The spell was less magical darkness and more magical removal of the concept of light inside the sphere.
A high level spell.
He couldn’t tell how big it was so he stopped the electric field and rolled away from the supersoldier.
The gray… he reminded himself where his true strength lay.
He seized focus once more.
It didn’t matter if he couldn’t see with his physical eyes when he could find his enemies through the gray.
The supersoldier was first.
Drained to unconsciousness.
Alin felt slightly more energized.
He remained prone.
Projectiles struck around him.
Most went over, while the few that hit were handled just fine by his armor.
He took a moment to take stock of the battle. To see through the chaos like he had practiced in mindscapes and the Danger Complex.
Primal battled Captain Patriot.
She fought in a phone booth with empowered strikes that dented Threnium while simply tearing off the more exposed of his weaponry.
Conversely, the Threnosh’s short-range weapons like the electric field and many shotgun-like modules mounted all over failed to do more than slow her down. Forget the melee weapons, like the deployable chainsaw-like rings of teeth around their arms. They were too slow to bring those to bear.
The magus had saved Golem pilot Yasmin with a spell.
The massive harpy had been grounded, one wingarm gray like stone dragged across asphalt as she desperately shielded her vitals with her remaining wingarm from Ibra’s manticore stinger-tipped whip and several others with equally deadly gear made from various monster parts.
Hybrid fought hybrid. Tooth and claw shedding blood with savagery greater than humanity, but with calculation beyond the animal.
Luther fried an entire squad hiding behind an overturned hover A.P.C. with a blast from his over-sized spellgun.
Next to him in the middle of the tiny shielded island of green in the sea of gray, Blackstar fired her star-shaped blasts, pulping a soldier’s exposed face.
Open-faced helmets had their drawbacks.
The old American soldiers answered with a spell marked by the absence of visible indicators that passed through a wizard’s magic shield and struck Luther’s artificial arm.
Metal and composite materials withered, flaking into dust, experiencing the passage of millennia in seconds.
Alin traced the spell back to the mage and drained the man to within an arm’s length of death.
Too dangerous despite the soldier’s low mana.
One more spell was certain death if it struck another person or Luther’s fleshy parts.
Surprise had given him an edge.
He pulled from the rest.
Men and women died as they suddenly faltered in the midst of their life or death struggles.
Rough textured gray-skinned arm grew leadened, dropping the shield at the worst time.
Poison tipped spines guided by magic flew into helmet eye slit.
Larger eyes meant a larger opening.
The hybrid supersoldier’s fall shook the ground.
Eyelids grew heavy, closing despite her best efforts to fight it.
Eternal sleep courtesy of the magus graced the elite special forces soldier.
The lines of her face smoothed in death. A map of a long lifetime of battle no longer needed. Sightless eyes stared out into nothing while a fist-sized hole in her armor wafted smoke to join the rest in the sky.
One by one they fell, but not without taking their own toll.
John fell with his fangs around the throat of another hybrid, but not before the other had opened up his throat with a vicious claw slash.
Dean, barely a man. His poor attempt of a beard had without fail elicited remarks about dirt and the importance of hygiene from one person at least once a week. Most had been genuine. The young wizard clutched Jennylyn’s sleeve with all the strength of every clenching muscle in his body. A spell they hadn’t encountered before. One that mimicked the effects of shock, but without the element. The older wizard frantically searched her spellbook for a counter she knew, deep down, wasn’t in there.
Bones broke, muscles tore, tendons and ligaments snapped as the subconscious limits protecting the human body from its maximum strength were removed.
Alin could feel the thumping in Dean’s chest.
Faster and faster.
Like a machine gun.
Almost beating itself free from its ivory cage.
He reached out to the wizard, tried to take his stamina… perhaps—
Dean’s heart stopped only because it burst.
The light in the young man’s eyes vanished.
Jennylyn continued to search her spellbook, pages flying at her frantic gestures.
The last light to disappear was that in Dean’s spellbook laying next to his twisted limbs.
How many?
How many of his friends and allies souls drifted through the gray?
It wanted them.
A voice urged him to—
“No!”
