From where we had been, returning to Palon had not been as long of a trip as I had anticipated. I only learned later that Voltairine had managed to make contact with me when my companions returned to Resta. Still, the trip between Palon and Karatal could never be made in a day, thus I began to drive myself mad with urgency. I had failed to account for the lost convenience of my teleportation magic when I gave my body up to death and had nothing else to do while I waited to be carried to where I needed to go. So, I continued to work on Garanda's soul until it was nearly clean of his sins. With the corpses burned to nothing, I began to drain the blood that had been left behind. As a mere facsimile of true life force, the blood could give me no power, but it responded to my magic simply enough.
When I finished cleansing Garanda's soul of his evil, I finally encountered the first living soul fragments. As a simple-minded killing machine, he had but two fragments for me to contend with. The first was a fragment of darkness who took the form of an ancient Pyrisian berserker who attempted to kill me with his pyromancy skills. This Pyrisian seemed to exhibit the mindless violent tendencies that I had come to know Garanda for, but to explain how I survived his onslaught requires an explanation of these soul fragments. When employing soul magic, a caster is able to interact with individual aspects of their subject's personality, which take the form of someone significant to them. This pyromancer was no one I knew, but he clearly represented the unbound rage that drove Garanda to kill. I could only stop him with the essence of a light fragment who represented a quality which foiled that of the dark fragment. I escaped as quickly as possible and began to search for the pyromancer's counterpart.
I found what I was looking for in my own image. For as long as I had been stuck with the demon knight, he had been observing me and learning from my example. This was why his solitary fragment of light took my appearance. He represented the deliberation that stayed my hand when I began to lose control of my own anger. This was the part of the soul from which Garanda's more elusive and tactical approach to our private war had originated. I was quite nearly flattered, but still rather disgusted that I of all people represented his positive moral extreme. Fortunately, a soul fragment that takes the appearance of the soulcaster is most pliable to the caster's whims. The fragment gave me a shard of Garanda's meager light before disappearing, which I used to calm the raging pyromancer before he could kill me.
With both fragments temporarily banished, the path was clear for Garanda when Voltairine and the others delivered me to Palon. The Demon Knight had already caused the destruction of half of the street on which my family lived by the time we had reached him, based on Adamora's verbal reaction to the chaos. I instructed Voltairine to bring me as close to him as she could. She was clearly terrified, but I assured her that I had no intention of allowing her to come to harm. When she confronted Garanda, she did so against Adamora and Kartal's advice, but she had more trust in me than them. When my adversary raised my blade against her, Voltairine appeared to me within the sparesoul. I pulled this image behind me and held up a hand to put a blood shield in front of her. As I had hoped, his strike was stopped in midair by a barrier that no one could see. In his confusion, he stared down Voltairine as if he suspected her of possessing a power he couldn't understand. He did understand, however, when she held out the black diamond. In his fury, he took several more swings at her, but my barrier showed no signs of giving. Finally, he noticed my presence and, with the learning of soul magic he appropriated from within my memories, he entered the sparesoul to meet with me directly.
This was the moment I had been preparing for many years. All of the spells I learned, all of the blood I absorbed, and all of the time I spent hunting him to the detriment of my wife and daughters had been leading to this moment, in which Garanda stared at me across an empty space with intense hatred. In those eyes I could see his struggle to be free and his rage towards me for trying to contain him. He made the first move, crushing my carefully conjured blood shield with a single stroke and cleaving through the hand which sustained. Thankfully, the blood I had stored in life allowed me to heal the wound rather quickly. What followed was a deadly clash of blood and steel that expended nearly all of the power I had gathered to that point. Even with my physical abilities enhanced by blood magic, it was nearly impossible to keep up with the legendary warrior spirit. The sole advantage I possessed was in my blood blades, whose ethereal power could not be repelled by any weapon or armor. Only the blood of another was even capable of reducing the momentum of my magic, but it took everything I had to even get close enough to penetrate his armor.
Finally, after roughly two minutes of tense combat, I pierced the Demon Knight's dark chestplate with my blades. This measure was far from enough to vanquish him permanently, but his shock and sudden weakness left me with an opportunity. I reached out through the walls of my stone prison and clutched Garanda's physical body. As a result, I assumed control over this new body and left my adversary stranded within the sparesoul. I lowered the monster's blade, removed his helmet, and smiled to my companions with lips that so resembled my own, but which hadn't previously belonged to me. I told them that there was no longer any need for fear. I had defeated by enemy at last and sealed him away.
Kartal mustered his Goodwill Company and lent their support to the rebuilding of the city while Adamora retreated to her self-imposed exile in the desert. While I worried that removing herself from the watchful eyes of her fellow clergy would make it easier for Adaling to continue to menace others, Kartal assured me that he at least would not be far away. As for Voltairine, I took her aside and held a long discussion about the repercussions of what had just transpired. She had found her way into my tale purely by chance, and had long since earned an explanation as to what happened. As far as anyone could see, she had stopped Garanda by bravely facing his wrath without raising a hand to him in turn. This made her a hero to the people of my city. Although I would learn later that she was used to earning such accolades, she was somewhat uncomfortable with the profile this battle had elevated her to. Without intending to, I had allowed someone who once preferred to remain relatively anonymous to become a celebrity for my actions. I still regret this, but I had little choice but to let her have my credit because I dreaded having to explain exactly what I did. As Samson had told me a long time ago, it took the application of forbidden magic to finally take control of Garanda.
With the Demon Knight's threat put to rest for the time being, I was finally able to reunite with my family. Although my daughters were thrilled to see me once again, there was no changing what had broken between Bellarose and I. In her eyes, I had failed once again to control the impulses that once led me to committing the greatest atrocities of my life and could never again be trusted. I had made sure to use my magic to the most ethical ends I could this time, but it was difficult not to see her point. So it was that my old life was put to rest and a new one with the wonderful woman I met along the way could begin. This does not quite end my story or address my reasons for writing it down for your consumption, but I feel I have sufficiently covered the most necessary context. With that, I will next address how we came to where we are today and what must lie in my future.
Continue to Part 18
Continue to Part 18
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