Chapter: 769 - Zenith (5) (Patreon)

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Tala gasped, the truth undeniable now that she’d seen it.

She almost reached out to her chains and tore the aggressors off her charge, clearing reality in the region to give it at least some relief, but those chains weren’t ready yet.

They were being reforged after… That was right. She’d advanced, Ascending to the next rank after her body—including her net of reality iron chains—had been unmade.

Alat was working steadily to remake them with their new understanding and power, but they weren’t ready, not quite yet.

That was a shame. It would be far easier to deal with the little biters in such a single, unified act. Even so, she could probably force them to work.

But… that had been the plan, hadn’t it?

She shook her head slightly, feeling like the weight of truth was causing her to neglect ancillary information, things that should be important.

Rane’s soul—nestled against and bound to her own—pressed against her awareness, calming and drawing her focus.

Even still, the harsh reality of the damage being done every instant demanded a solution… didn’t it?

Reality had to be protected at all costs. After all, without reality, nothing could continue. It was the foundation from which everything else was derived.

This needed to be solved now.

Her thoughts were bouncing back and forth, Rane’s steadiness within her providing perspective even if she couldn’t get herself to fully turn to regard that point of view and the truth of the lacerations being constantly afflicted upon reality by those who… Those who…

Wait… Reality near at hand is fine. She frowned. Remembering what she’d done and then seeing the reality that she’d stabilized the near region, hardening reality against the flagellation from the gated.

Still, she could feel reality’s cries against the suffering it was enduring.

She was oscillating, teetering between that which lay before her.

It was then, as she was seeking another means of relieving reality of its attackers, that a flick of power rolled over the space around her.

It didn’t touch her. Despite its inherent power, she doubted it would have been able to work on her with her guard up.

Nevertheless, it affected her through its indirect shifting of the tempo around her. It highlighted portions of the clash that she’d tuned out as she hyper-focused on reality’s suffering.

Only Rane’s stalwart support within her provided the footing she needed for her mind to latch onto that lifeline.

In that momentary ting of time, she snatched at a core reality.

Truth was a weapon, and partial truth more so.

She’d known it from the beginning, but the plight of reality and gated’s part in doing harm weren’t the truth. That was simply a truth, and one she had been aware of, even if she had been keeping it from truly sinking in.

The fact that it had been brought to the forefront shouldn’t and didn’t override all else that she knew.

Her eyes cleared, and she felt tears running down her face.

Verity stood before her, barely two dozen yards away as their forces clashed all around them.

Even so, he was still. He wasn’t attacking.

That conceptual twinge remained, opening the door for her renewed perspective.

No, he already attacked, and he’s waiting to see its effect.

This truth was his attack, his gambit.

He truly viewed the world in this manner, and he believed that she’d be forced—convicted—to join him if only she could see.

It helped that he was at least partially right. All gated—and modern magic users in general—were harming reality to a greater or lesser degree, and that did need to be addressed or Zeme would never achieve the heights that were within reach.

That said, the view of reality as a child being bitten by unthinking insects simply was not accurate.

There were millions of people depending upon magic for everything from food production to heat in the winter.

It couldn’t simply be removed without harming a lot of people, and they were people not mere insects.

True, they were fleeting as well—that hadn’t been a lie—but it wasn’t the short lives of insects that made them less valuable, it was their lack of a soul, their lack of consciousness, of sapience.

Gated were people, regardless of how arcanes viewed them, and Tala wouldn’t just squash them nor allow others to do so, even if she weren’t one herself.

The arcane distance from most gated made it easier to ‘other’ gated humanity, but that was their failing, and part of what had led to the creation of the Black Legion in the first place.

So, what Verity said was true, and not just ‘from a certain point of view.’ This wasn’t a case of self-delusion for either of them; that would be too easy.

It came down to the value of a life, and Tala didn’t put a more expedient repair of the world ahead of the lives of those living on it.

Verity did.

There would be no agreement, because their differences weren’t ones of information but of fundamental belief.

He didn’t have to be her enemy. After all, she wanted what he wanted, but she would always be his enemy because of his base nature, his base worldview.

His voice was sad, resigned. “So, you do not care for the suffering of reality.”

Tala scoffed, still fighting back the emotional whiplash. “You have erred. You showed me grief, and I have understood.” She gave a sad smile. “But the opposite of grief isn’t happiness, the opposite of grief is forgetting.”

Despite his distance, he seemed to notice the change in her eyes. “So, you’ve chosen willful blindness, then?”

That caused a huffed laugh. “No. The opposite of grief may be forgetting, but there is no victory in that. I choose grief.” Her smile grew even as the evident emotion in it swelled. “I still see reality’s suffering, but that doesn’t change my stance.” Tala shook her head, rising to her feet. “You have forced me to see something that I was ignoring or putting aside. That is of value, and it seems that we’ve each helped the other see more clearly. Even so, that doesn’t make you right, Verity.” She felt the flicker of authority at the mention of his name and quashed it herself, almost laughing. “As a point of note, calling something a rose doesn’t make it lovely or smell sweet, and calling yourself truth doesn’t make you right.”

