I rolled to the side as a massive fist slammed down. Unlike the ground I created, the mountain didn’t shatter under the force of the strike. I let loose with scarlet lightning, but Voidra’s mother didn’t even react. Ethereal drained out of me as fast as I could create it as I fought against the forces trying to unravel my existence with un-reality.
“You should have kept my daughter out of this realm,” the ancient said.
Its form began to shrink but it didn’t become humanoid. Instead it was long and low to the ground, like some sort of beast. Prismatic stars shone in her fur and a sword of azure light appeared in her mouth.
“A fucking dark souls boss?” I asked. “You could be anything and that’s what you go with?”
The ancient flashed forward, nearly bisecting me with the sword. I flipped over the edge of the blade and slashed along her flank with Clarent. Void Asura activated and Ares blocked her next strike on his spear.
The ancient stepped back and cocked her head, examining me. “I see my daughter has changed you greatly; you are almost like us, if greatly flawed in your creation.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly, using the time to gather more ethereal and release it into the environment.
“I would know your name before I slay you,” she said. “It has been long since I have devoured one of the gods and I would know you before I do.”
“Why do you call me a god?” I ask. “I’m just Hero rank.”
“Rank? I know not of this,” the ancient said in its strange archaic way of speaking. “I call you god because, like them, you are trying to impose reality here. This mountain was once one of their creations when they fought against us. In that time it was as large as a world, but we have eroded it to this and it too shall soon be gone.”
“My name is Mordred,” I said. “Do you have a name or is that not something your kind gives yourselves.”
“My name is—” What followed was a wave of sounds, smells, and sensations of every kind that carried the sense of some inevitable doom. “You may have some trouble pronouncing it, your predecessors did. They named me Illumin’jazal, the Devourer of the Stars.”
“I’m just going to call you Illumin,” I said.
“It makes no difference to me,” Illumin said, and then she disappeared.
Foresight warned me of the attack and I was already gone as she struck down, sending vibrations through the mountainside. I lunged forwards, driving my weapons into her side before I then twisted and yanked them free. She struck me with her head and flung me a dozen paces back until my momentum was stopped by the mountainside. The sword of azure light swung for me and I threw myself up into the air as it passed under my bare feet. The sword cut through the rock with no resistance, leaving a deep gash in the face of the cliff behind me.
Illumin disappeared again and I froze as my Foresight showed me being attacked from thousands of different spots and positions simultaneously. Illumin appeared all around me, thousands of copies lunging for the attack. I roared and Voice of the Chasm shattered the illusions as a pair of heavy paws slammed into my shoulders and threw me against the mountainside with the force of two planets colliding. Stone cracked and we both went forwards as the top section of this part of the mountain gave way under the force of our attacks. I swelled in size as I activated Jotunn Slayer and threw Illumin off my back as she took chunks of my soul with her.
I blocked the next strike of her sword on the blade of Thorn and struck back with Clarent, scoring another strike along her flank. Her attacks came from every direction and were never the same twice. Stars appeared in the lightless void above me and rained down, burning against my body and scouring the floating top of the mountain we stood upon.
The broken sections of the mountain just hung suspended in the air, no longer moving forward or falling. There was no gravity here, no real reason to fall, but the terrain still felt treacherous under my feet. I jumped off and landed on the intact section of mountain, blocking another slash of Illumin’s blade. Her claws lashed out, slicing through my stomach. She hurled me to the ground and was on me, her jaws going for my throat. I had to hold her jaws apart with all six arms as she tried to rip me apart. Her claws ripped into me the entire time, staining the black and silver stone with red.
I managed to leverage her off me and threw her to the side, standing up and looking more skeleton than man now. I activated Void Shield and the damage I had just taken disappeared. Illumin circled me again, now more warry. The air shimmered and then-
I rolled to the side as a massive fist slammed down. Unlike the ground I created, the mountain didn’t shatter under the force of the strike. I let loose with scarlet lightning but Voidra’s mother didn’t even react to my attack. My head began to scream with pain as ethereal drained out of me. I blinked in surprise as I’d just started to release it but I was already out.
The ancient lunged for me in the form of a wolf, breaking me out of my momentary indecision. Something had happened, I knew it but I couldn’t figure out what it was. My foresight went wild with the images of me being attacked from a thousand directions. Then my Foresight cleared, all but one of the images greying out. I spun and drove my weapons into the wolf’s chest and hurled it over me, sending it to crash into the mountainside.
My body grew in size as I activated Jotunn Slayer and… I’d just activated that ability less than a minute ago, hadn’t I.
“Time reversal,” I said, my mind starting to clear as ethereal imposed the reality of time down upon us. I let out a breath, clearing my mind as best as I could in the midst of battle. This ancient had powers I couldn’t fully understand. I needed to finish this as quickly as possible. I couldn’t try to slug this out. I needed to get her to try and feed on me like the other ancient had as I wasn’t sure how to drain her of energy any other way.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I let the next attack hit me, and the next, and the next. I didn’t let them do any devastating or crippling injuries, but I did take critical injuries as I played the part of a losing fighter. Illumin raced in, bowling me over and once again, Ares shoved one of his arms into her mouth. She bit down but apparently even she couldn’t break through the strength of his armor. Cracks formed, showing that it wouldn’t last forever, but it would hold for now. I grappled with her paws and she abandoned the physical attack.
A cold, black energy stabbed into my soul and began to draw power out like I was a juice box. I only let it continue until I was sure the hook was set, then I lashed out with my own soul. Illumin howled, the sound a mixture of pain and fear as I began ripping out her energy and gorging myself on it. The Shadow joined me in the feeding frenzy, as did Karnen, Voidra, and Ares, our combined feeding frenzy like a pack of wolves overcoming a bear. If I were alone Illumin would have drained me without contest, but I outnumbered her.
