Jason swept a couple of metres over the highway in a flying device that was little more than a seat in a roll cage with drone rotors. It was something he'd seen on the internet on Earth, with some sleek Shade modifications and, of course, finished entirely in black. Convincing the Adventure Society to let him go alone had been startlingly easy thanks to the Continental Council rep, who was bending over backwards to get on his good side. It was the opposite of what Jason had been dealing with from almost every authority group he encountered, but he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, either.

“You seem troubled, Mr Asano,” Shade said, reading him perfectly as always. “You have a problem with Representative Xenoria being so accommodating?”

“I just don’t want to be one of those people who use privilege and power to get special treatment. And yes, I know that makes me a huge hypocrite because that’s kind of exactly what I want.”

“I think I know you well enough to state that you only want special treatment to the degree that special circumstances warrant it, Mr Asano. Representative Xenoria seems intent on overcompensating, which I believe to be the source of your concern. As he has done swift work to demonstrate his sincerity with actions and not just words, perhaps it is time to reciprocate with a little gratitude and courtesy. Speak to the man and tell him that you want your circumstances to get special treatment as necessary, rather than you getting it as default.”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I appreciate your wisdom, Shade?”

“Perhaps in passing, Mr Asano, but it is always welcome.”

Shade’s vehicle form made short work of the journey and they arrived at the waiting messenger envoy. The vehicle exploded into a shadow cloud from which Jason shot out, carried by momentum. He landed with practised grace in front of the messenger, the dark cloud drawn into his shadow and vanishing.

Jason could feel the nervousness of the non-messenger servants, standing amidst the blood stains of their predecessors. More interestingly, the messenger herself was also nervous. Her appearance was traditional messenger imperiousness. Her outfit was an odd mix of Roman senator and Roman centurion, and Jason would only have been elbow high on her if she wasn’t floating over the ground. She was literally looking down her nose at him from on high.

Her aura was a stark contrast to her appearance. It had the usual refinement of a messenger, not letting any loose emotion slip, but Jason had no hesitation in rudely and forcefully probing it to get a better read on her.

***

Jali felt his approach and watched him arrive in a device combining magic with technology not native to this planet. She was reminded that he was a cosmic traveller, like her. The vehicle disappeared and he landed on the ground, dressed in casual clothing, not combat gear. His outfit, solitary arrival and relaxed manner all spoke to her being entirely dismissed as a threat. It was not something she was used to outside of her own kind.

He forced an aura probe on her, leaving her feeling vulnerable and exposed, although she schooled her expression and body language to show none of it. Her attempts to read his, in turn, were like trying to push a fish through a brick wall.

“Interesting,” he mused, looking her over. “Why would Jes Fin Kaal send you, of all people? Is she testing you or me? Both, probably. More efficient that way.”

“The Voice’s intentions are none of your concern,” Jali told him.

“They are very much my concern,” he disagreed. “Jes Fin Kaal and I are working very hard to use one another while being used as little as possible. She didn’t send a messenger on a whim or you specifically at random.”

“You killed the last envoy. I am expendable.”

Jason frowned.

“Low self-esteem? I didn’t think your kind were capable of it.”

“We have your device. Take it and kill us.”

Jason narrowed his eyes.

“You’re really miserable, aren’t you?” he asked. His voice had actual sympathy in it, which stabbed her deeper than she liked. It also had pity, which made her angry.

“What I am doesn't matter, Jason Asano. I am here to hand something over and that is all.”

He ignored her response and started pacing, distractedly rubbing his chin in thought. He stopped suddenly and turned his head to look at her.

“She wants to know if I’ll try and turn you to the unorthodoxy,” he said. “That’s interesting. She wants to know if I would, and if I could. And she wants to know if you’d turn. Does she know that you've shucked off the indoctrination already? She must, if she's taken a good look at you, but has she? Would she? Is a messenger supposedly trapped at silver-rank even worth looking at?”

