The story so far
Asena Lochti, a high level Cherub of the Fourthine realm, loses her light and falls into the endless depth of Kuration. To return to her realm, she must first regain her light and escape all the numerous celestial beings who also happen to want her light.
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A gust of wind sizzled and slid through cracks in the hollow rocks, whistling as it made its way up to the mountain peaks to stroke the fiery threads of Asena Nasi’s flame tipped locks.
Her wings spanned about eight meters and she could break two silver ranges in one burst. Sometimes she gazed down the cloudy paths that span thousands of miles and saw nothing but wind gusties floundering around the thunderous paths.
Her realm was so high up; it would take eons, for any sojourner to reach. Not even the arch angels would venture close.But she was just a cherub, young for a celestial with a body still in the first state of flesh and blood, skin and bone. She could pass for a seventeen year old Earthine.
And she yearned for excitement or perhaps even danger. She could hear the whirling sound of fellow cherubs echoed from the lightning fields below. She looked wistfully at the monstrous storms snaking around the fields.
When the storms raged like this, Rakaris, beings made from lightning would spawn and live only for a few days. These feisty beings were difficult to catch but fun to ride.
The Rakaris could break through four silver ranges in one burst. They were almost impossible to catch and so the cherubs teamed up to chase them for sport.
“Asena, have you seen the monstrous Raki in the fields? It’s the biggest one I’ve seen” Elam said, hovering above her.
His wings were just the same size as hers. She lifted off the cliff, flapping her wings “it must be blazing fast”
“Swift as the Lords feet” Elam said.
Asena flew off the cliff “could we catch it?”
Elam laughed, the wind whistled with his laugh creating faint tunes “Everyone is trying to.”
“Race you to the fields” Asena said and zooted downhill. She bounded off rocks and paused when she noted flaming footsteps on the ground, too large to be ignored but the clouds sluggishly covered the grounds again.
Elam streaked past her “too slow,”
Was the Lord around? Not many beings in the entirety of existence could access these realms…
“Asena,” Elam called out to her.
She dashed down to the fields, walking on air currents. Just then the Raki streaked past her, she barely saw it even with her Ramik vision. Her skin tingled, and she could see her right arm weltering from where its tail must have grazed her.
Elam and a host of other cherubs hovered around her. They sparkled in the white light of the blazing lightning field.
“Did it touch you?” Elam yelled over the sound of sizzling chargis.
“It is so fast,” Asena said.
“Fastest one yet” Edoe said, Elam rose higher, almost colliding with a group of Imris, flying creatures made of light. He darted around their group then reclined in the air with his arms crossed behind his head
“Well Raina and her squad stand guard at the western banks, if it tries to run into the ocean, they will stop it.”
Just then a silver range formed close to the gaping abyss on the eastern side of the stormy plane. These ranges manifest as rings of silver light that are barely visible except through the use of Ramik vision. They showed how fast a celestial creature would move.
“It looks like its slowing down” Elam said “Let’s get it.”
The cherubs charged gleefully floating through the great expanse on rapid winds. As they dived for the Raki, their silver ranges, spread across the plane creating a sonic blast of brilliant white light.
In the lower realms, these massive energies they so wantonly expelled would power civilizations for millennia. Just like the tip of a spear, Asena edged past all her mates and clasped on to the sizzling tail of the Raki. It stabbed through her palm but did not hurt because she was of lightning too, she could switch her flesh with raw chargis but not for too long.
But the Raki expelled a charge so great it sent all the cherubs careening towards the Ocean.By the time they regained their bearings, the Raki was gone.
“Did it run into the abyss?” Asena yelled as her hand slowly regained its fleshly form.She was so close.
“I wanted to ride it. I thought you caught it.” Edoe said.
“I could not hold on.” Asena said.
Edoe said nothing, he was of water, he could not hold on to the Raki except by binding it with a water bridle. Having missed out on the Raki, the cherubs skated across the vast ocean, whistling tunes that the winds repeated to them with extra symphonies. Most of them lived in the ocean inside tiny pockets of air, except for the lightning ones like Asena who lived on the mountain peaks.
And they had no days or nights just endless moments of frolicking in the lightning fields and wanton mating under the ocean, up in the clouds, inside the raging winds and even at the edge of the void.
But there was one night and one day. Whenever the lord visited their realm, he would first announce his presence with a dark night, disturbed only by the occasional flashes of thunder. The night came with a silence that hushed the winds and the roaring waves and the shrieking chargis. But after the night, the lord would come with his morning, a time of radiance full of a pleasant golden light and blooming cherries and millions of shimmering Imris. The lord was the light of the morning and he was brighter than a million lightning bolts. The winds would sing at his presence and the cherubs lusted after him with all their might for he was beautiful to behold.
Asena strolled up on air currents, in the mood to walk up back to her place on the cliff top. From the corner of her vision she noticed something coming fast and dived out of the way. Sure enough it was Elam launching air bombs at her.
He was standing on the turbulent ocean, hovering just above the reach of the erratic waves “Where do you think you are going?”
She danced around in the air “home?”
“You’re not going to believe what I found deep in the ocean..” She glanced back at her cliff and slowly descended to his head level “Yea? What did you find now?”
“I would much rather show you.” He said.
He was making tales up for sure. He just wanted to get her alone somewhere quiet.
“Only if you can catch me,” she said.
“Come on Asena,” he tried to look as calm as possible but she could see his wings go still. She floated up and away from him “well come on,”
Just then he let out one silver range but she was too fast. The two cherubs darted around the lightning fields like rapid fireflies. He chased her down the windy paths and below the cloudy depths, where there was nothing but strong winds and cloudy caverns. The lights went out. Darkness fell upon the realm, darkness so thick, the air felt heavy and with the darkness came the silence.
“It’s the lord,” she whispered.
A strong wind swept across the cavern, spreading across the realm. Elam held her close for the wind was frosty and not the usual cold but one that chilled the bones and marrows and could freeze even the breath of life.
Across the realm, all the cherubs huddled close to one another in pairs and groups as they waited for the Lord to come in the morning. Even in the chilly night and the eerie silence, they waited with bated breaths and eager hearts for his presence was both a marvel and a delight.
Celestial disclaimer: The following entries are alleged and should not be taken as fact because they either occurred in the lands beyond reason, beyond the pristine and the immaculate realms and these visions could barely be gleaned from the strongest eyes with the clearest ramik vision; or they allegedly involve beings that are far too great. This entries do not refer to any exact entity, living or dead nor do they refer to entities of great eminence that are far too great.
The Lord of Dreams and Horrors, Master of the Deep came to the see them from a distant city, called The City of the Lord. His city was so distant and near impossible to reach, that ancient celestials, spent eons charting their paths to join the congregation of lucky beings in his eternal bliss. It was located in the realm beyond all reason and even farther than the realms of the pristine and immaculate beings.
According to ancient lore, the lord placed a secret map to his city, in one of the lowest realms. And it is said that the natives of that realm are the only beings he created with automatic access to his city. But the realm was lost in the midst of a billion realms and a vast array of times and dimensions that most celestials did not bother to look for it but instead focused on searching for the City of the Lord. For all celestials had a natural beacon that would lead them to his city but the distance was so mind numbing that no marvels or power could shorten it.
The celestial beings yearned to find the City of the Lord and this yearning powered evolution and commerce throughout all the realms.
