Wish upon the Stars chapter 965

I expected my dad and mom to leap into action. His shadowy black soul army spread out around them, taking up a sort of formation shaped like a series of concentric stars, easily thirty of the things. But rather than join him in combat, my mother hummed consideringly. “I’m thinking of a number between one and ten,” my dad said with a grin.

“Six,” she responded instantly, clearly more aware of what that meant than I was.

He barked out a laugh. “Nope, it was four. Go wait with the kids.” His tone was teasing, but relaxed. He wasn’t even remotely worried.

She clicked her tongue and strode over to where Zeke was surrounding us with masks, walking effortlessly between the rotating items as she came to stand beside Chelsea and I. “Um…what was that?” My sister asked slowly.

“It’s called high or low,” my mom explained. “Whenever your father and I have to share enemies, one of us picks a number between one and ten and guesses. One to five is low, six to ten is high. If you’re in the same range as the person who picked, you win.”

“Winning in this case being…the ability to fight five powerful A-rankers ALONE?” I asked her in disbelief.

She smirked at that. “Elijah never fights alone. But don’t worry, if he runs into trouble I’m right here. I don’t see that happening though. There’s a reason your father is so prized by Adramalech. Catching the attention of a devil prince isn’t an easy thing to do.”

I couldn’t help but remember the towering purple skinned figure of the devil I’d met at the conclave. Someone who spoke to Morgan Lark as an equal and had been completely unbothered at the thought of fighting Harrison with almost no provocation. I could imagine how powerful someone like that must be.

Bremman, who was standing at the forefront of the A-rankers, smiled indulgently at my father. “That’s the kind of arrogance I’d expect of a Wyndham. And not just a Wyndham either. The rebellious son. The Wish Devil. I’m curious, why are you so focused on standing against us? You’ve seen the depravity and corruption your family has be-”

“Let me just stop you right there,” my dad sighed. “Please don’t. Like, I understand that it’s tradition, trying to sway me to your side. That you’d be a powerful ally, and all that I wish for could be mine and blah, blah, blah. Or maybe you’re actually an idiot and you were going for a soft sell, trying to tug on my heart strings. It makes no real difference. It’s not going to work.

“I don’t care about your tragic backstory, I don’t want your priceless treasures, I don’t have any unresolved issues to work out on my relatives,” he said blithely. “If I want something, I take it, if I don’t like someone, I kill them, and I am very experienced at tempting and corrupting others. Frankly your amateur sales pitch is insulting, and I should very much enjoy allowing both of us to skip the awkwardness of you trying to make it and just dispense with the ensuing bloodbath.”

He tapped his cane (a soul weapon of some kind, I knew), and a mirrored sheen rolled up from the ground, over the cane and his body, covering him in a reflective finish, which with another tap turned the shiny black of onyx, just like the others. Another tap, and there was an eruption of black smoke beneath all thirty versions of my father, and then they flickered and reappeared at seemingly random points all over the chamber.

Six of them for each of the opponents, surrounding the five A-rankers in a loose ring.

Bremman, meanwhile, looked incensed. “I tried to do this the easy way,” he snarled, his eyes lighting up an eerie blue. Black mist poured from him as he manifested a large black spear, driving it forward directly into the chest of one of the nearest clones.

The onyx soul in the shape of my dad choked, seizing up, and then collapsed into a cloud of black smoke. The Heaven Murder Elf choker, waving away the smoke, but it clung to him, even as the other clones attacked. He snarled, stabbing his spear into another clone, then a third. The smoke billowed up, clinging to him even more tightly. Five clones, all dead in a blink as he engaged the last one with a snarl.

Driving his spear forward, his eyes were wide with rage…and then with shock, as the cane simply stopped the blow head on.

Not just the blow. As soon as the spear touched the head of the cane, the black mist and blue glow vanished. The black smoke around him thinned, but didn’t disappear. He looked shaken. “What…what have you done?” He shook the spear, smacking it against his palm a few times. “What have you DONE?”

“Combat,” my father said casually. “Is a social contract. Two combatants unleashing violence upon one another until one or both are dead. However, like all contracts, it has certain provisions. For instance, while multiple people can engage in combat, each person involved can only die once. Your spear attack killed me with the first blow. And the second. And the third. You’ve killed me no less than five times. I’m afraid contractually, you’re quite overextended.”

The spearman looked outraged. “What? I never agreed to that!”

“Of course you did,” my father said cheerfully. “As did the rest of your friends.” He glanced around at the others, who I noticed were all standing in front of now singular copies of him, looking similarly cowed. “And that’s not all either. I’ve repossessed your Void taint in order to repay your debt, but that’s only worth one or two lives.”

He tapped his cane, and the spear vanished from Bremman’s hand, then again, and the elf stumbled, his leg giving out under him and sending him collapsing to the ground. He stared up at my father in terror. “This is…you can’t do this! This isn’t possible!”

