A large plume of dust and ash filled the air. The impact from Derrick’s feather had actually caused an explosive force that was hot enough to superheat the air, and the wooden constructs that Endaria had grown were incinerated in an instant.
“That was almost disappointing,” Tryskan muttered while he, Jillan, and Serin watched from a distance atop one of the nearby mountains. “I had thought that he would be more wary when speaking with the puppet, not less.”
“Perhaps he grew overconfident? We did everything we could to avoid his senses and battle predictions. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out that he had grown reckless due to his newly gained power.” Jillian’s buzzing voice filled the area. “It was also only due to Drake’s extensive network, and the puppets in the Cult, that we were able to track down his intended route. Things that not even he was aware of. Him being surprised was the plan, after all.”
“I don’t think it matters either way. Can we trust Derrick to not kill the Herald before we can use him?” Serin had begun spreading her spores the moment the explosion had occurred. “His hatred is the fiercest out of all of us.”
Tryskan had noticed but didn’t bother to stop her. He felt that such precautions were well warranted, since they didn’t know where the Void Spirit was.
“Derrick’s actions are less relevant right now. Our primary concern should be the Void Spirit. Since we don’t know where it is, we can’t be sure that we’ll be able to take the Herald with us without a fight.” Tryskan sighed before shifting into his tunneling form. “For now, let us meet up with Derrick and the puppet. I have signaled to have her mind switched off for the moment. That way we can still use her until she finishes expiring like the rest of the so-called Lights of Radiance.”
Diving into the ground while Jillian and Serin made their way to the massive crater, he couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong.
All of his instincts, forged from centuries of battle with the Hunters, told him that the Herald’s Spirit should be here. If they were, then it would be an entirely different battle.
Sure, they had the numbers, both as Mythical Beings, and with cannon fodder from Serin and Jillian, but the sheer power difference would have turned any fight between them into a coin toss.
‘They must’ve had a fight of some sort. But I’ve never heard of a Void Spirit willing to split off from their bonded partner. He must’ve thrown his blade away or sealed it somewhere to keep it safe. Perhaps an ambush when we get to the core regions?”
Ideas flowed through Tryskan’s mind as he made his way to where he could sense Derrick and several figures had landed. He moved a little bit quicker when he felt his fellow Broodlord striding toward Ezekiel and came up right next to the unconscious Herald of the Void.
“That’s close enough, Winged Lord,” he said upon shifting back into his more humanoid form. “I can feel your bloodlust, and we need the Herald alive if our masters are to be freed from their seals. Unless, of course, you wish to suffer their wrath for being the cause of our failure?”
Derrick, who stood in his most humanoid form, snarled and stopped his march forward. Waves of anger seemed to emanate from his being. His blood seemed to boil as steam gently wafted from his body.
“I still don’t see why this plan is so important. The Broods’ masters will be free within a few decades at most thanks to the sacrifices of the other Void Mages and Spirits. Their [Wills] were broken, and the damage their blood and mana did to the seals was good enough. There’s no damned point in keeping the Herald alive!”
Upon declaring this, Derrick fell to his knees as his veins turned black, and sickly puss dripped from his feathers. A pained expression spread across his face, and Tryskan found himself wincing at the sight. The punishment from the Broods was becoming more and more horrific as their seals grew weaker.
The torment only lasted for a few seconds, but it was long enough for Serin and Jillian to arrive. They remained silent at the sight of a peer being punished.
“That is why I do not question the order we have been given. Once the masters are free, are you certain that they will permit you to keep your position?” Slowly reaching over with his tail, Tryskan helped Derrick to his feet.
Although he felt more frustrated with the younger man than anything else, he also felt a bit of pity due to the losses that mirrored his own from so long ago. Though it was often squashed by his own need to survive.
“Come along. We need to get the Herald into the core regions as soon as possible. Ideally before his Spirit can come to save him, or that damned Remnant tries to kill him.”
The Wyrm Lord picked Ezekiel up before pulling a ball of Ichor from beneath one of his scales.
