[Fsh] Chapter 56: Soulweaver

Rathos’ gaze effortlessly pierced the world of darkness he had imposed upon reality.

He knew that while he maintained his Dreadwalk, they retained the advantage.

Shadow was his domain.

They needed to injure the soulweaver before the call of his Dread waned. The creature’s soulsight was momentarily rendered ineffective in the shadow of the twilight woods.

Rathos Blackwood struck, calling his Delirium.

[Shadow walk]

[Cleaving edge of evershade]

He stepped silently through the shadows to flank the soulweaver, taking advantage of its disorientation. Then, he sent a blade born of shadow hurtling towards it. Rathos nodded to Clona, as he successfully severed a few of the spider’s legs.

[Sorrow of the bloodrose]

Clona’s bleeding roses bloomed across the soulweaver’s black web. Not even the creature’s wounds were free from their reach, as roses blossomed from the creature’s cracks in its chitin, drinking of its black viscera.

Even under the weight of his shadow, Clona’s roses glowed a deep red, bearing the promise of blood.

With the swing of her Phobia, Clona regaled the blood that wept from her roses which covered the soulweaver’s black web.

They trailed after her whip of black thorns in deadly gleaming arcs, hurtling towards the soulweaver.

Rather than avoid her strikes, the creature merely offered up its limbs for the slaughter.

Clona’s thorns, and arcs of blood sliced into its limbs and body, hacking chunks from its legs, severing some of them at their joints outright.

Rathos watched as solid black chitin cracked.

New limbs emerged, birthed from the creature’s abdomen.

They dripped in its viscera, moving independently as if possessing a mind of their own.

The soulweaver’s maw widened, its swirling mess of fangs clamping down on a stump of a leg that had been severed in Clona’s onslaught. The spider ripped its own stump free, as its other legs pulled and hacked useless limbs from its body.

The wounds that it inflicted upon itself regenerated effortlessly, and even in the midst of his Dread, Rathos shuddered as he watched the legs probe the darkness, feverishly in search of its prey.

“Coordinate attacks. We need to overwhelm its regeneration while it is still blinded. Once its sight returns, it will resume its onslaught.”

Severim’s calm voice cut through the silent dark.

Rathos’ eyes widened, and his gaze shot to the young commander of the Dreadwood knights.

Severim had only drawn his blade once, this battle. Deflecting an errant arc of frost the creature had sent towards him.

The sight of his Phobia, the elegant, curving blade of white wood still sheathed, brought Rathos an overwhelming sense of relief.

Rathos motioned to Clona, and with a casual gesture, a spiral of gleaming red roses grew outwards from the web in his periphery.

The light of the roses cast his shadow in multiple directions at his feet.

He called upon his Delirium.

[Shadow refraction]

The shadows cast by the light of Clona’s roses strode into reality, before coalescing into his own visage. Identical, in every way, Rathos sent them to join the hunt.

The soulweaver called on the power of a Fearshaper of sound, invoking the power of one of the countless guides it had consumed. Vibrations emanated from around the creature, and as his shadows intruded into the reach of its limbs, the creature used its echolocation to identify the position of his advancing shadows.

Countless limbs impaled them, and Rathos imbued his shadows with his Trepidation.

[Weight of the umbrawood]

The soulweaver screeched as it struggled to withdraw them, the shadows bearing unexpected weight. Each of his shadows wrapped their arms around the limbs impaling them, weighing the soulweaver down.

Locking it in place.

Clona advanced, taking advantage of the opportunity Rathos created, sending her Phobia hurtling towards the soulweaver’s skull.

As her whip curled around one of the limbs, slick with viscera, her eyes widened, when the soulweaver-

Pulled.

In a split second, a leg that protruded from its skull lashed outwards with the force of a slash delivered by a Fearshaper of blades.

Clona was severed in half.

Rathos watched as the Dreadwalker’s midriff and legs tumbled into the darkness below them, as her torso landed on a nearby web.

Feardamnit. We won’t be able to keep this up forever.

Instead of casting his gaze at Clona, or even down towards Virgil, Vale and Caledon left at the mercy of the horrors of this place while they battled-

Rathos turned in the direction of his commander.

He paled when he saw Serevim’s hand around the hilt of his blade.

No. Not here.

“Severim, no!”

Severim flinched, casting a look of surprise towards him.

He can’t be unleashed. Not yet.

Rathos’ thoughts were interrupted as a figure shot upwards out of the darkness below them.

Fearshaper of blades.

Rathos recognised its movements. The telltale agility of Fearshapers who feared the blade. Moving with the practised elegance and agility that embodied the object of their Fear.

Vale Revenant’s Fearshaper of blades lunged upwards, with his master in hand.

Rathos cursed under his breath, tempted to sever the abyssal web beneath the revenant’s feet to send it, and Vale in its clutches, hurtling back down.

She would be nothing but a burden to them, where she languished in Trepidation, despite her good intentions.

“Vale. It’s pointless.”

