> “Honoured am I to have lived in such times, to have seen such wonders, and to have felt the sheltering glory of selfless Elysea. Though all may yet be sundered, and an age of fanatics come upon this land, I shall not despair… For I have looked upon, in my dreams, a Falling Star; and seen justice writ large in the flames of its descent.”
—Varian Corinnius Merar
The Rise and Fall of Elysea
Alissia ran for all she was worth, thundering down the colossal, trembling corridors of the massive Imperial Palace. Her armoured body, bedecked in onyx platemail, left no impression on the reinforced white stone beneath. Mana-tempered marble bore her weight without issue, even with the density of her twice-Tempered body beneath the aetherian steel.
She gave no thought to the ravaged state of her armour as she moved, her immense agility carrying her through the labyrinthine corridors at impossible speeds. As an Adept-level Cultivator Alissia was no slouch when it came to physical capability. Perhaps she was still weak when compared to the strength of the more elite Legionarii, but when measured against the Untempered she may as well have been a demi-god.
“And yet it meant nothing,” she muttered helplessly under her breath as tears threatened to fall anew from her red-rimmed blue eyes.
The frantic hurrying of dark-robed Magisterii offered no impediment to her fluid, unconsciously graceful movement; guarded as they were from accidental intercepts by crimson-armoured warriors of the Aetheris Militant. The spellblades were grim as they ushered the panicked and at-times-weeping spellcasters and scholars through the halls. Every species of their Empire was represented in those groupings, from tall elves to stocky dwarves, hulking orcs, diminutive gnomes and goblins, the ever-varied builds of humanity, and a dozen other races too varied, different and colourful to name.
On she ran past singing Veneratii as they hoarsely invoked the choral frequencies of the citadel’s runic matrices and sought to reinforce the palace further than it already had been. Their faces were haggard and yet they persisted, weaving their Soulforce and threads of Spirit with dedication that would have inspired her to hope in any situation but the one they now faced. These were not the acts of survivors, she knew; these were the final contributions of those already dead, and unwilling to depart absent a final attempt to offer what they alone could.
Two, three, four, and finally five turns later she took through the chaos, down immense hallways, and under towering works of artistry. Too many times in her racing journey did she stagger when thunderous impacts shook the palace, slamming her against and off of the reinforced walls with barely enough time to grunt in discomfort.
Compared to the violence being rained upon the complex from the enemy outside, her impact was like a teardrop in a lake insofar as the gargantuan building was concerned. With no time to spare in rumination, she continued onward until her progress carried her to an open pair of heavily inscribed silver doors, each one towering above her nearly fifteen metres high.
Her haggard footsteps carried her past the pair of towering golden-armoured Aegii stationed in unmoving stoicism outside the doors, and she spared only a single glance for the unruffled members of the Imperator’s personal guard, where before she may have taken a short breath to simply admire them. The world as we know it is ending, she marvelled bitterly, and yet they stand as if it were merely another day. Their impassivity rankled, intimidated, and awed her in equal measure and yet she had no time to dwell on such things.
Entering the massive chamber beyond the doors, Alissia was met by a scene of controlled chaos. Attendants, scribes, Patricians, and military officers of every conceivable rank moved between different tables as reports were given and their contents evinced looks of suppressed anguish or bitter disappointment. Calm efficiency dominated the space for the most part, but through it all was woven an undercurrent of building-but-controlled-panic. The War Room was the beating heart of their war effort, the sacred centre of their operations; and it was she who had been given the proverbial blade that would finally fell it.
“The Dawn Gate has fallen!” she cried out when she spotted her quarry, her voice cutting through the room with twice-tempered lungs as hot, angry tears finally escaped her efforts at suppression. Her voice rang within the chamber, boosted by superbly designed acoustics that brought all movement to a sudden and jarring halt.
Dozens of eyes turned to her in shock, disbelief, fear, and even quiet resignation.
Silence descended across the entire room.
“The Godsworn are through, my Imperator! The—” she choked back a sob and forced herself to continue “—the Legio Invicta have failed. The line… the line has broken…” her voice cracked with grief at last. “The Godsworn are through.”
The eyes formerly focused on her shifted as one, turning in a wave to look at last to the figure Alissia addressed. His olive skin was ageless, his silver armour pristine—not for lack of combat, she knew—and his black hair framed his faintly luminescent crimson eyes even as his expression shifted from inscrutable to something approaching a calm acceptance that bewildered and terrified her in equal measure.
“How?” he asked in a warm, powerful baritone while beckoning her to approach.
