All around her, godslaves died and the Legion cheered.
Heva stared, astounded, as sleek Manaships dropped from a hole in the afternoon sky that resembled nothing more than a patch of starlit night. She leaned over the gunwale, Skills momentarily forgotten, as a wave of water preceded the ship, dropping from above and washing away the monsters that clogged the heavens.
"Stop gawking and fight!" Merk screeched, her wand carving sigils into the air and dropping two large, fungal monstrosities to their knees. Cade followed behind, her sword cleaving them in twain.
"Right." Heva gathered fire in her palms. “Scorching Hydra!”
A dozen threads of forge-hot flame sprang from her fingertips, lashing into the Sporeflies that crowded the deck.
Harn simply laughed, his axes cutting through a black-armored Paladin. "The long haul from Pax’Vrell! Mervin pulled through!” His silver flames spread, sinking into another godslaved warrior that screamed before dropping. “Let's make it worth the effort!”
Mervin! You stole my line!
His grin was wide as the Sunaran fleet tore into the enemy. Just like that, the battle turned in their favor. Just like that, a change overcame Amaranth, as unbridled might was unleashed from above…and a sharp prickle flushed across his senses. The power behind him, the one that had stood resolute against all attacks flickered twice before dissolving entirely.
The barrier fell.
"Pit!”
“I see it!”
“Go, now!" They shot forward, heading towards the Shining Palace.
Remember, hero, the Grim sent, his voice barely a whisper. This Tree will not last forever. Hurry.
I know. Felix grit his teeth as Pit pushed them beyond the speed of sound. We're on it.
They shot over the external towers of the palace, bypassing the gossamer bridges and the many hundreds of outbuildings that filled the ground between them all. They were headed straight for the center of the palace, the crowning jewel of its construction, that stretched twice as high as any other. Its outside was covered in a spiral exterior path, decorated by mutilated statues of a hundred different Races, all hacked until only the Human one reamined. Those held up the paths with muscular stone arms, the details between them carved with complex stars and curling vines.
At the very top were four other statues, each raising their hands toward the center, where a floating island clung, featuring a small building at the very top. The flat plane of the tower itself, however, was empty of decoration, save for the glowing sigaldry all around the edges. There, the Unbound were chained to pillars between the statues, muzzled but struggling against the sigils that glowed beneath them. Ocalla Marzul, the Hierophant, stood at the far end beside a mended altar.
She turned as Felix and Pit landed, the tower itself ringing as they stepped upon it.
"Hierophant,” Felix growled. “Let my people go.”
"Felix Nevarre," she said, turning to face him. She was younger than Felix expected. He’d seen her a few times in visions, but never quite so clearly. She appeared no more than thirty, her skin smooth and her hair full and lustrous. She was annoyingly, breathtakingly beautiful, and her wide smile complemented the white robes and silvered armor belted atop of it. Her alabaster staff, topped by a razor sharp sunburst design, was held across her body, almost defensively. Yet as Felix stepped forward, she relaxed, drawing the staff to the side.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Felix narrowed his eyes. "You heard me."
"Your people," she echoed, lips pursed thoughtfully. "I don't seem to have your people. I brought you all here to this world—I would say that makes them my people."
"Shut up, butthead," Pit hissed at her. “Let them go!”
Without a word the pair of them separated, prowling in either direction around the circular rooftop.
Ocalla clucked her tongue. "You wouldn't be thinking of attacking me, now would you?"
"The thought had crossed my mind," Felix said. The Sylphaen was nearby, perhaps only fifty feet away, and Pit was closing in on the Kobolds. "If you let me take them, then I won't have to."
"Really? Even if I continue with my little experiment." Above, a terrible whine sounded as Mana gathered onto the pyramid lashed to the statues. From his angle, he could see very little of what sat on top, but the gathering whine was burned into his perfect memory.
The Chthonic Star!
Felix stopped dead in his tracks, the sight of accumulating Mana clouds sending a thrill of fear through him. He looked back at the Hierophant. The woman stood casually, leaning against her alabaster staff as if she were on a hike.
"You recognize it. And I believe you know my intentions. Unsurprising,” she laughed. “You’ve been entirely too smart for your own good since you arrived here, Fiend.”
“You plan to break the chains and use my people as Vessels.”
