Chapter 174

A Soul That Shook the Nether (III)

Erun’s eyes drew wide open, his lips agape, the world around him spinning as he watched a figure descend and swiftly make a chair out of the dirt, sitting down on it. Though it has been so long, he had never forgotten her face; he couldn’t, rather, even if he wanted to. She was seared into his memory with might beyond the forgetfulness, even through death.

She suddenly looked up, quizzically for a moment before her eyes lit up; she drew her finger out and curled it toward her, suddenly ripping something from the sky. It was a tiny, silvery tendril on its last breath -- a soul. A fading soul. Erun shrieked in horror and bounced back, hiding behind his tombstone. It was one thing to kill someone -- a rather normal thing, in here at least -- but completely another to erase someone. And that soul... was being erased.

“... didn’t think he’d go that far,” she mumbled suddenly, sighing. “Quite an interesting fella. Looks like I’ll have to go and have a chat with those gold-digging saggers. Shit...” she flicked the sliver of soul away and ignored it; Erun, however, continued to watch it as it faded away, completely. Whoever it was... was forever gone now. “Master.”

“--e-eh? W-who?” Erun stuttered.

“Ha ha ha, you haven’t changed one bit,” the woman laughed freely for a moment, shaking her head as she took off her silver-laden and feathered helmet, revealing a long-cascading snow-white hair and a pair of twilight-dyed eyes. “Still a nervous wreck, eh? Anyway, sorry I haven’t been able to visit for a while. There’s been a major shitstorm upstairs; get this -- a pair of Daels, a husband and wife, got caught frolicking with a fucking methrew. A methrew. Apparently, the husband would chain his balls up to methrew’s tits as the latter would shag the wife. Dunno, created some bouncy-bounce feeling or something. God, things get so fucked up there every once in a while.”

“...” Enur remained silent, not even sure as to what to feel let alone what to say just yet.

“Anyway, the whole thing blew up like a bad case of hemorrhoids,” the woman continued. “And the two eventually went mad ‘cause everyone was reaming them. They started challenging everyone to death duels and got done in like a day in. Long story short, Halls needed a couple of new Divines -- and whazam!! Your beloved Apprentice got it! Ha ha ha, can you believe it? Me? A Divine? Ha ha ha, holy shit, I feel so important, you know? I may have burned quite a few... hundred bridges in order to get it, but fuck ‘em. Ha ha ha, now that I’m a Divine, everyone and their mother has started kissing my ass so hard I’m afraid the poor thing’s gonna fuckin’ fall off!”

“...” Enur’s thoughts rolled and tumbled like a tiny boat amidst the stormy ocean. Only one idea, however, managed to stick -- he was talking... with a Divine. A genuine Divine.

“Damn, what’s happened to you? You used to be so chatty,” the woman sighed. “Blah, anyway-- as a new Divine, I get a few perks, among them being an opening for a Spiritual Assistant! And, well, who better to take that place than my very own Master! Anyway, I came down here to drag your ass up with me. Don’t tell me you got married or some shit in this hellhole, ‘cause getting your family up there might be a bit of a pain in the ass.”

“Uh... no...”

“Great!! I mean, no--not great, obviously. But, don’t worry; there’s a bunch of babes up there that will suck whatever’s left of your soul just on the off chance I might fart in their direction. I solemnly swear, Master, henceforth your balls shall never be full again!”

“... I see... you’re still just the same,” Erun finally chuckled, feeling his body relax slightly. In the end... “Ar’dyzar.”

“Ey, ey, ey, what’d I tell you the last time? Call me Ar’! Or ‘Little Sis Ar’! Or ‘Smokin’-hot-apprentice Ar’! None of that full-name horseshit, a’right?”

“You still bothered by your name?” Erun asked with a faint smile.

“Na, I made my peace with the fact that my mother hated me since the day she discovered I was festering in her womb,” the woman replied, stretching. “I still use it to scare people, though, ha ha ha. Like, during my coronation, a bunch of these old Monks or whatever walked up to me to present their gift, and they were like ‘Venerated Ar’dyzar...’ and I was like ‘The fuck did you call me bald bitch?’ and everyone started sweating their fucking balls off--ha ha ha ha, man, you shoulda been there. It was awesome. Aaah, anyway, you’ll be there from now on. We can do it together--like, you can call me Ar’ in public, and then someone else tries, and I just immediately rage out on ‘em, ha ha ha~~”

“...” Erun shook his head and smiled bitterly, though his heart rested in joy; the girl that once upon the time had taken to his blade... had grown up to be a wretched ruffian. However, he knew that the moment she begins the dance of her blade... this side of her... disappears. She becomes the draw, the hole at which the eyes of the universe converge. That was likely why whoever met her and saw who she was... had quite a lot of trouble processing it. “Can I ask... who was that Soul? And... and did it really... fade?”

“Oh? That? You ought to know him, actually,” she said. “It was that merchant, A--dar.”

“E-eh?!!”

“Aye, he sent a few people to the Depths some time ago,” she added. “And pissed off a wrong person.”

“...” Erun memories flashed back to a small group that he had escorted through this place recently, precisely because A--dar asked him to.

“Man, to be fair, even I didn’t think the Thief would have balls to just fuckin’ end the dude, sheesh,” she chuckled lightly. “I’m just glad we finally got an interesting one. Like the last fifty Thieves were such utter disappointments that I nigh-stopped believing in the system of it completely. One of ‘em lads didn’t even bother climbing. Got done in by his pet accidentally. What a way to go, eh? Anyway, since I like ‘im, I’ll help him out a bit. So long as he keeps stirring shit up, I won’t get so bored I end up letting a fuckin’ methrew shag me. Sweet hell, can you imagine the fuck was going through that woman’s head? I’m sort of glad she’s dead. Now we can conclude anyone who lets a methrew screw them will die so I hope nobody ever tries it.”

“Uh... can... can I ask something?”

“Sure.”

“What’s a... methrew?”

“Oh, it’s a cross between a slime and a rat,” she said. “Don’t ask nothin’ more. I’d like to keep our Master-Apprentice relationship pure.”

“Of--of course... of course... will--will the Thief truly be fine?” Erun asked, trying to hide his restlessness. He hardly had any idea that the group he led was actually part of the Thief’s entourage.

“Eh, he will,” the woman shrugged, standing up. “He’s a crazy bastard, kinda like me. I’d be surprised if, in a few years, more and more Divines stop shagging fucking mehtrews and start watchin’ him.”

“You mean--”

“I don’t get it,” she sighed. “Why? If I live for a fuckin’ million years, will I be tempted to let an elastic, rat’s cock in me? Fuck, I’d rather kill myself.”

“I’d kill you myself.”

“Good! Yes, good! Ha ha ha, good idea! If I ever do seem to be getting tempted by fuckin’ weird shit like that, just chop my head off! Man, are the two of us gonna have tons of fun or what? Ha ha ha...”

As her laughter boomed out, and Enur’s sighs continued to mount, creatures and souls of the Underworld withdrew as far into their lairs as possible. They all felt it, instinctively, even if they couldn’t explain it or reason it -- the pressure of a Divine. It was invisible, unquantifiable, and indiscernible. That was the might of a Divine -- for tens of thousands of miles around, everyone felt as though there was a hell brewing inside of them, their throats burning up in anxiety.

Luckily, the pressure didn’t stay long; as quickly as it appeared, so it disappeared, allowing them to slowly crawl back out and stare at the sky in terror. Those here feared little, and cowered before even less... but the pressure of a Divine, a being beyond the beyond, was something that nobody outside another Divine could withstand, let alone counter.