Unbound

Mana filled the night with the sounds of screaming. Bestial roars and unintelligible gibbering were met with inchoate shouts and shrieking cries. Skills clashed as crimson blood and dark ichor was spilled in equal measure.

The shield wall disengaged from the horde, but it was not clean. With only a handful of those at Bronze Rank or above, there were too many points of contact to cover them all. Ice warriors, monkeys, and bugs all hit their lines and trampled dozens if not more of their warriors. Vess could only clench her teeth and attack. There was nothing she could do.

Just follow the plan!

Jagged chunks of earth and sand swept upward, slicing through the legs of a line of rapid monkeys. Vess took the opportunity to leap backward, dispatching another of her spears to explode their ranks. "Full retreat!"

Her people shouted in recognition, and a piercing command sent a streamer of crimson flame to light up the night. The monsters didn't flinch as they marched through it, but at least a few of them succumbed to the inferno.

Vess, meanwhile, ran for all she was worth. She caught up with the Tin and Iron Ranks quickly, spinning her five remaining spears to deflect the spray of spectral flames that chased them. They were running out of time. Thangle had to be ready, now.

Sweat dripped down the heiress' face, but she ignored it. A flex of her Will sent her spears outward, stabbing into the overturned streets as banner-less flagpoles. Atar and Alister hustled beyond the edge of her range, the last of their people to pull back. Columns of blue force and flowers of carmine flame flowed behind them, yet still the Reforged charged after.

Seven heartbeats, Vess thought, eyeing the horde with growing panic. That is all we can give you, Illusionist.

Will you make it work?

The monstrous Arcid tore through the weakened Wall like paper, stumbling powerfully into the Wall Quarter. It's feet smashed inns and taverns in equal measure, and it's immense girth put holes in the streets themselves. The Wall barely even paused it's mad charge.

Zara's aquamarine power had flooded outward, marking it's metal flesh with sigils the size of houses. They proved ineffectual, however. Metal eroded beneath the waves of her power, scooped away by the inevitable coursing of the seasons, yet it regrew. The creature's impossible Body was an engine of furious discordance, a sonata of spite.

"You will not escape me!" Zara spat, and rode the line of her power across the sky. Light flared behind her in ribbons and she lifted her hands high above her head. Swirling orbs of aquamarine script manifested above each fist to the peal of twelve bells the size of a man. "Seizure of the Solemn Vow!"

The orbs unfurled into writhing cages, flying from her hands to impact the gargantuan Arcid. The tendrils of script slipped around the construct before igniting with green-blue flames as they snapped into a rigid formation. The creature stopped.

"I have you," Zara hissed from the air around it. Her spell had grabbed it, but her hands trembled. "You'll go no further, abomination!"

The Arcid turned its helmeted head slowly to regard the Master Tier mage. Noxious fumes emanated from the creature not unlike the black smoke of monster dissipation. But this was an acrid pollutant that smelled of an arrhythmic tattoo, beating against the insides of Zara's temples. It's eye-fires met her own, and the effect redoubled, until she was barely holding onto the containment spell. Her Analyze flared.

Name: Apollyon

Type: Archonic Construct

Level: 73

...

A titanic caterwaul sounded from the Apollyon's chest and raced up the hollow thing's throat. The cacophonous shriek met her harmonic spellform...and pulverized it, instantly. Zara lurched backward, concentration destroyed as her Skill unraveled before her, and by the time she recovered the Apollyon had already begun to move.

With quickening steps, it stomped into Haarwatch, demolishing everything in its path. Zara stifled a frustrated scream. It was headed for the battle.

For Felix.

Activating the Song of Fury.

It was all the warning Felix received, before an outburst of oppressive yellow Mana discharged from DuFont. It was the same Mana Skill she'd been tossing around before, but amplified a hundred fold. Cal shouted something.

Stone Shaping!

Reaching deep, Felix pulled up a ten foot thick wall of conglomerated rock between them and the Inquisitor. The wave of heat Mana struck the wall with the force of a bomb, and the stone splintered a half second before it exploded.

Stone Shaping is level 51!

Stone Shaping!

Stone Shaping!

Stone Shaping!

Stone Shaping is level 54!

Wall after all, Felix threw his arms up in rapid success as the blooming heat refused to be denied. He pitted his Intelligence and Will against the force of it, but it was not enough.

