Gentleness.

Calmness.

He was wrapped in something soft and light, in a place that was absent judgment.  A place of rest, where he didn’t have to worry about anything else.  A place where he didn’t have to face the world, where he didn’t have to own up to his mistakes, where he didn’t have to face the consequences of his own weakness, or to feel shame for his failures.  It was a place where he didn’t even have to open his eyes.

He could just lay there, unmoving, doing nothing more than existing.  Floating in an ocean of quiet darkness, where none could see him or speak to him or hear his words—if he even cared to speak.

But slowly, something began to nibble at the edges of his consciousness, some dull thumping sound in the back of his head, irregular and insistent.  And it was growing louder in tandem with how conscious he was becoming of it.  The more attention he paid it, the more insistent it was becoming.

But the dark called to him, promising him that he could lay down his sword, shrug off the unwanted weight of his lineage, and relieve the burden of being the last of his Clan.  He wanted nothing more than to immerse himself in that darkness, where he wouldn’t have to think about pirates or serpents or his recent loss or his many other losses…

He couldn’t, though.  He was now too conscious of the thumping in the back of his head, as if someone were knocking on the doors of his mind and shouting for his attention at the same time.  The peace was disturbed, and it couldn’t be regained.

With rising annoyance, Leon sighed and opened his eyes.

Or rather, he tried to.  His eyelids felt as heavy as bricks, and opening them for any reason seemed almost beyond the limits of his abilities.  This finally seemed to strike a chord within him, as his mind latched onto the idea that it shouldn’t be this damned hard to wake the hells up…

Leon almost instinctively called upon his magic power, and it took him a moment or two of letting it course through his body, filling him with energy and vigor, before he realized that him having access to his power should’ve been surprising given his situation when last he could remember…

‘Jormun!’ Leon silently shouted as he bolted upright, his eyes flying open as silver-blue lightning rushed through his body and mind, annihilating all the physically debilitating effects that his body had been placed under.

Immediately, Leon settled into a powerful fighting stance, though he couldn’t see or hear anyone around him.  In fact, he couldn’t see anything around him—he was in a black void, not unlike the abyss of teleportation tunnels.  However, unlike the teleportation tunnels he had experience with, this one seemed oppressive, like it was pressing in on him from all sides.  It didn’t feel particularly dangerous, more like he was wearing a thick fur coat, or maybe like he’d been covered by a heavy blanket while he slept.  Comforting while he’d been on the ‘ground’ with his eyes closed, but now something he found more than a little disconcerting.

Making him even more disconcerted was the thumping in his head, which had grown a little louder and more insistent now that he was awake.  It still sounded like someone was trying to talk to him, but he couldn’t make out what they were trying to say.

Leon was tempted to call out to this person to see if they could hear him when he spoke out loud, but the oppressiveness of the omnipresent darkness had him holding his tongue.  He didn’t know what was out there, but he began to feel a creeping suspicion that he wasn’t alone out in this darkness.  He didn’t think it was the person trying to speak with him—though there were quite a few people that person could be, given how many beings were able to speak directly into his mind—but there was definitely a presence surrounding him, observing him, waiting for an opportunity to strike.  If he had to point out any particular reason why he felt like this, he’d guess that it had to do with how the darkness around him felt kind of like some form of magic senses…

For the next few minutes, Leon slowly evaluated both his physical condition and his current situation.  As far as he could tell, he was physically fine.  The bindings that Jormun had placed upon him were gone, so he had use of his magic again.  His soul realm still felt distant, though, and he couldn’t project his mind into it, so communicating with Nestor, Maia, or the Thunderbird was still out of the question, unfortunately.

The last thing he could remember was falling down the pit that Jormun had pushed them into.  At some point, Leon had hit something in the dark, something that felt a lot like he’d fallen through a web or thin screen of some sort, and been subsequently put to sleep, but it had been after many seconds of falling.  He couldn’t say for certain how far he’d fallen even before slipping into the darkness of imposed sleep, let alone after.  Wherever he was now, however, did not seem to be underground, exactly.  He supposed this place could’ve been anywhere, just filled with this strange darkness, but he felt it was more likely that at some point, he’d fallen into a teleportation portal.

