Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 177

Chapter 177: The Noble Demon

Lysette and Mirae enjoyed a hearty dinner of bean and rice soup as Evelyn and Joseph had promised.  It was an absolutely delicious meal— the soup was rich and flavorful, with an assortment of regional herbs and plenty of garlic and onion for added spice.  More than the taste, however, was a degree of comfort and familiarity and human connection that even the best foods back at the Academy lacked.  Even her beloved custard delights, of which she hoped to be able to find time to enjoy one during the trip back to Domark.

The couple spent the early part of the evening with Maxwell, discussing some of the basics of Terean law, custom, and administrative affairs.  Most prominently among the discussions, Lysette inquired about the law which was cited against her during her second trip to Ciricu: that no individual shall proclaim themself to be a deity or emissary thereof.  

It was, according to the town’s expert on politics, a law which had been on the books for millennia, but was only extremely rarely enforced.  The handful of cases he was aware of all were on occasions when a large cult had formed which directly threatened the sovereignty of the contemporary Archuke’s rule.  Maxwell thought it strange that Captain Garland had cited that particular law when trying to arrest her and promised to do some further research into the state of affairs in the capital.

Maxwell had also informed her that the worship and veneration of Thosse, Goddess of the Sea, was heavily practiced among the upper echelons of Terean society, including among top officials within the Terean military.  That posed yet more complications, though Lysette pushed them aside for later.

A short stint of joint Cultivation followed in the late evening.  Lysette continued to facilitate Theo’s growth as a Cultivator during their sessions, infusing him with small bits of Essence refined under her and Mirae’s divinity.  Meanwhile, as the townsfolk were slowly heading to sleep, many of them took a few minutes to offer quiet prayers.  Those prayers were mostly to Lysette, but a few were made to Mirae as well.

They prayed for as many different things as there were residents of the town.  She and Mirae listened to each of the prayers— prayers for health, for prosperity, for peace.  Among the prayers, however, were two notable collective requests among the villagers.  

The first was for a mild winter.  Winter as a concept was somewhat unfamiliar to Lysette, hailing from Domaria, which lay upon Aimarion’s equator.  And controlling the weather was far outside her Domain.  But she acknowledged their concerns and took their fears to heart as she meditated.

The other major concern was for peace and protection.  After two run-ins with the capital, several of the elders were expressing worry about what sort of response would follow.  Those prayers in particular filled Lysette with righteous indignation.  How dare an Archduke who had done nothing to protect his people from bandits, who had then threatened them again for protecting her, demand loyalty and subservience from these fine people in return?  Lysette swore that the Archduke would relent, that he would respect the people of Ciricu, or he would be made to submit in accordance with the people’s wishes and her Reciprocity.

The newfound resolve to protect the people of Ciricu heightened her connection to her Domain and filled her with a bit more strength.  The surge of Divine Essence flowing through them from the people’s prayers heightened that connection yet further, filling each of them with the desire to continue working toward their shared vision for Aimarion.  

As they did, Lysette also worked on reconciling her newfound knowledge of her demonhood and its associated greed with her godly Reciprocity.  She knew which she wanted to embody— the greed and unbridled bloodlust of her demonic origins was anathema to her ideals.  But she knew just as well that both parts were inexorably her.  That the strength and power of a demon would be necessary to reach her goal of slaying Asterion and revamping the current social order.  And her Reciprocity would form the cornerstone of whatever social order would follow in her wake.

The couple continued until shortly after midnight, when they departed with the goal of making it back to Domark at dawn.  They took a circuitous path on their way back, taking extra time to survey the mountains along the eastern ridge of the Spire Mountains.  Nothing out of the ordinary stood out among the various peaks that suggested a particularly good or poor location to begin her artificial waterway project.  But the most important criterion would need to be evaluated from the other side of the mountainous border.

Although she didn’t remember any rivers in northern Domaria, the absolute last thing she wanted to do was to disrupt the natural flow of water in the area.  Not only because it would negatively impact the people living in the region, but because it could also risk an international incident and cause the people of Ciricu even more problems.  And worst of all, risk a less-than-pleasant confrontation with Saffron in at least some potentialities.

Lysette remembered her favorite quip: Actions have Consequences.  And it was her responsibility both to her people and to Aimarion as a whole to do all in her power to ensure that those consequences did not fall upon innocent shoulders.

So when she got across the border and started looking at the flow of water and Essence alike along the Domarian side of the mountains, she spared no effort in analyzing the potential water flows.  After about twenty minutes of scanning, using her Scrying Stone to trace the topography of northern Domaria, she didn’t see any signs of a mountainous spring that started from the peak.  But, she knew she didn’t know enough to conclusively make that determination, and decided it was still best to clear it with whichever minister handled interior affairs.

“You didn’t find anything, did you, love?” Mirae asked.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I sort of suspected as much, Lysette.  But I’m proud of you.  A month ago, you would have just done it on the basis that it will be beneficial to you and others.  And I do genuinely believe it will.  But now you’re seeking input from everyone involved, listening to their concerns, anticipating the potential fallout of your decisions, and trying to come up with the best outcome with all of that in mind.  It’s–  It’s nice, witnessing the growth of the woman I love from a determined avenger into a divine protector.”

“I’m sorry, Mirae.”

“Sorry?  That’s a good thing, love.  Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I–  I can’t and won’t give up on my quest for vengeance.  Asterion must be made to pay.  Even if not for Zarielle’s orders and the burning need to avenge my family, avenge my people, I know that he will continue killing, continue harvesting, until he’s either ready to re-create the world, or until he’s stopped by force.  And I think it has to be us.”

Lysette turned toward the south, and she and Mirae began flying back toward Domark.

“Why us?”

