Endburn: Chapters 31-32 (Patreon)

Chapter 31

It was the worst sort of problem as far as Theo had been concerned: he had predicted it, many others had seen it coming, and it had arrived all the same. No matter how many people had anticipated the Demonweaver attacking using the demons of the continent, the method was too broad to counter and the result was an existential threat.

As he blazed over the wastes between Ruling Cities, flattening every demon he came across with a gravitational field, Theo wondered if this could truly have been avoided. He and others had seen her taking control of demons, but none of them could have taken down an Ophaon-tier soulcrafter. Of course everyone had been concerned about the growing number of demons, but the army was stretched thin and there had already been militias dedicated to cutting down their numbers. All those mechanisms simply hadn't been enough.

Perhaps he could have spread more warnings about the demon-generating artifacts, especially since they had caused so much trouble in the past. But most of the real powers in Norron understood that threat and had already been trying to eliminate them. If he pushed too hard, people might start pushing back and pointing out that outsiders also caused demons.

So far there hadn't been an emergency, just an unnatural number of titans attacking their positions across the continent. Theo was convinced that was nothing but a distraction, spreading them out thinner before the Demonweaver made her real move. Unfortunately, there was no way to be certain where or when the real blow would come.

For the most part he was alone, except for smaller demon exterminating squads he occasionally saw in the distance. They often cheered, even if he didn't need to help their battles, so Theo gave them a wave. He kept moving, though, too preoccupied to play morale games.

Finally he spotted someone he actually wanted to see: Krikree cartwheeled over the landscape, spears bristling in all directions like a spiky ball of death. She was doing a good job of piercing all the demons around her until she saw him, then she launched herself into a hug that included more spears than one might want.

[I thought I'd find you here,] Theo emitted. [They put you on extermination duty?]

[Krikree also scouts!] she insisted. [Talk with coin termites, track geodes. Have scents. Not yet scout geodes, but soon.]

[Huh, you're calling the House of Coin termites? I think that's new.]

[Precision terminology! Not all beetles.]

[Mostly I just wanted to check on you before this got out of hand.] Theo settled his hand on Krikree's head, more protectively than he'd intended, but she didn't squirm. [You can help a lot with all the demons, but I think it's going to get worse. Don't try to fight a fourth stage, much less the Demonweaver herself.]

[Krikree not stupid!] She shifted closer to him, antenna bending lower. [Truth is... Krikree still scared of giant queens. Shameful, but scared.]

[That's nothing to be ashamed of. You're right to be cautious of aeon-class threats.]

[Not. Different. They make Krikree feel small, like old days when all queens and princes were too strong for Krikree.]

[Ah, then I think I get it a little.] Theo rubbed her head reassuringly. [This is probably a good time to work through that, but like I said, cautiously. We've had plenty of overconfidence on our side.]

[Theo-sister thinks danger?" Krikree's antennae shot up]

[I don't have enough evidence to prove anything, but I suspect so. They wouldn't spend this long preparing just to try to wear us down in a different way. Tymetron believes this can end the war, somehow.]

They continued traveling together, wiping out hordes of demons in their way. Krikree sped from side to side around Theo's straight path, which honestly wasn't very efficient: he was faster than her now, so he should have been the one moving. She seemed to be having fun, though, so Theo didn't have the heart to stop her.

He started thinking about other patterns, though, perhaps moving like large waveforms that would cross one another every cycle. Before he actually got around to suggesting it, they had another arrival. This time by weirkey, and it wasn't a coincidence: Fiyu and Nauda had specifically come to meet him so they could discuss things.

"They say there's a bestial titan in Asplundat territory," Nauda told him before he could say anything. "Sounds like it's giving them a lot of trouble, so there might be an insectoid titan too."

"It seems as though the Demonweaver has separated the demon varieties," Fiyu observed.

"Which doesn't make sense. If the insectoid types can guide the others, shouldn't they form a unified army?"

"Maybe the only goal is demon fusions," Theo suggested. "The different types can only fuse with their own kind, so they're all grouped together in the hope of creating as many unguided fusions as possible. Stochastic summoning."

