I looked at my surroundings in shock
"What? No, not again!" I was in my nightmare again, but this time, it was the second time in a row. That never happened before, usually, the dream only happened once in a while, but I never had one the night after another one.
"Well well well, look whose back."
I turned in the direction of that voice and saw "Him" standing there.
"DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD JUST RUN AWAY FROM ME!" As "He" yelled, he raised his fist and hit me so hard that he knocked me onto the floor. The pain from the blow now felt so much more real than in my other dreams.
I opened my mouth to talk but before anything came out, "He" immediately kicked me, hard.
"Oh, so you think you could just lie to me?!"
"He" then pulled out his whip and before I knew it, "He" began lashing my body wherever he pleased with each blow more powerful and painful than the last.
"You! Won't! Ever! Talk! All! That! You! Would! Ever! Say! Are! Lies! And! Nothing! Else! EVER!"
Only when "He" stopped talking did he also stop whipping, but not before the final blow that was so hard that I could've sworn I heard my rib crack.
"And you know that girl?"
"No." I thought as a worried look spread across my face.
"Yeah, that's right! The one who," "He" grabbed me by the collar and lifted me until I was at his height "TOOK YOU AND LET YOU RUN AROUND, DOING SO MANY THINGS TO ME AND MAKING MY LIFE MISERABLE! Well looky here, there she is right now!" As he said this, he moved me until I was facing a corner of the room.
And as for what was in the corner, Julia, except something was wrong. She still had many things done to her body, things that I couldn't imagine myself witnessing or her enduring. But usually, in the other dreams, she was still a succubus, in this one she was a human. No horns, no spaded tail, no wings, just an ordinary human girl. Or what was left of one at least.
"Julia..." I whispered, too soft for "Him" to hear.
"He" let go of me and I dropped to the floor, feeling the drop like I was in the real world, but I was too focused on Julia to notice.
"I should punish you more, for everything that you did while you were out! But it's..." He yawned, "...getting late. I'll see you in the morning, you'd better prepare your skin for what I will do. Oh, you'd better prepare your skin for what I'm going to do, and you're going to regret EVERYTHING!" As "He" said this he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him, but I was too focused on Julia to notice.
"Julia..." I said, this time more audible.
She was now a human in both the real and the dream world. Does this mean that-
"Julia."
-that this is a sign? Is the dream trying to tell me that it will become real soon?
"Julia!"
My eyes filled with tears. I couldn't bear it if this dream becomes real. I couldn't bear myself being treated like a mere slave again. But what I couldn't bear the most was what "he" was going to do to her, what she would have to go through. I just couldn't stand it!
"JULIAAAAAA!"
(000)
"Im right here Ash."
As soon as I heard those words, I gasped, and then calmed down as I saw where I was: back in our bedroom. It was early morning, the sun was shining through the bedroom window, and I had just shot up, in bed, probably looking like I had just woken up from a nightmare; which I just did.
"Is something wrong?"
I looked to see Julia, still in bed (and still a human) with no signs she had terrible things done to her, looking up at me.
"You were crying and saying my name."
"W-well-"
"And your stuttering again!"
She was right. I didn't know why I stuttered when I talked. Maybe it's because I hadn't talked for a long time until I met Julia. Maybe it was because of everything that happened to me before I met Julia. Maybe it was because I was afraid "He" would come back for me. Whatever it was, even after Julia cured my trauma with that pharmacomamcy spell, and even after so many nights of sex, I would still remember the days being locked in that room by "Him" and being treated like an animal every day, and therefore; I would still stutter. Then as soon as I wanted to help Julia I suddenly stopped. Like I suddenly wasn't afraid of "him". But it looks like last night's nightmare pushed me down to the stuttering coward I always was
"O-oh, I am?" I answered.
"Yes!" Julia said before sighing, "I was also kind of hoping that I would wake up and that whole, me being a human again was just a bad dream but..." She looked down at her own body and shook her head in disappointment. "I guess I'm still human."
"W-well, Last night I-" I was going to tell her about the dream. But before I could, there was a knock coming from our apartment door.
"Could you go answer that?" Julia asked, "You know I can't be seen like this."
