Gravetower

by Kell Inkston

  “Should I pursue?” Scout Minion questions.

  Chaos shakes his head as he takes up Monument by the handle, its immense solar power instantly branding into his hands. He can deal with the pain for this, though. “There’s no need for that. Our fight is with Oa. Besides, without Monument, our little bird’s talons are not quite so sharp. Let’s be o-” He looks down to Glory, and for a moment he’s quiet.

  “I suppose…” Chaos hums. “I suppose it would be for the best,” he says as he looks over to all the prying eyes of the necromancers from within the forges, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  “Do we have time for that, Poppi?” Scout Minion asks with white, wide, urgent eyes.

  He grins with gusto. “We do not, but overlords are known for making time, after all. It would be below my station to allow him to die at the hands of necromancers.” He extends his hand, and his black essence reaches out from his fingertips— wrapping upon Glory like a swirling gas, and then a liquid, and then a solid. At once, Glory’s body jolts as it's taken over, rendering his human body shelled by Chaos’ great, undeniable magic of authority.

  “Take care of him and join up with the others,” Chaos instructs, folding both Kingdom Slayer and Monument into his left-hand grip. “I feel a movement near the mountain,” he says, wincing a moment as he regains his bearings from the fight and expenditure of magic.

  She fires a sharp salute as she slings Glory’s infused body over her little shoulder. “Roger doger that, Poppi!… Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He smiles, lifting his composure to look unfazed. “It will take a moment. Creating new minions is always somewhat of a difficulty for me.”

  She smiles back, though her eyes are concerned. “Okay. You’re a super guy. Humans don’t deserve a master like you.”

  With a nod, a pat, and the utterance of “and you’re a super minion, I couldn’t ask for a vassal with more loyalty,” he leaps off in a single bound with the two legendary blades in tow. With a sharp claw grasping into the ground, he propels himself over the ridge and into the great fields— the city’s lights the only brightness in the eternity of night ahead.

  Scout Minion, adjusting her grip on the infused Glory, stares up in awe. “It’s easy to be loyal to someone who won’t ever fail,” she says with an admiring tone.

  Onward with blazing momentum, Chaos eyes just in time, the figure of Oa’s primary body: a mountain of corpses and stolen parts, rising up from the earth with one of the largest blades he’s ever beheld.

  “There is one for the collection!” he remarks to himself as he soars forward at a speed greater than any beast or falcon. “I’ll have to organize a little, but I’m certain I’ll find a place for it.”

  He races forward at the velocity of a heavy gust, tearing across the countryside as Oa lifts its blade to lay waste on the city. The overlord launches in the last moment before impact, rising with the speed of a shooting star. With a flying smash, Chaos strikes upwards with both, pushing the sword back into the air and starting Oa’s titanic coil off balance.

  An array of lighthouse-bright eyes peer down at the minuscule overlord as Oa’s tower-like frame ridges for another attack. “And so you’ve come to finish the business, have you?”

  Chaos laughs, filling the countryside with his voice. “As promised! I’ll see your kind to never again torture my world! Humans are made for service, not ligaments!”

  As his minions fire onto Oa from behind, Chaos rounds away from the city to protect them from its wrath. The greatest of necromancers slays into the earth with its sword, enchanted with razor-sharpness and lightning speed by the souls of a million dead. It carves along the ground a hundred meters deep. The noble dark lord, his speed too great to be perceived by Oa’s rotting eyes, mounts the blade and runs along the surface with a dozen precise bounds— the bodies of Oa flailing and reaching out to stop his advance. With a visceral, blink-fast leap, dodging strikes from both Oa’s greater body and the unnumbered corpses serving to make up the whole, Chaos cuts into Oa’s city-wide arm— Monument’s stellar fusion exhausting its momentary supply as it extends in an arc that’s as bright to onlookers as their world’s sun. Oa’s sword and arm fall to the ground, and Chaos leaps the near-kilometer upwards to Oa’s composite skull.

  “What say you now, amalgamate? Still so confident?”