My father shook his head, smiling coldly. “Incorrect. I’m the Wish Devil. With the payment of a human soul I can do nearly anything. And you paid me five.”

He knelt down in front of the cowering man and stared straight into his eyes. “I could have done this nicely, you know. I could have killed you quick. Made it look effortless and reinforced the terror that others feel of me. But I’m not going to do that. I have questions about your masters.”

“I…yes,” Bremman said desperately. “I’ll tell you anything! I swear! Ask me whatever you want to know!”

My dad chuckled darkly. “Oh, you’ve misunderstood. I already told you earlier that your sloppy attempts at coercion were insulting to me. You are not a source of information, Bremman. You are a DEMONSTRATION.” He stood and turned away, then tapped his cane again. A wave of black energy exploded out of his cane, funneling into a cloud above his head and then swirling into a vortex, the mouth of which poured itself into the mouth of the Heaven Murder Elf.

Bremman screamed, writhing on the ground as he clawed at his face, and cracks began to appear along his skin, starting at his mouth. The cracks covered his whole body, spreading quickly, and then he screamed and his form shattered, the rest of him flaking off as a reflective soul climbed up to stand in front of my dad.

He hummed with amusement. “Go stand guard for my family.” The mercury soul nodded, hefting its mercury spear, and its eyes glowed blue as black mist began to pour off the weapon.

My dad turned to one of the other four A-rankers, all of them now kneeling in front of his other clones. “You,” he said to the woman that, based on the ice surrounding her was Violetta. “Tell me what you know about Wise.”

“I…” she stammered. “I don’t know! Wait no please I swear!”

“And that’s enough of that,” Zeke said breezily, snapping his fingers. The protective field his masks created went opaque, and I turned to look at him in shock…only to spot my mother sighing with relief. That made more sense. Protecting us like that was out of character for him, but less so for mom.

I turned to her with a frown. “You were expecting this,” I said bluntly. “You both seemed completely at ease the whole time. You knew there were alarms on the anchors. That was why you encouraged me to leave them for later.” That had been subtle, I’d barely noticed it happening. I’d thought that was my own idea.

“A demonstration,” she said, echoing my dad. “The Vessels are dead, and the part of the soul your father retains isn’t connected to the Void Children, but the process of their deaths will be witnessed. I personally don’t much enjoy cultivating that sort of reputation, but when necessary I can be flexible.”

Chelsea looked devastated. “Mom…” she whispered. “I can’t believe you were ok with that. The things he was doing. I mean, I expected it from him, but you’re a SAINTESS. You’re supposed to be…better. Better than dad.”

“Better?” my mother asked calmly. “I believe that was the best I’ve been in quite some time. Let’s ignore the Void aspects of this for a moment. Ignore that those are monsters who feed people to the darkness beyond space. Even if they had been normal humans. Even if they had been saints themselves. They made a mistake. They tried to hurt my CHILDREN.

“I don’t care what you think of what I just did,” she told my sister calmly. “You can hate me for it if you like. But I’d do it again in an instant. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being from the church gives us the luxury of being paragons of virtue. Sometimes, to protect the ones we care about, we need to get our hands dirty. Your father didn’t teach me that, dear heart. I taught HIM.”

Personally I wasn’t bothered. Soul bullshit was ethically dubious at times, but like she said, the Void destroyed the human part of them anyway. Though not as entirely as I’d believed, given the terror on Bremman’s face. I guessed even sociopathic Void stooges can be afraid if someone is scary enough.

Zeke cleared his throat. “Think we’re all good,” he said. He waved a hand and the masks retreated, floating back into his belt, shrinking as the went. My dad approached, five new mercury souls trailing behind him menacingly.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Finished having your fun?” I asked dryly. “Did it actually LEAD to anything?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” he chuckled, tapping his cane. The five mercury souls and all the onyx still out vanished in clouds of smoke. “I got everything I needed. Wise is performing the ritual as we speak, slowly opening the portals like we suspected and growing stronger over time. And now…I know WHERE.”

My lips peeled back in vicious triumph. “With the rest of our forces attacking the anchors, he’ll be too distracted to see us coming, won’t he?”

The Vessels Void Children might have seen what we just did, but they weren’t WISE’S Void Child. They couldn’t tell him without a means to interact, and I somehow doubted they were going to believe he was a friend much longer, given he was going to run out of neutral targets and start picking off his own soon to grow his power. I’d be shocked if he hadn’t started already.

“Call Sebastian and Killian,” I told him bluntly. “We need to get down there and take him out. Before he hits S-rank. You can take him on at A-rank I’m sure. Let’s get down there and fucking end this once and for all.” I paused and looked around the room. “Also, did anyone record us taking down the A-rank Vessels? Bet that’ll be worth some points.” I still had a competition to win after this was all over.