“Her brother died in the first wave.”

Cedric snapped out of his trance. He looked to the man, still sat on the railing with his arms crossed, looking down over the healed people with bemusement. There was an image there, a scene beyond his realm of vision — a man dying in a black pile of bodies, a hole in his chest.

“He took a spear through his ribs. His lungs were no good by the time they got him here… Died in that little quarter, right over there.”

The vision again, his fingers interlocked with the soft ones of a woman.

Cedric said, “Sorry.”

“I'm not the one you should be apologizing to.”

And the boy in the vision breathed his last breath.

56.

Avoiding Tragedy

“Kanese!” Cedric lunged for her wrist through the rain.

She pulled her arm away, stepped back, let Cedric stumble just past her. Then she turned down a separate alleyway. “Leave me alone.”

“Please, wait. Your brother, I… I'm sorry. I didn't know about it.”

She stopped and glared at the wet cobbles beneath her boots. “Damn Kez. Bastard can't keep his mouth shut. I don't want your fucking sympathy—”

“I'm not trying to give it. I want to prevent things like that from happening, I want to—”

“—Everybody dies, ‘King Lorik,’” she hissed his name like a slur, “There are no exceptions.”

“...But they don't have to.”

"But it's your fault—" Her voice caught in her throat when she saw the sternness, the complete conviction in Cedric's gaze.

He stepped closer to his captive audience, closer and closer until she could nearly feel his breath, stood at least a head taller than her as he tilted his head up in some faux performance of egotistical pride. “Nobody will ever die again, when I'm through with this place.”

Her body began to quake and tremble.

Cedric took her hands into his own. “I'm sorry for your brother. This path to infinity will be carved by bone and slick with blood…” His own expression bore perplexity, confusion, as if he didn't expect the words to be coming out of his mouth. He said, “...Alisa doesn't want us to reach our potential. They want to punish us for what false gods have done, people that deign to command who they want, take what they want. I won't cower to Kogar anymore, nor his people.”

“...What are you going to do?” Her voice quivered.

“I'm going to kill them all.”

Serkukan cackled his insane, bittersweet laugh.

"I'm done waiting," he said, and he turned, left her standing in the rain...

X

“Were you nervous? When you gave that little speech?”

Cedric shook his head. “Not as nervous as I am to face Hemah. Talk is cheap. Knowing that Hemah has killed dozens, hundreds of people by burning their flesh, boiling the water from their bodies… It fills me with some hellish rage, makes my legs tremble, I don't know if for fear, or anger, or what. And at the same time… it's exhilarating. It's probably just Serkukan's influence, but I can't wait to be up in the air with her, desperately clinging to any chance I have of survival, clawing out opportunities for feeble strikes that I might find the trick that knocks the wind from her body, makes her the one on a desperate defense. That moment when I'm not the only one sweating… it's completely beyond words. Kogar had me beat last time, but when I've been the one to shock him, to prove him weak… it almost brings a smile to my face. What about you?”

Faunia only nodded slightly in the blackness of the Petal. “I'm… nervous.”

“Sit back with your arrows ready. I'll give you Ithlo’vatis as well.” He put a warm hand on her cool, Hunter-white shoulder, the shoulder of a white and silver robe she'd been granted to match Cedric's. His thumb stroked back and forth for a moment as the glow of an Etherian transference underwent. When the light faded, he released his grip. Faunia missed the warmth of his touch almost immediately.

Then he stepped forward into the Petal.

“We're not taking Ozzod?”

“I don't want to risk such an irreplaceable asset.” His crimson wings ripped through the back of the robes, glistened in the dim light from bonfires nearby. “Just follow along. At your own pace.”

THOOM!

The ground tremored, burst into a cluster of rubble from where he kicked off. He was shot like an arrow straight vertical, was already a silhouette in the burning, lightless sun where Hemah was still a dark blot.

“Follow along…?” she gaped.

Then Tirolith appeared over her shoulders, leaned close to her ear. “Ready?”

“Mhm.”

And Tirolith took Faunia by the armpits, tossed her up with great force.

Strangely, the sky began to darken as they neared that glowing aura of light, the pale sun behind. Hemah's shadow appeared further and further away.

But Cedric did not flinch at that. He knew that her powers did not extend so far as the space and time warping abilities of Kogar; he would reach her eventually. The wind whipped harder against his skin as he accelerated again.

She went easy on you last time. She had no reason to reveal her powers.

“I know.”

She'll kill you this time if you're not careful.

“...I'll just have to kill her first.”

And he saw her flare of light above burn brighter. And it finally began to grow toward him. He summoned his Sylvet blade to his hand, steeled himself, clenched his teeth as the otherworldly crimson armor of Serkukan began to form around him — now it was precise, well crafted in a jagged style that wasn't so crystalline, was more akin to a knight from a foreign land, a knight from another plane entirely. The design was indescribable by his words, but it covered him securely from all angles with shifting curves which pivoted harshly into jagged ends all over, like being covered in the blades of daggers. The helmet clamped down in the visage of a burning daemon, covered his face entirely.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Here we go.

Up went his sword.

And there went the thunderous shockwave of the impact.

