Chapter 75—Terrifying |
With his sensory domain ballooning out ahead of him, Hiral almost felt like he was moving in slow motion as events played out in front of him.
Combined in their Onslaught form, Romin charged at the Fallen somehow standing nearly nine feet tall, who once again caught the unstoppable charge with one hand. Gripping the horn with one hand, Laapdoug struck out with his other—the glaive nowhere to be found for the moment—to drive a powerful blow into the center of Romin’s chest. A blow so powerful, it blasted the Bonder right out of the Onslaught form, leaving just Wallop dangling from his own horn.
Not for long.
Up and over, Laapdoug swung the full-size Runeocerous like he weighed nothing, slamming him into the ground on his other side. Even before the shockwave and crater formed, Wallop was going back up and over to slam down again on the opposite side. Wallop’s health dropped with each blow, a pained cry coming from the Rune-o’s mouth, but the Fallen was nowhere near done, repeating the process six more times in a flurry of blows. After the eighth crushing contact with the ground, Wallop twitching and his health down to thirty percent, Laapdoug finally let go.
If the companion thought he was getting a break, he found out just how wrong he was as Laapdoug’s foot came crashing down on his midsection. Heavy, reinforced plate armor that had stood up to everything but The Archwizard cracked, fractured, and then collapsed. Blood shot from Wallop’s mouth, ejected by the savagery of the stomp. One that was apparently only the first of many, the Fallen’s foot going up and coming down a second time, even more of Wallop’s armor collapsing as the Rune-o’s ribs met the same fate.
Still not finished, Laapdoug once again lifted his foot, then crushed it down like he planned to stomp Wallop through the ground. Instead of hitting the Rune-o, though, the Fallen’s foot crunched into thick brass armor, Romin having using an ability to swap places with his injured companion. Unfortunately for Romin, his armor and body weren’t any more durable than Wallop’s.
His chest collapsed beneath the blow, but it was Laapdoug’s eyes that widened, the barrel of a large blunderbuss pointed directly into the face of the leaning Fallen.
WHOMP, the blast of Impact hit him at point blank range, the Fallen’s golden hair blasting backward along with his whole upper body. A growl escaped Laapdoug’s mouth, his foot still pressed against Romin’s crushed chest, and he began to lean forward again.
Just in time for the Weight of Tomorrow to slam into his chest. Whistling through the air from the jets at the back, then exploding at the front from the weapon’s second ability, the concussive shockwave was enough to shatter a mountain.
Faster than ever—thanks to all the buffs—Hiral only barely managed to duck underneath the fist that would’ve taken his head clean off, and flashed past his target. Hammer vanishing within the Arsenal of Amin Thett, Hiral focused on the improved domain he’d set up. It was definitely working. He could see the lines of Connection to the Fallen, and how they were restricting his power. Even with those restrictions, along with things like the Banner of Despair and the Herald of War, he was just that powerful.
Terrifying.
Luckily, Hiral had some pretty powerful people on his side as well.
Thunder boomed overhead as Laapdoug turned, and a massive bolt of lightning crashed down toward him. Shredding the air as it came, the attack promised annihilation for anything it struck, and even the Fallen must’ve felt a threat from it, moving to finally dodge something. He even partially succeeded, moving faster than falling lightning, and Yanily’s SkyFall missed striking him in the chest.
Instead, adjusting at the last minute, the spearman angled his spear to drive into the exposed, front thigh as the Fallen tried to lean out of the way. Buried all the way to the bone through the powerful muscle, this was the first real wound they’d managed to inflict, and Laapdoug bellowed in pain.
Bellowed… and counterattacked.
Fast as the blink of an eye, the Fallen’s left hand snapped up to grasp the scaled throat of Yanily’s Aspect form. Armored scales cracked at the power in those fingers, despite the Chain Lightning attempting to ravage Laapdoug’s leg, and the sneering Fallen leaned forward, staring into Yanily’s eyes. Another powerful squeeze of his hand, and it was Yanily’s turn to cry out in pain.
No, it wasn’t a cry. It was a roar, a black ball of energy appearing between the jaws of his mouth. Within an instant, the world went monochrome as he released his Dragon Breath at point-blank range. The blast completely consumed Laapdoug’s face and head, fallout from the ricocheting of the blast eradicating buildings behind the Fallen in a cone, and the sides of the street around him.
Unfortunately for Yanily, the hand squeezing—crushing—his throat hadn’t let up in the least, and when the spearman’s most powerful attack faded, he found the Fallen glaring back at him. Gone was the golden hair—devoured by the blast—but it wasn’t pain, fear, or rage on the Fallen’s face. It was glee. He was happy about the challenge. And, as his fingers continued to squeeze, blood spilling out from where the tips had penetrated the tough scales, his glaive came rocketing out of a nearby building to slap into his free hand.
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At his back, Hiral lashed out with his claws of Separation, the foot long blades amounting to little more damage than a series of papercuts. With the skin too durable to damage, Hiral pulled back his right hand, dismissed his claws, and wrapped his hand in a reliable runic cocktail. Impact, Piercing, Vibration, Expansion, Increase, and Breaking practically made his fist glow. Knowing it still wouldn’t be enough, he added Rejection to the back of his elbow, more than doubling the speed of his punch as he hammered it into the small of Laapdoug’s back.
