Chapter 17-459: Heavenbound Pact Morituri (1/2)

“Commander Hara’Aru, I request a Miracle from you, on your Authority as a Pact Grantor!” I Called down to the warily watching planetar keeping a safe distance from the black and white spiraling mess that had already blown through the ice to the water below, and set up a tornado of temperature differentials, steam, and ice around me that didn’t impede my voice at all.

“I seek a Blessing from Heaven, that a Pact Morituri be bound into a Heavenbound Pact, for all those who may serve Heaven under the Shroud!”

His silver eyes glowed, and he raised his own hand, the Light gathering there something which threw the Haze beyond into even deeper shadow as it writhed at the touch and feel of it. “As the Shroud twists the Will of Heaven, let Heaven twist the Will of the Shroud! By the authority invested into me by Heaven, let this be so!”

I turned my head up to the stars, the horrors that were watching us from out there... and the Heavens beyond them, whose eyes were still turned away.

But not for long, not for forever.

Lines carved into another soul I was once part of, reflected onto mine, suddenly began to glow.

The number of Heavenbound on this world was pretty much always maxed out. There were always people coming to Heavenbound Hall, willing to serve and take up that Pact. I wasn’t going to take that from them.

The limits on people were by world... but the worlds that were under a Shroud were both connected, and were not.

Every world under the Shroud was eligible for Heavenbound, and as long as those Warlocks stayed under the Shroud, there would be no conflicts whatsoever.

Every dead world, every tomb world, cemetery world, or planetary monument to undeath. All their Heavenbound could exist anywhere under the Shroud! All their PACTBOUND could do so!

And if the souls in the Shroud united to let this go through, they could sponsor Powered Heavenbound and others to dual Pacts...

The invisible resistance to my Heavenbound Pact vanished, and new Runes began to burn over my soul to complement the old: hot and cold, life and death, the stars and the abyss.

“I agree to serve the Will of Heaven, and hear the calls of the blameless Dead!

“I swear to defend the weak, protect the innocent, and succor the Dead!

“I will defy the diabolic, I will hurl back the demonic, I will thwart the demonic, and I will BURN DOWN THIS DAMNING SHROUD OF DEATH!

“I will embrace Virtue, and I will scorn Sin!

“I will be a Shield and Sword, Spear and Hammer, Hand and Foot, Word and Song of the Empyrean Sphere, even where It cannot See!

“I will seek out Evil and stand between them and their ambitions upon these Shrouded worlds!”

The new Heavenbound Pact Morituri flared over my soul, and the Light I could only feel in others was back... and if it had spectral traces of narrower obligations upon it, they were nothing, part of the Oath I’d sworn, showing that I was willingly taking upon myself to do a Great and Good Thing, and I didn’t need the heavy-handed behavior of the Souls in the Shroud to do so.

I just needed Heaven to have my back, even if it didn’t know it.

Also, I now had a metric boatload of Masteries to work up. :

Good problem to have, I suppose?

Plugged right into the endless power of Heaven, with the new Pact Morituri on top of it, the black and the white spirals burning around me thrummed. Countless numbers of Good souls materialized from the Shroud, reaching out to touch the energy that promised them deliverance in time, feeling for a moment the reward that they had been denied.

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The realigning of my Matrices playing out on the Chords of the world continued for about another ten minutes before gradually winding down. Even then, the hole in the Haze decided to be gingerly respectful and didn’t come back quickly, probably because the souls up there were still swirling around the edges as the energies of the arcane and Heaven played about them.

As they spun out, I came down out of the sky, black Phoenix wings replacing the ones from Succubus Possession, black and silver and agleam with Runes that glittered like stars in the darkness.

Standing there next to his longtime rival and foe, Bey ‘Azzar looked kind of lost as I came down. He glanced at the planetar waiting on me, then the Angelos, and the Windgraf whose Auras now dominated his own completely, and realized that he had truly lost out on something great. He had contributed many Wishes to the cause of getting free of the Shroud, of course, but it was obvious the other two had somehow done much, much more, judging both by their Auras and the incredible power of the Gear they were wearing.

He was no longer the Windgraf’s rival, or even peer. Mochtal could crush him in moments, and they both knew it.