78 (II) Favored

78 (II)

Favored

Then, with Adam's consent, Leu’s mind slid into the conversation. “And when we are all done with that, when the gate is broken from within, when the First Blood and the Lesser Marshal’s forces are spent against each other… When the Lesser Marshal finally loses the core’s favor entirely and begins the desynchronization, we will finally… finally have him. And I will finally whisper to him the truth of my hate as I watch him die.”

Leu was really looking forward to this. So was Shiv, for that matter. “Yeah. Personally, I’m kind of curious to discover just how deep that oversized sword of his can cut.”

“Alright,” Adam sighed. “Our plans are in ashes, but the preparations we did are still in place. Let’s go turn this damned war to our advantage and hopefully get the System to piss off for a little while longer this time.”

“I don’t think that’s likely, Adam,” Shiv grunted. “I think it likes us a bit too much now.”

“Let me have something to look forward to, Shiv,” the Young Lord groaned.

Just then, Shiv remembered there was someone else in their group. Someone else he brought back to the gate because she knew the underworld here. Considering how things were going now, however, the extended subterfuge plan was dead in the water. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t still get a bit more use out of the goblin.

“Siggy,” Shiv said.

The Adept-Tier mercenary jolted in shock. She was staring at all the mangled vampire remains, and her dread was high. When she saw Shiv staring at her, she shuddered and took a step back. “Oh, ah, shit... You’re finally gonna do it, aren’t you? You’re finally gonna kill me because you know I’m useless now that the vampires are invading. That—”

“You’re going to Little Gomorrah,” Shiv started. “You’re going there, and you’re going to find every mercenary Pathbearer you can. You tell them that Gate Theborn is done—that it’s going to fall. Tell them that Gate Lord Confriga is dead, and that you all need to make a run for the surface or Abyssal Gateways soon if they want to live. If they don’t run, then the Corpse Shedder is coming for them after he finishes with the vampires. You got that?”

Siggy blinked. And then she began to nod vigorously. “I—yeah. Yeah! Confriga dead, gate fucked, Corpse-Shedder coming, and we need to go to the gateway.” Then, she frowned. “Wait, what about the Light-Cursed mercs? They can’t go up.”

“Then tell them to dive through the Vulketh Gateway or hunker in place.” He lowered his voice. “Tell them to stay out of the fighting, because if they do, they’re going to die. One way or another.”

“And… after?” Siggy asked.

Shiv shrugged. “See if we’re still alive first. Then we talk about after.”

Part of the goblin’s courage collapsed. But there was something else in her as well. Hope. Hope that she might just live through this mess yet.

“A-alright,” Siggy said. “I-I’m going to get going.”

But Shiv strode past her first. He had things to do: a teleportation anchor to secure, vampires and spies to butcher, and a Gate Lord to kill.

“Shiv,” Valor called out.

Shiv paused briefly. The skulls lining the Graven Cage were practically alight with corrosive energy, and the chain of Necromantic mana extending from Valor’s right arm crackled brighter than ever. “When you go seek the Gate Lord, make sure I am there with you.”

“Sure,” Shiv said, but he didn’t get why Valor sounded so severe. “Why?”

“Because I want to instruct him on the proper way to perform Necromancy. And I look forward to explaining everything he did wrong to what remains of him within his Risen corpse.”

That earned a feral grin from Shiv. “Then consider that his fate.” The Deathless continued on. He shot out of the room and immediately began picking up speed. “I’ll head to either the Abyssal Gateway or Confriga’s descending tower when I’m done with the anchor. I’ll make this quick.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll see you coming,” Adam said. “The moment Valor and I secure the core, I’ll be on immediate overwatch.”

“I’ll try to compile an intelligence update from the memories of my sleeves if I can,” Uva said. “The Composer warned us that the gate might be attacked. But I want to know why the First Blood is so brazen—and how they managed to pierce so deep so fast.”

Adam paused. “Uva, did you seriously just call the people you puppet with your strings ‘sleeves’?”

“Yes. It’s fitting. And no, I’m not interested in second opinions.”

“It’s disturbing, is what it is.” Adam paused. “But don’t overextend while trying to cause chaos. And don’t strain your mana.”

