For a moment he rested in quiet meditation. A slight flicker of flame pulled from the heat surrounding them settled and grew as a single incense stick began to burn. "May you be free of our burdens."
The next he turned back to the rivers of flame that flowed out across the world. A roiling mass of ruin and devastation that carved trenches across his sight. Deep within himself a flame answered it, not the burden of his birth but a gift of freedom that had severed his inhumanity and quelled his desire for bloodshed.
A dim flickering thing before the Sun that had erupted before him.
If there was a limit then what harm was there in trying? He took his first breath as his body transformed fully once more and his senses expanded, a glimmering web of flames tied back to a single cause and effect.
The blow to break it asunder merely tore his hand instead.
A second breath, that which could not be stopped must instead be turned aside. In his mind a path appeared even as his own flames grew hotter still, a rising pyre filled with strength to carve a channel to redirect the blow.
The tide trampled over it much the same. A line in the sand washed away under the tsunami of flame that crashed over it.
With the third breath the flames moved, ripped from his grasp as a second greater presence tore the tides of fire apart and crushing it into the palm of his hand. From the flames a single arrow was pulled, a flame strong enough to burn the world asunder knocked to a bow that trembled with power and radiated strength.
In an instant it was loose a flowing well of power that seared the heavens racing back along the path it had come, barrelling towards the woman who stood ensconced by her halo of flames from which it had poured.
On the mountain a massive arm, covered in golden fur that rippled under the Sun rose to meet it. "Exhaust Heat." Shattering the arrow as though it was a mere candle in the wind a colossal werewolf rose upon its haunches barring passage to all comers.
"This is what you get for blowing your load early."
From the centre of the vortex a light laugh rang out. "I still have plenty more tricks where that came from."
The girl beneath the mantle of fur laughed back, and then she was more. Fur and muscle rippled as their corpses bulged, long sinewy vines tearing themselves loose as the monster within grew. As one they moved, tearing their way into the Earth around her and drinking the life of the planet itself.
"Hallowed halls: A Throne of Heroes."
The fabric of reality broke as existence crumbled and gave way, as a gate towering and transcendent began to open.
The air filled with the fluttering of tens of thousands of wings, the ground thundered at a march of millions. Ranks after ranks of soldiers streaming out like a mob as they surged forward.
And at their head she grew, a single baleful eye staring out over the world as a deep voice thundered across the expanse. "The die is cast and the light fades, that all the world will dim away in eternal twilight. That the end has come, in such times, what man could choose to stand against it?
"We stand.
"You were worthy, it is time to die for humanity once more."
As one they surged forth, a tide of bodies waiting for the slaughter.
"Lair of the Beast King." Her flesh distended once more, life flowing up in the corpses of the monsters she wore. The raven taking flight into the heavens, serpent uncoiling amidst the fields, horse and bear and wolf and more rising from flesh and granted life anew.
Each a towering monstrosity that bent the world around them, tugging at the flame that grew in his heart as it surged to a mighty bonfire.
"Come." Ainsel stood before him, her own spear standing at rest. "I will take you where you are needed most."
"Not here?"
She smiled pleasantly enough back. "There is somewhere more important for you to be, just as its important I find a way to take you there."
Storm winds blew fuelled by an endless source of heat as tornadoes rampaged down the mountainside. Scything winds tearing wings free of the corpses as they plucked the first wave free of the ground.
Wave after wave after wave falling as the air itself grew thick with blood and the cloying scent of death. Lives spilled effortlessly before those who had no equal on the field of battle.
And with each death the curse grew greater still.
Power and rage and endless violence coalescing, stretching out from the confines of a mortal axe and reaching up to become an embodiment of bloodshed itself. The heady thrum of the battlefield echoing in his blood, the certainty of death resting on his shoulders.
He surged forth, laughing in madness as the first blade of wind tore his arm free.
Laughing in delight as his return swing carved away the core of its existence.
His leg for a second, his chest for a third.
With the fourth his death shout came free, even as he died laughing overs its corpse. The vanguard broken and knowing a thousand more would come after, even as the tide of death marched on.
The next sword was plucked from the thousands that had been left surrounding him. A well-balanced hilt, a beautiful conical shape and a quiet thrum that brushed lightly against his senses as space collapsed around it.
