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69- No One Had To Die
🕑 Added 2025-08-31 04:20:42 +0000 UTCVraxious—The Forsaken Lands
Holy fucking hells. Vrax was peering from the belltower down at the utter clusterfuck he had unleashed on the Rembrand death squads hunting him. Half of them were already dead or dying. The squad down the rightmost street was practically buried under a swarm of daisies and had just retreated into a building he knew for a fact had smelter moss and Retriever hives in it. But they had a full Rembrand paladin with them, obnoxious golden armor and all, so he gave them pretty even odds.
The street on the left was the one containing that fucking lantern of a paladin from the dungeon. That guy was noticeably dangerous, wielding every light source like it was his own personal weapon. But between the Devourers and Dutchess chasing the poor traumatized troll through a few buildings, that guy was now trying to sneak up on him alone, brutally separated from his squad. Good luck with all that, buddy. The sun just set, and I'm pretty sure you're about to wander off into the icy mist. That, or the tree will finally notice you, and you will just cease to exist. I have someone else I want to deal with.
Down the middlemost alley leading the scraps of a squad was that disrespectful priest Kelis from Hopes End. The asshole who had announced the start of all this bullshit and tried to bully the town. Vrax gestured behind himself towards the fungal cap on the bell tower consuming his creation while directing the energy stored within his [Cistern Of Bloom And Decay] outward, blanketing the courtyard. The courtyard below him cracked and shattered from thousands of blades of grass and disparate trees rupturing from beneath the earth. Vrax leapt, aiming to jump clear past the idiot hiding behind the well.
Arthur Decius—The Forsaken Lands
The Forsaken Paladin's eyes had locked onto the alleyway past Arthur; now was his chance while he was still unseen. He tensed his legs to begin his charge when everything went wrong all at once all around him. Grass exploded impossibly violently from between the cobblestones in such thick, aggressive patches that he was lifted from the ground. The entire courtyard became a grass- and bush-strewn tangle; even a few young willows joined the resurgence.
The Paladin's tower above him had melted into a bubbling black rot, and the villain leapt free straight at him while he was trying to regain his footing. Arthur stumbled to the side, halfway falling into a thorny bush. He reached out to gather the light from the courtyard and smite the fiend from the sky. Instead, his hand waved uselessly through the darkness. He pulled himself from the bush to try and intercept the paladin.
The paladin flawlessly rolled from his vast leap, the very grass he had commanded cushioning his landing and lifting him back to his feet effortlessly. Arthur wasn’t going to be able to catch him; the man was utterly unimpeded by the thicket he was now in. So he tried another tactic. With as much authority as he could muster, Arthur shouted at the paladin, “Stop! Face me like a man, you coward!”
The paladin vaulted up into the low boughs of a willow a few strides from Arthur and turned towards him suddenly. His voice scraped out from inside his armor like the growl of a demon. “Now, why would I do that, Mr. Lantern? I don’t even know who the fuck you are. I have a very stuck-up priest who I have to introduce to my heresy.” The Forsaken paladin finished with a spine-chilling chuckle.
Arthur ground his teeth. This monster was just going to skulk off and kill more of his friends, leaving him here to watch it happen again. Arthur let out a resigned sigh. “Because I know who you are, Vrax, and I know where your family sleeps. Face me now, or I will…” He didn’t even get to finish his threat before the Forsaken paladin flew at him with a hateful hiss of rage; Arthur flicked his blade up, narrowly deflecting the wild stab aimed for his throat.
Arthur caught his spear with his free hand and yanked the Paladin forward, drilling his pommel into the side of his head; it bashed against a shimmering green haze. He swirled around in a vicious uppercut, his sword searing with fire. To Arthur’s shock, the paladin didn’t even try to block it; he simply took the blow straight on to his chest, the grass around them reducing to slag as a shield flared against Arthur’s blow. He had committed to the strike wholeheartedly, and the paladin’s unopposed counter was vicious.
The paladin leapt past Arthur, jabbing the spear backward and down in a flash of unholy energy that sunk deep into his calf and hollowed it out down to the bone. Arthur yanked the few threads of light cast from a smoldering ember that drifted past and used them to hem the paladin in like hovering golden spears circling them both. He limped forward in a diving attack at the same time as his godly spears struck like lightning. The paladin was fast, avoiding the first two with quick sidesteps. The third and fourth pummeled his shield, but the final spear hit him hard in the back, knocking him straight into Arthur’s thrust. The paladin twisted enough at the last second that the blow simply burned through his armor, slicing his side instead of gutting the villain.
He reared back for another blow when a black miasma exploded from the Paladin, reducing the few blooming surroundings to a dripping black slag. His flesh itched and burned as exposed parts of his face flaked away in sickly pieces. Arthur dived forward to tackle the Paladin; instead, he dived straight into the unyielding flesh of a massive daisy more profane than any he had seen before.
