180 - Doom (Patreon)

A protective seal immediately appeared in front of Arielle as Lenore stepped forward next to her. 

“You’re an Overlord,” she said to Leviathan. “Are you the one responsible for this madness?” 

“Partially," he admitted, seemingly unperturbed by the weapons and wands pointed in his direction as the group began to fan out, and circle him. “Although I don’t know if I could have convinced them as easily, if humans hadn’t decided to enter our world and wreak havoc.”

“We would stay out of your world if you stayed out of ours,” Lenore said. “You realize that your actions have started a war you ultimately cannot win.”

“Can’t we?” he inquired. “Perhaps you might have underestimated our abilities just slightly. Don’t you think so?”

He snapped his finger, and the ground underneath Lenore's feet exploded.

She, of course, managed to shoot up in the air and out of the way before it did, reversing with an attack of her own.

Like the rest, it passed right through him.

Arielle had a very bad feeling about this. 

While they spoke, she had been trying to figure out what type of mechanism Leviathan was using to bypass their attacks. It didn’t seem like the same ones that the other demons used because he appeared to be solid, yet he was in another realm. 

She could not see the faint outline where reality met his abyssal enclosure. No sign of an anchor.

What was worse, she didn't see any orbs that activated the spell that he'd just used to attack Lenore.

He’d kept them completely hidden in the abyss while the effect mirrored reality. There was no orb at all that reflected around him. 

How was he doing that?

“You remain arrogant," he said. "Even though there are far fewer humans now, thanks to us."

“There are also far fewer demons,” a man in what seemed to be a magical suit of armor shot back.

“Yes, but some of us will recover from death,” he said. “None of your kind will. And thanks to all your efforts in trying to kill us, we now know exactly how to beat you. For example, you, Lady of Luck, have your fortune dipping as time passes, and there is a misfortune debt to be repaid after, equivalent to how much luck you have used up.” His eyes turned to Lord Wesley. “You, Lord of Stone, have a love for golems, but you lack the stamina to sustain them for very long.” He turned to Arielle. “And you are a lot more fragile than you look.”

The atmosphere changed subtly with his words. A wave of realization hit them all simultaneously, as they realized how they had fed into their own trap.

“You have been studying us.”

“We have.”

Arielle frowned. Why was he telling them this?

If he’d been studying their weaknesses, wouldn’t it make better sense to keep it to himself, therefore surprising them in any incoming battle?

Or could he simply not resist gloating? He did look extremely smug and self-satisfied even as the Knight leapt forward, attempting to slice off his head with his broad sword.  

Leviathan didn’t flinch, and the weapon went right through him. 

"[Holy Blessing]." A light mage followed the Knight, getting close, his hand glowing as he thrust it into Leviathan's face.

Once again, it had no effect.

Leviathan even yawned, as both Knight and mage leapt back, shock in their faces.

“Believe it or not, this is all your doing,” he said. “We could have worked together. My father has always had an obsession with humans, and since we’re partially human hybrids, we thought perhaps we could reason with you for a mutually beneficial association. But human prejudice and arrogance are insurmountable. The need to prove you’re better than us drove us into hiding, made us a mockery in our realm. Now, here we are. “

That was a misstatement of events. The demons at the sect didn’t want to work with humans. They wanted to subjugate them.

Arielle didn’t speak as Leviathan's eyes travelled back to her. 

“You are coming with me.”

Arielle shook her head.

“Unfortunately, you won’t have a choice.” He snapped his fingers.

There was no other sign. No flash, no usual rippling or glimmering,

Without warning, Leviathan vanished and several extensive rips appeared in the atmosphere, and as they watched in horror, they began to widen.

Everyone’s breath stopped.

"Shield!" Someone yelled, and several of glyphs appeared, different shapes and colors, spells being shouted over each other to both protect themselves and attack the openings. 

The mages jumped into position, readied themselves, and yelled orders for the younger and weaker to get back.

With her heart in her throat, Arielle studied the rips as giant legs emerged. It was titanic, about twenty feet, moving slowly out of the portal.

The panic in the air was palpable.

"Oh merciful sentinel," someone whispered, and Arielle shot out her hand, shouting, "[Living Shield!]"

Several feet of light webbed upward, and around the group, forming a dome.

Ari had seen Vittoria form the spell only once, during their fight against the dragon, and she had explained that the spell would feed on her life force to ensure that it was never broken.

