Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration
Page 43
I had thought feral zombies were impressive, but that was before I saw the drow thralls in action.
The thralls roared again, and I saw the livid flesh on their necks where they had been hanged, their pointy black teeth, they wore chain armor but carried no weapons. If this were an ordinary battle, it would have been a massacre as heavily armored troops slaughtered unarmed resistance.
But the thralls were a force of nature.
Their counter charge was like watching a dam burst, hundreds of thousands of crazed beasts who had once been people surged forward as one with no concern for their lives. The horsemen charged the thralls at full speed, trampling them under the horses and impaling them on their lances, but the sheer weight of the tidal wave of bodies bogged the horses down. When that happened, they must have activated a skill, as the horses shone white and picked up the pace again.
Two columns of horsemen broke all the way through the mob of thralls before looping back around to attack them from behind.
Meanwhile, the thralls, whose preferred method of attack seemed to be ripping into flesh with their teeth like animals, had nearly wiped out the Drow Corps. However, when they reached the specter tanks, they hit an impenetrable shield wall. The thralls at the front slammed futilely against the shields, while the ones behind climbed over them in a vain attempt to overrun the tanks.
Hundreds of archers fired arrows over the tanks, pincushioning the climbing thralls as scores of spells thinned their numbers. It was a massacre.
To avoid the confused melee, I wedged myself into a natural cleft in the wall of the excavation and managed to pull myself up out of harm's way. I could do nothing but stare.
Daggers and the other Blackguards were at the opposite side of the opening, making minced meat of the thralls rushing them.
To my surprise, the specter tanks began to push ahead instead of holding their position. Slowly but surely, one pace at a time, they were approaching the breach in the wall.
Ten minutes later, some of the thralls finally clambered over the first line of tanks, only to face a second line.
From my vantage point, I could see the specter army: row upon row of tanks, followed by more archers and mages. I hadn't realized before that they had brought so many troops.
Only around a tenth of the archers and mages were able to get into range to attack, but it still made it almost impossible for the thralls to get over the tanks.
The Blackguards shadowed and leapt over the phalanx of tanks as soon as it reached them, just before Daggers stamina bar would have run dry.
One of the Ruined Mage Kings, the fire one, flew over the specters and hovered just above the front line. I thought he would attack but he remained still, waiting with twenty morbs above his head.
Far beyond the raging battle, I once again glimpsed the Devourer. He was just as I remembered him, a black sun, floating above the massive darksteel walls of Ter'nodril, easily the size of the city itself.
Exactly like the sun he reminded me of, the Devourer poured forth thick streamers of its own substance which curled out away from its main body as if they would escape it entirely, before being drawn back in. Even at this, distance I saw the massive ball of darkness revolving, writhing like a ball of snakes.
Then, without warning, the tendrils emanating from the Devourer multiplied in number and magnitude before forming into spears and hurtling towards the invading army.
That was when the fire King sang. His melodious invocation was like a choir of a million voices.
"Flame, Raging Fire,
Annihilator of Life,
Burn, destroy, blacken,
Consume my enemies,
Become my wrath."
All twenty fire morbs became a single mass of red flames tinged with gold, emitting a blinding radiance before it shot towards the incoming tendrils or darkness. As the two spells converged the sphere of flame released gouts of flame which incinerated the lances of darkness before continuing on, burning away the tendrils which had spawned them until it approached the Devourer himself. It stopped close enough that I couldn't be sure it wasn't touching the writhing ball of darkness, then spread out into an aegis of flame which prevented the Devourer from releasing any further attacks.
My attention returned to the ground as I heard the screaming of a horse as the thralls overran and killed it. That was only the first; others soon met the same fate.
Not understanding how the mindless thralls had managed to fell the horseman, I looked more closely and spotted Blackguards hidden amidst them. They didn't look like they wanted to engage the tanks, but they easily cut the horses legs out from under them, leaving them easy prey for the brutal mass of thralls.
I looked back up as hundreds of tendrils rose from the black sun, they didn't attack, but instead formed a rippling face with soft features that stared straight at the fire King.
"This is a breach of the Ways," the Devourer said. His voice burbled as if he was speaking from under water, which made it hard to understand his words.
"No," the million voices of the King answered. "This was a warning. We are punishing your children for violating the Ways. If you attempt to impede us you shall also face our retribution."
The big face seemed to frown. "They violated the Ways?"
"Yes. Stand down, we shall annihilate the sinners and bring new children to serve you."
There was no immediate answer. As the battle raged on, the cavalry realized what was happening and retreated to escape the Blackguards as the tanks kept advancing. As they marched out of the breech, the tanks formed an ever expanding semicircular perimeter as more of them streamed out to join the formation.
"My High Assassin," the Devourer said, "denies your claims. The Ways are clear: I must hold his word in higher regard than all others, unless you have a Divine Writ."
