Speech = ``…..´´
Thoughts = … ...
º
...They can kill us, but they can not take our Light from us...
º
Even through the shields, the impact made the fortress shake like a house of cards inside a hurricane.
With a screech of tortured stone and bending steel, walls cracked and statues fall from their alcoves and crash down the stone ground almost a few hundred meters below, shattering into million pieces..
Splinters of stone and sharp hunks of metal flashing across the ground and halls like shrapnel now that there were no longer any windows to shatter in their stead…
From the command post he watched the projections of the war table flicker and change..., positions lost, others recovered while others had been long lost, so utterly demolished that it was hard to believe something else had been there before..
Battles ensuing all across the table and beyond its limits, locations standing tall and with pride over the blacken skies even if they were barely rubble, others... long lost or won by either the tenacity of its defendants or the voracity of the hordes pushing through with sheer spite and stubbornness to fuel them.
The field was hectic with activity, perhaps even faster than the magic fuelling the projection could reflect the results with accuracy, but he would have what he could get.…
He sighed, and with it a feeling of heaviness came. He could feel, for the first time in a long time the grafts in his skin, the metal, the energy and the scars woven through his bones and flesh.
It was not looking good..
The green spots spoke of the controlled areas he had yet under his control.
But by now, most of the surrounding areas on the outer and middle levels had become hostile as the table appeared to glow like a red star on its own, dots of red moving slowly or faster all through the broken and crooked paths projected into view …, depending on the hotspot that his unblinking eyes glared at.
He frowned…., shadows forming under his eyes that would have brought a steadfast man to an abrupt shock if they had been noticeable under the iron helmet he bore.
This was no battle..
No, such name sake had no value in these fields of ashes and molten rock nor it was able to convey the feelings stirring up inside the more he watched it unfold…
Rather a grinding of meat and bone of massive proportions, were the blades of carnage mawed the flesh and hacked the souls the same way a psyche would through a field.
But as horrifying this bloodbath was it was the true reason why he was there, to help on funnelling down this horde.., and if possible.., doing more than just thinning their ranks and delivering a crippling blow to their foes.
Their efforts had met obvious resistance from the beasts who had considered themselves the attackers, but if the cost of life was horrific, it was the very world they stood on that had suffered the most.
The ground had grown sickly with the corruption. The skies were bleeding all over them, torn down by a massive gash that cut the horizon almost in half. Connecting reality with the other side…
The true war had come.., to deny would be foolish at best, idiotic at worse.
It really had come…
With all its glory and all its horror...
Monsters and beasts of all kinds.., both mundane and unnatural now treading the path their masters had laid before them. Either in wings of flames or hoofs stained with blood as they carved his world with their blades like it was a piece of cake.
And they were Legion….
Filled with rage, brutal…and without mercy.
Anyone else and the battle would have been lost long ago, but this time this news only made the battle become even more ferocious, no side giving ground to the other until the very ground they stood were flooded in blood.
Be it theirs or the others...
He did not need to search out to sense the stream of death cascading around him. Both friendly and foe.
Their screams reverberating even in the depths of the fortress, inside his skull...
It was already five years after they had come…
His armour was cracked and dented, a myriad of blows had befell him even before this battle had begun, leaving their mark on the heavy plates that covered him. More would take place long afterwards if they made it out from this apparent inescapable crucible.
He would be surprised if he didn't, death….death never had a good grasp on him.
It repudiated him at every turn it got its nose too close, deny him the peace of the earth.
But in these times, perhaps it was more of a saving grace...not for him though, but he knew he could do more alive, than dead.
But even if the shadow of death was not there to haunt him, that did not mean that he was bereft of any nuances…
His body, still flowing with vast amounts of energy, yet it had lost some of their lustre.
Dimmed, like a sole flame trying to rise from the cinders of a spent up bonfire. Its tear like shape under the mercy of the winds of the night.
Even his mind felt tired…
No matter how the potent cellular regeneration kicking in at all times would speak otherwise, it was starting to weighing him down as his mind tried to draw out calculations and changes of pace on the map while his eyes were trying to peer through the mantle of fate.
To discern the future, immediate and distant alike, hoping to grasp on some answers of what they would try to attempt even before their minds came to that course of action.., adding that information with what he had already deduced and come up with.
But the dominion of those twelve bastards were disrupting the tethers like a bunch of toddlers making a mess on a pool..
Its threads too few in between to make full use of them while he was forced to discard ideas or approaches that would serve for the long game, forcing him to chose a more immediate though not lasting action-reward decision as the situation was rapidly devolving, becoming too volatile, too many changes taking place here and in other fronts for his liking..
It was also blocking him from accessing his full powers….
