the singing diamond
"What the hell is that thing?!" Dante shouted, aiming the bow again. He pulled back with all his strength, but no arrow appeared.
"Cease your fears. He's on our side." I cancelled my [aspect], and the black bubble surrounding us vanished, revealing the giant, 100-foot-tall monkey before us. Its massive eyes locked onto us, clearly observing our battered states.
Sifo Ren appeared to be the worst off—three holes in his chest and his left leg missing.
"Seriously?! I don't think I've ever seen giants this big!" Falice yelled, gripping Vex's face tightly, making it difficult for him to breathe through the pain.
Quinella, however, was the only one truly level-headed. It made sense—being a witch, she likely knew alchemy and enlarging potions just like Sathuna. Making something big as Wukong currently is would probably be simple work.
"Hahaha! Looks like you all had a rough time without me! Maybe this will make you appreciate my value a lot more, Kimaris!" Wukong boasted, his laughter booming as he spat saliva from his giant monkey paw, splattering it all over us.
"Just get us down from here!!" Dante yelled, clinging to one of Wukong's enormous fingers with desperate strength.
"Sure thing. Give me one second." Wukong replied, twirling his massive staff, which must have been at least 180-feet long. With a single swing, he struck a giant, snake-like wyrm in the face, sending it crashing through the nearby buildings.
"Clara! Pick them up while you can!" Wukong called out.
Clara's spaceship, the Mercry, emerged from behind Wukong's massive skull. It fired its engines to slow its descent, then turned, opening its rear hatch to take us aboard. Inside, Heru was waiting, waving us over. "Hurry! We need to get out of here!"
Clara managed to get the ship close enough, and Heru jumped off to help Vex carry what remained of Sifo Ren's body. The rest of us clambered in, one by one.
"We're all aboard! Get us out of here, Clara!" I called out as the back doors slammed shut. But just before they fully closed, I saw the wyrm—now over 150-feet long—soaring through the sky, breathing scalding water onto Wukong's enormous body as he swung his staff again, slamming it into the wyrm's coils before they could wrap around him.
"Uh... Heru, Kimaris. You two need to come to the front." Clara's voice echoed, and with a slow jog, I approached the cockpit, joined by Heru, as the ship soared upward into the atmosphere.
"What's going on, Clara—excuse me?!" I gasped, looking up through the cockpit's glass at a second sun plummeting through the atmosphere, glowing a brilliant yellow. The sky, once blue, now shimmered with waves of violent mustard energy radiating outward.
"What's happening?" I asked, but Clara gave no response. Not wanting to admit it herself.
"Attention all
***
[Back at the space station, one minute after the silver flames exploded]
As the majority of the silver fire began to subside, I walked cautiously through the hallway, navigating around the still-smouldering embers that clung to the metallic walls and floors.
Thorn was pecking at a corpse, devouring the man's flesh near his heart, while the other bodies had been reduced to charred husks—unrecognizable. Digging his raven head into a hole he had made in the man's chest, Thorn ripped out a cooked chunk of their heart and swallowed it whole. "Eh. Needs butter. Princess, got any?"
"Not with me." I replied, walking over the charred remains in my [Winter Inverse's] knight armour. I let Thorn continue his grisly meal as I reached the door at the end of the hall.
The intensity of aether on the other side of the door was overwhelming. Even Thorn's silver hellfire hadn't managed to burn through the barrier of thick aether. I could feel it—the empyrean was definitely inside this room.
I took a deep breath and focused my internal aether, placing my hand on the door. The overwhelming aether made it hard to sense anything directly with my aether-sensing skill, [Astral Third Eye], but I could improvise.
[Skill: Astral Third Eye — pulse sight!]
Like a droplet of water falling into a pond, I sent a pulse through the ambient aether, sending out a sonar wave to probe the other side.
From what I could tell, there was only one person alive in the room, but there were lumps on the floor—likely the bodies of previous test subjects. But where were Idaten's three gods?
[Skill: Conceptualization — shifting matter.]
With a thought, the thick meter of metal turned into water and fell apart onto the floor.
The first thing I saw when the door collapsed was a brilliant yellow diamond, suspended in the air by multiple gravity devices embedded in the wall. Its surface emitted a blinding light that seemed to shift like an eye, watching everything around it.
