The world below was an endless bed of clouds, radiant under a blanket of light spread by the watch of the peering sun— the sun the second eye of the child of Night.
The other eye belonged to a woman living in a hut on the mountain. And under her watch were smaller copies of herself chasing eachother around their father's legs.
She stretched out her hands and caught one of the little two, carrying him with a playful grin. The other child sat in his father's arms, both watching the other— one child possessing half the body of the second, while the second wanting a whole body for himself.
"Do you still long for mother's hold?" The human child asked, uncomfortable in the arms of his father.
"Yes, but she is not here." The statue child replied, uncomfortable in the arms of his mother.
The human had made the one eyed woman his parent, and the statue had made his desires his parent— both were not here. And as long as he persists, these imposters will set him free to chase himself across eternity once again. This is not the heaven he sought, so he will run until one turns two as whole, and they become too impure for the 7th Lokah.
———
"Are you going to use your Totem?" Astrid asked, confused as to what Izel was planning to do to a soul brought back without a body to inhabit.
Izel asked, confused, "What have you been talking about all this time? Didn't you see it? He was right there underground."
Astrid tilted her head in confusion. How could that have been? She had thought it was an hallucination, seeing the lifeless body of the man she had completely transformed and crushed with her teeth. Could he clone himself?
Astrid was brought out of her thoughts when Izel nudged her with her shoulder. "I'm still armless you know?"
"So?"
Izel kicked the Believer's shin. "Gimme my arms back, you serial flasher!"
Astrid looked at her in silence as they continued to walk. She was surprised that Izel was still on her feet despite losing so much blood. She was going to test Endless Fault's limits before dashing her unconscious body to get healed. But it seems the bleeding Believer was not going to just casually walk with her in this critical condition.
"Woah!" Izel exclaimed as Astrid picked her up before leaping into the air. "What are you doing?!"
"Taking you to get what you asked for." Astrid replied.
"Can't you do it yourself? I thought you were supposed to be omnipotent or something like that!"
Astrid raised a brow, confused. Izel has clearly lost too much blood.
"Hold on until I find that Seer." Astrid said, flapping her wings and shooting off to a particular direction after catching Ivanhoe's scent.
...
"... Uhm. Did he just die again?" M'raj couldn't help but ask.
Yaga lifted the unconscious Seer and threw him on her shoulder. "He'll come to." She assured, urging the other Augury spirit to lead the way.
Well, Ikky had quite literally just been to the afterlife and back. He'd need a while to adjust his mental state.
As they advanced, M'raj seemed to be able to make routes appear out of thin air, manipulating space around them to find or create a safe path. Yaga had made a reasonable observation that the spirit was in possession of its prophet's Sanctum totem.
Under the hidden spirit's guidance, the shadowy Yaga and her Seer soon arrived at what clearly seems to be an argument.
"Allow me to reiterate, if we play the death game of the one who started this, the sky will rain down even more calamities! It's simple math, Owen—"
"It's Eoin actually." Eoin corrected the Believer.
"The same thing, my guy." Another Seer pointed out. Esra had technically pronounced it right.
Esra let out an annoyed groan when M'raj soon appeared to her, bringing in another prophet. With his task done, the spirit disappeared, leaving Yaga and the unconscious Ikky to introduce themselves.
"Eww." Fiachra exclaimed, looking at Yaga's vague an undetailed appearance. But, he was soon coughing in pain after Fionnuala slammed her elbow into his stomach.
"If she looks like that, it's because she already has two forms and can't maintain a third, you idiot. It's the norm! Not everyone has Owen's Virtue!" The woman said, doing her best to whisper, but losing control of her voice as she pinched her brother's back for his disrespect.
"I didn't even say anything, presumptuous sister?" Fiachra lied through his teeth.
"I'll take him off your hands while you rest, madame." Aodh slid over, collecting Ikky from the spirit's shoulder and carrying him up like a sleeping princess. He received a smile from Aoibh, and then winked mockingly at Fiachra.
"Well, that's all three of you. Time to leave." Esra stood from her seat.
Before Eoin could speak out again, the other Seer placed his hand on the man's chest, recounting all the reasons the man's idea of staying behind to subdue the spirit was a bad idea. "If you die, your soul's going to get trapped in your body while those schizo-ghosts take it over. But even if you don't die and do succeed in taking out that calamity spirit, the sky's going to burst with more calamities, at which point, they'd be impossible to resist."
Eoin still argued, "She has no proof of that last part. And if the first holds true, then why not just save everyone else that's still sane?"
The other Seer turned to Esra with a convinced hum. "Man's got a point though."
"Pick a side, Kalu." Esra slapped her forehead in frustration, Eoin quickly begging as she contemplated,
"C'mon miss Esra, I just need a tad little feathers to make my brother back. It won't take long at all!"
"Huh?" Kalu and Esra turned to the Seer who had clearly just blurted out his actual motives.
"You see, dear sister, this is why we let Eoin do the talking." Fiachra's loud claps echoed within the quiet room as he said sarcastically, "Way to risk the lives of others for the benefit of the 'greater good', brother!"
———
After leaving Ikky in the hands of Aodh, Yaga immediately retreated to her prophet's subconscious. She found the man trading blows with another him.
"Getting used to your new body?" Yaga asked the two.
Equinox, now sitting on the shoulder of the clone with his hands ruffling its hair, looked up at the intruding spirit.
"Sure. You really made this out of my Virtue?"
Yaga confirmed. "Although you can't make anything else now with it since the Virtue only allows one construct."
Ikky tugged on the hair of the unbothered clone with a long sigh. "The worlds really don't want me to use swords, huh?!"
"You're not the one who's good at using them anyway. Why keep trying, to keep a 'cool' appearance?" His spirit guessed, hitting the nail right on its head.
With the jokes out of the way, the two looked ahead in grim silence, taking in the sight of the endless expanse of black grass, trees and the setting moon in the horizon.
The Night Chant is a storytelling Virtue. Among its powers, the inks this Virtue uses to write are from spiritual essence, while the canvas is made of life essence. However, this imaginary book and its chapters are only reserved for the Absolute. It's creations should be powerful, but Equinox's entire ordeal is having little understanding of those Absolutes and wanting to know of their motives. So in the end, the sword he had made of the Nidhogg's legends was just a blade with teeth and a taste for destruction.
But it wasn't all of his fault that part of his Virtue's abilities was underwhelming. To amplify its strength, he'd need to study and make pure essence from a Realm possessing this legendary creature's essence as well as make a very refined canvas out of his life essence. The making of the canvas part was relatively easy to do since he mostly needed to scrape his life span, while the ink making part requires experiencing a new world and allowing his night essence to dilute itself and make something similar to the essence of that Realm. Regardless, both of these requirements were a tall task to accomplish for Ikky who had next to no idea how to use essence. However,
"I move a lot better now, but I feel like an old man running on vitality potions. Just how much of my life did you—"
"A thousand years on point." Yaga immediately answered, much to Ikky's shock.
"What?!!" That was a whole century past the average lifespan.
"Don't blame me. If you hadn't given that spirit years of your life in the first place, you'd have a hundred and sixty years more to live." Yaga pointed out.
"On top of how many?! Wait, don't tell me that. I don't wanna know how much time I've got left." He groaned, falling on his back on a fluffy giant bed. He turned his head to find Yaga sitting right beside his head in her tiny spirit form.
That cute size really did not match how ancient her voice sounds. He asked a question of utmost importance, "So... which god did you base this body off of?"
Yaga cleared her throat, revealing, "Ikky, The Final Mourning."
The prophet's eyes opened with dread. Yaga had doomed his life's prospects.