Chapter 34 - Mal

Nothing could prepare me for what we saw as we reached the first populated area on Talitus. An army of deformed and distorted creatures ran rampant through the scream filled streets. They looked a little like the armies back in Vemerak, but… worse. One thing that did stand out was that despite their differences, they all moved with the same juddering, staggering gait, like something straight out of a particularly warped nightmare. Another thing they had in common was the scent of Decay that rose from them like a cloud of fetid air coupled with the distinct Copper glow of the Neuma that illuminated the city streets. At least for those with the skill to see it.

“Undead,” Destruction snapped. “I sense a lot of power, but no cores among them.”

I grimaced. “Yeah. I made out as much. It looks like Hakan is a handy necromancer, too. I wonder if that’s how these fuckers got through the barrier.”

“Why would that help them?” She replied, glancing over to me like I’d said something stupid. “They’re still powered by Neuma, which they would lose as they passed through the Distortion Field.”

Not to be dissuaded from my theory I shrugged. “I’d have to get closer to tell you that.”

“Then let us go closer and find out what kind of threat these monstrosities pose. Are you prepared?”

Stifling my surprise that she’d bothered to ask, I answered quickly. Even managing to fake eagerness at the proposition. “I sure am!”

Her eyes dropped to my left hand. The hand that was currently fondling the Administrator Totem with passion. Yes, I was ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. I felt a touch of shame on my soul until she grinned and lifted her own hand, waving it to reveal her own totem, ready for use.

I chuckled and my racing heart actually settled a little knowing that the ancient and powerful goddess was clearly scared too. On reflection, that probably shouldn’t have calmed me.

Almost as soon as we set off, she fired a potent attack at the closest zombie mutants. Over a hundred of the ugly bastards disintegrated on impact, and my confidence rose again.

She moved forward and I followed as a few hundred more eyes locked on us. A horrendous screech like an elephant standing on a three pin plug erupted across their line. The noise alerted more of the enemy and an instant later we had close to a thousand of the bastards coming straight for us.

Destruction was in her element now, and grew in size. I almost followed her example, but managed to keep hold of my senses. I was far safer as a smaller target, and technically, I wasn't here to fight, but to have her back while she did. And boy could she do it better than me.

Blast after blast of mostly red and black pulsating Neuma, sprang from her hands and her eyes with smooth speed and efficiency and I couldn’t help but marvel at her skill. Despite being the Goddess of Destruction, she was a hell of a lot more reserved and stately than Natom, who’d shoot a fire ball out of his todger if he felt the occasion called for it.

As the undead fell at a steady rate, I hovered near her shoulder, felling like an origami expert in a karate tournament. Even so, I held my focus, ready to throw up a shield if she needed it.

“Now?” I hissed as two more powerful looking creatures approached. One with six eyes, three arms and four legs, the other moved on tens if not hundreds of little legs like a centipede, though its face was almost human. Like the demonic Hycantha but far bigger and way uglier.

“Not yet,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Let me try something special for these two.”

She targeted the four armed shit for brains first, unleashing a cascade of attacks from her eyes and hands. Each of them had subtly different Neuma profiles, which was an incredible thing to achieve considering how long she’d been trapped in the confines of Hakan’s subterfuge.

More incredible was how they all struck at roughly the same time. Three of them caused explosive damage on impact and the third, laced with gravity, pulled the creature apart. It also pulled the dodgy centipede looking asshole off its collision course with us. It adapted quickly, but not before she rained down the pain on its creepy body.

While she did that, I deflected shots from what was left of the horde around us, not wanting to risk putting up a shield while she was so successfully killing our enemies.

My decision was proven right a minute later as she finished killing everything in our vicinity and I was starting to feel pretty damn good about our trip here. “That was bloody magnificent, Destruction! I reckon Hakan wasn’t expecting a response from us here, but you sure just gave it.”

“Thank you, Mal. It felt good to have some decent target practice, and I believe you’re right about Hakan. Shall we move on and make a deeper dent in his forces here before we head back to report?”

I hesitated for a moment, then glanced at the carnage she alone caused and with a confident nod of agreement we were off again. Flying further away from the Administration Hub and deeper into zombie  land.

