Siren’s Cry [A LITRPG Adventure]-Ch. 38
A/N: Hey all! Didn't manage to finish the chapter last week, so decided to wait until today to release it. Anyway, as always, any suggestions/questions/concerns please leave in the comments, and enjoy the fight!
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“This is preposterous! How dare you disrespect our Lord like that!”
“Lady Siris, this is madness! How could that possibly NOT be Lord Az'Tereth? After all, he's right there!”
These and similar shouts fill the room, only to slowly quiet as one sound overtakes them all.
Laughter.
Az'Tereth begins to laugh, a rumbling sound that gets louder and louder as he shakes with mirth, a kaleidoscope of colors shifting and rippling across his prismatic body. The change is quiet; I almost don't even notice it until Quill's blessing tugs my attention back down to his fingers, just like before. The bottom set of hands is slowly fading like an illusion, gleaming crystal giving way to nothingness, while the upper pair is much more interesting. Gemstone claws fade to yellowed, ancient bone as the armored hands fade away to reveal petrified wooden fingers, thin as twigs.
The arms are next, shining topaz flaking away into glimmering mana to reveal ball joints and wooden arms, far longer than the illusion showed. Three joints per arm, two arms far longer than is natural, and the legs vanish all at once to reveal more of the same. Two unnaturally long triple-jointed wooden legs, capped with carven four toed feet with the same wicked claws. The torso is next to fade, the basic shape of a crude wooden mannequin becoming visible before the face appears.
It's just as Keira described; a pair of dead, grey eyes set into void-black breaks in the featureless face, an uncanny maw stretching from ear to ear filled with rows and rows of bloody, stained and needle-like teeth. The thing laughs again, an echoing sound like dozens of screams overlapping in a hellish chorus.
“So, ThE liTtlE caT rAn to MotheR? No mAttEr, thiS Charade hAS goNe oN for LoNg EnOUgh.”
Spoiler
(So, the little cat ran to Mother? No matter, this Charade has gone on for long enough.)
[collapse]
Its voice is grating, three disparate tones rolled into a sibilant hiss. The other lords leap to their feet, mana and other energies rising in a tide of shock and anger.
“You! Who are you, and what have you done to our lord!” Berith yells, his armor flowing in a wave to form a massive runed broadsword, silver light dripping like water. The thing chuckles, its grin stretching wider with a crack of splintering wood.
“I aM tHaT WhICh yoU seE in tHE dARK Of NiGHt, the TwItcHing Shadow in YoUr peRipheRal. I am ThE OrigiNaL DecEivER, thAt WhiCH alL Lies deScenD FrOm. AS fOr yoUR LorD? HE waS nEVeR HerE.”
Spoiler
(I am that which you see in the dark of night, the twitching Shadow in your peripheral. I am the original Deceiver, that which all Lies descend from. As for your Lord? HE was never here.)
[collapse]
The tiger beastkin tries to speak up, but a clawed hand slams through her throat before the words ever form. The Deceiver is across the room, claws buried in the lady's neck and head cocked to the side. A loud crack of displaced air heralds it dodging again, now standing on the roof as a colossal lance of ice rips through where it was a second prior, practically evaporating the tiger's torso in a spray of gore.
As the corpse collapses, the attacker also soon joins them, as Polin coughs a mouthful of blood. The Deceiver is behind him, arm through his chest and holding his still-beating heart in a loose fist. It pulls back, taking a bite from the heart with a sickening squelching sound before dropping the remains. A flash of lightning fills the room, slamming into the wooden creature with a thunderous bang, sending it reeling away with a smoking
shoulder.
The insectoid is next to fall, its six arms separating at the shoulders as it tries to cast another bolt. Berith is the next to land a hit, his sword cleaving into the ‘wood’ like hot butter, the silver glow flaring up to slowly begin eating away at the Deceiver. It shrieks angrily, and moves to try and run again, but I haven't been idle either. A barricade of condensed mana springs to life behind it, dozens of rings of spikes encircling it as I drain my entire mana pool into making sure it does not escape.