However, the spell didn’t just use a lot of Luxa, Massa and Vacu, Making a shield this large also made Arielle feel like she was on the verge of passing out. 

It seemed Vittoria had far more life force than her. That and her shields had been smaller. 

Arielle reduced the scale of the spell, ensuring that Maus and Lyra were protected. 

She still felt a little weak, but it was a logical sacrifice. This was the only way she could protect her best friends and ensure the shields did not fall, unless she did. 

However, more portals appeared too, demons of all kinds coming into their reality.

Another cacophony of attacks hit each portals uselessly. Arielle noticed something. 

These rips were different from what earlier demons had used. The good news was that the demons were moving slowly, as though restricted by something. Or maybe it was thanks to their additional containment. Their bodies were wrapped up in a kind of strange bubble that was somehow attached to the abyssal portal by a linking spell that she could see. 

Why she could see those orbs, and not Leviathan's, she wasn't sure, but it seemed there were different systems at play.

She theorized that the bubble was for protection. These demons emerged from the abyss, but wanted to protect themselves from it, such that they didn't grow weaker from the travel.

Right? That made the most sense to Arielle.  

Now, how had they done that? And why did they not do it before? Was that something they had to learn? Or perhaps a complex spell they needed to use. Were they forging it the entire time during the attacks? Was that why the attacks suddenly stopped? Because they no longer needed the distraction. Because the true threat was now ready. 

It had all been a trap from the beginning. 

Regardless…

Ari held out her hand and grabbed the linking spells, holding it and preventing its extension, thereby freezing the demons in place.

The bad news was that the attachment and the bubble also seemed to act like a shield, and by keeping them trapped without emerging fully, it seemed like any attacks against the demons were ineffective. 

It didn’t matter if you got close. .

One of the warrior mages charged in with a sword, moving fast as light, their swings tracing up and down the titan's half-exposed frame.

None of their strikes landed, and Arielle could only watch in despair as more and more portals appeared, almost faster than she could trap them. She began to feel the strain of holding so many, especially as the legions began to pull against her hold.

"Our attacks aren't working," someone said, their laboured breathing behind Arielle. "What do we do?"

No one had an answer. They couldn’t run back into any of the buildings that could be filled with demons. They couldn’t separate.  

They could do nothing but watch their incoming doom. 

The air was choked with fear. 

There were so many demons, and these looked different than the earlier ones. Bigger. More powerful.

Arielle watched the bubble, desperately trying to understand it. How was it formed? How were the demons shielded by the abyss while appearing on Earth? How had Leviathan's spell struck the ground, but they hadn't been able to strike him back?

She had no clue for any of it, but there was one thing she did know. 

"I'm keeping them trapped in the bubble," Arielle explained. "And as long as I keep them there, they won't be able to move, but we also won't be able to touch them."

"How long can you hold on for?" Lenore asked.

"Not very,” Arielle said. Already there was a low pulse in her head, her muscles screaming. She was further weakened by the shield she’d placed on Lyra and Maus. The orbs she held onto vibrated violently, nearly screeching from the pressure of the tug of war.

The demons were going to eventually win. There were just too many of them and Arielle was tired, more mentally than physically. Her mind tried to work through several possibilities as she faced the biggest challenge she’d ever faced, but all she could think was that he had been watching her and knew her tricks.

 Leviathan had found a way to hide the essences, because they knew she could see them. They could hide their attacks from her, and she could not figure out a way out of it.

A sense of hopelessness descended on her.

Perhaps that was why Leviathan had told them that.

Because he wanted this, this despair, this fear choking her throat, knowing that there was nothing they could do. 

“Well,” Lenore spoke up. ”I may not be much help to you all right now, as they have a harbinger of doom with them and my misery debt is stacking up.” She said it with the same casual air of irritation with which one would speak of an uninvited guest, when they did not have enough food to offer them. "There is one final card I can play, one with no weakness.”

"What is it?" Benhai asked.

Lenore took out a scroll, and unfolded it. Arielle didn't look at what was on it, but she heard Master Thiel's gasp.

“That’s…” He looked at her and said, “But …Archmage, that will–”

“We don’t have a choice,” she remarked calmly. “The minute Vittoria lets go, they will be on us, and we will likely be dead in minutes. This way at least gives us a fighting chance.”

“You can’t,” Master Thiel whispered, sounding mournful.

“It’s alright. I’ve lived a long, long enough life. My affairs are in order.” 

