Banda chased after Eres through the rocky steppes of Akkad with feral eyes. She was faster than he was at his base somehow, forcing him to harness some of the power of beasts.

  Even well within the limits that avoided the many-colored fractures, it was a strain to maintain his partial transformation for days on end. But Banda wouldn’t complain. Not to her. He wouldn’t let her see his weaknesses.

  “It’s not far off now.”

  Banda glanced ahead at her words, towards the imposing tower. The closer they got, the more he could understand how truly enormous it was.

  Just as Eres had claimed, it stretched deep into the sky, above even the clouds, and had grown so wide Banda wondered if his eyes weren’t being fooled. He wondered too, what sort of being this Enki was who could make such a thing.

  Eres and Montu veered off without warning and Banda followed behind to a small cliff just before the end of the steppes met the territory of the tower. A strange land he peered over at from behind his cover.

  Surrounding the base of the tower were many human tents like the ones the priests had made, along with larger piles of stone arranged in unnaturally similar structures. Among them were more humans than he had seen in his life thus far.

  “We were too slow.” Montu said, his focus on the Ishtar priests in the crowd.

  Hundreds and hundreds of regulars, several dressed like Oreb, and two dozen Honor Guard standing guard at the entrance of the Tower, distinguished by their menacing golden armor and lioness masks.

  “You can handle two dozen, can’t you?” Eres asked, though even she took stock of them.

  “With some help.” Montu replied.

  “Why are you fighting your pack?” Banda interrupted. Killing a few rebellious ones, he could understand. But from what he had seen, they fought and died for her as they should. It didn’t make sense for a leader to kill minions that obeyed.

  “They aren’t mine, just my wardens.” Baring a pause for his amusing choice of words, Eres explained bluntly, before turning her head back to Montu. “We’ll go as planned.”

  “Understood.”

  “What plan?” Banda asked, growing a little more annoyed.

  “Divinity is restricted within the tower. It can be used just the same as out here, but it cannot be gathered by any means. Demigods like you and Priests like me won’t be able to recover power once inside, so we need to break into the tower using as little divinity as possible.” Eres granted Banda her full attention as she finally explained.

  “At the very top of the tower is Humbaba, the Gatekeeper, who stand between us and the door to Eden. We won’t have any time to spare once we’re in, so we need to plan how to defeat him now.” Eres took note of Banda’s lack of tension. “Humbaba is stronger than Monga.”

  “It’s not.” Banda snapped back immediately at the ignorant words. Whatever this Humbaba was, it could never be Monga’s equal. He is, or rather until the giant woman, was the only being who could best Banda without his trance. And Monga was stronger than her.

  Eres seemed on the verge of arguing back but decided against it. “Humbaba is immensely powerful in all aspects, Body, Mind, and Soul, and can regenerate from all wounds nonlethal. But the true problem lies in that he has four lives.”

  “Three times, he can return from death and become immune to whatever the cause was. He cannot be killed the same way twice and each time he returns stronger.”

  Banda found nothing special in her claims. It sounded like they need only kill this being four times instead of once.

  “What are your spells, Wild?” Eres continued.

  “My name is Banda.” Banda frowned. That was the second time she had gotten his name wrong.”

  “I’m aware.” She smiled teasingly. “We’re companions now, so it’s in your best interest to be honest.”

  “...Sharp Claw. Thunder. Roar. Mountain.” He had no need for deception about them.

  “I can guess the first three well enough.” Their fight was fresh in her memory after all. “What is Mountain?”

  “Makes me strong, like a mountain. Harder to damage. All of me, not just Body.”

  “So Spirit Reinforcement, basically.” Eres deduced. “What about that form, where you turn feral?”

  “Not a spell. My power.”

  “Oh? A trait, or a bloodline, then. And? What is it exactly?” Eres’ interest seemed to drift from the task ahead.

  “I get stronger.”

  “By how much?” Eres asked with a tone of patient condescension.

  Banda’s frown deepened. “Same as you when you fight. More if I use Mountain.”

  “Hmm…” Eres mused. “30 times at your base, and then with your Mountain spell… That would be that coating of divinity back then… I’m guessing around one hundred fold. That’s quite incredible. But I remember you got stronger without Mountain when you broke out of my grip.”

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  “I can get stronger. As much as I want. But I start to break.” A hint of annoyance slipped into Banda’s tone. The weakness of his Spirit was the only thing holding him back. Were he able to wield his power without restraint, none would be his equal.

  Greater interest gleaned in Eres’ eyes at the revelation. “When you use it, does it feel like you’re using a part of you inside, or does it feel like all of you?”

  “All.”

  “A primordial grade bloodline… How many more surprises are you going to give me?” Eres smiled deep. “Ah, but… Then your… ‘trance’...”

  “What?” Banda asked as she trailed off in thought.

  “Nevermind.” Eres decided not to ask what was on her mind.

  “How are you this strong?” It was Banda’s turn to interrogate. “Humans shouldn’t be as strong as me.”

  “You’re human, too.” Eres explained, though from Banda’s slighted expression she figured it was best to drop the matter. “Ishtar is a god of three domains, and I am granted priesthood of all three which makes me thrice as strong as normal priests. One of my spells, War Ready, grants me a tenfold boost, matching the thirty-fold of your… let’s say Feral Form.”

