Brent Stinebaker
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II-43 Battlebonds (III)
🕑 Added 2024-12-27 17:45:18 +0000 UTCThere is a cost to associating with a child of the Withered Moon. There is also a reason why most of them are insane, sealed away, or held by System-hosts to be used as experimental specimens.
After all, the power to cheat death is precious, but the power to twist the very concept of death to do your bidding…
Well. That might just be the deciding factor to win any war…
Or even slay a System-host.
-The Trespassers’ Compendium
II-43
Battlebonds (III)
Twin strikes cleaved through metal walls created by the Oathbearers and burrowed deeper into a nest of twitching blood.
The Bastard’s cut traveled faster and wider than Wei’s Lance of Annihilation. As with before, the young master felt the coldness radiating from the cut—and this time decided to test how it might contend with his deconstruction. He carefully extended the celestial flames of his Lance to overlap with the Bastard’s attack.
To Wei’s surprise, felt his fires extinguished in an instant.
There was barely any clash or struggle.
The radiance was. And then it wasn’t.
Troubling, but also remarkable. Whatever power the Bastard wielded, it made him a true force to be reckoned with.
“I felt that,” the Bastard snarled under his breath at Wei.
The young master put on an innocent act, but failed to suppress a mocking smirk. Both of their attacks created an opening a few hundred meters long through the interior of the nest. From the nest came Scablings and other horrors—these fiends were human-sized spiders coated in scab-like armor.
Haemocrawler Lv. 55
Wei’s sect immediately fell upon them, launching their own Skills to keep the smaller horrors suppressed.
Leading their efforts was Rafael, who was actively tracing Reference Circuits through all the disciples of the sect. Tendrils of platonic influence trailed out from them and burrowed into the surrounding alloys that the Oathbearers used to create this hallway. Faintly, Wei felt the structure protecting them from the blood grow harder as portions of Constitution flowed from his disciples into the matter.
Ah. Reinforcement. That was wise.
The Bastard and Wei’s Skills traveled a dozen meters more before they finally impacted against the approaching Embraced. However, unlike how they tunneled through most of the nest without difficulty, Wei felt a pulse of Essence-Draining rush through the tread like tendrils.
A sudden pull of enervation sapped at Lance—at the Bastard’s slash, too. Both Skills began to dim, through the crimson tentacles that tried to absorb them paid a price as well. Entire patches of the nest began to dissolve and wilt. But they were quickly replaced. Spatial Essence began coursing through the ruby tendrils, and that which was lost found themselves refilled in an instant. Wei felt the structure around them shake, felt pockets of Essence burst like pustules as new veins crawled over open space. A jungle of arteries was growing before Wei’s very eyes.
Connected the nest and the lesser monsters was a single entity. A powerful creature whose Essence pressed down against Wei forced labor into every exhale he breathed.
Whatever the Embraced was doing to preserve its own life, it came at a cost.
Then, the dense threads began to move. Scablings rushed toward the young master and his company. Behind them roared massive beasts. They resembled gorillas in aesthetic, except their bodies were naught but tumors and scars. Their arms ended as flat-headed clubs made to crush and pulverize, and as they trudged closer, Wei noted they were well over four meters tall.
Sanguinaut Lv. 80
The Bastard continued his onslaught immediately. He unleashed cut after cut, yet conserved the bulk of his power. With casual strokes, Scablings and their larger kin came apart, withering into clumps of ashen decay, the remains radiating a dull coldness into the nest. Wei directed his harder-hitting disciples to join in the attack. He called for his Oathbearers to create openings along their makeshift walls first. With every swing of their hammers, crenelations and gaps were formed, allowing Skills, projectiles, flames, and arrows to be loosed through.
Thousands of blood-born horrors came at them. Wei read the fear from his disciples’ expressions. Overwhelming to them, perhaps, but a diversion. A distraction. The true power had yet to show themself fully.
A loud reverberation pulsed through Wei, and he found the Hivekin of his sect channeling their psionics to ward the others from fear. After that, another tune started, and a violin and a guitar joined in, boosting the Speed and Will of those nearby. Two elves had joined with the Hivekin, forming a band that bolstered the will of the others.
Good. This was how things were meant to be.
“We are so outnumbered,” the orc chef groaned. Still, he chucked a pancake outside. A pancake that exploded with so much syrupy substance, it left countless Scablings stuck to the walls—easy prey for Garret or Agnesia to pick off.
Targeted ciphers tore out among the Skills. They struck the Sanguinauts. Rafael’s newest workings didn’t inflict damage, but actively stunned the monstrosities. Twisted their Perceptions and made them charge in the wrong directions. More than a few barreled through their lesser kindred, thinning the herd.
