Chapter Three Hundred And Ninety Six – 396
"Sacrifice?" Felix grunted.
"Mhm, oh you're all still conscious. Curious." Grandmaster Kel'lyv leaned over the edge of his bench, peering down at them upon the smooth stone flooring. "I see. Llathyn, your truth array has fallen apart."
"What? That's impossible!" The ruddy-faced Master leaned over his own bench, but the moment his eyes caught sight of Felix and the others his eyes rounded and his mouth gaped like a fish. "That sigaldry has lasted for a century!"
"And was maintained last decade," said the red-haired Master. "Pathetic, Llathyn. Forget about conscious, look at him! He is still on his knees!"
The power of the array was intense. Whatever complexities powered it, the sigaldry was clearly leveraging itself against all of his Aspects at once. Felix could feel his friends beside him, aware but flat on their faces and unable to move.
"Supsuppresion array," Vess gasped.
It dug needles into Felix's Body, but it was his Mind and Spirit that it gouged. An immense weight and heat had settled on both, like he had been buried under a burning building. Pit screamed, the illusory flames singeing his tail and feathers with unremitting pain. Felix shook, his Body barely able to cope despite his Song of Absolution. It was as if the Skill didn't even exist. In fact, it was as if none of his Skills existed for all the good they did him.
Chthonic Tribute!
The Skill hummed before shuddering to a sudden stop.
"Yes. An array we have found quite useful in recent days," said the Paladin. It was the man identified as High Justiciar Haim, and his bright yellow eyes creased in clear pleasure as he watched Felix struggle. "The greater one's Aspects, the better it suppresses, though that is hardly needed on the pitiful ragamuffins we removed from the city's lower layers."
"Trash," Llathyn sneered. "Hardly worth the expense such an array cost to construct. That takes nearly forty pounds of Mana crystal dust you know!"
"The cost is irrelevant," the Grandmaster said. His eyes never left Felix's own, and for a moment the Autarch thought he saw a flicker of disappointment in his expression. "No cost is too great to keep our patron from Her demise."
Gears turned in Felix's Mind, far slower than normal thanks to the array. "You...you're sacrificing...your own people too? These...idiots...want you...all dead..." He tried jabbing a finger at the Paladins, but his arms wouldn't work right.
"Tch," the Grandmaster shook his head, as if disappointed. "Whatever your personal power, it is clear you are new to politicking. This alliance is one of mutual benefit. We provide our peerless crafts and Mana crystals for their new war efforts, and they aid us in return. Truly, if you had wished to strike a better deal, then you should work on the one thing effective statesmen have honed: timing." The Grandmaster stepped down off his throne of crystal, followed closely by the other Masters, and descended to join the Matrons and Paladins at the base of the array. "The High Justiciar arrived here days prior. They even warned of your coming, Veil. Of the insidious influence you walk under, one whose true nature was proven when your people assaulted and killed the Paladins left at the Caleph Pass. What sort of man would order such bloodshed?"
The Grandmaster fell silent, but the red-haired Master picked up the thread of his speech without faltering. "Where does your allegiance truly lie, Representative Veil, Seer of Nagast? Your Autarch is said to pay deference to the Endless Raven, Lost Gods, and worse. A hideous abomination in the false shape of a man, who has countless dead at his claws...You think we will trade pleasantries with such as you? Who travel in the company of Henaari and Giants?"
Pain! Fight! His Spirit surged despite the suppression, and Pit tried to claw his way free. Felix winced, falling to his hands and knees. Fight!
Hold on, Pit! Stop! Felix sent, but it wasn't his words that stopped the tenku. The suppression array flared higher than ever, drawing wheezing groans from his friends and sending Pit rebound off the edge of Felix's Spirit.
"Hah, look at him, still struggling," one of the Masters said. Felix couldn't tell who through the haze of agony. "Remarkable specimen, indeed."
"Hmph. If he were worth my time this array wouldn't hold him at all." The Grandmaster's dismissive tones were easy to identify, however. "But he will serve regardless. Paladin. You said you had a gift for us."
"Indeed I do, Grandmaster Kel'lyv," said the High Justiciar. "But first I would ask to speak of our boon"
"Paladin, the undead run rampant and are getting worse. Soon they will expand even beyond these lands. Only the power of holy fire can keep them at bay, and only the Highest Flame can provide what is needed. If you cannot provide the burnt offerings required to meet our needs, then our alliance is at an end." The Grandmaster's voice was hard as granite and deathly quiet. Despite the horrifying pain, Felix could hear the fearful swallows of every single Paladin.
