Chapter 89: Nearing the Limit
The world was a blur of impossible speed. Jim carried Lea across the countryside, breaking the sound barrier repeatedly, black and yellow lightning trailing behind them like a comet's tail.
Then they arrived at the eastern front, and the world became horror.
The Tome of Light hung in the sky like a second sun. It blazed with radiance that hurt to look at, pages flipping on their own, words streaming from it in languages that shouldn't exist. The light was wrong - too bright, too pure, casting shadows that twisted and writhed with forbidden meaning.
Lea felt it immediately. Knowledge poured into her mind uninvited, half-truths that felt like whole truths, revelations that drove sanity to the breaking point.
The world is...
Ποτέ δεν θα σε εγκαταλείψω, ποτέ δεν θα σε απογοητεύσω
The gods are...
Θέλω απλώς να σου πω πώς νιώθω
Πρέπει να σε κάνω να καταλάβεις
Ring... Jester...
Ποτέ δεν θα τρέξω και δεν θα σε εγκαταλείψω
Ποτέ δεν θα σε κάνω να κλάψεις, ποτέ δεν θα σε αποχαιρετήσω
Her Cloak and Silence Paths activated instinctively, counterparts resonating with each other. The whispers faded to background noise still present, still terrible, but manageable. Jim gritted his teeth beside her, his Fourth Step powers similarly protecting him, "That's... that's worse than the New World manifestations."
Below them, the battlefield was chaos.
Ryteline soldiers turned on each other, screaming about truths they'd learned, attacking anyone nearby. Officers tried to maintain order but succumbed to madness themselves. Bodies littered the ground, some dead, some convulsing, some just staring at the sky with broken minds.
And cutting through the chaos, trying desperately to restore order, was Auger Maxwell.
The Fifth Step demigod moved with practiced efficiency, his divine knocking soldiers unconscious without killing them. A protective field around him was created via his powers, but it was failing under the Tome's chaotic assault.
And surrounding him, moving with predatory focus, were the assassins.
At least a dozen. Professional killers, Pathstriders hired by Sinclair, are using the chaos to close in on their target. Seeing how they aren't affected much by the God of Light.
Lea raised her gun and aimed at the Tome of Light.
The three seastones hummed in harmony, energy built to a crescendo. She pulled the trigger.
The blast shot toward the floating book—
The Tome vanished.
Just gone, as if it had never been there. The oppressive light disappeared, the whispers cut off mid-sentence.
It had delivered its chaos and left, as it always did. A Trickster God playing its games.
But the damage was done. The battlefield was still in disarray, and the assassins were still closing on Auger. And Lea could feel her Companion's bond growing dimmer.
The connection that tied her to Auger, the Power of Friendship as he had called it, was weakening. He was taking too much damage, fighting too many battles at once, spreading himself too thin trying to save everyone.
"Zorro!", Lea shouted, "Get Auger out of here! NOW!"
Jim looked at her, then at the assassins surrounding Auger, then back at her. His surface thoughts screamed concern, "Dantes, you can barely stand—"
"I DON'T CARE!", her voice cracked, "He's dying! Get him OUT!"
Jim's expression hardened. Then he nodded and blurred.
One moment, he was beside Lea. The next, he was at Auger's side, the black and yellow lightning trailing in his wake. He grabbed the Fifth Step demigod, who was too exhausted to protest, and vanished toward the rear lines at supersonic speeds.
Leaving Lea alone.
Facing a dozen professional assassins who immediately turned their attention to her.
"Well, well...", one of them said, manifesting blades of blood.
Third Step Carnage, Lea noted.
"The Shadow Guard of the princess herself. This'll be a nice bonus."
Lea's mood was at rock bottom.
She'd pushed herself beyond their limits for hours. Her eyes still bled. Her head felt like it was splitting apart. Her body screamed for rest.
But Auger was safe. Jim had gotten him away.
That was all that mattered. Her Cursed Constructs erupted.
Not just from her body, from the ground itself. Black tendrils burst from the earth in a hundred-meter radius, transforming the terrain into a forest of writhing darkness. They wrapped around her like armor, layering over each other until she looked more construct than human.
"What the—", an assassin started.
Lea's golden Judgement blade manifested and shot forward, pinning him to the ground before he could finish the sentence. It exploded, sending bits and pieces of his body across the battlefield.
The others scattered, attacking from multiple angles. But Lea's enhanced cognition tracked them all. Her emotion radar painted them in her mind's eye. She read their surface thoughts, predicting their moves before they made them.
She was Fourth Step, a demigod at that. They were mostly Third, with maybe two Fourth Step among them.
But she was also at her absolute limit.