He grunted but shook his head. “I doubt you will see the distinction, but I didn’t choose my name. Reality did. That is, in fact, why it can be a word from another language despite this world’s brokenness.”

Tala opened her mouth to argue, remembering a fox-kin saying something about names and other languages, but that would actually be adding to Verity’s point. Regardless, even if reality did name him—directly or indirectly—that changed nothing. Reality’s position on this conflict was rather clear and always had been.

Verity seemed to come to a similar conclusion. “But it matters not. Truth has been shown to you, and anyone of character would have been convinced of the rightness behind my actions.”

Tala huffed another laugh. “One convinced against her will, is of the same opinion still.”

The automaton frowned, clearly confused. “What?”

Tala sighed. “One fact cannot be the basis of choice, Verity. You are right, reality is suffering and we need to fix that, but that is not all that matters.”

Verity actually looked saddened for a moment, but then, his sword lifted up once more. “Then, we do this the hard way.”

Flow manifested as an ending-glaive in her hand. “So it seems.”

*

Terry let out an exultant cry as his bond-mate hit the world like a meteor.

Tala’s power and authority suddenly radiated outward, strong and resolute once more; the momentary turmoil overcome and overwhelmed.

Moreover, he felt her signal to take things up a notch. It was past the point where their enemies could easily disengage, and it was time to show them why their cause had been a lost one from the beginning.

Armor—long practiced in secret and rarely used—flowed out of the dimensions of magic, coating Terry in segmented plates that simply got smaller and more articulated to fill in what otherwise would have been gaps. It was like Tala’s in almost every way save who it covered.

It was made of was all but liquid metal, taking a solid form so that no reality field could interfere at inopportune times.

At the same time, Terry began pulling weaponry from the dimensional space that Tala had filled for the purpose.

He didn’t fight with the weapons directly, nor were they designed for him to do so.

Instead, each had been crafted to be thrown, and Terry became a dervish, hurtling out weaponry as he flickered around the battlefield.

None of the weapons would be enough to change a fight on their own, but their cutting lines added to the attrition of the herd, hemming the prey in and pulling back the curtain.

This had always been a hunt, and the predators would eat.

Terry had practiced for years, flickering away and back so quickly that it was all but unnoticeable, and he finally, finally was given prompting to use that long-honed skill.

He set up beside an elk-kin moutain-lion—or was it a puma? Maybe he should check…—unusually seeming to stay in place and trade blows with the far weaker creature.

Still, its antlers radiated a power that uplifted the big cat to be close enough to Terry’s level that it was all but a fair fight.

It was then that he really noticed how granular the Forest Spirit’s impartings were. As his offspring faced various foes, they were always empowered to be just stronger than those they faced, keeping the power imbalance in favor of the herd while not wasting magic wantonly.

Regardless, Terry’s armor was more than up for the task of facing off against the feline, despite Terry not flickering for that fight.

No, his flicker was being used elsewhere.

He was appearing everywhere around the battle in the air, every flicker precisely placed and just long enough to catch a weapon in flight—whether it had hit its previous target or not—and throw it along a new trajectory.

In truth, he shouldn’t have been able to even be gone that long, but he was flickering so quickly that he was essentially in multiple places at once.

That, of course, meant that he could have been flickering around the cat and taking it apart at his leisure, but he was a distraction, a beacon in his white armor, and the intention was to pull away from his secondary locations, making them harder to track. Terry wanted to seem as if those external flickers were being accomplished by someone or something else.

He had added himself as another focal point of this fight, and already, nearby elk and elk-kin were orienting on him, taking pressure off the wolves they’d been numerically overwhelming and evening the odds, adding yet more leverage to the Pack’s hunt.

Terry cawed in triumph as he purposely dragged out the feline’s demise.

His feigned difficulty would draw more food to him.

…More enemies. It would draw more foes.

And his foes would become his food.

*

Lea pulled away from Talax, seeing the turn as her mother returned to her feet and attacked, the slates unable to convey the feel of the fight even as the air itself warped and flexed under the force, power, and speed of each strike in the brief clash.

On another slate, Uncle Terry was suddenly armored, and Lea realized that he’d been holding that capacity in reserve. Apparently the time for holding back was over.

“Oh!” She leaned closer, noticing subtle shifts across the battlefield as new powers began to come into prominence.

Pillars began utilizing their magic to master whole sectors of the large clearing in which their Eskau and allies fought the commander variants.

Eskau became slightly faster than before, the magic within them upticking even as they pulled more strongly on their concepts, protian weapons blazing forth as a source of power that allowed for longer, high-level combat.

You know, if you think about it, Mom could be considered the protian weapon of every Talon… It was an interesting thought.

Even Eskau Meallain’s protian weapon seemed to have been unfettered, and the elf wielded it with skill and ferocity.

None of those they were fighting were easy to put down despite wounds and damage that would have brought lesser creatures low.

Magical healing or the equivalent was simply too ubiquitous, but the allied forces had begun to push through it.

