Paladin 4: Chapter 65

“Can you blame me for wanting to celebrate?” Ashe asked, a twinkle of mischievousness in her voice. “I’m excited! You’re excited, too right?”

“I’m sore,” Darren laughed. “But beneath that, yes. I’m excited.”

“Yay. So?” Ashe wrung her hands together. “Don’t you want to... you know? Do it on the empty throne?”

Darren raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like the kind of thing Morgana or Cassandra would suggest.”

Ashe blushed and pointed to her ear. “They’re all talking to me right now. You don’t think they’d be able to sit patiently as they waited for your return, right? They knew they couldn’t burden you with the distraction, so they asked me to use Cassandra’s Mental Link. They wanted a blow-by-blow recounting of the battle. I’ve been passing everything that happened through Cassandra. They already know you won.”

Darren nodded in understanding. “And now they are telling you how to celebrate.”

“Morgana is the one who wants you to bend me over the throne.” Ashe blushed.

Darren chuckled. He was wondering why Ashe had chosen to appear before him naked. He appreciated the sight, but he thought he’d appreciate the sight more a little later. After all, he had a promise to keep.

“I want to find something first. Follow me.” Darren and Ashe rummaged around the palace, looking all the while for what Kalaziel had stolen.

It was weaker than he remembered and half-drained of power. But thanks to his ability to sense the lingering Demonic Aura within it, he eventually tracked it down in a back room far from the throne room.

“My... my heart!” Ashe said, staring at the still-beating mass of demonic flesh. “Wow. Why does it look gross?”

Darren chuckled. “I will purify it, and then we will use it to rebuild your body.”

Darren focused his energy, allowing the Divine Aura to flow through him. He reached out and gently touched the pulsating mass. The dark, twisted flesh seemed to shudder under his touch, and gradually, the Demonic Aura dissipated.

As the purification continued, the heart began glowing with a soft, golden light. It returned to a healthier and more natural human appearance, only with veins of gold flowing through it instead of the red of human blood.

Darren’s purification ability soon converted all the remaining Demonic Aura within Ashe’s heart to the Divine Aspect. The pulsing mass of corrupted flesh became a much-brighter pulsing mass of golden flesh that emanated Divine Aura.

“It still looks gross,” Ashe pouted. “Do I really have to put that thing inside me?”

“Yes, we all have one.”

Before obtaining Soul Maker, Darren wouldn’t have dared to perform this operation without Laura. But after obtaining all his new skills, especially Soul Maker, what once had strained his mind to comprehend was now as effortless as slaying a horde of angry demons.

Darren poured new Divine Aura into the heart. Kalaziel had been using it as a battery to generate Demonic Aura. From the looks of the workshop around him, the Demonic Aura had been a necessary ingredient in his shiny metallic eggs that sucked the souls out of seraphim and human like.

Due to heavy use, most of the energy within the heart was gone and only slowly restored by what little life was left within the heart. But now that it had been purified to the Divine Aspect, Darren could simply pour more of his own power into it to replenish the heart’s energy reserves.

Finally, the process was complete. Darren swept one of the chaotic workbenches clean and laid Melancholy on top of it. Then, he had Ashe hop up beside his sword.

“Hold very still,” Darren said as he pushed his palm through the projection of the body she’d created. He held her heart in his hands and pushed, shoving it through the illusion of flesh she’d created and laying her heart where it should be.

“This tickles,” Ashe said, wriggling in place as sweat beaded on Darren’s brow. He used Manifest Will to make a few extra hands for himself. He began the arduous process of transferring the connection points he and Laura had made so long ago over from inside of Melancholy to Ashe’s new body.

He nudged the heart, urging it to heal. It did so, especially when he sprinkled some Fountain of Youth water on it and poured in some extra Divine Aura. On a hunch, he even gave it a droplet of his own blood.

Something about being the Paragon of Humanity made his flesh more than flesh. As he examined Ashe’s regrowing form, she became more blood-and-flesh-like than most other seraphim he knew. He wasn’t certain, but he suspected his blood might be the key to reversing the process by which human souls became seraphim.

In other words, given time to study the process, he might even be able to turn Ashe from a seraph into a human if he so chose. Perhaps it would help them reach beyond the Seventh Order one day, like his father predicted. Or perhaps it would help him have children with them if that was what they wanted.

But regardless of the possibilities, Darren wouldn’t experiment too much with Ashe. They were building her future, so he wanted to stick with something tried and true rather than experiment with the very essence of her being. So he stuck to pushing her body into the shape of a seraph, though her blood did have a tiny pinkish hue to it. Like that one drop of his own blood was still in there, awaiting its moment to awaken.

