The Hundred Reigns

Chapter 162: The Sanctuary in the Sky (11)

Belzemine began to suffer from nightmares every night.

Simon nearly thought they were under attack the first time it happened. She screamed so loudly into the night, her wail so full of dread, that he rushed into her room to find her crying and scratching at her own cheeks. She had accidentally set her bedside table on fire too, forcing Simon to extinguish the flames with a Hellfrost spell.

“Belzemine, calm down!” he said, trying to reassure her. “You’re safe! You’re safe!”

“I burned them…” she replied, weeping. “I burned them all, Your Majesty… all of them…”

“It was just a nightmare.” Simon embraced Belzemine in a tight hug and gave her a shoulder to cry on. “It’s all in the past…”

“I still hear their screams…” Belzemine lamented, gripping his clothes with all of her strength. “Lord Mardok gave me the Pyromancer Crestone on my eighteenth birthday… that his gift would be levels…” She sobbed. “He had dressed them up like my parents, and said… that I could have resisted if I had the will…”

“He lied,” Simon reassured her. The Brand of Pride allowed no such resistance. “Mardok always lied. You don’t have to carry this guilt.”

Simon let her cry her way to sleep, then moved his own bed next to Belzemine’s to better comfort her should it happen again; and happen again it did.

Again, and again, and again.

“I think I opened up a floodgate of some sort,” Simon told Eole when she visited them for breakfast in the morning, which had become something of a usual occurrence. “All of her buried, subconscious trauma is rushing back to the surface.”

Most of the blame could be laid at Mardok’s feet, who had taken malicious pleasure in tormenting Belzemine during the near-century she spent in his clutches. Every nightmare was new, going from gladiatorial executions to forcing her to wall up saints in Frightwall’s corridors.

Mardok had put Belzemine through such a relentless cavalcade of cruelties that Simon was convinced she must have killed him in a previous reign to invite such obsessive torment. By contrast, Gargauth’s cold-blooded reptilian indifference had almost been a relief. The dragon had no interest in torture and derived no pleasure from harming others, so he had simply treated Belzemine like a tool. She didn’t dream of the dragon that often, and when she did, it mostly revolved around the times he forced her to kill others on his behalf.

Simon’s father, however, had quickly picked up where Mardok had left off. He had raped her at least three times in an attempt to impregnate her with a half-elf heir, before demeaning her for being ‘a barren mule’ after each failure; something which hurt her all the more since she had come to equate her self-worth with her usefulness to the Overlord. He had also forced her to use healing spells to put some of his captured enemies through extreme tortures, twisting her gifts for evil. Holding the power to save lives gave no joy to Belzemine.

“Your predecessors were vile beyond words, Simon,” Eole replied with distaste and concern after he gave her a rundown of their situation, including the source of the Agnes Firewand moniker. “But those nightmares… they’re a good sign, in spite of everything.”

“A good sign?” Simon choked in outrage. “How is remembering her parents’ murder anything other than terrible?!”

“If she’s opening up about her wounds, then they can start healing… I think. I hope.” Eole bit her lip with a scowl, then nodded to herself with newfound resolve. “We can’t let those ghosts win, Simon.”

“A good start would be calling her Belzemine,” Simon suggested. “While using her real name causes her distress, calling her Agnes Firewand constantly reminds her of her parents’ fate.”

“I could help too. The Sky-Father knows I sang my brother to sleep many times.” Eole smiled at him. “You should petition Lady Junon for a new bed.”

Eole moved into their house on a permanent basis to better assist him with Belzemine’s recovery after that discussion, which she usually did by singing to her when her nightmares woke her up. Simon would wake up the next morning to find Eole braiding the elf’s hair. The three of them spent most of the spring together, besides the moments when Simon had to work at the Forbidden Keep.

It took a few months, but Simon completed transforming the Dungeon into a training camp for the Champions, with rooms dedicated to fighting specific monsters he had enthralled, trap tests, and other similar facilities. Simon hoped to bring most of them over level forty before the Zodiac Parade, with the likes of Tybalt potentially breaking past the level sixty milestone. While nowhere near as powerful as Endymion’s greatest fighters, Simon believed they could create the equivalent of an elite imperial squadron by the time Nodens escaped. He intended to set aside time in the last stretch to forge stronger weapons and armor for everyone as well with Devil Forgemaster.

