Chapter 7

Answers

“How can you not know where this cockatrice came from Lucius? Wasn’t it one of your summons?” George asked. The three men were currently standing over the unconscious body of the cockatrice that had attempted to assault them midair. They had relocated to the “face” area of the mountain range where Lucius assured them the entrance to the Heritage lay. It was incredibly worrying to George because cockatrices should be flightless. The bloody bird had no business being as high up as they were in the first place. Sure, the poor thing was probably as confused as they were when George had intercepted it as it was nosediving, or more accurately, falling towards Ray.

“I told you, the Susurro family would never let their elites use such unseemly beasts. The cockatrice’s stone vision is strong, sure, but it’s just a giant flightless bird with a snake’s tail at the end of the day. At best they’d be given to cadets, but only if there weren’t better options.” Lucius said with disdain. How laughable, to think that a C-class beast would be used by their illustrious family. “Maybe it was just a Chaos fluctuation? I’ve heard of worst things happening when Chaos concentrates too much in one area.”

While both men were having this conversation, Han remained silent. His mind was working furiously, he refused to believe that a cockatrice appearing midair while Ray was attempting his rite of passage was a simple coincidence. He began thinking of possible reasons for such a thing occurring, Chaos be damned. Cockatrices were one of the few creatures that weren’t locked to a specific region. Unlike creatures like the Kitsune from Japan and the Totem Spirits the Navajo up north venerated, the Cockatrices simply needed certain conditions to be met. This ranged from a chicken incubating a snake egg, to a snake choking on a chicken egg and having the chick hatch inside and eat its way out. But none of them could possible explain how a cockatrice just appeared in midair near their location. Lucius was right, Chaos tended to gather too much in one place from time to time and strange occurrences would result. If such was the case he hoped the Chaos had already spent itself, as too much had already interfered into an otherwise straightforward weekend. But such was the way of life he supposed, man proposes and heaven disposes. Still, he had faith his son would walk away with the Heritage today. He knew how these things worked and Ray’s disappearance meant that he had been chosen, whereas whatever hopeful the vampyrs had prepared had to be escorted in by brute force. Even if the Heritage was a bad one, he’d do his best to make sure Ray could turn it around in his favor.

“Do you think Ray would like the bird as a familiar Han?”

Snapping out of his thoughts, he turned to regard his friend. He was in agreement with Lucius on this one. A cockatrice was hardly an intimidating familiar, and if Ray came out with a god’s Heritage, then he’d need a familiar with more potential. He told George as much.

“Ha, where would we find such a familiar? But very well, I’ll keep the bugger for now.” George took out his axe and tapped the butt end of the axe on the creatures head. The weapon glowed a fierce red for a few seconds before subsiding, a carving of a bird appearing on one of the axe’s blades. “I know we’re waiting for children to come back, but this is incredibly boring. Any one of you want to spar or something?”

It was at that moment that the ridge forming the “lips” of the giant split open, forming an “O” shape. Instead of dirt or the entrance to a cavern, a pool of light was present instead. From this pool gushed out a spray of dark energy, sending shivers down the spine of all men present.

“Ray!”

“Young masters!”

They called out in shock. This wasn’t just Chaos, this was Chaos tinged with negativity. They didn’t know what had happened inside there, but knew it couldn’t have been good.

“We have to go in there!” George yelled, gripping his axe and positioning himself for a full blown charge.

“Wait George. Running in head first isn’t going to do the kids any favors. I want to rush in just as badly as you do, but we have to make sure we go in with a cool head.” Han said. Turning to Lucius he asked, “As you know, I’ve been out of the Divide for years, so I don’t have any way to call reinforcements. Would you have any means to do so?”

Lucius nodded in the affirmative, taking out a bird made of jade. Holding it in between both hands, he injected a sliver of his mana into it and then crushed it. A spectral sparrow emerged from the dust and flew away in a certain direction. Han could not help notice it was flying away towards Belmopan. ‘So, he’s calling in reinforcements from the academy? Good, we might need all the help we could get.’

“There, I’ve asked for help. Now let’s get in there. This much chaos is dangerous and as well trained as my young masters are, they do not have the strength to survive something this strong for long.” Lucius then reached into his robes and took out 2 gems and crushed both in the same movement. The Minotaur reformed once again and the other beast he called for coalesced into the form of a Medusi lion. The Medusi lion was a lion that was easily the size of an SUV. The lion got its name sake from the serpents that acted in the pace of its mane. Lacking the stone gaze that was characteristic to a Medusa, the lion used the snakes on its head to inject deadly poisons into the bodies of its prey. This resulted in it not only subjugating its prey and gaining a source of food, but by repeatedly consuming its own poisons, it built up its immunity to poisons. That way whenever the lions fought for territories and mates, they could last longer against their opponents when it came to poison resistance.

