Chapter: 768 - Zenith (4) (Patreon)

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Tala’s threefold perception twisted at the injunction of the Supreme Commander of the Black Legion. “SEE.”

She knew he hadn’t yelled that last word, but it still hit her like a hammer, like the detonation of colossal magics, like the death of a friend.

It had the weight of the entire legion behind it, and it pierced straight to her very core.

Tala didn’t just accept the clearly conceptual utterance. She brought her authority against his, but in that conflict, she found an oddity.

She wanted to see the truth. Tala had been guilty of self-delusion too many times to desire to hide from the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

She did her best to truly seek out places in which she was wrong so that she could correct her own thinking and behavior.

Verity hadn’t tried to force a viewpoint on her, or influence her mind. His conceptual command was absolutely dripping with a single, simple thing.

Truth.

She wasn’t naive enough to think it was the truth, or anything so universal, but his power wasn’t seeking her harm.

He just wanted to pull back the veil and show her something that she hadn’t seen before.

As such, her defenses were wholly inadequate to fend off the reality-laden command.

If anything, her authority invited it in, her role as Eskau of War incentivizing her desire to understand her enemy.

The allies needed more time, and if this could help them get more of it? That was an additional benefit as well.

The command landed.

She saw.

Verity had understood her claim and acknowledged it as true. She was a being of existence. Magic, void, and reality were all a part of her, and she of them.

Tala was the Iron Matriarch, and the three pillars were as much under her care as anyone or anything.

She was Maternal Iron, the hard edge and support for those she cherished and sheltered.

She was the Ravenous, Jealous Devourer, claiming, subsuming, and directing all that she wished, all that was hers.

Tala genuinely and truly wished to heal reality from the unquestionable harm that had been done to it and shield it from any further harm going forward.

In every sense that mattered, reality itself could be considered under her care, in need of a mother’s firm yet gentle hand.

The temporary beings on the superficial faded from prevalence to her notice. Even those that were immortal were still fleeting in light of existence itself, and reality was just the same.

Reality was her child, ants daring to bite at him as he came to her in tears, vainly flailing at that which hurt him.

Of course she would sweep them away. What care did she have for such horrid insects?

Why would it matter that the ants didn’t mean to hurt her son? They were, and it would stop.

It. Would. Stop.

Now.

*

Terry felt the change within Tala down to the core of his spirit, his bond with her suddenly twisting as her eyes were opened to something he couldn’t see.

Even tangentially, the change rocked him, and he flickered out of the conflict lest he be harmed in his moment of distracted weakness.

He staggered, his vision swimming and his unshakable knowledge of what to do and where to be trembled, uncertain.

That, more than anything, froze him on the spot.

He had been uncertain many times, especially before he’d come to trust the little-understood instinct, but that instinct had never been anything but resolute, absolutely unable to be shaken.

It shook now.

Tala’s aura felt like it was hardening, crystalizing and strengthening, the reality within her power shifting into prominence, clear horror radiating from her at whatever she was seeing.

Terry knew something was very wrong.

He had felt Verity issue a command, but such couldn’t be used to deceive Terry’s bond. The level of power was too closely matched for anything so extreme.

Whatever he’d done and however he’d done it, Verity had caused an issue. Terry’s hatchling was seeing something true, something real.

For the first time in a very long time, Terry trembled with concern for those that he loved.

*

Rane’s soul shook.

His wife’s scream had been one of unbelievable loss and maternal rage.

He instinctively checked, and found Lea, safe and sound within the sanctum.

Bless the stars. Even so, he could feel Tala’s emotion through their soulbond, and everything within him wanted to remove whatever was causing her such distress.

Rane couldn’t pull away from the Leshkin. He was one of the balancing forces, keeping their people alive as they chipped away at the reconstituting forms, while seeking purchase to end them permanently.

He was ready for Tala’s call, but if he came before it was time, that would upend the entire plan.

In his current fight, Rane was starting to get a handle on things, even beginning to sense the odd, ethereal spirit of the greater Leshkin themselves, the vessel that was filled, empowered, and enabled by all the lessers filling it up.

It was an odd mimicry of the soulcores, while being entirely composed of spirits.

The result was a surprisingly tame imitation of the heresy that was soul enslavement. Every spirit in the Leshin was a willing participant and could depart whenever they wished.

Not that it mattered. An enemy using moral means to attack him didn’t mean that he’d stand there and take it.

Regardless of all that, he couldn’t go to his wife. Those fighting at her side—or at least on her front against the Black Legion directly—were likewise engaged and couldn’t do anything to assist. Though, they’d not be likely to have a chance regardless.

As such, even as he continued to clash with those he had to counter, Rane pushed his feelings, his love, his comfort through the soulbond.

Doing his best to let his less powerful soul be a cornerstone upon which Tala could orient, and upon and around which she could rally.

I believe in you, my love. You have this.

*

Lea was standing before she realized that she’d moved, and Talax was at her side.

“Lea…” His voice was uncertain, but there was still a clear warning in it.

“I know, Talax!” She all but snapped at him, then she grimaced. “I’m sorry… I know you’re here to help me, at your own choice. I shouldn’t have snapped, but look!” She gestured at the image of her mother, screaming.

The automaton leader hadn’t even touched Tala.

He’d arrived in a conflagration of fire and dissolution, then simply spoken, and her mother had begun to scream.

Lea could actually hear something familiar in that scream.

It wasn’t really one of pain, but one of concern over pain in another, one of anger, one of righteous fury.

Lea didn’t know what it meant, but she was suddenly afraid.

*

Verity felt the turbulence in her aura, in her power, in her command over the nearby world, and he closed his eyes.

He could not cry.

Oh, he could force the physiological mimicry of tears, but he couldn’t cry from sadness without consciously choosing to.

