Ascension (The Circle War Book 3)

by Matt King

  Enough of this.

  He flew into the air, throwing his shield at Tamaril to force an end to the onslaught. As Tamaril dropped his attack to fend it off, Cerenus sped across the gap between them and drove him into the side of a mountain with both fists. A spray of white boulders erupted from the impact. Tamaril came back immediately with forearms glowing red hot. Come on, you arrogant bastard. Show me how strong you are. He waited until Tamaril could taste the satisfaction of landing his attack, then separated the bonds of his atoms to let the wild shot pass through harmlessly. The look of surprise on Tamaril’s face was almost worth a celebratory pause, but instead he took Tamaril by the waist and flew as fast as he could toward the planet’s icy crust. He used the godclone like a spear to break through the thick layer of ice, plummeting them into a dark ocean deep beneath the surface.

  The shock of the impact broke his hold on Tamaril. He slipped away into the darkness.

  Every movement in the sounded like a rumbling herd. Cerenus trained his eyes to see through the murky abyss and focus on the cadence of the ocean tides instead. Tamaril was nowhere to be found.

  Keeping as still as he could, he drifted down into the darkness, his senses on full alert. His spectrum of vision showed nothing but molecules of water everywhere he looked. There wasn’t so much as a cluster of bacteria beneath the surface. Where he floated, the water was close to freezing. Further down, buried at unfathomable depths, he sensed the fiery blood of the moon. The center of the satellite was alive even if nothing on its surface was.

  He reached out with all of his senses, trying to find the bastard. It was so quiet, the sound of his own energy began to throb in his head. He peered into the depths. The underwater tides gently moved the water in bands of rhythmic pulses. He saw something, though—something in the bands that didn’t seem possible. He focused on it harder. Some of the molecules resisted the tide. He swam closer, all the while keeping his watch on the black wall of water surrounding him.

  As he scanned the stationary water, he began to recognize its shape.

  Damn you.

  Tamaril reappeared only inches away, morphing back into his corporeal form. Cerenus tried to create a synapse that would lead back out to the surface. When he turned to fly through, he watched it disappear in scattering wisps.

  No! That’s impossible!

  A pull from below so strong that it nearly doubled him over sent him plummeting through the depths. His back slammed against the sea floor. Through the dark shapes swirling above him, he could see the red glow of Tamaril’s arms in the center. One by one, huge chunks of the icy surface broke apart to join the whirlpool keeping Cerenus in place. Tamaril cast the icebergs down through the funnel. Cerenus fought to put his arms up, but couldn’t move. The slabs of ice drove him into the sea floor, repeatedly hitting him with crushing blows that buried him deeper and deeper. He tried twice to create a synapse beneath him to escape. Each time, Tamaril destroyed it before he could go through.

  Unable to move and with no time to think in between the bludgeoning icebergs, he tried to take advantage of his surroundings instead. The liquid ocean of the moon was as cold as the elements would allow. He concentrated on the rocky earth beneath him, taking hold of the loose soil and heating it until it formed a dome of superheated molten rock around him. The reaction with the frigid water caused an explosion that ripped through the ocean.

  Finally, he was free. The freedom lasted only as long as it took him to look up. Tamaril came speeding through the shockwave with both fists extended. He struck Cerenus full bore in the chest, sending them both crashing through the moon’s mantle. The pain was constant, but Cerenus couldn’t turn it off, no matter how blindingly encompassing it was. If he couldn’t feel pain, he couldn’t know how close he was to dying, and the constant barrage of stone against his back told him his body was nearing its breaking point.

  They broke through the mantle into an empty cavern. With a driving punch, Tamaril sent him hurtling into a bed of jagged rocks. Black stone tore at his skin. Cerenus laid still for as long as he dared to catch his breath and let his body mend. He pushed a pile of stone boulders away as he emerged from the rubble and stood on two feet again. In the cavernous pocket of space near the moon’s core, the floor was riddled with an ocean of churning lava dotted with floating islands of earth. The hot, pressurized air wicked the breath from his lungs.