The Jaguar, having been heavily injured by Han, dispersed into a puff of orange energies and fused into an opal gem.

“I’ll see you on the other side gentlemen.” And with that, Lucius and his familiars jumped into the portal.

“Tyr, watch over he who you have blessed. Lend your strength to my blows and your wisdom to my mind.” George said, invoking the blessing he had received from the vessel of Tyr. His body gained a coppery luster, his muscles bulging and pressing against his mountaineering clothes. His eyes gained a silvery glow and his face took on a calm expression. Clutching his axe, he channeled mana into the enchantments, awakening the spirits of the animals he had slain. His body bulged further, hair growing on his arms and chest. Having taken on the additional strength of a Giant Bear, he then called forth the speed of Dire wolf and the stamina of an earth elemental he had slain long ago. With one final nod to Han, he too followed Lucius into the portal.

Han watched his longtime friend jump, marveling for the umpteenth time at how many ways to use magic there was. Shaking his head to clear it from distracting thoughts, he took out his Celestial Blood sword and pricked his left arm with it. The blade was typically a dull silver when dormant, but when blooded it would take on the appearance of brimstone, the blade turning black with veins of red streaking with flames. He had not cultivated since just before adopting Ray and as such was still at the Sky tier of cultivation, but the sword in his hands let him bridge the gap between this level and the next, stealing the strength of his enemies to fuel and empower its wielder. Taking a deep breath, he activated his Heaven’s Eyes technique, elevating his reaction and processing speeds to new heights. It had been a long time since he last pushed his body to its limit, and although he had wished to never have to fight again, for Ray, he’d do so as many times as needed.

Taking one last look in the direction of the Academy, he offered a silent prayer to the Progenitor, hoping that whatever was in there did not require more power than everyone in their current party could bring to bear. Turning his attention back to the portal in front of him.

The Asura of Blood would go to battle once more.

*****

15 Minutes Earlier

“Let me back you up a bit there. I am not accepting anything from an old man I randomly met in an abandoned city. Yes, you claim to be a god and your appearance and the thing above us does support your claims to a degree, I humbly request that you explain to me at least what I’m getting myself into.” Ray demanded, doing his best to give the old man before him a defiant stare.

Nohochacyum sighed. He truly wished the boy before him had been someone who knew what he was getting into. His ability to suppress to Chaos seed above him was rapidly declining by the minute. As much as he would like to force the issue, he needed the boy to willingly accept the potential of not one, but two gods. The Progenitor’s laws were absolute and he had already skirted one too many loopholes today. If he pushed any more, this entire space he set up would collapse and the power he so carefully prepared over the eons would go to someone random. He could not let such a thing happen.

In truth, Ray was not the only one currently in his heart space that could receive his endowment, but the other candidate had a darkness about him that worried him. He was not all knowing, he never centered his manipulation of Genesis on the abilities of the mind and heart, so he only had his experience to rely on, and it told him that the other boy’s demeanor and two of his companions were raising warning bells. The aura of the two in question were familiar, but he had been here a long time, and he had forgotten much. He had used some of the last bits of his remaining power to keep him and his companions in a fake dimension, but they all proved to be incredibly talented and he ended up buying himself a few hours at most. Even now as he was talking to Ray, they were already making their way to the temple, slowly and cautiously yes, but they would be here soon enough. The problem was that they had technically entered the space before Ray, and as such had a better claim.

In contrast, the boy before him looked exceptionally plain, but it looked like someone had made sure that the boy not waste any of his potential in anything, and instead fed him and trained him just enough for him to be able to rapidly adapt to the initial changes opening himself up to Genesis would bring. This would lead to the boy being able to pursue any path of power to higher heights than the norm. When he had sent some of his mana into the boy’s mind to pass on a truth of the universe, he had taken a quick glance at who Ray was and was pleased that he was of sound character and lacked that disconcerting quality the other possessed.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he decided to invest a few more minutes to explain a few things, lest his subterfuge be for naught.

“What do you know about magic?” he asked, staring straight into Ray’s eyes.

Ray spluttered for a second, caught completely off guard by the sudden question. “You mean that hocus pocus thing where you wave a wand and pull a bunny out of a hat or something? Or more like waving a wand, throwing around fireballs and lightning?”

