The Virtuous Blasphemy is the act of manipulating the wills of the Axioms to suit mortal will. Blasphemy of Virtues would normally beget no punishment on its own to commit, however, if the Augur spirit of the prophet who has engaged in this practice is involved in anyway, they will suffer divine retribution.
One form of Virtuous Blasphemy is the creation of Aspects. Virtues are the manifestations of a prophet's habits and nature, but they are still grants from the heavens, favors from the Axioms and are owed to them. Aspects on the other hand were even more personal. An Aspect is made by dissecting a Virtue down to its core and making something with an entirely different use than it is allowed to. To simplify, Aspects are abilities made by scraping and adjusting a person's own Virtues to create powers that diverge from divinity and more towards mortal desires. And without regulations from the divine, they are incredibly hard to control and even utilize. So even if Aspects are permitted as they are the results of a prophet's understanding of their own elements, the existence of people with it warrants close watch... especially to find out if their Augur spirit had any part to play in it.
Yaga looked into the eyes of the man in front of her, the finely grounded golden dust he had for eyes wide open for an answer about what will happen to him if anyone finds out. She sighed. "Your head really is a mystery, child. I might have thought of a contingency if you had opened up your thoughts to me a little more." Her humanoid dark form walked beside his boat as they fell slowly down the side of a waterfall. "You said you learnt to make a model for solid objects? Let me guess, you want to make another sword for yourself?"
Ikky blinked. She was changing the topic. Going along, he shrugged, "Yeah. I really do need some kind of weapon to keep me out of range from... uh... some things."
"That's quite the tame application. You managed to fit in visual infinities, auditory infinities, logical infinities and the other three into one compact shape, and the first thing you think about making is a sword?" She scoffed. "You're the only one who could blur the lines between being a complete idiot and a generational genius." She continued as they sat amidst a battlefield of smoke and water, unbothered by the chaos, "How many languages do you speak, Equinox?"
Ikky's eyes widened. That was a simple question to answer, yet for some reason, he was unsettled. He replied, "I stopped counting at forty-eight, though I suspect I can at least match the kids from Sumeru."
"You should know twice as more, considering you're from the Crown of Svarga." She scolded.
Ikky's head snapped back in annoyance. "Not like I got to enjoy the long conversations anyway. What's with all this talk, Yaga?"
Yaga took a cup from the table in front of them and filled it with hot water from a jug. Pushing it towards him, she said calmly, "I just want your mind to settle first, before I explain just how f*cked we both are."
Ikky slapped his face with his palms and inhaled a cold air of dread... "Right."
———
A spear of water shot through Ikky's head, Yaga sitting in front of him, restlessly tapping her finger on the table in thought.
"In the first place, your Virtue that lets you make natural essence already seems like absorbing it from the Realm instead. Any regular prophet would confuse it for an extreme evil Sin trait, so that's one blasphemous power. Now you've managed to distort a heaven-sent Virtue— because of my actions nonetheless. Third is..." Yaga's shadowy head turned down to the black grass still shifting freely despite the ongoing chaos of the war in this dream realm. The grass was always there, even if the landscapes changed.
She shook her head. "No, not that."
Ikky sat in silence, still not knowing exactly what he had done wrong.
Yaga turned to him, paused for a while and then started, "Listen, child. I do not think your life has made any other drastic improvements other than in intensity so far. Especially not at this rate. In Svarga you were tagged a 'sinner'; as a prophet, that tag has become a designation; but the difference between now and then, is that you now sleep amongst a circle of people who exterminate 'sinners'. They are not your people, and you are not human— you never were. If you were to take a piece of their flesh and eat it, it would not make you seem more of an animal to them as the wild spirits, and if you tried to procreate with them, no result would come of it."
The man frowned. Why was she speaking like this? Yaga was not the type to consider the feelings of the ones she spoke too, Ikky already knew that. And with riddles that start like this, she always had a message to pass, one vital piece that she could not bring herself to say directly before explaining. Ikky understood this too,
"I don't think you understood the first time I said it."
