P3t1

  "Armor up," I said as I pced my palm on Selene's shoulder, a single microscopidril of white flesh slipped out of my palm and sewed itself into the woman's hair, "and stay here; I'll hahis." "But," she started, indignant at my dismissal. I pced a fi her lips just as she was about to tinue, smirking at the gobsmacked expression on her face, "These are demons, big bad demons that are far out of the pay grade of you and yuards." "Fine," she said as she spped my hand away, "hurry up then." "Sure, sure," I waved as I jogged off, which turned into a full-powered dash as soon as I was out of sight of the woman. I rushed past Shadows so fast their puny minds couldn't eveer my passing. I reached the first wave of little monsters and jumped right into the fray as a thin exoskeleton of armor covered my body; it was far from the symbiotic living armor I had in mind, but it'd work for now. My bio-swrew into my hand, and I grabbed ahold of its handle, not wasting a sed before I coated it with psychic fmes and shed out with it, sending a respectably sized inferno into the giggling little monsters. They burned by the hundreds as I jumped over them, firing off bolts of bio-electricity that jumped between the Horrors and burned whatever they had for a nervous system right out. They fell over and started dissolving into energy, but I didn't care at the moment; I sensed much more of the same energy in a far more deate in the babsp;My soul energy rushed out to cover the armor in a film of psychic shield just before a ball of fire smacked into me and covered me in iridest fmes. I gnced curiously at my fme-covered hand as I felt the chaotic fme try to eat away at my shield; it tried to corrupt the energy fuelling it and turn what I used to protect myself into fuel for itself and ie me by using my own power. I let out a burst of soul energy from my skin, banishing the fmes as they g onto the newfound energy like starving piranhas, and I held back a chuckle as the still-alive fmes fell onto the horde of Horrors below me. I was still grinning as my gaze zeroed in on the mohat was responsible for that destructive spell, finding a man-sized monster simir to the pink Horrors. Its eyes held the same glee but tained a calg malice as it weaved its spell into being with its inky eyes holding me in its sight even as I moved faster than a normal human could see. "Well," my eyes narrowed as I grabbed ahold of myself with Telekinesis and unched myself out like a bullet, my protective shield pulping any of the little horrors jumping in my way, "fuck you too." My sword burst into a brilliant white fire as I ihe same smite into the psychic fmes that I used before and ratle mohrough before it could even uand that I wasn't three hundred meters away but right in front of it. My fmes did what this thing's fire was trying to do but with much more success as it screeched out in a horrifying exhale of pain. The fmes ate through its flimsy attempts of shielding itself, and I ripped my bde out of it in an arc, leaving its thin torso barely ected to its other half, but the fmes, by ing most of its form, were far too distrag for it to even offer a rea to my a. I sshed o time, cutting the Herald's head off along with its scream as its body dissolved into nothing; my soul energy in the fmes using itself to destroy the very energy making up its being. I turned my gaze towards the dark tunnels behind my test foe, seeing the st of the Horrors amble out of it. I gnced back at the battlefield; my previous attack decimated the enemies' numbers, and by now the Shadows were only outnumbered around five to one, but I saw arcs of electricity and gauss fire join the s fire aas of the Shadows, signifying that Zedev finally made up his mind a his underlings into the fray. I threw o ssh behihinning the bae of the horrors before I turned and rushed into the dark tunnels. My stomach felt like a knot as I felt my mind glower in distaste at the presence I felt in front of me; I didn't find any other monsters aside from five more Heralds. I didn't waste much time and cut the first's head off without effort; after that, two were together, and one of them mao nick my back a bit with a spell that sent me smashing into the wall even if I took half of his rade with me. An Eldritch Bst dematerialized him for that, and I was running further down into the tunnel even before his body fully dissolved. Then came three of them, I didn't try to py it cool and bsted them from afar with Smite-infused Eldritch Bsts just to be safe; if the spell aimed at destroying anything physical with chaotiergy infused with the energy-eating 'entment' if you will didn't kill them, I didn't know what would. Then there were five of them, and I started to feel a bit weird; five Heralds of ge. I felt like I ying some game where the difficulty increased with each fight. 