Chapter 394: Transmitting Information
When Laz woke up, he was on a bed with both Celes and Nora looking over him.
"You’re awake," Celes said with a smile.
"Not so loud. God... Why did I drink so much..." Laz said, his head raging like he was suffering from one hell of a hangover.
"But you didn’t drink... And even if you did... it would be out of your system in no time so a hangover just wouldn’t happen," Nora said, ever the logical mind.
"Please. just let me think that’s the reason for this..." Laz moaned shielding his eyes from the overhead light.
Celes, laughing, got up and turned off the light before coming back and sitting down. Her black hair seemed to glisten in the lack of light while Nora’s still looked like a raging inferno. Contrasting the two of them showed they couldn’t be more different.
"Ughghhh..." Laz couldn’t form words at the moment as the pain just overwhelmed him. Still though, he was able to think through things enough to come up with why this was happening.
The information he had received that seemed to hit his brain all at once had been a ’gift,’ transmitted in secret thanks to a certain green haired, red eyed devil of a woman. After understanding that this was the real reason she had laid her hand on his chin, Laz couldn’t help but laugh.
"He he eh he he..." It sounded weird and stopped a second later as the pain assaulted him once again.
"Uhmmm?" Celes asked, looking at Laz who was again holding his head.
"Just... give me a minute. I’ve got some information I need to share, but the side effect is this raging headache.
"You got information that caused a headache?" Nora asked, confused. Looking over at Celes, she noticed she looked equally confused so they just turned their attention back to Laz.
"Yes. Please wait... loading..."
"Just get on with it baby. You’re not impressing anyone here," Nora pointed out as Celes laughed again.
"Ok. OK. Here’s the thing..." Laz then explained all he knew about the stages that came after the void palace stage.]
"Void Lord. Void King and Void Emperor?" Nora asked, using her cell phone to record everything Laz was saying just in case he forgot it for whatever reason. She didn’t question the truth to Laz’s words, but if asked, she would have thought that these things were transmitted to him because of his special blood and not because some alien beauty was feeing it to him.
But only Laz knew that she would be wrong.,
"What’s with the void thing? Why is it always void this and void that? How does that make any sense?" Celes questioned, although Laz wasn’t sure if she was talking to him, Nora, or someone else entirely.
"it’s Void because all of these stages start from nothingness. Well, I guess technically, there was a foundation before you built the palace, but still. Within the Void Lord stage, you spread out from the palace and build a city. Then you become lord of the city. From the city, you build many cities to become the king and from the many cities you build up an entire empire which I guess could be the same as the king, but on a much larger scale," Laz explained, condensing down what he knew and making it easy.
"Ok. Well... so... we are putting an entire kingdom into out bodies?" Celes asked, clearly confused.
"No. Not really. Think of it like this. You have a heart that pumps blood and a brain that controls thought and keeps your body moving. A stomach to digest food, a nose to smell. Feet and legs to move you... You get that right?" Laz said, trying to break things down.
"Yeah. Of course." Celes responded.
"So think of that like the palace you build. All of the individual pieces that make it up allow to to function. As for the Lord, King and Emperor stages, they are just like the same thing but on a bigger scale. It’s like increasing the size of everything inside of you in order to make room to keep storing more. In actuality, these stages did have different names, but honestly speaking, these names will make it easier to learn," Laz responded, still clutching his head.
"So... how do you know this?" Nora asked, curious.
"That I can’t explain."
"And your changing the names to match with the original trend or something?" Celes questioned.
"No. I changed those names too. Awakening, Condensation, Foundation and Void Palace weren’t the original names."
"WAIT.... Wait wait wait wait. You were the one that explained those too?" Nora said, getting right to the heart of the matter even if she didn’t believe it. Sure, no one knew where the realm names came from, but everyone seemed to accept those as being accurate.
’And he’s saying he is the one who came up with those? And what’s more, he got everyone else to believe it too. Not that doing so caused any problems. Even I have to admit that the names are pretty accurate and descriptive and it helps knowing what’s what.’ Nora’s thoughts exploded with this sudden change, but she got it under control a second later. In the end, nothing could actually make her lose her cool.
"How was I suppose to know that everyone would take those names and run with it. I just tried to make it as dumb as possible for people already struggling with the situation. I mean... that was like six years ago now? Who knows what else I was thinking..." Laz couldn’t exactly focus at the moment, despite the pain lessening.
