Rai was smacked by a dizzying nauseous sensation for a few moments before he felt a cool wind on his face. The ground beneath him wasn’t hard like marble, but a mixture of hard and soft. It was almost clay-like. In that instant he gathered as much as he could about his surroundings. Still, he was worried that he got teleported somewhere completely unknown.

Rai looked around. He was sure that he wasn’t in Aurum’s capital anymore. Why do these people keep teleporting me around like this. It’s so jarring!

The hairs on his arms singed as he instinctively dodged a purply eldritch blast that came from behind him.

“Tch! Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.” Pico’s voice came from the same direction as the blast.

Rai turned around to see Aurum’s capital off in the distance, with the Academy towering over most of the other buildings. The only other building that matched its grandeur was the Forum. He knew that to be the meeting place where people would discuss political matters. He also knew that his aunt might be there, since that's where the council had their meetings.

Pico flew towards Rai with a blade sticking out of his forearm. It was tinted green along its edge. Probably poison, Rai thought to himself. There was more than enough time to dodge, but Rai was distracted by something. He saw the symbol on Pico’s uniform was similar to the one shared by the archangels and Hiron.

Rai, no longer discombobulated from the awful teleportation spell, entered Stormflow. In an instant, he had Pico pinned to the ground. Rai tightened his grip around Pico’s face. His voice crackled, “That symbol. Are you associated with the Arbiter?”

Pico snorted, then broke out into unhinged laughter. His voice became hoarse, as if he aged multiple years right there and then. “As if it matters to a dead man walking!” His eyes started glowing a mix of purple and green. “I’ll kill you in his name, and my family will rise because of it! Hahaha, the one who embarrassed his sons felled by my hand! What an honour. It’s been nice knowing you, rat.” Pico’s veins took on the same unnerving glow as his eyes.

Rai knew he had to dodge this. Pico’s body was transforming unnaturally, into something with absurd destructive force. If he dodged, the explosion would probably cause a huge commotion. Rai quickly looked around to see if there were any settlements that could be damaged if the transformation went off, and found none. They were in a barren area, with no life other than the swaying golden grass on the ground.

Rai zoomed out of what he assumed to be the blast radius. Pico’s body exploded. There were, however, no guts or organs, or muscles or skin tissue anywhere. It was a purely magical explosion. A screen of dust separated the two of them.

Rai couldn’t see through, but he felt something was off. How did he explode without any physical changes... Something isn't right.

Through the quiet, Rai listened carefully. There were sounds of the ground being shovelled. Dirt had a very unique sound when it was ripped up from the ground like this. Rai would know, since he lived on a farm. Following the uncanny sound, more varied sounds pierced Rai’s ears.

Clack. Clang. Click.

The sound of rattling? Weapons clanged against something hard. More sounds came from beyond the dust. Sounds of ripping skin, gurgles, moans and groans.

A voice that was uniquely not Pico’s broke the eerie atmosphere. Only to make it more eerie. “Ahhhh...” The voice echoed on itself. It felt like it was layered with a gruesome veil of mana. “That boy’s body was enhanced to this point? Mmh. How very satisfying. So very satisfying. A worthy sacrifice.” He sounded like he was drowning in ecstasy, in joy, in relief. It was perverted, in a way.

Rai felt goosebumps. The voice was so creepy that he felt more terrified than anything prior had made him feel.

After a series of relieving moans, the voice piped up once more in a curious tone. “Hmm? The contract is this simple? I get a new body, and it only costs a single life? He wants me to kill this kid, then go and show the body to his family for proof, then I can go off and do whatever I want?” The dust began to dissipate.

Rai saw flashes of a body heaving back and forth... in laughter? The unique presence was disturbing in how it moved. “Ohh... How wonderful. This possession is to be wonderfully enjoyable.”

The dust evaporated in an instant.

Multiple pairs of eyes immediately shifted, all focusing on Rai. The glowing eyes, other than the ones possessing Pico’s body, were embedded in the heads of the dead.

