12-74. Knight
Elijah whirled like an Olympic hammer thrower, tossing the automaton with enough force that when it hit its squid-like ally, it did so with the sound of a car crash. Metal twisted as both seemed to hang suspended in the air. Benedict hit it with a kamikaze imp that exploded. Both automatons were so damaged that they didn’t even have the remaining energy to explode.
For his part, Elijah paid them no mind. Instead, he turned his focus on the remaining enemies. To his surprise, Hu Shui had managed to destroy one on his own, slicing it to pieces in the space of a few seconds. Of course, he’d never have been capable of doing so alone. But the enemies had all been subjected to both Elijah’s ongoing Eternal Plague and Benedict’s multitude of curses, weakening them to such a degree that even Hu Shui could overcome their broken defenses.
Elijah pounced on another clump, maintaining his human form so he could keep his companions upright. Over the past week, they’d slowly made their way across the city. Now that the war was in full swing and the air was full of squid-like automatons, flying was out of the question. Even Elijah would have been overwhelmed if he’d tried.
What’s more, the massive automatons were ready to attack at a moment’s notice, and they’d both revealed that they were more than capable of unleashing a truly devastating barrage of artillery fire upon Elijah and his companions. The only solution was to stay on the ground, where they could proceed without triggering their surface-to-air weapons.
Every step came with massive opposition. The automatons that had once strained their abilities had become cannon fodder, and they weren’t alone, either. Djinn – both sides of the civil war – attacked them as well. But Elijah and his companions had kept going, steadily carving a path through the ongoing battle.
After the second day, they finally reached the first prime automaton – as Benedict referred to the massive versions. And the fight went much better than Elijah could have expected. Once again taking on the Shape of Embers, he’d tested the other abilities. Reprisal of Ash was more potent than he had expected, and each blow landed against him resulted in a burning wound against his attacker.
Was it worth it to simply stand still and take it? Not at all. But Elijah could imagine a scenario where he barely allowed opponents to graze him, doing minimal damage but getting the full brunt of Reprisal of Ash in return.
He chose not to utilize that strategy, though. Mostly because it just didn’t feel like the point of the shape, which was all about counterattacks, dodges, and inflicting titanic damage upon his enemies. Slowly whittling them down through Reprisal of Ash didn’t quite fit that paradigm, even if it probably would have worked well enough against the smaller automatons.
By comparison, Herald of Regrowth turned out to be almost as devastating as Flames of Renewal. When he activated it – with two hundred charges of Seed of Ashes – he not only felt a massive influx of attributes that sent his totals soaring into the two thousands, but he was also enveloped in a dense corona of flame. That mantle of fire was at least as hot as Flames of Renewal at its peak, and it allowed him to scorch his way through the prime automaton’s chest plate, grab the core, and destroy it before it could even explode.
Cloaked in those flames, Elijah was like a living plasma torch.
As with the other ultimate ability tied to Shape of Embers, it left a wake of renewal as well. Though in the case of Herald of Regrowth, it was much denser but far narrower in scope.
The second prime automaton, which they encountered two days later, was much more difficult to overcome. With both of Shape of Embers’ major abilities having been spent, they remained on cooldown. Though Elijah did get the sense that the gap between activations was somewhat based on how many charges he devoted to them. The less he used, the weaker the ability. However, that also came with a much shorter cooldown. By contrast, expending all two hundred charges with both abilities had put them on cooldown for days.
Because of that, Elijah was forced to resort to his other forms. Thankfully, they had also gained a bit of a boost when he reached level two-fifty. Upon achieving the pinnacle of ascendency, he could push them harder than ever before, and to his mind, it felt a lot like someone had removed the governor from a sports car. The engine had always been capable of pushing the vehicle to insane speeds, but it took the removal of the governor to unleash the full horsepower of the automobile.
With that boost to power, Elijah leaned on Shape of Spores and Shape of the Scourge to see him through. Peppered throughout were returns to his human form. He forewent using his dragon form, mostly because it wasn’t really built for endurance. Rather, it was best for short bursts of overbearing power – which wasn’t all that useful for the marathon of a battle in which he and his companions were engaged.
Even so, they managed to take down the third and final prime automaton, though not without significant wounds. Elijah healed them on the fly as they raced toward the Godroad that would hopefully take them to the final stage of the Primal Realm. They’d already spent months inside, and there was a very real possibility that they would return to an Earth they didn’t recognize.
Even worse, it might be one that was too far gone for them to escape excisement.
