February 15th, 629

  I stared at Anderson for a few seconds before suddenly looking toward the door to my workshop.

  “L-Let me go. I need to shut it down…”

  “I already destroyed it. It’s the only reason you woke up. So explain. Now.”

  I stopped trying to remove his grip, which was no different from forged metal. I really couldn’t imagine how strong he was.

  I gathered myself before finally speaking, deciding that I probably couldn’t hide things, at least the obvious things.

  “I… It was just supposed to be a communication device, like a Node. It’s capable of global communications using encoded magic. We use messages of Psyka.”

  “That thing is no mere Node. Nodes don’t commune with the gods and beasts beyond the Waters.”

  “My Beacon doesn’t either. It sends messages along the ionosphere, riding the invisible barriers around the planet and dropping the message wherever designated. I know it doesn’t pierce the veil because I’ve tried to make it do so!”

  Anderson stared at me before throwing me back onto the bed, stepping away and stopping in the middle of the room.

  “Leave this place so I can work.”

  I stared at him confusedly for a second before looking at Luna. She waved Umara and I out, the three of us leaving, Anderson bringing out a metal cross and a container of water.

  Luna closed the door behind us, Erhan there outside. We all silently walked to the living area to sit down.

  Luna only spoke a minute or so later, when she sensed that I had gathered myself, my heart rate coming down from over 200bpm.

  “John, you have no idea what kind of powers you’ve been playing with. That much is clear. You’re lucky Umara called us so quickly.”

  “...Hang on.”

  I suddenly took off my shirt, looking down at my chest.

  And I saw that mark, black lines like a tattoo with odd shapes.

  I grit my teeth and took out a knife as Luna glared at me. Then I took it to my skin.

  I sheared off the tattoo, not just taking off a superficial layer, but taking it down to the muscle. I peeled the skin from my body, blood seeping down as the searing pain flooded my brain.

  I didn’t make a sound, as if it could make up for what I had done earlier.

  When the patch of skin was off, and I could no longer see markings on my muscle, I showed the marking to Luna.

  “What is this?”

  “An exchange. You may not have made a deal with whatever you talked to, but it still took something from you. Likely your fear. Did you feel less scared of it after it marked you?”

  “...Yes.”

  “That’s how they get you. You stop being scared of them, and they take root. You start testing your own limits and start giving more. Before long, you’ve signed your name in blood, and they get your soul.”

  “So it told me.”

  I sat back down silently and sent my knife away.

  “What do I do with this skin? Burn it?”

  “No. Give it to me.”

  I handed the skin to Luna, bloodying her hand. Then her palm flashed, white flame overcoming the patch and incinerating it, turning it to ash.

  “Purification, not the kind that comes from magic. It’s enough to prevent the influence over the flesh from pervading the household, but John, you’ll still need to purify yourself. Do you realize that the thing you talked to should not have been able to take your fear?”

  “...Yes.”

  I nodded as she leaned forward.

  “Do you? If you did, then that mark never would have appeared. It told you, right? That it can’t take what you don’t willingly give. Its words were true, and you willingly gave it your fear. If you understood what you should’ve done, none of this would’ve been an issue.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You saying that only makes this situation worse.”

  “I know.”

  I answered her simply, Luna huffing and leaning back.

  “Alright, tell me what the hell that thing was? You called it a node, but I refuse to believe it's like all the others. How does it work?”

  I was silent for a bit, thinking about the beacons in Wonderland and Continuance that I’d need to shut down.

  “...I already explained most of it. It’s called a Beacon. It encodes Psyka and beams it into the atmosphere. It then gets redirected along an invisible boundary around the world using resonance, following the path it was encoded with before dropping down to its target. I started developing this tech around eight months ago after I made contact with that boundary personally.”

  “You mean the Waters? How did you make contact with it? It’s miles up in the sky, and your planes don’t have the ability to fly that high. Unless you lied about what they’re capable of.”

