Chapter 048: We reclaim what is ours

When I opened the door and stepped through I could feel the diverged Realities connecting again into one, coherent Here.

Well, looks like angel decided to stop this unnecessary game and face the threat directly. After all, keeping the Reality diverged into several simultaneous existences (even on a scale as limited as these graveyard) had to burn mana fast. A terrible idea in a long term, especially when he was supposed to fight us afterwards.

There was a long corridor with stone sarcophagi lined nearly besides the wall. On the far end of the hall there was a wall. No, I take that back. The end of the room was raised up above the rest. The hall itself was almost ridiculously high, with ceiling being at least five or six meters above my head. The latter part was at least three meter above the entrance. There was a wall (with a door) behind which stairs leading up were.

In other words, a high place with a two-side staircase leading to it. A perfect place for a boss fight. Now, where the Fallen Angel could possibly reside, I wonder?

“So, you made it faster than me.” I didn’t have to turn my head to know that Leria just emerged from the door behind me. “Makes me feel bad, to have a Chosen of Deviation do better than me.”

“Well, I promise to not tell anyone.” I turned towards her and said. “It will be our little secret.”

She sighed. “Well, do whatever you want. So, where is this asshole? I can’t wait to stab him.”

Looks like I’m not the only person to be personally infuriated by the angel. He seems to have a great talent in that regard.

“Up there, most likely.” I waved towards the platform on the other end of the hall. “It will probably not manifest itself unless we get close en…”

Suddenly one of the nearest sarcophagus opened up, it’s lid literally sent flying by the thing inside.

Profane Undead

Category: Eldritch/Pentagram

Type: Beast/Husk

Threat Grade: Iron V

A form of undead created by servants of Pentagram by commiting sacrilegious acts and profaning a place of burial. The fighting skills they had in life long lost, and replaced with a rudimentary Doom Magic.

It was undead. A former knight of the Ardent Flame, lied to rest with his equipment (probably a spare one, the khardics were too practical to waste a good things like that). Thankfully, he suffered a major drop in power. Obviously, as he was a skeleton - losing all of his probably well developed muscles robbed him of his previous abilities. Plus no brain to store his former skills. Completely unlike the Devoured, hence the sudden drop in threat grade.

Ugh, this was still going to be troublesome. There were dozens of the sarcophagi around. Where is the damn Necromancer when you need her?! Answering the crowds of enemies with your own crowds was damn useful.

Leria leaped towards the undead and Holy Smite’d him. Once again not enough free will to be considered evil by character, but it still gave her attack a power boost. Especially since she combined it with a Mighty Blow.

The Undead fell broken. We had maybe two spare seconds before two coffins opened, releasing another Profane Undead.

Oh for God’s sake. Alright, fuck that, change of plans.

“Give me a second, I’ll summon a Fiend to keep them busy, then we make a run for the door.” Undead came closer with surprising speed. One of them tried to vomit some black mass on Leria, but she stopped it with her shield, before chopping off the head of the other one.

Another coffin opened. We could obviously defeat them all, Iron Vs were literally one-hit kills for us at this point. I could probably take one down with few Death Magic hexes, much less Destruction Magic. But it would leave us drained. Right after we did it, the angel would probably come out hoping to take advantage of it.

Fiend manifested itself and roared, sensing enemies all around him. He grabbed the nearest coffin lid with four of his arms, and raised it up before bending it vertically and slamming the undead that was about to raise with it. Maybe a dozen kilograms of stone shoved right into him with great force. Instakill.

Wow, that was actually a clever idea.

Then the Fiend proved he had another clever one after using the broken half of the lid as a projectile. Another undead fallen.

Skeletons. Always so vulnerable to blunt damage.

Leria broke me from my stupor by grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the door. Yes, yes, I know. Without Simea to kick my ass properly, I really wasted time on useless things.

***

After we reached the gate, Leria didn’t break it. It would only allow the undead to attack us from behind when we were busy fighting with the angel. She climbed it, with me on her back.