"Where do you think she got all these swords anyway?" It released and carved a trail over the horizon.
With grace and care the next arrow fell into place, even as he mused over things. "Being this quiets' unlike you Caster, does it really cause that much effort?"
The next shot in a burst of red, a twisting path that ricochet between his foes and tore them to pieces.
"A pity I would have liked to at least try an archery contest against you to prove I was better." Four more swords pulled across the world to his reach, each fired with a different effect to rain down across the battlefield. "Very well I shall endeavour to enjoy the view in your absence."
Spear and shield rose on a thousand feathered wings as they took to the skies. And her heart ached as she loved her sisters so and burned as she rose beside them.
And atop the mountain it stirred in response, a colossal thing of fire and steel, a forge empowered by the Sun itself that slaughtered them in their hundreds. Beautiful and divine as it carved its way through their flesh and tore their wings free.
She spun free of the carnage, spear casually tossing such light weapons aside even as it grew, even as she loved it so.
Until its eye came face to face with her own.
She danced around the first blow, even as the winds raced around it and blew her backwards, flittered over the second and rose too high to strike down. The third was blown away by a swing of her spear as the light carved it in twain.
It answered with fire, glowing gold for an instant as it pulsed as the conflagration within grew and spilled over its bounds.
An eruption of molten ash and flame burst forth from the ground to meet it, choking the skies as its poison coursed through the titan's flesh. The second swing carved furrows through its legs, the third shattered harmlessly against the counter swing.
A mountain of steel crashing down upon the man beneath.
And her heart ached, the weight growing ever greater. A good death, an unjust death, for he was worthy still even in death.
And they were together in death.
Power poured in without measure into the spear. Love and hate and the echoes of her broken heart crashing down endlessly into a force beyond reckoning as she cracked. As the spear cracked as she fell from the sky plunging into the core of the titan.
The earth rumbled in answer as the mountain fell, pebbles to stones to boulders until it stood as one crashing wave of dirt and debris. Mud roiling down the paths below as a tide of destruction.
"AIvarata." Between one step and the next she grew a hundredfold. Strength flowing enough to split the world as a gigantic sword took form in both hands.
One swing and the landslide split course, expending itself uselessly against the sides of the mountain.
A second swing tore the strength of the Earth from those who corralled it.
The third deflected away as two stood to bar her passage.
"A promise I take it, to take no harm." The world split as something new came into being, an unnamed sword made of a fresh start. "This at least means I have the right to cut you then."
The second smirked, even as thunder and lightning fell and became swords in his hand. "A momentary existence cannot truly be bound, for every time I called it is remade anew."
Harpe fell into her left hand, Longinus to the right. "Come."
Rivers of power fell from the sky as a deluge poured its way down the mountain, pulling life and flesh away as it dragged them from the mortal coil once more.
Between one step and the next their flesh rotted; bones crumbled.
The souls endured, spectral ghosts continuing once again as a mournful dirge rang through the fields around them. The echoing whispers of battle dragging them onwards as they continued dying. Had always been dying between one breath and the next.
The last remnants of a war that continued forever, ever onwards in death. Ever marching in defiance of the world, unable to accept their defeat.
Free of the pressure they advanced, swarming their way over their own slaughtered corpses to reach the foe.
A thousand tiny pinpricks pressing just hard enough to draw blood. The river changed surging outwards once more as it became as much spiritual as a physical force, diluting itself across the expanse and swamping their souls with fetid water and corruption.
Power diluted across legions as it grew, pulling and tugging on the souls of the damned into a giant web of power as it rose triumphant.
The serpent of chaos uncoiled in an instant and devoured it whole.
Like a crow flying through the sky.
Like a snake slithering through the grass.
Like a worm burrowing deep into the earth.
Moulting and shifting as each form gave way to something more beneath as fate after fate was discarded like so much detritus along the mountainside. Each life left broken and abandoned on the wayside as each successor pushed itself further along on its journey. New goals and new flesh left broken alongside the world as a parade of false flags.
Slowly from the depths she grew anew. Shedding the corpses at the very summit of the mountain.
