133 Map of Cosmos and Shard Hunting

My night in the cave was pitiful, tear filled, and miserable to say the least. I spent the entire night that way. Till a familiar figure approached. Grey- blue and her figure swaying gently as her soul misted slightly against existence. Sam.

She strode forward. Her spectral feet unable to shift the ground but I could tell she was coming.

She stopped just in front of me with her hands on her hips.

"And here I thought I was married to a god. Not some self pitying mop. Get up." She said loudly.

I didn't move an inch.

"Get up before you find out whether I can still move my hammer or not." She threatened.

I don't know whether it was ingrained in me to fear a mix of Sam's temper and her hammer. But I stood up faster than any man should. My body was straight and tall compared to hers. My form dwarfing her ghostly frame.

"You know... raising those boys was hard for all those years. Seeing them grow without you around was even harder. But Kyle told me what you had done... what you were doing. And I understood. You were locked in place by something that we couldn't get through. I even took the boys there to see you. Val was very accommodating giving us the best rooms and even helping with tutoring the boys about magic."

She paused for a moment as she looked down at the ground before seemingly breathing in and straightening up before turning to me looking up at my face.

"But it was all worth it knowing you woke up. I finally got to see the man I loved again. But I didn't realize you'd be such a blubbering mess." She said as she gave me an unimpressed look. Her figure may have been small but her voice held a power in it.

" Now do you know what I want from you my Husband?" She asked. Her voice firm and her eyes fierce.

I looked down at her and I could feel her words resonate with me. Not on a simple scale of what I knew I needed to do. But the feeling of what I had to do. Like I couldn't survive without it.

"Hunt. It. Down." She growled. And I felt burning heat explode in my chest as I came to understand that my wife commanded something of me after all this time. Like I was being freed. A chain around my mind and heart shattering as a deep guttural growl escaped from clenched jaws and Sam's face showed a happy smile.

"There's my bond. There's my hunter of shadows. Now you go. And you hunt that little bitch down. Hunt him till he regrets messing with our home. With our sons. And you make a map of the cosmos. And you churn it to oblivion if you have to, to find him." Her words struck deep at my anger waking me up from my woes. "Yes my dear." I rumbled and the mountain trembled in response as I spread my wings and exploded out of the tunnel and into the sky.

I thought about what I needed to get in order to hunt Mercury. I needed power. I needed help. And I needed to rid myself of other petty nuisances before I got the other two.

The first thing on my list was easy. Nox's corrupted shards.

Sin still had the map memorized and guided me to the closest one. Verst's eastern mountain range. Littered with holes and almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. At least if they were anyone else. Not me.

I landed and breathed deeply before letting out an explosive roar into one of the tunnels. The sound blew through the mountains making them shudder and tremble. The rocks danced about bouncing across the shaking ground as some parts of the mountain gave way to my overpowering voice.

And the sound didn't just make the ground shake. It was so loud I knew I was bursting eardrums in droves within the tunnels.

I shrank down and wandered into the tunnel before me. A smell of rustic iron filled the air. The smell of blood began to waft through the various nooks and crannies. Where was the smell of blood from? The eardrums and corpses that those left in their wake. Hehehe. Some people would say this was probably my cruelest type of attack. But honestly. I enjoyed this too much to consider it cruel. Especially considering what happened with Val was still fresh in my memory.

The deeper I went the more cold and dark it got. Torches became fewer and farther apart as I moved. Though my eyes found no issues seeing and I could sense the tunnels through the ground. It was like using echo location to see things before I got to them. So the tunnels were a cake walk.

I sensed a few enemies that hadn't been killed but we're wondering around dazed and confused. Though some may have assumed I would just walk past them but I didn't. I sent energy through the ground and either staked the people or dropped them in nearly bottomless pits.

Those that suffered from the stakes gaped at the piercing earth as the life left their eyes. And the pits swallowed the unsuspecting sealing the holes so none could hear their wailing screams as they fell.

And me?

I walked past or over them without so much as a blink.

The farther and deeper I went, the more darker powers became manifested. Mists and Slithering sounds echoed across the walls as I approached. The slick feeling of water gathering on my scales before it slithered like sweat down my body.

