Chương 301: BECMI Chapter 300 – What Guards a Titan?

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I'm up around Chapter 400 as I post this, so there's still a lot of story to go!... ================== Emerald light flared, then leapt out from my fingers to play over the wall in front of me in a thin laser-like beam. Atomic bonds went away, mass and energy were vented somewhere they wouldn't harm us, and the hardened stone of the wall in front of me fell away into dust, instantly letting in the light from outside.

And the heat, and the sound, but the latter ran instantly into the Sound Bubble and was nulled, while the heat radiated, but didn't flow in, the hot air moving up and away in the furnace out there, which was hotter than the oven we were standing in. Sama was in motion instantly, flowing up to the new exit, then out and up onto the floor beyond.

"We need an Illusionary Wall!" she hissed back to me inside the Bubble. I was already drifting forward, Sama reached back to grab Dread and promptly hauled me up to the lip so I could get a good view of the area. The primary entrance was about fifty yards to our right, currently standing wide open. The whole area was open and free of obstructions and very bright, because the white-hot core of the Arch of Fire was rising from above the equally white-hot lake of lava there.

At the center of it all rose a proud giant throne, the rock as invulnerable and black as eternal night in the middle of the superheated stone. Upon that throne stood a giant figure which would definitely hit sixty feet if he stood upright. He was, however, instead in a meditative pose, a great Crown about his brow winking with black diamonds whose facets dribbled shards of ebon light and lit his head up with shadowy flames.

I put up a very large Illusionary Wall in all directions around us, leaving enough room for a hundred men to exit here and prepare themselves. -Executing Insignia Fire Resistance, - I /stated through the Oathlink, and sent the magic pulsing back along the line of soldiers. Oathrings gleamed as the magic pushed through them, and a second layer of resistance to fire joined the first one.

The first one was Cast by the members of the band upon themselves and their friends, Mass Resist Fire rendering everyone immune to normal flames, and taking half or one-quarter damage from exceptional flames or magical fires. My Fire Resistance gave them a flat -50 to the damage they'd take from fire, after the damage was halved or quartered, meaning this blast furnace out here wasn't going to do squat to any of them.

The normal limit was -30, but with Earth Spell upping it a Valence, I could pop that limit to -50 with my Caster Level. I was humming in the Sublime Chord underneath my breath, Dread helping out. -As expected, the air is completely swamped with pyric energy. No Cold or Water spells are going to be Cast here in the traditional format. Either use alternate energies, or alternate methods, - I /informed everyone.

Removing the possibility of cold attacks was nothing but helpful for the natives, but that didn't actually mean we had to obey their limitations.

Briggs started giving instructions as our train of Disks began to move and disembark. He cut off the men coming to us, directed Hanvol to Shape up an opening in a certain wall, and the quiet wizard and Sir Horn were through it first, entering a storeroom for what looked to be sacrificial ceremonies quickly. Briggs moved backwards through the press, directing Casters to Shape openings into chambers and rooms, which rapidly began to disgorge eager Giant Slayers hungry for some opponents.

Prince Ukker found himself coming out and into what were very obviously torture chambers. He eased his way past the contraptions designed to test giant physiques and really play with smaller folk with bloody ease, measuring the recent use it was being put to and some of the broken things still sitting on them, unaware of the dwarf or the warriors he was leading behind him.

Ukker's silvery Armor was deliberately dulled, non-reflective, and did not ding or scrape as he slowly made his way around the room, looking for those who worked there. He found one of them, who looked to be cooling his instruments down in a frosting ice box, something that would doubtless prove extremely painful to what looked like a writhing salamander being held in red-hot chains with casual ease. There were no members of the mortal races present, as the oven-like heat would have killed them in minutes at most.

The squads following him spread around the chamber carefully, the fires generating plenty of shadows. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. When it was time, the Sound Bubbles came up to cover all screams and cries, and the torturer, his two assistants, and the guards at the door got to bellow and shout and scream all they wanted to before they died, but nobody heard their warnings…

"Fuzzy just came out by the main armory off the smithy," Sama said to me, studying the area thoroughly as the last of our company came jumping and rolling up out of the hole in the ground. Personal Disks lotused shut for the moment and inserted themselves in backpacks or pouches with the casual ease of much use, while everyone sized up what was going on here.

"Only four guards?" Guy had to ask, although the size of those guards was impressive, as was their molten red hair and fire-cracked dark skin, head and shoulders above most Fire Jotuns, and a whole lot of black iron plate they had to get around, not through. Lava giants, and big for the kind.

"There's six doors into this area," Sama said, her blue eyes narrowed and peering through the rippling heat haze carefully.

"I imagine there are guards on the other sides of those doors, and if the Titan there wakes up, he can raise the alarm quickly and flood the area with guards swiftly. Something more than energy is also churning that lava soup there, so there's a guardian beast present of some kind, likely a leashed Elemental of size not normally found on the Prime, helping keep the Portal stable." She looked around at the hundred warriors with us.