Warmth, of summer at midday wafted through the fields. Light, giving life to the world that existed beneath it. A mystery so transcendent that it defined all worlds, spreading across every texture that Earth could encompass.
For there was always a Sun to brighten the new day.
"Mantle of Glory: Seated upon a stolen throne."
Flesh unspun moulding around the form of the flames before her, the blood of giants flowing true as her shape changed, touching upon the divine spark of truth that enshrined all that was holy and made it real., and tearing it free to become part of herself.
Flickering with an incandescent glow vaster than anything. Eight more divine cores stared back across the void, each one illuminating the world with their brilliance, each one a mantle unsurpassed amongst the heavens as the highest authority a God could hope to possess.
The threads of destiny binding them stuttered and turned as one, palm outstretched as the Sun itself stared back, an endless roiling mass of power and light brighter than the world reached out.
Flesh and form dissolving in the wake of the light, mud and soil reduced to ashes, and further still as matter itself broke down and existence trembled.
Causality was cut, the connection severed.
The winds blew from the strength of his swing, carving away the last few embers. "I find spontaneously combusting helps at least if you try it in their lines, rather than our own Caster."
Blood poured in rivulets down the corpse as it smiled lightly back at him. "I have enough to build a fragment of a new Sun, I think that's worth a bit of pain."
It moved even as flesh sloughed away, and bone crumbled to ash amidst her struggles. "Are you sure you're not dead, you really look it?"
The puddle bobbed up and down. "More like floating away as the feeling vanishes, ah but the parts I still have are more than good enough to work with for the moment." The droplet became many, shifting and changing as wings spread out and the body of a crow became real. "Yes, Saber has some of the best gifts you should get one."
"I think that might be a problem actually, you see your armies going poof right about now, and she's awfully near the frontline."
"Ah, may she die gloriously in battle then." The tiny segment of muck bubbled quietly. "Yeah, I'm out of options right now."
Deep above he felt the winds move, a swirling vortex of overwhelming power just waiting to be drawn in and tear the world asunder. "Eh I have enough to keep on going, so hold on tight."
Like a vice he gripped reality, an overwhelming pressure that tore away at the world and frayed at the edges of existence. Distance turning to nothing and space crumbling as the storm gathered once more. The mountain trembled, the earth raged, beyond the very reach of the planet as everything fell into the well of his power.
Standing atop the summit an existence greater than the world pressing down on everything in front of his eyes.
It slipped effortlessly through his hands, the weight of the world falling away in a moment.
The storm crashed down, a hurricane made manifest in a burst of gold. "Why leave when I've just arrived child of the storm."
He grinned back, even as the last vestige of his mind fell away. "Demonic Tyrant: Carved in blood."
A brilliant flame danced through the wind, each swing rising higher as it brought overwhelming force. Lightning poured forth in streams of power that rampaged over the landscape.
Between them both she stepped as though the light itself, flickering in and out of reality between there blows. "Once this battle is over can I have both of your services in the next?"
A thousand flowers of flame blossomed outwards sealing all passage. "How can we serve someone who would ask for our betrayal?"
The storm raged as lightning arced across the battlefield, each bolt twisting in at odd angles that there was no path free. "It is a battle to the end."
She paused, a single word as the word flickered outwards for a moment and the lightning overflowed and cascaded down around her, coalescing as one to a single point. A single swing of the lance tore it asunder. "We shall see, at least consider it after it is over.
"But now I will be going through." Light shone outwards from a thousand stars from a glimpse of a dream, rending the fabric of the world for an instant as a sight beyond madness poured forth in a wave of gleaming sunflowers.
From the mountain the mirror fell and consumed them all, the wave of light flittering out in the reflection of the Sun contained within it.
For she was there in all her glory. Divinity beyond the divine as the Sun stepped down wreathed in flames greater than any other. Eight tails with the strength to sweep apart mountains, a gaze that touched the whole world, a warmth enough to turn existence to ash.
The world shifted, an endless paradise untouched by humanity, the very essence of before when the world had needed no belief. When no pacts had been made and the power of the Gods stood apart from humanity.
Above the Sun blazed down, and the world burned.
An endless field of blades poured out, a desert of sand and steel roaring to life as it rose as one. Every weapon pouring into the sky in a mass of power to carve open a path. A hundred shields below waiting in the moment to catch the counterattack.
