As he fought to keep the front lines free, Flyte had the opportunity to notice the situation they were in. Closer to the scar, the Rift Watch were also dealing with Will's horde, though they didn't have the numbers to quell this deluge as they could normally. Still, it meant that their leader, Atula, was probably nearby.
Another thing Flyte noticed was that the fight wasn't just land based. In the air, some winged figures could be spotted fighting what seemed to be a pair of scourge-touched dragons. Most notable of the airborne fighters was a black winged woman who wielded a long, piercing blade. She seemed to dance in the air outside the dragon's reach, the epitome of grace.
That being said, her armor was, simply put, inadequate. Mostly leather and cloth, though including a pair of bracers, the garb would not help one bit if the dragon were to strike her.
Flyte had never seen a warrior so skilled and yet so underprepared. It was baffling. Surely Atula would have found this fighter some better equipment.
He blasted a clump of insectoids into nothing with his light, looked around for more imminent danger, then continued his musings.
Within Ander's own legion, there was a gap at least one hundred feet around as the soldiers stayed out of Ferris's way. The suffering and gore around the healer had apparently been too much, as a demon had taken over in him. With a metallic third arm strapped to his back, Ferris butchered anything within his reach using a long chain blade.
Ferris's face was concealed by a smoky skull, topped with horns. The normally kind soul was completely hidden away from view.
Flyte made a mental note to stay out of his way, then pressed on in light.
It was hard. Will's horde seemed endless, with each dead monster quickly replaced, while Flyte's allies were anything but. The half elf, strong as he was, did not have the capacity to save everyone around him, and when one ally died, the defensive gap made him even less capable.
They were being overrun.
Flyte charged in again, swords readied to carve at his foes. He reasoned that with less monsters alive, less people would needlessly die.
The fighting was making him hysteric. The constant flow of energy simply wore Flyte down. His slashes got wilder, his breathing more forgotten.
"Flyte," Parendyne said, seeming to have simply appeared. "Go on, keep fighting, but you're not alone, and you don't have to fight like you are. Lend your burden to those who can bear it."
Flyte nodded as he firmed up his resolve once more. Rather than letting his rage and stress take him over completely, Flyte would allow it to be the motivating force to push past the weaknesses of his body. Rather than a blunt force, Flyte would be deft.
Sheathing his steel sword, Flyte steadied his shaking light blade with both hands. With great control, Flyte crushed every monster in reach. Even with the slightest wounds, his foes were reduced to ashes, the might of Flyte's light proving too much for them.
Parendyne tore through, but his movements were still perfectly precise. Centuries of experience made the elf immensely skill in conserving his energy, but also as quick as a raging beast.
Flyte sped up, still keeping his same level of care. He could feel his stamina slowly draining, mostly from all of his running, but he knew he could keep up his pace for a long while. He could take out the next monster. And the next. As long as he didn't think about how long the battle would last, he could keep going strong.
The half elf let some fiends pass him by. He trusted his allies, though he did not know them well.
And his trust was well founded. The seekers quickly destroyed their foes. Even so, too far from Flyte for him to help, another seeker fell.
----------------------------------------
"You all ready?" Ander asked Caedric.
Caedric plucked a flower from the plant marking Thalreion's bod, having dragged Ander and Elliot back for it. It was a violet and scarlet thing, covered in thorns.
"Now I am, let's go."
Ander, Elliot, and Caedric clumped together, allowing for them all to drift towards their destination along the sands.
The seekers were not doing well when Ander had left, and he worried for them now. While it wasn't for him that they chose to fight, they were aiding him regardless. He didn't want the young seekers to grow up orphans due to his own failures to help their parents.
The trio quickly arrived at the hill above the battleground. As Ander feared, the seekers were steadily dropping. While over ten hellions died per each seeker, the fiends outnumbered his allies by an inestimable margin.
Ander spotted Parendyne and Flyte fighting like twin dragons, Ferris again under his dread lord's control, and Flyte's spirit friends wreaking havoc. It was a little frightening seeing the normally passive Glow burst the limbs of her enemies with a touch.
"Caedric," Ander started. "Can you do your best to keep as many seekers alive as possible?"
"On it," Caedric responded, using vines to swing to the side opposite to Flyte.
"Elliot," Ander said. "If you and Honorious would do your best to do the same, I'd appreciate it."
"Of course," Elliot said. His face held a grim expression. It appeared that all of the death surrounding him was upsetting the soldier.
Ander saw Atula's riftgaurd at the scar. They were fighting off Will's horde well, but it was a hard ask for them to reach the seekers with any hastiness.
'I'll just have to carve a path to them.'
Taking another glance at his surroundings, Ander quickly changes his mind.
'It might be best if I cull these dragons first.'
He was experienced at it.
