ushernet How ironic… (1).
How ironic… (1).
POV: Devas Asura
The moment my Wyvern Nightmare took flight, with me standing atop its head, I tilted my own to the side and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift back into my Spiritual Realm. I didn’t worry about falling; that wouldn’t happen. My body would stay balanced, even with all my attention focused on the chaos unfolding within.
I didn’t bother activating the Spiritual Camera and allowed the transmission to show my body and the Wyvern Nightmare flying back toward the Valley. There were a few things inside here I wanted to keep secret...
When I opened my eyes in the beach house, I ignored the door and jumped through the window. My small legs absorbed the impact effortlessly as I hit the ground. A second later, I was already sprinting toward the beach, though not toward Nightmare Isle. Even though my nightmare energy was overflowing, it posed no danger to me.
A drop or an ocean, it didn’t matter; my energy obeyed me. The real problem was the damn Chinese dragon made of golden light, wreaking havoc in here!
The divinity of the God of Light behaved very differently from that of the Biblical God. I thought the latter’s divinity had tried to resist when I devoured it before, but no — it was like eating tough meat. The material was chewy and resistant, but that didn’t mean the meat was fighting back.
Devouring Big G’s divinity was like chewing on overcooked steak — tough and rubbery, but nothing more. It hurt my teeth, that’s all; I got used to it. The God of Light’s divinity was different; I wasn’t eating a piece of meat but biting into the whole damn cow, alive. And this bastard wanted to escape!
“Tyrian, retreat!” I snarled an order, pulling the Bone Helm over my head.
I glared at the dragon, roughly thirty meters long, battling my Nightmares. The fight was evenly matched, with the Nightmares managing to hold the dragon back, thanks to their numbers. The dragon incinerated dozens of Nightmares with one or two attacks, but for every strike it landed, ten, twenty, thirty more came from my army.
Little by little, the battle was tilting in my favor, as my creatures pushed the golden dragon toward the black seawater, brimming with nightmare energy. If it fell there, it was game over, and this pesky fragment of divinity knew it.
The moment Tyrian heard my command, he didn’t hesitate to leap off the dragon’s back and into the sea. The other Nightmares continued their assault; they were expendable, or rather, my weapons.
I raised my right hand, palm open, toward the dragon. Here in the Spiritual Realm, my hand was intact, free of cracks and dripping golden blood, just like my jaw. As I aligned my hand with the dragon, I clenched it into a fist.
All the Nightmares surrounding the dragon exploded into smoke and darkness, merging into a giant black hand brimming with red and white eyes. It grabbed the dragon as if it were a pool noodle and, like one, tossed it into the water.
The moment the residual divinity, in the form of a Chinese dragon, touched the waters of the black sea, the darkness rose around its body, almost as if starving, engulfing it completely in less than a second. It resisted, just like its "brother" had before — the first half of the divinity that fell here — and, just like before, it failed miserably; in this place, I was in charge.
I rotated my right wrist counterclockwise, making the water spin into a massive whirlpool, creating a huge spiral in the sea that followed my motion.
The point of light representing the dragon shone for a few seconds amid the spiraling darkness, a faint, shallow golden thread, before fading completely as the depths of the sea swallowed its light.
I stood still for about a minute, gazing at the sea. I could feel the dragon struggling below, desperate, just like the first dragon, which had shrunk to less than half its size since I devoured it. Like the first one, the moment the dragon reached the bottom, I chained it with bindings as golden as it was: Divine Anathema.
As soon as the dragon was bound, the chains began to grind into its body, gnawing at it like thousands of tiny teeth. Its struggles lessened significantly as its body started to shrink, being devoured. The first dragon barely fought back anymore, flailing weakly like a fish out of water, nearly dead.
Both golden dragons were encircled by Shadowflame, burning and consuming them with every passing second, along with my Semblance, which used the Divine Anathema as both a conduit and a tool to devour the divinity alongside the purple flame.