The girl was crouched over Clona, her severed torso lying on the abyssal web. Vale repeatedly called her Fear to no avail.

Her efforts were in vain, and only Lady Velra’s Fearshaping of wounds was potent enough to restore the Dreadwalker’s body through healing.

“Leave, now.”

Rathos watched as the girl tore her gaze away from the Dreadwalker at her feet, turning instead to the soulweaver before them, weighed down by the efforts of his shadows.

Rathos watched, as Vale stretched an arm outwards.

---

In the short exchange of blows she had glimpsed, Vale had recognised the nature of the creature.

The true origin of its power, the singular problem that the Dreadwalkers struggled to overcome.  

The creature had ceaselessly closed its own wounds, rendering the Dreadwalkers’ attacks meaningless.

She recognised a fellow Fearshaper of death when she saw one.

Beyond that, it had gorged itself upon the bodies of countless guides. It had an endless well of Alarum to draw upon. Despite their power, the Dreadwalkers were struggling to inflict a blow deadly enough to put an end to the creature.

She had ascended with Bladey’s help with a single, foolhardy strategy in mind. Her thoughts came to rest upon a single invocation that she hoped could give the Dreadwalkers the opportunity they needed.

Vale Revenant called her Trepidation.

[Soulprison of the bodysnatcher]

Blood trickled from the corners of her lips as she flinched, as if physically struck by the force of the creature’s soul. Where the souls of other creatures appeared to her as dim wisps of light, the relentless wildfire of void tore at its cage, inflicting physical wounds in its struggle.

Then she watched in horror as her gambit failed.

Even as she struggled and succeeded in subduing the creature’s soul, she watched as its powers of regeneration continued to run rampant across its body, healing wounds that the Dreadwalkers had inflicted.

The creature’s invocation, sustaining itself unconsciously.

The soulprison had failed.

Rather than sealing the creature’s Fearshaping, its regeneration had persisted, unconsciously, fuelled by its Insanity.

“Vale, get awa-”

Rathos’ Dreadwalk ended.

The shadow and silence of the twilight woods that had suffused the tower, blinked out.

She felt the soulweaver tear itself from the soulprison she had woven from her Trepidation.  

Light and sound returned to them.

Along with the silent screams of the soulweaver.

Vale screamed as her eardrums caved in, ruptured by the creature’s scream.

Without the muted silence birthed from Rathos’ Dreadwalk no shielding them, the creature was free to paralyse them with its wail.

Rathos lunged to greet the creature with his greatsword of shadows.

Vale shivered as she sank further into her despair. Unbeknownst to her, her bright lavender eyes began to darken. Pale lips deprived of vitality began to assume a burgundy hue.

Asale Revenant descended upon her daughter, picking her moment of greatest weakness to overwhelm her, and to claim her body.

Then she stumbled, as her mother’s possession halted, for just a moment.

Before the darkening of her irises resumed once more.

Deepening, far beyond the dark lavender hue of Asale Revenant’s own.

---

The way things were going, Severim’s involvement was almost a certainty.

They had failed to overwhelm the creature’s regeneration under the shadows of the Twilight Woods. Unhindered by his shadow, the creature would be emboldened, relying on the powers of the guides it had consumed once more.

Rathos gritted his teeth as he persisted in his onslaught tirelessly, his greatsword of shadow flashing. With every wound that he inflicted, yet another one of his shadows perished, failing to restrain the creature that had regained its senses.

Even in the midst of battle, he spared a crucial moment to cast a glance away from the monstrosity that he hunted.

Then his eyes snapped towards a blur of unnatural speed and agility.

Rathos stared at Vale Revenant’s approach, surrounded in a haze of black, ivory dust, in the arms of her Fearshaper of blades.

She hurtled towards the soulweaver.

“Vale! Get awa-“

His breath caught as her eyes met his own.

In place of bright lavender, Rathos was greeted by pinpricks of void. Eyes he had only heard described to him, that belonged to the elf that had heralded the Rampage of Undeath.

And to the elves before him.

The greatest Fearshapers to walk in death’s shadow.

He watched as the haze of black ivorydust coalesced into her brother’s skeletal form. Triol Revenant threw himself into the soulweaver’s maw, propping open the creature’s jaws filled with spiralling fangs that curled into the very flesh from which they sprouted.

He watched as Vale stretched an arm outwards, as if reaching for the soulweaver.

A golden greataxe flashed as it severed Vale’s arm from her shoulder.

Without a second of hesitation, the Fearshaper of death threw her limb into the creature’s maw.

She called her Fear once more, and Rathos’ eyes widened as she unleashed a scream.

It was not wordless, or one born of the pain that she had so casually inflicted on herself.

This one, was directed, full of intention.

The Dreadwalkers were its recipient.

“NOW!”

---

Vale’s plea was answered by a Dreadwalker of roses.

Dreadwalk: Seduction of the eternal spring

The Blood Rose called her Dread once more, even where she lay, a bloody torso, on an abyssal web.

