Chương 13: Borrowed Fire

"You have grown soft, old adversary." Echidna was still powerful, but the pressure Gloria remembered from countless raids simply wasn't there right now. Time had taken its toll, and whether imprisonment, the mysterious seal or something else entirely had caused it hardly mattered. The result remained the same.

"I expected considerably more from someone of our time." The thin line of blood running down Echidna's pale cheek remained exactly where it had fallen.

"Echidna commands you to abandon these childish falsehoods." She paused for a second, then continued.

"The Golden Age has long since crumbled into dust, and every adversary worthy of standing before Echidna met their end beneath the coming of the False King. Their kingdoms have vanished, their names have faded from memory, and even their bones have long since become part of the earth upon which you stand."

'There was that title again! The False King. Who in the world was this supposed king?' The name meant absolutely nothing to her, and that alone was enough to leave her deeply unsettled. She had spent years obsessing over DDO, yet never once had anyone spoken of a False King.

"It still changes nothing…" Echidna continued, lifting a hand before watching the thin trail of crimson slide across her fingers.

"A single wound does not herald victory, little worm. The condemned may recognize the executioner's blade as it descends, yet such knowledge grants no salvation. It merely allows them to appreciate the certainty of their own demise before darkness claims them." A quiet chuckle escaped Gloria before she could stop it. It wasn't forced, nor mocking, but completely genuine, and the more she replayed Echidna's words in her mind the harder it became to suppress the laughter threatening to escape.

"Hahaha... you truly are incredible." she managed between breaths.

"I liked you before, Echidna, but I think I like you even more now. It is honestly refreshing to meet someone capable of speaking with that much confidence, and who is at the same time able to back it up." Her amusement gradually settled into a grin as both hands rose before her chest, the claws upon her fingers tracing arcs through the empty air while lines of crimson mana followed every movement.

A vast, crimson magic circle bloomed into existence before her, large enough to dwarf an ordinary spell formation all on its own, and before its outer ring had even finished forming another appeared within it, then another, and another still, each locking perfectly into place until the entire construct resembled an impossibly intricate machine whose countless components turned in harmony.

Twelve additional circles rapidly emerged throughout the formation, every one nearly identical in size to the spells Gloria would ordinarily cast, yet each devoted to a different element. Ancient script then began flowing around every individual circle before weaving itself into larger rings surrounding the entire formation, thousands upon thousands of glowing characters linking together until the cavern itself seemed to vibrate beneath the sheer density of mana being compressed into a single spell.

For the first time since Gloria had entered the chamber, Echidna moved without attacking. She took one slow step backward. Then another.

"... Impossible... That construction... Echidna had seen only them wield such magic before..." Her voice grew quieter with every passing word.

"... No... they should all be dead..." [Worldforge] Hundreds of magic circles erupted into existence throughout the cavern, spreading outward until they completely surrounded Echidna from every conceivable angle while each individual formation rotated independently of the others, countless elemental arrays humming together in perfect synchronisation until the battlefield resembled an entire night sky brought crashing down into a single chamber.

"I admired you once, dear Echidna," Gloria said calmly, finally lifting her gaze to meet the ancient monster's eyes.

"You forced me to improve more than almost any other monster ever created, and I lost to you often enough to learn from my mistakes."

'I'm way better at fighting you anyway, you loser! Sure, you might have been a proper raid boss waaay before, but you have been power crept! And besides... my admin buff is still active.'

"But I have outgrown even the ocean in which you reside," Gloria declared, her voice rising with triumph.

"No longer am I bound by its depths. No longer am I restrained. I am free… and I shall claim this world as my own."

'Not what I said!' The circles erupted at once, flooding the chamber with pure and overwhelming power. A serpent of living flame shot forward in a twisting coil, followed almost immediately by a spiked sphere of wood from the circle of the opposite side of the chamber, then an arrow of dense poisonous smoke, and a star-shaped shard of razor ice. From every direction more attacks poured forth, each one unique in form and element, converging on Echidna.

"Echidna accepts this not!" She roared, the words torn from her throat as she twisted aside from the first strike. Her body moved with grace, one foot sliding across the floor while her upper body bent at an impossible angle to let the flaming serpent pass harmlessly over her shoulder.

Even as she recovered she flicked a single droplet from the orbiting ring of blood onto the serpent's body, and the moment the crimson touched it the entire construct turned a deep, unnatural purple before collapsing flat onto the stone without explosion or shatter, its form preserved yet completely drained of force. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

She was then spinning again, ducking beneath the spiked ice sphere so closely that frost kissed the tips of her horns, then leaping high enough that the poisonous arrow sliced through the empty air where her chest had been only a heartbeat earlier. Another droplet of blood leapt from her wrist and struck the star-shaped shard mid-flight, causing it too to lose all momentum and drop harmlessly to the floor. The barrage quickly grew beyond anything a single body could evade though.

One by one the remaining circles joined the assault until the entire formation fired as a single coordinated volley, forcing Echidna to breathe a soft, almost disbelieving "No!" an instant before every attack slammed into her at once. A colossal explosion of rainbow light erupted across the platform, blooming outward in a blinding cascade of color that dissolved into a thick, shimmering cloud of matching dust.

The Archer could only stare, completely starstruck, their mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the magic unfolding before them.

