PW Chapter 285: Finale’s Finality (Patreon)

Yesterday's chapter

The kill notification flashing in Astrid’s vision didn’t matter to her. The monster wearing human skin was dead, great. Behind her, the sound of the enemy Arcanite smashing against Aleksandr’s barrier faded away, but there was nothing Astrid could do about what was happening there. As such, she didn’t even look in that direction. In fact, she didn’t really care about that either.

All around, the battlefield fell into a strange lull as the Marchioness’s influence disappeared, but only for a short second. After the briefest moment of silence, it was broken. Gregor screamed in rage, and, despite Astrid’s burning need to go see her mother, she looked at him. That was all that saved her life. Most of the blood that swirled around him like an avatar of death sloughed to the ground, though some of it remained. Evidently, the loss of that buff from his master was more impactful than she would have expected. Even so, he was more than strong enough to take her out.

With blistering speed, he hurled his spear towards her. This wasn’t a bloody manifestation but the actual weapon, and Astrid tried to dodge out of the way. Even so, she knew it wouldn’t be fast enough. She simply wasn’t fast enough, and the weapon would kill her. Behind Gregor, a steely manifestation of Philip appeared and plunged its sword into Gregor’s chest. Astrid had no time to see if that would be enough to kill him, though.

Then, there was something between her and the spear. Shining armor glowed as a figure a fair amount taller than her appeared there. The head of the spear punched out of the back of Felix’s armor, no blood spraying with the attack. The force of the throw slammed him back into Astrid, even with Immovable Stance, the aspect of his equipment Skill that kept him from moving, fighting against it.

Muti screamed from nearby, and Astrid turned to look at her friend. The Barbarian was still locked in a wrestling match with the glowing grappler that had driven her away from the Marchioness. As Astrid gritted her teeth, she didn’t go immediately to her mother or tend to Felix. Instead, she ran forward and started pummeling the man who held Muti down.

Astrid had barely noticed the pain from including the Barbarian in her last charge of Regeneration, as she’d been nearly dead herself. Now, looking at her, she realized how rough of shape Muti was in. The Executioner’s armor bore deep cuts along every surface, and the draconic face of her helmet was misshapen from the grappler’s strikes. Her blood sprayed out of the mask with every breath as she fought desperately against the man whose glowing body seemed to dispel all of her Skills.

He turned towards Astrid as she came closer, but Astrid could see that his efforts at fighting were fading. His fists were falling slower, and his face, previously hidden by that glowing aura, now seemed to be twisting in confusion.

The Unfallen Meteor didn’t care if he was conflicted or coming out of mind control. She slammed her hammer into the base of his neck, the echoing smash of the attack splintering the golden Skill-granted protection. Evidently, this was another Adamantium tier kept in reserve, because his defenses held, mostly. Her echoing strike pierced through, but it was as if she’d struck a solid anvil. The hammer bounced off as the golden man became an ordinary-looking bald person of about middle age.

“What? I…” Somehow, Astrid’s attack seemed to pull the man out of a fugue state. Instead of continuing to attack him and possibly pushing him to continue to fight, Astrid grabbed Muti and pulled her out from under the man who knuckled his forehead and started to whimper in pain.

Astrid pushed Muti towards Felix, but barely made contact with her friend’s back as the golden-haired woman rushed towards Felix. Benedict was already there, trying to tend to his almost certainly fatal wound. After a moment’s consideration, Astrid tore her attention away from Felix to instead go to her mother.

She spared a glance backward and could see that, where Aleksandr’s golden bubble shield had once been, there was now a writhing mass of shadow. Gregor lay there on the ground, and given that he wasn’t being held there by anybody, Astrid felt it was a pretty good assumption to say that he was dead. Even so, whatever was happening with the Arcanite tiers would determine if she survived for more than a few minutes from now.

Then, for a brief moment, a strange sensation settled over the entire battlefield. Astrid felt a presence settle over her. Something almost divine seemed to cloud over every sense she had. She couldn’t tell how long it lasted, but when it disappeared, the shadow mass surrounding the Duchess had disappeared. There was a clear sound of a ringing bell that sent a shudder down Astrid’s spine. Then, the presence was gone, and everything faded back to normal. Going off how the Golden Fist remained standing there with the Duchess in the middle, but the enemy Arcanite had disappeared, Astrid felt a whole lot of questions coming over her.

Then, she was by Brighid, and her curiosity died. Her mother had a wound that was a mirror match to the one that had pierced Astrid through. Where Astrid’s had been restored by Regeneration, Brighid had been left there. Astrid could see each minute movement of her mother’s lung and heart there, each organ scorched and torn by the Marchioness’s attack.