“My fangs still aren’t sharp enough...” I muttered. The Divine Anathema was sufficient to restrain and diminish the divinity, as well as act as a medium for my Semblance, but the Semblance itself wasn’t strong enough yet...
...I needed something to hone my teeth.
“Tyrian!” I called out when I felt Salem’s army approaching. The Valley was close. “Return to the beach house and keep an eye on the guest who decided to nap in the master bedroom! If anything happens or she wakes up, tear her to pieces!”
I didn’t bother to watch the Nightmare Faunus emerge from the sea and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was back in my body. Ignoring the pain in my right arm and jaw, I squinted into the distance. The Valley was holding its ground well; it was only a matter of time before they won this fight... but many more would die in the process.
“...Let’s prevent a few deaths.” Besides, I wanted to absorb those Grimm. The more fuel the Shadowflame had, the better.
When my mount was about a kilometer from the army, I raised my left arm. The miasma surrounding me swirled along my armor and skin before condensing in my left hand. I didn’t even need to look to know that my entire arm was beginning to take on a pale white hue, similar to Salem’s skin, and that the veins there were turning black.
Without my command, many of the symbols, markings, and red veins covering my Aura twisted like living tattoos and converged on my left arm, spiraling around it, both within my Aura and over my skin.
As this happened, the skin tone of my left arm returned to normal, and the black veins vanished. The pain remained, but the 'corruption' trying to turn me into a Grimm did not.
This seemed to thoroughly enrage something within the energy, and my control over it faltered significantly. The miasma — the essence of destruction — writhed like agitated worms, gnawing at everything it could find nearby, whether blood, bone, muscle, or skin. Everything was a target for destruction.
...A stubborn, unruly energy. Perfect!
I downed another Healing Potion and redirected my mana, which had been fueling the Shadowflame, into my ring. My nightmare energy was sufficient fuel for the flame now, allowing me to use my mana more freely.
I also covered my entire right arm with the Bone Helm’s hands and took a deep breath, accelerating the flow of blood and heat within my body, already intense. I could almost hear the miasma hiss in fear.
The only reason I hadn’t absorbed that thing into my nightmare energy was because it was useful in its ‘pure’ form—for now, at least.
The pain lessened considerably—not only in my left arm, where the miasma had grown much tamer, but throughout my entire body as the extra vitality began rapidly filling it. Even my headache subsided slightly, both because my energies were stabilizing and because my body wasn’t hurting as much anymore.
The moment my palm faced forward, I felt all the Grimm surrounding Vale’s walls freeze. That alone would’ve been enough—with them immobilized, within minutes, the Huntsmen and Huntresses, Atlas’ army, and the bombardments would be sufficient to eliminate them.
... But their sins were already mine.
“All Hollow’s Eve.”
The name came to me spontaneously, my voice echoing across the battlefield. Everything was infested with my nightmare energy, thanks to my Nightmares and the swirling shadows on the ground. I didn’t even need to try too hard for my command to reach the entire field.
I felt the miasma in my left hand connect with each Grimm, using my nightmare energy as the bridge. At first, it was a weak and thin connection, but my energy quickly reinforced it, reshaping the Grimm from the inside out, consuming their essence. One by one, the white masks turned into gray stag masks.
... Like an illusion, all the Grimm transformed into Nightmares.
I let my hand fall to my side and whispered: “Go home, all of you.” One by one, the Nightmares entered the vortex of my shadow—including my Wyvern Nightmare—spinning at my feet and disappearing as my shadow returned to my body. I fell onto my back, arms and legs sprawled upwards.
... I was tired. Actually, I felt old.
Right before hitting the ground, I twisted my body and landed on my feet, not bothering to cushion the impact. Commanding my mana to create a wind spell or using the Angel Greaves would’ve been more effort than simply taking the impact myself.
