Chương 134: Chapter 120 - The Death Of All Things

++The heights of power I knew as Lord Dread in my first reign were always imperfect. Long centuries had given me an otherwise superhuman amount of raw strength, and experience worked to overcome a lack of formal training. I was unable to defeat the Gods themselves, but I was still, in all likelihood, one of the most powerful beings to ever walk the earth. By absorbing Zameka's power into my own, I stood to gain far more strength than even that. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A.

E. Agrian was like a cockroach in a bombsite, and the only thought he could sustain, the one notion repeatedly firing off inside his frantic brain, was the certainty that he didn't belong here.

He watched the lich's defeat with something close to disbelief, watched Aryqatan dispatched by a single blow with the most primal horror he'd ever felt, and watched the ground open up to reveal his sister at the maelstrom of that magic with an emotion he didn't even think had a name, But it drove him to act at last, because Agrian realised Isabel was exposed now. Vulnerable.

Nu'chista would find her as soon as he decided to properly look down into that torn-open tunnel network, and after that happened her lifespan would be measured in milliseconds. Nu'chista was standing right at the edge of the opening, one head turn away from staring right at her. He hadn't noticed her yet, too caught up with his rage. Agrian saw Sakhent disappear and knew that time was out, Nu'chista had nothing else to focus on. Except his sister.

And so Agrian Vornholt made one last, stupid mistake in Orapathaqi and started heading towards the Demigod. He was going to die today. He accepted that. He was going to have his chest torn open and his heart ripped out, but maybe he could buy his sister a few moments to flee. Isabel was resourceful, she was smart. She'd escape. And if Agrian had to die for that… well, there were worse ways to go out. But he didn't need to choose this one. He didn't need to throw his life away now.

Agrian kept walking, but every step was another chance to regret what he was about to do, for second-thoughts to push him back and send him scurrying. He shouldn't do this, he should—"Oi, dickhead!" The magic missile struck Nu'chista in the side of the head, snapping the Demigod's eyes around to lock onto Agrian. He was past the point of no return.

I almost lost control of my ritual when I saw Agrian's magic strike the Demigod. The mana wrestled me like never before, nearly tearing my grip apart and going haywire—whether it would have dissipated harmlessly or scoured the landscape for miles around, I did not know, but it would not have drawn forth Zameka. I could still feel my own banished power clawing at the Veil, while the God behind it, farther in and much harder to reach, remained elusive. Closer. I was getting closer, and closer still with every moment.

And now it all looked like it was falling into place, because Agrian was just the distraction I needed. Nu'chista hated traitors above all. If anything would make him take his time in the kill, it was that. If anything would buy me more than a second after Sakhent's defeat, it was this. I had effectively won already. But my brother was still an idiot. In fact, if I did not hurry and complete the ritual in mere moments his life would be ended by this very same spasm of stupidity.

Once again it fell to me to clean up everyone else's mistakes. I began to work hastily, to scramble for the divine power that now seemed bare inches from my grip. It continued to elude me, slithering away from my grasp and refusing every effort to coax it out. Tantalizing me with its closeness, but functionally a world away. The Veil continued to thin, too slowly. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw the Demigod looming over Agrian. And I made my decision.

Agrian stared up into Nu'chista's face and tried to remember everything his father had ever told him about being brave. None of it seemed to help. What was bravery? An illusion, an abstract ideal. Bravery was the expression a man made when he'd gone through life without ever meeting something that truly justified fear. Agrian had met such a thing now, and it was standing mere feet in front of him with a face like thunder. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

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"The whore's brother," Nu'chista growled.

"Do you have any regrets, child of Garamon?"

"I regret that the last voice I'm going to hear is yours, idiot," Agrian told him. He wanted this to be quick, at least. He'd heard stories of how the sacrificial victims to Nu'chista had died and he didn't want to go out like that, screaming and crying, begging and weeping. No. If Agrian could piss Nu'chista off into punching the heart out of his chest with one, un-reactably fast motion then that would be as much of a victory as he needed. That would be a good enough final act for him.