"Twenty at the main gate, sixteen at the other five. Invisibility, get into position as fast as you can!" Sama allocated the teams with simple hand motions, pointing out who was leading with minimal fuss and maximum efficiency. Spells of Invisibility 10' Radius fluttered out as Disks came out again, and Mass Longstrider spells settled on everyone to up their foot speed, the Disks making sure they stayed within range of the Invisibility.

"I'm gonna poke me a Titan. Edge, do what you're going to do." I responded to that before she could ghost away, flicking my sleeve and drawing out a seething black Skull with flaming eyes.

"Drop this in the soup when you're halfway across, will you?" I asked her calmly, tossing it to her. She snatched it out of the air, her long blonde hair billowing around her… and then she wasn't there anymore, just a mirage vanishing into the heat and the haze.

Prime also washed me Invisible, Jace grasping Dread from atop his Disk and everyone being towed behind him as we exited the Illusionary Wall and closed in on the honor guards sitting rigidly at attention by the main doors, only the slightest of motions that weren't gusts of heat swirling past them indicating they were not Constructs. I didn't bother to make the attack myself.

I just flitted across in front of the giants, Jace let go, and the twenty of them were just blurs of motion as they attacked, breaking the Invisibility and surging into sight.

Weapons were drawn with Coldphasing, making them bars of utter cold as the Daisho teams attacked with surprise from all sides with speed and power, leaping in the air to deliver blows to shocked faces and necks, even as they cut off knees, stabbed into groins and up under breastplates, and to top it all off a lot of Shocking Touches lit the giants up with nasty amounts of voltage.

The four archers all buried shots in the underside of giant chins from point-blank range up and into them, stifling their cries, which were all hidden by Sound Bubbles regardless. I flicked an Illusion up behind me, and even before the giants crumpled and fell to their knees, slain in the middle of their faithful duty, an Image came up of them standing silently at attention there, no sign of any intruders, thank you, just a bit of a heat mirage in the air, I'm serious here.

There was a blur in the haze, more a ripple than anything that could be seen, and a wake shot across the white-hot surface of the lava, swaying back and forth slightly, as if someone unseen was skating across the lava. I stood at the top of the steps that led down into the lake there, not doubting there was a walkway underneath the lava to get out to the throne on its little island there, but one only a Titan might walk. It was fine, I wasn't planning on going out there quite yet.

There was something quite Evil underneath the surface of that lava, and it was stirring as the streak of motion passed it by. Things began to break the surface behind her, spreading rapidly after her… but not as rapidly as she was moving, because Sama was motoring! Still, the double tails, the pincers, and exoskeleton were pretty indicative that the inhabitant of the pool was also inhabitants. Scorpyro, the hordemind creatures of Fire.

Quadrilateral symmetry, tails opposite scimitar-pincers, eight legs capable of carrying it in any direction fairly quickly. It was equal parts crab and scorpion, except intelligent, nasty, and with its mind present in dozens, if not scores or more, of powerful, ambulatory, and armored bodies.

That ripple of motion prompting swimming scorpyros break the surface, like a dark arrow in the whiteness as their armored shells surfaced, was sufficient to open the eyes of the Titan, probably a mental warning backing up the physical threat. His hand moved out with deceptive speed, snatching up a warhammer taller than a Fire Jotun stood as he started rising to his feet, the blur of motion coming up the steps and rising right up with him as Sama charged.

Her hag's laughter broke through the roar of the Portal's presence as her blur became more visible… and Tremble was tearing a cold swathe of blue iceflame through the air like the air itself was flesh, coming for him! He was fast for his size, and nimble, but that didn't mean he was faster than Sama. He was in a semi-mortal form, not a true Immortal Avatar of his own, and had to abide by the limitations on the species. Ding! Ting!

The streak of blue flashing past his throat and the eruption of cold flames there was completely visible from my side of the White Lava. I found that very amusing, even as the incandescent rock began to boil and churn as a whole lot of things began to rise from the surface of it in every direction around the Titan's throne.

"Avaunt your meditations! Decry your preparations! The flames do wail! Your schemes do fail! It comes, in breathless anticipation! TREMBLE, WE COME!" Oh, fuck yeah, give the Avatar a taste of the Heartsong and Warlord's Voice, two things He couldn't use or match, the sadistic twat. It would also distract him from realizing he was in a very big Sound Bubble and his answering shout of "INSECT!" wasn't going to actually reach the walls and earn him any help.

Not that a whole lot of chilling violence wasn't pouring through the halls and tunnels of the Fane of Eternal Ash. Utterly stunned fire giants and Elementals were being set upon violently, while their calls for help and warcries were completely failing to alarm anyone, courtesy of the many Sound Bubbles up on the Weapons killing them.

Perhaps some realized the rumble of the Portal was not audible, but the mind is a tricky thing, and they were likely filling in the sound like it had never left, even when it did, and if they died satisfied that they'd screamed their best and alerted someone, good for them!