Chapter 153

Cid and Sabine charged across the ruined battlefield of the throne room, moving with practiced and stealthy grace as Eastmund and Caedmon hung back, taking up position by the pillars that held Darius and Harold.

Riley's vision was going in and out as a vice-like magic held her down.

Tobias lay about fifteen feet away, unmoving. She could not even tell if he was breathing.

Panic seized her as the world pulsed in and out like a heartbeat, and she realized it wasn't just that he was motionless...

She couldn't feel him either.

Since that one moment, swearing to each other, he had always been the other half of their power. His emotions were never far, his soul never out of reach, but now... He didn't just feel far away. He felt gone.

Tobias... she tried to project meekly, but the words only rattled within her own mind. Her power was kept from her; her very magic was denied.

Chadrick glanced over his shoulder only to see Cid on a collision course, moving with blinding speed, his sword out, aimed for the center of his back.

With a flick of his hand, Cid's momentum altered as if struck by a bat, launching him backward, hands and feet stretching out before him.

A twisted grin spread across Chadrick's face as he slowly turned towards Sabine, who, wisely, vanished under a veil.

"More irritants, forestalling my ultimate ascendancy. Do you not realize you tax a God?" With a circular hand gesture, multiple black portals opened in the room, and hosts of shadow like beings emerged, harrying Eastmund and Caedmon, who were holding a perimitter in front of the pillars for reasons Riley could not discern.

With bursts of lightning and hurled stones, the entities fell, evaporating in dark puffs, only to be replaced by more. Then, suddenly, Sabine appeared, only to scythe through one with her black blade and vanish, appearing across the battlefield like a jump cut in a film.

Then Riley saw it. Another figure emerged from the small servant's door near the throne room.

Justinian, and in his hand was his hammer. In his left was a chisel, pulsing with power.

Chadrick, content with the working of his minions, turned his attentions back towards Riley, approaching so close she could smell his breath, leaning and leering over her like the predator he was.

"Scumbag..." Riley projected with all her might.

A hard kick to the ribs followed her words as Chadrick tsk'd.

"Servants should be seen and not heard. I'm going to enjoy breaking the will out of you," he hissed in a voice that was all his own.

Riley's heart beat faster, filling with fear. Desperately, she tried to find some way, some tactic to forestall what was feeling more and more like a suicide mission.

From deep within the pop culture encyclopedia of her mind, an idea flickered to life.

Supervillain monologue.

"You're.... doing... all … of this for power?" Out of the corner of her wide vision, she saw Tobias twitch, and her heart soared in hope. His fingers barely moving, Tobias' arms trembled as he tried to force his way up off the ground, yet the spell held him.

Riley, searching for some kind of answer, tried to call at her prompts, tried to perceive her overlay, but something was going wrong with her magic. It was like it was all being kept from her, but, try as she might, she couldn't reason it out.

Why was all of this happening? How could he be doing all of this?

Because he's the vessel of a God, dumb ass... Came the ringing rebuke from within her own mind.

"What more is there than power?" Chadrick sneered, a look that was all his own, regardless of what was possessing him.

"This pathway started with sacrifice and vision. It took the death of my own brother in ritual to summon Mavora. Still, it was a necessary and worthy sacrifice. Just as the fae's suicide elevated a general to king, so now have others been offered to elevate me to my lofty place."

Riley balked as her party dealt with their own problems, fighting what seemed to be an endless shadow army pouring from the portals. Even Cid was back up, punching and slicing through creatures as fast as he could find them.

Tobias, meanwhile, twitched and sputtered but could not find the strength to rise.

"You did all this to be some God's bitch. You're pathetic," Riley taunted, going for her strongest weapon of all, sass.

Chadrick grinned and contracted his hand. Riley's ribs exploded into pain and agony.

"It's not wise to anger me, servant. Now, do hold still," He mocked.

Riley scrambled, panicked, but there was nothing she could do.

Going for broke, she pulled at her final card, "Grimm, Grimm, Grimm!"

She screamed the words with all her might as the celestial wolf appeared, only to be tackled to the ground half a second later by Fengee, seemingly out of view of all the others.

"Sorry, pup, but I can't let you go and commit suicide like this. You cannot defy the Weavers!" Fengee cried as he wrestled with the wolf.

"She is my packmate! I cannot let this continue," Grimm whined, struggling against the vice grip of the archangel with all his might.

Fengee looked towards Riley sadly, "She has everything she needs to succeed or fail. Some battles aren't fought without but within. It's time for her to make her own choices."

"No!" Grimm screamed, and Fengee looked right at Riley and winked before vanishing.

Timbergarde flashed through her mind and the strange ritual where she had turned the tide while Justinian finally got Harold free, and in a mad dash, carrying him in his arms, made for the servant's door, only to disappear behind it.

Chadrick began to chant in some strange, eldritch language as Riley felt more of his power wrap around her soul.

Soul... The word echoed off her mind with all the power of a thought, just out of reach.

Squirming under the assault, the thought sparked to life.

Some battles can't be fought with out but must be fought within.

Riley looked towards Tobias as a strange and preternatural calm fell over her, "If this doesn't work, if something happens to me and I stop being me, know that I love you."

Tobias, in a titanic act of will, turned his head, his eyes wide with horror, almost as if he could understand.

Riley let go,and let Chadrick's magic connect deep, wrapping around her. It began to eat at the bond between her and Tobias like an acid, but if there was anything she had learned from her connection to Tobias it was that willing connections ran both ways.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Zorna! She called out from within, reaching out across the connection. Her outer vision faded like the lights were being brought down on the world.

In some ways, it all felt familiar. It felt like dying all over again as she found herself in a strange black space that seemed to stretch out towards infinity.

