Demonic Devourer ch. 90

Antimemetic Cloak is growing stronger, I realize. With the skill in its original form, Sierra would be able to see through it without even trying. Right now, of course, she’s distracted, but even then, she didn’t even process Adrian or I existing until I turned it down.

RI1, however, is not going to be stopped by that. I have a better idea of what it is now, and I know for a fact that my antimemetics will work for a solid minute at best before I land an attack and it Adapts to that too.

I can deal with that, though.

What I’m not sure I can deal with is the item that Sierra holds in her hand. It’s in a language that’s not Common, which should mean that it’s unintelligible, but I can read the arcane text properly anyhow.

My name is printed on one side. On the other—Sapphire. That fucking asshole.

“That,” I say, “is rather awkward, isn’t it?”

Sierra takes a deep breath, putting her hands on her knees. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

I close my eyes. My ongoing objective, Two of a Kind, tells me where RI1 is. Five miles, give or take, but it’s closing the distance with stunning speed. Unlike me, it doesn’t appear to be using a skill to do so. I need Bloodpath to move that fast outside of short bursts of speed, but RI1 is managing the speed of an arrow’s flight without much trouble.

“That’s the same irritant that tore its way out of my nullspace,” I note. “I—“

“Your friend Sapphire gave me the rundown,” Sierra says, snarling the word. “I understand. She claims to have informed that beast about this item in my hand. I have no reason to believe it functions, but she is terrifyingly powerful.”

I almost reach out to tear it right then, but my common sense stops me. This is Sapphire’s working. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually tears my soul straight from my body and sends it into the hells. Given the fact that this is what the system says it can do, it’s probably true.

“She interfered again,” I hiss. “One day, she is going to pay dearly for that.”

But that day certainly isn’t today. RI1 is four miles away now and rapidly closing.

I assess the area we’re in. I had Adrian wrapped in my Bloodpath on our way here, and I was so focused on speed that I neglected to properly take in our surroundings.

We’re not in the desert anymore, but we’re not entirely out of it either. The three of us stand on a raised sand dune, surrounded by scrabbly shrubs that barely reach past my ankles. A sparse selection of trees and cacti dot the sand, creating some semblance of shade; Sierra’s path of destruction has knocked down a line of them stretching straight towards where RI1 is coming.

“I have yet to use any transformation or transportation magic,” Sierra says, indicating the Death Prayer in her hands. “I would rather not test the limits of this item.”

“It’s Sapphire’s,” I say. “Good call.”

A thrill of fear runs through me at the idea that Sapphire is so far above me that she can give a lowly piece of paper this much power over me, and try as I might, I can’t entirely quash it. I thought that I was powerful, but now the half-elf shows me up like we’re not even punching in the same weight class.

I wish I could call a Titan on her, but the network is still frustratingly impossible to use for any purpose other than information-gathering and the constant sense that I’m being watched.

“I can call water,” Adrian says, bright-eyed and determined. “Not a full Tsunami, but I can eke enough out of these trees to get us moving.”

He still winces with every movement, but I don’t think his soul is so deeply damaged anymore. The recovery process must’ve worked—I suppose he needs more rest, but we can’t afford that right now and he doesn’t want to.

“Do,” Sierra says. “Make sure not one drop lands on this paper.”

“You got it,” Adrian says, spreading his hands. “Keep me alive.”

Around us, the hardy shrubs and thin trees wither, crumpling until they’re nothing more than a bundle of dry twigs, their leaves crunching and fluttering away in the light breeze. Every drop of moisture from within the plants tears its way out of their stems. Supple trunks fade into dead wood for dozens of feet.

There’s not that much water in these plants, but Adrian finds enough to create a disc of water large enough to hold the three of us.

The skill he used is called Dehydrate. I wonder why he doesn’t try using that on people when he stumbles, still holding both his hands out, and Sierra catches him.

“Mana,” he gasps. “Need mana.”

Sierra’s hands glow, and though I can’t Appraise her skill through her natural protections, I’m sure it’s something to share her magic power with him. He stabilizes quickly, taking control over the spinning watery sphere, and he catches us with it, sending us flying forth.

“We’re not going to outpace RI1,” I determine quickly enough. His Hydrokinesis helps us move faster, but my fellow experiment is only increasing in speed. “We have minutes at best.”

“Then find us a battlefield,” Sierra orders, still passing her magic into Adrian. How much mana does that woman have? She doesn’t even look like she’s trying.