I hit a source of gold energy; there wasn’t as much celestria as with the other ancient, but it was there along with Illumin’s own energy. I began taking in the toxic substance and surrounded it with ethereal as I converted it into usable energy.
“Use it on Sacrificial Tree,” I told Voidra. “I want to see what it does before I risk one of my main abilities.
The energy began to pour into my ability Sacrificial Tree, but almost immediately, something went wrong. The energy was too powerful and the ability just couldn’t hold it. It needed to be stronger, more empowered to handle it and I couldn’t take the energy I had just given it back. I was also committed now; the ability would sunder if I didn’t complete what I had started.
Voidra began messing with my soul, slamming my other abilities against the mutating one. There was no effect until I could feel the part of myself that was Void-Dragon’s Armory impact the evolving ability and get pulled into the vortex of energy. It began to stabilize, but it was still not enough for the level of energy I was pulling in. I mashed more and more of my abilities until another stuck.
Golem’s Eye was absorbed into a mass of roiling divine energy and it stabilized again, but was still not enough. As soon as it stabilized, it destabilized again with an even more violent explosion of energy that showed me I was working on a time limit now.
There did seem to be a theme of sorts now, nature, earth, stone and life had all been used to create this. I reached out and pushed my ability Living Stone towards the evolving ability. It was sucked in immediately and stabilized again. I didn’t wait for it to destabilize but kept pushing more abilities towards it another ability hit and was sucked in. It had been Flame Elemental which I hadn’t ranked up past rank one.
I was afraid it would still not be enough, but the energy finally remained stable. I kept pulling in the energy and feeding it in.
Illumin sagged then collapsed against me, the fight gone from her. She began to fade away, her body turning more transparent with every second.
“Goodbye mother,” Voidra said.
“Foolish daughter,” Illumin sighed. “I would have given you a quick and merciful death, but now….your father will bring all the ancients down upon you until you are nothing but a dead thought floating in the Void.”
“Good,” I said, standing straight. “I’m tried of trying to track you all down.”
“Arrogance,” Illumin chuckled. “I always liked the taste of that emotion; so many of your kind come here to this place filled with it.”
My expression hardened further. “You are done eating souls, creature.”
I ripped out the last vestiges of energy from it and the ancient disappeared, leaving no trace of its existence behind. A howl tore through the Void coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
World Forge (Rank 50, Max Rank): From your own soul, you draw reality; from the void you draw the power; from your mind, you create the vision. You can create sheer existence from non-existence, merge any material, and spawn trees that could exist in no other reality, giving life to the lifeless.
Forest of Sacrifice: Made of void matter and living soul, the trees grow in power when watered with the blood of sacrifices, providing bonuses in a 90-mile radius. Trees provide Severe damage reduction bonus to you and all allies within the radius. The fruit of these trees provide healing; the amount of healing is dependent on the blood most recently used to water them.
You can create up to 10,000 seedlings. These trees can only exist within the void due to the nature of their creation.
Terraformer: You can infuse all minerals, organic matter (living and dead), energies, and liquids into materials to create unique, more durable, and heavier materials that can be shaped by your thoughts. You can fuse up to a 100,000 square-foot section of material at the same time. The material has immunity to Void and Soul damage, and any weapons or creations made with it deal Major amount of Void and Soul damage. All your creations have a hardness rating of 20. The detail you can sculpt with is based on your Mind, Spirit, & Perception attributes.
Gift of Prometheus: You create a humanoid form out of compressed Void matter and a burning spark of life. When a soul is housed within, it gains the ability to move and act accordingly. While the souls have their own will, they cannot deliberately act against you. The Sons of Prometheus can gain Ranks, Abilities, earn Titles, and even cast spells just like any other natural born creature. Sons count as weapons used by you, gaining bonus damage dealt based on your Titles and Abilities. They are created with 10 in each attribute and a natural +20 to their mana and stamina regen rates. Each start with four random Abilities based off of your Abilities, and four Abilities from the creatures you have the closest relationship to as if they were your own children; these abilities are shaped by the nature of their creation, body and the person the soul was in life. The Sons have an ethereal regen rate equal to yours. Sons deal a major amount of Fire and Void damage with each of their attacks.
Cast Time:
varies
Ability Cost:
Varies*
Each rank of this ability gives you +1 Might, +1 Speed, +1 Toughness, +1 Endurance, +4 Mind, +2 Spirit, +3 Perception, +1 Power.
Once again I received a System message in a place without the System but that wasn’t even a thought in my mind right now. My Mind and Perception attributes had just gone over one-hundred-and-twenty-five bring both past the limit for Hero tier. I collapsed to the ground as pain went through my soul, there was no real body to change as I clutched at my eyes blood running from my eyes, ears and nose. Spasms went through me for a minute. Finally the pain disappeared, there was no notification to tell me what changes I’d just undergone.
The five abilities had all merged to create a new one with three effects. I looked over all three effects realizing what I could do with them. I was going to be attacked again just like at the Black Wall and castle Dragon-breaker. I needed an army if we’re going to survive.
“Luckily,” I though aloud. “I think I have one. World Forge.”
Out across the silver and black plains around the mountain, the lost souls began disappearing one by one. Guinevere appeared beside me.
“Something is happening to the...” she began, but closed her mouth as she watched black and silver winged humanoids emerge from the ground. Their arms were long and their legs even longer with a strange bend to them that made every step they took look smooth yet alien. Their wings were thin and no natural creature could use them to fly.
“What are they?” Guinevere asked.
“They are Void angels,” I said, “and our new army. It’s time the hunted became the hunters.”