Vess leapt away, her wings still scorched, but enough to avoid the worst of the onslaught. She had left her glaive behind, sitting there on the ground, but more importantly, the Hierophant was no longer looking at them. She was staring at the Beast as it approached.
Felix was invisible, hidden away in layers of purple-black smoke that rippled in the wind of the Beast’s relentless passage. Lightning dragged from its defined fists and forearms, where the smoke compacted into true flesh, and each pull dragged it closer by hundreds of strides.
“Adamant Discord!”
Its voice was a mingling of monster and Felix’s own, and a searing bolt tore across the tower once again. It skittered by, avoiding Vess and the others and homing in on the Hierophant.
For her part, Ocalla stopped running. “You will not kill me!” She lifted her hands. “Core Manifestation: Loom of Light!”
Vess was thrown back as the Hierophant’s Spirit was unveiled. It rose up from behind her like the sun itself, washing the entire tower in gold. Her hands were lifted, palms up as they spread wide and manifested a vast machinery in the air above.
It rotated, slats pumping across its face, and threads blossomed thousands of strides away. Golden cords whipped outward, tangling the Beast by limb and neck. Veins throbbed along Ocalla’s neck as she twisted her hands into arcane patterns, and those massive cables punched through the Beast’s smokey flesh, piercing its hide and hauling it back against the barrier.
The Beast fell back, a thunderclap tearing through the air as it hit the invisible shield around the palace grounds. It struggled, but each movement forced new cables to spawn and tangle its limbs anew.
Vess struggled back to her feet, weapon in hand and teeth bared. She would shatter that loom. “Glorybound—”
Empyrean Embrace!
Ethereal jaws formed out of the sky, luminous teeth clamping down on the golden threads. They savaged them, tearing at the Core Manifestation with a Spirit that matched its ferocity.
No. More than a match.
The Hierophant fell back with a cry, her Spirit flinching. The Beast shoved free of her fading Loom, the structure of which flickered above the Hierophant’s head.
“Lightless Night,” Ocalla cursed.
Lightning tore across the space between barrier and tower, searing against En’cridhe’s side. The woman started, for the first time showing some human emotion aside from derision. She feared the Beast.
"Drive her toward the lightning," Vess commanded Gabby. The warrior didn't answer her, but she maneuvered forward, plowing through the strings of gold to tackle the Hierophant directly.
The woman did not forget them, however. She wove her hands deftly, forming massive walls of threaded light that smashed into Gabby and blocked Vess' attacks before reaching outward. The pair of them floundered, fetching back onto their feet just in time to see the Hierophant's golden threads seize the Chthonic Star.
"No!" Gabby cried out.
The Hierophant's Spirit unfurled anew, and even wounded it pressed Vess to her knees. Yin roared, his belly grinding into the earth as he fought to even lift his chin. Gabby, however, pressed to her feet, her armor deforming beneath the weight of Spirit before more threads wrapped around her shoulders and yanked her back down.
"Lift your eyes, betrayer, and witness the consequences of rebellion," the Hierophant commanded. She thrust her hand upward, and the Chthonic Star followed her motion.
Vess’ heart leaped to her throat. But instead of pivoting the Star at the chains of the gods, she heaved its screaming beam toward the barrier.
Toward Felix.
A spear of blinding, colorless light shot outward, searing through the Beast's dark form and cutting off a massive chunk of the amorphous Manifestation. Almost instantly, pieces withered away, dispersing like rotting smoke.
Vital Aegis Has Expired!
The Beast's strange face, more smoke than physical form, opened its glowing maw and howled in unmistakable pain. Like an animal, it ran away from the Chthonic Star's beam, and its obliterating ray punched out through the meat of the Beast’s shoulder—directly into the barrier around the Shining Palace. It quaked as a rainbow spectrum spread out from the point of contact, rapidly rising from yellow to orange to red. It bubbled, pieces of the barrier deforming and stretching beneath the colorless beam. The Beast collided with it, clawing its way away from the terrible Star.
The barrier shattered.
"And so the mighty Beast fled.” The Hierophant’s mouth quirked up, though her chest heaved as her Core Manifestation faded into motes of radiance.
Felix, trapped within the Beast, fell onto the corrupted inner district beyond the Shining Palace. It crashed through the Thousandfaced Centipedes, Flesh Clouds, and the Hierocratic Manaships that still plied the skies. They died by the hundreds beneath the Beast's hungry maw.
"Delight yourself with the godslaves Beast while your betters change this world!" Ocalla laughed and, with a struggling flex of her shoulders, she altered the trajectory of the Chthonic Star once more. It spun, turning through the city and slashing through Manaships—theirs as well as her own.
She kept turning it upward, aiming for something else.
With a wordless cry, Gabby attacked, slamming her golden hammer down at the Hierophant. For all her power, the woman was forced to abandon the Star. It dimmed, its beam cutting off, as she focused instead on diverting the Titan's blow. With one hand, she drove the woman's conjured weapon into the ground, and with her other, her alabaster staff crushed Gabby’s forearm, driving a cry from her lips.
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Ocalla clucked her tongue. “You should know your place, Imara.” The Hierophant hurled the Titan back, and Gabby’s weapon dissolved into motes of light.
Vess caught her, but was nearly decapitated by the flamberge that manifested in the Titan's grip. “Pay attention! I need you to fight her with me."
Vess nodded, seizing one of her conjured spears. "Together."
“Sunbright Colossus!”
“Glorybound Gale!”