The cherubs huddled together, petrified with eyes wide open to catch a glimpse of his majesty in the morning light.
His light covered the whole realm and crept under all the shadows. Elam and Asena tip-toed down from the sky. They moved with stealth because the Lord walked with a host of body guard cherubs that reacted to sudden movements. You see, the Lord of Dreams oozed divine energy that attracted all forms of ancient and malevolent forces desperate to at least touch his garment. So his cherubs remained alert even in a realm so high up as the Fourthine realm, home of the cherubs.
Kurational music, the kind that evoked apparitions and reflectional beings seeped through the air, and with it, these transient beings arose from within the clouds and the ocean, humming and serenading the Lord.
The grounds cracked with a long bang, kraa booom, shaking the lightning fields and sending the imris scurrying about.
“He’s here” Asena whispered,
“Where are you, my cherubs that I may look on you.”
The cherubs floated out into the lightning field and stood inside the lightning bolts, so that the light of the lord would not burn them or sear their eyes for they were still young and most of them still possessed fleshly bodies. They would gaze upon the Lord through the reflections on the lightning bolt.
From their viewpoint, he seemed larger and superimposed on their realm and they could only see his feet up to his waistline. Oh how radiant he was. His wings glittered and were made of tiny cherubs flying together in an eternal system.
The cherub guards occasionally charged up towards the lightning bolts where the young ones hid. The guards would place their massive eyes as though trying to peep through the bolts. This terrified the cherubs because the guards were erratic and blood thirsty and the lord let them do whatever they so desired.
One such guard peered into the bolt where Asena was hiding. After staring at her for a moment, it shot out white fire from its eyes but Asena was swift and streaked out of the bolt in her lightning form. As she fled, the other guards took note of her and chased after her. Asena zapped around the lightning field evading their flame attacks and shrieking “Lord save me!”When they would have trapped her inside a sudden portal that they made;
Is that Asena? Let her be. I will show her the ways of the deep.
The guards refrained from chasing after the young cherub. Now the other cherubs in the lightning bolts including Elam and Edoe and Raina yelled, desiring the Lord to acknowledge them too.
“Take me with you lord! Let us travel with you.”
Only if you are willing.
“We are. We would go to the ends of time with you.” They said in one voice.
If you can keep up with me before I cross the vale, then I will take you into the deep.
And then the lord moved. Infinite silver ranges. Their eyes could not keep up. But the cherubs chased after his feet as fast as they could, all the while avoiding spiteful flame attacks from his guard cherubs who were jealous of the lord’s presence and would rather keep all others from getting too close. And just like chasing a mirage, the faster the cherubs chased, the farther he went.
Asena almost gave up; perhaps he changed his mind about taking her into the deep. But one of the cherubs appeared before her and clutched her by the face and pulled her into the lord’s wings. And the cherubs pulled in those that the lord would take.
Asena stood in a field of golden slowlite. And a cool breeze made the leaves sway spreading the light in ripples across the vale. Beyond the vale, a vast pool of golden likulite separated her from a shimmering temple on a hill. Light had no motion here, not denying it was brighter than a million lightning bolts. Her Ramik vision could not find silver ranges for any of the elements in this realm. Everything was too fast even the slowlite leaves. Her head ached as she struggled to hold on to her vision, she would sink through the tyme holes for sure.
Two guard cherubs filtered through the cool breeze to stand before her. You stand under the shadow of his wings beyond the silver ranges. It is not you that sees so fear not.
Their assurance made her vision grow sharper so that the fade wore off the slowlite leaves, the leaves were brighter than she thought. The gold was more vivid than she thought. The pool tugged at her with its magnetic pull. She wanted to dash into it, now that her feet could feel the leaves. She could slip through the lights and into the shadows, oh how delightful.
Where is the lord? He sits in his temple.
Asena gazed at the temple “Let me stand before him,” He will cast a reflection upon the pool and you shall look on him for he is too great, and his temple is beyond the vale.
“Even now?” Asena asked.
Always, never forget. He is too great.
The cherubs slipped through the breeze and faded off. Asena watched them leave, trying to see if they went through tyme holes but they were too fast. She floated up to the pool and stepped in it. She jumped back when her foot disappeared in the pool. It remained faded and translucent when she pulled it out but she could still wiggle her toes. When she tried to hold her feet, her hand went clean through.
She moved away from the pool to avoid any further injury. Just then Elam fell out of a dark patch. Half of his body was dark shadow translucent like hers.
“Wow did you step into the wrong pool?” she teased.
“Yes there is a shadow pool at the north and it just goes on forever. I should not have tried to swim in it”
Asena laughed “look where we are right under the lords wings.”
Just then a vapour wafted out from the sea of likulite. It lifted its head and looked on them. The light from its visage froze them in a blinding blast that thrust them through forests of tymeholes. They fell through the light in a jagged tunnel lined with stunning daises. Tingling daises. But a cherub grasped them by the face and pulled them back onto the Vale of slowlite.
The vapour turned away its gaze and melted into the sea of likulite.
You can’t even stand the glaring gaze, young ones but you want to stand before him? He is too great. Bask on the Vale of Likulite, look on the golden pool, and its endless mysteries, for it would never run out of reflections for you. But do not venture into the darkness away from the Vale or the hordes will take you. Asena and Elam floated in the lights of the vale, the cherubs found it much easier to merge with the light here than back on their realm. Asena could change all her matter and swim in the light.
“Let us merge with the golden pool. This time we’ll go in as light, maybe it won’t hurt us.” Asena said.
“And what if we vanish or become something invisible?” Elam said. “Has the shadow taken your will too? We have nothing to fear,” Asena said.
“I will do it, if you join me to venture into the darkness.” Elam said.
Asena looked at the distant horizon that seemed so void and bleak. She had no desire to step off the vale.
“I am not scared of any horde. What could they do?” she said.
Just then a vapour wafted out of the sea of likulite but this time the cherubs hurried to pluck leaves of slowlite which they used to shield their gaze from the vapour. It looked like a rider on a winged horse. And around it a great crowd of wingless men and women and all kinds of beings and beasts gathered, and praised it. The rider looked away from the crowd and stared at the two cherubs; out of his eyes came the numbers, sixteen thirty and the words, hill of salem, Lords century.
The vapour melted back into the pool along with its spectacle. Asena buzzed with curiosity, what does this mean?
Just then two guards appeared before the young cherubs, you have been invited to the primal event of the past eons. This is a rare invitation for the rarest of beings but you must find your way to the realm. If you attend this event successfully, your vision will align with the brightest light in all of kuration and you will regain access to the fourthine realm and even the realms beyond reason.
Asena was a bit troubled by the guard’s explanations. What did they mean by regain access? Was she really lost now even here on the vale of slowlite? Could she not return home if she wished to?
“We are far from home, we could not even get to this vale by our own speed. We are already in the deep.” Elam said.
As it dawned on Asena, how far she had gone, she felt a bit homesick. She focused on maintaining her vision and the memory of her elevation. Yes she was a being from the fourthine realms, she did not imagine it. She could remember.
“Would you still be willing to join me in the darkness? Or are you scared now, knowing that you have left your great heights?” Elam teased.Why was he so carefree? When did he become the bold one?
“Let us go then” Asena said.
“Really? Do you know what awaits us in there? Do you know what these hordes are?”