Otherwise, he completed turning the uppermost area of the castle into an observatory to help Anaximander track down Abraxas. While Simon quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to recreate something as powerful and advanced as the Lighthouse’s telescope in time for the comet’s arrival, Anaximander was still capable of gathering valuable information from Simon’s attempts at contacting the comet through advanced mathematics that boggled the mind. Their late-night research caught the attention of Eole, who told her brother Ruto, who ended up showing up at the house with a few other curious locals eager to learn more about the stars.

And before they knew it, Simon and Anaximander ended up founding an astronomy club that gathered every Priestday at the observatory.

“So the blue one is Okolnir,” Ruto noted as he looked through Anaximander’s telescope at the distant planets of their solar system. “The yellow one is Andlang, and the one floating next to our sun is Vigrid.”

“Yes,” Simon confirmed. Anaximander had insisted on him remembering their orbits, since planetary positions influenced certain astromancy spells. “Nastrond, the fifth planet in our solar system, is not visible at this time of the year.”

“They’re all so beautiful, especially Okolnir… like a sapphire in the night.” The Sanctuary’s Speaker pulled back from the telescope with a glint of wonder in his gaze. “Do you think one could fly or teleport all the way there?”

“I cannot say,” Simon admitted. He would have considered such a feat impossible once, but turning back time almost twenty times had opened his mind about the limits of what magic could achieve. “I heard legends that dragons came from the darkness of space, and Abraxas came from outside our solar system.”

“I have heard similar tales from our eidolons, that the first dragon came from the sky and fell at the Mana Goddess’ hand after a terrible battle that sundered the very land,” Ruto muttered to himself as he turned the telescope to the Windmoon fading away into the sky. “I wonder if anyone has ever tried flying to the moons…”

“No airship can rise that high, and teleportation spells don’t reach that far,” Simon replied. The Light knew he struggled with that when it came to his Recall variant… “I’m not sure what we would find there.”

“Some ancient elven archmages once considered teleporting to the moons to plant new manatrees there, but they shelved the project after losing too many assistants to the void of space,” Anaximander said as he walked up to them, a grim scowl on his face. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute, Simon?”

Simon nodded and followed the elf to the edge of the observatory, where the elf gathered his notes and noted his calculations on a blackboard. Simon considered Anaximander something of a friend by now. The elf wasn’t too emotive nor as talkative as Casval, but Simon liked his scholarly curiosity and mellow approach to life. He reminded him of Cassandra in some ways.

“It is as I hypothesized,” Anaximander admitted upon presenting Simon with his notes. “My research indicates that Abraxas does grow closer to Brimir with each revolution.”

Simon had feared as much. “You think it’ll hit the planet eventually?”

“Not this time,” Anaximander replied, though Simon couldn’t detect any relief in his voice. “Probably not on the Third Doom either, though there’s a chance it will hit one of our moons. However, the impact will be unavoidable on the Fourth Doom eight hundred years from now.”

At least that particular apocalypse would be someone else’s problem. “What’s causing this?” Simon inquired. “Is it the natural result of its orbit or something else?”

“It’s not natural, no. A force is pulling the comet closer to us, and I have a theory on what.” Anaximander stroked his chin. “If your visions are correct and the Zodiac Fiends were born of people’s fears when they looked up to the comet, then it may respond to terror the same way demons lust for our emotions.”

“So the more people fear Abraxas while it flies above our heads, the closer it gets to Brimir?” Simon guessed, his arms crossing as he pondered this information. The comet was circling the planet like a shark closing in on its prey. “Our dread serves as a magnet.”

“And since it becomes more visible in the sky with each revolution, the pull increases in intensity over time.” Anaximander reviewed his calculations with a scowl. “It is a truly fearful discovery. Four to eight hundred years is a very short amount of time to find a solution.”

Simon sometimes forgot Anaximander was a centuries-old elf, to whom years were hardly different than days.

“Do you think Illusea’s astronomers could reach the same conclusion we did?” Simon inquired.

“I would be surprised if they weren’t aware of it already,” Anaximander replied. “They have access to better tools and spells than we do. It wouldn’t be difficult for the Oracle to learn what we did during this revolution either, if she doesn’t know already.”