  “I didn’t lie. I just made better planes. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find out about them eventually. We deployed them to the battlefield during the New Year’s siege.”

  “You mean, you had the technology to touch upon the Outer Waters for 8 months, and only just started using that tech on the battlefield? If you’ve hidden it for that long, then how can we be certain that this is the first time you’ve been contacted by the lesser gods? Have you been communing with them all this time?”

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  She narrowed her eyes at me, my lingering fear washing away and her scrutiny starting to piss me off.

  “I don’t expect you to understand my development process, Luna, and I certainly hope you don’t expect me to divulge important details about it. This is the first time I’ve been contacted like this, and although this situation didn’t go as good as it could’ve, I don’t enjoy you looking at me like I’m about to turn traitor to humanity.”

  “And I don’t like the fact that you aren’t as close with Christ as I once thought you were.”

  I turned, Anderson speaking from behind us. He approached, looking at me with eerily neutral eyes.

  After he sat down by Luna, he leaned forward and stared at me.

  “I’m frankly disappointed in this display, John.”

  “And I’m hardly trying to impress you. I didn’t expect this outcome, but if I’m being honest, it has pointed me in the right direction. I’m the one developing the tech to turn this war around, not you guys, so forgive me if I don’t give a damn about whether or not you approve of my methods. I didn’t take anything from that thing, even though it got a bit of my fear. Sorry if I’m not familiar with such occurrences. I don’t talk with whatever the fuck lesser gods are regularly, even though you two look at me like I do.”

  I stared into Anderson’s eyes, my fear finally disappearing. After some seconds of tense silence, Luna sighed.

  “John, we’re not accusing you of anything. But you have to understand how dangerous this situation is, and not just for you. You’re right, you’re the one developing all this technology, and if we’re divulging some secrets, I think it’s safe to tell you that your tech has singlehandedly given all of the Holy See’s Peerages hope to reverse the dire situation on this continent, because they didn’t have it before. Hell, it’s the only thing that has enabled us to make a stand at the Pillars of Creation. We understand full well what you’ve contributed, but if someone like you were to turn on us after being tempted by otherworldly powers, the blow it would deliver to humanity would be more than devastating, and that’s just as you are now, let alone when you’ve grown in power later. Do you understand how scared we are of that possibility?”

  I remained silent, turning my gaze toward her.

  I could also understand their caution. I had the self awareness to understand the damage I could do to humanity. Still, I didn’t appreciate the lack of trust. It was like all the confidence they had in me evaporated.

  Anderson leaned back, speaking before I could respond.

  “You spoke with a lesser god. They’re more powerful than demons, and although they often have the same motivations, they aren’t the same. They’re smarter, and they don’t operate by the same rules. That’s why cults often pop up in their names.”

  “I didn’t think there were any other ‘gods’. I thought there was only one true God.”

  “There is, but the word ‘god’ can have multiple meanings. We’ve studied them extensively, but all you need to know is that they are powerful ancient entities that reside in the Outer Waters. They are very real. Christ does not deny their existence, and neither should we, because they pose very real threats to us despite being limited by God. Obviously, that cursed device is able to reach just far enough to allow them to tap into the stream, which one of them used to commune with you. Normally, only those with great spiritual attunement can open themselves enough to commune with one. But you just made that rare ability mechanical.”

  “It’s the frequencies that it uses. The Beacon is self-adjusting, and it’s also designed to be controlled by Psykic commands, which gives it great affinity for mental influence. I didn’t realize that I had to be wary of extradimensional primordial beings when building it, so I gave this one the widest berth of capabilities. Thankfully, that doesn’t apply to the others. Still, I’ll shut them down until I can create better countermeasures. I don’t need any of my scientists or engineers going haywire either.”

  “Good.”

  Anderson nodded and retrieved a drink from his storage space, taking a swig. Luna spoke after him.