He lay in darkness and wished for light.
Light?
He felt sudden heat from everywhere.
Gold.
He touched golden light.
A moment’s realization until it swallowed them all.
The gray began to burn.
He drew it back in before he lost it all.
A sonic boom dispersed the darkness..
The single clap silenced the battle.
“Heed my words.”
Perfection loomed over Alin close enough to touch.
Skin so dark as to be like obsidian.
Muscles as though carved out of marble.
Bare feet and bare chest, clad only in a simple man skirt of white cloth.
Not a single strand of luminous golden hair out of place on his beard. Whether the same could be said of his hair was obscured by the long, bulbous black helmet.
Suiteonemiades was about a foot shorter and significantly smaller than Alcaestus.
However, Alin knew without any doubts that what stood over him was the superior specimen and it wasn’t even close.
“You’ve done well.”
The demigod gestured.
Reality tore.
Gold seeped from jagged seams, ripping open with a screech that punched right through his helmet’s auditory protections.
Every mortal being in the parking lot cried out, some falling to their knees or unconscious with two exceptions.
Captain Patriot winced, but she kicked off of Primal’s chest with a graceful backflip.
The magus’ monster eyes flashed. Several wept crimson tears. Yet, she kept her face set in stone.
“Your service is appreciated.”
The old American soldiers fled through the portals. Those capable of walking, helping those that couldn’t.
Not a single man and woman left behind.
Captain Patriot lingered at the precipice of the golden light.
She didn’t want to leave for some reason.
He didn’t know what that was. Nor could he try to get a read on her emotions with engulfing her in the gray, which his dad had instructed him to avoid using in the presence of the demigod if at all possible.
Too many unknown variables were at play.
One last gaze and she too stepped into the light.
“Now. Before we begin. I offer you three paths. The first,” the demigod held up a finger that looked equal parts rough like a warrior and delicate like an artist, “stand aside. You may retreat to that strange building over yonder.” He turned his head to the Danger Complex.
Everyone always said never take your eyes off an opponent.
Hanna, ranger instructors, his family.
The demigod mocked the wise words.
“Or find safety to the south or elsewhere. It matters not, for I believe your many paths will ultimately lead to one place.” He raised a brow and smirked. “Your second path lays behind me. Through those portals. A place of honor and privilege under may aegis. Be my spears. We shall make your world better… together. You will earn freedom in loyal, faithful worship. Both in the metaphysical— for nothing compares to living beneath the shining lights of the Pantheon. It is as a cool glass of water at the end of a desert crossing. Or a full table after enduring a siege— it is in the literal. For you shall receive the right to live in a paradise world of your choosing after a mere decade of service… as is measured in your world.”
Suiteonemiades fell silent for a long moment. His golden eyes dimmed, falling downward as he regarded the devastation all around him.
“The costs of battle are ever unchanging… even after a millennia.” He sighed. “The third path… well… you can see it all around you. I am here for only one thing. There will be no mercy for those that stand across mine.”
“No,” Primal said.
“Ah! Threnosh. Your world was unknown to us before the discovery of this Terminus World. You’ve remained untouched thus far, but all belong to the Gods or nothing does. Think before you reject my magnanimous generosity. Would you rather we set foot on your home world in peace? Or…” eyes flashed gold, drawing attention to the battlefield.
“You’ve already brought war to my home, Designation: Suiteonemiades. You are a standard biological being with anomalous energy in your cellular structure. Reason dictates that gods are beings with greater amounts of anomalous energy in their construction. Gods do not exist as you claim. Conclusion: you are to be terminated like any biological enemy.”
A shadow passed over head, drawing eyes skyward.
Golden tears in the clear blue swallowed wing-armed women.
The pit in Alin’s stomach grew larger and sank lower.
Suiteonemiades appeared willing to face everyone on his own.
One didn’t want to see that sort of confidence in an opponent.
“The hands turn. Some may have the power to slow them or even halt them… for a time.” He gave a wry grin. “Unfortunately, it is not in my honored father’s domain nor am I a particularly talented spellcaster. Much like my great father, I’m more like a rampaging trihorn whose chains are too thin. Time runs out. Chose now and accept the consequences.”
