Dimensional Descent

Aina swept out her battle ax, her blood roses rotating like a garden of blades,

blackened lightning forming their thorns and painting the skies across in an array of death, destruction, and oddly...

Life.

With a step, Aina’s black feathered wings fluttered, her armor pulsing with a bright. vitality.

The amusement drained from her eyes, replaced by a deathly stillness and cold. The Life Force of the world seemed to drain continuously, a whine that came from the depths of the World Spirit’s soul making those that called this place home tremble, a sense of loss overwhelming their hearts.

BANG!

Dozens of Brazingers couldn’t hold on. Aina did nothing more than walk toward them, but their blood ripped out from their bodies, unable to hold back under the call of their mistress.

Without the strength to fight back, their Life Force was almost eager to hand themselves over.

Their Queen had beckoned them forward.

How could they not oblige.

The Brazingers, for their credit, charged ahead. They were warriors down to the depths of their souls, and they didn’t shrink in the face of challenge.

However, they were little different from moths to a flame. And every time they acted so recklessly, they only added to Aina’s strength.

One would have thought that the skies would be painted by grief, by pain, that that outpouring of a daughter’s love would rip their psyches to shred.

But Aina was eerily calm, not like a lake, but rather like a slumbering volcano, a dragon coiled deep within their cave.

With every step closer she came to Anselma, the deeper that calm seemed to become. Her soul was awash with a refreshing dew, her body swaddled in the caring caress of the skies and the tender call of the earth.

The deaths continued to accumulate, not a single one managing to approach within several dozen meters of Aina. They flew forward like moths to a flame, adding to the garden of blood forming around the Queen.

Dark clouds rumbled in the skies, blackened lightning an even deeper shade of

darkness and brooding than them tearing across their body like dancing shards of electricity.

A large amount of stamina should have been used up by now, and maybe that was precisely what the higher-ups of the Brazingers were waiting for... for her to tire, for her to waver.

However, the smoldering ember seemed to be gently cradled by a pair of fair hands, that ember carrying a hatred she had held in herself since the day her mother suffered on that stake, since the day her face was torn asunder, cursed to suffer to the end of her days by a woman spurned by nothing more than petty jealousy.

A life upturned, a mother ripped from her daughter, a pain buried years deep.

But it no longer consumed her, no longer weeded into her soul.

Instead, it became a gentle fuel no different from any other.

A fuel meant to burn for an eternity and into infinity.

Along with the memory of the Brazingers’ fall on this day. BANG!

Aina took a step onto the walls of the Brazinger family compound. Not once had she decreased her pace. All the while, her gait was steady, her expression a lukewarm sort of coldness that chilled the heart and yet somehow calmed the spirit.

She gently raised her battle ax for the first time.

The moment she did so, a cascade of powerful auras erupted from the distance.

The Ancestors of the Brazingers had finally made their move.

And yet.

Her blade descended.

There was nothing more than the slightest ripple in the air. A scythe of Force didn’t take shape. It almost looked like a heat wave passing through the air, distorting nothing more than the image on the other side of it and not much more.

But this simple swing made the hearts of the Brazinger Ancestors leap into their throats. Fear colored their expressions, and one after another, they summoned their Manifestations.

Giants of illusion, clad in reds and bejeweled by a bright vitality and a fiery will for battle and victory, appeared.

And just as quickly, they were torn in two.

The invisible blade passed right through them and their bodies split of their own accord. Their own blood formed the scythe within them, splitting their bone, their skin, their flesh right down the middle.

They stood frozen in place, not realizing just what had happened to them until it was far too late.

PUCHI.

The sound of wet flesh and split bone echoed through the air. They fell to the ground in two pieces, their bodies flopping in a sickening blend of noise.

The roses that floated around Aina pulsed with life, her control over Life increasing as the corpses of the Brazinger Ancestors were sucked dry.

But right when the blood was about to be incorporated into her strength, they froze in

the air.

A woman had appeared.

Adorned by a fluttering red dress, she and her bright red lips seemed to stand out in the skies no less than the rivers of blood that surfed the wind.

These rivers, however, stilled, seemingly frozen in time.

Anselma looked at the blood calmly before turning to Aina. She scanned the young woman’s face and then her eyes landed on the battle ax.

A light smile tugged at her lips.

It had been a very long time since she laid eyes on this treasured weapon of hers. It was about time that it returned home.

She raised her hand and softly beckoned. It seemed like a gentle gesture, but the clouds above almost dispersed beneath the power of the almost careless curl of her

fingers.

A strong, pulsing might came from the battle ax.

Aina looked down at it as her arm tugged forward, the force so great her shoulder nearly popped out from its socket. She too was calm as she gazed at it.

Then... the Founder’s Ax was ripped out from her hands, whizzing through then snapping into place on Anselma’s with a satisfying slap.

It had returned home.