Dungeon Master 8

by Eric Vall

  “Out of all the things I taught you, that is the only lesson you learned?” Chirus snarked back haughtily. “Pathetic.”

  “You still call me that as my women and my gods slaughter your men?” I cackled with laughter. “At this point, you should consider begging for your soul.”

  With that, I turned toward the fray and dove straight in. Gods’ bodies littered the ground just inside of the sanctum, and their divine blood dripped in between the seams of the golden cobblestones. The holy weapon moved in my hands fluidly, cutting down low-ranking gods effortlessly and each time their broken bodies fell, I gripped my left hand into a fist, preventing their souls from entering into the spirit realm.

  I felt other presences here now, I’d seen the first one when Qyris revealed herself to me. Their faces came in and out of view out of the corners of my eyes but didn’t distract me, instead, their presence bolstered me. They were all here, the deities wronged by the heavens, and I felt their hands on my back, pushing me up the incline toward the city of the gods.

  “They stripped me of my title,” Mizu whispered into my ear over my shoulder. “They killed the man I loved, and they banished me to a hole where my people sacrificed the animals I’d created. They broke me, they made me low, they destroyed me, Kazama. You promised me, destroy them for what they did to my people and me.”

  “Nahum, my brother, my friend,” Euron chuckled from directly behind me, and when I glanced back at his spirit, he was smiling widely. “We know why I call you by that name. As children, you were a demon, always play-fighting with me in the courtyards but now, be the physical embodiment of that name, friend, be the demon that I always called you.”

  I turned as I swung Allagis, and the holy weapon shifted in my hands as it followed along through the transparent lines of attack. Athar’s beaten and scarred face appeared before my eyes, and he stared at me with such intensity that I almost faltered.

  “Avenge me too, Kazama,” Athar murmured in his deep voice heavy with exhaustion. “I was thrown from the heavens merely for speaking against your father. I have done no wrong in the eyes of the holy council, my death was a warning to them, make sure of it.”

  I gritted my teeth as I gripped Allagis tighter in my hands and spun as two gods raced forward, their hands glowing with royal blue power. Black energy formed at the end of the holy weapon’s sword tip, and as I slashed out at both of them, the darkness entered into their bodies like a poison. I moved past them into the crowd as my dark power took control of their minds and used their abilities against their brothers.

  Emerald fire blasted out from the left of me, and I whipped my head in that direction right as Morrigan’s power reached a peak I’d never witnessed before. The elven woman floated in the air, completely encased in her elven magic as eight massive gouts of flame slammed into the ground like a spider’s legs. Each time one moved and slammed back down onto the sanctum, it burnt one of the gods in her path. Morrigan’s eyes glowed snow white, and her hair whipped around her in an unseen gale. The elf’s hands slammed out in each direction, blasting fireballs at any god that dared come close to her.

  I raised my head as the sound of wings came from overhead. Annalise flew through the sky, a golden light fluttering down from her wide-spanning wings. The high queen looked as godly as I’d imagined her, and as our eyes met, she smiled softly to me. I could not take my eyes off of her as she swept down into the crowd, Bloodscale and the unnamed sword tightly held in her hands.

  The two glinting blades moved in tandem as her power pulsed through them, and each time she brought them down at an enemy, they found their mark. This was just the beginning of our battle against the heavens, and we were nearly finished with the first wave they’d sent.

  Flashes of color beat across the sky as Heijing sailed through the air with Haruhi perched firmly on her shoulders. The sage crouched down with one hand pressed to the dragon’s smooth scales and raised one of her golden pistols. The explosion that came after was deafening, and I watched the blessed bullet buzz through the air as if in slow motion.

  The tiny bead of light blasted past me and buried itself in the skull of a god directly behind me. Haruhi’s light laughter lifted into the air as the Qianlong’s wings beat the air into a flurry and changed direction abruptly. Heijing’s icy blue eyes met mine for a mere second and then moved away as her enormous maw dropped open, and she let loose a blast of neon blue fire onto the gods below.

