Chapter 53 A Rock and Hard Place

“You can’t run forever, Clive,” Darkness said.

“You most certainly cannot,” War added with glee. “Your bastions of safety are as fragile as glass to us now.”

Light just glowered at me and remained unusually silent for her. I kept Peace behind me, warding her back with a hand as I spoke.

“Why are you doing this? I’ve genuinely only tried to be peaceful with you guys. What are you so scared of?”

“Scared?” Darkness sneered, holding out his hand to create a ball of black Neuma. “Oh, I am not scared, I’m irritated. Your existence is an insult to me.”

“I’m also the only one who can stop the universe from going ka-fucking-boom in the next hundred years. Why won’t you arseholes listen to me? I can prove it. Darkness, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you like I promised, to prove it.”

“If that is how it’s meant to be, then that is how it is meant to be,” Darkness replied. The tight faces of the other two showed that they weren’t about to disagree.

“That makes no fucking sense. It’s not how it’s meant to be. The Alo-im made it like this. Hakan made it like this. I don’t know why that mad fucker wants our universe to burn, but the only reason he’s coming back here is to stop me from saving it. I assume he’s managed to reach you somehow and unlocked some of your powers, but…”

“You know nothing, you stupid little fool,” Darkness snapped. “None of the lesser races are worthy of redemption. None of them deserve to continue with their lives. They’ve had chance after chance to prove their worthiness, and they have failed dismally. What do you, in your few pitiful years of life, know that makes you think you can go against billions of years of existence, of knowledge, of understanding?”

“Living for a long time is great if you open your eyes and take everything in. But I’ve been fighting you arseholes for the last few years, and you guys are about as closed minded as it gets, still driven by your base instincts. It’s all about power and control, and from where I’m standing, it looks like Hakan’s aren’t too different. You’re a bunch of selfish bastards.”

Light and War slowly moved to each side of my position while I ranted. Darkness remained where he was staring at me with unconcealed hatred.

“And you’re different?” he snapped. “How many followers do you lord over now? All you dream about is power, Clive. Nobody sees a rise like yours without the drive to power. To control.”

I fired a quick message to Peace along the bond. “When I open my void storage, you need to get your arse in there, pronto. No questions.”

She of course asked a question, but I was already responding to Darkness and didn’t hear it.

“Oh I have base instincts. For example, I hate dickheads like you thinking you’re special. Thinking you’re oh so fucking important just because you’ve been around the longest.” I clapped slowly. “Well done for existing the longest and still being a bunch of bellends. It’s a real achievement, and you deserve all the accolades you’ve given yourselves. Overseeing the completely avoidable end of the universe really is incredible. Sadly for you, the rest of my instinct is to make damn sure you don’t get whatever it is you’re after.

“I warned you all as I offered truces and ceasefires that I’d be watching you all. I’d be adding up all the bullshit you pulled. Well judgment’s come due. I’m going to see you all dead or damn close to it by the time I’ve finished. None of you will ever be a power in the universe again.”

Darkness laughed, a mixture of insanity, true joy, and pure malice. “I think it is you who believes themselves to be the special one, Clive. You hold such a high opinion of yourself, but let me tell you something—”

“Unless it’s: Here’s Death, Devotion and Life back, sorry for the inconvenience. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting them back. I’m going to drain every last ounce of Ethereal Neuma from them to reclaim my strength, and then I’m going to tear you apart limb from limb.” He thrust his hand forward, his void storage appearing as he did so. He pulled out a bloody and beaten Death whose energy was bottomed out.

At the sight of Death, I shot forward, striking out at Darkness with a double attack of Spicy Balls. I didn’t get to see them land as War and Light both intercepted with attacks of their own. I battered War’s away, but Light’s got through and ripped power from me.

Peace was there a second later, firing a blast directly into Light’s face and thrusting with her soul-bound sword in quick succession.

In the distraction, I cut Light’s drain on me then threw a shield at War which confused him for a moment as his attacks were snuffed out a few feet from him. With the moment I had, I went for Darkness again. Death’s eyes were closing, his thrashing now little more than a twitch. I threw a tendril at my friend and pumped him with energy, reinvigorating him for a few seconds while I returned my attention to attacking Darkness.

One tendril to drain him was all I managed to thrust out when I was smashed in the back by War. I spun to defend myself when I heard Peace scream out.

I fired two Spicy Balls at War, before checking on Peace. She was held, helpless and being drained swiftly by Light.

With a desperate rage, I teleported to Peace, creating a void storage portal behind her as soon as I reappeared before attacking Light, a Spicy Ball right in her mouth while severing her tendril to Peace.

With the two of them separated, I pushed Peace into the void storage and grabbed the transport totem to the Onnekan Admin Hub from inside before snapping the storage shut. I shoved the totem into my pocket, just as I was smashed in a combined assault from War and Light.

It felt as though I’d been smashed in a Neuma vice, and with no teleport available for a minute and a half, I’d have to fight my way over to where Death hung from Darkness’s outstretched arm.

I severed Light’s tendril, only to be hit by one from War and then another from Light.

Summoning the Sword of the Alo-im, I lunged to the left and skewered Light through the shoulder, choosing her rather than War as he was far superior with actual fighting. While she reacted, I sliced her tendril and spun away to lunge at War. He deflected with ease and then lamped me with a brutal right hook to the temple.

