Chapter 35: The Spirits Of The Two Trials

  The snake, now complete again, shot through the void like an arrow. Erik moved his hand to slice it apart with his claws, which somehow bounced right off the snake’s skin this time.

  Unperturbed by Erik’s attack, the snake hit him right in his shoulder with its large fangs digging into him. The body of the snake wrapped around him again. Erik attempted to cut the beast’s body again, but it was now incredibly hard, and he had no chance of harming it that way.

  Its skin was now a matte brown with markings resembling bark more than scales. It didn’t escape Erik’s notice that it didn’t writhe as it had earlier. Gripping its body with his clawed hands, he found it was hard, much like wood and not at all like a snake like before.

  Erik struggled while trying to lift the thing off. After it had hardened, that wasn’t a straightforward task. Though he struggled with it, he managed to pull it from himself. Of course, the snake somehow turned back to its slithering self once he did.

  Erik sliced it into pieces with his claws he already held the snake with. More eyes closed along its body, and it soon started regenerating again. Erik grinned.

  All along the snake’s recently wounded body, black streaks formed along and between its wounds as they were healing. The snake didn’t seem to notice at first, and the two clashed two more times before it finally did. By then, Erik was expecting it to alter its hardness and composition, though that didn’t mean he managed to cut it while hard.

  He found that the snake had to turn soft to move again, meaning that if he managed to evade the spring-like charge, he had nothing to worry about, so long as he managed to catch the snake. Its black streaks had turned to large, blackened marks, and Erik knew that was just on the outside. The black miasma filling the surrounding void was all but invisible in the emptiness.

  His previous trial, with the black and white suns, gave him access to two spells. A beam of light and this black miasma. The beam was fast as… well, the speed of light, but disappointing damage-wise, Erik had found when he used it earlier. It didn’t do much against his current opponent, at least.

  The black miasma was more of a slow burn, as it entered his enemies through their mouth, nose, or any other orifice. That also meant wounds, meaning that it was faster to infect wounded opponents. The effects were also slow, but it was starting to work on the snake by now. Its movements were becoming sluggish, and it even missed its next jump towards Erik.

  The miasma worked as a kind of reverse photosynthesis, draining energy from the infected cells. He was eager to see the effects of these new spells on the Hellbeasts, seeing that this spirit seemed much more powerful than them.

  It was Erik’s chance to attack for real, and he charged at the long, limbless serpent with readied claws. He sliced its tail into pieces, but the serpent blocked him closer to its head. Its colour was matte at some places and shiny elsewhere. Erik figured it couldn’t turn its entire body hard anymore and let loose a flurry of cuts.

  The snake blocked progressively fewer hits, and its regeneration was faltering as well. It resembled serpent sashimi floating in space.

  “Have I… sssatisssfied you?” sounded from the snake, though Erik was sure its mouth remained unmoving.

  “Sure,” Erik guessed.

  “Let me know when you’d like another… tussle. I don’t mind being punisshed.”

  Vines grew from the bottom part of the serpent’s severed head, stabbing through each slice of its body through to its tail. After skewering every piece, the vine tightened and retracted, slamming the snake pieces together.

  The black streaks dissipated as the matte brown colour returned to the body. The log, as it was now shaped like, then fell towards Erik’s magic sphere. Erik turned to watch it fall, unworried about the damage it could cause.

  He had won, though he was still not sure what the goal had been. Was it as simple as winning the fight? It couldn’t be. It was more likely he had to resist the serpent’s sexual advances, though he figured that too would’ve been too easy. He only had to avoid being attracted to snakes covered in eyes. It would’ve been nightmare fuel out in the real world, he considered.

  The wooden remains of the serpent fell towards the blue-ish sphere with constant speed. Erik materialised on the island, his body far in the void vanishing without a trace. He watched it spear towards him, growing bigger the closer it got, yet somehow not growing as big as it should have been considering its previous size.

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  It penetrated the imaginary atmosphere and fell straight into the sea, not making so much as a splash. A few metres of its length were underwater when it settled, making the floating log sway.

  Trees sprouted from the serpent like massive branches in intricate patterns. Roots grew from where it touched the sea, spreading out atop the water, even reaching as far as the island. The roots seemed to merge with the rock where they touched each other, and Erik saw the same thing happen at his cliff. He didn’t feel this affecting any of his abilities, so it should only be visual changes, at the very least.