Asena dashed towards the edge of the vale, rushing towards the pitch darkness.“Asena!”But she rushed into the darkness. Her body glowed in the darkness and she was the lone light, floating in such an opaque void.
“See,” she said to Elam who warily ventured off the vale to join her.
“This is the easy part Asena. Turn of your light and see what will happen.” Asena could not see them because her light was too bright, the light of the two cherubs was too bright, it kept the darkness at bay.
Elam laughed when he noticed her hesitation. “It is tempting to move like this, knowing that our light keeps us safe..”
Just then, Asena turned off her light.
A loud crack, a lonesome and guttural howl rushed up from the deep. Elam shut off the light of his eyes so that he could see them. Hordes of them, of winged creatures twisted with desperation to climb higher, swarmed around Asena’s limp frame. They must have knocked her out; she just fell while they swarmed around her, picking at her flesh, searching for her soul, for her energy.
He charged at the horde eager to catch her but they opposed him and shielded her from his grasp. He was aware of the heights he was losing and in the deep, hierarchy was everything. So he turned on his full light and raced back up to the vale of slowlite.
The hordes of darkness afflicted Asena for endless days as she fell. They fed on her vitality, forcing her into reflections of their own making. If her lights were on, all their reflections would fade in the blaze. She would even regain her sliver ranges. Those were real. There was a time she could use sliver ranges.
Now she stood on a grey cloud looking down upon a forest of breezes. She understood the ways of the wind. Wind people would be easy to deal with. She stepped off the cloud and floated as the wind into one of the forests. But as soon as she touched down on the realm, they knew she was there. All that wind went quiet and still. She felt so cold in this eery silence of the wind. They hid from her. Was her wind form not perfect? She thought she could hide since her lights were off.
She needed her light back and she could remember even in this hazy reflection of the hordes, she could remember the number sixteen thirty. And that was good enough for now, she thought as she flowed into a cave in the dark night.
All the great heights above, the hordes of winged titans of immeasurable valour and mastery clashed in fierce scuffle to break below the ranks to chase the fallen cherub. They would steal her light or bask in it for it was of inestimable value.
Legions of them in battle forms emerged upon the realm of wind. She could hear them from her cave so clumsy and rigid. Was this really their best? But ancient smells floated on the breeze. And they were fast. These wind riders would find her for sure. She left the cave and parted the tymeholes, to slip into the spaces between the wind. This was a whole different realm and only the pureblood wind people knew the pathway through the tymeholes.
She rested under the seven pillars of smoke and lightning. This realm had the familiar cloudy and stormy weather like her home realm, the Fourthine realm. But she could see lightning forms taking positions in the corners of the smoke streams. This time she was determined to reach a negotiation with the people. Since she could not hide maybe she could make some friends.
She stepped into the raging flames. You can all see me now, I am not hiding. The lightning folk stood before the flames, legions of them. They were captivated by the sight of someone who had shined so bright. The reflections from her past light cast shimmering auras that tickled their buzzing chargis. She stunned their imagination to stand so real before them.
But Asena soon realized that they would look on her for ages to come and it was a peaceful fate but she grew restless. This restlessness came in waves. At first when she swam in a pool of light tended to by the tingling chargis for they merged with her wind form and formed a planet around her and she could open the planet like wings and fly through great space.
She saw two travellers moving swiftly through the dark vales and was curious about them. But when she tried to part her wings and follow them, the lightning folk insisted on sending chargis after the travellers.
“But I would like to see for myself,” she said.
Not a task for one so great. Another time while she moved in lightning form through the tymeholes, she noticed the lightning folk closing black holes around her, did they doubt her mastery of the holes? Perhaps she had spent too long with them, they grew too familiar, she would venture further down into the deep.
She thought of her radiance and tried to blot out all the shades in the paths around her. But her light did not burn. She hoped to regain her light before leaving this realm. She slipped out of her wind robe, and adopted her fleshly form.
The chargis noticed her disconnection and appeared before her, an ocean of the buzzing twinkling beings, pure energy humanoid silhouettes. They crackled and flowed and covered the seven pillars of smoke. And they had a lot to say with all the buzzing they made.
“We felt a rip in the bonds, great one.” said Oi, the most vocal of the chargis.
Their language was kinetic and vibrational relying on the pulsing of waves, but still so distinct from the kurational tones of the higher realms that she barely gleaned their meaning and their style of interaction was more invasive, because they seeped through the holes between spaces. She could feel them trying to penetrate her fleshly frame. Asena rested on her knees, trying to will her wings to grow back. But her fleshly form was slow to grow. Was that normal or a characteristic of this realm?
“Buzz off”, she said, I wish to travel around the realms.
“We would go all the way with you, great one”
Asena remembered Elam flying back up to the vale of slowlite. He left her to fall.
“I will be ok on my own.” She said.
She rose up and walked towards the ocean of chargis. They parted before her. Her wings remained dormant, so she would have to walk.
And the landscape was nothing to consider, just dark space, empty space. She could just flow through the space as wind but it altered her moods and made her restless, it was not a form she loved to wear for long.
A long walk would do her good, she thought as she strolled down the path between the chargis.“What if we could you get back to your realm?” Oi asked.
He pronounced realm by weaving energy through nearby tymeholes in a way that showed her glimpses of the lightning fields from her home realm.
Asena paused “how would you do that?”
The Ocean swirled and rose up into a towering wave and pointed to a little white dot in space. A really tiny dot.
“What is in there?” Asena asked.
Chargis erupted out of the wave and pointed at the dot too.
Why indulge them? But walking down the bleary dark space would take a long time if her wings didn’t form and her lightning was too precious to use since her lights were off. What if it went dormant too like her wings?
“Show me,” she said.
The chargis seeped through her nostrils, and the wave engulfed her frame with a violent storm, to bombard the white dot, till they all slipped through the fiery protrusion and fell out into a realm of crystals, that looked like lightning.
She stroked one of the crystal structures and her hand stuck to it.“
Oh great one, you can even touch the delodes” Oi said,
She pull her hand off the crystal, it felt sticky and ticklish.
But the chargis avoided the delodes and preferred to float without making any contact with the structure.
To the east of the delodes, a vibrant sizzling film, made from different shades of slowlite, spread across a great valley. Intangible protruding structures and marked with spirals, peppered the valley. She didn’t realize that they were civilized or the settling type. She stepped back from the delodes and cast her ramik vision above to pull a wider view. Her eyes pulled at the arcs and the gradients and the very frame of the delodes to create a clear reflection.
At least she still had her vision. She thought. The delodes was some sort of machine. It had slits for some sort of a wing.
“You’re building a flying realm?” “It is a fractal of a realm, just crystalline, at the very base of reflections, not too rigid but choked full of positive chargis”
Asena understood. They wanted her to join their delodes organism, to add her energy to it and then take off from this realm.
What if she could take all this energy for herself. It could be enough to rekindle her wings. She dared not hope it would spark her light. It would take several black holes full of raw fastlite to regain her radiance.
“I will merge with the delode, but no more delays. We do it now” Asena said.
Oi went blue and his photons thinned and almost slipped through tymeholes and then he buzzed at full beam. “How delightful, great one but we must tarry for a bit to prepare you”
“What do you mean?” Asena asked.
“The delodes consumes, and without your light, we cannot estimate how much energy you would lose in the merging. You could become bankrupt of all energy, great one.”