The rest of the process went so smoothly not even Ashe herself noticed when it was done.

“Did it work?” She asked. “Am... am I alive?”

“You were alive before. Now, more so,” Darren replied.

“Yay! Uh... how do we know for sure?” Ashe asked.

Darren tapped his chin. “Can you still talk to Cassandra and the others? Maybe they have a suggestion.” And Darren had a good idea of what it would be.

Soon, Darren was testing the full capabilities of Ashe’s new body... right in the throne room of the highest halls of the Seven Heavens.

Taking the Prime Saint of Purity here, of all places, was an exhilarating experience, and he found himself more eager to try than he expected. The strain he’d felt ever since he learned Kalaziel’s name from Archpaladin Gaimon was gone. Its place was a new wonder at the world around him and a desire to form new bonds with other people. And to renew those he already had.

“Cassandra wants me to beg you to fuck me!” Ashe repeated, speaking through their bond. “Oh. I was only supposed to say the last part out loud.”

Darren chuckled. “Tell Cassandra you don’t need instructions.”

He slipped inside, and the way Ashe moaned seemed distinctly Cassandra-like. He suspected Cassandra had figured out a way to sit in the backseat of his other companion’s mind when her Mental Link was active. He was wondering why she had suddenly started acting less needy than usual. She’d discovered a way to get what she wanted all the time.

Ashe let out a few sharp and quick moans. While she did so, Darren’s hands and Divine Aura roamed her body. He’d only been joking about testing her new body this way, but the combination of physiological responses she was experiencing now proved remarkably effective.

There were a few points where he hadn’t quite aligned the connections between her soul and the body they’d grown around it. The intimate connection they shared during the peak of sex was the perfect medium to repair those connections and tune them to perfection.

Or at least, that’s what Darren told himself as he plunged his full length into Ashe and climaxed deep inside of her freshly made womanhood.

“Well, does my new body work or not?” Ashe batted her eyelashes at Darren.

“It works.” Darren flipped her around in his arms and re-positioned her. “But we should test you again, just to be sure.”

“Yes, you’re right! Cassandra, Morgana, and Sasha all agree!”

It ended up taking several more tests to satisfy both Darren and Ashe. And several more tests to satisfy Darren’s other lovers sitting in camp back on the Fifth Layer.

“Morgana wants to know if she’s corrupted you yet,” Ashe asked.

Darren chuckled and slapped Ashe’s bare ass.

“Not yet. But tell her I have confirmed you are alive.”

***

They cleaned up soon after. Darren noticed Ashe with a frown as she glanced down at her naked body. He tossed her a wet towel from his Realmvault.

“Oh... I guess I have to clean myself up the hard way now,” Ashe pouted. “Back when I was just energy, I just made myself a new body. And new clothes, too.”

Darren chuckled. “Asuriel is about your size. I have plenty of spares for her. Here.”

He helped Ashe get dressed. As a demon, she hadn’t worn any clothes at all. Of course, she had that chitinous armor covering most of her body, so there was no need to. But now that she was in a much more humanoid form and would be walking around as such, there was a need for greater modesty.

There was one more room Darren wanted to explore in the Lord of Light’s palace. His father’s palace, if what he’d heard from Kalaziel and Laura was correct. He’d didn’t remember more than a shadow of the man from his early childhood, since he was killed too soon for Darren to remember.

He’d been a powerful presence while he’d lived. But he’d been stripped away too soon for Darren to even remember his face. He found the Fragment of a Dead Sovereign among Kalaziel’s things. He’d used it when he nearly defeated Darren in their last engagement. The aura was unmistakable. It came from a being of tremendous power and the Divine alignment. Undoubtedly, it could be none other than the former Lord of Light, Darren’s father.

It took the form of a glowing spark that never went dull. It looked so tiny, and yet it held the vestige of such power. Kalaziel trapped it in a little vial and let it rest between his wrist and the Heavenly Throne. From how he sat, Kalaziel had been using the spark to lay claim to the Heavenly Throne, which would not have accepted him otherwise.

Darren stared at the glowing spark of light, feeling little connection to it. He pondered the possibilities for a moment but decided not to use his Resurrection skill on it yet. He didn’t think it would even work on a Seventh Order being, and certainly not while he was exhausted and wounded. Moreover, he wasn’t even sure if he could resurrect Horon in his current state.

