“Let this light cast away your faith. Faith not aimed at I has no place in this world. My world.” It happened very quickly. In one moment, Ymiris pointed her elegant fingers at Reginald of Altruin. In the next moment, there was a brilliant flash of holy light. A giant blade forged in blinding radiance manifested itself at Ymiris’s side. Then, another moment passed. The blade flew and was gone.
In its wake, Reginald’s upper body had disappeared leaving only gushing blood pouring across his silver chestplate. What was left of him fell from his horse and landed on the muddy ground with a dull thud, just as the crow had done before the Goddess’s emergence. His horse, driven into a mad panic, threw up its front hooves, whinnied, and ran off. Somehow, all were left in even more shock than they were before.
Ymiris turned back to Nyame for the last time. Her many colors including a dazzling orange, fluorescent blue, cyan, violet and more shimmered like scales.
Nyame gasped.
For the first time, Ymiris opened her mouth. Not once had she opened it to speak since she’d made herself known. Though, it wasn’t telepathy. Something inside of her head unlike vocal cords was generating sound to mimic the human cords and tongue. Perhaps that was why her voice was so melodic. Perhaps it was why her every word was enough to cause magical ringing in the air. No one knew for certain, just like no one knew what it was she aimed to do by finally wrenching open her smiling jaws. They creaked apart and stopped, leaving Ymiris’s face looking like a jack-o-lantern. Not any ordinary jack-o-lantern, either. It was truly terrifying. What made it worse was what directly followed the action. Every ounce, every liter of blood in Reginald’s desecrated corpse coagulated and floated in the air. Collecting in a bubbly stream, it flowed from the body and where his fellow cavaliers still stood in awe and went directly into the moth mother’s mouth. Goopy, slathering sounds were heard as it sloshed its way down the Goddess’s throat. It was almost as if she was breathing in his blood through the air, like how a fish filters out and gathers oxygen from water.
“Y-Y-You dare kill Captain Reginald!?”
“Face the wrath of Altruin’s valiant knights, knave!!!”
“We’ll tear you apart, freak!”
Most of the Altruin cavaliers, the ones who hadn’t ran, rushed forward with drawn lances and swords. They pushed the mortal fear they felt deep in their bones down until it was no more than a faint whisper in their minds. They relentlessly continued to charge.
Ten more blades of light formed over the Goddess. With a lazy point of her tactile finger, they pierced through the air like summer lightning and shot three perfect bloody holes through each of her enemies’ bodies. They fell to the ground dead just like their leader did. The ones who didn’t had been caught in their stirrups and were carried off by their horses, though they had still died just the same.
Ymiris opened her mouth again with a slimy clicking sound and drained the corpses of their sanguine sustenance. “Forgive me. It has been so very long since I last engaged in a feast. And now, right after I wake, I am treated to a feast beyond even my wildest dreams. You are delightful children. Or perhaps I am simply a very fortunate god.” She chuckled, but it came out sounding like an otherworldly windchime.
Nyame stared absentmindedly, but inside she was deeply bewildered. The High Pastoress kneeled before Ymiris along with her faithful and pleaded. “Goddess, they know not what they do. Please, no more killing. I had hoped your Advent would have been one of a more… peaceful nature. Please, bestow upon me your blessing and I shall root out the undeserving myself. You need not dirty your hands with the sinful among this flock.”
“Thou wishest for my blessing? Truly?”
“Yes, Goddess. I would like nothing more.” Nyame stared into Ymiris’s black irises. Somewhere deep in her subconscious, the voice of a raving man banged drums in her head. They were the lingering words of Blind Faith.
“Uhuhu~ And what if you are wrong? What if that very notion is the opposite? Slantwise? Oh, how I can’t wait for the grand reveal! It is so close, yet so far…! This is no meeting for peace! These are not common people, simpleton. These are vagrants, do-badders, haters, killers. What do you suppose THAT means? Hmm?”
No. Shut up! Nyame screamed in her mind. Nothing but the disdainful words of a madman. Our Goddess wants nothing but the best for us. If she must feast, then let her feast. Every living thing must eat, and she had been waiting a long time. What does it matter if she eats a few sinful knights? No harm done. All is good. All is fine.
“Take my hand, lamb. Kiss it. Pledge your loyalty and love. Only then may I bestow a shard of my power unto you. A shard of a diminished power, in fact.” She spoke lower and leaned forward so only Nyame and her disciples could hear. “For you see, children, I am quite weak at the present moment. I need some time to regain my former strength. I must feast. You will help me with this holy mission, yes?”