Simon nodded. His gut told him that stopping this prophesied impact was connected to whatever the Mana Goddess was stockpiling power for. Perhaps she intended to deviate or outright destroy Abraxas during its upcoming visit before it could return for another round.

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How would it affect his Class then? Could it end the cycle of Overlords or cancel out the reigns? Or had Mardok somehow anticipated this? Simon guessed he would find out soon enough, should he survive the Zodiac Parade.

The comet was only a handful of months away now.

Simon gave up on perfecting his miasmic variant of Recall by the time spring came to an end.

It wasn’t that the spell he came up with, Soul Calling, didn’t work. It successfully targeted the soul of any creature he had bound with his Devil Brand and summoned them to his side, at least when outside the Sanctuary’s barrier.

The issue was that it didn’t bring their body along for the ride.

It was basically no different than Demonbinding when Simon turned the spell on demons, since they were spiritual beings at their core, but other monster test subjects had their souls ripped out of their flesh and manifested into screaming slave ghosts. Simon guessed he could use the spell to raise undead minions to defend himself at the very least…

Otherwise, while he was steadily learning performance and astromancy fundamentals with Eole and Anaximander respectively, Simon had encountered a new wall when it came to another field of magic.

“Come on, focus and repeat after me!” Carbuncle encouraged Simon with growing impatience. The tiny islet they were on was barely large enough to house a pond and a handful of trees, with Sky-Father Vayan and Ruto resting under the shade. “Shine on us, Gemfinder’s Glow!”

“Shine on us, Gemfinder’s Glow!” Simon repeated as he cast the Prayer spell. Although he was using Anathemic Secrecy without his Overlord outfit on and the eidolon supposed to fuel his magic was literally right in front of him, no mana poured out of their connection. “Damn it, still nothing!”

“I’m sorry, Simon, but you suck at this,” Carbuncle complained. “And that’s saying something since we’ve formed a contract already! Praying to me should be an afterthought!”

“This Dark Eidolon Pact may not work like a standard contract,” Ruto suggested. “It mustn’t create the correct connection.”

Simon grunted in annoyance. All his attempts at channeling Prayers from Carbuncle, Vayan, and even the Mana Goddess that Belzemine received most of her blessings from had ended in abject failures. Only the Light Megalith appeared willing to answer his calls.

“Simon simply lacks faith,” Vayan commented. “Faith is the bridge that links an eidolon and its followers. No sorcery can fake it.”

“I have no faith in the Light Megalith, and yet it blesses me still,” Simon pointed out. Belzemine had recently taught him a Tier VI Prayer called Clear Eye that allowed him to see through Tier V illusions and below, which he could cast without issue.

“I admit I do not understand how that Megalith functions. None of us eidolons can answer a prayer without the bridge of faith.” Vayan squinted at Simon, a thoughtful look in his avian eyes. “Are you certain it is this Light Megalith that answers your prayers?”

Simon squinted in surprise. “What are you implying, Sky-Father?”

“You told me that your Prayer spells were directly linked to your ability to cast miasmic spells, which no entity of the Light should grant,” Vayan replied. “I am beginning to wonder if the force answering your Prayers might be aligned with the Dark instead.”

“Are you suggesting that the Light Megalith might be corrupted by the Dark?” Simon asked in disbelief. “Surely someone would have noticed!”

“I find it more likely that an entity aligned with the Dark somehow fulfills some of the Prayers addressed to the Megalith for its own nebulous purposes.” Vayan scratched his wing. “This remains a mere hypothesis. I am sure of nothing when it comes to you, Simon.”

“Except that he should worship me better,” Carbuncle declared. “You should give me more treats! Put delicious fruits on my altar in the morning, midday, and evening!”

“I’ll do my best, Lord Carbuncle,” Simon replied politely while pondering Vayan’s words.

Perhaps Simon was indeed approaching the problem wrong. Maybe there was something wrong with that Light Megalith rather than himself, or a demon mimicked it to answer his calls… but why? What force could hijack Prayers to another divine entity entirely?

“I should probably look into it,” Simon decided. “The next time I contact my spymaster–”

“You will do no such thing!” Carbuncle cut in. “My first commandment as your god will be to rest at least one day a week! To work tomorrow will be a sin!”