The gate looked strong enough to sustain an attack from undead for a while. And if we don’t kill the angel in few minutes, we were going to be dead due to exhausting our mana, so it was totally enough.

I dismissed the fiend after we got through the gate. I could feel his displeasure. Such a great slaughter he made there, even if the enemy wasn’t screaming, bleeding and begging for mercy.

What a nice thing for the world that most of the Beyond was busy perpetually slaughtering itself in omnicidal forever wars… that looked suspiciously similar to battle royale. Fiend didn’t even bat an eye to the fact that he was helping foil another Beyond’s power plans. All of those ‘impossibly powerful’, ‘otherworldly beings’ that were busy murderfucking each other. Not like local gods couldn’t stand up to them even if they united - especially Inri, Overtyrant, and other monotheist beings like Bright Lady, Allfather, Order, even Goddess in her own twisted ways would be a major pain for them… each of them singlehandedly - but that would still be an End Times trigger. Let’s make them stay as they were.

“Alright, time to face a certain asshole.” Leria said with venom in her voice. What on earth did the angel said to her?! Actually you know what, I’ll just ask her.

“What did he say to you? I’m curious.” She looked at me with barely hidden fury.

“Noone mocks my gender and complete lack of successes in love life and lives. NOONE.” Uh-oh. He probably decided to mock the additional thing she has in her pants, and it kinda evolved to him guessing a lot about her problem.

Oh boy, now it was personal. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. In fact, fuck him.

***

We ascended to the top of the stars and reached the platform to see the Fallen Angel materializing itself in front of us.

He looked like a pale human, one with quite beautiful look. At a first glance. Only after one looked closer one discovered all this twisted details. His facial characteristics were both unnatural - the proportions, the way its eyes opened and complete lack of mouth - pushed him deep into an uncanny valley. He was unnatural, eerie and plain wrong.

Abarrydon the Hateful

Unique

Category: Eldritch/Pentagram

Type: Daemon/Servile

Threat Grade: Silver X

A Fallen Angel that betrayed Shimmer and joined the forces of Pentagram. He managed to slip into the Ardent Flame’s graveyard after its fall, overwhelming its resident melines and desecrating the place.

Oh fuck.

“Surprise, mortals.” The voice once again came from everywhere at once. Lack of mouth, right? So it’s probably telepathy. “Took me a while to figure out exactly how strong you are, but now I’m sure that you are too weak to face me.”

Right. I think I got grossly outplayed there, wasn’t I? Expertly, at that.

I seriously expected him to be weaker. Especially after I simply waltzed through his attempts to manipulate Reality. Why do I keep getting caught like that?! Every time I suddenly feel like I’m about to be back in charge of my life, something shows up and cuts me down to size?! Or at least makes us succeed narrowly after great losses.

I guess it will be the former. I doubt we can turn this battle to our favour. With all of my party - maybe. WIth Kovacs group as well, most likely. The two of us? We might have been the toughest people around due to our Blessings. But mine one wasn’t going to work well in here. Leria was our only chance, but I don’t think she was going to even reach him. He was a Reality Warper, even if weak, and he knew she was a threat.

Sad side effect of being a party composed of one-two powerful persons and lots of sidekicks. It was easy for an enemy to concentrate on the boss and take him down or at least hold him while wiping out the rest. Unless one is on a truly godly cheat level of power, it was a recipe for disaster.

Fallen Angel raised his hand on us, conjuring a lot of Doom Magic-aligned power. Our defensive magic should hold, but in long term…

Suddenly the floor exploded… beneath the Angel?! Dozen of chains (ones that ended with mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth), all of them targeted at Abarrydon.

Ouch, it must have hurt. Dozen of iron maws, each of it looking pretty nasty, closed on his flesh at once. And then pulled him towards the floor. He fell on all fours, finally stopping the pull. The material one. The chains drew his power fast.

“YOU WHOOORE!!!” Angel screamed telepathically. “I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU!!!”