"I do not," the King replied. "But I claim that your High Assassin has also trespassed against the Ways. We must convene a tribunal of the gods, in accordance with the Ways. Until there is a verdict you must not interfere."
"So be it. Likewise you are forbidden to intervene," the face of darkness said, even as it dissolved and its voice became harder to understand. "Let us honor the Ways."
I barely understood the last words.
"Let us honor the Ways," the million voices of the King agreed as he drifted toward the rear of the army.
The tendrils of darkness enveloped the fiery remnant of the Ruined Mage King's spell and extinguished before the Devourer returned to his usual passive state.
I sighed and resumed watching the battle.
The sea of thralls was dwindling as the number of specters on the other side of the breach was increasing. The tanks had finished deploying, and the archers and mages were filling in the area they secured. The horsemen had completely disengaged and withdrawn to the rear.
There, the metal constructs I had seen in the tent were floating. The mist at the center of each pulsed with a bright white light as rivulets wound out out and obscured the spectral mages standing behind them. Behind all of that the four Kings floated passively.
The ranks of specters made way as the constructs slowly drifted forward. Once they were beyond the breach they stopped and the white light flared before releasing a torrent of ghostly heads which ignored the spectres and rushed towards the army of thralls.
The thralls mindlessly attacked this new threat just as they had every other until now. That was a mistake, whether they attacked the heads or were attacked by them, the result was the same; the thralls screamed as they made contact and spasmed before they died and each released another ghost which joined the ongoing massacre.
Soon, the entire battlefield was overrun with disembodied ghost heads, all of which flew through thralls without stopping, leaving a trail of dead in their wake.
I was completely unnerved by th
e spectacle.
Something Manhart had told me came to mind: 'In Valia, it usually takes a skill to cancel another skill.'
In the same way I hadn't been able to refuse Blademaster Shai's duels because I didn't have an appropriate skill, the thralls could only die because they didn't have whatever was required to resist the attacking ghostly heads, and it seemed clear the heads couldn't be harmed without some kind of magical attack.
In a matter of minutes the entire thrall army lay dead and uncountable thousands of ghost heads flew around the battlefield. Then, pillars of white light rose from the artifacts which had released them and drew the ghosts back towards them as if drawn in by gravity. The expressions of anguish were clear on their faces before the ghostly heads dissolved back into formless mist and were sucked back into the center of the constructs.
Once all the heads had been absorbed the columns of light retracted. Then the mages who had been operating the devices began to wither. At first as if they were rapidly aging, but soon they resembled desiccated corpses before their souls were also visibly drawn out of their ghostly bodies, leaving only small pools of ectoplasm behind on the floor.
The constructs remained hovering just as they had before, the only difference being that the white mist in them shone more brilliantly than before and the metal symbols now rotated much faster, as if straining to lock the souls of the deceased inside.
I was fairly certain everyone killed by the constructs would never be able to be resurrected, what with their souls gone. I idly wondered that would happen if a player used one of them, then decided I'd rather not find out.
When the spectacle was over, the mages who were left shot white spheres into the air. Around the tanks, thousands of Blackguards had their stealth pierced and retreated as soon as they were revealed.
I located and walked toward them. The eight Blackguards were in a defensive circle around the few dozen drow who had survived the thrall attack and managed to avoid being trampled by the horsemen afterwards.
When I arrived, I heard the leader's voice in my mind again.
My vision faded to black, then a huge battle scene appeared before me. It was being fought on space, backdropped by a Mars like planet. A few hundred people wearing most elaborate armor I'd ever seen were divided into two forces as they battled each other with weapons that radiated elemental powers.
"Countless eons ago, the gods fought a titanic war," the Blackguard leader's voice came from nowhere.
Magic twisted and wove across the battlefield, gargantuan elemental detonations occasionally hid large swaths of the fighting and even the planet behind it. My vision shifted to a battle being fought on one of the planet's moons. An armored man bearing a sword and shield was trying to close with a man holding a bow that was big enough to have been mounted on a ballista.
Arrows of white light flew from the bow so rapidly it nearly looked like a laser beam, but they rattled off the other man's shield like machine gun fire. The man with the shield could do nothing as his shield was chipped away under the onslaught. His body was soon riddled with arrows, then it slumped lifelessly to the ground. The bow wielder looked up and then took off, angling towards the space battle which still raged overhead.
"The losers Fell and were imprisoned in the depths of the world."
The view shifted to a coffle of prisoners clad in rags, strung together by chains that were clearly enchanted. Even in this state, their inhuman allure made it clear that these were gods. As they shuffled through an endless desert towards an enormous lightsteel platform, overseers in heavy armor kept a wary eye on the prisoners, and occasionally whipped them to force them to continue forward.
"With the war over and the Fallen imprisoned, there was a time of peace. It was shattered when the Fallen cultivated a new power, freed themselves, and laid waste to Valia."
