Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends - Interlude - Struggle

Interlude – Struggle

Interlude – Struggle

Shapes jumped out of the dark and struck from all directions. Karya raised her spear and blocked an attack from the side, then heard her daughter scream. She turned and saw a sword piercing her shoulder. Vanessa swung her staff widely, but with precision. She hit someone and the sword was pulled out of her shoulder. They turned with practiced motions and stood back-to-back, ready for the enemy—all the while Karya clawed at her power, trying to reach anything. The array that suppressed her felt unstable, if Karya had to guess it wasn’t designed to suppress more than one person at a time. Having Vanessa and Karya here was straining it. The lingering flames of her previous attacks gave enough light that she saw her enemies. There were six of them, and all fully geared. This wasn’t going to be enough, not without her power, she knew. She recognized only one, a person wearing a dark and elaborate armor, standing in the background—Yirrel Annsi, the Warden Commander. They had wondered when she was going to show herself.

This was a room designed to kill, she knew that. Power nullifying and designed to give all the advantages to the captors. It was well done, though it pained her to admit. They hadn’t known that Yirrel could do that. Not that it would’ve mattered if they had.

Someone attacked from her side, an arrow flew through the air and Karya activated her armor’s shield. It flared into existence, but weakly. There were more than silencing arrays in here. Something was stifling active powers too. Her shield cracked, but it gave her enough time to slap the arrow aside with her spear.

She heard a crack and felt the room shake, and knew that Vanessa had activated one of her rings that sent a quake across the ground. The arrays shook, some flared with color as Vanessa destroyed some. Five shapes jumped at them.

Karya moved, stabbing with her spear as two whips of water tried to attack her. Her power was suppressed, but her armor was still strong. She let the whips hit her and surprised the water caster. Her spear caught the robed figure across the shoulder. Someone got in close and low, and then several rapidly executed strikes with bare fists hit Karya’s side, sending her stumbling to the side in pain. She felt pressure and knew that her armor had been dented. She swung her spear widely, and forced the cthul pugilist to back away. She heard a scream and turned around to see Vanessa stumbling back, blood soaking her robe from a cut over her chest.

“Vanessa!” Karya said and jumped in her direction. She stabbed with her spear over Vanessa’s shoulder as fast as possible with her physical strength. She connected with something, surprising her daughter’s assailant. She heard a curse, then felt pain in her back. She clawed at her power again, at anything that she could reach, but there was a wall in between her and her power. Two walls. One that blocked her power now, and one that had been in place for years—the conduit to her Ethereal powers. She couldn’t reach any of them.

Powers hit her and her daughter, getting through her armor as she tried to shield Vanessa.

It was, easy to bring them to her. The Sects had not declared any formal declaration of war. Emaros was a territory that she enforced the laws in, they were criminals. Her skill had only been there to ensure that nothing could interfere. She watched as her fighters were taking the two down, cut them slowly to pieces. They had wrecked the room, but most of the strongest arrays were buried in the stone around the room. Still, they had to finish it soon, she could feel the arrays struggling. She hadn’t intended to get the daughter too, but it was a welcome surprise, if a bit dangerous. The arrays were not designed for two such powerful people, they didn’t have long. Her only target was the woman who glared at her even as she took wounds. Yirrel wasn’t a fool enough to let the Butcher of Dawn remain active in the war. The moment she recognized her, she knew that she would be using this trap on her. It had been intended for the strongest of the enemy, and it was well spent on her.

Then, she felt the world tremble, and she looked in the woman’s eyes, she saw them ignite.

Karya was a Valkyrie, she could recognize an impending death. Vanessa was gravely injured, her hand missing the fingers with her quake ring.

“Mother…” Vanessa said in a whisper. Karya saw fear in her daughter’s eyes, something that she hadn’t seen since she had been just a child. Karya had recognized one of the array configurations, she should’ve known that her daughter would too. It was a soul killing array. If they died here, they would die a True Death.

She hadn’t always been the best mother, but she wasn’t going to fail here and now. She had a lot of things to make right.

Karya herself had been stabbed and her ribs were cracked. She could feel the arrays that kept her from her power failing but knew that they wouldn’t fail in time. They didn’t have the time to escape. She focused her mind and her willpower, all that she had, the rage of the burning forest. The flames that turned sand to glass, and she channeled it all into her skill.

The world whined, her skill trembled, the arrays glowed. But then, for just a moment, her will was greater than all the preparations that the enemy had made. And her skill channeled it all.