The Forest Spirit was looking more and more beleaguered, despite the elk seemingly continuing to hold back three god-beasts wolves.

That was honestly probably why he was looking so haggard as he held up the central point of the conflict on his own.

Unfortunately, healing occasionally radiated across the immortal elk, restoring him almost fully each time, and renewing his efforts.

As they were watching, she heard Walden’s voice radiate across the fight, unmistakable even as he fought with one of the other elks. “This is the cost of holding down your progeny, Forest Spirit. None have been able to rise up and help you, to be a partner beside you, to lighten your load. Instead, you have locked these from the heights of power and forced them to bend to your will. Even your granted power, which they use, weakens you and spreads out what should have allowed an overwhelming victory.” He chuffed, tossing his antlers even as he slammed into the other. “You have lost because you have taken a fundamental tenant of nature and thrown it aside.” Walden caught out one of the front legs of his opponent, breaking it with a ruthless twist. “Nature is struggle. Only that which is domesticated, civilized, is peaceful and unchanging. You have imposed artificiality on the heart of nature, and that is why you are so weak when you should be unassailable.”

The elk-kin on the field hesitated at the resonant truth in Walden’s words, and their antlers flared in Sovereign power, forcing their return to the fray despite hesitation.

But that expression of power wasn’t free.

The Forest Spirit bellowed a long bugling rebuke, ramming a prong into Conri’s shoulder, but that had been a trap. Walden’s pronouncement had been the next step in a pre-planned turning of the tide.

Conri twisted into the injury, clamping his jaws on another part of the antlers and locking them in place.

Botulf and Anatalis came from either side, and their choice of target showed their difference in experience.

Botulf tore at the Forest Spirit’s gut, ripping in and allowing viscera to spill out and rain through the sky, even as his heat cauterized in an attempt to prevent quick healing.

Anatalis snapped his jaws just beside the lower joint of the elk’s leg before he lunged back, twisting and tearing even as he forged magics that hammered at the weak point that was now held in place.

Shields, deflections. and other defenses of magic and might clashed as the two apex beasts entirely countered on another despite all else that the Forest Spirit was doing, but Anatalis wasn’t alone.

Between the Alpha on the foreleg and Conri on the antlers, the Forest Spirit was pinned.

Add as Botulf’s continued attacks on the elk’s physical form and weak points, the Forest Spirit was entirely unprepared for the bird—that seemed to have been entirely engaged elsewhere—that flickered into being, talons lashing out, sheathed in the energy of the ending blade.

With a snick, the leg was irreparably severed, and Terry was gone.

Lea took a step forward, eyes widening even as Talax cheered.

*

Tala felt the culmination of the attacks on the Forest Spirit and knew it was her time. They were ready for the final piece of distraction that would open the gates for their gamble.

-Almost ready! You’re good to go.-

“Rane, love? I need you.”

She twisted and took a glancing blow on her shoulder, the concept blade utterly erasing her left arm even as she took Verity’s hand.

They would each grow the taken limb back. It had happened many times already, and neither had the power to prevent the other from healing.

What it did allow was a moment.

Tala kicked the automaton away, reaching for the sword even though she knew what would occur when she grabbed hold.

Her left arm sprouted back as the fingers of her right hand closed on the hilt.

Rane appeared, putting himself in Verity’s path before the supreme commander could return, their clash becoming a blur as her husband was able to use all of his magics and defensive abilities, now that he wasn’t standing between the enemy and those weaker than himself.

The attacks that bypassed him weren’t a problem for Tala.

Terry had taken Rane’s position against the Leshkin for a moment, but he was less suited to that role. Hopefully, it would only be for a short span of time.

Overhead, the flash of hundreds of miniscule attacks rained upon the Forest Spirit, adding disorientation and distraction upon pain as from every ‘battlefield,’ the allied forces reminded the enemy that they were fighting together, every fighter that could sending a single attack against the great elk, the keystone of the threat brought against them.

It was within that chaos that they had their chance.

Tala grabbed the handle of the booby-trapped concept blade and flickered.

As the elk was still bellowing a second time—this utterance one of pain and rage—he didn’t register Tala’s arrival.

She rammed the sword straight into his chest, piercing his heart in the instant before the sword detonated into a radiating tree of reality splinters.

The Sovereign god-beast’s eyes went wide as the fundamental forces clashed within him.

Anatalis stayed near, just in case, but Botulf and Conri immediately sprang away, engaging other enemies before those battles could be lost.

They would return momentarily. Their presence would be needed.

-Good timing. Chains reforged, or should I say, Ascending?-

Tala huffed a laugh but didn’t otherwise respond to the joke.

She flexed her will and jewelry-fine chains of reality iron, iron, and white steel snapped into the superficial, each linked to a nail that each ally carried.

Her nails, and they were already filled with her might and authority.

She stood at the epicenter of a gleaming spiderweb of power.

She flickered back, but her eyes remained locked on those of the Forest Spirit, and she grinned, despite her helmet.

Then, with all her power and authority, Tala flexed, and it was as if the world bled.

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