I nodded and walked out of our bedroom and towards the door to our apartment. When I got there, I reached for the knob but stopped.
What if "He" was behind that door? Could this be the day that nightmare came true? Could he have found us, followed us home, and decided to take me now. If I opened that door, was "He" going to be standing there, grimacing as he grabbed me and-
There was another knock. "Ash? Julia? Are you home?" It was Jonathan.
I breathed a sigh of relief before opening the door. Sure enough, Jonathan was standing in the doorway.
"O-oh, hi Jonathan!"
"Hey Ash! Could you come over to our house?"
"Uh, W-why?"
"Well," he looked around to make sure nobody was listening, "I think I found something that both you and Julia should see. Just come over when you can, okay."
"O-okay."
And with that, he was off. I went back to the bedroom where Julia was in bed, face in the pillow and crying like a banshee.
"Uh, J-Julia?"
She stopped crying and turned to face me.
"I-it was Jonathan, h-he told me we h-had to go to his h-house for some r-reason."
Julia just shook her head. "No."
"W-what, why not?"
"You know why, Xhymza said we can't let anybody know about this which means I have to stay here. If you want to go, then go. I'll stay here."
"B-but-" I never went outside on my own before. I was always afraid that one day, "he" would nag me when no one was watching and-
"We've been over this Ash, that idiot loves miles away in Order territory. There is no way he would by some chance find you here in Belfort."
"But W-what if-"
"Listen, if it makes you feel better, Belfort is crowded at this time of day, so anybody trying to kidnap you would be seen by someone before getting caught by the authorities."
"O-okay, but what about y-you?"
"I'll be fine Ash, just go see what Jonathan wants and besides, I need some time alone."
I just nodded and walked out of the room. I wanted to stay and convince Julia to come with me. However, something in the back of my head told me that I should go no matter what. So I just went, out of our apartment, onto the stairs to the ground floor, and out onto the streets of Belfort.
(000)
I was shaking by the time I reached Jonathan and Xhymza's house. The people of Belfort were nice, but every now and then, I would check to make sure "He" wasn't there.
When I reached the outskirts of town where there were almost no people, I just ran. Being an incubus, I was able to reach their house without getting too tired.
When I got there, I knocked on the front door. A moment later, the door opened and Jonathan was standing in the doorway.
"Oh, Ash! Just in time."
"Y-yep," I answered, "Julia couldn't c-come though."
"Oh?" He looked confused for a second but nodded, "Well come in anyway." He led me inside and into the living room. "Xhymza's downstairs, working on a new phylactery. The only problem is, she thinks about sex too much to concentrate on it."
"R-really?" I asked as I looked at Jonathan before briefly glancing at the trapdoor leading to Xhymza's laboratory and then turning back to Jonathan, "Y-you said you wanted to s-show me something?"
"Oh, right." He walked over to a dusty bookshelf, "Let me just look for it, it should be- Ah, here it is!" He pulled out a really big book that looked like it was older than this house.
"W-what is it?" I asked.
"It's a book," he responded, "about the Age of the Former Overlords."
"Th-the Age of the F-former Overlords?" I've heard about the Age of the Former Overlords, it was a time when mamono weren't beautiful women but horrible monsters that feasted on human flesh. That was until the current Overlord rose to power and changed them into the forms we see today.
"Yep," Jonathan replied as he took a seat at the table.
"W-why do you w-want to show me t-that?" I asked as I took a seat across from him.
"Well, let's just say that after I FINALLY got Arthur and Hazel's attention, and when they told me about how this 'old guy' used some kind of yellow orb to not only magically turn Julia back into a human but also made her immune to monster mana, I remembered something I read in this book, a yellow orb much like the one I was told about."
I looked at him in shock. "Y-you knew about it? B-but then why didn't X-xhymza say something about it y-yesterday? If she h-had it, then she had to h-have read about it a-at some point!"
"She actually did, but she couldn't remember it yesterday because she wasn't able to think straight with her phylactery broken."
"Oh, r-right," I said, remembering the lustful Xhymza from yesterday. "S-so what is that Orb? Wh-where did it come from?"