“Wait!” The magus floated closer to the ground and the tiny island of green surrounded by gray. She regarded her family. They shared no blood, but their bonds couldn’t be tighter. Crossing continents and an ocean in the post-spires world had made for a crucible to forge them together like steel. “Everyone except Ibra will accept his offer. Waleed, you are in charge. Go.” One of her monster eyes shined a light, cutting through the smoke and dust to the Danger Complex in the distance.
Alin was of the mind that a few hundred meters wasn’t enough distance judging by the energy readings he was picking up off the demigod.
He tried the comms to warn everyone he could, but got static.
Predictably, Waleed and the others argued.
Even more predictably, they relented under the glare of 14 eyes.
“I can’t tell the rest of you what to do. Only encourage you to do the same. I promise, Ibra and I will hold this ground until our last breaths,” the magus said.
Jennylyn sniffled. “I’m sorry, but I have to take Dean home to— I promised his— I’m sorry.” The wizard murmured, her spellbook glowed.
Two wizards, one unmoving, disappeared with a soft pop.
“Pity that. I’d have liked to learn more about her spellcasting. It’s of a higher quality. Not in power, but the elegance and efficiency of it…” Suiteonemiades said.
Alin flashed hand signals to his dad’s guards and golem controllers.
No sense in throwing their lives away.
They took their hands off their weapons, holstered them or tucked them inside bags of holding. With hands upraised half chased after the magus’ family, while the other half hurried to pry Yasmin out of her wrecked golem.
Alin flashed signals to the surviving hybrids.
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They hesitated.
“Take your fallen with you. Brave warriors receive honor under my gaze,” Suiteonemiades said.
Alin swallowed a lump.
He had hidden the signals with his body, yet those golden eyes all but screamed that nothing escaped them.
Better they focus on him rather than notice Luther and Blackstar quietly slipping back inside the building.
While his dad’s hybrids gathered the fallen the demigod’s gaze bored into Alin’s darkened faceplate.
“You won’t believe me when I say this, but I empathize. A thousand years and I still remember that day when I was first in the very same position that you’re in now. The memory never left me. Thought healers, memory eaters, anything and everything never worked for long because deep down I never wanted them to. There is regret, but there is resolve. What I do today is for a purpose. Though I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming its for some nebulous greater good. No. If good is to come from it, then it will have been a pleasant coincidence.” The demigod reached out to a prize only he could see. “A thousand years of deferred vengeance close enough to almost grasp.” Golden eyes misted as he clenched his hand into a fist. Muscles and veins in his arm strained like thick cords twisted taut.
Silence reigned.
Alin remembered his dad’s instructions.
Do not talk.
Do not engage.
Stranger danger protocols to the nth degree.
True to his word, the demigod waited until only a handful of people remained.
The others had reached the Danger Complex.
“I believe that concl—”
“No,” Primal said flatly. “That one,” he pointed a huge, blunt finger at Alin, “he also departs.”
“Yes,” the magus added.
Ibra caught Alin’s eye.
The grizzled old warrior gave Alin the barest hint of a nod with those dark brown eyes set in a face weathered by sun and wind and marked by dozens of scars to resembled the desert cliffs in his homeland.
“No. More than anyone, he has the right to be here. As an orphan myself I know that this is the one battle he would never flee from,” Suiteonemiades said.
Alin’s eyes widened.
He surged to his feet with the gray venting from his body with more speed and violence than he had ever used before.
The demigod grinned. “I’ve always believed that for a warrior a quick mind is more important than a quick sword arm. It’s always a good thing to see in the young.”
Alin dumped his remaining ammo, drained every weapon into the smug bastard.
“Rocky Road 71, Hotdog 12 combination,” Primal grunted.
Alin scrambled back from the demigod firing his last sticky foam projectiles at face and feet.
“Stay mobile! I will shield you to the best of my ability!” the magus said.
Primal kept their distance, blasting away with seemingly every weapon at their disposal.
Flechettes and lasers.
Missiles and billowing streams of fire.
Suiteonemiades vanished in the conflagration.
