Inbetween these mountainous faces marred with trailing vine and smudged grassland - dewed with moss - emerged the tremendous silhouette at the blighted horizon. Great henges of stone pillars erected at the border, bridging a makeshift entryway to belie the many steps clambering towards the grand Throne. Before the venturing group, was spacious land leading to this sideway entrance, and through it was a wide courtyard that spanned a large width around this fortress; decored in runic shapes of cobble and brick. Far above, settled the resting place of the saviour, the countless steps that led to standing arches draped with azure banners, the structures formidable shape stabbing to the dead night sky with its triangular summit.
And, littered across this wide berth of a sacred court before the hundred steps, were the mindless patrolling of jittering and snarling creatures. Many of varied sizes, from hogs in stark white and lacerated with crimson marks, to slithering lamias with the familiar draconic heads of lesser foes. Creatures of pale skin and beating wings, great spears held in bony coiled fingers, and even a waiting six-limbed beast rising above the heads of these opponents. Many eyes of glimmering vibrancy dotted its canine maw, like minute galaxies waving across the filled field, while dark navy skin - bulged with muscles - scoured over its predatoral shape.
The villainous band did not falter at the army of foes that lay in wait before the Throne, and lined up across the berth with only steps from sending this silence into a blaze of battle. "The guards are all malakhim," Velvet observed through narrowed sight, "They really do keep humans away from here."
"But, why build a new temple all the way out here? The Shepherd could build in the capital just as easily."
Despite the Samurai's question, no one answered immediately, however attention was pulled to the shifts of curiosity spinning Laphicet's head around. His eyes scanned the ground, as if feeling a pumping flow of energy beneath; akin to blood racing through veins. "This place..." the boy mused quietly, and Eizen's gaze flicked to the young malak.
"You feel it, too?"
"There's... powerful energy flowing underground."
At Laphicet's description, even the waiting half-malak that cautiously eyed the unsuspecting army before them felt the rush: like a heartbeat pulsing other than his own.
"Right. This is a focal point of the earthpulse, the natural energy of the land," the pirate explained.
Magilou smugly grinned, stretching dramatically, "The perfect spot to worship Innomniat."
"Hmph," the daemoness darkly huffed, "Or to attack him."
The wind's cry came shrill and warily, billowing among the flanking valleys and land forth: the sea-scented gale encompassing the heavy weight of dreadful tension among the area. Her coat bristled ahead in the reigning dark, shimmering sins alight in the limelight of this night, and as steel boots crashed with the woman's advancing steps, the group did not falter at her silent behest. Pillars aloft to the side of barring cliffs were soon aside in their advance, as they passed into the great courtyard of the pious Empyrean's Throne.
Roving eyes soon snapped to the imposing figures that passed in the darkness, and in a chorus of alarm and warning; the lesser beasts that smothered this field hissed aggressively in their direction. The scent of death hung cleanly on the noses of the intruders, and the advancing boots halted before this hostile force. Skirting the sides of these great steps, was wide lanes in berth, and with connected pathways above through ladders in similar structure to this royal fort. And, even more creatures emerged from the fog of twilight where these spaces stayed, eyes twinkling in recognition to the infamous group.
A whole army of lesser malakhim barred Velvet Crowe's way to her target of vengeance. And, the sole great beast that led this force snarled from the center of this great swarm, its daggered jaw opening to a smoky breath wisping out. Its many eyes trained directly on the six, all that opposed the valiant yet mindless guards of this Throne.
Gilded pearls flicked to her left, and saw his bandaged palm wrestle the center of the fur cloak away, snapping the joint and allowing the flapping attire to flutter off in the wind's arms. The golden insignia of Barlocs came aware once more to the air of despair, and Sarid's eyes narrowed in sincerity.
"Do you care, Barloc?"
The half-malak's orbs swerved to her own at the low and sharp words. Questioning all he has done, and will do, for reasons that still remained so ambiguous. Killing the Saviour, the Shepherd to herald this new age.
Sarid made no reaction, clicking shoulders as his hand whipped to the settled hilt at the hip. "I care, about doing my family's work." The belt jostled, as this newly recognised monster-slayer ripped the ornate blade from the scabbard, teeth grit in preparation for the coming storm. "I care about saving lives. No matter how corrupted they think they are."
