Power flooded me. Raw, untamed, and unrestrained. The eldritch energies that fueled the [Reaper Form] was not exactly [Warp Energy] in itself, but something else entirely, merely converting the [Warp Energy] that I absorbed into more of the actual stuff that fueled it. Regardless, the power that coursed through me was... overwhelming, enough to overtake the entire planet if I wasn't careful. And I had to be careful. The [Reaper Form]held, as heretical as the thought might've seemed, the power of a god. That was where the temptation came from, the lure of absolute power, the idea that I could reach unseen and untold heights beyond my wildest dreams. But I rejected that notion, stomped it down as hard as I could – for there was only one god and that god was the Master of Mankind and no other.
Still, I could not deny that the [Reaper Form]held tremendous power, enough to challenge the Balrog, but I'd rather not make use of it if at all possible.
I felt the God Emperor's gaze snap towards me as the transformation ended and my physical form disappeared into the seemingly endless void that was the [Reaper Form]. I wondered, for a moment, what the God Emperor must've perceived from this form of mine, given that it held power that was not of the Warp or of the Spirit, but something... entirely different.
The Balrog took a step back, its weapons raised in a defensive posture. Its flames intensified, forming a blazing cowl around its inhuman shape. It grew in power and might and presence, but I didn't feel smaller than it was now, I didn't feel weaker or lesser than it. In fact, I was pretty sure that I was still stronger. "What is this... monstrosity?"
I did not answer. I didn't need to. I'd just show it, instead, just what sort of monstrosity the [Reaper Form] actually was.
Instead, I rushed towards the Balrog, raising the scythe to strike it down in a single, fell swoop. I'd done this before, I mused, a single slash had sliced through the entire ruined city, cutting down every traitor and every armored vehicle in a straight, vertical line, even down to the ground itself, where the attack had left a deep and perfect furrow. The Balrog raised its flaming blade and halted my attack, before countering with a powerful kick with a flaming hooved foot. I pivoted around it, a surprisingly easy task given that I technically did not possess legs, but merely hovered off the ground. I then sent a counter of my own, launching a bony left fist right into the Balrog's exposed face, sending it hurling back. It landed on both its feet, however, a trickle of liquid fire running down its mouth
We clashed once more, my scythe meeting the Balrog's burning sword in the open air, resulting in an explosion of fire and thunder and shadow, breaking apart the land around us. My slash was only barely stopped, however, as a large portion of the ground behind the Balrog was simply shaved off, though the Balrog itself remained mostly unharmed. The [Reaper Form]had a two more tricks up its tattered sleeves, however. With but an exertion of my will, I teleported behind the Balrog and carved a line down its exposed back, slicing off one of its wings in the process.
Huh, I was faster than it – much faster, actually. Because I could've, at least, turned to react to such an attack, before it actually landed.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The Balrog howled in pain as a liquid fire spurted and hissed from the gaping wound on its back, revealing its glowing flesh, like molten rock. The wing fell and turned to ashes, which fluttered up to join the Balrog's greater whole. The Balrog's roar expelled an explosion of fire and shadow, cracking apart and melting the ground around us and sending me flying backwards. I didn't think I actually felt that, but it was hard to feel anything in the [Reaper Form]as I was rather certain it lacked any mortal sense. The sensation of pain simply did not exist. But that was to be expected, I was little more than a bunch of giant bones, covered in a tattered cloak, after all.
Our weapons clashed once again, but I must've been a hair's breadth faster as I managed to carve a shallow wound upon its burning shoulder. Though my foe barely took notice as it pushed forward and drove me back, before turning its whip towards me, the tip of it letting loose a thunderous crack as it tore through the air and struck me on the chest. My skeletal frame shuddered and I noted, immediately, the cracks that appeared across my ribs. Not even a continuous barrage from several tanks could have done such a thing. Tsk, so, I wasn't invulnerable, after all; that was good to know.
