Spellheart 10: Chapter 22

“Bold of you to come here after we’ve already slain all your pets!” I shouted up at Ethan, Louis, and their pet Immortal Ascendant. “What’s stopping me from taking my revenge here and now?”

Ethan let out a humorless chuckle as he waved a hand at Liora. “I would suggest not.”

“Your pet Immortal Ascendant won’t be enough to save you. Not here.”

Ethan smiled, this time genuinely. “Oh, we know all about those special sentry towers of yours. They’re just as clever as they are dangerous, of that I’m certain. There’s a reason why we’re having this conversation outside your city walls. I suspect that if any of us were struck with one of those, you wouldn’t be willing to talk like this. That’s all we want, really, just to talk.”

“Sending a horde of monsters from the Primordial World is a hell of a way to ask for a chat,” I spat back at him.

Ethan grimaced. “Yes, that was not ideal, but--“

Louis held up his hand, cutting Ethan off.

“This is your last chance, Theo,” Louis began. He had none of Ethan’s tact but far more intimidation factor. If Ethan was the politician, Louis was the general. He spoke and would brook no argument. “Join the Cult of the Unblinking Eye. Join us, and this can all be over in an instant.”

“It already is over, Louis!” I gestured to the battlefield. “You’ve thrown your worst at me, and I’ve survived both attacks. It’s clear to me now that your crew and mine can never have peace. You will plot and scheme against me day after day, and nothing will change.” I shook my head. “No, Louis, this is yourlast chance. Disband the Cult of the Unblinking Eye and leave this world forever. Do that, and I will not hunt you down.”

“Bold. And foolish,” Louis shook his head. “You know so little and yet think so highly of yourself. Perhaps if you were a little smarter or less stubborn, this would have gone differently.”

“You cast that die long ago. It was your cult that sent an assassin for me when I was new to this world. Illiel fights by my side now. As do many of the elves you’ve callously discarded. What have you done in your hundreds of years here? I’ve built a city with damns, bridges, trains, and electricity. Your people still live the way you found them.”

“They are not our people.” Louis turned to me with a glare in his eye. “They’re just elves. They make good servants, which was all they were ever designed to be. As for what we’ve done with these last few hundred years, you need only ask your friends.”

I shot a glance at Sam and Dean, both of whom glared up at Louis defiantly.

“You weren’t able to kill us off all those years ago, like you did with so many other new humans. You won’t do so today!” Dean shouted.

I had heard as much before. The Cult of the Unblinking Eye had always struck me as a bit contradictory. They claimed to be an organization by and for humans formerly of Earth. And yet they killed their own kind when they refused to join up with them. Why was that?

There had to be an answer. I had my suspicions, but now I could hear them from Louis’ own mouth. While anything I got out of Ethan would probably be a carefully crafted lie, Louis seemed far more direct.

“I’ll never join you, Louis. No one should, considering how many fellow humans you’ve killed off! You’re not a brotherhood. You’re an organization of slaughter, schemes, and backstabbing.”

At that, Louis actually smiled. There was a glint in his eye that told me he thought he knew something I didn’t.

“Don’t tell him.” Ethan raised a hand, apparently catching the same look I did.

But Louis waved Ethan off. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’ll tie up this loose end soon.”

“Don’t tell me what?”

“The reason why we had to kill off all the fellow humans who refused to join us. You remember the message you got when you came here, don’t you?”

I nodded. “As if it were yesterday. The same strange man brought you to this world, didn’t he?”

Louis’ smile broadened. “He did. In a ship much like your own. I call mine The Challenger. Through its powers, I constructed the Cult of the Unblinking Eye and accumulated the artifacts of a dozen potential competitors. And in doing so, took them out of the game for good.”

“What game do you speak of?” I frowned.

“This battle royal, of course!” Louis gestured widely. “That’s what Xoreth called it when he brought us here. I don’t know if you’ve delved into ancient history, but that is the name of the man you met. We are here to replace his fallen friend Elirith, creator of the Elves. Assuming one of us is worthy. And we shall prove that worthiness by being the last man standing.”

Suddenly, the pieces started coming together. No wonder the Cult of the Unblinking Eye had been hunting down humans and taking their artifacts. Louis was eliminating competitors.

“So that’s what this is all about, is it? You want to win?”

“We shall,” Louis replied.

“We?” I asked, eyebrow raised. “Not you?”

For the first time, I sensed Louis’ mouth tilt down into a frown. There was a hint of something in there that I’d said that he didn’t like. But it was gone a moment later.

“Yes, we. When your ship is mine, I shall tribute its power to The Challenger, unlocking its full powers once and for all, including the ability to return to Earth. That is what we’ve promised all our members. I could have promised the same to you and your friends if you had joined me and given up your artifact.” Louis stared down hard at me.

I laughed. “Sorry, but I don’t need to go home. My home is right here.”