What the fuck is happeni…

A figure have risen behind him. One ghostly, almost translucent. It seemed to blink a bit, as if it couldn’t materialize properly.

Greyflame

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Unique

Category: Elements/Death

Type: Daemon/Wild

Threat Grade: Silver V

A resident melines (graveyard nymph) of the Ardent Flame’s graveyard. Almost destroyed when the Abarrydon took over, but remains of her managed to hide and avoid going insane when her graveyard was desecrate. Now, she strikes back.

Known spells and hexes:

Six Feet Under

Melines. A graveyard nymph. They were to graveyards what dryads were to the forests and okeanides to the oceans. Powerful guardians and undisputed rulers of local wild daemons. The main reason while locals could use normal burials without the risk of a necromancers running wild was that every graveyard had one graveyard nymph (if the graveyard was big, they could go into high Gold rank), ruling over sometimes vast population of lampades (grave nymphs), grave hounds and various smaller beings. All of them with rather trigger happy approach to necromancer.

I was still shocked by what happened, but Leria wasn’t. She understood what was happening (or simply decided to act) and leaped upon the Fallen Angel. Nymph, being five grades lower, couldn’t hold the Angel properly, even if she managed to sneak upon him when he was weakened by the the mass undead reanimation, reality bending and the probable fight that was happening on the edge of his dominion.

The vertical slash with a Holy Smite. Abarrydon started burning. And screaming. His nature as a corrupted being partially protected him from its effect, but it was hard to call it a pleasant feeling.

I couldn’t fire a Destroyer Lance or Havoc Bolt without the risk of hitting Leria, so I started casting Greater Life Tap repeatedly. Angel’s lifebar started depleting itself.

He managed to shake off one of the Nymph’s chains and fired a Doom Magic hex. Powerful one. Reality around us shake and bend. He missed Leria by a nail. If it hit her… well, it could be clear gore.

90%. 80%. 70%. Another powerful hex came, this time some sort of offensive variant of Localized Distortion. It managed to push Leria back and wound her slightly even through her Aura Armour, but she immediately continued the assault. 60%.

Makes you wonder how much time the Nymph spent plotting this. She managed to grab him by the metaphorical balls. With all of his hexes powerful and destructive like that, they required concentration. And it was hard for him to muster enough of it for repetitive casting when he was burning in flames that were a concentrated form of the fury of a deity that was an anathema to him… and when the iron maws kept munching on his flesh.

Compared to the two of them, I was rather secondary in value. Huh.

50%. 40%. 30%. The angel managed to shook off three more chains in short succession, but his next hex collapsed when Leria stabbed through his throat, before pulling out the sword and making a short pirouette that ended with his head being chopped off.

20%. Then he screamed, despite his lack of head. It wasn’t a normal scream. It was telepathic, obviously, but it wasn’t simple telepathy. It was a skill known as offensive telepathy.

This scream was literally a concentration of things meant to deconcentrate. A screeching on a blackboard, a knife scratching a plate... at once, and in way that makes you unable to not hear it.

It was painful. The hex I tried to cast broke. Leria stumbled backwards, trying in vain to cover her ears. Even nymph seemed to be in pain.

We would have been toast, but Greyflame managed to cast a hex. A nasty one. One bigger maw appeared… and closed on the Angel’s nether regions.

Jesus Christ, even I felt that. Why does every local woman seem to regard a groin attack as a perfect way to interrupt someone’s casting?! I’m totally going to buy myself some leather protection or something.

At least it worked. It broke his concentration for a second or two, which was enough for Leria to slice his face apart and make him burn again. Then she jumped back for a second.

Good thinking. Destroyer Bolt literally opened him apart. breaking all shreds of concentration he might have. 10%. Then Leria attacked again.

Nymph discarded her groin-maw and recast it again, this time targeting his throat.

Two more slices and three more Greater Life Taps and… the Angel finally collapses, his lifeforce finished. Sweet Mother of Jesus. That was…

...Surprisingly easy, in fact. The nymph managed to trap the angel when it thought it managed to trap us, when we were thinking that we were the one to trap him.