He placed it on Ezekiel, and the presence of another Broodlord was felt by all those present. Drake Cross, the Chaos Broodlord, was now here, and he had used the small piece of himself that he had given to Tryskan to seal Ezekiel away.
Several brightly shining golden spikes shot out from the Ichor. They pierced through Ezekiel’s body, and a shimmer that distorted his body formed around him.
“Will that hold him?” Tryskan asked and received a tendril that stretched from Drake’s avatar body which bounced up and down, as if to nod in confirmation. “Good. Then it’s time we get going. We don’t want the Exalted Hunters getting here and stopping our retreat.”
The quartet, plus Drake, moved to head west, with Serin taking up the nonresponsive Endaria, who they would bring back to the Desolate Land’s border with the Empire. Where they would leave her to once again take up duties as the puppet leader of the Cult of Light.
They hadn’t even gotten more than a kilometer away when Derrick called out a warning.
“The Tempest is here!”
A part of Tryskan wanted to curse at the distraction. He had known that the Exalted Tempest Hunter had moved to hunt them down but had thought that the forces that he’d left to pillage the remaining cities to the north would’ve been able to keep him distracted for long enough.
He and Serin had taken to traveling across the land while carrying Endaria and Drake, who still held onto Ezekiel, while Derrick and Jillian had taken to the skies, so they were somewhat split up at the moment. Worse yet, he didn’t have any sustainable means of fighting in the air.
Though it didn’t seem like he would need to, since the ground beneath him and Serin dropped out beneath him, and a massive, spiked bear trap closed in on the both of them like the jaws of a crocodile.
----------
----------------------------------------
Two figures floated in the air, their eyes were closed, but every now and then there was a slight twitch of their ears. Wind currents, unfelt by any others, told them of events that were happening well beyond the range of their sight.
“I didn’t think they’d be so open about this,” Wolken said with a sigh. “Nor did I believe that Ezekiel would fall for such a trap. If he wanted to, he could’ve simply avoided fighting entirely. There was no reason to face Strom in a fight.”
The smiling canine next to him hummed in disagreement. “The Herald of the Void has a plan. One that I feel we need to see fulfilled. As such, we must ensure that he gets taken away.”
Brun’s statement drew an incredulous look from the Tempest Hunter. Wolken had been under the belief that they were here to help him prevent that from happening.
“Do not look at me like that. I told you that the winds of fate were blowing in a direction I had never seen before. Best to let them move as they will, rather than to try and push back the storm.” The Mythical Tempest Spirit’s smile fell, and Wolken knew that this was serious.
“Then we will do as you have said,” Wolken withdrew his weapons, two massive dual blades, from his Void Pouch. “Are you certain that your Spirit Haven can afford to be left unprotected?”
The laugh that left Brun’s mouth sent shivers up Wolken’s spine. His whole body tensed as sheer malice filled the air due to the Spirit’s [Will] becoming infused with the air around them.
“Once the Broodlords left, their forces were wiped out without any issues. Now, if any Cruor do get in, they will not have us there to grant them mercy. The core of our Spirit Haven is far more malicious to the spawn of the Broods than any of us could ever be.” Pearly white fangs glimmered in the midday sky. “Besides, Maya is still there. She doesn’t like getting out much, after all.”
Wolken could feel that asking for more information would be a detriment to his sanity, so he simply nodded and flew forward. Behind him, Brun let out a cackling laugh and followed.
It took mere moments before they were close enough for the Winged Lord to sense them, but the warning that he let out was too late. From below, a massive maw shaped bear trap sprung shut on the grounded Broodlords, while Wolken swung his blades down on Derrick’s feathered form.
A burst of cutting winds scattered the cloud of chitinous creatures tied to the swarm, and the lesser Cruor tumbled through the sky. They were ignored, since it would be impossible for them to recover before the Spirits and Hunters belonging to Brun and Wolken’s forces caught up.
“Tempest!” the Winged Broodlord screeched, and the once winged human transformed into his Primal form in an instant.
“Shit!” Wolken grit his teeth and rammed into the Broodlord with a shield of air around him. “Looks like we’re going to have to take this seriously from the start.”
