Millennial Mage

Verity felt the weight of what was before him, the new hole in existence. It was somehow obvious that only the wolves or the elk would come from whatever fresh heresy that she had committed.

As such, he had a moment of despair. Was his fight pointless?

Either the Forest Spirit would come forth and wipe these beings out—only potentially the most powerful escaping, weakened and unable to truly put up a fight later—or the wolf would come out, and Verity knew that he couldn’t oppose that beast on his own.

No.

He’d fought when victory was impossible before.

He’d held onto hope back when he and his were driven into the Doman-Imithe in retreat.

He’d guided his people through the twisted wilderness of that place seeking any exit that was far enough away that they wouldn’t be snuffed out.

They’d found the Doman-Imithe thinning, and finally, they’d been able to exit upon the moon, disguising themselves and hiding among the lunar creatures that were so easily ignored or forgotten.

At need? He could retreat again, and try once more when the enemy was no longer ready, but that was not his preference.

He hadn’t fought back through the horror of distorted, weeping reality to return, finding every trick and twist to shave time from their trip, making what had been an outward trek of hundreds of years into one of less than five years.

They had fought to return to their factories, to revive the long fallen, to recycle the soulcores of their long lost comrades back into reality’s service.

He would honor their sacrifice and their return. If he did have to retreat, he couldn’t leave these two here, ready and waiting to spoil the next chance.

As such, he let his rage fuel him even as he forced it to burn cold, efficient and calculating.

The man before him was powerful, but not an equal to the woman he protected. He was simply an impediment and needed to be circumvented.

Verity lunged forward, each sword moving independently, attacking with ferocity that he hadn’t had a moment earlier, and the man backpedaled, trying to gain distance as Verity tore through the local magics, leaving clean, refreshed reality in the wake of each slash.

All around the battlefield, it seemed that these abominations were pulling previously hidden capacities forth to stymie the Legion in this critical time.

But they were mistaken. They’d not hidden these abilities as well as they’d thought.

Aletheon dumped data into Verity’s head, showing him the hidden patterns of foul magics and concepts that were wielded by and empowering their foes. Verity processed the raw information with Axiom and Verax before granting the results to Logos for dissemination.

With that edict given, Logos sent out changed orders to their forces, his lesser commanders immediately increasing their ability to fight those daring to resist them, countering even magics that were used for the first time this fight with expertise.

Those fighting the man of darkness began to strobe bright light asynchronously and randomly, making it all but impossible for the hue-man to draw close in concealment.

Interestingly, Logos returned part of the command to Verity himself, the obvious reality that he’d missed suddenly clear as it came from another.

Verity locked in on that reality. The truth of his clash with the man and Logos’s information allowed his analysis to see what was at issue. He had to attack the man himself as that human seemed to gain strength and metaphysical weight when he was protecting others.

As such, Verity decided to deal with him directly, first.

Those fighting the elf woman similarly added in randomness, but for them it was in their attack patterns, moving away from their skills and instincts which were so effectively being used against them, and as such, they gained the first solid hit on the woman.

Counter to expectation, the elf laughed. Almost manically before her voice issued forth. “Good. Good. Did you think I wore this armor for fun? Now, we can get down to the real fight.”

* * *

Eskau Meallain danced.

She gloried.

Before her were two powerful beings of ancient skill despite their obviously new bodies.

She assumed that the automata had a means of imparting combat ability into new units, or it was possible that these were older soulcores that had been uplifted this iteration, making their combat ability more self-earned.

Regardless, she was quite happy. The only irritation was her desire for Eskau Pallaun to withdraw and let her fight all four.

The Black Legion Prime Commanders had finally understood at least part of her concept, adding in deliberate randomness to their movements and attacks. Moreover, from everything she could tell, it was true randomness with the singular exception that they never attacked one another, regardless of how close the two were as she fought them.

She moved with almost slow precision herself, only interjecting bursts of speed on occasion.

She lunged forward, spinning and forging her protian weapon into a punch dagger that she drove into each opponent once per rotation before she was through the small space between them, landing on one foot and twisting out of her lateral spin, kicking away a counter attack from one and lengthening her weapon into a spear that drove into the other opponent.

Her concept still hummed through the battle around her, but with the random element, she couldn’t influence her own opponents as much as she preferred.

That was no matter.

She simply spread her power further, shifting the entire battlefield as she desired rather than just her own clash.

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If they wouldn’t let her play with them, she’d play with everyone else to get the desired outcome.

Eskau Tala’s power was intoxicating, and only literal centuries of careful training kept Eskau Meallain’s usage of the dense magic to the minimum, drawing out how long she could continue the fight.

She added to that through her extended will, drawing in ambient power and condensing it.

She did her best not to interfere with her fellow Eskau or their Pillars, as she didn’t want her allies to suddenly be without power to pull upon, but with all of them working—not quite together—a vortex was beginning to form in the local zeme, drawing in power from further and further away.

They would all be fine, their efforts aided by the Talons flickering in and out of Ironhold, dumping power despite her long attempts at training them properly.

She sighed.

No matter. They were doing well enough on the combat front, and if there was ever a time to burn power, this was it.

* * *

Tala delivered a heavy, gravity-enhanced kick to Verity’s side, trying to knock him away again, but he somehow locked himself in place, taking the blow and actually causing Tala to push herself back slightly.

