BECMI Chapter 542 – A Hungry, Hungry Land
There were plenty of surviving creatures, but they were scattered, dazed, and stumbling, staggering at a metaphorical hit to body and soul from Arcane Focus and Dazing Spell. They were also screaming, Burning with Silver Fire and Acid like holiest water, Lightning from the primal depths of an auspicious cloud, crackles of Thunder like a zillion bells shattering them, and at least four other kinds of Flame all eating at them without care for resistances or immunities.
As for those who had died, the ground was painted sheerest blinding white, but the mists which accompanied their deaths, and the remnants of their bodies, were already gone.
The Land had taken its Feast!
“INFINITE HUNGER, A WORLD TO APPEASE.”
The whole Leng horde broke at those quiet, deathly calm, and utterly believable words echoing around them.
What were they, before the hunger of a world? It only needed to be roused to kill them all!
The stars were back in the sky, but they were advancing now. The split in the sky was boiling open, advancing towards the Maw of Malice, the great canyon from which this horde was flowing.
Flowing noticeably as fast as Aelryinth was speeding forward at a good 200 mph, just a blur in motion, but the Celestial Cerulean Sign above him was now a hundred feet high, a herald of the end, of condemnation from Heaven and earth alike!
“A MEAL STREAMS FORTH, A MOTHER TO PLEASE.”
Fangs began to drop from the clouds above again, again filled with stars. On the ground, they seemed to race in parallel, coming up through the blasted white earth, emerging like sharks, streaking for the hordes who had all come quite to a halt upon seeing this happen again, jaws made of land and sky closing down on them!
“TREMBLE, LITTLE MORSELS.
“TREMBLE, TIDBITS OF LENG.
“TREMBLE, YE OFFERINGS,
“TREMBLE NOW AND SING.
“THE JAWS OF THE WORLD ARE OPEN,
“AND SATED?! THE WORLD KNOWS NO SUCH THING!”
And with his roar, they came down again.
Something flared across the entry to the Maw, a twisting Barrier writhing with dark energies that rose even as ephemeral white fangs streaming past countless doomed things of Leng were rising right through the horde, and the Stars came down once more to feast.
The Heavens and Earth rang together in a righteous tolling, and the screams of the host of Leng fell dreadfully silent.
The sides of that great white path were now over twelve miles long, and the forces of Nown were sweeping the Leng horde from the field there with murderous direct and concentrated fire. With the center of the battlefield wiped completely clean, there was no way the terrified surviving Leng creatures could stop the advancing mortals, and if the advancing forces weren’t moving on a whole as fast as that central thrust, the flanking forces were still doomed and knew it as the incoming fire was absolutely murderous.
Many of the creatures tried to start climbing the walls of the Plateau of Leng, for the canyon of the Maw was closed to them, and none were willing to dare that vast expanse of pristine soil, where the mightiest of them were Burning down helplessly, falling to white dust and mist, the latter sinking into the Land and gone forever.
Duum was carrying me forward with the advance elements. Sirocco winds from several of the archmages were tearing a flaming path through the flanks of the horde as the spellcasters were carried forward on grav-sleds, thousand-foot walls of flaming wind sweeping through the fleeing creatures over the ground and Burning them away as thousands of pulse rifles aimed and shot unceasingly. Nothing was going to survive on the flanks, that was a given, the murderous firepower of the flanking hovertanks scything through everything trying to flee along the base of the plateau.
Some of the main cannons behind us were going off and chipping off pieces of the plateau to rain down on those climbing its sides, too.
Something was stirring at the site of that massive entry canyon to the plateau, the teeming hordes behind the Ward there roiling and retreating as Aelryinth swept up before the Barrier to it, his Celestial Cerulean Seal blazing and forcing them to avert their eyes and pull back, even as the Barrier seemed to congeal and grow more opaque to shield them from its condemning Light.
It did not stop us from seeing the thing approaching us along the Maw’s black stone floor, striding through the teaming mass of creatures like they were an unclean sea. Its form and substance was something more like hardened black oily foam than flesh, swirling and whirling as if not solid, only bound in a rough humanoid shape that screamed at the brain as something that should not be.
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“Unless you’ve a Will save in the +40 range, do not approach closer than a mile,” the Voiced whisper laden with Truth caressed the ears.“The sight of this will drive you mad.”
Like hitting a wall, the entire front of the swooping and advancing Imperial forces came to a halt, staying well outside that distance, gunwings that had soared too quickly ahead turning around frantically and closing their eyes to make sure they saw nothing of what was there, hearts pounding and things starting to crawl in their heads just from being too close.
I had no fear of that, of course, nor did most of the Eternals fighting here. All save the newest and youngest were totally confident of being able to defy what was coming, and they drove in without slowing in the slightest. The least of us simply turned their attention to wiping out the remnants of the attacking horde.
The cacophony of mad exultation from the creatures behind the Barrier there was growing as the entity approached, the cries the loudest from those crushed underfoot or torn to pieces by what looked to be oily winds after brushing up against the thing.
