Chapter 523: price to pay
The essence did not function as a simple reservoir of power, a gauge drained in bursts during combat or incantations. Nor did it regenerate with rest, nor was it measured in points or abstract units. The essence was the very fabric of being, a continuous thread woven from the first breath to the final heartbeat. It contained every word learned, every scar, every betrayal suffered or inflicted, every sunrise contemplated, every name loved. It was the living memory of flesh and spirit, inseparable from identity.
In an angel, it bore the resonance of the Creation’s hymns, the echo of divine orders and the weight of centuries spent watching over worlds. In a demon, it rustled with silent rebellions, pacts sealed in shadows, the burns of the infernos and tears dried before they could even fall. In a mortal, more fragile, it was an intertwining of days too short, violent hopes and tenuous fears, yet just as complex and irreplaceable.
Losing one’s essence did not mean growing exhausted. It was far worse: it meant being erased in strata. First recent memories faded, then acquired knowledge vanished, faces grew blurry, names slipped away. Then emotions atrophied, as if the heart were slowly learning to beat for nothing anymore. Pain, joy, anger, all dissolved into icy indifference. Muscles lost their memory, gestures became hesitant, the voice shattered into empty echoes. Finally, when nothing remained but the skeleton of existence, a shell without past, without desire, without identity, the being unraveled in a slow invisible combustion. Not a death, for death implies a known end and a possible mourning. Here it was an abolition: no one remembered what had been, not even the universe, not even the gods. The hole left in reality closed again at once, as if nothing had ever existed.
It was this abyss that Aeshma contemplated in that moment. Her fingers still trembled, not from fear, but from that brutal lucidity that seizes the condemned on the threshold of the pyre. She knew that every particle of her essence she was about to release would not be an offered sacrifice, but a page torn from her own book, burned without witness. She would forget the reasons for which she fought, then forget that she had fought, then forget that she had been. But in this second of absolute consciousness, she already measured the price: her name would vanish from lips, her shadow would disappear from walls, and even the ashes of her choice would leave no trace. Nothing would remain but a pure act, detached from any author, floating in the void like a note without a musician. She exhaled slowly, closed her eyes, and crossed the threshold.
In the torn sky, a gigantic eye had appeared a few minutes earlier. It floated, cold and inquisitorial, like a sick moon born from the deepest abysses. Unlike any living organ, it never blinked; instead, it emitted light beams of blinding and absolute intensity, capable of reducing to dust anything they grazed. These rays annihilated matter and energy in their path, leaving behind only a sterile and silent void. The earth cracked under the impact, the air vibrated with an unhealthy heat that made the horizon waver, and even the shadows seemed to flee before this destructive light, as if the very notion of night had become an insult to the cosmic order. This thing was not a creature in the proper sense of the term; it constituted a direct manifestation of the 13th Constellation, an entity whose mere gaze sufficed to undo the laws of reality.
Aeshma knew that standing up to her master was tantamount to signing her own death warrant. She was fully aware of the immensity of his power, and the cold precision with which he crushed any form of insubordination. Yet, she had not backed down. She had chosen confrontation, not out of blindness, but because any other option seemed even more intolerable, and because its manifestation went against her desires.
Aeshma danced in the midst of death. Her movements were fluid, almost supernatural, as she tirelessly dodged the bursts of light raining from the sky. Each missed beam dug a smoking crater where she had stood a fraction of a second earlier, hurling incandescent debris that whistled around her like wasps of fire. She felt the scorching breath of impacts on her neck, heard the crackling of ionized air, and perceived in every fiber of her being the promise of imminent death.
The spotlights swept across the black steel of the corridor, and each beam, as it passed, left a trail of heat on Kaelen’s suit. She threw herself against the wall, breathless, and counted the seconds between each rotation of the automatic turrets. Three seconds. No more. She slipped on the soles of her boots, rolled under a barrage of suppressive fire, and her shoulder struck a blind spot.
An incandescent fire, with shifting colors, rose from her body. It was no ordinary flame: it was her essence consuming itself, releasing all the power accumulated over the centuries, all the quintessence of her being. The pain was atrocious. She felt every fiber of her soul twist, dissolve in the sacrificial pyre. A silent howl tore through her mind, a cry of loss more wrenching than a thousand physical wounds, but she did not flinch. She gritted her teeth against the agony, her gaze fixed on the celestial threat.
After what seemed an eternity of agony, she gathered the incandescent energy into a condensed mass, so dense that the pallid light of the enemy eye flickered for an instant, as if surprised. She raised her hand, and the sphere of cosmic fire roared as it hurtled toward the sky, a black sun in full ascent. But she was not finished.
As the attack sped toward its target, Aeshma, with a tearing gesture, separated a portion of her essence from her body. This piece contained her memories and skills. The rest, the flesh, the blood, and the greater part of her raw power became a purely energetic catalyst. She channeled everything into the eye, a torrent of rage and sacrifice, a personal holocaust.
The explosion that followed was of unbridled violence. A shockwave shook the mountains, split the clouds and pushed the celestial eye back into the darkness from which it had come. The manifestation of the 13th Constellation, struck head-on by the very essence of a recalcitrant existence, retreated, defeated, for now. A deafening silence fell back over the battlefield.
But Aeshma’s body disintegrated. Her ashes, grayish and impalpable, danced in the wind, scattered forever.
Her soul, stripped of its raw power, floated in the void, a shadow among shadows. The greater part of her essence, that which she had used to strike the eye, was seized by the forces of the 13th Constellation, prisoner of that foreign god. However, the part she had separated, that fragment of herself composed of her skills and memories, her identity core, escaped this capture, darting like a spark through the cosmic night.
The beam of essence crossed the skies in a blazing rush, flew over the misty plains of Island Mist, then abruptly changed trajectory to head toward Tenebris. It glided silently over the Spectrum base, bypassing the protective ramparts with disconcerting ease, before plunging into the unfathomable depths of the basement. It rushed into the damp stone corridors, crossed the deserted halls where the echo of vanished footsteps still resonated, to finally make its way to the secret laboratory where Aeshma had once conducted her most disturbing experiments.
There, on a cold metal table, a body awaited her. This body had been perfectly prepared, designed with an almost obsessive meticulousness, every muscle, every curve, every pore following a meticulously elaborated plan. The machines around the table hummed softly, maintaining the environment in optimal conditions, while cables connected to the skull emitted a faint bluish shimmer.
When the beam of essence slowly entered this body, a wave of heat swept through the room. For long minutes, nothing moved. Silence was broken only by the steady hum of the machines and the faint whistle of air in the ventilation ducts. Then, the eyelids trembled, as if the flesh itself hesitated to embrace a new existence. At last, they opened.
The iridescent irises revealed shifting reflections where nuances of multiple colors danced, like embers mingled with fragments of frost. The young woman who slowly sat up was of a striking beauty. Her body, of an almost unreal perfection, bore the evident marks of the most refined creation. Her sublime curves embraced ideal proportions, her skin seemed smooth as polished marble, and her hair fell in silky cascades over her shoulders. Yet her eyes revealed the truth.
She was a lifeless shell, an inert masterpiece, a flawless replica devoid of any essence. Her appearance resembled Ariana Hornraven feature for feature, reproduced with such fidelity that only a discerning eye could detect the deception
Only silence reigned in the room, so profound it was deafening. Yet, it was not a soothing silence.