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Published at 30th of January 2023 07:07:06 AM


Chapter 23: (On the Frizt)

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“We’re going to die.” 

My words came out dead, airly, light. Like wind brushing against a dead tree. I stood stock still, partially lamenting that this was how it ended. 

I heard my other companions stop, but Konahora was faster on the uptake. 

“What’s coming?” Her voice was dead serious. She had heard the truth of my words. That I genuinely believed that these were our last moments on earth. 

I wanted to answer her, maybe I did, but I was kinda busy. When I had met the baron’s men, they had exuded pressure but it had been so light and so much less than my own, that my mind had dubbed it inverted. Like waves breaking against much stronger rocks or almost radiating out and around me. Trying to sense Selve and Celena had been like trying to spot dust touching your skin. Light, difficult, nearly imperceptible. 

Meeting the group around me had been like being plunged into the deep depths underwater, where the pressure was high and threatened to crush you into paste. Each individually they felt like they radiated an aura strong enough to put me into the ground. It was to the point that I mentally felt slowed, like I could barely move and breathe. The entire time we had been journeying together, that pressure had never lessened. They were still just as strong. I had just slowly started to acclimate and get used to it. I felt like a deep sea fish more or less at this point. 

But this new power I was feeling…. If before I had been in the depths of water, now I was on a living sun of radiating power. I felt like my life was going to be burnt up into ash at any moment. Like I was standing on top of a bomb that had already gone off and was held back by pure whimsy and chance. Every moment, which had slowly started to stretch and stretch as I noticed everything seemed to be going into slower motion, felt like I should be dead. It was to the point that I was genuinely left in awe that I was alive, every single moment. It was like withstanding a full powered death ray to the face, a solar flare washing over me, and every moment that my life somehow continued, the miracle of it just compounded further. 

I felt myself move at some point, words were said, loudly. But I stared. The power, the pure pressure and intensity that had filleted me like a fish, was coming from everywhere. It had a point, somewhere, but it was so… much, so vast, that I could never tell. An explosion is really hard to pinpoint the origin of if it covers a whole city. 

I laid there, somehow on the ground. My mouth was agape and I felt healing energies. Oh Konahora, nothing is wrong with me. I had just been shown the perspective between me and a higher lifeform, in every single way. A man can know something is stronger than him, but it’s an entire other thing to experience it. I did not feel like I was merely knowing or gleaming simple knowledge, I had really fucked up by labeling my silly little power gauge a scouter, no no. I felt like I was intimately experiencing that difference in power. Like I was being burned alive, except I had skipped the actual feeling step of that last time due to the rapid motion of events. Now? Now I was here for it, suddenly, and utterly. 

I felt hands on my chest. Different pressure, didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t, focus or understand. If you were to step into a sun, could you notice the dust around your fingers? 

And then suddenly, with a weird twist I didn’t understand, the power was… gone. 

I suddenly gasped like a fish, my whole body covered in sweat, my mind and body reeling as if I had just got done with a dead full speed life or death chase for a whole day. I was panting and gasping and groaning, sweat dripping off me, my clothes soaked. 

“Derek? Derek!” Konahora’s voice washed over me as I kept trying to get my bearings. The last time I had experienced something, anything, similar to this, my mind had broken. I was not so blessed this time, as the full weight of what had just passed over or by me came to the forefront. Water was shoved down my face, down my throat, and hands were checking my body for wounds of some sort, healing magic continually flowing into me. 

I laid on my back and stared at the clouds in the dusk filled sky. Perhaps I had been too quick to throw away my life in the past, thought too little of it. As I felt the blood flow through my veins, my heartbeat like it was going to explode, felt the air coming out of me in great gasping wheezes, and saw the clouds gently float by me, I marveled at how amazing my life was. That my tiny insignificant self had survived and made it this far in the multiverse. How, bizarre. How amazing. Like a blade of grass somehow making it through and past the sun, simply… marvelous. 

I felt more hands and more words and more shouts. I ignored it all, as I simple watched the clouds float by. 

.

.

.

Eventually, my breathing slowed, my heart rate dropped, the muffled hearing and whited out vision I had gained from adrenaline went away, and I felt like utter dog shit. I leaned up with a groan, the sun now distinctly higher in the sky. 

