CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  Arms akimbo, Shaper’s imprint made manifest glared up at the starless night sky, cocked his head to the side, then snorted at the irony.

  “Not exactly what I’d had in mind,” he muttered to himself. “But I suppose one item off the ole bucket list is better than none.”

  He raised his voice suddenly, projecting his words up at the thing currently blotting out the stars.

  “Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!”

  The starless sky rippled, and roiled, like a pool of oil with a hunk of rock thrown in. The waves of killing intent which beamed down like UV rays, while rather crude linguistically speaking, got the point across well enough. In essence? It was the usual.

  Shaper’s imprint rolled his eyes. Really, it was all so basic.

  “If you’ve heard one malign malediction, you’ve heard ‘em all,” he muttered. “Could’ve at least gone for something a little more original.”

  A harsh snap of his aura was enough to put an end to the self-indulgent posturing. He could almost hear the surprised yip as the oversized elemental was sharply brought to heel. Instantly the pool of shadow shrank back. A wide radius of open sky spreading out and away from him. He dusted off his hands.

  “Better! Now, how’s about I tell you how this is going to work.”

  Outwardly, he was as calm and confident as a divine archetype in his position should be. While, internally, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say he was a bundle of nerves. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for the elemental to realize that he couldn’t actually affect the material world in any meaningful way.

  That, through burning through his reserves as an instructional tool, he was able, briefly, to wield the aura just fine, but without the actual muscle to back it up. He could only hope it wouldn’t come up for a while yet. And hopefully, by the time it did, they’d be long gone.

  Otherwise, well, things were going to go south pretty darn fast.

  +++

  Richard opened his eyes and peered into the cavernous depths of a threadbare hood.

  Skeletal fingers made entirely of shadow already wrapped around his windpipe, where they constricted like a slow, but inexorable vice. Before he could react, a flock of hardcovers swooped in from out of nowhere. Battering the murderous wraith off of him with flaps of their collective page-spans. Before they clamped down on the flimsy cloth of its cloak, and shook it about like a dog with a bone.

  Fabric tore, pages flew, and, before he could even begin to make sense of what he was seeing, the wraith was torn into strips of black bandage, which soon dissipated into wisps of silver soul energy. While those books that’d survived the ordeal limped into the air to rejoin the fray.

  Richard sucked in a deep breath. Coughed—tears lingering at the corners of his eyes. He rubbed at his soar throat as he rose to a seated position—following his apparent saviors with his gaze as they soared ever higher. Up towards the ongoing turf war being waged in the sky. Similar scenes of bookish brutality to the one he’d just witnessed, repeated throughout the central well and bookshelves beyond.

  Gingerly, Richard got to his feet. Then was forced to duck back down again as a fresh flock of paperbacks soared past overhead. The flapping of pages alerting him just in the nick of time. He stared wonderingly at the panorama of pandemonium for a second more, before he stepped up to the edge of the balcony, and focused on what had brought him here in the first place.

  Across the way, what was ostensibly a swamp rendered in black and white, was shoved aside to accommodate a much larger intrusion on his domain. It resembled nothing so much as a medieval dungeon. A damp, dark place of chains, dried stains, and nightmarish instruments. And at the center of the vast space, stood the creature—golden eyes sweeping about the space with curiosity rather than confusion.

  Its lack of bewilderment left Richard ill at ease.

  He rose into the air, gathered about himself the tools of his trade—paper tearing itself from its bindings with ease, until a serpentine procession of fluttering pages wrapped around his diminutive form. From across the central well, past the ongoing bedlam, Richard and the creature locked eyes.

  Of all the things he’d expected to see, glee was not one of them. The creature spoke and, through a quirk of the soul, Richard heard his words loud and clear.

  “You know, I knew you’d be trouble the moment I laid eyes upon you. It’s almost laughable. One misplaced step, a brief flick of the paw, and all of this could’ve been entirely avoided.”

  Richard said nothing, eyes drawn to the expansive wall just behind the creature. Extensive, it loomed higher and more imposingly than his current perspective should’ve allowed. A jagged rod of pain speared through his temple. Abruptly, he quit questioning the why, and focused more intently on the what. More specifically, the many bodies chained and dangling from said wall for as far as the eye could see.

  “As for why I refrained… well,” the creature snagged a book from out of the air and, after watching it struggle to free itself for a time, proceeded to brutally tear it in half. “Let’s just say, never again will I judge a book by its cover.”