He picked the vial up and pulled it off the empty throne before placing it in his Realmvault. When he did so, both he and Ashe spotted something.

“Hey, doesn’t that little depression look a lot like your sigil?” Ashe asked as she pointed to a hollow alcove in the arm of the Heavenly Throne.

Darren frowned, running his fingers across the small decorative depression on the right arm of the Throne. It did indeed look a lot like his sigil. A sunburst circle with a hollow center. His mother told him this sigil had once belonged to his father. To find something so similar here where he’d once lived was no coincidence.

Reluctantly, Darren pulled the sigil off from around his neck. After wearing the pendant for so long, it felt odd to be without it, though his control over Divine Aura had reached such a point he could probably still send and receive quests even if he no longer had a sigil to process the information for him.

Ashe’s eyes burned with curiosity, and he realized so did his own. He pressed the face of his sigil against the depression, and the symbols matched perfectly. A slight click echoed out through the empty and battle-worn chamber. Darren recognized it immediately. It was a lock coming loose.

The Dungeon Queen wrapped around Darren’s brow spoke up. “Did I just hear a secret passageway open up?”

Darren smiled. “I think you did.”

They followed the noise to a spot behind and to the Throne’s right. It was a small and unremarkable patch of wall. It had previously been covered by a tapestry, but one of Kalaziel or Darren’s attacks must have cut it in half because the ancient tapestries lay in two pieces on the floor.

Darren rapped on the door a few times and was about to take out his universal key when the Dungeon Queen figured out how to open it.

“You need your sigil again! See that spot? Your sigil forms the knob.”

Darren did as she instructed, and the hidden door swung open to reveal a stairway leading up. The concentration of Divine Aura doubled, and Ashe let out a short gasp.

“Darren! Darren! I recognize these stairs! This staircase leads to the Seventh Layer! I knew it was somewhere in the palace, but the entrance moves around a lot.”

“Interesting.” Darren was intrigued to find the Seventh Layer of the Heavens. He couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed though. He’d hoped to learn more about his father, not find some empty old room.

He swung open the heavy wooden doors at the top of the stairs, surprised to find that they did indeed feel heavy, even to him. In this place, so heavily steeped in Divine Aura, everything had a profound sense of ancient strength to it. This door had been steeped in aura for thousands of years, and now it was so sturdy no ordinary man could ever hope to budge it, even if it wasn’t locked.

But what lay on the other side of the staircase was far different from the simple meditation and spa chamber Laura had built in the Seventh Layer of the Seven Hells. The dimly lit room was filled with ancient tomes, scrolls, and peculiar arcane devices. Many of them reminded him of the things Laura kept in her workshop, though somehow the Lord of Light’s tools and instruments looked sleeker and newer.

The computers were thin sheets of glass rather than the bulky broad things Laura used. Looking back, it felt like Laura had cobbled her collection together from spare parts in comparison.

He was able to identify a few of the odd devices around him thanks to his time with Laura, though most were beyond him. But one thing caught his eye. It was a small leatherbound book. The pages had long since turned yellow, and it looked like it had been bound and rebounded several times.

It carried an ancient air like it was far older than the rest of the room. It was imbued with even more Divine Aura than the door. And yet it still looked so worn...

Darren picked the book up. It felt heavy in his hand, and if it were brought into the mortal world, it would likely make a crater wherever he set it down. He flipped the leatherbound cover open to its first page. It listed the word ‘Journal’ and then a name. Johnathan Wells.

The presence of this book here in the Seven Layer of the Heavens meant that it had to have belonged to the Lord of Light. It felt odd to learn his father’s real name now, after all this time.

It was an odd-sounding name to be sure, but some truly ancient books featured people of similar-sounding names. Interest piqued, Darren flipped to the next page and read.

I’m starting this journal partially for my scientific notes and partially as a record of my perspective of events. After last week’s discovery, I’m certain we’ve stumbled upon the discovery of the century! History books will be written about this day, and I’m fortunate enough to be part of the team who made it. Thank you all, and may humanity prosper across countless new worlds for generations to come! The lands beyond Earth await us!

The Lord of Light must have written that segment before he became a seraph. And ‘Earth,’ in this context, seemed to refer to gravel and stone, but rather to a realm far distant from the Sacred Seas. Darren skipped a few dozen of pages and jumped to a later date.

Day 364.

