Archons material bodies were made entirely from carbon, and were mostly unnecessary. They were spiritual beings created by Ialdaboath, and while their powers were similar to the mythical angels of Earth, that was where the similarities ended. The spiritual energy that made up the true existence of the Archon’s ranged from that of a weak god to equivalent to the weakest of Demiurges, and the greater Archons had helped create the universe under the command of Ialdaboath.

The greater Archon before them studied Telos with dispassionate eyes.

“You are in defiance of the will of the Overgod, submit yourself to his mercy or be destroyed. You lack the power to defeat Esmunon, Harbinger of the Silent Storms. I will no longer hold back now that you are present,” the blue-white glowing sack of carbon warned Telos.

Its words still echoed when Telos appeared in front of it, her fist demolished carbon head and upper body it had constructed in a single blow, before black energies expanded outward from her fist inside the Archon’s body. Black tendrils of the Void consumed its spiritual essence, the immense forces of order were slow to deplete before the power of the Void. Like dense hardwood, the forces of the Void were a slow-burn destruction against the powerful archon. That just made Telos smile, and push her left hand into the spiritual body of the Archon.

Frigid light engulfed Telos’ left hand as rays of Ohr Ein Sof filtered from her Third Eye of Ein Sof across the battlefield. Coalescing forms of additional lesser archons vanished before they could solidify, and the invisible spell forms of the greater Archon’s conjuration magic vanished in wisps of displaced energy.

“You should have done that before I got here, but Kallos interrupted you every time, didn’t she? Isn’t arrogance supposed to be a sin?” Telos let her mouth run, while she grasped ahold of the essence of Esmunon, and tried to destroy it with the power of Ein Sof. Yet it kept slipping her commands, the power of the Infinite seemed to have a mind of its own, and while it seemed happy to destroy the spells of Esmunon, it wouldn’t destroy the archon itself.

“You have trials to surpass before the power of Ohr Ein Sof submits to you. Your arsenal is large enough to not need it for this pathetic construct,” Reverie advised.

“So much for the easy way,” Telos laughed and released her attempts to control Ein Sof, and instead swallowed her left hand in the power of the Ethereal, and the power of the Transformative Flame of Eternal Becoming.

The Archon, incapable of fear, asked questions.

“How did you utilize the Boundless Light? What is that abomination of chaos you call a Flame? Lord Ialdaboa—” Telos activated Existence Oscillation, and danced through reality in a flurry of punches, kicks, stabs, and slashes with fists, talons, and feet. Hundreds of variations of Telos assaulted the Archon in a conflux that defied space-time, the attack resonated impossibly with the Void with it’s utter defiance of the rules of physical reality and contrivance of singular existences in a Cycle. The attack obliterated every atom of carbon that Esmunon bound its spirt too, and then kept going. Without the binding agent of carbon, the impossible barrage landed spiritual blows upon Esmunon. Many cultivators even of the sixth-tier couldn’t land a direct punch upon a spiritual being of an Archon’s caliber, but between the condensed power of the Void and the Origin pushed into every cell of her body, and the divinely forged power of the Astrum Nexus out of soulsteel, Telos could damage purely spiritual beings as easily as physical ones.

When the cascade of blows finished, the ragged blue life-flames of the Archon had dimmed significantly, and then Kallos’ voice finished the incantation to a spell, “Vortex of the Black Maw!”

A vortex of black spiritual wind whipped up around Kallos, flowed around Telos, and struck the Archon. It was as if the Archon were made of sand, and the black wind just picked up pieces of Esmunon and carried them away into the abyss. The Archon’s defenses had been stripped away by the innumerable attacks from Telos, and the blasting dark winds of the Soul Witch ripped free the life essence of the Archon, where upon Telos grasped it firmly in her hand and devoured it.

Power flowed through Telos to her bonded companions, the power of a Greater Archon was split and divided up amongst them. Telos and Kallos enjoyed the rush of power, where as for Bobbi and Arkaziel the power-up and gains helped them wipe out the last of Skadur’s minions, and focus on ripping the lava and rock king apart piece by piece.

“Do you think they need help?” Telos asked Kallos earnestly, while surveying the battle field.

“I think if we don’t finish the tragedy of Skadur and be on our way we’ll have a whole host of Archon’s come down on us. I blocked all of his reinforcement calls, but unless the Archon followed our trail independently, someone either called it here, or sent it here.” Kallos chewed her lower lip as she sought traces of which scenario they faced, and Telos couldn’t help but get distracted by how adorable the blonde looked when she was worried.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

A massive surge of Void from within herself, and then from Arkaziel, drew Telos’ attention back to the fight. “Looks like Arkaziel got impatient,” Telos noted as energy flooded the soul-bonds between the party.

“Did your cat figure out how to use your own power as if you were the one who wielded it, just there?” Kallos asked as power flowed through her.

“I think he did, now he gets power, the satisfaction of killing things, optimized gains for the party, and a pat on the head for being a good boy. I’m surprised he just hasn’t formed a linkage with Bobbi himself yet, they remain the only two without a direct connection among us.”