Nauda's head wobbled in a mix of agreement and disagreement. "That's coherent," she said, "but that's exactly what everyone suspects. We're being sent out explicitly to prevent titans from fusing into a fourth stage, and so far we're managing it."

That was the obvious strategy, it was again just difficult to stop. Tymetron had already managed it once during the tournament and that demon had taken everything for Theo and his friends to beat it. Even though they were stronger now, that didn't reduce the threat to the overall state of the war.

"Queens where?" Krikree asked, head pivoting between all three of them.

"Oh, we're being sent after the bestial demons. Their titans can have a lot of brute force."

"Krikree too! Ants not confuse Krikree with demon bugs."

Theo would have hoped that no one would mistake an intelligent Slescan with a soulhome for an insectoid demon, but he couldn't rule it out. There were a lot of scared Fithans out there, and when they were pushed to their limits, they might strike out at anything that looked too different.

"I think the three of you should stay together," Theo said before he could stop himself. "I don't have evidence, just a nasty intuition. Watch one another's backs."

"You believe they will target us while isolated?" Fiyu asked.

"That's at least one possible strategy. Their aeons haven't been able to pin down our Dominions, but maybe the demon hordes are the distraction they need. Just be careful. Usual contingencies: we communicate if we can, Norro Yorthin is our first point of rendezvous, Ugustial is second. Hopefully none of it will be necessary."

With the three of them off to the Asplundat Movement, Theo returned to his demon extermination assignment, but his heart wasn't in it. He didn't think there was some ultra-complex scheme behind this; it was simply a straightforward and effective technique. Scattered between so many potential threats, there was no way to pinpoint the true danger.

Abruptly one of the slates in Theo's coat pocket cracked. He pulled it out, noting that it was Crintak's message slate, and saw that it had a hastily scrawled message. Just an urge to hurry and coordinates - he wasn't familiar with every Fithan system, but he thought that the location was actually off the eastern coast of Norron, outside Wavefront territory.

Not letting himself get distracted, Theo weirkeyed his way across the continent to help, and appeared over an ocean of chaos.

There were demons flooding up from the depths, massive fish with tooth-filled maws that must be the aquatic version of titans. They churned the surface violently, not tearing into one another but some beginning to dissolve. Dozens of them... it would only take six to merge into a fourth stage demon that would be a serious threat.

Theo cast a reversed gravitational field even before he'd fully taken in the battle, pulling many of the demonic titans out of the ocean away from the others. As he did so, he saw that of course there were Fithans trying to stop the fusions. It seemed like an elite force, including Strongholds piercing through the fishy titans. A few put up a fight, but they didn't even seem to be trying, just frenzying toward a higher stage.

Crintak hovered over the battlefield, occasionally firing a beam from his jewel-socketed eye. These weren't overwhelming blasts, instead precise strikes that tore apart places where fourth stage demons were beginning to form. Even with all of them combined, they had been struggling to keep up before Theo arrived.

"They missed the ocean!" Crintak flew up beside him, still releasing targeted beams. "Our plan was solid for the continent, and I had the west coast locked up. But it was all a distraction: half the demons were fusing together underwater, right here. It's a miracle we stopped them before they got to a fourth stage."

"Where's Melitta?" Theo asked.

"Missing, as usual. This is absolutely her failing, and if the Wavefront falls under this, I'm not supporting her."

For his part, Theo wouldn't curse her name until he knew what had happened. The local Dominions had been very cautious about retreating instead of risking their lives, but it was possible that one of them had been ambushed. He wouldn't speak ill of Melitta if she was lying dead somewhere.

It actually would have been convenient to have Fiyu present, since her lightstorm would be an effective way of dealing with such a mass of demons. This was one place where his disorientation technique wouldn't work, but Theo still had a lot of practice with fighting against numbers like this. He could thin out their numbers with gravitational fields while sending torsion bolts at any potential fusions, thus taking pressure off Crintak.

With Theo present, it seemed like they might get the frenzy under control. There were fewer titans now, though they were replaced by smaller demons merging into more titans. It wouldn't take very long for the situation to spiral out of control, but the aquatic demons weren't fighting very effectively.

