Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 172

Chapter 172: Demon and Demigod

Karchek laughed as he took a step toward Lysette.  “Oh Lyse, you are simply too much.  Placing your faith and trust in Saffron Ateni, Demon Slayer?  Truly, I thought you were smarter than that!  But since I seem to have overestimated your intelligence, let me spell it out for you.  She’ll dispose of you the moment you’ve outlived your usefulness to her.  If you’re lucky, she’ll give you a swift death.  If you’re not, well, this little prison of hers is about to be short one prisoner either way, so I hope you look forward to being trapped in this little cell for the next half millennium.”

Lysette walked forward.  “Even if we are cut from the same cloth, I am not the same as you.  This was a power I never–”

“Cut the sanctimonious crap!  Just die already!”

Karchek charged at Lysette, piercing his flaming blade toward Lysette’s gut at a speed far beyond her own.  Before she could move to intercept, Saffron stepped between the two, batting it aside with her bare hands.  She then threw him back with a nearly invisible wall of force formed from a barrier of hyper-compressed Essence.  

Karchek sustained no visible damage from her attack, despite being smashed into the stone wall behind him with enough force to form a Karchek-shaped crater nearly a foot deep.  Saffron seemed little fatigued by such a display either, a single momentarily-audible breath the only indication that the technique was any more difficult for her than walking or talking.  Mirae, on the other hand, was ashen and stepped behind Lysette and Saffron, never once taking their eyes off Karchek as he again approached.

“So, I see you’ve learned a few new tricks in the past few centuries.  I suppose you wouldn’t have been a worthy partner all those years ago if you didn’t have the strength of will to keep advancing forward.”

“I have to,” Saffron said.  “The threats that imperil the lives of all those who I care about are relentless.  Even when sealed away, they never waver.  They never give up, always remain determined to break free, to return, to cause yet more harm and leave more devastation in their wake.  And that is why I must never waver either.  For if I grow complacent, lose sight of what is important to me, people will die.  People who were never involved in this conflict in the first place.”

“Oh, Saffies, getting sentimental after seeing me again after all these years?”

“You wish, demon.”

“You know you loved me back then.  Loved what we had together.”

Saffron took a deep breath.  She summoned multiple clods of stone to her, surrounding her fists in massive earthen gauntlets each as thick as her head.  She bent her knees, assuming a fighting stance.  Her eyes exuded fiery determination, with just a hint of sadness beneath the surface.  

Lysette had thought the talk of love in days gone by was just that.  But seeing Saffron’s wistful gaze, if only for a moment, made her realize that there may well have been something between them so long ago.  She spared a glance at Mirae as Saffron and Karchek began their fight.

The two titans moved through the chamber at speeds Lysette could barely follow.  Each blow sent shockwaves through the cavern and bits of stony shrapnel falling from ceiling to floor.  Their speed was matched only by the brutality of their attacks.  Stone collided with flame, sending meteoric shards whizzing through the air at dizzying speeds.  Essence flowed toward and around them, almost as though Aimarion itself was watching the battle unfold.

The room itself seemed to warp around the two, although it could have easily been a trick of false perception caused by Karchek’s abilities.  The two even blinked out of physical existence for a time, taking their fight not just to reality but to the spacetime in which reality had before existed and would later exist.  A moment later, the two reappeared behind Lysette and Mirae, continuing their fight unabated through all of it.

Seeing the two in a battle to the death was a stark reminder that even after all the training, all the Cultivation, all the time spent increasing her power, Lysette still had so far to go to challenge the gods.  Even in this fight, as they were, they were as good as useless.  But, by working together, Lysette reasoned, perhaps they could tilt the knife’s edge in Saffron’s favor.

She turned to Mirae and, after a shared nod, dissolved herself and took on her armor form, wrapping herself fully around Mirae.  Once their transformation was complete, Lysette activated Rekindle and powered Mirae’s body into the fray.

“Be careful, love.” Mirae messaged.

“You too, love.”

Lysette chased behind as Saffron and Karchek strafed throughout the makeshift arena, launching spheres of stone and flame, respectively.  Despite her and Mirae’s best efforts, the two were unable to keep up as the two ancient titans blitzed around in a circular pattern.  Twice within the minute, Saffron gained a momentary advantage and pressed the attack, but in both instances, Karchek was able to regain his footing and return to a neutral encounter.

Realizing the futility of her effort, Lysette and Mirae made their way to the center of the battlefield and waited for an opportune time to intervene.  Mirae continued twitching their eyes and jerking their head back and forth, while Lysette focused on the periphery of her aurasight, readying herself to intercept in an instant.

But neither fighter got within range of Lysette’s aura as thirty seconds turned to forty-five, then to a minute.  With every second, the tension mounted, and in such scenarios, battle senses were prone to dull.  Even a thirtieth of a second could be the difference between an attack dodged and a fatality.

“Love,” Mirae messaged.  “We’re getting nowhere like this.  I can barely track their movements, let alone relay them to you quickly enough for you to react.  But, I have an idea.  If we link together, we can share our thoughts and use our abilities instantaneously, just like we did during the first attack on the Academy.

“I know we’ve not tried this since my ascension, and I don’t know if there will be any side effects, but we’re no use to Saffron as we are.  And even if she can win on her own, I don’t want to leave anything on the table.  I don’t want to give anything less than all I have— all we have— to maximize our chances of success.