Huh, I guess easy doesn’t mean simple.

Leria kicked the Angel’s body and spat on him. Uh-oh. Someone was really pissed off.

“We thank you for your assistance.” I bowed slightly towards the nymph. Those of higher standing (okeanides, dryads, melines, powerful naiads and oreads) tended to be… rather touchy about acting properly. They were essentially an aristocracy of the nature surrounding the civilization. A dryad ruled over all animals, daemons and beasts living in her forest. Okeanides ruled over seas or oceans. And so on.

No answer. In fact… wait, she is dissolving?!

Oh dear. A remnant indeed. It was a miracle she didn’t go batshit crazy when her graveyard was desecrated. They were like those primal nature deities that you had to appease by offerings and make sure they weren’t angry.

All that part about deities taking disproportionate revenge on people who offended them in the mythology? Well, actually ruining a deity’s altar (if it had only a single one) could have negative effect of their mental state.

She was of course a meager guardian spirit not a deity, but her nature was similar. She survived by breaking almost all ties she had with Reality and taking refugee in the Dark, sustained merely by bits of power granted to her by mortals’ collective belief in existence of melines. She was like a person dying in a hospital, kept alive only by a machine.

Now that dying person was forced to stand up and make a headstand. No wonder she started breaking. She was dying. She couldn’t manifest properly even BEFORE the fight.

Shit. Losing her would be a great waste. She could be a treasure trove of informations and knowledge!

“Leria, take her in.” Leria turned her head to me.

“What?”

“Let her possess you. The nymph. She is dying. We need to move her to the place where you buried the dead we found in the first room.” She quickly connected the dots.

It might have been a meager one, but it was a cemetery. Of sort. Bodies were put to rest according to proper funeral rites. Noone managed to desecrate it. There were no supernatural inhabitants due to it being literally few days old and almost no one knowing about it.

But it was still a graveyard. It could sustain the nymph. She was going to lose a lot of her power, but it was better than cessation of existence.

Nymph was still conscious enough to understand. Her non-corporeal form actually made it easier. She drifted forward and suddenly disappeared in Leria, as if pulled inside by some supernatural vacuum cleaner.

“Now, run. I’ll explain the rest to others.” She nodded. As the possession was consensual and nymph was barely alive, the negative effects of it were yet to show. She should be fine for the required time.

Then she ran.

***

As expected, there truly was a battle near the entrance. Judging from the battlefield, the others were struck by a wave of undead supported by some ghost-like entities that could suck lifeforce on touch.

Undead were massacred easily, but the ghosts were troublesome. We took the only Holy Magic specialists with us. So they only bided time, while Simea ran all the way to the upper level of the Hold and literally carried the priest back. He knew enough hexes to keep the ghost at bay while the others fought the undead.

In the end, the battle was a decisive victory. The undead seemed to resurrect endlessly, but the Angel’s fall meant death to them. Ghosts disappeared as well. We actually lost no one, though most of them was pretty beat and tired.

I quickly explained them why exactly Leria just ran through them top speed, without reacting to them at all. I also told them what exactly happened.

Well, I guess it’s another round of cleaning.

***

The fate of the nymph was unsure. She left Leria’s body after she reached the graveyard, but she was very, very faint at this point. She didn’t even manifest, but there was still a faint trace of her magic in the air around the graves.

There were many ways for a creature to be ‘bonded’ with a place. She didn’t have to show herself. In fact, graveyards typically were empty for most time. Every melines could easily craft a sort of pocket dimension existing ‘above’ (in a metaphysical way) the place, where her court could reside. It was Dark, but very, very close to Light. They came to Light at nights, or when someone was intruding upon their domain with nefarious plans.

She probably created a very small place like that and crawled in. It costs less power than maintaining herself in true Light. I had no idea if she would actually survive. If her presence disappears completely it will mean she ceased to exist, but as long as it remains… she is alive.