Until, all at once, a group of them converged together. One of the Strongholds was bitten by a dozen jaws and torn apart, screaming in agony as they were pulled into the ocean. Another rushed to help them and a long demonic spine erupted from their chest.

The Demonweaver emerged from the ocean depths, leading an army of demons. Theo knew that this time she wasn't going to retreat.

-

Chapter 32

When the demons attacked from below, Theo's plan had been to shoot torsion bolts with one hand while building up a singularity in the other. For the first time in ages, he was being pushed too fast to do both at once.

The Demonweaver released thin strings of cantae around herself and wove them in a wicked dance, seizing control of countless demons. Once linked by her, they became tougher and more dangerous, yet they could also be thrown together with others in order to fuse a higher demon. She hadn't struck him as particularly fast, for an Ophaon, yet now she moved so fast that it was all he could to keep up, destroying fusions before they could fully manifest.

If she had been targeting Theo and Crintak, surely she could have overwhelmed their position, yet instead the Demonweaver continued focusing on the demons. Was generating a fourth stage their only objective here? Just when Theo was beginning to think they would be overwhelmed anyway, a dark shell appeared in the sky.

He hadn't seen the Underqueen fight and now he got a brutal taste. Pearl javelins launched themselves from the block of shell armor, tearing through all demons in their path and arcing to target the Demonweaver. She began to move seriously for the first time, tugging on her own strings to pull herself out of the way of the projectiles.

A shockwave from above sent Theo reeling: the Underqueen hadn't bothered to make any concessions for them. But as he reoriented himself, he saw the shockwave press the Demonweaver down, almost to the surface of the ocean.

The ocean exploded and a cantae blade nearly took off her head.

It happened so fast that even Theo, who had tried to adjust to Ophaon-tier combat, needed to reconstruct it a second later. Guchiro must have been deep beneath the waves, hidden from the demons. He had blown through the thrashing layer and struck for the Demonweaver when she was distracted, only appearing from his stealth technique as the cantae exploded in all directions.

Even that perfectly executed ambush hadn't been enough: the Demonweaver had saved her neck at the cost of an arm, which had been sliced almost in half by the cantae blade. The cut also severed a great many demons, which lost their former strategy and thrashed in all directions.

That meant many of them were beginning to fuse again, forcing Theo to return his attention to stopping them. He kept only a fraction of his attention on the main battle, in case he needed to defend himself, and focused on taking care of the demons so their side could attack the Demonweaver. Crintak appeared to be focused on the aeon battle, so Theo needed to cover for him as well.

When he got a second to look again, not long had passed, but the battle had already shifted. The Demonweaver had risen into the sky, dragging demons with her, while Guchiro and the Underqueen assaulted her from both sides. With the Demonweaver's injury they would have had the clear advantage, if not for two factors. First, the two of them weren't fully coordinated, thus they risked friendly fire from opposite sides. Second and worse, the Demonweaver was mutating the demons, making them grow wings.

But compared to Ophaon-tier soulcrafters, even flying titans wouldn't be enough. So long as Theo took the ocean surface out of the equation, more and more demons were being speared by pearl or darkness every second. The two of them would eventually slaughter their way through the army and target the Demonweaver directly.

Before Theo could even start to feel optimistic, two more forces entered the battlefield. He saw the gold and expected Dominions, but it was much worse: the Goldreaper and Plutalgion emerged from above to shield the Demonweaver from both sides.

In an instant the tide of battle changed entirely: the Underqueen clashed with the Goldreaper while Guchiro dodged a hand of gold.

While he tried to think of an effective tactic, Theo continued wiping out potential fusions. He saw that the Demonweaver had retreated, favoring her injured arm but still managing to send threads of cantae into a great many demons.

Theo saw that Crintak was gone and wondered if he had retreated, then spotted the man next to the waves. He gathered more cantae this time, then unleashed a sustained beam from his eye as he swept it across the surface of the waves, tearing countless demons in half before it swept upward to encompass the Demonweaver.

But even injured, she could deflect an attack from a Dominion. A second later Plutalgion spun and a blinding gold line pierced the battlefield.