Alin pulled the gray back, but not before losing some.
The brief touch he got on the demigod had been enough to tell him that draining the man was impossible.
“Rayn of Fire to Goldenspoon, do you copy?”
“… Songbird? Yes! I copy! We need fire support!”
“Glad you’re alive, Goldenspoon! We’re dead in the sky. Engine damage critical. The harpies retreated through portals. Hoping you guys did something great down there to make that happen. But we’re still picking up a hell of a lot of energy from a signature that’s making our instruments cry like a baby with a full diaper.”
“It’s the demigod. Suiteonemiades.”
Songbird uttered a string of curses.
Ranger Captain Mouthy would’ve been proud at the creativity.
“Are you danger close? We’re struggling to locate your ident tag. It keeps flickering. Also getting Primal, the Magus of the Twelve Eyes and an Ibra.”
“I’ll mark him. Just hit him with what you have. Don’t worry about the rest.” Alin trained the targeting laser on where he thought the demigod was. “Full defense, magus! We’re getting some help!”
“The two of you need to come to me!”
“Acknowledged and declined,” Primal said.
“Same. Have to keep on target.”
“Target’s coming in… static-y, but good enough. We’ll give you want we’ve got left and re-routing some reinforcements. Can’t send everyone in case those birdwomen come back. Good luck, Goldenspoon.”
“Thanks, Songbird, you too.”
He figured since they were doing the shooting they needed more luck than he did.
Out in the distant sky, a burning skyship fired.
She was too far for most of her spell weapons and had used most of their stored mana in the fierce aerial battle anyways. The same was true of her guided munitions. She had a lot of dumb bombs left, but didn’t have the right angle, nor did they want to indiscriminately destroy the structures and underground complex filled with their people.
Thus, projectiles.
Waves of concussive force knocked Alin back dozens of meters into the armored side of his hotel-casino home.
Shrapnel in the form of broken metal, asphalt and dirt would’ve pierced and scoured his flesh if not for his armor.
Primal stopped shooting to engage their shields.
The magus’ held much stronger than the Threnosh’s flickering shields.
Golden light shimmered through the thick debris cloud.
“I admire the design aesthetics. Form is function. Not like our ships where function is secondary to form, which is dictated by the insecurities of a God or demigod.” Suiteonemiades clapped, clearing the air in an instant.
The pressure wave shoved Alin back against the wall, caused Primal to backpedal lest they topple over.
Even the magus was forced to strengthen her magic shield as her eyes squinted.
“You have how many of them? 12, I believe.” He raised a hand.
A bright, golden beam lanced across the sky.
The Rayn of Fire bucked at the impact.
The beam intensified.
Armor plating began to glow and bubble.
Alin almost heard her shriek like a living thing as the beam punched through the port ventral side and out the dorsal side.
“Songbird… do you copy?”
“… going down…”
He closed his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat.
The skyship’s descent to the north picked up speed until he lost sight of it behind some tall buildings in the distance.
“Ah! Yes. One stirs up hornets when one destroys the hive,” the demigod remarked as if discussing the weather.
Marian led the charge, diving her little skyfury with the sun at her back.
Projectiles spat, breaking on the demigod’s midnight black skin.
He responded with smaller blasts of golden light as if to match the pilot’s attack.
Thrusters pushed her craft in directions and angles impossible for traditional atmosphere-bound aircraft.
“Impressive maneuverability. Skills to overcome the planet’s hold on the pilot? Protections built into the craft itself?” His eyes flashed. Two thin beams of gold shot out.
Marian went into complex evasive patterns, but the beams followed her unerringly, zig-zagging across the sky, scattering the handful of Threnosh interceptors and rangers in fighter suits.
The skyfury was faster than any human fighter jet, faster than even high-altitude spy jets.
It wasn’t enough.
The gold light caught it, engulfing the rear in flames.
Dark smoke trailed as the skyfury plummeted over the hills to the east.
“To all rangers and interceptors. Abort attack on demigod. Get Marian.”