“The Forsworn,” she said as she drew closer, her tear-blurred eyes locked only on her Imperator while ripples of shock and despair spread throughout the chamber at the thrice-accursed name. “They came at the last, when the enemy’s attack seemed to be rebuffed once more. Our Veneratii could do nothing. By the time the runic choirs tried to acclimate, the Discordance was too great. The wards were sundered, and the Legio… The Legion was b—broken.”
Instead of responding immediately, the Imperator turned to one of the nearby Aegii and gave the smallest of nods. A gilded fist thudded against golden adamantine, and the guardian—a Tribunum, based on the horse-hair plume marking his visored great helm—left without a word through the same doors she’d entered. Only after he departed did the Imperator turn back to her, his carmine gaze unblinking.
“The Legio Invicta’s rear elements will hold as long as they can, and at the last, my Aegii will buy us the time we need. You have done your duty well, Legatum Devram.” Alissia drew in a breath at the title, and it was all she could do not to collapse to the ground. The gesture was kind, but she struggled to find peace in it. A three-rank promotion. The accomplishment of a dream that had seemed impossible to achieve before her Master Tier Tempering.
And all it had taken was for the world to be consumed in madness.
The Imperator was not done however, and his gaze turned to the rest of the chamber. “This conflict, at last, is at its end,” he said softly. “Tonight, the centuries of violence, of suffering, and of misery come to a close. These long and terrible years of brutal, senseless war… It ends. It is over,” he took the time to look each person in the eyes while he spoke.
“Tonight, the Empire will fall. Such is our fate.”
Alissia felt his words like a punch to the gut, and another wracking sob threatened to topple her. Nobody noticed. Nobody paid her any heed. She was not alone in her grief, and nowhere near the strongest person to break in that moment. A ripple had passed over the crowd at the Imperator’s words, and gazes of despair had met others as their dark reality settled in. She could see more than one high ranking officer held up only by their duty to the Imperator, they allowed held back tears to finally flow.
“However…” the Imperator said, and his voice was like a bell demanding their attention. It amazed Alissia how, even in her state of absolute certainty of destruction, she heard his voice and part of her still hoped. “We are not Lost. The Mantle may fall, but I have taken steps to ensure it will not be Riven.”
He looked across them all as another explosion shook the palace, and even Alissia’s Adept-level ears heard the sudden, distant crack of the fortress’ doors being breached far to the north. The end was approaching, and yet she could not take her eyes from the Imperator. None of them could. His presence was like the true sun, a shining beacon within a dark storm of despair.
It was all she had left, that vain and silly hope.
She clung to it like a drowning man held close to a lifeline within a roaring tempest.
“I ask you now to join me in a final defiance, my beloved Elyseans. A final Crucible.” his gaze moved to the doors to the chamber, and then turned to look upon those in attendance once more. “My wife even now musters her power with the greatest of the Magisterii and Veneratii. She undertakes a ritual of ancient and potent strength. A ritual that will help to ensure the Mantle is upheld, even if it is not to be in your lifetime, or mine own.”
What ritual could possibly ensure such a thing?
As mutterings of confusion gave voice to her own thoughts, he continued undeterred.
“I tell you this so that you may face this coming storm knowing it was not for naught,” their Imperator lifted his chin in an air of defiance, and she felt her Will respond. Her back straightened slowly, and she watched him with rapt attention.
They all did, each and every one.
Waiting. Hoping.
Praying that this man that they loved, that they trusted with everything they were, could give them one final miracle. He had sundered armies with his blade, brought Avatars to kneel with his power, and slain titanic beasts of nightmarish proportions without a sweat drop to show for it. He was more than a man.
He was Elysea made manifest.
“With my blessing, the Imperatrix performs a Calling.”
The silence that followed his words was profound, and for a moment even the storm of magic and articulated siege engines assailing the palace’s enchanted walls seemed to lessen in intensity. A hush descended, and all eyes widened in disbelief, shock, and then at last a growing sense of fear.
A Calling. The Imperator had ordained that which his own forebears had forbidden.
Alissia’s mouth opened in stunned disbelief as images of sundered mountains, roiling seas, and devastated cities flashed through her mind. A mix of giddy shock and exhausted grief mingled within her mind and she shook her head in muted wonder.
A Calling. By the Eternals, this truly is the end.
“My Imperator!” a voice cried out. “What of the consequences? What if they—?”
“I understand your concerns,” the Imperator responded in a voice which silenced all dissent, and banished all tumult from the mind. He was once again the light in the centre of the storm, and his presence filled her awareness.
“It is one I shared.” he continued with a level tone. “I cannot divulge any details and can say only that there are… alterations that have been made to the Calling. There will be no repeat of the Epochal Tide, nor another Night of Ten Thousand Stars, nor a second Burning of Viridian. Were I not certain of this, I would end this Calling myself!”
