“Tremble!
Tremble! We come!”
The whole world was listening, and as the shaking and shuddering of the Manafield gave way to a squealing, shrieking pressure that seemed to come from all directions, Thunder resounded and pressed back at it.
“We Salute the Dawn, and the new day born!
We rise to The Light, and Aru lifts His gaze!
He Looks Down, and He Sees all!
Do You think You will escape this Place?
TREMBLE! TREMBLE, WE COME!
“A Sword raised High, until the very End!
A Shield, defending to the Last!
This is their Present, this is your Fate,
An end to your Future, as to your Past!
TREMBLE! TREMBLE, WE COME!
“What is your Fear to a World’s beating Hearts?
Feel that Thunder that echoes within us All,
Hear that Unity! Hear that Resolve!
Hear Mortal souls, standing proud and tall!
“TREMBLE! TREMBLE, WE COME!
Immortals come to break the Sky!
Immortals now have come to Die!
Prey come to the Slaughter!
Pray, and do not Falter!
An Eye turns in the Aether, a Storm churns in Fate,
War calls madly through the Void, and now it is too Late
Your Doom is coming!”
“TREMBLE! THE WORLD RISES!
TREMBLE, BEFORE MORTAL HEARTS AND MORTAL WILLS!
TREMBLE! WE COME FOR YOU!
TREMBLE, WE COME!”
And the whole world roared defiance at the unstoppable with her.
=========
Forty percent.
That was my calculation as I listened to Sama lead what amounted to the whole world in a fighting prayer.
Her Song was driving the Realm Lords crazy. They could feel the resolve behind it, all the Beasts joining in on the chorus, Thunder pounding to Endure’s beat with the Will of the World.
They would gain nothing here. Nothing! All their efforts for naught! The mortals would rather die than yield to them! Steal the whole world away, and the paltry harvest of souls that would follow would take eons to replace what had been lost!
They had only spite at this point, there was no way they could ‘win’ in any sense of the word!
And in their miserable outrage, especially at the Condemnation and Judgements I’d laid upon them, they began to Burn their Realms to get at me.
Would even revenge be worth it? Crippling them had been worth it, or the planet would already have fallen. Now I watched as Realms wrought of psychoplasm and the essence of congealed souls Ignited, the hapless spirits bound to those areas fueled the conflagration, and that power was pulled away to empower these bastards.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The clawing hands and glowing Weapons thrust closer, and then locked again.
They realized what was going on. I was using the force of the Lords of Light to forestall that of four of the six Netherlords, and the remaining two simply didn’t have the power or force to reach me.
Now, one side of them had to make a choice on who was going to carry on for revenge, and the other withdraw with the smaller losses.
Six looked at four, and after an interminable gaze, fury beat out logic, and the great glowing Weapons slowly withdrew.
As they did, the claws began to wind together, shadowed fingers becoming like spears and barbs, reaching for me as one, shaking with every syllable of the Song that was still assaulting them. The Sublime Chord was now turning to blaze and Burn purely against the Dark, as now I didn’t have to defend against two sides, only against one.
And Heaven was always best at Countering Evil!
The Netherworlds Burned, all six conjoined Realms on fire, torn apart as the energies they were made of were ripped away and sent at me. Boundless territories that had taken ages to gain were lost in minutes of fury, and now the sky over the whole world was warring White and Black as they reached, reached for me...
The Veil was growing thin, their power concentrating, Burning away, Burning at them wildly as they spent their power in mad concert, howling for me, screaming at what I was costing them.
The Lords of Light made a half-hearted attempt at pounding on the Broom Closet, but the threat welling up out of it drove them back, sensing a danger in it, a profound importance that was rising by the second.
But not enough...
I was punishing the bastards, there was no doubt. I wasn’t just pushing against their reaching claws, I was Burning their power and throwing it back against them, and they could only heal it by stripping their Realms even more. The Lord of Demons was taking the point, each of the other five now powering up a finger of his claws, pressing forwards against the rain of Silver, Gold, and Rainbows turning the sky into the wildest psycho-tripping dream anyone had ever seen.
