That barn didn’t survive the night, but that was the least of Remus’ problems.
Waking up in a pile of shrapnel wasn’t exactly comfortable. Spluttering, Remus coughed the dust out of his lungs, a trail of blood lining down his forehead dripping into his eye. He blinked the substance out, slowed down his breathing, and set his Mark alight.
Instantly, a newfound wave of confidence, in combination to a much needed endurance boost, rendered his body practically humming with power. He pinpointed the energy of his Ambition to a fist, not bothering enough to set it to a flame, and sent the surrounding debris encasing him flying.
The early glow of day provided enough light to take in the devastation all around, but the frantic blaze of blue at every turn would make the place blindingly bright, even in twilight hours. Despite a steady grasp over his initially erratic breathing, Remus still couldn’t fully prevent his terror from having a tangible effect on his body. He stumbled away from the frantic battlefield, toppling to his knees as last night’s banquet worked its way up his oesophagus.
They lied. It dawned on him, trembling hand to his mouth. Those bastards lied.
Heavy, ashy fog obstructed his view of what was occurring at the bulk of the sect, and Remus wasn’t sure if he wanted to see.
A screech from the side, and an Unbounded like no other Remus had ever seen leapt upon him. The collection of crystal sheaved through his clothes, via the simple means of its bodily structure. His Mark filtering out the pain with adrenaline, and the fear with blind stupidity, Remus concentrated the vast majority of his energy towards his palms. Fire streaked across both him and the Cluster — as he’d recognised the Unbounded’s type to be. In a roll, they streaked across the farm’s perimeters, dashings of fire creeping away from him on their own respective trails.
Monstrous wails, vaguely metallic, deafened Remus, threatening to burst his eardrums open as his foe melted to oil in his very clutches. The sight of its oozing head, persisting through the now pure white heat, was the most disturbing to settle upon his eyes since a considerable time indeed.
Hurling the dissipating husk to the wayside, Remus clutched himself, grasping at his bleeding chest. It wasn’t severe amounts, but he had been cut just enough to elicit golden outpours in several locations. Focusing on his Ichor, Remus channelled their general passage to those very spots. He had no idea if this was an effective manipulation of the divine nectar, but he was sure he had heard somewhere that this would prioritise the targeted areas’ recovery.
Dashing down, knocking aside the rubble in his path, Remus scampered through the insistent smoke. Through the murk, a few surviving huts could be spotted, but a notable series of them were beyond saving.
Desperate shouts, eager footsteps, and hopeless cries. Human and Unbounded alike, combined to echo the most primaeval emotion of all: outright terror.
The pandemonium had no feasible end, and Remus’ training failed him for a moment, as he looked back and forth mindlessly through the dancing hordes of Unbounded, utterly lost on what he should do. Amongst their ranks were tens upon tens of the Clusters Remus had just faced against, the ever familiar Snow Wolves, and a few fresh faces ever keen to purge the lands of human flesh.
Squinting, Remus could eye Brison at the hem of the fight, metres of flattened Unbounded stretching out behind him as he fought most vigorously. Every swing of the elderly man’s hammer carried an audible whipping sound, and, in his crazed state of mind, Remus latched onto the intriguing detail that it was most likely forged out of Supreme Steel. Pure concentrations of Infinity to squash the servants of that very same resource — Remus couldn’t help but find it bizarrely ironic.
Snapping himself out of his paralysed reverie, Remus performed a run-up, jumped, and at the vault’s apex, blasted fire through his hands. In a unique addition to Aziel’s ability, the soles of his feet too blazed; his sandals reduced to their ash in line with the rest of his flaked appeal.
For a few wonderful seconds, it worked perfectly. Zooming past the heads of marching Unbounded, Remus delved deeper into the attacking forces, completely unscathed as all manner of claws and nightmarish hands swiped upwards.
Aziel, even his inner-voice sounded exhausted, I need to find-
Hands spluttering, and his balance failing him, Remus’ trajectory reached a downwards angle in one fatal mistake. Razzed land sprang up too quickly to avoid, and Remus collided with solid ground in an impact that completely winded him. Giving him no time to recover, a swarm of various Unbounded pounced on him.
A whirling strip of red entangled him by the mid-section, toxic saliva blazing his skin raw anywhere it touched. Dangled upside down, Remus barely managed to shuffle his arm out of the grip of an oversized tongue. Setting his index finger aflame, he swished his hand across in the pattern of a straight line, and the amount of blood released alone told him that he had succeeded.