Crintak tumbled across the waves and struggled to regain control of himself. When he halted, Theo saw that he had dodged, but he looked on the edge of panic. It looked like Plutalgion was targeting him again, even with Guchiro launching a lightstorm, and Crintak was in no position to defend himself.

Theo cast a portal across the battlefield and fortunately Crintak flew into it, escaping just before another blinding golden attack destroyed his position. Crintak appeared beside Theo, breathing heavily... and they both realized that the Goldreaper had abandoned his battle and was plunging toward them with both bladed arms extended.

Before Theo could act, a wall of stone manifested in the path of the Goldreaper. The man smashed through, but the second of delay allowed Theo and Crintak to retreat to a safer distance. Then there were pearl spears dropping from the sky, so the Goldreaper couldn't pursue them any longer.

Their salvation was Citizen Dominion, who stood on a platform of stone that somehow floated on the waves. It was lined with long stone spikes that had skewered many demons, though more continued to thrash toward it. Crintak dropped down beside the other man with a glower.

"How did this happen? You said he was in your territory!"

"He was!" Citizen Dominion insisted. "This must have been the plan, because he left mid-battle. I came as quickly as I could."

While the two of them argued, Theo took out more demons and checked on the battle overhead. Guchiro and Plutalgion were fighting hand-to-hand, but in a troublingly short time Guchiro had to retreat to avoid the slashing golden blade. He launched a storm of light into Plutalgion, but the old monster simply weathered it, doing nothing more than raising an arm over the eye slit of his helm.

Crintak and Citizen Dominion seemed to have resolved their argument, because they were launching attacks into the battle overhead. Was that actually a good use of their strength? Theo didn't like the level of retaliation it provoked, plus he was concerned about the demons fusing. Crintak's horizontal beam had annihilated a great many, but the Demonweaver still had control of others.

Just as Theo began to act, he felt Fiyu's stealth technique sweep over him from behind. Except it wasn't Fiyu: Guchiro hovered beside him and spoke tersely.

"Don't become a distraction," Guchiro told him. "Choose one moment. The right one."

Then he was gone, but the bubble of stealth remained. Theo had no time to consider that because he needed to act on the warning as quickly as possible. Overhead, Guchiro had already returned to the battle, but he and the Underqueen couldn't gain the upper hand, even with assistance from two Dominions.

Theo brought his hands forward, palms together, and began generating a singularity. He thought he understood Guchiro's warning: if Dominions tried to interfere in a fight between Ophaons, they would risk becoming a liability, forcing the others to defend them. Their best chance was using the element of surprise, so as much as it frustrated Theo to watch and wait, he would need to hold back.

A school of demonic fish assaulted the spiky sphere, bashing it apart with their own bodies to threaten the Dominions. Crintak and Citizen Dominion managed to escape, but they were too caught up in the battle to realize the real problem: the Demonweaver was back.

She had been drawing some of the demons into herself, binding their flesh into her arm somehow. However the technique worked, her arm seemed to be fully operational again, which meant that there were now three aeon-class soulcrafters against two.

Even though they had the advantage, the Tymetronese didn't take the offensive. Instead the Demonweaver began fusing demons together while the other two shielded her. Guchiro and the Underqueen saw what they were doing, of course, but the Goldreaper intercepted Guchiro and Plutalgion snatched a pearl lance from the air.

They didn't just intend to win this fight, they wanted it to be a slaughter. A fourth stage demon could easily fight the Dominions, or even threaten the Norronese Ophaons, and it looked like the Demonweaver had enough demons collected for more than one. They could end up with an overwhelming advantage, maybe even enough to kill their greatest opponents.

As he watched the battle, Theo had formed the best singularity that he could under the circumstances. It crackled between his palms and he wondered if this was his moment. He could tunnel it into the fusing demon's body, but Plutalgion's liquid gold could cut through his singularity. Using up his best chance here would do nothing to turn the tide of battle...

Yet it might be the only choice. Theo took a deep breath and started moving his hands together.