If I triggered the Pyramid, I was playing with the future of the world. I could see the Lords of Light trying to weave some new skein over the hole in the Barrier, countering what any new Faith coming in would achieve.
I shut my eyes as the claws closed in on me, filling my vision. If I cut the Broom Closet free and ran, I could still save everyone who made it inside, accumulate 100% of the Faith required with enough time, and make it back.
But in the meantime, everyone left behind was going to die.
I grit my teeth. I did not want to play dice with this. Not even fifty percent-!
The Sending hit my ear.
“Hello, don’t know if you’re getting this, as I’ve received only a couple acknowledgments. I’m finally out of my destination, after some hefty Good deeds and a full reset of my Matrix, and I’m on my way back.
“Dunno if it will be useful, but here’s how being a Shugenja works where I was at. Somewhere between Spirit and Elemental Theurgy...
“I’m making a road of Faith across transfinity, and at the end of that road is Korbald and his people! How’s that for not-coincidence?
“Zeben, if you’re getting this, I’m coming to help.”
For a moment, I just froze in disbelief at the gods-damned timing. “MITHAR YOU MAGNIFICENT SUNUVABITCH!” I crowed, even as I formulated my reply.
“FAE HERE! COME IN AT THESE EXACT COORDINATES OF TIME AND SPACE AND CALL IN ARU IMMEDIATELY!”
They were TIME and space coordinates, to exactly five seconds in the future!
I felt the streak of The Light slash through the Aether, edged like a silver saber, and it punched effortlessly through the Veil about the Broom Closet.
=======
Aelryinth wasted not an instant as he materialized on top of a massive Pyramid, not even fully complete, intended for a full hundred Levels by the layout and coding he could sense and comprehend. It was brimming with the power of a whole world’s Faith, an absolutely colossal amount of energy, not so different from the effort required to manipulate a Great Seal, and it was ready to fire.
There were plenty of people around, plenty saw his arrival, but nobody knew what it meant and none were in his immediate area, so he wiped them from his attention, feeling a colossal teetering of Fate ready to fall one way or another about him.
Fire that way, and fuck Fate and Chance, he thought grimly, Divining the direction he had to aim. It was a familiar direction...
The Amulet at his throat flared with the connection he already had to Mithar, guiding his shot. He reached out with all his power, into this incredible demiplane, past it to the planet it was tied to, synching with the active Elements of magic here with the Shugenja harmonization he’d learned on Korbald’s world, and then all his floating power went out.
The power of a Master Archtheurge of the Seven Traditions.
He could feel Zeben, no, Fae’s Aura down at the South Pole, unbelievably powerful, resonating with the whole world, able to hurl around mountains... and countering six other Dark Auras of similar world-burning power. How long had Fae been here, to grow that strong? There was nothing in the Power of Ten Rules about being as strong as she had to be. She was definitely at post-Eternal, Titanic status...
The whole planet seemed to take a breath, and then it RANG at his touch, startling him at what almost felt like pure, primal joy.
What a Manafield!, he thought. Fae was incredibly harmonized with the planet and its odd Elemental breakdown, but she only had seven Theurgies going on. There were only a few scattered people around who had Arcane Theurgy, he could pick them out like bright fireflies in the dotted starfield of the world’s Manafield and Casters, their raw power and ability absolutely momentous compared to what he knew...
He had twenty-nine Theurgies, including the Worldheart Theurgy of Arcane/Shugenja Magic. Seven more Theurgies to go to actually fill out a true Eight Tradition harmonization...
This world had never felt anyone with so many interlinked Theurgies at once, each one magnifying those that came before it, building, echoing, layering, harmonic resonances in reinforcing cycles as he reached down into the streaming Well of Faith and sent it out in that direction, out to where Aru was waiting and would notice.
Faith responded best to Divine magic, and he had all seven of those Theurgies, tying them to all the other Traditions...
The Lords of Light who tried to get in the way of the Faith were scattered like sparrows by a power that eclipsed anything they had ever seen. It was a Light more profound and pure than any of their own pale imitations, driven by the Faith of those who knew there was a better way, and by the crystalline scream of a jet and silver celeste Void Phoenix screaming from out of the Aether, cutting and mocking them as something unstoppable rose toward Heaven.