The Paladin spoke from behind the writhing, bubbling abomination; his voice was discomfortingly free of emotion. “If you people would have just left us alone, none of you would have to die. I didn’t want to play the villain, but I will.” The paladin finished his statement with the heavy sigh of a man who had made an irreversible decision. Arthur didn’t get to respond before he was wrenched off the ground by dozens of bladed, gnashing tendrils stabbing at every exposed bit of his flesh.
He tried to swing his sword, but every inch of his body was wrapped in the abomination's grasp. His eyes darted around; he needed light, anything. The rivers of dandelions were still floating through the air all around them. Arthur used every bit of mana he had, drawing the noxious green light from the air above them in towards himself as the beast shoved him into its dark gullet. There was a moment of pure darkness and pain and blood.
Then the swirling green conflux above Vrax and Arthur slowly shifted to a glimmering golden white before piercing downward in a pillar of purifying fire, blanketing everything in the courtyard. The world turned to fire and ash for a half dozen heartbeats, and Arthur rolled free from the smoldering, twitching pile of roots and flailing tendrils, unharmed by his own magics. The paladin had dashed down the nearby street past the nightmare tree and towards the priest, his armor trailing smoke.
Arthur went to give chase when a dark malignant specter pulled itself free from the rot in front of him; it looked like a ghostly purple and black version of the paladin. Moments later it was joined by spectral wraiths of the man-eater daisies flanking him dangerously. “What is this demonic witchcraft?” Arthur could swear he heard a chittering laugh from somewhere above and behind him.
Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands
Fuck that guy! I think he might have actually killed Sunshine, and if I had eaten that beam of bullshit fire straight on, my armor wouldn’t have stopped it either! I can’t fight him head-on; he will win. I need to at least kill that priest. I'm staying the hell away from the holy lantern until I have some traps for him and a darker venue... hopefully the sugar gliders or the tree finish him off; he has to be running on fumes by now.
Vrax squirreled through a low window and rushed up a ladder he had grown from the ruined first floor through to a hole in the roof to get back to a better vantage point. That asshole Kelis was around here somewhere, and Vrax was pretty sure he had a hell of a lot better shot at beating a spellcaster one-on-one than whatever the hell was going on with Arthur. His identify on him was concerning: [Arthur Decius Tier-1](lvl30)[Threat: Existential] [Seeker Of Light]. Literally none of that sounded like something Vrax should be having a straight-up death match with.
Kelis was pretty easy to find; his spells were screaming across the street with a deep, thrumming rumble that Vrax could feel in his bones. He peeked over the edge. Kelis stood there, his immaculate robes dripping red and green blood and practically plastered to his thin frame. He heaved another buzzing ball of hateful red energy down the street; it hit a daisy, and the damn thing vibrated halfway apart in a bizarre jarring display of condensed weaponized sound. Kelis looked around himself, hands curved into claws out of sheer rage. “Where are you, you demon-worshiping heretic? Pay for your sins!”
Vrax let out a shrill whistle from his vantage point; Kelis’s head snapped to him. “Hey now, I really wanted to introduce you to my box of heresy!”
Kelis stuttered for a moment, “You—it’s fucking you!? Vanessa lied to us...you...”
Vrax interrupted him by throwing a jar of smelter moss that shattered across one of his guards, engulfing the man in hellish green flames and spattering Kelis’s robes in fire. “Shhh...I said I have someone I want you to meet! OH DUCHESS! FUCK THIS GUY IN PARTICULAR!” Vrax hollered over the battlefield. At this point the fight was starting to look far more desperate for the forces of Rembrand than him, as long as the holy glowstick or the Rembrand paladin didn’t get within reach of him.
A spiteful voice that lusted for suffering clawed its way through the streets. “Oh? Has the little piggie come back? Well, little piggie, let me show you why the gods don’t come here anymore.” The voice was followed by the shrill sounds of a man squealing and entrails being pulled through skin.
Kelis looked around, energy crackling from fingertip to fingertip in fear. “Show yourself, demon! Rembrand will protect me!” The last standing guard next to him was yanked through a far too small window by a black claw and made to fit through with the crunch of bone and splattering of flesh.
Kelis lashed out with whips of red power that sliced into the stonework of the bloody window. “I...I saw...You...I know I did….” He stammered in confusion for a moment.
Kelis’s eyes raced back and forth across the deteriorating cold stone walls that hemmed him into the street. Dutchess skulked from window to window, wisps of shadow dripping down to touch the blood-soaked cobblestone. Always just out of sight from the man, he would never catch more than a glimpse of the hungry beast and its eldritch scrawlings.
He nearly fled when she ripped from one building to another in a shower of wood and shadow as she pounced through the aged stone walls, still just out of sight. His confusion grew with every moment the glimpses of the beast were stolen from his mind momentarily and then returned violently over and over as she prowled all around him.
Vrax had taken cover back behind the crenelations of the rooftop he was on and decided to add to the priest’s woes. “Kelis! Don’t be afraid; isn’t your god here with you?
