Chapter 17-427: The Yellow of Fear, Part II (2/2)
The yellow phasma swirled thickly in her wake, almost tangible currents of fear running through it now, like yellow veins of terror for them to contemplate.
On the ground, the two senior disciples she had tossed him into lay still, tongues of hungry flame burning deep into their foreheads, leisurely killed in passing.
She was gone once again, his Divine Sense unable to lock on her, even as her Song continued without letup, reverberating everywhere. The phasma itself was thrumming eagerly to hear it, and sensing that, the fear of the Daoists grew, and the phobos came...
There was combat all around as the Heavenly Sky members cut through the incoming phobos regardless. They all had experience against the creatures, and if the Golden Hag was pulling them in deeper into the phasma with her hit-and-run techniques, they were still dealing with the creatures easily.
It was daytime, after all, and everyone knew that the phobos gathered most strongly at night...
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She killed them, and they followed. Their teamwork improved, they started covering for one another more effectively, and if she still managed to take out on or two at a time, there were reinforcements coming from behind who hadn’t seen what she could do, lacked the fear, and were ready to fight.
Ignorance was bliss sometimes.
And then... the phasma opened up in front of them as the lead elements chased after her, and suddenly, somehow, they were out of the yellow fog.
The sight was astonishing enough to slow the Sect members down to almost a halt as the lead scouts looked around, discovering that they were able to see ahead of them for miles across the scrubby grass of the Plateau, and they could perceive the rolling walls of phasma extending far, far into the distance.
The air was thick with the impure foulness of mana and chi, and... there were dead phobos burning unwhite around.
A lot of dead phobos burning unwhite around...
Dozens, scores, and then hundreds more Heavenly Sky disciples came racing out of the phasma, and slowed to a halt, looking around in astonishment.
They’d seen the vivic fire chase away the phasma, and smelled the unclean reek of its passage and as it devoured their fellow Daoists. But this...
The phasma had been cleared for miles and miles. There was a trail burned through it clear to the horizon! There weren’t corpses burning all the way there... but there were for a big chunk of it.
It was like... something had fought the phobos all the way here...
The Vice Master had a sudden and terrible foreboding, and the phasma thickened perceptibly near him as dread stole across him. His Divine Sense went out... and found nothing.
Nothing, even as they got up off the ground only a couple hundred yards in front of the Heavenly Sky disciples.
Arcing around them, men and women they couldn’t Sense, only see, rose from simple cover and shallow pits, and as they did, their Weapons burned to life.
Banefire the color of Daoist blood. Unwhite fire. The devouring flames of what they called Holiness.
Heads turned as the line of Forsaken extended around them, back into the phasma to either side, as the yellow fog burned and ignited and seemed to evaporate under cold, hard eyes, and the vivic flame that seemed to flash-flame it away in a broad swathe.
The un-Powered with their magical Weapons, grim eyes, and many, many scars moved in smoothly behind them, closing the circle several warriors deep, led by a dozen males, not all of them human, with Helices spinning around them.
The Void Brothers, the lethal assassins of the Forsaken.
The Vice Master didn’t even bother trying to escape, holding his Sword steady as he faced these once-commoners down. A few of the more alert disciples tried to fly, and naturally could not. The phasma already shut down dimensional movement, rippling the dimensions here with an alien, otherworldly Presence that accepted no challenges to its power. He even noticed some particularly sharp disciples familiar with the Earth Dao trying to escape by burrowing away, and the ground below simply wouldn’t get out of the way.
That damn Song, which had faded to poignant notes in the background, now seemed to rise, and soft whispers joined it as it rang out.
“Waiting, waiting, so very long,
A hundred miles to join this Song.
Hacked and hewed through Fear we came,
Across the leagues to join this game.
The Yellow King now smiles in glee,
He grins, He waits for you to flee.
Your Dread is real and upon your souls,
And Terror thick in the phasma flows!
“Tremble!”
“TREMBLE!”
“Ohhhh oooo ohhhh TREMBLE!”
“TREMBLE!” A storm of howls a magnitude greater than any the Daoists had ever heard resounded from the yellow fog all about, and huge shadows loomed indistinct and anticipatory in the phasma, waiting for them to run.
“WE COME!”
Firearms snapped to shoulders, and powder roared with many flames.