B4 Chapter 517: Tyrannomachia, pt. 3
Thousands of eyes watched them as they approached the wall. They lined the streets in bloodstained armour, clutching their battered weapons. Their tabards were torn, and their faces were lined with the kind of marrow-deep fatigue that could only be found on the battlefield.
As they watched him, Kaius watched them in turn. He saw many things in the defenders of Deadacre — exhaustion, pain, anger, fear, and more.
The siege had almost broken them. He could practically hear the fraying tension in the heavy panting of the wounded, and the stifled sobs of those who were crouched over broken bodies.
That was hard to ignore. Harder still when they passed an empty lot. It had been a building once, judging by the remnants of its foundation that still lingered. It must have fallen — he couldn’t see any scorch marks for it to have burned. The rubble had been cleared, and bodies had taken its place. Dozens of them, lined in neat rows, human lives reduced to simple market goods on display for the inspection of passers by. People walked through those rows, identifying the lost.
Kaius couldn’t imagine it. What did they hope to find? Was it easier for those who were huddled around the pale faced bodies, spilling out their whispered grief? Or was it better for those who left ashen faced, unable to find the bodies of those comrades they had lost in the chaos of the last week?
As they walked in silence, the heady air swirled around him — a stoking wind that fed the battle song building within him.
For though they had come close, the city of Deadacre hadn’t broken. Not yet. The eyes that followed him, even those streaked by grief, burned with indignation. It was a violent hope that retribution was at hand.
When the Tyrant spoke, it had spoken to all. The city had heard its decree. They knew that the shattered homes and splintered lives that had been thrust upon them was a twisted trial from a demented monster.
They watched them pass, and knew that Kaius and his companions were heading to spill blood.
Kaius wasn’t sure when it started, but at some point in the short walk between the siege tower and the wall, they were joined by a steady thump. There were no words. Only the dull impact of spear hafts hitting cobble stone or slapping against shields, or heavy boots stomping on the earth.
At first it was just a stray few, but it spread quickly — until all he could hear was the very city itself pounding a drum of war.
He wasn’t ready for it. Wasn’t ready for the way it made his Bloodsong surge. It made him want to break into a run — to race towards the Tyrant and cleave its grotesque head in twain.
Soon, they were at the wall.
Without standing on ceremony, he, his team, Rieker, and Arc all vaulted over the edge. Kaius landed in a swamp born from viscera and blood. The broken bodies of beasts had piled up high against the city's fortifications. It was a palisade of death, an inclined hill that sloped down towards the remaining dragon’s teeth.
The pounding continued, overwhelming his disgust as he sank to his ankles in meat. The smell of it was rank, a foetid mixture of stale iron and sunbaked intestines. He trudged on, nausea forgotten as the desolation he saw only heightened his desire to meet the Tyrant on the field.
Stride by stride, they approached that blackened point in the no man's land where the Tyrant had made its mark. Essence still lingered, a flickering potency he could see with his Truesight.
With every stride, he could feel something building in his blade. It seemed almost hungry — a sense of almost-completion building within it. He didn’t know what to make of it — the closest he’d felt was when he’d fed it new materials, but it was slightly different.
There was no way to check, but if he had to guess it was almost finished processing its most recent evolution — it was almost ready to accept more materials.
Kaius grinned; if it was, a fight like this was sure to put it over the edge.
As they got further from the city, the bloody mud slowly returned to hard-baked cracked earth, and the pounding of the defenders softened to a distant pulse of noise. They still had nearly a half-league of walking, but at their strength they weren’t more than a few minutes away.
Just to his left, Rieker let out a grumble. His splintmail was battleworn, but his two ornate warhammers gleamed. Kaius wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen them dirty. Either it was an enchantment, or the man cleaned them as some sort of battle-ritual.
“I still don’t like the idea of letting the two of ye take the front. Feels wrong — wasn’t that long ago that I would’ve been able to snap you like a twig,” the guildmaster said, giving him and Porkchop a quick look.
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Kaius shrugged. He could understand the discomfort. As a Gold, Rieker had decades of experience, and letting someone as young as him take the lead, strong or not, would have had to chafe. It was still the right move, he knew Rieker understood that. With the suppressive effects of the Tyrant’s authority, they had to play it safe until Rieker and Arc adjusted.