“I’m here,” Astrid said. Then she screamed for a healer as she tried to get some response from her mother. Surely that movement meant she was still alive, right? Astrid had survived through worse. She pulled a potion from her spatial pouch and poured it over the wound before trying to get her mother to drink the rest. As the sparkling liquid flowed over the deep wound, little lights inside of the seared flesh turned the potion to mist. Brighid’s body didn’t respond to the potion. Astrid poured it down her throat, but even as Astrid massaged her throat, she didn’t swallow.

“She’s dead. That glove has a soul-rending enchantment. I’m sorry,” a voice said firmly but sympathetically. Astrid glanced in the direction of the words and saw the Adamantium-tier Healer that had come at Astrid’s call. The Healer didn’t delay any longer and then rushed towards Felix. Just like that, Astrid was left alone with her mother’s corpse. Wracking sobs choked from her throat, and she simply melted there, holding her mother’s head in her hands. She didn’t get to say goodbye or anything. Brighid’s last words had been begging for Astrid to run away as fast as she could.

Her mind didn’t race; her thoughts were stuck. Now that she started to cry, everything that Astrid had seen in the past… what was it, half an hour? Maybe less. Half an hour, and hundreds of people were dead. Maybe thousands. She had no idea how many civilians had been brutally murdered by the aftereffects of everybody’s Skills. How many children had been crushed under roofs? How many parents had desperately tried to protect everybody they loved and failed?

How many of those innocent deaths were her fault?

Astrid dismissed her helmet, the smell of her own puke coming back to haunt her. As the piece of equipment disappeared from her view, Astrid could look down at her mother’s face more clearly. Everything was clouded by her tears, and she hurt. Her body, her mind, her soul. Everything screamed in anguish, and she started to mutter to herself.

“Never again. Never.”

She couldn’t say for sure what she was talking about. War? She couldn’t stop every war from ever happening. Would she never participate again? Maybe, but if people needed her, she wanted to spare them from this pain.

That was too much thinking. Her mind spiraled from one thought to the next, but her eyes never strayed from looking down at her mother’s face. It wasn’t peaceful. It hadn’t accepted what happened. Brighid’s face was twisted in a scream, reminding Astrid of how her mother had been responsible for what she was able to do.

“Thanks, Mama. You—” Her voice broke. “You saved everybody.”

She couldn’t say how long she sat there hunched over the cooling body, but it wasn’t very long before Skandr took her by the hand and started pulling her away. She glared up at him, and he snapped his fingers, the sound impossibly loud. The quick display pulled her from her overwhelming grief for long enough to gather up her mother’s body and carry it towards Felix.

The Healer wasn’t at his side anymore, and Astrid’s heart fell. It didn’t take long for her to get to his side, though, and Benedict had both of his hands over the wound. The Guardian had sustained a terrible injury. Benedict pressed both sides of the gaping hole together, and the flesh had already begun the process of healing. Still, there was very little blood on Felix’s body, and his face was incredibly pale. He glanced up at Astrid, only his eyes moving as he seemed to blink in acknowledgment of her presence.

“Oh no,” Benedict said. He looked up at Brighid’s body and raised his eyebrows in an obvious question.

Astrid opened her mouth, trying to say something, but her voice caught in her throat. Instead of being able to say anything, she just allowed herself to crumple to the ground beside the rest of her party. Benedict continued caring for Felix while everybody else just sat quietly. Muti stood at attention, growling at anybody who came close. Only two people needed to do that before the message was heard loud and clear, and nobody else approached.

Astrid’s charges of Regeneration still hadn’t returned when Muti attempted to threaten the person who came. Less than an hour had passed since they began the battle for the capital, that fight was over, and Astrid was left sitting here, heartbroken, confused, and exhausted.

“Thank you for being here,” Philip’s voice cut through Astrid’s misery. When she looked up at him, he looked about as bad as she felt. Probably worse, honestly. His left arm was still missing, and blood had painted his entire body and equipment red. It was congealing, with his face only being mostly clean of the crimson liquid. Smears of filth remained coating him, and he shrugged a weak greeting.

Astrid nodded as the others made quiet sounds in acknowledgment. Philip sighed and looked over the battlefield. “From what I saw, you all were the weight on our side of the scale that tipped the balance. So far as I can tell, your party has the second-highest kill count of Adamantium tiers, only behind Greely, and he was on mop-up duty.”

“I don’t want to talk about killing,” Astrid said, not sparing a thought for her grime-covered hand as she wiped at her eyes. It was stupid, but a part of her wished that her eyes burned, that they were raw from the crying. Instead, with every minute, she felt physically better. Meteoric Regeneration was doing its absolute best to bring her back up to her best condition, and it was doing its job well.

“Don’t congratulate me on murdering people,” Astrid repeated. “What is it, Philip?”

“I saw your mother and you take care of the Marchioness,” he said, his tone gentler after her previous words. “I wanted to thank you for staying, and to thank your mother for her sacrifice.”

