Chapter 464
As I’d already promised, I was going to ensure that Innervating Address evolved, and soon. I witnessed my people’s initial excitement melt away into fear and then desperation, but still, I didn’t come to their salvation. Instead, I watched the thrashing shadowy approximations of life and grimaced. From where I stood in the center of the city, atop my palace‘s roof, I could see their approach and then their arrival on top of the city's walls.
So far as I could tell, there were a dozen of the beast-like constructions, though I doubted I could call them creatures. Each was more an amorphous shadow where hooks, claws, and hands occasionally thrashed out. They obviously disliked the light that covered the walls, but the creatures, whatever they were, didn’t recoil at that light. Instead, it seemed to push them into a fury that made them lash out at the source of the light as well as whatever else moved in the surroundings. I watched as my people fell and died against the nearly unstoppable beasts, trying to stand their ground but forced to retreat.
“Do you have any idea what’s happening there?“ I asked Sybil.
“I do not,“ she answered, clacking her teeth together for emphasis. “Due to the form thereof, I would assume that these creatures have something to do with the Misti Hawar’s magic, but it is obviously more than a mere manifestation of their abilities.”
After a few seconds to think about it, I spoke.
“Before you say anything,” I said, “I’m not going to stay away until they’re killed. I’m taking time right now to allow my people to remember what the terrors of war can be, but I remain the spear of my people. I won’t stay here and wait for others to brave dangers when I can do so as their Zaaktif.”
She flared her frills and bowed her head in an admission of my point, but as I came to the decision to begin moving, she said, “Walk with care and slay those who dare to invade our land.”
I didn’t answer with anything other than a laugh, but instead, I strengthened myself with the Spear of the Many, doubling my stats before I drew deeply on my sonilphon and shouted, with Innervating Address filling my voice, “Fear not! Victory by fang and blood!”
With that, I carefully jumped from my palace roof to ensure I didn’t destroy it, but as soon as my feet touched the cobblestones before my palace, I rushed towards where the enemies were grouped en masse. As I approached, I could feel the moment in which my struggling fighters remembered my existence as well as the strength my existence granted them. They turned back towards the shadowy beasts and fought desperately, though their physical bodies struggled to do anything more than pass through the enemies’ tendrils. The enraged beasts, however, had no difficulty in making their attacks shred through Kha and Khatif defenses.