For all that her mind and soul rebelled against the very idea of what he suggested, and for all that her entire life, every single one of her eighty years, screamed that this was to be a new Sundering… She could find only comfort in his words, spoken with the unassailable might of his immense charisma.
“Nephilim…” Alissia murmured softly to herself. “By all that is good, a Nephilim.”
Abruptly all conversation ceased as the entire room rocked, and the distant sound of a titanic explosion tore through the palace. Screams rang out as the Imperator’s spell was momentarily broken, and the fear rushed back in.
The panic resumed. The horror of their situation redoubled.
Then the Imperator spoke once again, and all fell silent as before.
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“Now at the last, there is but one duty left to us,” the Imperator said gravely and bent forward to collect his winged helmet from the table, its surface shimmering with runic choirs. “We must give the Imperatrix time to secure the future of the Mantle… and show these Godsworn fanatics what it means to face down Elysea in the seat of its power.”
His voice was the warmth of a fire in the cold, and the shimmer of light in the dark.
Alissia felt her resolve rallying at his words, and she straightened herself quietly.
“Now is the hour predicted by those with Sight: when all wards have failed, and the unworthy crash upon our doors slavering for the blood of those that would have died to defend them!” he said with growing intensity. “They come for us with hate in their hearts, unknowing that in the act they seal their own doom! Here and now, under the gaze of our ancestors, we make our final stand!”
The Imperator’s Soulforce extended from him while he spoke, and Alissia felt it like a warm blanket. It was a sun erupting to life in the centre of the room, and all of them were the celestial bodies caught suddenly within its gravity. She couldn’t articulate the feeling of power that sang in her core Core as the might of an Ascended-level Tempered Soul washed over her own.
Backs straightened throughout the room and, even as tears stained the cheeks of the soon-to-be-dead, determination filled the gazes of the assembled. Swords were drawn in a ring of steel, staves and bows collected, and papers thrown and discarded as helmets slammed into place.
“For Elysea!” the Imperator thundered with a beatific smile. “For the Mantle!”
“FOR ELYSEA!” the room echoed. “FOR THE MANTLE!”
Alissia felt a smile dominate her features.
“FOR THE IMPERATOR!” they cried at the last.
She was proud that her voice was among the loudest.
* * * * *
“The Choir is settled, Imperatrix.”
Valerian looked from the Veneratii to the towering woman to whom he spoke, her blonde hair crowned by a golden laurel wreath. She wore elegant, flowing white robes which fell just over her ankles, and around the gilded slippers adorning her feet. The Imperatrix stood at the primus ignition—the centremost point—of an immensely intricate rune matrix, its body dominating a massive area within the aetheric chamber. The matrix itself was in the shape of a ten-pointed star, contained within a perfect circle.
It had been painstakingly etched within the metal by orchicalcum styluses, and reinforced with mana so pure the entire formation seemed to hum even without being engaged. Valerian was one of the ten Magisterii selected for the ritual, representing his favoured element of Fire. There stood one other for each of the Core mana types: Water, Earth, Air, Light, Death, Life, Force, Nature, and Shadow.
The Imperatrix herself represented Convergence; the coming together of the Ten Forces in the pursuit of Harmonic Balance.
Valerian tried to calm himself as the music of the Veneratii flowed over him, the diviners’ song filling the room with ritual choruses designed to enhance and stabilise the magic they wove. Their Soulforce mingled while they sang, and their Master-level Tempered bodies worked in unison to weave a Shroud of Spirit across the entire matrix.
The sound of battle and the distant, ever-closer screams of the dying were subsumed by the music, and the Magisterii turned to their Empress as they finally settled into position.
“It is time.” the Imperatrix commanded.
Valerian, in unison with his peers, lifted his arms and ignited his Core. Mana flowed through his meridians in a tide, buoyed by his unlocked Chakras, and erupted out of his palms in a torrent of red-tinted that surged towards the matrix.
He winced when he felt it impact the ignis rune etched into the matrix below him, filling it with an orange light which spread outward along pre-marked pathways to flare his section of the matrix.
The mana spilled from his Core like water from an opened sluice gate, and surged in unison with the other nine streams towards the complex array under the Imperatrix’s feet.
Prismatic lines of power intersected the circle in a flood of energy as Valerian watched with rapt attention. His jaw locked against the pain, and he urged his Core onward, feeling the volcano he visualised as his centre roaring with eruption as mana was ejected in an ocean of power.