But the Demigod didn't fly into a rage, just smiled.

"You're trying to die bravely," he noted.

"I won't let you." Agrian couldn't even close his eyes, he was that scared. The lids were paralyzed. Nu'chista closed in with a blur of motion that displaced air and left Agrian's ears popping, then his arm was mere inches from his face. But then it stopped, thudding into something that made a sound like some vast gong being struck. Agrian was flung back, rolling and tumbling, scraping his arms on the floor as he slowly ground to a stop in the sand and dirt.

When he looked up, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Eager power. Ancient malice and genius, tempered by millennia of agonizing effort and endless will. The subversion of natural order. The power that had struck nightmares into a race of Gods. It had waited and lurked, and now, at last, it was home, running through the Veil with stellar force and a lover's desperation, flooding into its new Vessel and screaming with power.

The air crackled and popped and hissed and spat sparks and the ground shook and the skies cried and the world became darker and grimmer, shivering like it knew what was coming next. The rats died in crawl spaces underfoot and the very stone itself seemed to melt like wax and ripple away from the caster's feet. The very divinity lurking in the Depths recoiled in horror and fled deeper, disappearing forever. In a single instant, every magician in the world became a level lower in the rankings of power.

Except for one.

Agrian looked up, bleary-eyed, to see a barrier separating him from Nu'chista. Except, was it really? He recognised the magic at play, the spell matrix, it was all familiar and technically identical to the ones he'd seen used, with a few tweaks here and there. But to call it a barrier felt like calling Mount Okanya a pebble. The word just seemed insufficient for what he was witnessing.

There was more mana here than Agrian could have mustered, more perhaps than every magician in the army could have mustered working together. A veritable wall of magic so densely packed that it may have been solid even without the matrix working it into hard aether. Nu'chista's arm pressed against it, Agrian could see that through the translucent surface, and the Demigod seemed to be straining, trying to shove through. But he couldn't. Magic, stopping the brute strength of a Demigod like this?

"I HAVE RETURNED." The voice cut through Agrian like a knife, just as Nu'chista punched through the barrier and stumbled past. Both of them turned at once to gaze up into the air. Both of them, at once, were beholden to the horror waiting for them. Sakhent had been disconcerting, but this was an abomination. A towering, coiling mass of mana wrapped around something that made only the barest nod to human skeletal anatomy.

All Agrian could clearly see of its true body was the pair of deep, glowing green eyes embedded in the nexus of black. He almost shit himself when those eyes turned to him.

"BOY." The abomination called out to him, its voice seeming to echo in on Agrian from all sides at once.

"LEAVE. YOU WILL INTERFERE WITH THIS BATTLE." Agrian didn't need to be told twice, or once for that matter. The lich could have achieved this same result with a momentary glance his way. He started running like a startled rat.

I would have smiled, if I had facial muscles in this form. Or a face for that matter. I could feel all the old power pumping through me and it was good. The air was quivering at my very presence, plantlife wilting as I drew near. I was a burning beacon of necromantic energy. I was, once again, Lord Dread. But I was not given the luxury of dwelling on it forever. As Agrian began running away, I saw Nu'chista turn to him and narrow his eyes.

"No you don't," the Demigod growled, tensing as he prepared to leap after my brother. If he had reached Agrian, he would have killed him in a single strike. That was unacceptable. I had sacrificed my chance at stealing Zameka's power to save the boy with Lord Dread's, after all. I was not about to let that go to waste. And I did not need the strength of a God to kill this petty little servitor.

"Disintegrate," I called out, raising my hand and aiming it at the Demigod. Green light broiled up from my palm and enveloped him completely, more power than I could possibly have mustered as Isabel Vornholt and woven into the most destructive spell I had ever known. An old favourite of mine. The Demigod screamed as it struck him, and for the first time in a long time I found myself looking forward to a battle just for the sake of fighting it.