Chapter 269 - Fate Eater ( Part 2 )

An arc of black water shot from below and carried Jennie into the air. She twisted and dropped to another ice platform even as the serpent’s tail destroyed the place she had been.

Jennie ran.

The massive body of the monster moved through the water and under the ice as though it didn’t exist at all. At every time Nharos surfaced, the world around her changed.

In one vision she found herself standing in front of Zuko. In another she hesitated and the lifeless body of Lilia fell to her feet. In yet another, Jennie struck Zuko with a weapon and an explosion consumed the whole continent.

Every action ended in a tragedy. The serpent didn’t merely show her futures. It used them to predict her actions.

And whenever Jennie picked a path, Nharos was already there.

Jennie leaped to a platform to the left and a large serpent’s coil destroyed the structure. She tried to run right and the serpent’s tail hit the ice in front of her and made her change direction. She tried to jump a gap using the wind magic. The monster opened its jaws and made the air vanish, preventing her magic from forming. She fell down against the edge of another ice platform.

Jennie rolled and felt pain in her ribs.

"You’re cheating!"

"I AM FATE."

"That’s not a defense!"

Jennie stood up and the serpent’s mouth opened. Dark clouds gathered inside it, condensing into a ball of darkness.

Her instincts warned her about the attack she saw in one of the serpent’s visions. It was a wave of black energy that erased everything on its way.

Ice disappeared. Water evaporated. The very space seemed to vanish into nothingness.

Jennie took out the object from her pouch. Her fingers found something cold and hard.

Black scale. Vorthal’s present.

The scale of Eclipse Devourer, the primordial dragon which she freed from its curse. Jennie nearly forgot she still had it with her.

The wave hit her, and she held the scale in front of her. It exploded into a stream of black light, forming a barrier around her body, which absorbed the impact of the attack. The lake disappeared under the wave of darkness, but the barrier held and Jennie survived.

When the light receded, she found herself lying on a piece of ice. The black scale was gone.

Her clothes were torn. A cut on her forehead was bleeding. Every muscle in her body hurt as though she was crushed under a mountain. But she was alive.

Jennie rolled on her side and started coughing.

"Vorthal..."

She looked at the empty spot.

"That was your favor, wasn’t it?"

No answer came.

Nharos rose from the darkness. Its face seemed almost curious for the first time.

"YOU HAVE SURVIVED AN ATTACK THAT SHOULD HAVE ERASED YOU."

Jennie struggled to her feet.

"Yeah. I get that a lot."

"YOU CANNOT CONTINUE. THE SCALE IS GONE. YOUR MAGIC IS NEARLY DEPLETED. YOUR BODY IS FAILING."

The serpent’s eyes glowed.

"I HAVE SEEN EVERY MOVEMENT YOU CAN MAKE."

Countless images of attacks and retreats, victories and defeats, successes and failures spread across the sky. There was a Jennie who fought, a Jennie who ran, a Jennie who died. Countless incarnations of Jennie followed a different path, each of them failing.

The creature spoke with certainty.

"THERE IS NO MOVE LEFT THAT CAN SAVE YOU."

Jennie looked at the visions. The patterns became clear for her.

Every time she tried to take the safest route, the serpent was already there. Every time she tried to predict its attack, the serpent was already aware of her move.

She tried to win the game by picking the correct choice. But how could she do that while facing the creature that consumed possibilities?

She spent her whole life searching for the best answer, the most efficient strategy, the safest way to reach the goal and the most effective action. Even in her previous incarnation as Leonis she used experience, skill and preparation to reach her success. She became the Sword King by learning how to read her enemies and foresee their moves.

These skills served her well, but they were useless against the creature that could consume possibilities.

Nharos didn’t need to understand what she would do. It just needed to see what she could do.

Jennie lowered her head and started laughing.

The serpent’s eyes narrowed.

"WHY DO YOU LAUGH?"

"Because I finally understood."

Jennie raised her head.

"You aren’t showing me the future."

"I HAVE SHOWN YOU EVERY FUTURE."

"No. You’ve shown me every future you can imagine."

She wiped the blood off her forehead.

"And you’ve convinced yourself that seeing all the possible endings means understanding all the moves leading to them."

The lake shook and Nharos’ whiskers started twitching.

"THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE."

"Of course, there is."

Jennie took a step forward.

"You can show me a thousand ways I might die. You can show me all the terrible things that might happen if I decide to fight Zuko. You can show me what I’ll become if I let the vengeance consume me."

Her face hardened.

"But you can’t predict what I’ll choose when I get there."

The creature’s eyes flashed.