Gabby flared with power, growing in size as her Skill took effect. That golden radiance poured from her mouth and eyes, and every Mana Gate she possessed. Soon, she dwarfed the Hierophant by at least three times and thundered forward with her golden flamberge slashing. Vess moved faster, pressing her Agility with all she could, her Spears blurring into a net of violence, and for once the Hierophant was on the backfoot. She retreated, defending against their blows, but only barely. She took no damage, but Vess had fought for her entire life. She could sense when an opponent was reaching an edge.
On The Wing is level 99!
Galebound Glory is level 101!
“Shatterstar!”
Stars rained down upon them again, and this time they pummeled the overwhelmed Paragon. Gabby pressed her advantage through the explosions, flamberge slashing in rapid patterns Vess could not follow. Sprays of gold followed each strike, as if the Hierophant had sunlight in her veins.
Or wasn’t being harmed at all.
"Foul Unbound!” The woman caught Gabby’s sword in her bare hands, stopping it cold. “I preferred you without your Mind!"
She snapped her finger.
The sound radiated across the tower like thunder, and it tore away the light that suffused the Titan. It pulled from her chest as if the Hierophant were sucking her soul from her flesh. Gabby's mouth opened in a silent scream before her eyes rolled back and she fell, like a puppet with her strings cut.
“There. Better.” The Hierophant swung her alabaster staff towards Gabby's throat.
Vess dove into the way, her Spears stabbing en masse to deflect the staff into the stone. The floor exploded, and so did her Spears, shrapnel thrown in a slicing cloud that cast the pair of them back.
“Sunlord’s Raiment!”
The Hierophant's threads wrapped around her arms, tightening into muscle-like fibers that flexed from jaw to toes. She backhanded Vess, sending the Dragoon flying but followed with a kick of her foot. Vess twisted mid-air, bringing her glaive to guard even as her head rang from the impact. She wasn’t fast enough. Ocalla drove the sunburst tip of her alabaster staff deep into Vess' midsection.
Or would have had a shell of red-gold scales not surrounded her torso.
Felix!
“Damnable Fiend!"
Vess barely heard Ocalla as a riotous song rolled through her senses. It was beautiful and terrifying, a melody she’d heard before. It was undercut by a buzzing drone at every beat, like the pulse of a stalking predator. Somehow, in some way, the sounds meshed together perfectly.
It’s you, isn’t it? In the midst of chaos her eyes found him, across the battlefield where the Beast savaged the enemy. This song is…you.
Power flowed through her. Those red-gold scales sprang across her body armor as multicolored Mana flourished across her form, trailing from her limbs like iridescent oil spills. The Hierophant called down a rain of gold, but Vess moved through it, her feet propelled by more than her family’s ancient kata.
"You will not win this.” Vess met her gaze and blue light lit up the Hierophant's shocked face. Vess knew then that her eyes were burning a bright, familiar blue.
“We will not let you!” Yin joined in, his dawnfire rolling across the tower and searing at the Hierophant's legs. It was tinged by red-gold, and that thread enhancement around her body began to fray as the fire sank into her. The Hierophant retreated, staff spinning to deflect the flames even as her threads multiplied.
For a brief moment, they were winning.
“Your faith is misplaced, Dragoon.”
The Hierophant appeared before her in an instant. She slammed the blunt end of her staff into Vess' gut again. Red-scale armor formed…and shattered, her arcanite equipment deforming beneath the blow.
"Woven Sunspear!”
A beam of golden light burned through Vess' middle. Red scales formed across her belly once again, but they melted beneath the Paragon’s might. The beam seared through Vess’ gut before ripping out of her back and scoring a deep, burning trail across the tower's tilted edge.
Vess gasped, unable to take a proper breath as blood slopped out of the edges of her armor. Terrible char filled her nostrils. Sound grew dim and strangely echoey as Yin roared, his pain and panic transmitted across their bond.
The Dawn Drake charged, mouth open with flames. Ocalla lifted her alabaster staff, sunlight gleaming off its end.
Through the pain, Vess reached out. "Convergence!"
Yin vanished in a flash of light just as another Woven Sunspear tore through his position. The Hierophant snorted, setting her heavy alabaster staff into the ground.
"A Dragon reduced to hiding because of your cowardice. Companions. Fah. Worthless relics of a weaker age." She stepped closer to Vess, stabbing the butt of her staff into the hole in her gut. "I'll simply kill you both at once.”
Vess spat blood on her pristine robes, hiding the movement of her hands. “You will not win this day, Marzul."
The Hierophant sneered.
"Am I a child to wait until my enemies have gathered in order to act? I cannot lose because I've already won." Vess tensed, hand gripping something. Ocalla tilted her head, an amused smile playing at the edges of her lips. "Whatever you’re hiding is worthless. It will not stop me. It won’t even wound me. Your mother knew that, in the end."
Vess narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“You’ve followed in her footsteps, no?” Ocalla gestured, and golden threads lifted Vess' own dragon-headed glaive and brought it to the Hierophant's hand. “You can die in the dirt, just like her.”
Ocalla stabbed down.
Vess twisted her hand.
A door opened beneath her, dropping Vess into a rectangle of darkness just as the glaive arrived. It sparked off the stone floor, unable to cross the threshold.
“What—” The Hierophant’s face twisted as realization came upon her. “You little—an Omen Key!” The Hierophant cast the glaive aside and summoned her golden threads. “Morning’s Reign!”
An unraveling skein of golden threads surged from her palms, twisting into glittering drills that bored into the earth. Vess scrabbled back, the patches around the doorway immediately stretching beneath the golden onslaught. The veil of the threshold ripped.
Threads surged into the black.
Vess kicked outward, heel catching on the faceted doorway and slammed the door shut.