Iora seethed as she faced down the oversized flaming red figure. He was four times her height, only vaguely resembling his Gem Dweller origins any longer.

  How could anyone say she was wrong? There was no flesh in this entity, she could sense it. His body was no longer composed of the Beast or Life affinities, he wasn’t even alive by any measure.

  Worst of all were his eyes. Light pink, Kindness.

  Kindness was the hypocrite of virtues, and she could see it now. Despite her best efforts to do good, the pure windows into the plane looked upon her with biased judgement. Mocking.

  She couldn’t even blink before space warped, and he punched her in the chest, caving it in, stopping her heart.

  Kita utilized Life to heal Iora, to tether her to the body for longer.

  Moments later, Iora felt her bones snap back into place with a sickening crunch and fought back a scream.

  ‘That wasn’t Life healing,’ she realized, and analyzed the wound.

  Rage mana filled her, but it did not tear her apart or poison her, it exclusively sought to fix her body while making it as painful as possible.

  She struggled to fathom the hubris one would feel to not only provide a significant sample size of his mana to analyze and feed to her Shamanic modifications, but to actively benefit her.

  Flipping herself over midair, she realigned her goals: she was not meant to fight back, but redirect this beast’s attacks towards the demon-kin.

  Interfacing with her staff, the metallic nodes throughout her body snapped open, funneling the Rage mana inwards, spinning it in her core to decode its concepts. If this monster truly was a mono-affinity existence, she would cut away everything to transform herself into a tool specially opposed to it.

  Her pupils dilated, watching space warp as the deathly figure appeared over her in a wave of silence, glowing eyes looking down upon her before the weight of a planet came down on her head.

  Kinetic spun her body, her head tilted and she latched onto the arm with her legs, Beast, Life, Crystal and Enhancement joining to activate [Taut Grapple]. She redirected the force of his own primitive strike to the ground and utilized her abilities to twist the “Elbow” backwards. He didn’t have bones, but that mattered not for concepts.

  Off balance, he was sent sprawling, his arm cracking. She sensed the palpable disbelief at her actions for a moment, before the blind fury took over again and he kicked off the air to send himself spinning with intent to slam her into the ground.

  She let go, Earth pulling her down fast enough to kick to the side.

  Goosebumps formed at the back of her neck and she heeded the warning- an attack somewhere from the future. Rather than dodge, she sat unmoving as an axe-kick came down on her forehead.

  It disappeared at the last second, an echo of herself in the future shattering as the beast managed to track her next moves. Affinities at the highest levels tended to overlap with others. Tracking through timelines was unusual, but not unprecedented.

  His body twisted, blurring as he surrendered his humanoid form to cut through the very idea of the space around her.

  [Deep Dodge] pulled her into a Celestial pocket of space, ducking under the idea of herself and coming up behind him.

  Her staff flew out, tapping the center of his back, a [Potential Siphon] robbing him of speed, forcing him to slow as kinetic energy filled her with his every move.

  He twisted around, white sparks flung in all directions as he ground away at her Skill faster than it could absorb, a wall of energy filling her.

  Too much to control, Kita expelled all of it in a sphere around her, vaporizing hundreds of demon-kin, but she watched the beast go two dimensional, twisting between the waves and diving through. One foot shattered the ground as he stepped forward, reaching out with one finger to tap her on the head. She bent- nowhere. She was frozen. Her eyes flickered down, realizing that he’d stepped on her shadow and somehow pinned it, clicking her tongue.

  ‘Conceptual strikes work both ways.’

  He tapped her on her forehead, and she nearly vomited as she felt a non-insignificant strike hit her soul directly, shattering several of her outer memories.

  Her shadow’s maw opened to reveal crystalline teeth on its head, and its arms wrapped around the beast’s foot.

  [Mirrorfall]

  The various gems embedded into the ceiling lighting up the space, even if she could not see them, reacted. Crackling light seared its way through the hordes as her shadow leaned up and bit the Rage monster’s leg, rending it moments before day broke.

  The black sky of demonkin was lit up by stars, each of them crashing down and through, scouring Dei’s body on their way to her shadow’s head.

  Lines were gouged out from his flesh, but her shadow’s skull was vaporized, sizzling and fading away from its suicide attack. She would never have a shadow again, but this was her last fight anyway, so it mattered not.

  His wounds leaked pure Rage mana, effectively becoming a berserker aura as the demon-kin tore at each other under its effects, even their primitive minds hijacked by the emotion.

  She finally saw the end goal now: Damage did not harm him, not truly, but the form could be destabilized, and it degraded over time. She needed to rip into it enough to shorten its lifespan so it did not have the capacity to attack the capital.

  He blurred, and she knew once more this was not an attack she could dodge. She pulled herself from her body, diving into the earth to pull at the microlife within and construct anchors and avatars for herself.

  Rather than a blow come down though, she was swept off her feet and grabbed by the leg- no, grabbed by her name. Iora herself was held in his hand. ‘Foolish.’

  Spikes of Rights tore through him, but his attack was already in motion, and she felt herself be dragged away from the Physical world and South-East.

