Zaldizko - Chapter 35 The Power Of Null

I saw Brystagg on the ground, heaving for breath and bleeding out against the olive tree meters away from where Leinard and Trix were suspended within the tree’s trunk.

Aside from Death, the other two were unaware of our presence.

I clicked my tongue at the sight of Moralta’s gloating. Time to steady the turned table and fix this mess. Feeling renewed strength in my hands, I unsheathed my guns and shot a round at the floor near the hiruda’s feet.

Moralta threw his head back with laughter, he faced me with a triumph expression.

“Thank goodness you’re back. I can’t handle this demon making a creep out of me any longer. A few times my poor body almost lost a limb, and I saw how huge my backside is. Their fight has been horrible to watch!” Death sighed with relief.

“Freend back!” Small Cap greeted me excitedly. So much so the gold coins that they hid behind tinkled.

I shot some bullets to the ground again to cover up the noise they had made. Moralta seemed none the wiser.

“Tell me what I missed, quickly.” I thought as my eyes kept a constant fix on the demon.

A recap of what had happened topside sped through my mind.

In short, the platform had been an arena for magical attacks that had violated countless magism codes. Brystagg had been struck by an ice attack right before the bridge had warped out of time. He received further damage when Moralta’s longsword had slashed across his leg as soon as the bridge warped back in. Moralta’s damages were minimal. It made me wonder if Brystagg had been holding back since the body belonged to Death. I admired him for it.

“You’re like a cockroach sucking the living joy out of everything.” Moralta’s expression sobered as he walked towards me. “I was having so much fun.”

His sword disappeared. He called upon wind magic to throw us across the platform, so we were next to Brystagg.

“It’s a shame my Aidoneus won’t see home. Well, home will be with him soon. You had your chance my fair knights, you failed. Now, it’s too late,” said Moralta.

He wasn’t boasting.

He said a spell that made a blue book appear and hover in the air before him. The juxtapositioner demon’s blue book?

No way! It couldn’t be; I shot that damn thing into implosion! Was it possible that the demon didn’t implode, but had warped?

I stood to make a run for the book and close it. A wave of blue light knocked me back down. Hard light links bound my arms. A ring of light went around my neck. I yelped at the cuts I felt to my skin from the ring’s edges.

“I call upon the powers of the Dark Grimoire. Sol Tsazcuth is in motion. Come forth, Infinite Denbora. Ekarri zion Zyon!” Moralta’s voice echoed around the platform and inside my head.

His body danced around the book, stirring blue-white light that made the grey clouds churn and swirl with images of lands. As the images drew focus, my heart raced at the outlines of an impending invasion from a countless number of demons and horrid creatures eager to wreak havoc on Sol.

I closed my eyes, trying not to panic. “Death what do we do?”

“I don’t know Famine. I don’t know.” Death’s voice trembled.

The demons, creatures and their black and red-green inverted landscape were further encroaching on our space.

Moralta was boosted with Zyon’s dark power that crept across the platform, changing the floor’s white to black.

“I’m scared Death.” I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable. I failed without even reaching Pesti.

“Famine. The pink angels are smiling down on us from the sky. Looks like an eventful day awaits us.” Shuso’s voice warmed my thoughts. “Yah cannot fight the Vapour Trail once it cuts through the sky to bring down the rain.”

“Mushin, Zanshin, Satori; it’s what we learn right?” Memory of my conversation with Pesti granted me a push for determination.

“Now I teach yah some ways to Mushin.” Bulldog’s wise voice answered my fears.

“Mushin.” I slowly exhaled, feeling my resolve to fight for Sol.

I opened my eyes to the sight of demonic chaos circling about the platform, pushing past my pain to rise to my feet. Cutting pain forced tears from my eyes, but I continued to ignore my discomfort and agony.

Howling, jeering and shrill cries were charged with blood thirsty excitement.

“F-Famine, don’t.” Brystagg huffed, exhausted.

“Lyra is waiting for your return. Return you to her I will.” I stepped forward, barely feeling my feet.

“Why yah fear?” Bulldog’s question come to mind.

“I’m scared?” I had naively answered.

“Wrong. It’s ’cause yah heart is not beating dah same as yah mind. To reach Mushin, yah mind and heart must be one. Then yah can be still. When yah still, yah mind can break free from thinking.”

