On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Four Hundred And Fifty-Seven

I was soon joined by two of the golden golems my sis sent over. I still found it both awkward and somehow amusing that they seemed to resemble my girlfriends, which did make me wonder about my sister’s sanity sometimes. I guess she has always liked poking fun at me, and she laments that the old jokes don’t work anymore. Maybe this is just some new sibling teasing? Oh well, it is performance that matters. These two were Shaeula, though on a larger scale of course, being some six feet tall, and she was carrying a heavy golden staff, while the other was Asha, wielding a wicked double-headed axe, in extremely bad taste, considering she was a Dryad whose other half was a tree.

“Oh hey bro!” My sis spoke out over the equipment on the Shaeula golem, a wireless speaker under the camera around her chest. “This is pretty crazy, how does technology like this even work here?”

“I wish I knew.” I laughed, still having never resolved why I often felt breathless here, despite not needing to breathe, and not even being truly sure if there was even air in the Boundary. No, there’s an analogue, as some of my previous attacks have shown. “But that aside…”

“I know.” My sis replied, now all serious. “It’s the crunch time now. We can’t let her get away, right? She’s too dangerous. And also, cornered rats bite, right?”

“Yes.” I agreed. “That’s my concern. She just can’t ignore my incursion. Although the question is, just how much does she know? She’s been stuck playing a warped version of the greater struggle Earth is facing here, so she might not fully be aware of how Conqueror works. But I have to assume she does. If so… she can’t just slip away like you fear, or else the loss of her Anchor will ruin her when I destroy it.”

“Yeah, that’s too easy. Nothing goes that way for you, does it bro?” my sis said over the wireless. We were moving deeper into the shadowy building and could hear the occasional scuttling of creatures down the distant, twisting corridors which seemed to be longer and turn in directions that shouldn’t have been possible, often descending. Worse, the walls were damp, and the floor was slippery, covered in a thin sheet of ice that shimmered under the dark lights of the torches and lanterns spluttering around us. The footing is terrible, but I’m sure that’s not the point. The ice is probably laced with her water too.

“No, though if I say I’ve been unlucky, I’ll probably get divine retribution. I’ve had my struggles, but in adversity we’ve always found opportunity. And this is no different.” I took a moment to speak to my sis seriously. “I picked up a Favour from one of the dead. It’s an archery one, and it also involves sunlight. I’m almost certain it’d be a good fit for you.”

The golden statues stopped and there was silence, before Aiko let out a long humming sound. “Wow, cheers bro. You’re always thinking of me. You truly are the king of brocons, but I don’t hate it. You know…” I imagined she was biting her lips as she watched the cameras and listened to me. “…before, I’d have ripped your hand off for it, bro. But now… is it fair, taking it? What about those who need one and don’t have one? Besides… I competed against Shaeula’s brother, and I intend to do so again. With my own talents, not those cribbed from some God. Get me?”

I did. Yeah, that’s just like you sis, confident in your sporting, and now I guess in your combat talents. And you’re kind too. “Don’t regret it then, okay? But if I can’t find anyone for it soon, then it’d be a waste me breaking it down, you’ll get it then.”

“Wow, sure. Makes sense. Waste not, want not. But… no, I doubt it’s suitable for Eri, she’s not the brightest of girls, more like the moon than the sun. Motoko and Natsumi, maybe. Though they lack sunlight, but… if I work Ren-kun hard and help out myself, we can make it work, maybe? Or then there’s Bell-chan and Teare-chan.” Teare-chan? That’s a new one…

We rounded the corner of one corridor that sloped sharply downwards into the bowels of the earth, and we discovered that instead of the building we were in before, it opened into a large cavern, stalactites and stalagmites forming toothy jaws in all directions, the obsidian ground slick with water and ice, droplets falling from above. As I carefully explored the underground area, feeling the abnormally high ether density, the golden golems followed me, my sis still talking. “Hinata-chan’s no good, she’s got no combat sense at all, poor girl. Hey, even Ren-kun could probably take it if I beat some archery into him, but… you’d rather give it to someone close to you, right?” she said shrewdly, and I couldn’t lie.

“Of course. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I want every one of you to have a Favour eventually. If I manage to get hold of enough, then even mom, father, uncle and auntie, the families of the girls… but such is clearly impossible.”