The High Justiciar's brow furrowed, but the smile remained on his face. "We have provided for you at least ten thousand bodies. The last of which are being marched from the lowest layers now. Surely that is enough to"
"The Yttin can be replaced. While the labor they represent hangs heavy in this world, dimpling the Corporeal with its importance to our lives and safety, they are but hands. Even with this supposed Seer and his small army, the scale is not balanced. We need true significance to strengthen the Flame, Paladin."
"You're not...touching my people," Felix tried to growl, but it came out more as a whisper.
"Oh? Your people are already mine. The Temple Knights are down there gathering them up as we speak." Kel'lyv didn't even bother to turn and face Felix as he said that, instead maintaining eye contact with the grizzled leader of the Paladins. "You. Give us what was promised."
Haim hesitated for only a moment, before smiling wider than before. "Of course. You are right, as always Grandmaster." He snapped his fingers, and there was a rustling among the Paladins behind him. Quickly, an ornate case made from transparent crystal was handed to the High Justiciar. He regarded it silently. "This is it. Handed down in our order through the Ages, a piece of our history soaked in the blood of a thousand heretics and a million innocents lost to the Broken Path. A scrap of tabard from the Regalia of the Pathless Himself."
The moment Haim opened the ornate case, Felix felt everything lurch. Mana from everywhere surged toward the open container, condensing around it in a storm of power. The sheer weight of it was like a magnet, yanking Mana and eyes alike to its innocuous shape: a simple, fraying piece of cloth, once white and touched by the tiniest drop of bright red.
Blood, he thought. He knew what it was instantly, and the Divine Tree within his core trembled as if in a storm breeze. That's the blood of a god.
"This," hissed the Grandmaster. "This is worth it after all. Yes." He took the case in hand and marveled at its contents. To Felix, the tiny scrap of cloth pulsed with so much significance that he was surprised it didn't fall out of the gray-man's hands and bore its way to the center of the planet. "With this to burn, the Flame will be the most powerful Urge on the Continent."
"As it should be," the High Justiciar remarked.
The two kept talking, marveling at the Regalia scrap, and Felix felt panic start to set in. His friends at least were mostly Journeyman Tier, so the suppression array held them but weren't crushing them to pieces. The exception was Evie, who's Body was shaking with constant tremors. He could feel her wheeze and choke, struggling to breathe. He had to get free. To get them out of this. He trembled, his legs barely able to move, but he heaved against the array with everything he could muster.
Very faintly, the ground trembled.
Only the rotund Master looked at him sharply, but scoffed and ignored him when Felix could barely breathe afterward. The Paladins weren't so quick to dismiss him, however.
"Hey! Enough strugglin'!" A Captain, his cloak adorned with the same pattern as that guy from the Caleph Pass. He jabbed at Felix with his halberd, catching him in the ribs and making him fall under the increased strain. Some sort of enchantment on the blade sparked at it hit him, burning with a mote of radiant light. "Stay down, heretic!"
Shaking, Felix pushed back up again. The Captain didn't hesitate and struck again. This time Felix stayed up, but for his trouble got a bloody gashed opened in his side. Blood dribbled onto the polished floor, but Felix gave the man a desperate grin.
"You sorcerous piece of shit," the man hissed. He jabbed and sliced, cutting into Felix's arms and back and shoulders, each time drawing blood. More and more of it pooled beneath Felix. "On your face, heretic! Or I'll gut you here and now."
Felix looked up, his head quivering at the strain, and met the Paladin's eyes. He spat in his face.
"You!" The Captain hefted his polearm again, and Felix could feel him marshaling some sort of Skill. "I said, stay!"
The Paladin tensed his muscles and brought the weapon down with enough force to cut a keening note out of the air itself.
"Down!"
But Felix wasn't there. Instead, the weapon struck into the floor...and the tiny array of sigils Felix had inscribed in his own blood. The man's face paled, but it was too late. A mote of light Mana surged from his weapon's enchantment, catalyzing the tiny, almost worthless array. Worthless except that it had been connected to the flaring lines of the suppression...and that it had a single purpose.
Devour, Felix thought.
The floor exploded.