I knew what I was growing close to. The vision of the past was still fresh. An eye encased in crystal sitting on a tall pedestal. The memory still gave me goosebumps. But it also made me want to hunt this thing even more. The cold feeling of malevolent evil was palpable on my body.

When I felt a slight chill of fear enter my body. Unwanted and unneeded. I wasn't afraid. So something was wanting me to be. And I wasn't going to have that. I was here for one reason. A reason Sam told me to be. To Hunt.

I lit myself ablaze at the memory of my wife's words. My anger rose to the occasion burning out the dark powers around me as I walked. Each step cracking the ground and making the stones echo with the sounds of breaking stone and crackling flame.

The tunnels and halls soon opened up to a large room. It was wide like a Colosseum with a domed ceiling. Rows of stone bleachers coned up and out from the center. And in the center was just like my vision. A diamond shaped crystal filled with dark shifting mists that slithered within their confines.

I stepped closer allowing my flames to light the room further. The rooms details became more detailed. The poor craftsmanship of the bleachers to the cracked and dust covered floors. Even the ceiling was cracked and decrepit looking.

"So... The new faker showssss themself." A cold hissing voice echoed through the room and I smiled.

"And the snake reveals itself after all these years. Have you enjoyed the last 100 some years of peace? After I annihilated your... what? Three shards across the world?" I growled out as I turned to see a large serpentine eye glaring at me from it's crystalline confines.

"You insignificant worm! Even if I'm confined in here I can still destroy you!" She hissed angrily as dark power surges toward the crystal, gathering till it formed a large pitch black body of pure power. The crystal floated like an eye set into a large dark head on a woman shaped body. It's large frame matching mine in height.

"You know nothing of the universal powers you worthless welp!" She roared as her figure swung at me her arm shifting into a blade meant to cut my body apart. But I didn't move. I didn't need to. Her blade struck my scales and stopped just under my scales. A little dribble of Golden blood escaping through the tiny cut sizzling against the blade and the open air.

Her eyes face shifted a little in confusion as I stood there and looked at her with a bored stare. "Why is it you shards all have alot of fight in you but very little power to back it? Is it because you all are suffering from multiple personality disorder?" I hummed out.

"You little!" She screeched as she turned her other hand into a blade as well and began to strike my body repeatedly with both of her limbs.

My body was denser than others by miles. My real body could dwarf the city of Verst if I went all out. So I didn't need to think of how far she could dig. Little scratches that formed across my body were healed almost as fast as they were made.

All the while Nox's blades were sizzling and in dire need of a sharpening as they kept burning away. And as they burned Nox drew material from the rest of her body shrinking herself in her rage filled strikes.

And I simply watched like a tiger playing with its prey as she kept shrinking and shrinking. Till she was the size of a toddler looking up at me seething and painting tiredly from her wasted efforts. She waved a thin frustrated tendril at me.

"You think you've so great! pant... pant... pant... But you're... nothing more... than a hypocrite... pretending to be a- a white knight! Saving people. You're worthless!" She shouted in between her panting.

I looked down as my body began to burn once more making what little shadows that were on her body disperse. "I never claimed to be a saint. And I've never claimed to be a White Knight." I said as I gently picked up her bowling ball sized crystal. "Though I will tell you what I am." I said as I raised a palm toward the ceiling and clenched it into a fist as I unleashed earthen powers upward making a hole all the way out of the ground.

I opened my wings wide with a single flap I blew out of the room, through my newly made tunnel, and into the dawn of a bright new day.

I raised Nox's crystal above my head as I opened my jaws wide. "I'm the god of balance bitch. Now let me balance you out." I growled hungrily as I shoved her into my open jaws with a screech.

Her screams could be heard from my throat as the bulge moved down my esophagus and into my stomache where I actually felt it break down.

/You have acquired

Dark energy Manipulation (Absorbing into already existing powers)

Map of Cosmos: Allows for easier mapping of the known and unknown universe. (Mapping skill is expanding.)

Nox counterpart - subordinate/child is upgrading /

I heard Sin chime as I felt something else begin to surface. More of Nox's memories.