The Lizakh shade felt his heart tighten as he watched the challenger and the final guardian blur and rush into conflict. Both moved with impossible speed, each wanting to decisively suppress the other. The tension left the shade with his scaly face scrunched together. On the one hand, he didn’t want the disciple he raised to fail here. Yet on the other hand-
When he looked at the guardian, a blurry memory staggered out from the depths of his consciousness. In it, the woman kneeled on the ground holding a small bundle in her arms, dripping blood. She raised her head and roared at the sky, tears flooding down her cheeks. “You told me that you would save her! You promised!”
The sky remained silent in the fuzzy moment. Whether due to shame or apathy, it did not stir.
In that stillness, her grief crystalized into a vicious weapon.
BOOOOOOM!
Challenger and shade woman clashed and skidded backward. The concussive report sent most of the other shades stumbling. The woman shade wore a cheery smile as she looked over toward the challenger. “Interesting. You aren’t using the Grand Pattern to enhance your movements like I am, but you are faster than me, even with 80% physical suppression. Are you secretly a monster?”
“I’ve been accused of that a lot,” The challenger admitted readily. Then he took a fighting stance. The air around him began to stir as he began to manipulate the Grand Pattern in the area around him.
“But unless you can influence more freely than that, you’ll never beat me,” The final guardian announced. She waved her hand and a portion of the floating pyramids rose, so there were two layers of the floating pieces above the platform. Then the guardian leapt up and began to kick from one pyramid to another, approaching the challenger on an unpredictable path.
Her feet always seemed to land perfectly perpendicular to the tumbling pyramids, as though the whole of the platform were under her control.
As she moved, the Grand Pattern began to gather around her, until even the cluster of shades could feel her rising momentum. The challenger moved the patterns in a small area, but the shade dominated. She flicked her hand out and produced a tightly wound whip of wind that twisted at her opponent. The challenger didn’t flinch; he exploded upward and met the attack of the guardian directly. He flicked his wrist and produced his plant spear.
As he impacted a pyramid and bent his leg to absorb the force, he unleashed a basic thrust that ripped through the air. His patterns spun outward, empowering his attack. In terms of piercing, the Lizakh shade had never seen patterns more profound than that.
BOOM!
Partway through the strike, the whip blurred sideways and hit the challenger on the back of his knee. His deadly patterns and thrust burned through the edge of the whip but it quickly reformed after the strike passed. He swore and tumbled through the air while the whip encircled him. Five glittering fangs shot out of his arm and churned up the air, but the whip came alive and slid between them toward the challenger’s body.
“Weak,” The guardian announced as she arched up directly about the challenger’s struggle to escape her weapon. With a twitch of the wrist, her whip shifted again, gracefully avoiding the buzzing resistance of the flying fangs. Suddenly, everything aligned. The Lizakh shade’s disciple tumbled below, with the guardian four meters above him. Her whip formed a perfect spiraling drill, pointed downward at his chest.
The challenger barked out a bitter laugh. The guardian stomped her foot.
BOOOM!
Crack!
The challenger grunted as he bounced off the ground. The guardian landed lightly and shook her head. “You don’t have enough insight into the Grand Pattern. We should stop now, before you die.”
“I doubt you could kill me with something like that,” The challenger said with remarkable ease. He twisted off his bounce and landed on his feet. He slapped his chest and then grinned. He didn’t seem to be injured in the least. “The physical suppression lowers my power and speed, but it can’t make my body less resilient.”
“You are fine after being stepped on? Most humanoids would have popped like rotten fruit.” The guardian asked suspiciously. Then, in another surprising turn of events, her smile stretched across her face and her eyes began to glitter. “What a delight! Do you know how long it’s been since I could fight freely? Ha! Let’s start a riot.”
RUMMMBBLLLLLLEEEEEEE!
This time, the guardian mobilized all of the patterns she could control. The Lizakh shade felt a curious sense of deja vu, as that weapon of grief once more made its appearance.
Natural energy surged from across the platform, as though the drain stopper in the bathtub had been pulled. It funneled itself together in front of the guardian, spinning together until it formed a massive whip almost twenty meters long and as thick as a barrel. The rotation was so powerful that as it gently drifted down around the guardian, it would touch the ground, generate a hiss, and bounce itself up several meters.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Almost a third of the entire platform was covered in the sprawling expanse of the guardian’s whip.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Different portions touched the ground at different times, transporting the confrontation to the middle of a den of snakes. The challenger’s smile became a little forced. “This… was supposed to be a flashy moment for me, not for you, after your attack didn’t harm me.”
“Feel free to become more impressive at any point,” The shade laughed with genuine cheer. Then she raised her arm and flicked her wrist. The whip exploded into motion, slashing outward in every direction.
*****
In a desolate corner of the Nexus, in the space beneath a massive tumbling asteroid, a small rip in the fabric of space formed. A humanoid body with grey skin and the head of a shark hastily stepped out through the opening and waved his hand imperiously to close the hole immediately after he appeared.
