Beyond Gods 61 The Land Between Realms & The End Of The Trials

Blood aura

h.e.l.l's aura

The words resounded in Johan's mind. Instinctively, he knew that these were the arts that these two monsters cultivated in. The training techniques and methods they utilized in order to obtain strength presented itself through their auras characteristics, something the upper realms would not realize till several millennium in the future.

Blood Aura ... refined and forged through battle and murder ... and the unholy h.e.l.l's Aura obtained through engaging in study and practice of the forbidden Voodoo arts.

This was the first time the present Johan was in a position to observe a battle between two beings of unfathomable strength in this lifetime. The sheer sight of it looked like a battle between G.o.ds. Yet, Johan's future self had experienced fighting numerous grueling battles, studied many arts intensively and now he had inherited the shattered parts of that man's memories. Seeing two experts engage each other in battle, deepened his understanding of them instinctively. His future self had won many fights, but lost more. Often he had barely survived with his life. His survival against stronger opponents had been due to his extensive knowledge of his opponents core techniques. As his future self's life became more chaotic with relentless unavoidable battles due to wars breaking out, he naturally grew in strength as the frequency of battles increased. These experiences were no trivial thing and had become deeply carved into him. There was uniqueness of technique caused by the strength gained through experience and continuous testing in combat situations that could not be obtained through simply reading books or training and being taught by the best of masters. Because the more your techniques get tested, the more they got refined to suite your body and dominate opponents of equal or greater strength. This resulted in Johan's fighting inheritance to be perfectly suited to his body type, refined through countless battles. Hundreds of millions of years of combat experience was being imparted to him, without his current self having experienced it himself. Because of this, whenever Johan witnessed battles, drawing on his future self's experiences his fighting sense and abilities increased exponentially.

Johan started to form a picture of himself from the future as images flashed through his mind. Feelings and pieces of experiences.

He saw wars, pain, death, ...

He felt fear, loss, despair, and countless bouts of anger ...

[Is this what lies in my future?,] thought Johan.

He had seen himself fighting the beast, standing along side Athyne and Neil, appearing as something close to deities, yet now, these memories were filled with pain.

Such pain and sorrow ... such intense long struggles ...

Yet, he felt something else ... something him and his future self shared.

... a pride ... a stubbornness that had seemed to only grow over time ...

a relentlessness urge to fight on when everything seemed grim ...

Scars began to form on Johan's body and he emitted a dim almost unnoticeable white glow. The memories organizing themselves were effecting him physically and mentally. Strength gained through experience rather than pure opportunity had been a long struggling process riddled with setbacks and disappointments. But if you are among the few that come out on top, you become a force to be reckoned with. Him inheriting these experiences strengthened him. The changes in Johan's physiology slowly allowed for him to be able to follow Miss Obama's and Genghis Khan's battle despite the fact that these monsters were fighting at unnaturally high speeds.

Nearby, the array node that the ancient Athelions put in place began to glow.

BOOM!

CRACKLE!

BOOM!

Thunder and lightening crashed across the sky as rain began to downpour. The sound and impact of Genghis Khan and Miss Obama strikes echoed across Mongolia and released bursts of wind causing the very earth to tremble. The Mongolians ran in fear to their tents, unsure of what was making the ground rumble.

A black rift opened in the sky as the array node emitted a gigantic roar.

Many of the Mongolians that witnessed this fainted from the sheer oppressive aura it omitted.

Some died on the spot.

Miss Obama and Genghis Khan froze their battle distracted by the phenomenon unfolding. A transparent purple dragon manifested itself and with a swing of its tail, knocked Genghis Khan and Miss Obama into the rift. The dragon then looked at Rey and Johan and with a swoop of its claw, tossed them into the rift.

-- Ø --

Johan found himself standing alone in the middle of a pitch black abyss. He felt nothing. A lone light could be seen in the distance, flickering, like a becon. It was the only thing he could see. He spread his perception and realised he could sense nothing, not even the floor on which he stood.

"h.e.l.lO!," yelled Johan.

"h.e.l.lO! h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! ...", echoed his voice as if bouncing off some invisible cave walls that he couldn't sense.

"Johan?," replied a voice.

Johan was shocked, he was hearing his father's voice and realized that it was coming from the speck of light.

"Dad?," yelled Johan, "is that you?"

Johan ran over to the speck of light and was stunned to see his father standing in front of him, with light radiating from his forehead.

"This place?," said his father, "I thought you were gone. Ever since you entered the array, I've been in this place."

"How long?," asked Johan surprised.

"Days," said his father, "but there was another man here with me, but he disappeared while I was asleep. A man with long white hair, old, quiet. He didn't say a word."

"Where did he go?," asked Johan.

"I don't know," said Johan's dad (JD).

Flashes of light lit up the area, and for the first time, Johan could see his environment. They were standing in what appeared to be nothing. Being able to see was almost disorienting.

Above them, s.p.a.ce tore open and through it the dragon peaked out its head.

"YOU!," it growled in a deep rumbling voice looking directly at Johan.

Johan felt the blood drain from his face seeing it.

This was the same dragon that had tossed Miss Obama, Rey, him and Genghis Khan into the rift.

"Me?," whispered Johan as he began to sweat.

Johan's father looked from Johan to the dragon, and then stepped between Johan and the dragon and boomed, "What is your business with my boy. dragon?"

"The boy smells of dark taboo," growled the dragon, "something even taboo to the G.o.ds ... a sin deserving of the ultimate punishment. A sin only allowed by the tested and approved ... and even then in limited and controlled amounts ..."

