Chapter 2- Mindeater
The Mindeater’s name was not quite literal. They didn’t eat brains, but the idea of the mind: the consciousness within a person, the thoughts, the memories, the being cultivating the will to act contrary to their primal nature.
Almost every Ascendant race fell into that category. Some were less prone to their basal nature than others, but all could resist it and act within a rational, moral framework. They were, in a way, the antithesis of a Mindeater, which was only driven by its desire to consume that willpower. No matter who its prey was, whether it knew if it could win, or it would become the prey instead, it would leap onto the strongest mind in the vicinity, and then the weaker ones, until all had been consumed.
The air was stale, dry. Her nose itched from the ashdust tainting the air. Liesel could smell the chemical in the room. It came in a glass bottle, and it was necessary to clean the ashdust on the floor that shone like hideous crystals from the salt realm. The cleaner's smell was unpleasant, but that was only because of its association with her past. It had smelled particularly bad on a certain day. She remembered that day.
The bottle had slipped from her hand and fallen on the floor. The liquid inside spilt onto the damp wood floor, and the white smoke rose from it, and the burning stench trapped inside the sealed window room—sealed by the local authority, for they could not risk spreading the Ashening Curse to everyone. That incident had her mother hurling curses at her, which was not her mother’s fault. The Curse of Ashening was painful. Its victim felt the ashdust filling in the vein, clotting the blood, crystallizing the soft flesh into hard shells. They couldn't eat or drink, and the vitality of the curse kept them alive regardless. And they were confined to a single room, forced to stare out of the window, until the curse took their eyes.
That was two years ago, and Liesel had been younger than she was now. She had not realized how much she’d miss her mother, even one who had gone insane, as she did now. After screaming for almost ten minutes, her mother had passed out on the bed. Blood leaking from her nose stained the pillow.
Liesel had been angry then. It happened just two weeks after she dropped out of the academy because of her lack of talent for magic, and the need for a job to keep her mother’s medicine made it impossible to attend lectures. That day, she had been angrier than at any time in her life. It remains true to this day, and probably for the rest of her life. She wanted gratitude for the miserable life she was subjecting herself to. She deserved it, right?
That day, she had been tempted to end her mother’s misery. Anger was part of it, but even then, she understood this was no longer her mother. That woman was gone; now it was just a cursed husk, pushed into her most basal instinct, which only wanted to ease her own pain. And screaming at the only person she saw, the only one who would take it, was part of the medicine that she needed.
Liesel’s body moved on its own, puppeteered by the Mindeater. She lifted her broken sword and stabbed the gaunt, ash-gray face of her mother. It chipped and cracked just like the mask of the demons on the second floor.
It was a lie. She had been tempted, angry, but she was not a beast to act upon her most vile instincts. She knew there was only a little time before her mother passed away. It would be over someday, and she would have her own life. But her mother had more pain awaiting her tomorrow, and even more the day after. By the time she’d pass away, there’d be nothing left. No mother to recognize her daughter. It shouldn’t be like that. If there was no saving her... Liesel felt horrified that she wanted to end her life earlier. Yet, it felt the right thing to do. She couldn't ask her mother, that would give the ill woman more daggers to stab her with. It was, even then, her mother's decision to make, which she never made. She only used that question to scold her every time her pain reached a new height.
Her mother had died after complete crystallization six months later. Her pain had grown worse as time passed, as had her anger episodes. Liesel hated it the entire time, but became numb to her misery. But it was over in an instant. The next day, she would be alone in the old house. She had a job, and she could save money to have anything she wanted. But her mother didn't have anything at the end of those agonizing months. It had solidified her belief that she should've ended her mother's misery quicker, rather than let it play out. There was no point to those months, for neither of them. She was still, to an extent, tied to that time, trying to understand what she meant, how immoral her beliefs were, and in the end, there was only acceptance. The life she grew up in meant she couldn't have the idealistic morality that the academy taught her. She couldn't value life in the same way normal people did, even her mother did, to cling to the last breath, rather than accept a quicker end.
Yet, the memory was not that. She didn't run away from the horrified thought. Instead, she was acting upon her worst instinct. Her body was reeling from relief as she plunged her sword. She could feel the strength with which she held the sword; her eyes were shaking, her heart thumped, and her stomach twisted. She felt guilty for what she was doing. But she had to let the guilt stay. Under this spell, all her actions and feelings were presumed to be basal.
To manifest that idea of contradiction, the will to resist, the Mindeater drew the darkest memories of its prey, twisted into something vile, to force the prey to resist that memory, to push out the demon inside their mind, and when they did, it won. There was only one actor within the recollection, and it was the Mindeater. She had no power, no magic to win against the Mindeater in this memory.
The Demon Hunters specializing in hunting the Mindeater were trained to remain impassive. They went through every single strand of memory, all the possibilities within, to turn it into an untenable nightmare. Once numbed to the influence of memories, they would be prepared to face a Mindeater. In that vein, Liesel was not much different. She had been living in that memory for years now, and had imagined thousands of times what she could've done.
