The impact knocked Forneus emphatically to his knees, but again, after a small moment of suffering, the serpent resurged even stronger.
As he rose back to full posture, he ran his hand across the considerable gash Odin had opened on his jaw, and then he crowed out to the dark skies.
“Oh, great pain,” he screamed. “Give me more!”
With another scream, the serpent slammed the mighty staff against the floor, and a torrent of blazing fire began to descend from the skies.
As Odin guarded his face from the plummeting streams of orange flame, Forneus rushed him and began to drive the bladed end of his staff furiously at Odin’s heart. Nimbly, Odin used one hand to parry Forneus’s attacks, and his other hand to block the streaks of flame.
But his strategy was no longer defensive. It had become desperation.
The combination of attacks was rapidly overwhelming him, and as Odin’s vision became momentarily impaired by the falling fire, Forneus clasped his hand around Odin’s throat and lifted him easily into the air. In an attempt to break the serpent’s grasp, Odin swung his fists as strongly as he could into Forneus’s skull, but Forneus would not relent.
As Forneus stared callously into Odin’s eyes, he began to crush Odin’s throat. With Odin faltering, the Serpent laughed arrogantly and squeezed even more tightly.
“You are a disgrace to the Lyrans,” he mocked. “Even your father was more than this.”
With his life being throttled from him, Odin fought desperately to wrestle himself from Forneus’s grip, but the serpent would not yield.
Instead, the great depths of the king’s power erupted. His face turned to a devilish grin, and as his eyes began to burn a deeper orange, countless bullets of fire exploded from his Soul Cauldron. As Odin remained clutched and suspended perilously in the air before Forneus, the blazing bullets began to pelt him in violent succession. The fire missiles smashed into Odin’s body so forcefully that his body recoiled like a gale-blown flag. As the Lyran armour began to fall apart, Odin’s body began to go limp.
Even still, as Odin hung vulnerably before him, Forneus conceded no strength from his grip. The sneering king was not satisfied with the pain he had inflicted.
With increased malice brimming in his eyes, Forneus then released his vicelike grip and delivered a devastating palm strike to Odin’s chest. The impact sent Odin hurtling backwards to the royal staircase, and as he crashed back down against the marble, he tumbled and twisted into a broken heap.
Certain of his imminent victory, Forneus slowly approached his beaten foe.
Odin was bleeding badly, and with most of his armour disbanded, his skin was torn, burned, and charred from Forneus’s fireball assault.
“Your father did you no favours,” Forneus spat as he neared. “He only prolonged the inevitable. By letting you live, he only gave you more to lose. And now, you lose it all. I bring death to the House of Lyran. I kill the sons of Animus Letum.”
Against his damaged and surrendering body, Odin’s mind, heart, and soul fought him back to his feet.
“I’ve seen your fall,” Odin said as his balance wavered. “I saw the torture of the Dark Pool streaked across your face. And then I saw you submit to your knees.”
“Your point?”
“You are weak of heart,” Odin said, “an ailment that even the Dark Pool could not fix. I promise you, I will see you again on your knees.”
Forneus laughed. “Then bring me your best. Surely this has not been it.”
Odin was nearly broken. Deep within himself, he could feel Death narrowing in for its second kill. However, in tribute to his parents, his home, and his brother, he would not surrender. If this was the final act, it would be his greatest. For Galian, he would die fighting.
As Forneus again lashed his serpent tongue in ridicule, Odin’s hand clenched hard around Sleipnir, and with the great fury of a brother’s love, Odin erupted at the king.
In devastating succession, Odin smashed his fists, staff, and kicks onto Forneus. Odin’s blaze of attack was beyond a speed Forneus could defend against, and as the ferocity of the assault escalated, the serpent tried to counter Odin’s attack with an elbow. Odin caught the flying elbow, and after turning Forneus’s right arm back, Odin smashed his fist into Forneus’s bicep and shattered the serpent’s humerus.