“...Yes, Goddess. I pledge myself to you.” Nyame kissed her beautiful, tactile fingers.
“Excellent. Now, rise my servants. Rise and serve me.”
Nyame arched her back and groaned in pain. Stunning, white angel wings abruptly sprouted from her back and ripped through her dress. They were bloody near her ribs and spine. The rest of the Church members followed suit.
“Take this, my acolyte. It will serve thee well.” Ymiris drew out a long, white bident from underneath her wispy fur robes and handed it to Nyame without hesitation. It seemed to be made of bone. “Catch thy prey with fervor. Every body is another step to rejuvenating your Goddess. Bring me back to true godhood, wondrous acolyte.”
Nyame nodded, her head racked with swirling, chaotic emotions.
A multitude of chimes rang out.
“W-What do we do, sir? The target has k-killed a dozen knights… and d-devoured them.”
The Reville commander aboard the ever-watchful airship coughed and cleared his throat. It seemed the nonsensical chain of events weighed heavily on him as well, though he didn’t outwardly show it. At least, not in an obvious fashion. “I told you. Wait for my word.”
“B-But sir, if we don’t act now-”
“Quiet! So she ate a few plebeians from Altruin. A common warbeast could have done the same. I will not waste precious ammunition on a low-level threat. If we do, it will be my head on the stake, understand? Not yours. Mine. Do not fire unless told to.”
“Okay. Apologies, sir. I lost my head for a moment.”
The commander gave a small nod and scratched his face. “It is… understandable given the situation we are in. Do not fret.”
“But… do you really think the X-34 War Machine ion rounds will be enough to bring her down if she attacks? She threw those swords like they were nothing. It was like she was flicking paperclips at them.”
The commander chuckled. “No enemy has ever survived the X-34’s. With a direct hit, they have the power to potentially atomize the target. Nothing survives atomization.”
Ymiris then turned to the airship and stared directly through the glass window to meet the commander’s gaze. She pointed at him, and by extension, the ship.
“S-Sir!?”
“Oh shit. Fire. Fire! Fire now! Fire now! I said now, goddamnit!”
Massive cylindrical devices unhinged and fell into super-magnetic locks at the sides of the vehicle. Giant steel locks also whirled around and hitched to the other side of the revealed cannons. The guns were wrapped in mesmerizing wiring and eccentric red and blue lines. Sparkling, crackling electricity surrounded them in a second, and in the next, they both fired simultaneously. Ionic bolts the size of elephants ejected from the ship and drew a straight line to the Goddess.
The Goddess waved, and her acolytes fled imminent destruction and searched for fresh blood. She herself didn’t move one bit. She simply stood there, waiting for the inevitable explosion of scarlet ions to reach her. And, they did.
ZZZ-BOOM!
Black smoke spread out from the impact. Red lightning coursed through the dark clouds. It almost blotted out the clear, blue sky.
“Did… did we get her?” The soldier asked while peering slant-eyed into the rippling maze of gaseous plume.
The commander was silent as a hawk. He eyed the smoke, too, like a hawk. He searched for his prey. He hoped the thing was dead, but if it was only injured, that would be fine. Not great, but it would mean there was some hope of them getting out alive. They could always load more rounds. That thought sprung him to action. “Reload. More X-34’s. Better safe than sorry.”
“Yes, sir!”
Finally, the smoke cleared. What the commander saw did not bring a smile to his face. In fact, it dragged the sides of his mouth down farther than he ever had done on purpose. A deep, ghastly frown. His eyes popped out of his head in disbelief. There, still crackling with ionic energy and completely unharmed, was the Goddess. Not so much as a speck of dust graced her untainted form. Her inhuman eyes did more than unsettle. The commander felt as though he were looking at death itself.
“F-F-Fire! Fire!”
“We can’t! We’re still loading the shells!”
“Then… then get us the hell out of here!”
The pilot wrenched a silver lever from its locking position and spun the steering wheel a hundred times over. The airship, in response, slowly lumbered to the right and accelerated away from the inhuman force that called herself Ymiris.
“Faster, damn you! Faster!”
“We can’t! The accelerator isn’t fully warmed up yet!”
“Then get-”
Grinding, searing gold. Deafening destruction. A colossal sword of blinding light this time had appeared above the Goddess and careened into the airship at an unyielding velocity. It skewered the ship, with lack of a better term. Impaled it all the way to the massive blade’s sunlit hilt. The airship burst into flame, exploded a few times, and slowly sank down from the sky and crashed into the uninhibited land like a fireball. Then, from what only a few educated mercenaries could guess, the X-34 War Machine ion rounds also exploded. A thunderous boom ten times louder and more terrible than when they had shot at Ymiris shook the earth. Bellowing smoke darkened the sky. Scarlet lightning struck the land indiscriminately, the obvious byproduct of weather infused with ionic supercells. The wrecked ship’s corpse stood in the near distance like a monument to the Goddess’s new reign.
