Gondar felt like he carried an enormous weight on his back, his lungs worked heavily to breathe and his legs were failing him. The Undying had this effect every once in awhile, he created some sort of aura that weakened everything living around him, and was one of the reasons why annihilating him was such a difficult task even to him, the feared Bounty Hunter. He generally won the upper hand on their battles, but the Undying kept going, never backing away from his attack, he felt no pain, and he regularly lost a limb or was mangled, but he never went back to the dead hell Gondar supposed he was from. Instead, he rose again and eventually was whole and sound, ready for battle. A formidable opponent, definitely, a worthy prey, but also one that was wearing him out.
He laid down for a few seconds, and ran away into the woods seeking for a good hiding place, though he was aware it would not last long. He wasn't even sure if the Undying's eyes worked, he still seemed to find him. He could only believe it was some sort of unique predatory instinct, and that made the Undying all the more annoying to deal with. He also had to keep in mind Dirge wasn't the only threat: there were an extraordinary number of notable faces arriving to battle, and he was particularly disturbed by the arrival of Outworld Destroyer, one of the Dire Legion most powerful warriors, who he had battled before and while he was able to escape, he recognized he was out of his league in open battle.
Of course, that would mean nothing if he could isolate him. But how do you isolate a being capable of flying? By allowing him to fly, of course. But that'd be something to think about later. He sat down, trying to regain some breath, and the sounds of battle seemed so distant, so miserable. He'd never admit it, but being a bounty hunter was a lot easier when they weren't at war and he could just serve whoever paid him the most instead of trying to stay loyal. He had found valuable friends but if this war was over tomorrow, what could it be? If I was sent to kill the Anti-Mage, would I? Being a bounty hunter had its perks but it also meant loneliness was something to be expected. He was used to it anyway.
But now he felt tired. And he was lying down to rest, as alert as always.
Until a low rumbling sound caught his attention. It probably had been there all the time but the wrath of battles hadn't allowed him to feel it. He got on all fours and crawled through the foliage looking for the source of the sound, as it shouldn't be very far. A brisk of uncomfortable wind got his hair, and suddenly he realized he probably was getting - again - into trouble. The air was moving the tree's branches, and a storm of fallen leaves made looking for *anything* difficult. Instead, he kept close to the ground, listening to the vibrations, trying to find a clue. Pressing his ear to the ground, the sound seemed to have no direction to come from. It was simply felt.
He finally rose to his feet, slightly flustered. He was used to experience weird things now, after all, but this was probably beyond weird. Weirder than anything else? How come now this sound was so omnipresent you couldn't even try to figure out where it was coming from? He moved slowly through the forest, thinking quickly. Perhaps this was just another side effect of that damned Dirge's abilities to spread plague and despair and he was just imagining things. Perhaps he had taken one too many blows to the head and now he had permanently damaged his hearing. Given how hard he had been hit lately, it might not be that far fetched.
Still he refused to play like that.
He moved swiftly without making a sound, keeping his ears sharp and his sight at the edge. Driving his two blades, he parted plants apart, in order to move as undetected as possible. The wind had turned heavier, which was to his advantage after all. Made him harder to find. He began to move faster, almost running, following instinctively the leaves and branches as they flew violently towards the nearby lake.
He knew there was something there. Perhaps it was a pack of furbolgs. Maybe harpies hunting. Either way he needed to know. After all, he couldn't hide forever. He was just bidding his time until finding a way to get through Dirge. He just hoped his allies were doing their job properly.
Finally, he reached the glade. A small massacre had happened, and a group of impossible to recognize dead bodies laid at the shore of the lake. Puzzled, Gondar reached for the scene to investigate what could had caused this, but suddenly, a massive burst of pain exploded on his head, momentarily stunning him and stopping him dead on his tracks. He reached for his pocket to take out a smoke bomb, but a second burst made him drop the pellet to the ground. He turned around, his vision blurred by the pain and the storming winds, and realized he was being dragged down and attacked by six humanoid figures, small, while a seventh, much bigger one approached him ominously.
He slashed one of the homunculus, and turned around wildly to run away. However, an enormous hand grabbed him by the neck and rose him up the ground. The smell was impossible to mistake, it was Dirge, the Undying. He tried to slash his hand off to escape, but a third explosion of hurt broke off inside his head, and he dropped his blades to the ground, screaming in pain, and making his escape virtually impossible, as it was to escape the massive fist that crushed his head and blew his senses out.
Magina, Ulfsaar and the Morphling had a chance. The Dirge's contingent of zombies had died out at last, and only the Outworld Devourer, Visage and the Butcher were serious problems. The battle had basically reached a stalemate, and they could work together to bring their trio down. They had lost track of Rubick, and Lanaya was still out of it, so they would have to take their chances if they wanted to take over this territory and push them back. The rift could wait, and Gondar could be sent to scout and find it, and there was no better scout than him in the world.
A war roar came out from the Ursine warrior, and the three of them charged forward against the abominations. The response came deliberately, as the huge undead abomination started running at them, while the two winged beings took airborne.
