Chapter 405: Releasing The Shadows
Laz saw the attack at Gia and yelled,
"GIA!!!"
But he was too far away. Just as the attack was about to pierce Gia’s head, Joan’s massive arm swung in front of Gia’s head as the razor sharp claws bit into it, stopping it from moving further.
"AAAHHHHH FUCK!" Joan called out, swinging her other massive arm at the shade. While the arm passed harmlessly through it, the shade retreated back, giving Gia time to pull Joan away.
Most of the armored skeletons had been dispatched but the black shades were running rampant, causing bleeding and injuries everywhere.
Laz no longer bothered to charge at the rising god as he was surrounded by several of the fully formed shades. Even with his strong body, the shades claws racked and tore at his skin, causing wounds and lacerations to pile up. If not for the rise in his realm and the corresponding energy and life force it gave him, he would have been dead from blood loss if he wasn’t bisected first.
The black flame covered Laz’s blade as he swung, cutting one of the black creatures in half. Once it’s body hit the ground, the flames continued to burn it until it disappeared in a pile of ash. It seemed strangely weaker for some reason.
"CELES. USE THE FLAME," Laz called out as he swung sever at another one of the creatures. This time, instead of the shades pouncing at him, they fell back and kept a close circle, not letting him reach them, but not letting him get away either.
Celes then used her own flame, coating her hands with it as she broke apart shade after shade before they retreated back and used the same move that Laz’s shades were using to keep her isolated. No matter how much she tried to escape, tried to help others, they kept her locked up so all she could do was hear the sounds of her sisters. Unlike Laz, while the flames could help penetrate their bodies, they didn’t just burn up after they fell.
As Laz stood there, he heard the calls, cries and curses from those around him as they fought these creatures they couldn’t touch. The members of the order, those girls he had trained and abused and pushed, didn’t fall back or run, but kept pushing forward, throwing their bodies in the way of others to protect their comrades.
One girl was on the ground, her head bleeding from being hit hard with another perched on top of her, her spiked covered arms and hands swung outward as she constantly batted away the two shades trying to kill off her friend. While the quill like spikes made the shades go formless, they were also ripping away the spikes in an attempt to get down to the flesh underneath. Just as one of them shoved a massive spike like digit into her arm and pulled her off from her friend, a small flame of green light appeared in front of it’s partner, causing the creature to rear back.
Several more green flames appeared, strangely casting out a blue glow that covered the battle field. This sudden light caused the creatures to recoil and in her anger, Joan lashed out at the nearest one, despite knowing that it would do no good. Surprisingly, her giant, bleeding fist made contact with the creature and it shattered like glass before dissolving into nothingness.
"FUCKING ATTACK YOU BITCHES. SMASH THEIR DICKS IN!" Gia called out, seeing this and struck another one with her paw, breaking it apart in an explosion of fury. Seeing this and hearing Gia’s call, the girls turned from defense to offense, smashing, breaking, and beheading all of the shades they could get their hands on.
Laz, after having taken out the full shades surrounding him, looked around and saw Gretchen and Wilma along with other members of the council, sitting in a circle around a book. They had linked hands with one another while Gretchen read the ancient texts out loud, causing more of the green fires to pop up. Each fire that came into existence though caused the council members to go just a slight bit paler as Laz realized the painful price they were paying to keep all of these fires going across the battle field.
Once again, Laz set his sight on the rising god, Tezcatlipoca and went for him. Almost half of his chest was out of the ground. Luckily, Laz realized that the bulk of his arms were still below ground including his hands. Laz got the impression that things would be so much worse if it’s hands got free as well.
Seeing Laz rush towards him again, Tezcatlipoca smiled and this time, closed both his eyes while muttering something.
Sudden fires popped up over the battle field, their colors a mix of white, purple and green, but not the same green that the witches fire was. Instead of a strong and vibrant green, this green was sickly and pale in color, like a shade of rot and decay on living matter. It surrounded most of the green flames, cutting off their protective blue light. Then, more shades appeared, these ones were all three dimensional and what little blue light was left seemed to not bother them.
The shades then charged at the girls while a number of them went towards the circle of the council.
"PROTECT THE ELDERS. GET NEAR AN OPEN BLUE FLAME AND CONTINUE YOUR DEFENSE!" Celes called out and the order followed, dragging their incapacitated comrades with them.