Of course, my absurd mana regeneration (the rate of which I'm certain is absolutely ridiculous by now) makes that a non-issue, but I can barely manage all these individual constructs at once. The headache builds quick, my attention strained in so many directions that a dozen of my needles flicker and vanish. The Deceiver smiles, contorting through the space like an octopus before blurring out of view again.
A flare of liquid void makes me pivot, seeing Keira parrying the razor sharp claws that had been aiming for my back. She stumbles, the wooden creature having far more strength than expected. It just keeps laughing, splitting into five identical copies as it rushes forward. My blessings work overtime, Quill's once more nudging me to look at their shadows, and how one of them is a bit denser than the others.
Keira notices as well, dipping into the darkness at her feet like a fish into water. Fenrith comes ripping out of the Deceiver's shadow like a vengeful wraith, a solid orb of shadow forming around the pair as [
Swallow The Sun
] activates. A shrieking clash of metal on metal rings out of the cloud, and the darkness vanishes once more as Fenrith goes up into the air, Keira already gone and reappearing beside me.
Despite having lost her dagger, she's grinning like a loon, a large gash in her upper arm entirely ignored as the Deceiver catches Fenrith out of the air, still laughing.
“DiD yOU thInK thAt suCH A TriCk wouLd wORK agAinST Me? I AM BEYO-”
It's words are cut off as Fenrith rejects it in the same violent manner that I saw back in the auction house; a riotous burst of lashing darkness stabbing into its ‘flesh’, its sentence ending with a horrible three-toned shriek loud enough to crack the crystal veining the walls. I wince in pain, my ears
ringing, while Keira and Berith both drop to their knees in agony. Fenrith blinks across the room, manifesting back in my partner's hand as she recalls it. I almost summon Ouro, but remember at the last second that he would not fit in this room. Instead, I collect all my remaining constructs, melding them together into the warrior puppet thing I used back in the bandit outpost. Wielding a halberd, a pair of scimitars, and a mace, I send it rushing in with all the grace of a flopping fish as I struggle to control what is essentially a second body. The creature's body blurs, fading from view as several copies appear in the corners of the room, rushing towards Berith. With us three being the only remaining fighters, I can't let him die here.
Dashing over to him, I draw my cutlass and begin to hack away at the clones, these ones actually solid unlike the illusions used prior. When cut, they bleed a gray mist, but luckily are much weaker than the original.
“Lady Siris. No matter what happens, one of us must live to tell our Lord what has occurred here. It has been an honor fighting by your side.” Berith declares, shoving me away and towards the doors with shocking strength. Startled as I am, I don't even resist as I stumble away, Keira leaping to steady me as a monumental amount of mana begins to build around Berith. The silver glow spreads from his sword, engulfing him in glowing power briefly before condensing into the tip of the blade.
“Wait, what are you doing? No! Berith, whatever you are doing,
stop
!”
Keira holds me back from rushing up to him, an equally panicked expression on her face as horror fills the void that the terror just left. With my mana senses, I'm forced to witness it as every drop of mana and a faint reddish shimmer I've only seen when someone's completely out of mana drains from Berith into his sword, his armor melting to reinforce the blade. Despite the rasp of shifting metal, despite my own calls for him to stop, the room falls silent as he begins to speak, Berith's voice ringing like a hammer on an anvil.
“Silver blade, guiding light.
Hammerscale in forge-lit night.
Burn my soul, take my life.”
The Deceiver bursts from its invisibility with black tendrils still gnawing at its form, claws streaking in an off-white blur for Berith's unprotected throat as the copies dissolve into pale motes of mana.
“With faith-wrought flame, and soul-wrought steel.
I pray thee Lords, to fuel thine zeal.
I offer ye, my blessings three, revoked upon this grand working.”
The claws freeze, a monochrome haze falling across the Court. Even the vibrant blood on the floor, the dozen corpses, seem to fade in color as the silver shine grows to where it should be blinding, but instead settles at merely bright. Heat radiates from the blade, charred flesh creeping up his arms as he speaks the last words of his chant.
“With this I end, so others may live.
[FORGE GOD’S OBLIVION].”
And the world goes white.
.
!
Ch. 38
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