Chapter 17-445: A Moment of Balance (1/2)
Tibet was almost clear, and tonight was the night that it was happening.
Powered were coming in now, primarily those with Bonded Forsaken who could resist any Fear effects from the throngs of phobos in the ever-thinner phasma. Void Brothers by the dozens were leading Sources and Nulls in the shredding and cancellation of the phasma. The yellow fog was being sliced apart as wedges of fighters hacked and blasted their way through the fog and the horrors within it, severing it, Sealing it, shrinking it, and dissipating it as the massive influence that had once dominated the entire Tibetan Plateau was chopped apart and Sealed repeatedly.
The great temples, monasteries, and palace at Lhasa were now visible in the apocalyptic remains of the transformed city. The undead remnants of the inhabitants of the city were now coming forth, transformed into powerful Leng ghasts under the command of the King in Yellow. Its mummified Servants of Leng and dozens of moon beasts were finally showing themselves to command all these things in service to the King.
The phasma burned white and blue on the yellow, black banefire crawled over undead as cerulean truefire blazed on phobos-nightmare creatures, Leng Servants, and moon beasts. Repeated magic honed on the hundreds of millions of undead in the Chinese and Indian Shroudzones exploded non-stop... and often right among battling knots of humans and the unclean creatures of Leng, as the Forsaken just ignored the magic and let it blast and batter those around them.
The fallen monks of the temples and monasteries, now gifted with ghastly strength and illuminated to dark profound arts over the decades of their enslavement, came forth to clash hand to hand with the Dragon Warriors, monks, and weapon masters of the attackers. Soon the entire city of Lhasa was almost one big martial arts tournament, even taking on a somewhat formal air as different sides sent out champions to contest with one another in death matches... until the ghast-monks kept losing those matches, and decided a mass melee was more in their favor.
Their opponents had long gotten skilled at dealing with undead, however, and while the ghast-monks were deadly, dangerous, and tough, so were their opponents, with Weapons and Armor optimized against their lethal claws and teeth, and not at all unnerved by their speed and agility.
The ghasts were astounded that normal humans could keep up with them. After all, they had twelve Racial Levels in Leng Ghast, and with their fanatical obedience to the King in Yellow, they had believed that with their combat training to enhance this incredible natural killing power, they would naturally be invincible to a mortal, living army.
Nobody they fought was under Seven. None had less than a Funf-Slotted Weapon and Armor at this point, and all of them were using at least ki-based Techniques from all the Disciplines that they could. In particular, Sword Beats Fist preyed on the fact that the greatest weapons of these ghast-monks were their claws, which created all sorts of openings for actual Weapon-wielders to abuse and punish.
The ghast-monks knew how to fight Weapon-wielders and didn’t feel pain, as well as having incredible toughness and even the ability to heal themselves somewhat. The Living knew how to fight non-Weapon Wielders, and had the total edge in Gear and variety of Techniques that they brought to the fight. Greater Ki-Bound Enmity/Evil Bane/Undead Vivic Weapons came in at +VIII +3d6, and were only the most basic things being brought to the table here.
Perhaps the biggest thing was simply that the ghast-monks had not been enlightened to truly Profound Forms, merely a single refined path that yielded some usable tricks, but nothing greater than what any non-Powered could wield. Their ki/magic combinations just made the wielders targets for the Powered Casters, who didn’t seem to be dismayed by the incredibly fast undead martial artists at all.
Also, they were outnumbered. There were well over a hundred thousand Sevens and higher from all over the world in on this fight, and Powered were not in the majority. Weapons burning black and unwhite death to the undead swirled through the ancient capital of the Tibetan people, and slowly and inevitably drove the ghast-monks back. The undead raised from the deaths of the common people there weren’t enough to even slow the incoming Purgers down.
Exploding gunfire volleys proved particularly ruinous, as One-Shots from marksmen and volleys from experienced Gunslingers were both extremely difficult to avoid.
Lastly, they were undead, in the end, and they had vulnerabilities to Divine magic. Priests who had been cutting their teeth for months on undead, although admittedly not as tough as these, were totally happy to show what Healing magic used on the undead could do. Positive Edge’s murderous power against them was totally on display, even as those same Priests and Shamans were healing the wounded non-stop. They were restoring the fallen with Cure Deadly Wounds, and most importantly, vivifying those they couldn’t bring back in time before the lingering power of the black and yellow phasma swirling about them ghastified those who had died and brought them back as undead to fight their former friends, while saving their souls with the Holy tools they carried around to shield them from the Shroud’s untender mercies.
Prayer scripts, sacred beads, and holy water flew about, prayers rang like Thunder, holy symbols shone with The Light, and undead monks died burning.
There were no Life Diamonds consumed in the fight, because if it took that long to Raise someone from the dead, they would be Animated by the Shroud first.
Sama and Briggs had a total ball, of course. The ghast-monks quickly realized the pair were carrying the center of attack, and tried really, really hard to kill them.
It got them a lot of their elites destroyed remarkably fast, and the pair just kept coming. The monks were not happy to realize the duo were much faster than any of them.
The Mick and the Tomb Clans turned out to be naturals at facing off against the ghast-monks, who were a bit shocked to be facing so many very, very tough pseudo-undead. Crimson and Scarlet blood magic was very effective, and the sight of it was quite shocking when backed up by the literal firepower of the Blood of the Irish led by the Morningsun Clan.
Still, the heroes of the day were the Forsaken of India and China, wielding their Named Weapons against undead fighters stronger than any they had ever faced before. Claws rang on Shields and Armor, burning Weapons raged through undead flesh, and they closed in on the final goal of Potola Palace.
---------
Not many people walked up the sloping steps into the Potola Palace.