The king hissed and immediately recoiled. As Forneus staggered back, Odin hacked Sleipnir repeatedly down into his right shoulder. The succession of blows cracked Forneus’s collar bone, and as the overwhelmed king tried to guard his injured right side, Odin locked Sleipnir around Forneus’s right hand and used her like a lever to snap Forneus’s wrist.
With his opponent’s arms incapacitated, Odin kicked Forneus’s legs out from under him and smashed Sleipnir repeatedly into Forneus’s ribs.
As Forneus lay helpless on the marble, Odin held back none of his rage. He rained his fists and knees down onto Forneus’s skull, and as the serpent’s body eventually went limp, Odin quickly located one of the daggers that he had brought into the Throne Room.
With raging breaths, Odin stood defiantly over his villain, poised to cut out his heart.
As Odin knelt and tried to plunge the dagger into Forneus’s chest, the Vayne sensed their king’s vulnerability, and ten of them quickly latched onto Odin’s arms.
As they dragged him off their master, Odin fought wildly to break from the Vayne’s grasp, but Forneus’s faithful soldiers had made sure to trap him. As Odin thrashed, Forneus’s voice coughed out, and after a moment of wheezing, the Serpent rose to his feet.
As the king glared at Odin, the look in his eye was different. There was a small element of fear, as if the Serpent had realized he was facing a worthy foe.
Nevertheless, the king twisted and contorted his injured arms, and after his bones healed and set back into place, he grinned pompously at his foe.
“Do not blow into a hurricane,” he said. “You only increase the power of her winds.”
“Call your Vayne down!” Odin screamed as he wrestled his captors. “Fight me, yourself!”
“As you wish.”
The king ordered his Vayne down with a motion of his hand.
As the Vayne relinquished their grip from Odin and backed off Serich’s heir, Forneus used his power to lift two of the fallen pillars behind Odin. Odin, oblivious to the floating fragments, advanced on the Serpent. Forneus’s eyes lit up with their unholy orange, and he smashed the pillars onto Odin’s sides.
The stones exploded against Odin, and after a moment of stillness, Odin crumpled to the Throne Room marble.
With Odin lying motionless, Forneus slowly approached his destroyed prey.
Blood was gushing from every part of Odin’s body, and on both of his sides, his rib bones had broken through his flesh.
As Forneus relished his victory, he cruelly manipulated Odin to his knees.
“It’s been a pleasure,” he mocked as he summoned the mighty staff to his hand. “But this was always how it would end.”
After he spat at his foe, Forneus cocked the staff back to deliver the final death blow.
Odin had failed, and as his broken and ashamed eyes stared up at his impending death, he whispered his final words.
“Galian,” he wept as his blue eyes flared, “I’m sorry ...”
Proud of the great victory that awaited him, Forneus lashed his serpent tongue across his face. But suddenly, just before he struck down the mighty staff, the serpent clutched his stomach and turned fearfully back to his Cauldron.
Deep in the Soul Cauldron, Galian sat in unfathomable torment. The Cauldron’s skeletons plunged and ripped repeatedly through his body, stealing more of him at each dive. The unrelenting torture had lasted longer than Galian could remember. The pain was his only memory. However, as Galian became certain he could last no longer, suddenly a voice – his most loved – coursed through his head.
“Galian,” Odin’s voice said, “I’m sorry…”
In an instant Galian
understood. He knew what his brother had done, and he knew what Forneus was about to do.
Galian’s greatest friend – the one he thought he had lost – had come to save him. In spite of it all, Odin was still there.
In his life, Galian had faced down his enemies. He had thrown himself headlong into their embrace, daring them to best his heart. At each fight, at each of his trials, there was one line never to be crossed: evil could strike him, hell could test his heart, but if Odin’s name was even breathed, hellfire would erupt from the silent monk.
No one harmed Odin.
And as Galian, broken at the base of the vile Soul Cauldron, became aware of the harm dealt to his brother, an anger and fury immeasurable by human emotion began to burn in his soul. With deadly focus, Galian began to rise from the base of the Cauldron.
The Cauldron’s skeletons recognized Galian’s efforts, and they urgently summoned more of their brethren to try to tear through him.