“I dared to chastise those two for leaving,” the black knight let out a panicked cry to the wolven beside him. “But… this… this is suicide! Goodbye! Au revoir!” He ran to his black horse, each step a teetering reminder of the sheer panic that claimed him. He mounted it, struck the reins, and rode off somewhere northeast between the Greatwoods and Aza.
“‘Tis a shame their blood will boil in the flames of their own creation. Oh, well. I have more than enough to consume right here.” Ymiris spoke with the same eerie, singsong voice despite her mouth not moving an inch. She was like a doll possessed by a wretched spirit.
“Goddess,” Nyame said. “Look there. Something else that flies. It approaches. It descends to meet your grace.”
Ymiris looked up to where Nyame pointed. There in the dark ridden sky was a red dragon. Atop its back was a woman clad partly in black. They fell lightly to the sacred ground Ymiris floated above. The whitening had spread widely since her arrival. The grazing sheep and other wildlife that once peered at her apathetically were now pallid husks drained of their lifeblood. Once the two had reached them, the dragon then morphed into a human form that resembled a tall woman wielding a monstrous blade. The other woman, seemingly a sorceress, carried a tome Ymiris immediately recognized. She was also half-naked, though the skin that did show was mostly covered in unnatural black feathers.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Nyame gripped her bident harshly. “The Sorceress…! It’s the Black Sorceress!” Her newly sprouted wings, too bloody to be truly divine, flapped anxiously.
The moth-like archon lowered herself to the ground and stood on her own two legs. The white plague that drained the world around her of its luster accelerated at a rapid pace. “I have heard many things about you, child. My moon, it seems, has made a mess of thy life. You were cursed with such a mad father. A sad, pitiable existence. Although, you are special. I can feel it. The harmonization. The song that guides your hand is not entirely unlike my own. My creations seldom hold a soul comparable to my own. But you… you are farther from an ordinary human.”
“She’s… she’s dying. She’s partially wrathcursed as well, Goddess.”
Nia weakly brought her head up from its place on Arkiel’s shoulder and came face-to-face with Ymiris. “We’re… too… late…”
Arkiel pointed her mortal blade at the Goddess and her favored acolyte. “Tsk,” she clicked her tongue. “It seems we are. What’s the rush, archon? Why not wait another few hundred years? Why now? Afraid of something?”
Ymiris continued to stare expressionlessly with her simple, insectoid face. “A god fears nothing. My whims become truth as I will them. The planet changes shape when I deem it so.” She raised her black marble hand and made a loop with her fingers. She stared at the dragon through the loop like a child looking through a spyglass. “And you will address me as ‘mother dearest,’ dragonkin. Seeing you makes me think of a certain emotion… Happiness? Joy? I suppose I am glad to see dragons are not yet extinct. Yes… I am glad. Happy, even.”
“Yeah, you sure look happy. Is it fun destroying everything you helped create?” Arkiel adjusted her hold on Nia. She eyed Ymiris with enough fury to burn the Greatwoods down.
The Goddess shook her head lightly, closing her eyes momentarily before looking upon the dragon with an odd warmth. “Not destruction, my dear. Though, in a way, thy claim is true. The world is simply ready to move on. To return to my belly, my stomach, my energy, and pass onto another waiting refuge. From there, life will flourish anew. It is not an end, dragonkin. It is a new beginning.”
Arkiel slashed at the air. Her blade left a streaking red and black mark lingering in front of her for a while before fading away. “And what if we’re not ready to move on? We never asked to be your hellspawn. We never wanted to be your playthings. You cursed us in the womb. Cursed us to inevitably die in obscurity, all for your great feast. Your sustenance. It makes me sick.”
“Lily…” Nia called out wearily. Her voice was low and scratchy.
She’s gone, gone forever.
There’s nothing I can do now.
Nothing left for me.
N i a . . .
What’s the point?
Nothing matters anymore.
I failed.
T a k e f l i g h t .
I failed her, after she’d done so much for me.
That last light has gone and died out.
I should die, too.
F l y , S o r c e r e s s . T a k e f l i g h t a n d l e t l o o s e y o u r f u r y .
Nia pushed off of Arkiel and landed in the thick, pale mud on her hands and knees. She groaned helplessly in pain. Her throat filled with cracking cries and gurgles.