'Acute' I felt the word reverberate through the tunnel as much as it did through my skull; soul energy flooded into my mindscape and into my body through my soul thread, reinf and shielding every part of my being with as much power as I could. 'Curious' This time I only heard the word as the air vibrated iunnel, but it dider my mind like that one uninvited u the family gathering that always told racist jokes. I was much more apprehensive now, but I still bsted the Heralds away with five parallel Eldritch Bsts. I could go for fshy bat when I had the leeway, but whatever was behind these Heralds was dangerous; I thought ba the people behind me and all the things I knew Demons liked to do with captured enemies. A pit formed in my stomach, but I knew I could abandon them if the danger grew too high; heroism for me was below my own survival by several grades in importanbsp;I walked into the darkness with my guard raised as high as it could be with the shield c me extending into a capsule around me instead of a thin film. It shimmered in a white colour and gave off a little light, but mostly it was translut as I wished it to be. My sword was alight with white fme as my body was flooded with both bio-energy and soul energy; I saw dust particles flow in the air, and I could t the strands of hair in my vision every fra of a sed. I moved, reality flowed around me as my body swam through the air faster than sound; there was no thundering explosion following behind me as the air parted in front of my shield and flowed seamlessly bato its pce behind me as I passed. I didn't move for lohan a sed as I felt the disgusting presence less than fifty meters away from me. I didn't lessen the energy flowing through me; I was ready to run away if I o, but I really didn't want this thing on the same p I was on if I could help it. The Shadows danced along the decrepit walls as the feathers along the Demon's body were set alight with everging fmes flickering in and out of reality. The Lord of ge was leaning on a rge staff made of seemingly wood which had branches around the top of it twisting in a protective sphere around a burning orb of fme. "We meet, at st," it spoke, I think; one of its heads did, at least, while the other was tilting its vulture-like head curiously in my vague dire, "Greetings." "Hi," I said uainly as the vulture head extended forward while the eagle-like oared at me thoughtfully. They said looking into the eyes of a Lord of ge was one of the easiest ways to go insane in the gaxy; these beings could uand not only your whole life and your past but also glean into your possible futures and uand your entire society with a single gnce. People teo go insane as all this information flowed bato their minds as they stared into the abyss-like eyes of these Greater Demons. I stared into those mythical eyes and saw fusion, curiosity, and i along with what I thought was relubsp;"Test yourself," the eagle head spoke, "or be tested." "You were testih those Heralds," I stated. "Perhaps," the eagle said, "perhaps they were tested; they failed to ge, to adapt to reality. Perhaps it is you who failed to adapt? Did ge curse you or did you curse yourself with ge? Will y ge or adapt to stagnation?" I couldn't help but smirk as I remembered how the ger of Ways ortrayed in fan fi and the silly riddles he spoke in. "The future is yet to be fed," I said, "why do you ask me what it holds before it came to be if it is susceptible to ge up until the st minute?" "The possibilities are infinite," the vulture croaked, speaking up for the first time as it retreated a bit, still hunched while the eagle was raised gracefully, "but infinity be trimmed, it is still infinite, but it does not include fates that we don't wish to be." I spent a silent sed evaluating; I felt the amount of energy c through this oversized bird and then myself. I didn't like my ces, to be ho; my smite only worked if I could overwhelm the enemy in energy throughput. "So you wish to test whether I rimming?" "Perhaps," the eagle spoke again, earning the side-way gre from the vulture, "perhaps trimming shall be doo you, or you shall do it unto me; fate is uain, clouded, annoying, iing, curious, distasteful, delightful, deplorable, I will kill you." He didn't move as the fme iip of his staff danced and split, leaping into the air in five different dires and rushing at me in arcs of destructive forbsp;I quickly threw out thick psychic shields to intercept the ining arcs of energy before they could reach within teers of me as I threw myself sideways and sequently into the wall twenty meters away; the arcs exploded against my shields; three stopped, but two might have been stronger as the arcs tinued on after shattering my shields and turned, smashing into my personal shield from the front just as I jumped out of the me-sized hole in the wall. The energy bur my shields, and I flooded the capsule-like shield with extra energy to hold for a bit longer; it still shattered a split sed