Already, they’d overshot Benedict’s estimate of six months, meaning that Benediction would no longer have the protection – or the restriction – of his demonic control. Likely, that city had already descended into cannibalistic chaos.
In any case, it wasn’t as if the middle of an ever-escalating civil war was the place to take a break. So, they had forged ahead, wading through masses of automatons and djinn along the way.
And finally, they had reached their destination.
“Shit,” Elijah muttered, taking in the scene.
“I concur,” Hu Shui added, his face stoic.
“What does this mean?” asked Benedict.
Elijah didn’t have an answer. Not only had the battle between the two different factions of djinn reached a fever pitch around the elevated disc that represented the second iteration of the Godroad, but the apparatus itself had cracked. A huge rift stretched from the nearest edge all the way to the center, spanning more than a dozen feet. From that crack came particolored sparks that became beams of light that stretched into the sky. And finally, below the disc, a gaping hole had opened. More light descended into that inky black void.
And that wasn’t even considering the effect of the corruption, which had seeped out of the Godroad as black tendrils. Wherever they went, the djinn had been infected with madness. It only took Elijah a moment to recognize the issue. The djinn were as close to creatures of pure magic as was possible – at least at this stage – and as such, they were far more vulnerable to the corruption of the abyss.
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Elijah watched in real-time as a nearby group of djinn was infected. As those black tendrils crept up their bodies, staining their blue forms with a spiderweb of darkness, they turned on one another. In seconds, they were trying to rip each other apart. Not with magic, but rather, with their bare hands.
Then, things changed.
“Oh, God – they’re merging together,” Benedict muttered.
That was as good a description as Elijah could conjure. Where their bodies touched, they simply amalgamated. The increased mass – ethereal though it was – soon became a blob of blue-and-black flesh that, to his senses, felt both sapient and malignant. Like a tumor left untreated.
The nearest djinn weren’t blind to the danger it represented, either. Especially when it twitched and dragged itself toward them. When it moved, it left behind a sheen of prismatic mucus that blistered with enough ethera to skew even Elijah’s senses.
Then, like a mollusk, it raised a mass of magical flesh and let it fall upon the panicking djinn. Elijah didn’t need to see what happened next to know that those unfortunate creatures had been absorbed.
“It’s like the flesh wants to be whole again,” Elijah said.
“Except it can’t. You feel it too, don’t you?” Hu Shui asked without turning to either of his companions.
“A thousand voices all silently crying out, begging for release,” Benedict breathed. “It’s torture. This whole place is an exercise in torture. This isn’t the path to godhood. It’s hell.”
And as someone who routinely opened portals to a place most people would consider hellish, Benedict would know. The man started forward before Elijah could respond.
“What are you going to do?”
“What I should have done in the beginning,” he said, looking back from the gory scene where the blob had already absorbed hundreds more djinn. “I’m going to put a stop to this. I hope you’ll help me.”
“Do you have a ritual to keep them all contained?” asked Elijah.
Benedict said that he did, adding, “It won’t last long, though. My rituals aren’t meant for that.”
“Got it,” Elijah said, already transforming into a dragon.
Meanwhile, Hu Shui asked, “What should I do?”
When Elijah’s metamorphosis had completed, he turned his draconic head to the Astral Duelist and ordered, “Keep them from escaping. Guard Benedict. Can you do that?”
He nodded.
With that established, Elijah strode forward, already casting Eternal Plague. He knew from experience that it wouldn’t be enough to down the entire group. The blob alone glistened with so much ethera that Elijah suspected it had pushed its way into demigodhood. Not surprising, considering how much power the djinn possessed on their own.
As Elijah approached with measured steps, the djinn recognized the danger in their midst – how could they not? – and aimed spells at the amalgamation. It absorbed those attacks as if they were fuel rather than deadly spells.
That gave Elijah pause.
What if it treated Eternal Plague the same way? Would it be more beneficial to simply rip the thing apart with his talons? Perhaps. But he was already committed, as thousands of glittering locusts manifested around the disc. But Elijah didn’t target the amalgamation. Instead, he focused on the djinn.
He had no idea which side he was on. In fact, he didn’t think it mattered. From all the attacks he’d suffered, they’d made it clear that he was the enemy. Still, killing them all wasn’t exactly a pleasant notion.
Not that there was much choice.
The ever-growing plague of locusts descended upon them, infecting them with afflictions as he finally plunged into the crowd. In a lot of ways, he pitied the djinn. They were stuck between two unassailable forces. The growing blob was completely impervious to their spells, and whatever damage they managed to inflict upon Elijah was healed in a matter of seconds. Two juggernauts, and they were in the middle.
