Day of Reckoning I
Saint-Domingue, Cayes-Jacmel
Fort Quintus
October 17, 1798
"Today is the day." says Aknadin as he watches Atem pet Bastet with a serene expression on his face while Sekhmet observes from where she is lying on the sand. "How do you feel?" asks the priest.
"Calm yet full of anticipation." replies Atem. "I cannot wait to finally be free, to once again feel the sun and wind on my skin, to be outside of this suffocating maze, but most importantly I cannot wait to see Adanna once again." he says.
"And what of Basilius, Augustus, and the doctor?" asks Aknadin.
"What about them?" asks Atem as if he were talking about a mere dog as opposed to fellow magi with years of experience.
"How will you deal with them? How will you deal with the countless men who want to enslave you? The island is run by them after all." clarifies Aknadin. "I have never asked you what your intentions towards them are, nor what you will do after you gain your freedom because those thoughts would only burden you when you should have been focusing on preparing yourself to kill Basilius. However, since the day is here it is time that you start thinking about what comes after." he says
"Basilius and Augustus will die like the dogs they are, the doctor can be useful so unless he becomes a liability I will spare the old fool." replies Atem as he stands up. "As for those colonisers, they will be removed from the island. Whether alive or not will be up to them."
"Mhmm, you wish to free all the slaves and free the island of the French and Spanish people. Quite an ambitious goal." comments Aknadin as he caresses his beard. "Can you accomplish such a task?" he asks with a raised eyebrow.
"It is not a question of whether I can or not, but rather will I. I may just free the slaves in this fortress before deciding to live my life peacefully on a farm." says Atem with a joking grin.
"Please do not jest with me. I know very well that once you have spoken your goal to free the island that you would do so. What I truly want to know is what do you plan to do after that?" asks Aknadin.
Despite proclaiming his goals earlier in their conversation, Atem doesn't answer right away and simply stays quiet while gently rubbing the back of Bastet's head.
"I do not know." he admits after a few seconds of silence. "Up until now my goal of freeing myself seemed so far away. Even yesterday, before falling asleep, it felt far, but now that I am this close I don't know what I will do after freeing the island. Especially since I know that in order to do so I will have to win a war." he explains. "Perhaps I will turn it into a nation and rule, or perhaps I will simply live peacefully on a farm with Adanna. I might even leave to travel the world." he says after giving it some thought.
"There's nothing wrong with that, not unless you let indecisiveness guide your actions. For now just focus on your current goals. Everything else can be dealt with later." instructs Aknadin. "There's only a few more minutes before you must go to the arena, so tell me what is your plan?" he asks.
"I won't go through the procedure. I don't trust that old fool, so I will kill Basilius in the arena." explains Atem.
"Very well." answers aknadin with a nod. "Now it's time for you to go. By the end of today you will either be free or dead, so I won't say talk to you later. I do however have a gift for you." says Aknadin as he turns his right palm upwards towards the sky. Over his hand a gold-glowing energy ripples through the empty air like water as a small golden ball emerges from it and falls onto Aknadin's hand when the golden energy disappears.
"Is that… the Millenium Eye?" questions Atem with wide eyes as Aknadin presents the golden ball, no bigger than an eyeball, to him. "You are nothing but a soul shade with a limited access to magic, so where did you get it?" asks Atem as he gently picks up the eye as if afraid to break it. The eye itself is the size of a normal eyeball without any of the nerves attached to it. It is mostly smooth and golden in color with an incomplete Eye of Ra engraved upon it.
"While I may be limited in the magic I can use, my soul is still connected to the Pharaoh's Treasury where the eye has been residing for thousands of years." answers Aknadin. "As for why I did not give it to you earlier, I had to make sure that you were worthy of it, for to wear it means to be worthy of being a member of our bloodline and a potential Pharaoh. Back when we ruled Egypt, the eye was either given to Heir or the Chief Priest. You, my dear student, would make a fine Heir now." explains Aknadin.
"I wasn't before?" asks Atem.
"Not in my eyes, no. However with your achievements in training, your temperament, and character, I officially deem you worthy as of today." answers Aknadin.
"I see." answers Atem.
"While the eye may seem to possess many functions, it only functions in matters pertaining to the [soul] and nothing else. However, due to its overspecialisation the only limit lies with the wielder. As such it can theoretically accomplish any goal as long as it pertains to the [soul]." explains Aknadin.
"Thank you." says Atem
"Do not thank me." says Aknadin. "To do so is to look down upon me for doing my duty." he says as Atem disappears from his soulscape.
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Opening his eyes in the physical world, Atem sits up from his bed and wastes no time summoning the Millenium Eye to his hand from his soul. With the eye in his right hand, he raises his left hand and uses it to pluck his left eye out, only releasing a small grunt as an indication of the pain that the action caused him. Without saying another word nor hesitating, Atem places the golden Millenium Eye into his left eye socket where the eye glows a bright golden color for a few seconds before quickly dimming. After blinking for a few seconds to acclimate himself to his new eye, he looks down at the useless eye in his left palm before burning it to ashes with a simple chant of "A'max" just as the door to his room is opened and the guard dressed in knightly armor beckons him over.
