Divine Apostasy Book 12 - Chapter 80

Chapter 80

The body of Ink Lord Numarrow appeared on the floor and Golden light surrounded it immediately. Ruwen returned to his place in the circle as Hamma softly chanted a prayer and power poured from her.

Ruwen studied the spell using Harmony and found aspects he didn’t recognize. Harmonies that looked foreign and different from anything in his experience. Activating Harmonic Knowledge didn’t help.

Hamma’s chanting grew louder and the flows grew even more complex.

A large eyeball filled Ruwen’s vision, and it took every bit of his Step training to not scream and jerk away in surprise. He sucked in a breath as the eyeball studied him.

Ruwen stepped backward and the rest of the creature came into view.

A large two-foot pail had appeared, and it contained grey goop. A stalk rose from this sludge and the eyeball rested on the end. It blinked but didn’t do anything else. Ruwen noticed an identical pail in front of Sift.

Ruwen recognized the creature. It was Archie, the entity inside the necklace Hamma wore. She called it a Nigh-Ubiquitous Quagmire which didn’t tell him much. She tended to be protective and a bit secretive about Archie so he’d never pushed for details. He knew Archie could appear in multiple places at the same time and Blapy had claimed the creature was unkillable because of it.

It’s in Purgatory, Overlord said.

Ruwen immediately manifested next to Overlord. They stood at the boundary between Ruwen’s external Mental Domain and the transition area he called Purgatory that protected the entrance to his internal mind.

This Archie was much smaller, but the same eyeball stared up at Ruwen.

“Hey Archie,” Ruwen said with a small bow. “I’m surprised to see you.”

The eyeball bent downward, returning the bow.

The space between them swirled with grey mist and it condensed into two words. True Name deciphered the ancient script into something Ruwen recognized: Danger. Observe.

Ruwen considered this. Why would watching Hamma’s spell create danger. Even more confusing, Archie had also appeared in front of Sift.

“Is the warning of danger to protect me or Hamma?” Ruwen asked.

The swirling formed a new word. Everything.

“Are Sift and I both causing this danger?”

The response was immediate. Yes.

“How? What are we doing?”

This time it took a few seconds before the mist formed new words. Manifest. Powerful. Dangerous.

That didn’t make any sense to Ruwen. How could observing Hamma cause any type of manifestation. It wasn’t related to Harmony because Sift didn’t have that. Was it related to the Bamboo Viper Steps? No, because Kysandra hadn’t received one of the goop pails.

“Your Souls,” Overlord said, staring at Archie.

Archie nodded his eyeball.

Overlord turned to Ruwen. “You and Sift leveled your Souls. Something related to Soul power is dangerous when combined with Hamma’s magic.”

“Good job,” Ruwen told Overlord. “I did see something I didn’t recognize. Thinking about it, the only likely source, considering Hamma’s recent past, is Creation Essence.”

Ruwen turned back to Archie. “Is the Soul power from Sift and I dangerous to the Creation Essence coming from Hamma?”

The eye rotated in a small circle as if thinking. It looked upward for five seconds before locking its gaze with Ruwen’s.

A single word formed: Card.

Like the dominoes on Grandpa Pine’s table, disparate facts crashed into each other one after another.

“Were you watching me fight those leprechauns?” Ruwen asked.

Archie nodded.

The fact Ruwen hadn’t noticed Archie worried him but that was a problem for another time. “You think my Soul energy caused all those cards to drop?”

Archie closed his eye as if trying to figure out how to respond. Finally, the eye opened and words appeared. Complex. Dungeon. Reveal. No. Loot. Nexus. Purpose. Danger. Danger. Danger.

Ruwen considered Archie’s words. He turned to Overlord. “Thoughts?”

Overlord knelt so his eyes were level with Archie. “You wrote Nexus. Did you mean the Outerverse Faction?”

Archie nodded his eye.

“Why not communicate with Hamma so you can explain yourself fully and she can tell us,” Overlord asked.

Ruwen read the response. Mind. Vulnerable. Danger. Unknown. Risk.

With each word more of the mist disappeared. Archie’s ability to communicate in this fashion was quickly fading.

Overlord stood and faced Ruwen. “Well, this is a mess.”

They needed a better way to communicate with Archie, but Ruwen had reservations about allowing an omnipresent entity inside his mind.

Ruwen refocused on Archie. “If you spent time here in Purgatory, do you think our communication might get better?”

The mist formed Archie’s response: Try.

“Prythus,” Ruwen whispered.

A golden-four-winged angel appeared next to Archie, and the stalk jerked in response. Ruwen suppressed a laugh. He guessed Archie rarely got surprised.

Ruwen placed his palm on top of his fist and bowed to Prythus, who returned the greeting.

“This is Archie. He’s going to hang out here and try to improve our ability to communicate.”

Prythus bowed and disappeared.

“I’ll spend some time with him,” Overlord said. “See if I can figure anything else out.”

Ruwen fist bumped Overlord. “Thanks, buddy.”