  ‘The Realm of Reality?!’ she barely got the chance to think, before her mind was flayed.

  A grand contraption, the work, the below, the underworld. Visions of between and unfathomable entities filled her vision and mind.

  For the first time, she lost control, her internal nodes and readings going haywire in her flesh. She screamed as the walls of her soul were pulled apart, ground down at the mere existence of this place.

  Her undirected thrashing did little, and she could only distantly feel her head be slammed into the walls of the boundary, some hidden safeguards in her Shamaniic modifications straining to keep her together in a way she couldn’t possibly ever understand.

  The wall gave before she did, and she felt them enter the East, the Realm of Titans.

  Her composition frayed, boils and cancers growing and melting all over her. The vast heat emanating from the Heart of the Titans scalding her. She immediately lost her connection to Life, her body now incapable of natural healing as she was undone.

  She did not have the vocabulary to put the experience into words, but Iora’s DNA unraveled, and she was kept together only because her existing cells had yet to lose cohesion.

  Up now, into the North-East, the Dragon/Titan Realm, the Conceptual Realm, the home of the affinities.

  The starlight bore her body.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Trillion eyes unfathomable, cheering, screaming, healing, freeing.

  Abstraction existence manifest God’s will.

  She knew nothing of anything, she was a speck, and she became locked inside her own body, her mind distancing itself as it failed to understand, even when she felt her face crack against another metaphorical wall.

  They briefly passed through the North Realm, the Realm of Dragons, and though she was no longer coherent enough to see, Kita, her staff, saw the true state of Iora’s body now.

  Twisted and stretched grotesquely, her jaw pried open in a wordless scream.

  She was discolored and burned, lumps growing over her, bones poking through her skin at odd angles.

  The very residue over her skin irritated the boundary, and the demon-kin closest flinched.

  Dei’s venture damaged the separation of the Physical worlds, the beginnings of tears forming in the air around the Gem Dweller capital.

  Too soon, they were pulled away into, entering the North-West, the Dragon/Mother Realm, the Realm of Dreams.

  And nightmares.

  Iora’s cursed existence caused the Dream to recoil and reject her, putting both her and Dei through a thousand torturous hells. Dei held no Dream, but the one within Iora scalded, and her brain boiled in her skull, only the Rage keeping her alive now, replacing her every function just long enough for her to feel all the pain.

  Kita wanted to pull her soul out, but she knew this was the punishment. No matter her personal fondness of Iora, this was what it meant to fail as a Shaman.

  The Rage began to reshape Iora’s flesh into the image it desired. Without the personal template to use as reference, Iora’s soul was removed utterly from anchor, unable to fight as it did not even know it was under attack.

  No active party kept watch of the space, but Perumah within Dei glanced her handiwork proudly, the [Coiling Mind] she’d infected the demon-kin with clearly linking them to the Dream. It provided them a miniscule, absolutely negligible boon to their thinking speeds, while providing them a backdoor to the Dream. All good, except for that it made them vulnerable to mental attacks, as a simple side-effect.

  The minds of the bugs, the very ones she’d taken from The Mother and stored within Dei’s personal universe, were projected into each demon-kin, killing both the demon-kin specialized into existence within the dream, and collapsing the structural integrity of those they found lacking.

  Demon-kin around the field dropped frequently, brain dead, from Perumah’s touch.

  The nightmarish Dream passed, breaking through to the West, the Realm of the Mother.

  A sickly approving grin greeted them, The Mother watching fascinated as a group of monsters tortured a human to death, not even recognizing Dei or Perumah as Sapients, Ashvorn having already hidden itself deep below.

  They came out to a dark twisted cave, giving Dei pause as he saw a hunched figure biting down on a dead Iora below, pulling out and consuming her intestines with its mouth.

  Its head came up and turned, looking straight at him.

  He was not interested in another battle, so onward they went, to somewhere he knew he could not be followed.

  South-West, the Leviathan/Mother Realm, the Realm of Intent.

  A land of mind and soul, one being linked into the next endlessly to form a grand space of distinct selves with no bodies. His arrival, the explosion of his hatred, caused the nearby souls to flee as best they could, but he was forced to jump upwards before his intent integrated and slaughtered the weak civilians. Pieces of Iora, too broken to resist fully, were peeled away.

  He found himself in the Leviathan/Titan Realm, the Realm of the Gods.

  Beings of scorch and blessing, the pantheon they’d accidentally appeared before recoiling as the shadows of a mortal touched upon their power.

  The God of Magnetism became green when the deformed soul flashed, but they were gone immediately.

  Iora’s “Gyroscope” as Dei called it, her Portal to Powers, shattered completely, and she lost her connection to all active affinities.

  She was forced back into consciousness, as her mind no longer had a way to project itself somewhere else.

  She clawed and bit at Dei, but they’d already arrived at the final Realm, jumping straight from Godhood to the place below. South, the Realm of Leviathans. He swung her, slamming her into the immense boundary to break his fall, and her soul was flayed by the visions beaten into it.

  The gentle turning of the waterwheel continued life, its construction so simple yet the source humbling.