Once more on the ground, Remus wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
The Unbounded before him was in the vague shape of a toad, their hide a sickly splash of red on orange. Almost slipping over the half of the creature’s tongue he had condemned to the mud below, he was ready for when the toad stuck again. The remaining portion of the crimson whip rushed towards him, and, extending a hand, Remus latched onto it, ignoring the pain with the most stony face he could conjure.
Dodging incoming projectiles of crystal, Remus swung on the strip of muscle, in the same manner as one would a vine. In a clunky landing, Remus pressed all his weight across the creature's back. Then, as the Unbounded serenaded him with a series of agonising croaks, he proceeded to do what any reasonable man would in his shoes.
He choked the creature with its own tongue.
Heaving with all his might, Remus ducked and shifted as yet more crystal flickered through the air. All around, concentrating in one advancing group, he didn’t get the impression the Clusters were exactly pleased with him.
Remus was just about to shower flames their way with his spare hand, when the oncoming corpse of a Snow Wolf smacked against them. Two more were tossed over, and, head flickering to the source of the raining caracasses, Remus spotted exactly who he’d been searching for.
Aziel ran around the place in a constant huddle of blue, the stern lines engraved into his face a heated fire of their own. More of the bested creatures lay dormant at his feet, and he’d evidently set himself to using them as makeshift projectiles.
Surprisingly, the plan appeared to be working.
Visible fractures riddled down the crystal Unbounded, and a few of the smaller creatures squirmed under the weight of the dissolving wolves, unable to escape. As Remus watched, the toad could take no more, reduced to a disintegrating sack that Remus promptly hopped off of.
Flying over, Aziel recognised Remus instantly. They skipped over the small-talk.
“How long have they been attacking?” Remus asked, back to Aziel.
“Not sure. Hard to track the time. Twenty minutes or so?”
So I haven’t missed too much, Remus mentally assessed. “What’s the plan?”
“First,” Aziel stepped forth, shooting out a fireball into the middle-distance, “we need to find my mother.”
Remus nodded, and at Aziel’s command, followed his back deeper into the battlefield. As he marched along, a thousand inquiries formed in Remus’ head concerning details of the fight, but he kept them to himself for the time being. Chances were, he wouldn’t like the answers.
Aziel abruptly stopped, crouching behind a piece of rubble, and cursing under his breath. “That guy there,” he whispered, and he didn't have to point out the man dominating the battlefield for Remus to know who he was referring to, “that’s the leader of these Unbounded, I believe.”
It was during that quick, one-second inspection of the man that Remus realised that the being in question wasn’t a man at all. Rather, an Unbounded. Not even his Mark could distil the surge of fear flooding through Remus. For an Unbounded to a resemble a mortal that closely, putting aside the strangeness of Violet’s family, they would have to be-
“They’re Warlord equivalent, at the very least.” Aziel’s voice carried a professional grace to it, but Remus could hear the shakiness just barely hidden below. “Damn it, we’ve never had stronger than Foot-Soldiers before; how have so many powerful Unbounded rushed past the front lines, all at once?”
Remus had come to learn that Unbounded of all strengths roamed every corner of this world, but he wasn’t about to drop that bombshell to Aziel in the heat of combat. The being’s appearance was made up of middle-grounds, in the sense that he never swayed too far in any specific detail.
Neither too handsome nor too ugly; not quite overly muscular, but his frame wasn’t completely sparse either. His hair was a bland mop of an average length, and the Unbounded’s eyes were a virtually colourless grey. If this was what most Unbounded at higher realms of power looked like, as if the result you would stumble upon if all of humanity’s faces were combined, Remus would find them all equally as uncanny.
Attached to their hands was a shredded collar, as if a dog had forcefully bitten their way out of the confines.
Out of nowhere, before either of them could move, Brison blurred forwards, holding his signature hammer aloft, to the back of the being’s head. For a split second, they didn’t appear to have noticed, when a crackling like thunder resounded all around.
Remus blinked, and the next thing he saw was the Unbounded’s extended palm. The hammer did little more than push him back a few inches, until Remus' heart skipped a beat, noticing the state of the creature’s crumpled hand.
The entire appendage had been squashed.
The Unbounded merely glanced at the hand, frowned, as if inspecting an oddity, before the rest of his arm contorted grotesquely. Within seconds, a perfect replica of the lost hand reformed, springing outwards like freshly moulded clay. Remus blinked again, only to be met with the sight of Brison being tossed feet away, a bright pink slap mark plastered upon his cheek.