  “This is the occult, John. You’ve gotten a glimpse of the true war, the spiritual war, and the enemies that are trying to break us in ways most people couldn’t ever fathom. They aren’t forces I thought you’d have to deal with yet and I didn’t want to say anything because then your awareness would open the doorway to them. Their names carry power, after all. But I also hadn’t known just how far you’ve taken your tech. Thankfully, Umara called us here quickly. Had you spoken to that thing longer, a mark would’ve been the least of your worries.”

  “I wouldn’t have given in. I may not have been familiar with the experience, and I may have been unguarded with my fear, but that doesn’t mean I would’ve made a deal with it.”

  “It doesn’t take a deal to fall. It only takes enough corruption to pull you away from Christ. The only being you should ever fear is God. There is nothing else in this universe that you should ever fear more. Doing so is an insult to God, an admission that you believe something is above him. It is blasphemous. Keep that in mind from now on, because if you truly believe it, then nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  I sighed, the tense atmosphere defusing a bit.

  Luna continued.

  “And get yourself purified. Do the things I know you haven’t been doing. Build some chapels on your Line, ask for some priests to run them, and we’ll send them. You need them, and your troops probably do too. There are historical examples of entire armies falling spiritually to the Scourge. Don’t become another example.”

  “Yeah. Vetsmon said something about spiritual battles too.”

  I pondered, thinking back to old conversations and pieces of advice.

  After a bit more discussion, Luna and Anderson stood to leave.

  “Be careful John. We don’t mean to be hostile toward you, but it caught us off guard so we had no choice but to be intense with our approach. We need this lesson to stick with you.”

  “It has. I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to.”

  “Mm. Take the day to calm yourself. Anderson has purified and blessed your bedroom, so you can go back to get sleep without worry of being disturbed. As for your device, well, I’ll leave it to you.”

  She left it at that, receiving a nod from me before we separated.

  Only when the two of them were in the air and away from my estate did I finally relax. Umara and I went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, silent for a long while until she spoke.

  “I’m sorry, John. I didn’t realize you had been under attack like that.”

  “It’s nothing for you to apologize about. You did the right thing. I needed help, because when I was in that space, I wasn’t able to use my power at all.”

  I looked down at my hands, feeling the Psyka pumping through them like the power was brand new to my body. I had been way too vulnerable when talking to that entity, completely powerless, unable to muster anything to defend myself.

  My chest continued to sting as I calmed down, the searing pain of freshly exposed muscle and skin still prickling my brain.

  Umara shifted, urging me to sit against the headboard so she could start working on my wound. Her powers of healing flooded my body, bringing heat and stingling sensations of regrowth with it.

  “Your power moved, actually. It was so violent that I felt it as soon as it started. The entire room had been flooded with Psyka, so much that at some point, I couldn’t actually see the world around us, my mind flooded with the images of your conversation with that thing in that void. I-I couldn’t do anything to help.”

  She sniffled, holding back tears as I took a look at her face. The swelling in her face was still fading, her eyes still red from whatever crying she had done before I woke.

  It seemed I had been in that state for a while, long enough for Umara to call Luna and Anderson and for them to arrive from wherever they came.

  A thin layer of new skin took form over my chest before the healing started slowing. Only when the last layer had finished growing did she stop, the skin still raw and tender.

  I retrieved some bandages, Umara helping me wrap my chest before I took out a cigar and started puffing the sweet smoke of recovery.

  “I guess I flew too close to the sun this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I took it too far, and I got burned. I had just never considered that something like this could happen.”

  “But that’s not your fault. How could you have known?”

  “I’m not saying it was my fault, but that doesn’t change what happened. Now that I know, I have to develop countermeasures. I’ve hit a hard wall for now, and it wasn’t placed there by the limits of my intellect. It's comforting in a way that the only thing standing between me and what lies beyond the human realm is malevolent gods, not my capabilities. Gives me hope.”

  “...Hope? For what?”

  Umara looked at me, confused. I just smiled and looked her in those deep purple eyes.

  “That someday, I’ll be able to fucking annihilate them too.”