“And you keep your distance from the enemy,” Uva replied. “And Shiv—”

“I’ll be fine,” Shiv grunted. With a yank on his gravitic field, he blasted through several floors and walls before he emerged outside. The mana core was unleashing so much Cryomancy on the world that Shiv could barely see a few meters away due to all the rushing snow. The cold briefly flooded his limbs with a pounding ache before his body adapted. Another benefit of the invasion: He could fly freely through the air without ever being noticed. “Worst case, I die.”

“You mean best case for you,” Adam grumbled.

“Sure. I’ll try my best to avoid getting another Unique Skill. Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll just skip straight to Legendary after killing some vampires.”

“I hope they hit the left side of your body and only the left side of your body,” Adam spat.

Uva muttered something about them never changing, but then her mind softened. “Mind yourselves, boys. Neither of you has my permission to perish.”

So the team split four ways, toward four different objectives, and with that, a third force entered the battle for Gate Theborn, utterly unnoticed by the other two.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

***

“She said she was going to be here! That the Gate Lord would be dead. That we would sweep through and take this place with minimal resistance!” Elder Novor Kraid roared in the owl’s face. The spy barely reacted at all, which only incensed the high vampire further. “Understand that if we are driven back here today, you will find yourself not as a useful ally but a wailing, screaming sack of flesh that we will abuse to shape new horrors for our hordes.”

“Calm yourself, Master Kraid,” the owl sighed. “You understand how these things are. The circumstances of a Quest always change. We simply have to accept and adapt accordingly.”

“Adapt?” Kraid snarled. Light flashed over both him and the owl-masked man as the teleportation anchor’s spells activated. Another eight high vampires and a blood golem emerged from a spatial bubble. The gore-forged monstrosity crashed down on the ground with a wet impact before it began gliding across the massive chamber. It headed off and was directed into a formation with the other five blood, flesh, and wound golems they were massing. “Adapt! Your Educator promised she would deliver this place to us. That we need only come with a heavy contingent of forces to overwhelm the feeble vermin that remain. Now, we are preparing to butcher half the population just to force the Gate Lord to desynchronize.”

“And it will work,” the owl said calmly. “They are not prepared for us. They do not know we are behind their lines. That, and this place is clearly frail. Whatever the Educator did here, it softened the defenders considerably. Such is why they are still struggling to push your forces out. We merely need to take this a step further. We merely need to see the Quest completed. We are close, Elder Kraid. And even if the Educator has failed, we can still succeed. We must still succeed, for an opportunity at the divine prize.”

Kraid growled down at the owl. He wanted to rip the man in half. It would be so easy. The flesh was just clay to Kraid. And it was clay he could pull asunder with his mind at that. As another flash of dimensional mana painted the owl’s mask and revealed his dead, hazel eyes, Kraid scoffed and turned away.

“Fledglings! Neonates. Truebloods. Agents. Heed me!” The elder vampire extended a hand, and all the seventy vampires, six golems, and twenty Aviary agents turned to regard him. Outside the lair of the now-dead Jealousy, ten Blood Horrors stood on guard, their bodies painted by the remains of the slavers they tore through to seize this place. “Our objectives require a slight adjustment. The Gate Lord remains alive—but that will not last. Before we begin our pincer upon his forces, we should first indulge. Arrange yourselves by seniority. Infect those you can. Drink when you need. Destroy what you cannot hold. Drown this place in its own blood. We came for two cores! Mana and Animancy! The cattle present are secondary and can be replenished with ease.”

Kraid spiked his Dread Aura and tested the courage of his collective forces. The golems were like blank canvases, but the high vampires—especially the ones he personally sired—were like alloyed ingots besides the feeble agents of Aviary. But the owl bothered him. That one seemed to have no fear at all. Not of Kraid. Not of anyone. The owl’s calmness was unnatural, and it bothered the elder vampire that he couldn’t shake the spy no matter what he did.

“For now,” Kraid continued. “We muster ourselves. Bite deep and drink your fill. For a hard fight stands ahead. But know that you are with me, and we will prevail! Know that you stand with me! Elder Novor Kraid! System-favored Hero! And before this day is done, you will all taste the flavor of what flows through the Gate Lord’s veins!”

A collective cheer went up among the gathered forces, but just as Kraid was about to dismiss them, a heavy

Then, for no apparent reason at all, the cavernous ceiling burst outside their anchor. Massive chunks of stone came crumbling down. The Blood Horrors on guard were buried beneath the heavy rocks in an instant. Dust flooded into the anchor.

