CHAPTER 494
BEAUTIFUL LIGHT
Titus led a ten-thousand strong army toward the left-end mountain range that cradled the mountain pass and the valley standing dipped beside it. They moved rapidly, bounding in a wide circle as to go unspotted, yet still with great haste. He wasn’t certain how long the vanguard force of the Pass would hold onto; the discrepancy in numbers was too large, and though the end-game of the battle would be decided by the powers much larger than them, if they faltered here, millions of innocents would lose their lives. Their role still mattered immensely, of that Titus was certain, and they needed to complete it.
He donned a resplendent, silver-cast armor with crimson tinges and the carved sigil of Empyrion on his right breast, his helm open wholly upfront, revealing the expression of determination. Holding onto a thick claymore, he severed the rising bushes and crowded trees, opening up the path others behind him followed. All of those behind him at least had some experience with war and, more importantly, were among the best when it came to static, long-range bombardment. Myveen’s and his jobs weren’t to flank themselves, but to protect these twenty thousand men and women from falling.
A series of bright lights flashed above, causing him to glance upward; he saw Lady Hannah battling away with the Descent, carving away at their numbers, as his lips curled up into a faint smile. That woman, he mused, was as enigmatic, if not more, as the Empyrean himself. Though silent and unassuming, Titus had long since learned not to ignore her. The Descent, apparently, hadn’t.
Refocusing back onto his goal, he began the charge up the mountain; there was a decently-sized set of platforms midway up one of the mountains that could be used as the high ground from which they could commence the bombardment. Though they themselves would be exposed to fire, it was the best they could do with the limited time and options they had.
Though it took them less than two minutes to reach the designated spots, it felt like eternity; Lady Hannah and the members of Descent had vanished from the sky, Lady Ella and Lord Empyrean had been swallowed in the swath of darkness in the world well above their own, and the central vanguard army was already being pushed back. Amadeel worked his hardest, with the help of Cain and Alex, to prolong it as much as possible, though it was clear that they would eventually be overwhelmed through numbers alone. Members of Descent, those of higher numbers, mixed in with the old cultivators of the Holy Grounds, which made up a rather terrifying force of their own.
As they began settling along the set of platforms on a looping slope, Titus glanced to the opposite end and saw that Myveen had already begun bombardment. Balls of fire were looped into arcs, raining down upon the enemy’s forces. Most were blocked, absorbed or deflected, though a few found their way through, breaking a few ranks. Nothing that could change the tide of the battle, however.
“FIRST LINE, FIRE!!” he ordered immediately as he draped himself in Qi, taking to the sky, drawing lines in front of him and creating a makeshift, small array that would allow him to perceive movement within a specific region more precisely.
He could feel the Qi behind him churn for a moment before being unleashed; fire, ice, earth, shadows, light itself beamed past him, directed downward. There was roughly two miles of difference in height; he wished they could have gone farther up, but it was too scattered and narrowed, so this would have to do. He took a deep breath as he watched several Generals and Commanders of the Holy Grounds relay orders while pointing at him.
Over ten ranks of soldiers and cultivators broke off from their Reserve Force right then, most taking straight to the sky while a few ran along the lines of earth, sides of the mountain, draped in shadows, beyond difficult to perceive.
Titus swiped his claymore, one shimmering with golden glory, crafted by Lino himself, in a wide arc; a tempest of lightning burned out, bolts breaking through the membrane of reality, striking at a small group, killing over twenty figures in a single bout. He immediately spun, dragging the sword up and drawing a full circle with a simple wrist movement -- a circular array lit up in front of him, one that dragged the incoming bolts of fire directly toward the center whereupon he sucked them into the tip of the blade. The golden color grew warmer, brighter, as he swung the sword in a full downward arc.
A gash blasted off, ripping open the void and settings its edges ablaze; fire cascaded downwards through the layers of reality, extending into a massive circle, burning like the sun. Upon collision with the ground, it formed a massive crater, one that continued to burn well after the impact, consuming nearly a hundred souls in a single bout.
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Some attacks, however, he couldn’t block; a few trickles of lightning, fire and shadow found their way past him, felling a few soldiers behind him. Gritting his teeth, he cried out from his lungs, his armor shimmering as another claymore appeared in his left hand, identical to the first -- holding both, he felt as though he was holding the heavens themselves. He began moving erratically, unpredictably, snapping from one end of things to the other, spinning like a whirlwind, unleashing the storm of desolation, raining hell upon all those who dared meet his blades.
Defend!!
His mind screamed at him as he caught a glimpse of the toppling bodies falling off the edge, some still whole yet colding, others disemboweled.