"What is this!?" Felix screamed.

"I don't know!" Cal said. "Evie! Harn! Get her out of here!"

"No! I'm not leaving you!" Evie shouted back. Her chain whipped about in the volcanic winds, barely restrained by her gloved hand.

"Harn!" Cal screamed as Felix erected another wall of stone. The warrior grabbed Evie, his armor having cooled enough. Evie screamed, but Harn hauled back and stumbled into a plodding run.

What is the Song of Fury? Felix strained to hold his wall together. Beyond the curved expanse of it, he could sense the entire mansion ahead of them igniting. Smoke choked the sky, pressing ash into the storm clouds. Even the rain was gone, evaporated as it hit the expanding bubble of heat.

Felix could hear it, the Song. And by the look on Cal's face, so could she. "What is it?" she asked, but Felix shook his head. It sounded like a melding of harmonics that felt far less like the System and more...Primordial.

"It's her Authority! She's done something," Felix grunted as the wall cracked. His Mana drained out of him like a sieve as more liquid stone flowed to fill the breaks. "I can't Analyze her from here, but this is way stronger than I thought she'd be!"

"She's boosting herself!" Cal said. Her own eyes glowed with smoky shadow and deep sienna. "We need to stop her now! Can you draw her in?"

"Okay! Yeah!" Felix said, juggling his options. "I'll open the way!"

With a surge of Will, the stone beneath their feet parted into a dark passage. Felix quested ahead, boring through the top layers of the city streets with his growing magic.

Stone Shaping is level 55!

Cal dashed forward, while Felix desperately tried to hang on and weaken the nova burst of heat.

Ravenous Tithe!

Yellow Mana surged into his channels, scorching him before being deposited into the spinning center of his cores. The abyss ate it up, but it was like reverse acid reflux with every bite he took. And it barely lessened the punch of it all.

Mantle of the Long Night!

Purple-white Mana surged from his burning pathways, soothing them before frosting them entirely. A maelstrom of arctic winds manifested around Felix with himself as the eye of the storm, and each iota of frozen Mana turned to visible steam upon meeting DuFont's heat. Felix pushed back against it, shoving his Will and Mana at the Skill until the air itself began to shriek.

Mantle of the Long Night!

Clouds billowed outward, ice turned to water turned to steam. Felix screamed and the Skill pushed out further and further.

Mantle of the Long Night is level 43!

The heat lessened, just a touch. Hopefully enough.

Stone Shaping!

Felix couldn't see it, but his Perception was strong enough to open the other side of the tunnel he was building. He felt Cal race through it at almost the same time the jarring Song increased its fervent tempo. DuFont laughed, and her voice reverberated in the night.

"You stop here, Boscal."

Felix punched his shaped wall forward, moving it through the earth. He could feel Cal dash about, harried by blows that boomed in the air. Pieces of the mansion collapsed, wood and embers pouring outward, but Felix's wall cut it all off as it shaped into a sharp 'V' formation before he cut open the very center.

DuFont stood tall, hugely so as if she'd grown, and Cal flitted about her with her usual deadly grace. Blades flashed and shimmered with black and sepia Mana vapor, but DuFont shifted, too fast for Felix to track. Cal took an uppercut to the shoulder, flipping her up into the air.

"Cal!" Felix sent a Shadow Whip out, catching his friend. The whip latched onto the back of her armor and he yanked back, pulling her out of the way of a savage follow up from DuFont.

Wrack and Ruin!

The orb of acid was tight and relatively small, but it hit the ex-Elder like a cannon. Except, Dufont barely moved from it. She grinned at Felix as he caught Cal's limp body. Her smile was wide and white and feral.

The Song blared, higher and faster. Felix winced under it's relentless tempo, and Cal bled all over him. The heat had only grown, as if DuFont's Skill levels had skyrocketed.

Everything ignited.

Harn all but dragged Evie away from the mansion. The heat died just beyond it's perimeter, but the untiring warrior didn't stop or weaken his grasp. Evie stumbled after him, trying and failing to oppose his Strength. She was no match, no matter the mass she brought to bear.

"Stop! I won't leave them again, Harn! Not again!"

Behind them, now a block distant, the mansion exploded into a swirling inferno.

"Callie!"

A series of sharp screeches met Evie's ears, and Harn fell flat onto his face. Evie was yanked from her feet, still in the man's iron grip, but she could see six throwing blades embedded in Harn's weakened armor. "Harn?"