“Cave in!” one of the Aviary agents cried. He extended a hand and shaped a gray-colored spell as he began to work his Geomancy.

He didn’t get very far.

A flash of white and red tore out from the tumbling smoke that swept through the room. The blur punched clean through the Aviary Geomancer’s skull, and he fell over dead. But the blur kept going. It punched through the heart of a vampire and beheaded another before Kraid seized it with his own mana.

The projectile trembled in the air. A drill shaped from… was that bone? Why did it gleam like adamantine? And why could he still control it? Bone adamantine was something only harvested from the bodies of colossal monsters. This was barely the length of Kraid’s arm.

A struggle ensued. Kraid growled with effort, but soon began to overpower his adversary’s spell. The enemy was strong, but merely a Low Master in Biomancy. And they recognized Kraid’s superiority as well, as they destroyed the bone drill and focused on hardening their field against him.

Then, a terrible grinding noise sounded, the sound of a heavy stone being dragged over jagged rocks. Through the shivering fingers of the smoke emerged a pale shape. For a moment, Kraid thought he was looking upon a Necrotech war construct, but as more of the strange adversary came into view, the elder vampire realized his guess was wrong.

A figure clad in dense bone-shaped adamantine armor came to a stop before the teleportation anchor’s entrance. As the dust settled, Kraid also saw how the man was somehow holding onto what looked like an entire wall. The enemy promptly yanked the wall hard and its edges broke apart. The intact portion of wall was promptly lodged to block the teleportation anchor’s entrance.

“That should keep this place blocked up for a bit,” the bone-armored stranger muttered.

Kraid felt a shiver of slight fear rush through some of his forces. It broke within his vampires, but it lingered within the spies. The golems groaned and staggered forward, forming a frontline against the unknown threat. Kraid growled and tried to liquefy them with his Biomancy. His enemy pushed back with his own field. Kraid found himself struggling again. He was still stronger, but though he slowly drove the stranger’s mana back, they didn’t react.

And as Kraid unleashed his Dread Aura on them, they simply responded in kind, driving skill against skill.

He has Dread Aura too, Kraid realized.

“Who are you?” Kraid snarled. He unleashed more of his power, but the stranger didn’t even flinch.

The bone-armored stranger just laughed. “You know, after the pain I experienced a few hours ago—and the pain I constantly feel right now—you squeezing my mana field feels like a rough massage.”

Outrage and disbelief warred within Kraid. “You wear the vestiges of death. You are not of Compact. You cannot be.”

“You’re right, I’m not,” the stranger replied. There was a low bite to the man’s voice. It was the same kind of noise a guard dog made before it tore into someone’s leg. Everything about the stranger screamed impending violence. And that’s when Kraid noticed the owl had gone completely still as well.

For the first time, the damned spy seemed uneasy—and it wasn’t even because of Kraid.

“Then, pray tell, stranger,” the owl spoke. “Who might you be? Are you… an illustration, perhaps?”

The stranger cocked his head in turn. “Are you asking me if I’m one of the Educator’s creations?”

“Indeed,” the owl said. “We understand that the Forgotten Artist might be diminished, but—”

The owl's words were promptly interrupted as the stranger let out a bark of vicious laughter. “I can’t believe this shit. Ah. But I guess it makes sense. It was too convenient. Damn System’s just playing games with us.” The stranger let out an annoyed breath. “Well. Suppose I’ll be getting some answers from you. Congratulations, owl. I’m gonna try and keep you alive. There’s a certain lady I need to introduce you to later. The rest of you… Well, this is going to feel just like old times for me.”

“Enough of this,” Kraid said, stomping forward. For the first time, the bone-armored stranger seemed to notice him, and that just infuriated Kraid more. “I care not for who you are. We are here for the gate, and you have just condemned your flesh to my palate.”

“And you weren’t listening to me,” the enemy said with a chuckle. He pointed his kukri at Kraid. “This isn’t your gate to conquer.”

Then, he slammed the hilt of his knife into his chest. A shockwave spread over his body. For a split-second, Kraid saw how the very air around the stranger’s body trembled like he was about to explode—

Then, the bone-armored stranger reappeared, blade-deep in Kraid's right eye. A howling scream escaped the elder vampire's jaws.