“Apparently StarMane’s soul-linking to their own species is reserved for marriage, and Bobbi has refused Arkaziel’s advances until he’s proven he more than a ‘doey-eyed noob in the kitchen, and a beast in the sack’.” Kallos couldn’t contain a small giggle at Bobbi’s phrasing.

“Thanks for the help,” Arkaziel said sarcastically as he dropped onto Telos’ shoulder, back to his normal housecat size.

“You had it covered, but we’d best beat feet, Archons might not be the only ones after us.” A silver doorway appeared in the air, on the other side only a beach was visible. No one mentioned its name, they just jumped through, and only when the doorway closed, did Bobbi, in her human form again, ask an important question.

“Why the hell are we at the Shores of Chaos? I assume this is the real thing?” The StarMane’s pink eyes flared with confusion and more than a little anxiety. The power of the real thing was much greater than the false version in the Tower of Aetherius. The rainbow hued shore was littered with debris and detritus from all across known existence, and objects bobbled up to the top of the sea and bobbed back down underneath the chaotic energies of the sea, transforming into something else before popping up again.

“Because this is where it all started, and the last god is Phanes,” Telos said with a smile.

“So, we couldn’t just do it somewhere nice, like a sorrow plain with a cursed magma demon-king, we had to head to one of the most unstable parts of all existence?” Bobbi sighed and just flopped onto the sand. “I hate sand, it gets in my fur.”

“Archons will be extremely weakened by the potent chaos in this place, so none of them are likely to follow here, and it has a tie to Phanes.” Telos tried to be sympathetic to the exhausted cat-dragon-woman, especially when she noticed that the energies within Bobbi had reached a critical mass.

“You’re about to ascend, congratulations,” Telos offered Bobbi an ambrosial fruit, a pyroclast nectarine.

“Thanks,” Bobbi sliced the nectarine into pieces and quickly ate. The look of stress, anxiety, and frustration all faded away to be replaced with anticipation.

“I’ll bring out the tent and we can take a breather,” Telos set about creation of a camp.

“I’ll watch your physical form while you become a Beast Sovereign. Is there any other help you need?” Kallos inquired while Bobbi finished the fruit.

“Nope, if the twerp can do it, so can I. Besides, I’ve got an amazing partner to draw strength from if it gets dicey. Don’t let the idiot draw anything on my face in marker while I’m sleeping,” Bobbi yawned with the words, her eyes closing despite her best efforts to keep them open.

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Kallos assured her, and stroked her hair.

“Tell Tiamat I said hi,” Arkaziel chimed in, as he walked over and sat next to Bobbi on the sand.

“Tiamat? You idiot, my clan is tied to Bahamut,” Bobbi’s insult were the last words before she succumbed to slumber, her pink feline eyes hidden.

“Oh, I guess it never occurred to me any StarManes were actually part of Bahamut’s line, we really are fire and darkness over here, aren’t we?” Arkaziel couldn’t stop laughing, a disconcerting sound from a small house cat, that rolled out to the sea of chaos and boomed like thunder.

“Does it make that large of a difference?” Kallos inquired.

“Not really, no. The blood of either one will transform you into a Beast Sovereign, Tiamat’s blood is more chaotic, primeval, and favors the cold reality we face. Bahamut’s blood encourages nobility, ordered chaos, and focuses more on external control than the shapeshifting blood of Tiamat,” Arkaziel explained to Kallos.

“So you two being opposites won’t be a problem?” Kallos asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Nope. I wonder how big she’ll actually be now? It’d be embarrassing if she’s smaller than I am,” Arkaziel laughed lightly. “She’s so fond of telling me how young I am, so if she’s not larger than me at the same rank, she’ll have to acknowledge I’m not a twerp, right?”

Kallos paused at the vulnerability on display by Arkaziel. The black cat usually passed off or pretended to ignore the casual insults by Bobbi, but if his admission were sincere, it seemed those words had actually hurt the young dragon’s feelings.

“Let’s hope so. Denial of reality is a waste of energy, one which I will assist you in breaking her of the bad habit of engaging in.”

“Thanks, Kallos. You can hang out with Blue, I’ll watch over her.” Arkaziel offered guilelessly as possible, an affable aura of innocence surrounded him.

“Tempting me away with my love, but you’ve overdone it with the innocent aspect. Promise you won’t draw anything on her face or otherwise disturb her or perturb her, and I will let you be the one to guard her.”

“Why doesn’t anyone trust me?”

“You’ve literally got a marker held in your tail already,” Kallos pointed out.

“Oh, damn. Betrayed by my own over-eager tail. Fine, I promise.”

“You’d better not break it, or Telos might not share the next Archon with you.” Kallos’ voice teased, but a look of panic crossed Arkaziel’s yellow eyes.

“She can control who doesn’t get energy? I didn’t know that. I’ll be good, I promise.”