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Return of The Thaumaturge
Chapter 19 - The Battle of Heresy

Chapter 19 - The Battle of Heresy

Perspective: Paul

The man gave off an immense aura as he spoke; I can't quite describe it, but if fear was tangible, then it very nearly paralyzed myself and my comrades. Before I could respond to him, he sunk behind the lines of his cultists, off to deal with some other group that coincidentally appeared at the same time as we did. The leader of the cultists, Leviticus, clenches his fist and slowly walks towards us.

"So, Leviticus," I say, trying to stall, "Why do you choose to follow that man? Nothing better to do with your time?" He stops walking and looks up.

"I am not the frail old man you faced several months ago. The great Thaumaturge has taught me many things and made me much stronger since we last met." Leviticus draws his sword. It glows with eldritch power. "Although I no longer hold any warp, he has enchanted this sword with a special sequence of runes which, when activated, allows me to channel his warp as my own." He runs his hand along the blade, and the runes begin to glow. "You heard him! Leave none alive!"

I stalled just long enough. The armies of the Patrian Empire spill through the portal I created earlier. Leviticus is not shaken, but the cultists seem reprehensive to begin their charge. "Wont of Warp: The Thousand Young!" Leviticus shouts as he thrusts his sword into the air. A great quantity of energy spills from the sword, forming horrible abominations, half-creatures with endless rows of teeth resting in their torsos.

"You think a few monsters will deter us?" Shouts Barbatus. "The armies of Patria have no fear! We still outnumber you 250 to 1!"

"Numbers are meaningless before the power of The Thaumaturge," says Leviticus. "Charge!"

The two armies charge at each other, the 50,000 strong of Patria crossing steel with the 200 strong of the crimson cultists. I, as a non-combatant, cannot do much, so I watch.

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Perspective: Nitocris

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

There are very few of them, so if we take them down quickly, we can focus on that other guy. My sword swings, striking one of the "thousand young" creatures Leviticus summoned. It connects, but no damage is done. "What!?" I shout, jumping back. It swings a claw at me, barely cutting my arm. "Gift of Fire: Divine Wrath!" A hyper-powerful tongue of flame shoots from my hand, enveloping the creature. Surely that... The fire dissipates, revealing that the creature is unharmed. "They can't die!"

"You don't say!" Shouts Barbatus. It lands a good hit on him, cutting his arm to the bone, but he is quickly healed by Caterina from afar. "Focus on Leviticus! He's the source!"

I charge towards Leviticus, weaving through the sea of soldiers and cultists. One cultist comes at me with a twinblade cackling with electricity. I go for a thrust attack: He feints and spins his twinblade. I backstep, avoiding its edge, but its sparks still damage me. I shoot a magical bolt of fire at him, and, unable to block the attack, he falls to the ground, burnt. I continue my charge towards Leviticus.

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Perspective: The Thaumaturge

I activate my thaumostatic harness, flying above the cannon fodder soldiers The Demiurge sent towards me, leaving only himself and his comrades able to fly up and attack me. If I recall correctly, The Demiurge is a gnostic creature responsible for creating the material world. He and his Archons govern all that is worldly. Truly remarkable that nearly everything I have encountered so far is in some way traceable back to Primis Mundus.

One of the Archons, a pair of colossal eyes locked in binary orbit, flies up to me. Its pupils dilate, and the space around me seems to fold in on itself, cutting me in various places at the molecular level. However, thaumium is not so easily destroyed by a non-Euclidian shift, and the armor holds, protecting me from the attack that would very easily kill anything else. "Shortwave Cascade!" A dozen revolving beams emit from my gauntlet, converging a moment later. The beam flashes quickly, and a large hole is carved through one of the eyes, causing it to explode in alien gore. The remaining eye falls onto the soldiers below. Another Archons, bearing the appearance of a human with forty heads. It shouts at me.

"Erasure!" Its voice hits me with an unprecedented force: I am fully erased from existence. Everything goes black. A moment later, however, I return. "How!?" It asks, frightened.

"Ha! Surely you didn't believe such an attack would work on me. Firstly, the soul cannot be erased: I would reform elsewhere and return to kill you. Secondly, my aura of flux nullified your supernatural power, stopping me from being erased before the spell could remove my matter. What you saw was simply my atoms being unbound, too small to see." I rush towards it, plunging my arm through its chest. It coughs, spews blood, and dies. The shouts of 100,000 soldiers resonate below me. A swarm of Archons flies up to me. Here we go...