Karya saw the enemy charge them again, and she grinned. Yirrel saw something in her eyes, and Karya let her fire out.

|I Burn All In My Way|

Yirrel felt the skill activate, she cursed inwardly that they didn’t have any willpower dampening arrays, they should’ve found some. Karya’s eyes glowed with fire and Yirrel’s danger sense skills went off in a way that made her terrified. Her eyes widened, and she jumped forward. No, no, no, she saw the red fire erupt out of Karya, targeted at the arrays. It melted the stone above and below her, hit the arrays that she had prepared to kill a soul. The suppression was deeper, but that too was threatened. Yirrel was left with no choice.

—Abyssal Aegis—

Her ideal covered her fighters and the arrays, protecting them from the fire. But then Karya’s grin widened through the flames. She caught her daughter in her hands and red fire incinerated her. Karya turned her own daughter to ash before their eyes. Yirrel reached her, her perks activating in a sequence and she slammed her shield at Karya sending her flying across the room and into a wall, shattering every bone in the woman’s body. She cratered the wall, got stuck in the stone and shook the room with the impact, debris started falling from the ceiling.

Karya raised her eyes, blood spilling from her eyes and mouth, then she spoke.

“Better luck next time,” she said and red fire escaped her mouth as wisps with every word, curling in the air as if dancing smoke.

Then the red fire burned with more intensity. It glowed from within her skin, then started peeling it away from the inside. Red fire exploded out of her, sending particles of ash everywhere. Her armor and spear melted and a person shaped red fire remained. A moment later it exploded.

Yirrel raised her shield and focused her power.

|I Held The Abyss|

She covered her fighters and the red fire consumed everything. The room shook, and then rocks fell down. Burying them all beneath them.

Yirrel held her power over her people, keeping them safe. Then she used Warden’s Law: To Guard And Safety. They were all warped and sent back to the closest Warden safe place, which was a guardhouse in Emaros. Her people fell to the ground, some steaming from the heat, but they had survived.

Yirrel walked out of the guardhouse and looked up at the sky. She saw the sects attacking and the Elder King and his people defending.

It was unfortunate that they hadn’t been able to permanently kill Karya. The woman had proven that Yirrel had been right to use their card on her. She had destroyed their arrays, Yirrel reflected and wondered if perhaps she should’ve had some of the Hastur’s minions on hand that could devour souls. They didn’t have many soul-destroying arrays left, and losing this one was inconvenient. They had planned on using that room several times over the defense to remove other great threats. Now… they didn’t have another such array that they could use.

Most of the unenlightened had feared the truth, and so they had made sure to sabotage their own once they knew that the fall was inevitable. The Elder King had destroyed nearly all soul killing devices in his territories before he was shown the truth, not wanting them turned on him and his people by those who had already seen the truth. And many of his own people had killed themselves and triggered their own immortalities before the Hastur’s Chosen could arrive. Even some mortals had made the choice to enter the afterlife before risking being made to see Hastur’s vision. It was… sad. They would never know.

It was disappointing that she didn’t have any soul killing powers available to her personally, it wasn’t in her build, nor did most other wardens have it. She had few people with things that could damage souls, but nothing that would be able to kill a soul at the peak of its power.

Still, Karya had killed herself and her daughter, and thus had removed two powerful pieces from the board, at least for a while. And that was enough.

Her fighters came out of the guardhouse, and she saw that Kanie Easra was pouring a potion over his eye, somehow even silenced and suppressed, Karya had managed to take the eye of one of the greatest blademasters in the world. It just affirmed Yirrel’s decision to use the trap on her, even though it would take them months, maybe years to build another, assuming they won the war.

Without a word Yirrel led them to the closest teleporter in the city and they used it. She saw the battle taking place all around them, on the walls and in the sky. Yirrel saw a wave of red and black molten Qi shaped like a dragon’s head coming down toward the Elder King, his honor guard trying to protect him. She raised her hand and summoned her power.

/Oath of the First Shield: Call The Gate of Grand Order/

Light fell from the sky, her great Gate came in between the attack and the Elder King, blocking the attack and absorbing it. Her gate was recognizable, it was an announcement of her arrival. She felt powers turn in her direction, observing her. She focused on her power, on her oath, and unleashed the attack she had just absorbed. The gate released it straight up, at one of the floating fortresses that had gotten too close. The molten Qi splashed over it and melted through it like it was nothing. The ball of melted stone covered with Qi fell to the ground and made the earth shake. There was silence for a moment and she let it seep in. The Sects should’ve never come to her lands.