A cherub of the fourthine realm could not go bankrupt.
“You say heavy things to me, Oi”
“Just to help you, great one”“Has another like me ever visited your realm?”
The chargi sizzled for a moment. He seemed to ponder over her question.
“Your presence is beyond rare, great one. And so is this realm. This delodes that you see is a living organism, formed from an ancient lightning bolt that never goes out. It has become crystalline but it is raw and boundless energy, and we chargis are all offshoots of the delodes”
Asena was even more intrigued by the delodes, no wonder she could hear the constant buzzing, it was alive.But if the chargis like Oi, could commune with her then what if it was sentient too?
She didn’t move fast enough. She couldn’t, not without her wings and her lights off. Maybe if she was in lightning form, she could have had a chance. But she crouched transfixed, caught in the jump, shocked by the endless stream of bolts zipping through her flesh. The tymeholes she reached for slowly sealed up. It had complete control of her frame and invaded all her forms even mixing with her lightning. It was going for her light.
Denied of access to her light, her wind, and her lightning, she rifled through the trenches of her psyche looking for something, anything to stop the delodes from stealing her light.
She saw something in her ramik vision, some attribute she’d never tried because it was hot and unwieldy, but it did not require her light. She pulled at it with her eyes, summoning it from depths within.
The delodes caught up in flames, yellow flames, golden flames, and then the crystals around combusted creating a raging inferno. It burned, it hurt. And she let out a splitting wail, prolonged like the sound of a fearsome rushing wind.
Flames wrapped around her frame, to shield her from the heat. Now the terrain was vastly different and a fiery planet of sizzling lava replaced a once buzzing crystal mass.
The delodes plurped and blurped under the lava it kept releasing burbles. Maybe it was still alive, Asena mused standing up straight. Just above the planet, the hordes covered the space, each of them watching her with rapt attention.
Three winged beings dropped down on the realm although, they took care not to step on the lava opting to hover just above it.
“You took on a delodes without your light. You must be from the realms beyond reason.”
One of the beings said, he was of the reflectional kind, and reflected the fires and the lava, even his wings reflected.
“That would depend on the level of your gaze” Asena said.
“No need to be so glib with your lights turned off. You cannot subdue us all.”
Her frame still felt violated by the delode’s invasion and she could not merge with her lightning or her wind. There would be no swift escape for her.
Because she was one of the fastest beings in the universe, she’d never bothered with raw stamina. She looked upon the multitude with grim determination. “Well come on,” she said.
The reflectional being and his companions charged at her but she swatted them with her right fist. Just one blow and they streaked right back into space. Seeing how easily they moved and how weightless they felt, she figured that she may not need her wings after all.
The horde descended on her, attacking her from all directions with missives of native realms, weapons fashioned of ice, corrosive elements and horrible marvels of dark matter. But she was agile and darted around them, dealing instant lethal blows.
But the battle raged on because the hordes were endless and time slid into centuries. Her gallant bravery attracted the readers of the wills, the Kro. Two cherubs that held a great scroll from which they read edicts and decrees from higher realms and took records of feats in various realms, appeared above the fierce battle.
The sound of ringing bells heralded their presence and they screeched out the proclamations, Hail Asena the Valiant, In the year, 062, defeated the delodes and battered two and a million fiends. And then a golden symbol spread out from the scroll and stamped upon the realm. Then the Kro flew off into the empty space.
Asena watched them fly away; the golden symbol rested on her vision and joined her vault of attributes. But it did nothing for her moods. Realizing now that she had been fighting for centuries, experienced a sort of weariness that only a celestial would understand because it was not physical. She still had the stamina to keep on fighting but she fell out of the kinetic orbit that she had created and could no longer jump.
Now the hordes could catch up with her and they pummelled her, mercilessly destroyed her flesh till all that was left was her skeleton. Still she remained motionless and in a state of great solemnity.
When they saw that the cherub had fallen into an indolent state, they quickly cast a net of dark matter around her to keep her from going into chrysalis, a crystalline state of hibernation where she would remain in limbo inside a crystal of her own making.
After they had sealed her inside the dark net, the hordes began another century long battle over who would gain custody of the solemn cherub.
And then Orin, A hawk being having the head of a hawk and the body of an archangel, eventually subdued the rest of the horde in that realm. And he took her upon his flaming chariot, made up of a golden wagon attached to two small flaming hawks and returned to his realm at Gadebard.
Celestial disclaimer: The following entries are alleged and should not be taken as fact because they either occurred in the lands beyond reason, beyond the pristine and the immaculate realms, and these visions could barely be gleaned from the strongest eyes with the clearest ramik vision; or they allegedly involve beings that are far too great. This entries do not refer to any exact entity, living or dead nor do they refer to entities of great eminence that are far too great.
The Lord’s host trudged through the thick murky dark paths, their radiant shine dulled by the opaque fumes floating around the realm of Endor. The angels were silent as they marched on, unable to use their wings or slip through tymeholes because of the rigid force of the Darkin. The host numbered about a thousand in total and at the front; Lordson and Luckifier led the band of cautious warriors through the bleak wilderness headed for Endor. The Lord was famous for his patience and the Darkins flagrantly flouted his decrees to desist from annexing the outer realms.
Endor, one of the outer realms stood at the very edge of existence, so far removed from most of kuration that Darkins, slipped out of the void, without fear of dealing with the lord’s light. And the lord had sent forth a decree by the Kro, to the Darkin, to respect his boundaries and refrain from trespassing on the land of the living realms. Instead the Darkin engulfed the whole realm of Endor, aiming to snuff out the light of the realm and dissolve all the living matter. If left unchecked they would further encroach upon the living realms. The Darkin, beings made of dark light, were not to be scoffed at, they could easily wipe out a host of archangels and coming this far out to face them so close to their home void, was a deadly venture which is why the Lord sent his son, Lordson and the commander of his armies, Luckifier to rescue the realm of Endor.
An angel sauntered back from the extreme edge of the ranks to stand before Lordson and the commander. “We can move no farther, lord, the darkness is too thick and it has extinguished twenty of our brethren,” the angel said.
“Clear a path for the host to pass through,” Lordson said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, seven firemade cherubs, emerged from thin air, flying through the darkness as if it was mere fumes. He had the Lord tongue like his father, and could bend most of kuration to his will.
“Just say the word and I will raze away these Darkin with one blaze” Luckifier said.
Lordson gestured with his hand and a whole realm appeared on the east of the murky paths, vibrant with gardens and lovely maidens, shimmering with light, the maidens looked so comely. “I will nap here till you return, go now and send the Darkin back into the void. Seal the void with your fire to keep them away for a season.” “I believe your father wanted you to exert yourself in useful service” the commander said.
But Lordson waved him off and strolled into his new realm.
Ever since Luckifier got whispers from the Kro that the Lord would grant his son absolute control over all of kuration his resentment grew. He’d been the one that had subdued the Grey Dans of ancient Rosedonia who had violently opposed all life forms, opting only to propagate the ancient species of Chargis and elemental beings.
But did he get any accolades for that? Instead the Lord appeared suddenly with a son no one knew about until his introduction a few millennia ago. And the son had no regard for any of the elders or archangels or wind spirits, or even the voices of wills, acting only as their superior.