  Iora was disrespectful for even glimpsing it.

  Her soul vomited, a vestigial response she did not know was possible. Her Presence was emptied through the core, the mess she created dissolving almost immediately but the utter shame of doing so twisting her inside out.

  Passing through the Realm of Spirits to enter the Realm of Dragons, they landed back where they started, having traveled not even a single inch physically, yet crossing incomprehensible distances in function.

  Iora no longer even remotely resembled a human, mashed ball of mouths, eyes, and muscles, each expelling bits of her own organs.

  Finally, almost disrespectfully, her Shamanic modifications finished analyzing the composition of Dei’s mana:

  {100% Grudge}

  He was not only mono-affinity, but mono-concept. If Iora were in any state to utilize the epiphany, it would almost definitely have spelled doom for Dei, Shaman’s more powerful the more specific the entity.

  Unfortunately, all she could do left was exist, and even such a state was debatable.

  * * *

  Dei knew it was cruel or wrong, but he could only feel satisfaction.

  He glanced down at the only recognizable part of Iora, seeing the vague hand-shape that still held her Shamanic staff, never losing her grip on it for even a second. He reached down and almost grabbed it to pull from her hand but… something in his mind, perhaps [Vigilance], warned him to never grab a Shaman’s staff unless he was one himself or he’d been given permission to do so.

  He stepped down on Iora’s arm and crushed it, slapping her staff away and sending it flying.

  Finally, he smiled savagely at the mismatched eyes across her body. They were not glossy, but focused. She was conscious.

  ‘Good.’

  Around him was… devastation. He didn’t even realize it, but the mere waves from what he was doing to each Realm was enough to kill the majority of the demon-kin, only scattered forces remaining. The capital stood like a beacon high above, a thin pillar holding it up as the floor had already sunk, collapsed by the shockwaves. The demon-raid was effectively over, their forces devastated by their fight as he ripped apart everything.

  The visible rifts were his only clue as to exactly how.

  His hand lit up with focused Rage. He’d learned so much of how to actually fight with all his abilities in this form, and he knew he could grab and boil her soul.

  He saw in her body language that the faint screaming emanating from the flickering red light of his grasp finally broke her spirit, and for the first time in recorded history, the Shaman gave up.

  From the corner of his vision, the twisting form of Fendrascora appeared, pulling at the ground as quickly as she could, her fear palpable. He saw Clever, sitting at the front of her, charging his golden light.

  He wondered if Clever did not want him to kill Iora, but he banished the thought as a crawling sensation infested his mind.

  When he’d grabbed Iora’s name to drag her through the Realms, he’d opened himself up to an attack as well. Her attempt had hurt, but was negligible in the totality of the battle.

  The world turned gray, everything ceased. The hum of something in the background turned silent for the first time in as long as Dei could remember, like the white noise of a fan cutting out but more… primal.

  Dei was locked into place, as were Fendrascora and Clever. His eyes were drawn to Iora’s body, the flesh lump releasing a black glow, a singular jagged crack forming down her body.

  With calculated slowness two bony hands pulled her open to reveal a grinning face of shadow, distant pinpricks of light. Its anglerfish teeth parted as its snakelike tongue tasted the air.

  It rose up, and Dei was helpless, utterly incapable of moving. Imprisoned within himself as the creature squeezed on his very being.

  The only emotion he felt was fear as its clawed fingers came close to his neck, the only glow held within its hollow eyes, the only color upon its forked tongue…

  And the orange of Clever’s breath.

  There was no sound as the heat washed over them both, a depth to it that could erase Dei if it deigned to do so, yet caressed him gently, soothing his wounds, healing him.

  [Incinerate]ing the damage to him.

  It lasted barely a flash, but when his vision returned, so did the color and movement, the creature that crawled from Iora’s body gone, the grasp over his name going slack.

  He did not dare to hope it was dead.

  He gasped deeply and stumbled back, shocked over his own permanent mortality searing itself into his mind long enough for Fendrascora and Clever to reach him.

  She dove into his body, the concepts welcoming and making room to house her, the bond they shared deeper than any flesh or blood.

  Clever landed on his shoulder, curling around him protectively, his glare turned to Dei’s right. Dei shook himself free of the encompassing fear and turned, following the utter beam of destruction, a pit carved out of the stone, only that to Dei’s right utterly untouched, as his body had shielded it.

  In the distant wall, the unblemished form crawled its way free of the rubble, standing upright.

  Its head lolled back as it glanced towards the ceiling, a gurgle spilling free from its mouth as its body shook gently, then harder as its arms came up and it held its chest.

  It laughed, in its grating voice, it laughed with true, absolute joy.

  When it looked back to Dei and his group, its smile was pure, almost childlike as it looked at them fondly.

  It made his stomach clench.

  Finally, the unknown hum returned, the comforting ambient noise of his soul speaking of its existence, and a notification opened itself before him- One not of Ashvorn, but System W3-860924-RG993, the overarching System.

  [WARNING: Hatred’s Call, the First Apostle of the Moon, has manifested near you.

  Fleeing is recommended, slaying is preferred]