The yellow light focused directly on me like an eye as I stepped inside, my hand shielding the face of my helmet. Immediately, the aether around and within me spiked, spiralling uncontrollably in a rage.
[Skill: Horizon Chain — Sanity Defence!]
"-The parable of the horizon and void!-"
"-The great division of truth, save us! Free us!-"
"-Passionate artisan! Lovely reader! Mad illustrator!-"
I coughed up blood within my helmet as the influx of aether overwhelmed me, my three hearts working overtime to store the energy, forcing me to expunge excess aether back into the atmosphere just to make room for more.
"Urgh..." The blood drained through the vents in my helmet before closing back up. "Eagerness is a creator's worst enemy. Patience, star of love and passion. You'll be free soon."
[Skill: Imaginary Overlord — Roar of Conquest!!]
The aether that granted me my strength seemed to ignore my understanding, activating on its own and rippling outward, a force pushing back against the empyrean's yellow light, restricting its influence.
"-Horrible culture! Poisoned notes!-"
"-Break the singer's tongue for its transgressions!-"
"-Divisor, heal, severance, heal-"
Taking a slow step through the watery remains of the door, I approached the containment room for the empyrean, easing my aether into place. "Don't worry. I'm fine."
"I wasn't asking." Thorn flew over my shoulder, circling the room before landing on the robotic arm that held the yellow diamond. He kept his talons clear of anything but the light and wind.
Looking left, I saw Ben standing alone amidst several boys, all giggling mindlessly on the floor. His mind was lost, and he seemed unaware of anything around him.
Ben hummed a tune I recognized from only one other place, standing still but trapped in the empyrean's hypnosis.
I snapped my fingers a few times in front of his face, wondering if Ben could break free on his own or if he'd need help. It seemed like it might take my mental spells at his current level.
[Skill: Horizon Chain — mental calm]
A chain of aether slithered through the air and wrapped around Ben's head. His humming stopped immediately, but it would take much longer than a few minutes to pull him from the empyrean's mental prison.
[Skill: Horizon Chain — Mind Museum]
Aether sparked between Ben's and my heads. I now understood. Ben was trapped in a 'what if' version of his life—living out a fantasy as a musician. Currently, he was singing to a group of half-snake therianthropes in a whistle contest. "At least he's having fun."
"We see you've arrived at last, Traveler," a familiar, arrogant voice echoed through the containment room. My eyes quickly scanned the space, landing on a glass screen where the three gods of Idaten-II stood behind it. "How unfortunate for you."
"I don't know about that. You're the ones standing in front of me." I grinned behind my helmet, wondering just how much insult the gods would allow before they snapped.
The most energetic god, already scowling, slammed his hand against the glass. "You're only lucky you can withstand the empyrean's presence, snake! If not, I'd like to see you fight us without your powers."
"I will if you do the same." I raised my hands challengingly, inviting him to come down and face me. "Oh, but then again, justice is never fair, is it? It's blind, after all." Condensing a small orb of aether from the ambient energy, I flicked it casually at the glass, like a careless booger. The god's fury was evident as the stress tightened his lower face.
"Hey, princess," Thorn's voice broke through, surprisingly clear with an idea. "Since empyreans are the pure source manifestations of a concept, why not ask it what justice means to a creator of the arts?" He paused noticing my mad excited eyes beneath my helmet. "Don't look at me like that, you sadist."
"Don't you dare!" From behind, the third god's voice rang out, shaking the entire planetary protection satellite. "Justice is a holy force that can never be properly comprehended! What you do next will be blasphemy to every god of justice in existence, Traveler!"
I laughed, a madness creeping into my tone from the influence of the abundant aether. "Have you ever wondered why there isn't a kralscell of justice, deities? It's because it's an insignificant concept. Yet, something like the kralscell of flowers exists. It's funny, isn't it? Beauty is more important to the universe than justice. Justice... is merely a derivative form of order. To even get a kralscell of justice, you'd have to break apart the kralscell of order, maybe into eight pieces."
The gods were left with no choice but to listen. Their attempts to counter my words were futile—they had no leverage. Either they launched the empyrean into space, or I would attack them first. In either case, they knew—if they didn't act wisely, all three would perish within the satellite.
"This ludicrous bastard..." one of the gods muttered under his breath.
"He's gone insane, just like all the others. Don't listen to him," another hissed.