"I KNOW YOUR CHOICES."

"No."

Jennie smiled weakly.

"You know the choices I might make."

She looked at the platforms around her. Some of them were close enough for her to jump. Others were too far away. The ice was breaking faster now.

There was no safe path. No guaranteed escape. No strategy to cross the lake without taking any risks.

Jennie had to make a choice and accept that it might fail.

She looked at the serpent.

"Let’s see how much you really know."

Nharos attacked.

Jennie ran toward the nearest platform. Nharos’ eyes flashed, and an image appeared in the air—in the future, Jennie jumps to the left and gets hit by the snake’s tail.

The tail descended. Jennie jumped to the right instead.

The platform beneath her broke apart. She falls, grabs its edge with her left hand, and swings onto another slab of ice.

Nharos’ jaws snap behind her.

Jennie keeps running. She does not bother trying to guess the serpent’s attacks anymore. Now she is looking around, at the ice, the movements of the water, the serpent’s coils.

At the small differences between what Nharos shows her and what is really happening.

Its visions are not lies. But they are not real either. They are possibilities. And possibilities can change.

One platform tilts under Jennie’s feet. She leaps as it starts to collapse. Nharos’ tail moves where she stood a second ago.

She lands on another ice fragment, stumbles, and almost falls into the water.

Nharos roars.

"YOU CAN’T ESCAPE YOUR FATE!"

"Maybe not!"

Jennie pushes herself forward.

"But I can still surprise you!"

She leaps toward a ridge of ice. Nharos turns its head to meet her—serpent had predicted her leap, her landing, her movement after that.

But Jennie does something she had never done in battle. She changes her mind midway and discards the plan.

Instead of reaching for the ridge, she twists her body in mid-air, and strikes its edge with her left hand. Her fingers slide against the ice and send her spinning sideways.

She lands on another platform. Her shoulder feels pain. The platform cracks.

But she avoids Nharos’ jaws.

Nharos jerks backward. Jennie stares at it. Then she grins.

"Oh. You really don’t like that, do you?"

Nharos’ eyes blaze.

"YOU ARE ACTING WITHOUT PURPOSE."

"I’m acting without knowing what will happen."

"There’s a difference,"

Nharos starts coiling around the lake. The sky darkens even more. All remaining pieces of ice shake as the serpent gathers its strength for one final attack.

Jennie feels the pressure building up. The beast is going to destroy the entire lake. There will be nothing left to stand on. Nothing left to walk across. No way out.

Nharos rises high above the lake, its enormous body stretching toward the starless sky. Its scales shine with countless visions, every single one of which shows Jennie a different future.

In one she dies under Nharos’ jaws. In another she drowns. In another she survives the lake but fails to get Godslayer. In another, Zuko rules over the destroyed world. And in the last one, Jennie herself stands amidst all those dead with her golden eyes blazing with fury.

"LOOK UPON YOUR END."

The snake opens its jaws. The black sphere forms between them.

"THIS IS THE FUTURE YOU HAVE CHOSEN."

Jennie looks at the visions. Then she looks at the snake.

"No."

She steps forward.

"I haven’t chosen it yet."

Nharos unleashes its attack.

The lake vanishes.

Black tidal wave sweeps over the frozen surface, destroying all remaining fragments of ice and tearing open the water beneath. The shockwave throws Jennie into the air.

For an instant she sees everything. Darkness rushing toward her. Vanishing lake. Enormous snake. Countless possible futures hanging above the world like broken mirrors.

She cannot avoid the attack. She cannot overpower it. She cannot guess what will happen if she tries anything else.

She stops trying to guess the right answer.

Jennie reaches for the nearest ice shard. Her fingers miss. She twists her body, strikes the edge of ice with her left arm, and uses the impact to change the direction.

Her movement sends her tumbling through the air, straight toward a narrow crack between two collapsing waves of darkness.

It is reckless. It is painful. It has almost no chances of working.

But it is her choice.

She moves through the crack. The darkness tears at her clothes and burns across her skin, missing her by inches. She crashes onto another far-away piece of ice, rolls twice, and hits the ground hard enough to make her vision blurry.

For a few seconds she cannot breathe. Then the black energy passes.

The lake is silent now.

Jennie lies on her back, looking at the sky. She has no idea whether she has made the right choice. She has no idea whether she will be able to stand up again.

But she is alive.

Shadow covers her. Nharos hovers above the destroyed lake, its enormous body floating in the air. Silver markings on the scales have faded. Its numerous eyes flicker as if struggling to focus.

For the first time in the battle, the Fate-Eater seems uncertain.

