[Severed Divinity] 92. Sumana Laius

Isen’s stomach dropped at the beast’s declaration. He desperately wished for a way to communicate with everyone privately, to plan and strategize. Sadly, such magic wasn’t available to him.

Once more, the sixth sense had brought him to an opportunity, but seemingly one that would only benefit himself, and where the benefits were... well, balanced by immense danger. It was laughable, how people thought it could be trusted, controlled.

At least he’d warned them.

Isen stood and turned to the others. He could only see Stelia’s troubled expression since Allezin’s was hidden by his helmet and Welco’s shadow puppet was currently faceless.

Isen glanced behind at the real Welco. His mien was wooden, his jaw clenched. Unsmiling.

Gritting his teeth, Isen tugged at one of the straps fastening Lumina’s body to his back. “Stelia, take Mira and go with Allezin.” He focused on the tier three warrior, whose gauntlets were tightly wound on his spear. Isen sensed a subtle aura around him, one at odds with the ice. “Leave the city. Shelter near Shevenar. Be safe.”

Allezin was unnaturally still as he stared down at Isen. “Shevenar?”

“Shevenar.” Isen stripped Mira’s body off his back in short order, the divine beast watching the whole affair impassively. When the girl was secured to Stelia’s back, Allezin tapped his spear on the ground and strode away, back over the icy bridge toward the watery passage they’d come from. Stelia and Welco’s puppet followed, disappearing over the edge.

The monster still refrained from taking any action. It was a tacit acceptance of the small group’s departure. Maybe because of Welco’s presence, maybe because Isen’s blood bond had put it in a non-violent mood. Isen had no idea.

Isen soon made out the group speeding away over the water, Allezin’s spear head churning the surface, propelling them forward. As they fell beyond the range of Isen’s ambient energy perception, he exhaled in relief—Allezin had left with the prototypes with the Dray Anarch none the wiser.

I hope they don’t get lost without me, he joked glumly, wrapping his arms around his chest to stave off the cold. Perhaps it was a combination of the unabating chill, the presence of the tier four, the revelations regarding Ros and Welco, and the departure of Allezin and the queen... but Isen felt very tired and alone.

He felt so small, literally and figuratively.

This outcome isn’t bad for me, though, Isen reminded himself. I want to find Ros. This tier four will help me do just that—Lumina Eldrassin’s assistance is no longer needed. I already used my prototype, anyway. If I left with the divine beast and never came back, never saw any of these people again, I would come out of this whole business much better than I started.

Isen found such rhetoric repugnant. Walking away now, giving up—it would be a betrayal. Gods, it would be so easy, especially now that Isen could use “I was kidnapped by the Dray Anarch” as an excuse.

No one would hold him culpable for whatever happened, courtesy of his cultivation level. Isen saw that stance as a fallacy. Knowledge didn’t care for stage. It just so happened that most people of low tier didn't know anything of significant, far-reaching value. A correlation, as Lady Jin would have pointed out.

Isen had important knowledge. Pretending otherwise and playing the victim wouldn’t absolve him in the court of his own mind. Of course, he could try to divulge all he knew in a trusted individual, like Welco... But the idea was equally unthinkable.

“Child,” the tier four said, interrupting Isen’s thoughts, “what is your name?”

He looked up. “Isen. Might I have the honor of knowing yours?”

The beast was silent for a few seconds. “Sumana Laius.” The cold abated around Isen. It was still cool, like a cellar, but to a normal degree, the kind of cold his tempered body could handle with ease.

He breathed in deeply. The mist entered his hollow rings much easier than a second ago, passing swiftly through his meridians.

Isen bowed his head. “Thank you.”

The beast just stared back.

***

The exchange between boy and beast was absolutely beyond Welco’s expectations.

Welco didn’t know the names of any monsters, save famous ones mentioned in elven fables. He knew the name of Jorin’s sleeksteed, but that hardly counted. That was a name given by Jorin, rather than one the beast gave itself.

Monsters didn’t give their names out freely. As Welco understood it, names were considered rather intimate to them. It did make some sense—only tier three monsters and higher had the intelligence and sense of self to desire a name, a way of distinguishing themselves from their brethren.

It was a mark of power and selfhood that species like elves and humans took for granted.

Monsters and elves were enemies, and uneasy allies of convenience at the best of times, like now. It was only natural that the Dray Anarch had refrained from sharing its name with Welco. The shadow mage had never asked for it; the monster had never offered.

Which was why Welco was still reeling from the tier four’s introduction and its interest in Isen’s supposed master, Rosophilus, whom the boy called “kin.”

It was unfathomable for a monster to take a child under its metaphorical wing. Of course, most were simply too base and stupid. They’d eat anything that moved.

The ones that were smart enough not to eat a human on sight... Well, there still wasn’t any reason why they’d involve themselves with humans non-violently aside from engaging in trade of goods or information. Or to make drayavin, but that was another matter. The Dray Anarchate held a particular hatred for elves, but humans and monsters were natural enemies across all lands. Monsters attacked human settlements just as surely as they attacked elven ones.

After all, perhaps more than any individual elf, Devon Aran’s ascension was built on a mountain of monster corpses.

Isen’s master—the monster named Rosophilus—must have somehow gleaned that Isen was a pseudo-seeker, and “befriended” him to exploit the ability. It was the only explanation that made sense.