The firemade cherubs parted the darkness so that a clear path led right into Endor which was pitch dark at the time. The commander figured that the night was deceitful and looked around searching for Endor’s moons. Sure enough, a gigantic vaporous hand clasped around the moon to snuff out the light of the realm. The gnarly smoky fingers dripped off wisps of black smoke.
Luckifier spat at the moon, and a violent flame flowed out of his mouth, to burn off the hand. As soon as he did that, the Darkin hurtled out of the besieged realm, hordes of the black vaporous beings; they screeched and assumed the forms of anything in their path. As they approached the angelic host, they twisted into a mass of smokemade angels with wings made of black fumes.
Luckifier swatted away the ones that assailed him with careless swipes of his drawn out sword. “Attack them brethren, for the lord is victorious this day,” he said.
And so the host of angels engaged the Darkin force. In the milieu of the fierce battle, Luckifier flew into Endor to inspect the realm.
He waded through thick layers of Darkin vapour and smirked at the smudges on his flaming apparel. If he had his way, he would raze this whole realm to embers with the Darkin in it and then he would incinerate the void too. Why keep the Darkin if they could not learn to live peaceably with the Light folk?
He eventually found his way to the grounds of Endor. The place reeked of decay and the grounds sunk under his weight pulling him below into a slimy underworld. He was beyond this sort of mundane duty, he mused, had he not done enough for the Lord’s armies?
Incensed by the putrid hole he had fallen into and all the nasty sludge that stained his wings and touched his lips, he called upon his flames, prepared to raze the whole realm to the ground and accept whatever punishment the lord would mete out on him.
“Lightbringer, you really are as comely as they say,” a soft feminine voice called out to him.
At the sound of her voice, a whirling maelstrom pulled the commander into a vast open field underwater. A maiden with the body of an endless serpent; for he could not find her tail, wrapped around a pillar that reached down into the depths of this water mass. His Ramik vision was absolute and he shuddered at how long she was, if he could not gain an accurate reflection of her full size.
“How dare you stand before me Darkin?
”She unwrapped from around the pillar and as she did, the pillar dissolved in the water. She slid towards him “So fierce, the tales are true. You know it is the flame in you that makes you irritable. I have one too; a dark flame and we are endless”
“I do not relate with unfamiliar beings nor beings of the dark ilk”
Darkins emerged from the water and wrapped themselves around the commander. To his horror, he could feel his flames cool to embers. Impossible, he thought.
“The great ones believe they would never end. But that is hubris, because all things must come to an end.”
“Who are you?” The commander muttered, realizing that he struggled to breathe. His heart slowed down.
“I hoped to meet the Lord’s son but I will manage you instead.”
He rifled through his psyche and found his sword; a blade fashioned of dark light. He stuck his tongue out of his mouth and it transformed into a long dark sword, spiky sword with long tendrils that could extend as far as he wished them. He cut through the Darkins that surrounded him and would have pierced the great serpent but she turned into vapour and disappeared.
Luckifier seized this moment of respite and leapt for a tymehole, eager to leave this watery depth. But a massive serpentine wrapped around his leg from beneath and pulled him deep down through endless depths.
Luckifier unleashed his flame. In an instant the waters dried up as the flame blazed through the darkness. He let it rage on, determined to consume the realm. But to his dismay a black flame engulfed his budding flame and rushed towards him. It had a sharp stinging odour worse than death. Having no choice, he adopted his darkin form. He could merge with dark light too. The flame passed through him but could not consume him.
He floated in a dark void where there was once a watery underworld. The maiden’s head appeared above him. He could see her in the dark by use of his Ramik vision.
“You impress me. But your dark form is juvenile before me. I will break your wings and corrupt your flame,”
Luckifier adopted his full light form, “before I slay you, serpent, why did you hope to meet the Lord’s son?”
“The Lord has grown weary of his Darkins, we that were his companions, his nation. He considers us like all things as just a phase to be discarded. And so he has banished us to the nether realms and I am certain he would wipe us off. But if we get his son, he would reel from the blow and never recover.”
“You would dare speak against the Lord’s son? This is worthy of instant destruction.” Luckifier said.
“Yet you don’t seem to be in much haste, lightbringer.”
The commander moved swiftly, infinite silver ranges, to strike off the head of the serpent. And he did, sending her head careening into the void. But two heads grew back in the place of one and she moved just like he did to sink her fangs in his neck. While one head bit into his neck with flaming black fangs the other head gazed into his eyes and kept him transfixed.
“You are too young to understand the ancient horror that you face.”
But the darkness faded away and the grounds on which they fought, that historic fight between the commander and the serpent, was covered with a radiant glow. Luckifier recognized this light, it had the tint of the lord’s son.
Lordson stood high up in the air and looked down on them. But even under his blazing light, the serpent’s tail remained hidden deep down inside an endless pit. “Serpent, return to your void.” The Darkin serpent pulled her fangs from Luckifiers neck and cast a hateful glare at Lordson. She spat at him and stuck out her black forked tongue, letting out a hiss so loud, it reverberated through the realm. And then she shrunk down and retreated into the hole below her. They could hear her thrashing about as she made her way down the depths.
Luckifier clasped his neck, it throbbed, he purged it with fire but the sting did not fade.
“The serpent is cunning and agile,” Lordson said and descended to inspect the commander “you should have been careful”
“I had it under control. I would have destroyed her but you let her flee,”
The Lord’s son watched him “you let it bite you. You are tainted now with an ancient curse. I should spare you now and destroy you.” And the way he studied Luckifier, it seemed like he would indeed destroy him.
But he turned away and opened a tymehole “I have restored the realm, and healed the people. Beware, your path is full of severe trials and temptations and I pity you.” He glanced back at the commander “see that you set your flame upon the void to keep the Darkins away for a season, and after that, present yourself before me in my court.”Luckifier watched him leave and his heart was heavy with malice and seething rage. And when he saw that Lordson was gone, he went down into the depths, into the void to face the Darkins.
The commander expected to find a slimy land riddled with decay and the undead but he found a network of caverns and quaint architecture with structures that looked like oversized anthills reaching into the heavens. Black vaporous darkins milled in and out of the holes on the surface of the hills.
And although the terrain was darker than the world above, a faint red light from a full red sun bathed the open spaces between the cavernous entrances. He explored the void in his dark form and went unnoticed by most of the darkins who paid him no mind at all. Smoke billowed out of crowded forges piquing his interest and he slipped into one of the forges to see what industrious works the darkins indulged in.
Luckifier saw angels in chains with massive mallets hard at work beating out weapons fashioned of Chondrites, a rare material made from crystallized dark lightning. Pure antimatter, enough to quench the light of several realms. If there was chondrites then the sentient form was somewhere around. He shuddered at the thought of a whole realm covered with chondrites. Delodes were hard enough to deal with but a full blown living chondrite? “What do you think we call the void, lightbringer?” the familiar soft feminine voice whispered from behind him.
He felt the spikes of foreign entities, invade his angelic frame.
“You are drawn to me, you cannot resist, you would even come for me inside the void”“I came to destroy you,” he stuttered through sharp waves of intense pain.
“Enough, do you know why I call you the lightbringer?” the serpent asked.
But the commander could barely stand and fell on his knees writhing in agony.
Darkins picked him and took him deep down into one of the hilly structures. They placed him in a reflectional chamber made of serpentine scales. The pain he felt was unbearable and the commander groaned in agony for endless days until he begged for mercy.