A dominion alone could not do that, but when multiple beings of a higher power did it at the same time..
Anything was possible...
A grimace made its way into his lips, one that only grew further with his current purpose, now becoming entombed in this hall for the last hour.
It was like watching a space collision, one could do nothing but watch at this point...
But it did not mater
This flame refused to fade….
The fire he had lit would not falter, not while he still drew breath..,
The claws of his fingers tapped the arm rest of the makeshift throne while another picked a green orb from the table and push it towards an emergent tide of red.
They wanted their lifes? They could take them, along as they were willing to pay the price for them.
He had been more than happy to show his adversaries how much and how far he was willing to go for it.
For even if they were obscenely outnumbered and outgunned…
They were not outmatched...
Attacking, counter-attacking and defending from every attack and act their assailants attempted with their vile schemes. Each one of them fulfilled with utmost, cold logic and precision that even a machine would blush at it…
Not a single second had been wasted senselessly, no more lives were spent when there was no need for foolhardy gains. The tide was like a massive hand, not a hammer that had fallen over their heads.
Its fingers poking and scratching at their walls for any inch of space they could get their hands on, any weaknesses that could be exploited so that the full fist would tore through like a wet paper…
So he did not allowed it any respite or chance to push their weight around..
Fake routs made the lines shift as never-born and ancient war-machines tore though in pursuit, only for pincer manoeuvrers to crush them when they walked into hidden kill-zones, their superior strength and fire power nullify with their lack of awareness and slow manoeuvrability..
Sudden frontal charges from apparently empty and weak automatons against cultist and the demonic vanguards, their metallic bodies tore down with ease only for them to blow up and tear massive holes in the enemy ranks as they had been rigged to blow with mana crystals.
Corpses forced to either rise up to fight once more for this world and everything else or become a makeshift body-bags for those who still drew breath, a gruesome barricade of blood and bone that served not only to the enemy down, but even when those positions were overrun, only to blow up and wipe away in a flash of fire and magic all they had gain in a single second, forcing the process to repeat all over again...
Much to the dismay and chagrin of their inhuman foes. For even in death, does not duty end...
But sometimes tactics and defiance alone were not enough as they eroded the defences with the sheer weight of their bodies and the oceans of blood they spilled just to harm another one of his men.
Something that he had become to loath more and more as it became a truth borne from the corpses of his men.
The ones he had gone as far to call brothers..
Even sons...
Bitterness crept through the cracks once more, its touch vile and steaming hot even though his body was cool and frigid like ice.
As a leader their lives were nothing but coins to be wisely spent, arrows to be fired in the line of the enemy when the power of his arms alone could not do the work he required.
One would have thought that after all this time he would grown used to it..
But he had not…
The all time consuming efforts for the war merely dulling it, pushing it aside...but not healing it.
It was festering…
Rotting….
The fortress shook once more, this time more violently as a beam of pure molten energy the size of a small mountain slammed against it. The bubble bent and flexed, holding the red hot, burst of energy as it screamed against the kinetic resistance where the blast had taken place…
The shield, soon enough joining in that unholy chorus as the arcane energy that made it started shrieking in agony as its surface started to look more and more like a small sun, the air burning all around the protective bubble while within the halls dust and rocks fell all around them.
A strike that had struck true it would have scorched both stone and steel alike like candles and vaporised the entire room he was in. A blow that could have proven to be catastrophic at this point in time.
The blast was massive, brutal…, but it was not enough to shatter it. The runes feeding it quickly overcoming the blast as more energy was pumped into the shield. Its elastic surface slowly pulling the blast back despite its velocity and sheer might.
Before finally, ending once more in the same state that it had been previously to been fired once the attack ceased.
Many souls sighed in relief at that, but mostly at the object that had allowed such thing to happen.
A testament of both the ingenuity and lucid wisdom of countless centuries of heretical studies about the divine and the combination of the idea of gods and technology…, things that before would have been considered severe enough to warrant death by either those very same gods or their followers for trying to decipher the logic behind the supposed miracles they spoke of.
But with the world in chaos and those gods butchering everyone, including their own followers, such fear for punishments was nothing but redundant now..
The culprit behind such brutal attack being a sole, massive airship at the centre of the enemy force.
A bulky, massive brick of guns and tentacles that had the sun not been covered already by the blood red sky that had taken it when hell and heaven decided to shit out their contents all over their heads or the myriad of smoke trails from the fires that had broke out through the month long siege that had consumed the already ravaged lands all around him...
He was sure it would have been able to do the same if not easier…
His scowl deepened, but whether it was out of worry or peaked interest neither he or anyone could tell.