Rai was bombarded with a grotesque smell that nearly made him puke as soon as it met his nose. It was decay. These bodies were ones that were buried here previously, and they’d awoken once more. The Undead. He hadn't heard much of them, only that necromancy was typically frowned upon. His aunt gave him the impression that necromancy could be useful at some points, but most of the time it was only used as a means to evil ends.

Each of the undead had its own unique gory appearance, with their bodies all having decayed over time. Some were missing limbs and had rotten bone stumps in their place; some had torn skin revealing their innards which had been all but eaten by maggots. The worst of them were the ones that hadn’t completely decayed, with intestines hanging out of their open bellies.

They stood motionless. If Rai was to count, there would be more than twenty of them. They simply stood there, staring at him.

Possessed Pico softly giggled to himself while staring directly at Rai. “You’re... not weak.” His giggles grew louder and louder, “Oh I’m so excited. You’re not weak, so you can fight right? Tell me you can fight! Ahh how satisfying it would be if you could also fight. I wouldn’t feel good about killing a weakling.”

It hit him. Rai was in a life or death situation. Something was possessing Pico’s body and it truly wanted to kill him. He threw away the sparring sword. Possessed Pico stared at him, mostly out of curiosity.

Rai called forth Ghost.

Possessed Pico’s eyes widened. His giggles turned into squeals of perverted joy. “Oh. Ohhh! Oh yes. You will do just perfectly.” It looked like he took a moment to think about something. “I’ve decided. You’re to be my slave. A slave should know its master’s name. You can call me #^#’;@’#;[]”

Rai felt a terrible ringing pain when the possessed Pico tried to say his name. The name itself was blocked out, and replaced with a horrid noise.

“Ah... So you are weak.” The morbid satisfaction drained away from his cold voice. “A pity.”

Even in Stormflow, Rai couldn’t see him move.

Possessed Pico was in front of him. Rai felt a tight sensation in his chest. He looked down to see Pico’s arm inside him. Rai coughed blood onto Pico’s arm.

What... just... did he?

The world began fading from his view. But... I didn’t get to say goodbye. Mum... Sin... Jin... The last thing Rai could feel was a cold and wet sensation on his cheeks, before he hit the ground with a thud.

 

---

 

Nothing. Emptiness abound in the abyss. Only the cold sensation of death.

In the eyes of those who walked the mortal plain, death was an ending. However. To those who have transcended their mortal bounds, death was nothing but a nuisance.

The threads of your future are unreadable, even for me. That is why you must hurry. For you to fall now is your current fate. A fate that you brought on yourself. I will do what I can, but the rest is on you. After this... you will be on your own.

Please.

You must make it here.

Find the key.

Transcending is the only way...

 

---

 

Rai’s eyes opened. He scrambled to his feet... I’m not dead?

“Not yet.” A serene voice came from his side. It was the same as the one from when he fought against the archangels.

Rai turned to see Zenith in its entirety, once more.

Only, this time...

It was shattered.

The entire world, broken into shards of molten rock. Rai was shocked. “What...”

The voice, which was more feminine now than it was before, answered before he finished asking. “This is what will happen to the world if you fall here.”

Rai was breathless. Then, he remembered. He looked down at his chest. The hole was still there. This was the first time that he saw his own insides. He was fairly certain that he didn’t enjoy the view.

The tranquil voice seemed to laugh, if it could even do that. “You’ll live, but only if you can kill him.”

Rai turned to the body of galaxies that was stood next to him. They were clearly looking towards Zenith, in its broken state. “I’ve... I’ve never killed anyone before...” Rai looked down at his hands, which were matted with his own blood. “I don’t want to die.”

The tranquil voice took on a motherly tone, “If you wish to live, you have to kill. That is part of the truth of the world, part of the truth of life.” It seemed to sigh, somehow, “Your enemy is not a mortal being. It is neither human, elf, nor dwarf. Neither is it divine. Nay, it is a Daemon.”