Galian was beyond their malice.
As the skeletons tried to pierce through Galian’s soul, they began to deflect off him in futility.
Galian was enraged. His wrath was swelling beyond godhood.
As he again felt his brother’s soul outside of the Cauldron, and then felt the love he had thought he had lost forever, Galian’s heart broke.
It was a pain only a brother can know.
As the agony of the fracture echoed throughout Galian’s body, it began to surge out of him.
Galian’s voice – spoken only once before – began to seep out the name of his greatest friend. And then, having tasted his second sound, Galian’s eyes ignited in electric blue, and as he flexed his body with a godly rage, his voice erupted with the sound of his broken heart.
“Odiiinnnn!”
The scream exploded with such primal and thundering ire that the Cauldron – the very epitome of Hell – instantly cowered and exploded against Galian’s sheer rage. Like glass, the Cauldron shattered at its base, and as the explosion blasted out, the echoes of Galian’s fury smashed the Throne Room’s outer columns into rubble. As the courtyard was violently rocked into destruction, Forneus and his Vayne were thrown helplessly to the courtyard’s marble floor.
As countless souls were freed of the Cauldron’s torture, a flare of a bright blue energy burst across the Throne Room and crashed into Odin, sending him tumbling back down the royal staircase.
The aftershock of Galian’s quake rippled throughout the kingdom of Animus Letum for long and heavy minutes.
Intensely shaken by the blast, Forneus strove his best for composure, but his mind was scattered by the bedlam delivered to his Throne Room. Eventually, he regained his focus and began to scavenge his destroyed court for Serich’s heir.
There was no sign of Odin.
Furiously, the king turned to his Vayne.
“Find him!” he barked. “He’s in here somewh…”
The serpent fell deadly silent as one blue ember and then a flurry of electric blue rain began to fall from the skies.
“Find him!” Forneus screamed again. “Find him, and kill him!”
The Vayne reacted in immediate obedience to the order. The great folly of their hunt was the confusion of its roles. The Vayne thought themselves to be the hunters, but instead, by the electric blue eyes ascending the royal staircase, they were the hunted.
Sensing a great presence at the staircase, Forneus cast his eyes back towards the entrance to his court.
Standing there was Odin. But to Forneus’s astonishment, it was not just Odin.
Cut into Odin’s face were both his own and Galian’s scars from Vinculum Imletalis. Galian’s and Odin’s souls had merged again to create Daios – perfectly and permanently.
Together they had become the perfect incarnation of warrior.
Recognizing the threat, Forneus immediately set his soldiers onto Daios.
Daios was aware. As he ascended completely into the Throne Room, he stretched his right arm out, and using the power Galian offered, he summoned Sleipnir out from under the courtyard rubble. As the first wave of Vayne tried to converge on him, Daios stretched out his left hand and froze the fifteen Vayne dead in their strides.
Amid the falling torrent of blue embers, Daios raised his arm slowly into the air and the fifteen Vayne were lifted high above the marble court. After a moment of suspension, Daios slammed them so powerfully down into death that the floor beneath them cracked and cratered.
As Forneus eyed the mighty Lyran, Daios returned a piercing stare and then exploded into the center of the remaining Vayne. He combined the combat skills inherited by Odin and the spiritual powers inherited by Galian into a blaze of deadly assault.
He was unstoppable.
As the Vayne rushed him, Daios disarmed the serpent soldiers with a wave of his hands, and began to slash Sleipnir in lethal arcs. With Daios smashing the Vayne into death, the rapidly dwindling serpent soldiers tried to overwhelm him with their numbers. However, using his great power, Daios hurtled three of the fallen column pillars directly into their cluster.
With only a small number of Vayne remaining, Daios swung Sleipnir into an impossibly fast sweep, and after casting the last ten Vayne airborne, he waved his hand and flung them helplessly down the royal staircase.
In moments, Daios had killed all of the serpent soldiers.
Only the Serpent Messiah remained.