“Destroy me if you will, you wretched serpent, take my flame, I cannot resist.”
And he toggled between his various forms for he had a multitude of forms, being one of the most blessed beings in all of kuration. He tried everything, desperate to escape, he even donned the form of a tymehole but he was bounced back by the refractive surface of the serpentine scales. He could not escape.
Eventually he found a weird apparel deep within his psyche, an apparel made of flesh and blood and bones. It felt so fragile. But when he slipped into it, all the pain disappeared. He found that he could stand with it.
“What is this weak form you have on?” the serpent asked, laughing although quite intrigued “I could end you with just a puff of smoke.”
The commander looked like a youth, an earthine man. And a weird tymehole opened before him, leading to a distant obscure realm.
“Oh you comely being, you have found the lord’s precious realm, a universe of his doppelgangers.” The serpentine whispered “you beautiful genius, you are mine now,”
The serpent copied the commander and adopted the form of a young maiden of flesh and blood. “I don’t know why the Lord left such treasure inside you but you have set me free and now I will find him unawares in his quiet place in his garden of clones.” She said and stepped up to him to stroke his chest and cup his manhood.
“I would have afflicted you forever but now I set you free,” And she kissed him and inflamed his passions and had intercourse with him, doting on him for a season with dark delights from obscure realms that verged on the very edge of existence. “Why don’t you come with me to the lord’s realm, we would seize power and subdue the people under us”
But Luckifier missed his angelic frame and desired his full powers. In this fleshly form, most of his abilities were dormant, save for sorceries and things related to the undead. So he remained silent.
“I understand, you miss your light nature. It must be a burden to have two natures,”
She rose up from their nest and stepped into the tymehole “till we meet again”
And so the commander returned after a season and went back to the lands beyond reason.
Luckifier paced about the flaming gardens, he stood outside the court of the Lord’s son. His name was too great so the host and all the angels called him Lordson. Lordson invited Luckifier for a chat in the flaming garden and had kept the restless angel waiting for days on end.
To make things worse, the lord held his court in his temple on the hill and from the blinding radiance that made even him, Luckifier to squint his eyes, the lord was very much present in his temple. Why would Lordson deprive him of meeting with the Lord? As the days piled on, his anger burned and he was convinced that this was an intentional slight although he could not figure out why he was treated so.
Eventually and to Luckifier’s dismay, after the Lord had retreated from the temple to his distant peak on the hill of holies, two cherubs emerged from the court of the lord’s son.“Lordson will see you now,” one said and pulled him by the face into the court.
The indignant arch angel came in to find the crown prince resting in a pool of fastlite with a host of ministering angels scurrying about to bring him delights such as nixin berries from the edge of matter, these berries were as fragile as a thought and only existed for a fleeting moment in the gaze of a sensinati . One bite from them and the user would experience complete erasure of all matter and memories for a millisecond. A blissful state of un-being .Nymphs from valane and goddesses floated around in the pool, some of them whispering softly into the ears of the lord’s son.
“You sent for me lord,” Luckifier said, trying but failing to hide his annoyance.
“Did I? Oh, I wanted you to help me pass a message to my father but I have sent another instead. Be gone now,”Luckifier looked on the prince with disdain “I am the captain of the lord’s hosts, I command his armies, you cannot treat me this way, you impertinent--”An archangel froze the words in his mouth, lest the insult should reach the ears of the lord’s son.
“You stand in the presence of the son. Remember your place,” the angel cautioned.
“Look at him, indulging himself, he goes not to battle or ”“Desist from this commander, you court your ruin,” the angel warned.
Luckifier turned and walked out of the court, lest he succumb to his seething rage. He could feel the embers lighting up. His body was made of flames and he could raze universes down to embers with just a breath.
In his state of rage, he flew up to the lord’s temple even though there was no invitation. The fact that he could alight on the porch without the help of the pulling cherubs proved that he was worthy or so he thought.
But the lord was not in the temple save for the ministering angels and the multitude of worshippers who he was sure that the lord spawned every day. Their number always seemed to increase. “You flout the court etiquette, commander.” Inama, a ministering angel said.
This angel had the head of a goat with very long horns and massive wings that occasionally spread past the pillars of the temple.
“I will go up to the hill of the lord, I must have a conversation with him.” Luckifier said.
“You cannot go up to his hill, he is far too great and no cherub will pull you up unless he commands it.” Inama said.
“I stand here in this temple without the help of a cherub. There is no height kept away from me. I am the commander of the lord’s armies.”
“No one approaches the hill, don’t be foolish”
Luckifier swiped at the angel with his wing so that the minister crumbled at his touch and turned into golden dust. The commander shook his head, he did not mean to slay the angel but the minister was asking for it.
The worshippers went quiet, shocked by the spectacle, so they refrained from their praises. Luckifier could not stomach their judging stares and stepped out of the temple. He spread his wings, ready to lurch towards the lord’s hill. He had never approached the hill before, but there was no realm out of his reach. He was always fast enough.
He flew up with infinite silver ranges but fell just short of the front steps on the hill. In that moment two arch angels, having flaming physique similar to his, they even had his little imris that dance around his eye balls in eternal rotation, appeared out of thin air.
Did the lord create them on the spot? He was sure he recognized all the arch angels present on the realm.
They charged at him and struck him with their swords. Each strike sounded like planets exploding. As he fell, he called his flames from within and set them on fire. One of the arch angels melted away in the fire but another appeared in his place. And they struck down Luckifier with heavy blows, continuous blows, casting him out of the realm.
But they did not stop, and as they struck him, their number increased. Some of Luckifier’s men arrived at the scene of the scuffle, and proceeded to defend their commander.
A fierce battle ensued that lasted for millennia but the commander continued to lose his great height as the increasing band of arch angels struck him down. When Luckifier finally fell out of the last realm of the pristine and Immaculate realms, the Kros appeared over the warring angels.
“Hear ye, hear ye” they read from their scroll “”The lightbringer is no more, stripped of his ranks and titles this day, banned from his celestial inheritance, he has no place among the holies and is therefore cast down.”
The voices of the Kro echoed through the realms and would diffuse as sound waves and then as elemental particles travelling all the way to exist in some form in all of the realms.
And the multitude of arch angels, determined to utterly destroy Luckifier, continued to battle with him in all severity, so that they wiped out more than half of his supporters, and left him with three thousand arch angels who still remained loyal to the fallen commander. However, a host of Darkins appeared when Luckifier fell below the Fourthine realm. These monstrosities covered the realm of Gadebard with their thick black vapour and they beat back the arch angels and forced them to return to their great heights for a season.
Orin chipped at the bark of a Madenos tree with his beak to finish up a new home he was building. This was a nice tree roughly about two thousand feet tall and it had poof properties too, it could change to smoke while keeping the contents of its inside unscathed- very good for defence in a vicious realm like Gadebard.
He could hear the distant cawks of city dwellers from leagues away but they did not seem to be coming any closer to his grounds. His grounds spanned about four hundred silver ranges which was a nice piece of property for a Nephilim born of a goddess and a Cherub.
He had the hawkish visage of his mother and the angelic body of his father and he could present his beak at will and retract it into a pointy nostril. Being estranged from his parents at a young age as most nephilims tend to be, his mother actually dumped him in the realm of Gadebard on her way to the Fourthine realm and he was unaware of whether she ever made it there. As for his father, he’d never met him although his mother spoke of him fondly.