"So what do we do? This is really big stuff if what he’s saying is true."
"If what I say is true?"
"Since what he says is true. We can’t be the only ones to know about it. Does that make you feel a little better?" Celes said, turning the last sentence back to Laz.
"I’m not a child..." Laz defended himself, weakly.
"Really? Cause you kind of enjoy sucking on my tits you know," Nora slyly added.
"Really? Mine too. Although he didn’t get much of a chance to. And I thought they were too small since he’s obviously had yours," Celes commented with a smile.
"All sizes are good sizes," Nora said in a voice like she was impersonating Laz.
"He’s an ass guy..."
"He’s an ass guy..."
They both said together and then laughed. While it was true that Celes was lacking in terms of the chest area compared to Nora, they had their own appeal that couldn’t be denied. But when it came down to it, both of them had rather plump backsides with nice curves, something they had both noted before. So their thought about Laz’s preferences made sense.
Not that he would ever admit it, not to them anyway.
"Back on topic," Laz tried to change the subject.
"Of course. We will get your actually feelings later," Celes said, this time her smile was rather devious.
"You’ve awoken something inside of yourself, haven’t you babe?" Nora asked Celes.
Celes didn’t respond with words, only with a smile. Nora didn’t know why, but that smile from a girl she looked at like a little sister both excited and terrified her.
"Anyway. It’s fine. We just need to post it on the dark web site I was telling you about. Remember that one?"
"Wasn’t it called like the Flower and the Pond or some hippie shit like that?" Celes asked, thinking back.
"No... Well yes. It was. But that’s just when they were selling supplements to us. I mean, I thought it was a scam at first, but then people talked about what the things actually did. But anyway, while they do still sell stuff they changed the website to be more reference based. Once they did that, they also changed it’s name." Nora explained.
"To what?"
"Children of A Lesser God."
"Sounds like a cult," Celes said and Nora laughed.
"Well, yeah, it could be if they were asking for membership fees and wanting you to worship their leader, but they don’t. No. It’s now more of a vast reference site where they post information about realms, products that are useful in powering up, places to avoid, rumors about what’s happening in the government and to other infected and movements of the chosen and what not. Not only that, but they also have a listing of infected and their abilities so that others can be aware of who you can trust and who you can’t."
"That sounds stupid dangerous. What if the government or those agencies get a hold of that list?" Celes asked, pointing out the obvious.
"They only use code names. And to have a picture posted, you need to be in the foundational realm at least with a battle form. The only pictures allowed to be posted are battle form pictures. That way infected can easily identify other infected due to the resonance between us. That’s not something that can be faked."
"Oh? Well that makes sense."
"They also have a warning list for some of the strongest chosen that have been identified. It also allows users to update the chosen list with any additional information they can find out about them in the hopes that if you come across one of them, you can survive."
"So... like a ex-lover revenge website?"
"Uh. No. But I guess the idea is the same. Run when you see these people. Anyway, they encourage you to not log in all the time unless you need something to help keep things more secure. It’s been a while since I checked things out but if I can get this information posted, it could help a lot of people." Nora said before taking out her phone. Just as she was about to access the site, she stopped suddenly, put the phone down and grabbed a laptop sitting by the bed. She then connected the phone to the laptop and started typing a lot.
"What are you doing?" Celes asked. She didn’t think visiting a website was such a hard thing to do if you knew the url.
"Just using a vpn and signal bouncing to hide our tracks. Just because the website is deep doesn’t mean it isn’t being watched. They might be able to hide themselves, but I’m sure if someone is watching the site they would love to track where the traffic is coming from."
"I don’t..."
"It’s fine. I’m in. Let’s see... Submit audio file. Take pictures of my notes. Done.. done... oh shit. The realm resource isn’t something anyone can post to without clearance. Makes sense that they don’t want wrong information to be posted. Still, the best we can do is submit it. But it seems like they get hundreds of files about realms, advancement and questions pertaining to those things daily. Even if I submit this now, it will take forever to get the information to others. Fuck..." Nora said, obviously annoyed.
"Take a picture of me and send it with it," Laz said suddenly as his hand dropped from his face.
"A picture of you? Baby, you’re handsome, but this isn’t that kind of site..." Nora laughed.