She was going to crash in monsterland. Possibly in hilly terrain between Whittier and Hacienda. Maybe even in the state park farther east if she managed to keep her fighter flying long enough. She wouldn’t last long on the ground if any monsters had stayed in those areas rather than join the throng attacking his home.
In any case, the Rayn of Fire’s guns didn’t get through the demigod’s forcefield.
What chance did much weaker weapons have?
“I’m a man of honor. I’m nothing without my word. You may not leave.”
Golden beams zig-zagged across the sky.
Across the fliers.
One by one each vaporized at the slightest touch.
Thin Threnium plates and Thernium weave flight suits provided as much resistance as wet toilet paper.
How many escaped behind the hills?
3? 4?
Out of 12?
Alin’s chest rattled from within.
People he knew… gone without a trace.
Nothing left of the rangers for their families to bury.
Nothing left of the Threnosh to take to their crypt on the moon.
Just names on the walls now.
“Now then—”
Suiteonemiades vanished.
“Auto targeting system—”
Primal’s warning was drowned out by a sound like greater lightning bolt going off right next to Alin.
Golden light shined from the demigods eyes and mouth as he smiled at Primal’s armored chest. “Another interesting thing. You, small grey one, can see me, yet my physical vision cannot see you.”
Electric field sparked, sending arcs of blue-white light dancing across midnight black skin.
Ring saws around massive armored arms whirred to life, sweeping the demigod into a hug with what seemed like glacial slowness, when in truth Primal’s massive true skin moved with the quickness of a gifted athlete minus Skills.
Suiteonemiades accepted the gesture.
Diamond-hard saw teeth sparked against harder skin, chipping until dull.
Primal spiked the demigod into the ground like a football.
Suiteonemiades rolled out of the way of a ground-shaking stomp.
“Gaze of the Gorgon!”
The spell flashed over the titanic combats.
But only one stared out into the world with their natural eyes.
Gray began to spread across the demigod’s face.
Golden orbs dimmed.
Nose.
Foreheads, cheeks.
Mouth.
The spread halted there.
Grayed skin flaked to reveal rich black.
A second or two of effectiveness with the magus putting more into the spell by verbalizing.
“Boy,” Ibra appeared at his side, helping him to his feet. “It’s not working?”
The gray blanketed the area.
Thick like smoke, yet the demigod moved like he didn’t notice it.
Alin tried to reach and pull, but couldn’t get a grip. It reminded him off that one horrible trip to England when he was a kid. Sure, the Queen’s kids were brats, but it was the river eels that had really ruined things. Damn things had kept slipping out of his hands to drop back into his waders.
He shook his head.
“Okay. That’s bad, but we can try something else. Can you shroud me so I can get close without him noticing? The magus doesn’t think she can shield me for long,” Ibra said.
“I don’t think so. He’s not even noticing it.”
“Damn, I’ll have to find my spot.” Ibra eyed the entrance.
“I’m Nnt leaving.”
“Brave, but what would your parents say about combat effectiveness?”
“I’m not completely ineffective.”
He had re-spread the gray to encompass most of the area within the walls of the expansive compound.
Most of the old American soldiers had retreated through the demigod’s portals.
All that remained in Alin’s senses were scattered pockets of his people on the walls or in the towers desperately fighting the multitude of monsters with dwindling ammo, stamina and mana.
So many monsters.
They tasted terrible.
Like rotted meat.
One time was one time too many.
Still… he was desperate.
He sucked the lifeforce straight out of every single one in his gray embrace.
Their power surged into him.
He rarely kept it, preferring to let it disperse into nothing rather than endure its flavor.
However, his training was comprehensive.
In the mindscape and reality.
They covered every conceivable scenario.
Thus, the sudden strength didn’t surprise him.
Focus and deliberation.
That was the key to remain in control of his exponentially stronger body.
“Boy?”
He grit his teeth.
Everything felt on fire.
With power came protection, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to feel it tomorrow.
If there was a tomorrow.
“I’ll— distraction—”
“Say no more. I’ll go for the face. Ears, nose, eyes or mouth. I can’t penetrate his skin, but if I can get the venom inside… maybe…” Ibra sighed.
The middle-aged man looked decades older.
