Above all else, choose victory.
That was the motto Mujin Shimizu had taught Ultaf as a child.
There was no honor in defeat. No triumph in one’s destruction. Honor died a dog's death, drops of blood smeared onto grass from the enemy's blade. The strips of flesh, tearing forth from jugular as stillborn scars. The loser's lips entangled with death as the tongue of their enemies discovered the throats of their daughters and sisters, their mothers and aunts. The merciful ones would put sons in chains, and the unmerciful would send them, stumbling and inexperienced, into death's open legs. They would meet her with longing. Eager, parched, desperately pleading for her embrace, for they had drank from life's avaricious chalice, and their thirst had not been quenched.
It helped that the number of people capable of spewing at him, telling him to reign it in, and not discovering their heads eternally disconnected from their shoulders were few and rare.
Unfortunately, the person standing before Ultaf was one of those rare few.
And Ultaf was not his grandfather.
He watched as a single spell, a single wave of tumultuous power, and multiple flanks of soldiers dropped dead.
Just like that.
“D-demon…” he slurred through shocked lips. “Demon….”
Said demon swayed drunkenly, the only thing keeping him from falling over was his iron-clad grip on his metal staff. Despite the impossibility moments earlier, he looked like a broken, battered doll, his eyes glassy and open and staring from their sockets, wide open and burning with such intensity that he couldn’t possibly be bremetan.
Anyone else would’ve taken advantage of the situation and speared a lance through his back.
Except for these fools he called soldiers.
Ultaf inhaled. “ATTACK—”
And then his mouth clamped shut.
An overwhelming feeling of sheer power crashed upon his shoulders and he crashed down upon the floor. Gravity multiplied itself a hundred times and he, unable to lift his face upwards to find even the slightest justification for how this was possible. His chest burned in his lungs, and he realized his lips couldn’t move. His teeth chipped against each other, biting his inner cheek and leaking copper upon his tongue.
He barely registered what followed. The world swam in his vision, a shockwave that propelled him forwards. It took him another moment to register that raw, unbridled power saturating the atmosphere wasn’t exploding outward, it was flowing in. It was rising up from the floor, pulling away from the castle defenses, the wardstones, dragging through the pipelines into that metal staff impaled upon the floor, and through it, into the demon. It defied physics, the titanic, writhing, star of power compressing inward on itself, as if drawn in by a gravity so strong that nothing could escape it.
Perhaps in the most literal sense.
And then, it was over. The demon lifted his head and a death-rattle ripped free from his throat.
Every window not already broken shattered. Pulverized by the sonic boom. Atomized into fine powder. Ground to dust by sheer, unrelenting force. Cracks appeared on the floor. Split the ground. They ran like wildfire over the terrain and up onto the walls of the courtyard. Chunks of terramancy-reinforced masonry peeled off and fell. Those soldiers nearest shuddered at the noise. They shuddered and then burst, their bodies coming apart in ragged explosions of gore. Steaming offal landed all around them, splattered on the ground like pieces of rotten fruit. Swirling blemishes of color twisted their way into existence, and the sky, that had been cloudy all this time, was now devoid of a single cloud.
And all he could think of was one single term.
Death.
That was the only sensation that Ultaf Shimizu could confidently determine was emanating from the demon in front of him. As much as he wanted to address the rest of his army right now, all of his senses had been ripped from what they were focussed on in an instant to address this horror in front of him.
Everything else was insignificant.
Just by merely standing there, the horror with a bremetan-like appearance made Ultaf certain he was going to die. No previous experience he had had in life, not even standing in front of his grandfather, came close to this embodiment of destruction that stood before him. He was simply something he couldn’t comprehend, someone that screamed into the core of his being that he could not defeat him, could not fight him, could not even touch him, to do so would mean his end, or worse.
His soldiers, whatever remained of them, were shouting, screaming and running around in general confusion. Half of them had already deserted their flanks to escape, jumping off the courtyard to save their lives.
Ultaf couldn’t blame them. There was nothing wrong in fighting an opponent you couldn’t beat, but one you couldn’t understand, that was another matter. And then there was that smile playing on the demon’s face as he stood up, one that told him that what waited for the survivors was something far, far worse than death.