Destruction flew confidently, though never outdistanced me as we searched for more of the enemy. In the end, it seemed they found us, appearing on our left and right, and from straight ahead. The real key to the, they found us statement was that they all appeared at the same time. I was just about to remark on their uncanny timing, but Destruction beat me to it.

“This is clearly an orchestrated attack, which means there is someone down here far more intelligent than the abomination’s we have faced so far. Be wary, Mal, I sense whoever is pulling the strings is in this group.”

I used my pathetic excuse for Spirit Sight and found she was very much correct. Many of those approaching were similar in power to the Centipede and Six Eyes, but there were at least three, hidden at the back in long, dark cloaks that were twice as powerful again. More notable was that they had cores. I warned Destruction immediately, though I guessed she had to know already.”

“Will I be able to fire through the shields you intend to use?” Was her only answer beyond a grim nod.  

"Through the basic ones, yeah. It depends on what we need. My more complex shields might reduce the efficiency of your attacks.”

“Then start off with the ones I can fire through. This is going to be a far tougher test than the last, but I think we have what it takes. Just be ready to totem away if the risk grows too great.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said waving the totem again, before creating my first shield. I made it so we had plenty of room to fight, but more importantly so I could create secondary and tertiary shields inside, if the need arose.”

“Why is it so big?” Destruction asked.

“That’s what she said,” I replied, forcing a smile. My joke flew past her like a bullet, never to be seen again, so I quickly explained my reasoning.

It was a waste of time as she barely acknowledged my words. More intent on the first of the Neuma infused jaws and claws snapping and slashing at the shield.

It held with ease and I let myself relax a little bit as Destruction began firing out, killing our enemies in swathes.

“At this rate we’ll have killed them all before whoever’s behind this gets close!”

As I spoke, I felt an itch on my back. Regret hit even as I turned to see what had alerted me.

Another group of enemies were approaching our position and they were moving fast. Coming from the direction we'd just flown.

A chill ran down my spine. It turned into a horrible sense of foreboding as two of the bigger zombie mutations in their number came into view. A Centipede and a big motherfucker with one too many arms and plenty of eyes.

“Fuck my life,” I groaned, causing Destruction to glance back.

“The same ones?" she hissed

“I mean, if I had to bet my house on a yes or no here, I’d have to go with yes.”

“You understand what this means, don't you?” she said, eying the carpet of dead zombies on the ground.

I winced. “That you can't kill them, and that all of those below will come back fairly soon and we’ll be inundated with creatures we can’t kill?”

“I’m glad you understand.. The cored ones are moving forward, slowly but inexorably, which means I think that it’s time to leave. I would like to try a different attack first. If I can siphon Neuma away from them in a permanent way, we might at the very least have an answer on how to deal with them to take back to Clive.”

Not waiting for an answer, she dropped into a deep concentration leaving me to shit myself alone. I figured I should make myself useful too and built a secondary shield in case the first failed. As it formed, I eyed the zombies beyond. They had no cores, but for the first time of really looking, I saw the weaves of power, knitted through their bodies. Mainly weaves of Decay that absorbed the energy from the rotting corpses which fueled their reanimated lives. Like someone turning on a lightbulb in my head, I suddenly knew, once the body was fully decayed they wouldn’t be able to function any more. It was an abstract thought, but it gave way to more realizations.

Realization’s I couldn’t think on too much as my first shield was suddenly dismissed. I gulped down the unhelpful panic that threatened to overwhelm me and focused on the snarling madness surrounding us. What the fuck had just happened.

“What happened!” Destruction snapped, echoing my thoughts.

“They dismissed my fucking shield is what happened!” I replied coolly… ish. “Only Clive should be able to do that unless War or Hakan is here.”

“They could have trained others by now,” she replied.

“You don’t fucking say. Should we run?" 

“The time for running is close, but we should try and learn what we can of this new foe. Knowledge is power and we need as much of it as we can get.”

She was right of course. So I gritted my teeth, and refocused on the weaves of the reanimated corpses around us. I didn't have the power to influence them directly. Not like Clive. But I wondered if I could alter my shield to interfere with their Neuma make-up.

