NOVEL NEXT Chapter 163 - Angel of Rebirth I: Ashen Ones
"It can't be…" Tristessa whispered, watching in terror as all that dense fog of dust and ash dispersed towards them, forcing her to cover her face for a moment. "Shit, watch it, guys!"
She saw that something worse had taken the place of the cloud of debris: streams of shadows swirling around the Dullahan and scattering to envelop the courtyard and beyond. A tornado of Discord that grew more imposing with each second, increasing in number exponentially until Burnt Fort Hexel was devoured by the tongues of material dark.
Turning the area into the Dullahan's domain.
"Witness the everlasting glory of the Angels of Chaos!" roared the dark knightess, her voice so powerful and strident that no one present could avoid feeling the localized pain within their hearts and mind. "Mothers! Holy Lord Vel'Moran!"
She had raised her own head in the direction of the darkness that abounded at the farthest reaches of the Cosmos, like a black star spewing solar flares that devoured light, rather than generating it. Her cape fluttered like the flag of supremacy over the lesser entities that challenged her; With her sword ready to continue the battle and her armor cracked, the dark knightess was a glorious symbol of chaos, unleashed and unbound by time and space.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Astoria bellowed, quickly placing herself between the enemy and her companions, ready to defend them with body and soul against the unknown. "By Xiliarra, so much Discord…! It's crushing!"
"She's interfering with my thaumaturgy!" the blood elf informed them, wincing as if suffering from a deep migraine. "And the spirit potion is starting to wear off… I don't have much time left, we have to end this now!"
"Any ideas, lady?!" the gunslinger asked, his worried gaze wide open as he looked from side to side, up toward the top of the walls and beyond, where shadows enclosed and demarcated the area. "Tristessa?!"
The young woman didn't know what to say to Auron. She had never seen the Dullahan enter that state of greater power, accompanied by invisible signs from the dark beyond, where Endrel and Margules dwelled. Whatever was going to happen was going to be new, which was terrible news.
Since it was normal for every new threat or problem to end up killing them all.
"What do I do?! What can I…?!"
But before she began to despair, she realized something: swarming within the tornado of Discord, as if emerging from its constantly moving perimeters, she could see chains. Semi-transparent, pierced by starlight that made them visible. Hundreds of them, like a network of cobwebs that reached every corner of the Fort. And no one except her had noticed such an obvious addition to the battlefield.
"Hey! Don't you see the chains?!" Tristessa shouted, attracting the gunslinger's attention, who wasn't sure whether to keep aiming at the Dullahan or at some invisible threat he felt close to him but couldn't see. "Auron!"
"I can't see anything but all that darkness! Tristessa, if we don't do something…!"
No other sound came from inside Auron's hidden mouth. He was speechless, as he saw movement beginning to appear among the ashes. Lumps of varying sizes moved beneath the surface, slowly, until some began to rise. Letting everyone know that those were hunched humanoid figures that were standing up.
"Impossible!" Using his cane as protection against the figures looming around him, Severus was too shocked to even think about what magic he should conjure, either to attack or defend himself and the rest of his team. "They're…!"
The ashes turned into skin, leather, and metal. All burnt, burned to a crisp, but returning to a state before total decomposition. In the form of legs, arms, torsos with ruined organs, scorched muscles, and charred bones; solid enough to stand and bear the weight of bodies that shouldn't exist.
Wielding broken and fragile swords, spears, and warhammers. Weapons that had been of no help when the Princess of Sin attacked.
Wearing ancient armor from ages past that knew the origin of the evil that plagued Nekrom today. Marked by the fire of Saeryon of the Abyss, they now covered those dozens of men and women returned to the world of the living by a divine will.
Radiating cosmic darkness, touched by the chains of the [Angel of Rebirth].
"Endrel!"
The name of that haunting entity echoed in Tristessa's mind, its diabolical, mechanical, rotten form clear and immortalized. Crowned with sinister glory, its morbid smile and gears turning as it absorbed Discord as a source of energy, that angel had answered her daughter's call. Returning souls who had been lost in the endless sea of the spirit world to a state of living Death, demanding to perform one more task.
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"Defend the Fort! Banish the wicked from this place!" commanded the only burned soldier carrying a glaive and shield, the Captain of the squad, with a terrible voice devoid of the humanity he hadn't been able to regain upon returning to life.
"FALL BACK!"
Auron's shout instantly mobilized Tristessa and Severus. The three ran toward the stairs, pursued by the squad led by their undead Captain. They traversed through the miasma that contaminated the entire Fort, blinding them, seeking to slow them down. Weaken them, play mind tricks on them to make them submit and accept that there was no way to get out of there alive.
