Chapter 1239: "I am Primordial, Endless, Void & Cosmic"

The fathomless white eyes remained fixated upon the Blood Elf and the Vampire Lady, holding both beneath a gaze that pierced flesh, cultivation and their whole existence until the very idea of concealing anything from him became childish.

When the voice returned, the cataclysmic fury that had condemned the Naga and the others was gone. What replaced it was almost conversational, carrying a preternatural patience from an existence that had just erased World Transcendents with touches and idle words.

{You see, beings like us tend to be rather untrustworthy.}

The Blood Elf’s crimson eyes narrowed. The Vampire Lady remained silent beside her, pale features betraying nothing despite the immeasurable attention and fear of the unknown moving between them. Neither woman could reach her cultivation or awaken the ancient power sleeping within her blood, yet both felt the gaze reading every thought that rose before they could bury it.

{I won’t always be like this. There will be times when I’m weaker. Vulnerable, even. And as much as I’d love to believe you’ll remember this wonderfully pleasant conversation and behave yourselves forever afterward, I can’t exactly trust that now, can I?}

The incandescent gaze settled upon the Vampire Lady.

She had nearly killed Phei.

She had been the one who predicted where True Void Steps would return him and it was her blood-hands attacks had shattered his body until even Dragon regeneration struggled to preserve what remained. His bones had broken beneath one impact after another, his organs had ruptured, and had the assault continued for only a little longer, the Young Dragon might never have risen again.

Yet the presence regarded her without hatred.

If anything, she sensed an astounding lack of concern for injuries that should have demanded vengeance. Whatever had awakened through Phei possessed his memories, his blood and perhaps even his desires, but its standards for insult, mercy and retaliation belonged to something far older, experienced and calculative than the nineteen-year-old Dragon whose heart had just been pierced.

The incandescent gaze settled upon the Vampire Lady and its judgment too clearly differed from that of the nineteen-year-old Dragon whose body she had nearly beaten apart.

The white eyes seemed to brighten with faint amusement.

{You know, almost everyone who attacked my Master today is dead now.}

Her expression tightened... this things; it was calling the young boy its Master?!

The voice chuckled softly: {And considering how thoroughly you beat him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted you joining them.}

For the first time, the Vampire Lady felt something colder than the Void around her.

The presence allowed that thought to settle before continuing almost pleasantly.

{But you see, that’s where he and I disagree. I think you’re far more useful to my Master alive than dead.} The white gaze travelled over her once more, seeing far beyond the pale woman standing before it.

{Hmm... yes. Much more useful.}

Its sighed and looked at the Blood Elf too this time, both of them!

{Although, you were chained by the Maxtons and compelled to stand against me. You weren’t exactly enjoying the luxury of choice, so I suppose that too counts for something.}

That much was true.

The Maxtons had not asked for her loyalty. They had taken her freedom, suppressed her and reduced World Transcendents to living weapons beneath Danton’s command. Whatever choices remained after that had been little more than preferences concerning how one wished to obey.

The voice sighed with theatrical patience.

{Still, I have no intention of gambling the vulnerable me on the hope that two ancient World Transcendents suddenly develop impeccable morals the moment their chains disappear.}

A quiet amusement entered the Void:

{Not that I owe either of you an explanation. You’re pests, and I’m Primordial, Endless, Void, Cosmic and sufficiently all-powerful to do whatever the hell I want with you. Yet here I am, explaining my perfectly reasonable tyranny so you’ll have some peace of mind.}

The brilliant eyes curved faintly.

{Aren’t I merciful?}

Neither woman answered.

Cassian and others had already demonstrated how much choice these questions offered.

The pressure surrounding them changed.

Lustful warmth entered the absolute emptiness, intoxicating enough to feel every profane thought in them and within a place that had devoured light, distance and sound. It slipped into both women with exquisite ease, flowing beneath ancient mental and soul defenses and through the deepest recesses of their souls before either World Transcendent could mount resistance.

Desire awakened with it.

For one alarming instant, both expected Lust Reality to open and condemn them to the same endless hunger that had devoured the Naga, Cassian and the others but no fabricated world appeared or century of gratification waited to rot their souls from within.

The power and whatever that had entered them wanted only one thing.

Everything!

Every defense inside them opened before every secret they had became accessible and the concealed depth of their bloodlines released to their peak, cultivation and soul lay exposed before those terrible white eyes.

{Tiamat Slave Mark.}

Two symbols ignited simultaneously.

The dragon mark’s radiance burned upon the Blood Elf’s forehead and the Vampire Lady’s pale skin, their shapes too elaborate for ordinary sight to remember. They remained visible for scarcely a heartbeat before sinking inward.

Both women stiffened.

The something passed through flesh without resistance, entered their meridians and threaded itself through cultivations refined across centuries. It descended farther, engraving ownership beneath the very core their bloodlines started and ended and made them its own and ready all their memory until it reached the primordial foundations upon which their existences had first been built.

Their souls resisted there but the effort lasted less than a thought.

The marks settled with irrevocable finality, accepted by reality so completely that even the Void seemed to recognize the two women differently afterward.

The white eyes brightened with unmistakable satisfaction.

{Much better.}

Another change followed.

Phei’s Slave Sight ability granted more less little more like sharing access to the senses of those bearing Phei’s Mark. Sight, hearing and the immediate perceptions surrounding a slave could be borrowed whenever he desired.

Inside the Void, that modest connection became monstrous.

Their memories opened completely before him.

What he had caught before had only been fragments, loose pieces dragged to the surface by fear, instinct and whatever happened to be strongest in the moment. Now there was no such limit. Entire lives spilled through the darkness without order or protection, memories rising one after another before either woman could hide, suppress or turn away from them.

The presence moved through everything with disturbing ease, touching experiences they had believed would remain theirs alone until death.

The Vampire Lady’s memories came first.

He saw people she had once trusted enough to lower her guard around, people she had hated so deeply that remembering their faces still stirred something ugly inside her, and others she had protected while refusing to admit they mattered. He saw pride, humiliation, hunger, jealousy, affection and decisions she had justified for so long that she had nearly forgotten there had ever been another choice.

There came her captivity:

Her pain.

Years spent beneath restraints and masters she despised, forced to obey people she considered beneath her while every failed attempt at resistance only bought another lesson in helplessness. The fury from those years had never truly disappeared, she had simply learned how to bury it beneath silence until even the people holding her chains mistook obedience for surrender.

The Blood Elf reacted first.

Her expression tightened as the gaze moved through memories she had buried beneath years of pride and silence. Faces surfaced one after another, people she had hated, people she had used, people she had protected while pretending they meant nothing to her. There were moments of hunger she had never admitted, choices she still defended even when part of her knew better, and old humiliations she had spent years teaching herself not to remember... the those she had betrayed, the ones she had saved and later claimed she never cared about.

It found every ugly desire she had buried beneath pride, every fear she had hidden behind cruelty, and every moment she had chosen survival over something kinder.

The voice paused.