“Yeah, seems a long shot.” My sis agreed. “But as you no doubt learnt from me…” I could hear the smile in her voice, despite her obvious exhaustion. “…training and practice never betray you. Whether they get Favours or not, everyone’s growing in their own way. And we’ll continue to do so. So… uh, we got off-topic a bit. If she doesn’t run, then she’ll have to defend the Territory, right? In which case you’ll grab her in the Material. I’d say she’s screwed either way.”

“Yeah, but if she’s pragmatic, she’ll drop into the Territory, deconstruct it and then flee in the Material.” I tried to imagine the thought process of someone clearly so cunning and ruthless, despite her tender age. “It’s not something anyone can do, start over, but if it’s that or lose everything…” I looked around at the cavern, which was vast and expansive. Faint trickles of spatial energy, fizzing violet sparks, were drifting around, and while they were impure and weak, I drew them in to replenish my stocks as best I could. “…then it’s better to live to fight another day. Damn, this is a great place to hide an Anchor. I could learn from this. My first Anchor was in a stupid spot, and while Shirohebizumi has a lot of advantages, it’s also a bit too vulnerable and close to the Ring Gates for my peace of mind.”

“Yeah, got to think about my own Territory as well.” My sis said. “I thought it was going to be Nishimorioka, but with that Oni guarding it for now…”

In comparison to the relatively relaxed stroll I was having through the Boundary, the Material was more stressful. As I followed the map towards the broadcasting room, some of the sights were enough to make me glad that nobody was with me here. Bloodstains were common, splattering walls, windows and floor alike, and under some collapsed rubble I could smell something truly foul, and flies were buzzing lazily around, squirming into the rocks. Disgusted, I let a faint surge of flame element free, just enough to incinerate the buzzing pests.

There were traps too, more wire traps linked to buckets and extinguishers, as well as some nastier traps designed to kill or maim, such as piano wire carefully oiled and stretched at neck height in particularly badly lit halls, and one that dropped shot-puts from the ceiling, their heavy mass easily enough to crack skulls and break bones, though I merely swatted them aside. My Eye spotted several explosive traps as well, though none were as crude as the flammable trap I had encountered earlier.

Still, progress was swift, and I soon reached the bridge to the final building, though as I began to cross it, I was confronted by a half-dozen men and women, older than me, wearing ragged police and military uniforms, their faces hollowed out and vacant, eyes lacking lucidity. They were all holding weapons, rifles, pistols and one even had a grenade launcher, in mirror to my own. Old blood was staining them, only washed off by their sweat, leaving it in strange whorls like warpaint, and they halted my advance, weapons raised. So, this is her welcoming committee, is it? Not a bad place for it, Though I can retreat… That was belied by an explosion behind me, several very well-hidden batches of explosives detonating, collapsing the ceiling, blocking me in. The glass corridor trembled, swaying alarmingly, some snaps and splinters giving me pause, but if I fell three stories I wouldn’t even notice, so I wasn’t concerned by that. Water was cascading down from broken pipes, starting to spread into the tunnel, and so I wanted to finish matters quickly.

Gunfire erupted, rifles barking, and it was hard to dodge in such an unfavourable space. “Damn, she sure knows how to use her pawns to best effect.” I snorted, bitterly impressed. “But…” Brigandine was more than able to handle it, being far stronger than ordinary body armour and I was grateful I had it in both worlds. Though not because it’s protecting me from injury. These… are pretty pathetic.

Impacts rocked me, but that was all they were. Impacts. I still felt I could be taken down with enough firepower, I wasn’t naïve to consider myself invincible, but even back when the yakuza and US Agents attacked, I was able to take hits to my body from small-arms fire and only suffer cuts and bad bruising. It seems like years ago, but it was only a few months. Now I was far sturdier, and my League was always growing, so I simply waded through the gunfire, just protecting my eyes with one hand. Though it’s hard to get over the ingrained fear of guns, and then there’s that…

The man with the grenade launcher opened fire, and as the shell arched towards me, light flashed, shattering the dirty window beside him, and a gust of wind blew the projectile out. It exploded, and more glass shattered, and one section slid down, impaling a firing soldier in the leg, nearly severing it, but other than grimacing in agony and blanching white, he continued to shoot at me, heedless of his draining blood. Two more grenades leapt out at me, but I swept them outside too, and I was upon the mind-controlled victims, too fast for them to process. They tried to fight, but I quickly subdued them as best I could, and with more wire from the assortment of musical instruments I had come across earlier, I bound them, while doing some basic Healing, to prevent them from dying.