"It's called the 'Orb of Absolute Reversion'," Jonathan said as he opened the book and showed me a picture of that very orb.
"Th-the Orb of Absolute R-reversion?" I asked. The picture looked exactly like the Orb that The Old Man had at The Floating Island, the same one that he almost hit me with, the same one that Julia got hit by.
"Yes," Jonathan replied, "the Orb of Absolute Reversion, it's capable of reverting anyone or anything back to its previous form after it had been altered in some way."
"Uh, w-what?" I asked, not understanding what Jonathan had just said.
Jonathan noticed my confusion, "Let me give an example," He said, "Say a building is destroyed or maybe a wizard turned a man into a frog. If the Orb of Absolute Reversion was used on the remains of the building or the frog the man was turned into, it would reverse the flow of time around them and-"
"R-reverse the flow of t-time?" I interrupted.
"Ash, please don't interrupt me. And yes, the Orb doesn't actually use its magic on the target itself. Instead, it reverses the flow of time around the target, reversing any changes done to it. A wrecked building is reconstructed to the point where it was never destroyed, to begin with. A man turned into a frog by a wizard is turned back into a man as if he never even encountered the wizard. That's why Julia's mana didn't protect her from the Orb as it would do with anything else that could harm her; it only shielded Julia herself, it did not shield the flow of time around her."
"B-but then why does she s-still remember when she was a s-succubus? And why couldn't I-I turn her back?" I asked as my brain soaked up everything I just learned.
"Because the Orb only targeted the flow of time around her body, not her mind." Jonathan said, reading from the book, "On the other hand, if her mind was targeted, it certainly would've erased her memories. And as for your other question, that's the other ability of the Orb; if any kind of magic was used to change the target before it was reversed, the Orb would analyze said magic and create a barrier around the target that would expel said magic from the target. In other words, if the wizard tried to turn the man back into a frog, not only would he be unable to, but unless he used a different kind of magic, he wouldn't be able to do anything with the barrier expelling the magic from him."
He was literally able to say all that without stopping to take a breath, something that he must've obtained from constant sex with Xhymza.
I, on the other hand, was shocked. "B-but where did s-something like that c-come from? Wh-who made it?"
"Well, to answer that, we would have to go all the way back to the earliest days of the Age of the Former Overlords." As Jonathan said that, he flipped through the pages of the book until he reached a page titled, "Ra's Rebellion."
"R-Ra's Rebellion?" I asked as I stared at the page. On the bottom were drawings depicting what looked like gods, except I have neither seen nor heard of any gods like ones I was seeing before.
"Yes Ash, Ra's Rebellion. It's the name of a group of gods who rebelled against the Original Chief God for creating the monsters to control the human population. It was created sometime after the fall of the original desert kingdoms and was led by the sun god, Ra."
"Th-the sun god's name w-was Ra?" I've heard of the sun god, me and Julia were actually planning to visit the desert kingdoms for our next vacation, before what happened yesterday. While reading about the desert kingdoms, I read that the sun god was actually worshipped by the people of the desert kingdoms, but her name wasn't mentioned anywhere.
"Yes, the name of the Sun God worshipped by the ancient desert kingdoms was Ra. Many records of her name were either lost to time or kept secret by the Order. In fact, much of the information in this book comes from records held by the monsters, monster worshipping cults, and even a few recovered personal diaries."
"I-i see, so about R-Ra's Rebellion?"
Jonathan looked back at the book. "Well, as I said before, Ra's Rebellion was a group of gods who opposed the genocide cycle imposed by the Original Chief God. They guided humans, survivors of the fallen desert kingdoms, to turn every last one of their kind against the Chief God and at the same time, kill every last monster. These gods blessed their worshippers with abilities that allowed them to create many artifacts that were used to combat the monsters. The Orb of Absolute Reversion was one of them."
"S-so the Orb was c-created by some rebels?" I asked.