Kelis blasted wave after wave into the rooftop near Vrax, sundering the building so badly Vrax had to leap to the neighboring roof as the building crumbled beneath him. “Silence! I know no fear! My god stands with me!” his trembling voice whispered with false confidence.
A kind voice, eerily so, crept through the streets. “That’s not true, deary; I can taste it, I can smell it. And there isn't a touch of divinity about you, only lies and false promises. Now be a dear and cut your own throat; make it quick so we can just start the feast now!” Kelis whirled around, missing the single tongue that had snaked its way onto his foot, magnifying his fear to sheer unbridled terror. He lashed out with unfocused waves of power over and over at his surroundings, shattering walls, windows, and cobblestone alike until he staggered, clutching his heart in pain. Eyes wide and rolling around wildly looking for the demon.
Dutchess appeared suddenly behind Kelis, crawling from a black wound in reality that licked the air with tongues of shadow. Her eldritch patterns flickered with an unfathomable darkness that shouldn't have existed on the same plane as mortal eyes, giving glimpses at starved things that gazed back.
Oh fuck, she got a new skill at level twenty-five too, I see.
Dutchess opened her maws slowly as wide as she could behind the man, then savagely and without pause, she clamped over his screaming face and head while ripping his arms off and casting them aside in trails of blood. She slithered back into the wound in reality, dragging her screaming prey with her. The black portal closed silently the moment Kelis was inside.
Man, if she ever decided I'm too much of a pain in the ass I am so dead. I don’t think it would even be a fight if she turned on me; I’d hear some quip about dead gods and dinner and suddenly have Vurune looking at me in disappointment in a forest afterlife somewhere. Vrax chuckled darkly while he kneeled on the edge of the roof watching the rest of that battle play out. The squad with the paladin was making a fighting retreat north, and it looked like the lantern was trying to fight his way back to his squad. He was limping brutally and trailing blood as the ethereal daisies lashed at him.
Damn, just a bit more mana in that smite and I would have taken that fucker's leg off. What the hell is going on with some of these bastards knowing who I actually am and some not? Kelis seemed surprised. Arthur seemed like he was trying to get a rise out of me; it worked, but still...ha...I need a fucking drink.
King Chronus—The Forsaken Lands
“What in the actual hells has been going on in the eastern reaches of my kingdom?” He was watching the tail end of this absolutely ridiculous battle play out. In the grand scheme of his long life, this was one of the strangest fights he had ever seen, and there had to be at least two unique classes on this battlefield right now. Not to mention, apparently the new monarch of The Ravenous Grove was in open fucking war with the Church of Order. And based on this rather narrow slice of his abilities, Chronus was betting he was going to be whipping up some eldritch nightmares of his own that would rival anything left behind by the Elysian fleshwarpers.
Chronus sighed; he had spent a good amount of time in Hopes End undercover as an adventurer. Honestly, it had been one of the most fun weeks in recent memory; the town had a real spark and zest to the locals. A hard, jaded group of people who took death as a matter of course and so lived every day to its fullest. After this all settled down one way or another, there were a few folks in that town he was hoping to extend some job offers to. Mainly the baker; her confections were frankly absurd. It had been nearly four hundred years since he had a pie that good, and that was a gift from a neighboring king.
While he was enjoying getting to be a normal citizen again, he had managed to glean quite a bit about the new monarch, and honestly, it wasn’t what he expected. The young man was a well-known, beloved explorer and prankster. As much of a pain in the ass as he was to the townsfolk, he had helped them in innumerable ways, risking his life to bring people what they needed from the forsaken lands as just part of his everyday routine.
After that, Chronus had managed to spy on the boy for a few days when he wandered out of his strangely eldritch capitol. What he saw was a young man guided by a genuine, if bizarre, love of all the life and wonder around him no matter how dangerous or twisted it may be to others. It had bought him a fair amount of goodwill in Chronus’s eyes; he didn’t see a conqueror or a tyrant, simply an artist whose canvas was wholly unique to him.
An awful lot of that goodwill had gone up in flames over the course of this battle. Every single creation he had was designed to fight, unfairly and mercilessly. The creativity on display was depraved and, honestly, even by Chronus’s standards, frightening. The new king could become a monster if he were pushed too far. But for now he still needed to talk to him; if he didn’t like what he heard, he would simply turn the famed Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands to dust and be done with it.
(Author Note: End Of Book One, Posts will continue as per usual!)
Let me know what ya think of this chappie and this first main arc!
Comments
Bugiwidu Fag
I hope the king doesn't save the rembrandt paladins.
Demolition D
TFTC!!🥲sooo good!!! Can't wait to see the kings & Vax's reaction to the conversation they have. I like that Vax even in this short time seems to grow in maturity (small amounts. It generally takes some amount of tragedy to mature a great deal at once) but he still retains his humor. The kings view point definitely helps illustrate this and the town Vax grew up in as a major influence to this fact.
jollybane
Thank you very much and welcome to the patreon!
ReadingObsessed
An excellent story
jollybane
Thank you :)
Ben A
Really enjoying this story
