Chapter One-Hundred-Fifty-Five: Juta - Part Three

  Galactic Quadrant: Darna Quadrant

  Ruling Government: Talum Merchant Federation

  Solar System: D-447

  Location: Orarak City, facility beneath the Colosseum

  What I have seen is an affront to my people, a desecration so perverse, words cannot bring it justice. I feel Krotha in my perception, coming to my shoulder, placing a hand on it. There is no pain from it, it is simply warm, as though it is sheltering me from the pain I feel in my soul.

  I do not forget so easily though, and I shrug her hand off me. My body is my own, my blade is mine, not hers.

  The depravity the masters have shown is stirring something primordial in me. There will be no mercy for the masters, I do not care what I told Solara, there are no innocents here. All of them will feel the blades kiss upon their necks. Any in my path shall die. This much my blade demands… this much it is due.

  My eyes look upwards to the heavens, towards the false gods who allowed this to come to be. I feel a second being beginning to take shape near me. My head turns to look at it, I recognize the purple sparks that radiate from their crimson eyes. It is the one that Krotha called Amon. The one that helped Luna and me after our ship wrecked in the ice.

  “I did not call you, demon,” the words fall from my lips.

  Jaka Uka Brek

  Amon says. He speaks the words of my people, in a familiar tone that only a Kuwathi can have. Its meaning is simple in the old tongue – Your blade called. Luna had told me that Amon was the name of the last Kuwathi emperor before the fall. She also said he fell to the Cursed Edict.

  As I look upon Amon, I see that his eyes are more open than before. They burn a deep crimson, but the purple has begun to swirl on the edges with the spark. He does not peer at me, he looks out among the dead that have been turned into abomination. He does not smile like Krotha did in this phantom form that he has. His body is mostly shadow, but certain details are more clear than last time. I can feel the wrath in him rising, calling to the budding flame inside of me. As this wrath rises, I see the darkness around him beginning to take shape, red light from his chest starts to shine outwards and pulse with purple flares. Krotha’s smile begins to turn to a scowl.

  Go back inside Dashkatul, Amon, this one is mine.

  He does not. Instead, he walks to my side and nods slowly, eyes looking in the distance, as though he knows where my feet plan to walk. Once I have the Etherius Prism Flower, I will go to Warden Adona and force her to release those I care for. They cannot wait for Solara to free them. They will not suffer this hell for much longer.

  My legs begin to stand as the darkness of my emotions fills me. Where my heart once beat with hope, I feel only the smoldering of wrath beginning to burn brightly. It is the comfort against the pain my heart feels, the salve to my despair.

  My feet lead me to Dargo, and the path to him is filled with soldiers.

  I move now towards the door, the resolve of my people cementing itself firmly in my soul, burning into me, becoming my ethos.

  “I am the blade of my people’s will,” I say, hollowing myself so the darkness and resolve can fill me further.

  Darkness of my own, not Krotha’s. I do not need her to play this tune upon my blade.

  Streaks of blood on the floor guide me to where the two soldiers crawl from the wounds I left on them earlier. I hear the strumming of the second and third chord from the blade of my people’s will. The tempo increases as I stab my blades into the flesh as they beg for their lives, mercy leaving my body, being replaced with a singular purpose. Let all the masters hear the song…

  More come from the elevator, their rifles raised, I strafe sideways dodging the first one’s shots. Rolling forward, I stab through their thick metal armor with the plasma blades hot edge, burning a hole through their heart, steam from blood vaporizing rushes out as the rest boils into a froth, spraying me. The next backs away, fumbling with his weapon as he sees the blaze of my Kuwathi eyes fully alit.

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  “Wait…” they plead.

  I do not.

  My body shifts as they find the will to fire, hitting nothing but my shadow. My blade stabs at the belly of the armor, ripping upwards, splaying the armor as it falls backwards, the soldier with it. His body twitching and bubbling from the heat.

  “I am the blade forged from the cries of my people.”

  The third’s shots roll off the energy shield that Solara gave me. I slash where the tendons are in their body, careful not to cut too deep. They fall to the floor and I drag them back into the elevator. Placing their metal hand on the screen and pressing the floor where all of the soldiers reside, where they have their armors maintenance done. I do not follow the path Solara gave, I will carve my own, tread upon the same path they once took me. The elevator whirs.

  “Please, I have…” the third begins.

  I slice their vocal chords, a sputtering comes from their helmet’s audio as they choke on molten metal. I only needed them alive to use the controls, now they have no use, no right to the life they cling to. As their people have taken mines right to live, I do the same now to them.

  The doors open and as I walk outwards, I see that I am surrounded by more than twenty soldiers, they point their weapons at me. They were ready for me to come here… but it is not just me that walk these soon to be blood soaked floors. I carry with me the souls of the dead that have cried into the void hopelessly for Gods who do not listen, Gods who do not care.