The Warlord spat, still standing. “You’re all scum.”
Shaking his hand, the Unbounded didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “It's all a matter of perspective.”
With that, clansmen at every angle bombarded them with showers of flame, but the Unbounded didn’t even buckle. “Stupid.” He muttered, stepping out of the wall of pure fire, practically unscathed. “Impossibly insolent.”
His skin was scorched, but yet again, the Unbounded’s healing factor restored any damage.
Remus heard Aziel take a breath in at his side, and Brison threw himself at the Unbounded yet again. Again and again his hammer landed, the surviving clansmen at the scene pouring all of their energy into scorching the being alive. Slowly but surely, the wounds on the being persisted, but they were little more than bruises.
“Come,” Aziel tapped Remus’ shoulder, who realised he’d been holding his breath, “she’s not here. Brison will be able to manage, there’s a reason he’s grown so old. That Unbounded will fall eventually.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
For the second time, Remus copied Aziel as the blond man whisked himself overhead, the mode of flight, whilst shaky, not tossing him into any aggravated toads this time. Abruptly, Aziel stopped, with no explanation as to why.
Eruptions for metres all around elicited a faint buzzing in Remus’ ears, and he couldn’t make out what his companion was saying for the life of him. Not to mention the fact his lip-reading skills had never been spectacular.
“What?” He called.
Expression not revealing a thing, perhaps out of an inability to process the sight before him, Aziel raised a shaky finger, almost sabotaging his flight in the process.
Remus followed the length of the arm, towards the patch of piled corpses Aziel was pointing to, and then at the monstrosity laying before it. A mass of body parts thrown together in a sickening hodgepodge squirmed as it inched forwards, sideways legs kicking out at the ground from misplaced locations. Dead clansmen, dissolving Unbounded — both reduced to food for a ravenous beast that could never be sated.
Blinking, Remus awaited for reality to set in, but it never did. He found his eyelids quivering with a newfound quickness, as he laid witness to the body half dangling out of one the creature’s many mouths.
The limp body of Hansley.
Remus tore his vision away from the putrid sight, and had to squint through wet eyelids as Aziel donned a draping, withering white flame. Ignoring the moisture leaking out of eyes at all costs, Remus too let his Mark’s inhibitions flood his mind, numbing anguish with impossible resolve. More precisely, the resolve to enact an endless revenge.
Let me feel nothing. He asked of his Mark, knowing full well that it couldn’t hear him. Please.
In unison, the two of them flew forwards.
Still not accustomed to flying, and his seething emotions not helping his concentration in the slightest, Remus’s trajectory was slightly off. Fumbling to the land beside the swarming mass, he just about recovered in time to see Aziel collide with the Unbounded head-on.
An eye of the beast erupted in multicoloured blood; one of its dangling arms caught flame and corroded to mush; and Aziel didn’t stop destroying limbs the entire time Remus stared numbly at the onslaught. The remains of Hansley’s body lay soaking in its own blood off to the side, discarded like an object that’s usage had expired.
Remus didn’t even realise he was screaming before his fist was embedded arm-deep into one of the creature’s salivating mouths. An assortment of teeth, mismatched from a wide selection of absorbed beings, chafed against his skin. Both of Remus’ arms had been rubbed raw now, by both this servant of devils, and that oversized toad. Regardless, he didn’t care much for the state of his body. Right then and there, he wanted to burn the villain before him from the inside out, like a hog-roast.
Blue flame turning white as he amassed all his body’s heat into his lodged arm, Remus felt as the cracks widened within the Unbounded’s molars. Pressure built up around the limb, as gummy walls chomped down repeatedly upon him, but with the Unbounded’s mouth in ruins, it was more uncomfortable than anything.
As Aziel beat the being’s exterior bloody, Remus let out a mini supernova to obliterate its innards.
Screams; screeches of agonising torment unlike anything Remus had ever heard reverberated for metres all around. And it was like music to his ears.
Steam rolled off of Remus’ shoulder, his Mark glowing alarmingly bright, but he ignored the possible danger categorically.
Clansmen all around had joined the two’s beatdown, supplying flame to the steadily rising bonfire Remus had created, or tossing any sharp object in the nearby vicinity towards the Unbounded. A pitchfork sticking out of the being may have been an amusing sight, if circumstances had been any different.
To his side, Aziel yelped out strings upon strings of unintelligible curses, fists a blur as any tears he bored evaporated the instant they appeared.