They were growing either more desperate or daring, as they had started to burn out its engines through the last hour to pierce through in their bombardment. Ignoring his outer positions and instead focusing on the command post.
They were firing at him...
That was were the Triad main headquarters were, the twelve of them had even come in person to witness and glorify themselves in what they believe they total victory over a foe that had butcher their fellow kin.
Rarely gods joined forces for a common cause, and even less joining the Demonic tide of the Destroyer.
Had they, this war would been over in a day…, perhaps he should be glad that had not been the case.
But looking back, it was the only thing that made sense...
They were too similar, too proud to make long lasting alliances or even consider servitude to a being they could only hate. Their backstabbing and desire for power above all else trumping everything they had over them.
Still, one was bad enough. Twelve even worse..
But it was not their individual or collective power that worried him even if they could sear the body and scar the spirit, but rather the one pulling the strings behind them.
The one that had yet to step on this world already embroiled in this senseless war for extinction, his minions already having become a taxing problem for him thanks to their wave like tactics to swarm everything in their way..
But it was fine, they had known they would be coming, that he was coming along as-well...
That was why he had forced this engagement, using the enemy's own plans to their own benefit, they had naturally redirected their forces to mitigate any damage they might cause, pushing the angels of the council back to the high Dead mountains of the fallen human empire and the man eating beast men back into the dark forest of Zariach..
Leaving a spot in the front-line...rather unmanned for its size...
His spot….
And so, as they had expected, they had clumped up their numbers and charged towards the point they thought less protected, more vulnerable. A sane assumption as they would be unable to call for aid to the other factions and regiments to come to their aid in time as they were locked in battle with other forces through the entire continent.
Over the land.., above the heavens or even underground….
Millions of aberrations laid siege to them now. Mythical beast thought legend that had been sprawl from whatever hell they came against barely two hundred thousand souls…
The idea to dare such attack all the more appealing when a very enticing prize came to view.
Himself….
Each time he stepped out in the field a section of the line was won, tens of thousands were saved while more of the foe were slain. The morale that had been on the brink, only maintained by spite restored to the point it would reach the very skies had they not been burning around them
Marshalling the defenders…, rallying the broken, speaking words of comfort to the mortally wounded…, fighting with cold implacable fury.
It also served to reinforce the idea that he was there, that the only thing that stopped them from achieving their claim..was merely a matter of time...
It was also his intention to play out for time…, to drag this as much as he could. For every ten kills they inflicted on them, one was permanent.
But in those moments he spent fighting back to back with the children of man kind, other lines were breached, shattered and their occupants butchered, but not before forcing their killers to pay a heavy price for every bloody step they tool, every soul in their wake trashing at them like mad men.
It still weighed heavily on him..
He could not be everywhere…
The presence of too many heavy hitters in the tide dissuading from wildly spending his strength in ample and wide crowd control spells or down right going down to maw through them without thinking that a living mountain of flesh could be dropped on top of him if it meant forcing him out of the fight long enough...
They had tried once a year ago…
He had been busy licking his wounds for days on end, days that could have been spent killing more of them.
He sighed.
Champions could change the course of a battle, but armies won wars. And they knew that too...a fact that they abused each an every time they could.
But what he could not save he avenged with relentless and merciless intent.
His desires reflected by the impassive, metal mask of bipedal war-machines that acted as semi stationary firing platforms. Smaller by half the largest titanic beast in the enemies disposal, their metallic frames bearing heraldic symbols, like those of a knight while their superior limbs ended up in massive cannons that fired small stars at the tide.
Burning everything in their wake as they kept the demons in their toes from truly crashing through with full force.
Long barrels of steel coming out from the rest of their bodies, pointed almost at every direction. Their tips glowing scarlet by the threat of overheating as they continued to fire their shells almost non stop. Sonic booms echoed through the air when they discharged their heavy payload through the ranks of the enemy, leaving nothing but smears of blood and flames behind if they were not busy stomping them with their massive metal heels when they grew to close…
Turning meat into ashes and bygone splatters of blood that did not resemble a living being.
They sadly had too few of them…
And each of their losses were irreplaceable...
Now, in this hall...his warriors were milling around in confusion, a break in their self control that he would allow them this time, and this time alone.
This were trying times…, even for him,
Especially him..
The hall held ten thousand of them, seasoned veterans of countless campaigns that had spilled blood of both mortals and immortals before and after the skies fell over their heads with the coming of the True war…
And now they were all panicking.., a sensation that was spreading like poison through their minds and souls.
He knew that they were more frightened by his silence than anything the bastards outside could throw at them.
They looked at him for leadership, but he had none to give now…
For the Dice was not on his hands to throw this time…., a matter that he had zealously kept quiet for it would cause more harm than good. A necessary precaution, but one that was causing no small amount of grief as now most of the battlefield was under the never-born and their dark champions dirty heels.
