Half a dozen thread-thin lashes of flame sliced through the Fungal Titan, searing its rotten flesh on the deck of the Manaship. Her people rallied at her side, cutting into its spores with weapons enchanted to burn and freeze.
You Have Killed A Fungal Titan!
XP Earned!
Its death gasp had barely faded when thunder rolled across the sky. The Bloodstorm intensified, whipping into funnels of wine-dark clouds that disgorged new, terrible monstrosities.
Heva drew up short. "Burning ash."
Creatures emerged—so large that they dwarfed the Shadowrath Scourges and Fungal Titans. Vast centipedes undulated from within the cyclones, formed of shadow but with a thousand screaming faces stretching along their bellies. They were easily a dozen times the size of their biggest galleon, with razor sharp legs that wriggled through the air with all the power of a collapsing mountain.
Emerging beside them, clouds of distended flesh floated atop hundreds of wings lined with the meaty gills of a mushroom cap. Tendrils tipped with hundreds of translucent teeth slashed through ranks of Chimera and Dragoons—their barding strengthened them against the hits, but many were hurled from the sky where they weren’t sliced apart.
“Get back!” Stellis shouted. She pulled Heva back from the railing just as a deluge of water dropped onto the nearest monstrosities, capturing them in coursing currents. A half dozen Fleshclouds were swept up, the rush of water bursting their distended hides—but that only released hordes of rot-twisted Horrors and Sporeflies. Too many to contain, they swarmed outward into the battlefield.
“Scorching Hydra!” Heva lashed her flames in all directions, splitting her whip to flay the rot away from her allies' flanks. Stellis blocked an attack, an ice wall forming between them and a descending shadowbeast. "We have to break down the barrier!”
“We have to get there first," Merk shouted over the battle. "Who's flying this thing?"
They had all seen the flash of battle atop the Hierophant's tower. The Fiend was struggling against the Paragon and the Divine themselves. Heva had no doubt the Emperor was doing his part in the battle—they must do theirs.
Her team moved like a seamless array, all its parts firing with the surge of their Skills and technique. Mace, sword, sigil, and spell split apart the monstrosities that flooded the ship. Legionnaires hopped atop the Manacannon’s, loosing beams of golden light from the stolen weapons in nearly every direction at once.
We have to stop the beasts here before they kill anyone else.
A centipede dropped, flying low over them, and Heva lost her breath for a moment at its sheer size and presence. Its legs snapped out, tearing through their etheric sails and setting the entire deck pitching to starboard. Her people scrambled, grabbing onto spars and masts and guidelines as the ship bucked—but too many slipped and fell overboard. Screaming faces in the centipede’s belly howled, spitting out a frigid fog that enveloped the deck entirely. Planks froze into slick patches of ice as the things of interminal length passed overhead, but Heva wove her Scorching Hydra around her people like a net of incandescent threads. The heat cut through the cold, burning the fog until the air boiled.
"Five Talon Retribution!"
Her spell reshaped itself, the fire Mana forging into five claws as she thrust up into the flying shadowbeast. Talons tore through its carapace, the Skill nearly dragging Heva off her feet until Cade grabbed her around the middle, anchoring her.
"Five Talon Retribution," she repeated, her voice breaking. A second claw slashed beside the first. Slick black shadows started to split above them. Godslaves dropped down, screeching as they attacked.
Cade was forced to release Heva as the Orc defended with her glowing sword. Heva could only focus on the centipede, its insane length still passing overhead and spitting out its vile fog. Her Talons tore into it, pressing with every ounce of Will and Intent she possessed. Its faces screamed inhumanly, their expressions of glee turned sour and alien.
Heva shouted, a wordless cry that tapped into something she'd felt before—a well of power that fed into her core space like fuel into a flame. Her center raged, her core stoked to new heights, and her Talons turned a vibrant blue-white.
“Begone!”
Shadowflesh parted, split asunder as ichor poured around them in a deluge. The beast’s thousand faces gurgled and screamed, only to take a thousand Legion Skills directly to their wounds.
You Have Killed A Nadir Child!
XP Earned!
Congratulations!
You Have Earned A New Title!
Faithful Of The Blue-White Flame!
You have proven your devotion to the Fiend! Your access to his Blessings of Fellowship has grown considerably and affected all of your fire-based Skills! They will now burn twice as hot and consume half as much Mana!
