A Shade of Vampire 90: A Ruler of Clones - Bella Forrest Page 0,56

the curtain?” the World Crusher wrote. “What if I looked beyond? I saw no harm in such an endeavor, so when a Druid died, I walked up to him and took his soul’s hand in mine. I had never done such a thing before, yet my scythe knew to do it for me. It opened a great doorway…”

It was a slender, vertical gash in the fabric of time and space. It glowed white, and she and the Druid walked through it. I felt the warmth enveloping me as it had the World Crusher. For a moment, a sea of pure light surrounded them. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing except for this ocean of diamonds.

“The Druid was just as confused,” the Reaper added. “He held my hand as we walked through the whiteness. He held my hand as Purgatory emerged before us with its glistening towers of silver and gold, its snow-capped mountains and its crystalline rivers. I knew right then and there that Purgatory was different. Yes, it looked like many of the realms I’d just left behind, but the very fabric of this side of the universe was odd. A faint glimmer persisted in every atom in this place. Everything shone. Everything glowed. There was beauty. Beauty as far as the eye could see. Tranquility. Peace.”

Purgatory… I had never seen it myself, and yet the World Crusher had somehow walked right through. Unbelievable.

But she was right. It was different, in every possible sense of the word. It wasn’t just the overall glow of the place that made it special. No, the shape of those glistening towers was strange, as if they’d been poured from molten silver and gold, then left to cool against the forces of gravity. Some slouched, and others were short but with massive, wide bases. A few were tall and pointy, but the majority were slender and wavy, like melting candles.

The waters that flowed through Purgatory were speckled with diamonds, sparkling beneath a bright and powerful light of unknown origin. The woods were bold splotches of verdant and russet crowns, rolling downhill and around the stony mountains. It took no more than a minute to realize that the snowcaps weren’t snow at all, but white porcelain dust. The wind swept some of it up and carried it downwards, the powder eventually reaching my fingers. I felt it soft and smooth against my skin. It didn’t make much sense, and yet it existed.

“Purgatory was not designed for the living to understand. It had been cropped from a different part of their realm, but some of its elements served different purposes. The fruits here tasted nothing like the ones in the plane of life. The apples tasted like plums, and the oranges tasted like strawberries. The water was sweet as milk, and the grass had the sharp tang of cinnamon. It wasn’t easy to adjust and understand these peculiarities,” the World Crusher said. As a Reaper, I had tasted things, if only out of curiosity, so I was able to find something to compare this experience to. Little-known fact about me—I’d had ages to taste and smell and touch everything around me, if only to understand what the world was made of. “Personally, I was fascinated. I wanted to know more. I wished to understand every aspect of this place, to meet the entities that called it home. I desired to know its purpose, for Death had never spoken to me about it.”

Shards of light flew at her head. She saw the fighters coming, and she heard the Druid scream as he yanked himself out of her hold and ran off. Suddenly, the World Crusher was surrounded by gorgeous creatures with long blond hair like hers, but their eyes were made of blue fires. Her black and white dress was simple and made of silk, while these extraordinary beings were clad in steel and gold armor, a curtain of white velvet flowing from their shoulders.

Their swords drank in the light, glowing like blades made from the sun itself. And she felt their aggression. Their anger.

“I was not welcome,” the World Crusher said. “They told me to leave. They said I did not belong in Purgatory, but I dared to disagree. I defied them. They called themselves Valkyries, and they said I was lucky they’d been the ones to spot me first. Their brothers, the Berserkers, would not be as nice. Even so, I refused to leave. I’d made it this far, and I