At the edge of their formation, Arc shook his head, his bone carapace gleaming white in the sunlight. “This one likes it no more than you do, but we can hope that the Tyrant’s abilities prove less effective against ones such as us.”
Their plans didn’t extend much further than that. There were simply too many unknowns. Dros had encountered the thing, but he’d never gotten to actually see his team's fatal clash with the creature — they didn’t know how it fought.
Sure, they knew it had some level of essence control, and used fire-based attacks, but nothing else. If he had to guess, the creature would be a swift and agile fighter. It had dodged the assault from the siege tower too easily and cleanly.
That meant tying up its mobility — something they thankfully had a variety of ways of accomplishing. Ianmus had his Sanctified Lilyfield ready to go, and Kenva had Ensnaring Seedburst — though the latter skill was less likely to be effective against a creature who used fire.
Mostly, they’d just need to batter it and hem it in. Something that would be much, much easier once Rieker and Arc could join them.
They were going to play it defensively, and feel out its capabilities. That was what would give them the best chance of creating a decisive opening.
The scorched black mark on the earth drew close, and before long they stood before it, staring down the distant army of beasts. Kaius drew his blade, planted it in the dirt, and rested his hands on its pommel. It was hard to keep them loose, but letting the simmering bloodlust control him would only hamper his reactions.
Far away, the line of beasts rippled and parted. An opening, right in the centre of their numbers.
Kaius saw the Tyrant immediately. It approached swiftly, yet with calm indifference, its every step a languid thing of oily grace. He watched it, his gold-flecked green eyes burning with a wanton need to excise its twisted carapace and crack its bones.
Seeing it draw ever close made the coals in his belly surge to a blinding heat. His knuckles went white, his prudence not quite enough to stop him from clenching down on his pommel.
The Tyrant’s mandibular jaws rippled into a vile smile.
“And lo did sacred duty dawn, bringing the light of purpose with it. The challenged gather, shackled by obligation and hobbled by conscience. Only one thing will disprove them as fools. Victory, and the strength to claim it.”
The words were oily, at once silky and rasping in a way that made a shudder roll up Kaius’s back.
“Cease your prattling creature, we have come.” he growled.
A racking gurgle rolled through its chest. It took Kaius a moment to realise it was laughter.
“So you have, for you are too weak, in every meaning of the word, to do anything else. We will talk, because I wish it so, just as I wished to meet six on the field.”
“This one wishes to know why,” Arc said in a low, stoney voice before Kaius could respond.
The Tyrant snapped to the hirgost, their large, malformed head tilting to the side.
“Why what?”
“This one has heard you speak again and again of duty, purpose, and sacredness. These are the words of honourable men, but this one has seen you use them to describe the worst of atrocities. This one wants to know why!” Arc’theros boomed.
It was the first time Kaius had heard the man use something other than an even tone. He was fuming — practically shaking with barely controlled rage. Arc clenched his fists, loud cracks resounding as the exoskeleton on his hands started to splinter from the force.
Kaius pulled his blade from the dirt, and slowly settled into his stance. Regardless if the Tyrant deigned to give them an explanation, he had no doubt this would come to blows. Quickly.
Even as they readied themselves, the Tyrant barely reacted to their movements — only laughing in abject amusement at Arc’s furious demand.
“I care little for the petty morality of mortals. There is only one Truth — one certainty that holds true under all the great System touches. The weak exist only at the behest of the strong. To forget that, to languish in heretical mediocrity, to wallow in the filth of undisciplined laxity…it is a transgression of the highest order.”
Kaius tensed as the gleaming-eyed Tyrant took a deep, rattling breath. They had moments at most. Flicking a hand, he signaled Kenva and Ianmus to fall to the back of their formation. Rieker and Arc followed, each positioning themselves to guard one of their backline.
The Tyrant grinned, arms spreading wide. “My purpose is two fold. To forever brand desperation and struggle into the hearts of the weak, so that they may never rest in comfort, and to hone those rare chosen few who have taken to the changed world through righteous battle — for a blade of war may only be quenched in blood!”
In a single explosion of movement, the Tyrant lunged forward. Each of its four hands exploded into a roaring flame. With its sudden assault, came pressure.
Every single one of them staggered, rocked by the Tyrant’s aura of power.
**Ding! You have challenged a Tyrant: Purpose in Duty!**
**Ding! Good luck.**