Chapter 18: Cruel Infestation
Joan was wrenched from her sleep by the sudden sensation of a wave of raw power sweeping over her.
She was out of her bed in an instant, idly offering thanks that she’d fallen asleep in the leather leggings and tunic that she wore under her armour. One hand wiped at her mouth and the other tightened around the hilt of her sword, as she dashed out of her bedroom. It only took her a couple of seconds to get from her room to the back door of the farmhouse and the sight that greeted her there.
Adam was out there, in the distance. It took her a moment to spot him, her mystic senses pinpointing him before she drew close enough for her enhanced eyes to find his form. He was sat in the white grass and bent over almost double.
Power radiated from him like heat from a furnace. There was the bright, holy might of the High Heavens, but it was only one power among many. The waves of power pouring from her charge were strong, but contrary to her expectations there was almost no purity to them. Instead, it was as though she could sense . . . everything from him. Fire, water, ice, wind, darkness, shadow, sunshine, volcanic magma, all that and so much more, it was all in the huge aura that was flaring around him. Mana and magic of a myriad of possible types roiled around him, Types that should have clashed and fought somehow existing in perfect harmony with each other.
Her rush to close with her charge faltered as she gazed at the growing corona of disparate powers. It was beautiful, bewitching in its complexity and majesty, but against all reason, she felt a dread growing within her. For a moment all she could do was stand there bewildered, unable to understand how something so magnificent could have filled her with such disgust. Then she felt it.
Threaded through the beautiful tapestry of powers and elements were lines of blackness. Not the darkness of the night, nor the lightless depths of deepest shadow, these were a black that did not belong in the mortal realm. They belonged in a far darker place, a place where such inimical and malevolent forces felt at home.
“Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que c'est ca?” She demanded, not really expecting a reply, and surprised when she received one.
“Hell-born energies! The mortal has been infected by hell-born energies!”
The sheer venom in the words startled the mortal saint even more than the reply itself. Spinning in place she saw that Hadriel was hovering beside her. The expression of hatred and contempt upon the angel’s face matched the venom in her words perfectly.
The reborn saint found it jarring, unsettling even. Until now the crimson-winged angel had always conducted herself with the calmness and self-possession expected of a soldier of heaven. Still, Joan could spare no time to think on it, not when her charge was in danger.
“What is happening to him?!”
She had to shout the words as all about her it seemed as though the world was going mad. Winds sprang out of nowhere, carrying mist and dust upon them as they whipped about. Above them the sun seemed to blaze too intensely, even for the height of summer, only to be covered by a black storm cloud that in turn dissipated into a brief flurry of snow. The resurrected soul could feel the magic at play about them, the aura of mana surrounding Adam briefly empowering aspects of nature to manifest and strengthen, only to fade away in the next instant. It was enough to make the world shudder about them though, the earth trembling, the wind whistling.
“I do not know!” Hadriel replied. “His power is out of control, we must help him before he does himself harm!”
Without waiting for a reply the angelic warrior shot forwards, towards Adam. Joan hesitated, but then followed her. Those energies infecting her charge needed to be cleansed, and waiting was going to be of no aid in advancing that goal. She was uncertain as to how they would remove them from the demigod, but she knew that it had to be done.
It only took a few moments for her to join the angel at the side of her charge. During the brief seconds it had taken her to cross the distance separating them Joan had felt frost form upon her left arm as she passed through a zone of intense cold, then suffered a burn as some ambient electricity grounded itself through her in the form of a small lightning bolt. To a normal mortal, it would have been worse, perhaps even crippling, but Joan’s heavenly powers were enough to reduce the harm to an annoyance rather than a grave injury.
Honoured Hadriel was already at his side, her wings extended and her power visibly extending into the area about her. Joan could feel it overriding some of the wild magic close to her, ensuring that Adam was safe from the uncontrolled flares of magic. It was something, but it would not be enough.
“I cannot reach the corruption within him,” The Angel of Swords all but snarled, frustration clear in her tone. “It hides within him, using him as a shield. Neither my swords nor my lightning can touch it without harming him!”
The resurrected saint wordlessly nodded, then placed her hands upon Adam’s back. She understood, what the demigod needed was a softer touch than the warrior angel was suited for. Once again Joan thanked the Lord that she had chosen to learn healing.
Following the familiar steps she poured her internal power into her charge in a steady flow. The light of Heaven that was as much a part of her as her own soul responded to her will, reaching out across the connection, colouring her power and granting it the qualities she desired.
To mend, to heal, to purify of contamination, that was the nature of the magic she was channelling into her charge. She’d done it many times before, mending bruised flesh, repairing bones cracked in their training. Before it had always been an easy task, but this time it was nothing as simple as a physical injury.