From one memory to another, Liesel's mind bounced. From the day she learned she could never be equal to her peers, to the day she dropped out of the academy. Then, she was in the darkness. Perhaps it realized she'd never react to those kinds of memories, and they were in an eternal stalemate if it continued. If anything, she only grew numb to the memories. It wasn't so much that she was special as that she was uniquely suited for this kind of magic. She wouldn't say she had felt anything in the past two years. The day her mother passed away, her emotions were no longer tethered to anything, and slowly they ceased to function accurately. They were there, of course, but detached from her being.
Even now, all the guilt and grief and pain were drowned away by a hollowness in her soul.
She stood in the training arena now. It was her first sparring session in the academy. It was with wooden swords and without any armor. They were supposed to practice with their preferred weapons or find one. There were hundreds to choose from, most unconventional, borderline unusable without magic.
Liesel was an outsider in the academy. She was introduced on the merit of memorizing a bunch of subjects, rather than family ties. She had been told she didn't belong in the academy, and even the instructors were rather strict with her. Until the first sparring session, she had not known the extent to which the instructors were willing to look the other way. She could be considered naive.
Soon, she was standing on a mat, facing a girl who had a spear, a real one, instead of the wooden staff that should've been here. Liesel knew it would be more painful than reality. But when the spear's tip plunged into her shoulder and twisted, the burning agony she felt was enough to blank her mind for a moment, for her instinct to spring out and try to wrestle the control of her body from the Mindeater. She let the pain pass, and slowly her mind grew numb. The spear stabbed her abdomen, and it grew hot. The Mindeater made sure she felt each strike like it was the first.
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In reality, her sparring partner had struck her hand, shattering the elbow, and before Liesel could even have voiced the pain, the girl had proceeded to stab it into her shoulder to bust it too. It had taken over a week to heal completely, even with magic. She didn't need to pay for it, but after that, she understood she could not fight like it was a practice. Neither could she break their hands in retaliation. She had to defend herself, and let her anger slowly seep into nihilism.
The Mindeater still didn't get what it wanted. She couldn't really care what was happening; just knowing that it was a lie made everything feel relatively dull.
*****
"It's not working…?" Auram tilted her head. "They are just standing there for a while. Is your Mindeater dysfunctional, or can she really fight off the Mindeater?"
The Custodian didn't find the predicament as curious. This was the outcome he had hoped to see. The prospective successor of his should at least be this competent. He was pleased, in a way, to see it play out as it was. But the question was how long. It had been about twenty seconds in the real world, but inside the memories, it could've been days. Twenty seconds was not a small time. Usually, the Mindeater would've consumed a couple of dozen demon hunters, if not hundreds. The first trigger inside the memory claimed all its prey. The second was rare, but by that point, almost every prey of his would be claimed. Any further meant the Mindeater would most likely be killed.
"Let's go," Auram said. "It's almost thirty seconds."
"We must see how long she can endure," The Custodian uttered. He had decided he wanted to be greedy. Killing a Mindeater would greatly help the confidence of his Heir. In the reality he envisioned, perhaps that was the single most important aspect she'd need.
"We had a deal."
"It shall not impede our duty to find a successor."
"You can't do that!" Auram glared at him.
The Custodian ignored the spirit. "We shall save her, should her life be in peril, but the trial is not over."
"She must be in so much pain... You are evil."
*****
Liesel stared down the captain. He was bleeding from his chest. The tip of her sword was stabbing his shoulder.
"Please stop…" he stuttered. "Please don't kill me."
"What are you saying, sir? It's a relief. You are hurt, aren't you?" Liesel said. She was feeling great, over the moon. A smirk bloomed on her face as she approached him. The sword in her hand thrummed. She was not going to execute the Shade Strike perfectly because that would make his miserable life a little easier. She wanted it to last longer. Hours if she had a way.
"No, look, I am perfectly fine," he tried to climb to his feet, but his feet slipped on the blood on the floor, and he landed on his buttocks. Only his toe was crushed by the dead demon. It could easily heal with the scroll.
"It's okay. It won't hurt," Liesel replied as she swung her blade. The blade splattered across her face as it cleft the head right of the shoulder. Some part of her was dancing in joy. She didn't know what the Mindeater hoped it would accomplish. This is a version of the memory. She had no qualms about what she did. Did it not know that? Or perhaps it was incapable of understanding her for who she was, and instead used the humans as he understood them as the yardstick.
How long had she been in the memory? It should be years by now, right? She felt like she had lived a life, or her own life, but completely differently. On some level, she was not even sure which version of her memories was real. What emotion did she feel when she watched the captain die the first time? It shouldn't have been joy, right?