Around her, the deck had taken on a blue-white glow. Pieces of the Nadir Child were splattered across the ship, all burning with her newfound flame. They soon extinguished as the shadowflesh turned to acrid smoke. The light, however, did not. Heva looked around. Her allies wore expressions of rage and fear, but their eyes burned blue-white. Some had armor formed around their limbs, familiar red-gold scales, the same ones that had protected her once before.
The power of the Fiend. It flowed through her, even now: the Blessing of Fellowship her Title mentioned. She was filled with a sudden conviction that it flowed through all those that believed. Heva looked up, and the ships and skies flickered with points of blue-white flame, tens of thousands of eyes burning in the Bloodstorm. It spread through the Legion, and the godslaves began to fall from the sky.
The Sunaran flagship soared by, its deck filled with Horrors and a Fungal Titan. Captain Mervin flowed across its deck, fighting.
Another believer!
He gleamed with red-gold scales, and lightning surged across his sword as he cut down Fungal Titans all by himself. They could do this.
They could win.
"Get someone on the helm," she shouted. "Take us to the barrier, now!"
A wave of weakness flooded Felix. Power fled from him in heaping amounts. Mana wasn't an issue; it regenerated faster than it could be depleted. The same was true of the Stamina that followed it. His Essence, however, was dwindling fast, as was his significance.
Your Mistake Was Letting Those Leeches Siphon You Power. The Twins leaned their faces close. Your Mistake Was Caring.
Felix's core space trembled. The opalescent roots of the Divine Tree, the ones he had woven into a protective lattice around his core space, shook and bent inward as crimson Bonds crashed into him. His Skills jostled, groaning as pain spiked through every one of his Aspects. His vision blurred, overcome by agony, and his focus shook.
Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Felix could feel his connections to his people strengthening, even as power fled him. Lines he'd once considered ghostly now thickened and turned increasingly opaque. His Links, too, though their strengthening was far more subtle.
His people were fighting back, but they were killing him to do it.
Not Quite A God, Yet You Have Foolishly Forged Bonds Of Fellowship, Noctis crowed. Vellus at her side laughed through a misshapen mouth. Your Faithful Will Be Your End.
"They're here!" Yin called, swimming down through the streets.
Vess followed after. They had reached the surface only moments before, hunting for Archie and Felix's sister, and emerging from the silences of the sewers into the chaos of a battlefield sent a shiver through her Affinity she still hadn’t shaken. Death assaulted her senses, as if her wings were cutting a path through its thick embrace. Fires had sprung up everywhere, roaring beside towering pillars of ice and slick patches of mold that pulsed with its own heartbeat. Compared to its sewers, Amaranth’s streets were like another world.
Vess skimmed the blue tiles of a half-collapsed roof, the liquid sunset scales of her Companion leading her ahead. Amid several flattened and burning city blocks was a wide crater that punched through layers of cobblestone streets to expose water pipes and choked tunnels. At its center was an enormous, unconscious tenku, four wings curled protectively around a Delven man.
"Oh no." She landed next to Pit and brushed back the debris off his face. “Please be alive—Analyze!”
She nearly fell back from relief when the tenku’s information popped up before her eyes. “His Health is climbing steadily, but he’s afflicted with several Status Conditions. Yin? Can you help me?”
The Dawn Drake had already pulled Archie free of Pit’s paws, and set him carefully on an expanse of unbroken stone before returning to the tenku’s side. Together, the pair of them pulled Pit up onto firmer ground beside Archie, rotating him onto his belly so that his wings were clear.
“This wound is slow to heal.” Yin traced a claw a span over a deep hole carved through Pit’s back. The charred edges suggested a terrible lightning strike. “I can feel the Divine’s influence on it.”
Vess’ breath caught. “A curse?”
“Nothing so pointed. It’s healing, but I imagine the Divine’s influence is why our friend remains unconscious.”
“Lady Dayne!”
Vess seized her glaive, but it was only a contingent of Legionnaires that flowed over the peak of the destroyed buildings. A whirring sound followed them, announcing the floating chitin seige towers rolling up behind them.
"The spades are here. And Laur with them," Yin said with relief, eyeing the skies. “I’ll ensure they give us cover while we recover.” He swam off toward the Chanters.
“Vess?” Archie sat up uneasily, his eyes barely open. “I thought you were blowing up the tower?”
“Nevermind that. How’d you get here? Where’s the Titan?”
The Delven leaned forward, hunching around his arms which were bloody up to the elbows. His hands were burnt and he’d lost half his fingernails. “Lost her.”
Vess gritted her teeth before pulling a Healing Potion from her pack. “Drink swiftly. Then you can tell me what in damnation you thought you were doing.”
