There is method to awaken Sorcery within oneself. There is no hard rules. No theory. Nothing. It is a test set by one’s own subscious. Fears and desires both cmour to slow one down. It is not as simple as a person wishing to learn Sorcery, otherwise the test will sist of one being even more powerful than I in the field. A person running from their fears will not be able to take step forwards in their own world. A person cm for power and fame will live the life they have always dreamed of.

  Ohat world is entered, one has to forcefully destroy it. They o realise they are stood within their own delusions, they have to learn to manipute them on the spot, and then they have to make their scious decision to be free of them. The third step is the ohat takes the most, although that step is the true test of character. A person has to be given the bliss of everything they wish for, and then they have to return to reality.

  Frankly, even if there was a set method, I would still not give it away. It would not be an art if everyone could learn it.

  - Excerpt from “My Sorcery”, Written by Goddess Anassa.

  Anassa fell through downwards through the sky. Bck hair and crimson dress fpping through the wind, she looked down at the world. This Anassa had already lost trol, it was obvious through the fact that her perfect hair was ruined. An Anassa that was in trol of herself could be within the tre of Worldbreaking, and still look exactly as pristine as a Divine should look.

  Another Anassa appeared o the first. They looked at each other. This one erfect, hair straight, stood on the air, the hem of her dress lifted upwards as if invisible maids were carrying it. The first Anassa disappeared and the sed became the inal.

  Anassa looked down at the Jungle as she regained trol of herself. She looked up at the sky. There was no Sun, it was merely aernal blue o. That was merely firmation that she had been whisked off to somewhere that wasn’t Arda. The real Anassa would have not let her clothes be ruined. She looked down at the Jungle as it started to growl at her. The winds and leaves rustling with a million different voices it had taken throughout its history. “How?”

  “How is simple.” Anassa ughed mogly from above. “I am a Divine. You are a pnt.” The pnts from below ughed up at Anassa. Oh? They were fident, where they? “Divinity has to be reized to be given power.” Anassa cast her hands into the air. A dozen copies of the Goddess of Sorcery appeared, eae as perfed as real as the first. “Your madness is merely a powerful curse.” A crimson moon appeared within the circle of Anassa’s as the day retreated to night. Did this pnt really think it could try and fight Anassa in the realm of one’s soul? There was no one who knew Anassa better than Anassa did. “I revoke your Divinity.” Anassa revoke it because Anassa was Anassa. Because Godhood needed a Gatekeeper, and no o Anassa had stepped up to the duty.

  “HOW?!” The Jungle cried out again.

  “If I say it is night. Then it is night.” The sky above Anassa beat in a pulse as the stars burned out to prove her point. This was a night worthy of Irinika herself! “If I say the moon will crash onto you.” Every Anassa in the air cast her hands down. “Then it will.” And it did.

  Kassandora blinked as Fer narrowed her eyes. The huge Jungle beasts that once made up the Caretaker had stopped. They were all looking up at the sky as if they could something that wasn’t there. The Jungle, now glowing crimson, screamed and shed out with vine and tree and root. And then those whipping pnts suddenly turned in mid-air, and struck back down at itself. “That’s her.” Fer said proudly.

  “That is her.” Kassandora said as she flicked open her phone. Whatever Anassa was doing on the inside, Kassandora wasn’t about to let this ce go.

  Anassa watched her crimson moon, a perfect circle, slightly opaque like a shaded drawing, tear through the ground. Like a ball striking a theatre’s curtain, the entire surface of the world ed around the moon. All the mountains covered in green, all the ravines overflowing with pnts, all of the Jus roots crawlihrough the dwarven tunnels underh the surfad its shorowing through grey ash, ed around that moon as if it resent being ed as a gift.

  The moon started to shrink and shrink and shrink, until it became the size of a house, then a person, ner than a bde of grass. A tiny pea could crush it. And then it vanished. A new Jungle revealed itself from the fa?ade of the previous one. As if all Anassa had done ull bae curtain to reveal another. It erfect copy of the Juhat had stood there once. Just as Anassa could bee several at ohe Jungle had abandoned one ination of itself to resurrect as another. “This is not your realm.” The million different voices cried out from the ground.

  “Divinity is om.” Anassa shouted down. “There is no realm that is not mihe sky became filled with copies of herself. On Arda, there was a limit to her powers. Anassa had never hit it, but every Divine had a limit, it was simple on seruly omnipotent beings did . In realms like this though, which existed as nothing more than mere figments of thought, in these farcical creations within one’s mind, then did limits truly exist? The only limit was the unbending boldness of one’s fidence.

  And Anassa was fident indeed.

  If this realm did not want to bow to her, then she would teach it to bow. As if guided by one will, every Anassa outstretched her palms downwards, and from every Anassa fell a beam of crimson that ied the leaves and woods below her. The trees all fell, reduced to ash, then the ash was reduced to nothing as Anassa’s beams scared their way across the surface. They dug through the ground, into the roots. They seared the ey of the Ju of existence. And the Jungle underh that. And the ohat had e to repce the one.

  Kassandora watched the scraps of artillery she had ordered fire. Those who survived against the three guardias of the Jungle as Fer monitored them. Each of those giant animals was still looking up at the sky, as if waiting for something to appear.