Ocalla hummed. “Intriguing. Perhaps not so smart after all.” She leaned forward, robes rustling against her armor. “What shall you choose to do, I wonder?"
Felix licked his lips. Pit. When I give the word—
Yeah, I got it.
The Hierophant’s smile sharpened. "Do you think your thoughts are secret from me, Fiend? You will not leave this place with the Unbound. I guarantee that."
"Guarantee this!"
Faster than Felix could track, an armored woman leaped out of the very floor, surprising the hell out of the both of them. She tackled the Hierophant, slamming the woman back into one of the statues. The armored figure fell though, reeling backward as golden steam shot from the cracks in her armor as if they were boiling alive.
They hurled off her helmet, panting, and Felix's eyes widened. "Gabby!"
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His sister had fallen to her knees, her limbs quivering as the weapons in her hand fell listlessly to the surface of the tower. She tried to stand, but her leg gave out as more gold poured from the joints. It clung to her, the vapor condensing into a dripping molten liquid that set her wide back trembling.
“You wretched creature!”
In a blink, the Hierophant was at her side. She slapped the woman across the face, a casual gesture that rocked the eleven foot Titan onto her rear. Just as fast, Ocala seized Gabby’s hair
and wrenched her head back. “All you know is treachery!”
Felix jolted forward, but the alabaster staff shoved to his sister’s throat drew him short.
"You take a single step, Nevarre, and she's done. That goes for you
as well.”A word Felix couldn't understand twisted from Ocalla’s lips and a golden construct of solid light threads seized a slight figure that was edging around one of the columns. Felix blinked. Archie was inches away from the Kobold Twins, his Molten Blade extended to slash at their chains. He strained forward, the veins in his neck bulging.
Ocalla clucked her tongue. "You’re not worthy of this fight, child… but you will be useful—AGH!” She cried out as the golden threads around the Delven flexed and warped. Pit, talons and Mantle flashing, bore down on the construct—not nearly enough to break it, but it was enough for Archie to stumble free.
"Get out of here," Pit cried.
“No way!” Archie jumped to the Kobolds again, blades sparking as they struck the chains.
Ocalla began to spit another word when Gabby, of all people, thrust her hand out. A shield of golden light slammed into the man, hurling the Delven straight off the edge of the tower. He screamed as he vanished from sight.
"Archie!" Felix hissed before Ocalla's prim voice drew his attention back to his sister.
"Defiance! Fiend! Choose which to save! Your falling friend," she thrust her staff into Gabby's neck, drawing blood, "or your sister."
He wasn’t torn in the slightest.
Stride of the King!
Felix shot forward, claws extended toward the Hierophant as Pit sped in the other direction, wings held close before diving off the edge of the tower.
"You are so greedy!” Ocalla snapped her fingers just as Felix reached her side of the tower. It lit up, the floor seizing his feet as the array unveiled itself, a pattern rivaling the fractal designs of a natural Seat and Seal. “You think you can have it all?”
Felix sturmbled, his movements sluggish as if he tread through waist deep water. His Agility and Dexterity flagged, dimming in his Body as the air ripped at two simultaneous points. Rifts like cracked glass broke through the skin of the world on either side of the Hierophant, displaying a distorted view into a twisted terrain featuring blackened skies and empty, lifeless lands.
The Deadlands.
A wave of familiar weakness rushed through him, this time affecting all of his stats at once. He’d encountered a similar feeling when he’d walked into the Deadlands, but now it was as if that foul place had extended into the Continent.
The rifts thrummed, vibrating against his senses, reaching out toward him in near palpable waves. Felix tried to straighten up but his legs wouldn’t work right. Bands of golden light seized his limbs.
"No!" he raged, his legs bunching, scales spreading across his body into armored plates as his form grew. Sovereign of Flesh!
The bands stretched, groaning like distorted chimes as he pushed back to his feet. "You won’t stop me, lady!”
"Perhaps not." The Hierophant pursed her lips. "But what about her?"
Crimson lightning sparked from one of the rifts before crashing past his shoulder and into the distance. A spike of savage pain tore through his bond.
Pit!
His forward momentum stalled as he twisted back toward his Companion—and that was enough to foul his resistance. Bonds of crimson lightning joined the golden threads, and together they slammed Felix to the ground, wrapping across his flesh so that his limbs were held, spread-eagle against the glowing sigaldry.