“Nia! What are you doing?” The Red Dragon went to help her, but stopped as if frozen in time.
“Ah. That madness was not a fleeting illness, then. The lunacy runs in thy veins. A mooncursed family until the end of time. It seems my crueler half also inherited my crueler powers. That is quite unfortunate, feathered one. If I could understand the concept of empathy, I would wrap my illustrious wings around thee. ‘Tis a shame the opposite is true. I can feel nothing for my food. Quite a shame, indeed.”
“Stop this! Stop it, now! I know of the Black Moon. I know it is one of your ineffable Scions. Quell its enchantment on her! Quell it or die!” Arkiel screamed in bitter resentment. Her neck grew semi-transparent and burned vermilion. Fire sparked in her chest and was building in her throat.
Ymiris lightly chuckled, sending soft chimes out that only added fuel to the dragon’s igniting wrath. “I am powerless when it comes to such things. My moon is but a separate entity, now. Though, I suppose I could hurry things along so that I may join with it again.” Following her wispy intonation, the Goddess outstretched her hands to the sky once more, and she sang. Her third eye, the one sitting on her forehead above the black ones, opened. Her black eyes closed. None could see nor perceive the third eye. It shined in colors imperceptible to any Aeosian. Her song, though it could be understood through the soul, was in an ancient language and could not be understood lyrically. The souls of all who heard it did resonate, however. It sank into their hearts much like how a heavy stone crashes into a lake and sinks to its innermost depths.
Painting and wailing
Multicolored plastics on the canvas
Maiming and claiming
This world of tears so vast
Colorful visions of the city out of reach
A beautiful sight cloaked in falling rain
A painting of your favorite beach
Before the land is cut in twain
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
Never stopping, always shaking
Always dying, never stopping
A teetering tower of glassy tears
A thundering mire of crimson leers
A ravenous plague beyond the years
A mechanical doe that runs in fear
Let the earth be damned!
Let chaos reign!
The burning rain and reign!
Let fire leave us maimed!
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
We revolve around the moon
Fettered lotus, your heart will swoon
We revolve around the moon
Dreary star, your heart’s a boon
The world of tears so vast
Maiming and claiming
Monochrome colors on the canvas
Painting and wailing
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
Revolving
A sacred garden humming an eerie drone
Made pale as stone
Leaving us ungrown
Bereft, across a world in monochrome
The bright, blue sky unseen beyond the thick, black smoke generated by the fallen airship darkened suddenly. It was as if the sun had gone out. In spite of that, however, the sun could barely be seen through the dark clouds. It had begun to fade into a blood-red color, much like the darkening sky. A blotted crimson just like the liquid that flowed through every lifeform’s veins. The world had gone mad.
The sky then split in two, unleashing a tidal wave of vitriolic blood onto the land like a broken faucet. Beyond any rational thought, it was true. Waves of blood, the source unknown, ravaged the land and tainted it with scarlet flesh and ichor. Dozens of unnamed mercenaries who had simply come there to make a decent living were drenched in it. Some drowned, some were flung into trees and separated at the waist by the physical force, some even died from sheer shock. The ones who had climbed to higher ground were promptly annihilated by the scarlet lightning still pummeling the swollen earth. The viscous waves soon lowered into an endless puddle-deep sea that encompassed the land.
Huh? What? What’s happening? Why… why? Why, Goddess? Why would you do such a thing?
Ymiris, paying her acolytes no mind, stretched her arms out in delight. An endless sanguine river flowed into her mouth and body. The sloshing and slathering noise it generated was truly horrible.
I had faith. I had it. I had it. I had it! I believed!!! So, why? Why, when my faith was so unwavering? When I hadn’t dared question a single thing? When I turned a blind eye to the things that unsettled me?
The quietus of the mercenaries and crestfallen knights was not so quiet. Their tired, hoarse screams rippled across the red sea with nothing to show for them. Doom, with its thousands of fanged claws and dancing mouths, had fallen upon them and devoured them whole. There was nothing that could be done. The only place that the bloody tide did not dare caress was the whitening ground that had, now, spread about thirty to forty feet from Ymiris’s cocoon.
Ah. That’s it, Nyame thought, her mind descending into a labyrinthine spiral. He was right. Blind Faith… ha. Ha. Ha. Hahahahaha. Haha. Ha. I see now. My faith means nothing to her. Nothing but what it wills me to do. She simply wanted drones to fetch her meals. That’s all it was. Haha. What a joke. What a funny, silly joke! Nyame broke into a crazed laughter, grasping her head as if suffering from a thumping headache. “Blind Faith! That’s right! I’m Blind Faith! Hahaha! That is my name! A name that hides within us all! Within me! That is the truth!”
