Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 189

Chapter 189: Lysette's Reclamation

The pale form of Asterion stood back up, rubbing his jaw slightly as he turned back to face Lysette.  His face was stoic, unflinching as the two stared each other down, before he broke out into a slight smirk.

“Your efforts are commendable, demon child.  But they are fruitless.  Aimarion will know peace.  It will know the security of order everlasting!  For good, for all, to ensure that the War of the Gods is brought to an end, I shall strike you down right here, right now, and bring your futile attempts at chaos to a permanent end!”

“I already told your acolyte this, so-called All-Seeing Eye.  But since your ego is apparently crowding out your brain, I will reiterate it.  The people of Aimarion don’t want to be ruled by a tyrant.  We don’t want any order borne from a single all-powerful deity stamping out free will from on high.  We want a true freedom, one not dependent on the graces of gods who care not for our lives, who’ve long since forgotten their humanity, if they ever had it in the first place.”

“You silly, petulant girl.  You think I don’t know the suffering of my people?  You think I am so heartless that I do not weep at the deaths of my followers over countless millennia?  No, it is precisely because I understand such grief, have seen such horror, such bloodshed that I am willing to set my pain aside for the sake of Aimarion as a whole.”

“Then why not sacrifice yourself?  If you truly feel that way, then lay down your own life for the sake of peace.  Don’t force others to die for your own ambitions!”

“I am doing this world a kindness, Godslayer.”  Asterion’s specter spoke the word with the same inflection and vitriol as the former Chancellor had.  The same venomous contempt.  “You don’t know what’s happened to this world already because of this war.  It must end, at any cost.”

“It must.  That we agree on.  But attempting to dominate the inhabitants of Aimarion into submission will only lead to ruin.  And I will not let Aimarion be destroyed a second time!”

“A second–?”

Asterion’s words were cut off by Lysette, who used the momentary break in the moon god’s concentration to charge forward, pummeling his gut with two successive punches.  She wrapped his forearms in shadow, and when he tried to repel her vise grip, she countered the distortion with an opposing one, maintaining her hold as she impaled him directly through the gut.

He retched and hurled as he finally overpowered Lysette’s technique, releasing himself from her grip and forcing himself back up.  A couple of drops of moonlight-colored blood dripped onto his robes before the wound staunched, then healed nearly as fast as her own regeneration.  He shook his head as he spoke.

“So you know about the Aestori.  About our greatest mistake.  Then you should know how imperative stopping this war is more than any but those gods which were around at the time!”

“The war does need to end.  But it cannot end through strength of arms.”

“No.  Your ideals are foolish and naive.  Aimarion needs a single ruler who can guide this world, one who can lead with enlightened wisdom and bring this war-torn land into a better future.”

“It needs the freedom to choose for itself!  And even if that’s the path Aimarion does choose, it needs to do so of its own volition, not have that choice forced upon it from above.”

Asterion smirked.  “You are a fool.  And not just with your ideals.  After wounding me, you would give me valuable time to recuperate and ready myself once more.  It is a mistake you will pay for with your life.”

He charged once more at Lysette, and Lysette matched his speed.  The two’s fists flew toward one another in what seemed like slow motion, so quick had Lysette’s mental calculations become with yet more prayers infusing her with strength.  Their fists continued on trajectories toward one another, but Lysette saw the feint for what it was.  Asterion was going to teleport.

She needed to figure out where.  He probably suspected Lysette had some sort of omnidirectional sight, and behind was too obvious a choice.  The sides were even worse— neither as difficult to spot nor evade.  That left above or below.  Unless…

Why make a puzzle that has a chance of success when you can just… not do that?  Those were the words she thought while she was trying to solve the puzzle of his shrine.  And if that maxim still held, then his attack wouldn’t come from any direction at all.  All of them at once?  None at all?  Not outside, but–

Lysette teleported an instant before Asterion’s fist teleported into the space where Lysette’s stomach had been the moment before.  She blinked out a second time, this time narrowly missing Asterion’s head.  And the battle raged on with the two combatants teleporting back and forth in rapid succession.  Here in Lysette’s soulspace, the teleportation didn’t tear at her metaphysical body, nor did it permanently eat at her Essence reserves.  But it did still drain her stamina as did any other Cultivation technique, and she was feeling the fatigue.

The one small saving grace was that, unlike before, Asterion’s visage was also moving a bit sluggishly compared with bore.  His attacks hit harder than Lysette’s, and he had far more experience with moving about in rapid succession.  But Lysette was able to hold her own thanks to the continual influx of prayers providing her with vitality and motivation to continue through the searing pain building in every muscle group.

She continued through the pain, even as her calves threatened rebellion against her divine will and her fists refused to clench to their fullest extent.  Instead, she summoned four shadow tentacles out of her back to coordinate attacks more effectively, giving her arms and legs brief moments to rest in-between teleports.