That was fine, it gave her room to sweep in with an ending-glaive slash, angled to miss Rane as her husband came in with a low slash at the automaton’s planted legs.

The supreme commander’s blades moved as if controlled by separate combatants, and the two attacks were blocked, all four weapons using the impacts to redirect the forces involved and come in for other strikes and blocks.

Tala and Rane fought with precision and power, their skill in evidence as they slowly drove Verity back step by step.

But it couldn’t continue.

Rane was needed to fight the Leshkin powerhouses, to defend the other Archons as they continued to carve into the metal and vegetation that made up those forms.

Tala strove to take primary position to allow for a switchout, and that opportunity finally arrived.

She thrust forward, requiring Verity to use both swords to block. “Terry!”

Verity’s metallic brow creased in momentary confusion at her yell.

Then, rather than Rane coming in to take advantage of the opening, Terry flickered in, raking claws across the automaton’s back, his ending-talons dimming in the presence of the supreme commander’s powerful reality field.

They still scratched deeply across his backplates, but it wasn’t the satisfyingly deep damage that should have been imparted.

Regardless, Rane was able to spin away and lunge back toward the fight that was steadily turning against the Archons.

The Talons had already had to pull three of the heaviest hitters back to Ironhold for healing, but thankfully, none had died, even if two would be out for the remainder of this battle.

That was all the thought Tala had available to consciously spare for that front as Verity renewed his assault.

Terry was far better at harrying, but he didn’t have the same stand-and-slug-it-out capacity as Rane, despite being more advanced in power, and even keeping his armor in mind. They simply had different skillsets.

As such, Verity began taking more wounds—small though they may be—but was able to stop his controlled retreat, forcing Tala to a momentary standstill, even as they exchanged blows.

He attempted to ensnare her in workings of reality, even driving some shards and splinters into her as they fought, but nothing major could grab hold.

Tala, in contrast, battered him with projectiles traveling at air-breaking speeds, timed to disrupt the automaton’s attacks or defensive efforts.

That left Terry to refine his methods of attack, each small knick larger than the last.

The pair would come out ahead.

It was only a matter of time… Assuming the Forest Spirit didn’t return victorious.

* * *

Verity was never one to turn from the reality of a situation, but he still felt frustration as the human man slipped away and moved to engage on another front.

The avian terror was like a buzzing insect that he just couldn’t swat.

His irritation was increased when he confirmed through the thrum of reality—and Logos’s assessment—that the creature was a soulbound familiar, meaning that even if Verity did slay the bird, it wouldn’t stay dead.

The true enemy was the Ascending before him, and regardless of how the clash of god-beasts ended, Verity would bring down this one, great threat.

As such—even as he stood his ground, accepting small damage to do so—he made his choice.

“Join with me, my primes.” The command radiated out through their connection.

The connections blazed with power, the reality of their united purpose and mandate linking them utterly and irrevocably.

They became one in all but the physical sense, their capacities melding and enhancing one another to new levels. Unfortunately, this empowerment was intended to have five primes, where now there were only four. Not only did that limit the benefits gained, it caused the action to begin to burn away at their spirits. With one of their number missing, they were imbalanced.

Verity himself would be more powerful, but the cost was high.

The four fighting the Eskau started to gain ground, actually landing meaningful blows for the first time—though neither opponent seemed to mind overmuch—and the form that had been Verity was suddenly capable of truly warding off the feathered terror, allowing his second blade to snake in and drive into the woman’s left thigh.

The collective felt something between them, growing their connection beyond what they’d expected. It had a natural aspect, something similar to the Leshkin, but not quite the same.

They had not expected their allies to be able to provide any benefit, but this seemed to lessen the strain on their spirits, and so they leaned into the boon, even going so far as to feed it power to help it permeate all five forms that they now commanded in tandem.

* * *

Tala grit her teeth against the pain.

The concept blade in her leg was changing shape, lancing out blades up through her hip to cut at her insides before pulling back and jamming out again.

It carved more than a dozen furrows within her before she was able to slam Verity’s hand away, the automaton ripping the sword free as it went.

Her chains dipped in from the dimensions of magic, trying to snare or use their nail-tips to cut or gouge, but Verity was not taken in by the tactic.

Her threefold sight easily perceived the increased union between the five most powerful Black Legion commanders, the ties of reality thrumming in a cadence of decay and obliteration.

The five spirits were beginning to fray. Unfortunately, the damage was not on the scale of moments, but all five should only expect hours to exist, and they likely wouldn’t be able to be recreated once that end came.

As such, Tala almost just abandoned the battlefield. She might as well let them just die and dissipate on their own with no danger, after all.

Unfortunately, ‘likely’ wasn’t an absolute. It was quite possible that if she retreated, they could reverse the process in some manner.

As such, this remained the best time to end the threat of the Black Legion once and for all… At least the commanders. They’d still have to obliterate the last factories and lessers.

That will be a pain…

Still, if it needed to be done, she would see it through. She was the Eskau of War, and this was her charge.

Terry was a dervish, but his strikes were no longer getting through, his ending-talon strikes spoiling against concept blade or deflected by black metal fist.

Tala tried dissolving the footing from under the supreme commander, but his reality field had gained new weight, preventing any working that tried to hold sway from her or Terry’s bodies or innate weapons.

She strove, pulling out every trick she could think of, but none seemed to find purchase.

Then, Verity took a single step forward, and Tala was forced to reposition.

The balance had tipped once more.