Ch 22. Day 9. Clash of Titans

Nenn awoke to find himself immersed in the world of the endless meadow once more. The green knee-high grasses swayed in the gentle breeze as far as his eyes could see. The sky itself was an eerie emptiness of white, that faded away to a sky of blue, as if the world was slowly coming alive.

The life mana was suffocating. The air itself burned. The gentle breeze, that had once felt pleasant to Nenn’s base form, had turned against him. It was pushing the stinging mana-laden air into his wooden hide. It was painful, but it was not more than Nenn could bear.

LISTEN TO ME, I NEED YOU TO STALL FOR A MOMENT MORE.

Stall? Why? Nenn thought. As if answering his question a figure came into existence across the meadow. It was black in form, tall, and appearing more and more naga-ish as its figure solidified.

“Where- Where am I?” the figure asked, to no one in particular as their voice carried on the wind. The area filled with the sound of chimes and bells, nearly deafening Nenn.

“No! That cannot be! You promised me power, and look at where you lead me! I was bound for greatness before I met you, and look at what happened. You caused my death. You have killed me. How will my armies continue on without their Helkis leading them. What of my lands, and conquests, were they all for naught,” the Helkis said.

More chimes and bells rang filling the air with a nonsensical noise.

“What do you mean all is not lost? I can live once more with your lackluster power?” The Helkis laughed. “You mean to tempt me with something that has already been proven to be unreliable?”

More overly loud musical tones resonated.

“Fine. I’ll take your offer. I only need to defeat that thing, is that it?” The Helkis’ focus was now solely on Nenn. The naga summoned a trident out of thin air, and stomped the butt of it against the slightly yielding ground of the meadow. “And without your power this time. Let me show you just how I became the Helkis on my own.”

The Helkis cut the distance between himself and Nenn in half then stopped, measuring his opponent.

“You there, beast. Why have you attacked my armies so?” the Helkis asked. The naga was an impressive specimen. Muscular, exceeding most of the naga Nenn had seen, but also older, the shine in his scales having diminished compared to his younger peers. The other naga Nenn had seen could be described as having scales that were somewhere between blue and green in color. The Helkis, on the other hand, had scales that were almost pitch black, betrayed by a small bit of green that was still discernible. The spinal crests that rose along the Helkis’ head were particularly golden in color, stood tall and sharp as they transitioned down the naga’s back and arms.

Nenn just laughed at the Helkis’ question. “It would be easier if you didn’t know,” Nenn said.

“I did not get to where I am by taking the easy path through life. Tell me, or I will cut you down where you stand and be done with you.”

“So, if I tell you what I am, then I get to cut you down instead? Sounds like a wonderful trade for me. My name is Nenn and I am a human druid.” The Helkis missed a beat as he half stumbled in shock.

“There is no way you’re human, beast. My armies have tracked down and slain most of the humans. The rest who scurried off into the forest will be hunted down for the rest of their days. There is no way they could ever escape my curses. Tell me what you really are.”

I AM READY. ENGAGE THE ANGELIC ENTITY WHEN YOU ARE READY.

Nenn readied himself for combat, limbering up his spine by stretching it out.

“Your angelic buddy didn’t tell you what I am? That’s pathetic. If you knew, you’d have run away with your armies as soon as I started my slaughter last night. It seems to have chosen to throw you under the cart. Now, you and I have a debt to settle, Helkis. I stand before you as a result of your karma. You’ve pushed your own people to the depths of despair, enslaved those who should have been free, and killed my people without regard. It is only right that I exist to balance your efforts.”

The Helkis laughed. “I took what was rightfully mine. Everything I touch is mine by right of conquest, fiend. Not even you can stand in my way. Now,” the Helkis grabbed ahold of his trident with two hands, moving into a combat stance, “Let me show you why I am the Helkis. I will enjoy raising your corpse when I am done with you.”

The naga lunged at Nenn, his trident aimed square for his head. The attack was stopped dead in its tracks as it was rejected by a dark-coloured [Mana Shield]. Canceling the shield, Nenn explosively launched himself towards the Helkis, pushing extra stamina into his hind legs to do so. Nenn led with his front claws, then pinged off of the Helkis’ own dark-colored [Mana Shield]. The shield hung in the air for a second longer than Nenn’s had, which allowed Nenn to see that the shield was a little different than his own. His shield was dark in color, whereas the Helkis’ was dark due to the absence of light. One was black, the other was a shadow.

The two combatants looked to engage each other again when a thunderous booming sound cracked into existence above them. The tranquil blueish-white sky had fractured. The blue color faded out of existence, being quickly replaced by an inky-black night sky.