Velvet did not spare another look, and only lowered her form with tense limbs, corrupted appendage rising to be held towards the growling wave, as her medallions glimmered with ferocity.
"...Idiot."
Sarid only chuckled once more, before his hand clenched firm at the grip.
"Now then..."
Steel sang, fists clicked, parchment bristled, and a voice cheered with anticipation.
"Shall we?"
~~~
Boom!
Flames sparked among the rushing chaos, as throughout the ocean of battle warring along outside the Empyrean's Throne, came the failing cries of dwindling lives between erupting artes.
A thundering boot smashed away the snout of a charging mystical boar, bootblade gouging face as she spun, claw soon shredding the abdomen of a hounding beast and disembowelling it; corpse flailing to bloodied defeat among the grassland. The daemon's great mane graced the rush of flame and teeth, flipping away into a rapid whirl of kicks: pounding bone to fragments with graceful evasion and crushing force.
Magical parchment whirled across the mayhem, brimming with energy as elemental forces rocketed out to devastate hordes. Coalescing energy gathered in droves, grinding foe to gore and scorched flesh with signs of welling power.
Twirling hails of water rammed against beast, while singing joy came forth as the Witch swatted away snaking lamia in the form of powerful guardian dolls; flinging hissing figures back into hammering artes that bashed flesh to mush. She skipped along with a grin, and the tendrils of the depths focused upon her wet palms, concentrated orbs of swirling moisture: soon thundering out to blow away foolish opponents in a fierce blast.
Lashing winds rung the air, jostling like shrieking chains, and out came the kunai bound in gust thread with a whip of coiled steel. Its pointed tip and glistening edges simmered to a blaze in a soundless call, and feeble malakhim a many were torn apart by its unyielding charge: knife aflame in the moonlit night carving through the masses of now charred flesh. In this crescented flail did it cycle, force ripping it back through rising embers and past the toiling tufts of white. A commanding wrench and visceral twist; the singing kunai betwixt the breeze's viridescent fingers cracked right through bone to dismember.
Twin daggers decorated unsuspecting tissue with rupturing wounds, swerving past distinct assaults and gracing blade edge to grind against feral blows. The Samurai grinned - bloodthirsty - as the reliable blades sang with trembling force: edge screeching edge as the wind's howled, and reduced any parried foe to bloodied splotches in this winding cyclone.
Fists cracked away against bulbous hide, shattering muscle and crumbling bones through crashing hooks; driving enemies away into mounds of defeated husks. A talon came flying in, and the Reaper caught its futile swipe with ease, snapping the wrist and plunging a fist to pulverise the ghostly jaw in a single punch. Earth rumbled, and intervening foes became skewed upon pulsing amber, threading flesh upon uprooted spikes from below.
Over the course of this violent battle, the protecting forces began to falter and dwindle under the severity of the group's attacks: their growth in strength too much for the guards to handle as each fell under sword, arte or fist.
Sparks of flecked metal kissed the sky, as blade trembled across hardened scales and elongated nails. Sliding past, the steel carved flesh in a rain of slashes over forms: teeth clenched as the Hunter pushed to the aching of his muscles, springing about a shrill blast and threading his sword to cleave right through a now split spine. Tiny splatters of vermillion dotted cheeks as the jagged teeth of this snarling foe parted, spat and trembled under the stabbing discomfort shooting across its form. Sharp pearls - violet - stared deep into its hollow shell of eyes in utter contempt.
"When you get back to whatever putrid 'heavenly realm' you fell down from, you tell them... there's no room for tools down here."
Sarid heaved the foe upwards, ripping the steel right from its mangled abdomen, casting seething red to marr the innocent grass below; dropping the jaded malakhim with a vile squelch matting the bruised earth.
Whoosh!
Suddenly, the air was pulled apart. A spear, that almost sung true, desecrated only cloth as his hand lashed a thin opaque gale taut from quickly snatching a kunai to bear, and roped the coalescing vines of wind about the gilded polearm. Sarid pulled, and as the entity stumbled forth with its voided mouth ajar: cracked the cranium to one side with his hilt. The half-breed lashed a hand out, clenching a flailing limb that had its grip falter, and pulled it aside - flipping the cloaked sword into a reverse grip - and delivered the lesser malak a stunning punch that flung its folded carcass earthward to slosh amongst muddied grounds.
