[Be Gone] Ch 29 – The Dark of Fear II

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            At last, the demons broke and scattered, flying away desperately from the seeking missile fire. The Shugenja who’d been waiting invoked their magic as Feature dove back to the ground, me being plenty aware of what was about to go on as the Spirits around were laughing and dancing.

            The hurricane-force wind came from across the river, shooting towards the Great Wall, kicking up waves and spray as it did so. It caught the fleeing flyers squarely, and hurled them back towards the line of waiting men, into the I-S Wardzone, and thence wheeling and screaming wildly down through the air to very hard tumbles on the ground.

            The grinning horsemen waiting there were more than happy to lance them all down with aplomb, while Feature just cut through the spray and headed towards the other side of the river, rising up right through the howl of the wind to once again dominate the air and see who wanted to go fisticuffs with him.

            I began to add Wrath via Eldritch Theurgy to my bombardment, entering a new phase of attention-getting and reaping of the enemy forces.

            I had taken Purity/5 at dawn, thanking Aru and Heaven for their understanding of my convoluted bending of the rules. 10d6 of Heavenly Wrath was now a flat 60, and +12d6 of Kickers on top of that meant that a carried hit from it stacked on a Shard could totally take down a tougher oni, undead, or local commander-character.

            The resulting vivic explosion was also pretty eye-catching.

            I was sitting out there beyond the range of their Casters, daring them to do anything about it. Magnus had my Hexar Shields out and revolving around us to absorb Elemental energy attacks... and everything they were using was either corrupted Elemental energy or Death energies both Feature and I could ignore. Mental and spiritual assaults ran into Astral Ward VIII+1 and were also rebuffed without fail.

            Me, I was naturally planning stuff.

            Chains could be controlled, and quite precisely if you knew how to Focus. If you had Cast tens of thousands of Chained spells, you could direct them quite precisely.

            The proud flyers who weren’t commanders themselves were now being spit and going vivic behind me. It was sending a message, demanding the demons’ attention, challenging them. At the same time, I was sending out Chained Shards every six seconds, fracturing into one hundred and sixty-eight targets, who were dying and exploding in vivic flame, often taking those nearest them with them.

            And although they couldn’t see it or sense it, I was totally making patterns out of the dead.

            Sure, they were crude pentagrams, rough circles, and they were built completely of vivus. The Fire and Air Spirits guiding the flames were pretty subtle about building up the connections, enjoying the purity of the work.

            I did that for an hour straight, idly ditching six new Wands as they burned out one by one, dropping them into the accepting crystalline waters below me as Feature ranged up and down that black army, which could only boil and stew and take the hits, not even daring to try and put out the misting flames that wanted to ignite and feast on them, too.

            If they withdrew, so what? I just followed from beyond their range, and what were they going to do, retreat with their entire army and think they could outrun me?

            But of course, that was not what I wanted to have happen.

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            Ah, that was the pulse of dark magic I wanted to feel.

            Feature and I turned in the direction of the black surge sweeping into the manafield... and burning up against the Sublime Chord Singing all about me with the Words of Creation.

            Valor laughed at what this thing called Fear.

            I didn’t stop my bombardments, the goblins and minor oni unable to run away from me, and whatever commanders I popped off to start the slaughter were also unable to see it coming. My range was just too great; they could only see a winding, gleaming figure snaking through the sky in the distance, and then shining death came spearing out of nowhere, racing and arcing through dozens of them in an instant of almost blindingly-brilliant death. Then vivus with a lot of murderous Kickers Burst out to claim the weak.

            To make my point, I cleared his path in front of him, no need to terrify his subordinates out of the way. The titanic one-eyed, spike-crowned humanoid form, single eye blazing with murder and utterly dominating confidence, a prince among demonkind, advanced uncaringly, not giving a damn about the losses caused by my actions.

            “Ah, the inept bumbler stumbles out of his little insignificant mass of peons.”

            I switched targets. One of the larger demons, some stonish thing forty feet tall and all brute power, gaping maw, four arms, and indignity that it couldn’t reach me took a Split Chained Shardray right in the middle of the eyes on its headless chest. The explosion blew right through it, and the Chains happily tore through the merely twenty-foot lesser Spawn all around it.

            The big one actually lived. That was fine. It just meant its remaining eye got to see the next shot blow it and its remaining spawn apart, with nowhere to go and defend itself.

            Probably the whole oni army could hear me. My Magevoice carried for a full mile without any problems, and yeah, this teaming Army of Darkness™ fit completely inside that area.

            Especially after I’d wiped out over a quarter-million of the things taking up the most territory.

            Oh, did I just enter the range of the Onisu’s main eye?

            The puke yellow-green wall of annihilation that came burning at me out of that main eye was overbearing, contemptuous, all-powerful, and certainly capable of sweeping away a mere man and his insignificant dragon before it.

