The sounds of distant conflict grew like an insistent buzzing in the back of Tilly’s mind, “Ugh. Fine, show me.” He growled, giving in and forcing himself to move past his suspicion.
The First Magnus nodded, turning and moving deeper into the tunnel with a smooth, powerful gait.
“What are you getting out of this anyway?” Tilly called ahead, struggling to keep up with the reptilian, even though the robed figure only appeared to be walking. Every time Tilly picked up the pace, Rulak managed to stay a few steps ahead, all while not appearing to change anything in his movements.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I allowed the opportunity to observe such a novel conflict pass me by,” He crowed back over his shoulder, ”Plus I can’t wait to see what changes such primal forces will make on these lands. The research into proto-Epochian planar shifts is appallingly thin and I-”
He suddenly drew to a halt, causing Tilly to almost crash into his back, “Ah, here we are. The energies around this tear are quite lively… what I wouldn’t give to know its source.” The Magnus said, gesturing in the dark at something Tilly couldn’t see against the wall. When Tilly said nothing in response, the First Magnus looked back, his slitted eyes glowing, and tsked as he realized the problem. But before he could remedy it, Tilly enflamed his hand, casting the deep dark of the passageway into a flickering blue and white light.
“Oh good, that will do.” The Magnus said absently as he turned back toward a deep gash in the otherwise perfectly smooth dragon glass walls. The damaged section of dragon glass swirled with energies that made Tilly nauseous to look at, “What did this?” Tilly asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. That's the fun of it! Well… go ahead, throw the seed in. Let's see how the two energies react.”
Tilly shot a look at the reptilian magic user, who was smiling eagerly, and even gave Tilly the ‘go on” shooing motion. Rolling his eyes in response, Tilly slowly extended his hand holding the seed toward the wall and found that the internal feeling of wrongness had completely dissipated. Not that he felt good, he still felt nauseous, but the more he thought about it, the more he was reminded of his last visit to the Auction House.
“Perfect, right?” The Magnus said, still smiling.
“Here goes nothing,” Tilly shrugged, tossing the seed into the eerie tear in the solid wall.
The little headache-inducing seed soared through the air, disappearing into the darkness of the wall without a sound. Tilly was about to lean closer to see what had happened to it, when Rulak cleared his throat loudly, “Ahem, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Tilly whipped his hand back, looking at the Magnus in confusion and finding the reptilian twenty yards away, observing with eager eyes.
Before Tilly could fully process his change in position, a huge cracking sound reverberated from behind him, and he reacted instinctually, diving away from the wall as fast as possible. Rulak ignored him, watching whatever was occurring in fascination.
Landing smoothly in a roll, he shot to his feet, covering the short distance between him and the Magnus. The moment he thought he was far enough away, he turned around, watching as the Dragon Glass around the narrow opening began to break and shatter, folding like stiff paper in increasingly complex patterns.
Once again Tilly found himself forcing down the heaving urge to regurgitate, as the laws of geometry were brutally broken before his eyes. He took another couple of steps back, dodging flying bits of glass that were ejecting from the process. The wall continued to bend otherworldly shapes until it somehow took the shape of a large archway, leading into an atrium made of dragon glass. The familiar purplish glow of the Auction Houses’ domain shone through, adding its hue to Tilly's dancing light.
The wince-inducing cacophony finally died down with a few last folds, plunging the scene into a brief silence before the screams of the flying Corrupted vanguard echoed down the passageway, much closer than they had been minutes before.
“Fascinating,” Rulak muttered, having produced a journal from somewhere to take copious notes.
Then a whispering voice drifted through the newly made opening, “I should have known when I saw you approach this simpleton that you would be getting your dull-clawed hands in this somehow.”
Rulak glanced up from his notes, offering a sharp-toothed smile in return, “Great minds think alike, you bundle of old laundry.” He shot back, before quickly returning to his notes.
“How did you find a way for the entrance to manifest so quickly? I barely had time to allocate the resources before the opening was formed.” The Auctioneer continued, gliding through the doorway without a care in the world.
“My working hypothesis is some sort of rift-born creature left enough of its will imprinted on the wall here to accelerate your unique linking process… That was my theory anyway, it could have just as easily caused a planar paradox-”
The screams reached a crescendo outside the mountain, and Tilly thought he heard some echoing into this particular passageway.
“Compare notes later! Auctioneer, I need you to make good on your promise,” he shouted.
“Yes, yes,” they said, waving down his concern with a many-layered sleeve, “As soon as I sensed the opening, I began bringing them over. The first of your people will be arriving momentarily. But you might have to go up and keep this Peak from being claimed… You are, after all, in a terribly vulnerable position right now.”
“Tsshht” Tilly snarled, turning on his heels to sprint back to the opening.
“- As I was saying…”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He had only made it a dozen yards down the passageway before remembering that he still hadn’t assigned his free stat points. He had experienced the increase in Dexterity on his way down the mountain, but any increase in his Endurance was getting difficult to quantify.
Slowing to a jog, he quickly pulled up his stats, muttering through some math to ensure he kept enough cushion to protect his superlative title cheat at all costs. He shoved the stat points into their places, doing his best to add stats to the lower four, in a rushed free-for-all. After they locked in place, he did another anxious scan to make sure he hadn’t screwed it up.