Admittedly, my necromancy career had never really gotten off the ground, but the basics I’d learned gave me something to work and with that knowledge I moved to alter the shield.

When the hidden enemy attacked again, it was all I could do just to hold the shield stable. If I hadn’t already been entwined with its structure, I probably would have lost it immediately.

Now I found myself thrust into a battle of wills against whoever was out there. Whole minutes passed in the struggle and while admittedly that might not sound like a long time, to me it felt like a god damned eternity.

Looking for any edge, I activated my time dilation armor. In my mind, I thought I could attempt to work on a second, purely defensive shield and for a moment it worked. Until a third mind settled on my shield and the time differential seemed to make no difference.

Suddenly, I was in deep shit. Whoever had come was powerful beyond belief and to my knowledge, only gods and people equipped with time dilation armor would be unaffected.

On the plus side, Destruction was still holding her own, killing freely and without remorse. When her efforts suddenly lightened my burden as one of the powerful trio died, I wasted no time in getting to work on the second shield again.

As I continued along the same defensive path, I also wove in a framework with Decay. It was nothing special but it should, theoretically drain Decay from our enemies. I would have used Nature as the opposite force of Decay, which would have potentially neutralized it, but unfortunately that wasn’t one of my affinities.

“Be ready to flee,” Destruction warned. “They’re coming.”

“Oh, I'm ready. You'd better believe I'm fucking ready.” 

I still kept on fine-tuning my shield as I spoke. Adjusting the Decay I’d added and weaving Gravity in alongside it. Just to offer that attraction factor. I only stopped as the monstrous army parted to allow three dark, cloaked figures to pass through. I barely acknowledged the two pale faced, Losalfar faces peering out from their hoods. It was the Dokalfar face on the figure in the centre that took my attention. The one radiating with power. My heart skipped a beat as Death came into view.

Destruction went so far as to cry out, “Death, you're alive!” 

There was silence for a moment as all attacks ceased.

“Something like that, Dear Destruction,” he croaked. His voice was devoid of the dry humor it usually held.

“What happened to you?” She replied. “Clive said he saw you die?”

“You shouldn’t have come here. You should have stayed on Falritas where you could at least die with your friends. You should have stayed on Falritas…” He seemed to run out of steam as he repeated himself. His words echoing in the now eerie silence as those fallen zombies below began to reform.

"I’m truly sorry you fell, Death,” Destruction replied. Her voice was heavy with genuine sadness and remorse. “We’ll try and free you from Hakan’s hold. I promise you this.”

“Me too,” I shouted over. “Once Clive hears you're alive he’ll most likely stop at nothing to get you back.”

A brief flicker of pain flashed over his rigid features before a cold, empty laugh exploded from his mouth. “You will not succeed. Clive has no true understanding of the power he is up against. He is a toddler fighting an adult. The rest of you are less than vermin to the God of Creation.”

With those words he lunged forward, dark power crackling out from his hands and striking against my outer shield, causing it to disintegrate in an instant.

“Let's go,” Destruction cried, activating her totem. It failed and she remained where she was with a horrified expression.

I hadn’t even tried to flee. I wanted to see what happened when the reanimated hit my second shield and fought to keep it active as Death readied himself to attack it again.

As the realization that we were trapped here sunk in, Destruction screamed in rage and attacked the fresh wave of undead with vigor. I had to focus on keeping my shield up as Death readied himself to strike again.

“Focus your attacks on Death!” I gasped out.

She offered a withering look in reply.

“My shield should manage the undead, but he’s going to drop it if you’re not quick.”

My explanation prompted her to action and she refocused her attacks.

The pressure eased on my shield and I even had time for a grim smile as the demented hordes finally struck. As one, they began to scream.

Not the eager screech of the hunt, but the despairing screech of pain and coming death as they expired properly this time.

I looked up to catch Death's reaction as my shield exceeded expectations. It was one of horror and confusion.

My victory was short-lived. The two black-robed figures either side of him attacked again, adding to the pressure he was putting on me, and destroying my shield utterly.

Desperation kicked in and I activated my personal shield as darkness swamped me.