Chapter 505: Echoes of the Fallen. (1/2)

Chapter 505: Echoes of the Fallen

For a

The focus of our hunt loo necks extended upward sixty feet or more from a bulbous, distended body Six trunk-like li in a webbed, clawed foot A pair of fleshy, avian claws reached forward fro and unclenching at their ends Uncountable tentacles sprouted in place of a tail, each one tipped with a blade, bone bulb, hook, or clarithing and snapping around the huge body

Atop each long neck was a head like that of a transfor and reptilian, each one almost identical to the others Their horrible jaws ran vertically between their eyes, splitting the heads down the ed teeth, the violet fla ed back intoof a thousand beasts sounded through the wooded dell again

A spear of bright white h the air and struck the monstrosity square in the chest—or at least it should have The fla it away The spear didn’t so much as touch the black scales

“Keep your distance!” Riven was shouting He’d drawn the other three basilisks to hi barrier of black wind that danced in dark shapes The one-ar storm of void wind and blood iron, but his spell burned away to nothing wherever Destruction touched it

Theup a hurricane that toppled trees and flung theparty backwards I tracked Ellie with one thread of my consciousness; she was safe on Boo’s back behind a conjured barrier supported by both Vireah and Sylvie Separate threads tracked the movement and spells of the others

I withheld my own attacks The Destruction-infused aether blade was clenched tightly in ainst the monster’s previous incarnation had only made our situation worse

The violet flames around my sword exploded outward into the shadoolf for deep in his chest, then bolted away The Destruction Godrune emanated a powerful radiance froan to transform His torso broadened and swelled, his fur hardened into spikes down his back, and his burning ed saw blades of purple fire

Each beat of the s splashed Destruction across the dell Violet fire ate rocks, trees, and the very ground Regis dove into the path of a surging torrent, and ajet of violet flames spilled from his jaws

Destruction devoured Destruction

An involuntary shudder ran down my spine

We need to end this battle quickly

The hunting party was on the ether to protect and support their clanthe the beast’s attacks Gone were the excited shouts and jeers, the crowing, the battle cries Every asuran face was set in concentration This was no longer a hunt, but a fight for survival

The four-headed monstrosity had risen thirty feet up in the air It whirled about and crashed back to the ground a Conjured shi+elds broke under the beast’s strength Asura hurled the speeds

Thirty-foot claws of fire raked through the air, tearing through the wreath of violet fire and scoring thin scratches down the monstrosity’s side

The spell barely left a scratch through Destruction’s flais sla around the base of one neck The night of the horde contained in the monstrosity’s belly intensified, and the fire of its Destruction expanded All over its body, fissures appeared between the scales and fleshy patches of fur

Its body is barely able to control the Destruction It’s eating itself alive

Even as two heads spun around to attack Regis, two others struck like snakes toward the asuras with a speed incongruent with its size It spun and bit out at Naesia and one of her people both at once Caught off guard, Naesia’s dodge was too slow, too late

God Step carried me across the battlefield I appeared inside the shadow of a set of vertical jaws as they closed around the phoenix My hand took hers, and we ht purple energy ran down my arm and across Naesia Her jaas set, her lip curled up in a deterer there

The ground heaved, and dozens of giant blood iron fists reached out of the s, even one wing, trying to hold the ers and fists, but the

“If we can pin it down—” My words died in my throat

In the distance, I watched one of the beast’s flailing li to be crushed beneath it The mana of the silver shi+eld that had protected her was already dissipating

My fingers released Naesia’s hand, and God Step flared again The Godrune see into the soft, scorched soil as one part of led to find the aetheric paths again

Finally, God Step carried e out of the way of the rapidly descending claw Aether raced into h pad of a clawed foot longer than I was tall struck ht and i out evento carry Ellie away, but coiling amethyst fla the air and ground with fatal Destruction

I reached for them As my arm stretched out, a lash of Destruction wrapped around it Theaway under the unstoppable consuer, and the li

Silver flashed betweendown on ht hovered between us It was once again in the shape of the sword as Aldir had wielded it: lithe and ornate, glowing so bright it was almost hard to look at A spherical shi+eld of purethefurrow through the rocky soil

The blood iron fists were no longer grappling it Regis was struggling to extricate hi several trees down on top of hi bow as it fell back into Ellie’s startled grip Boo swung out wide, ons between Ellie and the Destruction-wreathed monster