It was pitiable, since Welco could tell Isen had meant it when he’d called Rosophilus kin. It spoke volumes for Ros’s cunning and self-restraint to accompany a soft, human child for so long and resist the urge to devour or enslave them.

And yet. Welco struggled to reconcile the actions and words of the Anarch with what he knew, what all elves knew, about their eternal enemy. Rather than laughing or taking perverse pleasure in Isen falling for Rosophilus’s duplicity, Sumana Laius had played along. Had done something likely beneficial to the boy, not that Welco had been able to see its meddling clearly with the beast’s aura and fur cutting the teen off from view.

And then it had introduced itself. An extraordinary courtesy.

In doing so, it planted a seed of doubt in Welco’s mind. He was a tier three with hundreds of years of experience. He thought he understood the world, at least in broad strokes.

Now one massive, foundational stroke was showing cracks.

Not to mention the Anarch having what could only be described as an aura, something Welco had thought impossible for monsters to produce. Being unable to control aura at tier three and manifest it at tier four was a main piece of evidence behind the “defective soul” theory, which explained why monsters couldn’t advance past the fourth tier.

Welco stole a glance at the divine beast’s hulking form, its tail arching behind its back like a scorpion stinger, complete with its ice-pick tip. The monster was curled up on itself, its eyes closed. Its aura was more intense closer to its body, filaments of ice forming like spun sugar over its fur.

Nap time.

It would rely on Welco to inform it of relevant events on the surface. So far, things were quiet. Still no sighting of Devon Aran.

Allezin and Stelia were following his shadow puppet’s guidance. Welco didn’t know of an alternative way out of the city via the Lowerdeep, so his plan consisted of escorting them to the surface, where they’d have to find their own way out, probably through the main entrance. At that point, Welco’s plan was for them to reconvene with Clan Femera.

Definitely not just because the clan currently lacked a tier three to protect them...

Welco had arranged for the Dray monsters and drayavin to leave his people alone, at least as best they could. Monsters were stupid, drayavin only slightly better. Allezin would just need to carry them through any encounters too strong for Clan Femera’s tier twos to handle. Or Yura Corasin could help, if the two clans met up on the road. Or the queen could surprise them all and return to coherence, which would make everything easier.

Welco wouldn’t hold his breath.

The shadow mage cleared his throat. “Isen, come here. Until it’s time to act, we might as well focus on your training.”

The teen’s gaze flicked his way, his one golden eye seemed more piercing than usual. His movements were still stiff from the lingering effect of the Anarch’s bitter aura as he padded over the icy platform. “I thought you promised me one lesson, after which I’d need to decide whether to take you as my master,” Isen said.

Welco hummed. “I said as much, though it was before I knew about your... gift.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Welco pointed to the tier four. “You wanted to train your aura.”

The boy looked confused. “I thought you said I couldn’t, not until I advanced further.”

Welco sighed. “I also said that monsters cannot produce an aura due to the incompleteness of their souls. So let’s talk about the divine beast before us.”

Isen stared at the Anarch, biting his lip.

Welco waited for him to study it for several seconds before continuing. “How does its aura compare to mine?” He let his aura spill forth. It was tight, controlled, lacking hostility. Not a killing intent. In bright light, it cast visible shade on whatever it touched. In the darkness of the Lowerdeep, the visual aspect was missing.

This was partly a test of Isen’s perception, a continuation of Welco’s earlier experiments to better understand how the boy could see his shadows.

“Yours is much more subtle,” Isen said slowly. “I guess that’s the difference between tier three and four, though. The aura of violet-eyes was terrible, like the very air around her could dismantle me.” He shook his head. “Or in Sumana Laius’s case, like the air could freeze me solid. I’ve felt tier three killing intent, and while it’s suppressive, it isn’t so overwhelming.”

“What does my aura feel like?” Welco asked. “More specifically.”

“Smooth, I guess,” Isen replied.

Welco’s brow furrowed. Smooth was a new one. “Compare that to this.” He distilled his aura into a killing intent. He made sure it was laser focused on Isen, so as not to trigger the defensive instincts of the resting beast behind them.

Isen recoiled. “It feels... like hundreds of hands are grabbing me,” he said.

“But they aren’t, not really,” Welco replied. “Even with my aura fully focused on you, it’s a distraction, a hindrance, at best. Not truly dangerous in itself, and you can withstand it without much effort.”

Isen nodded.

Welco extended a finger toward the tier four. “And that’s where things differ between tier threes and fours. The aura of a tier four can be deadly.”

“Because the soul is stronger?”

Welco tilted his head. “Because tier four souls can handle manifestation. Consider how the Anarch’s frozen domain affects you.”

“It makes cultivation more difficult. Stills the blood in my veins. Impedes my thoughts.”

Welco smiled. “And what you cannot sense is its soul attacking yours, suppressing you, to prevent you from leveraging your own aura to fight back.” For Welco, it felt like a constant weight upon his being. His soul reflexively rose to the challenge, its aura insulating him from the tier four’s domain.

And that was the insight that led him to his current idea. “Sit close to the beast and resist its aura with your own,” he instructed. “This would be impossible if you truly had no aura, but as I mentioned during our last one-on-one, I think all tier twos produce it, just in quantities too small to detect.”

“Doing this will strengthen my soul?”

“That’s the theory.”