Finally unharnessed from his back, Jack sat Alicia on his lap, securing her with his arm over her stomach. He opened her mouth and put in two drops of the green liquid. Alicia's soul trembled.

“Oh my god. What was that? It's amazing!” She thought. 

Jack felt the ripples passing through their bond even healing a bit of his own damaged soul.

Braced Soul Lvl 6 → Braced Soul Lvl 7

“This isn't your average superberry kale detox smoothie, that's for sure.”

Syraviel checked Alicia's pulse, then palpated her abdomen.

“She says likes the medicine,” Jack said.

Syraviel nodded.

“I'd hope so, that's a soul elixir meant for someone at the Akashic-Touched level and with you administering it, it should be twice as effective. That aside, I can't believe you actually reached her,” Syraviel said. “You've only been bonded for three days now.”

“I just got close enough so she could reach me,” Jack said. “I couldn't see or feel a damn thing, it was Alicia who got us together.”

“Even you pushing that far is abnormal,” Lisaseron said. “But what Alicia performed was a feat of soul perception and manipulation we simply do not see at your level. Navigating through one's soul is extremely difficult- even with training. We were initially worried both of you would not be able to keep up with our pace, but I think we may have gone a bit too far in pushing both of you.”

“Agreed,” Syraviel said. “Momentum and quick growth are important but building a strong foundation is even more important at your level. I think we've been setting a bad example on this front, but we'll try to do better. Won't we, Lisaseron?”

Lisaseron grimaced, looking up from making a thin, orange sauce and the rest of her culinary preparations. 

“Of course,” Lisaseron said. “Unfortunately, if pushing one's limits was an art, I would be an artist.”

“You're already an artist,” Jack said. “Isn't your Innate all about painting?”

“The point is that you have to be familiar with yourself and your capabilities before taking risks. And even then-”

Lisaseron appeared next to Jack faster than he could react. She took the boy's hand holding the soul elixir, making him bring the vial towards her lips. She took a long swig, draining three quarters of the elixir in a single gulp.

“-Even then you might end up worse for it. Like me.”

Jack and Diana stared at the Goddess.

“Fucking Christ, lady,” Jack finally said. “How many drops does that- how messed up do you have to be to take that much like it was nothing? Alicia was freaking out over two drops... Man, I don't even know why I react to this Goddess bullshit anymore. ”

Diana giggled. She let out a tension in her shoulders that she'd been holding for ages, stretching out her legs and leaning back.

“It doesn't get any better,” Diana said. “You think you've seen everything they can do something completely unexpected. My brain could use a break sometimes, you know? You, especially, Lisaseron. I know you had to take that Goddess Etiquette class multiple times but-”

Lisaseron smiled lightly, flicking a small leftover seed from her cutting board at Diana's nose. The girl's nose scrunched up when it hit.

“Hey!” Diana said. “Meanie! Bully! Assassin!”

“Is that how we speak to the woman making your dinner?”

Diana instantly quieted down.

“Mercy. I beg you, mercy O' great Goddess of the Kitchen.” Diana said.

“No begging for me?” Syraviel asked.

Diana put her hand over her mouth in mock surprise.

“Sorry, didn't see you cooking there,” Diana said.

“Even so, I demand- wait, are you bring back the jokes about my stealth?” Syraviel asked.

“Wow, I didn't notice that, Syraviel,” Diana said. “Nice one.”

“You cheeky little-”

“I can't really tell what you two are talking about,” Jack said. “Seems really hard to make out.”

Syraviel nodded for a second before her eyebrows shot up, looking at Jack as if betrayed.

“Stop, stop,” Syraviel said. “It's no fair if you two are double-teaming me.”

Diana nudged Jack's shoulder with her elbow, giving the boy a sly grin.

“That's what I used to say when it was just us three, but these horned up Goddesses weren't having any of it.”

A delicate cough sounded over by the pot.

“You seemed to enjoy it enough,” Lisaseron said.

Diana rolled her eyes.

“Enough? More like, too much! Thank God, you're here to save my fragile heterosexuality, Jack!”

Diana attached onto Jack's arm with a satisfied hum. The Goddesses both locked onto Jack at the same time. The boy felt the heat in the dome increase by ten degrees. Syraviel slunk over to Jack's only free side, resting against the boy while facing Diana.

“True,” Syraviel said. “As nice as a garden of roses is, I can't help but feel I've been missing some... meat in my diet.”

Lisaseron cleared her throat.

“Ladies, not to dampen your spirits, but despite our short break, we still have ways to go before we can truly stop.” Lisaseron said. “Given Jack's... stamina, we might find ourselves delayed longer than prudent.”

Syraviel and Diana nodded begrudgingly.