Rai’s ears perked up at the term he’d never heard before, “What’s a Daemon?”

The celestial body shimmered. “Time is short once more. I can stop your bleeding, but you have to release it all. If you don’t then you’ll lose! The Undead are the conduits! You must-”

Rai was back on the ground. The bleeding was stopped, but there was still a hole in his chest, and a puddle of his own blood just under his body. He looked to see Pico prancing back towards his Undead horde. Pico caressed each of their faces, treating them as if they were his toys.

Rai had to make a decision now. The voice said that the Undead were some kind of conduits, so he decided that he would wipe them out first. There was a sharp pain in his chest when he tried to enter Stormflow, but he pushed through it anyway. He grabbed Ghost from the ground next to where he fell, and attempted something he never thought of trying before.

He imbued Ghost with Antithesis. Or at least, he tried to. It failed. Ghost wasn’t designed to work with mana that flowed in the opposite direction the mana channels were designed to flow in. Welp. It was worth a try. He imbued Ghost with lightning instead. The windows into the blade’s mana channels lit up with a bright white crackling energy.

Rai acted without hesitation. He bolted from one Undead to another, slicing their heads off. He felt bad about desecrating dead bodies, but he had no choice here. In an instant, he’d sliced all of the Undeads’ heads. Rai returned to where he rose, and waited for the heads to drop.

Pico stopped prancing, but it was already too late. The heads of all of the Undead around him dropped to the ground in unison. The rest of their bodies followed.

For the first time since he possessed Pico’s body, the voice wavered. “No... No nonono NOO! YOU DESTROYED MY CONDUITS!”

Rai wasn’t sure what he meant, but he recognised the panic in possessed Pico’s voice.

Possessed Pico started scratching himself all over, breaking down into a nervous wreck. “The conduits... they multiply my power...” He whipped Pico's head around by 180 degrees, and glared at Rai. “You! You took them! I’ll kill you again!” The voice came out with pure venom. In his rage, he used all of the enhancements in Pico’s body and flew at Rai, flailing wildly. By using the augmented tools that erupted from Pico's body, his uniform ripped. It revealed that most of Pico's body was augmented.

Rai was surprised that he could just about keep up, but he couldn’t stop the onslaught of magical artifacts that were attached to Pico’s body. Each of them were embedded with magical gems, and parts of his body had gems embedded in his skin.

Multiple spells flew at Rai, point blank. It was all he could do to just about dodge and deflect them. There was no time to get a counterattack in.

Rai tried using Antithesis on the spells, but he couldn’t realistically negate all of the spells flying at him while also maintaining Stormflow. Ghost was holding strong, which gave him confidence in his own defence while he quickly tried to think about what to do.

If his body works primarily through magical means, then maybe I can just...

Rai formed a plan. He had to use Antithesis on Pico’s body. The onslaught never stopped. Rai saw, through the corner of his eye, the Undead were moving again. If they reconnected their heads to their bodies, then Rai would probably die again.

Rai quickly pushed Pico back with a blast of wind and lightning. He was paralyzed from the electric shock.

Rai channelled all of his unsealed mana into the spell. Antithesis was at the most powerful he could currently muster. He aimed for it to encompass all of Pico’s body, and negate any and all mana flowing through it.

Black lightning combusted on Pico’s body, engulfing him entirely.

Poof.

With a dying fizzle, the black lightning dissipated into the air, and Pico’s paralysis faded. He was furious.

To make matters worse, Stormflow fizzled out. There was no more mana to draw from, Rai was completely spent. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck shit! What do I do now!? The hole in his chest grew tighter and tighter. He knew the bleeding would start up again. He had little time left.

Rai couldn’t win. Not like this.

A whisper in the air. He felt it was the same type that helped him overcome his mental hurdle earlier against the second years.

Release... it all...

Rai snapped. “FUCK IT!”

He unleashed all of the mana from his seals.