“Who….” he ventured in a broken voice. “Who are you?”
The demon smiled. “Judgment.”
Ultaf sighed resignedly, and looked up at the sky.
It was, as the demon had said, quite beautiful.
----------------------------------------
They had kept Zuken inside a ritual chamber. Its roof jutted with spires, their exteriors adorned with ornamented windows. At their tallest point, a bronzer hued dome sat, a statue of the goddess Amaterasu etched onto its metallic surface. The hallway that led to its arched entrance was well-kept, and the effigies placed along the wall were pleasing to the eye.
Which made Elena a little sad, as she stared at the absolute destruction around her. Crushed, fractured, split, splintered, and otherwise just completely annihilated described pretty much everything that encompassed the vast chamber.
She and Zuken were crouched in one corner, with Olfric standing before them, a massive watery serpent, easily fifteen feet long, coiling around him, attacking everything else with vindictive fury. The hottest flames, the lances of Eternal Light, the hardest stone, the strongest winds… the ferocious kami was keeping everything at bay.
It helped that the opponents were limited to a couple of spiritists and onmyōji. It was difficult to send reinforcements to secure a prisoner when the impregnable fortress was crashing and burning like a house of cards. Whatever Aguilar was up to, it was working.
“You know,” Zuken rasped, coughing as he did. “I expected a negotiation. Maybe even tricking Ultaf or applying political pressure. I didn’t expect… this.”
“Ambushing was simpler.”
Zuken gave her an inscrutable look. “You call this an ambush? It’s a suicide mission.”
Yes, thought Elena surly. A suicide mission for those trying to stop Aguilar.
Her mind was still reeling from what had happened earlier. She remembered the power she had sensed from that metallic monster, the overwhelming amount of mana crammed into such a tiny muddle of metal that she had worn for the Goddess’s sake, that she could hardly even believe it.
It shouldn’t have been possible to craft a weapon more powerful than you were, but it appeared no one had bothered to tell Lukas that.
“If Aguilar is here,” rasped Zuken, “then Tanya… where is she? Have you heard from her?”
Heard from her? Elena wanted to laugh. What would she say? That Tanya was the leader of a yokai contingent living beneath the Desert, or that she and Lukas and that skinwalker were playing the two kingdoms? Or that Lukas had used several of Zuken’s stored memories to spy from afar?
Finally, she opened her mouth. “Yes, I have.”
“And—”
The rest of Zuken’s words died, as a sickeningly sweet sensation crawled up Elena’s spine. If the scent of decaying bodies and corrosion could be converted into a tangible sensation, then would have been its closest analogy. The next sensation came shortly after, not that Elena could feel it, because she was too busy grabbing her head and screaming.
“Elena—” Zuken cried.
“I’m… fine,” she half-hissed, half-growled. “That insufferable Outsider. He’s already begun Stage Two. We have to hurry.”
“You have a stage one and a stage two?”
Elena’s dry stare told Zuken what she thought about his quip. “This entire place is about to blow up. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Olfric,” she yelled, “we need to get out. Send the damned signal!”
“Already did,” Olfric yelled back, slashing an onmyōji with poisoned water, before stabbing him in the chest. The paralytic poison took effect instantly. “But Tanya cannot come in until someone brings the wards down.”
As if things weren’t worse enough, the ceiling above them caved right then, and Olfric hastily raised a wall of water to stop them, and a terramancer took that window to tear a gash through his stomach. Olfric barely managed to drag the watery shield all around himself to cover Elena and Zuken, but it pushed him completely to the defensive. Olfric grunted, and went down on his knees, as the spiritists kept bombarding his defense relentlessly like a raging insane lumberjack. The shield kept fracturing and exploding at several places, with blades of wind and fissures of steam exploding out of corners aimed at Zuken and Elena, who were doing their best to crouch.
Damn it!” He cursed, throwing in every bit of mana he could procure to hold the heavy weight above them, and also squeeze a way out. “God Susanoo, I know I have committed blasphemy recently, but you know my intentions were pure! I only wanted to save my friend, and both of them deserve better than to die here! Please, show us a way out!”