In a blink of second, Magina disappeared and re-appeared taking Visage off the sky, to which two black rocky gargoyles answered by breaking out of the ground and grabbing Magina and dragging him down to the ground, forcing the Anti-Mage to crash down against the floor, while Visage spat black and blue balls of nether energy, raining attacks down towards the monk, who barely managed to teleport away from it. In the meantime, the Morphling turned into a solid column of water, crashing against the rising Devourer, whose immense physical strength was his sole salvation before being sent down from the sky. He responded, flinging bright blasts at the elemental, who easily avoided them, and tried to reach him on his own with its own torrential blasts. Ulfsaar and the Butcher, finally, met in a much less refined way, messily crashing against each other, making the entire ground shake, and began to struggle, until Ulfsaar managed to push Pudge away, to which the Butcher replied throwing his chain angrily, just missing the bear by inches.
The bear resumed his charge, but Pudge released a cloud of putrid smell, confusing and slowing the animalistic warrior's reflexes as he gripped him. The undead abomination then struck him with his butcher knife, throwing Ursa off balance, and buried his hook and chain on Ulfsaar's shoulder.
"NOW YOU CAN'T ESCAPE" laughed Pudge, as he expected the bear to struggle to get it off. Much to his surprise, the bear just looked at him, rage burning inside him.
"Who said I'd try to escape, you wretched monster?!" and the bear began to roar, before unleashing a furry of slashes at the Butcher, pulling him back when he got a bit too far away with the chain, before forcing it out when the beast finally fell.
The Butcher could only laugh. Pieces of skin, flesh and sutures fell off the build of the abomination, but the monster seemed unfazed. "HOW MANY PIECES OF MEAT YOU NEED TO SEE FALLING OFF BEFORE YOU REALIZE YOU CAN'T KILL WHAT EATS THE DEAD AND IT'S ALREADY DEAD, URSA?".
A genuine shiver of worry invaded Ulfsaar, until he realized "As many as you need to break apart, abomination" and he resumed his crazed slashes, trying to pry away the layers of rotten flesh and evade the constant strikes from the undead, until the butcher knife struck on his side, the strength of the monster throwing the bear a few meters back, crashing against an enormous tree. Pudge then threw his chain and hook again at the animal, barely missing as Ulfsaar ducked out of the way, hitting the tree and burying it on the trunk. He grunted loudly, and then began to pull the chain to throw down the plant against the bear, who once again jumped out of the way of the wooden pillar, which crashed with a tremendous, deafening voice, utterly destroying anything on its path, including several unlucky foot soldiers
The wake of the destruction caused by the fallen tree raised enough dust to turn the battlefield into a hazy landslide, obscuring the view of the undead behemoth. Pudge scanned the place, trying to locate his prey, to no avail, until he felt the sharp claw of the ursine warrior hit the left side of his face, piercing his eye and tearing the skin apart, making the monster tumble and blinding him briefly. The claw now hit the back of his head, pushing him down and throwing him to his knees. Finally, a third strike to the back of his neck severed his head, sending a blast of putrid blood and juices around, covering the weary Ulfsaar on the blood of his enemy.
Despite the apparent chaotic behaviour of the Morphling, it was pretty clear it knew what it was doing and the battle was taking place in a very calculated manner: Harbinger couldn't stray too far from the elemental in order to have a chance to hit it, inadvertently allowing himself to be herded around by his enemy. The monstrous chimera flew at deliberate speed, trying to keep at the same distance, however, painfully aware the Morphling was much faster than he himself was.
Turning himself in and out of a more water state, the Morphling was easily evading Harbinger's attacks, but it took it enough manoeuvring that it was virtually impossible to attack him. It could push him into a more closed down space, but it was a daring proposition: it was well known the power the Outworld Devourer wielded on his battle mace, and his enormous strength in hand to hand combat. Still, it was a better idea to pull him back, and trust the Anti-Mage and the Ursine Warrior to deal with their targets. Did Harbinger had the meanings to escape if the elemental managed to win the battle? Letting him get away could be a costly mistake.
Harbinger, an ancient being of almost infinite knowledge of the inner workings of the universe, falling into that trap was a laughable premise, but it was gambit he was playing. It could become a battle of attrition, but he knew he would need two or three hits at most to sent it out of combat. He had dealt with enough elementals to know that water elementals had enormous but limited energy they could quickly rebalance between attack and defence, a clever advantage when they needed to soak up damage or lay it down: and it was doubtful that the Morphling would risk weakening its defences to try and kill him faster.
It was a struggle between two ancient powers, to which the deceptively simple plans had a lot more background than it was apparent to the naked eye. None would ever tire, none would ever make a mistake: battles like these are meant to be eternal. Until Harbinger heard it, a faint, subtle but omnipresent rumble, a low humming that seemed to come from the thick of the forest. The tear? Was it this the time? It finally made him make a mistake.
In the flash of inspiration, the Outworld Devourer was pulled out of his moment of distraction by a powerful blast of rock solid water, and he lost control of his wings, falling fast towards the floor, where he was greeted by a geyser of freezing cold water, throwing him against a tree. The Morphling had catch the absent-mindedness on his eyes, and had used the second it had to attack, now that he was at the floor, he turned into a frightening wave, and advanced at enormous speed towards the chimera, who had turned up to his feet, and was holding his battle staff high up, and lowered it aiming at the elemental.
