31: Shamisen Distortion

The twang of a plucked note was a punch to her heart, stirring an upset to the flow of her pulse.

Another struck note ran into another. 

The acerbic thrumming and rapid trill runs gave no quarter, casting violent ripples to strike her hold over her mind. 

It kept playing disjointing notes like from a shamisen. Louder, harder and faster. The sound magic increased, attempting to squeeze out her lingxi and life.

Dream on.

Liran struggled, her physical face contorted and teeth gritted in her sleep.

Her mind dove deeper into her sub-consciousness to numb the sounds, using focus as the force. The further she fell, she felt a watery, cold sensation stroke her being, and noise fade until only the beats of her heart were keeping her in motion and connected to her body.

She stopped diving when she heard a break in the sound. Silence. Her mind became fixated on the image of Sparrowfire and herself holding it.

Within her dreamscape her fingers picked, plucked and strummed the strings to cause upward and outward waves. They clashed against the sound disruptions.

A harmonious melody rippled through the air, casting a warmth to soothe her spirit. 

The black pebble dropped into the waters of her subconsciousness, striking against her thoughts and sea of memories as it continued its attempts to upset her mind.

Liran stubbornly held on as she played her music, casting sound waves to counter the pebble's disruptive splashes and ripples. The magical, mental attack continued with a diligence that matched her stubbornness for her life.

She had to break the flow.

Liran felt an urge stir through her nerves to make her physical body tense and hold on. Lingxi energy flowed through her blood to draw out particles of memories like tiny moments gathered to a raindrop.

Drumming rain beat against the acerbic sound attack to drown it out. She kept playing and pulling out memories to quell the sound attack.

Then... Silence and a soothing sensation flowed through her as the sound attack was finally negated.

"As your life dims so does your soul." Morningstar's deep manly voice smugly declared.

"There's no dimming here."

"Reality says otherwise. Already, your body flows with cold energy. My energy."

"You haven't gotten control and never will." Liran strummed a new song, which gradually drew light to her mindscape surroundings.

The Morningstar appeared before her as a wispy black form of a man. She frowned, not convinced it was weak.

As she strummed, her mind carried images of rainfall striking the ground to give life. From each flow of sound she understood: blood was memory's form: one drop for one moment. The world's energy, lingxi, kept memories flowing to shape the soul. The soul formed a will to fight for continuation; codependent on the world to exist.

"The soul doesn't need this world."

"Souls can't sustain without lingxi, which the world provides."

"Then, let's put it this way, the souls don't need this world, they just need mine to guide them to utopia."

"Dream on. Your soul has no shape because it refuses to understand what the world is."

"My soul exists outside the rules."

"Then why are you so keen to take over my body as a rule?"

"A song is the soul of a life. Its continuation is the song's memories. I am the song and you are only a spec in the wind." Liran sang as she fiercely strummed Sparrowfire to break the restraints to her spirit, which the Morningstar had attempted to set up through the mental attack. Her playing eased into a pleasant melody.

The mental attack had stopped, but it wasn't over.

Liran stood within her dreamscape pavilion, where the sky was dark and stormy. The Morningstar had taken form to be his white robed self.

She saw him at the table with the black grimoire she had bought for Rei's baby before him. Her heart raced when snippets of memory touched on the moment the high king's knight had dropped the same one into the brook.

"It was to be the perfect baby gift wasn't it?"

She frowned, not wanting to believe the coincidence.

He smiled when he calmly raised a hand so it hovered over the grimoire's cover, pouring his misty black magic into it so it was unlocked.

She gulped. It was just a common grimoire, yet...

"Thank you for the gift." The Morningstar's lips stretched with a sinister grin as he clicked his fingers.

The grimoire flipped open: dark magic poured out that instantly assaulted her mind with nightmares. Turning her dreamscape into an unsettling and stormy experience. A bombardment of chanted spells distorted her senses until she felt out of control.

"Now you won't get away. My vessel."

Liran struggled and screamed against torrential dark energy pouring into her.