Orin mastered his gifts in his early era and was well versed in the element of fire and tymehole. The tymehole he had learned to create after a Chondrite descended upon Gadebard and changed the entire geography of the realm. As soon as the Drite touched the realm, the terrain changed from a verdant terra-based landscape to that of smoke and thunderous charges. Any being present that lacked the required wind form was squished out of existence by the sheer Karmic force exerted by the presence of the Drite and forced into the void, the land of Darkins.
Orin’s mastery of dark light made him highly revered in Gadebard because he could create pockets of space that neutralized the Karmic effects of the Chondrite. His grounds was one of such spaces made only possible because he manipulated dark light to push back the chondrites rays enough to allow a nice slice of verdant landscape lush with Madenos trees and a thriving jungle. Most of the realm remained covered in smoke and thunder.
A lot of powerful Celestials were trapped in the realm, trapped by the pull of the Chondrite and could not break out to higher realms. One such notable inhabitant was Ferin, a universal prince who claimed to be from Zori, the realm of the Pristine and Immaculate.
Orin remembered when the prince first arrived on Gadebard. He melted up a space of two thousand silver ranges upon his landing but fortunately for the Gadebans at the time, the prince lost his Karmic light within one millennium and with the loss of his light, the span of his karmic force reduced to just one thousand silver ranges. Little did they know that they would deal with the coming of a chondrite about ten Millenia later.
Anyway, Ferin was understandably reclusive and shunned all the spirits and genies and nephilims who clamoured for his attention, instead opting to remain within his Karmic zone. He repelled everyone who tried to trespass his grounds but could not keep the dark light wielding Orin out. Much to Ferin’s dismay, the Nephilim sneaked into his grounds at will and always seemed to catch him during awkward moments of earnest desperation to rekindle his lost light.
It was during one of these encounters that Ferin eventually opened up to the Nephilim. At the dark shadows of his Karmic vision, at the edges of his sight, such a long time to spend in between silver ranges. This being so slow in a distant realm so low. He could as well be swimming.
“Lowly form what are you?” Ferin asked.
Orin knew that this being possessed the ability to see over a hundred million silver ranges. From Ferin’s Ramik vision he would view the realm as swimming.
But he could move through tymeholes right in the blindspot of Ferin’s Karmic vision. Ferin’s reflection appeared in the front of his thought photons, just the eyes stern looking. It chilled Orin to the bone. This being was faster than a thought. What was he thinking trespassing in his Karmic zone? He turned to retreat but was enshrouded in darkness. Dark slow light surrounded him as a pool and made his movements sluggish. If he lost his speed, he would crash out of the realm. Orin thrashed about frantic to release himself from Ferin’s Karmic blaze.
“You are a user of dark light in this slow realm, you have unlocked all your silver ranges” Ferin said rather impressed.
Orin could not create a tymehole, he realized that he was trapped. He had underestimated what the being could do even without his light. He really was from Zori.
He stopped trying to escape “I was curious to see if you really came from Zori”“Do you believe now?” Ferin asked.
Orin had heard of the erratic nature of these ancient beings and how instantly destructive they could be. If it was in the wills, Ferin would raze him in the split of a silver range. So he said nothing.
Ferin’s wings jutted out of the realm, they appeared superimposed to Orin’s Karmic vision so that Ferin looked like a massive magnified image surrounded by a dark shadow that expanded and contracted to match the beat of Ferin’s aura.
“My father, Universal Emperor of Rosedonia banished me from the realm because I lost to the commander in battle,” Ferin said.
Was he talking about the commander of the holy armies? He really came from a realm so high.
“He was a dark light user like you and he possessed darkin level mastery and not denying he came from Miri, the realm beyond reason. Yet my father could not accept my failure”
Ferin was distracted by his musings and so his hold on Orin reduced so that the Nephilim slipped out of his Ramik gaze into a tymehole and returned to his grounds.He avoided the universal prince for a few millennia but there was little marvel left in Gadebard for him to explore. And although he could slip through tymeholes and visit higher realms, the travels wearied him out because he did not possess enough light to exist in such fast realms and the lights usually seared his vision, leaving his eye sore for eras. So he reduced his tymehole exploration.
But in spite of his dread for the prince, his curiosity prevailed so that he dared to return once more to Ferin’s karmic zone. This time he would keep a portion of his Karmic gaze fastened on dark light, and not place his entire focus on the Universal prince.
Standing at the boundaries of Ferin’s Karmic gaze, Orin noted the creeping tendrils of the Chondrite, encircling the prince’s lands. The Chondrite was still trying to squeeze the prince into submission even after all these millennia. Orin marvelled at the constant energy that the prince expelled just to maintain the boundaries of his Karmic zone even without his light.
Just then, Nordrud flowed and encircled Orin like a cloud of smoke. The genie looked agitated as he furiously flowed about Orin.“Why do you billow?” Orin asked.
“Something approaches from beyond the ranges.” Nordrud said.
Because the genie was so worried, Orin cast his gaze to the sky and peered down the silver ranges to see what troubled his realmkin. Far in the distance, encroaching on the edges of his vision, Orin spied great wings spreading out across the event horizon of Gadebard. What kind of being was so great that his wings would seem so large from such a distant range?
And these were the wings of an arch angel, for he could spot the fire sigils on the golden claw. The more he peered, with a growing sense of trepidation, the more he noticed. He could spot a cloud of thick darkness which he had at first written off as part of the dark spots of his vision. But the darkness was moving and it surrounded the angel’s wings.
He looked solemnly at Nordrud “alert the warring spirits, these horrors that I see should not touch down on Gadebard.”
The genie vanished. The realm of Gadebard erupted with frantic roars as wood spirits and wind forms snapped into action, blitzing up to form rings around the entirety of Gadebard. And Nordrud went up into space to become a blazing moon.
Orin feared that the forces would not be enough to stop what was coming. But then he remembered that they had an actual Chondrite on the realm and Ferin too.
Now he slipped through a tymehole and entered Ferin’s zone.
The terrain was much changed from when he last visited the prince. Now, the land was covered in deep waters that flowed both sideways and up into the sky. Orin disliked water realms; they messed with his access to tymeholes and made his footsteps slippery. And water neutralized his mist form, which was the only other form he possessed apart from his normal body. Did Ferin do this in preparation for his return? Could the prince already know of his weaknesses?
But he could not turn back, he needed to speak with the prince and fast.
He spat out great balls of fire at the lone tree he could find at the centre of the resting ocean. Perhaps that was where the prince rested.
But a wave arose from the flowing waters and engulfed his flame balls.
“It is me, Orin. Grant me audience with the prince,” he called out.A water being stepped out of the rising water that rose towards the sky. It stepped upon the lone patch of grassy land where Orin stood. “What do you want with the prince?” the Lerus asked.
“Entities from Miri or perhaps even farther approach Gadebard with great haste.” Orin said.
The Lerus kept watching Orin as if his words did not register.
“By entities, I mean an actual arch angel and a host of dark forces unlike anything I have ever seen..”“I know what you meant, Nephilim. But why do you bother the prince?”
Orin stepped closer to the being “Great as he is, I put it to you that he is also a part of this realm and shares a similar fate with Gadebard. The arch angel has spread out his wings and will lay siege to the realm. That is not a sign of peace.”
