Chapter 15-405: Four Warned, Six-Armed (1/2)

The Cult of Kali in India had a long and storied history, much of which was invisible to the eyes of those who were not involved in the undercurrents of magic behind it. Its sudden decline was directly related to the Sealing of the demonesses who had once backed it by agents of the Magi tired of them, and the Cult, deprived of the source of its power, had fallen and languished ever since.

That had changed after the Shroud Fell. Its influence tried to pry open all extra-dimensional spaces, and that included the prison space that Oymizlvitazzrkali the Saber Queen, and her four Reaper Maidens had been Banished into.

They just called her Kali, of course, and killed in her name, stirring up conflicts and wars that had plagued the Indian sub-continent for ages.

The few remaining faithful naturally knew where their goddess had been Banished from, and held quiet vigil over the site, even as they let the crude temple and its grounds fade into obscurity and disrepair, and vanish from the active memory of most men.

The Shroud had pried open a crack in that barrier, and suddenly, the faithful had a connection to their goddess, and she could speak to them!

It turned out that regular sacrifices, sent into the crack, made it easier to communicate with the goddess, and so the quiet kidnappings and rituals returned once again, even as new arts and powers proliferated, were stolen by the Cult, and its people began to grow stronger in the new ways of chi and magic that they had not possessed before.

Their inevitable return to power and domination was horribly delayed by the interference of the undead and the rakshasas, the latter having no desire to have a greater demoness running around when they couldn’t escape and were having a hard enough time staying clear of the Shrouds.

Then came the Cultivator conflicts, and the unnaturalness of the Buddhist Mantra, the new gods and religions, and even the Cultists of Kali could find a common cause against the mindless thralldom of the smiling, enslaving Buddhists.

Their status and power had risen, and with it the hopes of releasing their trapped goddess, whose bonds grew ever weaker.

Unfortunately for them, Traveler had come, and an old demon peer of their Goddess Kali had been Bound and Sealed, and her memories opened up for perusal.

Traveler had noticed, and directed Shvaughn to do something about it.

The Cult of Kali’s climb to power had suddenly taken a very calamitous nose-dive.

Shvaughn had alternately cloven and Consumed her way through the ranks of the Cult, whatever got the job done the easiest. Their greatest warriors, most skilled murderers, most buried agents, most faithful adherents, and most zealous Priests had gone down her throat or ended in scornflame as the Hungriest Warlock in the world literally ate them up.

This had continued right up until she ate her way through the zealous templars of the original temple now guarding the Crack and Consumed the High Priestess of the new Cult right in front of that bloodstained altar. What members of the Cult she didn’t dispose of personally, she had the contacts to do the work for her, and she swept by and disposed of them permanently later.

It could be said that Shvaughn was by far Kali’s most ardent worshipper, many times over.

The chamber itself was belowground, in an old and mazelike stretch of catacombs and ancient mines and tunnels that went on for miles... and also plunged into the Felldeep, far below, if you knew the right blocked passages to dig out and travel through.

Traveler had mapped out the entire network in passing in The Map, with Shvaughn casually filling in all the details for much of the general area Traveler had outlined. Thus, there was no chance of the two of them getting lost, even if Shvaughn had the familiarity and experience of living here for relative centuries on top of all that.

There was nothing here aside from several Wards designed to react to Evil presences, and scare away animals and low-Level people who might investigate. Naturally they had alerted the Casters of those spells that they were coming, just in case, although the Astral Wards each was employing would have evaded the Wards regardless.

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Shvaughn stared about the chamber with the confident air of one who had seen the view countless times, and pointed to one of the roughly-carved ancient statues in the room. “The Crack is in front of there. When enough magic is poured into it, typically by blood sacrifice, it opens up. Both the dead sacrifice and a living one if available were sent inside, while telepathic reports were exchanged with those within, orders received, and the opportunity exploited to act in the Goddess’ name... which she seemed to find amusing,” Shvaughn remarked casually.

The two of them examined the Crack in the air, fine-tuning their vision to look at the Seals around it, woven out of magic and partially anchored in the stone and floor about.

Shvaughn noticed Legion smile slightly first. “You have something?” she asked.

“I will have no problem exiting,” Legion smiled thinly, stepping forwards. Wrath blew up golden on their hands. “Help me pry this open.”

Shvaughn readily brought up her Scorn, and together the two of them grabbed the edges of the Crack, injecting massive amounts of energy directly as they gripped the edge of the space. It ignited into visibility, and was hauled open with irresistible pressure by the pair.

“That’s more than big enough!” Shvaughn nodded at Legion, who nodded, hopped, and dove through the slender opening as their wings vanished into shadows.

The Hungriest Warlock sat back against the cracked and shattered altar in the middle of the room, remembering offering up sacrifices here, and hundreds of people dying over decades at the hands of the Cult, rich and poor alike, often victims of paid assassinations. The Cult was nothing if not pragmatic about its need for people, and making them vanish completely was incredibly useful... and worth being paid more.

The remnants of those guilty people were now burning on her Hellpact after she had ripped everything out of them that she wanted to, treating them as callously as they had their victims.

She was fully confident that Legion was going to come walking out of that Crack in space, having eaten their mighty demon goddess and her four servants, and there was nothing the demons could do about it.