  “This is fun, isn’t it, Kazama?” Ruituri cackled as she raced past me with her bow raised.

  The goddess of rot shot countless arrows into the air indiscriminately as she ran, but each of them slammed down into the bodies of our enemies. Like before, each of the deities fell to the ground as their flesh slowly turned black and green with decay.

  Explosions sounded off to the right of me, and I whipped in the direction as twenty gods were thrown into the air from the blast. Carmedy ran low to the ground, her feet barely making a sound as her paws moved so fast that they were blurs. The alchemist slammed another bundle into the cradle of her slingshot and then let the burlap packet fly. The brown bundle left a purple trail through the air as it soared for a moment and then landed directly at the base of the hill.

  The little bag landed with a soft smack and smoked for a few seconds before it detonated. More gods were thrown into the air, their arms and legs cleanly torn off as pained screams escaped their wide mouths. The hole left where the bundle exploded was massive, large enough for seven men to stand up to their chests, side-by-side in with extra room. The alchemist raced past me, giggling to herself as she tossed another packet into the sky, this one trailing foul-smelling smog after it.

  A flash of red caught my attention as Rana launched herself into four gods at once. The fox faded in and out of view as her claymore ripped into the bodies of each deity. I stepped forward, gripping Allagis as another god grabbed the fox from behind, and she struggled against him. Rana suddenly relaxed, the claymore dropping for a second as she slammed her heavy boot down on the god’s toes. In quick succession, the redhead swung her leg out, bent it at the knee, and slammed it into the god’s kneecap.

  “Feet, knees,” Rana mumbled through gritted teeth as she wriggled free from the god and swung her leg up between his legs with a heavy thud. “Balls and eyes! And that’s how you use self-defense, boys!”

  The fox giggled as her paw jabbed out and slammed into the god’s squinted eyes. The deity rocked backward as he screamed in pain, but Rana wasn’t finished with him yet as she gripped the hilt of her sword and stabbed him through the heart. Rana ripped the sword back, freeing it, and the dead god wobbled on his feet for a second before falling face-first to the sanctum’s bloodied ground.

  Through the crowd, I could make out the shapes of Domor and Bellum working back to back as their hands moved through the air sinuously. None of them used the weapons we’d seen before in the battle against Tintagal and the Blood-Curdlers, but it seemed they were more powerful without them. Domor dropped to the ground on all fours, and in one swift movement, Bellum stepped up onto his back.

  The goddess of war’s right hand flickered with wine-colored light as she lifted it slowly from her side. Gods surrounded both of them from all sides, but both of them looked relaxed, unbothered by the deities encircling them from all sides. Bellum ripped her hand upwards, and the power flashing from her hands intensified and then detonated outward into tiny orbs of light. Each sphere slammed into the chests of the gods coming closer and exited out their backs with sprays of blood.

  The gods’ bodies fell backward into a perfect circle as Bellum hopped off Domor’s back and then helped her comrade back up. Another wave came at them, but the god and goddess didn’t flinch or falter in their movements as they moved in sync.

  Malsumis waded through the fray easily, his head held high as his black robes flapped out behind him like the wings of a giant raven. His eyes moved over the crowd with little interest, but his pale, thin hands moved through the air like a
maestro. The power he used so masterfully had no color or light as he moved it skillfully through the air. Malsumis left a trail of corpses in his wake as he strode surely through the other gods.

  Few of the deities remained, and those who were still alive struggled to escape over the hill toward the city. Their strength and abilities were nothing compared to ours, and the rest of the gods’ realm would soon learn that too. These gods and goddesses had once been our brothers, sisters, friends, and comrades, and now, they were nothing more than our enemies.

