Die, my children.

Die, and die again.

Die, so that you might feed the cold of my realm, so that you might fuel my Concepts, so that my power might grow.

Die, and be returned.

Between that point of unlife and oblivion, we remain—a blockade before the nothingness, a final gate before the great sleep.

And here, none may pass. Not without our indulgence, our surrender.

Die, and through me, you will live eternal, and I through you, will be the eternal winter that embraces the realms.

-The Hound of the Withered Moon

II-48

A Theft of Death (IV)

The new Souldrinker burst through the Bastard’s protective veil trailing a smear of viscera through the air. Every last bit of Spatial Essence that constituted the spirit of the original Souldrinker had been sacrificed, consumed utterly to bring something of equal Essence across the reach of space.

Wei’s Dilation Echo barely warned him of the forthcoming danger—didn’t give him enough time to warn his allies. Instead, he intercepted the powerful Bloodspawn with glaive and scythe, pulsing his Proximal Aegis once more to limit its maximum Speed to his. But that did nothing to ward off its infectious aura, nor did it stop the overwhelming tides of Lifedrinkers from flooding past it.

They came a unified swarm, furling wide like an expanding net, taking up every inch of space they possibly could. Only the Bastard moved in tandem with Wei, crescents slashing out to cut these new threats down before they could overrun Wei’s disciples. Splotches of cold opened in the world, becoming zones of death for hundreds of Lifedrinkers. They fell as a tide of withered corpses. The others adapted—positioning themselves behind the Lifedrinker, which was now actively summoning even more of Bloodspawn using its wings.

This, Wei had no recourse against. The only solution was bringing the horror down.

He cut a stretch of space running just behind the Souldrinker. The moment he arrived, he Essenceshifted, becoming a bolt of Divine Lightning that speared down into the Souldrinker’s back.

A cataclysmic impact blasted out. A tide of force flung most of the Lifedrinkers aside while his Empyreal Aegis disintegrated everything around him, burrowed through the Souldrinker’s outer flesh. Yet, the mangled flesh composition of its form regenerated as fast as they were spent. Pulses of Spatial Essence preluded entire patches of tissue being teleported back to replace that which the nightmarish behemoth lost.

The cursed thing wasn’t even healing the normal way — outright grafting bits of its body back through teleportations.

Wei felt a twist of the blood-aura composing its body. A crushing Wei swept over him, ground against his senses. He felt his Essenceshift breaking around him, coming apart as it was corroded away by a more intrusive Essence. But Wei knew this was coming—had already faced his adversary once. Materializing once more, the young master’s Proximal Aegis was expanded wide, wings of light and shadow that bathed everything in brightness, that highlighted the lashing wall-sized limb descending to splatter him.

Source: [209/600]

A burst of wind sent Wei into a spiral. The Souldrinker was matched to his top speed—every bit of Source Essence he consumed keeping it bound. With both their velocities equalized and with clear knowledge of where the Souldrinker’s blow going to land, the young master slipped it by a hair’s inch and began carving piece after piece out of his adversary’s spirit using his scythe.

The Lifedrinker rattled and groaned. It could regenerate from his Concept of Deconstruction, but there was still no coming back from being broken.

At the same time, a massive blade of glacial moonlight burst out from its chest and sent it staggering past Wei. The Bastard entered the fray, armor aglow with an impossible amount of Essence, blade rivaling it, creating a clashing interplay between the cold, winnowing energies of death against the soothing breeze offered by life.

The young master let out a snort and buried his Pale Fang into the side of the Souldrinker. His arm jolted tight as he was pulled along for the rise. As he went, he channeled every last bit of Scorn he had in a colossal burst of power—the same technique the Celestial Vanguard used against him during his first duel. Billowing tides of brilliant fire swallowed and unmade countless Lifedrinkers, crashed down over the armored hallway guarding his sect, through their rents and cracks to grace his disciples.

The hallway itself was mended by his powers, the structure was restored, his allies were healed, and as he fell to a sub-percent of Scorn remaining, Wei offered his excess power over to Agnesia, who reflexively seized his Deconstructive flames with her own abilities and fused it to her terrifying potent blasts.

A second cone of fire followed Wei’s initial explosion. What few Lifedrinkers still alive came asunder.

Class Level > 84

Wei wasted no time and assigned every free point he had to Speed. The Souldrinker was recoiling. Between him and the Bastard, they had it on the back foot. As the young master carved pieces out of its Aspects with his Path of the Martial Harvester, he felt a sapping frost creep across the Souldrinker’s body and tear its vitality away.

Focus. A bit more effort. That was all it would take before—

The Souldrinker’s wings flared. A new set of echoes manifested. Portents of a few thousand hair-thin threads spilled out from the spatial portals. They would run through Wei, through the Bastard as well. The young master growled. He’d seen this attack before. It was the reason behind his earlier humiliation.