Unfortunately, he didn’t quite close it in time. A Nether Herald ripped outward, its bug talons raised to strike. The man gritted his teeth and bellowed out all of the indignation and humiliation he had been forced to endure in the last week, a week that should have seen him rise to the peak. Even pushed to this state, he retained a massive amount of power.
The force of that bellow, combined with his solemn and holy image, stopped the Nether Herald dead and shattered the chest portion of its exoskeleton. It waved its talons weakly but ultimately collapsed forward as the portal behind it closed. Without any support, the Nether Herald was simply a bug compared to this being.
However, compared to his shredded military uniform and the numerous gashes across his person, slaying a single Nether Herald did not put a dent in his dissatisfaction.
For several minutes, Grand Marshall Ellios just focused on steadying his breathing and examining his injuries. After fighting his way through the lowest level of the Path of the Pinnacle for a week, his image was greatly depleted. His body was riddled with wounds, with image remnants embedded in his flesh so that the wounds lingered and continued to hamper him.
Ellios’s eyes turned bloodshot as he reflected on the experience. “Those damned Pinnacle Seekers…! How dare they conspire with a Nether King to create an ambush on the holiest of sites in the Nexus?!? When I report this matter to Elhume-”
But that thought made even Ellios hesitate. After all, he had conspired with his subordinate Commandant Zettlequill and some other Commandants to join the rush for the Pinnacle, despite express orders to the contrary. He had assumed that other Grand Marshals would also attempt it, as well as Lathis N’Gick, but Ellios had been surprised to find that only relatively obscure members of the orthodox factions had dared make a dash for the Pinnacle, other than himself. His expression became sour; reporting this to Elhume would just paint a target on his back.
“Still… with my carefully crafted foundation, if the Pinnacle Seekers and Nether Heralds hadn’t worked together to suppress me…!” Ellios gnashed his teeth and revealed a thousand wickedly sharp teeth. His eyes burned with unwillingness. After patiently improving himself for two thousand years, this was supposed to be his chance to prove himself. He wouldn’t have said that he would surpass Elhume, but with his foundation, becoming the acknowledged second most powerful figure seemed like a sure thing. Yet no matter how well made and detailed his image was, under the besiegement of so many others, he had been forced to retreat.
He snorted out a breath and refocused. “Despite that, the combat experience was valuable. How often does one get to face so many Speculum and image fulfillment fighters? It can be considered a tempering. Shifting my image is difficult, but there were a few areas that I understand more fully now. After another ten years of training-”
Then Ellios’s expression changed as he saw the dozen message that he had been blocked from receiving on the Path to the Pinnacle. He began to breathe heavily. “That bitch Devick is back… and she dared assume control of our faction and- she was killing opposing Commandants?!?”
The more he read the reports, the more shocked he became at the way things were developing; the situation in the Nexus was rapidly destabilizing. Terrorist organizations moved freely, breeding and thriving in the chaos. The Engraving Guild remained fractured due to the mysterious death of Lathis N’Gick. Elhume remained conspicuously absent, after the demonstration of power when so many rushed to the Path of the Pinnacle.
“Well, it can be said that Devick made sure none dared underestimate Military High Command,” Ellios muttered to himself. Then his eyes flashed. “Yet she snarls around like a mad dog with blood on her tongue, bringing shame upon us. As the most powerful Speculum in history, it is up to me to correct her behavior.”
Ellios took half a day to meditate and eliminate most of the remnant images embedded in his body. Then he rested a bit and allowed the mental strain to fade away. When he had recovered to his peak state, his eyes flashed opened and he entered into the Nexus Ways. He arrived at Military High Command Headquarters and walked decisively forward.
This then will be the moment that I reveal myself to the world. The name of Grand Marshall Ellios will echo across the Nexus!
Not that anyone was around to watch; the great edifice to the orthodox faction was a hollow skeleton of its usual self. Those that were present didn’t dare show themselves, for fear of the recent infighting between factions. Still, Ellios enjoyed the way his steps echoed loudly in the hallway.
He knocked on the door to Commandant Wick’s office and then forced open the lock; he knew Devick always had a sick fascination with her subordinates. And as expected, she was there, loitering behind Commandant Wick’s desk with an expression of utter disrespect. Ellios targeted her with an imperious glare that contained a trace of his image, but Devick regarded him rather apathetically. “Ah, you are back. It’s quite bold for a traitor like you to stomp before me like this. With two dozen uniform code violations, no less.”
Ellios gnashed his teeth and took a step forward into the room. “Your actions-, I don’t know where to begin. Hubris is not an attractive color on you, Devick. You might also be called Speculum, but I think it’s time I demonstrate the differences between us.”
“Wick, pay attention,” Devick looked over to the corner of the room, where the bearman stood, without acknowledging Ellios’ words. Her lip curled up. “If you don’t get it in a minute, you aren’t going to get it in a lifetime. Understand?”
“Have it your way,” Ellios growled and spread his arms. An ancient and pure monolith appeared behind him. His image traced the source of the first religion back to its primordial origins. From that first belief, all other powers stemmed. “Primal Altar.”
The office rumbled. The door behind him buckled and cracked, bits of wood spraying. Opposite him, Devick began to laugh.