If the blood moon hadn’t turned the fighting retreat into a pitched battle his battle cry did. The combined forces of The Order turned back to the legion of shadow and fire their defensive tactics abandoned.
Barriers and shield walls were abandoned for insane volleys of arrows, bolts, fire, and lightning. Warriors roared and leaped over the shield wall in droves to shatter pressure points and exploit weakened lines. Illusionary squads of juggernauts charged from the flanks throwing the demons of balance while a bombardment of fiery death rained down upon them.
Dozens of men and women fell but the reckless onslaught of attacks made the enemy pay dearly. Throughout it all The Order chanted, some in line with the prophecy and the old dogma, others less so.
“Let us die for your purpose, die at your will!”
“Let us kill this demon scum!”
“Yeah! Lets fucking kill’em!”
“Lead us against this foe!”
Leo let the chaos of the battle around him drown out the battle chants of The Order’s people all around him and fought his way back to the front. Jak continued his suicidal rampage through the demon ranks and only the bolts of fire from Hedrik and the other mages kept them off his back.
Leo let out a battle roar of his own and leaped into the fray alongside Jak. As he landed beside the Knight Breaker Leo brought his blade down and Smite of the Phoenix crashed down deep into the enemy lines. Leo could hear Jak laughing between grunts and shouts of exertion but he ignored him and spun into his next devastating attack.
With so many people nearby Leo did his best to focus the angle of his attacks without compromising on power. It was difficult but he once again took advantage of Jak’s earth-quaking strikes and activated Burning Ascent once more. Leo felt the twinge of enemy scions attempting to nullify the skill but instead, the skill accelerated as Hedrik arrived.
Hedrik growled and his body tensed as he grasped at something beyond sight with his hands. Lava exploded from the cracks in the earth as Leo had intended but instead of simply falling to shower the shadow fiends it twisted mid-air and a mix of blue and orange fire cascaded across its surface. A moment later the lava had morphed into the body of an enormous serpent. Orange scales outlined by blue flames winded their way toward a snake-like head with burning eyes.
[Fire Elemental | Conjured Entity 90]
Leo gaped for a moment and nearly took an arrow to the face from the lapse in concentration. The one who fired the arrow didn’t live longer than a couple of seconds as the Fire Elemental turned its massive head toward the lines of shadow fiends and hissed. The sound was incredibly intimidating but the effect on the demons was much worse. Dozens of them simply burst into flame, dying on the spot while others writhed in agony all around them.
Hedrik looked terribly pale, his eyes bloodshot but he kept his gaze locked on the Fire Elemental as it began to slither its fiery bulk across the lines of demons. Scions quickly attempted to return to the front line to control it but nothing they did had any effect.
Leo chuckled, he knew Hedrik good but- Something dark arced through the air into the Fire Elemental’s head-
*Boom!*
Leo’s feet went out from under him as the world exploded into a blinding dome of blue and orange fire. He grunted as the fire burned his skin before he could summon his barrier but managed to do so before he came tumbling to a halt nearly fifty feet from where he started. The Fire Elemental’s form was gone, replaced by a huge charred crater.
Jak had been thrown clear by the explosion as well but Hedrik lay by the edge of the crater, his clothes still burning from the intense heat. Leo was about to rush to grab the man before the shadow fiends recovered from the explosion but Jak’s hand on his shoulder stopped him, “Leave him! Our true foe has joined the fray.”
Leo followed the man’s gaze to the remains of a black hammer in the center of the crater, its form slowly breaking apart and streamers of shadow twirling through the air to coalesce in the fist of a figure now standing at the opposite edge of the crater.
[Seeker Shadow Lord | Abyssal Spawn 158]
The demon’s presence dominated the entire area so thoroughly that Leo hadn’t even noticed its approach but now it stood less than a hundred feet away, its head tilted slightly to the side and its jaw bone hanging open grotesquely. Now that it was close Leo could see that its skull was covered in hundreds of tiny cracks that leaked shadow forming a kind of halo above the demon’s head.
“Two rares and an epic… All pathetically weak for your level…” The Shadow Lord’s hammer locked into existence and he moved. Fast, too fast. Leo barely got a chance to focus his eyes on the demon before it surged toward him with enough speed and power to shatter the earth beneath its feet and collapse the edge of the crater.
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Leo’s eyes widened as the hammer came toward him without even having time to lift his arms. Suddenly he was hammered to the ground from the side and he got a glimpse of Jak’s hammer rising sluggishly to meet the demon’s. The two clashed and Jak's scream tore through the sound tearing metal before he vanished with a spray of blood and broken bone. Jak flew over a hundred feet, his body tearing a furrow across the ground before he slammed into the front line of The Order.
The Shadow Lord stood over Leo, his hammer rising slowly overhead, “Pathetic even for mortal standards… Now die.”