The earlier feeling of revulsion returned with a vengeance as Joan became fully aware of the infestation of parasitic energy that seemed to be spreading throughout her charge’s entire system of internal power. For a moment she felt pride at Adam’s accomplishment, his magic was fully awake now, and powerful from what she could sense. However, that was overshadowed by her disgust at the energy tainting it.
Hatred, envy, cruelty, spite, malevolence, she could feel all that and more seething within the contamination, the nature of hell distilled to its most basic and primitive nature. This was not a creature in the sense that it was living and thinking. This was an infection that needed to be purged.
Her resolve firming the French saint pushed harder, determined to scour the parasitic energies from her charge before they could harm him any further.
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The aggregate felt the holy energy burning at it once more, but this time it was a force that did not come from the form of the demigod it infested. This time the threat came from without, the power antithetical to the hellish energies flooding into the host.
Mindless though it was, it could experience something akin to pain as it felt the divine energies burn at it. And though it had no volition, the command that drove it on would allow nothing to stand it in its way, so it reacted. It needed strength, power enough to endure this assault, and the environment it existed within had power in abundance.
Like some sort of malignant plant, the construct of hellish energies reached out with the thin tendrils it had left in its trail. All about them was the rich and potent mana that had just been sparked into life, but not yet fully claimed. Power ripe for harvesting, for the consuming.
Before it had not yet been strong enough, but it had cut its host off from being able to influence his own power, leaving him vulnerable. There had been no plan, no scheme. It had simply forced its way to the greatest concentration of power and clung there. Its success was nothing but chance, a fortunate coincidence, but one it made the most of.
Like the roots of a tree drinking in moisture from rich earth, the tendrils leeched power away from the host. Power that was further tainted and then consumed, fuelling the aggregate, giving it greater strength.
Swelling in size as the influx of magic rushed into it, the creature of hellish power forced a portion of itself out of the host’s aura, manifesting itself into the material world. For a moment it experienced the sweet air of the mortal plane, sensed the stirrings of life about it, and felt the drive within itself to destroy them all. Then it felt the burn of holy energy once more and lashed out, sheering arcs of energy tearing at the world about it as the aggregate blindly flailed with its stolen might.
It did not see. It did not hear. It could not perceive the world in the way that a being of flesh and blood would have. What it could do was sense the other energies about it, feel the sources of the holy powers that had seared it. They were strong, but its wild attack had driven them back, but not far enough!
No thought. No plan. There was just a need to eliminate them or drive them away. Drawing deeply upon the host demigod once more, the aggregate of hell-born energy readied to attack once more.
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Hadriel had been taken completely by surprise when the attack came.
She had been concentrating on suppressing the wild magic in the area, keeping the random manifestations of elements and other natural phenomena from harming the demigod or the resurrected soul that sought to heal him. She had known her power was unsuited to help him, but she had not believed the infection to be a danger beyond its infestation. It was a poison to be purged, not an enemy to be fought, so she had left it in the hands of Joan.
Hadriel felt she might have misjudged the situation when she sensed a flare of putrid hellish power behind her. She would have spun in place, but a growing fireball claimed her attention, and she told herself that the flare was merely the poisonous energies being forced from their host.
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But when a searing arc of black power slammed into her, sending her tumbling across the white grass she knew she had been wrong. Spinning in mid-air she turned to see her attacker, a black maggot-like growth of dark energy the size of a rat emerging from Adam’s back.
The blind eyeless head of the . . . the abomination flailed about, and each movement was accompanied by a great arc of dark power slashing through the air, sometimes ripping up into the sky, or tearing into the ground. There was power there, great power if the burnt and shattered stones in the rent earth were anything to go by, and the angel had no doubt that it was being leeched from her charge.
Another arc came at her, but this time Hadriel was ready, her left-hand sword coming up in a vertical swing that intercepted and dissipated the attack in a single motion. The celestial metal of her weapon easily scattered the malignant force, shattering it back into its component energies, but the force of the attack was still enough to make her arm tremble.
She frowned at that, seeing it as more proof that the parasite before her was using her charge’s strength against them. The energies were no great monster, instead, they were more akin to vermin. Such a tiny union of hellish power might be dangerous to a mortal, but to her, it should have been little more than an irritant, something to swat should it annoy her enough. Dealing with it now, rooted as deeply into the demigod’s body as it was, would be . . . difficult. Her powers could tear the infecting energies out of Adam, or destroy them within him, but doing so would undoubtedly harm her charge.
