by J M Hamm
Eventually the red-robed giant turned its attention away from the battle in front of it and towards the rebelling goblins behind. It let out a silent howl, and the goblins looked up in confusion. A calm came over them and they reluctantly turned back toward the rest of the horde.
At the same time, the giant looked down as a small object came to rest against its foot. The face of the creature was hidden in shadows, but its head turned slightly to the side and its shoulders rose.
As the creature reached down to pick up the object, I allowed the eldritch membrane to collapse. It didn’t dissipate all out once, instead it spun as layers of energy gradually evaporated. Tiny pinpricks of light began to appear on the sphere and the energy began to swirl faster.
As the speed increased the pinpricks grew larger, and thin needles of energy began to shoot outwards from them. I saw the giant pull back and howl in rage, its hand was dripping blood and missing fingers. The pinpricks of light quickly consumed the entire orb until it was a swirling mass of glowing plasma.
And then the membrane stretched beyond its limit and orb released its energy, the final wisp of the protective barrier evaporating into nothingness.
Chapter Fifty-two: Leveling Earth and Sky
I was expecting something along the lines of a Hollywood explosion — a controlled, evenly distributed release of kinetic energy, heat, and light. A few billowing flames wouldn’t have seemed out of place. That wasn’t what I got.
There were no flames, but there was plenty of light and force. A brilliant wave of light washed over me, drowning everything in an intense sea of white. I was blinded. It lasted only seconds, but those moments contained more pain and death than anything I had imagined possible.
The force of the blast had pressed me into the cold soil. Heavy earth fell like rain, burying me further. I felt trapped under the weight and it bore down upon me with increasing force. I began frantically kicking and pushing as I tried to free myself.
My panic and the loamy walls of my tomb muffled the sound of the world above me. Everything was distorted and far away, but still clear to my enhanced perception. Those sounds still haunt my more restless nights.
Screams full off spittle and rage filled my ears. Howls and pounding feet shook the earth around me in answer to these calls. This was met with a clash of claw and flesh as allies turned against each other. The cries of fury quickly turned into despair as I heard the thud of dozens of bodies hitting the ground at the same time. Something incredibly large was slamming against the earth with terrifying force and speed.
The ferocious beat slowly increased in tempo, it was much like the sound of a train picking up speed as it pulls away from a station. The earth responded like taut skin stretched across a drum. The dirt bounced, and waves passed through blood-soaked mud like ripples in a pond. I felt it as a deep vibration in my chest.
Each strike was followed by a thunderous boom like the crack of a whip. As the speed of the cracks intensified, I could no longer hear the dings and shouts of combat. A few inhuman voices still called out in pain and rage, but they were quickly being silenced.
The wet sounds of tearing flesh and the sickening cracks of shattered bone would follow each percussive strike. It seemed to go on forever but had taken no more than a scant few heartbeats — a single measure of a ghastly dance.
Eventually, even the raging howls and cries of anguish faded into quiet whimpers. Everything else had gone quiet. No sounds of battle or life broke the silence as the deadly percussion slowly stilled.
My vision was beginning to return. The blinding white slowly retreated, to be replaced by a deep and overwhelming black. I thrust my arm upwards and I could feel a cool wind between my fingers. I tore at earth and pressed up with my legs until my eyes broke free beneath a purple and hazy sky. The world was blurred and dark and I was unable to focus on the carnage that lied around me.
Something large and fast passed over me, creating flickering shadows like the spinning shade of a gargantuan propeller.
A gentle hum filled the silence. With every rotation of the shadow the hum grew louder, and the air began to pull at me like the drag of a large truck passing too closely. As the effect increased, dirt and small stones began to fly into the sky until converging at a single point.
I may have joined them if I didn’t still have a half ton of earth anchoring me to the ground. I wasn’t sure how long that would be true, however, as thick streams of dust spiraled into the air and began to rotate around a growing sphere of rock and dirt.
The spinning singularity picked up speed and was soon absorbing green-skinned corpses and tearing craters from the ground as loose dirt revealed buried stones of various sizes. I reinforced the earth around me by creating a large net of eldritch energy that covered myself and the small hill I was buried in. I then anchored the net with massive spikes that I drove as deep beneath the ground as I could.
Within seconds I was lifted out of my hiding spot, my weight straining against the net. Long gashes were cut into my armor and thick red welts appeared on exposed flesh. The spikes anchoring the net began to loosen and pull free one by one. With each tug the net was lifted higher above the ground as winding trails of dirt broke free to orbit what was beginning to look like a small moon.
The reversed gravity continued to pull me upwards until only a single spike remained to anchor me to the Earth. I grasped the energy of the net and condensed it into a sphere to protect myself from the flying rock and fallen weapons that filled the air.
And then … it stopped. I heard a sound like shattered glass, and everything went still. For a moment I was weightless. I floated among clumps of dirt and stone like detritus cast through space. A globe the size of a large house hung motionless above me. Small cracks appeared in its surface, widening and lengthening almost instantly as the stone began to fray.
