Note: This chapter is inspired by the chapters, "Issac accidentally kills his sister Hope" and "Hope gets to be a seven headed hydra champion of the Lenurian Hydra" by an anonymous writer. Once again, I gotta praise the writer of those chapters for the creative ideas.
I hope my chapters aren't too hard to follow. I noticed other writers have glossed over some details from the chapters I wrote. I'm not sure if it's on purpose or simply unintentional. But I guess I can't really fault anyone for that. The story has gotten pretty complicated lately...Partially because of me... There are a lot of details that are only talked about in a couple of sentences and are easy to miss. With that said, I hope the story is still entertaining. I don't mind if the original intentions from my chapters are altered a little so as long it makes sense or at least works with what happened in the previous chapters. I'm willing to add on to a chapter even if some things were altered or taken to a different direction from original intention. The evolution and unpredictability of this story is what makes writing for this story so fun. Either way, I'll take take it upon myself as a writer to learn from my mistakes and try to make my writing a little less complicated, easier to understand and a little less confusing while leaving it ambiguous enough to give other writers writing room.
With that said, there is no guarantee that the next few chapters won't be confusing and hard to follow. There is going to be a lot going on and a lot of moving parts to keep track of. Just know that Hope and Angela are two names for the same deity of purity. And that Isaac and Angela share the same soul, hence why they consider each other as siblings. Angela is currently in the form of Hope's 10 year old appearance and will be interchangeably referred to as Angela or Hope. The idea is that Angela is the deity of purity who was reincarnated into a human girl with no memories of her life as the deity of purity. That human life was Hope. At some point, Angela allowed her human father to transfer her into a soul gem. I hope that wasn't too hard to understand. I might write a chapter about when Angela was transferred into the ring of purity later. I left the circumstance of that event a little vague.
Anyways, please enjoy the chapter.
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Isaac charged at the hydra with all his might. This thing has been absorbing souls to make itself stronger and been causing Angela/Hope grief for so many years. He's going to end this conflict once and for all so he can relieve the Angela part of his soul of it's pain.
But Isaac couldn't help but notice a glint in the chameleon head's eyes. The next thing he knew, the hydra started running away and yelling at him to stop.
...something wasn't right here...
Isaac did as he was told and stopped pursuing. The Hydra in turn, stopped and looked grateful. Wait a minute... is it just him..or did the Hydra get smaller...?
Before Isaac could ponder any longer, Ilivir charged past him to finish the job.
Isaac heard spiritual flesh getting sliced through as Ilivir hit home through the heart area.
Isaac and Ilivir watched as the hydra lay on the floor with blood flowing everywhere.
Ilivir turned to Isaac as if nothing happened. "That was easy. The dust bunnies put up more of an challenge. Now let us resume our duel."
But Isaac kept staring at the Hydra's dying form. For some reason, he feels horrible. Is'a as if he can feel it's pain...
"Isaac... why?... I thought we were one soul?..." The dying Hydra said.
That was when Isaac noticed something wrong with the hydra. In addition to somehow being the same size as Isaac, it also had seven heads... but that doesn't make any sense. Just a few minutes ago, the Hydra was gigantic and it shouldn't have less then twenty heads. No one had a chance to slice of any of it's heads.
"Isaac? Are you listening? Don't tell me you have another excuse to escape our battle" Ilivir turned around to look at what Isaac was staring at.
As soon as he did, the hydra's bloody form shimmered as if an mirage was being cleared up, and in it's place was Angela. She was barely alive from the terrible wound she endured. Her eyes was filled with betrayal.
"How could you do that to yourself? I thought we were siblings bonded by our shared soul." The dying deity said.
Both men were speechless. Isaac could explain that Ilivir was the one who attacked her, but that feels like making an excuse for what happened. Isaac and Ilivir watched in shock as Angela/Hope started to fade away. Isaac could feel a part of himself on the verge of dying.