“Also, Jack, You must be quite tired, what with carrying Alicia and all the strain on your soul,” Lisaseron said. “Danger is far enough away and Alicia is holding steady for now. Take some rest, while you can. I shall wake you for dinner.

Jack nodded.

“A nap sounds amazing, right now.”

The boy felt his eyelids droop just thinking about it as his weariness caught up with him, burying him a dark, comforting warmth.

**

In the Veltuvian Plains of Licirmon, Durkham, The Ascendant Brawler, crushed a portal with his fist, while his aura scattered the remnant magic. He turned his head down, speaking into the massive rock plate armor covering his body.

“I don't like this, Fortress,” Durkham said.

Elsick, The Fortress of the Front's chuckles echoed through Brawler's armor.

“What are you talking about, Brawler?” Elsick asked. “You live for this sort of thing!”

“Pah! It's all cannon fodder!” Durkham said. “They've got to be up to something. Unless these Unceasing bastards are treating Licirmon as a dump for all the chaff they don't want.”

“Of course, Brawler,” Lisaseron's voice carried from afar. “We are not the only ones capable of playing tricks.”

Space distorted slightly and Lisaseron appeared next to the God. Her long black hair flowed despite a lack of wind and a band of black silk covered her eyes, seeming to blur reality around her face.  Spell formations several times more dense than her Divinity fragment's body shifted across her pale skin. 

“Finally, you're here,” Durkham said. “How does a space Goddess take so long to travel?”

“I have been keeping watch on the situation the whole time,” Lisaseron said. “The Unceasing would not have had the chance to pull anything untoward. My vision is quite good, you know?”

Lisaseron turned her head to look at Brawler through her blindfold, causing the God to grit his teeth.

“Easy with them eyes,” Durkham said. “When are you going to finish those body modification experiments?”

“Maybe a few more millennia of fine tuning will do it?” Lisaseron said.

“I believe you said something similar three thousand years ago,” Elsick said. “I wonder what the Head Secretariat would say if she knew your control over your gaze decreased? Were you not trying to leave the 'Mad Space Witch' title behind you?”

“That will be enough, thank you,” Lisaseron said. “Brawler, you found foul play on the Unceasing's part. Would you like to elaborate?”

“It's these portals,” Durkham said. “They've got an extra crunchiness to them. And when my aura gets inside, I can feel it wrangling with something sticky. At first, it wasn't too bad, but now my Collateral Calamity aura isn't enough to wipe it away just like that. Whatever I'm missing is building up into something.”

“Perfect,” Lisaseron said. “Let me have a look.”

As another portal opened up, Lisaseron's hands blurred, forming an array of dense magical formations that completely covered a few acres of the plains.

“Now which scoundrel are you?” Lisaseron asked. “Tearless Rain? Smoke Devil? Or are they seriously investing in this venture?”

Lisaseron forcibly stretched the portal wider, turning the magic unstable. When the portal seemed like it was about to fall apart, she inverted it, revealing the inner tunnel of the portal. The Goddess quickly analyzed the few altered sections of the portal.

“Interesting... A non-contiguous hex arrangement. Do really think you can maintain that against me?”

Lisaseron removed her blindfold. The portal instantly shattered but Lisaseron held her hand out, forcibly holding it together. Lisaseron started tracing the hex arrangement back to its caster but found it unraveling as she pushed.

“Come now,” Lisaseron said. “Do not tell me you came with such half-hearted resolve...”

When she didn't get a response, a piercing prismatic light shot of her eyes. The Goddess reached out into the Void, connecting to an arrangement of hundreds of massive offensive formations. Brawler and Fortress slowly backed away from Lisaseron as an alarmingly dense and volatile power, collected around the Goddess.

Lisaseron's searching eyes suddenly locked on a spot far above her, a scowl spreading over her face. Thousands of thick purple beams fired into the Void where she was staring. Lisaseron heard a pained grunt echo through space. Lisaseron connected to more formations, firing a dizzying barrage of attacks. An apocalyptic maelstrom of roiling space, multicolored explosions and magically charged shrapnel filled the nearby Void.

“Did you think my Licirmon is a place you can come and go freely?” Lisaseron asked. “Smoke Devil, do not leave yet. Surely you will stay and enjoy our great hospitality?”

A cold harrumph answered her as Smoke Devil hurriedly fled. Lisaseron continued to press her attack on Smoke Devil, activating many of the trapping formations she'd set up over the millennia of guarding Licirmon.

“Good,” Lisaseron said. “Let me see the infamous Smoke Devil really does wriggle like a gutless worm!”

“Void!” Elsick said. “His reinforcements approach.”

“Buy time,” Lisaseron said. “I will have my pound of flesh.”

Portals opened around them dozens of times faster than before. Lisaseron swore, detecting an aura she knew all too well. Brawler clicked his tongue.

