Chapter 77: Book 2 Chapter 23: Chaotic spirit

Author's note

We had another new subscriber since last time that looked suspiciously similar to NohVoha in terms of leaving a positive comment on the chapter and then immediately subscribing. Please welcome Vorquel even as I eye him suspiciously for the possibility of being a clone of some sort. (Well, real person or double account, I think I am flattered either way. Coincidences can happen too, it's just weird for it to happen in back to back chapters like that.)

We've also got another new subscriber in addition to those two that have me shaking my head at their uncanny similarities. His name is Bemaan. Bemaan is a lot more normal, so let's give Bemaan as normal of a welcome as we can give him.

Now for one more announcement. As of yesterday, this series is no longer a Scribble Hub exclusive. I hesitated to post to other sites for a while because I'm a perfectionist and wanted to at least start in on the editing to the earlier chapters that, as insane as some of you new readers might find this, I am not quite satisfied with. Well, I got my confidence boosted by this most recent sudden influx of new subscribers and their wonderful comments, so I decided to stop being silly about those things and have expanded to Webnovel and RoyalRoad. I haven't gotten a lot of engagement on Webnovel, but from the comments I'm getting on RoyalRoad it really does sound like I was just being silly with those high standards I was holding myself to.

Oren’s POV

With all of the lesser dragon nobles moving to carry out her orders, Oren slithered her way down the branches she was coiled around until her massive head could rest in the large space in the center of the crown of branches. The greater fairies leapt to the air to make room for her as she passed, and she came to settle her head immediately in front of the elven man who was carrying the child. With a mere thought, the child lifted from the man’s arms, and Oren placed her on the bridge of her nose, directly between her eye ridges.

From here, she began shifting her body until she found a position where she could be relaxed and comfortable without the child being at risk of falling from her nose once she was no longer being supported.

‘I will now begin.’ She announced. There was silence among Isanil’s upper branches as the queen of the fey slowly closed her large eyes and began to focus her spirit, allowing her consciousness to enter into this child.

-

There is no place that is more dangerous than the inner world of another mage. The mere act of entering this space means you are automatically within their territory. This has a natural effect of greatly reducing the power of the intruder. Meanwhile, in cases where the other mage is conscious of the intruder’s entry, their own magic is at its absolute peak and all spells cast inside of this space are more potent and more damaging to any foreign entity. That was not all. The best mages often had complex defenses set up around their spirit in order to guard their inner world. Some of these defenses could be truly devious.

Despite the clear disadvantages and extreme risk involved in the actions Oren was taking, she was not concerned in the slightest. For one thing, if what the new great fairies told her was to be believed, magic was thought to be nothing more than a thing of fiction in their world. If it was so rare, she did not expect one of the few mages from that world to have any of these complex defenses that were so common. And besides that, even if a defense DID exist, it should not be anything she couldn’t handle. And, to top it all off, this child was certainly not conscious if her spirit was in a state of near destruction as the reports stated.

These were the things she had assumed before going in, and this is the reason she was quite surprised at what she saw when she entered this child’s spirit realm.

‘What is THIS!?’ The great flying serpent yelled in shock as she looked over the chaos of activity around her. She was stunned into inaction as she tried to catch up with and process what she was seeing. First of all, this place was just WAY too big to be the spirit realm of a mere child. She was expecting it to be larger than was appropriate considering her origins, but this was just TOO big. Her spirit was clearly quite expansive, it stretched beyond what she could see.

Far in the distance there seemed to be a brilliant sun-like light shining over the entirety of this space. However, aside from that single source of light, everything else seemed bathed in an oppressive blackness, and as you looked farther down it seemed like that dark blackness threatened to swallow up everything that drifted too close.

It was not only light and dark though. Rocks and spheres of fire floated freely throughout the space, and in a few locations she could see great storms of wind, rain, ice, and lightning. The roll of thunder could be heard rolling across the chaotic space here and there as great clouds of darkness moved about overhead.

Oren was stunned at the sight. However, the reason was not because she felt threatened by the sights in front of her. Indeed, this would likely be far more difficult than she first suspected, but… there was a far more pressing issue that sprang to her mind. She had seen a sight like this before.

‘This child’s spirit, it is like the primordial void.’ She beat her wings in order to slightly raise her altitude as an ice meteor was about to cross the location she was previously occupying. She knew that she should probably begin moving, but she was simply too startled by the sight. She had experience with this kind of space before and was confident of her ability to navigate it, but… how could a CHILD have such an advanced inner world as this!?

No, the more appropriate question here is, just what kind of mage was she in her previous life? From what the new great fairies told her, humans were the only anthromorphs on their old world, and there was no other sentient life. What’s more, while the humans of that world did live a little longer than the humans she knew, it was only about 80 to 100 years. That was just reaching into adulthood for an elf, which were the only fey that even had a definite lifespan in the first place.

Well, it is kind of impressive that the humans of that world even managed to extend their lifespan that far, it was almost double what would be expected on non-cultivating humans here. However, it was still nowhere near enough to explain a cultivation capable of managing this!

