“What did you do to me?” Laurence replied with clenched teeth. “This is your fault. It must be, you’re the only creature that could have any effect on my mana reservoir”.
I did nothing to you Laurence. You did this to yourself when you rejected me. You gave up the path of least resistance and now all you’re left with is this mess of a broken mana reservoir, of a broken soul. I could fix it if you would let me in.
“You’re talking... You’re lying”. He summoned his hammer into his hand and began running his fingers along the surface. After a moment he noticed that it was not shattering into bits like he first thought, it was doing something much more odd. It was splitting apart from the old crack he had gained after fighting the maelstrom snake. It was shedding the top layer of substance while breaking off from this oddly dark section of the hammer.
The new hammer below was something entirely different. Before it was wrought iron, polished, but darker than the night sky, inlaid with patterns that built up over the years of use. Every injury caused, every death made was engraved in some small way upon this weapon. However now, that was all being removed. It was being forced out in this pitted shadowy iron-like substance that was desperately clawing itself apart. The hammer was struggling to break free of this shadow as much as Laurence himself was, but he could not work out why.
As Laurence thought over the path he had taken to get to this point, three points stood out in his memory. First, the moment that he was told to name his spirit reservoir to call it out as a weapon. It stuck with him because it seemed to have truly curtailed him in some ways. It was a flaw that he should not have made but he did not quite know how to remedy. Second, the moment before he had first truly spoken to the shadow within him. There was something there, something he had approached that would have changed his situation but had fallen short of at the last moment. Third and finally, the moment he realised what his tenth seat would involve. Again and again the three concepts rolled around in his mind. Something was escaping him. He had to become the hammer to take another step in his path of cultivation, but what that entailed to him he could still not work out.
He began peeling away at the black detritus that stained his hammer. With each flake removed he felt clearer about his path, that the shadow that was desperately trying to control him was something that could be removed and in the process would allow him to ascend. As a thousand thoughts galloped through his mind like horses running across a grassy field, stirring up mud and dirt with each step. Each thought was a different way to speed up the process of clearing off the black coating of his hammer, but each thought was immediately discarded. He needed some way to make this hammer wholly his, some way to force the world around him under his control, a way to make himself impenetrable, unassailable and undefeatable. He had a way to deflect, a way to delude and a way to dodge, but now he needed a way to do more than that. He needed a way to dominate his surroundings.
The concept of domination, of control, was always Jim’s region of expertise, but it did not mean that Laurence had no idea of how to command or coerce a group. He had often dabbled with intimidation as a quick answer to a lot of his problems, and combining that with a wit that was highly inventive made for easy answers to a lot of his problems. However this did not help him now. There was no real way to apply intimidation to an attack other than being overwhelming in combat all the time. To express one's presence, on the other hand, was not something difficult.
As his musings reached some sort of progression Laurence felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. Immediately he rolled forwards onto his feet and turned around. Behind him the shadow was snarling. It was easy to see its features now as for some reason it was no longer as dark as it used to be. Is... Is it dying as I take this gunk off my hammer? The thought struck him like freight train and he looked at the black rubbish that he had littered the floor with.
The shadow swung its fading claws out, desperately trying to grab hold of Laurence’s body, the weapon, anything in Laurence’s possession at all. It screamed bestially as its swipes were rendered ineffectual by Laurence’s movement, but that only made the creature more angry. You can’t do this to me! I made you! I saved you! You owe me your life! You gave me a name so give me your essence to grow! It was no less cogent, but it was furious. All the bottled up rage within Laurence was within this creature of his and the more it spoke the more he realised that all those years ago when he first entered the tower he had made a huge mistake.
“You are nothing. I gave you a name, yes, but that was a mistake. I am the hammer! Jormugand be gone! MALKUTH!” Laurence spoke the final word and the entire flow of the room seemed to shift. All of a sudden there was no longer a teenage boy fighting a shade of his own creation, but instead a mighty hammer swinging down to crush the shadows within his mind. The air crackled and twisted as it desperately hoped to contain the creature within the four walls, but the will of the hammer, Laurence’s will, was far beyond what it could hold.
“BREAK FOR ME!” There was a rumble and the doorway tore apart, as did the shade of Jormugand, the shadow within Laurence’s mind. His body returned to the way it was before he had broken free of his shackles, but he could tell without a shadow of a doubt that he was stronger than he had been before. He felt faster, like his skills packed more of a punch than they ever had before, like he had ascended without ascending. Another thick layer of gunk was expelled from his pores as he walked, but he just burnt it away with his truefire. He was finally free and now he had a score to settle.
He walked over to the next cell along and broke it open without a thought. Although he only had one arm, he was far far stronger than he had been when he had two arms, and he knew that if he wanted to he would be able to make himself a new arm now. The moment he had broken out of the prison he had felt the connection to the Book of Creation rush back with even greater clarity than before. He was a step, no, half a step away from reaching Heaven in Creation, but he knew that when he did his body would have a momentous change, far beyond what he experienced with Yun’s transformation.
“Laurence? Is that you?” A thin figure walked out of the dust cloud that Laurence created by ripping the prison door off its hinges. Jake was older now, in his late twenties, far gaunter than Laurence remembered, and shorter than he remembered. Perhaps I’ve just grown a lot taller since we last met. “Wow, you’ve got taller. How have you been, truly? I mean I know we’ve spoken between the walls, but hell you look you’ve been through the works”.
“I’m fine Jake. Is Damascus with you here?” Laurence peered through the rubble as he looked for the sprite who had directed him when he was at an impasse so long ago. Like a carrion call, the moment he was named Damascus appeared from within the smoke. He smiled at Laurence before looking around.
“Laurence you’ve grown well. You truly have exceeded my estimation. I would like to talk more, but we should probably get out of here. Do you know how to get to the exit?”
“No idea, but I have a feeling we should just try to go up. Worst thing that happens is we end up at the top of something”.
“As my father always said, In dark times Jake, always head to the light! I don’t know if he was talking about cases like this, but upstairs is lighter than down there”. Jake pointed towards the darkness to the left. Taking the route to the right, the three companions walked out of the room and upstairs into the light. With each step they felt something was wrong. The further up they got the odder things became for them. There was a siren blaring, but it was easy to tell that it was nothing to do with their escape. Every Lupe clan member they saw was running up towards the top of this building they were within, like there was some sort of invasion.
The lights they were following as some sort of escape was gradually shifting from a soft gold to an extremely urgent red as the siren got louder and more frequent. Finally, after minutes of walking they saw the reason for the blaring sounds, the minimal guard presence as they climbed and the frantic looking Lupe. There was a room that had ten Lupe within fighting for their lives against four people.
A mere moment after they saw what was going on, Laurence launched himself into the middle of the fray, smashing apart two of the Lupe and slamming his hammer down in front of a young woman who had just immolated herself. He turned to face the crowd of Lupe steadily beginning to flow into the fray as it tipped in their favour before releasing the full power of his hammer-like aura in front of him.
As if a deity had descended and crushed the area below, people were knocked off their feet and pressed into the ground by Laurence’s force of will. He pulled his hammer back and thrust forward with all his might, galvanising the mana that filled his every cell out towards the tip of his hammer. A rumble built at the base of his throat and as she opened his mouth he screamed “SAMAEL!”
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