“You are overworking yourself, Simon,” Ruto said with a laugh. “My sister complains that we push all our work on you, even though you are our guest. You should take time for yourself.”

“I agree,” Vayan said. “Our home is most beautiful in the summer. You would miss out on much holed up in that dreary, cursed keep.”

“We don’t have time,” Simon argued. “The comet will arrive in months!”

“You will perform better once you have rested, young Simon. Giving yourself time to think is an investment in yourself.” Vayan leaned towards Simon. “Or are you using work as an excuse so you do not have to think?”

Simon bit his tongue. Was he? He had indeed come to the Sanctuary to rest, but dove into work rather than take time to consider his future… “I don’t know.”

“Then I invite you to change that, or you will never learn to appreciate what you are fighting for.” Vayan looked up to the sky and rose to his talons. “They are here, at last.”

Simon straightened up as a group of flyers approached the floating islet. A squad of harpies led by Queen Zeal escorted, or rather carried, an enormous beast by dragging it through the air with chains. The creature took the shape of an enormous, spiral-shaped golden snail’s shell the size of a cart, with the head of an ugly, greenish, serpentine creature with an eel-like face. While it exuded mana like Carbuncle and Vayan, the fact that Queen Zeal held its neck with a collared leash didn’t speak well of its power.

Culebre, Shell of Abundance

Level 37 Eidolon of Snails, Harpies, Abundance, and Indolence.

Slime/Reptile

Simon was less than impressed as Queen Zeal’s harpies dropped the creature into the pond, causing it to float to the surface with its head and the top of its shell sticking out of the water. He only had to take a look at the vacuous look in the eidolon’s eyes to tell this one was on the dimmer side…

“As promised, I bring you a god unafraid of your blessing, Overlord Simon,” Queen Zeal declared, with Carbuncle hiding behind Simon when she turned her sharp gaze at the eidolons present. “It was about time you saw wisdom, Sky-Father.”

“We have only agreed on a test, Zeal,” Vayan replied sternly. While he and the other Sanctuary leaders had relented since Culebre was willing to form a Dark Eidolon Pact, he insisted they test out the summoning on a deserted islet to avoid any issues. “Do not make me regret this decision.”

“Are you afraid our god’s power will come to exceed yours?” Queen Zeal replied with a snort. “Culebre does what he must to defend our home. You should follow his example.”

“Why snails?” Simon whispered to Ruto while Zeal and Vayan exchanged glares. “Who would worship them in a flying archipelago?”

Ruto looked at him as if he had said something utterly stupid. “Snails are a rare delicacy, Simon,” he replied with a straight face, “They are considered the height of culinary delights, and the dye they produce is used by all clothmakers across the Sanctuary.”

Simon guessed there had to be a god for everything. Either way, he gathered his breath, put on his Overlord armor, and faced Culebre. “Are you ready to form a pact with me, Lord Eidolon?”

“Yes, Master,” Culebre replied obediently.

Well, forming this particular contract was easy. It didn’t take Simon long for him to consent to a System notification and receive a new one.

The Abyss bore witness to your Pact, which no power in the planes may break.

You have formed a Dark Eidolon Pact with Culebre, the Chainpiper.

You can now summon Culebre, the Chainpiper, to help you in battle and channel its Auspice.

So far so good, Simon thought right before he uttered the summoning chant rising from the depths of his soul and which filled him with a rush of experience. “When silence offers no respite, death’s trumpets shall herald your end! Sing my praise, Culebre Chainpiper!”

Culebre materialized out of the pond in front of Simon, and his shell immediately shattered in a wave of darkness far more potent than the one Carbuncle produced during his transformation. Queen Zeal and the harpies protected themself with their wings, while Carbuncle and Ruto hid behind a slightly perturbed Vayan.

Simon watched as his new Dark Eidolon underwent another drastic transformation, with Culebre’s serpentine form rising above the water and coiling in the shape of a crescent moon. Its scales darkened into a sinister dark red before strings surged from them to connect the upper and bottom parts of the body like a harp. The tail transformed into a mix of a trumpet and a pipe instrument, while two black, feathered wings emerged from his body. The creature immediately began to play a sinister, vain melody that reminded Simon of his ‘Your Lord Knows Best’ performance.