The rifts cracked wider.
Two figures emerged like silken smoke from a fissure. A woman, older and round, formed to his left. Her arms were thick and her body was draped in an ancient style of gown that sparkled with discarded starlight, but all of it was made entirely of slick shadowflesh—including her delicately arranged hair and hollow face. It was a familiar and gruesome sight; a collapsed tunnel that replaced her face with a hole that stretched backward into infinity. She towered above Felix, at least thirty feet tall, floating inches above the golden sigils.
The second was a sickly man wearing a bulbuous suit riddled with artistic slashes that clearly mimicked a style long since gone from the Continent. Its size only enhanced the figure’s skeletal limbs and bent neck, all of it colored a foul bronze that gave the impression that it was distended flesh around their middle. Sores and weeping wounds covered any place without clothing, and a foul decay hung from his shoulders like a cloak.
Noctis and Yyero.
Felix's Mind tripped, his perfect recall summoning a ghostly mirror for them both. Witnessed during his visions, the shadowy shapes that had talked of stealing Primordial power clarified before his eyes, matching silhouettes with the Divine before him. Noctis and Yyero, as they once looked, before they were gods.
The god of rot looked to the side and his sharp face twisted into rage. Incompetent Titan! She Fouled My Acquistion Of The Lizard—
“She will face punishment,” Ocalla assured him but didn’t even turn to look at the god. “For that and many other transgressions.”
I Must Say, Felix, Noctis said, ignoring the others as she leaned over his prone form. Her voice was light, airy, and kind. Facing Us Here Is Quite Nice Of You. After All, You Only Faced Us At Our Reduced Might In Elderthrone.
Felix tried to pull his head up but only Managed to twist his jaw forward. “Fuck you.”
She lacked a mouth, but that emptines seemed to grin. Here, We Are Far Greater. It Is A Testament To How Well We’ve Cultivated Amaranth.
The City Is Soaked With Our Power, Yyero said. My Rot Has Spread Into Every Crack And Crevice, And All Of It Feeds Me Now. Temporary Or Not, These Vessels Are Far Greater Than Anything Else.
Now, Brother. We Mustn't Forget About The Ingenuity Of The Nym. Noctis reached out, caressing one of the statues. Built To Amplify Power, Here We Can Exert Ourselves Far More Than In Any Other Location. Chains Or Not. I Know The Intangible Is My Domain, But Here I Am Real. She reached forward, grinding Felix’s head into the ground. His skin broke, smearing blood across the sigils. As Are My Family.
A clarion horn trumpeted into the air and the sound of glass shattering followed. A third rift opened between the others and directly above where the Hierophant and Gabby stood by the atlar. The Twins appeared there, holding out their fist. Just as convoluted and eldritch as the rest, made of metallic blue that bent like flesh, they locked eyes with Felix. Their fist gleamed, a strident blue-white light emitting from it.
Even Vellus formed as bloody lightning, leashed into a jagged, inhuman shape with too many arms that bent in strange, unnatural ways. She clung to Noctis's side, half her height; present but far less so than the rest.
Felix found nothing within him but rage. He struggled to push himself to his knees, his muscles screaming in protest as his Strength and Will contested the bindings that held him. Sigils flared, pulling him tight, but he lifted himself through the golden threads, snapping them one by one. Ocalla cursed something, but it was too quiet against the roar in his ears. First his neck, then his chest and back burst free.
“I’m going to kill all of you,” he promised as his eyes burned bright blue.
I Disagree. The light from the Twins' fist intensified and its dual hands clenched before thrusting through the rift and out of the Deadlands.
Felix was slammed back to the earth as more crimson lightning coursed across his limbs. New bands held him fast, composed entirely of a bloody gold that had far less give than Ocalla’s golden light.
The Hierophant smirked. "You are stronger than I expected…but you didn't think this would be so easy, did you?" She gestured with her staff, no longer holding it to Gabby's throat. "Golden Reversion."
Light surged away from her, spreading across the sigaldry in the tower's surface and down the sides. So close his senses would have to have been blinded to miss it. They surged towards the base, deeper than the ground, before he felt something shift, and then a sound like a chorus of angels rose up.
The barrier returned, cutting them off.