In an instant, ten crude swords were formed and orbiting Ander. He shot off toward the closest scourge touched dragon.
High in the air, sandstone was Ander's path. Before the dragon could sense him, Ander used each of his blades to lacerate its already damaged wings.
As the beast began to plummet, Ander's swords caught it, goring it several times over.
Finishing the job, Ander walked towards his next target.
----------------------------------------
Elliot blasted a volley of projectiles out of the air using Honorious's wind. The sand reeked of blood and sweat.
Dipping his swords in oil, Elliot couldn't help but remember that day. Every monster seemed like a shade of a friend, though he knew that they really were much tougher foes.
He dashed them apart and Honorious blew them away. Elliot's blades were almost reminiscent of Ander's Dancing Flames.
Seeing a shade's blade nearing a Seeker, Elliot threw a rock, knocking the offending sword off course.
"Honorious, here," Elliot handed his mentor his two burning blades as he retrieved his montante.
Limbs went flying as Elliot swung in a seeming wild way. Around the lost knight, the seekers would be safe.
Embers poured down from the dragon flame above.
'Just like that day for sure.'
Elliot chuckled, then swung his greatsword upwards, bisecting an ashen soldier's face.
"Elliot," Honorious exhaled. "Does all of this death and blood worry you too? Bring any potential dangers to mind?"
The masked soldier looked to the wind spirit. "You don't mean..." Honorious nodded.
"Hey!" Elliot called out to a seeker. "Have you guys been casting any sort of wards on the dead?"
The seeker shook their head and shrugged.
'Shades!'
"It should be fine," Honorious exhaled. "I don't think there's enough corpses or demons around for an eviscerator to form."
"You've just jinxed us," Elliot replied. He wasn't really superstitious, and meant for the comment to be good fun, but he was still worried. 'Should' wasn't quite the hopeful word he'd look for when dealing with something as brutal as an eviscerator.
Chains rang out as they were dragged across the sands. The sound was enough to capture Elliot's attention as he slew more foes.
He saw a heart, massive and beating with dark and rotten flesh. The heart was pierced through with linked chains, and its veins lacked a body to circulate to. What the heart was beating was anyone's guess.
While this heart would be nearly inert when alone, its beating mass was hauled by several hair covered, hungry beasts.
"Shall we fight it?" Elliot asked.
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"I think we must," Honorious answered, his exhalation fearful but resolute.
Elliot raced towards the heart, cleaving through monster and shade alike with his montante. He slipped around blows, prioritizing the protection of his face, preserving his mask on it.
As Elliot approached the heart, he felt it try to make him witlessly angry, but his mask blocked the majority of the effect. It tried to take all of his attention, but Elliot just stabbed it.
Shrieking screams filled Elliot's mind as his body was covered in a stabbing sensation. Slowly, Elliot was being pulled away from where he stood, as though some new pulling force was being introduced behind him.
The ground rumbled as the beastly porters marched over to confront Elliot.
"Hey Honorious," Elliot said. "Can you help me with this?"
"Of course," Honorious exhaled, the blades he controlled moving into a defensive position while the wind spirit dedicated the majority of his power into pushing the monsters downwards.
Seeing them up close, Elliot was not impressed. The monsters may have been sinewy and muscled, but in them was no elegance.
Through sudden pain, Elliot danced and spun from attacks at his sies and landed a piercing hit at the haired monster that stood before him. He cavorted his way to its side as the beast tried to brush him aside.
As the haired monster reached down to get Elliot, he jumped atop its monstrous arm and stabbed through it, burrowing deep into the ground to anchor it.
Elliot pulled his spear and shield free from his back. Planting the shield on the ground to help prevent his foe's remaining arm from hurting him, Elliot stomped his greaves on the monster's lower jaw along its stomach and wrenched the upper jaw open with his bare hand.
'Well, they do say that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I hope it applies here as well.'
Elliot plunged his spear up through the monster's maw, threading it through until he found his mark.
The horrible, hairy giant fell limp, its maw now slack and its muscles tensing. Elliot let the beast fall with a solid thud. As he turned around, he saw that Honorious had slain two more, likely due to the lack of a need for self-preservation.
"Honorious," Elliot got his friend's attention. "Can you kill that last one? I'm hoping to take out that heart."
"On it," Honorious exhaled dutifully.
Elliot thanked the spirit before retrieving his weapons, wrenching them from the corpse of his foe.
Dropping his elegant fighting form, Elliot brutally rushed toward the heart and began cleaving into it.
An odd sensation overcame the man, as though he were aging at a different rate than before. It was odd and off-putting to feel that he was growing quicker than before, especially considering that aging was not a feeling he had ever experienced expeditiously before.
Noting that that wouldn't stop Elliot from his butchery, the already healed heart changed tactics.