  From across all of Oa’s body, a million wands, staves, and magical catalysts spring forth— each one belonging to one of the many undead magicals which make up the necromancer’s massive form.

  “YOU TELL ME, WORM,” Oa answers as over a hundred thousand spells fly Chaos’ way in mid-air travel. With the willpower and brutality of a dragon, Chaos strikes into the brunt of the sorcery, a confused rainbow of an explosion produced from the multitudes of magics combining. Using Kingdom Slayer’s immense anti-magic properties and fielding himself with as much magical protection as he can muster, the High Overlord cuts through the attacks as they blaze across his body, blasting him with offences from every school of wizardry imaginable.

  “I tell you now, die!” Drawing back Monument, he lets down Order’s blade into Oa from the skull to the pelvis, cleaving through a mile of corpses with a single, biblical, wholly-draining strike.

  Chaos falls toward the earth below with an immensity of magic and power surging through his body— while Oa, that great mountain of a creature, is opened bare with a tidal wave of cadavers spilling out from both ends of its gaping expanse of a wound, putting even the necromancers' forge canyon to shame.

  In a roaring boom from a million screaming bodies, Oa collapses upon the ground into a mountainous heap— forming an entryway into the innards and a path to Oa’s prime phylactery.

  The overlord lands with a crash, even the bodies strewn amidst the dust rising up to strike at him— yet his black-as-night frame remains fully impervious to all but the greatest of magics. After a moment, he struggles to his feet as he pulls in long, labored breaths; even the sight of him taking in air is a sure sign of weakness to all who know him.

  Without further ado, he tears a rip through space-time, and peers through the hole out to the high walls of the city. He looks upon a grateful group of minions, a fully-in-awe Aoline, and a very, very relieved Meeo; she is certain that this time, things will be different— that she has beaten fate, and that her deliriously ambitious plan will come to fruition in its final phase. She reaches curtly into one of her pocket satchels and checks her extra-dimensional pocket-watch. They’re right on time for everything to go wrong.

  “The time for the final battle is here,” Chaos announces with a strong grin, personifying over his immense exhaustion.

  Amidst the banter and congratulations and cheering, only Love, with her weak mortal eyes, takes the time to note the sizable pair of gashes along his left leg and arm. Order wasn’t entirely bested, it seems. “Alright, but we must be fast,” Love says with a tone of urgency pushing aside her usually fully-gentle demeanor.

  Chaos nods. “Yes, yes. We must make haste to return to Towerne and save our minions!”

  With great enthusiasm the group steps through the portal and ventures out in front of Oa’s great being— one of its wounds vast enough to form a gateway for the party to pass through; it is here where tragedy will bare its rarest and sharpest of fangs. In a moment, they will be entering a nightmare dreamworld of madness and senseless violence— but for just one while more, they are all in high spirits.

  Only minutes before this, Order reaches the forge chasm’s top with Redemption in tow, his muscular armored frame draped pathetically over the woman that serves as both his prime professional and emotional support. With a stifled limp, she delivers him back to the rendezvous point occupied by Caefern and Nias, both waiting diligently and nervously.

  “Wow,” Caefern says with a hint of humor and relief, quite glad that only the knights are getting struck down and not him. “I guess he wasn’t kidding around.”

  Ignoring him, Order lays down Redemption and begins
channeling healing magic for his wounds.

  Caefern’s eyes spark as he notes the lack of a handle in her dimensional sheath. “Did something happen to Monument?”

  Her full focus is on healing any injury she can. Against the Kingdom Slayer’s arcane wounds, it is nearly impossible to heal— but with her millennia of expertise, she can at least grant him stability. “Lost it.”

  “What?!” Nias spits, completely losing his demeanor over this ridiculous turnout. “And what about Knight Glory?”

  “…He’s out of the picture.”

  Nias turns away as he presses his hand hard into his chest. “By Rayda’s golden heart….”

  Caefern hums with a raised, quizzical brow. “And, I don’t suppose you know what Chaos is up to?”

  Order nods over to Oa— a great golden streak, synonymous with Monument’s power, crossing its body in the battlefield several kilometers away.