Above the Sun blazed down, and the world burned.
A gaping abyss grew into a world large enough to devour anything. Tearing away at the warmth and enveloping all of existence into a decrepit absence of feeling.
The world burned.
A glimpse of madness seared away in moments as it shattered and burst into flames.
A remnant of…
Ashes and dust billowed away as the world burned.
One step in front of the other, until the desert ended, and the mountain returned. The world itself falling back into place as the dream ended, "Have you managed to figure out the trick to it yet?" Ainsel spoke as she walked, pushing onwards to the summit.
The fire inside flickered, and he felt his place in the world come undone. "My head spins, but I get somewhere at least, don't you find it disorientating?"
"So much so that I lose my sight entirely, and who knows where the world ends up at the end. But we are almost there, and the path still exists so I guess we continue walking it. And for your next question I cannot see them, but the boundary of their own worlds limits my sight so perhaps they are alive regardless."
Beneath them the battle was collapsing, titans trampling the last echoes on the field as the army was reduced to dust. The last shattered echoes of the army that had been ground into the dirt by a legion of Gods. "Can I at least know what to do, it seems a bit late to turn things around."
Ainsel tilted her head and smiled. "You won't need any orders when you go inside, you'll already know what to do." And then a spear made of dreams and words fell into her hands. "Muryan come, let us see if you can win before the war is over."
From the shadows another small fairy hovered out, exuding confidence as she made to speak.
The desert grew in an instant, the boundary of the world falling away as the two of them vanished into a world of sand and stories.
He marched on, into the mountain itself.
With each step the shadows writhed and pulsed, like living things they reached out and clawed away at his flesh, whispering nightmares as they tugged him closer.
With a breath they burned away under his advance, broken by the truth of the flame that resided within him. Yet still the room was bathed in night, ever more darkness spewing out into the world as it became a physical presence. The very walls plastered with nightmares that had come alive and sought to step out fully into reality.
All emanating from a single writhing body trapped in the centre of the room. Twisting and broken and inherently fragile in the way that all humans were. That the lightest touch would allow him to break them, he crossed the room in an instant as old instincts flared as he remembered a life of bloodshed and battles.
Once more he centred himself, the blood boiling in his veins supressed once more by will, and then even further by a flame that denied the weight of ages and brought him closer to humanity. A flame enough to set the world ablaze. "Papiyas."
Fire flowed outwards into the world, burning fate itself as the law came undone.
Searing away the blessings of the sun but leaving stone untouched.
Annihilating the weight of a thousand words of creations, while the physical barely smouldered.
Cleansing the sins of humanity that had lingered, while leaving the girl unharmed.
After what felt like an age she awakened, pulled free of the nightmares that had hung over this place.
"I need your help to stop the war going on outside."
From within his soul the world expanded entirely, and then amidst the flames seven more points burned. The world collapsing back into itself as seven boundaries pressed up as one against the onrushing heat of the Sun.
She stood, wreathed in the light as always. "Shall we discuss terms."
The sky trembled, heaven itself falling to earth as stone tore itself free of the sky and crashed towards him.
An errant claw swung, and the sky responded in kind, winds roaring as they turned them aside. Tearing chunks free of the world in a cataclysm of fire and dust that tore the world.
In the moment it was upon him, bulging flesh and muscle crashing down like an avalanche as the demon grew, cracks tearing their way along its corpse as blood poured free of the abyss. Staining the world with a cloying pressure that tore away at his reason.
With a breath he expelled it, with a thought the world was righted, with action he made it real. The warmth of the Sun blossoming upwards through his blood as he met each strike with his own, the darkness breaking before the dawn.
And ever beating in time with his own heart, the fire below coursed to the surface. An endless pressure building up amidst existence as his bloodlust threatened to boil over. The heady thrum beating in time with his heart as he felt the chance to let loose.
The mantle tore, crust wrenched asunder as he swung, as the world willed his swing as the sky became a blanket of ash and fire enveloping the world. A ripple of existence where his presence was everywhere at once.
A dozen arms reached outwards, collapsing through the carnage and he danced amidst them. Each crack in the surface of the world as obvious as day as the world was broken.