I walked slowly out of the crater my fall had created, not heading toward Vale, though I glanced in its direction for a moment. The girls were fine—I could feel them. Their emotions were a bit turbulent, but they were unharmed. Good. I knew Jinn would keep them safe, but the confirmation was reassuring.
After a moment, I sensed that the others I knew were also fine. Penny, Qrow, Taiyang, Glynda, Roman, Neo, Ghira, Kali, Dahlia, and Teams JNPR and CFVY were all alive. Some were more battered and exhausted than others among the professional Huntsmen and Huntresses, but none were close to death—or dead... except for one.
I didn’t need to walk far to find Ozma’s body. I had seen it from the sky.
The man was intact, leaning against a rock, his cane still firm in his right hand. His clothes were barely scuffed, and there was a faint smile on his face... but he was dead. His body was little more than a shell, its interior crumbling into dust. I was sure that if I moved him too forcefully, he’d fall apart entirely.
“So that’s what the breath you created does...” I murmured as if the corpse could hear me. “You never told me its name... Ozma...”
I hadn’t even realized it was still raining until I looked up at the sky and let out a slow, deep sigh.
I pulled the old wizard’s body and cane into my inventory. It was the gentlest way I could move him without causing harm. I was tempted to burn away the sadness gnawing at my thoughts, but it wouldn’t have been respectful to the man. He might return someday, perhaps, but in case he didn’t—because I had killed Salem—I could only hope that wherever he was, his soul—
“Boom!”
I kicked off the ground the instant an idea struck me. The kinetic energy from my motion erupted around me—earth, mud, stone, water, rain—everything shattered when the sound barrier broke like fragile glass. A fraction of a second later, I was beside Qrow.
I used the Shadowflame to absorb the shockwave before it reached everyone else and hurt them, but the damage was already done. Across the entire distance I’d traversed—just over a kilometer—there was only a torn trail left in the ground: scorched, half-melted, and still radiating heat and fire.
Credit where it’s due—Qrow and Taiyang reacted quickly. As I approached, they struck out instinctively. I caught Taiyang’s fists with the Bone Helm’s hands and Harbinger’s blade between my fingers.
“Sorry for the scare, but I’m in a hurry,” was all the explanation I offered. I could see the orange glow of my eyes reflected in Qrow’s pale red ones before his physical body faded from my sight, and I focused solely on his soul.
The Maidens had undergone many reincarnations. Though their magic came from a part of Ozma’s soul, that fragment could no longer even be considered a part of him anymore. But Qrow hadn’t died, nor had he reincarnated...
It was a small part within Qrow’s soul, but I could distinguish it easily from everything else. It was much more ‘ancient,’ much more ‘weary’ and ‘worn out,’ like an old painting carefully preserved. I could see it clearly...
... The fragile, thin ‘thread’ that connected that part to something ‘higher.’
Ignoring the spasms and pain, I pressed the index finger of my right hand against Qrow’s chest—his body and soul—and slowly traced the ‘thread’ with my finger. I was as careful as possible so the spasms in my muscles wouldn’t ruin everything.
“Yes. I’ll need a bigger jar when you pay up.” Her eyes sparkled, amused. A large part of the melancholy she carried had vanished.
“We can use the dorm bathtub,” Weiss suggested.
“I don’t think that will be enough.” Yang threw in her two cents. “Maybe a public pool?”
“There’s a ravine in Emerald Forest, if anything.” Blake joined the debate a second later.
“A team of girl loan sharks, how amazing.” I ignored their laughter. The mood around had lightened quite a bit, becoming much more relaxed. I turned to Jinn. “How many people are there on the planet?”
“Almost five hundred million.” She replied easily, while the game room stayed active.
“Half the world.”
“Basically.”
“How cool...” I sighed. “I’ll file a complaint if these viewers don’t give me SP.”
“How didn’t you notice those numbers in the corner of your vision?” Ruby asked.
“I deactivated the HUD, kept just the Minimaps. You guys could still see, but I couldn’t. I focused all my attention on the battle.” I explained.