No… perhaps it is not a product of a complex cultivation. That’s right. This child had an even more remarkable ability, the ability to summon pure energy. Maybe… maybe a spirit with such a truly bizarre form was not a goal but an unintended consequence of her main power. Yes, if she altered her mind a little to see these broken and floating chunks of earth, fire, and the roving storms not as power, but instead as damage, it all made sense.

‘Child, you have gotten your spirit into a real mess.’ She said aloud into the darkness. Well then, now to figure out how to navigate this space. As much as it hurt her to admit it, there were actually some things in this area that did look genuinely dangerous even to her. Especially that darkness below. As she watched the large stones and other such items drift about in this space, occasionally some would fall into that void. Everything that did immediately crumbled to dust, or in the case of fire it was simply snuffed out. It was not that there were no chunks of material down there because it was kept in its place. Rather, there seemed to be some kind of energy down there that simply destroyed everything that came near it.

It was rather clear that was not a place she would want to go. She was proud of her power, but it was not the foolish pride that would cause one to disregard intelligent action. It was rather clear that whatever energy existed down there was easily the single most dangerous thing in an already very dangerous space.

She also had to identify where it is she needed to go. She would have to reach the core of this space in order to do any real good. As for where the core was, well, that sun-like light was her best clue. Now then, how to reach it? It was clear that whatever form of energy was in the lower level of this space had to be avoided, and the mass of rocks at this level were just annoying. Well then, the upper level it is. That worked out fine. As the flying creature that she was, she greatly preferred to fly higher.

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With a mighty beat of her wings, Oren ascended into the higher space above all the stones floating about. This is the point where something caught her attention. The higher up she flew, dodging stones and floating chunks of fire, magma, and ice here and there, she began to pick out the sight of several unprocessed gemstones. This sight made her stop in wonder.

Most mages manifested their spell vessels as large gemstone-like crystals. It was not at all uncommon to see gemstones inside of a person’s mental world. However, there was something very off about these gemstones. They were nothing like the kind that served as spell vessels. Those often took the shape of flawless perfectly cut gems. These, however, were in their raw form. And that was not all, her eyes also began to catch out the sight of several metals. Iron, gold, copper, silver, as well as several different kinds of junk metals that were unworthy for much more than crafting into things such as tins by humans.

Her wing collided with a large chunk of rock. It was one of the larger stones about, so it caused her to hiss in pain. She instinctively used her own magic to suspend herself in place as she folded her wings and gave them several test flaps. ‘This is not good.’ She said in a curse of herself. She had allowed herself to get distracted by all of the shiny stones and metals. She cursed her treasure-seeking instincts of her previous mortal life. There was no longer any need for such things, she should not allow this to distract her, especially when there was a much greater treasure to be had. One that promised the solution to the very problem they were facing at this moment.

She began flying higher and higher. She began to notice the air was growing much hotter the higher up she went, and at some point the stones which had precious gems and metals embedded into them gave way to just large and pure floating chunks of metal and rough crystals of sizes that were rapidly becoming far more reminiscent of a proper spell vessel, if not for their unprocessed state.

‘How interesting.’ She said to herself. When she saw this, she could not help the urge to suspend herself once again and watch all the rich ores and gems floating about, none of them incased in the rock they normally resided in. And also, this heat. The heat mixed with gems almost made her think of the volcanos which bred such precious stones. This child’s spirit was very strange indeed. Normally the gems would be low and deep into the earth, but in this space the precious material was more common the higher you went.

Well, it’s not really likely that anyone but a dragon could get by with this oppressive heat though. If she was feeling a little warm here, it would be enough that a member of almost any other species would already have long since caught fire and even their bones would be turning to ash. And yet, not a single feather on her wings were singed. Thus was the power of dragons. Well, at this temperature, she posited that it may even be hot enough to render this area inhospitable to even some of the lesser noble rank dragons.

‘Very interesting. Child, the anticipation for our meeting grows greater the more that I see.’ She was growing quite interested. However, it was starting to become rather clear that this upper space was not going to provide her with the open clear route she was hoping for. Perhaps it would actually be easier to stick to the middle layer of this space. At least down there the chunks of floating material are softer. Perhaps she could just fly straight through them and break apart any stones foolish enough to be placed in her path.

As she was about to implement this idea, something else of interest caught Oren’s attention. There was something strange off in the distance in one area of this upper level. Her curiosity peaked, she decided to fly in that direction. It was a significant distance below where she was now, but it was still within the precious ores layer of this space. When she arived, she saw what looked like a chunk of iron, but it was bathed in a strange blue flame. It was nothing like normal fire. In fact, it was more like the chunk of iron was passing through something invisible, and wherever the iron came into contact with it these blue flames were kicked up until they again quickly vanished.