The idea to settle the khardics in the recovered Graveyard was… grim. But sensible. It couldn’t remain a place of burial, we had to remove all coffins and bodies (to dissolve as much of it as we could in our acid moat), since they were desecrated in the worst possible way. After at least a century (no idea how long ago the place fell) of bathing in the Pentagram’s corruption there was nothing we could do.

The place, in the same time… it was clearable, unlike human remains. It was going to be a tough time for our resident priest. He had a lot of work.

We had a lot of it as well.

***

Another day, another visit in Ambryxis.

We had two main missions. First was organize resettlement of the villages from the sewers beneath. They totalled at about 200 people, so dragging them through the secret exit was out of the question. We had no such money.

Well, there were different ways.

I approached guards at the gates and engaged my acting skills. I told them that I managed to persuade a lot of Sewer Rats to move out of the city with promises of a new life… while in fact I planned to sell them into slavery at their destination. Since I played a respectable trader, I paid them 100 ambries per head to pretend that they do not see us and let us pass unmolested.

They caught the bait. The hook included. Fools.

Both villages were informed earlier. Both of them were de facto theocracies, it was hard not to be when the only people with knowledge about world and at least basic medicine skills were local priests. Most of the inhabitants still remembered life before they came and considered their arrival a great improvement. When their priests told them of a chance to live better life, they, too, went for it without reservations.

Red Mist wasn’t around to interrupt us. And we reached the Tyrant’s Hold without delays. Inrithians were settled in the Prison, while khardics were to move into the Graveyard. With two new priests (three if one were to include the inrithian priest’s pupil) the purification of the place went much faster.

They were almost unbelievably shocked by how great the new place was. No smell. A room for each family. River from which you could drink clean water in any amount you wanted. It was literally a dream come true.

Now, let’s just hope we manage to establish enough sources of food to avoid starving.

***

With Kovacs group deciding to stay and help with the new arrivals, we managed to get access to some very useful people. Especially their catgirl was invaluable. She got a field promotion to an administrator. She quickly made a list of people, and the exact list of what we had in our storages.

Things… weren’t exactly optimistic. Not pessimistic as well. We sent the rest of Kovacs team with money to buy food. Water wasn’t a problem, and the people we got (211 to be exact, including 113 males, 96 females, two ‘others’) were used to eating very little, so it should work. More or less.

The single level 21 from the inrithian village turned out to be a former forest elf hunter. His skills rusted and he wasn’t in a forest for years, but he offered (if paid few hundred ambries for equipment) to get back to his former trade and make a proper reconnaissance of the lands surrounding the Hold. After short consideration I gave him five hundred ambries and sent him with Kovacs group.

Most of this area was untamed wilds. Ambryxis attention ended with Black Woods and only during the Werkmonth. We were literally on the very edge of terra incognita. Few traders sometimes risked going through the old imperial road nearby, but they were in hurry and sometimes disappeared without a trace.

Even if he won’t fight anything useful, hunting would be useful on itself. And there will always be an option to send people to forage, right?

That the winter was coming didn’t make it easier.

***

We left the Hold’s administration to Kytar, catgirl and the two priests that lead the villagers. Then we departed with our second main mission. We had to visit Ambryxis. Part one - shopping. We had to buy something to make sure that nothing would sneak into the retaken part of the Hold via the river, something to make sure no unattended kid ends in the same way as me during the battle against the slime… and, finally, an item to prevent cold air from simply coming into the cave via the open entrance.

Everything to even slightly increase the temperature was welcomed. Winter was coming, after all. It already started snowing, but the snow evaporated. The temperature, however, was most likely going to fall beneath zero in few days tops.

Then… we had to visit Grandma and have a talk with her. I had few questions I had to ask.

But that was a thing for tomorrow. Today, it was time for a hard earned rest. We won. Another victory for the Ardent Flame, after this affair in the sewers. Our power grew.

Makes me wonder what’s gonna go wrong next time.