บท 94: V.1-C.94│Welcome to Hell IV│
Back within the third level of Hell, Anakin had to face a destroyer of worlds.
Nihilus was using his aggressive saber sighting style while Anakin had taken a defensive position because he wanted to tire Nihilus out.
'This isn't a good plan, he can continuously draw on the residual energies here.' Anakin thought to himself but it wasn't like he wouldn't be able to do so as well, it was just that this fight could continue for along time.
Anakin doesn't have the time to be spending all of it on Nihilus.
"Lets take this up a notch." Anakin said as he started to draw on the dark energies that was latent within this dimension.
Nihilus didn't say anything and continued his onslaught.
What Anakin was trying to do was replicate the ability Nihilus was using and it was slowly working, he was becoming a scar himself. An embodiment of Chaos, with which he could use against his opponent.
Nihilus ability to drain the Force within an area, a planet and from people might have come from his ability was the result of drawing a design from his once apprentices abilities of Force Sight.
Continuously drawing on the dark energies, it would eventually start to have a corrupting affect on his mental psyche and may even start to affect his process to becoming immortal through the implant plus spiritual balance.
It certainly had corrupted Nihilus where he had this insatiable hunger, it become something he depended on. He heavily depended on his ability to feed off of others and this was something Anakin didn't want.
"Hahaha! Trying to copy me are you?" Nihilus laughed sensing the change in Anakin and the Force.
He stopped laughing however as he began to sense that the boy had such a control over the Force, it would seem unnatural. Even to him where he had become an absolute monster, a beast that formed countless scars within the Force.
"You mustn't be left to live." Nihilus redoubled his efforts to strike Anakin down which made it harder to draw on the energy of the Force.
This stalling of time has two detrimental affects, one being the longer it would take to master this technique, then overwhelm Nihilus and the second being he doesn't know how much time he has left before his body is discovered.
Anakin continued to shift and pull the Force inwards but was careful in doing so because he didn't the dark side to completely start corrupting himself.
Nihilus was becoming more and more aggressive knowing that if he didn't defeat the pest before he is done, he could very well be dead himself. He had tried several times now to cut off his connection to the Force by severing it like he usually did.
It was just that here in this Hellish dimension, the wounds within the Force easily healed meaning his severing ability in particular was useless here.
Anakin just had to continue his defense and finish in a timely manner focusing his thoughts into this one objective.
Nihilus then started to swing in a manner that near cut off his hand that was holding one of his sabers, but it was just a feint when his other hand was cut off which sent some feedback to his actual living body.
It jumped but calmed down soon after whereas Anakin was now complaining but still focused and determined to not let this get in his way. 'Thankfully this isn't my actual body...'
"NO! Stop! Do you really want to become like me?!" Nihilus now started to resort to using mental manipulation, something he was used to doing.
"I dont care, I am in control." Anakin said now fully empowered and having reverse engineered this ability can now start to siphon the energy off of Nihilus.
"Death comes to all! I am inevitable." Nihilus had the illusion he was the grim reaper.
"Wrong." Anakin replied. "Death doesn't come to me, I come to death."
Anakin closed the distance between the two within a second hyped up on the unlimited power at his fingertips he pierced Nihilus' eyes with lightning coated fingertips. Then he stared to pull, he pulped, crushed and destroyed Nihilus' consciousness that was strengthened as a result of his lifetime of experience.
His willpower was whittled down to nothing and his very existence was converted into pure energy within the Force, with which Anakin could use to empower himself even further. He slurped the energy as if it was some sort of juice.
It was trying to corrupt as well, slowly blurring his eyes between the ethereal and beautiful glowing violet to the burning yellow.
In the end however his control won out, the temporary effects however slightly twisted his mind in a way that further pronounced his inner desires of selfishness. 'Power, more.' This would be what acquainted to what his thoughts are at this moment.
This however went away after a few seconds to calm down. "Damn. That was a rush." He breathed out not taking any time to observe his surroundings because he doesn't know whether or not if he has been found yet.
If he did take a look however he would be taken aback by the damage that was done, but not only that if he took the time to sense through the Force, within the immediate area it was as if it was limited. As if there was no more energy left within this third level.
[]
The fourth level of Hell was actually an icy tundra.
From what he could tell this place acted similar to the first level, and intermediary and gathering of souls within one area safe from the horrors beneath. This time however there were beings and people he was completely unaware of.
He knew none of them but they were stronger then those on the first level. They looked primitive as well, as if they were from a time long past. Possibly over millions of years old in fact.
These locals however didn't seem to accept his presence and if he was to guess, they were afraid of him. After all, who was brave enough to pass through the barriers sealing off these people from the first level.
From the information he could gather, none of them had actually traversed here and were instead placed here for some unknown reason. Probably because of age or some other factor, there were some people that had some more advanced looking outfits but no one he had ever heard about.
So there were two factors to coming to the fourth level, one was experience or age and the other seemed to be some unknown requirement based off of power.
Anakin was pointed in the direction of the next level, the second to last, otherwise known as no mans land given not one person had tried to go through the barrier in a long, long time.
'Right, time to face the next challenge.' Anakin thought to himself as he once again found himself falling into the abyss, even deeper then before.
[]
Anakin had some speculation about what the levels of Hell were really about, about what they represented and he could think on the Sith code as the example.
The first level, while nothing much to go on represented peace as a lie and that there was only passion. This was evident in the way the people interacted with each other there, where there was no peace at all and only actions brought on by emotion.
The second level represented passion as the only way forward, becoming passionate gave someone strength. Which was actually fruitless within this level proving that passion is not always enough to gain enough strength over their situations.