Aether constricted in the air, and our opponent trembled, suddenly slow I felt Sylvie’s concentration as she struggled to bind it in a fist of withheld tiain He sla it just beneath one head and pulling the neck back, revealing the deep wound he’dhis last attack His control over Destruction was keeping hier within the anized her leviathans They were huddled together, working to conjure someit suddenly smell like the shore Their focus was the exposed wound Across the battlefield, Zelyna’s eyes ht She was in control, both of herself and her hunting party

She recognized that we couldn’t kill it, not yet We needed a plan to prevent it froer incarnations of itself first

Conjuring a new aetheric blade in

One of the dragon-like heads bit down on Regis I felt his fear and fury, but also his hunger—for pain, for blood, for Destruction The Godrune sustained him, and his mastery of its edict countered that of our opponent’s

The sky darkened above us, gray and black shot through with the red of fire-attribute mana That mana swiftly condensed into balls of white-hot fire and fell asthe monstrosity one after another Most dissolved in the Destruction, but a few punched ragged holes in the expansive wings or exploded against its are froed and spun in a kind of dance A wave of mana swept forward, but the visible manifestation of the spell was so subtle that I al’s Gambit

A wafer-thin crescent of mana carved toward the exposed, wounded neck Violet flait while protecting the crescent The spell sliced through the fire, and then through the neck

I swept my weapon upward, from my hip to ht purple line of aetheric light cut through several points at once

Burning blood erupted fro necks and heads collapsed like fallen trees One s buckled, li

Ti heads roared The creature reared back on four of its six thick legs, its avian claws digging at the air, thearound it furiously

Sylvie was flagging, her repeated use of her aevuis flew in circles around the woundedits Destruction as best he could Chul hung back, flinging spells with the others, unable to risk approaching for a physical strike Ellie fired golden arrows of protective energy at any asura as caught in the waves of gusting Destruction fire that were still devouring thethem a moment to escape

With one layer of my mind, I tracked the efforts of the asuras to keep theits Destruction Zelyna and Riven led the effort, shouting orders and ensuring the attacks didn’t kill it—though I was uncertain if that was even possible With another, I keptany e to our opponent

The rest of my mind turned to the problem of these incarnations I was reminded of the Relictombs, where the aetheric beasts could be respawned indefinitely If that was by design, where had this creature coh unlikely, that the ancient asuras who created Epheotusits potential in the ic of this place Also possible was the fact that our quarry formed here fro into Epheotus through the barrier, out of the aetheric realrotesque and tortured nature, was like a physical er aether carried, which Fate had described

Siht that were potentially relevant to the battle

First, Destruction

I needed to be able to separate the endless consu, but even the asura couldn’tabilities It was only a an to consume them, one by one It was essential that I cordon it off so the violet fla since I carona’s notice inside a pocket dimension, and that idea hovered close to the surface of hts I’d formed such a pocket dimension twice now: first, alic in a moment of pure desperation; second, more purposefully, to hide myself inside Sylvia’s lair between the Beast Glades and the Elenoir Wastes This second pocket dimension hadn’t been placed there out of sentimentality, however

The e I no longer had her will inside my core, and so I’d need her spark, that indentation she’d left in theteleportation ritual and time-stop spells, to form a second pocket dimension

I had no piece of Sylvia here to use as a catalyst to conjure a pocket die the beast, which meant I needed another way But ere close to the barrier that separated Epheotus from the aetheric realain along the shore of the leviathan village, Ecclesia Here, too, on the phoenixes’ ever-cli mountain Epheotus was itself—in some way—a pocket dimension Still connected to the physical realm in which my world existed, but protected by a barrier that affected reality itself, containing space and tiether

It was then, between one ether like the toothed cogs of a complex machine, that I understood what to do

“Fall back!” I shouted To is Sylv, stay with El I need you outside the barrier Both hts at once, but I withheld the worst of the effect, focusingdirection, I was also pouring out purified aether andit

The hybridized s and threw itself into the air Twinblack spittle as they roared, and the baying of hounds grew so loud it threatened to overwhel’s Gambit

Mana, heavy and war the horrible noise I glanced back, looking at Ellie: she was focused on controlling thea sort of buffer to absorb the sound I winked at her, then stepped forward

The world began to ripple and run, like I was standing inside a glass globe as the glass was still hot and being blown into shape

The strain was intense, but I was ready for it The first time I’d formed such a pocket dimension, it had killed me, or would have if not for the sacrifice made by Sylvie The second had taken hours of careful h the threads of Sylvia’s leftover ic Now, I had only seconds