Chapter Thirty-Three

Stimulation. A recurring loop. The wrath-fire emphasized the growth and reduction periods where it recovered in intensity. The lifeblood added energy to that, and together, they synergized into a massive burst of power.

Red couldn’t parse the limit of this currently, but he had high hopes. It did feel like his powers undulated in their strengths based on whichever was higher in these infinite wavelengths.

But, that moment every thirty seconds made him feel invincible. It was dangerous to allow himself to get sucked into this feeling, but he couldn’t help it.

Slowly, he brought his hands together with an image of the wavelength of Stimulation focused in the center. It was only a concept now, but it became reality moments later.

And with that merging, his inner palace underwent a metamorphosis.

“Stop!” Red screamed, feeling the pain on his soul as it tried to rearrange itself. With all the effort he could manage, he brought the energies apart and ripped away the Stimulation that conjoined them.

The metamorphosis halted, and things quickly reverted.

Red fell forward on his hands and knees, huffing as his body faded in and out of existence. He represented his human form and his presence in the painting. Its magic made no sense to him, but that felt very close to self-destruction.

Once he collected himself, he stared up at the massive crack that leaked wrath-fire. The flame continued to eat at the lifeblood. As much as he wanted to merge them, he needed to fix himself before he could undergo that change.

“Are you suicidal?” the other spirit asked. “I said figure it out. Not to merge them as soon as you could. You’ll eradicate the both of us if you’re not careful. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to exist, even as a fraction of my former glory.”

“I -” Red held his head in his hands as his mind threatened to split open. “Didn’t know.”

“Of course not.” Kuul’Than grabbed Red by the shoulder and wrenched him to his feet, painfully digging into his shoulder. The pain made Red realize that the other spirit was touching his soul, and it felt demeaning to know how casually Kuul’Than did it. “You listen here. Don’t do anything that I don’t tell you to do, otherwise, you’re likely to get us both killed.”

“Right,” Red huffed. “You kind of said that already.”

“Right,” Kuul’Than echoed. “But, I’m clarifying for your sake. I will drag you to Halla’s Maw if you dare screw this up.”

His gut sank at the threat. He didn’t know if it was actually possible, but with Kuul’Than’s ease in soul manipulation, he didn’t want to find out.

A short nod was the only thing Red deigned to respond with, afraid of pissing off the being of absolute evil any more than he already had. That seemed like a really bad idea if he wanted to continue to exist.

And, for as much trouble as existing had given him, he liked it better than not. Kuul’Than squinted, skeptically watching Red, before it lowered him just a hair. He was thankful to feel his feet stabilize under him.

Kuul’Than brushed him off, though, the effort was all an intimidation tactic. “Now that we’ve reached an agreement, I want you to listen very carefully.” Kuul’Than raised a prompting brow.

“Right, I got it. You don’t have to tell me twice,” Red said bitterly.

“I’m not too sure about that,” Kuul’Than quipped. “Okay, here’s what you have to do. Take that energy, Stimulation, and channel it through your soul. You want to dispel any impurities and use it to revitalize your form. I’ll even lend you aid.”

Kuul’Than set his hand on Red’s shoulder, and a massive amount of Essence began to flow through him. He didn’t quite know how to channel it through his soul, but he attempted to as best as he could.

It didn’t help his focus that Kuul’Than would sneer every time some of his Essence would trickle away without serving any useful purpose. Red redoubled his focus, searching deeper within himself.

Within moments, he found the spark of his existence hanging high in the sky above the trifecta of cosmic orbs. He had disregarded it as some kind of cosmic entity, like a sun, because it was almost purely forged of gold-colored Essence with trickles of red and purple-black swirling within. It required him to shift his consciousness away from his human form to get a true peek, but that only took a single thought.

So, now that he was in front of the orb, he took the concept of Stimulation and -

Well, he didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. How was he supposed to channel a concept through his soul?

He did the only thing he could think of. Prodding with the conceptual energy, he found that it easily split a strange membrane around the orb and was greedily sucked up inside. As the Stimulation concept cycled through the orb in a similar pattern to the wavelength it was founded on, he started to feel an itching in the back of his mind.

A persistent nagging at his mind that was irritating but not unpleasant. Looking below, he could see the crack slowly - ever so slowly - stitching itself together piece by piece.

But, of course, there was an issue. Kuul’Than began to growl as his energy was sucked away to fuel the healing. There has to be a better way.

And there was.

He took that wavelength and turned it on itself, creating a true looping amalgamation of energy. The amount of Essence wasted continued to drastically drop the further he refined the design. Within moments, the entire thing connected, the pitch-black impurities sloughing off into the void within him.

Within moments, Kuul’Than let out a great sigh and released the grip it maintained on his shoulder. Red opened his eyes, never realizing he’d even closed them, and looked up into the sky.