He returned to thoughtful pacing as Jali’s mind raced. What did he mean by supposedly?

“Why didn't she have you killed already,” he wondered aloud. “Did she not know that your faith is gone? Did you? I can feel the self-control. It’s all over your aura like it’s your whole life. I suppose it is when there’s an astral king who’ll notice the moment you let your mind rebel, even if you do nothing about it.”

“How do you know so much about us?” Jali couldn’t help asking. “How are you an astral king?”

She could feel his astral king nature, but barely. The opposite of when he’d blasted his aura across the battlefield, he was now keeping it contained.

“So much of what you've been taught is wrong, but I think you know that. Your uncertainty and inner conflict is stamped on you, almost as deeply as the astral king's brand. You've had doubts for a long time. I have to imagine that the only reason you haven't been purged is so that you might lead them to others like you. But you're disciplined, aren't you? You never stopped toeing the line. Never turned to the unorthodoxy. Funnily enough, that means you don't have any value to them because you're not leading them to anyone.”

He nodded to himself.

“That’s why they gave you to me. They want to know how much I got from Marek Nor Vargas and Tera Jun Casta.”

He turned, locking his gaze on her as he felt her reaction.

“You know Tera Jun Casta,” he said. “It makes sense. Both stuck at silver, bottom of the messenger pecking order.”

“How have you even heard of her?” Jali asked. “She is hardly Mah Go Schaat or Jes Fin Kaal.”

“She used a duel power on me.”

“Then if you are here and alive, she is dead.”

“No. I broke the power.”

“That isn’t possible.”

He grinned.

“Make a list of everything you know about me. How many of them are possible?”

“Words are easy, Jason Asano. If she is alive, where is she?”

“I’m an astral king,” he said. “Isn’t it kind of obvious?”

“Your astral kingdom.”

“Yes. Want to see it?”

“What are you doing?” she asked. “What do you want?”

“I want to know that there’s hope for the messengers. That you’re worth saving.”

“You think you can save us? You think we need saving?”

“I can’t save the messengers. I know a bloke who wants to try. But maybe I can save you, if you want that. I get the feeling that maybe you do.”

“I have no interest in your judgement or your ploys.”

He looked her up and down.

“I can feel it, you know that,” he said. “The fear of going too far. Of having your astral king tear you apart from the inside out.”

A White stone arch rose from the ground and filled with transcendent light. She could feel his power clearly through the portal, knowing his astral kingdom had to be on the outside.

“You’ve got a choice,” he told her. “You can leave the device you brought and go back to your people. You can keep living in quiet desperation until Jes Fin Kaal decides you’re more liability than asset. Or you slip and your astral king reaches out from across the cosmos and ends you.”

“You have nothing to offer as an alternative.”

“No?”

Tera Jun Casta stepped out of the portal.

“Asano, I don’t know what game you’re… Jali?”

“Tera,” Jali said. Her equanimity was gone, her stoic expression giving way to the mix of fear and confusion she’d been hiding behind it.

“Why are you here?” Tera asked.

“Asano made a deal with Jes Fin Kaal. I’m delivering something.”

Tera looked between her and the man standing quietly by the portal, letting them talk.

“I know that your faith in our people isn’t as strong as it should be, Jali,” Tera said. “I know that we grew apart because of that, but don’t let this man take you all the way. Don’t let him erase the astral king’s mark. Unsealing your advancement potential isn’t worth losing who and what you are. He took my very identity from me.”

Jali blinked, stunned at what Tera had just said. Remove the brand? Unlocking rank advancement? The very concept flew in the face of everything she had been taught. That all of them had been taught. Just the idea of it was electrifying.

“He can do that?” Jali whispered as if saying it too loudly would shatter the hope like glass. Her emotions erupted, years of careful self-control bursting like a flooded dam.

“Through the portal!” Asano yelled as she felt his aura snap around her like a cage. “I can shield you in there!”

