The Soul Keeper

I felt the ground beneath me shift. My flames had already burnt the carpet to ash, and now cracks had started to appear on the stone slabs. I clenched my fists as the Divine's power grew. I could feel it all around us.

"Your power will be lost to time, as it should have been when he died all those years ago. You should have never existed." She was talking about my predecessor, wasn't she? I gritted my teeth, why were the Ereth so hostile against the Keeper? 

What was the truth behind the so called 'demon invasion'? There was still so much I didn't know. 

"Why can't you just leave me be, when I'm fighting your fight?" I shouted at the top of my lungs as the ground shook. "Don't you want to kill the Demon Lord as well?" 

The Divine laughed. "Kill the Demon Lord? You?" She raised her hand as crimson tendrils broke through the already cracked stone slabs. "As if you would!" She hissed. I gathered my flames around me as the tendrils leapt at me. 

Her tendrils were nothing like Aelith's magic – they were real. Which was, to be perfectly honest, disgusting. They were moist and looked like the appendages of an octopus. 

Disgusting. That was all I could think of.

"Goodbye, Kai." Joshua's voice sounded. He sounded so full of himself, watching me fight and struggle from afar. He deserved none of the power he had received.

"Why?" I shouted as more tendrils shot towards me. I beat my wings to get off the shaking ground. The tendrils didn't hesitate as they followed me, trying to catch my legs.

I fed more mana to my flames – I wasn't going to let them have their way. I was getting out of here, no matter what!

I dashed forward; my left hand extended slightly backwards. I felt the cold, metal shaft of my scythe as it materialised in my palm. The pale, crystalline blade neared the Divine as I swung my arm. Disgusting tendrils blocked my path only to be burnt away by the flames fed by my wrath.

She raised her hand, creating a partially transparent barrier to block my strike. The curved blade of my scythe hit the barrier with a loud, clear clang.

The barrier shattered, but the rebound of the hit sent me flying to the other side of the room. I beat my wings quickly to regain my balance in the air. For a moment, the tendrils stopped following me. 

"Just give up Kai!" Joshua shouted from the other side of the room. He was getting on my nerves again. I glanced at him momentarily. "If you think you can make me, you're welcome to try." I replied, once again focusing my gaze on the Divine. 

My eyes widened as I saw her properly for the first time. 

"You-" I whispered. Her cloak, the only thing hiding her from view had been blown away with the shattered barrier.

She was… I couldn't find a word for it. Normal, I guess? At least, her face was fairly normal for an Ereth face. Her neck and arms – the only visible spots of her body not covered by garments, however, were nothing but normal. 

Her skin wasn't covered in scales like the other Ereth. Instead, it had a texture similar to that of those tendrils she seemed to love using so much.

"I look like an abomination. Is that what you wanted to say, Keeper?" She sneered. "Save your pity – you need it more than I do." She raised her hand again. Tendrils once again crawled out of the cracks in the stone slabs. 

"An abomination sounds right – but I thought that before I saw what you looked like." I replied as I swung my scythe to cut through the tendrils. "Tell me!" I shouted as her assault continued. "What really happened during the war?" I didn't think I'd get any answers, she had no reason to entertain my curiosity after all. But maybe, just maybe she'd tell me.

Maybe I could keep her occupied until Asher and the others got here. Honestly, that was the only thing I could do. With the power the Divine Pillar gave her, I stood no chance on my own.

She didn't seem too interested to answer. Instead, her power resonated in the large room, sending jolts of pain through my body. It took effort just to remain afloat in the air.

"You struggle for nothing." Her words echoed in the room. I cut through more and more tendrils. With each swing of my scythe, I could slowly begin to feel my muscles burning. I was exhausted – It was difficult to keep doing this. "In the end, you will only share the same fate as your past life." She continued with a calm, yet powerful voice. 

"Previous life?" I heard Joshua mumble. So, he had helped her without even knowing what was going on. I wasn't sure whether to feel annoyed, angry and sad. 

He was pathetic. 

That's what I decided to think of him as. Pathetic. 

"I don't know how you came to be again," The Divine's voice echoed. It was filled with wrath and anger, though I didn't know why. She must have hated my predecessor. I truly wished I knew why.

"I am not my predecessor!" I shouted as I cut through another set of tendrils. "I'm not the same guy you people killed during the war! Why doesn't anyone understand that?" I was getting sick of having to explain this.

"And yet you wield the same powers, the same weapon and you are in his body." She replied. One of her tendrils got dangerously close, forcing me to fly a bit higher to the air. I cut that one off with the pale blade of my scythe as well. I had to find an opening and strike – maybe I could wound her enough to make her lose concentration on that barrier of hers that trapped me in here with them.

"So what?" I shouted back at her as I tried to find an opening. How could I get close enough? How could I trick her? "I'm only here to kill the Demon Lord, nothing more!" 

Something stirred within me. The souls of the demons I'd killed, the souls that were trapped back in Forlorn Castle, they all reared in protest. I felt my power waver – were they trying to take over? Were they trying to stop me?

My flames waned and the rhythmic beat of my wings broke apart. I fell to the ground, a pain in my chest like none other. 

"What do you think you're doing, Kai?" Joshua shouted. "Do you think she'll pity you? Do you…" He continued to shout, yet I couldn't hear him. Sorrow and anger, pain and wrath, my mind – my heart – filled with a mix of emotions.

I tried to get up, I had to do something – I had to escape somehow. 

I could only get up on my knees before pain jolted through my body. 

"What do you think you're doing?" The Divine's voice echoed.

"What's going on?" Another, weaker voice asked. 

"We're almost done." I heard Joshua speak softly.

How dare they? How dare they do this to me – how dare they turn on me!

Wrath took over. Whatever else I felt disappeared at that moment. Wrath.

My eyes flashed purple – my sight shifted. I could see the strands of magic around me. The crimson tendrils, the barrier trapping me here, even the Divine Pillar. Golden lines descending from the sky to form an invisible pillar. Four cornerstones infused with divine power – Alina's power – receiving whatever this golden power was. 

My flames burst out once more.

"What the hell is going on?" I heard Joshua shout. He quickly grabbed Alina's hand and pulled her back. As they hid behind the Divine, I slowly forced myself to get up. 

I extended my hand forward as an image – a memory – flashed before my eyes. Purple flames formed a shape above me. A spear, made of flames, fuelled by anger and wrath. I lifted my finger, it first seemed to point at the Divine, but then I turned my gaze – and my finger – on Joshua and Aline.

You betrayed me!

The spear flew towards them. The Divine quickly put up a barrier, but the spear shattered it like it were a thin layer of glass. I heard Joshua's scream cut short, and the thud of a body falling to the ground.

You betrayed me! 

The ground shook as the Divine lifted her hand as a response to the second spear forming above me.

"Now you show your true self!" She shouted. The golden lines descending from the sky fed her with more power. She met my spear with crimson lightning.

My flames raged around us. Her tendrils tried to reach me in vain.

"How long can you keep that up?" She shouted. Was that a hint of fear in her voice? Just the thought of it was enough to bring me some satisfaction.

As long as I need to!

"And will you kill both of them?" She shouted, pointing behind her. "One of them is dying already – can you live with that?"