NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 10
Angar gasped futilely, his shattered chest heaving for air that refused to fill his obliterated lungs, now little more than a pulpy ruin of splintered bone and spurting blood.
But he lived. He was still alive, and the realization tore a silent curse from the depths of his core. Death was his only possible salvation, the sole path to avoiding his soul's damnation.
If his heart had been crushed, he'd safely be a corpse now. He prayed it was damaged enough to fail soon, to spare him from a far worse fate.
The Ravana's Boon Feat and the regeneration granted by the Penitent's Sacrarium of Sanctified Transfiguration could end up saving him. Unless Azgoth finished him off, as Angar fervently hoped.
Without oxygen much longer, his brain could be crippled permanently, eroding his defenses and exposing him to corrupting influences, even the weakest of dark whispers.
The Vitalulum harness grew warm, applying its healing, and Angar cursed silently once more.
Strangely, he felt no pain, not really. He was aware his body was in anguish, but in a phantom sense, as if his body wasn't his own. He didn't thrash in panic, his mind oddly serene despite the situation.
He believed he was in shock, leaving him aware but detached from his body's trauma. It was strange, especially his clarity. He figured acute shock from such trauma would dull his wits, put his mind in a haze, not sharpen it.
Azgoth saw his victim still clung to life. To Angar's relief, the Fallen's Psy Crystal throbbed with vicious violet light, hoisting him off the ground and slamming him into the fleshy wall with a thud.
He crashed down, only to be seized again, flung into a cage packed with catatonic women and children, their hollow eyes not even registering him.
The crystal pulsed, psychic tendrils slithered into his mind. He recognized it instantly.
It was Extinguish, the same assault Azgoth had used to kill his attaché during the Eurynomos incursion.
He grinned mentally. This would certainly end him. He'd die with his soul untarnished.
But that defiant spot within his mind was stubborn, and it had other plans. He could feel it resisting, fighting the psychic assault, fighting to deny him the eternal reward he had bled so much for.
Cold panic gripped him. He willed it to stop, to yield, but it ignored him. He'd tried wresting control, but it still slipped through his grasp like smoke.
He considered pleading for God's mercy, to let Extinguish claim him, but he couldn't. His final act wouldn't be that of a beggar, bringing shame to his ancestors.
Angar sank into a meditative trance, his will turning inward. This time, he didn't stoke the defiant ember, but fought to smother it, or at least force it to stop, to submit, to let Azgoth's power kill him before the Fallen changed his mind, imprisoning him with the others caged along the walls.
He couldn't even tell if Extinguish was working. He hoped blood wept from his eyes, nose, and ears, but if it did, shock hid the sensations.
As he wrestled with that unyielding spark, the stone door erupted inward. Shards of rock sprayed across the chamber, peppering his broken form.
Four shapes exploded through the shattered door. He made out a Mechanoid flanked by three drones, all cutting through the swirling dust shrouding the destroyed entrance.
Angar recognized the Mechanoid as Saint Thryna. With shin boosters screaming, light blazing from her forearms in salvos of searing beams, she rocketed straight at Azgoth.
As the drones pierced the dust, their size and rune-etched hulls marked them as Hidetada's own.
Without slowing, as the drones streaked past, two of them sent a dart into his shattered chest, and the last released a mist his oddly heightened senses realized was a nano-swarm, then continued toward the enemies clustered near the flesh-bulb, spitting plasma bolts crackling with fury.
Hidetada's voice cut through the comms in his helm, saying, "Goshawk lives, assume uncorrupted."
Thryna replied, "Copy."
Angar wondered if he was hallucinating. Or dreaming. None of this seemed real.
Thryna collided with Azgoth, her spiked gauntlet smashing his mouthless face with a bone-shattering crunch. His piston-fist shot out in a blur, but she jetted upward on roaring boosters, unleashing a salvo of micro-missiles.
Most were redirected away, probably with telekinesis, veering harmlessly into the chamber's floor and walls, but a few struck true, eruptions tearing across Azgoth's flayed hide, and his chains shrieked as tormented spirits wailed in a higher pitch.
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He struck back with serpentine tendrils, grabbing onto her thin metal legs, their ooze sizzling the steel. They failed to seize her well enough, and Thryna spun, getting near him, her claws rending into his arm, sending sparks and ichor spraying, before her cannons blasted into his face.
Where Azgoth's tentacles failed, his mind succeeded, and his psychic power pinned her in the air, the tentacles unlatching her legs as he stepped back. A blast of unholy power surged from him, hurling her backward to crash against a wall with a sickening thud.
The drones, each a thick disc of rune-carved crystal and metal, blazed across the chamber, their plasma volleys hammering the flesh-bulb, but each shot fizzled against an unseen barrier.
The drones shifted targets, locking onto the second Fallen. His tumorous form ignited with fell power, swelling larger as his fanged pistol spat venomous energy, sending green arcs blasting at all three.
One bolt hit a drone, scorching its hull as it sprayed out a swarm of glowing nanites. The shimmering cloud burrowed into the Fallen's tumorous pauldrons, though if they caused damage, it had no obvious effect.
The five abominations charged the drones, flinging spells and powers with abandon, their claws, spines, mouths, and other disgusting limbs slashing at their nimble enemies in a frenzied assault.