At the very least, he and Jormun appeared to have been separated, for the pirate was nowhere to be seen, and Leon couldn’t sense anything with his magic senses other than the darkness magic all around him.

With some effort, Leon began to channel his silver-blue lightning with greater power, enough to push it outside of his body.  His form sparked and crackled with lightning, and arcs began to spring from him to the ‘floor’ of this space at greater distances.  The darkness melted away from his power, but as soon as the lightning vanished, the dark rushed back in to replace it.  Leon soon stopped this effort, for it quickly became clear that there was no way he was going to be able to push all of this darkness back with his power alone any more than he would be able to hold back the ocean with nothing more than a paddle.

As part of his self-evaluation, Leon made sure to raise his mental defenses.  With so much darkness magic around, he couldn’t be too sure of what he could perceive even though his body was flooded with the Thunderbird’s lightning.  Almost as soon as the protective magical shell formed around his brain, oddly enough, the darkness began to recede from him of its own accord.

This recession accelerated, and soon enough, revealed a vertical rectangle of light—the exit of this space, Leon presumed—about two hundred feet away, inviting him by its presence alone.

Leon took one last look around, but quickly began to run toward the light.  He had no idea what was going on with him, or where he was, how long he’d been out, or what was going on outside.  He had to return to the fleet, they were all in danger so long as Jormun was still active.

And Jormun was still active, as far as Leon was concerned.  The pirate was nowhere to be seen, but until he lay dead at Leon’s feet, Leon was going to refuse to believe any of this was over.  And with him now in this teleportation tunnel, he had a terrible feeling that not only were things far from being over, they were about to get a lot worse.

As Leon stepped into the doorway of light, Jormun’s claim that he’d succeeded in his mission rang in his ears, and he prepared himself for possible violence, and let his magic power inundate his body.

There was a great flash of light as Leon stepped through the portal, and a moment later, he felt solid ground beneath his boots.

He was in a cave, at what appeared to be a dead end.  The stone all around him was the same black volcanic stone that he recognized from the Serpentine Isles, so he relaxed just a little bit with the assumption that he hadn’t been teleported that far, but he got the sense that he was a great distance below the surface—the stone above him felt heavy, and his ears popped a second after stepping out of the portal.

The cave itself appeared completely natural, and possessed no decorations of any kind.  There was just a long stone tunnel ahead of him that was angled slightly down, heading deeper into the earth.

There was no other way to go, just down, though that didn’t stop Leon from taking a few minutes to explore this cave and confirm that there was nothing else around.

With some reluctance, Leon began to walk down the tunnel, lightning still dancing across his body as he moved, illuminating the otherwise pitch-black tunnel—not that Leon, as a seventh-tier mage, needed that light to see.

He walked slowly, with great caution at first.  However, as he proceeded for seconds, then minutes, and then what seemed like at least an hour, Leon relaxed, letting his magic subside just a bit, though he kept his guard up as much as he could.  The tunnel just went on and on, deeper and deeper into the bones of Aeterna.

Quietly, another noise began to build up in Leon’s ears, eventually cutting through the muffled thumping he could hear in the back of his mind.  Except this noise was somehow even stranger than that thumping, for it wasn’t something he would’ve ever expected to hear down here.

He heard the distant fluttering of feathered wings.

He quickly halted for a moment once he became aware of the noise to recheck his mental defenses, only advancing again once he’d verified that the magic shell around his brain was still intact and that silver-blue lightning still coursed through his veins.

But he could still hear the flapping of wings, and it was slowly growing louder.

For some reason, though, as he walked, the flapping of those wings was pushed out of his mind.  It was an important thing, but he didn’t even notice it happen; one minute, he was concentrating on those wing flaps, and the next, his mind was wandering.