The woman stepped closer and out of the corner of her eye, Arielle saw her smile. “A so-called festival oracle told me of it once, that when my time came, it would be at your side, Vittoria. Of course, she was a quack, but I suppose a broken clock is right twice a day."

Ariuelle turned to her, not knowing what to think or say. Not knowing how to deal with this and feeling completely out of her depth. .

Suddenly, she felt very much like a child in an adult costume. 

 For the first time, Archmage Lenore had a weak smile on her face.

"Wait for my signal before you let them go," she said.

Ari felt she should say more, do more, but all her focus was on doing what she needed to do, and protecting her loved ones. Maybe later she could…

There might not be a later.

Arielle couldn’t process or sort out the tumultuous emotion within her. Her voice was stuck in her throat, the impossible fate looming ahead of them.

The incoming end. 

She had to find a solution. She had to but there was none coming to mind as the other woman closed her eyes, holding her hands out.

The scroll rose into the air and unfurled, glowing, a complex pyramid of hieroglyphs extending from it.

Then it split.

"Now," Lenore said.

Arielle broke the bonds.

The creatures roared as they charged, and a rush of magic threw them back.

Arielle had just a single moment to watch Lenore collapse and chaos break out, before she was swallowed in darkness.

“No!” Arielle screamed, but it was too late.

She was no longer with them.

She was hurtling through the abyss, and that was when she saw it.

Layers of reality forming the shape of a horizontal hourglass. 

It was a flash of an image before she appeared in a realm of red, but it was enough to give her a hint of what might be happening.

They were layers of the abyss.

Leviathan's realm existed past several layers, and that was where she was. She recognized it from the last time she was here. 

The darkness.

The lava splitting through mountains and flowing over hills.

The heat scorched her from the inside out.

But something was different.

She couldn’t see the orbs that made up the space. The last time she had been here, the orbs had glittered like stars in the night. This time the night sky was bare, the only light afforded by the glow of the molten rock.

She had an idea. 

What if he’d hidden the orbs, essentially by turning his realm inside out in a sense. Or more accurately, he'd pushed the orbs out to exist in the throat of the abyssal hourglass, where a tunnel of magic connected his world to the human world.

She didn’t know how the thing was created but she had seen magic within it anyway and that had to mean something. 

It would explain why Leviathan could cast a spell in the human world from his realm without a single orb seen. 

Because all the magic originated from this pocket where the human and the demonic realm touched, and there was no anchor needed because they had been merged at that point.

Or perhaps, there was an anchor.

Likely a disciple, trapped in a statue, having a hand in both the abyss and Earth.

Anchors of the Living, Souls of the Dead.

Arielle figured all that out as Leviathan chased her through his nightmarish realm.

She knew from experience that everything she tossed at him would be reversed to her. The only thing she wasted spells on was to make herself faster. 

But ultimately there was nowhere to run to. Her only hope before had been stealing and breaking his spells, but now she couldn't even see them, and as she tried to escape, the environment worked to hinder her.

Leviathan appeared in front of her suddenly, and she shot out her hand to blast him backward.

But it was no use.

Instead, a spell she couldn't see bound her, freezing her in place.

“Oh, you have no idea how long I've waited for this moment,” he said with a dark chuckle as he floated over to where she stood on a mountain, trying to leave. “After all the humiliation I've faced, all the loss, I can finally make you suffer everything I have."

Arielle remained silent. 

Even now, she was desperately trying to find a way out, but her mind was exhausted, her options seeming to disappear in front of her eyes. There were no orbs here for her to use. All she had was her battery, and even that was almost out.  

Arielle thought she might die here. 

And there was nothing she could do about it.

She was not scared of the death part. However, she was worried about the people she'd left behind. Her panic was about not being able to save them and leaving them to perish.

Not to mention, the process of dying would likely be as unpleasant as what the ghoul had done to her.

Arielle was in serious trouble.  

Maybe she could negotiate with him.

Demons were not to be trusted, but she had no other choice.

"Is there anything I can offer you to change your mind?" she asked, and he laughed.

"Even now, your arrogance rears its ugly head.." He shook his head and approached her, a black-tipped syringe appearing in his hand. "You know, I've thought long and hard about how I want to do this. A simple, quick death is too good for you. I also briefly entertained the idea of turning you into a demonkin and making you my minion."

Panic surged through her. Absolutely not. She did not want to be a demon minion.

"But," he continued. "Giving you more lives than you deserve doesn't seem like an adequate punishment. Not to mention that your skill makes it complicated."

Good. 