  Tamaril landed at the opposite end of the island. The ground shook from his impact.

  “Stop fighting, Cerenus,” he said. His mask reflected the streams of fiery liquid shooting up from the molten sea. “You can’t win.”

  Cerenus whipped one of the boulders at him. Tamaril let the rock hit him square in the chest. The collision shattered the boulder, sending chunks of earth into the lava where they melted like ice. Tamaril brushed it off like he’d barely felt it.

  A sick feeling settled in Cerenus’s stomach, one he thought he’d never have to acknowledge, even when he danced with the idea of his own mortality. I’m going to lose. Somehow, he’d miscalculated Tamaril’s strength.

  “Yes, you see now, don’t you?” Tamaril said.

  Cerenus sealed off his mind. “This isn’t over yet.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No one said I had to kill you first. I can always go back and do away with a few of your teammates before we finish this.”

  “And how will you do that? You couldn’t create a synapse out of here if you wanted to.”

  Cerenus answered the dare by trying to create a connection to the surface of The Void. He could only manage to create a single doorway beside him. Something kept him from opening the synapse on the other side. This can’t be happening. He shouldn’t be this powerful.

  “You can create a synapse to the other side of this rock if you like, but that’s as far as I’m letting you go.”

  He squinted at Tamaril through the heat waves morphing the air. He could feel the smug grin behind the bastard’s mask. “How did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve always been more powerful than you. That should’ve gone for our godclones, too, and yet you can create synapses from one end of the universe to the other, all while somehow managing to destroy my own.”

  “I would have expected you to work it out by now.”

  “Believe it or not, Tamaril, I don’t enjoy thinking about you.”

  The godclone cocked his mask to the ceiling. “The answer is Pyra.”

  Cerenus shook his tired head. “Of all the people…”

  “It’s true. I figured out not long ago how Amara made Michael so powerful, so quickly, without using much of her own energy. I believe she imbued him with pieces of Pyra. I could only get a glimpse of him during the brief moment we met, but it was enough to analyze the source of his strength—and it was not of this universe. Once I committed the structure to memory, I tried to synthesize something close to the substance, to replicate its abilities. What I discovered was extraordinary.”

  Cerenus threw two more loose boulders at him on the off chance it would shut him up. Tamaril let them hit again, showing no affect as they burst into pebbles. “Get on with it,” Cerenus said.

  “Pyra’s structure absorbs energy,” Tamaril replied.

  “What kind?”

  “All kinds. Those stones you insist on throwing at me—as they strike, I absorb the energy of their impact. I grow stronger, Cerenus. Do you see now? Each time you hit me, each time we fight, I grow stronger. The last time you were more powerful than me was the first time we fought. You didn’t kill me then, which means you have no hope of killing me now.”

  Sweat dripped down the strands of hair hanging over Cerenus’ face. He looked at his hands. All this time he’d been taking out his hatred on Tamaril through force and the whole time he’d done nothing but make him stronger.

  “Well you’ll get no more out of me,” he said. “I’m done doing your work for you.”

  “You don’t have a choic
e.”

  Tamaril came forward in a blur. His punch landed squarely on Cerenus’ jaw. More came, each one too fast for Cerenus to see. He thought to make his skin as hard as stone, but held back. That would only increase the energy Tamaril stole. He went crashing to the ground after a blow to his head. The rocky floor was hot enough to burn him through his armor. Two more shots to his head nearly made him lose consciousness. Tamaril’s strength was overpowering.

  “I’ve been waiting for this day, you know,” Tamaril said. He landed two more lightning punches. “To see you humbled, for once in your miserable existence. All that’s left is to release all of my energy in a blast to see what I can absorb. What better person to try it on than you? First things first, however.”

  Tamaril clamped his hand around Cerenus’ right arm where it met his shoulder. With his other hand, he grabbed Cerenus’ left wrist. Cerenus tried to free himself but it was as if an entire planet held him down. Tamaril’s hands began to glow red hot. Instantly, Cerenus felt the heat burning his skin.