The monsters and those swayed by their wretched promises of power surrounding them as the seconds passed, only held at bay by the desperate efforts of the few that stood between them and their end goal.
They had bleed them out at every turn, gnawed and cut them open.., for every one of his own that fell a hundred of them were slain if not more as both the dead and living joined ranks to push back the tide.
And yet, they still pushed on…
Defences were breached..
Checkpoints were subverted…
Bastions were torn asunder by either foul magic or the storm of projectiles the size of houses that impacted heavily on their walls.
It didn't mattered if tens of thousands died to get a beach head through a part of the defences, they continued to seize more land. The presence of their masters pushing them to feats of extremely bravery or foolishness..
He hated to fight a foe which numbers were as high as their morale that shrugged any blow like it was nothing, no matter how terrible they were...
It was only a matter of hand before they too failed and the last bastions of resistance fell, giving the monsters a straight path towards him and the rest.
By all means, their victory seemed inevitable, the magnitude of their defeat should astound him, parallelize him...
``….´´
But that had been the plan all along…, had they pulled out their punches they would have discovered his intentions long ago.
This weakness, this terrible outlook….was his final blade into a plan that had been in the making once he knew that he could not win by conventional means like he would have prefered
No, not with the Destroyer at the helm of this force like the puppeteer he was...
They were encircled, yes…the enemy was deep within the city while still a part of it remained outside because of its sheer size.
Surprisingly, given the fact of how many they had slain before reaching this point...
It could also be considered that the enemy was trapped within their walls, stuck and blind for the other shoe to drop, that moment when their dominion weakened.., spilling out their doom before they could even blink.
Until then, it was a waiting game.
Whoever broke first, would left their side vulnerable for retaliation...
And so... he waited for that break, that chance to deliver that final blow as he waited for his allies to pull through their promises….
A shadowy dagger into the heart of this onslaught that would end this battle for good, even though the war would still rage on long afterwards...
But the time limit that he had been told had been long spent by now...
Even with the worst predictions and taking into consideration halts or failures, the wreaking of the domain or its destruction should have happened hours ago.
His scowl deepened, lines forming around his face as if he had swallowed something foul..eyes narrowed with anger.
It should have happened already…, but only silence reached him…
The bastion shook once more, this time a piece of the ceiling falling over his head. Tons of stone shattering like glass when they collided with him, but he was not even fazed by it…, too lost in his thoughts
If the domain wasn't lifted...then he would be forced to drop his game changing plan and go outside once more to slow down an inevitable defeat.
Like the streams of rain that would pour down from the heavens and into his waiting claws…, he could try…, but the rainwater would merely slid past his fingers.
It would not just mean the pyrrhic victory of their foes, but that they had wasted their time, their efforts and so many lives for nothing.
He would not admit it..
He refused...
And yet...
Had they failed?
Had she failed him...?
….
Those were ludicrous thoughts for him to have, let alone consider..., but he was not given any other answers and time was running out for him to end the battle on his own terms..
``Sire, what are your orders...?´´
Asked Malgus, his black armour filled with dents in a dozen places and the scorched marks of blades and hellfire. The red haired, blue skinned undead mage leaning his weight over the halberd turned staff he was grasping on his right hand, sweat was sliding down his face, making the lines of his old face all the more visible.
A sole red eye looking at him with amiable courtesy of an old friend, yet also in need for an immediate answer that a man of knowledge would always crave..
He did not answer, he is lost within himself, seeking answer to his own questions.
Sings of warning popping out in the table, the sound screeching through the air as the machine gave voice to what he can already see.
The enemy was assaulting the final the inner sections...
He felt the bitter pang of frustration coagulated into a sharp shard that was stabbing his heart.
Was his time over..? Was this were it all ended..? Is this why he had gone path the limits of sanity?
To lose? Not by his own failure, but merely dragged down by others..? The last part only adding insult to injury...
How could he have allowed himself to be….human?
He...he truly was a foolish thing.
...After all this time I should have been wary of trust...
He thought to himself, the words echoing bitterly as his hands clenched into tight fists, destroying the armrests...
``Sire, what are your orders...?´´
Asked this time Solius, his acting commander in the absence of his superiors who had either died or been removed towards more pressing fronts. A man of the faith, a man of the old world, a former enemy turned ally in this time of need. A man he trusted as far as his arm could throw him.
He was staring at him, his old eyes turning to glass slits of his brass mask into accusing eyes, even though fear brewed inside him.
Both directed at him and the worsening situation..
Once more he did not reply…., remembering the rest of his kind and their fate when the end of this world started.
