Chapter Four Hundred And Twelve - 412
The Paladins came through the city like a red scourge, and nowhere was their brutal fury more concentrated than the inner sanctum of the Highest Flame. Evie dodged a glimmering bolt of light even as she came face to face with the fiery swords of the Temple Knights. She parried a blade, deftly engaging her Born Trait.
"Ah!" the Temple Knight cried out, the tip of his sword falling to the tiled floors.
Evie stabbed outward with a spike of ice, punching through the Knight's throat. "Too heavy for ya?" she asked as he gurgled out his final breaths.
You Have Killed A Temple Knight Of The Elemental Fire!
XP Earned!
"Bastards." Evie shook her hand, dislodging chunks of ice and taking in the chaotic battlefield of the inner sanctum. She had found a strange, calm bubble in the sea of death that surrounded her...though made was a better verb. She'd killed two dozen Knights in the last quarter glass, carving this slice of quiet out by the glinting length of her chain. Bodies filled the ground, so many, but there were always more.
Not to mention all these bulky red asses,she thought. The Paladins had dominated the southernmost portion of the sanctum, nearest the Altar, and now they spread outward like a shining, golden plague. And are they glowing?
Three silver blurs whipped past Evie's position, landing just beyond the press of Claw and Knights before bursting into a trio of razor-sharp cyclones. Vess followed swiftly after, moving so effortlessly across the battlefield that it looked like she was dancing. The blue and white spear in her hands thrust and spun, deflecting light bolts and burning swords with equal ease, while four more silver Spears rotated around her Body. Each one was another fighter, almost as good with the spear as Vess herself. She left behind her a bleeding swath of Temple Knights and, Evie noticed with a scowl, a Matron.
Show off.
Her eye's scanned the crowd. The noise of discharging spells and flaring Skills was deafening, not to mention the roar and bellow of warriors fighting and dying. The Legion were doing well, far as she could see; Harn and Darius had that in hand. Zara was doing her big impressive magic thing in mid-air. Evie wasn't sure where to go, or how she could help the battle resolve. Atar was near the Altar, but she'd have to wade through hundreds to get to him, and even then she'd be stuck between those hundred Knights and an equal amount of Paladins.
"Tua ratha!" a voice bellowed from only a hundred feet away. "Tua fa ralla leskos!"
Evie's eyes caught on Ari, the Battlelord of the Frost Giants, backed by his people and facing off against two Matrons and a clutch of Knights. Flames bathed the Battlelord, his blue skin occluded by blazing sheets of fire that poured off of the two Matrons. His warriors were no better, facing the burning weapons of the Knights with their own frozen armaments. As she watched, Ari was knocked to his knees by the combined force of the Matrons' power. His huge, icy greataxe was all that shielded him from turning to charcoal.
An unwilling sympathy welled up in Evie's heart, one that she crushed with ruthless speed...and which continued to sprout, weed-like. She hated the Risi for what they did. But they saved you, dummy. Can't let that stand, right?
Evie pulled up her chain, looping it around her chest and shoulder in an easy, well-practiced motion. A Knight ran at her from the edges of the conflict, maybe because her weapon was put up, maybe because she weighed half of everyone else. Didn't matter. A throwing dagger to his eye, and a Ice Spike to his groin ended that charge up real quick.
Just beyond the churn of battle, the Frost Giants raged, and the Temple Knights shouted in triumph.
Yeah. That's enough of that. She gathered herself, and leaped into the fray.
Zara wove her Chant carefully, threading her Intent and Affinity through the lens of her Willpower and the Grand Harmony. It was powerful, some of the Chanter's greatest workings to date, yet they only held because the Grandmaster's attention was split between her and the Captain of the Paladins. Even now, as the Captain glowed brighter and brighter with a strange, sourceless spell, the Grandmaster of the Desert's Fire proved himself worthy of his title.
Walls of aquamarine power manifested, Mana supercharged by the vibrations of Creation itself, and were summarily torn asunder by the sheer weight behind each of the Grandmaster's blows.
"He's quite a bit more advanced than the Marl King," Isla hissed at her, before gesturing sharply. A series of barely audible notes cascaded from the air around her, and Zara's latest projection of force expanded and thickened. "What was his name? Lrv'a the Six-Toed?"
Zara grinned as the impetus of Kel'lyv's attacks were momentarily blunted by Isla's powerful augmentation. "Lrv'a Six-Toes, King of the Marl and Defier of Destiny."