“Derek!” Tyler was the one to shout, rushing at me. I feel like a tank running at anyone would normally be cause for concern but he stopped before crushing me into the ground, instead leaning towards the side, getting way too close. “Are you alright?!”

Ah Tyler. I knew you were a good egg. 

I took a deep, deep breath and blinked a few times, before looking up. Konahora was actually at my side, I’d somehow missed her. Riary had a deep frown on her face, but it was different. I had said we were going to die and then, well, nearly died from their perspective. There was a threat around and she was not happy about it. 

“Talk demon, what’s going on?” 

I took one more breath, before explaining. 

“I have a power to tell the difference between the strength of me and others. I suddenly felt like I was standing on the surface of the sun. It…. it dwarfed me completely. An army of me wouldn’t be able to match that, that thing. I don’t know what it was, but it was close and then suddenly it disappeared.” 

They all frowned and two out of three people looked at Konahora, who nodded. I at least believed I was telling the truth, so they could trust that. 

“Where did it come from? Where did it go? You said it left.” 

I shook my head. 

“I don’t know. It was there, everywhere. It was too powerful, like being inside an explosion. I got a slight feeling of left maybe? But I don’t even know where I was standing when it hit me and then its power practically stretched… everywhere. And then it disappeared, in an instant. It was like being shoved from the depths of a star into a cold lake. I felt, I felt like we were all going to die.” 

Everyone frowned but Konahora moved. She walked a few steps to a certain spot, turned, and pointed further into the forest we were crossing. 

“That is left to where you were standing when you collapsed.” 

We all glanced that way. Riary frowned. 

“Can his power be trusted?” It wasn’t exactly directed towards me but I didn’t think anyone else could reasonably answer. 

“He believes he’s telling the truth.” Figured. Hard to trust a demon, or anyone, with a random power I suppose. 

“If it’s any consolation, my power told me from the moment we met that you could all kill me. Individually.” 

“Why would it disappear? Has your power ever been wrong before?” Tyler asked, hope in his voice. I understood, no one wanted to fight something that strong. I hadn’t exactly been dying, gasping for air, when they had shown up. 

“No. But I haven’t had the power for long. It’s new. As for disappearing… it either left in an instant, my power can be fooled, or things can hide from it.” 

“Or your power could just be wrong.” Riary said with a angry, rage filled snort. 

“Yes.” I nodded. That would be for the best, otherwise the options, well, they sucked. 

Tyler spoke up. 

“We shouldn’t pretend like everything is alright. We need to act like we’re in danger.” He already had his shield and sword drawn. He glanced to our right, frowning hard. “It’s too close to the village…” 

Konahora nodded. “It is, but it might be a known monster that made its lair nearby. We should go to the village and ask around for more information.” 

“What about him?” Riary said, pointing at me. “We leaving him here?” 

“I will die.” 

“Seems like a win-win to me.” 

Tyler shook his head. “We’re not leaving him here. He’ll come into the village with us.” 

Riary seemed, more than a little uncomfortable with that. Oh there was Rage and Hatred and Anger, as there always were written across her features and face, but it also seemed like there was something else there. 

“We’re bringing…. A demon into a village?” 

Ah, guilt? Moral disgust? Disbelief at the very least, for sure. 

Tyler looked at her and frowned. He opened his mouth to say something, but Konahora smoothly cut in. 

“The main other option is to leave him outside of a village, without us to watch him. I don’t believe it is wise for us to split the party, with a possibly powerful and unknown danger nearby. Derek can wear one of our cloaks to hide his horns and tail.” 

Riary did not look happy, but she hardly ever did. I was far more concerned that we were still talking when a beast that was 10x stronger than the heroes was close by. They hadn’t felt what I had felt, and I was weaker than them. Even if they might know there was something strong around, it probably just didn’t hit them like it did me. Hell, for all I know they have some way to deal with that god damn… creature I had felt. Even monster felt like too light a word. 

Arrangements made, soon, I was wearing a cloak and wrapping my tail around my leg. We headed towards the village, hoping to get some more information. 

My gaze looked back towards the trees as we walked and I swore, I saw something. 

I would have thought it was my mind playing tricks in fear, if it wasn’t for my power. 

It flickered, the weight coming back for a moment, before going away again. 

I shuddered and walked with the others to the village. 





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