  Malformed and heavily scarred, every one of them was the victim of prolonged physical trauma. Men, women… children. He could hear their pitiful moans from there.

  “Still, despite everything, I feel I must thank you. Were you aware, when you brought me here, that the House of Sands, of which I’m a prominent scion, excels in disputes of the soul? To better help with the navigation of dreams and the like. I’ve been trained in the art since I was a kid. This despite my… more relevant aptitudes in other areas.”

  His kids… they’d been this close to being treated to a similar fate. If he hadn’t been here…

  “Never did I actually expect to use any of that tripe, however. So again, I feel I owe you a debt of gratitude. Very rarely do I get such the perfect chance to right such a personal wrong.”

  And, as if by unspoken signal, both he and the creature recognized that the time for conversation had come to an end. They acted simultaneously. Richard set the gathering of papers to fold themselves into several fantastical forms, while the creature…

  The creature rapidly transformed. Swelled. Grew exponentially and all at once in a burgeoning of liquid shadow. Until the homogenous blob it became towered over his quaint little library—filling up nearly the entirety of its own soul space with its vague silhouette. A vague silhouette which took on greater definition even as he watched.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  A long arm punched through the murk. It appeared to be made up of a variety of different skin types. A disturbing patchwork of furs, scales, and what looked to be human skin, all layered atop the rippling muscle of an enormous claw-tipped forearm. The massive hand slammed into the side of his soul palace. Scrabbled for purchase, hooked a claw on a bit of railing before it began to pull the rest of its bulk on through to the other side.

  Unfortunately, the section of the balcony it clung onto ultimately proved inadequate for the task at hand. Coming free in a hail of dust and shattered masonry.

  The shock of agony that stole through Richard at this desecration of his soul caused a brief lapse in consciousness. When he came to, a split second later, it was being held in the arms of his superego, who didn’t look so hot. His face pale, beaded with sweat, and pinched in a deeply pained expression. Richard had no doubt he looked much the same.

  More of the creature crossed the divide separating their spaces. A second arm. A third. Each slamming into the stuff of his soul palace, claws digging in for leverage. The pain was excruciating. Worse than that, it was distracting.

  Richard’s origami completion time took a massive hit.

  The walls groaned and cracked as the creature strained. Hairline fractures racing outward in every direction. Part of a horn poking through here. Part of a leg there. Until the entirety of the creature’s upper half, and much of its lower, was fully exposed.

  It was like looking up at a skyscraper.

  A muscular patchwork torso, with four long arms that could’ve hung to the ankle, and a skull in place of a face with two enormous sockets—a pair of slitted golden eyes peering out from beneath a nonexistent brow ridge.

  The thing then let out a deafening wail which shook the increasingly compromised foundations of his soul palace. Airborne agony rippling out and away from its cavernous maw like a wave of white noise. Emanations which impacted like a million needles jammed into the central nervous system. This time, it was his super ego’s turn to faint. The agonizing wail having proven too much.

  A carpet of paper constructs carried him somewhere out of the way, just as the last of his origami creations came to fruition.

  Craning his neck up at the very large, very obvious distraction, Richard shook his head ever so slightly.

  “It won’t work,” he muttered.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Rose|

  ~Cage of Thorns~

  Abruptly, the vast majority of the origami constructs scattered like flies. Leaving behind a spherical lattice of slowly rotating origami roses. About which light distorted and refracted in peculiar ways. Needle-thin tears in space-time—like jagged black rents whose edges glinted all the colors of the rainbow—serving as the thorns of this metaphorical cage.

  And Richard positioned at the very heart of it.

  It was enough so that, when the sneak attack finally arrived, there was no real cause for concern. The surge of spearing shadows which sprang up from behind effectively tearing themselves to shreds on the splinters of spatial divide. He didn’t even need to lift a finger.

  “See?”

  Seeing that its initial ploy had failed, but clearly still ignorant of just how outmatched he truly was, the creature changed tact. Its jaw unhinged, a point of dark, purple flame gathering at the back of its throat. Spinning. Condensing. Before, with a flare of heat, that point swelled into a bonfire, and a raging pillar of fire lanced forth. Though, most notably, it hadn’t been aimed at him.