Outstretched winds of lime encompassed the glinting blade as it swirled back straight - catching a flung up kunai in its billowing shimmer - as the half-malak carried the attack through with a gritted heave, a whipping slice of wind extending out and bolstering the dagger aflame just over the ground and flinging the welling steel to gouge into a soaring beast. It's once celestial form bubbled and boiled once the metal embedded flesh; and soon the spitting blast echoed to reign the sky above, charred remains falling in its erupting wake.
Blackened flecks of fading ash shuddered against his skyward face; the flowing tufts of white dancing in a hollow breeze, chest pounding with lavender orbs trained to the choked blue above.
The adversaries dwindled fewer, while many pupils of swirling, colour-ridden void observed from the corners of blazing battle. Trained, and boring into the lone figure encompassed with the gouging tendrils of vermillion and damson darkness.
"Idiot livestock."
Leg thundered into ribcage, two assailants sailing back with dreadful splutters, before another sunk away under a drilling stab puncturing right through the sternum. While the wristblade sprouted through the dire heavings of this reptilian humanoid, the stinking scent of magic rocketed through; malakhim arte billowing close to this malignant daemon.
As the devastating earth arte neared, the blade was ripped from the spluttering carcass in a swift cartwheel, until Velvet kicked up and lashed a heel against the soaring boulder: redirecting its visceral trajectory into an unfortunate malakhim, rupturing the skull as it collapsed. She landed with a flick of hair, brazen orbs eyeing the remaining foes across this stained battlefield.
Whoosh!
Velvet barely noticed the widened maw lunging from behind, its heated teeth lining the inside like a thousand knives with strands of disgusting saliva dripping from its stressed jaw. The devouring claw tensed, as its savage talons prepared to strike back at its ambush.
Whipping winds rang the deathly chilling air, and it's many glimmering eyes snapped to a place with a shutter of its foul membrane eyelids.
Sizzle... crack!
Rotating blades of gales struck out with a crackling blaze at a dagger's metal, the bulbous fire erupting against the face of the unsuspecting beast; blasting off layers of flesh as it stumbled away with a deafening shriek. Bumps of its revealed muscle decorated the side of the skull, wafts of seared tissue in its retreating wake as a billow of cloth flapped down at the ravenette's back.
"Evenin'."
Velvet's lips twitched into a frown, the tendrils of her swaying blackness behind tracing a noble white: the billowing coat a gradation to the ripped attire of the daemon's own. Back to back did the duo glare down malakhim a many, with this suspicious seething creature opposite to the taunting half-breed.
"As if this night couldn't get any worse..."
With the woman's glowering a joy to the man's ears, the howling blades flipped between his firm clothed grip with the coiling winds between pulled taut; and the hostile bellows of the ferocious foe ahead did nothing to sway the inklings of Sarid's smug smile. But, before anymore words could escape, they were halted with a very convincing elbow straight to the half-malak's spine, and the settled expression zipped sway in a flash of discomfort.
"Shut up and fight."
Velvet's final words were backed by a fierce shout, as the unyielding cyclone of her formidable kicks swatted away a barrelling lesser malak in a hail of spit and crimson.
As the groaning Hunter stretched his bruised back with grumbling curses, the impatient beast ahead huffed a cloud of fed-up steam; and the bulging figure of maroon raised one great claw of six, and crashing down did it come. This singing limb raked through the barring air, and a glint came upon Sarid's eye of violet.
Crash!
Uprooted earth of mountainous rock and dirt erupted in plumes, casting a pebbled shower over the battered courtyard of chaos. However, a cry of steel stung the hazel clouds and ground-piercing limb, with sharp hacks of its flesh ringing out in sound and feel: the now windless figure within springing out to fling the kunai into the beast, a sharp inhale as another appendage grasped the dreadful wake. A geyser of dirt fell to blanket cobble, and from behind its uncleanly veil stood a figure cloaked in shadow yet bathed in white.
Sarid's features were hard and sharp, lavender roving across the shifting body of malformed flesh, as if the beast were struggling to hold an urge within. With its huffing maw rising to glare down the still man, the wound of scorched flesh burst at its temple suddenly bubbled; vile squelches pumping out as its reddened tissue abruptly stretched to cover the injury. The abnormal malakhim creature shuffled and snarled, its long and jagged fangs shining in the cursed moonlight, as the once severe chunk of charred muscle disappeared; as if restored completely.
"Something isn't right with you... ugly mutt."
