[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 285 – Homeward Bound

As soon as Sam stepped through the portal, the Lumanots burst out of him. One took up residence in the Pinnacle, while the other streaked off through the lightening sky toward another set of towers poking out from the dark waters of the sea.

The weight lifted from his shoulders, leaving him refreshed and eager. It was as if he hadn’t nearly been ground to atoms a few moments before.

“You beat up all the bad guys, huh?” Komachi asked.

“We did,” Sam said, patting her head.

Empress Zarishna stepped forward. All around them, the Proving Grounds were returning to life.

The towering windows overlooked places from all over this world. Where there was once empty darkness, Sam now saw jungles, seas, cities, and mountains teeming with life.

To the north, he could even see the spires of the Empire itself. The famed twinned cities looked even more beautiful than when he had last seen them just a few moments before.

Studying his face with newfound understanding, Zarishna seemed astonished. “I taught you the very forms I witnessed you wielding in the past.”

“Must be pretty wild. You sure you didn’t remember seeing me use them, so you taught me?”

Zarishna gave him an odd look.

Sam raised his hands and laughed. “Not sure what sort of time travel rules there are. I’m guessing it’s not the Doctor Who sort where the past can’t be changed and you do something because you remember doing it.”

“To my memory, I’ve experienced both. If that were not the case, then my old life would simply cease to be.” She gave him a sad smile. “That’s a little too close to death for my liking.”

“Better than multiple timelines where changing one thing creates an entirely different person,” Sam said. “I always felt like those were bittersweet. On the one hand, things were improved, but not for the people originally involved. They’re off on some other timeline, still suffering.”

“Fortunately, I’ve been spared such a grim fate.”

Some things had changed.

He had been involved in her past. In the Dead Echo, she had both arms of flesh and blood.

Now, her prosthetic arm remained. The very one he upgraded for her.

A hulking shadow moved behind her. At first, Sam thought it was a dreadnought judging by its sheer size, but then he realized it was Zarishna’s bear.

A bear who had very much not been here originally in the Dead Echo.

“You changed things. Subtle in some ways, others…not,” the Empress said, unshed tears gathered in her eyes. “You saved my familiar, Bar’ka. You altered the Emperor’s fate. Rhagur is no longer dead. And my arm, well…”

“He wasn’t secretly the Emperor, was he?” Sam asked.

That got a laugh out of her. “No, no, definitely not.” She grasped her metallic arm and pulled off what he thought was going to be her arm.

Instead, Zarishna had modified his design into armor.

He pointed at it. “You had me going in the first half.” He looked at the armor, then back at her. “How long has it been?”

Zarishna raised her brows at him. “I thought you didn’t want to know?”

“Things have changed.”

“Clearly.”

“Nachi machi!” His cat added, feeling as if she was being left out.

The bear ambled over and licked Komachi in a friendly gesture, then licked Sam’s hair too. His breath reeked, but then again, it always did.

“A little over a couple decades,” Zarishna said.

He couldn’t help himself. He had to know. “Is Zahif–”

“Alive,” she confirmed. “After your disappearance, he reached the next Stage of advancement. He said something about training you granted him enlightenment. Originally, he was never a member of the Scarlet Lotus at all. Never a man of any renown, for I suspect the master died as a boy before your involvement.”

“The old man got even stronger?” Komachi said. “Dang!”

For some reason, Sam had been absolutely certain Zahif would be dead. If not from old age, then at least from something dangerous. He was relieved to know that at least Zahif was still out there somewhere.

He remembered hearing from Volquist that the various Stages of power slowed down aging or even reversed it. If Zahif could have broken through, he might look as young as Sam.

Zahif might even be younger.

Imagining him as that bratty kid on the Wavedancer with all the power of the master he knew in the Empire would be pretty funny.

Zarishna beamed when one of the windows filled with the view of a grand city.

“He wasn’t in trouble for beating up the Immortals?” Sam asked.

Zarishna paced in front of the arches. “On the contrary.” She kept looking out of the large windows at her world. The smell of the sea filled the room. “He exposed a small cultist network within the Immortals. Those who had broken their oaths to the Empire. He was lauded as a hero, though he tried desperately to pass off the accolades to you. Since you were gone…” She shrugged.

“And the legend grows stronger,” Sam said with a chuckle. “He’s going to cast an even longer shadow now.”

“Perhaps not as much as the man who single-handedly destroyed the two-headed scourge of the west, Kel’brek,” Zarishna said. “Nobody saw you take the Lumanots. Nobody who would speak on it, at any rate. I always wondered what you did with them…and now I know.”

Zarishna gestured to the Pinnacle, the top of one of the Proving Grounds. “You could return with me,” she offered. “The Emperor would welcome you like a long-lost brother. You would receive the best training, the best armaments, and the finest accommodations. It is the least we could do for the hero who saved our Shard.”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted,” Sam admitted. “But I have my own home to return to. My kingdom is just getting started in the multiverse.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She gestured to a glassy pedestal. “Let’s return to the Nexus. The least I can do is treat you to some kaf and fill you in on everything you’ve missed.”

Despite feeling refreshed, he couldn’t resist the offer. There was still the pesky little matter of returning to his home. He had assumed that by fixing the Dead Echo, he would somehow be able to return home.

There was no big glowing portal, no tug on his soul that told him he was missing an obvious return. For once, Sam didn’t worry about it.