And then, abruptly, the wall behind his attackers exploded and was instantly hollowed out by a burst of furious wind, a massive tremor that pierced to the heart of the stone colossus, telling everyone that a feral storm had arrived. The explosion flung the caved ceiling high into the air, and sent it crashing in the opposite direction.
“I — I thought Asukan gods weren’t so literal,” Elena choked.
Olfric exhaled, and dissipated the water barrier, his dust-stained face breaking into a brief smile as he gained a breath. “Are you complaining?”
“No, no way,” began Elena, only to stagger as she realized who was standing in front of them, and what that explosion had really been.
“Tanya…” choked Zuken. “You look different.”
“And you… alive,” chirped the aeromancer. “Sorry I was a little delayed in getting here. Had to deal with those annoying onmyōji first. Sanctimonious sons of bitches tried to trap me in Eternal Light.” She paused, and looked at Olfric. “No offense.”
“None taken,” said Olfric dryly.
Elena let Olfric act as Zuken’s support. “Aguilar’s gone crazy. Are we still heading for the Well?”
“Well, you need to. The others… Oh, excuse me!” She jerked her head, and a soldier that was aiming at them from atop a pillar, instantly lost his head, his body falling into two halves unceremoniously.
Elena hadn’t even seen Tanya hurl anything at him.
“I can see why you were trapped,” Tanya said. “This place is practically infested with soldiers. I can see why fighting so many at once could be troublesome.”
“I…. yes,” said Elena. “You clearly look troubled.”
Tanya giggled, filling Elena with fresh horror. “Well, I didn’t say I was upset by it. Just noticing that it isn’t effortless. I must confess, I was actually looking forward to adding my own two bits of carnage, but obviously Lukas is being a meanie here and grabbing all the fun for himself. Still..” she sighed. “There are enough soldiers running around so I can enjoy it a little.”
Elena and Zuken looked at each other. Not for the first time, she wondered about the strange dynamic between Tanya and Lukas. Yes, they were lovers now, but even from the very beginning, they seemed to connect on a deeper, more primal level. Even their mannerisms when it came to approaching war was similar.
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As was their insanity.
Birds of the same feather flock together, as the saying goes.
“Erm,” said Elena, raising a hand, like she was asking a teacher at the Shrine. “Do you know exactly what Aguilar is up to?”
Her grin widened. “He’s indulging himself.”
“And… that means?” asked Zuken.
Tanya giggled again. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here. I’m already pissed that he got to face an entire army and he didn’t think of inviting me.”
I was right, Elena decided. Birds of a feather indeed.
----------------------------------------
Dragging Ultaf by his leg, Lukas walked through the scene of absolute carnage that awaited him. Toppled pillars. Upended furniture. It looked like a hurricane had swept through this place upside down, and knew exactly who said hurricane was.
The yokai army had followed in, killing whatever people were left spare and possessing those that weren’t, and could be seen rushing through the snowy terrain downhill, carrying large trunks and floating cargo with them, loaded upto the brim with looted mezals, artifacts, weapons and grain. In retrospect, Lukas was surprised just how efficiently an army of yokai-possessed bremetans could pillage an entire fortress when sufficient motivation was applied.
He moved down the stairs and stepped into the ward chamber.
It was barren, save for a large Shikigami ritual circle in the center, enough to hold a Trial By Combat inside it with room to spare. He actually felt dwarfed standing near the giant thing.
As he stepped inside, he noticed the large rocky obelisks dug into the floor. There were five of them, each placed at the vertices, possibly representing each element — Elemental Constraint, according to Olfric. There was a sixth obelisk, cut exactly into the shape of a pentagon, and placed at the center. The Spiritual Constraint. The entire ritual circle was crafted out of Carquane, an alloy of silver and vatuatil that held —
“Eighty-three percent efficient at conducting natural energy?” Lukas muttered with a chuckle. “Looks like we've got something that’s way better at channeling natural energy than you, Blob.”
“MEAAAOW!” growled Blob, who was currently in the form of a bylestyr.
