Vektul was. He stood on his own. None of the beams of light propped up his body. His eyes were bright red—though slowly being taken over by violet—and he was obviously still aware of his surroundings. When Eva looked to him, he tilted his head to the side in that same manner he had always done.
Just in time for a bolt of lightning to strike him in the neck. Eva pinched her eyes shut again. The lightning wasn’t real lightning. At least, she didn’t think it was. But it was bright and caused another boom of thunder to roll over the ritual circle. When she opened her eyes again, the afterimage of the bolt stuck around.
But she could still see Vektul’s face. Or what was left of it. From his shoulder to the tip of his head, one half of his face had turned into a malignant tumor. His skin bubbled outwards with trails of smoke wisping off from the lightning strike.
Except the smoke wasn’t moving naturally. The thin grey trail bulged outwards, starting at Vektul’s shoulder. A faint membrane formed along the thicker smoke. A few feet above Vektul’s head, the trail solidified into a tentacle covered in eyes. The relatively smooth end split in two to reveal a maw filled with teeth.
It snapped around, biting at the air a few times before clamping down on the same arm that it had sprung from.
Another bolt of lightning forced Eva to look away. When she turned back, the tentacle had stretched out to right in front of her face.
Almost reflexively, a razor-sharp whip of blood lashed out from Eva’s back, slicing off the tentacle before the teeth could get too close. It flopped down on the smooth stone of the ritual circle only to start slithering towards her like some kind of monstrous snake. Three sharp spikes of blood from Eva’s back came down and pierced it, pinning it to the ground.
A follow-up of flames and lightning rendered it nothing more than ash.
Do take care. Your position in this ritual is not merely for show.
Eva grit her teeth and shot a glare at the monster inhabiting Arachne’s body. If it noticed, it didn’t respond. It only met her eyes for a bare instant before turning its gaze skyward to continue intercepting the rain of lightning. She didn’t know if something along the lines of what happened to Vektul and Arachne was going to happen to her. Or if the avatar of Void had merely been concerned about some other esoteric part of the ritual. Whatever the case, Eva had no intentions of winding up eaten by whatever Vektul was becoming.
And whatever he was becoming, it was rapidly going out of control. Eva couldn’t even look at Vektul anymore with all the lightning strikes hitting on or around him. Through her blood sight, she could see him growing tentacles and tumorous masses all over his body.
She had been so distracted with the ritual, Arachne, Vektul, Void, and Life that she hadn’t even realized that she had grown two massive wings on her back until they had struck down Vektul’s tentacle. Though they weren’t proper wings. Perhaps if she stretched a thin membrane of blood between the ‘bones’ then she would be able to fly. Not that now was the time to try anything.
For now, they gave her a much longer reach. Perfect for slicing off more of the tentacles that Vektul was growing. To keep them from slithering towards her, she skewered the severed portions and flung them up into the near constant streams of fire overhead. Eva was slightly worried for Zoe, being the closest to Vektul aside from Eva, but the outer ring of people was significantly farther away from Vektul than Vektul was to Eva. Almost twice the distance, in fact. They probably wouldn’t be attacked. Not right away, at least.
Maybe after Vektul grew more. In fact…
Eva pressed her hand down onto the ground, using it to push herself up.
She could actually stand. And, taking a step forward, she could move. Whatever had been keeping her pressed to the ground had broken. Her small place in the circle had plenty of room to move around. She had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn’t be able to move outside the ring—or if she could, Void would become quite cross with her—but she didn’t need to move very far.
The blood wings coming off her back could stretch far. And even if they couldn’t quite reach what she needed, they were made from blood. Blood that, near as Eva could tell, she was constantly producing. Extending and retracting them was easy.
As she started tearing apart anything that extended beyond Vektul’s circle, a realization occurred to Eva. At the moment, she was assuming that Vektul was undergoing a similar process as Arachne had just undergone.
Which would leave Eva directly between two avatars of Powers.
Chapter 019
A final bolt of lightning hit the blob of flesh that had taken the place of Vektul. With it came perhaps the loudest sound that Eva had ever heard. A constant roar of thunder for several seconds until it finally faded to a faint buzzing.
Rather than merely vanishing into aether as normal lightning bolts did, this one persisted. It burned brighter and brighter. Eva wasn’t quite willing to glance away. Vektul’s mass appeared to have fallen into some sort of torpor, but Eva wouldn’t count on it staying that way.
To keep her eyes from burning out of her skull, Eva stretched a few thin layers of blood over her eyes. The black blood acted somewhat like sunglasses. Which really didn’t do much while staring at something that was as bright as the sun. A few more layers darkened the surrounding ritual circle to the point where Eva could barely see anything at all.
But she could still see. Especially all the light from the lightning.
And the lightning just wasn’t stopping.
Prior to the lightning, Vektul’s flesh had been what one expected of flesh. By appearance, it had a leathery texture and brownish color. But as the lightning continued, bright purple veins started to bulge out around the massive tumor.
Eva wasn’t sure what it was with all the glowing. First all the beams of light from the ritual circle. Then Void’s skeletal fiery light glowing from within his smoky body. And now this blob of flesh that was likely Life itself—or a hair on Life’s head, to use the avatar of Void’s example. That wasn’t even going into all the other glowing things, such as demon eyes.
Life and Void were the things most glowing in the local area. Aside from the ritual circle itself, that was. Eva did not want to be between the two of them. The very second the ritual circle’s light died off, she fully intended to blink to the edges of the circle.
So long as she wasn’t stuck in place once again. If that happened…
But still, she had yet to feel any inclination to bow despite Life being a being of presumably equal power to Void. In fact, she found her temper heating up as she stared at the mass of flesh that had once been Vektul. It didn’t even have arms or legs anymore. Just a series of writhing tentacles—most of which Eva had pruned off. Had it not been attacking Void, so much could have been avoided. Not only would Arachne not have had a Power shoved into her carapace, but Juliana and Shalise probably would never have been stuck in Hell. Zagan only dropped them in there because he had been trying to figure out what had been going on.
Which was Life’s fault.
It felt weird, being an enemy of Life. She was sure that if she said as much out loud, everyone would look at her funny.
Eva clenched her fists.
Frankly, she doubted that she would care at this point. What a world she lived in when Life was the villain and demons were the good guys. Probably. So long as Void actually gave Arachne back.
Otherwise she might consider looking into ritual circles to summon another Power to punch the lights out of Void if she couldn’t manage it herself.