“Honestly, I’m not sure that you’ll make it. Or that we can restore your minds.” I said bitterly as I tied the last one up, a policewoman, who might have been cute if she wasn’t so dead-eyed and skeletal. “But at least you’ll have a chance.” The glass tunnel was wrecked, one end blocked and leaking water, which was falling through cracks in the floor like a small waterfall, while one wall and the ceiling was open to the sky, a cold breeze blowing. “Shiro, I’ve found more survivors, adults. But they are in a bad way.”

“Got it. We’ll send some weaselkin to try and extract them when you move on, and take them to the Room, where they can get medical attention. Stay safe!” she replied, and as I entered the new annex, I searched for further obstacles to my advance, Eye shining…

In the Boundary, my sis had chattered on about what she wanted her Territory to be like, keeping the mood light-hearted, which helped. My Resilience was working to dampen my revulsion and sorrow, of course, but seeing the blood and remains of so many kids the same age as her or even younger was something I never wished to experience again. Though sorrowfully, I knew that was a forlorn hope. “...so yeah, I’ll focus on bringing in the ether. Since you’ll be protecting me, right?” she finished, as we reached the centre of the massive cavern. She stopped talking, obviously impressed by what she saw over the cameras, a large lake, several hundred metres across, with plumes of orange elemental energies soaring up into the air and then cascading down again, like repeating golden streams. A number of elegant, curled spires, made from silver and amber jewels, stood around the edge of the lake, and the ether density had increased and was now on a par with Kyoto.

“Pretty. I wish I could see it with my own eyes.” My sis breathed out a sigh. “But then, you’re going to wreck it, right bro?”

“Afraid so.” I said, Storming Moonlight slicing the first Ether Spire apart, shattering it. “Though that begs the question, where’s the Anchor… oh.” My Eye peered through the curtain of orange light, and into the crystal-clear waters that seemed tinged almost blue, only to see something twinkling down below, shining to my Eye. “Wow, that’s clever!” I reflectively mimicked my sister. “No wonder this Territory was able to stand against the other one. This is a way more favourable position.”

“Down there, is it? Hey, want me to send in a Sister to take a look? Safety first, right?” she sniggered, and I nodded, so the Shaeula lookalike stepped forwards, while the Asha one swung her axe, and after a number of blows a Spire shattered, while I cut down several more. With the Sister dropping into the water, my sis grumbled for a moment, before adjusting the inputs. “That’s better. Yeah, we’re sinking like a stone. This lake must be hundreds of metres deep. Awesome! And there’s definitely something big down here, I can see a Spire… uh and…” There was a flash of blue and white, and my sis let out a cry. “Damn bro, poor Golden Shaeula just got bit near-in-half. I managed to get a hit in, I think, but under water the power would have been…” Her words were cut off as a great head burst from the lake, still biting down on the image of Shaeula, curved fangs piercing the gold, until with a growl, it snapped through, legs and torso separating, before aether scattered.

“Oops, there goes more equipment. Don’t bill me, bro, it’s a business expense, right?” she joked through the wireless speak on the Asha, though her tone was awestruck. “So… that’s a dragon, right?”

“No, not a dragon. A Wyrm. Kind of like a wyvern, I guess, just more Eastern?” It was bigger than the one Shaeula, Grulgor and I had fought back at the start of our acquaintance, and the white scales were tinted blue. Opening a mouth easily big enough to swallow even a troll whole, it fixed an angry gaze on me, as if seeing me as a threat.

“Okay, so who would put their Anchor in the lair of a Wyrm?” my sis asked, only to regret it as her voice drew attention. The Wyrm took a deep breath, water element swirling in like an orange maelstrom, fortifying the shining aetheric energy it was gathering.

“Over here, jackass!” I called, focussing light down to as fine a beam as I could, almost invisible as the indigo shaded to violet, then invisible ultra-violet. The Wyrm screamed, one eyeball bursting, hot liquid sizzling, and its breath went wide, blasting a great groove in the cavern, an eruption of hot steam rising, bathing me and the Golden Sister in a searing embrace. Ouch, warm!

“I can’t see anything. The camera was waterproof, but not… not dragon-proof!” my sis complained. “You still fine bro, you must be, right?”