Defend!!!
A breathtakingly bright spearlight punched at his gut, finding its way through the binds of the armor, causing him to vomit a mouthful of blood, temporarily paralyzing him. Another hundred fell to their doom, though the bombardments still continued. Fire, ice, earth, wind, water, shadow, light, life, death, all rained from the high skies. Those people up there, Titus realized, knew what they were signing up for. They never expected to return with their lives.
As shouldn’t you! Defend!!!
He churned Qi through his pathways, his Singularity beating in the rhythm of his heart. Golden light burst form his seams, blades of resplendent lightning crashing against the cold steel, turning him into a burning sun. He sped up madly, burning through the spacetime like a firefly; now here a moment later there, beheading, begutting, disemboweling, slicing, thrusting, killing. Blood fell from the high-skies like rain, his figure a monument of terror. Yet, two hundred more fell.
DEFEND!!!
The sky above him split open into thousands of tiny slits, each spitting out bolts of golden lightning; like little worms they locked onto the rising attackers, piercing through their eyes like needles.
PUSH!!
A sharp sickle of shadows pierced his thigh, paralyzing his left leg immediately, causing him to momentarily lose balance, flipping over. Even when falling upside down, he quickly came to and swathed the two claymores in a wide circle, a shockwave of blinding light spreading out with him as the epicenter, devouring everything in its wake. Burnt corpses fell one after another, yet a thousand more fell. Fewer and fewer stood perched on the platforms, fewer and fewer attacks falling down. The vanguard army managed to regain its footing, even pushing back temporarily, but if they fell here, all that work, all the sacrifices, it would all have been for naught.
NO! DEFEND!!!
He gritted his teeth so tightly his gums began to bleed, the teeth themselves cracking in his mouth, pieces spat out alongside the projectile of black blood. Regaining the balance, he stormed upward, resplendently alight, illuminated by Will that shifted into a world-bending Avatar -- a lion with golden mane, with eyes representing two suns, shuffled from his wounded back, its roar bellowing out into the ever-nothing, deafening, shaking and quaking the world.
“NOT FOR CHAOS,” he shouted from his heart, swinging swords without a pause, sending thousands upon thousands of blades of light downward, upward and about, some passing through the attackers, raining down upon the central charging force. “NOT FOR ME, NOT FOR HIM, NOT FOR HER, NOT FOR NO ONE!!!” he continued shouting, his voice setting the hearts of the few thousand remaining behind him ablaze, their rate of attack increasing. Elements began combining into the creational unity, beams of desolation consuming everything in their wake. The sheer quantity of Qi stabilized, turning into the faintly-fading white mist that shrouded the mountain they were on. “BUT FOR EVERYONE!! FOR EVERYTHING!! FIGHT! GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT, FIGHT TILL YOU RUN OUT OF BREATH!!”
A crescendo of light spewed out of him in waves, devouring the encroaching darkness; like the sun falling from the sky, he beamed into a small legion of two thousand, hundreds of arms of light alongside hundreds of blades slicing away from him, mirage after mirage yet each so real it cut in a single strike. For a moment, there was nothing but light and his roar, nothing but the arched beam of ashen-gray light that looped over him toward the earth down below, nothing but the brilliance of the stand that withstood the siege of thousands.
Titus’ eyes veered back, where he saw the trailers, his heart sinking. Those that ran up the mountain walls, the shadows, reached the temporarily plateau, their swift movements bringing them into the ranks of the remaining soldiers. One by one, gashes appeared on their throats, their bodies limping, eyes turning blank, a gray puff of smoke bursting out of them as the last sign of life. One by one they fell, and each struck at Titus’ heart stronger than any wound he’d received so far. In less than two breaths, the remaining soldiers fell; ten thousand brave, fearless, undaunted souls lay cold, some still perched on the cliffs, some somewhere at the bottom of the mountain. Some still whole, some in pieces. No matter how bright the light shone, the cruelty always persist. The pain always returns. No, he thought as he felt a cold shiver trace along his throat. He will eradicate it, his eyes closed, his breath drawing shallow, his body going numb. He will free us, his mind slowed, the world in front of him blending and blurring. He will... redeem us...
The light vanished, sucked back into nothingness. A charred body fell slowly through the graced wind, drawing its last, elongated breath. A cascade of memories flashed through him at that last moment, his lips barely managing to curl up into a faint smile. A tranquil, accepting smile.
“No... he... already has...” his voice trickled out one last time, forever endowed in the wind, entombed, meant to wrestle for all eternity. Then, his light died.