But that also meant I had to end this quickly, before my foe finds a chance to do even more damage. And, unlike my mortal form, I couldn't exactly use [Biomass] to mend the cracks.
So, I teleported behind the Balrog once more.
As it turned to retaliate, I sliced off its other wing, and then its legs, and then both of its arms – all in rapid succession, resulting in massive spouts of liquid fire. The Balrog was powerful, true enough, but it did not possess the speed to even properly defend itself. And the Reaper Form could be blisteringly fast if I pushed it, though I did not need to at the moment. Before I could slice off the Balrog's head, however, it uttered... something in a language I did not understand, before then unleashing an invisible wave, which I only barely perceived thanks to the dust that accompanied it.
The Balrog fell to the ground, screaming and roaring, but I was sent hurling away towards the vortex of dust and fire that surrounded the warring forms of the God Emperor and Balrog's true self. I glanced quickly at my foe as I leveled myself mid-air, my skeletal wings making absolutely no sense but still providing the necessary drag and lift for flight; the Balrog's lesser self was fading away into ashes and dust, likely to return to its much greater whole. I tried to fly forward, but the immense forces that governed the vortex threatened to pull me away. So, instead of fighting it, I teleported, an ability I actually had very little control over as I ended up appearing halfway through the ground. Good thing I had no legs, which meant I simply pulled myself up from the soil without any real effort.
I floated towards the center of the battlefield, where the powers of the Balrog and the God Emperor clashed incessantly, unleashing bolts of eldritch lightning and plumes of dark fire. The Balrog, I realized, could no longer afford to pay attention to me; the avatar it summoned must've truly taken a great toll. But... if it was just going to let me be, then... it was going to lose. There was simply no way around it – not unless it wished to abandon this world altogether and run away. But... something told me the Balrog wouldn't run away from its own destruction.
It was... admirable, at least.
Still in my [Reaper Form], I flew right into the center of the Balrog, right in front of its fiery core, the orb that contained the entirety of its being. Here, close as I was to the Balrog's true presence, I felt, at once, the raw power that radiated off of the Balrog. And, as strange as it was, I realized that we... really weren't too different from each other. Though our powers manifested differently, the source of it or, rather, the truth of it remained the same – the Power of Creation, a sliver of omnipotence, of something far greater than I could possibly comprehend. I doubt the Balrog itself understood, either. The difference between us, I realized then, was that my sliver of the Power of Creation, the [Shaper System], was not nearly as inhibited by the Balrog's sliver. In short, my potential was limitless. I could keep on growing and growing, becoming more powerful with every level, item, or skill I gained, while the Balrog clearly had a ceiling to its power – a very high one, but a ceiling nonetheless.
A furious wave of flesh-tearing, skin-flaying, and bone crushing winds surged towards me, nearly pushing me right out of the air. I flew against the wind and stabilized myself just enough to not get dragged away into oblivion. The teleportation ability was easily and simply done, if only for the ten second cooldown. Still, however, with it, I was able to skip past the winds and appear before the Balrog's truest and innermost self.
I shoved my hand into the Balrog's fiery core, my skeletal fingers almost instantly turning black from the intense heat, even the sharpened tips cracked apart into ashes. Still, my hand was inside, now fully immersed in the Balrog's being. And there I perceived the malice and the darkness that had leeched into its being, a corruption was unlike the corruption of Daemons; it was, as the Balrog said, quite beyond anything I've ever known. Time slowed down to a near-crawl as I reached further in, my skeletal hand cracking and breaking apart in the process. I did not stop, however, until I reached the corruption itself, appearing as a black leech upon the Balrog's soul, a pulsating parasite, made entirely of concepts, a form of energy that was both physical and spiritual.
It couldn't be destroyed anymore than an idea or a thought could be destroyed. I felt it growing in power and strength, proportional to the Balrog's growth – a metaphysical parasite. However, just because it couldn't be destroyed, I realized, did not mean it couldn't be affected by my power. Because it was alive– made of something that was both flesh and spirit, which meant both my [Warp Shaping] and [Flesh Shaping] could affect it. And so, even as the Balrog sent wave after wave of fire and death my way, I worked to save it.