The drone's jets and stabilizers flared as they zipped around, unleashing crackling beams that burned through oozing flesh.
Then Angar saw something that made him certain he was hallucinating or dreaming.
The drones flew up, aligning, clanging together in a frenzy of whirring gears, snapping panels, and grinding actuators, each component sliding, locking, and fusing.
In a heartbeat, they somehow merged and transformed into a towering, twelve-foot Mechanoid-like machine, one that looked like an angel of crystal and molten metal.
Six wings of serrated blades unfurled with a light hiss of hydraulics. A sapphire core glowed in its chest, its steady pulse driving a network of glowing conduits that snaked through the construct's frame, and above it was something in the rough shape of a face.
The construct hovered, arcs of plasma crackling across its frame as a shimmering energy field rippling outward.
The field scorched the abominations' spines, wilting their flesh, and their howls of agony echoed through the chamber's unholy depths.
The construct's wings lashed, becoming whipping tendrils that sliced through the nearest abomination's outstretched claws with a sharp snap.
If Angar could've laughed, he would've, filled with a grim joy at seeing tendrils finally turned against his foes. He loved seeing it, even if this were a dream or delirium.
Another wing spun, emitting a shockwave that crushed two abominations to the floor with a bone-cracking sound.
The second Fallen roared, charging with his massive claw swinging, but the construct vanished, reappearing behind him. A searing beam erupted from its sapphire core, tearing into the Fallen's horned crown.
He watched in awe as Saint Thryna and the angelic machine unleashed Holy wrath. He longed to join them, knowing if this wasn't a dream, he'd fall in moments against such power, but he knew it was.
Dream or not, this was still his first glimpse of Seraphs clashing with their equals, their movements a blur too swift for his mind to fully grasp, even with its current unnatural clarity.
He cherished it, whispering a prayer of gratitude for dreaming this magnificent delusion.
"Blessed Mother, get the bulb quickly!" Thryna's voice screamed through the comms.
"I'm trying," Hidetada calmly replied. "Gamosh's minions are tied to its shielding."
"Then kill them quickly!"
The drone-construct surged forward. Its sapphire core pulsed, unleashing a volley of searing beams that carved through a lunging abomination's oozing flank, sending it rolling away with a shriek of agony.
A barrage of fell powers from Gamosh slammed into the construct, sending shards of crystal and metal spraying away. He dove forward with his massive claw swinging and his snarling maw gaping to bite.
The construct's wings snapped shut, the claw and face clanging off them. A tendril whipped out, coiling around the Fallen's warped pistol, struggling to pull it free, finally sending it skidding across the floor.
Angar felt Extinguish slink into him once more, attempting to drain the little life left within him, only to falter again. He turned, watching the other fight.
Azgoth's psychic grip slammed Thryna into the wall, then directed a green energy beam straight at Angar.
She sprang off the surface in a steel blur, her left pauldron intercepting the blast. The force shoved her backward, her cybernetic feet gouging the floor as she braced against the onslaught.
An unholy surge ripped into her next, staggering her momentarily before she roared forward, boosters igniting in a blaze
The Fallen lashed out with whipping tentacles, deflecting her trajectory and sending her crashing to the floor in a tumbling skid.
Azgoth fired another beam, carving into Angar's exposed chest. Blood sprayed from the wound. He kind of felt the damage, but his mind barely registered the attack.
Energy from Thryna's forearms seared into her opponent, forcing him to abort his next attack on Angar. The Fallen began running towards the other end of the chamber. Without even looking, his telekinesis caught Thryna, flinging her into the ceiling with a crack.
Springing off, she blazed at him, tackling him halfway across the chamber. Another psychic surge sent her flying, and she blazed back, her forearm cannons locking onto Azgoth's Psy Crystal.
A searing salvo erupted, beams lancing at its violet glow, forcing the Nofelim to shield it, his cyclopean eye flaring in rage.
As if the dream was stuck in a loop, Thryna kept charging, her forearm arsenals unleashing torrents of energy, only to be hurled into walls, ceiling, or floor with bone-rattling impacts.
Until, at last, she managed to grab her opponent well enough, grappling with him, their brawl a whirlwind of strikes too fast to follow, the two pummeling each other with massive blows. The only clear strike Angar saw was Azgoth's piston-fist smashing Thryna's helm, denting it.
The clash ending with Thryna blasted away, this time catching herself in the air. Micro-rockets began raining from her pauldrons. Most were deflected, but a few seared the Fallen.
His tentacle-arm stretched out in a disgusting way, lunging for her, the mouths seeking her helmet, but Thryna's bladed fingers hacked into them with a spray of black ichor.
Azgoth's chains wailed, joining his serpentine tentacles to snare her leg. She ignited her boosters, trying to twist free in a spiral of flame, unable to, and he pulled her in close.
Her spiked gauntlet crashed into his molten chest with a bone-jarring thud as his piston-fist hammered her own with a deafening crack. The twin blows unleashed a shockwave that shifted Angar's broken form as it passed.
As Angar watched the brawl, a creeping agony seeped into his shattered chest, a burning torment that couldn't be ignored. His heightened awareness and that strange, sharpened clarity began to dull too.
This couldn't be a dream. Even nightmares didn't inflict such terrible pain.