  The rows upon rows of bookshelves beneath him, however, were cast in stark lines of light and shadow.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Mosquito|

  ~Parasitic Swarm~

  Only for it to be intercepted by an array of origami mosquitoes. Instead of being consumed by the dark purple flame, however, the paper constructs swelled exponentially. Took on a sympathetic hue. Drained the leaping pillar of its flames until nothing was left behind but a wall of superheated air, and a cloud of bloated mosquitoes nearly full to bursting.

  At which point, with a flick of his wrist, the swarm converged upon the creature instead. Flitting forward like arrows to impact the creature’s bulk with a series of explosions. Its own flames reappropriated to devastating effect. The patchwork monster rocked back with every clump of detonations.

  The creature let out another wail of agony. The waves of pain which followed on the heels of the ear-piercing shriek, so potent, that his vision swam. It lashed out. Brought its massive paw around in a bid to overpower his defenses. It faired little better than the previous attack had. A circular hole torn through the center of its palm. This time, its scream was more pained than painful.

  In what couldn’t possibly have been a tantrum, surely not, the creature began flailing its arms around like two-ton wrecking balls. Before it could deal any more collateral damage than it already had, however, Richard was there.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Tortoise|

  ~Mighty Armored Shell~

  For every potential blow to his soul’s shaky foundations, a formation of armored paper shells was there to intercept. Bright blue barriers sparking to life with every block or deflection. And all the while, bloated paper mosquitos continued to bombard the creature from all sides.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Eel|

  Origami eels crackling with electricity shot forth like bolts of lightning. Each packing enough voltage to outright stop the heart of a puny E Grade with ease. And here he had hundreds of them.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Falcon|

  A flock of paper falcons swooped down from above, each surrounded by a cyclone of gale-force winds. Their gusts as sharp and deadly as a fine razor. Together they formed a wind storm which blotted out the mist wall above.

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Mole|

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Komodo|

  |Origami War Art: Way of the Tigress|

  One after another. Again and again. Without letting up or even allowing the creature to come up for air, Richard sent origami after origami its way. The only limiter on his power the current state of his soul. The only reason the creature was still intact, if bloodied, the superior state of its own. Still, it wasn’t for nothing that most of these “techniques” had been developed in B Grade.

  And though he couldn’t bring out the full extent of their power, in the end, it mattered very little.

  That wasn’t to say the creature didn’t fight back.

  Swarms of grasping hands, armored infantry, shadow archers, gladiators of all shapes and sizes—even hatchet man made an appearance, if only briefly. All were swiftly born into this world and left it just as quickly. Everything the fiend could think to throw at him broke itself against his stalwart defenses before he broke them in turn. More soul energy to patch up the accumulated damages.

  And the creature meanwhile?

  Barely having moved from his original position, Richard looked on as the big bad E Grade was cut down to size.

  Burned, beaten, bleeding, and broken, the creature had been reduced to a shivering, man-sized wretch. Shoved back into the far corner of its very own soul space, where it could only watch in horrified disbelief as Richard hovered ever closer. A menagerie of origami creations floating at his beck and call. Richard crossed the divide separating their realms—spatial tears glinting menacingly as he neared.

  The creature tried to shrink back. Eyes searching, desperately, for a way out, but there was nowhere to go. Richard’s intention was made obvious as he didn’t stop his advance. The way things were going, he would shunt straight on through the creature, and let the tears in space do the rest.

  When he’d gotten within barely a foot of the creature, however, he hesitated. Flicked his gaze towards one of the chained prisoners, a woman. One of his “thorns” bare inches from slitting her throat. If he moved another pace forward…

  He flicked his gaze back to the creature and realized what he’d just done.

  “No-!”

  Before he could even begin to intervene, however, the creature had already transformed into a bolt of shadow, which arced upwards lightning fast. He raced after the streak of purple, making sure to keep his cage away from the helpless prisoners. The creature meanwhile, had no such compunctions.

  It tried to disappear into the crowd, hide amongst them, but he was having none of it. He couldn’t afford to think, only react. A pale blue needle etched in runes appeared between his teeth. He spat. The small projectile whistled through the air. A light pop was followed by a hideous scream, as the creature’s elusive form burst like a soap bubble.

  The ear piercing screech seemed to go on for far too long, before the creature eventually turned into a stream of gold-speckled soul energy, and flowed towards the wall of mist.

  Richard ceased his climb, shot backward, took in the full panorama of dangling captives, and slumped. It was finally over.