Screams echoed all around the room, each of the Masters calling on their impressive powers to protect themselves, but none of them expected to see two bloody halves of a Paladin Captain thrown at their feet.
"He stands!" one of the Masters cried out.
Chthonic Tribute! With a powerful inhalation, the remainder of the array and every other piece of inscribed magic within the room was torn into Felix's channels. He grinned a bloody grin, his body scaled and teeth sharp as knives.
"Oh, I'm gonna do a whole lot more than that."
A wave of lightning and force hit the Paladins and Masters alike, hurling many from their feet. Llathyn, powerful Master of Stone and Shaper of Glories, remained standing.
This bastard thinks to contend with us?!He lifted his arms. "Reach of the Pinnacle!"
Two sets of massive, muscular arms made entirely of dark stone manifested upon Llathyn's girth. He slammed two of them down into the polished floor behind him, further weathering the strange force arrayed against them. The other pair he shot ahead, outward, their huge hands spread to grip and crush. Death came for him, but the idiot childclad in monstrous scales for some reasonmerely lowered his stance.
"Die, then!"
His arms struck, and the polished expanse of flooring erupted into a cloud of stone chips and dust. A concussive wave of air and force whipped all around where the brat and his friends stood, enough that the stone beneath their feet cratered slightly.
"HAH!" Llathyn crowed. He would have to pay to repair the council chambers, but the cost meant little to him. "Pathetic little Journeyman. Youeh?"
Somehowimpossibly!the boy still stood. And not only stood.
Hehe caught my arms...?
His stone arms were wrenched aside by sheer Strength, a feat that Llathyn's Mind boggled to see. Before he could pull them back, a searing pain shot across the Master's middle, and he doubled up in sudden pain. Llathyn blinked, too slow, and felt the blood flee his face as he beheld the too-close snarl of the beast that he had mistaken for a boy. A boy that held a hooked blade that dripped with Llathyn's own blood and guts.
"Hhow?" he asked, falling. Skills in his core space mustered, his passives attempting to boost his healing while others dragged at the earth Mana swirling within him. But he found his Mana seized as soon as it escaped his Gates, grabbed so viciously and turned to manacles and bars and slammed into him. Over and over again.
Darkness surged, and Llathyn still wasn't sure what had happened.
Where is he?The boy. Wherewhere did he?
There was fire and searing light, and then there was nothing at all.
Felix leaped from the dying corpse of the earth-attuned Master. It had been alarmingly easy to turn the man's Mana against him with Chthonic Tribute and Stone Shaping, draining him onto the edge of his Inheritor's Will. Lances of light, the Paladin's long range weapon of choice, flew at him but they were simple to dodge. The Paladins weren't a concern, and he even noticed the High Justiciar had fled the room. It was the Masters he had to worry about.
"You think you'll survive against all of us, Veil?" the red-haired Master snarled at him. "You will burn! Here or at the feet of our patron, it does not matter!"
Flame and more flame came at him, filling the air with an inferno that seared Felix's skin. Pieces of it were redirected, turn back against the Paladins and three remaining Masters, while silver spears chased after their light-formed counterparts. His friends were up and fighting, but their movements were slow. They were all injured.
"Go! Get out of here!" Vess shouted at him.
"That's my line," Felix screamed back, dodging another torrent of fire. "I can hold them for a time, but you three need to run!"
"You idiot!" Evie said. She had coated herself in a thick layer of frost, but it was melting rapidly. "You think we'll make it? You think we'll live to see the street?"
Felix almost stumbled as her words hit him, and he glanced back at his friends. All of them were heaving and sweating, giving everything against the forces arrayed against them. But Evie was right.
They weren't getting out.
No. No I refuse.I'm not going anywhere!
"Run you muscle-bound fool!" Atar shouted, while Alister barely blocked heaving wood and stone from shredding them to pieces. "Run! Spiritual Immolation!"
Atar's body ignited, fire manifesting above his skin and clothes and hair. It raged, a bloody orange stark against the yellow-orange of the Masters' attacks. He drew a deep, breath and screamed.
"Strength Ignition!"
The fires descending on them diverted, turning instead to funnel into Atar's Body. The flames of his own making vanished, but were soon replaced by a deluge of fire. He took it all.
"Atar! You dare use my own technique against us?"