"Be more concerned with yourself, girlie," a voice said. Evie looked up, and beheld a figure dissolving form the waving shadows around them.

"Sworn," Evie cursed. "If you've killed him, you will follow after."

"I'm shaking, honestly," Ilia said. The inferno behind them flared up and illuminated the woman's face. Scars puckered and broke the woman's once beautiful face, and half her head was shorn entirely of hair. "But it's past time you lot paid for what you've put me through. I'd rather start with that prissy noble bitch, but you'll do just fine."

Shadows swirled and the Sworn vanished just as Evie pulled her wrist free of Harn's grasp.

"Come and fight, girlie."

Cal blinked up at Felix, who was crouched low over her. Her eyesight swam, and it was dark. His black helm had broken apart, as if smashed, and only covered his neck and half of his jaw. The rest of him looked charred and smudged with soot, only rags of his clothing left atop his armored scales.

"Wake up Cal! I don't think I can fight her on my own!" Felix strained, and Cal could see two different spells at work. Stone was formed atop of them while swirls of deadly cold eddied around their forms. The cold took the bite out of the heat that even now was melting its way through the boy's stonework. Her Mind felt sluggish, idly cataloguing useless details. "Whatever she's doing is not permanent, but—UGH!—but it's strong!"

"She knocked me aside like I was nothing," she whispered. It was coming back to her now. "My blades couldn't even pierce her skin." Cal struggled up into a seated position. Felix's neck was corded and strained, looking like cables more than tendons. "This...is more than a boost. She's advanced, somehow."

Cal felt at the blood that flowed freely down her side. Her Health was dropping rapidly, and her Stamina was only a touch above half.

"She's Master Tier."

"Seven Tribulations!"

Pierce the Sky!

Pierce the Sky is level 57!

Grace is level 51!

Six.

Vess sailed above them all again, exploding her picket of spears. She timed it well. Wretches stumbled and fell, their bellies blown out, killing far more than a single explosion of air Mana could accomplish alone. Ghostfire Simians were trampled and torn apart by their own allies' blood frenzy.

But still they charged.

Rankers died by handfuls as spectral flames burst among their backs, while ice-bound weaponry cleaved entire lines apart. Their forces were fully routed, and though Bronze Ranks tried to maintain order it was a pell-mell dash into any streets that would get them away from the ravening horde.

Five.

Alister lifted a stumbling Atar, thrusting backward with his rapier to send the both of them forward on bursts of kinetic Mana. Rory sent burning handaxes out into the crowd, each one exploding into a tiny inferno. Karp shot arrow after arrow, each one shattering into a dozen shards and raining jagged death on the enemy.

Four.

Aenea threw glass vials, each concoction a colorful mist that boiled blood and liquified flesh. Her husband etched sigils in mid-air, forming temporary shields of hardened air as they ran. Ghostfire splashed against them, eating them apart.

Three.

Ahead, the Iron and Tin Ranks fled as fast as they could, led by the bounding form of Bodie. The giant of a man held Thangle over his shoulder, cradled as carefully as any baby.

Two.

Thangle's hands moved ceaselessly, and as Vess began to fall, she could see the tendrils of his gift spread out among the streets shadows. Portia's life Mana surged into the street, raising tanglefoot grass that snagged a few more of the beasts, but was powerless against the Reforged.

The ice warriors could not be stopped.

One.

The streets were awash with aquamarine sigils. Each glyph took up entire market squares, the thoroughfares merely lines in a vast and complex array. Zara hovered atop it, frantically placing the last marking upon the earth as the Apollyon raced toward her.

It's armored form blurred with every step, moving faster and faster, until its sheer momentum was impossible to deny. A discordant bellow, low to high, shattered windows for blocks and sent deep fissures into masonry. Zara's own wards flared and burst around her, unable to cope with its impossible cry.

"What has the Archon made of you?" Zara shouted, her remaining power gathering in the streets. Luminescent streamers of green-blue vapor filled the air in a sinuous dance. She began to Chant, a harmonious chorus singing along with her spellform.

The abomination raged, but did not halt. It's eye-fires burned like fallen stars. Dissonance hung about its shoulders like a cape of darkness, and in the shadows, far distant, something golden shimmered.

It laughed.

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