The first thing I had to do was figure out how it was attached to the Balrog's essence, the bonds it used to bind itself. I found it almost immediately, since both [Flesh Shaping] and [Warp Shaping] granted me an immediate and thorough understanding of whatever it was I used them on. In this case, the corruption was attached to the Balrog through a series of three conceptual binds, one of jealousy, one of envy, and one of shame, which was also the strongest bind. Jealousy was... an interesting thing to tackle, considering it – like every other concept – was unlike anything I've shaped before. It wasn't quite as shapeless and formless as pure [Warp Energy] but neither was it anywhere near flesh and blood and bone and sinew. It did not lack in complexity, however.
An application of flesh and spirit, metaphysical and conceptual. I was pretty sure I'd just unlocked an entirely new skill, but I didn't care to look at all the reports and indicators that would've otherwise flooded my senses with information I currently did not need. Though, of course, I was going to read every single one later.
Jealousy... a quick look into the bind told me that it had been directed towards other spirits like itself – other Maiar, as the Balrog called itself. It was jealous of those who were granted physical forms and were able to interact with physical creatures. And that was how the corruption was able to bind itself to the Balrog, but preying on the simple jealousy that'd festered in the Balrog's heart, before it became... whatever it was now. Severing the binds of jealousy was easy; the emotion itself wasn't particularly strong, appearing as little more than a piece of thin string. All I had to do was reach in and twist it, ripping apart the bond.
The corruption fought hard, resisting my attempt, but the bond of jealousy was the weakest of all and did not require much alteration to be completely severed. Likely, the Balrog, before its transformation, barely felt any jealousy.
Envy was... an entirely different beast altogether. It was deeper and more powerful. The root of its envy was... something known as a Valar, some form of higher spirit that could apparently command and manipulate nature with absent ease. The Balrog, before its transformation, saw many imperfections in its domain of spring and warmth, many tiny things that could've been changed to be more efficient, to be better than what it was; and so, it envied the Valar for their power to change things as the Balrog, a Maiar, could not to do so – at least, not without great personal sacrifice. The spirit wanted spring to last forever, I realized, peering deeply into the bind of envy, because – in its view – winter brought only cold and death.
The root of its envy, it seemed, stemmed from watching an entire village of mortals suffer death and starvation in the cold of winter. The spirit that would become a Balrog could not understand why such a season existed at all and so envied a greater spirit who could've simply... put a stop to the suffering. This envy festered, becoming hate, and so became an anchor upon which the corruption bound itself. Envy manifested as a bind of braided metal chains, blackened by soot.
I reached out and wrapped my metaphysical fingers around the braided chain bind. I pulled and found it simply did not budge. Breaking or altering it directly was simply impossible. I had to approach this some other way.
Envy as a concept, I figured, was deeply rooted in inadequacy. It was only natural, after all, to want something that one did not have. In this case, the spirit wanted power, because it lacked power. And what was the solution for envy? When I was a child, my parents taught me, that – as a citizen of the Imperium, as a subject of the God-Emperor – it was not my place to want anything that I did not already possess. We had food, shelter, security... what more could I have wanted? When I was a child, I wanted plenty. As I grew older, however, I realized that my parents' teachings and, by extension, the teachings of the Imperial Cult, had been a way to prevent envy and hatred, because those who wanted morethan what they had would never be content; they'd always want more. To a true subject of the God-Emperor and a loyal citizen of the Imperium was to accept one's lot in life, to make the best with what one had.
The God-Emperor, after all, provided for all of humanity exactly what they needed to be the perfect citizens and subjects, whether by life or through death; everyone served.
Acceptance.
And that, I believed was the cure to envy.