And then the voice of the Lerus changed. Orin heard the familiar voice he had interacted with during his last visit.
“It is the commander. And he flees with a host of darkins. Desert the realm while you can because that is the most blood thirsty being and would first purge the realm with his flame.” Orin tried had to conceal his frustration “we can both agree on that. Would you not defend the realm?”
The terrain changed rapidly to that of rushing heights and smoky wind.“I have learned of a way to regain my light,”
Orin turned and made to fly out of Ferin’s zone, seeing that the prince had no interest in the affairs of the realm.
“I would need you to help me transverse the tymeholes.”Orin paused. He did not expect the prince to ask for his help “well, that would be after you join us to repel the archangel.”
The Lerus melted and dropped down into the endless pit below. “It is futile. The fate of Gadebard is already sealed. You cannot face the commander.”
Orin filed his beaks together “So much from the Prince from Miri.”
He called upon a tymehole and left the presence of the prince. He came out to find Gadebard covered in pitch darkness and rife with the heavy smell of decay. The darkness was so thick that it was palpable and he had to wade through.
His heart sunk as he realized that the angel and his host must have subdued the warring spirits if they were already on the realm. Just then the darkness parted and above him, a gigantic figure stood above the firmament of Gadebard. His wings were so great, they spanned from one end of the realm to the other, so that he wrapped the realm with his grasp. In fact, his sheer size threatened to sear the edges of Orin’s karmic gaze.
“Lowly one, what are you? How can you stand the blazing heat of my gaze?” The arch angel asked.
Orin was distracted by the smooth musical tone of his voice. He expected to hear something thunderous and shrill from a being so fearsome. When he recollected his thoughts, he remembered that he was wrapped in dark blaze, a mini form he’d found in a distant void while on one of his several sojourns through the tymeholes.
The arch angel was not alone, several much smaller fiends, for they were darkins and shimmered between dark forms, hovered around him like floating moons.Orin bowed his head “I am just a humble Nephilim, privileged to stand in the presence of such an esteemed being,”“Speak no lies to me, I can see your thoughts even before they form. Oh you do not lie, you just do not know what you are, chondrite.”
Hmm? “You are sorely mistaken, I am just a Nephilim but there is a chondrite present on the realm. Perhaps that is what you see.”
In an instant, Gadebard erupted in a violent blaze. Golden flames licked the realm from its very foundation. Orin looked in horror to see his world reduced to flaming embers.
But then he realized that he did not burn. His body sizzled with lightning sparks. Darkins charged at him from their place in the sky. He felt so confused. What was happening? He felt cracks in his memory. He recalled a time when he crashed down on the realm in a blaze of Karmic fury, swift and sudden like a lightning bolt. But that was a memory he had never been.
His vision spread out across the realm and he slipped through the tymeholes in his dark blaze. The dark blaze, a shadow form he’d found in an unknown realm, a kind of cloak fashioned from dark light and negative space. It should not even exist because it was made from nothing and belonged in the void at the edge of Kuration.
As he blinked through the holes, for this form moved in blips of nothing and something, too thin, for even the most energetic photons. He weaved a web of dark blaze under the arch angel’s flames. And finally, he bound the flames in his shadowy grasp and pulled them off the realm expelling them into pockets of his form.
The flames vanished and the darkins retreated immediately seeing that they were almost pulled into the Karmic pit, of the Nephilim’s making.
The arch angel looked down, scanning the realm realizing that he was dealing with a sneaky being.
“What marvels exist in this lowly realms? Find him for me,” he commanded.
The darkins flowed down like a plague, adopting the form of thin dark rays. They spread across Gadebard like a net and their descent made ringing sounds, sickly sounds. Orin did not know what these dark beings were but he was careful to avoid their touch. They lurched at him, spiking out, switching rapidly between dark forms of tymeholes and black holes that pulled at him from several directions, aiming to stretch out his form that they might invade his light.
And their sound was sickening because it came from silence. They used a strange language that felt more like a command because it was too raw and primal. Destructive beings, worse than flames, they seeped through the fabric of his blaze, erasing it.
But the dark blaze was too thin and he could feel them slip just over the surface, not quite enough to clean off his form. And whenever he blipped, they lost track of him. The darkins chased after the Nephilim, deep into invisible realms, within holes in the tymehole. How long would they follow? Orin was scared that he would lose his vision if he ventured further.
So in a desperate bid he swiped at them and released a net of rays that caught the darkins and trapped them. Their silent sounds beamed at him but even that was pulled back by his net. Orin blipped out of the tymehole, racing as fast as he could on the thin white trail of reason. He was sure he’d ventured almost out of Kuration. Eventually he returned to the surface and crept out of the tymehole.
The arch angel was still waiting above the realm.
“What have you done with the darkins?”He would have to attack the angel. He had no choice. But what if he could reason with him?“I lost them in a tymehole, great one. Perhaps you would let me make a case for my realm?”“A case? You are nothing but a speck.” The commander said. He opened his mouth and spat out a long dark sword. Orin looked in horror at the sheer size of the sword; it was much larger than a Madenos tree.
Just then Ferin appeared from a rally of photons. His form was reflectional and nearly translucent so that the light of the realm passed through his frame.
“What luck to have him here out of all the realms” he said to Orin.
Orin wondered about the prince’s chosen form. Reflectional forms favoured speed but took up no real space and therefore possessed little damage except for severe heat. But heat would be nothing to the commander.
“This cloak you have on, shields you from the pressure of his Karmic blaze. Look around you, his mere presence has compressed the realm into a tiny plane. I can only exist here in this form or I too will be crushed.”
Orin realized that he was standing in a pocket of space. The realm was truly squashed and the trees were but thin lines, is that why the darkins attacked him in the form of thin rays? Swift as a thought, no faster like something he remembered. The tip of the arch angels blade pushed him back several ranges, right through tymeholes. To his dismay, he noticed rips in the seams of his dark blaze and he felt searing pain, numbing pain that left him disoriented. He blipped backwards, away from the thrusting blade, out of instinct but the sword gave him no respite.
The arch angel was too fast. And then shadows surrounded Orin, palpable shadows that held him in place. He saw several images, reflections of the commander, descending from the sky. The arch angel seemed to populate the realm with thousands of his clones. But they were not clones, just the angel cracking Orin’s Karmic vision with horrifying speed.
One of the clones appeared right in front of the Nephilim. So close, that he could see imris dancing around the commander’s eyeballs; with arms lifted up ready to smite Orin to splinters.
But something strange happened. The clones stopped moving and faded away. The shadows dissipated, freeing Orin from their hold. The commander had waged war with the most brutal arch angels for several millennia and now his psyche broke under the toll. He fell down from the sky, diminishing in size as he fell to crash in a crater inside a jungle twelve thousand silver ranges from the Nephilim.
Orin cast a bewildered look at the Universal prince who was frozen in the air, and flattened like the bark of a Madenos tree.
Orin heard the loud sounds of trees snapping and the grounds spreading back into the spaces they were before the commander’s Karmic gaze. Feris soon broke free from his two-dimensional prison.
“This is a miracle. Let us go to him and end him” Spirits and genies popped out from thin pockets of air where they had been hiding. They surrounded the nephilim.“Orin did you just defeat the commander?” Nordrud asked.
Orin was silent. He remembered the clone. He would have been in bits and pieces by now. What luck he had.
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