The Imperatrix narrowed her gaze below her as the ten flows of energy impacted the circle around her primus ignition array, pulling and Valerian watched distractedly while she pulled the ten separate flows into the interconnected knot of runic inscription within the single. The moment the colours shifted and merged to create a prismatic confluence, she breathed in.
The room itself shook with the sudden Convergence as the Imperatrix forced a fusion of the mana.
A braided coil of energy rose from the centremost point of the matrix at the Imperatrix’s urging, and her elegant fingers guided the knotting of the ten energies together into a single rope of power that blazed with strength. The choir’s song grew more potent while she worked, the saturation of Spirit twisting and shifting to the Imperatrix’s will.
When the density of the Veneratii’s energy reached its crescendo, Spirit descended in a blanket of entwined Soulforce, joined and guided by the immensity of the Imperatrix’s own power.
Valerian felt himself sweating as he continued to spill energy into the matrix without restraint. He could feel his teeth grinding against the agony assailing his mana channels and meridians, and still he persisted. There was no option for failure, not in this final act of defiance.
I will die before I yield. He swore to himself, while focusing on the ritual to the exclusion of all else. Pain became a distant thing. His skills flared to life, the System responded to his Will, and he felt the agony that had been mounting subside rapidly. It became an echo in the back of his mind, and cool relief washed away his awareness of his body’s suffering.
The spiritual blanket spun and wove at the Imperatrix’s demand, fitting into a twining sheath that wrapped tightly around the coiling braid of energy. Like flesh over tendons, the sheath settled over the braid… and morphed. Essence lightning arced from the amalgam construct of power as its tip transformed into an elongated spearhead.
Eddies of power sparked and roared across the matrix, throwing electrical discharge across its surface as the Soulforce blanket was localised, and the harmonic dampening shed unwanted energy across the outside of the blanketed Summoning Lance.
Valerian cried out in agony when the hissing bite of aetheric lightning struck his flesh, and even through System-aided resolve felt his flesh flash-boiled from the sheer density of the power assailing him. He barely managed to keep his feet, eyes watering as he looked around at his brothers and sisters.
The other Magisterii were in similar states of duress, their flesh burnt and robes smoking while ever more violent and more destructive aetheric discharge attacked their bodies with a vengeance.
Valerian’s eyes moved to the white-robed Veneratii, and he felt pity for their own tortured expressions. Their vital essence was being drained; pulled from them inexorably by the weight of the ritual’s needs. A Calling had never been fatal in the past, but the weight of Intent required to ensure a worthy successor to the Mantle added a far greater weight cost to the matrix.
None of them would survive its completion.
“Do not relent!” He found himself shouting with an abruptness that shocked him, while his eyes darted rapidly between the Veneratii and Magisterii as tears of blood pooled from his corneas. “We die here, or we die to the Godsworn! DO NOT RELENT! The hopes of the entire world rest on this ritual!”
The Imperatrix glanced at him when he finished, and he saw blood staining her own cheeks, her nose, her ears… and even her seventh-Temper teeth when she smiled in approval.
Valerian’s heart soared, and even as blood tore from his failing throat he cried out, “For the Mantle!”
“For the Mantle!” his peers answered, one after the other, even as some spat blood or lost their sight and hearing to rupturing blood vessels.
The Imperatrix narrowed her crimson eyes on the Summoning Spear as it rose, now easily five metres high and growing, and pulled a silver athame from her hip.
“Blood calls to blood. The Mantle awaits. The Calling is proclaimed.”
A moment later she lifted the athame, slicing open each of her palms and then discarding the knife. Aetheric discharge tore it apart while she placed her bleeding hands upon the Summoning Spear.
“My Essence freely given, that the Mantle may yet be upheld. I invoke my Authority. I bind it to my blood and to my will. Let the Reclaimer be Called. Let the System enforce their Reclamation.”
A moment passed, and for a heartbeat Valerian feared they had failed.
And then he heard it. The Gong. The ethereal beat of a celestial chime.
A voice that was not a voice thundered within him, in his mind, in his soul.
AUTHORITY WILL BE STRIPPED FROM CURRENT HOLDERS
PROCEED?
“Yes,” The Imperatrix rasped.
Another gong followed.
CONFIRMATION ACKNOWLEDGED
PROCESSING REQUEST . . .
Valerian held his breath as they waited, their bodies failing them. Please. He pleaded. Please give us this much.
REQUEST APPROVED
INITIATING SEQUENCE . . .
It was all Valerian could do not to sag with relief, his agonised muscles shifting into a rictus of joy that was echoed on his Empress’ own withering face.
We may have lost our Empire. He thought with a bittersweet acceptance. But we will not lose this War, not even if it takes an age to enact our requiem.
His satisfaction was short-lived.