The sense of support and comfort, alongside anger and determination, that flowed through his bond with his Spirit helped him focus. ‘We shall see this monster slain. Even if we are not to win this battle.’
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He grit his teeth and nodded along with his Spirit’s words.
A barrage of feathers and the slashes of talons that gleamed in the dully lit sky forced Wolken to dodge. He spared a glance back at where he had seen Brun. The Mythical dog Spirit was rapidly snapping at the many small insects that were trying to consume him.
Most were crushed or ripped to pieces in an instant, but the true body of the Swarm Queen was making things difficult for him. Brun was significantly more powerful, but death by a thousand cuts was a possibility if he couldn’t get rid of the Swarm Queen’s support.
The Spirit was smart, though, and it looked like he would be finished wrapping things up within a few minutes. An assumption backed up by the many cuts and chunks missing from the Swarm Queen.
By this point, the forces that he and Brun had brought along had begun to clash with the lesser Cruor. Legends and Adepts fought en masse. There were no Apprentices or below, since such beings would be nothing more than fodder that would perish from just the aftershocks of the Mythics that were fighting, be it in the sky, or on the ground.
A pair of talons that he narrowly blocked brought him back to his own fight.
“Wretched Exalt! Death! Death to humans! Death to all! For my family! For revenge!”
Derrick’s maddened cries sent chills down Wolken’s spine. Given the Broodlord’s upgrades, even with Wolken’s recent advancement, he was only a match for the transformed creature that he now faced.
“I won’t be helping you,” Brun’s voice drifted through the air. “Once I’m done with this one, I will need to help Kork with the battle below.”
Forming a twister that sent Derrick flying, Wolken got some breathing room. He looked down at the battle below, and it was clear that, even with higher Step, Kork was barely holding the Wyrm and Rot Broodlords back due to their combined assault.
“Understood.” Wolken wasn’t about to complain about Brun’s choice. It made sense, after all.
Instead, he just focused on shifting his blades alongside the wind. Due to his personal advancement, he was more capable of channeling his magic, and the enhancements to his physique meant that he could do things that he couldn’t do before.
Such as covering himself with an aura of mana that embodied his Spirit.
It happened just in time to stop him from turning into a pin cushion. Constructs that seemed just like living beings shot out at the Winged Broodlord. They wrapped around him and bound him in place. Even his wings were unable to move, all while he flailed wildly in the air.
Talons cut through the air, and his beak snapped at nothing. Yet it was all in vain.
Wolken’s newest spell was both strong enough, and flexible enough to not break under Derrick’s aimless strikes. Those that actually managed to strike the bindings ended up phasing through them.
Even so, the wild flailing was enough to keep Wolken at a distance. Although his physique was better than it once was, he knew that one wrong hit would break half his bones, even with his Spirit Armor.
A high-pitched shriek filled the air, and he knew that Brun had just landed what could’ve been a fatal hit on the Swarm Queen. Out of the corner of his eye, he managed to catch a glimpse of the Swarm Queen being pulled apart by dog heads formed from the wind.
However, the rapidly fleeing dull gray cloud of bugs with exoskeletons that not even Brun’s attacks were harming meant that the Broodlord had lived.
“I’m going!” the smiling dog descended, toward the jagged landscape of towering stone spikes. Just in time for a forest to spring up, and an even more heavily mutated Endaria to scream in rage.
“Heathens and heretics! Each, and every one of you!” The corrupted Life Hunter attacked with a suicidal fury, which left just enough room for the Rot and Wyrm Broodlords to make some room between them and the Spirits attacking them.
Wolken spared a glance at the still struggling Winged Lord. Yet now he felt reluctant.
“Focus on the enemy in front of you. Remember, our intention is to ensure that Ezekiel can fulfill whatever crazy plan that he’s come up with.” Brun’s voice filled his ears once more, and with a sigh, he raised his weapons to his sides.
With the dual blades held out beside him, he began channeling his mana and spinning in place.