  The O.E.L. Librarian not only smiles, but grins with ambition. “Wow, looks like everyone’s pretty tied up, eh?”

  “That’s an understatement,” Nias says grimly while Order does not even speak in response to Caefern.

  He nods, steps back a couple paces, and slings up his E.xtra D.imensional Radio. “Alpha-13’s a go, defense ETA twenty minu-.”

  “What the hell are you doing!?” Nias interjects as Caefern shrugs with a smirk and draws up his pistol.

  At once, a flash of magnetically-charged alloy shoots past Nias. The shot was for his head, but Caefern could only hit the ear. In the next second before his trigger strikes to the hammer again, Caefern is on the ground rammed between the earth and Knight Order’s elbow. She’s a smaller lass, but after one’s studied alteration a certain amount, sizes become far less relevant to the projection of strength.

  Caefern’s knocked out instantly and she picks up the radio. Her gaze is blank in confusion as she attempts to interpret the device; it hits her all of a sudden.

  “…No…”

  “What?” a wincing Nias asks as he cups over his missing ear with his hand.

  She drops the radio and quickly moves in to heal Nias. “I need you to open a small coalescence to anywhere outside of here.”

  Regardless of the O.E.L.’s technology, their lack of enchanted weaponry makes the healing a quick and easy endeavor. The pain is gone in one moment, and the wound the second after.

  “Why’s that, ma’am?” Nias asks as Order steps back to tend to Redemption.

  “I need the closest point in any space I can use to get in contact with my stone.”

  Nias squints an eye as he raises his hands and begins the compilation of stellar elements. “You mean there might be something wrong back home?”

  “I think we just gave the O.E.L. the chance they’ve been waiting a thousand years for,” she says as she patches up Redemption with a final pulse of magic, forcing him up to consciousness.

  “Wh-where am I?” He blurts with a low guttural.

  “Things have gone wrong,” Order says.

  As if by a spiritual connection after the milleniums of years of blood-forged close calls, Redemption reflexively places his hand on his blade’s hilt. “What is it?”

  Order looks over to Caefern, collapsed pathetically in a heap, and Redemption begins shaking his head. “He was… waiting,” Redemption speaks, mostly to himself in realization.

  “And now we have a scrambled, thin-spread force. The O.E.L. could attack anywhere, and we wouldn’t be able to stop it.”

  Redemption nods. He knows the military situation well, as the majority of the knights have been loaned out to the W.K.D.R. for the war with the great Eastern empire Ulteria. Everyone— from the magician lords of Kanvane, to the unbreakable warrior formations of Spirakander— all those significant have been delegated out onto the line with no more than five percent held behind as the very beginnings of the logistical and command chains.

  “…We have to get back,” Redemption says plainly.

  “I’m confirming now,” Order responds, just as Nias aligns what seems to be small constellations mid-air to create another one of those nervous, tight cuts in the world— just large enough for Order’s shining plated hand.

  “Ready, ma’am.”

  She pushes her arm with her chat-stone inside; instantly, she gets a signal.

  “-agnivan’s gate is gone, repeat, the gate has been destroyed. Push command for dialog immediately!”

  She takes a sharp breath. “This is Order.”

  The operator on the other end of the line gasps as he scrambles for Order’s particular stone in the communications office back at HQ. “Th-th ma’am! Thank Rayda! You won’t believ-”

  “O.E.L.?” She cuts.

  “Yes! An entire spacecraft smashed out of the Ragnivan gate! They finally got in! The craft’s lining right up to the North front! Everything down West of the line is fire and ash! They’re going to the war line! I think they’re going to fire across both sides!”

  Order’s face grows cold as her eyes shine a fatal, honest red— the real creature underneath the facade.

  “Most of our military is there,” Redemption says with a cough. “If they bomb across the front line, the war’s over.”

  Order’s chilled features only widen in both thought for a solution and a deep disgust for the position of her life. “We’re on our way. Send the word to pull our knights out of the Towerne invasion and ready the mech towers. Everything we have needs to respond to this.” Order directs without enthusiasm.