I flooded the chain with the concept of acceptance. Instead of trying to get rid of winter, the spirit should've made the most of what little springtime it had. The braided chains shuddered as the counter-concept flooded it. Its resistance, strong though it was, hardly put up a fight before the concept of acceptance broke the links and the entire network of braided chains simply shattered and fell apart. The corruption screeched and roared, but was ultimately unable to stop me as I turned my attention to the final bind, the strongest of the three.
Shame.
It manifested as a pillar of stone that connected the corruption to the essence of the Balrog.
The root of it, however, was immediately clear. The Balrog was ashamed of its own fall from grace, ashamed of the fact that it turned its back on its god, its friends and allies, its brothers and sisters. And, most of all, it was ashamed by the fact that it fell into the grasp and seduction of evil and malice, the lure of a dark and terrible being, whose whispers drove a spirit of spring into becoming a creature of fire and shadow and death, preying on its jealousy and its envy.
And, once it turned, the Balrog lost all hope of ever returning, simply because its shame was too heavy a burden.
I... I did not know the solution for shame, especially for the shame of betrayal. If I ever turned my back against the Imperium and the God-Emperor, for instance, then I'd bathe myself in fire and die in the flames just for a chance at redemption. However, such a thing was not applicable here. So, instead, I lowered the stakes. What if, instead, I turned my back on friends and family? What if I turned on allies? It was definitely lighter, but ultimately still a form of betrayal.
Acceptance and recognition of the act itself was necessary, but both things were only the first step, I figured. The two concepts, together, granted the necessary reflection and realization that something wrong, something terrible, had been committed by the self. More than likely, after which would come the act of making amends for the sins, but that was not exactly a concept. I moved beyond it, to what came after. And what came after was...
Forgiveness.
The Balrog had to learn to forgive itself. It had to acknowledge that what it did was wrong, that it was hurtful, that it was an act of betrayal; nonetheless, it wasn't beyond redemption and change. It wasn't beyond the light. First and foremost, however, before it could even think to move forward, was the concept of forgiveness.
It was a difficult concept to manifest, but... it was something I'd felt before – from my mother to me, for the mischief I caused as a child, for breaking a vase here and there, for fighting with my neighbors, for questioning the teachings of the Imperial Cult.
As I'd done before, I flooded the bind, a pillar of stone, with the concept of forgiveness. The bind did not budge, however, and the corruption remained strong. The concept I'd thrown at it, I realized, was incomplete... simply because... I'd not once had to forgive myself for anything, strangely enough. I couldn't just stop, however; this was the final bind. Destroying it meant I'd free the Balrog from the malice that plagued its essence, turning it into an ally. And that meant I had to keep trying.
Just as the thought passed my head, however, a flood of concepts streamed into the bind, creating tiny gashes and cracks across its surface.
It wasn't mine. I did not create these concepts.
If I had eyes, then they would've widened as I realized that it was the God-Emperor of Mankind, himself, who'd come to my aid. And I felt his presence at my side, the Master of the Imperium, the Lord of Humanity. He appeared now as he did when he summoned me into his golden realm, a man with sad eyes. And, when he spoke, the Emperor's voice was neither booming nor grand. Instead, he spoke as a human – as a man. "My first son... an angel. He was corrupted by his own power... tempted by it. He became a monster. And I was forced to kill him to save humanity."
The God-Emperor held out his hand, the Ring of Power shining like a white star upon his finger. "It took me thousands of years before I forgave myself for what I did."
"And you," He said, speaking to the Balrog. "You have to learn to forgive yourself."
Tears of liquid flame fell around us. And a voice... the Balrog's true voice, spoke. "I... I will try..."
The bind shattered and, immediately, all the fire and all the shadow disappeared.
[Warp Shaping] level up x4!
[Warp Shaping] is now level 5! (Skill evolution locked until Skill Quest is finished)
New skill unlocked! [Concept Shaping]!
Tutorial Level Cleared!
Ah, finally...
AN: And that concludes the first ARC! (Pat)reon is now up to Chapter 30, where the Aquilan Guards are finally introduced!