He returned to the Nexus and caught up with an old friend. It was odd piecing together all the events of the Empire. Zarishna’s ascension to power, the Emperor’s secret, and most importantly, the rise of the Scarlet Lotus that shaped the Empire for decades to come.

He learned why she was frightened of the Immortals that day. Despite barely surviving the illness that plagued her home province, Zarishna was an Incarnate. The Immortals of the past would have loved to get their claws in an Incarnate.

She had been afraid of a gilded cage.

An Incarnate of whom, she would not say. However, she admitted that there were Incarnates of more than the Kindred running around.

People who inherited god-like powers but were not of the gods themselves. People of every alignment and walk of life.

Zarishna spared no detail, as if she was doing her best to drag out the time until Sam had been fully caught up.

Eventually, all good things must come to an end. “And so here I am. Hardly ten minutes or so after I said I would return to the Proving Grounds to investigate the problem.” She motioned to the plasma windows showing schools of silvery fish darting deep below the ocean’s waves. “For them, I have been gone for minutes. For me…it has been an eternity. When I walk out of here, my people will not know what I sacrificed. What you sacrificed for them. But I swear to you, I will make sure each and every citizen of the Empire knows your story. You need not worry about Zahif’s shadow falling upon you.”

Sam didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t think it was right to turn down Zarishna’s kindness, but at the same time he didn’t feel like he deserved it.

“Your input does not matter,” Zarishna explained. “This is not up for debate. The Empire will know what happened, whether you like it or not.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh. “Mahalo.” He reached over and petted Zarishna’s bear. “You should be proud of your home. I can’t wait to see what you’ve done with it.”

Zarishna nodded, staring into her empty cup of kaf. “It would be easy,” she said softly. “We could walk out of here. There is a tunnel that leads to the Imperial Court. I do not believe you were ever permitted within Al Zurka. The Imperial Palace is a sight to behold.”

“Rain check,” Sam said, forcing a smile. He could feel the end coming, but like Zarishna, he wanted to forestall it as long as possible now that it was finally imminent.

“Of course.” Zarishna stood slowly. Her bear nuzzled against her side. “You have your own kingdom to run…besides, I do not think this ‘Raiko’ you speak so highly of is likely to wait forever. So, I think it is time to return you to your home.”

“Machi will miss you!”

Zarishna smiled and patted Komachi.

Sam looked at her. “You can return me to Il’dran?”

“The quest is completed, is it not?”

Sam nodded, double checking.

Quest Complete: Dead Echo of an Empire

After escaping certain death, you fell to another Worldshard on the brink of disaster. With Empress Zarishna Alzahan and Komachi Hunter, you recovered the Lumanots lost in the Empire’s history.

Ultimately foiling the Silent Stars’ plot for the Empire, you have quelled the Dead Echo and returned this Shard to the flow of time. Your heroism has been transcribed upon your Incarnate Deeds.

You earn the titles: [Hero of the Alzahan Empire] & [Apocalypse Breaker]

“With the Lumanots returned, the Proving Grounds are capable of marvels that were never possible before in my lifetime. Now, I can return you to your point of origin. Be warned: it will return you to the exact coordinates you left.”

“Huh, that’ll be right on top of the Maelstrom.” Sam didn’t see any way around it, though. He looked to see what Komachi thought of it, but she was busy trying to groom the entire bear.

“I suppose it shall.” She gave him a curious look. “If you ever need my aid, you shall have it, Samuel and Komachi Hunter. Furthermore, whenever you set up a free portal gate, I will have already opened one for you to the Empire.”

They were loaded up with supplies, recipes, and schematics unique to the Empire. Gifts that would go a long way in catapulting Sil’mara forward.

Sam had his suspicions about what he would see when the portal was opened, but when Zarishna walked him over to an arch that filled with opaque blue light, he was not prepared for the scene.

Instead of the black wall of death he had first encountered, he was staring at a battlefield. It took him several long moments to realize that he was looking at an extension of Sil’mara.

A very different Sil’mara than the one he remembered. He saw the Sacred Tree and the Sourcestone, but that was all that seemed familiar to him. It was connected to a massive Skyshard with a tower that pierced the heavens at its center.

Worse, the blue ogre was somehow still alive. It wore black obsidian armor and wielded a wicked axe the size of a house. Despite the hundreds of people fighting against it, Sam could tell the battle was a stalemate at best.

Monstrous minions of every shape and size flew, scuttled, burrowed, or crawled across the hills and forests to reach the alliance of fighters engaged with the ogre.

The goal was clear: they were trying to reach the tower, but the ogre was more than capable of stopping them.

Even with Raiko at the center of it all.

“So many people!” Komachi exclaimed in surprise. “A lot of time has passed, eh?”

“Probably for as long as you stayed in the Empire,” Zarishna said, examining the battle with interest.

Sam nodded. The drop was several yards to a tall hillock, nothing that he couldn’t deal with. Beyond that, it looked to be several miles between him and the ogre. Though Sam knew it would be much less once he stepped through.

If the ogre could still sense him, there was no way it would stand still when he made his entrance.

Despite all the fighting lately, Sam was more refreshed and ready to battle than ever. “I should have known he wasn’t dead,” Sam grumbled. He lifted a fist to Komachi. “You ready to give Big Blue another beating?”

Komachi curled her paw into a furry fist and bumped it against his. “Machi!” she said excitedly.

“Be seeing you, Empress,” Sam said with a two-fingered salute that made Zarishna frown.

Before she could reply, Sam hopped through the portal.

It was time to go home.