Sparks flashed as Thanaton’s blade struck Vulcan’s obsidian glass claws. Akamori landed on the smooth cavern floor in a slide that he augmented with a boost of air magic to avoid more flaming spears erupting from the ground. One tore through his environmental armor, shredding the black leather as he twisted to avoid the worst of the damage. He glanced back quickly and sighed.
“Come on, man, I’m not made of money here.”
At least, not after he’d bought the squad’s contracts out, anyway.
You are too distracted! Thanaton hissed. The blade’s hilt thrummed in his hand like a metal pipe vibrating from the impact. Without the spell armor he’d lost in his fight with Lucinda, he lacked for all the convenient ui features like the heads-up display, letting him know what his AP and health levels were at. Now he had to go based on raw instinct.
Crutches and weakness. You should have been training these skills from the start.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Akamori grumbled.
Vulcan fired another magma blast that heated a large sphere on the back of the cavern wall. Smoke and steam started to fill the cavern and Akamori narrowed his eyes as a large claw emerged from the smokey haze, nearly catching him.
“How come that one wasn’t telegraphed?!”
Your senses, such as they are, can’t predict everything. You’ve barely begun tapping into your Divine Sight. And this is getting filtered through your Blessing of Light. In time, you’ll no longer need the Blessing to anticipate attacks. The stronger you develop your senses, the deeper into the future you’ll be able to see, and more accurately. Morwen’s already far surpassed this plateau. And Amara has a very specialized form of Divine Sight in the form of her Maetrayopts . Both are far superior to you. You have a lot of ground to recover.
Akamori surged forward, slashing his nodachi length spell blade through several thrown flaming spears before leaping back again to avoid a magma column that erupted from the stone floor. When he landed, he sniffed the cooked leather of his boot and glanced down. The toe of his boot smoldered with a few remaining embers. A few years ago he might have flailed trying to put it out. Now? He just ignored it.
Vulcan slowly circled him, standing easily three to four meters taller. The icon wasn’t a true souled being, but it possessed a god’s raw power. Immense quantities of divine fire. And his corruptive influence would threaten the elves in the capital.
Vulcan surged forward, meeting Akamori’s charge as the two slashed at each other rapidly. Sparks sprayed freely as talon and blade raked against each other. Akamori used his air magic to give himself another shove in the back, gliding under a hand large enough for him to make a snow angel on the palm. Or maybe an ash angel? Something like that.
Popping back up to his feet, he dragged Thanaton along the flesh on Vulcan’s forearm. The arm sprayed hot magma blood that sizzled on the stone floor of the cave as it cooled. Well, that was a helluva self defense mechanism. Blood that injures too.
“Why is everything in this world always trying to kill me?”
Name three things.
“Lucinda, Ominek, and the wildlife.”
I set the bar too low…
“Yes. You did. Now shut up and murder icons with me.”
The blade thrummed in what he associated as grumbling or pouting by now. The void reaper and his spell blade glided in, using his air magic to dodge Vulcan’s attacks, positioning for a devastating counter when Vulcan roared. A shockwave of power and air slammed into Akamori hurling him back. He tumbled and rolled in a heap until he sprang back up to his feet.
Akamori drew in a quick breath and let it out slowly. His aura contracted tightly, almost becoming a hard shell of aether. Then he flew forward, his grip on Thanaton tightened and the spell blade slashed through the air in a whirlwind of attacks. A flurry of razor thin blades of air hurled towards Vulcan. The front of the attacks crashed into a wall of fire, but the rest plowed through the openings to land. Several gouges and furrows carved into Vulcan’s flesh.
Molten rock sloughed out the wounds rimmed by flames. Vulcan retreated several paces, and a large orange cone appeared from its mouth. Akamori wanted to check his soul gauge and growled, realizing he didn’t have it available in his ui. However, he could tell that he instinctively knew he had enough charge for one void shroud. Could he lay on enough punishment to make it count?
“It’ll have to.” He whispered.
He reached down deep, found the trigger for his void shroud, and activated it. Umbral aether violently erupted around him. When it faded into his aura, he stood in a ragged black cloak wearing semi chitinous armor holding a large black scythe made of pure void crystal. Vulcan wasted no time as it unleashed its attack. A massive blast of super heated fire magic in a large cone. The blast swept over Akamori obscuring him in a curtain of flame.
When the flames cleared, a translucent black dragon wing extended from Akamori’s cloak, shielding him. The effect was the same as having a divine void barrier erected in the shape of a dragon’s wing blocking in front of him. Slowly, it unfurled and retreated into his back.
While I can block attacks of that magnitude, it is unwise to waste the power casually, Bahumet counseled.
“Yeah. But now we have Vulcan doubting. Besides, you have twice the AP I have.”
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Akamori could sense it in the Icon’s aura. The proud, arrogant certainty it would prevail had been broken. It doubted now. It knew instinctively what he was, even if it wasn’t consciously aware of it. He was the end. He was its end.
Yes, well, there’s no need to use it frivelously.
