Chapter 68 Chapter Sixty-Eight - Jartre
“You couldn’t have seen that coming?” Merlos huffs as we all get to our feet, shaking off the mud and water. Merlos waves her hands returning her dress and hair to their pristine state.
“What do you say we do this in style?” With a confident smirk on her face, Morrtemis steps forward as her deep, cocoa skin slowly turns into a violet crystal-like substance. The crystals continue to spread, replacing her hair and clothes until there’s nothing left but walking amethyst.
Our vessels are just that, vessels. Forms that allow us to blend in with humans a little easier, and ones we find a little more appealing to the eye. These, however, are not our true forms. All Gods have two forms. There’s our true physical form that looks more like a sentient humanoid-gemstone, and then there’s our purest form, consisting of celestial energy. Energy so pure and powerful it would destroy every human here if they looked upon it.
One by one the others follow Morrtemis’ lead. Oshmin’s appearance morphs to his crystalized form, standing tall like blue topaz, though his eyes continue to burn blood-red signifying his curse and for once the sight of it fills me with guilt. Ezillus, standing beside him, becomes like a vibrant ruby. Zarseti and Merlos quickly follow suit, Zarseti looking like the embodiment of pure spinel and Merlos like golden beryl. With a crack of my neck I allow my true physical form to take over, my body tingling and rippling as every inch of me is replaced by a diamond exterior, harder than any substance on Earth yet flexible as flesh.
Morrtemis holds out her hand, summoning a mighty sword made from the wind itself, then disappears and reappears behind Azadou, slashing her wind blade against his back. He lets out a deep cry of pain as he’s sent hurtling towards us.
A ball of white energy surrounds my fist as I launch myself at Azadou, but as my fist is about to collide with his skull, he throws his fist up. A ball of purple, electric energy surrounds his fist as it collides with mine, setting off another shockwave across the field.
We glare at each other, sparks of white and purple lighting sparking as the force of our fists continues to push back against one another, neither budging.
“Still using that move?” he taunts.
“You seem a little rusty,” I taunt back.
He huffs in amusement, then throws his other hand out, blasting me with a bolt of purple lightning, sending me ploughing through the field like a meteor. I feel the pain radiating through my body as I shake off the debris, taking me a moment to remember that this is what pain feels like. As I rise to my feet, realisation hits me…I’m bonded to Gabriella completely now…my fight with Oshmin almost killed Yildiz once when they were only half bonded…am I killing Gabriella?!
Panic floods my body when another realisation hits me…I can’t feel Gabriella at all.
As fear and dread swirl out of control inside me, urging me to return to Gabriella’s side, Zarseti appears in front of me, capturing my face in her crystal hands, placing a blanket of calm over my entire being.
“Breathe, Jartre. Nothing is wrong and she is not in any pain. I’ve made sure of that,” she says, her piercing silver eyes looking at me with sincerity, while begging me to trust her.
I sigh with relief, nodding my appreciation to her. Why the fuck didn’t I put a block up?! That’s the first fucking thing I should have done! How could I have been so stupid? If Zarseti hadn’t thought head, I could have…
“Jartre, you need to focus!” Zarseti urges.
I take in a deep breath, pushing the fear and doubt to the back of my mind as I race back over to the others just as Ezillus encases Azadou in ice, but as I approach, the ice explodes in shards across the field. Zarseti casually throws up a shield of fuchsia energy to protect all those battling the eyti just as the shards start to fly, each one turning to particles of dust as they hit the shield. Merlos hangs back, floating in the air like she’s fucking Endora from Bewitched, painting her fucking crystal nails and looking bored by all of this. I have a mind to punch her crystal teeth in.
Oshmin becomes distracted when he looks out onto the field to see a bright ball of glittering energy causing a mass of eyti to demolecularise. As that patch of the field becomes clear, I recognise the face of Yildiz, battling alongside her sisters. She looks different since I last saw her, most notably the streaks of azure blue in her hair and it seems she got a hell of a power boost. Makes me wonder if Gabriella will experience something similar.
“Oshmin, she’ll be fine. Just focus!” Morrtemis shouts, her wind sword quickly morphing into a flaming bow and arrow. She draws back, aiming the flaming arrow as it takes off in Azadou’s direction. He turns, catching the arrow in his hand, smirking as he spins it around in his fingers and throws it back in Morrtemis’ direction, but like the warrior she is, she spins, catching the arrow on the string of her bow, spinning back around shooting it at him once again.