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly been a year since this project began. Our efforts to stabilize the wormhole have finally proven successful. We’ve sent an unmanned drone through to discover a chaotic, frozen world. Unlike our first attempts, the place is entirely unsuitable for human life, but it was a stable physical plane. In other news, Cathy and I are finally getting married! I don’t know how we’re going to plan the wedding around all this crazy stuff going on at work, but we’ll manage.

Darren skipped more pages, jumping ahead again. Ashe was peering over his shoulder, but as she read the text along with him, she turned away.

“It seems like that isn’t for me to read.” Ashe averted her gaze.

The Dungeon Queen, on the other hand, had no such compunctions. “Hurry up and flip the page. I’m finished reading. I love the growing romantic tension. It’s just starting to get good!”

Day 625.

I’m back from our honeymoon, and the guys found something amazing while I was away. So we’re sending our first manned mission to the habitable world we found! There’s plant and animal life everywhere! All data indicates that the area should be fully habitable by humans. And what a sight it is to see! Open natural wilderness everywhere! The bulk of the expedition will be military, but I will be going on the science crew.

Day 630.

We’re finally here! Boy, is this place breathtaking. The air is crisp and clean, the flora and fauna are unlike anything I’ve ever seen on Earth, and the night sky is so clear and full of stars. Of course, the gravity is lower than on Earth, but not by much. All and all, I’m considering moving here myself when colonization efforts are finally underway. The only problem so far is a few rumors of seeing ghosts flickering through the forest at night. I shouldn’t hold a bit of superstition against the soldiers though. After all, we just walked through a wormhole and arrived on an alien planet in another dimension.

And just as magical as this new world, Cathy got a message through to me. She’s pregnant. I’m going to be a father!

Day 635.

The soldiers encountered a group of large, quadruped creatures with thick armored hides. They were incredibly tough to take down and didn’t die until the soldiers broke out the armor penetrating rounds. Their hides could serve as ballistic armor, and some soldiers have been discussing doing just that. We’ve noticed a lot of flora and fauna are exceptionally durable. This is going to revolutionize the entirety of the material sciences!

Day 642.

We’ve discovered the reason for the abnormally tough creatures here. Some energy field interacts with consciousness and living things in this dimension. We think the rules of quantum mechanics are looser in this dimension than they are back home. The observer effect has been enhanced to the point that it can manifest changes at the macroscopic level. We’ve started practicing mindfulness meditation to keep our thoughts positive and mitigate any unwanted effects. I’ve actually started to enjoy the practice. Not all the effects are negative, either. I’ve focused on my aching wrist. I used to get chronic pain there, but it’s gone. I’m unsure if it’s because of reality manipulation on the quantum level or because I haven’t spent as much time at a keyboard lately.

Day 670.

While collecting river samples, we ran into a dangerous serpentine beast the size of a bus with razor-sharp teeth. The troops have taken to calling it a dragon. It took several direct hits from a shoulder-mounted rocket to bring it down. The local wildlife is far more dangerous than we initially assumed. Mission command is sending in armored vehicles and, eventually a few tanks.

Day 700.

It’s been over two years since the wormhole project began, and our findings continue to amaze us. This world is very like our own, and the more I study it, the more different it seems. I’ve gained new abilities that wouldn’t have been possible had I stayed on Earth. For example, I can levitate my pen in my palm with nothing more than my thoughts. I’m chalking it up to the meditation allowing me to focus my thoughts to manipulate quantum interactions around my pen. It feels almost like a cloud of tiny specks of light. The others know what I’m talking about. We’ve taken to calling it aura.

Day 800.

Cathy is getting closer to the end of her pregnancy. I feel bad I’m not at home for her. I asked when I can get slotted for a return trip to Earth. I’ve been delayed three times already, and it’s starting to get frustrating. I’m busy trying to learn more about the strange interactions between this world’s quantum mechanics and consciousness.

Day 850.

It’s a girl! I’m going to have a healthy daughter. Cathy and I are brainstorming some names. In other news, I found out why I keep getting rejected. Nobody has been able to return to Earth in weeks. Supposedly, the wormhole has grown unstable on our end, and nobody can go through. Fortunately, people from the other side can still come through. Cathy and I talked on the phone. She will stay on Earth with the baby for the first few months, then both of them will meet me on this side. It isn’t ideal, but it’s our only option.

There were hundreds of more pages to read, and Darren flipped through them quickly, skipping ahead. Eventually, he noticed the small straight lines shifted into something more like the quills Darren was familiar with. He found the page right before the change occurred, wondering if it was significant.

Day 1252.