It didn’t hurt, but it did send me careening away through the air. As I spun seemingly out of control, I severed his connection to me, and used the distance to make a move at Darkness. If it was the last thing I did, I’d rescue…

Death hung, skeletal and unmoving. No flicker of Neuma remained in his body. He was now held by Darkness as a trophy only. He wanted me to see. He wanted me to hurt. Death was dead. I’d failed him, and these bastards would pay.

The only problem was that I was outmatched. And I somehow still had to rescue Devotion and Life from his void storage and save them from the same fate.

“Oh, it’s coming back to me now,” Darkness boomed with a feral grin. Four tendrils of power shot out from him with blinding speed.

As I moved to dodge them, I was struck from behind by two more. War and Light had moved close again. War grinning just as Darkness was. Light watched me with an empty expression, as if my death was a forgone conclusion.

Which it was, if my teleportation didn’t kick back in soon. I had twenty seconds, and they were pulling a hell of a lot of Neuma from me. It was time to get them talking.

“Why would you kill Death, you bastard?”

“To replenish what I lost,” Darkness said with such simple remorsefulness that I suddenly felt as though what little I thought I knew about the god had been completely wrong.

“You cold heartless bastard,” I growled, struggling against his power, which had utterly restrained me, all while draining my Neuma.

Fifteen Seconds…

I couldn’t free myself of any of the bonds, but did I have to? I’d managed to suppress Hakan drawing power from me via the Cleaver, why couldn’t I do the same here? Perhaps I could even reverse the flow.

While it took a huge strain on my mind, the process wasn’t complicated. It was more like holding my breath.

I brought Light and War’s drain to an absolute stop, but the power of Darkness’s was still creeping through.

Ten Seconds…

Once I had them held in position, I drew their tendrils into myself. Finally, Darkness’s power flow away from me ceased, and as hoped, I was now pulling Neuma back out of War and Light, much to their surprise.

“Hold him! No matter what,” Darkness said as I writhed to free myself. He moved back, but still continued to hold me. Then he removed Devotion from his portal. She too was beaten badly and looked exhausted.

“Noooooo!” I screamed, amplifying my voice subconsciously as he began draining her. I thrashed and kicked.

Five Seconds…

I slashed at tendrils, only for them to be quickly replaced.

I shrank down as small as I could, and still they held.

I expanded, they held.

I turned my body to liquid and poured to splash on the ground and still they held. I couldn’t break free, and all the while, Devotion was being sucked dry.

My teleport was ready. I used it to appear behind him, finally freeing myself from his bonds. I thrust my sword into his spine. It bit deep, but not nearly as deep as I’d have liked.

At the same time, I created a portal to the limit of my Spirit Sight. Nowhere in particular on Onnekus. Just away from here. As Darkness turned to defend himself, Devotion still held in his hand, I swiped the portal to swallow the three of us, closing it the moment we were through, leaving Light and War’s hurtling charge toward us fifteen hundred miles away.

I didn’t let up for a moment as I defended against Darkness’s response to my attack. Slashing a tendril of power, dismissing a null shield, he attempted to throw around me a blast of Dark power, before I was caught in the chest by a Spear of Darkness.

Somehow, it went straight through my chest, and it hurt like a motherfucker. He then used it to drain power from me again, all the while sucking the life from Devotion.

She looked ancient now, and so close to total death, and for the briefest of moments, I forgot that I was pinned by Darkness’s spear. My need to save her jolted my good sense, and I morphed my body shape to slide off Darkness’s spear while simultaneously stabbing forward with my sword toward his face.

At its current length it wouldn’t reach, but I was in charge of everything my power and body did. So I extended both my sword and my arm to make sure the attack landed. Darkness was surprised and the move cut deep into his Immortal Shell, taking his eye but not entering his brain.

He screamed in pain and then swirled into a dark cloud, before disappearing with Devotion.

I thought he’d ran, but his presence reappeared a mile distant. I charged him, covering the distance in a second, sword held high to do more damage. I felt War and Light arrive at our new battlefield. I ignored them as I focused on only Darkness. As I brought the sword down toward him, he swung the near lifeless body of Devotion in front of me to block.

I’d read the move before I’d moved. That’s why I hadn’t used a portal to reach him. Because I intended to use it now. I threw it up between us, the exit portal appearing right behind him. When I brought the sword down, it cleaved into his skull. I then clamped a hand on his wounded skull, and began pulling power from him again.

He turned to black smoke once more, reappearing alongside the waiting War and Light a short distance away.

Once there, eye already regrown, he laughed at me. “You can’t win, Clive.”

Then he threw the shriveled and irrevocably dead body of Devotion to the ground. I cried out in as much shame as disbelief, and opened up my void storage underneath where she fell, catching the spiraling corpse and no doubt giving Destruction and Peace serious trauma as she appeared in there.

“Now I think I’ll take a moment to really savor Life’s perfect package of Neuma before seeking you out to take Peace and Destruction to drain. Then you and I can settle this between us.”

“Settle it now!” I screamed with a roaring charge.

The three of them disappeared in Darkness’s teleportation cloud. I immediately pushed out with Spirit Sight to find them. But with the range I had, there was no trace of them.