A loud cry from Crintak interrupted him. The man launched a blindingly bright beam from his eye, one that seared into the sky. It caught the Goldreaper, who was only knocked aside, and pierced through the Tymetronese position. As Crintak's cry grew louder and louder, the beam annihilated the fusing demons.

Then it was gone. Crintak hung in the sky for a time, smoke coming from his eye socket. Theo realized with shock that his gemstone had burned out... and Crintak was falling to the ocean. He disappeared into a weirkey before he hit the waves.

That left only Citizen Dominion, who looked alarmed to be in such a vulnerable position. But the beam, while it hadn't injured any of the Tymetronese soulcrafters, had completely disrupted their formation.

Not his moment. Theo tunneled his singularity underneath the water, where it began sucking up the ocean and the bodies of demons dissolving within it. Instead of attacking, Theo began working on a second singularity.

The strategy above had not changed, and if anything the disappearance of Crintak made it intensify. Occasionally Citizen Dominion hurled a stone projectile into the battle, but they were no more than annoyances for the Tymetronese.

Most of the fighting was between the aeon-class fighters, now dancing around one another across the sky. The Demonweaver was still fusing demons from time to time, but she joined the battle, hurling modified demons or hunks of demonic flesh into the fray. Unlike the interference from the Dominions, her demons were always perfectly placed, preventing Guchiro and the Underqueen from deploying their full abilities.

It was too chaotic for Theo to even try to tunnel a singularity into the fight: at the speed they were moving, the enemy might well use it against one of his allies. That was the risk of having such a dangerous technique, at least when he was trying to punch above his weight. If Nauda and Fiyu were there, they might have been able to coordinate something, but given the sheer intensity, he was glad they weren't.

Something massive shifted beneath the waves and Theo realized that he had almost missed a fourth stage demon being summoned. It wasn't controlled by the Demonweaver - she had intentionally ignored some of the titans and let them fuse on their own. Before it could fully form, Theo tunneled his singularity into its heart and consumed the new demon.

Had that been enough? It didn't feel like a significant enough contribution, so Theo remained despite the risk. He had two singularities beneath the water now, steadily growing, and he began working on upgrading one of them into a binary.

Hopefully he hadn't been detected. If the Goldreaper rushed Theo's position, or Plutalgion took aim at him, he would have nearly no time to react.

Despite Theo's best efforts, eventually the inevitable occurred: the Demonweaver managed to fuse together six titans. Guchiro was locked in combat with the Goldreaper, and when the Underqueen targeted the forming body, Plutalgion cut her projectiles out of the sky.

An ominous chill swept over the battlefield as the fourth stage demon fully manifested. It was a muscular horned humanoid, just like the one in Theo's memory, not like the demon he'd fought outside the tournament. He almost wondered if his memory was playing tricks on him, but there was no time to think about that, not when the demon was attacking.

Experience suggested that demons hated all life indiscriminately, so it seemed as though it was just as likely to attack Tymetron. The Demonweaver cast a line of cantae toward it, but the demon dodged aside. Instead of attacking Plutalgion, who was closest, it breathed a stream of fire at the Demonweaver and rushed after the flames with its maw open.

Somehow she twisted at the last second, lashing the demon with another line of cantae. It failed to take hold, but redirected the charge.

When it struck the Underqueen's shell armor, Theo realized that was going to be a problem. Pearl spears erupted from the shell and pierced the demon, yet it barely seemed to notice, hacking at the armor with its claws. More spikes grew from the shell, but the attack was taking the Underqueen's full attention. That meant there was no one to support Guchiro and Citizen Dominion.

Surely this was Theo's time to act, yet his binary was still unfinished and he didn't see who he could effectively target. Then, without warning, something else erupted from the ocean and Theo stared in shock.

The first figure was Melitta, flying as if terrified. She shot into the air and past the Tymetronese soulcrafters without even attempting to attack them.

Behind her came the ancient fish from the depths of the ocean.

-

I had this whole author's note I was going to write, but we didn't get to the end of the fight. At least these couple chapters got us to an eventful cliffhanger, following up something that has been set up multiple times. I hope you'll all enjoy the conclusion next week!