Space tore as existence sought to unravel itself, and he moved. Choking the heavens themselves with the essence of the world as it raged, as fire spilled over all things and his claws found purchase.
Three arms of bloody mist collapsed down around him, their heady scent invigorating as he relished success. Another arm came in from the side and he casually swatted it aside, staining the world red with the demon's blood.
The final blow took its head, shattering it entirely as it fell away and scattered into only so much mist.
And no corpse.
Smaller than before, it stood at the edge of their cataclysm. Bow in hand as it pulled back the string. A different bow, of silver flecked wood that touched the earth and drank deeply of the power of the world. Stealing from his power, touching upon his domain.
An arrow of yew and magic raced forth.
Fire engulfed it, strength shattered it until only the splinters remained to reach him, even as a hurricane tore across the expanse and flung it spiralling back through the expanse. A thousand scything blades tearing its flesh and reducing everything to a bloody mist blown away on the breeze.
"Iron would perhaps have been more appropriate in the end." With a flick of his wrist the warmth of the Sun burned along his flesh, and he was whole once more. "I'm not actually a real werewolf."
The bloody mist collapsed inwards upon itself shrinking as more power coursed outwards and he pulled the devastation closer, until all that was left was the man beneath it. Smiling, grinning playfully back at him without a care in the world. "You died well."
He grinned back. "Did you see it when you sat above the world? And know you could not make it come to pass, ah well whatever you saw I will crush it when the time comes."
"Ah this body really is quite nice isn't it." Light and playful the voice echoed in his head even as his muscles tensed further, held taut even as unbidden his eyes turned to admire them.
"…"
And then his body reached forward grasping at the man on the ground and pulling him up. "How does it look, I'm a bit small like this I think."
"You were never exactly the daintiest or fairest of ladies."
Silence screamed out from his unmoving lungs, even as flesh tore away, and his own self was peeled back and stretched taut by the thing inside of him. Flesh turning to vines as it collapsed and only silence remained.
"Ah a dainty young lady is well…" she sat almost swamped by the regrown mantle wrapped around her. "It's just too small when I try it, so I think I'll prefer being me." Muscle grew thicker as she rose once more, revelling in the weight and height it gave her.
Archer settled in, his presence smothering the world once more as he tore the fragments of the storm around them asunder. "Have you obtained her soul yet?"
She smiled softly back. "No, so we're going back I guess. Ah well saving the damsel in distress has a good feel to it all its own, I'll cover while you grab?"
The storm broke into a world wreathed in shadow.
Light pulsed from the fragment of a core buried in her chest, and in the distance eight others pulsed in time, but quietly and slipping back into slumber in moments.
The mountain still stood, the remnants of an army atop it, with a breath she pulled upon the power of the fairy whose body she'd stolen, the world reacting for an instant as she touched upon the mantle once more and drew strength from the world. Fire enough to devastate the mountain and create an opening.
"Enough." With more burns than flesh, Saber stumbled back along the path towards them. Helped along by two of her companions and stumbling at times. Yet the fire in her eyes remained as pure as ever.
"Couldn't die before seeing me one last time?"
"But if I die, I'll just see you again. I have my agreement; I take it whatever it is you stole should manage the rest."
With a gesture a flicker of a new Sun burst forth, "It'll take a few days to get it fully set up, but I can work with this."
"Then I guess knock knock." With a wave of Archers hand the boundary of the world shifted, and they stood once more on the precipice. "Oi brat are you still there?"
"As long as the void remains I will be here, do you have such little faith in youth?" The answer echoed back with a quiet serenity. "However there are a few problems going forward."
"What happened to not losing?"
"I hold the void still, but it seems that was less useful than I had thought, perhaps it is easier to show you how it went and go from there."
A/N Its been a long time, Originally planned for more in this war, and now so much of it is sitting on the cutting room floor. If there are any bits that look really awkward you can point them out and I'll try and fix them.
Well, I'm still mostly happy with it, and the next chapter is already started, and it is no longer Summer which is a great boon to my writing.
Much of the delay was Summer being too hot and turning me into a zombie. But hey somehow work has taken the fact that I went non-verbal for a bit and decided I have leadership qualities.
No idea how that happened.