The Grandmaster's voice shook the chamber. Literally shook it. Evie, Vess, and Alister all flinched from the noise, blood running from their ears. The man walked out of the blaze of light and flames and approached them. His Spirit raged, so strong it congealed in a physical presence of pure orange flames licking across his limbs. Without a single word, the fire Mana in the air reversed direction, pulled from Atar and into the Grandmaster. All at once, the flames from all over were extinguished utterly.
The Grandmaster stood alone, between Felix's friends and the Masters and Paladins. Atar groaned and collapsed, his Body and Spirit spent. Kel'lyv curled his lip in disgust.
"Pathetic now as you were before. Chasing after sigaldry instead of the purity that is fire magic. Power," he said, hand raised and igniting with a white-hot ball of flame. A miniature sun the size of a baseball, pointed at Atar's heaving chest. "Power is all that you need, boy."
"No!"
Relentless Resolution!
Adamant Discord!
Chthonic Tribute!
Felix blurred forward, faster than he'd moved in his life, but the Grandmaster turned. He fired his shot directly at Felix.
It hit him like a cannon ball. Unimaginable pain lanced across his chest as the flames burrowed through scales and skin and muscle and bone, turning his flesh to ash. The force of it sent him tearing through benches and stone, is Body forced through the foundations of the rotunda until suddenly he was tumbling free across a sandy lawn.
Felix gasped, overcome. His Health had dropped fully half with that one attack. His chest pumped a river of blood from him, soaking the soil before his Sovereign of Flesh stopped the bleeding. Felix looked up and saw the hole his Body had bored through the Council Rotunda. He could almost see his friends...stretched out on the ground...
Fuck. He stood. Gotta get them out.
He couldn't even react when a burning comet sped out of that hole, hurling the both of them up and into the darkened sky.
Cloudstep!
Felix kicked off a panel of Mana, redirecting himself as the comet released him, and flared his greatest power.
Adamant Discord.
Lightning crackled off his frame as he hung in the air, face to face with Grandmaster Kel'lyv. A man who was glowing like the goddamn sun.
"You intrigue me, Veil. You are far stronger than you appear, but your Temper leaves something to be desired." He chuckled. "It is a pity I cannot spend time to toy with youI would truly love to pull you apart and see just what makes you tick. But I haven't the time. The ritual of the sacrifice must be observed in two days. So you must either join them now...or die."
"I don't die so easily," Felix said through his burnt throat and bleeding chest.
The Grandmaster merely smiled, and it was one of the scariest smiles Felix had ever seen.
"Good."
All Felix perceived was a sudden blaze of orange-white light, and he was falling. His leg! He couldn't even scream, because the Grandmaster hit him again, and again, pieces of Felix flying in all directions. His scales offered him no protection, and only the prodigious Health regeneration of his Sovereign of Flesh kept him breathing.
Felix flared his Adamant Discord, if only to hurl him away. To run. He dropped down, arcing over the strange buildings of Ahkestria and out into the open air, off the side of the immense mesa. There, the storm surged yards away, but the Grandmaster caught him easily. The man laughed.
"The stormwall would kill you, Veil," he hissed, a shudder of pleasure in his voice. "And you promised me to make this last."
A sharp knee smashed his pelvis, followed by a cataclysmic elbow that sent Felix crashing into the outskirts of the Risen Ward. He healed, just enough to stand and fumble away, but the bastard found him again and again. He pummeled him, hit after savage hit. Strikes fueled by fire and powerful, impossible Strength. Far greater than Felix's own. His bones snapped, muscles tore and were severed. His blood painted the edge of the mesa, and as he collapsed, it was only inches from the swirling, lightning filled stormwall.
Kel'lyv crouched beside him and grinned. He still shone, bright as any lightning bolt above them, but it had faded just a bit.
"I'll...kill you," Felix said. Kel'lyv only shook his head.
"You are still ignorant. Before you die, you shall know the glory and the might of those the Highest Flame anoints Her Chosen," the Grandmaster whispered into his bloodied ear. "I shall burn it into your Body, so that your Spirit and Mind will never forget it."
A-adamant Discord!
With every ounce of his Willpower and Intent he could still muster, Felix flared his Skill. Not to attack, or to defend.
To run.
In a flash of light, Felix hurled himself off the edge of the mesa and into the stormwall.
Before the wild winds claimed him, Felix heard the bastard scoff.
"Too easy."
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