At times such as these, he wished he could.

He could feel the despair in this being of existence before him.

This woman who could so cleanly solve everything if only she understood the travesty that existed all around her.

He did not delight in showing her the truth.

He gained no joy from her wail of fury.

But he’d lived with the knowledge of horror that she was just now beginning to understand, and he’d done so for centuries, the reality of it eroding at his sanity whenever he let himself consider it for too long.

Reality was screaming, every second of every day, but most couldn’t hear it.

Reality wept into the void as those it tried to support cut and tore at it with their every movement.

Torture should be used sparringly or avoided entirely but reality? It was never ending.

The Black Legion was an auto-immune response, attacking a septic limb, seeking to remove it before it could destroy the whole.

It was long past time for half-measures, and if this woman could be the axe of true severance, then he would praise the stars for her arrival.

If she could protect the rest of the body from them, then all the better, so long as the sepsis was removed.

She should be their herald, their instrument of glorious fulfillment, but she stood in protection of the very disease ravaging her charge.

Verity did not attack her even as her scream faded, her eyes unfocused as her mind clearly grappled with what he’d revealed to her sight.

He didn’t want to kill her. He didn’t want her destroyed.

They could accomplish the mission, but it would be messy and cause undue suffering. She could scour reality clean if she would but take up the cause of reality, letting it empower her beyond even the Sovereigns who watched, unwilling to interfere.

Zeme would be remade in her image, a true union of reality, void, and magic—yes, even that hated necessity—and once these festering wounds were gone, all would be right.

Sapience didn’t have to tear at reality, but magic—as it was—did, and that would not be borne.

So, Verity waited as his enemy—who should be his greatest supporter—fell to her knees and wept.

*

Rane deflected arcing cables, roots, and vines as they tried to hook around the ever-shifting defense that he and the Talons were maintaining.

Their fraying lengths tried to cut at him, but he warded them away even as he interposed himself between the less robust members of the alliance and further incoming attacks.

His greatest tool in one-on-one combat couldn’t be used in situations like this as dodging the incoming attacks to let them pass by him would defeat the purpose of being between the attacker and those in need of defense. He needed to be hit, to take the incoming strikes, though he preferred taking them on his blade or armor than anywhere more damaging.

Nevertheless, he would do as he must, and he would not let the heavy-hitters of the Defender teams and wandering masters be harmed.

He was the sculpted pillar of mankind, and he made his stand here.

His heart broke for his wife, but he also trusted her too much to allow disaster among their forces while he tried to interfere.

If she called, he would come, but if she did not, he would depend upon her.

Just as he had for years.

She was his, and he hers.

Forever.

*

Lea wept in Talax’s embrace even as the young man shook.

She didn’t let the outpouring last long before she pulled back. “Go. You could help.”

He gave her a flat look. “If I go, so will you.”

She looked away, not wanting to lie to him, especially since they both knew he was right.

“I don’t care if others might think this is a waste of my ability. It is something only I can do, and it will help decide the battle, even if only by preventing disaster.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like that I’m that potential disaster.”

He gave her a half-smile. “And you like it less because you know I’m right.”

She grimaced then buried her face in his chest once more. “Jerk.”

He laughed, petting her hair in soothing strokes. “She’ll be alright. I know you trust your mom. Lean on that trust. She’s going to be alright.”

Neither of them would mention just how much it felt like Talax was trying to convince himself.

*

Eskau Meallain flexed her concept, using trickles of long-absent power to influence the flow of battle, not any individual person.

It was a common misconception about her abilities, one that she never corrected—even going so far as to encourage it—and one that had let her rise through the ranks.

The more skilled a fighter was, the better they could read a battlefield or even a single fight. The truly skilled would then work to take control of the rhythms and bring them into step with their desires.

Eskau Meallain changed that directly.

Those who didn’t actually know how to fight were the least influenced by her workings, but those, she could obliterate with her own skill alone. Her only real issue was against things that couldn’t be avoided for one reason or another, but none of their current opponents had such attacks, at least not that they were using.

She’d had to shrug off magics attempting to command her to get hit, but those had been laughable.

Eskau Meallain was a peerless warrior. No one that she would ever obey—no one with true command over her—would command her to take a dangerous hit. As such, the workings tried to get her to do something that was not realistically possible.

Similar, when they tried to command her to miss.

She was Eskau Meallain.

She didn’t miss.

Her Talons were giving a good show alongside Rane, working together to keep the other fighters—the rather poorly trained gated—alive. That was good. If they fell, the fight might become untenable.

Eskau Meallain liked good fights, not unwinnable ones.

She stepped around a downward slash, cutting the prime commander in half and forcing it to expend yet more power to come back together.

This battle had layers that she was unable to perceive, but that didn’t really matter to her.

Combat was the only thing that really mattered in the end, and she was master of that. Something within her sang at the thought, but it wasn’t relevant.

After all, there were sparring dummies to knock around.

Eskau Tala… Something was happening to her that Eskau Meallain didn’t understand.

The woman had promised Eskau Meallain the ability to fight in this war, and she suspected that whatever was affecting the Eskau of War was putting that in jeopardy.

That was not acceptable.

The fact that the Black Legion Leader—Verity she thought he’d said—wasn’t attacking didn’t bode well either.

Eskau Meallain was there to fight, and anything that jeopardized that would not be borne.

Without really considering overlong, the elf reached out with a flick of her power and shifted the battlefield between the two centers of the clash.

It didn’t matter that their fight wasn’t one of blades for the moment. Eskau Meallain understood a fight when she saw one, and shifting fighters’ views of their foe was exactly what her power was for.

She couldn’t control anyone, that was beyond her, and she wouldn’t even try. All that she could do was open the door for them to step through. The choice and steps were always their own.

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