The tower around them was replaced with the spring sky. The sun greeted them with its gentle rays, and she found herself surrounded in a beautiful field of roses. The very same hue as the blood that leaked from the tear in her shoulder.

Even where Clona lay, severed in half, luscious black hair shimmered in the spring sun. They framed entrancing red eyes that glittered in tranquil rays, locked onto the struggling monstrosity.

Drawn into the seduction of roses, before being obscured by dancing petals of blood.

The dark rose petals, caught the sunlight as they flitted through the air around her. They grew to a flood, swirling around the soulweaver where it stood rooted, still weighed down by Rathos’ shadows.

There were layers to the Dreadwalker of roses’ Fear.

The first time Clona had invoked it, she had seduced the soulweaver with her corpse, presenting herself as appetising sustenance, allowing her thorns to scar it from within.

This time, Clona seduced it with the allure of her garden of eternal spring.

Rathos blinked, and the idyllic scene of the beautiful garden was replaced with a scene of horror.

He watched as a flood of dancing petals and thorns drew bloody lines across the soulweaver’s body, severing chips of its chitin, freeing dark, black blood from its body.

Rathos watched as the bulbous black eyes of the creature, bunched across the entirety of its skull began to pop, leaking viscera.

Then he stared as the creature twitched.

The soulweaver paused for a moment, as if confused.

Then he finally glimpsed the Insanity of Vale’s genius, reading her intentions.

He called the remains of his Alarum, to stride in his Dread once more.

Dreadwalk: I danced as obscurity’s blade

His skin melted into the very object of his Fear.

Rathos Blackwood strode, as shadow, wielding it as a blade as he tore his Phobia towards the creature, weaving shadow across the soulweaver’s body.

---

The gift of a kind child was bestowed upon Vale Revenant.

For a moment, she strode in the wake of her ancestors, Fearshapers of death that delved into the very depths of their Fears.

Empowered by a Dreadwalker of memory.

The last vestiges of her mother’s bloodline were purged. Her lavender eyes replaced with the traits of the Revenant family, that had been passed down, from Rael himself.

Her eyes blazed as her father’s did, narrowing into pinpricks of void.

Vale Revenant watched as the Dreadwalkers strode in their exquisite torment. Tearing into the soulweaver, incarnations of the objects of their Fear.

She watched with calm eyes, having sacrificed an arm.

Waiting.

Then she watched as the soulweaver’s wounds began to close once more.

Vale called her Trepidation.

[Soulprison of the bodysnatcher]

Vale coughed blood, as the creature desperately tried to cease its unconscious regeneration, when it discerned her intention. It railed helplessly against the soul prison she had called with her Trepidation.

[Regeneration of the skinsweller]

She directed the full force of her Alarum at the soulweaver. Not towards its wounds, but towards what it had consumed.

The melding of bone and flesh that had been her sacrifice, was empowered by the soulweaver’s own unconscious and rapid regeneration, having been subsumed into its own flesh.

Then, the creature’s regeneration was further spurned by her own invocation, which caused the flesh and bone of her arm within to burgeon to an even greater degree.

The arm that Vale had severed, sacrificed to its maw, grew rapidly into a tumour that strained against the creature’s skin. She watched, as the soulweaver’s chitin bulged, struggling to contain the result of its own unconscious regeneration, its soul temporarily sealed.

Reminisca’s gift had allowed her to reclaim the sublimity of her forefathers before her. Yet even the gift of a Dreadwalker of memories could not impart the mastery that came with a lifetime of Fearshaping.

She could not regenerate the arm that she had lost, even with all that she had been gifted.

She could not artfully shape Triol and Bladey’s body into weapons of war, as they had witnessed in their battle against the graveserpent, in Rael’s rest.

What she could do, was imbue her invocations with the raw power of the Revenant bloodline.

The heralds of death.  

Vale smiled as the flesh and bone in her severed arm began to burgeon exponentially within the creature.

Even though she lacked the artistry of her predecessors…

There was beauty in simplicity.

[Forgery of the graveserpent]

The mass of bone and flesh, empowered by the collective regeneration of not one but two Fearshapers of death, exploded outwards in towering spires of bone.

Resounding cracks echoed through the cavernous tower, brought by the parting chitin with the strength of steel. Spires of Vale’s very own bone grew outwards from within the creature.

Impaling it from within and carving a path outwards through its flesh in every direction. Turning the creature’s regeneration against it, which had sealed its demise.

The soulweaver finally fell still.

Vale watched as a sickly blake haze of void leaked from the corpse. The closer that it drew to her, the louder that the whispers at the edges of her consciousness grew.

Vale drew it into her Fearcore.

The familiar screams of the dead she was greeted with when she usually absorbed the other creatures was absent.

Vale was met with nothing.

For the soulweaver’s alarum, twisted and malformed, given form from the parting of one of the true Lord’s of death…

Silenced the screams of an Archcity.