Resonating force tore through the Fallen’s abdomen at the same time a burst of purple and red flame appeared beside the extended arm holding Yanily off the ground. Twin coronas of green energy came driving down with unrestrained brutality, one stabbing into the Fallen’s forearm, and the other the joint of his elbow.
Like Yanily’s spear, the weapons pierced through the outer layer of muscle to reach the bone, veins of deadly green venom immediately spreading from the wound. That was enough to get the Fallen’s attention, a flick of his wrist tossing Yanily aside to leave the spearman clutching at his crushed throat. A swipe of the glaive forced Hiral back, the blade carving through the stone where he’d just been standing, before the resulting explosion hurled him back in a shower of fire and broken stone.
In his sensory domain, even through the eruption, he ‘watched’ as Seeyela Bamf’d away from the dangerous Boss, only for him to appear in front of her at the same time she ended her teleport. Like it was his signature move, the Fallen’s free hand clamped on to Seeyela’s eight-eyed helm even before the purple-and-red flame faded. More flickers of flame spread across her body, like she was trying to teleport away again, but something about his grasp held her in place.
Only for a second, though, as he did the same thing he’d done to Hiral, to Seeyela. Driving her into the ground at his feet head-first, she didn’t have Rejection to soften the blow. Arms and legs splaying to the side from the impact, there was no way that didn’t hurt. Worse, she didn’t seem to be moving.
Still holding her by the face, Laapdoug lifted his glaive and flipped it around in his hand, intending to stab it straight down into the woman at his mercy. At Seeyela’s back, a pool of blood spread from her shoulders, but even that wasn’t enough for the Fallen to move to his next target, finger’s tightening around the haft of his glaive.
Something about the blood—about the way it moved—had him pause, and Little Shadow’s Cloakstruck. Flowing up and over Seeyela, the living liquid coated Laapdoug’s hand and forearm up to his elbow. Then it began to spin. Like a dozen saws rotating around the limb, the cloak worked to shear it off.
And, whatever Little Shadow’s Cloak was doing, it hurt, another bellow of pain escaping the Fallen’s lips as he lifted his spear and drove it back down.
WHAM, a powerful blow slammed into Laapdoug’s side at the same time the glaive descended, Right’s fist burying itself in the Fallen’s exposed ribs while he was distracted. Ribs broke at the Impact, but it didn’t stop the glaive, though it changed its trajectory.
Instead of burying itself in Seeyela’s chest, the blade came down just below her knee, severing the leg in a shocking pain that woke the woman with a scream tearing its way from her throat. Her whole body thrashed—except for the unconnected leg—until she realized Laapdoug was still holding her down by the face. Up and around, both her Fangs of the Lady came, stabbing into his bicep from both sides, while her cloak continued to ravage his hand.
At Laapdoug’s back, Hiral put all his strength into the fallen-star form of the Greatsword of Amin Thett, blade roaring with the power of the Edicts etched into it. Flesh parted before the blade, until it met the Fallen’s ribcage, where it seemed to bounce off, tearing more skin with it as it went. Right’s second blow hit at the same time, while a red glow shone down on them all.
Having taken enough blows, the Fallen ripped his hand free from the clutches of the voracious cloak, though the damage to his hand was superficial at most, and he stood tall. Whipping his glaive around, he looked to behead Hiral and Right in a single swipe, though both managed to duck underneath. They didn’t have any chance to celebrate that, with the glaive already somehow coming back around for them, blade glowing a fierce orange.
Hiral brought up his greatsword, blocking the deadly blade of the weapon, but he couldn’t stand against the strength behind it. Easily matching Loan or Right, Laapdoug’s one-handed swing crushed Hiral into his double, and sent the pair of them flying.
Those annoyances taken care of—at least for the moment—the Fallen turned his attention to finishing off the woman at his feet. Only, instead of a women in white armor with half a leg missing, he found another version of Hiral.
One that exploded.
Exchanged back by Gran, Seeyela’s leg fountained out blood, while the vampire picked up her severed leg and jabbed her with a healing needle. There wasn’t time to try and reattach the limb, even as above the Fallen, a very angry younger sister thrust her hands down.
Having been mostly ignored, Seena and Li’l Ur had put together quite the gift for the Fallen. Easily as big as a house, the ball of plasma flickered with red and black flames, then shot straight down at the Fallen only now looking up at it.
The attack struck not with a boom, but with a sizzle, stone for a hundred feet in every direction turning liquid in an instant. With the collision—and consumption—of the ground, the sphere began to expand, only for Seena’s clenched hands to squeeze, forcing the flames back in on themselves. Like she was crushing a watermelon between her bulky gauntlet’s, Seena made sure all the terrible power stayed focused on the Fallen. Everything she had; her Eloquently Enraged plasma, the life-consuming power of the Blightfire, and all the anger at seeing her friends hurt.
It wasn’t enough, the dome of flame spilling outward as something shot into the sky. One second, Seena was standing alone on planes of pink energy, the next, Laapdoug was in front of her, the blade of his glaive driven through her chest.