The white and black parts of the sky began to swirl and mix, with each clash between the two sides resulting in a deafening clap of thunder and the reverberating resonance of a church bell ringing. The hits came slow at first but then increased in speed as Nenn and the Helkis both started skyward watching the battle unfold.

“Ah. That makes more sense now. You are like me. You found a powerful ally, didn’t you? An eldritch being, if I am not mistaken. Then let us not delay. While our gods fight above us, their chosen will fight on the ground for supremacy.”

“Fuck the gods,” Nenn said. “I’m going to kill you and piss on your grave of my own volition.”

Nenn and the Helkis lunged at each other once more, this time neither of them blinked. Their strikes glanced off of one another, leaving only scratches in their wake. The world trembled around them, but that did not deter the two fighters. They quickly turned back and came at each other once more, each time testing the other, trying to see who would yield first.

On the next pass Nenn tried using [Entangling Roots] but found the spell to be unresponsive. The ground around him did not want to cooperate with him. It was as if it instinctively wanted to repel his existence. Given the difference in mana types, it was an unfortunate reality. Then there was pain in Nenn’s chest as his body suddenly came to a stop. The moment he broke his concentration to cast the ability, was the exact moment the Helkis had seized to skewer him. The three tines of the trident had punctured deep into Nenn’s body.

The Helkis heaved, and lifted the struggling deathstalker into the air, then pitched Nenn over his shoulder, dislodging the trident, sending him flying away. Nenn crashed to the ground, and he then realized just how badly he had been hurt. The act of removing the trident had caused a couple of his body’s roots to be severed completely.

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Nenn staggered back to his feet. He felt the missing structural integrity of his body with every movement. For the moment, he was still in operational shape, if only just barely. Had Nenn still been made of muscles and organs, he’d be done for, luckily that was not the case. He tried using [Osteomancer’s Control] to heal himself, but found that his reserve of bone energy had run bone-dry.

Not wasting another second, Nenn charged back towards the Helkis. The naga leader was ready for him, offering up another chance for Nenn to be impaled by his weapon. Nenn flared his [Mana Shield], and barreled into the Helkis causing the naga to stumble back as his trident took the brunt of the shield’s momentum. Nenn canceled the shield then managed to land a deep gash right where the abdominal muscles would have been on a human torso.

The Helkis fell backwards, twisting to land on its side, only to let out a pained yelp as he further tore his body’s midsection apart. Nenn capitalized and lacerated the naga’s back, causing further impairment to the brute.

Then Nenn felt his world turn sideways. There was some kind of a haze that enveloped his mind. He managed to jump back from the Helkis just as things really began to go screwy on him. He felt his body begin to ache in a new way. It felt as though he was losing control over his own body. Nenn felt a need to understand what was happening to him, so he managed to launch himself into [Nature’s Regrowth] and saw his own body through his mana sense.

His mana was being corrupted by something. It had started leeching its way up from his paws, which he realized were the parts of him that had touched the Helkis. Dark-aspected mana was working its way through his system, spreading like a film of oil on water over his own mana. It was making movement hard to accomplish as the magical intercommunication between his limbs and whatever was giving the commands had been inhibited.

Nenn instinctively pushed back against this bodily intruder, pushing with his mana, spending it to suppress the effects. The Helkis was not doing any better. He struggled to upright himself. He had to use his trident to leverage his heavy torso up, and to stay balanced now that most of his core muscles had been shredded.

“It has been too long since I have had to fight in-person,” the Helkis said. He spat out a mouthful of blood. Blood that smelled delicious to Nenn’s deathstalker nose. The instinctual jolt through Nenn’s body was enough to allow him to come around and stand once more too, at least for the moment while he managed to hold the dark mana at bay.

“That’s okay, your ability to make those zombies fight for you was also rather lackluster,” Nenn said.

The Helkis let out a pained laugh then coughed up some more blood. “Oh, you’re probably right. Without The System that control won me a lot of conflicts without risking my personal body. Perhaps, now that I am nearing my end again, it was the wrong path to have taken. But, I regret nothing. I am and will always be the Helkis. I will be remembered by my people.”

The Helkis stood there and began to infuse the last remaining dregs of power he had left into his arm. The trident was raised above his shoulder, which provided Nenn the moment he needed. The arm snapped forwards, flinging the trident at a supersonic speed towards Nenn, who managed to predict the move using his mana senses. He managed to move just enough that the trident clipped his face, cutting a deep groove through the right side of his face. The trident went on to obliterate his shoulder passing straight through, and finally burying itself into the ground.

[Rot]. Nenn empowered the ability just as the Helkis had shot his trident at Nenn, aiming squarely at the naga’s head. The [Mana Shield] flared into existence a half second afterwards, but the damage had already been laid. The shield had cut off Nenn’s influence on the ability, but it was already hard at work.