  Twenty-five gods abandoned the fight, their comrades dead at their feet as they tumbled and climbed over the discarded corpses toward the slope of the sanctum. I wouldn’t let any of them escape, no god would survive this attack. I would destroy all of them, with my bare hands if I had to.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply as the holy weapon Allagis sensed my next move. Without opening my eyes, I could see the transparent lines of attack as the weapon shifted in one hand and then split into two. My arms tensed as I held the newly made war hammers in my massive hands and smacked their flat heads together with a loud crack. I felt the heat of sparks bite at my wrists but ignored it as the translucent lines of attack appeared in the darkness behind my lids.

  I brought both war hammers high over my head as my eyes reopened and focused in on the backs of my fleeing enemies. I pushed all of my dark power into the weapons and then brought them down onto the gilt cobblestones. The ground underneath my feet trembled, and it felt as if the whole floating island of the gods’ realm shook from my might. Cracks raced up the hill after the retreating deities and hell-fire licked up from between the spaces.

  I raised the war hammers over my head again as I summoned up all the demons in the Underworld, and the hellish beasts crawled from the cracks with deranged laughter. Their soulless, black eyes settled on the backs of the gods as they stretched their misshapen arms and legs. Each demon lowered themselves close to the ground with their bowed, canine-like legs and tore after the gods with lightning speed.

  The beasts skin was a scaly and cracked crimson color and vaguely reminded me of the Soul Eater I held in my nexus. Each time they moved, they weaved in and out of formation, yellow saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths as they howled hungrily.

  I strode forward as a brilliant orange and scarlet fire trailed after each of the hellish creatures. Their mouths dropped open to expose pointed, needle-like teeth and animalistic yelps escaped their twisted mouths as they neared their prey. The first beast neared one of the gods, tensed its legs and launched itself up into the air. The taloned hands ripped through the air, and then the demon crashed into the deity’s back, knocking the man to the ground.

  His terrified screams reached my ears and then died out as the creature tore into the god’s flesh and began to feast on him. I trod up the hill slowly as each of the fleeing gods was thrown to the ground and consumed by my beasts. One of the red-fleshed demons raised its soulless eyes to me and made low clicking sounds in the back of its throat as it averted its gaze away from my overbearing presence.

  I came to stand on the crest of the hill and looked out over the entire city I was born in. The heavens spread out below us, bathed in pure whites and glittering golds. Each building towered high against the pastel clouds. Spires painted with holy runes rose up from the main palace and flags with my father’s sigil flapped from each of them.

  I spied the gardens through the mass of houses and buildings, the place where Euron and I used to play as children and where the Tichádáma had watched over me from afar. I had so many memories tied to different areas of the heavens, and they all came rushing back at once. In a way, I wanted to walk through the streets and show my minion’s everything here that I had once known, but another part of me wanted to burn everything in sight to the ground.

  Nothing had changed that I could see, and I felt resentment and hate build in my belly. My women and the four gods came to stand all around me as they took in the ethereal beauty of the gods’ realm. This was the place where Ruituri, Bellum, Domor, and I had come from. Malsumis stood at my shoulder and glared down at the palace below.

  I was born here, along with the other three, but Malsumis was born in the Underworld. The heavens and his mother had scorned him, looked upon him as if he were a disgrace. We were akin to each other in that way, he hated the gods as much as I did and wanted nothing more than to watch their precious city burn.

  “Wow…” Annalise whispered as her eyes widened, and she brought her hands up over her mouth. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before…”

  “It is beautiful,” Morrigan stated coldly as she glared down at the elegant architecture. “But the beauty of it does not mask the horrors that have come from the people who live here.”

  Haruhi’s fluffy white ears were at attention as she swept her hazel eyes all around the massive city. I’d only seen her react this way once and that was in the sanctuary of the Qianlongs. The sage didn’t speak or ask any questions as she rested her gaze on the white stones of the palace. The librarian was our source of information on the gods and the heavens, and I assumed she knew more about this place than I did.