Astrid took a quivering breath, nodding her thanks. Philip started to step away, but as he waved his goodbyes, he reminded her, “I’m going to treat everybody to whatever meal you want, sometime in the next day or so. There’s not many of us left, but of course, you’re going to be welcome. All of you.”

The reminder of the rest of the battlefield pulled Astrid from her mourning even more. There would be plenty of time to weep over her mother’s body, but first, she probably needed to see what was happening in the city since the battle had finished.

In no time at all, she found herself approaching the Duchess. She couldn’t help but look and behold the devastation that filled the plaza. What had once been, no doubt, a place for bustling trade and excited conversations was now a bloody reminder of battle. Astrid couldn’t bring herself to look at the specifics of who had suffered what fate, but she couldn’t help but count the surviving soldiers.

The healer that had saved Felix, Eve, Greeley, Arden, and Philip were the only five remaining Adamantium tiers from the Duchess’s side, with the golden pugilist the only remainder from the Marchioness. He squatted nearby, a hollow look to his eyes. Of the about one thousand soldiers who had come here under the command of the Duchess, Astrid counted only seventy three still around. Five of those were the Golden Fist, then the Duchess, along with the Wanderers and the remaining Adamantium tiers, which meant that only 57 people who weren’t the elite of the elite survived. Probably half of those had been killed in the final moments when Gregor had been let loose and slaughtered anyone who came near.

“Hello, Astrid,” Isana said, her usually breathy voice subdued. Instead, she simply gave a somber smile and a nod in greeting.

Astrid started to work her jaw, to come up with what she was going to say to the woman, but finally, she shook her head. “Everybody swore that the Arcanites would stay out of the fight. We might have been able to win faster with fewer deaths if you all hadn’t lied.”

“You don’t need to know,” Aleksandr said, stepping over. Astrid’s grief immediately burned away in a fire of fury, but before she could say anything, the Soldier simply wasn’t there anymore. Astrid barely saw anything, but the deafening crack that echoed over the plaza blew her hair back. Then, she saw the leader of the Golden Fist lying prone on the ground, blood trickling from his nostrils and one ear.

Above him stood Leah, ostensibly his lover. She shook her right hand in pain as she glared down at him.

“You unfeeling bastard,” she scoffed.

“Leah,” he said, his tone not nearly as upset as Astrid would have expected. Instead, he almost looked afraid as he got to his feet.

“I’m sick of this, Alek. There’s no rule saying I can’t say something to her now. If someone gives me a talking-to about it, then I’ll apologize. But she’s gonna be where we are now before too long. Might as well give her a little bit of information so she knows what she’s getting herself into. And I’m sick of you being so afraid and so self-centered that you turn into this emotionless automaton of a man. So, with all of the love that remains in me, get bent.”

Then, she stepped towards Astrid and hesitantly reached up towards the taller woman’s face. Astrid couldn’t bring herself to recoil, though a part of her wanted to.

“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you or your mother,” Leah said. “She was a good woman, and a good mother. I don’t know if you know this, but after what I said to you back in the Verdant Sanctuary, she confronted me, insulted me, and scolded me. I was too proud then to admit that she was right. On top of that, I’ve been a bad teacher and I don’t know if I’ve been much of a good person in the past decade either. Her willingness to actually put herself in true danger, and then to sacrifice herself, is something I can only consider to be an inspiration to people like us, who have allowed themselves to be lost in so-called higher callings. I apologize for my cowardice.”

Astrid stood there, having received an apology she had known would never come. However, her previous knowledge was upturned as Leah bowed her head.

“What do you mean you didn’t protect my mother?” Astrid’s voice was flat as she demanded clarification.

“We explained that our hands are tied,” Leah said, ignoring Aleksandr as he tried to get her to stop talking. She swatted her hand towards him again, but this time he was ready and prepared for her attack. Because this wasn’t an idle movement, but one that carried years of pent-up frustration.

“What tied our hands was a threat. A threat that you saw the consequences of today,” Leah continued.

“I’m pretty sure I just saw you five trying to hold back the bad guy,” Astrid responded.

“That moment when everything froze, did you feel it?”

“The moment just before the shadows disappeared?” Astrid clarified.

“Exactly. One of the members of the Council is a Chronomancer. Or, at least, has the ability to stop time in a local area while being able to move himself. He is, usually, the enforcer for those who have broken the Arcanite Accords. If he wanted to kill everybody in the entire capital, he could do it before any one of us could react. That said, had I cared enough to sacrifice my life, I could have killed the Marchioness while Finnegan was breaking through our defenses. I’m sorry.”

“With that threat hanging over his head, why would he throw himself at you?” Astrid asked, disbelieving. “It seems stupid, if nothing else.”

“I think he was stuck with a levelling quest,” Leah said.