It's similarly healed limbs abbraised ground in wrathful pounds, carving earthly flesh while huffs of agitation pumped out through a heaving chest of twisted and strangely stressed veins. That was all he needed to figure it out.
"...Argus. The Visitor."
The 'malakhim' stilled, its jittering cosmic irises coming to a sudden, disgusting freeze.
"A daemon that disguises itself as a greater malakhim. Code red... yeah, I recognise you."
Even as the steadily quieting roars of feral war behind raged, the air seemed silent and tense. Heavy. The half-malak's silvery tufts whipped in the gales of midnight winds, flowing like an ocean current.
The beast still ceased to move. It's many vile pupils of sparkling depth were trained, unmoving. Waiting, analysing the thing that stood before it. Hunter, or hunted.
Sarid's lips drew a thin line, tense, his jaw similarly wound to a strong brace. Slowly, his fingers traced to the belted line about his waist, the great creature looking on in baited breath that flickered with ember. Grip tightened around the hilt at his right, sword splayed to the side, while his left fingers crackled with gilded volts and soon entwined the summoned kunai that suddenly appeared. Broadsword in right, kunai in left; the entrancing inked breeze of green came to the half-breed's call and encompassed the twin blades. With gritted teeth, Sarid raised the pair above his head, dual steel bolstered by sheering winds, before slashing the two at either side as the lashing windblades whipped earth.
Gales exploded around the lone man, ruffling the nature that remained in its final burst. And, with the resilient flapping of his coat tail, came the shimmering reveal of the crest at Sarid's chest.
The celestial body above watched in intrigue, its facade of innocent chrome glancing off steel, and the moonlight surrounded the resolute monster-slayer.
His expression shifted with a crude twitch of his lips, drawing a prideful smirk in his goading eyes.
"Go on. Give me a reason to do my job..."
The many eyes of Argus shrunk to stressed dots, webbed veins as crooked fingers to its voided sclera. They shot to the gilded emblem, shimmering on his chest.
It's volatile jaw creaked open, the vile trickles of liquid salivating at its jagged teeth.
"BARLOC!"
It's creaking figure splintered like that of a groaning husk, claws digging deep into hilled dirt below as it trembled with guttural growls. The once stark maroon skin devolved as it split, flayed tissue flaked and shedding to reveal the deteriorated flesh of deformed scarlet beneath. Its muscles spasmed, thinning skin pulled onto the vile meat as its once strong and formidable limbs cracked and twisted: the claws within extending in drips of dank and dark blood to further reach. The flesh of its bolstering appendages thinned once more. Abnormal tendrils sprouted with its withering shriek, jutting forth from its twitching skull and tearing out from its behind; just between the final row of its six legs.
Lastly, did the cranium of the disfigured night creature melt and mold. The firm foundations of its dignified skeletal structure bent under the release of its power, the once beautiful shining gemstone eyes - seeming to hold galaxies - sunk to meld with this aberration. Like a sludgy skull dotted with vile pebbles. In one final shriek of visceral deformity, the many pupils locked back onto the undeterred Hunter opposing. And, in a wave of animosity, did a crimson sheen be cast over the empty eyes: curtain unveiled from this dire monster.
"There you are, you disgusting bastard. I'd say that your head would look nice on my wall, but who am I kidding? You wouldn't look nice anywhere..."
Crack, crack!
Desperate bellows of the beast echoed out, while the confident daemon-hunter whipped his weapons together, the winding gales wailing along and lacerating the stunned creature as he stood his ground. Sarid twisted his body, spinning on heel as the summoned windblades whirled around him like a hurricane: whacking great gusts of hammering air to marr the shrieking monster. Its regeneration stumbled and faltered under this scarring storm, countless carving whips and stinging burns ripping out chunks of its hellish flesh.
Smoldering chains to enrapture, and hacking whips to punish: the wind that raced from the half-breed's call rendered this formidable foe into a bloodied punching bag.
Neverthless, as a particular blow that tore out a pulpisating slab of its many eyes sung free, it garnered a frustrated seethe to echo from the beast's wounded maw, and crackling fire of its own flickered at the edge of its clouded breath. And this, was no simple burn.
Whoooooosh!
A firestorm. Clambering like a savage hound, did the cloud of enshrouding flame sprout from its widened mouth.
Even still, Sarid grit his teeth, and did not yield ground.