Trickles of golden Essence took root within his design like sludge. Despite how slow it took to form, cementing his Stimulation aspect into his soul, it finally converted the design into his being.

Once it did, the pyre made a soft clicking sound as it returned to its rightful state. A massive wave of gold exploded off of Red. The black within his form gave way to gold once more.

“The taint has been removed,” Kuul’Than stated, turning to look back at the fixed fountain, “and your soul has been restored.”

“Thank you, Kuul’Than. I never would’ve been able to do this without you.”

“Save your thanks. You’ve yet to finish,” the other spirit growled back. “Only when you’re done will I be satisfied.”

The other spirit gave him a once-over, nodding in satisfaction as if viewing a completed masterpiece.

“Now that you’ve established Stimulation as a core aspect, merge your energies again. You should find it to be far simpler with a sharp increase of effect.”

Red nodded, taking some of the energy from both sources. Thinking of the new design for the concept, he merged them once more, but this time, he wasn’t forced to stop in fear of it ripping him into shreds and casting him into oblivion.

His walls that contained the Doombringer’s husk shifted, dozens of shackles stemming from the walls.

The fountain expanded, taking on the form of a figure eight with lines of violet and Red flowing along the spectrum. In this form, the energy met three times, or once every ten seconds.

The intensity didn’t diminish.

A peculiar development occurred where a portion of that generated energy accumulated when not used. The implications of that development were enough to require Red sit down to watch the further growth.

Assuming his spot on the throne, he watched as large orbs of glass cropped up out of the ground in two parallel rows. This took up the majority of the new space within himself.

Now, every time those energies clashed at focal points, a drop of violet would accumulate within the left row while the right dripped with red. However, that wasn’t the extent of the changes.

The base of the fountain still existed as a pull, but a multilayered orb of glass expanded upwards to connect to the new base of the figure eight on top where the edge of the pyre once was.

And inside, after hundreds of interactions between the figure eights two energies, dropped a single drop of golden Essence.

“You really did it,” Kuul’Than uttered in awe. The other spirit turned its hungry eyes toward him but took a step back when one of the chains lashed out at it. A scathing gaze met Red’s, though the latter’s exuded confidence and bloodlust. “You wouldn’t.”

Dozens of chains roiled on the far wall, writhing in excitement as Kuul’Than glared at Red. “You’ll regret threatening me.”

Kuul’Than bit both of his thumbs and slammed them on the ground. Two ruby-red blossoms expanded across the surface, and a seed broke through the ground.

Before Red could do anything about it, the painting blinked out of existence.

Baron Barvon leaned against the wall across from the magical painting, watching the damaged painting roil and writhe before it burned into ash. The remains fell to the ground, sprinkling across the ground.

“Well, that’s not g-”

That ash slowly crawled toward the blade that rested against the wall. The empty, colorless longsword that the weapon spirit had once resided in. As hints of that ash crawled forward, much like ants, and touched it, the color returned.

“That’s odd. Wasn’t it black before?”

A swirl of red and violet colored the blade with a golden eight forming across the central ridge. The definition of perfect symmetry. Only seconds later, the blade disappeared.

In its place stood the weapon spirit in human form. Red grinned at the Baron.

“Miss me? You’re looking a little worried. Stress is bad for aging, or so I’ve heard.” Red folded his arms and looked around, quickly noticing a distinct lack of Sabrina, Felicity, or Koronor. “Where is everyone?”

“There’s a story behind that,” Baron Barvon said, running his hand through his hair. “I took you to the painting because I saw a magical reaction between you and it, and they didn’t like that so much.” The Baron looked away, a slight redness to his cheeks. “I was right about the reaction.”

“Oh, I get that, but where are they now? I’m sure Sabrina wasn’t overly thrilled about having the Heir’s weapon spirit taken from her, so?” Red looked around, thinking that they might just be away somewhere.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I just had them temporarily removed from the estate while I -” The Baron cleared his throat and pulled at his collar. “There were private matters I had to attend to.”

Red reached for his anchor and found that his blade lay against the wall underneath the remnants of a burnt-out painting. The whole wall looked like it suffered a nasty conflagration. Despite the intense scorch marks, the other two paintings still survived.

“Interesting,” Red muttered, stepping closer to them. “I wonder…”

He poked and prodded at the two paintings, but no spirit or soul remnant pulled him within. The tones of magic were far less interesting now, so he turned back to Baron Barvon.

“It sounds to me like you stole me from them through some means, then when I got sucked into the painting, you didn’t want to deal with the consequences of losing the Heir’s weapon and removed them from the grounds so that you didn’t get caught in the act.” Baron Barvon took a moment to collect himself, his gaping mouth amusing Red to no end.

He found that his ability to process information was greater than what it had been before. The speed in which he thought was levels higher. Throughout all of this, his aura hadn’t increased. Idly, he pondered if his grade had readjusted itself.