The attacks on both sides continued with unrelenting fury.  Lysette’s shadows attempted to land a decisive blow through Asterion’s defenses, but she was unable to inflict more than a split-second staggering that he easily recovered from.  And Lysette was feeling immense mental strain. The combination of multiple teleports in quick succession all while controlling her shadows and making the mental calculations necessary to effectively fight her nemesis’s projection all added up.  And even her demigoddess brain and its multiple independent consciousnesses failed to fully relieve the strain.

With her stamina perilously low and her opponent seeming to still have plenty of energy left, Lysette decided to risk everything on a final gambit.  Asterion was barreling down at Lysette from above, his left fist full of pale moonlight, ready to slam into her backside.  She could have teleported out of the way, but in her desperation, she waited as the attack came closer.  It inched toward her, every instant feeling like an eternity, but even so, Lysette didn’t jump.

Twelve inches.  Then nine, then six, and Lysette didn’t make any attempt at dodging.  If Asterion used his spacetime manipulation to damage her incorporeal state, she’d be finished, her psyche destroyed by the teleportation matrix.  She thought of Mirae, pictured their smiling face, their gorgeous, handsome figure, heard their distant, yet vibrant and cheery voice providing soft words of encouragement.  Remembered their promise to spend eternity together, and resolved to protect her love from the grief they’d know should she fail.

Three inches away and Lysette felt the searing sensation of light on her back.  The intensity of the light only built up as three inches became two, then one.  But Lysette, strength failing but resolve never stronger, bit through the pain.  She’d become far too acclimated to agonizing sensations between her ordeals in the Aestori sanctum, in addition to both times she’d grafted divine artifacts into her body.  She winced ever so slightly, and as a half inch became a quarter inch, she dissolved the impact site and scurried it out of the way.

Her gambit paid off, stunning Asterion’s astral projection for a mere instant, but long enough for Lysette to teleport just behind him and pierce him through the heart.  Recalling his earlier taunt, she continued unrelenting, piercing and slashing at the projection’s body over and over again.  She attacked with ever greater alacrity and force, continuing her punishing blows to ensure that no amount of regeneration would be able to keep up with the damage she had inflicted.

The light from those hollow, pupil-less eyes faded as the visage’s body slumped over.  Lysette still sensed Essence— Divine and ordinary alike— within the construct, and so continued smashing away at it, ensuring that no trace of Asterion’s lingering will remained intact.  As the specter broke apart and reformed into the monolith it had once been, an eerie, haunting cackle filled the entirety of Lysette’s soulspace.

“Though you may have bested my lingering will within my scepter, demon who was once human, you will never again know peace.  Your path will be stained with blood, your hopes will crumble and break, and your people will die one by one.  Only through submission and acceptance of your fate will you know solace in your final days.”

Lysette took a deep breath and let out a scoff.  “Same to you, asshole.  We’ll settle things in person soon enough.”

She dissolved the partition protecting her Garden and Tree and, with a mental command, focused on her teleportation matrix once more.  But now, instead of being grafted onto her physical flesh, it was now present within her Spark as well.

Although she hadn’t realized it until now, there was a small shrub growing off to the side of Lysette’s garden.  It was about half Lysette’s height and trimmed into a shape much like the Periapt of Stability.  Opposite her garden was another shrub, this one trimmed into a perfect cube like the monolith from earlier, except for the glyph carved into the upper face.  Lysette placed her hand over the shrub, and the glyph glowed in a soft blacklight.

She smiled, feeling the impulse to teleport now firmly at her beck and call.  She had dominated the glyph, bent it to her will, and forced it into attunement with her body.  And she knew both that she could teleport without pain, as well as without expending the tremendous amount of Essence such a jump would have taken before.  And so, her task complete, she let out one last sigh and let her sensations again flow outside to the material world.

She looked around, and as she moved about, the other four roused from their silent prayers still echoing in her mind and stared at her with a mixture of confusion and awe.

“Are you okay?” Lilia asked.  “It sounded like you were in so much pain.”

“I am.  And I was.  And lastly, I want to thank all of you.”

With some effort, she reestablished the telepathic link Mirae had left open.  “And you, love.  And everyone else in Ciricu.”

“Were you successful, Lyse?”

“I was.  We’ll be there shortly.”

“So,” Kiarra said, her scowl still firmly intact.  “Are we going to get out of here now?  Or are you just going to leave us to our fate?”

“Of course, Kiarra.  Lilia, Gerald, Nicholas, grab onto me.  We’re going to teleport.”

“T–  Teleport?” Nicholas said with exasperation.  “Such a technique exists?”

“It’s the ability of a divine artifact I’ve acquired.  But now’s not the time to go into such details.”

“Is–  Is it safe?” Lilia asked.

“As safe as I can make it.  Are you four ready?”

They nodded in unison and placed their hands on Lysette’s shoulders, Kiarra and Nicholas on her left, and Lilia and Gerald on her right.  Lysette took a deep breath and gathered all of her remaining strength.  Reality bent and twisted, and in an instant, the five had vanished.

Chapter 188: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110762800

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/table-of-101896170

Chapter 190: https://www.patreon.com/posts/111216636