"Yes," Jonathan answered, "But at the same time, another group was forming, one that rules much of this continent to this day: The Order, led by The Original Chief God. The Order brainwashed many other humans, told them that the people worshipping the gods in Ra's Rebellion were heretics that must be killed when they were actually trying to save humanity. The real reason the Original Chief God wanted them dead; the artifacts they created; they would've made the war against the monsters too easy for humans. Under the Original Chief God's command, they slaughtered every last one of the gods' followers and destroyed any artifacts they created. Without any worshippers, the gods grew weak, allowing the Original Chief God to kill each and every one of them. Including Ra herself."
"B-but if the artifacts w-were all destroyed, how did Th-the Old Man get the O-orb?"
"I never said they were all destroyed, Jonathan flipped a page, "It is said that before their total annihilation, some followers sealed several remaining artifacts, including the orb, in an ancient vault in hopes that one day, somebody would uncover them and use them to fight the monsters. The artifacts have been given the name, Ra's last hope."
"B-but the monsters are g-good now."
"Yeah, but now that the Order is deliberately trying to annihilate them, they would allow the usage of anything, including those Ra's last hope, to destroy the monsters as they are now."
I shuddered at the thought of The Order, of all people, getting their hands on artifacts that would "make the war too easy for them", "Y-you said there are more of them?"
Jonathan flipped back to the page with the orb, "Well we already know one artifact, the Orb of Absolute Reversion, created by the goddess of time, Chronos, along with another god whose name was lost. There were many monsters that were capable of turning humans into more monsters, so the orb was created as a means to turn those who were transformed back into humans again, but the other ones... well, let's just say some of them are pretty gruesome."
I nodded, seeing the look on his face that says 'You don't want to know'. "B-but is there a w-way to turn J-Julia back?" I wanted her to be happy. I didn't want to see her lying in bed, crying.
"Well, there is but-"
I stood up, "Th-there is?! J-Julia will be happy t-to hear that a-and-!"
"ASH!" Jonathan yelled.
"Oh," I sat back down, "s-sorry."
"It's fine, just don't interrupt me, please! I was going to say that if you want to turn Julia back, you would need to use the orb on her again."
I looked up at him, "Wh-what, but The Old M-man has it and w-we don't even know wh-where he is!"
"Well, we could also try exposing her to so much monster mana until the barrier created by the orb couldn't handle it and shatters although, considering that the orb uses the powers of an ancient and powerful god, we would probably need the Overlord herself to do it, so finding The Old Man would be our only option."
"I-I see," I said as I got up from the table.
Jonathan closed the book and also got up, "Well I should probably go check on Xhymza, you should go home and tell Julia everything."
"S-sure, okay." I walked out the front door. Behind me, I heard Jonathan open Xhymza's trapdoor before walking down.
Wait until Julia hears this, I thought, about the orb that reversed her as if she was never monsterized in the first pla-.
Suddenly, I stopped when another thought went through my head. Jonathan did say that the orb reversed time. Does this mean that-?
I rushed back into the house.
"J-Jonathan!"
I ran into the basement after him. There was something I had to ask him, something important.
"J-Jonathan!"
Xhymza's basement looked different from her house. While the house itself appeared neglected, the basement looked more taken care of. Bookcases lined the stone brick walls, a large table with many vials and other equipment was in the middle.
"J-Jonathan!"
"What Ash?" Jonathan asked as he looked towards me. Behind him, Xhymza was sitting at the table, apparently working on her unfinished phylactery, too focused to even look at me.
"I have to finish this, phylactery," she said under her breath, "but I really want to do another experiment with- No no, there will be plenty of time for that. Just have to finish this-"
"Did you need something?" Jonathan asked, "What's the rush"
"W-well," I needed to catch my breath, "Y-you did say that th-the orb sorta reversed J-Julia's body to before she was m-monsterized, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"W-well wouldn't that m-mean that-?" I didn't have to finish my sentence, Jonathan already realized what my concern was. After all, Julia told me she was severely ill before she became a succubus, and if the Orb "reversed" her to before she was a succubus then wouldn't that mean that her sickness returned also.
"We need to go now!" Jonathan yelled. I nodded and ran up the steps.
"Come on Xhymza." I heard Jonathan yell.
"But I have to finish my phylactery!"
"Save it for later, we have to help Julia! Her disease, the one she almost died from, it's coming back!"
