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286 - Dark Powers [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-08-19 19:06:44 +0000 UTCOh. Oh no. Oh, that was not good. Roderick felt that. All his bodies and subordinates felt that. Her words - they carried a Pseudo-Truth. The world itself reverberated and carried her speech, as if acknowledging the legitimacy of that maxim, or perhaps unable to deny it: The Universal Tongue of Violence.
Come the next moment, Roderick learned what she had meant.
Dozens of the Order’s disciples did, and they all met their end. He’d seen Elder Third in action, his imperious presence and seemingly omniscient power, his genial manipulation of blood, both his own and of his victims. Even at his most savage, it wasn't like this. Nothing like this.
Bolts of lightning and zipping beads of it alike struck at anything within That Woman’s vicinity,
The Seven Fangs whipped back and forth as if it were a weightless whip, nay, as if it were somehow more than weightless. Its number of segments seemed to grow and shrink at a moment’s notice, and it simply changed direction to follow after its victims even when they dodged. No escape. No escape. None but to simply not be a target. That was the conclusion Roderick reached. His scarlet-robed bodies barely managed to escape by inverting their garments to turn them black and suppressing their own auras.
Alien vibrations came through the earth, an onerous tune began to blast. Stomping. They came through. A small army of metal-armored war-automata, unlike any Roderick had ever seen, moving like living men. At their fore, a crimson devil emanating bloodthirst beyond reckoning, screaming over the trumpets that blared out of its mechanisms.
“RESCUE THE CIVVIES. CLEAR THE STREETS. AS FOR THE CLOWNS IN ROBES… KILL ‘EM ALL.”
The crimson demon came screaming down the road right in the woman’s wake.
Terror. Absolute terror. Roderick led a hasty retreat of the most mobile few, a force of four-dozen disciples reduced to just thirteen in moments… And their killer, advancing, laughing it up. She was playing with them.
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Zel was, indeed, playing with them… Though only partly.
She was in fact trying to suss out where they were retreating to, and, if the opportunity presented itself, catch at least a handful of them in the firing line. What good were Dragonfire Shells if she didn’t even get to test them before a serious fight?
Eberheim, as a city, was structured into an Outer, Middle, and Central City, separated by heavy-duty tram tracks to facilitate its trade and industry, with the Outer City being a mix of industry and housing, the Middle City being commercial and housing, and the Central City being a center of culture and religion. Just now, she had chased her prey into the Middle City, lashing the buildings and pulling herself along at breakneck speeds using her Thundergods.
It seemed abundantly clear that they were retreating towards the city center, the Cathedral.
However, she found herself halted. A veritable tsunami of boiling blood came crashing through the street, reaching all the way to the top floors of the apartment buildings. Zel leapt upward and pulled herself onto the rooftop before the wave could reach her, but it seemed, it was too late.
The presence of another made itself known. It was, undoubtedly, the source of that blood-wave, and it looked exactly how she imagined an archetypal cultivator. A woman with long hair, clad in a billowing, crimson robe, her face obscured by an elaborate, polished brass mask. Beads of blood orbited her head, and she floated, as if weightless in mid-air, some two-hundred meters ahead.
The Hemomancer’s attention was spread out between the weaker first-line defenders that had fled from her. With a few gestures, wounds were forced close and disloacted limbs popped back into the rightful places. Then, she turned a wrathful gaze in Zel’s direction, and she felt it; her presence weighing down like five hundred kilos, feeling as if it were trying to pull the blood straight out of her. No, it wasn’t truly pure aura. Zel felt the real weight, or rather, the downward pull. Her feet broke the shingles.
A hissing inhalation between her teeth, followed by a laugh of realization.
“Seriously? Fake Aura Pressure?!” she cackled in mockery of her foe.
A flex of her will. That was all it took to snap the Hemomancer’s hold on her like a twig. It rippled out from her, the whole roof cracking, shingles ripping themselves free, floating up and being struck by her lightning; the force was not that of her own aura, but of the Hemomancer’s hold on her falling apart and lashing back. Her foe, alarmed and angered both, glared murder at her. Then, she outstretched her arms to her subordinates. All their auras flared at once, manifesting in deep red, flowing back into the Hemomancer. It felt like they all pooled their strength together, and it showed in that same way, with the subordinate members becoming faster and more concrete in their presence.
It would’ve been impressive if Zel couldn’t feel the stench of blood sacrifice so obviously fueling that feat. She wondered how many lives paid the way to give her a real fight.
SCARLET SIGN
UNION OF BLOOD FORMATION
The combination of thousands of liters in blood alongside all the disciples’ projectiles was, admittedly, an impressive offensive, one that very nearly compared to one of Red’s stratagems. She gripped Thundercannon’s trigger-lever. This was a good time. Yes, now was the right moment.
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the dome…
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While Zefaris worked to alter the battering ram’s shape and glyphs to let it pierce straight through at the correct time, Victor pulled out seven talismans wrought of dragonbone and cast them to the ground. In the Oculus’ absence he had to perform a series of hand-signs instead, and finally the seven came alive. They floated a few centimeters off the ground, aligned into a perfect pentagonal formation, and began spinning in place, revolving, the symbols drawn upon them coming alive with nearly pure-white bonefire, contrasting the black dragonbone.
A shimmering, bubble-like, barrier-like membrane formed in their midst, and they began stretching it, slowly rising as bony feet fell out and touched the ground. He was able to carry this out far faster, but there was no need, and he instead directed that effort to refueling the battering-ram’s Spiraling Detonation Engine.
Comments
Akaso Industries
Not exactly the most favourable comparison circumstances for the Order, but yes. Call it a prelude to an upcoming comparison with the Black Horses' Root Branch.
senPIE
Love seeing how everyone stacks up to an older sects power. Not only power but the very philosophy behind how they operate.