“Yeah, just leave it to me. Huh…” My Eye detected the answer to her earlier question, and it was one that I expected. As the Wyrm whipped one massive foot at me, talons like broadswords sweeping towards me, I ducked under them, and using the Wyrm’s blind spot, I thrust, blade piercing deep. I wrenched the blade free, and Foehn flared as I poured what I had left into the bleeding wound, the hungry fires eagerly soaking inside and spreading over the scales, blazing merrily, making the wyrm scream, hurting my ears a little.

“By the sound… here maybe?” my sis had her Asha swinging the axe, and landed several blows, striking faint gashes in the scales, before it batted the statue into the lake, where it sank without trace. The momentary distraction allowed me to fire rocky projectiles at the Wyrm, striking the blinded eye, squeezing out more blood and pus, making it bellow in enraged fury.

“So, she adulterated the water, huh? And therefore you’re her little pet and Anchor guard? Pretty impressive. So, come on then!” I waved my sword, its one good eye narrowing balefully as it behld me, the pest that had wounded it twice. “Compared to that piece of … well, Akoman, I guess, from what my Eye said… earlier, you’re nothing but an overgrown snake!”

The Wyrm was powerful, yes, but the sort of power one could find in the lower Astral aplenty. There was no reason for me to fear him, as long as I kept my calm. As it drew in water element for another breath attack, the Water of Morana also being drawn in, I realised the actual genius of this scheme, as my Spirt Water was surging within me, constantly expelling dark mist. Citrine flame flickered, burning away the mist around me in a brilliant circle, and then my remaining darkness element surged, squeezing myself dry to form another Prominence Dusk, the vivid ring of darkness surrounded by a second halo of light illuminating the cave filled with fog and steam. “Although if it wasn’t me, I don’t see how anyone would get to the Anchor without being controlled by Morana’s Water. You’re sucking it in every time to go for a breath, and swimming in that…” I nodded at the great lake. “…strikes me as an awful plan.”

As the Wyrm roared angrily in reply, blind eye weeping and Foehn burning in the gash I had cut in him, I waited for my opportunity to strike back, while in the Material, I had reached my destination, the long hallway where the broadcasting room, principal’s office and several other key facilities lurked. Those traps continued to be annoying, but they were no match for me. I had avoided them all, especially when a certain other condition was present, and now I stepped forwards to the heavy, soundproof door and twisted the handle. Obviously it was locked, but as I rattled it, I knew the one inside would be listening. True to form, moments later the wall-mounted speaker above the door crackled with static, before a frantic voice came from it.

“Stay back! I… I won’t go quietly! I have a knife!” the voice of a young girl, melodious and cute, though the words were tremulous, laced with fear, and in English. “I’ll stab you to death! Or if that won’t work, I’ll… I’ll kill myself! I won’t go into the hands of those blood-crazed monsters, and I won’t be one of her slaves! I’d rather die!” she declared weakly.

Turning my attention to the speaker, I pointed, and a green light changed to red, and a second light lit green, so I addressed it. “I see. Then you’re in luck, as I’m not with them. I’ve been sent to secure all the survivors and take them to safety. Though I’m the only one left.” I put on an aggrieved face. “There are traps everywhere, explosives and all sorts of nasty water traps. I would have said those were just pranks before this, but…” my expression changed to one of sadness. “…I saw what happened to those who got touched by water or blood. I’m fortunate I take my appearance and cleanliness seriously and have been avoiding getting wet before that.”

There was a long silence, before the lights blinked again. “Yes, that… that is fortunate.” She agreed. “I’ve seen it all myself, lived through it. It was terrible, terrible! So… you’ll really save me? Take me away from here? Are you strong then? Some of the others who came to save us claimed to be, but the two siblings, they… they killed some and the others became slaves. Those of us who hid, we were like trapped animals.” Her tone was impassioned now, full of anger. “The stronger turned on the weaker, and we were just food, or an outlet for sorrow and anger. I… barely managed to escape to here, where I’ve been holed up for a while. So… do you promise? Do you promise to save me?”

I waited for the lights to change, before nodding slowly. “I’ll take you out of here, I promise.” I declared, and with that, the locked door made a clicking noise, and I slowly pulled the handle, the heavy door sliding open with a dull groan, scraping along the floor…