The angel’s eyes flicked to the side, noting that the resurrected saint was also defending herself from the attacks. Joan was more suited to ripping this monstrosity from the demigod’s body without harming him, but she had likewise been sent sprawling by the unexpected attack. She had recovered, but just as with Hadriel, she was having to hold her ground and defend herself.
Lightning gathered in her free hand. Not enough to kill, but enough to stun. Perhaps her charge would be harmed if she struck the parasite, but the resurrected saint could heal much. So long as the damage was carefully measured Hadriel might be able to shock the malignant creature long enough for Joan to-
She had no time for further thoughts as another black arc of corrupted power came whipping at her. The sword cut out again, scattering sparks of fragmented magic, but then there was another, and another, and another.
The crimson-winged angel all but snarled in frustration as she was forced to defend once more, unable to prepare enough to take the delicate action she’d planned. She had to wait, find an opening, and take it when it appeared. As she countered another attack, she felt a frown cross her face.
Had that been stronger than the ones before? Was this thing growing in power?
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The demigod had to die!
The instruction, the compulsion, should not have been impressed so indelibly upon the malignant energies. The order that drove them on had been an act of desperation, a curse hurled at an enemy as a vicious act of spite. The imperative should have faded with time, unable to find enduring purchase on such potent forces.
Instead, the order had survived, sinking into the aggregate of power even as it had feasted on the strength of its host. The very power that let the hell-born energies thrive also reinforced the compulsion that would otherwise have faded.
The command was now written into the aggregate of hellish energy on a level that the mortal mind would have trouble comprehending. It should not have been able to act beyond that command, to do anything that did not advance that goal.
Yet somehow it was.
The thing that was formed from the leftover energies of the homunculi used to attack the demigod’s Awakening had drunk deeply of the power offered by its host. Much of the original energies that had comprised it were gone, burnt away by the internal holy magic of the host, or by the earlier external attack. What remained persisted, feasted and grew, replaced what was lost by converting the power it could steal from its host, and as it did it was changing.
So little of the original aggregate remained, so little of the original command.
The original commands had changed, evolved. The creature of hellish energies might have been able to slay its host if it mustered its full strength, tearing him apart from within. However, such an action would have left it vulnerable, unshielded from the world. It might even have caused the aggregate's own destruction.
Instead, the parasitic energy being was taking another approach, a slower approach, but one that arrived at the same destination, but with a better outcome for itself. The demigod would die, but it would only be after the aggregate had consumed him from within, only after it had devoured every drop of energy it could wring from his helpless form. It would become more! It would become great! It would become terrible!
It wasn’t a plan, it was more of a drive like a plant might grow larger in fertile soil, or an ant colony would flourish near plentiful food. It was the result of opportunity, the outcome of a combination of drives and resources.
Its root-like tendrils dug deeper into the demigod, draining more power, fuelling its growth, its change. It stretched out further, reaching out into the world beyond the host, tasting the power there, reaching out with senses it had not possessed only moments before. It could feel the sources of the power that had burnt it, clumps of energy that the aggregate instinctively knew was its enemy.
Its reaction to sensing the threats was immediate though, the wild flailing of energy stopped, only to be replaced with something more concentrated, something more deadly. The force it released became tighter, more focused. Each attack sprang directly at one of the clumps of power that were antithetical to its very being!
It would survive!
It would endure!
It would grow!
And the demigod would die, but only after he had been drained to the last drop!
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Joan wanted to scream with frustration, but instead, she remained silent as she crossed her arms in front of herself and focused to forge her light into a shield. A concave disk of yellow energy sprang to life before her a bare instant before a lance of black energy slammed into it in turn. The resurrected saint grunted slightly as she braced herself, the shield holding, but the force of the attack sufficient to unbalance her, forcing her to push back.
The attack waned, and she could move again. In an instant, she was charging towards the slumped form of Adam, power of a different sort building in her hands as she reached for him. All she needed was a touch, then she could force all the corruption from her charge. Before she had been too careful, too gentle. Yes, using everything she had to remove the parasite would hurt him, but Adam would survive and recover. If this went on too long . . .
Another dark lance of stomach-turning energy came at her, the air seeming to scream as it passed. This time the French saint made no effort to block, instead, she threw herself to the ground, her armour scraping on the dirt as she turned the motion into a roll. It was a desperate move, but she was able to get up as the attack passed over her, pushing off into a dash as she closed in on Adam.
Something rippled through the air as she approached him. it wasn’t a sound, not something heard by the ears, but at the same time, it wasn’t something as simple as a telepathic cry. It came through as a discordant keening, something she was sure would have made her ears bleed had she heard it.
