[Be Gone] Ch 30 – The Dark of Fear III

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            What was the Onisu no Jagakagi to the teeming hordes of tireless devourers on Verdan, where kaiju clashed like mountains in motion in wars old and primal beyond its ken?

            What was he to the Thing out there, come from Beyond Creation to devour whole worlds and their souls, but a passing snack?

            What was he to the Mazakeem, come teeming and writhing out of the Cracks in Creation, reaching for the Thing to feast upon it in turn?

            What was he to the passing eyes of non-finite gods seeing no reason to crush this usurper and threat to their domain, for another was feasting upon it...?

            What was he to the size of Creation, and scale and vastness he had never considered, but I could comprehend at a level no mortal should be able to, and know just how small I was in scale to all that was out there?

            What were the fears of the enlightened? Of the super-genius? Of the mighty? Of someone who was all three at once, and tapped into the powers of magic that were so much greater than he was? Who served powers so much greater in their transfinity or simple mass, and yet, those powers could turn...

            Turn, and focus. They could see.

            Here, now...

            The Onisu had raised his clawed and gauntleted hands to the clouds above, boiling and howling with glorious hunger, swelling in power and might. He had felt the fear of the population of a whole civilized world, the horror and terror of billions, the dread of uncounted living, the despair of those looking upon the world ending and the sky falling...

            And now he looked upon it all, and understood it as I did.

            As Mithar did.

            When death is nigh and the end is near...

            Watch a world die around you, and the sky come down on you...

            Where terrors walk and the dread appear,

            Undead rise, souls slaved to damnation, no rescue, no release in death...

            I wield your doom! Shed a golden tear,

            When the man who was going to save us all dies to an uncaring passing act of Doom...

            Feel my power, know the dark of fear!

            The Thing, reaching to devour our whole world...

            A thousand horrors, a million screams,

            The Mazakeem teeming out of the Cracks in Creation to feast as the Rapture exploded across the world... not our salvation, not our succor, just not worth their time and attention...

            Master your fears, and CLAIM... YOUR... DREAMS!

            That massive, ominous single burning eye, swollen with power as the Onisu no Jagakagi trembled there, burning and grown fat on fear, swiveled upon me in newly-understood terror.

            “I am the Master of my Fears. KNEEL TO ME.”

            The keening horde of demons and goblins, basking in and paralyzed by a soul-crushing terror far deeper than they’d ever known, could only stare as the great armored Onisu radiating such horrible power and might, enough to defy gods and trample any mortal empire or demonic rival before him, slammed down to his knees at my command.

            “And die, worm.”

            Because that’s all he was in the eyes of Creation, of the gods, of a World-ender, of the Mazakeem, of the Shroud and its Shroudlords.

            Of the very Land that the Onisu no Jagakagi and his terrified little oni host knelt upon.

            Lightning across the Sky brought Korbald all the way across the river in one charge.

            A Valorous Weapon, with One Strike, Spirited Charge and Leap Attack.

            Cleave the Diamond.

            God-Challenging Smite.

            Grounding the Lightning, built up over the course of most of the last hour, the seething in the sky just one more bit of Elemental conflict ignored by everyone.

            A Brilliant Weapon, by spell.

            Giant-Sized to over twenty feet tall, commiserate size and strength bonuses.

            Part the Ocean, also called Supreme Power Attack.

            Death from Above.

            Spell-Storing, releasing some Topped Raised Energy Grasp fun.

            A Contingent Heal spell, reversed to Harm Shadowlands with utmost Sacred purity.

            Power Critical on a Greataxe in two hands with Improved Threat and Improved Critical.

            Death Attack on a studied and unmoving victim.

            A newly-endowed Vivic Weapon.

            Gauntlets and Girdle with a Great Weapon in the hand of a Master of the Thunder Dragon.

            Korbald came down upon it, and the might of Heaven descended with him to deal out a deathblow the likes of which this world had never seen before.

            It didn’t take much to see the lightning bolt of a giant armored figure cross the river, and for a moment just freeze in the air above the Onisu, Axe raised. All the clouds above were parting under the power of his rising Chi, challenging Heaven above to Answer him, Storms and Oceans and the Land below coming together to acknowledge who he was in one terrible moment of martial perfection...

            And then he came down on the Onisu that was paralyzed by the fear of its doom risen unstoppably before it.

            We did see the land kind of explode as the Lightning grounded down from the sky hit, and the force of Titanfall split the Oni-Su no Jagakagi in two.

-------

            Match, struck.

            Six hundred crude Formations that were Formations nonetheless lit off, and the landscape lifted as the death of the Onisu ignited something bigger and brighter.

            Something moved. Turned. Focused. An attention span that normally encompassed years as mere seconds condensed and accelerated to something approaching mortal standards.

            The Mother Land felt power, and the sluggish lethargy that permeated Her dissipating here. The Land reached out, and Fed.

            Those watching from the other shore stared as the erupting unwhite fires swirled together, gathering, condensing, rising...