Not everything fell at the same time. The objects closest to the ground began to obey normal gravity first, before slowly passing the message upwards. As stone and rock began to bury me, I looked up at the boulder that blocked out the entire sky. It was slowly rotating and was still absorbing the dirt closest to it. The spin was slowing, and the surface of the sphere was an ever-growing crisscross of cracks and chasms.
When that thing came down, I couldn’t be under it.
Dirt poured down the rounded sides of my energy shield, all but burying me once again. Only one direction was clear.
I bent my knees. As the muscles in my legs contracted, I wound eldritch energy around each fiber. I didn’t have this much control over the ambient energy, but since fusing with my new arm I had gained a greater control and understanding over the energy I had integrated into my own flesh and bone. It would hurt, but I could roughly double my power without doing more damage than a heavy workout. Greater boosts were possible, but the risks were greater as well.
I chose to increase the strength of my legs threefold.
I jumped, my body and legs straightened as I threw my arms over my head. In the same instant I released my protective shell. I cleared the top just as tons of earth and rock rushed in to fill the void. A thick plume of dust engulfed me.
At the same time, the spinning sphere stopped its rotation and hung motionless in the air. The feeling of flying towards it was both invigorating, and terrifying. I continued to fly upwards with no way to correct my course. I was blind in every direction as thick clouds of dust surrounded me. A wall of earth blocked the way forward. It was as if I was falling through clouds of dust towards an empty, desert planet.
In the fraction of a second before the orb began to fall, I flipped and landed feet first on its cracked surface. I pushed off against the crumbling rock, creating a cascade of breaks and fissures. Small pieces began to break off from the miniature moon and immediately began to fall. This seemed to be the signal for everything else to follow.
I flew outwards, angled slightly away from the hurtling ball of rock and buried corpses. I would reach the ground first and might even have
a moment roll into a sprint. I would still land closer to the impact than I would like, though. My mana shield was active but had yet to recover to its full strength after the sniper shot I took to the head.
I could have created another shield of eldritch energy, but instead I chose to focus on speed. I was falling headfirst, and the ground was still obscured. Energy coursed through my legs in anticipation of a mad dash as soon as I landed. I would need to nail the timing perfectly.
I tried to calculate my speed to figure out exactly when I would land, but it turned out that a forty in Intellect did not automatically make up for years of minimal effort in math and physics. That didn’t mean I was out of tricks.
I conjured several small marbles of energy and threw them forward with a soft underhand. They would land a fraction of a second before I did. I kept a mental hold on the energy, looking for the exact moment the marbles stopped moving.
When the marbles hit the ground, I fell into a forward roll. I ended up beginning the roll too early and came down on my hip rather than my shoulder. A burning shot of pain ran up my spine, but I continued as if nothing happened and easily hit my feet running.
A shock wave followed by a rolling mound of dust and dirt quickly overtook me. I was buried and knocked to the ground once more. Luckily, this time I was not entombed but merely covered in a layer of grime. Something wet and sticky was mixed with the dirt and pebbles, but I ignored the feeling and turned my mind to other things.
The destruction had been massive and had killed nearly everything within its radius. Despite that, the area wasn’t large enough to have taken out more than a tiny fraction of the horde. It was confined almost entirely to the rear flank of the goblin army. Most of the goblins, not to mention the other species, were likely unharmed. One of the red-robed giants and its thirteen cohorts seemed to have been taken out. That, at least, was a win.
Whatever intelligence or algorithm that controlled the system decided that this was the perfect moment to remind me it was in charge. A deluge of status updates was starting to overwhelm my senses. Normally they would be welcome, but I had never received so many in such a short time. It was distracting and nauseating.
I could feel the air become thick with energy, but it was the flavorless and pasteurized version used by the system. It was like mana, but grey and lifeless. It was devoid of the temperament and instability of eldritch energy. Worse, I couldn’t control it.
I couldn’t stop it from flowing into me. I became dazed as it formed a twister above me that funneled straight into my chest. I felt as if I was the drain at the bottom of some celestial tub. I could feel the energy changing me. A large portion of the energy disappeared, and I was unable to see where it went.
Flashing lights and scrolling cautions, numbers, and updates distracted me. I dismissed them until I got past the army of fiends and found a safe place. If such a place even existed now.
The information kept coming, demanding to be seen. I could set it aside, but the knowledge stayed in the back of my mind demanding to be acknowledged. I had to act before curious or vengeful monsters ventured closer.
I may not have taken out the army, but I had filled the sky with a cloud of dust that was slowly settling over everything. That, combined with my illusions, would camouflage my movements. I took off running.
I would need speed, and a little luck. I ran roughly the length of three football fields before I exited the radius of the destruction I had created. As I broke through, the dust thinned, and I became aware of something in front of me.
An army of green bodies was lined up shoulder to shoulder. Individual goblins would jostle or kick their neighbors, but it was an otherwise unified front. The lined curved as far as I could see in each direction, as if they were creating a ring around the entire area.
Shit. Something was suppressing their instincts to an even greater level than before. They were waiting to stop anything that exited the radius of the cataclysm that had consumed thousands of their horde.