“Oh, don’t be like that,” Lukas laughed, getting an in depth analysis of this alloy. Blob’s own efficiency at conducting natural energy was somewhere around twenty-nine percent, but on the other hand, Carquane was absolutely shit at everything else.
It wasn’t good for storing energy.
It wasn’t good for storing spiritual data.
And it definitely couldn’t turn ‘alive’ like aqāru good.
It was, plain and simple, a superconductor, as far as Natural Energy was concerned, one that could hold the energy in it for… thirty-four seconds at best, before the energy diffused out of it. That made it absolutely useful as a wardstone, but good for little else.
Though, in the right hands, by which he meant his own, it could become something else. Depending on how vulnerable it was to alteration.
Something to consider for the near-future.
The rest of the room was fairly simple. There was, as expected, the tiny rupture in the air right above the obelisk in the center, no doubt the Well through which the Shimizu were able to penetrate some borderland and harvest kami and other monsters. Even if he were to demolish the entire castle and destroy these wardstones, the rupture would still be there, but Mujin would be able to use it no longer.
In one stroke, everything he owned would be gone.
Just like that.
Inanna would’ve gotten a kick out of that.
“GUH!” groaned Ultaf.
“Let me guess, you’re wondering if this is where you die, right?”
“GUH!”
His lips thinned. “Believe me after what you and your grandfather did, I’d like nothing better than to kill you with my bare hands. Squeeze your throat and all that. But I’m afraid I can’t.”
“GUH?”
“Oh I’m still going to kill you,” he said, smiling like a shark. “But first, I’ll give you a taste of your own med—”
He paused, as the sounds of footsteps became louder and louder. The door opened, and Tanya and the rest stood there. Before he knew it, Tanya had crossed the distance between them, and caught him in a hug. Lukas might have squeaked in surprise, but the undignified sound was muffled by her mouth, suddenly glued to his own. The world vanished into irrelevance, and her lips tasted like victory.
When she pulled back, Lukas noticed how intense, and satisfied she looked, and at the same time, more hungry and dominant and alive than he had ever seen her, to the point that he was as aroused as he was intimidated.
“Someone’s going to get really lucky tonight,” she promised. As she said that, her eyes shone a brilliant white.
Olfric cleared his throat.
Tanya backed off, but not even Olfric and the other's presence could quell the emotion shining bright in her face. Lukas smirked and looked at Olfric and Elena, who both looked like they had seen several miles of bad road, and Zuken…
Zuken looked like a broken, battered man that should’ve been a corpse. A dozen wounds littered his frame, his body covered with gashes and red from the sedimented blood oozing all over his form. If not for the intensity of his gaze, Lukas would’ve thought he was looking at a dead man.
“Banksi,” said Lukas amiably. “They did a number on you, huh?”
“And then some,” said Zuken with a tired grin. Those potions Solana had gotten Elena must have been something to get this man to talk without effort. “I heard you had a harrowing experience yourself.”
Lukas laughed. “You could say that. But first, let me introduce you to our guest.”
“GUH!…”
“Hello, big brother,” said Tanya, her voice sharper than knives as she glared at him. “Heard you were looking for me.”
“GGGUH?” Tears were flowing down Ultaf’s cheeks. A pathetic sight.
“Eh… he’s having a little trouble speaking right now. I might have accidentally broken his neck bone.”
“GGGGHHHH!”
“... Right. Sorry. And his arms, legs, and his rib cage. Maybe a couple more.”
“...Accidentally?” asked Elena, bewildered. “How do you accidentally do something like that?”
It was Lukas’s turn to look sheepish. “I uh… I just wanted to break the bones on his arms and legs to be frank. You know, just in case he wasn’t stupid enough to try anything. I guess I underestimated how weak he is and might have squeezed a bit too hard.”
“And somehow you broke every bone in his body?”
“... I might have squeezed really, really hard.”
No one in the room looked like they believed his excuse. Sighing, he said. “Look, he won’t die of those injuries. But it will take him days to heal from them, even with healing spells. And he won’t be able to speak until then.”
Tanya snorted. “Nothing he doesn’t deserve.” She looked at Lukas. “I’m guessing the plan’s still the same, right?”
“More or less,” he shrugged. “Say, Ultaf, think your grandfather will mind terribly if I total his castle?”