“If it was any other formation master except him...” Durkham said.

“I will do it,” Elsick said. "This one I can handle."

Brawler's head snapped towards Fortress.

“Fortress, you can't-” Durkham started.

“Void, I hope your aim will be true.” Elsick said.

“It will.”

“Then I am the man for the job. Nobody buys time like me.”

Lisaseron created a formation at Brawler's feet.

“Brawler, stay by me until they run.” Lisaseron said. “Pool your Collateral Calamity aura into this formation, for now.”

“Got it.”

Lisaseron continued attacking Smoke Devil while a deeply troubling power spread out from the portals. 

Elsick only spared the portals a quick glance. Fortress spread his arms wide, manifesting massive stone walls to shoot out of the ground underneath each of the portals, slowing the spread of the insidious power in the portals. With a sweep of his arms, Fortress made the walls extend back to him, forming a massive web of rocky ridges in the middle of the Veltuvian Plains. The stone man's aura rose up as he put his hands on the clump of walls, making the rock shake with an indomitable defiance.

A massive translucent mountain appeared behind Fortress, solidifying for a brief moment before merging with him and the walls.

“The Unflinching Mountain Incarnates,” Elsick said.

The walls surged with a restless, irrepressible aura that pushed the power within the portals back.

“Easy now, Coffinmaker,” Elsick said. “You are letting in a draft.”

Despite having Smoke Devil pinned down, aimed strikes didn't land cleanly on the Unceasing's Eternal. So she stopped aiming. Like before, she overwhelmed the small space he was hemmed into with overwhelming firepower, forcing the damage to continually accumulate. Smoke Devil reformed and recovered his injured body again and again, panic setting into his movements. Lisaseron smirked,  gathering a mass of starlight from the sun above, turning the sky dark but except for a single brilliant vertical beam collecting in her hands. Brawler's aura wove into the starlight, turning the beam into a murky black nebula with faint miniature stars.

“Excellent. I intend to make Smoke Devil sing like a castrated-”

The portals vanished all at once, while serious pressure landed on the restrictive formations around Smoke Devil.

“Coffinmaker,” Lisaseron said. “I see that you have come to take that sneaky rat of yours and find another mission to fail. Truly, you are a feckless wretch.”

As Coffinmaker tried to free Smoke Devil from the restrictive formations, Lisaseron released black clouds around the restrictive formations.

“Wait, Void-” Elsick started.

Brawler's eyes popped open.

“You're brilliant,” Brawler said.

Lisaseron used the chaotic destructive power within the black clouds to collapse the restrictive formations on top of Smoke Devil, before Coffinmaker could pull the Eternal away.

“Void... you- you-” Elsick said. "Hold back a little..."

Lisaseron had already connected to even more formations, directing a relentless onslaught against Smoke Devil while Coffinmaker struggled to defend. Coffinmaker gained momentum, sitting back and creating formations of his own to defend but Brawler and Fortress rushed him, slowing him as he was forced to constantly dodge and recalculate. Still despite their best efforts, Coffinmaker managed to drag a charred and minced quarter of the still living Smoke Devil out of the wreckage of Lisaseron's collapsed restrictive formation.

“That worked out much better than expected,” Lisaseron said. “Excellent work, gentlemen.”

“Void,” Elsick said. “You have completely interrupted the defensive integrity of the akashic field, here.”

“Yes,” Lisaseron said. “But it's still within bounds of the plan. With myself- a formation master and you- Licirmon's foremost defensive expert, we can perform an immediate akashic field stabilization and be ready for the next part.”

Elsick sighed

“I was hoping that part was more of a worst case scenario then something you actively wrought. Nevermore, let us begin repairs before the next part of the plan unfolds. ”

**

Back in the Unceasing territory, Lisaseron added the final touches on what passed for chicken curry but with crispy fried potato wedges and a thin orange pesto. Jack and Diana looked on eagerly, their nostrils tantalized in equal parts by spice and tanginess and the rich savoury notes. Lisaseron gave them a smile

“Dinner is ready.”

Syraviel let out a sigh, watching the mortals rush headlong towards the pot. She walked over to Lisaseron.

“We both started learning cooking at the same time.” Syraviel said. “How is it that you're so much better than me?”

“I could not be sure,” Lisaseron said. “But you seem to experiment a bit more with your cooking, whereas I carefully plan each meal, keeping precise calculations for each step in mind.”

Syraviel shrugged.

“Fair, but that can't be as fun, right?”

Lisaseron looked at the smiles on Jack and Diana's faces as they shoved food into their faces with as little grace possible. The corners of her eyes crinkled up as she found her own mouth smiling unknowingly.

“It is fun in its own way.” Lisaseron said.