"That's the one."
The pews they stood upon suddenly blazed, an inferno of swirling flame and choking smoke. Isla stumbled, her balance lost, but Zara snagged her thin arm. "Do not take Kel'lyv lightly."
"I'll try my best," Isla said, voice tinged with frustration and fear. "He does a good job of reminding us."
Zara wicked sweat from her forehead, and the two of them shifted positions while Isla healed both of their burns. "The Paladins are keeping him occupied, but it will not last long. That barrier of theirs is vexing even him."
Whats taking that blonde mage so long? Isla snarled. I even went in and healed them all!
"Clearly the job was not completed," Zara said, thickening the barriers around them and those of her allies nearby. "We must give Atar more time."
"Vultures! All of you followers of the sniveling Pathless!" Kel'lyv raged. Cords of dense, white-hot flames wove above him in a spellform that Zara couldn't follow. The inferno swelled, until Zara's barriers hissed before its heat. "To come here so brazenly, to put your filthy hands upon the foundations of my city...you will pay dearly."
Harsh, braying laughter tore from the large, crimson-clad Captain. Fire swirled around him and four other Paladins, but none of the Grandmasters attacks even singed their cloaks. All of it was rebuffed by that golden barrier. "You're pitiful, old, and a heretic. The Hierophant gave us a message for you: fall on your knees, kiss the hem of her regalia, or else die."
That merely made the Grandmaster blaze brighter, summoning a torrent of potency that warped the stone ten feet in all directions. His own people shied away, their robes smoking, before the fire mage blasted forward faster than ever before. Straight for the Paladins.
The Captain smirked, and unsheathed his side sword. They met in a shower of orange and golden sparks as a shockwave of Mana cut through Zara's barriers. Knights and Claw warriors were sent to the ground, some of them burnt to a crisp by light or fire.
"Isla!" Zara shouted. "Heal them!"
"Already moving," her sister said, a tremble in her Spirit. Zara pretended not to notice it at all.
She too was afraid.
Atar tried to dodge the Mana bolts that came his way, but his feet betrayed him. He fell, careful to fall so that the squalling child in his arms was protected, and ended up sprawled over the cooling corpse of a Disciple, fully vulnerable to a barrage of gleaming death. Until a sizzling, yellow Mana cleaver the size of a door slammed into place. The bolts were deflected, at least some. The rest merely shot into the pillar of Urge behind them.
"Invest more in Agility, Atar!" Fiammetta shouted. She screamed, and the cleaver uprooted itself before spinning off toward the Disciples headed their way. It took two fully in the chest, but the other four dispelled it with a controlled burst of their own Skills. "Get up!"
"I am!" he snapped back, rolling slowly to his feet. The child still cried, but it was a softer, more terrified sound. "It'll be okay, little one." Then he hissed in pain, feeling something pull at the base of his calf. A notification blipped across his vision.
Status Condition: Minor Injury (Lower Leg)
Damn it. Atar flipped his curly hair from his eyes. The Disciples are drawing closer and closer...and the Paladins aren't far behind.
The three of them were still perched atop the wide lip of the Altar basin, having divided their time between defending it and trying to rescue the civilians already cast into the Highest Flame. Despite their best efforts, none but the child in his arms had been pulled free; the angle of the basin was too steep. Pulling someone free was a surefire way to fall in themselves.
Fiammetta and Alister sent flashing ripples of their Mana across the sanctum, barely stopping despite their fast-depleting Mana pools. Shields of blue force and yellow heat sprang up and died beneath spears of light and waves of flame, while pillars and weapons forged of the same Mana tried their best to delay them all. Still holding a terrified kid, Atar himself had contributed by flinging his Stars of the Sovereign into the crowd, killing a number of Disciples before they had erected potent fire shields of their own. The shields could be penetrated but combined with their Fire Resistance, any Star that traversed them were robbed of their killing potential. At best, Atar could give them all minor burns.
The Paladins were the worse problem. At first, Atar had been almost glad for their presencethe idiots had set upon the Disciples' rear guard with abandon, slaughtering a great many of them. But that had changed when the Pathless zealots had put their burning blades to the throats of the innocent civilians the Disciples had rounded up. Atar had raged, throwing Stars at the red-clad warriors with all the fury and precision he could muster. Many had died, prisoner and Paladin both, before the zealots were covered in a golden glow. It was as if the sun hovered behind every single one, and it rendered Atar's efforts moot. In fact, the trio had only survived because the Paladins had been called to the increasingly wild battle to the northern side of the sanctum.