“Quite the eccentric band you collected,” the Bastard said, chancing a new glance at Wei’s disciples. “Mostly untrained. Unfocused. But motivated. And brave.”
That brought a smile to Wei’s face. “Yes. They are those things, aren’t they.”
“Quite so.” A new voice forced its way into the conversation. It was high and sibilant. The kind of voice Wei came to expect from the vampires of the Embraced. A curtain of bloody tendrils began to twitch and part. The gouge left by Wei and the Bastard opened, turning into a distended set of folds as the vampire emerged.
Then, the vampire emerged. They were a hairless creature, body porcelain bright. Their eyes were pitch black with red scleras, and wounds lined their torso. So many brilliant ruby-red wounds that bled Spatial Essence as well. More interesting was how hair-thin strands of blood connected it to the many Scablings and Sanguinauts it commanded. But no Aspect of Mind flowed between them. The young master suspected this vampire to be more pure summoner than mastermind for these forces.
Crimson briars sprouted from under the Embraced’s flesh, and Wei the widening wounds resonate to his senses. These weren’t just wounds, they were now portals as well.
“It didn’t mend what we destroyed earlier,” the Bastard breathed. “It just teleported new substance in. We’re facing a Space Mage. Space Blood Mage. Something like that.”
From these wounds rained new blood-forged creatures of all Essence Levels, carrying additional Concepts of their own. Hordes of Scablings emerged from these wounds in a rain of twitching, insectoid bodies, but massive laws of leaking crimson lashed out as well, along with new strings to replace that which the vampire lost from absorbing Wei’s earlier attack.
The Sacrifice: Passage-Keeper of Wounds Lv. 144
And though it was only at Lv. 144, the young master felt a considerable source of power lurking deep within his new enemy, waiting to be called upon like dammed water.
The Bastard eyed Wei briefly, noticing how the young master’s once all-consuming radiance was now little more than swirling embers. “Don’t tell me you’re a one hit wonder.”
A crackle sounded in the air. A Sanguinaut flung a Scabling straight at Wei. The Bastard leveled his sword—but Wei’s glaive whipped out to greet the blow first. Having Dilation-Echoes was ever so convenient for ambushes. Wrapped in an ashen glow, the Pale Fang struck the oncoming attack and unmade it with ease. A flash of Essence rekindled his celestial flames. Once more, the Bastard’s features were bathed in light.
“No. I recover fast.” Wei flicked his weapon then, channeling a gust of blazing wind to consume all that moved. Scablings and other monstrosities disintegrated en masse. The blood itself combusted but didn’t simmer.
The Bastard looked on, slightly fascinated. “There’s no heat to your fire.”
“And your coldness is unnatural,” Wei replied.
Yet, just then, the massing Scablings and Sanguinauts froze in place. They froze as the Embraced held up a hand, and swung low, hanging from the ceiling like a puppet connected by red strings. “Kin to be, I bid you welcome to my sanc—”
“Fuck off!” the Bastard growled. He slashed again—clearly not the type for dialogue, and this time, Wei observed another change in the man. A flash of a larger figure materialized around his body. This one was not in the shape of a humanoid, but a hound with two additional arms. Arms that ended with clawed hands of deathly frost. Between those hands extended a blade fashioned from gleaming moonlight. And when the Bastard cut, so did this flickering avatar.
The Skill triggered a Dilation-Echo, but Wei felt himself stunned by its sheer speed. It blinked across the space between the Bastard and their incoming adversary in less than a fraction of a second but gave off no hint of force. Instead, it flicked through the Embraced, marking them with a silver scar. Then, Wei felt a connection between Death’s Bastard and their shared enemy.
They were now bound somehow. Thin strings of cold fused their spirits together. Though the young master strained his Omniscience to comprehend what was happening, actual effects were so minute that he found himself lost.
“What was that?” Wei whispered to the Bastard.
The man gazed at him from the corner of his eye and grinned slightly. “Insurance. In case this goes south.”
An ill feeling rose in Wei. Ignorance was a fatal affliction to suffer in the Claimed Hells.
“Ah,” the Embraced said, running skeletal fingers across the silver wound that marked them. They didn’t seem shocked or even hurt. Just merely resigned. “Just like a child of the Deathless Moon to behave this way. It is well. She forgives you. As she forgives all. Even if you were an abomination by birth. A mistake that should never have been. But this is not your failing. You did not ask to be.”
“Yeah. You tell the Dying Bitch to go fuck herself with a burning rod. I’ve heard this shit enough from the Priests of the Light. I’m not taking it from a glorified corpse.”
