Chapter 57 - Arval
"Where are you?" Liesel asked, heaving for breath as the spider's metal-tipped limb turned into a wisp of energy and escaped her grasp. So did the dead spider, whose body was punctured a dozen times with its own leg.
There was no answer. The voice and the being behind it were gone. Were they even real or her hallucination? A trick of the realm?
Liesel dropped the Layering, protecting her hand from the spider's acidic blood. Beneath it, her right hand was somewhat black from the damage.
I will contract Materiality Poisoning at this rate...again.
It hadn't been as strong as the one they fought in the Necropolis. Still, her clothes were filled with hundreds of tiny holes, and her skin was sizzling underneath them. Red and boiling, but invisible. She wouldn't consider that to be problematic.
A part of her was tempted to imagine that she had grown that much stronger than the creature she had faced only ten days ago, but that would be conceited and egotistical.
She waited in silence for an answer from the voice before, but it never came. Perhaps it had been just part of the grander challenge, rather than a unique being worth a second of consideration.
The strange object waited at the end of the passage, but no longer did she feel she wanted to check or approach it.
"Auram," Liesel called. She waited again, assured that the Spirit would come to her side. Was that expectation based on previous intervals, or was it her desperation? To see someone here, because she felt lost. It had to be the latter, as only now she remembered the Spirit, after exhausting her body and spraying it with acid.
After waiting for another minute, Liesel began her trek forward, expecting to see the Ashlord, or the Sand Centipede next.
In silence, when nothing manifested to stop her, Liesel found herself deliberating about Auram. Why couldn't the spirit get here? Perhaps this place was the same as the Soul Sea. Beyond the mortal passages. Could Auram teleport into the Shade Passage? It was unnecessary, yes, but being able to perform that act might be a higher achievement.
Soon another realization dawned on her. She was expecting the spirit, and not the mage who had a contract with a Shade Creature. She wouldn't want to call herself attached to the spirit in any way, but that would be a lie. She had been affected by the constant and helpful presence of the spirit, who was always willing to stand for her dignity, even against something like The Custodian. Liesel had to respect that courage, if nothing else.
The more time she spent on that thought, the more she realized she had grown accustomed to the Spirit's presence by her side. And the more she wished there was something to fight, to distract herself from the creeping worry in her gut.
She didn't want any attachment in her life. She had one, her mother, and that had been painful enough for a lifetime. Another was unnecessary and foolish.
Stop thinking about it. Auram saved my life, so it has been more beneficial to me than it can ever be for her.
Yet, the objective reality did little to ease the knot of unease. She was not particularly attached to her life. It should end when she holistically failed; being alive meant that, on some level, she had done something right. She certainly didn't care about being saved. She'd have accepted the Reaper's offer of another life, perhaps one with a higher potential, if she cared to live.
What am I even doing?
Liesel exhaled. I should worry about escaping this place first.
By refusing to entertain her thoughts even for a moment, she managed to escape the mire inside her brain, but only for a moment. The realm's refusal to give her another challenge brought her back to the same place, and to the ultimate question of her life.
Can I see myself surviving a Mindeater magic now?
She was no longer sure. That doubt was perhaps the worst poison, a sign of her deterioration as a warrior.
The realm itself seemed to recognize that the worst challenge it could pose to her was the silence. To let her rampant worries spiral into something worse, a miasma that would rot what made her strong. But that would not kill her.
It does damage to my psyche, doesn't it? Maybe it's enough.
Eventually, the construct hidden behind the luminous glow was within reach. Its form clear—a heart filled to the brim with an unknown energy that pulsed through the hanging bundle of veins or roots from the sky above.
Liesel could hear its beating, or was it her own?
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Is that Soul Heart? No, it can't be. It shouldn't be here, and it can't be so big.
The Soul Heart was no bigger than the heart of the strongest being in its realm, the last guardian, who must be slain to claim the final prize. In this Necropolis's case, it would be the Ashlord, so a human-sized heart.
