Divine Apostasy Book 12 - Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Ruwen didn’t move. Harmonic Sight revealed the leprechauns’ dense harmonies hadn’t unraveled and he hadn’t received any quest updates. It meant despite their headless bodies, these leprechauns remained alive.

The dagger-wielding scout Ruwen had just beheaded vanished and reappeared behind him, the blade already in motion. His Divine reflexes and years of Bamboo Viper training activated.

In a fluid motion, Ruwen turned and shifted his hips away from the blade's arc. To his surprise, the leprechaun had shrunk to around eighteen inches and the dagger no longer aimed for his back. Instead, the leprechaun slashed at Ruwen’s knees, the force of the dagger’s motion creating a whooshing sound loud enough to overcome the noise of falling water.

Ruwen altered his rotation and cartwheeled over the now smaller leprechaun, landing behind the attacker. With a basic front kick, he punted the small green creature. Instead of sending the leprechaun hurtling through the air it vaporized into a green mist.

Ten feet away, the mist coalesced into two nine-inch leprechauns which were mirror copies of the original.

“What the actual hell,” Ruwen muttered, repeating the phrase he’d learned from Echo.

Twenty feet past the two mini leprechauns, stood another mirror copy, this one eighteen inches tall. It had formed from the decapitated head, just like the two mini ones in front of him had formed from the body. Before he’d killed it again.

As if confirming Ruwen’s fears, the two nine inch leprechauns leaped at each other and merged becoming a single eighteen-inch leprechaun, which promptly teleported to the other eighteen inch copy. In a blink, the original three-foot leprechaun stared back at Ruwen, an evil grin on its face.

Hey Lir, what do you know about leprechauns? Short version, please.

Ruwen entered Last Breath again as Lir responded.

Lore suggests leprechauns appear where nature and greed intersect. Some believe burying a coin in the earth causes a leprechaun to sprout and guard it. They are mischievous thieves obsessed with hoarding value.

Any idea how to kill one?

Iron is cited most often. Legends also mention destroying their treasure, which is usually described as gold coins hidden in pot. They do not like fire, probably stemming from the fear of their treasure melting.

Now you’re talking my language.

When in doubt…Fireball. He focused on increasing his Core Velocity in preparation for some glorious fire when he realized he had a problem. The previous shape of his core had contained a single edge which his Spirit had flowed across, making direction and velocity easy to determine.

When Ruwen had gained the Destruction Core with his Saraph body in the Destruction Realm he’d worked with Uruziel to modify his idea of Core Velocity to fit the chaotic nature of that core. Core Velocity had translated into the amount of compression he exerted on the core.

Before the fight with the Zealot, Ruwen had regained his human form, but without a core. When creating a new one, he’d leveraged his experience with Xavier to form a more powerful core.

Ruwen’s new core had no inside or outside, no edges, and no boundaries. It was like taking a stream of water, twisting its bottom upward and then through itself using the fourth dimension, and reconnecting to the top of the stream when it exited the higher dimension.

Only now did Ruwen realize such a shape also meant the idea of direction was meaningless. No boundary existed that he could use to anchor his point of view and define a direction. It was like floating in the middle of an ocean and trying to decide which way was clockwise. It also meant that what he’d done during the Zealot fight wouldn’t have worked. Which implied…

Uruziel? Ruwen asked. How did you integrate Core Velocity into this new Core?

Uruziel appeared as an image in front of Ruwen. “Now that you have time to think about it and aren’t frantically trying to stop the Zealot from killing everyone, what’s your guess.”

Ruwen immediately knew the solution had to involve the only location in the entire system where a change of any kind occurred.

“The transition between dimensions,” Ruwen said.

“I call it the Nexus,” Uruziel replied.

Hundreds of ideas flashed through Ruwen’s thoughts, and he settled on the most straight forward. “You constrict the size of the dimensional passage to increase flow velocity. And you probably agitate the Spirit somehow utilizing the dimensional boundaries. Like creating a wave with the walls directly into a funnel.”

Uruziel raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t think of using the walls. I used something like a waterwheel to initiate movement.”

“That’s perfectly fine. I just tend to think in waves now. Great job creating a solution so quickly and not distracting me.”

“You had a lot going on at the time.”

Ruwen focused on the Nexus and found it appeared like the rest of his core—an endless sea of Spirit with no visible boundaries. He didn’t try and detect if boundaries existed inside the fourth dimension of his core, it didn’t matter right now. Instead he used his knowledge of dimensional manipulation to create two long walls shaped like a “V” which acted like a funnel.

The bottom of the funnel ended where his core transitioned from the fourth to the third dimension. He undulated the walls, creating waves which he synchronized to amplify them. They smashed into the bottom of the funnel like a tidal wave and it contained this velocity as it entered the third dimension.