Wei’s sect were grouped tightly behind him. The young master regarded them momentarily and ordered them to move back. He messaged the Oathbearers and Rafael to build additional defenses — to put up more illusions as well. Where most were all too happy to retreat, Agnesia came walking forward, taking her place by Wei’s right shoulder.
Which now left him dwarfed on both flanks.
Damn them. Did their Specializations offer some stipulations about height? What was this? Why couldn’t get grow taller? He needed to see Nils after Roggi finished.
“Agnesia!” Ellena cried. She sent a demon a pride to go get her daughter, but the girl merely flared her draconic avatar.
“No!” She growled. “I stand here! I face the vermin that stole my home. Our home!”
Ellena looked at Wei imploringly, but he Shell materialized behind her. “If you force the girl away, she will not forgive you. She will not trust you. And she will be crippled along her path. Death is hers to risk. Do not take this form her.”
Wei clenched his glaive so tight, his knuckles popped. “Stay close.” Such were his only orders to Agnesia.
“Ah,” the Embraced breathed. Then flicked a long, disgusting tongue through the air. “Daughter of the Golden Dragon. You come to us again. She misses you. She wishes for you to join your brother, to allow you all to be family once more. It hurt her when you fled.”
“Hurt her?” Agnesia said. The flames around her began to swirl and pop. An uncomfortable heat licked at Wei’s flesh. Judging by how the Bastard winced, he felt it too. “You took my home from me! My father! You monsters! I’m going to burn you! I’m going to burn you all!”
“It pains her to see you so rageful, so lost.” The vampire sighed. “I would willingly offer to claim you, but that is not why I have come today. No. I come offering a truce and a message. A chance for mutual forgiveness. And a new opportunity for all of us to flourish as one.”
The Embraced spoke aloud, cutting the young master off. The young master regarded their adversary again, and noted how passive they continued to be. Scablings never stopped pouring out from the Embrace’s open wounds—and the wounds grew larger, shimmered brighter. With each passing second, they became more portal than injury, and soon countless small scab-forged insects skittered along sinuous strands of visceral crimson. The creatures worked to extend these branches, weaving them across the space as if spiders creating a web.
But they didn’t work alone. Even more veins began growing out of the Embraced as well. They fused into the surrounding architecture. Changed it. The environment around Wei began to transform. It widened, spreading large to become a dome-like structure. And then larger still. The threads smoothed out, while pillars and uneven slabs of red rose from the land, creating differentiations of height, and cover to hide behind.
The Oathbearer’s constructs remained unbothered. It seemed the Embraced was uninterested in breaking them. At least right now.
And through it all, the vampire maintained a serene expression, more interested in rebuilding than slaying. “You have all wronged Our Mother. You have all been wronged in return. This is understandable. As beings, we all harm each other—”
Another cut exploded out from the Bastard. It crashed into the Embraced, but one of its wounds widened. Large enough to swallow the slash entirely. This time, a flood of silver pulsed through the vampire, lit its spirit briefly, but failed to ever land.
The young master noted how the Spatial Essence shifted within its body. That was a useful Skill to have: the ability to make passages out of one’s wounds ensured that any direct cut would simply miss.
Perhaps this called for him to use his scythe.
“Very rude,” the Embraced said flatly.
“I told your Queen what I have to say,” the Bastard growled, pointing his massive blade at the dangling vampire. “You heard me. Don’t think the boy or the others want to give you any time either.”
The Embraced lifted its head. Suddenly, the Scablings began to fuse together, their spirits and bodies joining to create even more chimeric entities of uncanny shapes. From them trailed new tentacles. Tentacles that plugged into the Embraced, treating him as if the core of a network. “It is surprising that an abomination such as you cannot see reason. But the rest….” Its black and red eyes fell on Wei. “Perhaps a more civilized counterpart will heed the Queen’s words.”
“There is nothing to heed. And I will not forgive,” Wei breathed. He remembered how the Dying Queen tortured him. How she tried to infect his System—was the reason behind why he couldn’t save Ellena in the first place. “We are enemies eternal for all that she has done. And for what she has done to those who are mine.”
Ellena and Agnesia both eyed the young master briefly.
“Very well,” the Embraced moaned. “But at least listen, before we progress to bloodshed. It will make much to the Mother.”
“What a fucking waste of time,” the Bastard grumbled.
“The Collectress was not released from Our Mother’s touch. No. She was banished. Banished for what she attempts to do with you now. To create a cocktail from Scions. To choke the Mother’s great system, and slave her without breaking it. So another can take her place. To steal her System. And worst of all, the Harbinger is aiding her in this endeavor. For his interest. To cheat our mistress out from the holiest embracement of all: the reclaiming of Earth.”