  “Don’t do this,” Cerenus said, struggling against the pressure. “Stop!”

  Tamaril clamped his fingers, melting through the flesh slowly. Cerenus strained as as long as he could without screaming. When Tamaril finished cutting through, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. As he screamed, Tamaril moved one of his hands to just above one of Cerenus’s knees. This time he worked quickly.

  The leg fell away with a sick thud. Tamaril threw it aside along with the rest of Cerenus’s severed limbs.

  Cerenus breathed in rapid pulses, trying to stave off unconsciousness. Blood pooled the ground.

  “Didn’t want you trying to leave too early. Not before the show.”

  “Just finish it,” Cerenus croaked.

  “Soon,” Tamaril said. He grabbed Cerenus’s jaw. “Now, look at me.”

  Cerenus tried not look, but Tamaril was too close. The mirrored mask showed him his reflection. It was the look of a man who knew he was defeated.

  “This is where you end, Cerenus. I’ll absorb every molecule of energy you possess. With you gone, the rest of the champions back on the Void can’t stop me. I’ll kill every last one of them—Dillon, Aeris, Galan’s machines, The Tria—and when I’m done with them, I will take Michael’s energy. I’ll be twice the god I am now—and then the Circle will be next. Our collective reign is at an end, my friend. The time of Tamaril is at hand.”

  Cerenus strained his eyes to look away. He focused on the lava. The molten rock bubbled and spit fire. He fantasized about being in the middle of it, the release of the fire enveloping him. Maybe I can get there. Tamaril had said he could create a synapse nearby. If he was quick, he could put one portal in the fire, and the other…

  I could put the other somewhere close.

  His eyes turned slowly back to Tamaril. He choked out a laugh.

  “You think this is funny?”

  Cerenus nodded, still laughing. “It’s like I told you,” he said. He coughed through his smile. “It doesn’t matter how much energy you have inside you, you dumb bastard. I’m still smarter than you.”

  He created the synapses almost simultaneously. The first opened deep in the lake of fire beneath him, masked by his own energy.

  He created the second portal in the meat of Tamaril’s brain.

  Tamaril jerked his head back. Cerenus closed the doorway in his brain and opened another nearby, repeating the pattern as fast as Tamaril could try to close them. Tamaril’s grip weakened. As the lava flowed into him, he lost more and more control. Cerenus quickened his attack. He opened multiple doorways inside the godclone’s body, melting him from the inside out.

  With a violent jolt, Tamaril fell to the ground beside him. A red dot appeared on his mirrored mask at the base. It grew until a small stream of lava melted through and flowed out. Gradually, his mask melted away, revealing an angry pair of eyes frozen in a stare at Cerenus. They caught fire, melting into the lava dripping from the mask.

  Even as Tamaril’s life drifted away, Cerenus sensed no loss of energy. Instead, the power within the godclone quaked.

  Cerenus turned away from him as soon as he realized what was about to happen. He laughed once more as a loud humming sound intensified within Tamaril’s corpse. He would explode soon. Whatever substance he’d invented to harness Pyra’s abilities was about to go off. Tamaril had managed to get his inaugural blast after all.

  He could’ve created a synapse away from the explosion. He could’ve transported himself to a planet where no one could find him, where he’d be safe from the reaches of war. All he needed was a reason to do it, and in the split-second before his life came to an end, he couldn’t think of a single one.

  Maybe this is for the best, he thought. For everyone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Aeris recoiled as the explosion filled the sky.

  She noticed it only seconds ahead of the shockwave that ripped through the battlefield. The spray of fire came first, a brilliant, silent burst of orange and red before the moon exploded in the sky behind Tamaril’s visage and the sonic power of the explosion tore through the Void. With the nerves in her hair fully exposed, the power of the blast nearly overloaded her senses. She braced herself against the onslaught of wind and sand. Bodies of dead Pyrians tumbled past.