His Mark burning now, to the point of searing his skin, Remus’ eyes grew blurry. Not yet . . . not until Hansley’s murderer is-
A resounding crash threatened to deafen anyone within a mile range. Remus’; eyelids were forcibly shut by a furious bout of air pressure, and he didn’t like in the slightest what he saw when reopening them.
The leader of this group of Unbounded had come crashing to the scene, looking perfectly fine aside from a few bloodstains that dotted his face. He didn’t bother to wipe the golden stuff off.
“Daisy!” He cried, bursting out in anguish at the sight of the melting mass. “What did these horrible people do to you?”
Remus barely had a second to savour that look of tragic outrage, when the head of a hammer crushed into the Unbounded’s side.
The being, this time, collapsed to the ground, holding himself to a sitting position with one arm. Brison didn’t hesitate to clobber away at his exposed back incessantly, no one else intervening out of sheer, stupefied shock.
“Do-”
One strike of the hammer, swift and precise.
“Not-”
Another.
“Flee-”
The sound of bones cracking sent the Unbounded crumpling even lower.
“-from me!”
As Brison swung down to deliver the final blow, the Unbounded’s hand grasped the hammer’s handle. It visibly cracked.
Brison gagged, a punch to the abdomen rendering him empty of all air.
The Unbounded shook with every passing second, but he held enough strength in his bashed-up body to murmur one fatal line.
“Third Divine Right: Just Immunity.”
They suddenly exhaled, body lifted forwards by some invisible force like a ragdoll. Remus charged up a fireball in his palm, but his Mark smoked in a painful infliction. The spark stuffed out and died, and Remus barely had the energy to stay conscious.
Through half-closed eyes, he watched the creature’s body contort, the repeated sound of crunching resounding out every few seconds — as if they were reconstructing their entire skeleton by brutal force.
Skin pulsed, eyes rolled back, and a euphoric smile settled on the creature’s mouth in an eerie visage.
“Ah ha! They clashed their fists together, sidestepping a barrage of projectiles and giggling like a madman. “Now, out of all of you, who was it that first laid a finger upon my precious Daisy? Who out of you punks wanted to die so badly?”
All attention had been drawn onto the humanoid Unbounded, and the image of a human heart that had manifested on their brow. To the extent that Daisy was left unguarded, to overcome the flames.
Murky blood poured out of every orifice in the mass’s body, and it simply refused to stop choking, but the creature was alive alright.
As if everyone had snapped into their senses all at once, the two Unbounded were bombarded, met with some kind of resistance at every angle. Remus could see Aziel pounce once more on the sprawl of limbs, kicking and screaming. A tug in Remus’ chest grew as he watched the man grip onto the shaking mound’s flesh, setting himself fully alight, and letting the mass of flame spread in a swarm of withering cobras.
The other Unbounded gave Aziel a look, as if wondering what his entrails would look like neatly laid out across the ground, before Brison’s glowing white fist restructured his face.
The human Warlord Brison lashed out again, impossibly quick, but somehow, his target weaved out of the blow’s way. This dance continued for an entire disorienting minute, with any damage Brison’s prey did take being healed within a literal nanosecond. And Remus might have been in a dazed state of mind, but he would’ve betted the rest of his fingers that it was no exaggeration.
Hidden beneath a length of wood blown off of someone’s house, Remus wasn’t sure whether to consider himself the most lucky, or unfortunate soul in the world. Some of the weight pressed down upon him in a manner exactly as uncomfortable as you’d expect. And yet, he was virtually fully concealed below its coverage, protected whilst his Mark recovered for the time being.
Suffice to say, using his Mark so abundantly after only turning Enkindled a little over a Duration ago had truly run a number on him. It took all he had simply not to pass out, as powers beyond anything Remus had ever seen duked it out; the overall losses only continued to tally higher.
What was that image on the Unbounded’s head? Remus latched onto the question to keep his mind active, in his semi-conscious state. Divine Right? Just immunity?
It seemed that every passing day, the Unbounded unveiled some sort of new trick out of their proverbial magician’s hat, and Remus found it exhausting simply to keep up with all the revelations.
Violet would have a field trip with this news, Remus thought, on the very verge of passing out. And possibly Veida two, if the both of them ever amend their ways.
In the heart of a raging battlefield, the embrace of sleep had never sounded any sweeter.
----------------------------------------
Wet grass squelched as Violet strolled deeper into the outer city ruins, cloak drifting along her wiry frame, her hood kept stiffly up.