We’re no closer to understanding why the wormhole is destabilizing on our end and have had to start using local materials. My last ballpoint pen died, and I made ink out of local berries and a feather. Back home, our newborn has had complications and needs medical treatment back on Earth. My frustration is building. I need to return home. The scientists maintaining the wormhole are clueless. I’ve been reading their notes and will start making suggestions.

Day 1342.

I’ve taken over our side of the wormhole project. After many sleepless nights, I finally know why our connection is destabilizing. Our dimensions are drifting apart. The link to Earth was always temporary, and now it is fading and won’t be repeatable. If I don’t find a solution soon, Cathy and the baby might be lost to me forever.

Darren flipped through hundreds of pages more.

Day 2313.

It’s been two and a half years, and the care packages from Earth have gotten more sporadic. We even received a few packages with unintelligible symbols on them. We suspect they didn’t come from our Earth. The others have given up hope and are trying to preserve as much knowledge as possible by building a library near the iron mines we set up. They’ve outfitted the structure with a large language model to curate the digital knowledge we don’t have the paper to transcribe. They’re calling it the Omniscient Codex. It looks like I’m the only one still working on wormhole stabilization. The rest of them have moved on to other projects. I can’t blame them, but at the same time, I can’t give up on Cathy and the baby.

Darren looked over the pages as the scribbles became increasingly maniac. Lab notes interspersed with the journal entries. There were long calculations Darren knew he had no chance of understanding, but one experiment in particular caught his interest.

Day 18,305.

I’ve tried to split aura into its ordered and chaotic aspects. If I can create an environment strictly with an ordered aura containing stable, positive thoughts, I should be able to reopen the wormhole and not experience disturbances.

Day 19,001.

The experiment was a failure. Worse, separating aura into two distinct parts seems to have caused some unexpected reactions. Hostile supernatural entities appeared after the death of a local colonist. With red skin, horns, and sharp teeth, people have started to call them demons. They’re both dangerous and highly aggressive.

Day 21,302.

It’s been nearly sixty years, but I don’t feel any older from when I began. I think my self-image has imposed itself on the quantum realm to the point that it resists cellular degradation due to time.

Day 33,093.

Eureka! I’ve finally opened a new wormhole. I had to build a new particle accelerator from the ground up, but it works. It’s not the world I’m looking for, but we’re that much closer...

Day 70,954.

I finally found a way back to Earth. It’s been two hundred years since my departure, and the world is unrecognizable. Cathy and the baby are long dead, but I haven’t lost hope. My Earth isn’t the only one out there. In the great span of infinity, there must be a world like the one I left. The only problem is I’m not powerful enough to find it. We’ve constructed an order system for classifying users of aura and the local power system. There seem to be a few natural thresholds that produce a spike in power. I’m currently considered a Fourth Order. But to do what I need to, my numbers say I need to be at the Seventh Order at least. It seems I have a lot of work to do. I haven’t given up on you, Cathy. Not on our baby, either. Papa’s coming home, no matter what.

Flipping through the pages, Darren saw thousands of years’ worth of journal transcripts, each of them detailing the Lord of Light’s rise to ever greater levels of power. That would be the most valuable part of the journal to anyone else, but Darren found himself skipping past those pages. He wanted to get to the end.

Day 800,024.

The Seventh Order was not enough to make the journey I wanted to make. I can’t truly search the endless sea of infinite possibilities, as I am to look for the world where Cathy and our baby still live. I need to reach the Eighth Order. Only now, after all these years, to I realize my mistake. A self-perpetuating energy being like my current form can not grow past the Seventh Order. I can fill myself with all the Divine Aura in the world, and it will amount to nothing more than a minor boost to my current power. I have conferred with the Omniscient Codex, and there is only one way to proceed. I must become human again.

I’ve secured an appropriate vessel, an unborn child whose soul never manifested properly and is doomed to die. I will let go of the bulk of my power and leave it here in the heavens. My true body will enter deep meditation while my consciousness is born anew within a human body. I’ve entrusted Kalaziel with guarding me and watching over the Heavens while I am busy with my research. He takes protecting the Sacred Seas very seriously and has been a bit of a tattle tale since he was young. If anything bad happens while I’m distracted, I’m sure he’ll be the first to tell me.

There were no entries after that one. He wasn’t sure what happened to start it, but by the end, the Lord of Light was dead, and Kalaziel sought to take his place. Darren wasn’t sure whether something unexpected happened or whether Kalaziel betrayed the Lord of Light.

He put the book away. He would read it again in more detail later if he dared. But, for now, he had someone else to see to.