ter, but by that time aen shields were between me and the murderous bolts of energy. Three broke in the first tenth of a sed, another five in the fifth, and the bolts bore through two more before they fizzled out of existeh only a single shield proteg me. "Iing, curious, it lives, We failed to kill it," I gnced warily at the feathered Demon, it stood nguidly, leaning on its gnarly staff. Its vulture head tilted curiously while the eagle had its eyes narrowed; you know what? fuck you. My soul-thread thied as energy barrelled through with nothing more than a wish; my body creaked, and my eyes went bloodshot as energy far more than it could handle even with the upgrades rushed through it. It densed into tiny orbs at the end of my fingers as I raised my right hand while reality blinked, remaining unknowing of my as before it sprang back, and five blots of densed soul energy fired out like lightning. My visio pure white as the energy overwhelmed my natural senses as well as my psychies, the density of the energy I unleashed was far beyond what I've ever experienced. Bio-energy was used up in obse amounts as it regeed cells dying by the billions and muscles withering every sed from the strain I pced on them, but I couldn't help but grin through the muted pain as I heard the Lord of ge screech; it was the most beautiful duet of agony put into sounds my ears ever had the misfortune of experieng. My ears bled, but bio-energy would fix that in a sed. "Test, each other, we did," the eagle wheezed, "the future remains uain, but our meeting is preordained, prepare yourself, Unseen One, for your existence shall remain clouded no longer." I forced my jaw and raised a shaking hand at the Demon, another round of bsts being held at the ready, but it seemed the Demon was retreating. "Remember us, We will find you, Unseen One, you may hide from fate but destiny twists around you, We will find you." Reality fractured behind it, and the avian Demon stepped back, his fetting lost iwisting gss-shard-like pieces of the veil separating realspace from the . I let myself breathe as his psychic preseno longer assaulted my mindscape just by existing near me; I realized I hadn't taken a single mouthful of air since I first sehe Greater Demon. Throughout our versation not for a moment did I have much of an idea what the demon was going to do, it was aed. I don't think even it knew what it was going to do before it did it. I stared down at my shaking right hand as my bio-sword slipped out of my grasp, being mostly useless in my frontation. My knees buckled as my strength deserted me, existing hurt. Every pore of my body felt like a scorg inferno, I felt like my nerves were beirocuted even if my seold me that all of my paiors were withered. The pain was both real and unreal, striking at my strained body and my abused psychic pathways. I took a shaky breath, more to calm my jittery han for the o breathe. Soul energy swirled around and inside my body, gathering the dispersed energy in the expanded hallway to replenish some of the energy I've spent. I grabbed onto my fallen sword and used it as a crutch to stand back up. My legs shook under me but I took a shaky step, stabbing the sword into the stone before me as I did so and leaning onto it. Oep at a time, it is gone now, I just o get back to the others. My body was still breaking down and repairing itself, cells withering and regeing every single sed as I started limping back toward the others; that Gateway needed fixing. I was really into getting out of this pce before that dumb bird decided to have another py sessiht as the splinter fleet arrived. The Lord of ge and famed weaver of fate stumbled through the haphazard gate and fell into the gentle embrace of the . "What," its regal, eagle-like head's beak parted to speak, "were we doing?" "The past escapes me," its ragged vulture-like head croaked, displeasure radiating from its gre, "the future is clear, but someh." "Curious, I remember a mission....a mission....what were we supposed to do?" The vulture didn't deign to answer, it had already fotten what they were talking about after all, only the future mattered to it. The eagle tio pohe past should be an open book to it and while it was for the most part it couldn't remember the st day's worth of his activities. Flickers of memories rushed past its ephemeral mind, just a touch out of reach but they painted a fusing picture. A meeting with one he couldn't see, its form was clouded, its voice reverberated with power but its presence was ent a hurt him. Unseen One. Unseen by fate, unshackled by destiny, and immuo stagnation. The Lord of ge shivered, such a being...too dangerous...perfect...a herald of ge...but the Great game...it doesn't matter...ge will remain... "Curious...curious...." "Destiny is shifting, Fate is being defied, The Game remains but the stakes mount ever higher." "Sure...Sure...whatever you say...." P3t1