Drip-Fed

Apexus soared above the world.

Initially, he had followed the general advice of people and not attempted to fly high in this world. It made him a target for things he did not know. Now that he was confident he was the strongest thing in this world, he no longer had that worry.

Neither did Aclysia.

“The rays seem more golden, do they not?” Aclysia asked.

“They are. They burn my retinas again.” The humanoid chimera suppressed the impulse to look directly at the rising sun. When they had arrived on this world, the sphere had been a reduced source of almost cold light. It was still diminished, but it now had a clear warmth to it.

The world beneath them was also changing. The removal of two Black Roots had halted the advance of the simplification of the world in these areas. It was not actively reversing, too much was being drained still for that process to take place, but the animals had realized the difference and were migrating back into these areas.

Animals introduced movement to the stagnation. Nature was taking its course. If all went well, if the Infestation was defeated, then one day the sharp angles of the cliffs and the odd shapes of the trees already compromised would be returned to what they should be. Until then, new life was going to spring up between the gaps. A slower process with the same, ultimate destination.

“We have slowed down the death of this world,” Apexus said.

“Let us see if we can prevent it,” his melody said.

It remained a far-fetched dream. The problem was how deep the Infestation sat. The Black Roots were the outmost appearances of a corruption nestled on the Branch itself. Until it was taken care of, the Parasytes would worm their way through the sacred veins of the Omniverse again. It would take constant effort by high-levelled adventurers to keep the Black Roots from spawning again.

Still, the day that the Infestation would be removed would come. One sweep of the current Black Roots would increase the chances that this Leaf saw that day tremendously. Plus, it slowed down the growth of the Infestation, which made everyone else’s tasks up the chain easier.

They hoped it would be enough.

_____________________________________________________________________

Sunlight bathed the world. A miniature sun had descended upon the guardians of the Black Root. The bodies of the Shapeforms were turned to ash and dust, to nourish the fields with the atomized remains of their profaned forms. Parasytes, cut from the void, were banished into the non-existence that they so craved and they would never be able to appreciate for as long as their immortal un-being continued.

The light of the sphere ebbed away, the heat simply dispersing into the surrounding world. What remained was a scattered crowd of Shapeforms without leadership. The demons charged in, ever eager to pick on the weak.

While the horde cleaned up the remaining resistance, Reysha whistled. “That was… a lot.”

“It was indeed an exhausting effort.” Aclysia was a huffing and puffing mess. Her magical circuits were exhausted to the point that an occasional bit of her mana leaked from her skin in small, white arcs.

“Didn’t know you could do big bursts like that,” Korith remarked.

“It is a combination of spells that I was capable of already. I lacked the mana reserves and channelling capacity to apply the theory before.” She tried to hover, her wings refusing to channel the necessary magic. “I am glad to have this confirmation of my power.”

“Ya gonna have magic left in case I get turned into a skipping stone?”

The Black Root before them was located by a river, making that case more likely than one would think.

“…I request a few minutes of meditation,” Aclysia answered.

Once their healer had recovered enough resources to assure this would not end in disaster, they all got in position. The demons were once again watching, snickering among themselves. There was hope among them that the attempt to catch Reysha in the big cushion would fail, for no other reason than it being likely to look funny.

Korith and Aclysia were the worst pair to try and hold up the cushion. One had her entire field of view covered by it and the other was a proverbial paperweight. It was what they had though.

Apexus quickly gave Reysha a refresh on what she was supposed to do. She had watched it twice and they had talked about it several times in the weeks waiting for the third Black Root to be found. Still, she listened carefully. It was a simple and yet very important process.

The vial in her hand was red and blue swirling into each other, the colours occasionally mixing into deep blue stripes, before separating back out. ‘Weird to think about that representing a part of me,’ the Ragressian thought.

The Black Root cracked under Apexus’ might. She downed the potion. The black void spewed into the air. Apexus channelled the silver that followed. Familiar, the process was not, but as the third time, he had confidence in what he did.

Reysha felt the touch of the Omniverse as an eye-rolling ecstasy. Always, absorbing magic had been a pleasurable act for her, often leaving her needful after devouring her share of a mana-rich prey. This was that delight upped to a prolonged orgasm. Had she not been used to such bliss from what Apexus did to her on a regular basis, she might have buckled.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that this explosive climax would have an equally abrupt e-

Reysha was flung backwards. Adrenaline surged through her system, cutting the fading pleasure short. She managed to gather herself moments before she made contact with the pillow. As feared, the impact was too much for Aclysia. The angel toppled over backwards and Reysha was about to be flung over the top of the pillow, her momentum not yet neutralized.

By pure instinct, She grabbed the pillow with both hands. The cloth stretched, then tore along the seams. Feathers fell out, Korith held onto the bottom of the pillow, and, by a miracle of physics, Reysha swung in a semicircle, anchored to the kobold by an almost torn pillow case.

The Ragressian landed softly on her feet behind Aclysia and Korith.

The demons laughed and clapped.

“Whew… that could have gone worse.” Reysha said and looked down at herself. “Really thankful I stripped down. Not that I need an excuse to get naked in nature, but fuck me, I squirted my brains out there. Would have looked like I’m a little girl that can’t hold her piss.” She raised her eyes, finding her party members staring at her. “Come on, that one wasn’t even that fucking crude.”

“Your eyes… have turned silver,” Aclysia broke the news.

“They have?” Reysha oriented herself, then walked over to the ‘lake’. The reduction of the landscape had turned it more into a weirdly oval pool. All the same, the surface reflected the new colour of the tiger woman’s eyes. A faint shimmer of blue remained mixed into the now silvery orbs. “Neat.”