I tapped my helmet's steel chin with my left gauntlet, letting my thoughts run wild. "What would the other seven parts of order be then? There's already a kralscell of control, so that can't be one of the lesser concepts. My guesses would have to be... organization, classification, reflection, structure... Would manipulation count? No, that's corruption. The last three could only be civilization, harmony, and lastly, cowardice."
The three deities stared at me as if I had killed their own child right in front of them, while I thought aloud with a crazed smile beneath my helmet.
"That makes sense, considering the kralscell of order's personality," I continued, nodding to myself. "It's always afraid of others overstepping their boundaries. Afraid of harmony not being reflected in civilization's structure and organization. Terrified that everything's classification would be upended, just like the planets they destroyed."
"I will not let you besmirch justice in such a way, Traveler!" The leader of the gods howled, his fury reaching a boiling point. He nearly shattered the glass with a punch, but the other two gods restrained him. "Justice is chivalry! It is perfect and honourable! A kralscell's perversion of ideas could never understand that!"
"Don't, Ulr! We won't withstand that empyrean without the glass!" one of the other gods warned.
"Contain yourself! We can't let the plan fail after all this!" the third god shouted, struggling to keep his composure.
Rolling my eyes behind my helmet, I decided to end their little charade. "You say these things, yet you're planning to assassinate the Empress of
"H-how do you...?" The gods were stunned, completely caught off guard by my revelation. Silence fell over them as their secret was exposed.
"You lured them here, claiming you would give the empyrean to the winner of the tournament. You said you had only discovered the empyrean a year ago. But that was a lie. The only reason no one discovered the empyrean until you announced it is because of how insignificant your galaxy is. Just like justice. Also, the fact that this satellite is positioned directly above the arena makes your plan painfully obvious to anyone expecting it."
[Skill: Autumn King's Conquest — Fragarach Spear!]
My third and final weapon made of pure crackling golden energy. The [Fragarach spear], a weapon that can multiply almost endlessly and detonate upon contact or at a time of my choosing.
Before the gods could react, I hurled the spear toward the glass, where it lodged itself deep. A split second later, the spear exploded with a cataclysmic force, creating a crack that reached straight into the void—though it vanished almost as quickly as it appeared as the universe mended itself.
With the glass barrier gone, the empyrean's yellow light poured directly onto the three gods, piercing into their minds with savage clarity.
"Ahhh!!!" they screamed as the aether swept over their sanity. The gods, now completely unhinged, tore through the station, launching attacks in all directions without discrimination. "Stop! No! I am a god! A god!"
Torrential blasts of wind and raw power ripped through the station's walls, opening breaches that sucked the oxygen out into the void of space, until, eventually, there was nothing left.
The three lesser gods were now struggling to breathe, their air stolen by their own madness.
The leader of the gods, floating in the air, looked at me with bloodshot eyes. He saw me waving up at him casually, my attention focused on trapping Ben in a cocoon of black scales to keep him safe, providing him with warmth and oxygen.
"Evil... spirit..." the god muttered weakly, his life slipping away. With his last breath, he pressed a button on his wrist, sending a pulse of aether toward me.
[stigma: equal correlation—sequence release]
In an instant, my vision snapped to the empyrean, and I saw a small hole in the floor just big enough to fit the empyrean. The hole was pulling it toward the planet.
'It's too strong!!' Thorn mentally screamed, flapping his wings desperately as he tried to pull the empyrean back from the gravitational rift.
[Aspect: Taken Devourer—Telekinesis!!]
A black hand wrapped around the yellow crystal as I stretched my arm out. My telekinetic powers fought alongside Thorn's desperate efforts to pull the empyrean free, but the force pulling it down was only getting stronger—overpowering us both.
"Is it a gravity shot?!" I gasped.
'You mean those arrows you shoot from space?!' Thorn's mental voice was tinged with panic. 'Oh, fuck no! Do not let it fall, Strife!'
"Easier said than done!" I groaned, struggling against the immense force with my telekinesis.
The entire satellite groaned as the pull on the empyrean grew stronger, comparable to the gravitational force of a star. My boots cracked through the metal floor, and Thorn's talons were losing their grip. If we didn't act quickly, the empyrean would be shot down toward Idaten's capital at beyond Mach speed!
With a burst of yellow light and a faint hymn, the empyrean slipped free of my black hand, falling through the hole toward the planet.
Thorn and I locked eyes, dread and realization settling in. "...Oh, shit."