Summoning
Seraphina the Icon of Light, a false goddess raised by the Seraphin crossed blades with Akamori. He parried and blocked what he could, and refused to yield. Yet despite his strong initial showing, Seraphina seemed to get stronger with each blow. Sensing his confusion, Thanaton chimed in.
She’s drawing on the worship of her corrupted followers. Feeding on the power they provide her. You will not win a battle of attrition with her unless you destroy the Seraphin completely.
“Not an option!” He said.
They’d finally exchanged enough blows his aether gauge had filled enough he could start using some of his avatar strikes. Seraphina’s initial fears were melting away as fast as Akamori’s parity with her strength and speed. The Icon beat him back to the edge of the branch he’d slashed apart, forcing him to jump back and off of it. Just before he fell away, he channeled a short teleportation spell, opening a small void rift behind the Icon and used a Soul Harvest attack. Blue energy drained from the aether gauge as the Soul gauge filled like water draining from valve to another.
Seraphina turned, punting Akamori so hard, he slammed into the large double doors that fed into the level of the tree. The impact forced the air from his lungs. He collapsed to his knees, coughing blood out in gasps of pain that resonated down to his forearms. Flashes of light signaled multiple portals being opened across the area. Small square gateways of radiant golden light.
“My children.” Seraphina called out. “Come to me. Heed your lady of light! We must defend our realm!”
Akamori slowly pushed himself to his legs, doing his best to keep the shaking from being visible. Pain radiated from his body as though he were a struck bell humming his tune. Seraphina leveled an elegant finger straight at him. A scowl etching her beautiful face into wicked anger.
“Destroy the filthy void sent.”
As the Seraphin thralls approached in a charge, Akamori’s crystal glowed and pulsed with magic. It wasn’t his, but it welled up around him protectively. Glowing magical rings appeared on the surrounding ground. Several flashes of light later, and his squad stepped out to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
“Heard you needed some help to clean up the trash in here.” Sirsir said.
“How?” Akamori said through a wince.
Yasiin channeled a light bolt that splashed into Akamori’s body. The golden orb dulled pain and mended bruises and eased strain. Yasiin followed with a regenerative spell of healing water, giving Akamori a long term weak heal over time.
“It would seem your mysterious benefactor that shields you from the Icon would see us protected to.”
At seeing Akamori’s squad mates portal in Seraphina’s face, twisted in hatred. “Vile filth! They seek to contaminate our sanctum!” She held out a hand and Akamori saw the spell she was casting. Some kind of blanket binding. His own hand shot up in response to its own will. When Seraphina’s corruptive aether flowed out, Akamori shielded the squad like a large ward. As he did, his crystal glowed, and the squad all received a weaker blessing, like his own. The effect was the same, but these were not permanent.
Seeing the crimson-haired Demi god block her spell, Seraphina went into a wild rage. Cohesion in the thralls evaporated like a creek in a desert. Walking strides quickly turned into blood thirsty sprinting. The squad all took a few steps back and formed a defensive line.
“Treat them just like you would the shackled thralls of Ominek.” Morwen called.
“So, Target practice then?” Yasiin asked cooly.
“Hells yeah.” Sirsir said with a grin as he conjured his heavy spell cannon.
There was no order to wait or fire. Everyone here was a target of opportunity. This was a culling now. None of the Seraphin could live normal lives having their aether so thoroughly corrupted. Putting them down was an act of mercy.
Spell bolts erupted from the squad, the violence staggering to all but the seasoned vet. Though together for only a short time, this mage squad had weather crucible after crucible. While the Icon was no pushover, she was no Ominek. Black crystal grew along Thanaton’s blade like ink dyed ice. Soon a wicked scythe blade grew out of the crystal and Akamori spun the weapon, oddly comfortable with it since he was a former farmer.
Akamori surged forward and Sala fell in at his side, a golden aura and stone skin bursting to life on the war primal. Sala continued straight and Akamori slowed, letting the private take the lead. Seraphin soon piled in on Sala, who swung massive hands, batting the small feather covered Seraphin about like insignificant gnats. Akamori twirled Thanaton and stabbed the bottom of the scythe down, channeling his Death’s Shadow ability.
A wave of rolling void magic rippled out, splashing over squads worth of Seraphin. Now marked with his debuff, any attacks he dealt would hit for extra damage. He went to work, looking to rebuild his aether gauge again. Each strike he landed, a tenth of his gauge would fill. What followed was something between a dance and meditation.
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He flowed under a lunging grab, positioning his leg for a sweep, and used Thanaton to knock the offending Seraphin backward over his leg. Flowing from this, he transitioned into a rising diagonal slash with the black crystal scythe. Two halves of a Seraphin peeled apart as Akamori turned, spinning the scythe overhead before bringing it back down in a control cut that brought the crescent-shaped blade down through a seraphin’s chest cavity.
The rest of the squad contributed their share of work to thinning out the horde of Seraphin thralls. A steady stream of fire bolts and cannon blasts rocked the massive mob. Yasmin’s precision fire cored target after target. Morwen and Amara controlled the flow of the fight by calling movements and issuing counter orders. Akamori’s sweeping attacks paired with his avatar strikes charged his gauges enough that when the time came, he could focus burst on Seraphina. Sala continued commanding the enemy’s attention and ensuring his squad maters weren’t overrun.