After a few seconds of thoughtlessness, Leon blinked in confusion and found his mind turning back to the battle he had with Jormun, displaying it before him in his mind’s eye in vivid, almost otherworldly detail.  He remembered every strike, every lightning bolt, every potent lick of flame.  Most of all, though, he remembered Jormun moving faster than he’d ever shown himself capable of during the fight to slam the head of that bronze hammer into his stomach.  He remembered being unable to do anything other than lay helpless on the ground as Jormun loomed overhead, and then the sharp pain and instant darkness as the pirate brought the hammer down upon his head.

Were it not for Jormun healing him immediately afterward, Leon guessed that probably would’ve been a fatal blow.

He’d lost that fight.  Why he started it in the first place, he didn’t consider, but every blocked lightning bolt, every missed strike, Leon could remember all of it in crushing detail.  Every mistake he’d made during the fight ran through his head, highlighting his weakness and his inability to stand against Jormun.

A scowl formed upon Leon’s face as he relived this loss, and soon enough, he found his mind turning even farther back, to his fight with Nestor.  The dead man had made an absolute fool out of him, and just the memory of lying helpless in the dirt of his own soul realm, unable to move as Nestor piloted his physical body around, filled him with shame, depression, and fury.

Leon had to fight the powerful urge to smash something.  The only things around were the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, and striking any of them with cathartic force would likely bring the entire tunnel collapsing down upon him.

Rage and humiliation and a hundred other similar emotions filled Leon’s body, but not for long.  All were eventually replaced with shame—shame in himself for getting himself into those situations, and in his power and skill for being unable to stop these men when the time came.  That he was still alive was a miracle that he could not claim credit for.

His recollections didn’t end there.  He’d lost many times, and each and every time he’d ever lost ran through his mind.  His meeting with Maia.  His battle with the seventh-tier Talfar vampire, Bran.  His duel with Hakon Fire-Beard.

His left arm ached as he thought about the battle with Amon’s seventh-tier vampire, when he’d had to call upon the power of Xaphan just to survive.  He remembered every time Trajan knocked him down in a sparring session, every loss he ever suffered to Valeria while they were at the Knight Academy, and his defeat at the hands of the alliance of trainees that had assembled against his Snow Lions.

Finally, every time his father had beaten him during their training.  Every time, and there were many, easily more than a thousand.  He recalled each and every time his father broke his guard or parried and riposted, or struck when Leon’s guard was down.  Each loss was a lesson, but each one brought more and more red to Leon’s cheeks as they were paraded before his mind’s eye, and the shame in himself and his power grew.

And then… he heard a voice.  This was not one that ran through his mind, but rather one that echoed through the tunnel, clear as crystal even as distant as it was.  Smooth, yet resonant.  Rather masculine, but with an undercurrent of femininity.  Above all, inhuman.

“This… is what you are…” the voice said, barely more than a whisper yet perfectly audible to Leon’s ears.

As the words faded, the image of Jormun over him, his triumphant grin plastered over his face, his hammer raised in the moment before it was brought down.  Leon’s hands instinctively curled, trying to grasp the sword that was not there for comfort and security.  But there was no comfort or security to be had, and all he could do was stop in place and let his magic flow through his body.

It did little to help.

His heart rate skyrocketed in the wake of that voice’s statement, as did his shame.  He knew that the voice was speaking to him, and he knew exactly why it was saying these things.  Shame overwhelmed his mind, preventing him from thinking clearly or doing anything else save for standing there in the middle of the tunnel, petrified.

“This… is what you are…” the voice repeated, and Leon’s mind was filled with more images, but these seemed almost prophetic.  He saw himself as a slave, broken and battered after his failure to revive his Clan.  He was dressed in rags, covered in dirt, utterly powerless, with no one left with him.  He was so weak, barely able to raise his arm to beg for scraps from his master.

He then saw another vision, this time of him triumphant, a golden crown upon his head, and adorned in silver armor, his family at his side.  Elise, Maia, and Valeria, all with his children, and Alix, Marcus, Alcander, Gaius, Nestor, Xaphan, and a million others, all bowing to him as he sat upon his throne.  Only for all of it to fall from his grasp, his inability to rule after his conquest ensuring his downfall at the hands of a man wreathed in and obscured by dark clouds—Kamran, Leon instinctively knew.