  A snowman appeared beside him as he watched the large wooden obelisk transform to a tree of trees. Erik turned to look at the snowman, though now in confusion. Its bottommost ball of white light was the largest, containing only a few thin, black streaks and particles. It resembled a cracked snow globe. The middle ball was black, though the front had one white line stretching down its height. The third ball was the smallest, but it was also the most detailed, having black antlers on both sides of the head, twin spirals of white and black for eyes somehow reaching into its head, and moving cracks below its eyes that moved like a two-dimensional mouth made of… cracks.

  “Starless Brilliance?” Erik asked rather than greeted, vaguely remembering the name on the previous crystal. The moment he’d finished his previous trial he started another one, so he hadn’t had the time to meet his new spirit, nor any of his older spirits before now. None of the others were around, giving him time to meet his new… companions?

  “Yes,” a childlike voice sounded from the spirit as its mouth-cracks moved on the surface. “It is an honour to be here alongside you.” Its voice changed to a deep, masculine voice halfway but ended with the voice of a small child again.

  “The honour is mine,” Erik said. “Your powers were a big help just now.”

  “I am glad I could be of service.”

  Its voice kept changing between the two types, which was as eerie as it was confusing.

  “Would you like me to call you something other than Starless Brilliance? It’s a bit of a mouthful,” Erik asked. Sovereign and Leviathan was fine to say, but Starless or Brilliance was just… not?

  “That is my name,” it said with only the child-voice.

  “I know. Would you be okay if I called you just Star?” Erik asked but realised a much better name just then. “Or Brill? Can I call you Brill?”

  “You seem enthusiastic about it. It should be fine,” Brill answered in its eerie ever-changing voice.

  “Excellent! So, would you like to train with me sometime? I’m training with Sovereign and Leviathan, each teaching me how to use their powers,” Erik asked, still looking at the tree sprouting more trees.

  “No.”

  “Oh… That’s fine, I guess.”

  “I do not enjoy fighting,” Brill explained after a few seconds of silence.

  “Oh! I understand, don’t worry,” Erik said, realising that the kid’s voice might be closer to its age, at least mentally. Spiritually? “Maybe we can play sometime instead?”

  “That sounds fun,” Brill said, its face cracks turning to a gentle curve.

  Erik was about to leave his mindplace, tired of waiting over ten minutes to meet with his newest spirit, when a thin vine wrapped around his leg. After the initial scare, he waited for the spirit to make its move. He looked around a bit but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  The vine soon retracted, surprising Erik. From a nearby point where the roots from the new tree merged with the island rock grew a dark-skinned humanoid form. It started with a round head before the neck and torso took shape. When the upper body had been fully grown, shapely breasts and navel included, the face took shape. Two eyes and ears grew quite detailed along with a petite nose and puffy lips.

  By the time the legs were finished, the entire upper half was moving and looking quite like a real human woman, other than the eyes and the bark-like skin. Her eyes were a deep amber with bright green pupils, which were tall and thin like that of a viper. The woman smiled seductively at the Remnant who had absorbed her so aggressively.

  “My, what a big and ssstrong Titan you are. Did you wait for me to play sssome more?” she asked. A forked tongue vibrated outside her mouth at times.

  “Um… no. Just wanted to meet. Formally, I mean, not like before,” Erik responded.

  “Of courssse,” she grinned, and was brought closer to Erik by a moving root beneath her. Pushing her well-endowed-ness up against him, she continued: “Wouldn’t want to esstrange oursselvesss, would we?”

  “I, uh…guess not. I’m Erik, by the way.” he attempted. She didn’t remove herself.

  “Obelisssk Covenant, at your… ssservice.”

  “Excellent! Mind if I call you something… more mundane?”

  “Asss you wisssh,” she responded with a smile.

  Erik considered her name. Was ‘Covie’ a name? It sounded more like something one would call a specific group of people. Damn covies! Obelisk. Obelia? Lis?

  “What about Liz?” he asked. The woman-spirit in front of him grinned and moved her face closer to his.

  “Counter; How about Liciousss?” she said, licking his cheek when sounding the sibilant.

  “Fine,” Erik sighed. “So I’ve asked the rest of the spirits this, but would you mind helping me train sometimes? I really need it, but I won’t force you in any way.”

  “My, already asssking more from our relationssship? Sssomeone’ss impatient,” she said with a deep, sultry voice and went for it.

  She kissed him, caressing his tongue with her much longer, more dexterous tongue. Before he could even react, she let go of him. “Very well. That was the price for my future ssservice. I need to ressst now, but do drop by later.”

  She winked at him, then started losing both height and features as her body retracted into the root she stood upon, just as she had appeared except in reverse.

  ‘She’s going to be a handful,’ Erik thought as he exited his mindplace, returning to the helicopter with his friends and companions for the first time since absorbing all his Major powers.