“What can we do?” Adrian asks, obviously straining to hold his skill together. “I can try my domain, but I don’t know if that’ll even help.”

“It is almost certainly immune or highly resistant to pressure,” Sierra grimaces. “I crushed it with magic I had temporarily available, and it recovered near instantly.”

“What hasn’t it adapted to?” I ask.

“I am uncertain,” she admits. “I do, however, believe that it has to sacrifice old defenses to some extent when it constructs a new one. I have many schools of magic open to me, and I was able to utilize the same one twice if I interspersed it with another type.

I nod, digesting that. “Alright. Then I’ll try the nullspace. That’s the most favorable battlefield we have, and even if Descent unto the Void doesn’t work against it, we can take a break.”

Sierra shakes her head fervently. “We cannot risk—“

She cuts herself off halfway through her own sentence, her eyes widening. “You will die if you do that. We cannot transport ourselves into the nullspace. The Death Prayer just updated its own description. Look.”

I don’t need to Appraise the item to see it’s changed. A new line of arcane text has carved itself onto the paper.

Allies must prove their worth. Leave those who cannot catch up in your wake.

- Sapphire

I snarl, reading the item’s description as well. The new line is at the end of the block of text.

Transportation into a nullspace of any kind will result in this item triggering 24 hours later.

I think I know what this is supposed to be. Just like everything Sapphire does, it’s a test. This time, however, it’s not meant for me.

It’s for Sierra. It’s for Adrian. Sapphire’s cutting off my options, removing the strongest tool I have. This is meant to see if they can eliminate the threats that I can—in this case, one that I haven’t.

The punishment for failure isn’t their death, as one might expect. It’s mine. I suspect I know why, reading the Death Prayer’s description.

My death will send me tumbling into a hell, but that’s not the end of my story. The wording states that my soul will be sent to the deepest available hell. That implies that I’ll still exist in some sense.

The part of my soul amalgam that should be feeding me information is frustratingly quiet. Either Sapphire Excised that too or it simply never existed.

Whatever the case, I refuse to let her win here.

“Then we’ll fight on the ground,” I say. “Together. You get power when there’s people to draw from, right?”

Sierra nods an affirmative. “Do you have a plan?”

“The inklings of one.”

“I might have one too.”

“We’ll have to work it out quickly,” I say. “Adrian, put us down when you find a good battlefield. RI1 is less than a mile behind us.”

“Where is good?” he asks.

“Figure it out,” I say.

He grumbles, but a few moments later, the water slips out from under our feet, moving to surround him in three concentric rings. The area he’s picked out is a granite oasis, though the water supply here is pitifully small compared to the ocean. The ground underneath our feet is solid—good. I don’t want to deal with Sersui’s aftermath here.

“I am running low,” Sierra says. “Vary your attacks. I will have need of your assistance.”

I barely have time to acknowledge her when RI1 arrives.

It’s a hollow, spherical tangle of bones and flesh and spikes, and it radiates hunger.

“Target,” it screeches out, the words sounding like they’ve been forced through a grater, “kill.”

It springs forward with blinding speed, and the three of us act together.

Sierra activates a special skill: Eclipse Devastator. I remember this one; she used it when she uncloaked for the first time in Ravendale.

Adrian has no special skill available, but he draws his sword and passes it through the water, duplicating the material and increasing his supply.

I activate Wraithfire and Soulblade in the same moment. I’m sure RI1 has resistance to soul damage and wraithfire alike, but the soul is the only thing I can think of to target.

You’re a survivor, just like me.

The twinned day-and-night beams of Eclipse Devastator cleave directly through a tangle of RI1’s limbs just as a hyperpressurized beam of oasis water twirls through the thing’s body, trying to sever and grab and restrain.

My attack hits last, and its limbs ignite instantly. I remain careful, keeping myself from hitting my Soulblade with my own attack, and the overly long blade pierces deep into the monster’s flesh, penetrating its core.

It starts pulling itself together immediately, uncaring of the massive violence we’ve inflicted upon it.

“Fuck,” Adrian says, and I chance a glance at him. His sword is broken, snapped in twain right where he seems to have tried to attack the monster with it.

The wraithfire continues to burn, chewing away at its limbs, but RI1 barely slows down as it counterattacks. Sierra dodges a series of limb strikes with heavy usage of Personal Telekinesis, and it barely even spares a thought for Adrian.