  “Swanky,” Rana nodded as she placed her closed fists on her hips. “Now, let’s burn this bastard down.”

  “D-do we have to?” Carmedy asked shyly as she fiddled with her paws. “It’s really pretty, maybe we could just leave the gods and leave the city?”

  “No,” Malsumis uttered softly with a shake of his head. “The gods' realm must be destroyed along with the deities that live here. We must kill all of them and then crumble their strongholds. This place doesn’t deserve the right to survive even after its creators have died.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Carmedy sighed and then squared her shoulders. “It may be pretty, but a lot of bad things have happened here, especially to our Master, and we can’t allow it to remain.”

  This place was filled with so much pain, so much hatred and anger that it was almost an agony to look down at it from afar. I rested my eyes on the sprawling palace, the home of my parents, brothers, and for some time, me too. The castle, the only home I had ever known who in the end, cast me away and banished me to the darkness.

  “What a shithole,” Malsumis scoffed lightly as he turned to me, and I chuckled, the intense aura hanging around us finally shattering. “What’s next, brother? Shall we storm the castle?”

  I looked out over my home again, no gods moved around the streets, and I felt the massive pulse of power coming directly from the palace straight ahead. I knew for certain that my father had called all of his comrades there and now lay in wait for us. They wanted our party to come to them and if that is what they wanted, then so be it, but we wouldn’t come quietly.

  I raised my head, and my eyes connected with Heijing’s icy blue eyes as the Qianlong towered over us. The dragon blinked slowly and tilted her head at me curiously as my eyes shifted down to Morrigan and then over to Carmedy.

  “What is it, Master?” Heijing’s booming voice whispered in my ear.

  I looked up into her face for a moment as I studied her enormous form’s features. Heijing, the last remaining dragon on earth, the sole survivor of the gods attack on the Qianlongs’ sanctuary. The dragon was at the forefront of our next attack, and she slowly realized it as her eyes bore into mine.

  “Carmedy,” I spoke without even turning to look at the alchemist. “Tell me more about that Spirit Summoning spell you used against Tuzakuer’s men.”

  “Of course,” the feline nodded as she came closer. “It harnesses the souls of the dead and brings them into our plane of existence. They’re brought back in their original forms and are able to move around them as if they were real. Morrigan told me it’s on the line of dark arts but still considered alchemy though not practiced by most alchemists.”

  “How long does the spell last?” I questioned as I tapped my chin and looked over Heijing’s spotted flank.

  “As long as the alc
hemist casting the spell wants it too,” Carmedy gripped at me as her black tail whipped excitedly behind. “So as long as I have the spell in my mind as I keep moving, the spirits will remain in this realm.”

  “Can you call up any spirit, or does it have to be a specific one?” I asked more feverishly as I rested a hand against Heijing’s warm side.

  “No, I can call anyone up that I want to, I just need their names to be able to summon up the right spirit,” the feline giggled as she smiled. “I only picked Anteng and Guoshe at Tuzakeur’s because their stories inspired me.”

  “How many spirits can you call up at once?” I inquired as I let my hand drop, and I turned fully to face the alchemist.

  “Well, it wasn’t difficult to bring up the two, but I’m not sure how much energy I’d expend while summoning them.” the alchemist muttered thoughtfully as she stroked her tail.

  “How many do you think you can safely do?” I asked as I gazed down into her emerald eyes.

  “Well, with all the ingredients and supplies I have on me now for the potion,” the alchemist muttered as she dug through her pack and looked through it. “It’d say I have enough to summon up about ten spirits.”

  “Very good,” I nodded as a sly grin slipped over my face, and I looked back to Heijing. “Tell us the names of all the Qianlong and Akalong war generals you can remember, starting with the most brutal and vicious. You once told us you wanted revenge against the gods for what they did to you and your ancestors but what if I told you they could exact the revenge themselves?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Heijing stood a little taller, her icy blue eyes sharp and alive in their sockets as she gazed up at me.