She walked faster, happy to abandon her current dilemmas and let herself be submerged in the new enigma. It was unlike her to escape something, but she told herself she would have a better headspace to worry after she was back to safety, had a rest, affixed the new skill, fixed her soul, and made a plan to escape the damned Necropolis. Only after those things were behind her should she care about the mental exercise of facing another Mindeater.
The narrow passage reached an end, and the realm expanded in all directions.
The heart hung over a well that seemed to be dug into the endless abyss.
On one side, another person sat at the edge of the well, hanging her legs above the abyss.
The girl's cloak was coated in blood. Her exposed hands, red and claw-like fingers, definitely belonged to Rakamels.
"Arval," Liesel said. Under normal circumstances, she'd never considered something here a child of mortals, but all the abnormality pointed to only one conclusion.
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Her voice echoed over a thousand times from all sides. Multiplying each time. Sharper and sharper.
The girl raised her hand.
Thump!
The luminous heart thumped once. The echo vanished.
And with that, the frozen state of her Soul Form melted. Her soul began to wither. Liesel immediately clamped it with the practiced seal. It took over a minute to reach the point where she felt comfortable shifting her attention to anything but her own soul.
The girl was still sitting by the well. Her head was covered in a hood, but inside it, Liesel could see red eyes glaring at her, almost glowing in the darkness.
She approached the girl carefully. "You are Arval, right?" This time, her voice didn't echo.
The girl bobbed her head once. "How did you find me?"
"It is merely a coincidence," Liesel replied. "I was inspecting an oddity in space, manifested from, I presume, the passage you opened to this realm. And it pulled me inside."
"And the trial... how did you survive it... No, how did you finish it so quickly?" the girl asked.
"What trial?" Liesel tilted her head in confusion. As she uttered those words, she realized the girl was probably talking about the demons she had fought. Compared to how long she had been walking in absolute isolation, those fights seemed like distant, unimportant memories.
"Your demons that it must've forced you to face!" The girl jumped back to her feet, facing Liesel. As the girl looked at her, Liesel finally saw the girl's face. She was a young teen. Her eyes were puffy and her face swollen from crying. Inside her red irises, a golden ring revolved—expanding and contracting to match her emotions.
Golden Ring... just like the Custodians. But it's only one. She's not divine.
"If by demons you mean a weaker recreation of things I have already killed in the past," Liesel said, barely managing to keep her composure in her voice. "Yes, I did. They were weak."
Inside, she had a hard time coming to terms with the golden ring. A Crusader General or the ancient politician of the High Senate had a golden ring. It was a mark of someone who had finally touched the pinnacle of mortal mind and spirit. How could a Rakamel child match their prominence?
Liesel had been so focused on maintaining an impassive facade that she completely forgot what her relationship with the girl was, and how her words would come across. Only now, a moment after she had spoken, did she realize her mistake.
Liesel pondered for a moment, searching for the right words to fix the situation. She'd much rather deal with Kurvam ten times over than face a child. She knew how to handle them, but the academy never bothered to teach her the skill of appeasing a girl whose father she had killed a few hours ago. If anything, the instructor would advise her to kill the child too for the sake of efficiency. Of course, they presume it is a demon kin, and so all acts are moral and righteous.
"It was not meant to be a slight at your father," Liesel said. "He was a proud man until his last moment, and I respect him for that. The things I faced in trial were just mindless demons."
Liesel's words, for some reason, seemed to disgust the girl to a much greater degree.
Arval tramped forward and tried to stomp on Liesel's foot. She slid her foot back, and then stepped back as the girl swiped at her chest. Arval heaved, "Did killing my father mean so little to you that the Gurvanam deemed mindless monsters a better challenge for you? You are a heartless demon!"
The child made another attempt to strike Liesel, and Liesel had to fight her instinct to subdue the little Rakamel.
"He died in a contest forced upon me, for no sin of my own, and he chose to take that fight. If you wish to see remorse, I have none. I have only fought to protect my own life. But I do not blame him, for he had no power to change the course. If you wish to find an enemy, find it in your own people, not me, little girl. There are many demons in your home," Liesel said.