The sound of bones breaking. An eerie chime.
Nyame saw only darkness. A giant metal cross had materialized, piercing through her eyes and out through the back of her skull. Her angelic wings twitched like those of a dying insect.
“We revolve around the moon.”
Arkiel moved her eyes from the apocalyptic happenings around her to the Black Sorceress. She was in a fetal position, an immense amount of blood pouring from where Ceres had ripped her abdomen apart. “Nia…”
“We revolve around the moon,” she repeated.
Ymiris, having had her fill of blood for the meantime, laughed happily. “Isn’t it a wondrous sight? We are all finally brought together in harmony again. This is happiness. This is joy. An emotion I can understand. Oh, how it fills me with splendid light. How it lights my path like a million burning stars. There is no other feeling quite as intoxicating. Except for love, I suppose. But I feel that as well. I love you all, and that is why it makes me even happier to bring you all back to me. It is truly wonderful.”
“Keep talking,” Arkiel said, “and I’ll cut you into pieces. Do you know what this is?” She took a quick glance at her blade.
“Hmm… it does seem familiar.”
“It’s a blade, but not just any blade. It’s a mortal blade, forged from the spinal cord of a certain dragon. Can you guess which one?”
Ymiris grinned as Arkiel gave her this small puzzle to solve. She scanned the sword over and over with her squinted black eyes. “Oh, dear. Not that one.”
“Yes, that one.”
“The Kel-Dragon, is it? The great progenitor. What a shame. Are all the dragonlords dead and gone?”
Arkiel stared at the Goddess with slight revulsion. “Yes… all of them. And soon, you shall join them.”
A red flash, like the one performed atop the Imperium’s apex. The Red Dragon had become a banshee of searing red and misty black, her eyes leaving wavy trails as she leapt at her target with unbound ferocity. She slashed at the Goddess until a bucket of blood rushed over her.
Nyame’s wrathcursed, enigmatic body was cut into a thousand pieces. She fell to the floor, painting the pallid ground in a red hue. It appeared that she had run in front of Arkiel’s daring attack at the last moment, still bent on defending her one and only Goddess. Though, it was equally possible Ymiris had thrown Nyame in front of the attack instead. It made no difference to Arkiel.
“Kneel,” the Goddess said.
“You-” Arkiel kneeled uncontrollably.
“Excellent. Now, I want thee to say, ‘I love you, mother dearest! You’re the best mom a daughter could have!’ Can you do that for me, dear?”
Arkiel struggled to stand, but failed miserably. She was stuck kneeling to the false god. Something within her mind disobeyed her. Some hidden switch. A gear in her mind refused to turn with the others, sabotaging the entire mental machine. “You bitch! I’ll tear you limb from-” Her voice broke, then she reluctantly said, “I love you, mother dearest. You’re the best mom a daughter could have.”
Ymiris looked as though she were smiling warmly. “Aww, I’m so glad to hear that. And I am lucky to have such an adorable daughter such as thee. See? That wasn’t so hard to say, after all.” The Goddess slapped away the mortal blade in the Red Dragon’s hand, then waved her left hand in a small gesture as if telling Arkiel to leave.
Following the simple action, a colossal force akin to a giant’s punch blew the dragon away. Her front half was smashed inward, crushing bones and expelling blood from every inch of her body. She flew across the lake of blood and crashed through a dozen trees, eventually coming to a stop near the village’s broken and bloodstained well.
“That seems to be the end of things. I suppose I shall move on and…”
A miraculous sight hindered the Goddess’s words. The blood-red sky now fully darkened into an abyssal jet-black like her own eyes. The sun burned a brighter red and looked like a gunshot wound in the skin of the world.
On the whitening floor, at Ymiris’s feet, Nia slowly rose. Despite bleeding profusely, she stood tall and strong. A revenant brought forth by the end times. She bent down and picked up Arkiel’s unfathomably long katana with but one hand, as if it weighed nothing at all. Her patchy black feathers had begun to coalesce across her body, building into great black angel wings. Her long, raven-black hair was loose and wild, stained by her own blood. Her eyes glowed red under the shadowy storm, but her pupils spiraled into contempt and madness.
The landscape warped and rippled in black waves like it had back at the Technicist facility.
And Nia stared into the abyss. And the abyss stared back. Without a light to guide her, without the sweet fragrance to pull her out of her bed of ennui.
And the Black Moon stole the rest of her sanity away, cradling it in a garden of tendrils and thorns.