Predictably, it didn’t end well for them.
Even as the blob continued to absorb more and more of the blue-skinned creatures, Elijah killed them by the dozen. Meanwhile, he could feel Benedect hastily scrawling a ritual circle upon the ground while Hu Shui bounced around, teleporting back and forth as he protected the Warlock. At the same time, he sliced would-be escapees to pieces, preventing them from retreating to safety.
The battle wore on until, at last, Benedict shouted that he’d finished.
It was just in time, too, because the blob had begun to take on a familiar shape. Two legs. Four arms. The suggestion of a head. It still looked like barely-molded clay, but with every djinn it absorbed, it became more defined. If it finished, it would become one of them.
Only about thirty feet tall and clearly a demi-god. Doubtless, it would be capable of casting spells, too.
Elijah refused to let that happen.
He shifted into the Shape of Spores and activated Throne of Spores. Massive tendrils of fungal flesh erupted from the ground, wrapping themselves around the amalgamation’s bulky legs. They raced up those limbs, binding it into place.
With comparatively plodding steps, Elijah retreated. Most of his attention remained on the tendrils, which continued to multiply and root the remaining djinn within the circle. The amalgamation broke free, though Elijah’s tendrils were both thicker and more numerous than ever before – a benefit of having reached the pinnacle of ascension.
The amalgamation was strong. It could escape. But that would take time. All Elijah needed was to slow it down, and for that Throne of Spores was the perfect too.
The second he leaped over the outside ring of the ritual circle, Elijah shouted, “Now!”
Benedict needed no such order. He’d spent the last few moments chanting, louder and louder until, just as Elijah cleared the circle, he finished the incantation with a shouted word Elijah couldn’t understand.
The ritual activated with a blaze of red vitality.
Power roiled.
Ethera bubbled.
The djinn melted into blue puddles of liquid flesh while the amalgamation screamed. Huge hunks of blue flesh sloughed off as it continued to fight against the rapidly deteriorating tendrils. When they failed, red chains of solid light wrapped themselves around its ankles and wrists, completely halting its advance.
It fought.
It struggled.
But it was caught. It was already dead, though it didn’t know it.
Through it all, Benedict continued to chant, his arms raised toward the sky. Hu Shui finished off the last couple of escapees, returning to his position next to Elijah.
“What do we do?”
“Let him finish,” Elijah said, watching the creature die. Parts of it melted, while other pieces flaked off, brittle and dry, only to shatter against the ground. The pieces turned to motes of ethera that soon joined a rolling globule at the center of the ritual.
Still, the amalgam fought.
Benedict fell to his knees. His arms drooped to the ground. His words echoed across the space, rattling nearby walls. He growled. He spat. And even when he was obviously exhausted, he continued on.
It was a battle of wills. Benedict’s energy versus the combined ethereal life force of thousands of djinn.
And in the end, Benedict won.
The creature fell, its now-spindly legs incapable of supporting its weight. That was the tipping point, but it still took long minutes of continued chanting for the thing to finally succumb. The moment it did, its power rushed to the unstable and wobbly ball of energy.
It exploded, the shockwave stopping as soon as it hit the edge of the ritual circle. Fiery light flickered. The ground cracked. But the unseen wall held.
For a moment, the energy churned like the ocean in a storm. Great waves of ethera crashed into one another until it all became a swirl. The tempest abated as the whirlpool collapsed in on itself, and from that false serenity grew a black gate of twisted metal.
It was only ten feet tall and half as wide, but it glowed with such malevolent power that even Elijah flinched away. A metal foot appeared from the marbled black-and-red interior. Then a leg, followed the torso of a black-armored man armed with a massive, black axe.
Finally, the ritual ended.
The remnants of blue flesh hanging suspended in the tempest fell to the ground with a wet splat, and the gate disappeared, leaving only the black knight behind. At the same time, Benedict fell forward, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Elijah, having transformed into his human shape, knelt beside his companion, already casting his heals. Less than a second later, he realized that the black knight – all seven feet of him – stood impassively over its master. At present, it was just a guard, but Elijah knew that if he made the wrong move, the creature would go in the other direction.
And from what he felt, that was the last thing he wanted.
He glanced at Hu Shui and said, “That went better than expected.”
Just then, a sound like a calving glacier echoed through the city and when Elijah looked at the source, he saw that the disc had shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Shit. I jinxed it.”