Off towards the horizon, a black tower loomed with a glowing red light shining out from its windows and ports. Red lightning crackled as distant thunder rolled.

Before it were seas of souls, all consumed for Chadrick's ascendancy, bound and trapped within, just as she was.

"Uh Hello? Anyone here?" Riley called out, seeking a friendly face.

The crowd began to part as a young man emerged with a Kraus beside him.

"Not you, too. Tobias is still out there, alone... You were the last piece," Darius lamented, looking down at the shadowy ground.

"He doesn't have me yet, but I let him think so. One thing I learned from Tobias is these soul connections work both ways. I can beat him, I think, but not on my own. I need your help," she said, her voice carrying with it the seriousness of the grave.

"What are you driving at?" Darius asked.

"Tobias and I got where we were because we shared freely with one another. He didn't have to break me or dominate me to get me to share my power. I offered mine, and he offered his... I'm betting it all on the idea that it's universal." Riley began as the look on Darius' face brightened.

"You want us to willingly share the last of what anchors us here with you. With you here, you're a bridge," he replied, rubbing at his chin the same way Tobias did.

"I'd neither want to or know how to hold you. I'm kinda guessing here, but I'm sure I'm right, and even if I'm not, if you all can cross, at least you'll be free," Riley sighed.

The souls were crowded around her as one in particular emerged, with a young boy standing by his side.

"My brother started all of this with me. I'm sorry it led to all of this," the young boy no older than thirteen, looked down with eyes that bore the weight of pain far beyond his years.

"It's ok, kid. It wasn't your fault," Riley said.

"Just so," The King of Ashes replied.

Even in his death, he wore a crown atop his head and nodded in agreement, "She speaks of a good plan. What say you fellows? Do we go down as prisoners, or do we seize our freedom and die as warriors?"

Zorna, ever silent but always strangely wise, padded towards Riley and nuzzled against her chest before vanishing, and the hare felt a surge of power.

Next, Darius reached out and sat his hand between her ears, "If that's the way it has to be, I freely give whatever power I have to you just save my grandson."

"I promise, you're going to get your silver's worth," Riley assured.

"Oh, I got that and more," Darius said as he slowly evaporated away.

You have met the requirements to ascend... Initiate transfiguration for you and your partner? Y/N

With every bit of will Riley had left she reached for the Y, as there was a blinding white flash and her eyes snapped open to Chadrick gripping the sides of his head.

One after another, Riley felt the souls taken siphon through her, young and old, noble and commoner, each giving something before ascending to their next fate.

"Now you can rest," Riley said, as she felt the power build towards a raging crescendo.

Tobias, finally free rose, as he looked towards Riley only to see ethereal wings lift her off the ground, reaching wall to wall in the throne room as the shadows around shrieked, and still he felt the power flowing into not just her, but him.

A flood was erupting out of Chadrick as he screamed in agony, his voice twinning, somehow separating into that of two different beings as he tumbled back.

Riley's head turned as she focused in on him and saw one last prompt.

You have ascended to Tier 1-0. The souls you have liberated have shared the last of their power with you before crossing as a thanks for their liberation.

Now go kick his ass.

"You think you've accomplished anything? We are transfigured! This vessel is mine!" he teased.

"I call bull shit," Riley snarled and flicked a bolt of fire as a test.

Chadrick went to move, made all the motions of quick action that had ended in countless blurs, but barely moved in time to avoid taking it in the chest.

Instead, his heavy black robe sported a new hole through the left arm.

"Yep, total bullshit!" Riley chuckled, feeling heady from the rush of power that was sparking across her soul.

She called to the magic within her and Calaria, feeling a deeper well of connection than ever before. Her mana bar had barely dropped. In fact, it felt so much like it had at her beginning here.

There was infinite possibility, infinite promise in this moment, breaking like a sunrise across her spirit.

Landing, her fur glowing with white light, she stalked forward like a hunter seeking its prey as the blackened eyes of Chadrick widened in horror.

Raising his hand, nothing happened, as he looked at his left hand in disbelief, scurrying back towards one of the shadowy portals still open, but flickering.

The infernal beings erupting out of it were now fleeing back through it in a desperate attempt to escape as Eastmund, Caedmon, Cid, and Sabine each dropped one after another in a harried assault.

"Our power? What did you do!" Screamed the twined voice of Chadrick and the God now trapped within him.

"Doors swing both ways," Riley said with dispassion as Tobias rose, blinking, staring down at himself as if discovering a new side to his existence he had never known before.

His eyes locked in on Chadrick, and now, able to move, he charged.

White flame engulfed his black blade. As it burned, coated in ethereal magic, it's color changed, lightening to grey.

Chadrick reached for a sword at his hip and drew it just in time, but now his hands were shaking. The blade trembled in his hands as Tobias batted it away, deftly disarming him.

"Give me room!" Riley shouted. Tobias, in reply, punched him in his chest, driving Chadrick back as one of his ribs broke, and he screamed.

"You're done," Riley sneered as she made her first, first-tier cast.

Celestial Inferno

A laser like beam of flame erupted from between her paws, as Chadrick, in a fit of survival broke into a run, dodging and weaving futilely as the flame glanced off the back of his head and the left side of his face.

Screaming, that side of his skull immolated. He fell to the floor, backpedaling, the skin warping and burning, turning to dust.

As the flesh burned away, and he screamed, inching ever closer to the black portal, a new face emerged, revealed by purifying flame.

A reptilian red eye gleamed out from blackened and burned scales, and a heavy orbital socket ribbed with spines jutted out, revealing the hidden nature lurking beneath.

"He's part infernal," Tobias gasped as Riley readied another assault, and in one last desperate move, Chardick leapt trough the portal.

In a flash, he was gone as an eerie peace fell across the throne room.