As she looked around, she noticed there were several other ores and precious stones bathed in the same blue aura of flame. Then, as she entered into the same area herself, the same blue flame flashed over her nose and covered her wings. It was not hot and did not burn like fire, but when she saw it flowing over her own body she finally made the connection as to what she was seeing. She had seen this phenomenon before! Realizing what was about to happen, she quickly reversed course and tried to fly higher again, but then a resounding BOOM sounded acros the space. It was like a chain reaction of some sort, and the thunder was hear several times in very close proximity and arcing flashes of light danced across all the stones and metals. Every one that had a blue aura of flame on it, and several that did not, were all visited by at least one if not several blasts of lightning.

Oren was no exception to this. She was one of the largest objects in the area, and so she quite likely got struck more than any of the others. However, she kept flying as though she didn’t even notice this until she finally left the area and was away from the multiple lightning strikes. ‘I HATE being struck by lightning!’ She grumbled in a disgusted tone and then sniffed. She did not seem the slightest bit worse for her recent experience, at least not physically, but she was clearly annoyed. ‘Those were actual full force lightning strikes though… no, I think they may have actually stung a bit worse than the real thing, but that could just be because it is someone else’s spirit I am inside of.’

Seriously, real lightning. That was almost unheard of in magic. There were some human mages who used their effect magic to make something that looked the same as lightning, but it held nowhere even close to the kick of an actual lightning strike. That just now, however, was as real as it got. A sub dragon would have got its scales and flesh seared by just one of those bolts. That is not something a human could ever boast.

‘Alright child, I have seen enough now. I definitely want to meet you. We are going to have a talk.’ This was more power than she had thought she would be using. She surrounded herself in a magical barrier, and began flying full speed toward the area beneath the sun-like light. Chunks of metal slammed into her shield and deflected off deformed from their previous state. Crystals and precious stones shattered into glittering shards as she flew past. She flew straight into a full size hurricane that seemed to stretch from the mid level and went high into the upper level, throwing winds, rains, and thunder. She dismissed this though, and continued flying straight on.

She continued to cut a trail through the chaotic mess of flames and rocks and storms, and finally the core of the area came into sight. And what she saw was… a truly gigantic antromoph form. She could see the blue semi-transparent body from a great distance. The head of the giant seemed to be buried inside of the large sun-like light, and was covered in a radiant brightness that made it impossible to look at the face. The feet stretched all the way down into that ominous blackness and seemed completely unaffected by the energy-destroying nothingness. Actually, it almost seemed as though that dark energy was more focused on the space around the giant’s feet than any other part of this space. The pale blue light of those feet were about the only light that could be seen down there. All other light and matter in the vicinity seemed to simply cease to exist before even approaching that nothingness. It was as though the very concept of nothingness itself existed at this giant’s feet.

As Oren began to grow closer, the giant seemed to move. She still could not see its face, but it seemed to be looking at her. She noticed something strange about the giant as well. She could only make out the chest, but… didn’t it look… male? This child was supposed to be a female from what she had heard.

She had dismissed the idea of this child having any form of defenses on her spirit as she was entering, but having already run across several situations that might even have been able to harm the lesser noble dragons, she was very quickly re-evaluating her previous stance. She had dismissed the idea before by explaining it as likely the product of the damage to her spirit, but seeing this thing fully intact was quickly causing all of her previous suppositions to flip completely. If everything from before was her defenses, then this might very well be the last line of defense.

She began preparing herself for the possibility of battle as she continued her flight like an arrow piercing the night in this dark space, and finally her wings brought her before the giant. It was even more impressive up close. She had never in this second life encountered anything aside from mountains and Isanil’s main body that was larger in size than she was, but this giant was so large that she would be nothing but a bug in its palm. Well, size-wise anyway. However, when it came to magic, size was not what mattered. If this thing decided to attack her, it would find that out the hard way.

“So, you must be the queen of the fey I have been hearing about.” A strong young male voice reverberated across the space. Oren eyed the giant with suspicion. She was still unable to look at its face due to the brightness of the halo of light that surrounded its head. She couldn’t see for certain whether its lips had moved or not. However, there was something about the quality of the voice that did not seem like it had come from the giant.

The pale blue body of the giant shimmered, and then it became only a blue light outline that allowed her to see completely through to the other side of it. There were several points of glowing balls of light dotted throughout the ghostly giant’s body. They all seemed to be connected by some form of thin light beams that held flowing energy traveling from one point of light to the next. And, somewhere right in the middle of one of the larger balls of light, third from the bottom, she could see another much smaller masculine anthromorphic form, and it seemed to be holding a small sleeping child who looked very much like the one carried by the elf in the physical world.

Subscribers' comment of the chapter.

"a chaotic storm all shrugged off like when you walk out the front door only to get a small bit a spider web in the face."

-Roy

Not a lot of activity on this one, unless you count the nonsense where I announced I was deleting a paragraph and then added it back in a little later. The last paragraph of this chapter actually rendered me unable to write the next chapter without a burden on my mind. I wound up writing it in a way that worked with that last paragraph after all, but during the writing process the constraint it placed on me made the writing difficult. One of those funny things I guess.

(Yeah, all the weird confusing messy stuff happens over on Subscribe Star now and gets witnessed by my subscribers. Lol. Fun.)

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