I stood between Moralta and my friends. Closed my eyes and moved my thoughts with my feelings. Slowing my heart beats, in turn slowing my thoughts until all my senses were merged into silence and a stillness. A third eye cakra opened within me, showing me the entire view of the Lotus Bridge in my mind.

The waiting demons were only looking into Sol like kids pressing their faces to a window. A layer of chiorntex power kept them from crossing over. Moralta’s dark grimoire spell was unable to remove it from the tsazcuth portal.

I sniffed the air and sensed that the spell Moralta had used was a watered-down copy of the original. Of course, he was only able to use an impression since the actual grimoire was not a book.

The power seeping from Zyon was actually accumulative energies from the demons within Hell’s Labyrinth. Moralta had merely called on these with his spell. Sol was still closed off. Moralta was still a student of magic; a bad one at that. This bad student had neglected to include a core element to his Zyon Portal plans, me.

It was no dream. Pesti did hand me a piece of the Power of Null. I felt it restore my pain and break my binds until they no longer existed. Power tingled my fingertips. It was charged with the love I held in my heart for my family and friends.

“You know why I was named Famine? Because I starve men like you from power, you can’t fulfil your dark desires.” My eyes opened to Moralta’s stolen blue set. He was doing his best not to look scared.

“So many mistakes Magis. You need to go back to school.” I took a few testing steps toward him.

“How? You, the binds, how?” He fumbled as he stepped back, frantically muttering spells to call upon shadow puppets to the bridge.

There wasn’t enough light to carry the strength of their presence. They faced implosion by the remaining shrills in my pouch or were shot into non-existence.

I dodged and danced around ice balls, fire balls and strong winds. I was moving without realising, using my focus in stopping Moralta to progress my advances.

Power of Null was swirling timelessness within my heart. It was ready.

“Non revertetur!” I shouted, aimed my guns at the blue book and fired.

The book burned into an intense blue and pure white before it imploded into glitter. The platform quaked, knocking Moralta to the ground.

A chance.

“Death, leap for me!” I called to him and looked to Brystagg. “Throw me your sword.”

I sheathed my guns. Brystagg mustered all his strength to throw me his sword that I caught in mid-air.

“I’ll set this right.”

“REVERTI!” I shouted when I felt Small Cap on my shoulder, and stabbed Moralta in the heart.

“NO! This… can’t… be…” Moralta expelled his last breath from Death’s body.

I quickly retracted the sword and placed my hand over the wound. Closed my eyes and completed the rest of the spell in my heart. “Et reversus est dominus.”

I dropped the sword, placed my other hand over Small Cap. With deliberate timing, I slowly retracted my hand from Death’s heart whilst moving my other hand, off Small Cap, towards it. Orange light was pulled from his heart; white light was returned to it.

Small Cap collapsed to unconsciousness when the lights faded.

“I’m… back?” Death exhaled with his own mouth, his hands patting down his chest for the wound that should be there.

He gulped in a few breaths to test his lungs, feeling the area of his heart and shook his head with disbelief.

I glanced to my left and saw Moralta’s true form. It was a cloud of orange light, barely a human ghost. The thought of Colin’s key crystal came to mind. I retrieved it and held it before the demon. I looked to Colin and sighed with relief when I saw that the surrounding binds were gone. Since Moralta was no longer in a body, his power was too weak to keep a hold over the knights.

“Colin, call upon the Ego Port or whatever spell to trap this thing.” I commanded the captain and smirked at his annoyed expression.

The orange cloud fluttered about the platform, flying around for an escape. Brystagg had recovered enough energy to contain it within a wind spell.

Colin did his graceful, magnificent, dance to call upon the Light Grimoire and evoke a trapping spell.

I felt Moralta’s cries of disbelief and angst as his form was sucked into the crystal. Imprisoned again.

My body was yanked into Death’s proud and grateful hug.

“Thank you. Thank you, thank you.” He cried tears of joy.

“We still have the awaiting Zyon invasion to sort out and my boys to save.” Brystagg stoically reminded us as he rose to his feet.

Most of his wounds were healed, but looking crusty in some places.

We approached the gold coin olive tree and stared at Trix and Leinard still unconscious and suspended within it. Their bodies had turned so their backs were pressed against each other, so we saw their side profiles. I didn’t know whether to take this as a good or bad sign. It was now for the hard part.