"ENOUGH WITH YOU" he shouted, the voice quaking the battlefield, and the elemental disappeared inside a sphere, resembling a small piece of outer space, a pocket dimension, and the Devourer took off without so much as a glance at the rift in reality he had caused and the place where he had sent the elemental who was so overconfident to think was about to kill him. Obviously, there were more important, pressing matters at hand.
Visage familiar were a serious problem for Magina, as he excelled in hand to hand combat, not against a an animated, flying gargoyle and two of its familiars trying to grapple him to keep him from getting to their master. He had already endured several hits to the body, fortunately, his natural resistance to magic, even whatever kind of magical projectiles did Visage breathed out was enough to avoid him losing the battle too soon. He couldn't blink often enough to escape the three enemies, so he had to resort to keep in the move, confuse the gargoyle, and find an opening. As for Visage, the monk was a fun distraction, a different target from the souls he used to trap inside the Narrow Maze. For some reason, Visage was confident about facing the Anti-mage., and he followed his opponent around, spitting balls of black magic, and guiding his familiar to close in on the Anti-mage, and push him around to find a good spot where he couldn't escape.
The teleporting abilities of his opponent were confusing, but he had realized the Anti-Mage couldn't really go all that far. Perhaps it was a good idea to spread his pair of familiars, and stay in between them to catch the unsuspecting monk.
Except it was clear he wasn't all that unsuspecting, and he was a master of the trickery. Impossible to catch. He barely appeared, and in the time he could be in range to attack him, he would just be gone. Visage had resolved to randomly shoot, which was an interesting way to narrow the path the monk could take, but it seemed unlikely to work for long.
Magina had been hatching a plan. He had tried to teleport right in front of Visage, but the gargoyle was fast enough to see this coming and fly even higher, leaving Magina in an awful place to be, but he had also noticed the familiars had to recharge its energy every few shots, and during that time they turned into immobile stone and fell to the ground gravely and loudly. There was a spot in that time to attack.
" I have watched the dead cross over for an eternity. Many have I seen pass below, and beyond: kings and tyrants, peasants and knights, creatures large and small" said the gargoyle, as it scanned the battleground looking for its prey.
" To oppose me is to deny death! Why do you think I fight, Magina? Treasures? The Underscape holds no such treasures! Pleasure? Never! Souls escaped from the maze and you are making this harder than it should be. I will recover those souls even if you stand on the way, Anti-Mage. I will return to my eternal vigil, that no more may escape. And you are asking to take you with me!"
Magina ran vigorously into the field of vision of the gargoyle, and Visage took the bait, sending both his familiars from opposing directions right to attack the monk. Some skilful manoeuvring and a single blink were enough to exhaust the limited power supply of the familiars, and, as he theorized, turned into stone and fell from the sky, enormous boulders of granite, crashing into the ground.
... and few seconds before that exact moment, Magina used one of them as steeping stone, and jumped at the gargoyle, which, as expected, flew with surprising speed up to put some ground between him and the Anti-Mage, who promptly teleported just ahead of him, breaking his escape router, and slashing away at the gargoyle, breaking pieces of the fabled floating armour made of runes that protected him, and finally, pulling him down from the air, towards the ground, as he stood over him during the fall, slashing away at the monster.
But his victory was short lived. A few meters before hitting the floor, he felt the sharp sting of a dagger between his shoulder blades, and a soft, feminine laughter as something grapple him with legs and arms, and finally a whisper "You seem to forget that this fight is not meant to be fair, my dear Anti-Mage".
He turned around to watch the seductive gaze of the succubus, Akasha, who licked his cheek, leaving a tingling sensation on his entire face, and managed to watch her open her mouth and felt a piercing shriek before he felt something akin to an enormous boulder hitting his head.
The gargoyle crashed against the ground painfully, the monk flew a dozen meters in a shower of blood and the succubus landed gracefully between them, her wings allowing her to stand on her feet softly right in the middle of the aftermath. Laughing, she announced "War it's never fair, Anti-Mage!".
Magina was dazed and all he could hear was a strong ring on his ears, completely deafened by the unnatural scream of the succubus. Besides, the knife on his back was deeply penetrating his muscles, making his attempts to rise futile, and a frighteningly free flowing river of blood came out of his ears and nose. Visage was as well badly wounded, trying repeatedly to get up and failing to even make his wings move, pieces of his runed armour scattered around him made him look like an almost dead animal, hit by a powerful gun and trying pointlessly to run away.
Akasha kicked the stone gargoyle's feet, making it fall down again, and stomped on its head "Stay down, you useless abomination. Let me finish this". If Visage had anything to say, he was wise to stay silent. The succubus produced a new dagger, and began walking towards the confused monk, who only then managed to locate her. He could hear her voice, but the rest was just incessant, maddening ringing. She crouched next to him, and said "It will be really nice to kill you, Magina. You've been a thorn on my back for far too long, your ridiculous crusade against magic has been always a pain to deal with. But finally, this is over. And I will make sure to take special pleasure on your death."