved a look back, she had absolutely no idea what she was witnessing.

The fifth form was huge and didn’t even vaguely resemble a sword of any kind. It was a giant mass of some white organic material that cannibalized and wrapped around Caspar’s right arm, continuing a short distance past his shoulder. It hazily resembled a triangle, narrowing as it continued down his arm and ending in a small hole, fifteen centimeter(about six inches) in diameter. It was in a sort of drill shape with three loose strands stuck up at its top, near Caspar’s head, that made it seem like it was entirely made up of three marble white tentacles that revolve around his arm.

The shock of such an alien weapon slapped Esther still, not moving as it started to glow. The three strands sticking up near Caspar’s head slowly started gaining a red shine, then it swiftly spread down his arm in a spiral and converged in front of the opening, looking like a giant blade of red energy for a split second before it spit out a small, high-pressure, extremely focused, revolving white beam that radiated sheer kinetic force. It slammed into Esther’s mid section and blew her off the face of the Earth, filling her with excruciating agony.

All she knew was PAIN. It filled her entire being and rocked her sanity precariously. You would think being disintegrated would be a fast process, yet the pain was endless, with no reprieve. She couldn’t understand why the torture wouldn’t end. And, as her sanity was stripped away, she tried her best to retreat into her mind palace. Pain is necessary, she told herself. It’s built into all of the gods’ creations as a warning of damage. It is not something to be feared! She latched on to the words like a single board of wood keeping her from drowning in an ocean of madness.

And yet, for some ungodly reason, her anguish reached new heights at the thought and she felt her body being taken apart, piece by piece. It started with her skin scraping off her frame, then her muscles being ripped to pieces, followed by her skeleton shattering and turning to dust. When she thought it was over, she somehow felt pain directly translated to her ego. It infected every possible level that could be called Esther. But then it suddenly went away.

The pain had stopped. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care why because it was replaced by a pleasant feeling. Like she was submerged in water, left alone to sleep for eternity. Unfortunately, that eternity of slumber was interrupted by rational thought. Am I dead? she asked herself.

It took a heavy deal of energy, but she managed to open her eyes. She was decidedly not dead. Instead, she was sailing through the air, riding on the beam Caspar had shot her with. Why doesn’t it hurt? she wondered next. In fact, the beam seemed to have almost no effect on her whatsoever. She could feel the pressure it placed on her body and the wind that made her hair look like one of those blue or red inflatable sausage things that flailed with bursts of air that used to be in front of stores. But no pain. She couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly numb to pain, so she moved on to the next question:Why am I not dead?

She only had to think about it for a few moments to realize her halo ability was healing her. The beam must be powered by some form of life energy. That explains why she wasn’t dead and why she felt like the pain went on forever. With that answer given, she could help but ask, Why did it hurt so much? It felt like it assaulted my entire being, down to my spiritual body and ego… Was the reason it hurt so much because it did attack me on the spiritual level? She quickly took a glimpse in her spiritual body and shook from shock.

Angels weren’t given souls or mana pools. The only thing in their spiritual bodies is a reservoir of divine mana that powers their abilities. They were also given free reign to store anything in their spiritual bodies, namely how she stored Azreal’s Blade.

When she looked, she saw that the beam somehow existed in the material and spiritual planes, damaging her spiritual body as much as her physical body. If that attack was used on a member of the sentient races, their soul would be eradicated. No afterlife, no other world, just the end, absolute and final. Then, she realized what that might do to a Demigod.

Demigods gain access to divine mana that powers their manipulation of their law and it’s stored in their soul because that is the only part of their being that is bonded enough with their law to house specialized divine mana. If they were attacked with a lesser version of the beam, their soul would be damaged, possibly beyond recovery, and therefore rendering them unable to manipulate their law.

Esther shook the thought away and focused on her current predicament. She was being dragged through the air by a beam of life energy and soon they would exit the atmosphere. She couldn’t survive a trip to space, so she mustered what strength was left in her body and slid herself enough that the beam twisted her and shot past. She tried to use her wings, but they wouldn’t respond. I must be too tired to fly. Instead, she banished her wings and halo, then braced for impact as she entered the canopy of a forest.

She was slapped, scratched, and flung by branches before slamming into the ground, creating a rut as she slid, bumping against a particularly sharp stone that breached her skin. And yet, she felt no pain throughout the ordeal, only the slightly jarred feeling that accompanied her brain bouncing around in her skull.