[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 70: Excommunicado

A red-and-black gloved hand reached out and yanked Sam out of the way just as the ball of death coated his breastplate in frost.

The sideways jerk was fast enough that Sam’s head spun for a moment, but he could clearly see Sumet’s attack land where his body had been just a moment ago.

It fell, instead, into a shimmering portal. Sam’s confusion mounted and was only rivaled by the god’s when he saw Volquist sitting idly in a gaudy throne in a space of infinite, starlit darkness.

Sumet’s eyes, black pits of nothingness that nevertheless gave off an impression of the coldest winter night in existence, widened in horror that Sam could not understand.

At his side, Sam followed Raiko’s curious expression to the owner of the red-and-black gloved hand. He had never seen the strange, masked figure before, but he still felt that he knew him somehow.

It raised a gloved hand up to its split mask of comedy and tragedy. “Shh,” the voice whispered, and then was gone.

Sam looked at Raiko. She nodded, eyes wide. It wasn’t just a figment of Sam’s imagination.

“Sam! You’re alright?” She immediately went to his side.

“I think so,” he said, rubbing his chest in confusion. “Komachi, you okay?” he called into the armor.

A groan answered him. “Yis.”

The sky darkened, and all sound was smothered in velvety silence. The sounds of the battle drained away.

From the portal into Volquist’s domain, the Hidden God emerged. And soon he was accompanied by eleven others. Twelve gods in total stepped through onto various dais of supernatural making.

Sam had a moment to wonder what would happen if he used Void mana on all of them at once. But sending thirteen gods tumbling was bound to cause problems.

And judging by the fear writ large on Sumet’s face, Sam did not think they were here to harm him. Best to stay out of their way.

In typical fashion—or so he guessed—for gods, the sound of their mellifluous voices was all that could be heard for miles around.

Volquist stepped forward. “You have broken the Golden Accord.”

Eleven other voices chorused their agreement.

“No!” Sumet cried, dropping to his knees. “I was only retaliating against—”

The voices rang out as one. “Silence.”

Even Sam felt the need to huddle and hide at the soul-deep resonance of their voices in unison. It was practically a command that, had he been talking, he would have been hard pressed to ignore.

“You attacked another God, and one of your own Pantheon no less!” bellowed a heavyset man in black chains. He looked a bit like Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol if you crossed him with an aging biker.

“The Pantheon has decided your fate,” said a lithe young woman who cast a glance at Raiko’s ghost, but otherwise seemed to ignore Sam entirely.

“Dissolution,” they said in unison.

And just as before, Sam felt that some small part of himself was trying to… dissolve, to cease its existence.

The god that had nearly killed him simply vanished. He didn’t even have time to argue or fight back. He was just gone.

The gods looked at one another, tradesmen examining their fellows’ craft, and then they returned through their portals until only Volquist remained.

The Hidden God nodded at the pair and disappeared.

Apostos appeared in full then and walked toward the point where Sumet had stood and scooped up a tiny sparkling black jewel no bigger than Sam’s pinky. He glanced to the side, as if making sure nobody was watching, then turned his attention back to the jewel.

Sam had the impression of the masked man who appeared studying the jewel in immense detail.

The masked man looked over at Raiko and Sam, floating on the air as if he was reclining in a chair. “Just taking my fee,” he explained to them as he reached down to scoop up the crystallized god’s blood. “Here you go, kiddies. Pleasure doing business!”

The black jewel was tossed toward the two, where it detonated into a billion glittering stars of ice amid a velvety blackness.

Swirls of overpowering mana twisted away from the display and siphoned into both Sam and Raiko.

You have gained a Divine Conduit (Soulshadow).

The god of malice and shadows has fallen. It is your responsibility as a Kindred Incarnate to preserve the state of all Shardrunes, to assure that nothing is lost. To that end, you have gained the barest fragment of a fragment of the Divine Conduit (Soulshadow). Due to the enormity of a Divine Conduit and the disparity between its strength and your own, you must bear the burden of this power alongside another Incarnate.

Do you choose to do this?

Sam hardly needed the question. He didn’t even look at Raiko before he confirmed his decision.

He knew what she chose.

Your Divine Conduit (Soulshadow) is now bound between yourself and Raiko.

Sam immediately tried to tap into it, but found something blocking it.

Your Rank is too low to channel your Divine Conduit (Soulshadow).

Okay, fine, Sam groused, slowly picking himself up off the ground.

“Must we be Copper? Is that the Rank it refers to?” Raiko rasped.

“Guess I’ll just have to Break this the old-fashioned way,” Sam said, picking up his claymore and raising it over his head. Then he remembered something important.

Sam walked around the anchorstone and came upon another shaman. Only this shaman had no barrier to protect it.

As soon as the shaman noticed Sam, it turned and began casting.

His scything claymore cut through its outstretched arm all the way to the neck.

You defeat the [Hellsent Shaman Oni (Boss) (Level 22)].

You gain substantial Experience for slaying a Tough Boss monster!

Down below, hundreds of demons writhed in agony and died. Sam reveled in the missing EXP, now compounded twofold.

The levels rolled in, filling his battered and tired body with newfound vitality.

But the battle had taken a lot out of him. He placed a hand gently on the anchorstone, forming a weak point.