Elliot saw the whole section of seekers he fought alongside him dead, while monster moved on to continue their slaughter.
It seemed that he had failed. All his efforts put into save the seekers were in vain. He hadn't been able to save any one soul.
Elliot chuckled loudly, letting the sound crescendo into a roar. "That was a good attempt, dark heart, but I have grown. If you could have done that this whole time, you would have earlier, not that Flyte would have let you."
"See, I have finally surrounded myself with good people, rooting out the Ralthus's and Borigan's that once stood over me. If I were to fail here, they would lighten the load." Elliot beamed. "And you don't have that."
Elliot dropped his grin. "If you would use my own fears against me, I should pay back the favor."
"Star!"
The light spirit pierced through ranks of fiends in a bee line to Elliot, dropping them all dead in quick succession before reaching him.
"Hey Elliot," she hummed. "What's up?"
"Can you help me kill this heart? It's recovering from my attacks too quickly."
"Of course!" The light spirit seemed to smile. Elliot would say she was beaming.
"Thanks!"
Elliot held his greatsword aloft, and Star coated it with her light.
More frantically, the scourge heart tried desperately to keep Elliot at bay. It tried to crumble his physical strength. It tried to seal Star's magic. Elliot's mask prevented both.
Elliot and Star were soon upon the heart. They severed it piece by piece, and watched to ensure that it would not heal. When Elliot was sure it would die, he began to think to himself.
'Maybe I've grown more than I thought.'
Elliot turned away, preparing to slay more fiends.
"Sheil."
The strange word echoed from the gurgling heart, almost like a death rattle. It unsettled Elliot to his core, as he felt the air chill and an unholy presence near.
With an uncomfortable feeling, Elliot chuckled lowly. "Are those the demons you spoke of earlier, Honorious?"
Honorious floated about, on the edge of his non-proverbial seat. "It might be the corpses too. Whatever that heart just did changed them. They've grown and become twisted. Made into desecrate abominations."
"Elliot," Star hummed.
"What's up?" He asked, slowly turning towards her.
"Duck!"
Elliot dropped prone, unsure on what was coming. The instant he did, a corpse flew over his head, its body marred with piercing horns all over.
Looking to the source of the throw, Elliot spotted a huge amalgamation of bodies, each of them somehow wrong. The eviscerator stood tall, walking though the battlefield easily.
Then, it seemed to disappear. When it showed up again, it was much closer, but it was gone again almost instantly.
'I've never heard of an eviscerator doing that.'
"Elliot!" Honorious exhaled sharply in fear. "That's not an eviscerator, it's a night stalker. There's nothing more atrocious for an eviscerator to dream of becoming."
Elliot gave the landscape much more rapt attention while lifting his shield and whispering to Honorious as seriously as he ever had. "Can you return one of my swords?"
"Of course," Honorious answered, bringing back one of Elliot's longswords.
Armed with both sword and shield, Elliot prepared for the night stalker's first attack.
'There!'
Bracing for the impact with both arms, Elliot took the monster's attack on his shield. After quickly scooping up some sand, Elliot threw it at the night stalker, hoping to stick the dust on its flesh. If he could do that, there would be a chance for him to find it when its body next disappeared.
Before it could, however, Elliot made sure to attack. He had to duck and jump away from the gargantuan monster's attacks, but by doing that he was able to score a shallow blow on his foe.
As the night stalker disappeared, the dust and its blood did as well.
'So there's probably an area around the stalker that fades away, meaning that its magic coers more than I thought.'
Elliot steadied himself, preparing for whatever would come next. Honoirous protected his back, ensuring that the young soldier would not be backstabbed.
'There!'
Elliot saw flesh begin to show, ad struck out, wounding the monster before it could do the same to him.
The night stalker took the blow unflichingly, the damge to its post-mortal flesh meaningless. It struck back, aiming to add Elliot's maimed corpse to its collection.
Elliot and Honorious did not let it. Elliot's shield took the hit, protecting itss wielder from the majority of the damage, while Honorious directed the winds to lacerate the offending limb.
Angry, the night stalker mutated its corpulent flesh, growing two new arms, one ending with a meaty scythe blade, and the other wielding a dark flame.
Elliot barely managed to duck under the scythe as it approached, and he had to flee in order to escape the monster's grasping arms.
The night stalker disappeared again.
"Honorious!" Elliot shouted, an idea forming in his mind. "I need some rope!"
"Okay, I'll get some," Honorious exhaled before shooting off.
'Now if I can just survive until he gets back...'
Elliot rushed away from his allies, trying to stay out of the night stalker's range while also keeping it from them.
Jumping out of the way of some thrown rubble, Elliot cut through some shades in his path. He'd have to be efficient if he didn't want the monster to catch up.
