NOVEL NEXT 285 – Mantle of the Incandescent
Taking the opportunity, Strake turned his tank around and leapt atop the general as well, using a solidly-stuck arm segment to stand on while he fired Zero’s pilebunkers into the shoulder of one arm after another, sending the giant stone serpents tumbling to the ground. Zefaris, even with her left eye constantly busy carving a kinetic mirror glyph on a tree somewhere out of way, saw this, and she also saw that Zero’s pilebunkers grew dull and deformed after it had severed three of Ubul’s arms, struggling to even penetrate the stone of the fourth by the time the great general’s command over earthen magicks permitted him to raise a pillar from the earth with a mighty stomp, one which slammed into Zero from underneath and knocked the machine off of him, severely damaging its engine backpack in the process and severing enough of Ozmir’s vines for one of his arms to slip free, bending unnaturally backwards in a spiraling shape to grab the mutant form and rip him off wholesale. Despite Ozmir’s monstrous strength - so monstrous he struggled free and shattered the arm holding him in the process - his subsequent freefall through the air gave Ubul the window of opportunity he needed, and the general took it by punting Ozmir right over the treeline and out of sight.
Ubul wasn’t afforded more than a second to laugh at his own capacity for force, already another lightning-bolt struck his steel feathers, and already he was set upon yet again, this time by, what from a distance, looked like a flying drill wrought of white-glowing magic, savagely burying itself into his back and, as it seemed, piercing one of his cores. In reality, this was Bherad’s doing, and in this feat he had spent his sole means of inflicting lasting harm upon the general, the tailor now glad to retreat with his skin intact, dodging the ensuing barrage of boulders that went his way with deceptive grace as he pulled himself along by his own flying sword.
In the same moment - the moment after he had just punted Ozmir and suffered a grievous wound for a moment of inattention - Zefaris had circled the battlefield in its entirety, emptied Tempesta of slugs for the second time, and carved three separate kinetic mirror glyphs with her aetheric output supplemented by her mask. Now she just had to make use of them, and Zel’s approach towards the walking mountain alongside what Sigmund was about to do would soon prove to be the ideal window of opportunity. For now, she would lie in wait, stockpile Aether within her eye, and put down as many claymen as she could. She would need a great deal of it to project a kinetic mirror glyph high into the air, after all, in order to facilitate Sigmund’s plan.
Sigmund had done all in his power as he was right now, and it had dawned on him that there was no way he could inflict any lasting damage. The self-same revelation had dawned on Mata and one other islander, and they had suggested to pool their own Ignis output together with his, in order to channel it through his more advanced grasp of the beamwand.
With a sigh, knowing that it would have come to this, Sigmund took out a hip flask and downed its Ignis-rich contents.
“I am a peaceful man…” said the historian, as his skin took on the glow of dying embers and the rain began to evaporate from his form. He struggled to keep his inner flame in check, giving voice to his thoughts in order to vent the emotional energy which he could not control and direct. Even now, the historian’s mind drew upon his knowledge of history, his knowledge of the earliest and most humiliating defeat Ubul had suffered - one at the hands of seemingly pacifistic, isolationist monks, who had turned out to be not at all pacifistic, for the general, at the time a mere lieutenant, had mistaken peacefulness for harmlessness.
“You of all people should know what happens when peaceful men go to war, general.”
Dying embers became seething, infernal coals, the shirt upon his chest catching fire as his beard glowed like burning steel wool and sparks flew forth with each careful, controlled breath.
Embers, too, soon became overt raging fire, red-orange tongues flickering about from within Sigmund’s flesh… And yet, with each breath he took, these wild raging flames grew calm and pale, from wrathful orange to pale blue, until the flames seemingly retreated into him altogether.
A moment later, tendrils of blue flame slithered forth across his chest seemingly from within his heart, following the path of blackened skin. They wrapped and spiraled around him, and his very flesh took on an eerie glow as if something undefinable deep inside were incandescing. In spite of the fact he fancied himself one not likely to give his techniques overly flowery names, the side of Sigmund which had made him obsessed with over the top pulps and ridiculous moves like the Uraganrána shone through, the name of this new state burning in his mind’s eye as his perception of time came to a split-second halt.
PLOWSHARES TO SWORDS
TRANQUILITY ECHOES: MANTLE OF THE INCANDESCENT
A sudden and mind-clearing calm washed over him. Everything was in focus, his thoughts ordered themselves, suddenly every facet of reality was sensical and ordered. Even in the chaos of battle, he suddenly saw a path to his destination without obstacles.
Spending no more than a second to get his bearings, the historian slipped one beamwand behind his belt and gripped the other with both hands, giving both his islander compatriots a nod of affirmation as they swiftly traversed the desolate, shuddering wasteland for a nearby vantage point. Cannonballs flew overhead and claymen lunged at them in an effort to bog them down, but these ambling annoyances were turned to brittle statues by Mata and the other islander. What they did was almost like an inside-out version of the Heatshock technique taught to inquisitors, superheating the subject’s outer layers. With even a weaker blast, Sigmund was able, in turn, to destroy these half-baked claymen’s cores.