"YOU..."

Its voice shakes.

"YOU DID NOT FOLLOW THE FUTURE I SHOWED YOU."

Jennie turns her head. "That’s because I wasn’t trying to."

The snake stares at her.

Jennie forces herself to raise to her elbow.

"I didn’t know if I would survive. I didn’t know whether it would work."

She smiles weakly.

"I just decided to try."

Nharos bent its head.

"THEN YOU HAVE LEARNED THE ONLY THING THAT FATE CANNOT GUARANTEE."

Jennie did nothing but wait.

"A CHOICE IS NOT A PROMISE THAT YOU WILL SUCCEED."

The serpent’s gaze became warmer.

"IT IS THE POINT WHEN YOU ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR FAILURE AND MAKE THE CHOICE ANYWAY."

Jennie gazed down at the cracks in the ice. She was thinking of the forest. Of the fake Lilia. Of the fake Rudy. Of the wolf who used to be a snowgirl.

Each challenge was offering her a chance to get rid of her burden – to escape from being herself. She did not accept the offers, not because she was certain she was going to win or everything was going to be fine.

Because she chose to keep moving.

Nharos slowly raised its head. Its body started fading away, transforming into stars of silver light. The frozen lake under Jennie’s feet began to stabilize, and black waters were returning back to the depths.

The serpent started to ascend into the sky. For a short while it looked like a constellation that had been suddenly animated. Its huge body swirled up the dark skies, leaving behind a trail of silver light.

Then Nharos opened its mouth. There was one more sound from it – not a roar, not a scream, but a very low and ancient song that reverberated through all of the futures at once.

The serpent disappeared.

Silence fell down on the lake. Jennie stayed on the ice, too tired to make a single move.

After some time, something started falling down from the skies above – a single feather of silver color. It fell down next to Jennie’s left hand.

Jennie stared at the feather. It was incredibly light, its surface shone with patterns that resembled branching paths. The minute she touched it, warm feeling flooded her fingers.

Voice sounded in the emptiness.

"THE PATH AHEAD IS NOT WRITTEN."

Jennie squeezed the feather in her fist.

"WALK IT ANYWAY."

Jennie smiled softly. "Yeah. I have plans about that."

The last particles of the frozen lake dissolved into mist. Jennie forced herself to stand up. Her body was protesting each of her movements, but she stayed on her feet.

She looked towards the horizon, where darkness started to disappear. Jennie could see the skies for the first time since entering the Celestial Battlefield. Not a vision. Not an illusion.

The real skies.

Silver clouds were stretching across the distance in enormous waves, their borders glowing with light coming from somewhere beyond the world.

Then clouds parted.

Colossal construction appeared behind them. Jennie forgot about her weariness.

The Hall of Ten Thousand Weapons was standing on the chain of floating mountains, its foundations carved into the skeleton of an ancient celestial giant. Numerous towers were rising upwards into the skies, connected by bridges of pale stone and streams of light. Weapons were hanging in the air in the walls of the Hall – swords, spears, axes, bows, staves, daggers and a lot of others instruments of war, each surrounded by an aura. Some of them burned with golden flames. Others were dripping with shadows. A few weapons were distorting the surrounding space, changing their forms each time Jennie tried to fix her attention on them.

In the middle of the huge construction there was a gate taller than the mountain. Above it there were some ancient letters shining.

HALL OF TEN THOUSAND WEAPONS

Jennie was staring at the inscription. After all of what she had to go through, she finally arrived at her destination.

Somewhere beyond those gates was Susan, God of War. Somewhere in that hall was the weapon she was searching for.

Godslayer. The Last Verdict. The weapon able to kill the Demon Emperor.

Jennie was looking at the silver feather in her hand and at the distant Hall. She did not have any Divine Swords. She did not have a reliable right hand. There was no guarantee she was going to win.

But she walked over the frozen lake. She faced the future and did not allow it to take away her ability to choose.

That was enough.

Jennie tightened the strap of her torn coat and started walking towards the floating mountains.

"All right, Susan."

Her golden eyes narrowed.

"Let’s see if you’re any less annoying than the previous few guardians."

High above her enormous gates of the Hall of Ten Thousand Weapons were opening. And from somewhere deep inside the ancient sanctuary there was a voice speaking – deep, commandant and resonating with the sounds of many wars.

"THE BEARER OF THE UNWRITTEN FUTURE HAS ARRIVED."

Jennie stopped.

The voice continued.

"LET US SEE WHETHER SHE DESERVES TO HOLD A WEAPON THAT CAN END A GOD."