            It wasn’t capable of dealing with a Dispel Check at +47, however, so I drove the Wrath of Heaven against the beam and Spellflared it, converting it into raw spellpower and sending it backwards along its path.

            The looming kingly titan took the rebound right in the eye in a blinding flare of Celestial magic and wild energies disjoining. Its stately, invincible, and supremely confident advance lurched as its head snapped back, and a shout escaped it from great jaws hidden by the helm covering its face.

            “Quiet, there, I was talking. You may continue to approach, however.” So saying, I started Shardraying down a collection of familiar scorpion-esque demons, including one sucker twice their size in all dimensions that wanted to be anywhere but in front of me once I turned on it.

            Seven seconds later, it was a collection of scattered chitinous limbs blazing with vivic fire, along with dozens of its Spawn who couldn’t flee fast enough.

            The Hexar Shields were intercepting a lot of frantic magic from the oni who were finding me in range, but it was all doing a whole lot of nothing, and now I began to reap major demons and the lesser spawn they had created, bringing them down burning in vivic flame.

            “My servants name you as Aelryinth.” It had a massively regal voice, overwhelming with the power of tyranny, irresistible power, the fact I could not possibly defy him, and that I was going to die miserably before him unless I cowered.

            The air sparked in front of me as his Fear met my Aura of Valor, and visibly burned.

            “My allies name you as the Onisu no Jagakagi, a minor demon lord of fear or despair or somesuch drivel.”

            A line of serpentine she-demons not all that different in appearance from mariliths were shredded together. Chorus line, but they couldn’t kick, no legs. No harmony in the screams, either.

            Not quite as tough as mariliths, either.

            “Your name is unknown. You think to impress me with mere words?” the scornful voice continued, noting what I was doing. I wasn’t attacking him directly, and so he continued on with that display of utmost confidence, as if I feared his defenses were ready to spring up to take any attack I dealt out.

            “You’re a pissant demonling warlord out in the armpit of the multiverse, and talking to me about being unknown?” I fobbed right back at it, lacing my words with plenty of Truth to make its craggy skin ripple with repressed emotion. Still, it came on at speed, covering a dozen men’s strides with every step.

            When some creatures started trailing behind him like an entourage, I calmly switched fire to them, and his escort literally fell screaming in mistflames behind him.

            He let them die. There were always more where they came from, and his little escort of phages, mini-him Spawn, and sycophantic cowards died blazing.

            At last he stopped as I ceased my shooting, coming to a halt forty yards away, a mere couple steps from us as Feature drifted down to eye-height with him, supremely unconcerned by him and the overweighted, massive Oni-pattern Dire Saber the big onisu drew forth from behind himself.

            Weapon of a warrior-king, natch.

            “You think you can defy me in combat?” The sneer in its voice was undisguised, as well as the mere idea that I even thought of defying it.

            “Hmm?” I crossed my arms and turned to face him, the oni standing there as if waiting to attack. “Oh, you think we’re here to fight. No, no, that’s not going to happen. You’ve got too much to do.”

            I was naturally confusing the bastard, but still, the fact I was addressing him in his own language, with exquisite accents and inflections, gave him a moment of pause. “Mortal worm, you stand before Terror itself! Kneel to me and I promise to give you a swift death!” he bellowed at me.

            “Not before you’ve eaten.” About to move, he stopped again, confused. “Fear, just like any other little phage.” I looked up as I let down my Astral Ward. “Do you know what it’s like to see a World-ender come to devour your world?”

            The Onisu’s entire body went slack as the memory rose up in my mind.

            I hadn’t even looked at the Thing, but in magic, it was there. An entity capable of devouring worlds, everything that lived.

            It had chopped apart Earth’s moon like clay.

            It had pulled a billion souls out of their bodies when they were stupid enough to merely look at it... and everyone on Earth, night or day, could see it if they had Looked at the Sky.

            The massive demonic Saber sliced deep into the soil as it fell down, and the Onisu no Jagakagi tilted his head back and howled in wonder and glee.

            I remembered that. Aelryinth remembered it, with all the exquisite detail and clarity of a post-30 Intellect, and the trans-world sensitivity of a Diviner being plugged into the awakening of the whole world.

            And that’s what I did. I fed this demon princeling my fear, and my memory of the whole world’s fear.

            I had a lot of fear. I had an ungodly Intellect. My magical awareness was unbelievable as a Divination specialist. As a Monarch I was connected to millions of minds, and all their fears were mine to feel and endure.

            Feel what it was like to sense a billion innocent people die to Looking at the Sky. To die to the Rapture as the Laws of Magic became active, and fires bloomed around the world. As munitions and fuels blew apart and electricity went wild, and nuclear materials became Chaos incarnate.

            It gazed upon the armies of undead in their billions. It saw worlds sucked dry of all life, bereft of all but the memories of death, and the echoes of magic that would render an Onisu a mere slave if it were touched by them.

            What was this mighty army he commanded, compared to what he was feeling?

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