  Banda didn’t care what she called his power, but he did care about what her’s entailed.

  “My other spells as Regeneration, which you’ve seen. Dance of Ishtar allows my skill and intuition in combat to grow the longer I fight. And Bane makes my strikes inherently effective against whatever they strike, which you also know well.” Eres ran her hand the center of his chest where her lance had pierced through.

  Banda brushed away her hand. “What about the other woman?”

  Eres gave him a questioning pause before breaking into laughter. “That ‘woman’ is a manifestation of my being at its greatest potential. My Avatar. It’s the ability of a very special trait I possess, the Vestal Warbide Physique.”

  As she calmed down, she noticed Banda didn’t fully quite get it. “It’s stronger than me and I control it.”

  Banda fell into contemplation of his own. If it was truly not another human, but one of her own human tricks, that made her far stronger than he thought. Almost rivalling Monga. And if she was that strong, perhaps she was not lying about Humbaba. Banda was reluctant to accept such absurdity, but he could not fully deny it.

  “Back to our plan.” Eres cleared her throat to bring his focus back to her. “Bane is my most potent attack, so we need to save it for the fourth life. I’ll take the first with my fire, so you’ll take the next two. Which of Sharp Claw and Thunder are strongest?”

  “Both are strong.” A foolish question he thought, as the answer depending on the circumstances of the fight.

  “Then use them in whichever order you want. But only one of them on each life.” Eres walked back to the edge of the cliff as she spoke, her sight set upon the tower’s entrance. “Follow close and use as little divinity as possible.”

  ---

  The priests of Ishtar patrolled the base of the tower in silent vigilance, none more so than the Honor Guard. The grand open doorway to the tower was guarded by no less than twelve of them, with the rest combing the nearby areas.

  No one was permitted to enter the tower and no one under suspicion was spared mercy, which left the entrance completely deserted, save for the priests.

  A golden masked Honor Guard passed by a small alley way, and two hands emerged from the shadows behind. The moment the hands grabbed the man, he was submerged in silence, and before the next moment passed he was pulled into the dark. And the alley was still once more.

  In a short while after, three Honor Guards calmly appeared in a blur in front of the guards at the entrance who showed unrestrained attention on them.

  “Why have you left you patrols?” One guard asked, his attire no different from any other.

  “Some have gone missing.” One of the three answered, bluntly and emotionlessly.

  Without warning, the doorkeeper thrust his spear through the chest of the one that responded, as two others lunged towards the two that remained.

  “Do not harm the Sacred Priestess.”

  However, as the doorkeeper spoke, the Honor Guard he stabbed grasped his arms with unhindered strength. The shining light of iridescent cracks broke out all over his body, and the same happened to the other two newcomers who lunged recklessly into their opponents.

  Too quickly for the entrance guards to respond, all three mind controlled Honor Guards detonated their spirits in a calamitous explosion that brought half of the others with them in death.

  One of the remaining entrance guards, shattered a crystal in his hand, and the invisibility that cloaked the trio as they rushed towards the entrance shattered with it.

  Banda acted first, before anyone else. He breathed in deep and let loose a pulsing Roar to blast away the rest of the guards, granting the three of them enough time to slip through the shimmering portal of the tower’s door.

  Passing through a gate was a sensation Banda had never felt before. It was like falling into a lake at first whose waters did not wet his body. And then through the sky, where even his instincts could not tell up from down.

  And finally, he found himself back within the world. A mountainous forest, more barren than the one he called his own, beneath a cloudy sky that draped the land in a dim murky light.

  Banda’s focused snapped back to the entrance, where the priests started to swarm out from in increasingly greater numbers. He turned ready for a fight, no matter what Eres had warned, but with her back to the entrance and the pursuing priests, she pulled out a winged amulet that swept them up in a soaring light.

  In the blink of an eye, Banda found himself in a new environment, along with Eres and Montu. A giant cave, with no exit to be seen.

  Its stone walls seemed hardy, its rocky floor bare saved for patches of grass and small plants. But Banda had paid no attention to the cave beyond what his sense first took in, as his focus was on nothing but the creature looming before them.

  A giant creature of dwarf proportions. Its head was a third of its size. Its legs short and as thick of a tree trunks but its even larger arms were long enough to graze the knuckles of its massive fists across the ground from its slightly hunched squat.

  Gray bark-like skin covered the whole of its body, and its hideous face was like a mask of stone, with large square teeth lining the opening of its mouth.

  No sooner did the arrive that the giant flinched. Light swirled into glowing orbs of red light within its hollow eyes that set its sights on the three of them.

  The creature dug the weight of its mighty body into the ground and let out a roar with the crushing weight of its presence that put Banda on edge. And Banda knew this was Humbaba.

  Fire wove around Eres’ hands and surged against the gatekeeper. She poured her effort and ruthlessness with utmost seriousness, burying the thrashing giant in flames until its thrashes died down and its body collapsed into crumbling ash.

  But within moments, the body reformed like pulsing flesh from its mask-like head. The now glossy-skinned gray giant roared again more imposing than before.

  Eres lept behind Banda and relaxed her posture slightly. “Your turn.”