The people in the scene faded away. Centuries passed in moments, as visible by the sand dunes migrating, then it slowed. The lightsteel platform, which must have actually been the door of the Fallen's prison, buckled outward, struck by something unfathomably strong from the inside. A second and a third blow came and then, nothing. A while later, a fourth and final impact ruptured the door and a pillar of green light shone briefly.
As the view zoomed in on the, hole, an arm covered in black scales reached out and a horrid cry which chilled my blood followed it.
"A new war ensued, and the Fallen were once again subjugated, but at great cost."
Instead of another battle, the view was only of a man, covered in black scales, on his hands and knees. Green blood ran down his arms and formed a small puddle on the scorched earth beneath him. Bodies littered the ground around him, both gods and Fallen.
"This time, the gods realized they must remain on guard against the Fallen, but no god could resist them alone. The corrupted power they wielded, the Blight, was the bane of the gods. Unless the gods stood united against it, they couldn't survive."
The scene transitioned to hundreds of armored people sitting cross-legged around the lightsteel platform. The hole in the center was still there, sealed with a golden energy barrier, which was powered by tendrils of energy flowing from the assembled gods into it.
"To avoid another escape and yet another war, the gods remained on permanent watch, forced to forsake their wandering of the galaxy. But then, the humblest of all the gods, the God of the Elves and of Self-Sacrifice, decided to act."
One of the figured rose and approached the barrier. There, he shed his armor. With that done, the majestic man smiled; and then drove his hand into his heart. Liquid light of all colors poured from the wound and ran down his body even as it rapidly diffused into the air. Soon the flow slowed to nothing and only rays of golden light and tendrils of darkness could still be seen within the wound.
"He changed himself. He limited his power so that he would never be a threat to the other gods, even if his plan failed. He stripped all elemental affinities except the weakest: darkness."
As he withdrew his hand from his chest a small opening appeared in the golden barrier and a pillar of pale green energy escaped through it. Surprisingly, the man drew the energy in through his open mouth. Green veins appeared on his skin, which darkened to black in several places before black scales began sprouting all across his body.
"Thus, the Devourer came to be."
The image froze as color leached away until only the green of the pillar and the energy spreading through the god's veins remained.
"A new prison was created for the Fallen, in the depths of the world, and the Devourer became the Warden, the First Guardian. Because of him, the gods were free to do as they pleased."
The Devourer sat in the middle of a large chamber, lightsteel cell doors honeycombed the walls. A trickle of the green energy flowed through a small opening in each to join a generous sphere of the eldritch energy floating above the Devourer's head. Snakelike tentacles of liquid darkness extended from the Devourer, to the orb above his head, occasionally swelling as they gulped down portions of it.
"The elves loved their god and were pained by his plight. They all desired to pledge themselves to his new cause, guarding this prison in the Underworld. But the Devourer decreed that he would accept only half of them, to serve as another line of defense incase he failed.”
The scene transitioned to uncountable throngs of elves standing on the border of the desert. There were tears and many elves embraced their kin as they said their goodbyes. Then, the half who had been chosen turned and walked resolutely into the desert, the remainder collapsing, wailing in despair.
"Yet, the Devourer was unstable."
The image faded to complete darkness.
"The
Blight affected him more than anyone could have predicted."
A green flame appeared in the darkness.
"He slipped into madness."
The flame burned higher, the illumination revealed thousands of hands reaching upwards, contorted in unnatural ways. The sounds of agony were unbearable.
"He twisted the elves who followed him into his darkness-touched children. He created the drow. The drow have the Blight in them, an inherent evil which naturally opposes Divine power. It gave us a hunger to conquer all."
The mangled lightsteel entrance to the Underworld was visible again, a legion of drow clambered out, darksteel swords in their hands and malice written plainly on their faces.
Suddenly, golden chains stretched out from inside the breach in the lightsteel door, shackled the ankles of the drow, and dragged them back as they howled with rage. They tried to resist, their nails broke as they clawed the ground seeking purchase, their blood streaked the white metal ground, but it was to no avail. Soon, they disappeared back into the hole.
"Having realized the danger to Valia, the gods had returned. When they saw what the elven disciples of the Devourer had become they tried to remove the taint of the Blight from them, but failed. So it was that they imprisoned the drow and bent all their magics to creating an artifact to aid the Devourer in resisting the corruption of the Blight, to preserve his sanity as he fulfilled his purpose as the First Guardian.”
“At that time, the denizens of the Underworld were little more than beasts, vengeful spirits, endlessly hungering undead and destructing elementals. The gods changed them, helped them ascend to true sentience so that they might serve them, defend their realm from the threat of the fallen and contain the drow.
"The Ways were created, not by tyrannical gods who wished to enslave us with their rules, but out of love, that we might still serve our purpose. Because we carried the Blight, a power which has always opposed the gods, their only alternative would have been to exterminate us."