A third vision; he saw himself back in the Forest of Black and White, sixteen once again, running from everything he could sense in the forest.  He was barely more than a mouse, unable to affect any kind of change upon the world.  He’d never left after his father’s death, and instead eked out a miserable existence in the place he once called home, running from everything within the forest that had even a modicum of power, surviving off of carrion and anything else he could scrounge up.

He knew the meaning in he was being shown.  He was too weak to achieve his goals.  Even if he did somehow manage to do so, he’d never be able to hold his gains.  He was so weak that even if he’d never tried coming south, he’d have been nothing at all, just a worthless scavenger in a remote Northern Vale, less even than the barbarian he’d so often been called.

“This… is what you are…” the voice repeated a third time.  “But… you could be more…”

Leon’s eyes rose from staring at the floor, damp with unshed tears of helplessness, his heart heavy with shame, his body weak and shaking with fear, resignation, and just a hint of hope as the voice’s statement echoed through this tunnel.

“Come to me…” the voice said, and Leon found himself already walking forward, drawn toward whatever this voice was promising.

He heard the flapping of wings again, and as he walked, he saw lying upon the ground a small brown feather flecked with gold—exactly the same as the Thunderbird’s, only much smaller.

As his eyes landed upon that feather, Leon’s mind was again filled with visions, of himself standing above everything, the true King of the Heaven’s as he’d so arrogantly declared when writing his Mana Glyph.  All bowed before him, his family was strong and without equal, his father had been avenged, and the future of his children was secure.  He reigned supreme as the most powerful, untouchable existence in the universe.

He saw himself again, this time standing victoriously atop a mountain of corpses.  They’d come at him in numbers too great to count, but as his skin hardened into midnight-black scales, his eyes darkened to red-orange, and black fire erupted from his fingers, he slaughtered them all with ease.  His power was unequaled, and none could strike at him again.  None could take from him again, or deny his power.

He saw a third vision, of himself transformed.  He was a new Thunderbird, his body reshaped, feathered, and cloaked in the darkest of storm clouds.  His lightning rained down upon his enemies unceasingly, breaking their might and ensuring his victory.

“This… is what you could be…” the voice seductively whispered, the masculine tones fading in favor of something more overtly feminine, almost motherly, almost familiar…

At some point, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel, harsh and white, so much so that Leon had to squint.  But his feet didn’t slow for a single second.  He kept walking, unable to stop, and eventually reached the end of the tunnel.

He stepped out onto a relatively small platform at the top of an almost mind-bendingly long, winding staircase.  He was about halfway up the wall of a cavern, but to call it a cavern would be to do the magnitude of this space a grave injustice—he’d emerged into such a titanic space that it beggared belief, a cavern so immense it was practically a whole other world.

At the bottom of the cavern was what looked to be an enormous city, so large that it completely covered the cavern floor.  Hundreds of pyramids, made of jet-black stone and packed so tightly together that there was practically no room between them.  The only real space of note between them he could see was at the bottom of the staircase, where a long uncovered hallway cut a path straight through these innumerable pyramids, leading to a gargantuan plaza that surrounded the biggest and most impressive pyramid of them all, a pyramid that had an identical twin somehow built and secured to the ceiling directly above it, mirroring it perfectly.  The tips of these two pyramids almost touched, separated by a space of only about forty feet.

A bright beam of white light shot out of the tips of both pyramids, connecting them, and illuminating the entire ‘city’.  Within that light Leon could sense… something, but he wasn’t sure what.  It felt kind of like a natural confluence of magical energy, but there seemed to be some kind of will behind it.  Something sentient resided within that light, something decidedly inhuman, and its attention was fixed squarely upon him.

“Come…” the voice said soothingly, invitingly, seductively, “come to me…  Give yourself to me… and become all that you could be…”

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