I wasn’t entirely caught off guard. I was surrounded by an illusionary sphere that made me look like a whirlwind of dust. I should blend into the background, except to the most scrupulous of eyes. As the horde appeared, I conjured a shadow doppelganger and ordered it to run parallel to the army of goblins.
The shadow was uncamouflaged and moved slowly. Whatever was suppressing the goblins’ instincts wasn’t powerful enough to stop them from chasing easy prey. This created a large gap in the wall of goblin flesh. I slipped through unnoticed, picking up speed with each step.
I reached a sort of no man’s land in less than half a minute. It was a semicircle of cratered and blood-soaked dirt directly in front of the blue forcefield. A small group of familiar faces stood just outside the dome. They didn’t look happy.
I took one more look at the wasteland behind me. The army of abominations could not be reasoned with or overpowered. They represented only death. I still hesitated before stepping forward.
The look on my welcome committee's face was not one of gratitude.
Chapter Fifty-three: Apotheosis Horizon
As I walked through the barrier, I felt a slight tingle as an electrical current washed over my skin. There was a faint fizzling sound followed by a loud pop, and then I was on the other side. The air was fresh and carried a slight whiff of ozone like the cool nighttime air after afternoon thunderstorms.
It the only pleasant smell in recent memory.
I hadn’t realized how badly the battlefield had stank. I had either gotten used to, or blocked out, the horrible smell of excrement, perspiration, and death. Their absence was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. It’s funny how often the greatest pleasures are found in the relief of something unpleasant.
Silent Peacekeepers flanked me on each side. Sebbit walked directly behind me and was joined by Catayla at his left and Talith on his right. They weren’t exactly on my ass, but they walked close enough that I was starting to get a bit claustrophobic. This certainly didn’t feel like the hero’s reception I was expecting.
“So, what in Hell is going on,” I turned around to face Sebbit. “Did I somehow offend you again? Do you macho assholes not accept help even when you are surrounded and outnumbered? I mean, fuck, just look outside.”
My rant started calm, but quickly descended into shouting.
“Mr. Finn —”
“Let me, Captain,” Catayla said. She looked at Sebbit and he gave her a slight nod before she continued. Now that I was looking for them, I could see signs of pride on his face. The captain’s smile appeared and disappeared fast enough that I may have imagined it, but it lingered in his eyes.
“Finn, we’re glad to see you. We really are. Archmage Armeria told us that she had to leave you behind after stabilizing some very serious injuries.”
Catayla held eye contact with me for slightly longer than I found comfortable but looked away as she patted my shoulder with one hand.
“She also told us about the barrier,” I flinched instinctively when Talith began to speak. I’d learned the old armsmaster had a way of punctuating her statements with physical violence.
“Apparently you found a way to not only overcome your injury but also continued your mission to bring down the dome. I never imagined you’d amount to anything even close to resembling a competent soldier, but that was a damn fine performance.”
The massively tall alien looked down at me and smiled, showing multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth. “I’m proud to have trained you.”
“Uh…. Not that I’m not grateful for the praise, but if there is some shit in the middle of this compliment sandwich, I’d like to get it over with.”
“Ah, Mr. Finn,” Sebbit interjected. “I have missed your… colorful colloquialism. I cannot say, however, that I agree with your assault of women under my command. We will revisit that in the future. Trust me when I say that conversation will go much better if you cooperate now.”
Something about the way he said it made me feel ashame
d. Perhaps it was the way he emphasized ‘assault of women’ – even if those women were eight-foot-tall alien super soldiers with sci-fi weapons and a nasty set of razor-sharp teeth.
“My primary concern, at the moment, is not your insubordination, but the fact that you decided it was a good idea to feed the gestating death goddess. An apotheosis, I might add, that I have spent significant time, resources, and lives just to delay.”
“Well… fuck.”
What do you even say to that? I turned and gazed at the sky. The black orb that hung there had clearly grown. It now cut a hole in the sky larger that was larger than a full moon.
“We have taken every action available to siphon off the energy in the area, and we have avoided direct conflict at all costs. Those beasts out there do not care if they kill us or we kill them — they serve their masters either way.”
“Captain Sebbit,” I said. “The only information I had was that you took one of my people into harm’s way. Make that two.” I looked over at Catayla as I said the last word.
“I will do everything in my power to get them out safely. My team means just as much to me as yours does to you. If that means dealing with a few infant deities, abominations, or elder ones then so be it.” Sebbit’s jaw tightened but I couldn’t help but notice the smiles on the faces of Talith and Catayla.
“So then,” I continued. “What’s the plan?”
“Very well, Mr. Finn. Come with me.”
Sebbit agreeing so quickly scared me more than whatever was growing in the black orb. He was even somewhat pleasant. The only explanation I could think of was that he was desperate.
We crossed the Peacekeeper camp quickly. Almost every one of the soldiers was stationed behind small, hexagonal barricades. Each shield was made of translucent energy and had several gaps in the center and around the edges that were just large enough to fit the barrel of a rifle.