  “Roger that, ma’am!” The voice says between skewed, horrified breaths.

  “Out,” Order pulls back the stone. “Open a full gate, Nias.”

  Nias looks over. “To where, ma’am?”

  “Yarseld.”

  Nias’ features steadily darken on the implication. “The Ulterian city? … So… we’re not… not going to make it then? For the North Camp?”

  Redemption purses his lips. “If we miss the bombing run, there’s nothing we can do. All we can hope for is to catch them at the halfway point… good thinking.”

  Order turns back and starts for the chasm. “If you get it open, hold it for me and just let Daniel cross over,” she says as she eyes out Oa’s great corpse in the distance.

  Nias raises a brow as he puts everything into compiling the stellar elements. “What will you be doing, ma’am?”

  “I’m going to get my sword.”

  Redemption grasps her shoulder. “Don’t go without mine.”

  She glances back to him. “Chaos is still over there. If I die, who would come to rescue the realm?”

  Redemption pauses, holding Order in place for just a moment more before his grip softens, allowing her to slide from his finger yet again. “Be careful.”

  “As I can be,” she answers plainly before leaping, unarmed, across the chasm in a single bound.

  Redemption watches the blue streaks of her mana cross through his vision in the black of the night as she races towards the mountainous Oa— like a little blue lantern rushing off into the howling night.

  “This world wouldn’t be half as much without you,” he adds, under his breath.

  Chapter Twelve: H E L L I N E A R T H

  These poor souls…

  Love, Chaos, and the rest of the party slide along the corridor of writhing, gruesomely-interconnected bodies— into the depths of Oa. The overwhelming stench of decomposing corpses and failing preservative fluid has overtaken the atmosphere. It’s clear to Aoline that this is a place well accustomed to human death.

  “They’re all asleep,” Aoline notes, briefly holding her hand up to her nose to staunch the scent.

  Love squints at the hundreds of horrified countenances that pass with every ten paces through the cavern of cadavers. “I suppose… we disconnected them from Oa?”

  Chaos hums as he gazes about, but Scout Minion is the first to bring up problems. “Doesn’t look like it— they're all still alive,” she remarks, observing the bodies with her white eyes— which can see a good d
eal more than your common folk.

  Love inhales sharply, as if mentally preparing herself for something.

  The High Overlord nods in agreement. “And until we overtake the prime phylactery, it will be able to regenerate any connections to anything it pleases. We must be-”

  “Faster,” Love says simply, gently pushing Chaos forward. “This is good, but we have to finish it now.”

  Chaos nods as he begins looking about the ground and ceiling. “Time is of the essence, I’m certain. I’m not sure how it will work, but I trust you.” He grins at a seemingly random point on the ground. “There it is– that powerful soul,” Chaos slams his foot into the hardened floor of live bodies, gorily smashing through bones and wailing flesh alike, the minions following suit and carving a brutal path down into the heart of Oa’s mountainous being.

  “This is…terrible!” Aoline cries as she steadily climbs along the slick, vinegary crimson-fluids of the hundreds of composite bodies to reach Oa’s core. The air is positively saturated with the squirming bouquet of decay. Her dad took her and her brothers to one of the Ragnivan Central executions once— the scent is close, but a million times worse; she can feel how it smells inside of her and across her skin.

  Meeo takes a deep, nervous breath as she watches the others make their way down. They break through the protective chambering and fall forward into a circular room of bodies.

  In front of them stands the prime phylactery— a strange, fully-composite body, grown over with nerves from all directions as it glows in a faint, crimson light.

  Chaos grins. “And so we have arrived.” In the very second he speaks it, Chaos has Oa tackled onto the ground— consequently pinning the phylactery contained within its stomach.

  “So you have,” Oa speaks, its booming voice no more as the bright red flesh looks up. “This is me, the true necromancer.”

  Chaos nods as he breathes icy air upon Oa’s body. “Nice to meet you. I suppose you contain the prime phylactery inside of you, is that right?”