The third level was through strength, you gain power and Anakin had done just that, through strength he had gained power. Terrible power, but power nonetheless.
Anakin could guess that the undetermined requirement to enter the fourth level was victory through the use of power. Only those that gain victory through power could come down to the fourth level.
Now he could only guess that this fifth level had to do with the next line.
'Through victory, my chains are broken.' Anakin thought to himself as he continued to fall through the void.
He lands and finds himself face to face with his next obstacle. He was trapped.
There it was a chess board at the center of the room he was within while the room was completely white in contrast to what he was usually exposed to within Hell. No lava lakes, no freezing lava lakes either.
Four walls, the ground and a ceiling but no exit, no entrance and he could only guess as to what he had to do. Play a game of chess, not something he thought he would be doing because chess is not a common game within the star wars universe but it must be a room constructed through his memories.
He had after all played and had memories of chess over every other game in his previous and new lives.
The thing about chess is that you usual have to face off against another opponent, sometimes you could face yourself but that is quite boring because it is yourself and you should know what your next step is.
Or do you?
'Who will my opponent be then?' As he was thinking this his opponent made himself known, thats right himself as the person on the other side of the room was actually him.
Well, another or exact replica of himself.
"You must be my opponent then." Anakin said.
"Yes." Chess Anakin replied. "It is as you have guessed, the pieces of the puzzle have been put together quite well. Only through victory will your chains be broken. Only through defeating me will you be able to leave."
"Right..." Anakin said as he took his own seat.
"Pick your color." Chess Anakin said.
"Doesn't really matter, but I think I will choose black, it contrasts nicely with the room." Anakin said as the board now constructed fully 3d animated version of the chess pieces.
"What an inane reason to choose a color." Chess Anakin stated.
"That's new, this ain't Harry Potter now is it?" Anakin said.
"No it is not Harry Potter." Chess Anakin answered as he started the game by moving the first piece.
When it came to a being at Anakin's level whom could move at very fast speeds while at the same time having the mental capacity and visual perception to keep up with movement a game of chess would go quickly.
So they went back and forth between each other at these intense speeds with no time limit and this was exactly what lead to the game coming to a draw many, many times.
Not one time did one or the other get a decisive advantage on the other to have one side win over the other, in fact even if Chess Anakin won a game it would just make it so that Anakin had to win one game to draw each other again.
This was done in an attempt to slow the process of his escape and liberation of this dimension but also because it was another mental test. The first level was more physical in nature in relation to the Force, the second level was mental in nature. The third level got physical again while the fourth level did nothing to challenge him while this level is another mental test.
Anakin thinks that the last level, the lowest depths may be a combination of both physical and mental connections to the Force.
[]
On Tatooine.
Before the girls left on Jabitha they had wanted to acquire some more information, they wanted to know whether or not Anakin had told anyone of where he was going.
At the top of the list of candidates that he would trust enough was probably his mother and whoever else here on this planet, but definitely this mother is someone they should go to.
The thing is all three were hesitant to do so because of two reasons.
One was that the three of them were kind of scared of meeting what would equate to their own mother-in-law but also because they didn't want to reveal anything that could mean Anakin was in trouble.
They didn't want to worry her, because all of them knew of just how much Anakin loved his mother.
First however they needed to find a way to stealthily make their way into the palace which was highly secured by droids. They could bypass the droids because they were, well, droids or at least that was how they all thought about these droids.
Aayla took into consideration that the droids may be more dangerous then they are usually used to dealing with because it was Anakin's brand of droids after all. Even Barriss had to agree with her on this one because they had experienced how the training droids he had made fought with them.
While Shaak had limited experience when it came to Anakin's training droids she at least knew from the other two that they should be cautious. Especially since security measures are properly much more strict even since what had happened a few years ago.
All three cloaked themselves within the Force and concealed their presence, not that it wouldn't do much when it came to the droids. This ability was mostly useful against those of whom were living.
What did help them however was their athleticism and agility which they used to make it past the security before they moved into the palace.
The three located the room, they didn't split up because that was too dangerous. What one would wonder however is why are they sneaking around like common thieves when they could have just officially out in the open meet Shmi.
Entering Shmi's through a window because the door was secured and they didn't want to break the property of Anakin's mother they slowly made their way to Shmi and woke her up.
"W-What? Who are you three?" Shmi asked.
"Sorry to disturb your sleep, Empress Skywalker." Shaak spoke first being formal.
"How did you guys get in here?" Shmi had a confused look on her face rather then one of fear, which was strange to the other three within the room.
"We will get to the point, we are looking for your son." Aayla skipped to the point.
This got a reaction out of Shmi as now she was worried without even knowing what was going on. She felt extremely safe within the palace walls even if someone somehow got into her room, she knew she was protected.
Shmi's eyes sharpen as she questions in a commanding tone. "What do you want with my son."
"Please, we mean no harm. We are from the Jedi temple." Shaak replied.
"Why are you guys here and looking for Ani? I dont think the Jedi would worry all that much about someone disappearing for a few days to a few weeks." Shmi asked.
"Well..." Aayla was hesitant to say but that doesn't mean Shaak wasn't.
"We are not here on behalf of the Jedi, we are here for ourselves." Shaak said then continued. "We believe Ani may have gotten himself into some trouble." It would seem Shaak had a slip of the tongue that Barriss and Aayla didn't notice but Shmi did.
'Ani? Are they that close to him?' Shmi thought to herself before saying. "I am sorry to say he has not informed me of where he went but he will be ok, I am all too used to not seeing him for a long time."
"I have faith that he is completely fine." Shmi finished.
The three girls didn't know what else to say, debating whether or not to just say that they were all sort of, connected to Anakin...
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