Perhaps she never factored this part of the Mindeater's reality. Even if you could win, just experiencing its magic once destroyed the life you led until then. Now you have many different versions of those memories, some easily distinguishable from the fake, but others just slightly different, sometimes even less cruel than the reality. Even this fear of being changed would manifest the Mindeater's victory, so she had to ignore those worries until she had escaped.
The captain's body squirmed, gasping for breath that was impossible. His eyes stared at her until they lost their light. He died after almost five minutes.
And then, the smirk on her face vanished. She was sick. The emotions and memories felt were from the Mindeater, of course. It wanted her to resist those emotions, for it too would manifest its victory.
The floor beneath her vanished. She was falling through the sea of darkness again. She landed on the smushy floor. In her hand, there was a broken sword, covered in blood and ashdust. She climbed to her feet, and then she approached the Mindeater. She was worried it would eat her.
Yes. Liesel's heart thumped. This was a harrowing moment for her, as it would be for anyone. No one in their right mind would not feel a certain doom when facing a Mindeater. Perhaps she had not realized how quickly they'd arrive at this point. It should've been another year of those twisted memories. Perhaps she had lived a very short and uneventful life. Perhaps the Mindeater's reputation preceded its actual capacity, or perhaps she was uniquely resistant to its magic. Regardless, it was time to face the demon within the memory.
The memories were always in hierarchy, and the Mindeater must always move down the levels, and eventually, one memory would manifest where it was the source of her terror. A re-enactment of the reality they were currently frozen in, where the illusion within its eyes and the real world collided. Here, it would manifest as not an emotion within her body, but the horror on the outside.
Her soul jumped inside her body each time the Mindeater scratched the wall.
Liesel kept walking. Steading her breath. Her mind reeled from the experiences of all those memories, and how close she was to freedom, as well as how close she was to losing it.
It stopped once she crossed the halfway mark. It was harder to walk here with all the blood and ashdust under her feet—a toil to tire her body out. At two-thirds, it stopped again. Finally, at three-fourths of the way there, it looked at her. She stopped at the exact same point where her physical body was in the dome.
This time, its eyes were open. It reflected her haggard state. All the wounds it had inflicted on her. She no longer looked human. If she were to mistake it for herself in the real world, it would win still.
Liesel's finger clutched the broken sword. She was feeling horror on her own now, without any input from the Mindeater.
It rushed at her. Her body couldn't move.
NO! She pushed Materiality into her limbs. It flowed through her veins and into the tips of her fingers.
The demon was in front of her in a blink. Its body towered over her. Its long claw pushed her face up.
She met its eyes. The irises were opening once again, gnashing a jaw of infinite teeth. It leaned forward to bite her head off.
She lifted her hand, aching and numb, and shoved her nail into the Mindeater's eyes. It flapped its wings like ears, as well as the fleshy ones on its back, trying to fly away like an insect. The slate-black blood trickled down her arm, burning the wounds it had inflicted. Liesel grabbed its head harder.
It screeched at her.
She raised her blade, filled with Materiality, and rested it against its neck.
Wait.
Her fingers dug deeper into the abnormal eyes. Its claws ripped her skin, stabbed into her body, but this was a memory. A Mindeater never inflicted a physical wound, even when it would die.
Wait.
She waited for the Materiality to align. She had to kill it in one strike. If she didn't, it would escape her grasp, and she'd be sent a layer deeper into the memories, starting from the first one until she was at this point again. There was no way she'dkeep her sanity until the second chance.
It must die here.
When the Materiality aligned between the Soul Shade, the World Shade, and the Mind Shade, Liesel swung her blade, ripping through the sniwey flesh of its neck. A trail of dark light followed, as the blood from the Mindeater clung to the blade.
[Shade Strike: Tri Severance, Executed!]
Its lower body fell to the ground with a dull thud. Her fingers were still clutching its head. The purple blood leaked from the severed neck and was somehow absorbed by the steel blade. She didn't have the energy to feel worried about that.
Liesel blinked. All the pain vanished instantly. She was free. And she was still holding the head outside the memory.
[Materiality +54566
Excess Materiality Discarded 54555
Materiality: 40/40]
[Slain Ders’gul Vornacan
Title Acquired: Slayer of Vornacan
The attributes requirement for the title is unmet.
The benefits of partial affixation are possible.
The attributes failed to meet the requirement for partial affixation.
Title locked: Consult an Archive Master to learn the requirements to unlock the title.
A Tertiary Title has been Granted: Mindslayer
The attribute requirement for the title is unmet, but partial affixation can be done.
Beginning the mental Alignment.
1800 Materiality required to start the process!
Alignment process suspended until the Materiality is recovered!
Title Locked: Consult an Archive Seer to learn the requirement to unlock the title.]
"Of course," Liesel mumbled. Her crippled soul couldn't even affix a title, which was one of the most common actions any Ascendant partook in. And even that was not enough for her to feel any despair.