She interrupted, clarifying, "No, no. I do. If a life must be taken, it should not be as a consequence of your weakness?"
Ikky made a weird face. "Thought I wouldn't mind you twisting my own words?
Yaga scoffed, continuing, "Suit yourself. The most dangerous enemies to you are oddly enough, the ones you can't harm. But, when the time comes and you have to choose between the existence of me and you, or death by their hands, I won't leave that decision for you alone to make."
———
Fionnuala stared intensely at the man lying before her. He had an innocent expression on his face, his mouth slightly open and his eyes closed shut. From afar, one would mistake him for a person drifting in a pleasant dream. But he was dead. He had to be.
Her hand moved to clasp the side of his face, feeling his unnervingly smooth skin texture and cold flesh. Her body heat moving so quickly from her palm onto his face was enough proof that what is before her is a corpse, yet for some reason, she still felt his overwhelming spiritual essence, spreading and drifting all around the underground shelter.
'Maybe his essence really was that much when he was alive. He's from the same Omen as Eoin, and his pool is also impossibly vast.' She thought.
"He must have died after that Augur spirit handed him over." Fiachra guessed. That was the only plausible explanation. "But, why didn't she tell us he was in critical condition? We could have done something to help during that time."
Aodh clasped his palms with his eyes closed in thought, as if trying to recall a certain feeling. 'He was always like this, wasn't he? I don't think anything's changed from then. So how did he die?'
"What if he's a spirit?"
"Hey!" Aodh jumped from the startling whisper.
The others looked in his direction, finding Kalu standing right behind their brother.
Kalu lifted his hands and apologised. "My bad."
Aodh grabbed his chest, taking a few laboured breaths before shaking his head. "It's cool. It's cool. My fault for letting my guard down."
"What do you mean?" Fionnuala asked. "A spirit? But, he has an Augur spirit, like a prophet."
The man clarified, "I'm just saying, 'cause even I'm not sure. But, I will say, it's possible. I met this other spirit earlier today with Ivan. He told me she was a spirit prophet, so I guess it happens." Kalu walked over to the sleeping beauty, and squatted in front of him with one arm outstretched.
"Wait, Kalu, where are Eoin and the others?" Fiachra asked, realising he had gone along with Eoin and Esra to gather 'feathers' to remake his brother. Yet for some reason, Kalu was now back, but without the others in sight. Had something gone wrong?
Kalu answered simply, "Your mom sent me."
Fiachra's head snapped towards Fionnuala who challenged his gaze, "What? Shouldn't have told her you'd stolen the poor man's charm and that he's dead?"
Fiachra sighed looking at the ceiling in frustration and shaking his head. "Nevermind. This is partly my fault anyway. Sorry."
Kalu had his head down, examining the body. He did not have any helpful powers to heal or even diagnose the conditions of this man, but he at least had the power to take him to go see help.
'Normally, I'd ask for permission before doing this, but this surely has to be an exception.' Placing his palm on Ikky's chest, the color around the man's body soon began to bleach white. It seemed like an eraser was removing every detail of the world around the body, and when only a white void encased Ikky's body, Kalu's eyebrows knotted in a frown.
Watching him just squat in silence for a while, the others soon asked what was happening.
Kalu deactivated his Virtue and stepped out of the way so they could all see. On the gentle sleeping face of the mysterious prophet, from underneath his enclosed eyelids, starry black fluid slid out and to the side of his cheeks. He was crying?
"What is—" Fiachra stood behind them, his own eyes turned towards the entrance of the room. Through the faint light of the blue fire, he could see something standing right ahead... something strange looking in the distance. Summoning a ball of fire over his hand, he fueled it enough to cover the whole room in blue light, and so it came into sight as clear as day.
For at the entrance of the room was the five foot tall bottom half of a person, walking towards them.