On the other hand, would being a demon be worse than being dead?

As a demon, she could still protect her friends, couldn't she? Or would she become mindless, unable to even recognize her friends as she attacked them?

"However," he continued. "The thought of killing you over and over again does have some appeal. So I decided to combine the two forms of punishment. A curious blend of torture: slow, grueling pain while giving you just enough essence to keep you alive. Isn't that amazing?"

"No," Arielle said, shaking her head. 

His face rippled, his expression squeezing in hatred.

“You don’t seem to care.”

“I do.” She didn't want to be in pain but she was tired of it at this point, and he didn’t seem likely to change his mind. 

"Oh, you will beg for sweet release of death by the time this is over." He approached her, and even as she fought, the needle pushed through her skin. 

Pain bursted from the point of impact and flooded through her body. 

Heavens help me. 

It was the worst thing she’d ever felt. Worse than the ghoul. Worse than the fire. 

Arielle let out a groan as agony wracked her flesh, fire burning her from the inside out. A scream tore out of her throat next, because it only got worse with time and she fought against her bonds, to escape the pain somehow. 

He laughed.

"That’s more like it," he said, and the poison raced through her bones.

Sentinel.

It hurt. It hurt so bad.

She was going to die.

She imagined Lyra and Maus and Elric. Her family. She would never see them again. They would be unprotected, and she wouldn't be there to save them.

Unless…

Unless…

She could find help.

She needed help. It was hard to tell where the thought came from. In the delirium of agony, her desperate mind seeking escape, it had finally dredged up the one option she didn’t consider. 

Go inward. Seek the abyss within and and search for a way out.

She didn't know how it would work, but she couldn’t let herself die here. Most importantly, she couldn’t let her friends and Elric die either. 

She focused on nothingness, even though the pain made it difficult to ignore her physical senses, even though Leviathan's laughter echoed between them. Arielle felt a heat around her wrist, and knew it was Vittoria's portal bird activating now that it sensed she was in real danger. But it could not help her here as much as it wanted to. She felt it yank at her arm, trying to fly her to safety, but it was useless. .

So she shut her eyes, and anchored herself to the truth, to herself.

I am Arielle Blacksoil.

I am a Mossborne.

Everything hurts.

I will not let my friends die.

I will not lose. 

She forced herself to ignore the pain, pushing past it, to a point where it no longer existed. She searched for the emptiness beyond her heartbeat, her blood mixing with the poison, her cores glowing and her feet stinging.

She heard the sound of laughter and knew she had arrived at the right place.

***

Gio Li was battling nightmares. 

The abyss had a way of doing that, of dragging out your worst fears and making you face them. But it had never been this antagonistic before. 

Beast after beast chased him into worlds he'd never seen before. He had beaten scenario after scenario, creature after creature, and yet there was no way out.

Even the way he'd come in was now blocked to him.

He was as familiar as any human with moving through the abyss, but it seemed there were still things he did not know.

Lots of things, actually.

And he would be having fun, defeating monsters, extending his knowledge, testing his prowess.

If only he knew just who was behind this.

What creature had such spectacular control over the abyss that he eluded Gio so easily.  Not only that, but he moved Gio through worlds seamlessly, endless dystopia where he had to fight his way through sometimes without magic.

It also disabled his anchor, meaning he could not go back.

All he could do was sense the movement. He chased it, hoping to find the one who controlled the abyss. 

The abyss wasn’t directional. Moving around it was just floating over endless darkness, until you found something to hold you interest. 

It was different for Gio because he had something called [Abyssal Sense].

The abyssal sense wasn't quite magic, but came with an extended stay in a given abyss. It gave Gio the ability to know when things were coming, and what shared the spaces with him. 

He sensed demons in the abyss at what point, and chased them with a dogged zeal. 

But something would always jump in his way, usually a world that captured him. Or a monstrous version of his father. 

He’d killed that bastard over and over, except that it always came back to life to remind him that he could not do the same in real life. And when he got tired of it, Gio searched for the elusive figure that he simply could not see, that he could not access. 

Until, without warning, he sensed something else.

Something familiar, and human.

Arielle Blacksoil.

It was the taste of her magic, one that he was very familiar with. She was in the abyss. Why?

It didn’t matter.

He eagerly searched for her, though it was well known that it was practically impossible to find someone you were looking for in the abyss, without an anchor. 

Luckily, he had something that could help.

And he would scour this entire place until he found her.

***

AN: A visual representation of the hourglass, inspired by the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.