The Sound Of Freedom's Ring [Original]

Apotheosis 0.0

Dawn rises on a hut upon a mountain. A man stands in the doorway, one hand on the frame. Inside, a boy and an old lady in priestly shawls have gathered all their worldly possessions in a single quilt, slung over the woman’s back.

“Take him and go, baby,” he drawled. “A dragon’s coming on by, and the kid needs a holy guide.”

“You aiming to give your life for the Angel of Journeys? Gonna make the kid go through that, for some nobody you’d take half asleep?”

“Ain’t that bastard I’m worried about. Slayers coming in afterward, and they ain’t lettin’ me go, not someone strong like me. Any one I’d beat one hand behind my back, but both after another ain’t something we can take, sweetie. I’d rather you call Angel of Journeys for Luther than Angel of Warriors for me.”

“I see. Then we’ll be going now. Show up to Saint of Heaven’s gate with an escort, ya hear me, King?”

---

King stood at the top of an outcropping, just above the snow line. The morning sun shone on his bare dark chest. His eyes are staring out at the shimmering air, miles out in front of him.

The shimmer turns ethereal, bright green rainbow ghost flames burning without fuel in midday. The flames expand, seemingly burning out in the center to leave only a black darkness in the center. A golden snout pokes out of the dark flaming orb, twin eyes demanding the whole world bow in supplication. All an Elder Dragon’s sheer presence focused upon the outcropping.

King snorts. “No. Turn back.”

The dragon’s eyes flicker. In the void between souls, an expression is sent. Lesser men would be driven to their knees, their last coherent thought being how happy they would be to serve.

King’s eyes harden, but his body is unmoved. “If you’re here to plunder the mountain’s treasure, there ain’t none for you. Turn back.”

The dragon’s maw opens, roaring the message he had been so kind as to tamp down earlier.

King’s arms unfold. “Then let’s fight.”

The outcropping instantly craters in on itself. King is already halfway to the dragon’s snout, loud boom catching up with his wake. The dragon shoots out, shimmering octagonal planes erected in front of its snout as its body uncurls from the orb.

Impact. Four of the six panes shatter, and the dragon is only given a moment to contemplate it before the dragon goes flying, half-unfurled wings desperately furling back to not snap in the wind. As he tumbled through the air, his snout lights up a hauntingly blue color five times. On the plane of souls, five breaths of flame condense themselves into ever-shrinking balls.

“Very pretty,” King drawled, waving his arm. His hand flashed seven times, and seven balls formed adjacent to the three-dimensional world.

But when the balls rocketed towards their counterparts, they passed through each other; the moment of shock caused King to stop guiding four of the seven balls, their orbits now headed straight for the poor souls underground.

King grit his teeth and prepared to jump straight through; the dragon needed to dodge his three balls.

Instinct screamed at him; in the edges of his vision he noticed the dragon’s spheres curving towards him faster and faster.

Jumping through would be a way to quickly remove his soul; King needed to create distance. The dragon’s lines of thought are similar; while planes of force appeared beneath King, the dragon’s maw opened to reveal a swirling inky blackness.

King shot backward, while the dragon swirled in a circle; the black circle ringed by unearthly fire is formed, and another appears just to the left of King’s path. King braced his arms, eight octagonal planes forming in front of him as the dragon bat his tail at it; only three panes are shattered, and King continues to fly closer to the dragon.

The dragon roared, confident that King has finally entered its desired range; medium distance, just close enough to be toasted by its thousand breath techniques. But King’s face isn’t what it expects. King’s mouth is pulled back in a smile so sharp that the dragon feels pressure, even knowing King has sent no mental or soul attacks.

“Thank you for revealing your tricks, master,” he drawled. “Let me show you how I use it,” he said, foot aflame in otherworldly fire.

The dragon snaps to his fastest breath, lightning crackling in his maw before being instantaneously unleashed, far too weak to do more than phase King but the dragon needs to interrupt King –

King steps through the void between worlds, and stamped on the dragon’s head.

The dragon’s jaw snapped shut, electrical energies cut off before he could release them. Left with no outlet but the inside, the electricity rampaged inside the dragon’s flesh. Rather than cooking the dragon inside out, however, the dragon had reshaped the electricity to enhance himself; the air screamed as he whipped his freshly electrified tail at King.

But King wasn’t there anymore.

The dragon’s tail only brushed through the dying green flames when King’s fist slammed into his jaw. The dragon is stopped cold, and King is sent flying by the punch. A pane appears, shatters, and then King is left hovering thousands of feet in the air.

From here, King can see the endless rows of white and brown of the cotton fields, mansions and cities specks in the white plains. The monotony is interrupted by a snaking river, smaller than his thumb up here but larger than his entire world a lifetime ago. That river led up to the mountain range he eventually settled in, and the dragon trying to take it. Take his freedom.

