The gods were gone. Hope surged anew in Vess as she surveyed their vanished rifts.
At her side, Gabby flexed her hands. "My bargain has loosened. What the hell did he do?"
"It matters not," the Hierophant said, before threads of golden light speared forward, forming into complicated tides of jagged shapes. They slashed into the tower, scouring the stone and sending Vess tumbling back, barely escaping its blast radius.
Gabby took it all straight on. Her armor cracked across the breastplate, light blooming around her in a defensive nimbus, before coalescing into a shield held by her two hands. It immediately splintered across the center.
"Oh, it matters a lot! Now I can do this. Brightblade!"
Her shield burst as she spun to the side, deflecting the threads and charging forward in a blur of gold and metal, gold and steel. Gabby drew close to the Hierophant, a hammer made entirely of golden light shearing upward into the woman's belly.
The Hierophant took the blow, her armor creaking beneath the hammer’s wide head. She fell back a single step. “Pathetic.”
She seized the haft of Gabby's weapon and backhanding the woman to the ground. "All of you resist what must happen. Stand aside, for the Ruin approaches."
"Because you summoned it!" Vess sent her Spears forward to harry the Hierophant. They were knocked aside by those threads again as they wove around her like a thousand arms, bending in strange intervals as if they possessed innumerable joints.
"It was inevitable, Dragoon.” The woman’s threads wove into strange shapes that arced outward, beyond Vess’ sight. “The Ruin was on its way, the Pathless and I simply caught its attention sooner, when we could control the outcome. But then, we should have had the Unbound as a shield. A shield sundered by Mauvim and her wretched insects.”
Vess sent more Spears at her, but they burst well before they reached the woman. "You summoned them as a sacrifice.”
"A necessary one. Nine lives to save my people? A low price to pay."
"Don't let her fool you." Gabby stood back up, her armor repairing itself with solidifying metal Mana. "She was gonna let the Pathless use all nine of us as its Vessels. Puppets for a god to solidify his power on the Continent. And when that failed, she was just gonna do the same thing for their other gods. All for personal power.”
Ocalla pursed her lips. Threads twitched around her, blocking Vess’ relentless Spears with minimal effort. “Another necessary sacrifice.”
“Necessary? To whom? The Divine would have wrought horror upon this land!” Vess leaped aside from a pair of wound threads that sliced toward her face. “I once foolishly believed in the Grace of Siva, but the truth of their nature is undeniable. The gods are not deserving of their power."
"And that is where we agree.” Ocalla clenched a fist, and threads swirled around her wrist. “Now die—”
"Umbral Cascade!" Yin roared. An orb of shadow congealed around the Hierophant, the golden threads going limp and it sealed her into a bubble of absolute dark.
"That will hold her for a time," Yin grunted, landing nearby. The strain of his Skill was immediately apparent in his Spirit. It shook audibly, quaking against Vess' senses as the bubble flexed in tandem.
"Luminous Tide!" A wave of dawnfire rolled from the Drake, cascading over the entirety of the tilted tower's surface, splashing into Vess, Gabby, and the three restrained Unbound.
All Status Conditions Are Ended!
Health, Mana, And Stamina Are Restored By 40%!
Vex flexed her arm, the joint restored but tender. "We have only a few seconds."
Gabby stood straighter and wiped the blood from her mouth. "Get ready, we need to crush her the moment she escapes. Brightblade!"
Her bent hammer reformed in a wave of gold, becoming a massive sword—ten feet long and half as wide. Vess raised an eyebrow. Darius would be jealous.
“Bountiful Grace! Warlord’s Blessing! Sealed Sarcophagi!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Her words were followed by a wash of golden light across all three of them. Vess hefted her glaive. Her Agility had increased, the edges of her weapon was sharpened, and a veil of radiance hardened around her shoulders before fading.
“Impressive.”
“Useful in a fight, and it’ll last longer than that weird buff Felix cast on you two.” Gabby tilted her head. “I can hear it winding down.”
She wasn’t wrong. The Vital Aegis that Felix applied to them was diminishing by the moment. Vess wasn’t certain how long they had, but it wouldn’t last an entire fight. “We shall make the most of it. Ready?”
“Waiting on you.”
"Galebound Glory." Vess' Spears manifested around her. They too shone with the buffs that Gabby had laid upon her, but there was something more as well. Blue-white lightning flickered across the haft—faint, but present.