"I mean a picture of my battle form. Who knows, maybe someone will recognize it," Laz offered wanting to say more but deciding not to.
"Well... i guess you do have some fame since even my grandma knew who you were. ok?" Celes said, looking over at Nora.
"Worth a shot."
Laz sat up, his upper body naked as his dirty clothes had been removed when he had been brought into the bed from outside. Without another word, Laz let loose the energy inside of himself.
His hair turned white, tinted with a blood red hue. His pale skin became grey like stone as the black tribal tattoos spread out from the pitch black tree on his chest. His eyes even took on their gold color as he stood up. With the blood red moon behind the tree on his chest, it looked like a heart, hidden behind bars of burnt wood. Seeing the tattoo, Celes reached up to her chest while Nora’s hand was placed over her abdomen. Seeing the reaction of one another, they couldn’t help but smile.
Keeping the black flame close to his body like an armor, Laz let out the red ring of the apocalypse that circled behind himself like an ever turning wheel. Due to the space of the room, Laz didn’t let out the manifestation of his palace as it would never have fit in the photo.
"I’m ready." Laz said, staring at Nora with those golden eyes, making her shudder.
"He’s gotten stronger...’ Nora whispered to herself as she brought up her phone.
"Will you even be able to see the ring or the flames in a picture?" Celes quietly asked Nora.
"One way to find out." Nora took the picture and checked it out on the phone before showing it to Laz.
"Looks good," Laz said, admiring it for a moment. He had never actually viewed himself in this form so he had no idea what he looked like. Staring at it for a moment longer, Laz wasn’t even sure he recognized himself anymore.
"Well, I guess we will send the information via a new user first. What do you want your name to be?" Nora asked.
Laz thought about it for a while, thinking back to the many names he used in the past before deciding that simple was best.
"Just call me ’Asura."
"Weirdo," Celes said with a grin as Nora typed it in as requested, a smile on her face as well.
...
A ping echoed across the room, alerting four women sitting at a table full of various pieces of paper. Behind them was a massive glass window overlooking a huge city that was just entering the hours of dusk. One woman, a utterly devastating blonde with pure red lips and a massive chest looked over at the computer sitting on a glass desk and stood up.
"I’ll check that," she said while leaving the other three women who looked puzzled at their leaders sudden distraction.
"What is it?" said a deceptively stunning beauty with dark skin, whose skin tight clothing did nothing to hide the well toned body underneath it.
"The website. I had our resident expert set up an alert system if certain elements were transmitted to it so it would notify me to check the email and documents myself," the blonde said, sitting down at the plush, leather chair as she started typing.
"It’s that?" The pink haired young beauty said, shifting in her chair as she adjusted her stylish skirt that was riding up her legs.
"What?" Asked the last woman, an exotic beauty who’s black dress did almost nothing to hide the various tattoos and piercings covering her tight, fit body.
Nothing else was said as they gave the beautiful blonde time to check in piece. The pink haired woman was going to explain the minute the blonde had gotten back up after reading whatever came through, thinking it to be another false alarm. She had gotten many of those over the years. They had been waiting on the report from the four sisters who had gone down to investigate a sighting, but they hadn’t heard anything back yet, not that they were very dependable anyway. They liked to do their own thing most of the time and were deep in the shit for mot of that time, so their ability to contact headquarters proved to be normally lacking.
After a few minutes of the blonde not standing back up but her face looking more and more surprised, Malene finally couldn’t resist and spoke up,
"What is it Kennedy?" She asked, grabbing the attention of Leona and Ruby.
"He’s finally shown us the next path, the true path forward..." Kennedy said, amazed.
"What are you talking about? Who’s shown us a path?" Ruby said, not sure why but feeling her blood boiling with this statement.
Kennedy didn’t respond, instead, she clicked her mouse and moved a picture from her computer screen up to the massive display that took up half of one of the walls.
The picture was the one taken of Laz, just a few mere minutes ago. His golden eyes radiated a strong light while his hard, sturdy form gave off an aura of unquestionable strength.
Lastly, seeing the blood red moon behind the blackened, lifeless tree was enough to cause all of the women to gasp as their hands moved to the red crescent moons on their own bodies, gripping the skin tightly as those holding it was like holding him.
No other words were said, but a massive swirl of emotions permeated the air like a fog.
They had found him.