The region began to feel the effects of his spell, and even the forces on the ground were forced to shield themselves from his magic as they fought. Though, the Broodlords took this as a chance to flee, much to Kork’s anger, since he roared in rage, and Brun’s delight, as he cackled over the cry of the wind.
“For the first time in roughly a century, a Broodlord dies today!” Spinning through the air, Wolken turned himself into a massive drill and shot toward the Winged Lord’s struggling body.
Moments before he would pierce through Derrick’s chest, the bindings that held him faded away. The magic used to sustain them was now empowering Wolken’s spell.
“Bastard! Wretched human! Unworthy! Unworthy! Revenge! Revenge!” Derrick’s mindless screams echoed through the sky, even as his chest was ripped apart.
He tore at Wolken’s body as best he could, but the Exalt was protected by his spell. Every attack that Derrick made resulted in harm toward himself.
“No, no, no, no, nononono!”
Finally, after several seconds of drilling into his chest, something gave way. Wolken’s spell cut deeper and came out of the other side. Ichor turned into a fine mist as it sprayed everywhere.
Below, on the ground, the Wyrm and Rot lords grew frenzied, and they transformed into their own Primal forms. Something that they had avoided until this point. Yet, even as Wolken began to slow down, the magic around him fizzling out, and the body of Derrick shrinking to its more humanoid form, it was obvious that the battle was coming to an end.
The massive, mutated, monstrous forms of the Broodlords did not fight. Instead, they let out angry roars that forced the Cruor that were still alive to throw themselves into battle. All while they fled at their fastest speeds.
All the while, Endaria struggled as Brun and Kork teamed up on her and ripped her forest apart. It took mere moments to bring her to an end. Though Brun acted to keep her alive. For what, Wolken didn’t know, nor did he think he wanted to.
For a moment, he felt elation, even as he retreated from the clean-up of the battle, too tired to continue himself. He had killed a Broodlord and hadn’t had to sacrifice his Spirit to do it.
Then, while he watched the fleeing Broodlords, he realized that something was wrong.
Not once during this battle had he seen Ezekiel’s cocooned figure.
----------
----------------------------------------
Silence filled the chambers where Wilma and the Void Remnant of Quintessa were meeting. The large room that should’ve been filled with dozens of Grand Scholars, all serving the Grand Cathedral, had only one human soul within.
“It’s over... humanity is going to die,” the Remnant said with thinly veiled anger. Its form clenched its hands, having just received a report from Wilma. “Where are the others? We need to plan out how best to mitigate what we can. Perhaps, if we move what we can to the Archipelago, we can consolidate what remains and survive until someone breaks through to Tier six.”
Wilma remained silent, only glancing around the room while tears fell from her eyes every few seconds. The Remnant saw this and growled in anger.
“Wilma! You are my chosen agent! You need to carry out my orders! Tell me where the other Scholars are!” The Remnant’s voice bounced off the walls.
“They are gone... when you declared that our forces would hunt down and kill Ezekiel, rather than protect our cities, it was decided that you didn’t care about us anymore, and they left...”
Wilma’s words stunned the Remnant into a quiet shock.
“Those traitors! Am I the only one who cares about humanity’s survival! Nothing will remain if we allow the Herald to let the Broods free from their seals! The loss of a few small cities means nothing in the face of total destruction!” The image of the Remnant threw its hands up in the air, and Wilma winced in pain as the Remnant’s anger flowed into the room. “It seems that I must remind them of who it was that granted them the boons that brought them to the lofty heights that they have reached.”
Mana filled the air, and Wilma found it difficult to breathe. The sheer pressure was suffocating, and it carried out over the whole of the Cathedral. However, no one else was harmed.
Its actions had allowed it to sense the surrounding area, so the Remnant was surprised to find that no one was near to feel its wrath. Just when it was about to demand more answers from Wilma, a Com-Slate covered in a [Shroud] appeared in the meeting chamber.
“Hello brother. I see you’ve finally snapped and lost your temper.” A feminine voice filled the room. “Do be a dear and stop throwing a tantrum. It’s embarrassing.”