“I’ve thought about things all day in the back of my mind.  And there’s something that stuck out at me, that I couldn’t quite understand.  When I learned I was a demon, two thoughts ate away at me.  First, why is this a power not given to all Godslayers?  And secondly, why did Zarielle give this power to me?

“I think the answer to the second question was that she was desperate.  She had mentioned being attacked by Asterion herself some time before the attack on Osstia.  She needed someone who had every reason to fight against the god who attacked her.  Someone with no reservations, someone who would never relent no matter what.  Someone who also had a personal interest in seeing Asterion fall.”  Lysette paused.  “Someone with nothing left to lose.”

“Not even your life.”  Mirae clutched Lysette’s hand tightly.  “When we became Mirette, your memories became our memories.  I remember seeing you that night, trapped in the Soul Harvester, struggling, and then fighting off the urge to resign yourself to your fate.  That fear, that anger, that rage, that sorrow.  I felt it all just the same as if it had been me that night.”

Lysette said nothing.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.  I–  It’s nice, knowing that I could share those memories with you.  But I feel bad that you had to experience them for yourself.”

“Don’t be, Lyse.  They hurt, they ache, even when we’re not the same being.  But they are a formative part of who you are.  And I’m glad I got to know and understand you a bit better.  I just hope you feel the same way about me.”

“I do, love.”

“Thank you.  If I may, though, Lyse, could you continue with what you were saying before?”

“So, I take it that you remember my meeting with Philidor Dozel a month and a half ago?”

“I do, yes.”

“Something has been bothering me.  Saffron is a six-hundred year-old Godslayer, and Philidor Dozel, so far as I know, is a two-hundred year-old or so human.  But based on the strength I could sense from both of them, if those two were to clash, the outcome would be uncertain.  Perhaps I’m misjudging, but even so, Saffron is definitely far weaker than I would have expected her to be, relatively speaking.

“It’s possible that it’s just difficult to get more powerful than the two of them currently are.  We don’t know exactly how the Aestori ban works, and it may limit the Essence coefficients of all who live on Aimarion to under a specific threshold which both of them are near.

“Another possibility is that Domar is requesting that she not spend as much time Cultivating and gaining more strength.  I would say that she might be too busy, but she’s already mentioned she can passively Cultivate as well.  And knows about how to manipulate the Essence of her adherents.  But unless there’s a maximum power allowance on Aimarion, knowing how fast we’ve grown in mere months, something seemed off about how slowly she’d advanced over the centuries.  The most likely explanation is the one left unsaid until now.”

“Right.  The strength you gain from absorbing the Sparks of others.”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense.  Every time I absorb Sparks, I gain a tremendous amount of raw power.  Zarielle must have given me this ability specifically because she didn’t think I would gain enough power, and do so quickly enough, to make a difference otherwise.”

“That makes sense, but that still doesn’t explain one thing.  Why wouldn’t every god give their Godslayers demonic power?”

“Simple.  Because, despite what Zarielle has led us to believe to this point, she doesn’t have as much direct control over me as you might think.  Saffron does seem to stay in communication with Domar and acts as his proxy on Aimarion, but I don’t think she’s being puppeteered about either.  I think she genuinely supports Domar’s regime out of a sincere reverence for her patron and the world he wants to build and maintain.

“The thing is, as much as Zarielle wants to convince me that she controls me, I’m not so sure she does to nearly that extent.  Why else would she have told me so little about my mission?  At the time, I thought it was just her Domain acting upon her.  She’s the Goddess of Darkness, so keeping her subordinates in the dark is fundamental to her very being.  

“At least, that’s what I thought.  But I read in a textbook in the library that some Cultivation scientists and philosophers were hypothesizing that the true power Godslayers have— the one befitting our name— isn’t so much our ability to fight and gain power quickly.  It’s our ability to steal the faith and followers of the gods that makes us truly frightening to the gods.

“What I think she was expecting and hoping for was that I’d go on a killing rampage.  I’d use my demonic powers to lay waste to as much of Elithria as I could, and if I died along the way, my Spark would find its way to her somehow.  I don’t know for sure, but during my raid on the Shrine of Asterion, I could tell that she was not expecting me to do what I ended up doing.”

“So, you think Zarielle instilled you with the means and method to claim revenge in the most visceral and violent way possible?”

“I couldn’t begin to speculate on that.  In the end, I think creating me is a desperation ploy by her.  She expended a great deal of her strength and invested everything into me as her final gambit for her own revenge.  She’s been guiding me along, sacrificing her own time and power to help me gain these deific artifacts that can bolster my abilities yet further.  But I–  I still don’t trust her.”

“So, what will you do now, love?”

“I–  I need to get stronger.  But I’m not going to do so in a way that will harm innocents.  Not intentionally, and to the extent I can take reasonable precautions to avoid inadvertently doing so, I will do that as well.  

“There will likely be a time when my demonic powers will be necessary, and there will likely be those who will fight against me, against you, against those who live under my protection.  If that happens, I will fight back, and I will kill if I must.

“But I’m not going to fabricate reasons to kill just so I can do so.  The absolute last thing I would ever want is to end up like Karchek.  To end up a slave to my demonic bloodlust.  I saw how hard it was for Saffron to do what she did last night.  I will not put you through the same; I swear this upon my divinity itself.”

“Thank you, Lyse, My Goddess, my love, my lover.”

The two flew on through the night, passively Cultivating throughout their flight and enjoying the chilled air of the high altitudes over northern Domaria.  Just as the first faint glows of the dawn emerged from the east, Lysette and Mirae touched down on the outer edges of the surface ring of the capital city.  A report to the Guild was due, and hopefully an improvement in the couple’s finances would follow.

Chapter 176: https://www.patreon.com/posts/109914090

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/table-of-101896170

Chapter 178: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110306765