“GUH?!!!”
“Right. Got it.”
“He really can’t understand him, can he?” asked Olfric, looking at everyone flustered.
“Who cares?” muttered Elena. “I just want to be done with this.”
“Yeah…” Olfric murmured, looking no less flustered. “You know, it’s not even four hours, and half the time was spent at the entrance.”
“What’s your point?” asked Tanya, curious.
“Four hours…” the aquamancer repeated. “We just infiltrated into one of the most well-defended fortresses in the entire Empire, massacred their entire army, freed Zuken, captured their Lord, and are about to destroy the fortress and get away with it clean. And all of it in less than four hours.”
He tiredly rubbed his head, looking at Lukas for answers.
“And?” Lukas asked.
“It was a well-planned smash and grab,” Tanya nodded, though now that Olfric had pointed it out, she seemed a little disturbed. “In and out.”
“But that’s just not the way this kind of thing goes!” Olfric shook his head furiously. “It’s just! This is the fortress of a Warlord! It just went so well! Too well! How often do you do this kind of thing, Aguilar?”
“Actually, it was my first,” Lukas admitted with a shrug. He really wasn’t able to see what the big deal was. They had planned for everything, and they got lucky that none of the Shimizu soldiers could overpower him, and that Ultaf was an obnoxious and arrogant son of a bitch.
“It was a very impressive victory,” Tanya agreed. “I can’t wait to see how Mujin reacts to it.”
“Probably by bombing the Desert,” Elena quipped.
“GUH?” Ultaf added his two bits.
“I’d have said experience matters,” said Zuken. “But clearly you don’t need it.”
“Whatever…” said Lukas. Now that the adrenaline rush was leaving him, he was beginning to feel the aftereffects of the constant exhaustion. His powers had grown, yes, but he had channeled way too much lifeforce through his body and the effect was starting to show. Acting as a direct conduit to all that Natural Energy through the ley line hadn’t helped matters either.
There was also the accumulated number of Level-Ups that he needed to take care of. But before that, just one last thing was left.
“I — I need to destroy this place first.”
“And how are you planning to do that?” asked Olfric. “By blowing it up?”
“Yes,” said Lukas absently, glancing at the carquane crystal outgrowth. His head was still pounding like anything. Between channeling the natural energy, the dranzithl’s Decay, dealing with a shit load of Levek-Ups and now Elena’s mindfuckery, he really needed a couple of days of sleep, just to feel normal again.
The wardstones there were nothing but chunks of carquane, an alloy of silver and vatuatil. Eighty-three percent efficient at conducting the natural energy of the world. Fantastic as ward stones, but pants at storing energy. Barely four percent. But, if you altered the vatuatil percentage down from seventy-one percent to sixty-four, and increased the silver past twenty-nine percent, the conduction efficiency dropped down to fifty-nine percent but the storage shot up all the way to thirty-seven percent.
Unfortunately, the increase in silver made the alloy unstable. If he was lucky, the entire thing would at best hold for ten seconds before shattering.
The Screen popped in front of his eyes.
Territory Creation Active
Altering material composition and functionality
Reducing Key limiters…
The wardstones around him were slowly morphing.
As was the ritual circle. Instead of the Asukan matrix that constrained power and let it out in controlled amounts, he altered it into Inanna’s pentagram — applying the principle of harmony to it. Too bad the stones would be shattering too quickly to even try achieving that.
Set.
Alloy Alteration complete
Blueprint saved and stored in Anomaly Database
Initiating Charge…
Instantly, every single one of them felt the wards vanish.
“Get them out quick,” he snapped at Tanya. “I’m nearly done.”
That spurred the girl into action. She grabbed Elena, and disappeared, as if vanishing past a wall he couldn’t see. She appeared a moment later behind a flabbergasted Zuken, and grabbed him, vanishing shortly after.
“I swear I’ll never get used to—” Olfric began, but he was grabbed away before he could finish.
Blob and Ultaf were next.
And then she reappeared, looking absolutely haggard.
“It…” she breathed. “It takes… a lot! Out of me…”
“You can do one more, right?”