"Angela? Hope?!' Isaac shouted in disbelief. He knelled down next to the split personality and cast a healing spell on the bleeding girl. Feeling a little guilty, Ilivir did the same. But it looked like the sword strike cut had through her heart. They're not sure how much their healing spells will help in the mental void.
While the two souls were busy healing Hope, the real hydra, complete with it's twenty heads, calmly walked out of the shadows. Isaac and Ilivir didn't even bother looking behind their backs.
The Hydra changed into a green smoke and flowed towards Angela. Before Ilivir or Isaac could stop it, the green smoke flowed into Hope's wound.
When the all the smoke was in Hope's spiritual body, Hope's eye suddenly opened, but instead of being their normal selves, the eyes were hideous reptilian slits. Before Isaac and Ilivir could react, they were knocked away by an powerful spiritual aura. The possessed split personality stood up as if nothing happened. The wound on it's chest healed up instantly.
Isaac and Ilivir got back on their feet.
"You coward! What did you do to Hope?!" Isaac demanded the Hydra.
"...Coward?...You don't even know the proper rules of engagement when fighting an immortal such as myself." The hydra said through Hope's mouth.
Isaac narrowed his eyes. "And what do those rules entail?"
The possessed deity of purity gave an sick smile. "Why, a immortal needs a champion to fight the hero for an immortal him or her. You can't expect me to dirty my fangs on your souls like some kind of animal. So I chosen the deity of purity to be my new vessel and champion."
"You monster! How could you do this?! I thought you need Angela's willingness before she becomes one of your heads!" Isaac shouted in outrage.
"I said vessel. Being our vessel is different from being one of our heads. It's true that the curse doesn't allow us to absorb any souls without their free will. But that doesn't mean we can't go INSIDE of her and control her from within. We just needed a shred of impurity to latch on to. One of my sisters has the power of illusion. I believe you know her as the chameleon head. It was an simple mater of just disguising your "sister" as me. When Ilivier attacked, we simply disguised him as you and made you invisible to the girl's eyes. We may not be able to absorb the deity of purity without her willingness, but we are able to insert ourselves into her spirit personality so as long as she has a shred of impurity. But as you can tell, Angela hasn't had any once of impurity during the many years we fought in this ring. Until now... the sense of betrayal she had for you was the chance we needed to posses her. And now that we have control over at least a part of the deity of purity, we should be able to precede with our plans." the Hydra explained.
A monster soul possessing a deity's split personality? This is starting to get too ridiculous even for Isaac.
"YOU BITCH! HOW DARE YOU TRICK ME!!!" Ilivir shouted as he charged the possessed deity. But he was once again pushed away by the Hydra's aura.
"How dare we? Why, it's obvious. We need one more soul to break the curse on our body. But since all there of you are unwilling, we will just have to find some willing souls in the body. Have you noticed that we had ample time to enter the body already? We could have done it anytime. So why didn't we entered your body while you were still unaware of our presence? You see... There is just one thing keeping us from doing so..." The Hydra said.
Isaac glared at Hope's possessed spirit. "And what is that?"
"Our soul has no real link to your body... but you and this girl do. You two share a connection to the soul in your body. We only need one of you to have the connection we needed to Dark Isaac and the body. Now if you please excuse us, our champion has a soul hunt to attend to." And with said, the hydra and Hope disappeared, supposedly transferring themselves in to Isaac's body.
"Hope!!!" Isaac shouted in desperation.
He turned to Ilivir. "Come on. We must stop her! Otherwise, the Halo of Purity will turn back into the hydra and cause havoc on the real world!"
Ilivir looked ready. "I'm going to show that reptile what it means to deceive a paladin!"
Isaac nodded. He touched Ilivir's shoulder. Isaac closed his eyes as he focused. Soon, the two souls transferred themselves to Isaac's body.
Without anyone present, the Halo of Purity became dormant. There wasn't any souls to power it.
...
As Sera tried to think of an plan to deal with Cradle, the Halo of Purity suddenly stopped floating and fell loosely around Sera's neck.
"What the?!" But Sera doesn't have time to think about the new accessory hanging around her neck. She has to figure out a way to deal with Cradle.