Half of them had died by his hands alone, the fanatics been steadfast enemies of his cause, the other half had burn, butchered by the very angels they sought they served.
Little did they know, angels had no need for mortals….
They never had…
And with not even a brief, self righteous tirade.., they nuked their cities from the heavens, hiding behind their technology as millions were blasted away in puff of over heated smoke and fire, not even knowing who was attacking them.
Once the dust settle, not even cinders remained..
So much had been lost….
``Sire, what are your orders..´´
Asked Zhogar the Shadow-walker, his booming voice wrecking through the room as if it came from another realm, glaring at him with blazing eyes of red, not unlike his own. The massive slot of steel devoid of any flesh that was the Paladin of Terror, easily towering above him a meter or two finally forcing him to look away from the monitor and towards him.
Nothing but the soul of the man remained, trapped within the massive war armour, a man loyal to a fault.
Even if that had meant to be cursed into that existence.
He knew that they rely on him for guidance, that they still believe in him…, that he could get them out of this trap.
He could not, not with this poor hand he had been given….
And yet he had to try…, for their sake if nothing else.
So he left his mind to drift once more from the fortress, into the outside war ravaged world.., beyond the ruins of gardens and buildings, beyond the craters of artillery and the fountains of blood and gore left behind. Passing by where titans of flesh battled machines of steel,
He saw everything…before he tried peering into the ship that hanged ominously before him…
Hope flickered within him...
The shields, the shields of the ship were down he realized…
If it was arrogance or stupidity he did not know, but the following event would dispel any doubts that would linger as he then felt it.
The screeching sound of a million unborn voices scream out in agony through reality, their voices soft and carrying the brutality of a thousands of animals crying out in pain at the same time. The air ruptures by it, beasts that flew above the air dying as their brains burst into pieces, unable to make heads of the feedback that they had received before plummeting into the ground loudly...
It was the same on the ground, where legions of monsters screamed out in pain, holding their heads as the very connection to their master was severed. Burning their brains and blacken souls to a point they had never thought possible
The very thing that had gave them strength, becoming their demise...
But most importantly, the domain had lifted and with it..all the limitations his body had suffered until then.
His eyes blinked once, and once only as he understood what happened.
They had done it…
She really had…and he was not gonna waste it.
The trap could finally be sprang in all its glory and end this mud-slog of a fight for good as his mind wandered through the field, delivering a new command to all his remaining forces.
A new directive.
The time for defending was over, the time to strike was ripe.
To feast in their weakened flesh and cut down all who were now trapped between them and the ruined walls. To blow the passages and sections of the city that the enemy and make into makeshift bunkers with explosives had been hidden away.
He stood up from his seat, more than ten thousand pairs of eyes fixed on him on the spot. His body writhing with blaspheme power as he was already starting to cast the spell before he even finished speaking. Condensing space and time in on itself with his bare fingers as his authoritarian voice snapped everyone into attention...
`` Prepare for portal incursion in points Alpha, Beta and Gamma, we will take the battle to the enemy and make them regret the day they dare challenge us..!´´
And just like that the eerie, stressing mood that had taken hold of the room vanished with such ease that was surprising.
The men smiled confidently, even behind their helmets, the fear that had been creeping inside them now gone, replaced with burning determination as they move into position with surprising speed and coordination for the sheer number of people within these very halls..
They now had a purpose...and so they obey. Chanting one final cry before they, like him.., disappear from the room leaving it vacant.
A war-cry that he had heard all too many times through the years…, and yet never ceased to amaze him.
Not one for glory…
Not for honour…
Nor even lust for battle...
But one tallying the simplicity of their duties and the Grimm nature of reality that awaited them as they spoke out loud with determination and coldness...
``TO THE SLAUGHTER...!´´
A flash of light, a feeling of coldness...and four shooting stars came out from the depths of the fortress into the skies above the ravaged fields. The energy coating these beams of might that granted a new light over the carnage below with something that for so long both mortals and demonic who for a moment could not stop themselves from staring in bewilderment.
A sensation that turned into shock at what they had not witnessed in five long years as the spells came to connect with each other for a brief second above them..
And then, in a sunless realm….
The sun shone again…
Before it took a sharp turn downwards and slammed down upon the red and flesh tide.
Bodies were incinerated and bones melted in an instant. Magic runes carved into the flesh of countless abominations and madmen which had served to protect them were wiped away as their skin peeled out by the heat, breaking down the symbols that they had grown so proud of and had kept them alive until them.
Shrieking in complete and utter agony as their pacts between their patrons were shattered before their eyes before they too burned into ashes.
Those that had not been harmed by the fiery radius, were thrown off like rag-dolls by the shock-wave.