Your Reciprocity, my Devotion, Serrena’s Ambition.  All three of them are united in shared purpose.  To win this fight, or fail after giving it everything we have.  So please, Lysette, my beloved.  Only with our minds synchronized alongside our bodies can we hope to conjure the power we need to tip the balance in her favor.”

Lysette hesitated.  She’d certainly linked with Mirae numerous times over the previous several weeks, but with her new knowledge about her demonic traits, she felt shame.  Shame and grief and worry that, despite their earlier words, Mirae would think less of her after learning that she was a demonic Godslayer.  Or worse, that they would succumb to the bloodlust that she sometimes felt in the midst of battle.  But as Lysette kept the link at arms-length, Mirae only stroked their breastplate made of Lysette and smiled.

“If you’re worried, don’t be.  I told you before that my Devotion to you was absolute.  You are who you alone choose to be, not what others expect of you.  The person you want to be, not bound by the roles that society or even the gods themselves place upon you.  If being what you are causes you pain, then let’s work to change it.  Together, as always.”

“You’re right.”

Lysette let the sensations of guilt and disgust with what she was fade away, accepting Mirae’s mental embrace as thoughts and feelings crossed the gap between the two fledgling deities.  Mirae’s Devotion was accompanied by a glowing warmth that filled Lysette’s entire Spark as the two merged their thoughts and minds together.  Lysette’s physical form, previously coating Mirae’s body, now melded into it.

She saw through Mirae’s eyes, watched as the battle raged on above and behind and in front of them.  She clenched a fist, and whether it was hers, Mirae’s, or theirs together didn’t matter.  Mirae’s techniques of ice were as close and graspable to her as her own shadow manipulation.  And she knew that her abilities were theirs to use just as much.

Lysette and Mirae, now together in one body, took one breath and willed a single shared being forward into the midst, sprouting wings of pale ice wrapped in a diaphanous coating of shadow and leaping into the air after the two combatants.  In their new form, they were not quite fast enough to match pace with either Saffron or Karchek, but they were able to find opportunities to close the distance when one or the other would abruptly change course.  Errant fireballs from Karchek’s onslaught came right for the two-now-one, but each attack was batted aside as swiftly as it approached.

Saffron tilted her head to the side as the two neared.  As she did, Karchek used the opening to form a giant fireball, one thrice the diameter of Saffron’s height, and launched it at both of them.  Saffron stood her ground, raising a wall of ore and rock to intercept, while Lysette and Mirae together did the same with an even larger cube of ice which they had manifested from the Essence strewn all about the caverns.

The cube of ice met the sphere of flame and the two annihilated each other on contact, forming a cloud of steam which permeated the chamber before dissipating into the rocky formations of the walls, floor, and ceiling.  Water condensed onto the skin and in the throat of the two’s shared body, but failed to staunch the burning resolve just beneath their surface.

Lysette and Mirae drew a pair of swords, one of shadow, the other of ice, while Saffron and Karchek turned to the pair with a mixture of awe and confusion.

“Lyse?  Mirae?” Saffron asked.  “You two are…”

“I am they.  Those two are me.  We are one,” they said.  “You may call us Mirette.  In this form, we have the strength to fight alongside you.  Please, lead us into battle, and we shall cover you as best we can.”

“Hahahaha!”  Karchek laughed as he stared at Mirette.  “Well, color me impressed.  I didn’t realize the two of you shared a bond strong enough for the two of you to fully link together into one being.  It’s rather nostalgic, seeing those two like that.  Don’t you think, Saffies?”

Saffron shook her head and took a deep breath.

“Fine, fine, keep your serious, grim attitude.  I just thought you’d want to take a moment to reminisce about the bond the two of us once had.  I mean, that’s why you left me alive back then, isn’t it?  Couldn’t bear to kill your once-beloved?”

“I had hoped that we could have been together.  The times we shared were fun, Karchek.  But you just would not stop the killing of innocents.  No matter how many times I told you it was wrong!”

“Innocents?  They were using your high-minded generosity to infiltrate your kingdom and then stab your people in the back at the first opportunity.  I was doing them, you, and your so-called ‘people’ a kindness!”

“You had a hunch, a mere suspicion, some conjecture that some of them might have resorted to perfidy.  And you took that as justification to engage in extralegal execution to fuel your lust for power.”

“Do you want me to deny that that was a fringe benefit, Saffies?  Even after you locked me up in here, I still respect you enough not to blatantly lie to your face about something like that.  But I only did what you wouldn’t and couldn’t.  Deep down, you know the truth of my words.”

“Whatever justification you’ve convinced yourself of, the fact remains: you killed five thousand soldiers who had laid down their arms in surrender!  The rules and customs of war exist for a reason!  Your actions undoubtedly cost the lives of thousands more in the ensuing centuries on all sides of dozens of future conflicts, just as I told you they would!”

“Well, I suppose there’s no convincing you then.  Go ahead and tell your beloved Domar a quick prayer if you’d like.  I’ll be sending you to see him now.”

Chapter 171: https://www.patreon.com/posts/109460514

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/table-of-101896170

Chapter 173: https://www.patreon.com/posts/109475703