Not bothering to take his daggers with him or acting as if he is under Basilius' spell, Atem makes his way towards the guard.
"Tas" chants Atem, causing what seems to be dozens of mummy wrappings to appear and bind the knight before Atem launches himself into the air and smashes his knee onto the knight's helmeted head, knocking him out.
"Don't worry, when you wake up you shall finally be free of Basilius' control." he reassures the unconscious knight before making his way down the hallway, towards the arena, at a leisure pace. Arriving in front of the two guards who protect the entrance, Atem wastes no time binding them and knocking them out also before opening the door and entering.
Stepping out into the open field of the arena, Atem immediately draws Basilius' attention to him when he opens all of his magic circuits and channels magical energy throughout his entire body, causing a torrential wind to blast through the air and around him.
"HA-DI!" bellows out Atem with a scream that is heard throughout the entire fortress. For a split second nothing happens as the chant resonates in the air before a massive explosion encompasses the entire arena and travels outwards with Atem in the middle.
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Saint-Domingue, Cayes-Jacmel
Fort Quintus
October 17, 1798
He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to be the cause of the destruction of this entire island, nor did he want to be the cause of the death of millions upon millions of people, mundane or otherwise. But unfortunately in life there will be times where one has to do what they don't want to, and this situation is one such.
If the boy wasn't so arrogant and hard headed then he wouldn't have to do this. Yet not only is the boy arrogant, but he has the audacity to look down upon him. Him, Bjarte Alfson, a magus from an old bloodline. Him, a magus who carries untold knowledge and is one of the greatest in the fields of spiritual evocation, summoning, spiritual healing, and runic rituals. Him, a magus who would be a revered professor had he been an instructor in the Clocktower.
He should be looked upon with awe and respect while being begged to be a teacher, but instead he is nothing more than a slave for Basilius and looked down upon like an ant by an eight year old slave of all people. It's times like these that he feels quite glad that he ruined the boy's left eye instead of healing it.
At first it was meant to serve as another reason for the boy to hate Basilius and to seek revenge, but now it merely serves as something to make him feel better whenever his thoughts wander off towards the boy, an idiotic and arrogant boy who doesn't know what's good for him.
He thinks that just because he can use some magic he can go up against Basilius, a magus with decades of experience and centuries of worth of knowledge. He thinks that just because he can block one fireball that was only meant to singe him that he can not only look down upon him, but also dismiss him as if he were a mere servant. Truly the boy's arrogance knows no bounds, and just the thought of Samael's smug grin turning to horror along with Basilius' screams as he dies makes him feel infinitely better about what he is about to do. So much so that he doesn't even care anymore about the insignificant mundanes that are about to die once the Heretic God rampages through the island, nor does he care about the fact that he will most likely die as soon as the Heretic God appears.
With a wide grin on his face Bjarte Alfson, the doctor forced under Basilius' employ, begins engraving the summoning circle around the unconscious body of the slave woman that he's captured. Despite being a slave, the woman is still attractive and possesses a motherly aura about her that makes Bjarte believe that she is exactly what a Mother Earth Goddess would be like in mortal form.
After engraving the summoning circle onto the ground, Bjarte takes a few steps away from it and mentally thinks through the chant that he will need to recite while looking at the hourglass to perfect his timing.
The ritual is nothing special and is actually a modified version of a different summoning ritual. The original summoning ritual was designed to access the Akashic Records and summon a heroic spirit from legends to kill a Campione or Heretic God. Later however, it was outlawed and all records of it were destroyed due to many magi using the heroic spirits to destroy their enemies, creating a situation where countless blood was shed due to the destructive power of the heroic spirits. Bjarte's family, the Alfson Family, was one of the few families that managed to keep their record of it.
Unlike the original ritual however, this one is modified to summon a Heretic God, for Bjarte has no need of a heroic spirit. The possibility of summoning a weak heroic spirit that is not compatible for battle is too big for him to ignore. He isn't willing to take a chance of summoning one no matter how miniscule the possibility is, especially when it's compared to the fact that no matter how weak Heretic Gods are always superior to mortals and the chances of a mortal killing a Heretic God and becoming a Campione is infinitely small.
As the last drop of sand falls in the hourglass, Bjarte points his palms upwards and begins to chant, causing the summoning circle to begin to glow.
Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.
From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
You who have attained all the virtues of all of Heaven
You who have dominion over all evils of all of Hell
come forth from the ring of restraint, being of calamity!
As he finishes the incantation, the light from the circle becomes overwhelmingly bright until it finally reaches a crescendo just as a bellowing chant of "HA-DI!" fills the air and an explosion shakes the entire fortress.
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AN: Here's the chapter, as usual tell me what you think and comment on your theories, I love reading them.
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