Where the Grandmaster fought, fully unleashed.
"He's going to kill us all," Alister panted. The Disciples seemed sure of it at least, as they continued to swarm forward. "And if more people are sacrificed to the Highest Flame, I don't know if even that barrier the Paladins have will protect them."
More prisoners died by the second, and worse: a sizable chunk had been successfully hurled bodily into the Altar basin. Atar could no longer even see the flask containing the Primordial's flesh curse, but seeing how the Urge appeared to be growing in strength by the moment, he figured it was a sure bet it hadn't broken open yet.
I have to do something, he realized. He'd tried to burst the flask with his magic, but the Urge diluted any Skill Atar attempted. Alister and Fiametta tried too, with the same result. That flask might as well be on a moon.
"It's relays!" Alister said, and Atar jolted in surprise.
"What?"
"The glow! They're producing it with relays, look!" Alister pointed up into the sky, through the shattered windows of the inner sanctum, where two huge galleon-class Manaships bobbed in place. "Fins of orichalcum. There and there. All of them inscribed!"
Atar squinted, his Perception just barely enough to pick out the swoop and swirl of sigils on the metal fins attached to the Manaship hulls. "Just like...just like the relay arrays we saw in the Foglands."
"Exactly," Alister gasped, reacting just in time to block another spear of flame. "Now all we have to do is destroy at least one of the Manaships, and their protection would disappear!"
"Sure! Let me get right on that!" Fiammetta grunted, hurling two stride-length heat cleavers at a Disciple's legs. The man hopped over one, but not the other, and fell with an undignified squawk. "We can barely put a dent in this battle, let alone a warded Manaship a hundred strides in the air!"
The battle raged and chaos reigned. The Grandmaster would not be defeated, even if the Paladins were impervious, they couldn't harm him or even wear him down...
But Atar could.
He closed his eyes and took a single, shallow breath. "Take the kid, Alister."
Alister looked at him, brows furrowed, but didn't hesitate. The bundled Human toddler was hard to dislodge, but eventually went to former Haarwatch noble. "What? What are you trying to do? I don't know that your fire spells will much hurt these Disciples"
"Just keep them busy, Alister."
"Atar!" The force mage lunged for Atar an instant after realizing what he was doing, but it was too late. Atar leaped into the Altar basin. "ATAR!"
Alister's voice was drowned out almost immediately by the unmitigated roar of the Urge's flames. Atar fell, sliding along the slicked curve of the metal basin, half blinded by the streaming fire and his own smoking battlerobes. Pain tore at him, total and vast, and it was all Atar could do to stay standing among the others huddled around him.
Keep going! Find the flask!
He forced himself up, leveraging all the Willpower and Fire Resistance he had to push past the pain. The fire was stronger now that a few had died to the Urge, but the outer areas were still weaker than the core. So long as Atar did not step into the Highest Flame's center, he could survive.
He hoped.
Ashes and bones stirred beneath his feet, each of them grey with cherry-red embers burning from within. People writhed among the ashes, most of them less than whole despite Isla's healing. I'm sorry I couldn't get you out. I tried. Blind gods, I tried.
He could only stumble forward, eyes fixed on the ground, hunting for the flask. The haze of heat and thick, opaque flames were a loathsome hindrance. Each second he failed to find the flask was another second his battlerobes charred and baked, the fibers turning to a foul smoke. Atar tripped over a body he hadn't noticed, and his hands were seared when he drove them down into the ash and hot metal...and found a cool, smooth surface.
The flask! Coughing and gasping for air, Atar pulled the strengthened glass bottle, holding it before his face in dull-eyed triumph. Inside, an insidious, muddy corruption writhed. Atar's Mind was swimming, however, barely registering what to do next. Slowly, glacially slowly Atar's dry eyes widened. Before him the wall of intense, white flames at the Urge's center pulsed and expanded. It triggered something in his thoughts, a familiar voice that galvanized his remaining nerve endings into action.
Throw it! he raged at himself. You can't get anyone out, but you can stop this! Throw it!
With rubber bones and muscles barely listening, Atar jerked forward. The flask pitched limply from his grasp and into the Highest Flame's center.
Light shattered.
And an abhorrent, writhing dust annihilated everything.
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