“Good… luck…” Alin managed to ground out.
He leapt across the many meter distance in a single bound.
Multi-weapon flashed into a broad-headed poleaxe.
Golden blasts struck magic shield as a monster eye joined Alin on his low flight.
Smaller eyes darted around the demigod, using Alin’s distraction.
Ice crystallized over the right half of the demigod’s body.
Muscle’s flexed, shattering the spell.
Hardlight edge met upraised arm.
Black hand palmed Alin’s face at the same time that his weapon broke into a million pieces of twinkling yellow.
The demigod regarded him with an appraising eye, ignoring the magus’ spells as they failed to penetrate the skin-tight shimmering golden forcefield. “Interesting. I learn with every passing moment,” he mused.
Dark light curved around Alin, latching onto the demigod’s arm like a hungry leach.
Gold light turned opaque at the site of contact.
The demigod spoke words Alin didn’t understand.
Color leached from the magus’ spell, traveling back to the source.
The magus’ monster eye vibrated as it too began to lose color.
“Telteri’s Retort. I learned it from the woman herself. Human like you. I’m honored to have adventured with her in my younger days. She reached heights unimaginable for short-lived mortals. Level 87 when she passed. Not in battle, but quietly in a comfortable bed surrounded by a town’s worth of descendants. She made it halfway through her second millennia. Magic can only extend your fleeting lives so much if you’re not willing to discard your humanity.”
The demigod slammed Alin into the asphalt, driving him into a deep crater.
“A true master of magic will be able to decipher the spell just from that brief exposure. Do you count yourself as such? Or are you a child playing with toys you don’t truly understand? Or perhaps luck will be on your side and the spires will simply bless you with the spell?”
The moment that last bit of color in the monster eye disappeared it exploded, showering the magus in colorless gore.
“Telteri loved duels against other masters of magic more than anything in the worlds. Hence…”
The colorless bits and splotches on the magus’ enchanted clothes suddenly turned black.
“Counter spells weren’t sufficient for her. She believed that there was no greater expression of her dominance than to defeat her opponent with their own magic.”
The magus cried out as her own spell sucked the mana from her enchanted clothes before starting on hers.
11 orbiting eyes wobbled in space, eyelids drooped.
One blinked a scaled lid as it focused its gaze on the magus with a flash.
Gray spread over the magus instantly.
Clothes, sun-browned skin, black and grey hair.
Not a single part of her had escaped.
“Well…” Suiteonemiades gazed down at Alin, who struggled to push the massive foot of his armored chest. “She may cast spells like child holding a mother’s hand, but I can’t deny that she has a little hellhound in her. Tenacious little things.”
The magus was a frozen sculpture… until she wasn’t.
Gray stone flaked, shedding her clothes and upper layer of skin, which left her in a Threnosh onesie and with raw red flesh for a face and bald head.
Her face was frozen in a scream as her beachball-sized monster eye floated over her.
It shined a faint green spotlight down, pulsing in gentle waves.
“You won’t surpass your potential if you rely on the spires to hold your hand. Sadly, you shall not have the opportunity to learn that lesson.”
The demigod fired a pencil thin beam of golden energy from his fingertip.
Partway to the target, the beam turned into a crackling bolt of blue and white.
Alin hadn’t noticed it the first time, but he felt through the gray that the demigod’s divine energy turned into a spell.
The magic lightning was the same flavor as every other magic lightning he had experienced before.
It split into 11 smaller bolts, each striking a monster eye.
The magus collapsed in a pool of red as nearly half exploded.
The rest dropped to the ground as if strings had been severed.
Her large healing eye landed on her back where it continued to blink and pulse weakly.
“One of your strongest?”
The demigod’s face was carved out of marble.
“Regardless, I know my path. Though part of me is jealous of the opportunity my cousins are enjoying—”
The rest of what Suiteonemiades was about to say turned into a deep bellow of… of what sounded like pain to Alin.
He craned his neck back toward the sound of thunder pounding against the asphalt.
A whip cracked.
Green-tipped stinger caught the sunlight a moment before it disappeared into the demigod’s open mouth.