Turning back, Elliot saw the night stalker holding a large corpse aloft, rearing back to throw it at Elliot.
The moment the body was thrown, Ellot slid under the legs of a hairy monster, like the ones he'd fought just before.
As the corpse hit the monster with tremendous force, Elliot could hear a loud 'crack' ring out before the hairy beast fell.
'Shades, that's powerful!'
"Elliot!" Honorious's whispering exhalation burst out.
The soldier grabbed the tope that had been thrown to him, and tightly wrapped it around the hilt of one of his shorter swords.
'This thing only seems to attack when I can see it, so there's a solid chance that it won't attack while invisible.'
Elliot tossed his shield out to Honorious.
"I'll need you to defend me, Honorious!" Elliiot shouted.
He heard the sound of thunder in the distance and saw the white flash of lightning despite the utter lack of any clouds.
Something was coming, but Elliot didn't have much time to ponder on what.
As was coming, but Elliot didn't have much time to ponder on what it could be.
As soon as the night stalked appeared, Elliot dove in, catching the creature off guard. He was so close that if it just squeezed him a little, Elliot would have died.
But Honorious prevented that.
And so, the night stalker wasn't able to stop Elliot from plungning his tethered sword into its chest. So deep was the wound that the sword's crossguard was jammed into the crevice formed.
And then, Elliot twisted it.
With no easy way to pull out the sword, the night stalker would have to choose between leaving it in or losing in immense portion of its flesh.
It chose the former.
As the night stalker disappeared, so too did a short length of the rope, but the rest pointed out Elliot's target.
With a sword in one hand and a rope in the other, Elliot began hacking away. By focusing on how the rope twisted, Elliot could tell which arm his enemy was preparing to strike with before it was visible, which removed another of his concerns.
Just as Elliot got somewhat comfortable in his situation, his final concern reared its ugly head.
The monster's magic.
As the night stalker reappeared again, Elliot was met with a faceful of flames. While Honorious prevented the majority of the attack from hitting, Elliot's rope was burned.
But that wasn't the last of it. Elliot's ceaseless attacks had driven the night stalker berserk. He had likely carved out more flesh on his own than removing the sword would have, so it craved his as recompense.
Elliot was thrown into a horde of shades, which, luckily enough, broke his fall. The monster caught back up very quickly and proceeded to make a barrage of pummeling attacked. None of them went through the combined defense of Honorious and Elliot, but all of them created significant bruising and exhaustion nonetheless.
As Elliot grew sufficiently tired, the night stalker reached towards him with an open, burning hand.
Before it managed to grab him, the worled itself seemed to speak to Elliot.
"Iras."
Elliot repeated the word slowly, as that was all that he could muster.
The night stalker and its flames froze in place, unmoving to Elliot's eyes.
'Did I just...?'
Elliot couldn't quite hide his amazement. He'd never even considered that he might be able to use magic.
Retrieving his halberd, Elliot readied the blade and amputated the flaming arm with Honorious's help.
"I almost died," Elliot said with wide eyes. Tired as he was, his thoughts did not remain on his newfound powers for long, rather they quickly drifted back. "Another secon and I would have been done for."
Honorious exhaled in affirmation.
"I mean," Elliot continued, panicking. "I've almost died a lot of times, but that was the closest for sure."
Elliot took a seat while Honorious kept any threats away. Elliot didn't know what to do or even think, and his mind was racing, looking to find some manner of rational to apply to make everything better.
"Elliot!" Honorious's exhale was akin to a scream. "Your spell is over!"
'Oh, right.'
The night stalker, much the worse for wear, grabbed Elliot from behind, gripping tightly enough that he could his bones begin to give way despite Honorious's best efforts to help him.
The night stalker did not kill Elliot outright. It seemed to simply aim to contain him momentarily, and as it did, Elliot moved an arm to his mask, thinking that he might just have a chance to survive if the scourge inside him took over.
"Thank you for pushing these demons, kid," the night stalker's voice was all kinds of messed up, as though the monster had neglecteed to recreate proper vocal cords when making its body, which it likely had. "They wouldn't have let me in without you."
the night stalker redoubled its squeeze, and Elliot was completely unable to breathe. His raised arm fell limp as his glazed eyes caught onto a faint glow emitted by the monster's arm.
'I guess this is it...'
Just as Elliot was beginning to black out, thunder boomed right above him, and the night stalker exploded. Elliot might have too, if not for the care of his rescuer.
"Shades, I hate Hahlew so much," the man said. "There's nothing good about his manner of fighting."
Elliot finnally managed to turn his head to the man who saved him.
"I don't believe I've met you," he said, extending a hand. "My name's Telin. What's yours?"
Seeing Elliot's conditition, the honorsoul of lightning backtracked his statement.
"If it's convenient, you can wait wait until you can breathe and all that."