She simply felt sick, roiling in her stomach, bile in her throat. She pushed through it though, not letting herself falter by even one step as she kept her eyes focused upon the maggot-like growth emerging from Adam’s back.
The blind head turned towards her, tracking her even as it built another attack. The creature was fast, faster than she had expected, and its next lance of power caught her while she was in mid-step. She was able to bring up her shield once more though, the attack scattering on contact with her construct of light. She was off balance though, unable to brace herself, and the force of the clash sent her sprawling onto her back. Yet another attack came at her before she could even begin to right herself, and Joan felt the start of panic form in her guts even as she drew on her power.
Then red wings were blocking her vision as Hadriel was in front of her, the angel’s crossed swords blocking the attack with almost casual ease as she stared over her shoulder at the resurrected saint.
“On your feet! I shall defend you, concentrate only upon reaching him, then cleanse the parasite from his form!”
There was unquestionable authority in the angel’s voice. Joan winced slightly as the earth to her left suddenly erupted into a blossom of stone spikes that came far too close to impaling her. All about them the wild magic seemed to intensify, the fire growing hotter, the ice colder, the wind more violent, but she forced herself to focus on her target.
Hadriel was before her, those great curved swords slashing through the air as she scattered one attack after another. They were growing stronger now, but it was not enough! The angel was just too strong, too fast, too determined.
It only took seconds to cover the distance between them and Adam, but by the time they did so more than a dozen attacks had been thrown at them, only to be swept aside. For a moment Joan had been certain they had won, then the final hammer blow came.
It was the last attack, it hadn’t come as fast as the others. Those had been lightning quick, built and released in mere instants. This last one had held, had remained as a seething orb of wretched power hovering above the blind head of the parasite. The resurrected soul should have known something was wrong, but she’d been too focused on reaching Adam, too focused on her goal.
The blast of power spread outwards in a sphere, a shockwave of pure force tinged with the putrid power of the hellish infection. They were too close, too unprepared for such a widespread attack. Joan’s eyes widened as Hadriel was able to bring up one sword crackling with lightning to shield herself, a testament to her sheer speed and skill, but it wasn’t enough. The crimson-winged angel was sent sprawling again, a few wisps of smoke rising from her skin where she hadn’t been able to protect herself.
However, she went down with a savage smile on her lips!
The angel clearly hadn’t expected the last attack, but she had been prepared for something and had placed herself directly between the prone demigod and the French saint. With her very flesh, she had protected Joan, absorbing most of the last blast. It hadn’t been perfect, and the remnants of the blast still smashed into Joan as though someone had swung a hammer into her belly, but she powered on through.
She was close now, the divine power rushing through her making the world seem to slow to a snail’s pace about her, even as she pushed herself to move faster. For an instant, she considered shifting to her angelic form but knew that would cost precious time she didn’t have, even as fast as the transformation was. Instead, she continued on, trying to drag just a bit more speed out of her aching body.
It was only because of how she was forcing her power through herself that she saw the attack coming. Not a burst, nor a lance, instead it was the wild arcs of power that the parasite had been releasing at the start. It was weak compared to its more focused efforts, but it was fast!
The arc came at her low, moving to strike her just below the knees. Joan only had a split instant to react, even with the divine power humming in her veins and slowing the world down, so she went with her only option. Muscles coiled, then launched her up and over the arc, the wave of malevolent energy passing under her feet with barely an inch to spare.
She had no time to feel triumphant though, because a second arc came directly after the first one, this time higher up. In the air, as she was the saint couldn’t dodge, there was nothing for her to push off. All she could do was shield her eyes with her arms and take the blast as best she could.
The attack was off-centre, a fast but wild blast that scored across her left ribs and Joan gritted her teeth and wished that she’d had the chance to don her armour. As it was, she had to make do with her natural defences, nowhere near as strong, but they had to be enough.
She felt something crack inside her, felt the sharp pain of crushed flesh and lacerated skin, but she ignored it! The attack had hurt, it had slowed her down, but it had not stopped her! Her momentum carried her forwards, and she came crashing down into Adam’s left wing. Pain robbed her of any grace, and it took all her will to bite back a cry of agony as the impact jostled her injured ribs, but it didn’t matter. Quick as a striking snake her right hand let go of her sword and seized the bend of his wing where she’d impacted.
The parasite started to move, to orient in on her, but she gave it no chance. Healing magic surged out of her, all that she could manage to channel. Instinctively she felt the dark threads of corruption running through her charge and directed her own power to scour them from his body. They immediately fought back, the malignant infection reinforcing itself, tightening up, bracing itself to resist.
Gritting her teeth, the French saint forced herself to concentrate as she pushed herself to generate more power. She could not allow herself to fail! It was not an option!