Letting out a visceral heave of exertion, the half-breed swiped his blades to a cross, pulling the slicing winds into verdant crescents that parted this ocean of fire with a rumble of air.
This flung assault whipped Argus' maw with a stunning bwoom! A wave of dispersing force cracking the battlefield as it roared in stunning pain, blown back onto its hind legs.
Even still, the compressed element that intruded upon this blaze served only to feed, and the wave once split: rushed back with a spitting well of force, the sizzling cloud blowing back the half-malak to barrel roughly over soil. His cry rang out, and yet - even as his head fogged with the impact and the singe of now unbound hands came - a sudden grasp ground his flung figure to a halt. The rushing impact Sarid had been turned into settled against a braced chest, and his aching form turned to see the grin of Rokurou; boot lashed to earth in an effort of catching the harsh knockback.
"Got your back!"
At the Samurai's prideful smile, marred as it was, the injured half-breed twisted his sight to cast over the worn courtyard. No foe was left in sight. Nothing remained, all defeated, except for the gratuitous beast several feet ahead. And still, it's vision was not trained on the stunned duo.
"Devour!"
That single word, the first time it had been used in defense of his life.
Her eyes snapped across the battlefield, auric burning as she somersaulted above the reigning blow wrought by the desperate beast, and the pulsing vermillion claw savagely dug into its vile flesh. The limb's passing gouge rendered a mound of muscle from its back, and the roaring Argus failed to catch wind of the spiralling darkness that sliced past. Velvet's claw swung wild, shredding the tendons as the beast faltered, and a kick smashed into its jaw.
As she feasted on its vulnerabilities, in came the rocketing Reaper, winding fierce knuckles to shatter bone from each of its standing appendages, leaping just over a swiping attack. Yet, even as black flames shrouded Eizen's form and heat focused at his palms, a sudden assault from another unattended arm whacked the Pirate earthward. Argus seethed with steam, but the devastating fangs that lunged at the downed Eizen found a mouthful of erupting water instead; and the vibrant chants of a gleeful Witch.
"Look, a shooting star!"
This casting arte detonated within its grisly jaw, shattering many teeth as it sprung back with violent tremors wracking it's whole body. Now was the time, its regeneration couldn't stop them.
"Sarid! Kill it."
The voice burdened yet empowered with anguish sounded out among the madness, and the half-malak could not refuse the final chance for payback. His muscles screamed and burned, shouting to yield, and even as scarlet pooled from lip corners and slid down his temple; Sarid grit his teeth once more, and pushed.
Out from the Samurai's reinforcing hold, and the weapons weighed heavy, but nevertheless the breeze became entranced by the Hunter's mettle again. The windblades whipped the ruinous court, clacking out among the shrill sky of blackness. With this snap of attention, the wall of crimson pearls zeroed in on the rivalling man, and its vile limbs clicked with its gurgles of exertion: opposing its inevitable defeat.
Sarid's eyes steeled with his visceral heaves for oxygen, and the wind reached out to lock the blades once more.
"My turn...!"
Whoosh!
Tearing his weaponry to fling above and veil in the twinkling twilight, his war-cry echoed gritted and vicious as runes aglow with sparking scarlet surrounded the steel duet. Crackling sputters rang the blades, before both became cloaked in raging flame: as did the connecting current. Above did the kunai hang, a singular great whirlwind of fire surrounding the raised metal; ready to fall upon this grand foe like a blazing cascade. "One more step... and I will send you right back to hell!" Sarid's roar came with the felling of this sprouted inferno, its cinder glow cast over a face of hatred and lightened scars. His hair billowed in the scorching storm, as the combined force came down: the rushing fire shooting up into one compressed blade of insurmountable power. Argus shrieked in defiance, as the blinding kunai ablaze shot inches from its maw on the chains of wind. "Your funeral pyre..."
The battlefield held its breath.
"Gales ALIGHT!"
The furious burst of rippling energy, bright, raw, searing the very oxygen that bubbled in its tearing wake. A conflagration in a fiery waltz, shredding blighted tissue to the blackened bone within its blood-curdling screech. The silent and cursed night boomed into one of blinding day for just a single moment.
BOOM!
The dust, the debris, the metal, the crimson, and the charred flesh gathered upon the steps of the Empyrean's Throne in a smoking stench.
Calamity has come knocking.