Returning his focus to the outer world, Ruwen found Hamma still chanting and Numarrow obscured completely by golden light. Sift sat cross-legged five feet behind the circle. Across from Sift, Archie had shrunk down to just a couple of feet and had created a thin grey arm and hand.

Archie and Sift played some sort of reflex game where they tried slapping each other’s hands. Sift had spent decades with Archie in Miranda’s Divine Realm as Ruwen finished Fortifying to the Divine tier, and they’d made a bunch of games to pass the time.

The Archie in front of Ruwen remained large, blocking most of his view.

Ruwen spoke with Rami over their bond. Did you happen to grab gate runes for that chamber we fought in?

Of course, I have a Messenger collecting them every few seconds. Gate runes appeared in Ruwen’s thoughts. Those are from the spot I was standing during the fight.

Thanks. I’ll be right back.

Do I want to know what this is about?

Overlord can fill you in.

Ruwen opened a channel to everyone but Hamma, not wanting to disturb her spell. I’ll be right back. Nobody worry.

Before anyone could ask questions, Ruwen created a portal on the floor under himself using Soul power, noting the gate rune for the planet matched Earth, just like he’d thought. As soon as the fifth rune formed, he wrapped himself with invisibility, fell through the gateway, and landed in the room they’d fought in earlier.

The chamber felt crowded with all the men and golems that filled it. The group were either military or mercenaries as they all had the look of disciplined violence and displayed the same red color on their clothes and armor.

Ruwen froze in shock. He’d expected enemies to be here but wasn’t prepared to see someone he knew. Thoughts and surprising emotions swirled in his thoughts. The man stood tall, bulky but not fat. His eyes were harder than Ruwen remembered, and he wore familiar red Overseer armor. It looked like the twin of the Overseer armor Ruwen taken from the Third Temple’s armory—the armor Overlord used on his Minions.

Ruwen forcefully pulled his gaze away and dropped through his shadow into the Destruction Realm.

Archie had used the words “dungeon, reveal, no,” and “loot” which didn’t make much sense. Since Archie had mentioned loot, he decided to jump back here quickly and see if they’d missed something. The last thing he wanted to do was leave loot behind.

Ruwen’s invisibility unraveled here as Destruction essence devoured the Spirit he’d used to cloak himself. He quickly searched the area but didn’t find anything.

Locating one of the Carnage golems in the room above, Ruwen exited its shadow, immediately wrapping himself with invisibility. The man Ruwen knew stopped speaking and turned in Ruwen’s direction, studying the area intently. After a few seconds he barked an order and a group of five men headed over to investigate.

Ruwen only had one more place to look and he pulled energy from his Third Eye and Divine Chakras, pushing his vision into the fourth dimension. There, as he suspected, sat a handful of cards.

Archie had tried communicating that the System hadn’t created the cards as loot. It had only revealed them to Ruwen. He’d created these himself. Some interaction between his Soul energy and the environment had formed these cards.

Ruwen had assumed the cards from the leprechauns had formed because it was part of the magic system in the Creation Realm, and while that might be true, the cards he looked at right now meant he could form them even without Creation essence being present.

Archie had thankfully noticed and brought it to Ruwen’s attention. Since Archie had distracted Sift, it meant Sift’s Soul energy had created these types of cards as well. Hamma had recognized the cards and told Ruwen they encapsulated a concept—a manifestation that enabled anyone to wield the power of that concept. They were rare and incredibly valuable in the Creation Realm.

Which brought Ruwen to the other thing Archie had mentioned. The Nexus. They were a machine and technology-based faction in the Outerverse. Ruwen had found their research in a rift they’d explored. Something the Nexus called an Affinity Wheel. They researched not just the different kinds of concepts, but methods on how to manifest them. What would the Nexus faction do if they learned he and Sift had stumbled into this ability.

That must be the danger Archie had warned about. Was the System that ran this Universe part of the Nexus faction? Ruwen had thought this System had come with Aeonrial in the beginning, but what if it came afterwords and took over? The fact it had decided what cards to push into the lower dimensions as loot and which ones to keep for itself didn’t bode well.

Ruwen left the cards, not wanting to trigger some kind of confrontation with the System. Archie must have worried that Ruwen or Sift might manifest the magical concepts Hamma used to resurrect the Ink Lord. Such cards would be incredibly powerful. It might lead to machines creating life, or some hybrid of it.

Things always got complicated. Why couldn’t this be a simple library trip.

Ruwen returned to the lower dimensions. The group of soldiers would be on him in a few more seconds. It was time to leave.

Stepping around the Carnage golem who stood ready to destroy everything near it, Ruwen took one last look at the man he remembered from the Spirit Realm.

The Champion turned to stare in Ruwen’s direction again, and Ruwen marveled at the man’s Perception. Or maybe it was related to Ruwen’s blood. He’d need to ask Una about that.

Ruwen dropped through a Soul portal and returned to his group, wondering how Una would react to Jagen’s return.