Hearing this, Nohochacyum found himself unable to stifle his laughter. “Pull what out of a hat? I assume this ‘bunny’ is some kind of rodent for it to fit in a hat. The things you mortals have come up with. No boy, I’m referring to the second one. The ability to wield Genesis, extracting mana or qi from it and using these energies to enforce your will around you.”

Ray raised an eyebrow, a look of disbelief clear on his face. First gods, now magic. He had been expecting a jump up in hierarchy, not down.

“I understand your skepticism. If you recall, the Progenitor let us use powers on a much lower scale to himself, as he made us in his image. This too is a truth that I have reminded you of. I will give you a vastly summarized version on why you did not know magic was real and why we are running out of time here. As part of our punishment as a species, we were deemed unworthy of utilizing this gift from the Progenitor after the Great Sin, yet, as we will be allowed to join the larger cosmos after our exile was over, it was decided that in order to preserve the knowledge on how to use Genesis, a small portion of our civilization was allowed to remain with the knowledge. The exact number was somewhere around 1/10th of the species, give or take and such a rule was carved into the very nature of our beings with the punishment for rule breaking being death. Naturally, such an unbalance of power led to caste societies, with wielders of Genesis claiming the top positions for themselves. Apart from that, the secrets of magic never remained secret for long, and we came several times to going beyond our quota. After the Great War, it was decided amongst those of us that remained that in order for us to comfortably remain within the limit, we would separate the magical world from the mortal world. Through the use of dimensional magic, a separate dimension localized to this planet alone was created, draped over the original where the mortals were kept. As a part of this, powerful illusionary and mental magics were weaved into the spell, making it so that should anyone from the mortal world stumble into anything remotely related to magic, they would be disoriented about the whole experience and would forget, disassociate or be misdirected as appropriate. That is the World Glamour.”

Ray was reeling from the new information. But before he could begin asking more questions, Nohochacyum moved forward with the exposition.

“If most of the gods you know were humans, why we are called gods? The answer to that is that we were individuals who had all reached what would be considered the apex of what could be achieved on the usage of Genesis and magic. Warriors and mage alike, this title was only given to those who had made full use of their gift from the Progenitor’s gift and were considered to have gotten closer to him as a result. A downside of our punishment as a whole was that a lot of ancient techniques were lost when the first of us died. Humanity was still small in number then and our arrogance led a lot of us to believe that we could live long enough to be the bulwark that defended humanity when our exile came to an end. As such, we were slow on adding numbers to the Divide. Yet as the years passed and we died, even despite our abilities extending our life spans, we began to see the wisdom in adding people to our ranks. Unfortunately, the best teachers had already passed and those of us who remained could only pass on broken information. It was not until one of the gods over in the land of endless sands, one of the last true scholars, devised an ingenuous way to pass on our knowledge and progress to future people. Our Genesis would be used to set up areas much like the one you’re in now, and we would pass on a hollow shell of who we once were to our inheritors.”

“What do you mean shells?” Ray asked, his mind finally having settled down with blank acceptance, having reached a point where he just couldn’t summon disbelief. If turned out to be true, then it’d be true. If not oh well, he’d just go get a therapist after this. He might as well grab what answers he can.

“Consider it like us giving our inheritors an empty house. They can fill it up with whatever they like, add in new additions in the form of new techniques or beliefs. They could even add in extensions in the form of different forms of magics. But so long as they follow the general direction we followed in our life they will eventually be able to gain a level of power equal to what ours was. Unfortunately another stipulation of the exile left you all cripple and you would only be able to fill it out a certain amount of our potential. This would only lift till after the exile is completed, but as an upside, inheritors can grant “blessings” to people, granting them abilities in line with the path they are taking.”

“So I would be able to use the same magics that you used in the past?” Ray held up the staff and sword in hand. “I’ll take a wild guess here and say that these were probably something you made or used?” Ray at this point was getting visibly excited. If what he had seen Han and George do outside in midair was magic, he was all in.

Nohochacyum smiled sadly and shook his head in the negative. “I am sorry, but no. In order to subdue and ultimately kill Hapikern, I had to burn out all of the progress I had made. Before our final confrontation, Hapikern had somehow gotten a hold of a shard of concentrated chaos. Chaos represents possibilities, and many a time it would coalesce into crystals. With the proper direction, it could be used to channel Chaos in small amounts, giving way to powerful abilities. But one must be careful, as possibilities include negative and harmful ones as well. That was what happened to Hapikern. He took a shard into himself and it twisted him into a former shadow of himself. He was once an ally, but the shard broke his mind, turning him into what you see outside. By doing what I did, it was able to temporarily surpass his strength, tearing both the shard and his core out of him.”