King snarled, and inky blackness took him again.

---

The dragon had used that moment King spent contemplating the land to plunge towards the mountain, intent to find the source of all the mana.

Except something was wrong. For some reason, he couldn’t smell the concentrated mana anywhere.

Then the smell reappeared in the way that only an uncountably high voltage delivered directly at the dragon’s snout could.

The dragon desperately built an aegis, misshaping and overcharging it just make it appear in front of him and buy the dragon some time and space to think –

King’s fist shattered the aegis. King’s other open hand grabbed for the wing nub, and the dragon’s life flashed before his eyes.

The dragon’s mind clears. For him, survival is now impossible.

He opened his wings slightly, just enough for King to shoot inside before he shut his wings and dived for the mountaintop.

Bound by the wing, King can do nothing but fortify his own body; he cannot even bite through the wing, no matter how much he might want to.

But King can feel one more thing. The dragon’s heat, spite and hatred suffusing its entire being. The dragon's remaining mana is compressed, and compressed, and compressed yet further. The gaseous mana condenses into a liquid into a solid, and then shakes from the sheer compression it is forced to undergo.

The dragon roars one last time, and surges to the peak of the mountain. The compressed mana in his core has began to glow a searing white. For just an instant, the dragon’s wings weaken.

King’s face drains of color. Blasting off a pane, he hurriedly punches a cave to hide in; his other hand comes up erect an aegis as –

The dragon vaporizes. The snow vaporizes. The mountaintop vaporizes.

The trees are knocked flat and catch fire and become so much hot ash. Rocks are sent tumbling down in all directions, mixing with the wood and ash, mud surging up in avalanches all over. The hut is washed away. King is buried under layers and layers of rock.

Luther and his mother have long since left.

---

At the base of the mountain, a line appeared in reality. Rapidly spinning outwards, the line became a flat disk big enough to fit four people comfortably, and as the pure blackness peeled back it revealed that it fit six adventurers quite uncomfortably.

Before them is an obliterated mountain.

“Ya saw a dragon here, huh?” Slayer Lead Lydia asked, giving First Diviner Jefferson a hefty side-eye. Her sword had been drawn the instant space appeared.

“Something’s gotta be rippin’ up all the space on the mountain here,” Jefferson replied, one hand adjusting his wig and the other flicking his monocle. The mountain flickered in color, monochrome filter washing over the mountain.

“Holy mother of God,” he breathed.

“I take it you have most displeasing news,” Agatha enunciated, drawing her wand.

“The soul’s enormously strong; emissions’ drowning out everything else,” Jefferson said.

“If it’s a matter of the soul, you really should leave it to me,” Jackson oozed, femur staff twirling in the air. “Speaking of which, the soul feels…odd. As if it was human, but had something grafted on.”

“Soul mage’s work?” Lydia asked.

“No, they can’t ever risk their own skins, so it’s gotta be a victim,” Jesse snarked, unslinging his rifle. Jackson sniffed, femur twitching in displeasure.

“We’ll take a diplomatic approach, then.” Lydia asserted, sheathing her sword.

“Then I shall take the lead,” Alexander sniffed, slaves straightening his petticoat and wig. “After all, only civilized men should be tasked with uplifting beasts.”

Lydia blinked, and considered the consequences of denying Alexander. Sure, his family and estates were one of the largest backers of her Slayer group, but on the other hand, she was the Slayer Lead. If she came down and essentially told Alexander to sit down and do nothing on the trip he personally bankrolled, they could expect his family to withdraw support, and that might be deadly later. On the other hand, they were about to deal with a being dragons thought twice about attacking, and that could be deadly now. No one would blame her for being particularly cautious around opponents rated just under minor angels and devils in power.

But that was fundamentally the crux; the group she commanded was rated to fight minor devils and hold against major devils, so a being just beneath that should not be an issue. If they ended up fighting afterwards, of course.

All the same, she didn’t let go of her longsword’s hilt.

---

King didn’t know how deep he was underground. He didn’t know how long it’d been since he passed out, if he passed out at all. He didn’t know which way was up.

So he picked a direction, and jumped. The mud parted like water around him. Colorless gas, his own mana, filled the space in front of his face; his breath wouldn’t hold long, but it would hold long enough for him to drill through the mud.
When he finally emerged, he gasped – drowning blue burble drowning – childhood returning to him at a very poor time.

He breathed in, out, and looked back out at the Slayer group, just close enough to shout at. The leader, a woman this time, held up her hand and stopped everyone else. Their weapons were generally pointed towards the ground, swords and wands sheathed. A suited man turned to the leader.