"Is this… a fight between gods?" they whispered under their breath. Despite the quiet horror of standing so close to such overwhelming power, a fierce excitement burned brighter than the fear, the desperate wish to join the battle already rising inside them. For a brief moment it appeared the fight had already ended and Gloria had claimed victory in a single overwhelming exchange.

That belief lasted only until the rainbow cloud shifted into a deep, unnatural purple, then quickly compressed violently inward, and finally collapsed into a single point that Echidna drew into her lungs with one long breath. When the last of the light vanished she stood revealed once more, blood streaming from several shallow cuts across her arms and side, yet none of the wounds appeared truly serious.

"Over the coming moments…" She hissed, eyes locked on Gloria.

"Echidna shall observe precisely how a creature such as you claimed the right to wield this construction… and when the time arrives, Echidna shall ensure that none other ever gains the chance to do the same." Gloria raised an eyebrow, as she was genuinely surprised.

'Wait… that actually did that much damage to her?' The thought lingered only a second before her attention snapped to the scattered remnants of her own spells lying perfectly preserved across the platform, exactly the mechanic she had always loved most about this fight. Without drawing a single circle Echidna spoke a single word. [Vivet] Every inert construct began to tremble. One after another the frozen spells rose into the air, taking on new life as they twisted and reshaped themselves into living forms.

Snakes of fire, apes of ice, bats of dense poisonous smoke, and a dozen other elemental creatures soon surrounded her in a loose, circling swarm. As the Mother of Monsters and goddess of that domain, Echidna possessed the racial ability to create life from nearly anything, be it stone, blood, or even completed spells. That was precisely why Gloria had never dared unleash a single overwhelming attack against her; one large spell would simply have become another raid boss.

Of the more than a hundred constructs she had launched, Echidna had managed to claim only a dozen, far fewer than Gloria had expected. Even so, the fight was already shaping up to be considerably easier than any of their old encounters had ever been.

"Now, fly." Echidna's command echoed through the chamber, and the creatures she had fashioned from Gloria's stolen magic answered without hesitation, each instinctively seeking the one whose mana had first given it life. It would have been a terrifying sight. Had Gloria not danced this very dance hundreds of times before. The moment Echidna had begun weaving her way through the earlier barrage, Gloria had already abandoned any thought of continuing the assault.

Chasing the Mother of Monsters while she was free to move had always been a fool's game, one she had learned to stop playing years ago. Every second Echidna had spent dodging had instead become another second Gloria invested elsewhere, her hands quietly assembling a new spell while, unnoticed beneath the noise and chaos of the battlefield, one foot traced broad lines through the dust coating the stone.

The pattern had been crude compared to the elegant formations floating overhead, yet its simplicity was precisely what made it dangerous. By the time the swarm was halfway across the chamber, a large circle had already taken shape beneath her feet. [Chains of Nebuchadnezzar] The rough markings flared with pale light. Without warning, dozens of chains the color of a moonless night erupted from the stone, tearing through the platform with explosive force before shooting upward in every direction.

Several wrapped themselves around the approaching constructs, dragging them violently from the air, while the overwhelming majority converged upon Echidna herself, coiling around her wrists, waist, legs and wings until even the ancient monster staggered beneath the sudden restraint.

"What trickery is this?" Echidna demanded, surprise breaking through her composure as another chain tightened around her shoulders.

"When has such a spell been cast?"

'Yeah... tell me about it. It's a cheap trick, but I'm so glad that it worked!' Back in DDO, players had argued for years over whether magic circles could theoretically be drawn with something other than one's hands. Entire forum threads had been dedicated to the possibility of tracing formations with weapons, tails, even feet, only for the developers to dismiss the idea every single time. Gloria herself had complained often enough that several moderators probably recognized her name on sight, just from that.

Turns out... She had been right all along. While Echidna struggled against the chains, Gloria calmly raised a hand and began sketching another formation through the air. Compared to the masterpiece that had been Worldforge, this one was laughably simple, consisting of little more than a white outer ring surrounding a smaller inner circle with a crooked arrow suspended between them, as though someone had hastily drawn the symbol without caring whether it looked presentable.

[Schwerkraft] A dense violet distortion burst from the circle and struck Echidna squarely in the chest. The Mother of Monsters was hurled backward as though an invisible mountain had crashed into her, some of the remaining chains snapping taut before entire sections of the stone floor were ripped apart beneath the force.

Fragments of ancient masonry exploded into the air while Echidna herself slammed into the far wall with enough violence to shake the entire chamber, cracks racing through the rock in every direction as the chains remained stubbornly wrapped around her. Gloria lowered her hand and began walking forward at an almost leisurely pace, her claws clicking softly against the stone.

"Archer. Feel free to execute those creatures." The Archer gave no immediate reply. When Gloria finally glanced back, she found them standing exactly where they had been, bow hanging loosely in one hand while their lips moved ever so slightly.

"... Chains of... Nebuchadnezzar..." A heartbeat later came another whisper.

"... Schwerkraft..." They were repeating the names of the spells under their breath, trying their hardest to remember each name spoken.' That's... actually rather adorable.' Only after a second did the Archer seem to remember they had been spoken to, their shoulders stiffening as they hurriedly straightened themselves.

"R-Right!" The summoned creatures were hardly worthy of her attention anymore, and that suited her companion perfectly, since every construct destroyed would grant them experience from its death. Assuming this world's rules resembled the game's closely enough—and so far they had proven surprisingly faithful—it would be an excellent opportunity for them to grow considerably stronger before the battle reached its true climax.