Now, it was time to see if he could manage to redeem himself.

He cut with his scythe again and materialized just before the Souldrinker’s open wings. He flung his scythe after the Souldrinker, directing it using his Source to continue carving a gruesome path through its inner spirit while at channeling the motes of ash that were now swirling around his Eidolon.

The tendrils came. They splashed against the young master’s protective screen of diminished Essence, but he countered this time, pitting his unmaking power against the twisted concepts that ruled over flesh, skin, blood, and space offered by the Dying Queen. There, he felt a touch of her presence, the faintest hint of her awareness. She noticed him as well. An image flashed before his eyes—of her seated upon her throne, blood flowing from her sanctuary realm, offered in part to fuel the Souldrinker.

Yet, something held her back. Something kept the fullness of her power at bay. Mepheleon was Wei’s guess. But the Harbinger cared only enough to warn off the worst of her intentions. Her slaves were still free to sully the mansions of hell, it seemed.

“I will have them,” the Queen said, her words echoing across the span of entire galaxies. “I will have the Scion of Flame, of Destruction, of Creation. I will have the last blood of Ignium. And I will have you as well, oh, rival mine.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Wei responded by flaring his celestial brightness again, and his Scorn was partially restored thanks to the successful counter. He blasted into the Queen’s Souldrinker in a surge of lightning. It jolted violently from the impact—then he created a Lance of Annihilation against its chest, drilling deeper into its core as he recalled his scythe.

The Bloodspawned horror tried to reach for him with a gruesome hand made out of interconnected human arms. A twisting crescent dismembered the Souldrinker’s entire arm. Then its other limbs as well.

More sources of deathly cold suffused the Souldrinker’s body. It was weakening rapidly. Between Wei’s Aspect breaking and the Bastard’s life-extinguishing onslaught, even this foe of immense power was as if a lamb being pulled apart by two ravenous wolves.

The young master’s Lance blasted through the Souldrinker’s chest. It let out a ragged cry. Through the gore-choked gape, Wei caught sight of the Bastard, channeling a massive outpouring of frost through his greatblade on the other side. The two made eye contact. The Bastard briefly pointed to his armored shoulder—showing Wei a part that had been dissolved.

Ah. Friendly fire. How displeasing. In Wei’s defense, the fool should have stayed alert and dodged. Letting oneself get hit is no excuse.

However, another thing occurred to the young master thereafter: Previously, the Bastard’s aura extinguished Wei’s celestial flames. Now, there was a sign of harm. Perhaps the Bastard needed to be focused to achieve the quelling effect? No time to theorize now. Time to finish the beast.

Wei twisted both blade and scythe, bringing it up to split the Souldrinker clean through. The Bastard clearly had the same idea as he turned his now hill-sized blade of frost from vertical to horizontal, forcing Wei to dodge to the side, barely avoiding the edge.

The edge, but not the aura of impossible cold.

“Bastard!” Wei growled, shaking his left arm. The entire limb was numb and rapidly losing feeling. “What are you doing? Are you trying to take my limb?”

“Dodge better, bitch!” the Bastard laughed.

This insolent dog.

Wei prepared to dive back into the slaughter. Then, stopped. The Souldrinker’s Essence began to gather, shifting internally once more. This felt just like how it did earlier when the new Souldrinker emerged from the original. It was trying to do the same thing.

Urgency guided Wei’s cuts and slashes. The Souldrinker had to be close to losing an Aspect, if he just—

The Bloodspawn came asunder in a wave of Spatial Essence. Both he and the Bastard were caught in its rippling wave, rapidly displaced across the insides of the nest.

Until Wei brought his scythe down on the wave, that was. He struck three times. Each moment, he carved more from the wave’s Essence to restore his lost Source. Opposite to him, he could see the Bastard struggling, slashing. Another weakness noted: Death’s Bastard lacks any means to counter spatial manipulation as well.

With a final cut, the wave detonated in shadow and light, and Wei blinked, going for the Souldrinker. He rematerialized a second too late—-barely avoiding a sweeping backhand that burst out from the Souldrinker’s body as another replacement arrived on the scene.

The young master let out a frustrated snarl. There was no end to this. Even with all the Source he was reaping, his Proximal Aegis demanded more than he could sustain without a constant barrage of attacks. He needed to bring this fight to an end, and fast. Otherwise, defeat might arrive out of sheer attrition alone.

He came for the new Souldrinker as he considered his approach. He needed to use his scythe as much as he could. Target its Will or Mind to cripple its ability to respond tactically. Before he entered the fray once more, a channel of dark-gold fire speared up and into its body, blasting a hole through its chest.

Agnesia.

Wei’s Omniscience shifted ever briefly, and he saw the girl rising through the air, an endless torrent of flames pouring forth from the open jaws of her draconic avatar. Part of him was proud of her spiking power and courage. More of him wanted her far away from this fight. The Souldrinker wasn’t something she could contend with—she wasn’t ready to dance the edge.