Nearly hitting her breaking point, Lea began to lose control.
And somehow, the more she felt her consciousness slip, the stronger she became.
Her Malediction Path with power, feeding on her suffering, her exhaustion, her rage, and her desperation. The curse that had always been part of her nature stopped being something she controlled and became something that controlled her.
The Cursed Constructs spread further, covering more ground, reaching higher. They wrapped around Lea's body in layer after layer, and she began to grow.
Three meters tall.
Five.
Ten.
Her body transformed, black scales spreading across flesh, golden eyes blazing with inhuman light. The constructs became indistinguishable from her actual form, merging into something that was neither human nor Pathstrider.
Twenty meters tall. A Horror. Like during her Fourth Step ascension, but worse.
More controlled. More focused. More aware.
The assassins stared up at the monster that had been Lea Darkwill.
"RUN!", one of them screamed.
But Lea activated Dream Eater.
Not on sleeping victims. On the conscious assassins. Forcing her way into their waking minds, touching the subconscious beneath their thoughts while they were still aware.
It shouldn't have been possible. Dream Eater required sleep, required the target to be vulnerable.
But Lea was beyond normal limitations now. She was Horror-touched, Fourth Step powers twisted by Malediction's influence, reaching into minds that had no defense against this impossible intrusion.
She devoured their consciousness.
Their sense of self was devoured by the darkness within her heart. The thing that made them think, feeling beings.
She ate it all while they were still awake to experience it.
They died of shock. Every single one had their minds hollowed out in seconds, bodies collapsing like puppets with cut strings.
Lea stood among the corpses, twenty meters of black-scaled horror, breathing hard. The battlefield had gone silent around her. Even the maddened soldiers had fled from whatever she'd become.
Then applause echoed across the field.
"Brava! BRAVA!!", Sinclair's voice rang out with theatrical enthusiasm, "Now THAT was a performance worth watching!!"
Lea's massive head turned. Sinclair stood at the edge of the battlefield, clapping with exaggerated movements.
"The Avenger becomes the monster! The hero transforms into Horror! It's PERFECT!!", She spun in a circle, "This is exactly what I wanted to see!!"
Lea tried to speak, but her Horror-form's mouth couldn't form proper words. Only a sound that was half-growl, half-scream.
"Oh, but I have more news~!!", Sinclair continued cheerfully, "While you were having your little breakdown here, Zankur decided this was the perfect time for a full frontal assault! Their entire army is marching on this position right now!!"
She gestured dramatically toward the horizon, where dust clouds were already visible. The sound of war drums echoed in the distance.
"So what will you do, little Avenger?", Sinclair's smile was cruel as much as it was wicked, "Stay here as a monster and face an army alone? Or try to transform back and probably collapse from exhaustion?"
She laughed, "Either way, it's going to be SPECTACULAR to watch!!"
Then she stepped behind a tree and vanished, as if she'd never been there.
Leaving Lea alone.
She tried to force herself back to human form. The Cursed Constructs resisted, wanting to stay as armor, as weapon, as Horror-body. But with desperate effort, she pulled them back.
The transformation reversed. Twenty meters became ten, ten became five, five became human-sized.
Lea collapsed to her knees, gasping, blood still streaming from her eyes. Her body ached. Her mind felt like it had been shredded. She'd used Dream Eater in ways it was never meant to be used, touched minds that weren't sleeping, killed through pure mental assault.
She'd become exactly what Sinclair wanted. A monster. A Horror-touched Pathstrider who'd crossed lines that shouldn't be crossed.
And now she had to face the consequences.
The war drums grew louder. The dust clouds resolved into ranks of soldiers. Thousands of them. The entire Zankur army, chanting in unison:
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"
"COURAGE AND HONOR!!"
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"
"COURAGE AND HONOR!!"
Lea stood slowly, Hastur manifesting from her shadow, her gun in the other. Her Cursed Constructs writhed around her, still eager for violence. Her Malediction Path still sang with dark power.
She was one Fourth Step Pathstrider, already at her limit, standing between an army and the wounded, retreating Ryteline forces.
The chanting grew louder.
The army advanced.
And Lea, alone on the battlefield, prepared to meet them.
This is how I die... she thought distantly... This is where it ends.
But even thinking that, she didn't run.
She couldn't.
Because behind her were people who needed time to retreat. Wounded soldiers. Auger, being carried to safety.
Dawn's kingdom. Her friend's home.
So Lea stood her ground, one woman against thousands, and waited for the army to reach her.
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"
"COURAGE AND HONOR!!"
The chanting shook the earth.
And Lea raised her weapons and prepared for her last stand.