“Yeah….” she panted. “Just give me a second.”
Lukas smiled. And right then, the Screen displayed another message.
Charging Complete
Reaching critical limits…
Full discharge in 10 seconds…
“NOW!”
Tanya gritted her teeth, and grabbed Lukas, and he felt something tugging every inch of his body, as he was pulled in every direction, before his feet touched ground again, and he found himself on the opposite mountain, with Solana and the rest of the yokai, Olfric, Elena and a gobsmacked Zuken Banksi staring at everyone in apprehension.
“Barriers up! QUICKLY!” He commanded.
“Six… five… four…” Lukas muttered, inwardly smiling at what was about to happen. Natural Energy was an absolute demon to control. Once you pulled it out of the World, or the Haze, or any other World-level entity, there was no hope of trying to put that genie back into the bottle. And even less hope of taming it in the first place.
He could only hope that Solana’s barriers would hold back the impact.
“Three…”
So he hadn’t bothered with controlling it. He was betting on the idea of the energy being unleashed to the sky and back. It wasn’t about harnessing the power, it was about dissipating it all at once in one massive explosion. And with the wardstone chamber being connected to everything else, there was only one way in which the massive surge of energy could be liberated.
Meanwhile, layers upon layers of dense energy-fields and barriers were forming all around them. Solana’s craft at work.
“Two…”
A wave went through the air, and Lukas smiled at what was to come.
“One…”
BOOOM!!!!
The explosion of light that followed could have put a nuclear explosion to shame.
If left unobstructed, the dense, unfiltered energy would probably have shot upwards towards the heavens until the carquane channeling it had disintegrated. But if there was something in its way…
Like the wardstones channeling it into the very walls of the castle. Into the layers and layers of wards placed to control and channel that energy. Dozens of enchantments, hundreds of defenses, all of them prepared to hold it in place.
An unstoppable force against an immovable object. The two titanic powers erupted against each other with such might that the entire mountain shook, the waves from the collision creating avalanches on surrounding mountains, the sonic boom nearly shattering everyone’s ear drums, as the castle — every pillar, every wall, every enchantment was blasted away in every direction in one cataclysmic detonation. Solana’s barriers held the shockwaves back, and even she had to grit her teeth and nearly dropped to a knee, despite being at least a mile away.
When the light and smoke died, the entire top of the mountain had vanished, leaving a vast crater in its place, with shattered stone blocks, no large than a small boulder, littered all around, and those were the most discernible pieces of the mighty fortress that stood there a moment ago.
“He… blew it up,” muttered Olfric. “He just… blew it up.”
Tanya shared an amused look with Lukas, and grinned at Olfric. “Well, he did say yes.”
“...Yes, but….” trailed the aquamancer, unable to think of the words to properly describe his thoughts. But he didn’t need to finish, they all understood what he meant.
“Yeah,” said Elena, nodding her head dumbly.
Silence filled the area for a moment.
“What… What happens now?” asked Olfric, giving the fallen Ultaf a kick in his ribs, inciting a groan from the man. “And what about him?”
“We’ll take him with us,” said Lukas. The comfort of a bed was calling for him. “I have questions for him.”
“Lukas,” interrupted Tanya. “Grandfather is the real power behind the throne. Ultaf’s just a placeholder.”
“Placeholder or not, he’s been playing Lord for quite some time. I want to see what we can squeeze out of him. Pretty sure Elena can help us there.”
The changeling scowled. “Trust you to come up with the most vulgar requests, Aguilar. Fine, but after all this is done, you’re going to owe me a favor.”
“What?” Tanya interrupted. “What for?”
“Fine,” said Lukas absently. He just wanted to be done now. Hit the bed. And prepare for Mujin’s reaction. In that order. “The Peak is destroyed, we’ve Zuken safe, and for all Mujin knows, Ultaf is dead. Makes him the best kind of captive.”
“But the Warlord —” began Olfric blearily. “We just totalled a Warlord’s fortress. A member of the Sacred Eight.”
“Not a member anymore,” Tanya reminded him confidently. “Don’t worry, Olfric. The hard part is over. I expect everything will go smoothly from here on out.”
----------------------------------------