Akamori grinned. The deeper his connection with Bahumet grew, the more he could call upon that reserve. But he had plenty of power of his own yet. His most costly attack so far had been his Wind Blade Hurricane. Time to change it up and use an aspect that was unsympathetic to flame. Thanaton purred at the thrill of a new kill.
The reaper dashed in, spending the points to teleport further than the standard 2 meters. He was down a third of his AP already. But he’d gained valuable knowledge and had a plan. Thanton’s sword blade was now encased in a crystal rod that led to the scythe blade. He had enough power for five attacks in his Void Shrouded form.
He opened with a Void Reaper Slash. Thanton cleaved all of reality temporarily. Air, space, time, all of it merely ceased to be. A large slash across Vulcan’s shoulder, and a vast portion of it simply no longer existed. Erased as though never there. The system began to slowly knit the tear in reality shut, but Vulcan could not regenerate the wound without expending a great amount of power.
“Not enough, hmm?” Akamori mused.
Very well then. He would unmake this false god. He followed with a Reapers Judgement, a blast of raw Void magic that slammed down like a column onto Vulcan. The Icon resisted, roaring in defiance as it raised a barrier of raw, divine aura. It blunted the attack, but it didn’t completely stop it. Three left.
Flaming spears blasted from the ceiling and floor of the cave. Akamori blinked forward and left a void portal opened behind in case he needed to retreat again, spending 2 more points of aether. Thanaton whistled through the air as Akamori used another Void Reaper’s Slash. This time across Vulcan’s legs, removing large chunks of its thighs. A flaming massive hand with obsidian claws slammed down into the ground where Akamori had just stood.
Vulcan howled in rage as Akamori emerged from the void portal just out of reach again only to trigger another Void Reapers Judgement. Vulcan’s aura flickered and wavered. Just a little more… He had one final charge on his shroud.
“Time to end this.”
He held his palm out. Time for the big finish. Reality seemed to gasp before a massive bomb of entropic energies detonated right in front of Vulcan. Everything seemed to suck inward, as if filling some gap that was just created before a massive blast erupted, violently dismantling everything it touched. The attack created a perfectly carved sphere in the cave as smooth as carved stone. His final attack.
“Entropy.”
The void glass encasing Thanaton cracked and crumbled until the gleaming blade of the nodachi emerged like a butterfly from its chrysalis. It gleamed gently in the soft red glow of the gathered aether of the former icon. Akamori extended a hand, and the power rushed into him. Divine red aether boiled through his body until it pooled in his breast.
In his mindscape, a new crystal appeared. A new key in his soul shackle. More of Bahumet’s power freed.
Our bond grows as the cage between us lessens. You are one step closer to reclaiming your past in order to preserve the System and the future.
He glanced down and noticed that Thanaton was now wreathed in a soft void flame. Black and red fire coated the sword. It thrummed eagerly.
I grow stronger! As you slay divine beings, we can ingest of their power and grow stronger. As a war god, combat is your proving ground. Our crucible.
Motes of void aether billowed off of him as his Void Shroud ceased. The black chitenous armor and void cloak evaporated into nothingness, leaving behind the tattered remains of his Brotherhood environmental armor. The black jacket was now ragged and the one’s polished shoulder plates wrecked. He was a little sad since he’d liked the look. Perhaps he’d fashion a custom spell from the Adventurer’s Guild.
“Something in blue maybe.”
Thanaton and Bahumet voiced their approval. He turned to the mouth of the cave and flew out of the sphere he’d carved out. He expected to return to the boys waiting for him going mad with bored. What he didn’t expect was to come back to a pitched fire fight with a raving mad lunatic beast tribe. He sighed.
“Yeah, that tracks.”
Things changed though when the squad as him fly out of the cave and slam into the nearest Katatska. It yelped as he rammed Thanaton into it, skewering the dark fured horned cat. It raked claws across his skin, but he resisted the attack easily. A quick spin and he flung it off, hurling the body into a crowd of its peers. He scanned them quickly with his senses, letting his divine aura billow out into the entire area. It blanketed everyone within a hundred and fifty meters. Like a giant invisible boot pressing down on their chest. Anyone unfamiliar with him would have been incapable of movement. His raw will holding them fast.
“I’m going to say this once, and only once. Your false god is dead. By my hand. If you have need of a god? Then worship me. If you have grievance? Then pray to me. If you need power? Then take covenant with me. You are a strong people and I would prefer not to end you. But make no mistake, I will if I must. Now choose your fate. Do I erase you all from existence? Or do you become my people?”
Even if they wanted to worship you, the Icon has tainted their aether. They are mindless thralls to it, and without its presence, they are mere husks. Bahumet cautioned.
At the dragon’s words, he could see it. Katatska’s aether was off. Wrong somehow. Like it had been pushed askew. But he could fix it. He knew instinctively he could. Closing his eyes, he reached out and touched reality, finding the flaw in the System, and nudged the Katatska’s aether, all of them collectively, back into proper alignment. He unmade them as flaws, and remade them as free thinking people.
When he opened his eyes, so too did the Katatska, reborn as a new people. His people.