Stats:
Constitution: 50
Endurance: 306 (336.6)
Dexterity: 100 (110)
Strength: 50
Wisdom: 50
Intelligence: 50
That done, he picked up his pace, sprinting to meet whatever waited for him up on the mountain… But after only another couple of steps, he was blindsided by the blaring of trumpets and a burst of golden light exploding before him, revealing the most audacious notification he had yet seen.
Congratulations! You have pushed one of your mortal stats into the Celestial Tier! You have earned the title [Immutable]. No attack below the fourth tier will do any damage to your mortal vessel, and only Celestial Tier attacks will be able to damage you without severe restrictions on output.
‘Woah…’ Tilly hadn’t time to think before an urgent image from Kindle slammed into his thoughts.
He saw the peaks from a high aerial view but the sight of them was almost completely blocked by tens of thousands of aerial combatants choking the skies. Even worse, rapidly approaching at the rear of the vanguard was a dark roiling cloud, so thick that it completely blotted out the landscape. As Kindle focused in on it, Tilly realized that it wasn’t a vapor, or spell…
It was trillions of insects, basically forming another army. One that very few of the Alliance fighters were equipped to deal with.
Corruption had responded to their opening gambit with its fastest movers, led by Beelzebub himself.
‘Looks like I’m going to need every bit of juice I can squeeze from that title,’ he thought wearily to himself. Rocking forward on his feet and jumping back into a sprint for the third time.
His soul was close to recovering, and his titles were refreshed. but their chances of establishing a defensible base, let alone winning the conflict were hanging by a thread. The time for holding back his trump cards was over. If he didn’t go all out, right here at the beginning, the battle would probably be over before the Dawning Coalition even arrived.
‘Thanks, Kindle. Do not engage until you get some heat stored away… In fact, give me a few minutes, and I’ll give you plenty to snack on,’ he sent back. He figured the best way to solve the problem was to lean into some tried and true methods.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
He almost heard her triumphant cry of challenge from miles above ground as he turned the last corner in the passageway to find the entrance choked with Corrupted creatures. Their makeup was disturbingly diverse, but they all shared two characteristics.
Every one of them had some kind of appendage geared toward flight and they were fully imbued with Corruption.
Before either side could remark on the other's presence, they were hit with another Contested Lands notification:
The Battle Continues!
2 Peaks claimed by the Dawning Coalition (Contested)
4 Peaks claimed by Corruption
Tilly growled at how quickly his coalition was losing ground. The whole point of this plan was to try and get here first and establish some sort of defensible position… But that possibility was almost gone. A fresh anger welled up in him, as circumstances once again tried to rob him of even the chance of survival.
It was always one thing after another, and no matter what he did, it seemed like the enemy was already there, gearing up for the next attack. Corruption’s advance was relentless and part of Tilly wanted to just give up…
He stomped that whimpering voice into the ground with the steel-toed boot of his will. If Corruption wanted to keep getting its ass whooped, Tilly wasn’t going to complain… In fact, he would smile and ask for seconds.
Closing the last twenty yards, Tilly enflamed his entire body with Wrath’s Shroud and charged straight at them as they howled their challenge in return.
Identifiers flashed before him as he ran directly into the blender of serrated blades, slavering mouths, and terrifying magic.
Level 63 Imp
Level 77 Hellfire Hound
Level 98 Damned Fiend
Level 103 Abhorrent Horror
Level 67 Eternal Nightmare
The names, and the creatures they attempted to describe flooded his vision, choking his path to the outside. Even the sight of them pushed against the edges of his mind, attempting to shove it into a frenzied box of panic. But none of that mattered, this wasn’t his first battle and something like an aloof detachment settled over the deeper places of his mind, covered by rage so hot, it radiated from his body in flares of Mana-infused fire.
The only important thing about this collection of filth was that they were in his way.
Then he was amongst them, plowing into their frenzy-induced charge like a hot knife through butter. Claws raked against his armor, blades attempted to plunge through his torso, and even demonic spells struck him, reaching any exposed part of his body and soaking it in all the terrifying destructive forces of the Pits.
All to accomplish absolutely nothing.
Their attacks plashed against him like rain, bereft of the cosmic authority to enact any negative change on his mortal vessel.
The same could not be said of his reprisal. His flames burned through his enemies hungrily. The purifying aspect of his Mana seemed to thrive against the twisted energies suffusing his opponents, each kiss of flame, or blow from his weapons did damage well beyond anything he would have ever thought possible.
The heads of his hatchets sheared through armor and spell alike, leaving destructive embers wherever they went that burst into their own miniature explosions a few moments later, excitedly spreading through the choked passageway like a virus, jumping from one host to the next in a growing crescendo of ignition.
His grim aloofness melted away before the incredible effect his powerset had on his foes. Screams pregnant with hunger quickly warped into howls of terror as the spreading fire ate through their advance faster than Tilly could run….
It was a massacre.
Tilly’s sprinting charge slowed to an awestruck jog, as the remainder of his enemies turned to flee. He dropped Wrath's Shroud, having only used 3% of his Mana, and struggled forward through a slowly dawning realization.
Everything he had endured, every trial and victory, had been preparing him for this confrontation.
This was not just another battle. It was The Battle.
And his powerset had been perfectly crafted to counter the forces arrayed against them.
He had known he was sitting on some advantages, but they had always seemed so small when measured against the enemy's endless numbers…
But now?
Now he was going to show them that whatever passed for fire in the Pits was nothing compared to the force that raged within him, begging to be unleashed.
He was Origin’s Champion and the same heat that had kindled the first explosive moment of creation burned within him.
White-hot and ready.