Can you sense that? She has weakened. Without her army of minions to worship her, she is but an empty hollow shell. Little more than a container for power.
The squad pushed the attack, with Yasiin targeting gaps in her armor for maximum effect. Sala continued to hammer away at the Icon’s armor and block her attacks. Sirsir carried hilariously large guns that defied gravity that roared rounds down range. Morwen wove spells where she could and advised the squad to evade attacks when needed. Amara danced in and out, landing disabling strikes where she could.
The Icon was not without her own skill. She blocked most of their ranged attacks effortlessly with a shield. She batted aside Sala’s hammer fists with ease. Seraphina spun in a flutter of wings, razor sharp feathers slicing out. Sparks scraped off of Sala’s stone skin as the others dove free of the attack. The towering false goddess held a hand out at Akamori and unleashed a blinding burst of light that shot out in a beam, washing him away in a torrent of plasma that seared and cooked stone and wood alike.
A portal opened behind Seraphina and Akamori fell out of it as a cloak of pure void magic materialized around him. He enshrouded his arms and legs in black chitinous armor, brandishing Thanaton before bringing the massive scythe down in a wicked slash across Seraphina’s back. Seraphina moved to retaliate, but a strong right hook from Sala redirected her attention. The Icon punted Sala with her shield, giving the primal a divine shield bash.
“Keep up the pressure, she’s weakening!” Morwen shouted above the fray.
Yasiin hit the Icon in the knee with a void bolt, pulverizing the join in a mess. The Icon lost balance, flailing wildly with her sword as she fired off another blast of light magic that cooked a hole in the canopy of the trees. Sirsir planted both feet, mixing the magics he had access to in his spell cannon. “Stand back, I’ve got something I’ve been wanting to try!” But when he fired, only a jet of steam blasted out in a quick cloud. His face reddened, and he tossed the evaporating conjured cannon aside, focusing on his heavy spell machinegun.
“Fuck it. Tried and true to the rescue.”
The machine gun got into a shouting match with Seraphina, and Seraphina lost. Sirsir belted the false goddess with a steady stream of flame rounds, and while the Icon’s defenses were formidable? She withered under the sustained assault of the squad. Cuts, burns, bruises pockmarked her perfect white feathered exterior. Her gold armor’s polished surfaces now had many scratches, scuffs, and outright damage.
“I will destroy your souls for defiling my halls!” Seraphina bellowed.
Akamori sprinted forward and brought the black scythe Thanaton across Seraphina’s torso armor. Sparks and golden blood splashed the ground, and he brought the scythe back again. Seraphina slashed with her golden rapier and he blinked back, falling out of a small black portal in reality. His eyes blazed red and blurred forward in a hurry.
Golden spears of radiant energy exploded from the ground in a wide circle around the Icon. Akamori barely evaded them, suffering deep stabbing injuries on his shoulders as he continued to close in. Akamori blasted his air magic beneath him to vault high into the air and twisted along the currents around Seraphina’s rapier like a high jumper in a competition. Twisting, he hurled Thanaton, amplifying his strength with his new fire magic. The scythe whipped free of his hand like a runaway saw blade, burying itself in Seraphina’s side.
Glancing around, he spotted a downed branch of elder wood and sprinted over, picking it up with a grunt. Elder wood was strong as steel and featured prominently in many Eryn spell ship designs, lending them a living, natural feel. Racing forward, he swung the massive branch, catching Seraphina in the leg, knocking her down with a loud crack.
Akamori spun, swinging the branch as he would Thanaton, and brought the elder wood trunk across Seraphina’s face. Golden blood splashed across the stone tile floor. The false goddess coughed and sputtered as she struggled to get back to her feet. He jumped up and grabbed Thanaton’s grip, planted both feet on the Icon’s chest, and tore his scythe free of her body just as his void cloak dispersed. The black crystal crumbled into dust, revealing Thanaton’s sword form.
“My children…” the Icon pleaded. “Their voices are silent. Why do they not sing to me?”
Akamori’s expression was grim as he stepped forward to face her. “You destroyed them. They summoned you for protection, and you destroyed them.”
“They were mine. You were trying to take them from me.”
“No. You threw them away like sacrifices. And now you have nothing.”
“Foul creature. Spreading darkness wherever you stride. This tree sang with glorious light, and now it falls silent and dark because of you.”
Akamori didn’t respond to her words any longer. She was right, after all. It meant setting aside the fact that she’d aetherically corrupted and enthralled an entire elder tree’s worth of Seraphin. An act akin to murdering an entire city. Or enslaving them and sending them to their deaths. They had forced him to be the harbinger of their end.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it had to come to this. I never wanted to come here to destroy. Leaving you alone wasn’t an option, though. It’s nothing personal. It just is what it is.”
Seraphina glared at him, her perfect face marred with bruises and cuts. One of her ocean blue eyes was bloodshot and swollen. He twirled Thanaton and rammed it home through Seraphina’s chest. She gasped, and her eyes closed finally as the last vestige of life drained from her. A moment later, her form dissolved into motes of aether that glittered and glowed. The last remnants of the Icon fluttered away like a cloud of blue fireflies.