Three of the teleportation beacons had landed in the right, left and rearguard of the enemy. Making a tight, though thin box of men and steel. Meant to keep the tide of flesh in-front of them contained.
The last one did not crash onto the ground, it flew through the air, soaring loudly as the over heated energy burned out the oxygen and smoke. Its goal no other than to slam itself against the massive, sharp prow of the airship.
It had been a gambit, one that would not have worked at any other time.
The shields of such colossal vessel, empowered by the powers of foul deities and the dark coven they had sworn would have made any conventional attack useless, needing an absurd amount of fire power to crack it down, a task that would have been hard and time consuming even if it was not delivering death by its many guns.
Even if powered by his power alone, it would not have been enough to take out the damn thing from the skies. Not without risking unneeded injury that would kept him away from the front-lines for too long.
But they were not...and neither were its occupants ready for this.
And so, whatever hope they could have to end the incursion...it was over in an instant.
A terrible, shining instant when the star of energy slammed against it…
The crash could have been heard through the entire region.
The entire front end of the vessel was blown open and curling away like a junkers artist rendition of a flower made from a steel can. Blue and white scars of superheated metal and cooked flesh glowed like filigree across every crack, every renton tear...
But they could not see such beautiful and brutal show of force, only hear it.…, muffled down under the spells protective bubble.
Then the next thing he knew was that they were inside the ship, but it did not took him long to know that something was wrong as he scowled inside the covers of his metal mask.
He realized he was not in the command room of the ship as he had wanted, but a vast.., warped chamber with a squad of his men to stand behind him.
The gods must have realized their imminent arrival, but they were too late to stop them from tearing through the defences.
That had not stopped them from pulling them in different directions as a last resort, though.
It did not matter, they would finish the job.
One way or another...
Insane voices jabbered madly inside his skull, there were figures trapped within the walls of the vast room. Hands reaching out to grab them, to grasp him with rock like strength.
He shrugged them off easily...
His companions... not so much.
Machine guns chattered and flashed as they dispelled bullets the size of his fist while blades swung through the air, cutting and striking at the demonic entities under the buzzing sound of magic sparkling through their blades lengths, softly accompanied with the clicking sound of mechanisms that writhed and cried out loudly under their empowered-armours as they were put to work once more.
Aiding the warriors to move faster and fight stronger than any other mortal as the sound of flesh and blood splattering the walls and their bodies echoed endlessly through the corridor.
Their helmets a white.., sealed skull. Their eyes shining with fury and rage quelled only by their training while they remained hidden under armoured glass that shone red just like his. Slick, short tubes connected from the sides of their jaws to the metal backpack they carried with them that ended in a six point star at the back of their heads.
Shielding them slightly from a blow to their nape or back.
One man screamed with rage as he was drawn to one of the dark, slimy walls. Ripples forming around the place of his disappearance.
Never to be seen again..
``Enough...´´
His power flared out from him once more, a nimbus of energy that seared the walls and their ethereal occupants in an instant. Tearing them apart, but leaving his men unscathed...
The survivors followed him…, forming a circle around him.
Hoping to protect him.
It should have been the other way around…, but he did not deter them from their intentions as they marched in silence. The rhythmic, mechanical sound of their steps crunching the ground and the soft echo of air coming out from the filters of their masks becoming the only noise they uttered for a long while.
They wandered through the dark warped corridors fuelled with powers that should not exist in this reality, for either their sanity or anyone else as the house of horrors that they were treading into started to reveal its many….attractions to their visitors..
Sphincter walls distend from walls of flesh-like stone…, transparent veins bear rivers of blood along conduits in the floor, carpets mucus cover a road of fanged tongues. Winged and distorted things that might once have been human flip through archways of bone and perch on Ledges of rib.
The corruption was so thick that he could feel it burn his eyes…
But none said a word, not as they marched through it..nor when they lit it on fire.
It did not take long before the locals decided to put a stop to their innocent wandering.
Abominations, demons or even their greater counterparts….
They came at them…
One at a time or in scores, all with one single thought in mind; to satisfy their uncaring masters wills and to taste their blood, but the only thing they taste would be the edge of his blade.
Their screams filled the rooms, their blood boiling as superheated blades carved through their unholy filthy bodies or bullets slammed and pierced through them. Splattering their blood into every nook and cranny their arterial fluids could find before they fell down to the ground to join the ranks of their dead brethren..
Those that met him did not…
Not because he did not attacked them, but rather the fact that each swing made them burst into thick black smoke.
As physical as they made appear, demons were mostly spiritual entities. Souls that had become so toxic and volatile that could take form in the physical plane to strike.
