66. Anathema

There was some part of Celia that was growing deeply tired of hearing new voices in her head. But that was irrelevant. What was relevant was what was spoken.

"What do you mean?" She asked the newest voice in her growing court, curling around herself at the same time. Testing the flexibility of her new body.

Yes, what do you mean?

She is defiant of the beyond by nature, is she not? The voice asked.

But she did not continue.

And in that silence, the wheels of Celia's mind began to turn.

Is not everything birthed of it? Defiance is the nature of all it's children.

No. They defy the death. The cessation. She defies the order of it. Existing beyond her station. A stranger mimicking family.

And thus you claim anathema.

Thus she is made.

"Ok but what does all that mean?" Celia asked, curiosity grown too strong to contain. "I'm serious. What am I? Why am I like this now? Why does every Beyonder seem so keen to get in my business?"

The answer to that is both simple and complicated. Also, dodge.

Celia's senses rattled to life at the last second. Body reacting on instinct as she bobbed backwards, barely avoiding a monstrous claw sailing by.

Her retaliation was simple, a kick sent upwards. Except it never came, instead the tip of her tail swung lamely somewhere behind her. And in the half second it took her to realize what had gone wrong and adjust the beast she was now fighting went on the offensive.

It was a thing of limb and blade, eyes curled up in its grasp and skin a deep purple. It's attacks came in the form of branches of cold lightning. They curled and hissed through the air. Each going for her head with all the agility of a viper.

A comparison that Celia mentally criticized herself for even as she dodged back, again and again. Serpentine lower half unfurling and lifting her higher up as she did so.

And then the lightning switched targets. Going from striking at her upper body to that of her lower. Which, as it turned out, was far less maneuverable than her legs had been. As such, Celia could do little more than weather the blows that came. Each branch of lightning striking her scales with a flash of light and noise.

They showered upon her. A hail of arrows with the power to tear dirt and stone. Each a crooked lash that, perhaps even just weeks prior, would have boiled Celia's skin and cracked her bones. But she was altogether greater now. Reformed and reforged into a beast herself, scales not only withstanding the blows but rebuffing them. Bladed tips of every edge shearing through the lightning as she slithered forth, a bulwark of mass made living landslide.

The many limbed thing realized it's mistake in starting this fight at once. A shrill noise of fear escaping it as it tried to escape. Limbs turning back to real and physical as it tore a portal open behind it, floating backwards into it with haste.

But it was too late, Celia lunged. Sword in hand, all four arms reaching out, and her abilities flaring to life in half lived rage.

She entered the portal torso first, followed immediately after by her lower half. It was also as far as she got. Her passage through the gateway impeded by her much-wider-than-she-remembered-it-being rump. Hips firmly wedged in place as the portal closed around them. It's bright edges, shining with radiant gold light, sinking into her scales. Which she was surprised to find were actually rather soft.

Softer even than her legs had been. Something she tried not to think about as she tried to free herself. All four arms working in tandem to pull her through. Claws raking through the dirt in search of purchase.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They found none, for Celia was a titan unto herself now and far too heavy for the aid of physics. So she turned to other methods. Opening a portal herself, several actually, and with the lashing limbs that poured out from them she wrenched her entrapment wider. Slithering free with a smile that could chill the dead.

Or in this case, leave her comparatively little attacker frozen. She could taste the fear that gripped it. A pungent tang that she feared would bring out the worst in her if she suffered it any longer.

It was too late, she realized, already in motion. Portal opening up in rebuke behind her newest prey. Tendrils wrapping around them, holding them tight as she closed in. Then she curled around it. Lower half circling round and round like a noose being prepared. Scales biting into flesh, savaging it as she coiled ever tighter.

She couldn't help what came next. The hunger, the thirst, it had been awakened anew within her. Too strong to be denied.

Celia drank. Scales draining her prey of its essence from a hundred different points of contact. A trickle becoming a river in but a moment, and in another the river had run dry. Nothing left but the deepest parts of its essence left.

Her coils squeezed a little tighter, and soon that was hers as well.

Quest complete!

Nature advanced!

[This Thing of Three Selves] - Catalyzed - [The Hivemind Anathema]

Quest gained

Gather fuel for Idealization

Celia's hunger, rather than being sated by her latest meal, instead grew as the screen faded from her vision. A pain taking her. Assaulting her like it had only few times before. As if she was starving, stomach making it's protests known as a less than human part of her reached up from the depths of her being and seized control.

Everything that was not her became prey. Necessary fuel needed for the next step of her evolution. A meal to help satiate the black hole that had taken root within her. Both need and want intermingling as she launched herself at the next nearest living thing.

Wrapping around her new victim like she had the first and draining it dry. Scales crushing it into fine paste as she moved on to the next. And the next, and the next.

At some point, she realized that she was growing. Getting larger as she drained her victims and consumed their essence. Her cloak of natural armor changing to a deep shade of purple. Tongue splitting down the middle and into two. But her hunger never abating. Never wavering, even after she had left a patch of the battlefield all but barren of life.

At that point she had also grown to a length of 25 feet, and was noticably thicker in places. Details that floated around in the back of her mind as she set her sights on gradually larger targets.

From a three headed monster covered in spiked wings, to a six armed feline like monstrosity that could breathe out blasts of green mist. Either through direct contests of strength or surprise attack, she was fed. Her growth only slowing after she had 33 feet long.

It wasn't long after that, that she finally managed to feel satisfied. And with satisfaction came a crystalization of her new nature. Both physical and mental. Arms growing in length and ferocity. Fingers becoming thick with muscle and scale, claws long enough to count as knives in their own right. Elbows growing barbs, as her hair grew more snakelike. Flowing metamorphosing into tiny multicolored serpents.

But it was the mental change that was the greatest. As Celia felt her mind expand and split. First into two, then four, and four into eight and so on and so forth. Up until she was a hive of herself. A village contained with one being, and suddenly buzzing with thought.

A lot of thought. And for a second, she feared it would be too much. That she would be overwhelmed and drowned out in a tide of herself. But that didn't happen. Instead, she got a skill.

Skills gained!

(Ingrained) Living Scales

Quest complete!

Idealization complete!

Celia felt her new skill activate of its own volition. With several hundred of her scales coming to life in the form of tiny - relatively speaking - serpents and slithering free of her body. And into them, controlling them, went several hundred of her now "potentially" duplicate minds. All of which she felt a clear and very hard to ignore connection with.

It was as if she was inhabiting several hundred bodies at once. With the vast, vast majority of them being small and painfully fragile. At least, by the standards of the Beyond, that is.

Other than that, though, she felt... As normal as could be expected considering what had all just transpired. And as she analyzed herself, taking note of every change, one of her minds alerted her to a detail she had yet to notice.

The titans, which should've reigned as the true kings of this battlefield had ceased fighting. More than that, they were watching her. Each staring with unnerving intensity. And as soon as they had noticed that she noticed them, they turned and fled.

Not in a hurry, or a rush. But simply as if they were done here.

That would be because they are. Paradox whispered. Remember this, every 'titan' as you call them, has their own allegiances. Their own goals. And they see the shape of things as well as most Beyonders do. Better even.

Celia considered that for a moment. "And what is the shape of this?"

Anathema a hundred of her minds whispered in response.

Anathema. Echoed the youngest of herselves. For that is what we are, inimical in the making. And soon we won't be able to deny it.