Something inside her twisted savagely. The astral king had felt the emotions she’d held back for so long and was killing her for having them. Her body and soul formed a unified gestalt and it was trying to tear itself to shreds. Asano’s aura shoved her own down to nothing, his influence impacting her with the inexorable vastness of gravity. Her body’s attempt to wrench itself apart slowed to a crawl, but the power driving it pushed back hard. Asano’s influence was losing ground fast and would last only moments. She looked at Tera and saw her own horror reflected in the eyes of her fellow messenger. Tera could sense what was happening and her face twisted in reluctance as she warred with herself over some decision. With a grimace, Tera jerked her head at the portal.

“Go,” she said to Jali who stood shell-shocked. “GO!”

Tera grabbed her and marched her towards it, all but shoving her through. Jali let out a shuddering breath and stepped through the portal.

***

Jason let out a sigh as he watched Tera follow the other messenger, whose name was apparently Jali, through the portal. He had no compunction about letting a messenger die, but he was the one who had unsettled the woman enough that she drew her astral king’s attention. Inside his spirit realm, Jason could stave off the astral king’s influence for a time, but there was no getting around the access the astral king had to her soul. Not unless Jason went into her soul and removed the king’s brand himself.

In the meantime, there was a cluster of very confused messenger servants standing around, unsure of what just happened. There were eight of them. It was fewer than Allayeth had killed, but he decided that may well be best. Better to try with a handful than wrangle a crowd, and he wasn’t going to go easy. If it came to it, he’d put them down with no more hesitation than Allayeth had.

“I can see your emotions. I know your fear. It seems that you were told what happened to those that came here before you. Yes, these bloodstains are theirs. The ones that didn’t turn entirely into rainbow smoke. You have a choice to—”

Jason was cut off as a gold-ranker blurred in front of him, faster than he could react. They placed a hand on his face and another on his torso, both of which exploded backwards, raining liquefied flesh down the highway. Most of the top half of his body was gone, falling to the ground and breaking apart like a dry cake as it turned into a pile of leeches.

Inside his astral realm, Jason opened his eyes as his connection with Colin broke as the familiar’s Voice of the Will form collapsed. He vanished, emerging through the portal in front of the leech pile and a startled gold-ranker. The man hesitated only a moment before moving faster than Jason could react to again. It wasn't faster than Allayeth who was suddenly there, gripping the man by the throat. Savagely barbed vines were growing out of her skin and wrapping around the gold-ranker like a cocoon, suppressing his essence abilities and gouging his skin.

“Told you,” Jason said. “You owe me dinner.”

“I’ll take this one to Xenoria,” Allayeth said. “The three of us are going to have a nice, long chat.”

She vanished with the gold ranker, leaving Jason with the pile of leeches and a group of messenger servants more confused than ever. More leeches poured out of the portal like a stream, enough to reform Colin into his Voice of the Will form, identical to Jason.

“Good job,” Jason told him. “If this lot choose poorly, you can use them to replenish your flesh stores.”

They both turned to the messenger servants.

“As I — kind of — was saying,” Jason told them, “you all have a choice. You can be the next set of bloodstains on this ground, or you can go through that portal.”

One of the messenger servants mustered the courage to ask a question.

“What’s on the other side?”

“Really?” Jason asked. “I thought between the naked bloodstains and the idea of being fed to Colin, here, you’d all be jumping to go through the portal. I’m not wrong in thinking that’s a pretty obvious choice, right?”

“Not at all,” Colin said. “Option one is to go somewhere unknown, and option two is being slowly devoured in the middle of the road by a pile of leeches with teeth.”

“It’s not exactly money or the box,” Jason agreed.

“I don’t think they understand how enthusiastic I am about the chance to eat them. I’m going to go for it with gusto because you rarely let me eat normal people. Monsters are fine, don’t get me wrong, but what I’d really like to do is devour every living thing on a planet. They’re not that, but they’re a start.”

Jason let out a groan.

“Colin, how many times do I have to say it? No blood apocalypses.”