X

“High Warrior Hemah is welcomed to her throne!” Algirak sneered, waved his blackened, necrotic arm at the golden ensemble of angels in the room.

There was Hemah — pale faced, bald-headed, beautiful. Her golden lipstick shimmered in the blinding sunlight casting from the giant orange bulb in the center of the room’s patterned floor — the Omnestatum. The false sun which gave light to those on the floors of Etheria below it. A light that gave power unending.

She smiled wide, her black eyeliner scrunching up around her big eyes. Her teeth shone glisteningly white.

“Do you accept your crown, Highness Hemah?”

“By the grace of The Palm, I do.” she uttered in a powerful voice. “I accept this strength, I accept this sacrifice.”

“Good.” Black-robed Algirak snapped his fingers. The other angels in the room, pale-skinned beauties in gold and bronze armor alike Hemah's own curving set, clapped.

She smiled, stepped atop the Omnestatum. It was warm to the touch of her bare toes, hot to the soles of her feet, bulged downward like jelly with every step forward.

Then two angels from the far side of the chamber flew to her so their white robes fluttered through the air. In their hands was a golden helmet, one which would cover her eyes with a sharp downward point, with a giant blade like that of a palm axe on the top of its dome.

And they planted it atop her head.

And she screamed in horror and pain, all three of her voices in unison.

Algirak licked his rotted teeth in a toothless grin, gave a low cackle as her horrifying transformation underwent. "We thank you for your dedication to the cause, Highness Hemah of The Palm. Once everything begins to collapse, I'm sure you'll be most valuable indeed..."

He cackled again, turned to let his black robe flutter out behind him, and left the chamber through the grand doors at the far end.

...It was not so easily ended for Hemah herself.

She gripped into the helmet, tugged and tore at it in every direction while ceaseless voices screamed directly into her mind, poured horrors and nightmares into her waking mind beyond her control. It went for so long without end that she began to smash her skull against the Omnestatum, tried desperately to shatter the golden helmet they'd planted atop her head.

"Release me! Release me!"

The other angels only giggled.

"Take this fucking thing off of me!"

Their smiles were burned into her mind's vision. She was beginning to see through the helmet, better than she had ever been able to see before. She was beginning to hear through her metal-plugged ears, a sound louder than any of the voices: the low growling of the Omnestatum.

And then she realized: that's where the voices were coming from. They're inside...! They're inside...!

Hemah pressed her hands into the bulging orange surface. It began to grow brighter and brighter.

The angels smiled, laughed again.

They're inside! They're inside, inside! They're inside of it!

She dug her nails in, pried at the panels of the ball.

I'll release you! I'll release... you!

A platinum, rainbow light began to shine out where her bleeding fingernails had managed to pry up one of the black-rimmed panels of the device.

Two of the angels swept down on her sides, grabbed her underarms and began to lift her. "Now, now, Hemah! Resist the crown! Resist the—"

Hemah's fist sprayed a gush of blood from the angel's broken nose, her broken cheeks. The beauty flew backwards and careened into the tiled floor, bled a streak of crimson all the way back to the door.

Hemah grabbed the other angel's arm tightly, dug her nails in and lunged with her helm's blade pointed upward. The blade severed into the angel's throat, dropped her onto the Omnestatum lifelessly.

The other angels all giggled. They all began to summon golden weapons to their hands.

"The Omnestatum... The voices... I'll set you free...!" Hemah screamed, tore that loose piece from the thing with an exceptional show of force.

Then rushed the angels.

Hemah took the black frame, a triangular piece which made up the geometric casing of the massive device, threw it like a sharpened boomerang at the onslaught of angels.

Two leapt easily over it. Two slid beneath it.

Two had their bodies sliced in half by it, giggled and laughed as their tops came away from their lowers.

Hemah bent over, tore two more pieces of the frame away. The Omnestatum began to bulge in the place where she'd damaged it, began to pour out like pus from a cyst.

An angel came down with a glaive.

Hemah sliced the glaive in half and caught the blade. She spun a kick into the angel's chest, knocked her away.

Another came from another side with a longsword. Hemah rammed the glaive blade through her chest, pulled her up from the ground and squeezed the blood from her body.

Two ran up from behind, one threw chain bolas at her, wrapped her arms and body tight to the corpse she was up against.

Hemah spun.

"Too slow!"

CRNK!

The angel's mace struck her head, nearly knocked the crown loose from her shattered skull.

"Too slow, Hemah, too slow!"

CRNK! CRNK!

The crown dented and deformed atop her head. The voices only became louder.

Release us.

Freedom!

We're trapped...

We're dying...!

This is our Hell.

This is our eternity.

The Omnestatum...

Our sacrifice... in vain!

The power of gods has been forgotten!

Release us!

Make the gods whole once again!

Make us whole!

Make us... gods!

Join us, Hemah.

Become a god with us.

Join the pantheon.

Rule over Caloria.

Rule over Etheria.

Release us.

Release us.

Release...

...us.

Hemah blinked. The bolas were already loose in her offhand. Her weapon hand held the angel's limp head, her expressionless face.

She looked around. The angels were all dead. The fighting had ended.

"I..." she murmured, "...I shall release you."

And so she did.