"Astoria!" Tristessa shouted her name from the foot of the stairs, disheartened to see how the platinum-haired knightess not only didn't follow them, but instead took a fighting stance, raising her sword with both hands. "ASTORIA!"
"Survive, kitten! I'll take care of your Nemesis!"
And with that promise spoken, Astoria let out a battle cry and lunged at the Dullahan. Her sword clashed furiously against hers; her determination to interrupt that sinister summoning was irrefutable.
"Move, she made her choice!" The blood elf took Tristessa by the arm and pulled her up the stairs. "MOVE, I SAY!"
Severus dragged the girl away, so terrified by Astoria's fate that her eyes filled with tears almost right away and her legs refused to cooperate. Only by the elf's roughness and insistence did Tristessa ascend, while the revived soldiers of the Age of Kings followed in her footsteps, a coordinated march, weapons pointed at them, and darkness fixed on them from within the hollowed sockets of their withered faces.
"The Black Fire… There is no escape from that dragon…" one of the soldiers whispered, a wail of doom.
"It hurts, oh by the Gods, it hurts…" another sobbed.
"[King Karras]! Why have you abandoned us?"
"She has come to rape our souls… Oh, Ithrendyl, why…?"
Tortured souls. Tormented for all eternity, condemned to never rest for the violent, malicious Deaths they suffered. And now brought back to Life, against their will and chained to the command of the daughter of the Servants of the God of Chaos.
"Run, quickly!" Auron urged them to cross the gallery; the same path Tristessa had made minutes before, riding Vergil, who still remained motionless in that lonely corner of the courtyard. Left to his fate, like the knightess. Abandoned both. "Let's go inside, we'll regroup there!"
Her heart aching as she left Astoria and Vergil behind, Tristessa looked over her shoulder, hearing the footsteps of the soldiers as they reached the last step. Auron turned and fired several times, not slowing down even when he had to walk backward, in order to delay these new enemies.
"Ur Firan!" The thaumaturge created glyphs across the gallery, which emitted a beautiful red glow and illuminated the gloom caused by Discord that saturated the immediate atmosphere.
A wall of fire replaced the glyphs once they activated. Separating them three from the soldiers, who stopped immediately, frightened by the crackling of the flame. Bringing back remembrances of their final moments, reduced to ash by the fire of the King of the Black Dragons.
Giving Tristessa, Auron, and Severus time to enter the castle.
"What the…?!" As soon as she set foot inside the corridor, the remains of the melted door beneath the soles of her boots, Tristessa had a feeling. Not bad, not good, simply the sensation that there was something there she knew. "…"
"Don't stop!" demanded the elf, the first to step forward and face the darkness within. "Ord Lumen."
The spell of natural light barely managed to illuminate; the darkness was too dense, determined to devour everything in its path. There was no trace of the dark thaumaturgy the Dullahan had conjured earlier, allowing them to run through the black-stained masonry corridor.
Tristessa looked at every corner with paranoia, the feeling that someone or several people were watching her from the darkness. She heard the chains in the distance, echoing through the dark corridor, unnoticed by Auron or Severus. Only the footsteps of the soldiers, drawing ever closer.
"It feels as if… As if it's staring at me from across the hallway," she thought, worried because none of the two men felt that haunting presence. No one saw gears turning in the walls, pistons moving inside the ruined rooms, liquid Discord dripping from the ceiling. Except for Tristessa, in brief interludes between the never-ending movement of shadows, confusing her mind and making her doubt whether what she was seeing was truly there.
"Are you joking?!" Severus's shout distracted Tristessa, as they entered what had been the Fort's main hall. With the help of the orb of supernatural light, they found themselves face to face with ten ashen soldiers, armed and wearing ruined armor. Ready for combat. "Terrum!"
Because of his role as point man, Severus was the first to find himself overwhelmed. In his eagerness to dodge a barrage of swords and spears, he had to conjure walls of earth in the four cardinal directions to protect himself, rising from the scorched stone and taking on some of its features.
"Hold on you two...!" were his last words before the walls enclosed him.
"Tristessa!" The gunslinger tried to close the distance with the black-haired girl to protect her, but he couldn't escape a brutal shove from the Resurrected Captain: he had not only chased them through the fire and flames but had also run toward him like a battering ram. "Ugh!"
"AURON!" Tristessa shrieked, her worst fears realized when she saw him on the ground, separated from his revolvers. The Captain stood next to him, pointed the end of his glaive to his abdomen and thrust downward. "NOOO!"
Extending her hand toward them, ally and enemy, the girl thought of nothing but saving Auron and stopping the undead soldier. No matter what.
Unconsciously activating her [Divinity of Accursed Existence].