Up above, the stars shone down with a splendor more than natural, and Thunder rang like bells, slowly and steady, making it very, very plain that Heaven was here and watching!
It took everything I had not to break out grinning in manic laughter at the whole display, because it was a Damn Good Show, but mostly show. It wasn’t some awesome single Eternal spell and display of magic worthy of the gods… it was a couple of Spells layered with lots of Widen Metas and Kickers to beat the band, with a Caster Level to the moon.
I could probably do close to the same thing, although the sheer amount of Kickers was beyond me at this point due to my much tighter paths. It was a totally confusing and wholeheartedly domineering display of showmanship and lethality, but two was probably the limits of how many times he could pull it off?
Probably?
We swept up up on him, standing there on a pedestal of vivic-blasted stone about a hundred feet away from that Barrier, which was visibly smoking and burning away at the presence of his CelestialCerulean Seal. He looked pretty impressive, although he’d put the Arakne Arms away, and just had his Wings and Tail out now, and a subdued version of his Phoenix Cloak dripping flame from the former.
One claw trailing the ground, Duum swept in with Flight, Cirru right beside him doing much the same. The lightfooters on the ground actually didn’t have all that much problem paralleling us, and the ones riding grav-sleds naturally had no issues as they followed along.
“That’s a Starspawn of Hastur,” Sif stated, stopping her run and simply skating forwards on her ki as we came within the final two hundred yards, the equivalent of a glide which everyone around basically imitated, even Thor and the Rantha men, and even the most armored knights. The Waveskating Step was just that ubiquitous.
With that, the whole force of us just glided up next to Aelryinth standing there, his Staff in one hand, Scepter in another, looking like a proper angel or something with supernaturally white hair… and having a pose about him with his head not facing properly forward that suggested something ominous.
Was he blind?
Duum glided in, braked, and set down precisely next to him. Notably, my saddle was just about level with him when Duum crouched politely.
Ael’s head tilted my way, instead of turning to look at me. “Funf?” he asked softly, the Sublime Chord that Dread or I was always humming like an identifying marker fairly screaming our identity.
“Prime,” I replied in some amusement. “I am known as Lady Edge here. You’re about four thousand years late. How did you get here? I was actually born in an alternate timestream…” I said conversationally, as if we were old friends who understood one another implicitly.
He said he’d come, he came. Truth, Hope, and Valor resonated in his Chord. We synced so easily despite the millennia of difference between us it was almost strange.
Almost. More to be expected, really.
“Really? Huh. The approach felt weird,” he admitted evenly. “But I wasn’t retracing my path out. I was following the paths laid open for me by a Find the Path drawn from here.” He touched the holy symbol that was his Amulet, with the sigils of Mithar and Sylune upon it. “Coming in from outside the multiverse here to the destination they designated.”
Whoops, then. “Ah, my fault. Got caught up in a bit of time travel, created an alternate reality in the past, brought the gods into it three thousand years ago, and this would be the coordinates they had. The temporal coordinates are almost identical now, though.”
“All the same. You have some very powerful friends. I feel like the junior leaguer here.” He grinned as he turned his head to include all the Eternals waiting there and listening in.
“It’s worse than you think. I’m like Level 68 in this universe’s measuring schema.”
He affected a stagger of astonishment, then froze and recovered. “After four thousand years, you’re only 68? I am underwhelmed!” he announced with a scornful sniff.
“Yes, well, this Starspawn of Hastur won’t even make me a Level if I kill it,” I pouted right back.
“Well, that’s not a surprise, either. Did you make that terrifying black tower back there with all those roses spewing firefalls of lava all over the bad guys?”
“I did, and it flies, too!” I confirmed coolly.
“If the vines don’t Animate and reach out to shoot lava over everything at range I’m sending you back to the Eternal Badass boot camp for lessons.”
“They do, but it’s guarding the Pyramid going up behind it, so I’m not moving it up here. They throw rocks the size of houses at it to distract me if I bring it into the canyon, or they bring out kaiju they really shouldn’t.”
“Ah,” he nodded knowingly. “Buffing the scuff marks out is the worst. So,” he waved his hands at the whole bunch of very dangerous men and women in powerful Gear, “I know I made a good show, but do I even need to do anything about this thing, or do you all want to finish it?”
“CAN you finish it, Master Aelryinth?” Empress Sif spoke up, also amused. “And yes, that was a VERY good show!” she complimented him. “We were coming up to add some choral background to your Dreadsong, but you went too far upscale for us.”
“Ah, Leng pisses me off, Lady Rantha,” he answered without hesitation. “Yes, I can kill it by snapping my fingers several times. It’s got a lot of immunities, but I’m not too worried about it. Bane of Legends handles the worst of them.” Pointedly, the immunity to mortal magic!
It was looming a hundred feet tall in front of us on the other side of the Barrier, weighing its Aura down upon everyone and putting pressure on mortal minds… or Eternals, but none of it worked. Even Feature was holding up against its gaze without problems, basically looking a bit amused as he arched behind and above Ael, hood spread wide and watching it without blinking.