Culebre, the Chainpiper

Level 59 Eidolon of Cacophony, Harpies, Rewards, and Obedience

Artificial/Reptile

Auspice: Voice of the Damned: Greatly strengthens the range and power of your voice and sound-based abilities.

As with Carbuncle, it seemed Simon would enjoy Culebre’s auspice so long as he remained summoned in his Dark Eidolon form. The benefits were situational, but it should combine well with his Performances.

“Praise the master!” the creature sang to the tune of its wicked song. “Praise the Lord of Dark, ruler of the world!”

Simon rolled his eyes at his sycophancy… only for his lips to purse into a scowl when others followed his suggestion.

“Glory to Overlord Simon!” The harpies and Ruto all sang as one chorus, none of their voices louder than Queen Zeal’s own. Their eyes were vacuous and empty, devoid of anything resembling will and personality. “Praise the Lord of Dark, master of all!”

“What the…” A worried Carbuncle leaped on Ruto’s shoulder and tried to shake him awake. “Ruto? Ruto, can you hear me?” He resorted to lightly pinching the kish on the cheek, to no avail. “What’s happening to them?”

“This wicked beast’s foul song put them under a Charm effect,” Vayan muttered with distaste, glaring at Culebre. “This brings me back to the worst days of the Kish Empire… is the Abyss mocking our sins?”

“The Lord of Dark can do no sin!” the transformed Culebre snapped back, his words echoing with fanaticism rivaling Mastemo’s own unshakable faith. “His decisions are correct by virtue of his dark divinity! Glory to him!”

“Glory to the Lord of Dark!” his brainwashed chorus answered.

Simon scowled in distaste. This magic-compelled adoration felt even worse than the servility forced by slave brands or the kish songs, since it reshaped the victim’s will.

“I will cancel the summoning immediately,” he said as he prepared to dismiss Culebre.

“Not yet.” Vayan turned his head to Carbuncle. “Did this cancel your own Pact?”

Carbuncle shook his head. “I can still feel it.”

“Then it pains me to ask you this, but would you allow Simon to try and summon you again?” Vayan focused on Simon next. “We must check if our prophet suffers from the same limit as his predecessors.”

Carbuncle scowled and hesitated a moment, before reluctantly nodding. “Okay… but just one second!”

“I’ll be brief,” Simon promised as he uttered another summoning chant, his voice boosted by Culebre’s auspice until it reached across the heavens. “When the curtain of darkness falls on a world devoid of light, the black mirror shall show your true self! Reveal thyself, Carbuncle the Devil-Mirror!”

His words boomed with wasted power.

Nothing happened. Culebre continued to sing his master’s praise, and Carbuncle didn’t move an inch. Simon could feel the latter’s Pact remained active, yet its power remained out of his grasp.

“I can’t,” Simon admitted. “I can’t invoke the Pact.”

“As expected, a Visionary can only channel a single eidolon at once,” Vayan noted. “Your abyssal powers do not exempt you from this limit. You will need to dismiss your current Dark Eidolon before you may call on another.”

Unless I obtain the Summoner’s powers, Simon thought. Perhaps he ought to consume Norbelle’s Crestone in the near future… “Return to the light, Culebre.”

The Dark Eidolon’s wicked form returned to the darkness from which it came, leaving his previous self to reappear. The mental fog keeping the harpies and Ruto under his thrall dissipated in an instant, letting them return to reality.

“Are you alright?” Carbuncle immediately asked them with concern.

“It was… dreadful.” Ruto lamented as he massaged his temples. “Was that how the shifters felt when they heard our songs?”

“Culebre loved that!” the eidolon replied with enthusiasm. Unlike Carbuncle, who had been traumatized by the experience, losing his free will for the sake of power didn’t bother the snail in the slightest. “Culebre became something new, something stronger!”

“So were we…” Queen Zeal said, biting her tongue. “I felt new strength surging within us.”

“Culebre’s song granted you a buff while you were under his control, perhaps as a reflection of his ‘reward’ corrupted purview,” Vayan replied warily. “Even you must understand such strength isn’t worth its cost.”

Queen Zeal held the Sky-Father’s gaze with a scowl. “And what should we do, should our own strength be found lacking?”

“What we must.” Vayan glanced at Simon with clear reluctance. “Our duty.”