Ruwen could already see ways he could improve this, but he’d do that later. What he had now offered enough control for what he wanted to accomplish.

Uruziel had dismissed her projection, so Ruwen reached out mentally.

Thank you, Uruziel. I’m lucky you’re here to help me.

We make our own luck. In this case literally. I’m only here after all because you risked your life to save me.

Ruwen knew he’d come out way ahead on that deal.

Releasing Last Breath, Ruwen harnessed the Spirit spraying from the top side of the Nexus. He estimated it was close to a Core Velocity of two thousand and mentally slowed the movements of the dimensional funnel he’d constructed until he’d decreased the Spirit volume to something like a Core Velocity of five hundred.

The five scouts rapidly approached from three sides and Ruwen didn’t try anything fancy. He ignited the nearby air and threw his arms wide.

A blazing nova exploded outward. It turned the five leprechauns into ash and vaporized the pooling water into a geyser of steam which erupted into the sky, rapidly climbing a thousand feet as his spell boiled the river above.

Ruwen channeled the fire spell, waiting for the kill Notifications to appear. After eight seconds with no indication the leprechauns had died, he ended the spell.

Air rushed into the crater, followed a moment later by river water. The granite walls dripped like melting wax and steam swirled from the sudden breeze. The stinging scent of burnt air surrounded him and as he glanced around, he didn’t see a single leprechaun.

The fire, steam, and roiling air had created so much noise in Ruwen’s Mental Domain it had made seeing with it useless during the spell, but it returned now, his surroundings snapping into focus.

“Oh, no,” Ruwen whispered.

A quick calculation confirmed three things.

Fatal damage caused the leprechauns to split, which had occurred once per second.

Fire didn’t kill them.

The ground’s new greenish color didn’t result from singed stone.

Ruwen now faced one thousand two hundred eighty leprechauns. Proud and defiant they surrounded him, each just over an eighth of an inch tall.

“I really hate this planet,” Ruwen whispered.

The tiny leprechauns swarmed over the Scarecrow Aspect covering Ruwen’s feet. A morbid part of him wanted to keep killing them to see how ridiculous this situation could get. Memories of the spores that had entered his body when in the Dark Tower’s dungeon provided the reminder he needed not to underestimate small things.

The small green men attacked with their weapons or tried gnawing through Ruwen’s armor. They began to vary in size as copies found each other and merged. Instead of dying in the fire spell, the leprechauns all seemed healthier—less desiccated.

Ruwen used his Divine Domain to raise a leprechaun up and onto his palm. He studied the attacker who scrambled up his thumb to attack the nail. It absolutely looked healthier, and he could guess why. The leprechauns had absorbed some of the Spirit powering the fire spell.

Using the smallest amount of Soul power possible, Ruwen targeted the leprechaun on his hand.

The Soul power caused the tiny leprechaun to flare brightly before it burst into a spray of green blood like some demented kernel of popcorn. A second later two leprechauns reappeared, half the size of the one Ruwen had killed.

Ruwen used Divine Perception to get a clear view of the two even tinier leprechauns and it confirmed what he’d feared. They’d absorbed the Soul power and looked even healthier than before.

Ruwen had a big problem. Or, more precisely, a bunch of small problems. Spirit and Soul Power not only didn’t permanently kill the leprechauns, but it made them stronger. Based on what he’d learned about the flow of magic through the Realms, any entities from the Creation Realm likely had the ability to absorb magical energy.

As tempting as it was to flood this room with Destruction Essence, it would create over a thousand explosions like he’d caused earlier. Probably worse as the leprechauns would contain far more Creation Essence. And it would only double his problem.

Void energy might work, but that seemed like overkill. Plus he already knew releasing the Void in the Material Realm wouldn’t result in anything good. It might make things worse.

The sea of leprechauns now covered Ruwen.

Lir had mentioned iron as a possible method of killing these Fae. Ruwen’s Architect Role might not work directly on the leprechauns, but it made converting the surrounding granite into iron trivial.

With a thought Ruwen shaped the newly made iron into needles and pulled them toward himself as if he’d become a giant magnet.

Millions of iron needles filled the air like a black mist. They whistled as they flew and struck him hard enough to barely penetrate his Aspect armor.

Terrible wailing and howling easily overcame the noise of the waterfalls cascading down the blast crater’s melted walls. Ruwen pushed all the iron needles off his body and studied the results.

Ruwen’s attack had struck nearly every leprechaun and they writhed on the tiny spikes. The keening became so loud and disturbing he muted his hearing.

The good news was that the iron seemed to paralyze them with pain. The bad news was it didn’t kill them.