As Daios’s raging blue eyes locked onto Forneus, the king stared intently back.
“Finally,” he seethed, “a challenge.”
“You’re beaten already,” Daios said coldly.
His eyes turned deadly as he quoted the Serpent: “I am merely a consenting hand.”
“You are not better suited than your father,” Forneus spat. “Like him, you believe in virtue. Like him, you cower against the great truth of this land.”
With hatred in his eyes, Forneus cast out his hand, and one of the daggers Odin had carried into the Throne Room soared into his grip.
As he hissed and snarled, Forneus wrapped both of his hands around the dagger and raised the blade to his throat.
“And that truth is simple: you must bleed for the crown.”
With a deep growl, Forneus stabbed the dagger into his own neck, and as his body began to shake violently, he guided the blade slowly down his throat. As green ichor poured profusely from him, Forneus used the dagger to cut a tear down the center of his chest and stomach.
After he had completed the cut, Forneus was crippled by the gash. His body was shaking violently, and he had been reduced to a slumped over agony.
However, after the pain brought him to his knees, Forneus’s whimpers soon turned to rapid breathing. The Serpent’s mind and soul began to surge with new power, and as Forneus’s forearms and fists exploded into blazing flames, the Serpent blasted upwards, and a hellish twenty foot high fire erupted around the outer ring of the Throne Room.
Amid the orange inferno, Daios’s electric blue eyes stared daringly at his foe.
“Bring me your best,” he snarled.
“I bring you Hell!” Forneus screamed through the flames.
The Serpent wound back his flaming fist, and as he launched a punch, a fireball exploded from his hand and scorched across the Throne Room. As the missile closed in on him, Daios used his considerable power to swat the fire bullet out of the air.
With murder in his gaze, Daios dared the Serpent to bring more.
“You’ll have to do better,” he said.
“Careful what you wish for,” Forneus fired back.
The irate king threw his fists in wild succession, and as dozens of fireballs blasted at Daios, Forneus summoned the mighty staff and stormed directly at his foe.
With intense focus, Daios swatted each of the fire bullets out of the air, and as he knocked the last one down, he drove Sleipnir into the marble floor and vaulted himself at the oncoming serpent. As Daios reached the peak of his vault, he rocked a devastating kick at Forneus’s skull. The incredible impact
knocked Forneus into a spinning tumble, and as the king crashed back to the floor, Daios stood ominously over him.
“Your reign is over,” Daios seared. “I am your death.”
After a furious exhalation, Forneus pounded his flaming fists into the marble, and rose angrily to his feet.
“You think you’ve tasted hell?” the serpent seared. “You have only scratched its surface! Cower, Lyran, for now I bring you to its depths!”
Forneus lunged at Daios, and as the outer court burned with roaring orange flames, the king launched a blazing assault at his rival. Daios dodged and parried the onslaught of flaming fists, until, as he tried to guard against one of the attacks with Sleipnir, the impact of Forneus’s punch shattered the bow-staff into fragments.
Without a weapon, Daios used his arms to shield himself, but as the incredible weight of Forneus’s attacks thrashed against him, Daios knew he could not withstand the barrage.
Instead, as Forneus threw a heavy right hand, Daios weaved away from the attack, and once Forneus’s momentum carried him off balance, Daios delivered a kick into Forneus’s chest and sent the king tumbling back down against the marble.
Enraged at the futile state of his attacks, Forneus rose furiously to his feet and bashed his flaming fists repeatedly into his own face. With even more bedlam burning in his eyes, the Serpent used his power to lift five giant pieces of column into the air.
“There can be only one king!” he screamed at Daios. “One of us needs to die!”
As the suspended columns surrounded Daios, the Serpent roared in fury and then threw his arms violently down to the floor. Immediately, the five columns scorched inwards at Daios, and as they barreled towards simultaneous impact, Forneus again exploded across the Throne Room. With the columns a mere second away from collision, Daios drew from the depths of his might, and just before impact, he launched a wave of power outwards that smashed each of the five columns into rubble.
The Sons of Animus Letum Page 42