Leo fought through the shock and roared as he planted both his hands on the ground. A pillar of lava exploded from the ground beneath his feet smashing against him just as his barrier appeared propelling him upward into the sky. Normally he would have expected the demon to be dragged along with him but the mighty form of The Shadow Lord didn’t move in the slightest causing the flow of lava to twist strangely throwing Leo out to the side.
Leo pivoted as he came away from the pillar of lava and hacked his sword down harshly releasing another Smite of the Phoenix. The lava parted with a wave of The Shadow Lord’s hammer in time for the sphere of destruction to slam into the place it was standing. One struck home but strength and speed allowed it to easily evade the rest. Its armor glowed red from his skill as it came forward but as it charged across the ground and leaped into the air Leo couldn’t help but feel that the thing was smiling.
Its hammer struck and Leo screamed breathlessly as it shattered his breastplate and crushed his lower ribs. Leo plummeted to the ground shattering the earth in a twenty-foot radius before being slammed deeper, his arms snapping like twigs. His eyes flickered as a red sheen covered them and his status blinked at the edge of his vision.
Leo’s mind wandered as something withdrew its boot from his chest and his eyes found the glowing red moon above, “Quotz? Did I walk the wrong path?” An instant later something flickered above and a chuckle rose up in Leo’s throat. Kalum took beatings worse than this when he was unascended.
With an agonizing breath and a groan, Leo dragged himself to his knees using his tortured abdomen more than his broken arms. When he looked at the Shadow Lord still glaring down at him he realized it was speaking but its words just wouldn’t register in Leo’s mind. Something inside him twisted painfully but Leo kept his gaze steady on The Shadow Lord. Several times along the journey, seeing about Kalum’s return, Leo questioned the wisdom of bringing the man back.
At first, he had followed purely because Melisia and Dalen had wanted it and he wouldn’t leave them alone within a cult he had little to no knowledge of. Leo had liked the man but not so much that he would do all that they had done for that alone. But after what he had seen on The Fractured Path and later at the Sceleti village his mind had been changed. Things were changing, the world was changing, and not for the better.
The Shadow Lord raised its hammer again but this time Leo spat in its face. The Shadow Lord exploded into a raging storm of shadow and smoke but before it brought its hammer down it froze as what Leo had felt more than seen arrived.
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Jaliete groaned as she clamped her nose to stop the flow of blood and helped up the pale and shocked Volan who had sat down and clamped his hands over his temples, no doubt feeling the same terrible headache she was feeling.
“Come, we must organize the healers and save who we can,” Jaliete said as she gingerly reactivated her Mind’s Eye skill.
Volan nodded, and waved a glowing hand over his body but froze as he glanced at Elendria, “Elendria? What’s wrong?!”
Jaliete turned to see the older woman standing with both hands upraised as if trying to squeeze something between them. She groaned and her body began to shake violently, “Astral Falls… His will… I can’t- I can’t hold him…”
“What!” Jaliete shouted.
Elendria groaned again, “He is changing his path! No!” The air around Elendria snapped with the sound of a broken lute string and her head jerked back savagely, blood spraying from her eyes, ears, and nose before she fell bonelessly to the ground.
“Gods… What have we done?...”
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The puny warden crumbled as she should as The Slayer tore the space around him on his path toward his next battle. He heard her cry even from here and his soul rejoiced even if he did not. Finally reaching the dark space his will speared it and his body and mind contorted. Like the ripple in The Place Between this place resisted his will but it would fail. To sunder was his purpose.
The gray space of transit exploded as he tore himself free and the dark sky of the lost world expanded before him. His wrath began to fall once more but it would hold for the time being. Below he saw two forces corpses yet to fall clashing, volleys of magical and physical destruction coursed through the sky to tear and burn the flesh of the living, and warriors clashed with demons of metal and shadow invigorated by the power of a lone demon that pulsed with dark abyssal mana.
Much of this information was pointless to The Slayer as its world was a near featureless gray, a gray corrupted by the presence of those who fought below him. Spheres of blue marbled with various colors battled sickly things of black, purple, and green. All were wrong, all would end. But souls of blue did not choose their fate. Did not choose to be broken.
The Slayer brought his feet beneath him as the ground rushed to meet him. The ground shattered and an air of fear clamped down on the souls of the broken around him. Whimpers of sudden fear broke out from both forces as his gaze panned the arrayed corpses.
The expressions of the fearful weak disgusted him but their continued fighting and killing was in line with his purpose. The Slayer turned to look at the large form of The Shadow Lord and the spittle that trickled down its skull. The broken one of flame had done it as The Slayer fell. The Slayer turned his gaze to the pitiful thing barely clinging to life expecting it to flinch or turn its head as the broken tended to do but instead, it stared back at him.
Then something caught The Slayer’s eye, a speck of crimson flickered across the broken one’s soul. Both the broken one and the demon were speaking but The Slayer ignored both of them. Words were meaningless compared to his purpose. These broken fools wished to be a weapon…
On this one occasion, they would be given a chance.