His thoughts were broken as another pulse of Spatial Essence surged inside the Souldrinker. Wei let out a disbelieving sigh and his Shell responded the same way.

“Another?” the Shell muttered, weary. “Truly, it wishes to exhaust us. Keep close to it. And be ready for what is to come.”

Wei closed with a slash of his scythe. As he materialized right in front of the monster, he cut into it three more times with his Path of the Martial Harvester when he realized something was wrong. It was letting him take pieces out from its Mind—not responding. Instead, the Essence it manipulated was concentrated where Agnesia’s blast was tunneling through it.

Then, Wei felt its power course through its veins. Its wings furled wide. Some turned toward Wei. Others turned at the Bastard, now fast approaching. The rest were directed at Agnesia and the disciples behind her. With everything happening at once, the young master didn’t understand what was happening.

Until it started actively teleporting Agnesia’s channeled flame through its wings using its very body as a conduit.

Tides of gold, black, and crimson sizzled upon the surface of reality. Wei tried unleashing a beam of fire to ward off the coming deluge, but infused with Agnesia’s Concepts, the Souldrinker’s newest attack consumed his Essence and only grew stronger. Wei cut upward—jolted out of position before it could sweep over him.

But just then, a lethargy gnawed at his very being, and uncontrollable panic filled his heart.

Source: [44/600]

Ambition — 88

Right. His Shell drained his Ambition as well. So did his Harvester. This fight had gone on too long.

Long enough for everything to go wrong.

The Bastard parried the oncoming wave of fire and corrosive blood with a cry of effort. The steams projected from the Souldrinker’s wings were split in half against the Bastard’s frost-made blade. Despite this, he was straining, Essence bleeding out from him into the atmosphere at a staggering rate. Wei could hear the man’s greatsword crying out as well—crying out, and channeling a wave of Rejuvenating Essence downward.

To where Wei’s sect was.

His sect. The disciples. Their position had been entirely enveloped with a waterfall of devastation. Black and gold flame further empowered by the fetid blood of the Dying Queen splashed over the armored hallway the Oathbearer’s made. Wei’s Omniscience granted him sight beyond the visual and sensory—he could see the state of his disciples. And they were screaming, most of them boiling from within as their spirits were strained, their flesh twisted, their lungs fried.

The only reason they hadn’t died immediately was thanks to the superior Constitution of the Oathbearers, who were actively building more protective layers to the structure, and Rafael scribing cipher after cipher to delay the inevitable.

Then, a second cry parted his focus once more. A counter wave of infected flame split through Agnesia’s blast and struck her from the sky. Wei could see coiling veins of twisted red burrowing into his flesh, and his thoughts dissolved into animal instinct. He cut. He reached her, pulled her close and began slashing at the infection eating through her person. Her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.

He needed to—

Something struck Wei, then.

It struck him so hard that he felt his spinal column shatter, his limbs fold at awkward angles.

The young master slammed into Agnesia. Parts of her broke as well, and she was flung away from him like a ragdoll, bouncing across the ground and skipping toward the far walls in the distance.

Wei lost track of her as he spiked into the floor, forming a massive crater of blood. His armor shattered. His Shroud of Scorn burst into fragments of fading glitter. For a second, Wei wondered if he was dead, but as agony set back into him, he started wishing he actually was.

Source: [4/600]

The young master coughed and wheezed. On the edge of death. Again. Again. He tried to rise, tried to force himself to face the descending Souldrinker, now channeling the bulk of its portals toward his sect and Death’s Bastard.

“No,” Wei choked. His vision dimmed and brightened. The Bastard was entirely swallowed, wailing as his body was cooked inside his rapidly melting armor. His greatsword screamed a second time, wailing as she gleamed, struggling to bear the heat.

Death. The very stench of death and dread loomed. It poured out from the Bastard, staining the world as it drained away all colors, as Wei’s surroundings changed. The nest of blood began to vanish, peeling away like a torn canvas to reveal a cold, pale moon hanging above. Beside Wei, ceaseless rivers streamed, the waters bright with life, yet bound for an endless precipice. The young master was on one such river, twisted and turning along the waves, his body too brutalized to function, his Ambition too frail to overcome.

Beside him, he saw his disciples carried by the same currents, destined for the same fate.

But then, the waters began to slow, and time began to crawl. From the moon’s withering glare emerged a shadow—a hound that descended from the impossible heights. Its body was armored in the same fashion as the Bastards, but while he was a man that sported hound-like features when manifesting his armor, the hound was a thing of pure elemental power, a beast of coldness and death.

The Hound of the Withered Moon: Lv. ???

And as it finished its sprint across the skies, dancing on platforms of ice, it came to a halt above the abyss Wei was bound for and cast its baleful eyes on him. “Keter. So, a host remains…”