So long as Eva paid proper attention, Serena shouldn’t need to intervene again. Unfortunately, even as she clapped her hands together to destroy another tentacle, Eva realized that she wouldn’t be able to contain the avatar for long. It was a war of attrition and not one that she could keep up in. Soon enough, her prepared bombs of blood would run out. She could move on to slicing off tentacles with her wings or generate more blood and throw it around the ritual circle. But for how long? How long would the Avatar of Void remain dormant?
Indefinitely, obviously. Realization dawned on her.
They had messed up.
The ritual would never reactivate Void’s avatar. It wasn’t intended to. This ritual was designed to bring the slice of Life’s brain into the mortal realm. The
And entirely too late. They had already restarted. Eva could try skewering the ritual circle again. But she couldn’t remember the exact spots she had hit. If that had even been the actual cause of the ritual shutting down in the first place. Eva still wasn’t so sure. With a ritual circle as large as they had, there were bound to be minor flaws in the stone or elsewhere around the area that Catherine and Zoe hadn’t caught. Catherine had said that none of the spots her spikes had touched should have been interacting with anything else.
Can’t dwell on the past. What could she do about it now?
Void wanted to corrupt Life. How? Eva hadn’t the slightest clue. Likely some enigmatic method known only to the Power.
Would destroying this segment of the brain put Life into dormancy long enough to come up with a better plan?
No. Void had said that Life would simply grow it back. It was possible that the avatar had meant over the course of millions of years, but its statement about how they only had a few chances at this made her think otherwise. Hopefully it hadn’t already grown it back and that was why the earthquakes and lightning had started up. If so, they may all be wasting their time trying this ritual again.
A bolt of lightning struck not far from Eva. The tip of her wing pierced through the expanding mass left behind. She took care not to scratch the surface of the stone as she hoisted the wood-like lump into the air and clapped her hands together.
A second, much thinner beam hit Vektul. Unlike the other lightning bolts, which all came from some abstract point overhead, this beam came straight down from the eye. It didn’t fade away immediately either, but neither did it grow in intensity. Just like before.
Activity on the mass of flesh tripled in intensity as more and more tentacles started sprouting off the sides. A slab of skin slid down from the top, revealing a massive eyeball with a lopsided pupil. Looking closer, it wasn’t the pupil that was lopsided. Several other smaller eyes bulging out from the large one just made it seem that way.
Was this it? What Void had been talking about? Life might be trying to reconnect with its severed part. Assuming Void had intended to begin corrupting Life right away, then conditions were now ‘perfect‘ to use its word. Or it would be perfect if the avatar was actually active.
Eva glanced back over her shoulder. Just a quick glance at the body of the immobile avatar. She had been holding out just a slight glimmer of hope that it would wake up and fix everything. But it looked like that wasn’t the case.
It would be up to her to figure something out.
Eva blinked as another bolt of lightning hit the ritual circle. This one was too far. Near the edge. Rather than a mass of flesh, this one looked more like a base enigma. It didn’t quite have enough legs and its back was smooth. Eva didn’t get much of a chance to stare at it any further. Blinking again, it had tumbled over on top of the ritual circle, leaking blood. Or rather, its insides weren’t inside anymore. Another blink and it looked like nothing had ever happened.
Which was great news. The only ones Eva could think of who might be able to do such a thing were Juliana and Zagan. If they were keeping people safe along with Serena, Eva could take a moment to think.
Eva dropped her shoulders, letting her wings shift to compensate for another tremble in the ground. Slowly she turned to stare fully at the Avatar of Void, only keeping watch on the Life equivalent through her sense of blood.