The figure of the Morncrest Void Remnant appeared with the Com-Slate floating inside what would’ve been her chest.
“Sister! How are you here?”
Morncrest’s Remnant ignored it. Instead, she walked over to Wilma and placed the image of her hand on her shoulder. A flash of light appeared, and Wilma’s despondent face went dull for a moment.
She then blinked, slowly at first, then rapidly as she held her head in her hands.
“What happened?” She looked around the room with wide eyes.
“My brother used his own [Blessing] to guide your actions. While it was not a true bond, his mind and emotions were able to influence you.” The Morncrest Remnant declared. “Something similar to how I infused this Com-Slate with a smidgen of my power, to act as a beacon that I could use to experience the world. It’s a new thing. Something that I’ve only been capable of for a year or so now.”
“You bitch! I gave her what she needed to guide humanity into a prosperous future!” The Quintessa Remnant yelled in rage. “Without me, they would’ve died to the Cruor long ago!”
Wilma looked at the Remnant projected on the wall in shock. “You manipulated me?”
Morncrest’s Remnant shook her head. “Not in an obvious manner. It was more like an enhancement of certain emotions that muddled your thoughts. It pushed you further than you usually would’ve gone, but your choices were your own. If mostly misguided.”
Wilma took that in, and after seemingly processing it, she threw up and started sobbing.
“Your peers have been informed.” Morncrest’s Remnant declared. “They are ready to help you once you leave.”
She raised her hand, and a sphere of mana surrounded Wilma’s form.
“You have no right!” Quintessa’s Remnant screamed but could do nothing while his agent was taken away in a flash of opalescent light. “Why are you not on your island!? Why couldn’t you have simply stayed a hermit, lost to the world until the end of time!?”
Morncrest’s Remnant frowned. “I came to see if you could be saved. But it is clear to me now that you no longer care about humanity; only yourself.”
Hearing its sister’s words, Quintessa’s Remnant released the full might of its mana. The ground began to tremble, and the figure on the wall shone more brightly. Morncrest’s Remnant flickered in and out of sight because of the fluctuating mana.
“The only thing I care about is humanity!”
Morncrest’s Remnant looked sad, but even as her frown deepened, her eyes hardened, turning into a glare as she addressed her sibling.
“No... You only care about not being alone. You don’t care about their well-being. Only that they do not leave you in the dark. That they do not betray you, by living their lives apart from you.” Her words seemed to cut deep, since the trembling stopped. “Ever since Drake Cross was lost, you have closed off your heart, and refuse to believe that there are ways to move forward that are not dictated by you. All because it will mean that they don’t need you, and that terrifies you more than anything else. To the point that you would order the death of the one who would save us all, just to keep what little control you have.”
Her form began to fade in a much slower and steadier manner. Quintessa’s Remnant panicked.
“Where are you going!? I’m not done with you!” The ground began to tremble once again.
“I am leaving you to your solitude. This conversation has been broadcasted, and support from Ezekiel grows, now that your manipulations have been brought to the forefront. The end of an Age is coming once again. Some of me wants to see you be a part of it, but the majority knows that this will never happen. You are too set in your ways. Too fearful of change, of being left behind, that you never realized that you were the thing holding everybody back.”
Stone walls began to crack as Quintessa’s Remnant tried to reach out, but couldn’t, due to the restrictions placed on it. Had it had a beacon like Morncrest, then some of its power would be usable, but only so much as what could fit inside the mana crystal contained within it.
“However, I will tell you this much. The man you sought to kill, is on his way to ensure that the Broods never blight this world again. Though, for how long I do not know. Just that the battle will be a difficult one. One where he will see a wondrous gain, only to suffer a heartbreaking loss. All to save the ones he loves, and the world that they love too.”
With those final words, Morncrest’s Remnant disappeared.
Now alone, the Quintessa Remnant relaxed its power. The pressure brought about by the increased mana pressure faded away, and things returned to normal.
The only thing that could be heard in the empty Cathedral were the sniffles and cries of a Spirit that had lost everything. All due to its own fear filled actions.