But his blade was not attacking their flesh..., it was attacking their souls. Erasing them from existence with its mere touch.
There would not be a second life for them…
They would return to whatever hell-pit they came from only to came back with vengeance.
They were gone...
No one would even know they existed in the first place.
But those would be the first of the many ambushes they would have to laid to waste, they are attacked by hordes of scuttling things in ancient armour, they fight hordes of mutated beasts.
One by one they die…, buried under the mountains of corpses they made.
Laughing or bellowing war-cries as if their armour plating had not bee breached and vital organs pierced by malignant flaming swords or razor sharp claws and spikes of bone.
In the end he stood alone in those dark rooms…
His dark frame making its way through the ship, burning and hacking everything in his path.
Twin burning stars of hatred becoming the first and last thing the fools who came across his path would ever see before they were rendered into nothingness.
He continued like that for a long while...
[Master…, we have cleared the lower decks of the ship, taken hold of their Hell cannons...what do you wish us to do with them..?]
A voice reached him, vaguely and weak through the distortion that filled the entire ship thanks to the corruption...yet he knew who was behind it
He did not waste much time into consideration of how they had managed to reach him, nor how they had survived..
``Lay waste to their army.., turn them into powder with their own guns until nothing is left behind of their wretched skins...´´
He ordered.
Even from there, he knew the man on the other side of the line was smiling. A bitter, sadistic one at the untold promise of murder that was about to be unleashed.
[With pleasure...]
He did not seek any more words from the man, cutting the connection in that very instant.
As the ship shook with the sound of its guns blasting with a new target in sight, he entered the large dual doors at the end of his way.
The ones leading to the end of this battle...
The gods that had been hiding until then in the safety of the numbers of their minions come out of hiding once he enters the room. Knowing full well that not even a blind man would not sense them..
The irony of the situation was not lost to him….
Most of them were humanoid in form, some thin, others bloated...what they had been once long forgotten as they were now wrapped in a miasma of unholy power.
An essence that had changed them, it was still.
Making them bigger and stronger, horns and spikes having come out from their bodies, eyes and additional limbs having grown as-well through their vessels.
They looked hideous…., but at least their appearance matched their interior.
His sight looked away from them towards the spots of black steel and red emblems in the ground.
Corpses of massacred warriors laid everywhere…
He clenched his hands, holding his sword even more tightly.
He would avenge them…
Every... last... one of them…..
The closest to him then spoke, having take notice of his reaction. Its voice ethereal, trying to emulate the sing voice of a young, healthy man..yet it echoed with none of its humanity. Like a changeling that was not even trying to hide their true self from their victim...
Another insult to the very mortals that they had trample for centuries, and now were mawing down like crops…
Retribution would be his...
``Poor little toys, they thought they had a chance...we even tried to offer them a chance out of their doomed fates in exchange of service.., but they would not have it´´
Another walked in, its voice like the churning of meat...
``Indeed, so stubborn...you should have heard them speak your name..saying that you would avenge them, that you should..´´
Frost started to slip from his metal mask…, cooling the area.
Even they started to shudder a bit by it…, but the rest were too drunk in their power to realized it.
``Truly...such a waste of final words...´´
And then they started to laugh..
They started to laugh out their lives with their hideous throats….
He took a step forward, then another….
The ground shattering with the step.
``The barking of the weak, such a hideous thing to see..spare me your breath for I have not come to parley with fools´´
``What..!? Do you have the smallest idea of who we are...!? We could suck your marrow from your very bones before you took another breath…!´
He scoffed.., fulminating with a glare at the one that spoke.
``You speak mighty for someone who had been hiding under the skirts of the Destroyer until now.., or did you steal his smile too..?´´
That wiped the smiles from their faces, gasping with shock before grinding their teeth in rage.
Like petulant little kids…
How far they had fallen.
``Watch your tongue mortal or we will rip it out from you´´
``You have no power here, abomination..´´
``We are gods-..!´´
``You are nothing.!.´´
He cut him off much to its shock and those around him, his voice dripping with poisonous fervour that would have melted the very flesh and bone those monsters clothed themselves with.
He didn't stop there, taking a third step. Energy slowly swirling around him...
``You are maggots! Nothing but weak worms leeching out the breast milk of those around you. Incapable of fighting your own battles….and now you are mine to judge, mine to torment…
He took another step, the floor creaking as the ice covering it shatters under is weight, the sound feels like the air was snapping around them, accompanied with the soft shaking echoes of cannons being discharged in the distance.
``You will beg for mercy, for release..but it will never came. Just like those that you did not spare in your mad search for power, your skin will fly high in the wind of this world, as a FLAG TO YOUR FAILURE!´´
He roared, his voice snapping with hatred..., shaking the very chambers they resided in. A feat that would have burst the heads and eardrums of common men. Madness was dripping down his eyes.