The clash of steel, roar of magic, and screams of the dying abruptly assaulted Valerian’s ears and he turned as he dropped to his knees. The mana was still draining from him; now drawing its potency from his own withering fifth-Temper life force. The doors to the chamber cracked, and then sundered with an explosion of force; ushering in warriors adorned by white plate, their sunburst-emblazoned tabards and gold-trimmed alabaster armour dyed red with blood.
“Dear Gods…” one of them muttered. “What profane heresy is this?!”
As the words were spoken, Valerian felt the air distort and heard a muted boom of displaced force as another figure seemed to suddenly appear.
It was, he realised belatedly, simply speed.
The new arrival had moved faster than even Valerian’s Master-level sight could follow. He was adorned in white robes framed around his own adamantine plate, gilded at the edges of the white steel. Not a drop of blood marred his perfect visage—though it coated the elegant longsword in his grip—and he took in the scene of their ritual with cold blue eyes, his platinum hair tousled by the echoing force of their magic and his arrival.
As one, the white-armoured knights slammed their fists to their breastplates in salute.
“It is over, Selucia,” the man said coldly, his eyes weighing and analysing as he spoke. The pressure, the power in every word seemed to set the air to trembling. “Even now Lucius is being corralled by the Anointed. Your depraved Empire is at its end.”
“Justinian.” the Imperatrix hissed, one of her eyes utterly red and without sight due to ruptured blood vessels. “You… Coward…” she wheezed as her lungs failed her. “You… won’t even… face him… yourself?”
Valerian’s eyes widened. Justinian Tollarius. The Grand Ascendant.
The Imperator’s brother, the Arch-Traitor, had come to end them himself.
“Your goading won’t work on me, Wytch.” the leader of the Godsworn responded coolly. “I warned you both about what would happen if you denied the Revelation. You had the chance to return to the embrace of the Divine.”
Justinian’s eyes narrowed while he considered them all and stepped forward.
An arc of aetheric discharge snapped at him instantly, and the Grand Ascendant flicked an armoured hand, reflexively smashing the bolt of energy away and into a wall.
The same energy that had ravaged Valerian and his companions was swatted away like it were no more than a bothersome fly.
“What mad, desperate ritual did you perform?” the Grand Ascendant asked with a hint of wariness that gave Valerian a flicker of amusement and pleasure both.
“You… were always… jealous… of him…”
“Answer me, Selucia.” Justinian commanded coldly.
“It is… our final… gift… to you…”
Valerian collapsed at her words when his body failed him, though his eyes still remained glued to the face of the Grand Ascendant.
Justinian walked closer, his armoured feet pausing and paused at the edge of the circle as if it were a contagion.
“Be careful, Your Holiness!” one of the Godsworn exclaimed. “We have no idea what this foul wytchery is.”
Justinian ignored the warning and instead assessed their work, eyes darting between sections with cold efficiency. “Cardinal ignition… Essence matrices… Harmonic shielding and choral enforcement… A mana braid? What are…” the Grand Ascendant’s eyes widened. “No. This can’t… No! Selucia, are you mad?!”
Valerian’s tortured features twitched with satisfaction at the first sign of true unease on the Grand Ascendant’s features. It was a strange balm to his dying mind. His eyes drifted, looking towards the haggard form of his empress. There, he witnessed something that drew an appreciative, bloody gurgle from his ruined body.
She was smiling.
“Go… To… Oblivion… Traitor…” she rasped.
“Kill them!” Justinian roared. “Kill them all!”
Valerian felt the penetration of cold steel distantly, felt as his awareness started fading.
Please… He begged. Please…
As if in answer, a final gong thundered across the souls of the assembled.
THE CALLING HAS BEGUN
The Summoning Spear in the Imperatrix’s grasp blazed with sudden vibrance, and the echoed power surged into Valerian, allowing him a moment of focused awareness as it hummed with power; a keening, orchestral concerto that radiated across his soul with terrible and glorious power.
Justinian screamed in rage, and the Godsworn staggered back in terror.
With a roar of thunderous power, the Spear lanced upward and punched through the ceiling, obliterating the mana-enhanced and chorally warded matrices that protected the palace like a hot blade through butter. Stone and debris were blasted up and away, revealing a cloudless and star-saturated night sky; obfuscated only by the smoke tied wafting from the flames killing the world’s greatest city.
Valerian felt his awareness fading. Felt the creeping approach of death.
Selucia died, her lifeblood and power spent. The Veneratii and Magisterii were slain.
The Grand Ascendant continued to rage in denial.
Valerian managed to smile at the last words the System etched upon his soul.
THE NEPHILIM COMES