"She’s completed something," Yin warned, just as the darkness shattered. “I’ll hold her down! Prismatic Cyclone!”
“Fang of Havoc!”
“Shatterstar!"
Before the Hierophant could move, a cyclone of dawnfire roared around her, tearing at her Body and inflicting the Stunned and Blindness Status Conditions.
Conjured spears slipped into the gale, spinning with the cyclone to assault Ocalla from strange, almost random angles. Vess guided them as she shot into the sky, moving them in multiple directions all at once. It was easily done with her Will, and when she brought them in close, she let them explode.
“Final Glory!” They burst, exploding against the Hierophant as small storms of metal shrapnel and lightning amid the storm. “Draconic Stormfall!”
She fell like a comet, glaive held downward, and brought her weapon upon the Hierophant’s naked head.
Draconic Stormfall is level 98!
The Fang of Havoc is level 99!
The Hierophant swung her staff once. The cyclone vanished as if the wind were strangled and the haze of Status Conditions were sliced clean through in the same motion that she met Vess’ downward descent. Vess was sent tumbling back, glaive held crosswise to protect against the woman’s insane riposte. She skid across the ground, haft smoking, and stared incredulously at the Hierophant.
The explosions had marred the woman's hair, but no more than that. She stood unharmed. When the falling stars landed, she didn't even flinch.
Vess threw up a hand against the blinding light, bracing for an impact that never happened. The golden stars hadn't even touched the woman.
Ocalla Marzul had lifted a single finger, and with that finger she seized control of the stars. “Begone.”
She flicked her finger, and the stars spun outward in screaming arcs. Vess dodged out of the way, her wings singed as pillars of golden flame exploded randomly across the tower. The burns hurt terribly, but the pain fluttered and faded almost immediately as red-gold light flushed between her draconic membranes.
The Vital Aegis was doing its job.
Yin roared, rising behind the Hierophant like a hidden serpent, grasping her by the shoulders in heavy claws. His jaws snapped down, but the Hierophant gestured and send the Dragon sprawling. With a second motion, she wove an instant maze around him, forcing his flight to send him crashing into the ground hard enough to shatter the High Tier stone.
Warning!
Yin’s Health Has Dropped Beneath 50%!
With a wordless snarl, Gabby heaved up stone chunks and hurled them at the woman. Ocalla waved her staff and those golden threads stopped them all. The stone drifted around her, spinning on tethers of bright light before slingshotting them all back toward the Titan. Gabby dodged out of the way, but the rock honed in on her position. It shattered against her armor three times in rapid succession, deforming her pauldron and sending a spray of blood into the air.
Vess slid aside another stray shot as the Hierophant scattered her strange threads in all directions. The woman's Skills were flexible, potent, and unpredictable. She is also casting multiple spells at once without pause or strain. It was clear that Ocalla’s Body was incredibly strong, not to mention her Mind and Spirit.
Spirit… She’s lost the Pathless!
That was it.
Vess dove forward through explosive battle between Hierophant and Titan. Her family’s Kata served her well, driving her footsteps through flickering movements as her wings fueled her speed. Spears danced around her, deflecting all that she couldn’t avoid, as she spiraled ever closer.
“Matriarch’s Lament!”
A spectral Dragon’s head formed around hers, crying out in interminable sorrow. Unlike physical attacks, it seemed the Hierophant’s Spirit was wounded from the Pathless’ death. A gap in her mighty armor.
Ocalla flinched as the Ennervation landed and a vast spray of red vapor poured off the woman’s armored back. Her Vitality and Health would be dropping, and Vess had plans to capitalize on it.
She shot forward, dodging more threads as she thrust her glaive into the woman's back.
The blade sparked against the Hierophant’s armor before the woman's hand reached out, slapping aside the point and grasping the weapon's haft. "I grow tired of this.”
The light, the air around them brightened, but it wasn't golden blue, instead it was blue-white. Vess dropped her glaive, leaping backward as lightning rained down from the sky. It blasted into the tower, shearing away chunks of statues around them before dropping them onto the still sputtering array at their feet.
A roar shook the tower, and the Hierophant staggered. She whipped aside, dodging away from a burning arc of blue-white lightning.
“HIEROPHANT!”
Felix had returned.