He knocked the potion back and coughed. “She had a plan. Attack the Hierophant and get the Unbound free. You all had the Lizard bombs under control; I wasn’t needed down there. But I could get those kids free.”
“You could have told me. We could have come up with a plan—!"
"Everything moved kind of fast, and that woman, she... she's a force of nature." He dropped the thick glass, empty except for the dregs. “We fucked up.”
Vess chewed at her lip, looking back up at the palace that was so close to them, and yet interminably far away. The barrier stood between them and its towers. She couldn't see the top of En’Cridhe from her low vantage, but she could see flashes of golden light and other upsetting markers of power.
“Bloodstorm. From Vellus.” Above them, chaos reigned. Crimson lightning threaded the dark clouds and vile monsters swarmed the ships that still remained afloat. “Knocked us outta the sky. Now my leg’s broken and my ankle’s worse.”
"Then we need to retreat, all of us. I will tell the Chanters, then can escort you and the Legion back to the Tree.”
“What’s this about retreatin’? I just got here.” Evie slid down the incline of a shattered roof, followed by a far less graceful Captain Loquis.
“This barrier cannot be taken down. Yin and I have searched for the source of it, but even from below there’s no access point.” Vess pointed back the way they’d come. “We must fall back.”
“Not a chance,” Loquis said. “The Emperor is in there, right? We can’t leave him alone.”
“Yeah. Who’s fightin’ up there?” Evie jerked a thumb up to the palace.
“Felix and his sister—”
“His sister got tied up like a beef roast in two seconds flat,” Archie spat, hobbling up onto one leg. “Felix is alone.”
Vess closed her eyes a moment. She could feel so many emotions from Felix, but the anger and hate were so strong. Her conviction faltered.
"He's not gonna make it," Archie said, leaning against a broken beam. "It wasn't just the Hierophant up there—the gods showed up. They’ll kill him.”
A sudden bellow drowned out both the battle and storm, and a brilliant golden light burst from atop En’Cridhe. Shadows flared outward, silhouettes cut against the radiance that loomed larger than any natural creature.
"Blind gods," Loquis said, his voice cracking. "What can we do here?"
"Not much, unless that barrier gets taken down," said a new voice. Mervin, Captain of the Legionnaires and bringer of ships landed next to them, having hopped down from a nearby building. Korvaa and Sylphaen landed next to him. “We’ve come to help with that.”
Vess assessed her options. Legionnaires, Sunaran warriors, Chanters, Risi, and Nagafolk were pouring into their position. They could have been fighting above, but they surrounded Pit, weapons turned outward in a clear attempt at protecting the Chimera. Others moved to the barrier, weapons unsheathed and Skills dancing across their hands.
“It went down before, so there’s a way through,” Mervin continued.
“Coming down and going back up could have left a break in the ward,” Laur mused. “Enough force could, potentially open it back up. ‘Enough’ in this case meaning the power of a Paragon at least.”
Mervin rolled his shoulder, limbering up his sword arm. “Won’t know until we try, right?”
Vess’ chest tightened and her breathing quickened—quite aside from the emotions she could sense from Felix. This was a breathy, cautious hope.
Could they overwhelm the barrier?
Light scoured their position, refracting from the barrier up ahead as if it had taken a sudden strike…but Vess saw no cannon fire. A familiar wail followed as Archie fell back, clutching at his hands. Vess leaped over the heads of Evie and the rest, kicking off debris to land next to the downed Delven…even as several Arclights lifted him back to his feet. They fed him a Mana Potion.
“What was that?”
Archie wiped his mouth. “Primeval Drift. I can get through this thing.”
Vess looked at the man’s hands. They were worse than before. The charring had spread to his wrists.
"Vess. Let me try.”
Vess nodded silently. “Captains, organize your battalions! I need the strongest on the barrier, ready to strike on my signal!”
“Aye, my Lady!” Mervin and Loquis saluted and started issuing orders.
“Evie. Yin. You need to defend us.” Vess flared her Perception. “More redcloaks are coming.”
“Killin’ zealots? You don’t gotta tempt me with a good time,” Evie loosened her chains. “After you, skylizard.”
Yin huffed contemptuously before taking off, his scales gathering light like the rising sun.
Vess gestured to the spades. “Chanters! Ready your balistas! We’re taking down this barrier. And get a healer on this man!”
Archie gave her a slow, delirious smile. He reached out. "Primeval Drift!"
“Fire!”
Skills and weapons unleashed, almost drowning out Archie’s screams.