Just when the shades came in close and the light hit them, the women understood Celes’ order. While they weren’t afraid of the light, it did still make them vulnerable to their attacks. While they no longer held the upper hand on the battle field, the shades couldn’t breach their circles either. In the center of the circles they formed, they piled their sister’s bodies together, whether they were moving or unmoving to keep them safe. As for the council, they had made a green flame appear above the tomb they were reading from so the girls that ended up surrounding them were even safer.
Despite this, no more green flames appeared and one could see the council still fully focused on keeping the ones they had going, lit. The fear was if they lost any of the ones they were maintaining, then the fires from Tezcatlipoca would move on to consume the ones that were acting as protection for the teams and expose them to danger.
Right now, everyone was in a stalemate as Laz advanced on Tezcatlipoca in an attempt to end things.
"YOU STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND MORTAL," Tezcatlipoca called out, whispering another string of weird words that had no meaning to Laz.
Suddenly, there were rivulets and specks of blackness moving across the open field and converging on Tezcatlipoca. Before Laz could reach him, they ended up piling together as a massive mound was formed. From that, a creature of hell burst forth, it’s body a huge jumble of limbs and parts just thrown together without a care in the world. It couldn’t move quickly since the legs on it were just like arms, hanging out from all angles, but it was able to slide along the ground somehow, stopping Laz’s advance. Additionally, while a good number of the limbs were black like the shades, several of them were flesh colored and still bleeding. It wasn’t until Laz saw a head sticking out of an arm that he understood.
Tezcatlipoca had drawn in all of the fallen witches that couldn’t be retrieve and mashed them together with shades to form this blob of flesh and dark magic. Just as Laz was about to destroy the poor girls head with Sever, it screamed in a very human way.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" It yelled, the force of it’s voice hitting Laz and sending him flying back just from the boom of the noise.
Laz’s head was spinning but he quickly regained his feet with the help of Celes on his left and Nora on his right. In Nora’s hand was a vile of Laz’s blood, clearly marked on the side that she drank as she held him up. Laz could tell from the empties in a pouch on her waist that this wasn’t the first one she had drank.
With a wave of her free hand, Laz felt a blast of air behind him as Nora spit, the blood flying through the air to cover the monstrosity.
"Nora?"
"It’s your blood. It’s life force is too strong and it’s weaking them. It will corrode it like acid and break apart the magic keeping it together, just like the shades earlier. But that won’t be as quick since this thing is also made up of people," Nora explained quickly, looking like she was at a loss. Laz finally understood why the shades attacking him earlier had fallen apart so easily after a while. The blood on their bodies from attack him had done most of the work for him. Nora had realized this and was using his blood as a weapon to help around on the battle field. That must have been why he lost track of her.
Tezcatlipoca recognized this too and in an attempt to stop this from happened, called over half the shades from the battle field to surround Laz, Celes and Nora. While this meant an easier time for the order, it also meant that they were trapped.
"YOU WILL DIE. NOW JUST WAIT A BIT MORE SO I CAN SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!" Tezcatlipoca called out while trying to lift his arm free from the ground.
"You two make a break for it while I charge forward. The shades and this mound of flesh will focus on me and you two can go save the others. It’s the only way," Laz said, understanding that only by using his life would he be able to save these two.
"So you can die? Ha. I didn’t give you permission. No. Since he brought his friends to the party, it’s time I brought mine," Celes said with a weird grin on her face. Before Laz could ask what she meant, several shadows detached themselves from her back and ran at the surrounding shades, engaging them.
As Laz and Nora looked on, dozens and then hundreds of these things detached themselves from Nora’s body and charged forth like a wave, surrounding the shades before engulfing them.
The shadows from Nora were devouring the shades.
"MMMmmm... Soooo tasty..." A shadow broke away from the rest and stood in front of Celes before smiling at Laz.
It was the female shadow from before.
"It’s you..." Laz said, noticing this was the one that had tried to capture him before.
"Yes. And this meal... this black magic... it’s like it was made for us. Sorry it took so long. Most of the others had been asleep for a long time and it took a while to rouse them, even if it was for some food. But now... this thing.... hmm? Oh... its like a meal mixed with a sweet smelling sauce..." The female shadow looked at the massive blob of bodies that stood before them and smiled, or at least, it looked like a smile.
"Have at it. But I want their parts back when you’re done, untouched," Celes ordered and the female shadow smile again.
"Of course, my queen. We are here to serve!"