  When the silence of the Void returned, she peered through the dusty air to make sure August was still beside her. He’d used his sword staff as an anchor. As the winds faded, he wrenched it from the ground.

  “Do you think he’s gone?” he asked.

  The glowing embers of the scattered moon gradually lost their molten shells, leaving only a fading cloud of debris floating in the sky. A part of her waited for a synapse to appear where Cerenus would make his triumphant return as only he could. The other part wondered if they would now have to deal with a victorious Tamaril. If that was the case, the war was truly over.

  She studied the face of Tamaril in the sky. Something about his eyes looked scared. They widened as though he realized something awful, then opened his mouth to scream. No voice came forward. Instead, his form began to break apart, separating and dissolving little by little until his face became an unrecognizable cloud. The foggy remains settled over the battlefield, joining with a thin film of white energy already hovering over their fight. The souls of the dead, waiting for harvest. A sobering feeling settled in her heart as she imagined Cerenus’ essence joining the cloud.

  A group of Ministers turned toward them with vacant blue eyes trained on their position. She rekindled her fire.

  “Ready yourself,” she said.

  August glanced at her with mechanical eyes glowing behind his mask, an instant and ever-present reminder of the effects of their war, and the sacrifices made to win it. She felt the sudden weight of Dondannarin’s chakrams on her back, her mentor’s blood still staining the blades. So many dead that had fought at her side. Their sacrifices will not be in vain.

  Even though the dust from the moon’s explosion had yet to settle, she could still make out her attackers in the melee. Like the gods, their eyes betrayed them, and she aimed her strikes with precision. One stream of her fire targeted the Ministers’ legs while another stream fired at their heads. Her fight with Polaris had taught her well. The cyborgs’ shields often couldn’t be used to guard against two attacks at once. If they somehow managed to ward off both, August and the Horsemen were there to attack from behind and finish them off.

  They dispatched the charging Ministers, leaving behind a carpet of corpses.

  A fast-approaching rumbling sound drifted across the surface of her hair. August and the Horsemen hadn’t heard it yet. She looked around for the source and finally found it. “Get behind something!” she yelled.

  She joined them behind a large pillar of rock sticking up out of the dry earth. They waited with their backs against it while the thunder grew louder. A few seconds later, a loud and angry stampede of Elosians streaked past. The manes covering their shoulders shook from side
to side as they chased a handful of Ministers and Pyrians across the sand. She and the others had found out quickly that these creatures were nothing like Shadow. Whatever control Meryn had put on her wasn’t restricting the army racing past them. They were bloodthirsty and quick to fight. They stayed away from the Orphii because they were too big to take down, but she and August posed no such threat.

  This is what passes for a volunteer army now. This is what I asked for.

  She let out a breath of relief as the last of the Elosians passed them by.

  “Which way now?” August asked.

  As she had since the battle started, she scanned her enemies trying to find Polaris. The landscape was too obscured by dust and fighting for her to know for sure. Orphii, Pyrians, Elosians, and Ministers fought in a sea of kinetic clashes.

  “To the top of that ridge,” she said, pointing to her left. “We can get a better view from there.”

  She led them up the steep bank of loose rocks, killing an armless Minister one of the Orphii had tossed at their feet along the way. They came to a plateau that stuck out over the rocky soil. She ran to its edge. August and the Horsemen filled in on both sides.

  “She shouldn’t be hard to find,” August said.

  He knew what she’d come to see. She briefly wrestled with the selfishness of the act, quickly deciding once again that it was only strategic to take out the leader of the opposing army. As long as I get to kill her myself, she added.

  August gestured at the landscape with one of his swords. “I can’t see shit up here. This fog isn’t right.”

  “I think it’s the energy of the dead,” she replied. Without looking over, she could tell he understood that meant Cerenus too. She could sense the combination of sadness and anger boiling beneath his surface.

  “Back down in it then?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to reply. A faint sensation stopped her, a drop of water in a sea of noise. She tried to place it. The sound was like a delicate scratch across the sand.