As Azadou attempts to block it, he’s hit by a blast of blue energy sent from Oshmin behind him, that sends him directly into the path of the flaming arrow. Azadou lets out a visceral groan of pain as the arrow pierces his shoulder. Amongst the sound of battle, I hear panicked squawks from above. I glance up as I see Orenda, repeatedly flying at the barrier, summoning mighty bolts of lightning with her wings and blasting them at the dome, desperately trying to get through to no avail.
“Why and how are they being kept out?!” I shout at Zarseti.
Zarseti stares at me with defiance, as if challenging me to let them past the barrier. For some reason she doesn’t want Ayawamat or Orenda in on this fight, I just can’t fucking figure out why. I created them with the sole purpose of destroying eyti. They could wipe out every fucking one of them on this field. We all could. So why is she determined to do things the fucking hard way?
I look back as Azadou steadies himself. He looks around as we all circle him, his body radiating whisps of black energy with currents of purple static.
“I see nothing has changed,” he snarls indignantly as he pants. He raises his hand to the silver blood dripping from his wound as it rapidly heals. “You pious, sanctimonious, bunch of cunts. I’m going to eradicate every last one of you,” he says with sadistic glee.
Morrtemis, Oshmin, Ezillus and I all launch ourselves at him at the same time. Azadou throws his hand out, splattering each of us with his blood, except Morrtemis who narrowly dodges it. Oshmin, Ezillus and I, drop to the ground, clutching our bodies as Azadou’s blood burns through our crystal flesh like sulfuric acid.
“Motherfucker!” Ezillus shouts.
I let out a roar of outrage, pushing past the pain as I launch at Azadou once again, grabbing him and slamming him into the earth with enough force to create a crater in the field. As white, hot energy surrounds my hands, I use that energy to land blow after blow to Azadou’s body, his head whipping back and forth as his body is pummelled deeper into the earth, his piercing purple eyes looking at me mockingly. He cackles maniacally, catching my wrists and staring up at me with burning hatred as silver blood trickles from his mouth.
“Beat me all you like, Jartre. No matter what you do, you can’t destroy your own malice.”
He slams his head into mine, pain radiating through my skull as he lands a powerful kick to my torso sending me hurtling and skidding across the field, knocking several trees down in my wake. I slowly get up, cringing from the ache in my body – a sensation still foreign to me.
I push back the pain, once again rising to my feet, but as I look towards where I came from I see Azadou in the distance conjuring a large mass of purple electricity around his body. The electricity explodes from Azadou’s body like a nuclear blast, knocking Oshmin, Ezillus and Morrtemis in several different directions while Zarseti manages to perfectly disappear and reappear, predicting Azadou’s attacks and avoiding them.
I appear beside the others in the blink of an eye as black tendrils of pure darkness begin to pour from Azadou, moving around him like tentacles under his control.
“Have none of you learned by now? You can’t fight your own darkness. You all condemned me. Now I shall return the favour.” His eyes glow ferociously, malice oozing off him like tar. Not just my malice, but his own. The two combining into a force of so much negativity and hatred that it’s polluting the air like a noxious gas.
I created this.
I started this, and it can only end with my death. Once upon a time, I was willing to die to bring his reign to an end but now…now I have something to live for. I have the love of my animai and it’s something I refuse to give up. I know that’s why no one is going for a kill shot. They all know if they kill him they’re killing me. They’re all holding back to protect me when I have done nothing to earn their protection.
Maybe Gabriella was right, maybe there’s a way to do what Fretez did.
“Azadou stop this!” Morrtemis shouts, storming out from where she was blasted into the forest. “A peaceful resolution can be made, but you have to meet us halfway. You are one of us! Stand with us, not against us.”
He laughs bitterly, “Says the Goddess who attacked me from behind. That wasn’t very nice,” he tsks, slowly wagging his finger at her. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t all the little creatures you Gods created draw power from the sun? I wonder how they’ll fair against my eyti when the sun goes out,” he says darkly.
We watch on as a blast of black energy erupts from Azadou’s body, straight up, swallowing the sun in darkness and plunging the field and the Earth itself into instant darkness. This isn’t the darkness of night; this is like being swallowed by the shadows themselves. Even I can barely see through this darkness. I can hear the sounds of those fighting against the eyti becoming overwhelmed by their force, unable to see what they’re fighting. But the eyti don’t need eyes to seek their prey, they can sniff them out.