All of its attention is focused on me. Limbs unhinge themselves from the tangle with frightening speed, lashing out at the space where I stand. I Bloodpath between blows, but something about the fibers on its limbs must be disrupting my skills, because every hit I take while in my bloody form shows itself on my body when I turn back.

Restore Self, I command, barely managing to dive out of range.

It abandons all thought of chasing the other two, and I quickly realize I have to focus the entirety of my attention to simply dodging its attacks. RI1 has grown fast, and it’s all I can do to keep up with it. I can’t even trade blow for blow—with the number of limbs it has, I’m only able to attampet one attack for every five it lands.

I can’t keep this up, but I realize soon enough that I don’t have to.

“Descent unto the Void.”

It’s only me that it wants, so I don’t need to target Sierra. I try to bring RI1 with me, but it must have grown a longer-term immunity or resistance. I can sense its will clashing with mine, an indomitable defense against an unstoppable attack, and I let it win. I can’t waste all my magic trying to bring it into my nullspace and find myself incapable of killing it there.

I appear in my nullspace for only a short few seconds, breathing hard and trying to recover as much magic as I can. With the usage of Descent, I’m down to under half of my magic reservers in only a matter of seconds.

Reappearance is effortless now.

I’ve only been gone for ten seconds, but the battlefield is a wreck. RI1’s limbs are sharper than it looks—it’s a living storm of blades, tearing long, thin grooves in the granite as it moves. Sierra and Adrian are both on the defensive now, throwing up forcefields and parrying with a Water Blade, respectively. I’m shocked Adrian still hasn’t taken a hit—he’s surprisingly adept with his sword.

Sierra is bleeding.

I stem it with Hemokinesis. In the same motion, I command RI1 to Hemorrhage, and I watch as the blood vessels within its limbs burst, staining its entire body an eerie shade of red.

It’s not much of a repreive, but it’s enough for me to get to Sierra’s side as she blasts it away with a displacement spell of some kind.

“Sierra,” I say, a flicker of panic crossing my mind before I banish it. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” she says, smiling wide. Too wide. “This is not going well.”

It isn’t. The last time we fought this thing, it still hadn’t adapted to my nullspace, and I had the power associated with that place. Now, we’re weakened, we’re tired, and RI1 hasn’t stopped evolving.

But it won’t beat us. I refuse to let it beat us.

And evidently, neither does Sierra.

“Evelyn,” she says, extending a hand, “do you trust me?”

I take it before I’ve even processed what I’ve done. “Always.”

“Then hold on.”

Magic courses through my body, and I have only a moment to realize that it’s Sierra’s before pain ignites in every cell. It ignores my resistances entirely, nearly overwhelming my senses, but pain is just that. I’m not dying, so I grit my teeth, slam my eyes shut, and deal with it.

“Sierra! Evelyn! A little help!” Adrian shouts. I don’t open my eyes, but I can hear him skipping backwards and beating away at the monster he faces.

“Let it in,” Sierra breathes. “The magic.”

I trust her.

Throwing down my soul’s defenses for a companion would’ve been unthinkable only weeks ago, but it’s the most natural thing I’ve ever done.

Something shifts, but I’m too busy being overwhelmed by a new source of mana to pay close attention to what it is. It’s almost empty, but the magic will work.

“The nullspace,” Sierra says. “You can bring it out. Do it.”

I have no idea what she just did, but the pain is already fading, and I open my eyes to see Adrian fleeing, slithering through the air in a semi-liquid form.

“Manifest,” I say, using the bulk of my remaining power to access the nullspace.

Darkness and light and blood flood the battlefield, and I tear RI1’s limbs from its body, applying crushing pressure to its core.

It’s not going to work. RI1 is already resistant to this. Even if I can damage it, I can’t kill it.

Except there’s something else. A sensation, building deep within me, that my nullspace isn’t the end goal of this. It’s the first part.

Sierra is hyperventilating. Her grip on my hand grows tigheter; the energy flowing between us increases in intensity. She brings my hand to rest on her chest, and I can feel her heartbeat, fluttering so quickly that I fear she’s about to enter cardiac arrest. Her eyes are screwed shut, and half a scream emerges between each rushed breath.

And somehow, she has never looked more in control.

Sierra manages to collect her breath for a single, heart-stopping moment. She meets my eyes, and her irises are entirely red.

“Manifest,” the Blue Mage echoes, and the world shifts.

Within the silent constellation that is Titan network, a new star blossoms.

____

Thanks for reading! As always, feedback and theories are appreciated!