Bast breathes and threw a fireball at the ones closer to the bridge, and as she blew them away and their rotten flesh was blown off their bones, she spurred Junior on using her legs!
They ran through and across the bridge, reaching the other side and looking back as the undead began to gather at their side of the bridge...
But not a single one gave chase.
Bast felt halfway through as though she had just walked through a curtain, and after doing so she felt all the unrelenting and maddening fear taking hold just drop away suddenly.
Junior began to calm down noticeably as well.
Bast had a concerned expression as she looked back.
"What... what can give off that kind of aura to force fear into anyone nearby? These undead aren't capable of that, their animating force isn't strong enough to affect true lifeforce."
She got off Junior.
He snorted and nudged her with his nose, and she patted the side of his head.
"I know boy, I know. But I need to make sure..."
Wait. Make sure of what?
Bast froze once again, this time casting her will out and focusing on the idea of a shield guarding her.
Cold sweat began to form on her forehead.
'Spirits above! First a domain of fear around the town's 'isle' in the crevasses, and then a larger and more subtle domain that makes you want to check it out?'
Well that's... ingeniously devious!
Wow!
Bast focused fire into her palms. "Whatever you are... you don't even know the kind of mistake you just made."
Junior sneezed as he took a step back, giving some space to someone with a little bit more steam to work off.
"You think you can trap me? You think you can make me HELPLESS?!"
Rage filled Bast as she began to walk back towards the undead.
"I will burn the bones from their flesh, and I will slowly, take my time, and decimate this entire place so none shall come here again."
"I will bury the passage down to the water so none will come to see whatever you are, down beneath. I won't go looking for you just to be tricked. Instead... I'm going to ruin everything you've created."
"Because fuck you."
And with that, she turned her hands into flamethrowers.
She burned the zombies and evaporated the moisture along them, and after drying and burning them, their flesh went up like tinder and their bones blackened and cracked in the heat.
Bast's got out spears of light, and let them pin the zombies to the ground where they couldn't move and just kept being burned.
More and more kept coming, an entire town of the undead, and she kept annihilating all of them as they came until none were left.
She stepped past the many ashes still glowing red hot above the sand melted into glass and the rock made into slag.
'Because. Fuck. You.'
She walked over to the tunnel into the earth towards the water, and gathered fire into her grasp.
As if feeling what she was about to do, a presence rose through and brushed past her like the breath of death, and the fear being forced into her mind intensified.
Gibberish and maddened panic filled her thoughts as the fireball she was creating slowly fell apart under the mental stress!
"No..." she grit her teeth. "No!"
She raised a hand... only to clasp her own head as a spike of pain shot through it.
"Fuck!"
She crumpled to her knees. What was this? Why did it hurt so bad?!
'I... have been through too much... to let this stop... me...'
Her vision began to pulse as spots of black formed, and her eyes slowly closed... as she fell over.
~ ~ ~
Something was wrong.
I could feel it.
My head rose with an arching neck as the rest of me lay in a bed made out of large leaves.
Me and Korven were adjusting to suddenly living in a tree(I'll explain later), but it was still daytime. Tomorrow Avaya was planning on showing me to a few issues she needed solved as payment to let me stick around awhile as I figure out my next moves.
My attention shot inwards and I looked at my star.
The Star has changed a bit... still a sea of cold and hot fire, but now there was like... islands?
It's like islands and continents made of ice would form above the cold flaming sea, and on those isles of ice water would form higher up, while the entire outer side of the Star was forming clouds in its atmosphere, trapping the heat and light and cold, and somehow making it even more intense!
This was possible directly because I'd absorbed way more light now, so those shards of light now floated on the surface and in the sky, and moisture could collect along them and freeze to create these ice islands... that melted as soon as the hot and cold switched places again, seeing as the two sides were constantly moving.
Lightning still struck everywhere though...
I came to the barrier.
I can cross this in my sleep... I can do it now.
I will because... I can feel it. One of them is in danger.
And considering Kire should still be at a camp or town in the movements to anticipate the next battlefield, it's probably Bast.
I didn't save her just to have her die on me a few weeks later dammit!
What is with people in this world and trying to get themselves killed?! I swear I'm going to start inheriting this death-seeking behavior soon...
Korven took the initiative to talk to a DRAGON while he's a RACCOON.
Sure he thought I was a Lycan or wolf, whatever, but still! Predator! Dangerous!
Anyways back to saving someone's life hopefully.
This barrier blocks magic... yet I can pierce it when unconscious, but once in my dream state out there, I can't get back in at will.
It's automatic.
But why? What's the difference?
I press my astral body against the barrier.
It blocks magic.
Does it block will?
I focus on all the magic, all the elemental bits unconsciously added to my will self to make it more real, adding water energies to my "blood", etc.
And I push it out, making my will-self more see through and thin without magic supporting it.
And I pushed through.
'This... is... uncomfortable!'
*POP*
'Ahh! I'm out!'
I turned to Bast's small spark of a Star and flew.
Again: very lucky speed and distance in this Soul Galaxy seem to be unspecified and fluid, cause otherwise moving to her core should be taking me WAAAAAY longer considering I just moved a solar system's distance in near an instant.
I flew into the fire and light, and deep into HER center and will.
And then I found myself inside her body... and I could feel her will alongside mine, being crushed down by something bigger and darker.
'Oh. Oh you done fucked up.'
I could feel the moment as the will crushing her to death let up for a moment in shock.
Kinda like an animal stepping back and going "WTF?" If a second person just morphed out of the body of the first they were attacking.
[You hurt one of mine. One of my chosen.]
[You will pay for that mistake.]
I reached out, and I grabbed it.
It tried to resist, but I wanted to laugh.
I've experienced death.
I am a dragon. My race is ancient and holds power far above whatever this thing is, and my mind is far stronger and holds more than it could hope to.
My will began to leave Bast's body as a barrier in the shape of dragon wings faintly took form, protecting her from the will attacking her.
'My chosen. Mine. You. Can't. Touch. Them!'
Bast's body is already under a lot of pressure to support my consciousness being here...
Oh hey. Right.
I turned my attention to the nearest lifeform... Bast's horse.
My mind touched it, and it was simple, yes, but there was purity in that simplicity which was honestly powerful.
This will couldn't crush or manipulate this horse to do anything other than be scared because this horse was too strong in its simplicity to be manipulated beyond feeling an emotion.
So I did what came naturally.
~ ~ ~
Junior lit up as a shadow fell over him, and power filled him as his mind connected to something far bigger than himself.
Junior bent his head, pawed the ground... and reared up before SLAMMING into the earth!
A wave of light shot through the ground, and a ghastly scream echoed from below!
[Again!]
"NEEEEEEEEIGH!" He reared up!
"BANG!" And slammed down!
Then the air stirred and lifted Bast up onto his back before he galloped away with her secured to him by light bindings.