Chapter 320 A Single Grain of Aether
"...This concludes my report on the matter." Fiona Shadowsoul said, and then her features went serious as the next words spoken were grave, "However there is something that I find really disturbing after I took the time to review the details of the event, and I don't know if such a thing is possible even while searching through all my records…"
She lapsed into silence and they all waited for her to continue, their patience beyond what mortals could understand.
"When I accepted this task from Ohrox, the Prince of Destruction said the person or persons of interest may have powers closer to a god, but they were not necessarily gods." She turned to Kohron, "I believe he said something similar to you."
Not waiting for his reply, she continued, "That statement struck me as odd, but I disregarded it, for there were many methods to acquire great powers even if one was not worthy of wielding it. When he summoned me to stay in his shadow and perform the part of the plan he set out for me, I had no issues with it. I could not see the entire battle up to that point I revealed myself, due to the fact he stressed my Energy Signature must be hidden until the pivotal moment and that mean I cannot peek through his shadow, and let me tell you Ohrox's Shadow was… strange, for his body was more of a construct than tangible flesh. I would personally love to know the technique he is using to achieve something like that. Anyway, I could tell that the individual they faced was powerful, but not overwhelmingly so, most likely it was a god using his Divine Body and not an Anima, but that notion was thrown away when I entered the target's shadow."
Kohron began to fidget, "Get to the point, Crow."
She ignored him, "I could not collect many things from his body, mostly because he had only a few things with him, but there is something that I still feel should be a trick or a glamour, else if it was real, then it would be terrifying…"
Her tone was getting lower, and the atmosphere over the Covenant was becoming solemn, Fiona Shadowsoul was an ancient witch that had lived for an unknown length of time, and there were few things that could make her shaken, and her demeanor showed that.
She continued, "What I detected inside the target's shadow was both frighteningly complex and alien that I could not understand any of it, so I chose to find patterns that would be familiar to me, and I could find none, except for one thing, which was his Aether."
"What was wrong with the Aether?" Arlushan asked,
"It was ordinary, Arlushan, with average potency that would be found in any Major World. But there were two things off about it. The first was its age."
Kohron scoffed, "You can tell the age of Aether now? Why don't you tell us the color of his soul while you are at it."
"Silence." Arlushan shot at Kohron and looked at Fiona with a piercing gaze, "Continue."
She licked lips that were suddenly dry, "I could easily tell the age of the Aether, or at least guess because there was only one grain of it."
There was silence in Covenant as they all stopped and considered her words.
Ulremazz Igorin could not help but ask, "What do you mean he had only a single grain of Aether."
Fiona slammed her hand on the table, "You heard me correctly. He was tearing Kohron and a freaking god of Trion apart with his bare hands, potentially froze a part of the time stream and destroyed multiple worlds, and he was only using a single grain of plain Aether! That is why I could guess at the age of the Aether, Kohron! From what I could decipher, he has been using that same grain for at least millions of years!"
She paused, "I keep telling myself it must all be a glamour, but I know when my attack landed, he was not placing any defensive barrier on himself, I know what I saw, it was a single grain of Aether and from it was this glorious tapestry of such complexity and alieness that it forms could not have any meaning as it was breaking several laws of the universe just existing, for even the concept of it was so…"
"Be quiet, Fiona, do not think about this matter any longer. Protect your mind from chaos, or your spark may be corrupted. This issue will be escalated to the Apocrypha level. I will have to contact my father. Bring the items you retrieved to me. Kohron, you will be summoned, do not worry about Ohrox, wherever he is, he would be pulled out from…." He frowned as he was distracted by Fiona tapping the table, "Do you have something to say?"
"Well about that, those items are no longer with me. The arrangement Ohrox made with me was to drop whatever I took and place them inside a random spatial tear. I was to create a storm to scatter the trajectory of the items, as it was the order given for the commission, I hope Covenant understood I had to follow it. I could track it for a few minutes, but even I lost the signals buried inside it. For all intent and purposes, whatever it was that I stole is now lost. There is no way for me or Ohrox to retrieve it. I regretted this action later, when I took the time to review my memories of the person I stole from."
Arlushan sighed, "Of all the times for you to be noble, this was not the time…. Give me the location you threw it in, I'm sure my father may be able to retrieve them in time. Tell me about the items you retrieve, show it to us if you are able to."
"Okay, let's see here, there was this particular long spike that had multiple serrations on it similar to the teeth of a Dreadbeast, it was freezing to the touch and embedded inside of it as far as I could detect should be thousands of Combination Runes of the Sixth Order…" Fiona began to list the items she stole from the Third Prince while crafting their likeness using Aether to present to everyone.