  I am not the withered skeleton that I was when they first brought me here. My muscles are full and my blade requires blood.

  “Put the weapons down, we have you surrounded!” the first yells.

  As the darkness fills me further, I begin to hear the whispers of the dead, they are deafening, among the cries of the dead I hear a word beginning to rise slowly above the others.

  “I am the blade tempered in the tears of the mothers of my people.”

  The soldiers look amongst each other, not understanding my words. It does not matter, they are not for them, I say them for the dead. They deserve to know I hear them, they deserve to come with me and find peace in my blade’s work. My eyes glow brighter, filled with the strength from the calls of the dead I hear illuminating the darkness that creeps into my body and soul.

  “Light him up!”

  Molten plasma rips through the air. I rush forward, the shield Solara gave me ripples red and resounds with a shrill alarm as it begins to fail. It does not matter, I am already upon the first of them. Their bodies do well to shield me from the onslaught of light that flies. My only regret that it is their guns that kill the first three and not my blade.

  “I am the blade honed in the darkness of my people’s lost hope and shattered dreams.”

  My blades slash deep as I move like a shadow between them, using their numbers against them. A loud pop as my shield ruptures from a shot that was meant for my chest. I cannot make any more mistakes… neither can they.

  I stab the next through the face, and use their arm to fire their weapon into two others. I feel the darkness crawling deeper into me. The offering of souls drawing more of the demons from the Cursed Edict into my perception. Their shapes are less stable than Amon and Krotha. They follow close to me, whispering things that darken the mind. Blackened lines are starting to appear on my skin. I hear the call from the Edict, like it is begging to be used.

  The soldiers try to group up now in a line to avoid killing each other. It will not help them. Their fates were sealed the moment I saw the flesh of my people rend into the acid. The moment I realized the sickness that must be cleansed from this place. I am not permitted to die until they do, the dead will it so. Filling me with their resolve as they shout louder in the old tongue, their voices become even more unified, their numbers expanding. I begin to see glimpses of them in the edges of my vision.

  I use one of the soldier’s to use the elevator to the path they took me from. Their head rolls to the floor after the hidden door to the Assembly hall opens. Bloody boot prints trail behind me as I walk to the lowered pedestal and step upon it. It rises soon after, taking me to Dargo’s private quarters.

  Steam wisps from the edge of the plasma blades.

  When the pedestal arrives to his chamber, I see him sitting. There is no tea this time, only a man with a furrowed brow and a face that looks steeped in regrets. The purple spark demon, Amon, he stops near Dargo, looking down at him. His face is still cloaked in darkness, but his eyes look… sad somehow.

  “I had hoped you were not foolish enough to come,” Dargo sighs, shaking his head, “Yet, here we are.”

  “Where is the promised…”

  “There is none here for you.”

  My eye twitches at his words, the dark whispers are loud in my thoughts. Krotha is laughing at the edge of my perception. Anger swims from the deep ocean of my soul.

  “I have been ordered to give you none, this is where your story ends, boy.”

  I shake my head, barely surprised, “My story does not end until your goddess and all the others like her are dead.”

  He smirks, “You would not be the first to try.”

  “I will be the last.”

  His eyes travel over to me, “I have seen this story’s ending more than a thousand times, boy. You are not special, you never were, and never will be.”

  “Today, I am not strong enough to slay you, this I can accept. Someday though…”

  “There will be no someday for you. Today is your last day,” he sighs, looking at the weapons that line the walls, “Through no fault of your own. It is simply the way things always go. How they will always go.”

  The rage stirs, but I wait for him to finish.

  “Leora has led you here, so that you use the Cursed Edict again. She has orchestrated it to maximize your suffering, which in turn will cause you to pull as much as you can from Dashkatul. Which will result in you releasing the Cursed Edict’s power, which will probably result in the deaths of many.”

  “I will not use that cursed blade.”

  He sighs again, “You will. She will ensure that you do. Nothing she does is without planning meticulously. Even if you manage to overcome some of her obstacles, there will be more. There is always more.”

  I look at him squarely, “Why?”

  “She wants to open Dashkatul.”

  “No, I mean why do you help her?” I look at the wall of weapons that he looks upon, “There is much regret in you, yet you do not stop doing it.”

  “I…” he pauses, blinking, “I cannot change, she is my Goddess.”

  “Then you are a fool,” I turn to leave, I am not strong enough to take it from him, not without calling the Cursed Edict, which is what Leora wants. Wasting more time with him will not solve that.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To use the Warden and free as many as I can, I do not wish to dwell in this place of suffering.”

  “Leora will be expecting that.”

  “I don’t care, my path is my own.”

  He looks down, shaking his head, “Then I will be the one to slay you once you fail and are consumed.”

  “I will not be consumed.”

  “Words I have heard too many times.”

  The pedestal lowers, my path is clear, use the Warden to free the others and make sure they leave this place.