The girl flinched back. She swivelled on her heel, and trotted back to the well. For a moment, Liesel had been worried that she might jump. Fortunately, the Rakamel child settled back on her previous spot. "Go away! You are not welcome here!"
"Show me the exit, and I shall. I did not intend to intrude upon your mourning." Liesel looked around her. The passage was no longer there. Now, it was only a vast, endless gray floor.
Her thoughts came to a standstill, vanishing without a trace as she heard a sniffle, followed by a hitch as the child's shoulder shook. Of course, the girl would cry. It was natural, not an oddity. It hadn't been more than half a day since Garhalik's passing.
Slowly, Liesel found her mind returning to its natural speed.
I should've been softer with my words.
Liesel stood there, awkwardly, unsure what to do. She felt she couldn't start walking in a random direction to find the exit. Only Arval was her option, and she couldn't ask the girl right now.
The soft sobs and failed attempts to stop kept building like a dam about to burst. It reached a crescendo, and the girl's ability to have any kind of control shattered like glass. The entire realm was filled with loud, painful cries that were normal for a child who had just lost her father, but so alien to Liesel that she was frozen in her spot. Unsure and conflicted, contemplating how much she was to blame, and then loathing that she even considered that while she watched a little girl wail.
What am I supposed to do? Even inside her mind, that voice sounded so distant from what a human should be.
Liesel had no experience of handling a child, let alone one so complicated. But she felt duty-bound to do something. For this once, she was responsible. She should've been kinder. A part of her was expecting Auram to pop out of somewhere and yell at her for this, and then tell her what she was supposed to do. Liesel would've been grateful if that were to happen.
Liesel stood there, paralyzed. She had nothing to pull from, no conversation with her mother or an act that she could replicate. No formal education to handle a child. Without a demon to fight, what could she even do but stand and watch?
No, there was one thing—a fragment of a memory from that gloomy day.
Liesel forced herself to approach the girl, as alarmed and twitchy as prey trying to steal a predator's food. She settled beside Arval, who shrank away only a little. In some way, there was no hate in Arval's eyes, only anger, even though hate would be very much understandable.
Liesel lifted her hand and settled it on Arval's back, circling gently. She didn't remember who had done it for her, or if she had felt anything from it. It was at her mother's funeral. Some people were there, part of her family, probably. One of them sat beside her while she was crying like a child, gently circling her back. It may not have helped, but it was the only memory that was even distantly applicable for this situation. It had stuck with her, either because of her own loneliness or the method's effectiveness. They might have said a few words, but those were just echoes of rain in her mind.
Liesel couldn't say her efforts did anything, but Arval seemed to calm, if only a little.
"I am sorry. I shouldn't have been so harsh with my words," Liesel whispered after considering for a while. "You are but a child."
Arval's breath hitched as she tried to regain her composure. Liesel was tempted to say she could cry as long as she wanted, but again she was unsure if that would make things worse.
"But you don't deny he meant nothing to you. That his death was a vain." Arval rubbed her sleeve over her large round eyes.
He didn't. Liesel stopped herself from uttering it bluntly. A half-truth and a defensive retort. She reminded herself who she was dealing with. A child. Garhalik's daughter. I can be a little honest with her.
"I have been here for only a day, and have known him for half of it. He was a kind, helpful, and honorable man. And I am grateful for who he was. If he had chosen to bide his time, instead of facing my blade, he'd have won. He understood that, as I imagine you do, too. He gave me a lifeline by facing me, and for that I will always have respect for him in my heart, and be eternally grateful for his kindness. But his memory is not haunting, an impression that can ever be used as a negative. Against my many foes, he might be the only one I wish I hadn't fought. But we both were powerless to change that reality."
Arval was nodding. Her breath still hitched. Liesel had a hard time imagining something like this would one day grow up to be a normal, functioning adult. It seemed so far apart that she couldn't even begin to fathom, and yet Liesel was an example of the same reality.
"T-there..."
"What did you say?" Liesel asked again. Now that she had a moment to gather her own thoughts, she realized she had been conversing with Arval in a language the child shouldn't know, but spoke so naturally.
"You asked for an exit... but there's no path to leave the Primordial Vein's Core."