More specifically, on Salem’s soul and her magic. A big spell would’ve been enough to really screw me over — like it almost did — and I had to cut her soul in a certain pattern to focus the divinity within her into a single point.
That’s why the Wyvern Grimm managed to catch me by surprise; I only noticed its presence when I saw its shadow. Fucking giant lizard... I wouldn’t have had half the trouble I did if it weren’t for that thing... At least I got a cool Nightmare out of it.
“Devas,” Glynda said, approaching. She was next to Dahlia, who waved at me. The feeling from both of them was less “bad” than the others, similar to Qrow’s. “If you’re here, I imagine Salem is dead. Have you seen Ozpin anywhere?”
“Couldn’t you watch the stream?” I asked.
“Only on a TV or scroll. I spent the last few minutes killing Grimm, didn’t have time to check mine.” Glynda explained, adjusting her burnt skirt, revealing a large portion of her thigh.
“I see... Yes, Salem is dead. And Ozma’s body as well.” She didn’t seem surprised, just sighed. But I noticed that she picked up on the way I phrased it: his body, not him.
“His body’s in my inventory. Did he leave any will about where he wanted to be buried?”
“Cremated,” she answered.
“Old Oz wanted to be cremated,” Qrow jumped into the conversation. “That topic came up a few times; he always commented that he liked— would like to be cremated.”
Whether his slip of the tongue was intentional or not didn’t matter, but it said a lot. All, or almost all, of Ozma’s reincarnations must have been cremated. At least the ones that had a body to cremate...
“I’ll take care of that later. Just let me know where to scatter the ashes.” I nodded to both of them before looking at the 'thread' tangled in my arm. Maybe it’ll tell me itself...
Seeing that Neo wouldn’t try to lick the golden blood dripping from my arm anymore, I lowered it. I pulled out a small box with three Lesser Potions, almost a kilo of Purification Powder, and a bag of medicinal herbs from the Voidbag and handed them to Glynda. I had a lot of the latter, thanks to Dylan, but the Lesser Potions were running low — only these three left.
At least I still had ten of the twelve Healing Potions I had stored. Two had been used in this fight: one when Salem almost crushed me and another to mitigate the effects of, well, everything happening in my body.
“Take this to where the injured are. Dissolve the potions in water, add the herbs, and put the mixture in sprayers. Apply it to the wounds, it should help the Huntsmen, Huntresses, and injured soldiers.” I explained briefly to Glynda. “The Purification Powder should assist in removing bone shards, stone, metals, and it also helps if they have any health issues, like chronic diseases.”
“I can do that, but... one question: why don’t you do it yourself?” She took the box with her hands and looked at me. Her eyes reflected sadness, as did her emotions. “You’re not going to Vale, are you?”
“... No, I’m not.” I confirmed.
When I turned my face toward the kingdom, I felt a spike of fear coming from the people and the Huntsmen and Huntresses in the distance, mixed with other negative emotions I didn’t bother naming or absorbing with my nightmare energy. It wasn’t worth it.
“I don’t think I’m welcome there.” I sighed, tired — a different kind of tired. “My presence will only do more harm than good.”
The spike of fear turned into guilt, shame, and remorse. A mix of everything. Ingratitude.
Without moving, with a mental command, my ship appeared a few meters away, in an empty area. Still standing, I turned to Jinn. “You can heal, right?”
“I can... But, honestly, I’m pissed. This is rare... very rare...” She murmured, biting her lower lip before glaring at me. “Should I really?”
“You, more than anyone besides me, know I’m used to this.” I shook my head before responding. “I’d say yes. These men and women — humans and faunus — got hurt protecting Vale. They don’t deserve to die if they can be saved. But the choice is yours. I’ll never force you to do anything.”
“Talking like that, you don’t give me much of a choice.” She laughed, half-amused, half-pouting, and ran her finger across my chin, between the cracks and the golden blood. “A man, human, who got hurt protecting Vale... how ironically familiar this description is... I’ll catch up to you soon. I know how to find you.”