Nenn was in pain, but he watched on as the Helkis tried to combat the ability, but it looked like he did not have enough left in the tank to mount a good defense. Small black spots began to drip liquid on the Helkis’ chest as Nenn’s ability went to work. The Helkis could only look on in horror as his body slumped over on its side. Without the trident to support him, there was no way he could remain upright, and that was before Nenn had used [Rot] to eat through the remaining integrity in the Helkis’ midsection.

“Fuck you,” the Helkis said. Black gurgling liquid was coming out of his mouth. “All I wanted to do was make my people’s life better-” He coughed, more liquid escaping his lips.

“But you managed to make them all worse instead. You enslaved them and forced them to fight in your armies. You then enslaved the newly integrated, hoping to gain power from them. And you attempted to genocide humanity to fit your goals. Well, you played your cards and I’ve played mine. You’ve come up short,” Nenn said.

The world shook once more as the forces above began to clash again. The blows that lit up the sky came faster, eventually reaching a near-constant strobe as the world rumbled, tossing the two wounded combatants around like ragdolls. Nenn was forced against the ground, then to see left, right, upwards, and back down again at random as the fight continued, each time he smashed into the ground his body broke a little more. [Mana Shield] was used to lessen some of the movement, but it ate through Nenn’s remaining mana reserves quickly, leaving him with little in the tank. The Helkis fared a bit better, owing to the malleable fleshiness of his body, even though he was on his last breath as moments away.

The fighting stopped for a moment, only for two distinct heavy pressures of mana to begin to build, nearly suffocating Nenn in the process. The two terrestrial combatants had taken significant damage during the jousting of the gods above them, and laid on the ground just feet apart from one another.

“You, human. Listen to me. This world. This world is fucked. More than you know. You-” The Helkis had to stop to clear the blood and black bubbling rot from his mouth. “If you think you can do better than me, do it. Prove that my way was wrong. I was born in this hell. You are just joining it now.”

Nenn looked at the battered nearly-dead naga with his eyes wide. He was not expecting to get advice from his foe, even if it was clear that this was coming from the naga’s heart. He did not have a lot to gain by lying at the moment.

“I will turn my dreams into reality. Then, I will conquer The Trial, and earn true freedom for all that follow me,” Nenn said.

The Helkis let out a weak laugh that could only come from a dying being.

“Stand strong. Do not let your god taint your actions. Remember who you are or you will be lost.”

Nenn crawled towards his dying opponent, and used most of his remaining mana to cast [Osteomancer’s Control] to lengthen one of his intact claws into a thin razor-sharp point. The Helkis sighed in relief as the musculature of his throat was cut through, allowing the beaten naga to finally die.

Nenn’s world went black as the pressure built beyond what he could handle. He still felt everything, and was awake, he just could not see, hear, or move anymore. The soft ground of the meadow vibrated under Nenn’s solid body, threatening to break him further. Then there was a slow trickle of mana that flowed into Nenn from the Helkis’ corpse. It made a world of difference as Nenn’s own mana began to push back against the pressure.

First he gained his hearing back, and he wished he hadn’t as the world was a cacophony of thunderous booms and windchime sounds. The world shook violently. A moment later, Nenn could definitely say that he now saw the effects of the world shaking. The trampled grasses of the meadow could not keep up with all of the movement and were swaying at random, loose stalks of plant were flying about erratically like dust in the wind.

The deathstalker’s siphon effect was making quick work of the Helkis, turning his once muscular naga body into nothing but polished white bones. Bones that Nenn was eager to absorb and turn into stored bone energy, which in turn was put to work repairing his body. The whole process would have taken longer had the Helkis retained some of his resources. It was clear to Nenn that the naga had been just as drained as he had become.

The remaining residual mana coming through the siphon slowed down to a trickle, as the composition of the oppressive atmospheric atmosphere began to change. The feeling of light mana lessened as death mana became prevalent. It was a slow change at first, but picked up speed until all sources of light mana had been extinguished, leaving only the comforting sensation of death mana coursing across Nenn’s body, further restoring him to good health.

The meadow around Nenn withered and died. The grasses turned to dust, which turned into finer dust, then eventually withered into nothingness. The soft layer of topsoil was exposed to the air for the first time, but even this did not withstand the barrage of pure, unadulterated death mana radiating down from the heavens. Within seconds the ground had dried up, cracking as the soil continued to fall to the whims of the eldritch god above.

Even the soil could not hold out as it withered into nothingness, leaving Nenn standing on top of a world nothing. There was nothing beneath his feet, in any direction, or above him. The world of the meadow apparently did not consist of anything more than a layer of solid and grasses. The world was as dark as death, and then it wasn’t.