But not all were cowed down by his words…
``Making a fuss about those petty mortals? Ridiculous...one would have thought that even the likes of you would understand, but yet again…, being one yourself I can see why you would care about the shaft...´´
``Such a waste of potential...´´
He took another step, this time wilding the blade upwards, holding it with too hands.., even in this darkness that sipped out the light like a vortex, the white shade of its length was glowing like a nascent star.
It cried out to do its purpose…
It demanded him with a voiceless command to be let loose, to be freed from his iron grip.
To do what he and it knew to do best.
To kill gods….
The fakes started milling around him.
``Your actions may seem noble…, but they are misguided, merely prolonging the inevitable...´´
``Like sand standing against the cosmic waves, you are only hurting yourself...´´
``Aren't you tired fighting an endless war? We could give you a new purpose..´´
``Aren't you tired to hold the weight of the world over your shoulders? We can give you anything that you wish for…´´
``You will the blade of the Destroyer.., the master of mankind in his stead...´´
``Your enemies will shatter against you…endless armies at your command´´
``The cries of a million foes, broken at your feet. The spoils of endless victories….will be yours..´´
``What do you say...? Fallen Lord?´´
``Do you accept..? Do you welcome your destiny...?´´
They all echoed at the same time at the last sentence...
Looking at him expectant, their eyes hungering with barely quelled desire to posses, to own..
To control...
He answered by clenching his fist, an invisible wave of malevolent energy flaring out from his body and slamming every and each one of the gods against the walls of the rooms. Too close and quick for their precognitive senses to warn them in advance.
Gasp of pain and shock came out from them as their bodies crushed and tore through the sturdy walls, spit and breath spatted out from them by the sheer force.
But what would have killed anything else, merely wounded them..
``I have no need for your stories, or your petty council…, your words are hollow, your souls empty and your minds are gone, replaced with insanity that will never be satiated in a thousand of your lifetimes…
``When mortals stand together, and reach out for each other...there is no need for gods. Your reign of terror is over, and once I am done with you, then the rest of the monsters..!´´
He growled, spiting venom with the same ease as if it was air.
BLASPHEMY..!´´
They roared in different degrees of outrage and rage. Shaking as they glowed brightly, calling out to their powers to wipe him out from existence, but they dare not attack yet...
Such weakness…
Even now... it was baffling...
``Truth..´´
``You have made a terrible choice by spitting down our mercy.., you are alone with us.´´
He wanted to laugh, to hold his throat from cackling out loud. Even now, they marvelled him with their idiocy...
Instead he growled, his voice rasp and bitter like steel scratching meaty walls of flesh.
``No, it is you who made a terrible mistake...filth´´
``And what would that be, enlightened us please...´´
``I am not trapped in here with you…´´
Darkness wrapped around him, tentacles of energy from his own cursed blood in manifestation of his full might. Bringing death to even the tethers of fate hanging around them, purging the corruption from the room like an invisible fire had been set lit by his own mind.
``You are trapped here with me..´´
The room cracked, the entire ship shook, rattled by a titanic hand as the stream of energy fluctuated from him and collided with the one of the battleship.
``We are not afraid of you…, Fallen Lord...´´
They said, forming around him...readying themselves for what was to come.
But the words were lost as he took the sixth step.., then the seventh...his presence radiating out like the light waves of a black sun.
Black flames wreathed his fists and arms in flickering fire. Flames that came from another place, the heart of an abysmal cavity in existence…
Or...or perhaps somewhere even darker...
The fires in his hands screamed in the back of every skull present..., gnawing and clawing. The ground trembled as he took his eight step. And then, the ninth….
The darkness bleeding out from those black flames challenged the light of every pair of eyes and auras of the gods that stood in defiance before him.
Their once radiant wild and ethereal greatness shaking and growing duller at his approach. Making them appear brittle if not dirty in comparison with this new found darkness.
Leaving nothing but a bubble behind in its place…a void in this meteorite size rock of madness, a wound in this now empty and damned room, and hidden behind that sense of wrongness he sprung the last part of the trap..
Runes flew and glowed in the different sections of the room, brewing with arcane power as they sealed the room for good.
Like the same shield that had been protecting him and his men not long ago, but instead keeping things from entering..
It would stop anyone from leaving…
Even their souls….
He rose his head, two burning coals scorching the very time and space as they landed on their leader that could only reel back for a second as he spoke again three more words.
Three terrible words...
``You. Will. Be….´´
ºº
This was a rare instance for an almost 9k chapter, I promise, the rest wont be as long...
Until the next time. :)