“Core? You mean the snake was not just a human turned snake? How can a snake become a god?”

“Beasts that used their potential adequately could increase their intelligence and or assume a humanoid form. They became the 7th race, the beast men. Some of the beast men sided with us in the conflict, hence the divine beasts in the pantheons. Beasts get stronger differently than us humans. They compress their magical prowess into a core, the more experienced ones eventually transform their core into something much the same as our shells, a house to suit a purpose. A lot of them had joined our ranks for one reason or the other before the exile. Which leads me to why we are running out of time. When I ripped out Hapikern’s core, in order to prevent him from reviving, I had to take the core into myself, essentially creating a shell within a shell. If you accept my offer, you will not walk out of here today with a fully structured path like others, but instead leave with the foundations of not one, but two gods. You will be free to direct your magic in any direction you wish. The only thing you’ll have to be mindful of, is that my foundation was a foundation meant for creation and destruction while Hapikern’s was one for Growth. They are all vague enough concepts that I’m sure you’ll be able to use in any way you want.” Nohochacyum said, raising his hands out, the radiant luster that was coating his body all this time shifting and walking away from him and towards Ray until it reached halfway between them.

The luster formed an opaque silhouette, the white giving way to all colors of the rainbow on random parts of its form in a pattern with no discernible reason. In the center, just in between where the lungs would be, a verdant orb floated, streaks of browns, reds, blues and blacks randomly appearing on its surface. The silhouette turned around, its back now facing Ray.

Next, with a flick of his wrists, the giant body of the snake began to shrink in size, coiling in on itself until it formed an obsidian band, studded with jade. The only thing that was left was a shard, awash in the colors of the rainbow, a silver barrier surrounding it.

“Shards of Chaos are dangerous because if left unattended they can warp the reality around them, with unforeseen results. The shard that I am currently suppressing had reached the levels of a god, and it takes all of the power I currently possess to have subdued it to be as weak as it is now. Therefore I ask you this Raymundo, loan me your body, so I can use it to once and for all destroy this shard, and you will get to keep my foundation afterwards along with my armaments. If you wish, I could bring in your companions from outside to assist in this endeavor. ”Nohochacyum said, his complexion rapidly turning pale. It looked like having separated himself from his power, his age was wasting no time in claiming him.

Ray looked at the silhouette in front of him and mulled over the conditions of the offer. Nohochacyum would use him to destroy this shard of chaos, and he would get what was practically the best start in this new world his father had been planning to get him into in the first place. By Nohochacyum’s own admittance, his body had been prepared for something like this, and while he was sure that his father had not been planning on him receiving a god’s power, and he did not know if his father had any further plans for him at all beyond getting him into the Divide. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. He was no fool, by reading in between the lines, taking up this power would come with its fair share of responsibilities. Yes the gods were probably numerous amongst the pantheons, but 1/10th of the total population was a lot, and kept growing daily. He was sure that the ability to provide blessings alone would be an in demand thing and to take things further, it sounded like to be able to start from scratch and be guaranteed to reach the levels of a god no matter which way he chose to build his ‘house’ as Nohochacyum put it was something rare.

As a kid, he had always wanted magic to be real. The stories of warriors who destroyed mountains and stopped armies that Han had told him and his friends always bringing a smile to his face and no little amount of fantasies. Here was the chance to make those fantasies real. He straightened his back and steeled his will.

“I accept your offer.” Ray said with finality. He began to walk into the silhouette.

“NOOOOOOOOO!” someone from behind him yelled, and at the same time he felt himself being tackled into the silhouette before him. There was a flash of light and the sound of something being thrown across the room. He landed on his face with a thud, the pain not enough to mask the feeling of energies swirling around inside him. He felt something settle in his chest while something else enveloped his insides before going further, settling into a space that he would later learn to be his soul. At the same time, something he had not realized was there was being consumed. He had expected it to be painful, yet the process was incredibly smooth. Getting up, he turned around to look at what had run into him.

There, at the side tunnels he had come from stood 3 individuals. A boy that looked to be about his age with a calculating look, arguably the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on bar none with a passive expression on her face and a heavily muscled man with a glaive in one hand and clad in what looked like bone armor, the skulls of some sort of predator adorning his chest and shoulders. To the side of them, just getting up from the ground was another boy, this one muscular where the other boy was lean. This boy was looking at him with unrestrained hatred, his eyes ablaze with fire.

“YOU TOOK WHAT’S MINE!” he shouted, his voice dripping with venom.