“This is your final last chance,” Louis repeated. “Now that you know what’s at stake, I’ll give you this opportunity to cooperate with us. Only by joining us and giving The Wanderer to me will you survive. I’ll even consider allowing you to return to play with these elves of yours after we have won once and for all.”

“Last chance this, final chance that.” I cracked my knuckles. “You know you’re only supposed to give one of those, don’t you? How many times do I have to tell you guys no? Next thing, you’ll be pounding on my door to tell me about your religion and how it’s my last chance to convert.”

Louis’ expression took an abrupt turn for the worst. “This time, I mean it.”

“How many others surrendered to you? There were fewer Demigods from your faction at the conclave than I expected. In fact, I haven’t seen many others from the cult besides you and Ethan in a good long while. Where is everybody else?”

If Louis’ expression had been menacing before, now he seemed positively fuming. I’d struck a nerve there. Had the others left him? Or had he done something more sinister? Knowing the Cult of the Unblinking Eye as I did, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there weren’t nearly as many living human members of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye as these two pretended.

Face locked in a scowl, Louis spoke. “So be it. Slave number three, destroy them all, then flatten this city.”

Liora, the fire-aspect Immortal Ascendant standing by Louis’ side stepped forward. Her eyes were dull and distant, just as before, but now the reason for that dullness was clear to me.

“So this is it, huh? Our final battle?” I raised my eyebrows as I twisted Spell Eater in my grip. I had certainly thought they’d be a bit more patient. Perhaps my plan to shut down the Planetary Defense Array had forced them to accelerate things. Whatever scheme they’d had before, it was clear that it had since fallen apart, and now the Cult of the Unblinking Eye was bringing out their biggest guns to deal with me.

“How did you ever manage to capture an Immortal Ascendant without being one yourself?” Elara demanded, fingers sparking with electricity.

Louis looked like he planned to ignore her completely, but I spoke up as well. “I’m curious as well.”

Buying a few more seconds would be useful to me since, throughout our whole conversation, I’d been exchanging frantic communications with Mac and Minerva.

We were hauling in people from our outer settlements and vassal nations, one bunker at a time. Meanwhile, the Teleportation Array was working at full speed to reinforce us. Those Demigod allies of mine hadn’t been kidding when they said they each had a few followers. Given half another hour, we’d have enough of an army to conquer a planet.

Ariel and Lyssandra would soon be on their feet again, if I had anything to say. Putting two more Demigods on the field in defense of the city would make this upcoming battle much easier. I wasn’t sure what kind of power Louis wielded, but he was only a single Late Demigod, much like Elara.

My main worry was Liora, the captive Immortal Ascendant. She was the one who could do some real damage. And she’d be the one who’d be toughest to beat.

“This one was just a True Mage when she came to us.” Louis gestured to Liora. “For her, we reversed our usual Dual Cultivation technique. Instead of benefiting the human man she slept with, the process benefited her. This held the dual purpose of ridding ourselves of some more useless members of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye and raising up a powerful fighter already modified to serve. Now, she can be very useful to our purposes indeed. Her powers are somewhat lackluster since they were harvested in mass from Sorcerers and Demigods before being combined and transferred into her, but they are sufficient to call her an Immortal Ascendant.”

It was much as I expected then. Liora had been the Cult’s long before she reached Immortal Ascension, and she’d only reached Immortal Ascension through some of the cult’s tricks. Despite her power, she didn’t have the overwhelming oppressive feel of a true Immortal Ascendant. Perhaps that was our chance.

“We can win this,” I told my companions. I could tell Elara, Sam, Dean, and the others had come to the same conclusions I had. My plan was simple, and with a few nods and a wink, I had Sam and Dean at least on board. We would fall back until we could lure that Immortal Ascendant in range of a Level Reducing Sentry Beam. The moment she was brought down from Immortal Ascendant to the Demigod realm, the fight would be over.

Louis or Ethan might never fall for such a ploy, but mind-controlled minions like the one we faced now tended to make some obvious blunders. All we needed from her was one.

“I’ll hold her off,” I announced. Being the most durable of the Demigods here, that role would once again fall to me. “I’ll be counting on the rest of you!”

“Don’t worry, my love. We will defeat them, even if I have to give my life to do it,” Elara promised.

<Note>
Hi guys. I'm feeling much better now and mostly over my cold.

While I was sick I was looking over older Patreon posts. Patreon must have updated how text is displayed at some point, because it looks like I've lost all my paragraph spacing. I'm surprised nobody mentioned anything.

That paragraph spacing is standard for large quantities of text on the web, and it makes text easier to read. Unfortunately whatever Patreon did makes it much harder to keep them. Unfortunately I can't even add an extra paragraph break in word because those are automatically dropped when I copy/paste into Patreon.

Fortunately, it's still normal if you are reading through emails. If you guys find it as annoying as I do though, feel free to complain to patreon with me. I'm really hoping the fix the paragraph spacing thing so the text looks readable on the website again. It was probably an accidental change to the default body text style while changing something else.