            It looked like nothing less than a massive set of pale fish-like jaws, gaping wide, and coming together to swallow the entirety of that massive explosion of vivus raging over the land and waters. It had teeth the size of palace towers, set in a mouth larger than a mountain...

            It snapped closed, and the white pulsed once. If you listened closely, you could hear both final screams of complete terror, and something like a great sigh echoing through the spiritual landscape.

            Then the great featureless jaws fell away, plunging into the landscape as if it was immaterial, and they were gone.

            So was all the white fire.

            The far shores of the river were sparkling white as far as those on the shore could see. From farther back and higher up, the gaping troops on the Great Wall could see a whole plain of sparkling white crystal extending for miles.

            Of the great demon army they had mustered to fight, there was no sign...

------

            Feature glided up next to Korbald, who was down on one knee, Titanfall still buried in the massive crevasse of super-purified crystal that was all that remained of the vaunted Onisu of Terror. He was back down to normal size, as was his Axe, although the steel of the Weapon was now veined crystal, looking like it was made of diamond run through with layers and layers of Runes in many colors.

            Sure enough, the Onisu was bigger than a Dark Bishop, why not reward him for lighting it off? Laenwrought was something totally suitable for such a gift.

            “First time feeling a Mother Land take a nibble?” I asked him rhetorically.

            The white streaks in his close-cut hair and beard were totally crystalline at the moment. They’d go back to normal over time... or maybe not, magic was finicky when you get Spirits and their whims involved.

            “Gods above, Ael,” he murmured, not looking up, still coming to grips with brushing against the consciousness of a continent.

            “And Lands Below,” I agreed. “Hop on. The others are coming. They can take care of the plundering.”

            He looked up at the great Saber of the Onisu, plunged into ground and burning with a nearly incandescent vivic flame, mist pouring down its Tainted length and into the ground as white rust stole across the black metal, breaking it down and feeding upon it.

            Defeated in cool casualness, he sighed as he stood, and stepped up onto Feature’s back. Feature snaked around and headed back for the Great Wall aloofly.

            The forces that had been stealing across the river while the forces of Jigoku were spellbound by fear and glorious hunger were belatedly coming again after they heard my Voice, at once letting them know Korbald was fine and that they should get moving again.

            If there were a lot of heads turned our way and watching us return, well, that was only to be expected, right?

            Korbald looked around at nothing... or rather, at a whole lot of somethings going crazy all around us.

            “I can see them...” he murmured.

            “I suppose being at Ground Zero and lighting off that match is one way to get forcibly Attuned to the Land.” I reached out with a power that had no foundation and so couldn’t do anything, but it was still there. “Yes, the Natural magic is much friendlier now. And I presume you can advance as a Shugenja, doubtless pissing off the natives at the impossibility of it all.”

            He smiled, and then laughed under his breath despite himself. “She’s watching us, isn’t She?”

            “I imagine She’s very curious. We’re not born of Her soil, but we’ve served Her so diligently,” I mused, feeling the very profound touch all around, just as the local Spirits could. Naturally they were ecstatic and excited at feeling the presence of the Mother Land all about them.

            Korbald looked at me. “Ael, why do you have a crown of fire?” he asked, staring at the phantasmal display that overlapped and complemented my circlet Crown. It was something that could only be seen with Spiritual Awareness.

            “Ah, that. Part of the freeing of Pentara involved lighting off a series of volcanoes drained into dormancy by the Shroudlord. Big vivic feat, big ignition. Started the reignition of the Mother Land and then the whole planet, actually.

            “All those of us who were involved in that Event received a Firecrown. It’s basically a Warlock Pact of sorts with no strings attached, a reward for saving the Firecrown Elders and on behalf of the World of Pentara.

            “I’m Powered, so it doesn’t stack with my Heaven Pact, so it’s more like a bright shiny sign that I saved a world that wasn’t my own before. I can probably get some synergistic Masteries with it through my Heaven Pact, but I’ve not had time to develop anything related to it.” I smiled and waved at him. “You’ve received one tang of a Crown, too. I guess She thought you earned it.”

            He made a motion above his head, naturally unable to see it, and I just nodded. “It’s there. The Spirits can all see it. Other Shugenja, who knows.”

            “Huh.” He stood taller despite himself. The Spirits were indeed watching him!

            “Kingship,” I mentioned, and he glanced at me. “Acknowledged by the Land. Acclaimed by the People. Bring back the gods, and you can be Anointed and claim a Throne, Korbald.”

            He sucked in a breath despite himself. Being a King would be a huge step... and also put him in direct conflict with the Empire they’d taken shelter with. A mortal emperor was literally irrelevant to a True King, and with no true gods here, the best a Monarch could do was two of the three requirements.

            He had the blessing of the highest level of the Spirits, save perhaps the Heavenly Jade Court, who disdained him and the other humans, being composed mostly of the ancestral spirits of the ancient elves who formed the heart of the Jade Empire. Whether they outranked the Mother Land was another matter entirely, of course... and what did he care about a Court where his people weren’t represented?

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