Stepping back, Sam held up his blade.

“Wait Sam, just a moment. Komachi, come out,” Raiko asked wearily.

The cat, after looking to him for permission, slipped out and sagged on his pauldron. She did not have the energy to move further.

Raiko reached out, and Sam began to pull back to protect Komachi from the incoming shock before a thin stream of mana flowed into the little Cleric.

After a short while, Komachi perked up. “Thanks for the mana!”

With that, she cast [Regen] upon Sam once, twice, then thrice more, and hid in his armor.

Sam sighed with relief as several wounds closed up. Without his new armor, he would have been dead or near enough that it didn’t matter.

But without Komachi, he never would have made it as far as he had.

He thanked her and then, focusing back on the anchorstone, shattered it with a single blow aimed at its weak point.

All those extra levels paid massive dividends.

Sam wasn’t quite sure how his Strength or other stats figured into his Breaking, but it seemed the more damage he could do, the more effective his Breaking was.

Where he once had to set up several weak points, chain them together, and then attack that gathered weak point, he could now inflict a single weak point and Break it in one go.

Even throughout this battle, he had evolved from multiple weak points to a singular strike.

The leap in power was simply amazing. And yet his bloodline hadn’t improved.

As the ground began to tremble, Sam stepped off the edge of the island and grabbed onto the chain as he went past.

He halted his descent enough that he alighted gently on the ground amid stacks of demon bodies and a small clearing surrounding several dullahan and two very weary people.

Kai, most of his armor bloodied and ripped to pieces, was sitting down on one of the shattered dullahan’s arms. Matt sagged against the chain until he saw Sam, then quickly moved out of the way of the dripping molten rock as it made its way to the wicked hook down below.

Four of the dullahans, like a gathering of knights, knelt before Sam with one giant fist each pressed into the ground. If they had heads, they probably would have bowed them.

Even Kai got to his feet and bowed at Sam. “I knew you were strong, Sam, but to see you fight firsthand… if you could teach me how to do that, I would be eternally grateful.”

Sam couldn’t even open his mouth before a lithe young man with clear demonic features, though more human than the desiccated façade of the others, dropped to his knees and bowed.

“I do not wish to fight you, Lord. I am a humble scholar, and while I am in fact a demon, I did not take place in this fighting.” The demon didn’t dare lift his eyes from the ground. “In fact, your allies rescued me, as my barrier was about to fail. I have a small repository of knowledge and would humbly ask that you grant me asylum!”

Sam looked at the young man. Though being a demon, he could have easily been a few hundred years old or more. It’s not like I’d know.“Can you guys back this up?”

Matt nodded wearily. “We did find him trying to hold off some of the demons from breaking through his barrier. But whatever little tower he owns, I don’t think it’s from here.”

“It is not!” the demon quickly added. “I was pulled here, along with many of my brethren, against my will. My only desire has been to learn, but that is… rather hard among my kind. When my choice was to fight or protect my knowledge, I chose the only rational option.”

Raiko glared at the demonic scholar, wrestling with her emotions. “Your kind has done mine great harm. Prove your words to be true.”

Still kneeling, he stared at the ground and said, “How may I prove myself? Now that the portals back home are severed, I have nowhere to go. If you would allow me to stay, I would, of course, grant you full access to all of my tomes.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at Raiko. Knowledge would be good, especially if they came across more of these demons. “It’s your Skyshard.”

It took Raiko a moment to work past her anger. “You may stay and be welcomed with mercy and decency, if you swear loyalty to all those here. You will be treated as no slave, but a person, as any of us are.”

She leaned in menacingly. “Including the Sacred Tree.”

“I cannot,” he said, trembling in terror. “I can only swear that I will not intentionally harm any here, nor use any knowledge I have gained to facilitate such harm. Please forgive me… but many liberators often turn to tyranny and all I know is that you did not immediately try to kill me. That is… not much to go on. And, forgive my temerity, but you are—” He cleared his throat meaningfully. “—known, my Lady.”

Raiko’s demeanor surprisingly shifted. “You appear to be a wise man. Very well, this is more than acceptable.”

There was only one oni left, aside from the peculiar scholar. Sam realized he could feel the other demon out there. Was it because of Sumet’s Divine Conduit? Was he now somehow connected to all of demon kind, or just those that worshipped him?

Sam scanned the horizon and found the other demon easily. A hulking monstrosity with a wicked half-moon axe in one meaty fist and a serrated machete in the other was making its way toward Sam and the group.

He turned, hand on his dulled claymore’s handle, ready for one final fight. “You might want to get back,” he told the others.

Falling from the heavens, the [Hollow Chaos Sage] cleaved a mana channeling blade through the sky and the demon. It looked like she had unzipped the very air, letting out a torrent of disparate elemental magic that erupted outwards.

The demon barely had the time to look over its shoulder before it was erased from existence.

“Oh, good,” Sam said, sheathing his sword with a deep sigh of relief. “I’ve been looking forward to finally picking my bonus stats and seeing what—”

Matt looked up. “Why’d you stop—oh.”

Raiko watched as the [Hollow Chaos Sage] sprinted towards them. “No,” she whispered.

Sam dragged his claymore out of its sheath. “Super.”