  The Jungle shed out, vines shot out of the trees and swiped at the artillery shells ing in. Napalm exploded in mid-air, and trees rapidly grew thick opies to shield themselves from the fming rain. Kassandora smiled in surprise, she felt her cheeks go hot, her eyes started to burn aeps were lighter. They were having an effect.

  Anassa looked down upon the burning world. The red beams of crimson slowly started to give way as another Anassa appeared on the ground, on a tiny area that the beams had carved out and avoided, specifically for her to stand. “You ot outst me.” The Jungle whispered up to her. Anassa felt sweat burst out over her forehead.

  It wasn’t her sweat. It was the Jungle imagining she was tired. Anassa could and sorceries infinitely, just as no-one ever got tired of breathing, the Goddess of Sorcery could never possibly tire of her ow. It was simply a matter of perspective. “You do not know who you are talking to.” Anassa whispered back as yet another yer of Jungle crumbled away.

  The trees had it too good for too long. These quick deaths men got used to. She wasn’t w to defeat the Jungle, she was simply killing it an infinite amount of times. Tactics had to be ged. The red beams disappeared. The tless Anassa’s in the air looked up as the Juarted to ugh. “Do we tire already woman?”

  Another Anassa, perfect this time, refreshed as if she had just woken up from a timely nap, appeared. The sweating Anassa disappeared. “I have bee in prison for twice as long as you existed.” Anassa said as she snapped her fingers. From above, a thousand needles rained down into the trees. They grew and twisted and tore the trees from within. “I am easily four times ye.” Anassa said. “You are a child pared to me.”

  And just as a child could not ever pete against an adult, the Jungle could not ever pete with Anassa. It wasn’t a rationalization, nor was it a reason. It didn’t o make sense. Anassa knew herself the logic was fwed, the Jungle was massive and unique. Who knew what the Jungle was even capable of? The pnts cimed part of a tio themselves.

  Yet Anassa said the Jungle was a child, so it was. It had to be, because the reasoning didn’t o matter. All that Anassa had to be sure of was that she would defeat these serees.

  The Jungle burst into crimson fmes.

  “What are you talking about?” Fer asked. Kassandora shook her head.

  “You, of all people, should uand.” Kassandora poked Fer iomach. The Goddess of Beasthood merely raised a curious eyebrow. She didn’t even flinch, although Kassandora could do little more than merely press it, the woman’s torso was as hard as iron.

  “What was that for?” Fer asked. Joyeuse suddenly materialized in Kassandora’s hand, she brought it around in a swing, straight down on Fer. Kassandora knew she wouldn’t harm Fer, she didn’t even think she was capable of it even if she wao. Fer’s eyes gnced up and she caught the greatsword with one grasp. “And this?”

  “Why bloe and not eve to the other?” Kassandora asked.

  “Because the first one didn’t even have a …” Fer trailed off as she looked at the Ju was burning with ethereal fmes, in addition to the real ohose red ones of sorcery seemed to have no effect, but the napalm spread along it as if was dev kindling. Oh. Whatever Anassa was doing inside was having an effect out here too.

  A dark man with a spear burst out from a burning tree to try and stab at Anassa. A beam from above ied him from existence. Anassa smiled smugly to herself as an arrow heading for the back of her head disappeared from existence as an Anassa snapped her fingers and split it into the base atomipos. If the Jungle was throwing its souls at her now, that meant she was having an effect.

  More men came. More men were cut down. Clerid Padins and Kirinyaans and Ausans. Men from nations whio longer existed as that had been stolen by the Jungle. Enormous spiders, twice the size of Anassa, leapt from the opy. The Goddess of Sorcery and a hundred spikes burst out of the ground to tear them apart. Lions burst out of the undergrowth. They fell. Fish and crocodiles and birds. Great beasts and tamed horses, packs of wild dogs and swarms of is. Sorcery felled them all.

  And then Anassa saw them. The freat beasts. Fer had once said they were the first to fall to the Jungle. Anassa looked at that mountain-sized lion as it began to race at her. A lion? What was a lion? A mere cat. In this world of delusions, what could a cat do? A mere kitten? How tiny was an adorable kitten when pared to a Goddess?

  A boot desded from the heavens and crushed that mountain-sized lion. Anassa licked her lips in glee as she looked at the hree. When all it took was a single reason, what could not be reasoned?

  Kassandora waved in order to signal for Raptor One where to desd. Fer caught her hand. “You wao stay, you sure?” Kassandora sighed. Whenever Fer got scared, she always got wary like this. The woman would step through whatever terror there was, she would not admit of getting afraid once. But the fear was obviously there, painted on her face.

  Kassandora reached up to pat Fer on the shoulder. “I do.” She poio the tremendous guardians suffering on the ground from whatever Anassa had just doo them. “Watch over them.” And then a hug to calm Fer down. “And we have someone.”

  “Olephia?”

  Kassandora shook her head. Olephia was good, Olephia could cause insurmountable damage, but Olephia was far too tained. War called and War took whatever it wao achieve victory. And right noas calling for a person who could crack a ti.