"My boy has done nothing wrong," said Johan's father. "He would never commit such an atrocity knowingly ..."

The dragon narrowed its eyes, staring hard at Johan snarling.

"What did he do?," boomed Johan's fatther, "I will not stand by and let anyone harm my boy."

"But you are too weak to have done such a thing alone," growled the dragon thoughtfully. "Too young. Not even I could have managed this. Perhaps you used a device? That thing human's from earth call technology ... You smell of it ... and yet you do not ... I've never seen anything quite like it ... it seems like an incomplete taboo ... mortals and G.o.ds who commit a taboo should be dead, it is the law of the multiverse, unbreakable ..."

"Do what," croaked Johan swallowing his fear. "What did I do?"

"Change time," growled the dragon.

Johan realised that the fact that he inherited his future self's essence may have effected him on a level that he couldn't understand.

What was this majestic creature he saw in front of him?

Was it going to kill him?

Johan felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see an old man with long white hair.

Something about the old man spread a sense of comfort through him. It made him feel as if he would be able to survive this as long as this old man was with him. The old man, though frail in appearance felt strong.

"YOU!," boomed the dragon as it showed its razor sharp teeth in a terrifying smile. "To think that you would still be around after all this time ..."

The old man stared back at the dragon hard. His brows crinkled together, and his lips thinned as he scowled at the beast.

"HA! HA! HA!," laughed the dragon, "I had grown tired of the mortal realm, and retreated into this array for eons after the sealing! ... but now, with you back perhaps things will get as interesting as they once were! Two sinners, one old, and one strange ... show me something entertaining!"

"Who are you two?," said Johan more loudly looking from the old man to the dragon.

Johan's father turned and looked at the old man, a confused and surprised expression spread throughout his face.

"So you show up again out of nowhere," muttered JD staring at the old man.

"HA! YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO THIS MAN IS AND YET HE IS A PART OF YOU!?," laughed the dragon more excitedly, "SO MUCH THE REALM OF MAN HAS FORGOTTEN! HA! HA! HA!"

The lights from the dragon's sudden appearance suddenly disappeared, and they were once again in pitch darkness with only the light from Johan's father to be seen. The ground suddenly disappeared causing them to fall into nothingness.

-- Ø --

Johan found himself sitting in the middle of the array with Genghis, Rey, and Shaemus.

"Was everything I just saw a dream?," whispered Johan.

[No boy,] echoed JD, [it definitely was not. I saw it too.]

Then what had the dragon meant by taboo?

Why hadn't Neil been thrown out with them?

"Voodoo Queen!?," said Rey looking around frantically, "where are you?"

"That woman," muttered Genghis, "through shear display of power, rather than neutralizing our power, a realm guardians decided to kick us out forcefully. To think anything alive could cause me so much trouble after I trained in a weakening array for so long. My strength should have been incomparable to anything alive.."

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!," laughed a voice in front of them.

King Athelion's ghost slowly materialized in front of them.

"Incredible," laughed Athelion, "just incredible, not just one, but four people have pa.s.sed my trials on the same day. One divine lord even gets tossed out! One who chose willingly to stay in that realm, rather than leave. A decision I didn't think anyone would make."

"I am no longer a divine lord you evil psychotic old fart," laughed Genghis, "training and battling in that realm with my powers stifled, allowed me to improve as if I was a young new warrior. The growth at a lower level is easier, and since I trained at it, it allowed for me to break through to the level of a G.o.dly Monarch!"

With those words, there was a flash of light and Genghis disappeared.

"Incredible," muttered Athelion thoughtfully, "to increase your strength through voluntarily becoming a weakened mortal being after having experienced the glory of living as a divine lord. A savage, non-honorable and lowly method and yet, dangerous ... most at the divine lord realm wouldn't go back to living like a weakened mortal to simply gain strength."

Johan felt his strength returning to him now that they were out of the array.

"So now," smiled King Athelion sinisterly, "how will we decide who gets my inheritance? Genghis is gone, and that only leaves the three of you."

"Why can't we all get something?," said Rey, "we all pa.s.sed."

"That is not how I intended it to work," said King Athelion, "perhaps we should decided the winner according to Athelion tradition."

"What is that?," asked Rey.

"Through a battle to the death!," said Athelion as dark black water seemed to leak out of the wall and mold around King Athelion's ghost into a corpse-like creature with razor sharp teeth. "The winner will get my inheritance ... the gift and pride of having the great royal ancient ruler King Athelion, a demi-G.o.d, possessing their body! While the looser will die and become another of my minions! But if I win, you both die!"

Athelion began to cackle laughing insanely as rotting worms and green spit flew out of his corpse like mouth. More and more black goo crawled into him, making Athelion look more and more like a ghoul. The stench he emitted smelt of rotting flesh.

An ancient Ghost Therach. A being that had obtained the pinnacles of strength in the multiverses.

The word echoed in Johan's mind, and they bore with them a sense of dred and ominous premonition.

"Ewwww!," said Rey gagging into her mouth. "You need a doctor, I'm not paid enough to treat you!"

"Can we pa.s.s on the inheritance?," muttered Johan slowly.

Athelion cackled insanely once again.

"HA! HA! HA! HA! I forbid it! You must never refuse a gift from the greatest of Kings! It isn't allowed!"

A terrifying, perverted, greasy and unholy oppressive force omitted from Athelion and Johan and Rey fell to their knees as a rotting black, green and red flame appeared around Athelion.

Johan and Rey began vomiting profusely and uncontrollably and their vomit flowed with the black goo into Athelion and became a part of him.