Hearing a place’s description a hundred times over is one thing, But actually being there was a whole different matter entirely. Sure, Violet had seen maps, illustrations, paintings and all other means of depicting the renowned place, but none of them quite captured the strange serenity that seemed to linger about every crevice of the grassy plain.
Perhaps it was simply the fact she was returning to Divine Ground after so long, but an easiness that appeared to define the series of crumbling structures paved its way into her worn out muscles, soothing her with that very same tranquillity.
A light rain had been persisting since morning, and through it, the slightly obscured image of a figure resting with a hat on their laying head encapsulated precisely what Violet liked about this place so much.
Out here, back on Divine Ground, no one would try to butcher her.
That notion, however mirthful, quickly subsided after she recalled one crucial detail: being an Unbounded, the rules of Divine Ground didn’t apply to her. The pseudo-conscious of Infinity couldn’t care less about abiding by god-made laws, and so didn’t. And, of course, she had the misfortune of fitting into that category.
Once more, a cloud of doubt engulfed Violet’s mind, and she stared out at her outstretched palm. As if superimposed over, Violet could eye the stretch of white that was her Unbounded form, and the scariest part wasn’t the mere thought of that horrid appearance. It was that Violet couldn’t discern which was reality.
Swallowing, Violet slumped her arm down and pressed onwards.
Veida had informed Violet that she would know exactly where to find her, but whether she was lying, or had forgotten to pen down her whereabouts, that was seeming more and more like a lie. Or perhaps simply optimistic thinking. A notion occurred to Violet that perhaps this was all a wild goose chase, or worse: a deliberate trap.
Several times, the inclination to tear the researcher’s letter into increasingly smaller pieces had befallen Violet, but it always ended with her throwing her arms up in defeat.
Circling around the City Proper in an inwards spiral had seemed the most efficient way of covering as much land as quickly as possible, and yet no miraculous signs of Veida fell into Violet’s lap.
For what it was worth, the place was extravagant.
In the direct epicentre of the dotted ruins, a citadel sat. The outer areas of the place reminded Violet distinctly of the destroyed castle that the Flame Sect’s main base had been positioned within. Except, the castle-like structure here was immaculate. Right in between so much raging conflict that had filled the lands in centuries past, it was a miracle that the building remained relatively unscathed. Judging by the state of the land immediately extending past these grounds, however, it was clear that this pristine care was extremely selective.
The walls of stone that extended skywards from the citadel’s base were without so much as a scratch. Lined against either side, were life-like statues of the deities comprising both the Elemental Pact, and the Animalistic Accord — the two godly alliances that grudgingly ruled alongside each other in the relatively peaceful kingdom of Hybrid. Ignoring the weekly raids between territories, civil wars that seemed never-ending, and the constant, unresolved ruins to be found at every turn, they would assure you it was a sacred time of prospering tranquillity.
Apexing it all, slanted windows allowed Violet a sneak preview of the Hall of Thrones. There, individual seats especially designed to match each respective deity lay, handcrafted meticulously by the Matter Clan for their base’s worth in gold. At this angle, Violet could only eye the seat of The Wild Sect, reportedly crafted out over over a hundred types of wood. Vines wreathed the seat’s back, with these being replaced by the yellow of Autumn leaves, or frozen branches every time Violet did so much as blink.
But this particular throne had been left to gather dust over the past Rebirth, as its occupant seated a much more important position.
The Silver Throne, crafted out of pure Supreme Steel, was the throne that the God-Graced would be seated upon if present.
Nevertheless, no matter how visually-stunning Violet found these all to be, she wasn’t here for sightseeing. The desire to sit on some nondescript stone and fall asleep with her head in her hands was a powerful one, but one overcome simply through a persisting, irritating sound.
Chirping hummed through the air, and turning her head towards its direction, Violet scowled. Just what exactly is causing all that racket?
Turning around a crumbling wall, Violet discovered her answer.
Stacks up stacks of cages contained countless birds, all shrieking up a ruckus for no apparent reason. Ignoring the insanity of this sight alone, Violet had to double take as she noted that every single one of the sparrows matched Pippin virtually completely in appearance.
“I like to breed birds, in my spare time,” a familiar voice spoke, “I wasn’t sure if you’d find the signal, or even understand it, but here you are now.”
Violet swivelled round, met with the cold mien of Veida.
“Welcome, Violet. There is much to discuss.”