“Slayer Lead Lydia, you didn’t tell me he was a Noir.”

“Sir, if he killed the dragon, he can hear you,” Lydia said.

A thousand details revealed themselves to King’s eyes. The suited man was wearing a cravat with his suit and wig; he was rich, and that meant, down here, he owned slaves.

“But he’s just a Noir! What can feral beasts like him do to God-fearing Christians?”

King breathed in. King breathed out.

“Noir or not, he killed a dragon,” Lydia hissed, death grip on her sword.

King breathed in.

“Lady Lydia is right,” his large lips boomed. “I did kill that dragon. And I ask you to turn around, before anybody gets hurt.”

“So he can speak too! And such a high combat ability! You, boy, are one fine specimen,” the suited man said, nodding toward King.

King breathed in. Luther’s face flashes in his mind.

“Tell you what, boy. I’ll ignore the fact that you’re a fugitive and let you be my personal butler, how’s that sound?”

King clenched his fists. Lydia’s face drained of color.

“Everybody behind me!” Lydia roared, sword ringing from her sheathe.

A forest of weaponry erupts, tips pointed at the man on the mountain. All the Slayers instantly retreated several bounds. Agatha frantically waved, hastily erecting ward upon shield upon ward.

“I’ll say it again. Leave before somebody gets hurt.”

Alexander blinked. Indignantly, he turned towards the Slayers.

“What are y’all so scared of a Soulbranded Noir for? Aren’t you brave Slayers?” Alexander asked. Jackson shook his head; it was almost hard to tell, from how hard the rest of him was shaking.

“It’s interesting.” King punctuated. “You are right. I was Soulbranded. I ain’t no more.”

He raised one finger, dropping his other arm. Lydia didn’t miss the tension in his arms.

“One last time: Leave, or somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

Alexander opened his mouth.

“Silentium, qui mox loqui, est verum!” Agatha shouted, wildly waving her wand.

Alexander swiveled towards her, furious.

“Alexander. Cease.” Lydia spat. She breathed.

“As for your request, I’m afraid I can’t do that without at least getting your name, sir.” Lydia said, somehow genuflecting in full plate.

“So you can bind me as you bound Alexander?” the air said. King’s glare made the original speaker clear.

“So we may mark this mountain as yours, and heretofore tell others to avoid it,” Lydia countered.

“Until my freedom becomes inconvenient, or until Alexander or his kin pays you to brand me, you mean,” the air drawled.

“That will not happen,” Lydia denied.

“Will you stake your word on that?” the air spoke, all traces of a personality cut away.

Lydia hesitated a moment too long.

King closed his eyes.

All but a bare handful of shields shattered under King’s fist. Instantly a dozen red, green, and blue streaks shot through the area, another dozen purple, hexagonal, fluid shields re-erected; but all the spells hit were light green wisps, and the shields were uncontested.

King appeared among them, fist slamming Alexander into the ground.

Lydia grit her teeth, closed her eyes, and planted her sword.

“Angel of Restraint, I beseech you.”

Agatha threw a cutting beam.

King sliced it in half.

A golden ring appeared around Lydia.

“It is in mortal danger that I call upon you.”

Jesse shot his revolver, ice-white shell ejecting.

King batted the bolt aside.

The ring began to spin.

“It is in obeying the commands of His angels that has brought me to this situation.”

Jackson thrust his hauntingly blue staff.

King ignored it.

A second ring spun up, running counterclockwise to the first.

“It is in my prayer to you that I find your assistance,” Lydia finished, sword glowing gold.

Golden portals swirled into existence, the rattling of chains echoing through the muddy slope. Fiery golden chains shot out of the portals towards –

King stopped them at the palm of his hand.

He smiled, and lowered his hand.

The chains bound him instantly, wrapping on his wrists and shins to pull him apart.

The Slayers stood unmoving, shocked and more than a little wary of why King chose to bind himself.

“Thank you for completing the ritual preparations,” King smiled.

Lydia’s stomach dropped. King had never meant to survive, she realized.

“It is in a self-answered prayer that I find freedom.”

King’s chains snapped. His mana began condensing.

“It is in passing that I achieve immortality.”

An overcharged aegis appeared around him, white glow absorbing every spell. His mana condensed beyond the solid stage.

“It is in sacrifice that I apotheosize into the Angel of Liberation at Long Last!”

White.

Gold.

Then –

Nothing.

---

Miles away, a child cries for help, and hears an angel tell him directions. Miles away, a mother cries for her daughter, and hears an angel reassure her that the day will come that she can see her again. Miles away, a father and mother feel an angel telling them that one day, they will be reunited. Miles away, an old man is told by an angel that he lived a good life, and freedom has come at last.

Miles away, Luther watched his mother, Martha, cry.