The eye on the mark on her thigh glowed orange. I nodded slightly, and Jinn turned, calling Glynda, who followed her.
The remorse around grew. I huffed, amused, but not surprised. Human hypocrisy never failed to entertain me, though I had long since gotten used to it. It was almost a charm, something that defined my species.
"Sins are sins...” I murmured, looking up in a tone so low it could be heard by everyone around — and by all of Vale. “I’ll accept them all, always have... like I always have...”
Then I started walking, with Ruby still hugging me, following my steps. Yang, Weiss, Blake, and many others followed me. Qrow, Taiyang, Neo, Roman, as well as Kali and Ghira.
The teams JNPR and CFVY hesitated, frozen in remorse or something similar. Amber looked at my back as if she wanted to ask something, but didn’t. Dahlia waved, saying she’d check on her husband and the caravan, and that I could call her if needed. I returned the wave with a slight smile.
Glynda and Jinn walked side by side toward the injured. Everyone parted for them, most with their heads down, whenever Jinn glared at them. Glynda didn’t even look away from the box in her hands.
I took off with the Proto-A less than a minute later. I activated the autopilot and asked someone to choose any destination. I didn’t care where we’d go, nor the stream notifications that had probably been updated and the (CHAT). At that moment, I just wanted to sleep...
“I’ll see you tomorrow... Goodnight.” I smiled faintly at team RWBY before closing the door to my room.
I lay on the bed slowly, placing my right arm across my body and crossing my legs. I rested my left arm under my head. Didn’t even take off the armor. It already hurt, so it didn’t matter whether I wore it or not. I popped a Purification Powder pill before turning off the light.
The eyes in my shadows opened when I turned off the lights, watching me for a moment before blinking and closing, just like mine.
Before falling asleep, a comforting thought crossed my mind, something fleeting and quick. Only six people were not afraid or fearful of me, and somehow, that was enough.
Then, all my thoughts were swallowed...
... in a tranquil and calm darkness of a dreamless sleep.
[...]---[...]
Shit happens, humans (and faunus) are hypocrites and ungrateful, not all of them. Even if it’s for a “good” reason (in quotes), I’ll say and show that, the reason is still crap. Devas wasn’t as affected, but I wanted to show a bit of that. In the next chapter, I’ll dive deeper into his thoughts and the others' about it.
Neo is insanely easy to write, I love her.
As for Ozma, well, first of all: the 'symbolism' of the yellow brick road and the 'golden thread' happening was totally unintentional. I only noticed it after reviewing the text.
Does he come back? I don’t know, it’s a spoiler.
As for Devas' spiritual realm, I think it’s clear why he seemed to ‘sleep’ in the middle of the battle. The Light God’s divinity reacted, unlike Big G’s. What’s the reason for this? There are two, one obvious, the other not so much. I’ll reveal them in the future.
Finally, everyone’s reaction. Most acted with caution. Devas, to them, is practically a God/Semi-god; fear and distrust are expected. Add that to him devouring part of his creator, and well, you get what happened. Those who know him were less affected; those who know how he really is, like him, or are pure enough, were not. Six people were unaffected. Type their names in the comments if you want to guess, four are somewhat obvious.
Really, I love Neo.
Lastly, the "All Hollow’s Eve." This name came up in a conversation I had with a friend of mine about Halloween’s original name, which is "All Hallow’s Eve." It stuck in my head, and I ended up using it. Does it have a deeper meaning in the story? No, but it's easily changeable if a certain anime with the name of a cleaning product appears... :D
Good night to everyone and happy reading!
PS: Damn, I can finally go back to writing something about Terraria! I’ll be able to send it to the Amalgam World and [REDACTED]. HELL YEAH, UHU!
PPS: I haven't forgotten Millia, she's inside the Slime Staff and in the inventory, the only truly safe place.