Chapter 20-483: And Soon All Those Around Will Warm Up to its Glowing... (1/2)
Sabaton - Man of War (Heroes might and magic) - YouTube
On the surface, it should not have been a fight. Everything there was a post-Twenty undead, probably the most valiant champions of another world, overcome at the last by endless undead, turned into the same, and enslaved by the same death giant lich who had invaded Pentara and claimed the whole planet for its own.
However, these creatures had just weathered an absolutely incredible vivic storm, and had likely had to expend an enormous amount of power to live through it.
Another huge thing was that the massive amount of Health Qi they should have as Dark Clergy was totally absent, because there weren’t any undead control lines in force, and the nearest of those undead were thirty miles away.
Sure, they’d managed to Fast Heal their physical forms, defiling the vivus-saturated ground as fast as they could while drawing power from the Shroudlord and the Shroud to do so. But if they started calling up negative energy spells and the like, they were going to get a nasty surprise in this vivic-charged air.
That might be important for necromancy-focused sorts like them.
And there was the minor detail that they were still within the brand new and doubtless completely ignored Pyramid Power Field emanating from that shiny white crystalline tourist attraction over there.
Perhaps there should have been dialogue, but we had no plans to enter into any. As we’d been flying over here, we’d been expending lots of Valences on Buffs, and right now, this thousand-man army was armed to the teeth and truly ready to rumble.
They lined up to face us, outnumbered ten-to-one. Perhaps they thought it was fair, even with the fact that all the Weapons facing them were definitely geared to kill the undead... or Constructs.
They were not prepared for the circle of Stone that abruptly jutted up out a foot from the ground, forming a circle almost five hundred feet across around them as it did so. Energy hummed, and Sealing magic rose towards the sky, vivic energy gathering to it to form a translucent white wall as hundreds of Morituri Warlocks bent down and filled it with eldritch juice.
It snuffed all the Clergy’s active links to their undead minions completely, locking in the fact that the undead now had to come this way. There was no stopping it... and more importantly, there was no Body-jumping away if these bastards died, period, even if the fastest of them, such as other Dark Clergy, got here in time.
I drew an Item Scroll from out of my Masspack, and tossed it to Shvaughn and Legion. They reached down to the Symbols, pulled, and lifted off many pairs of telescoping Rods there with their Tails. With beats of overly powerful wings, they headed out, flying five hundred yards from the Shroudlord, and jamming the first Rod of one set each into the ground before splitting off.
The Permanent Widened Might of Thunder Walls of Holy Vivic Waterfire at VII blazed with some very, very Sacred waters, sounding like impossibly melodious waterfalls as they shimmered there, forty feet high, rotating courses of jet and silver shining waters looking like curtains of moonlight on a lake at night.
The two Grandmaster Warlocks spun through the circle precisely, planting the second Rod, and then starting another Wall behind that one.
As they did that, the Fellowships were forming, and teams were lining up, picking their opponents. The undead moved their attention from the encircling Walls that were waiting out there, counting Caster Levels on their tarsals silently. The eldest dracolich hurled itself forwards with a roar, crashing into the Containment Seal and being hurled back without doing any harm to it.
Protection from Evil Cast out of VII is pretty strong, too.
The presence of Commander Haru’Ara and the Angelos was noted, and the Nightshades moved to face them. The Shroudlord was fixated on Briggs, while the dracoliches were all staring after Legion and her great burning wings.
The two Warlocks planted the last of the Walls, closing the circle, and winged back to rejoin us, getting ready to launch the final attacks.
Legion pulled up in midair, and reached into their own Masspack for an Item Scroll. They drew the Scroll out, crushed it in their hand, and there was an abrupt crunch as a very big straight Sword, oversized for even a Titan, suddenly drove itself into the ground there.
The dark blue-black Blade was forty damn feet long.
Legion reached back, and drew Idiot out of his sheath. The Warlock Sword transformed into a thick bar, which was inserted into the hiltless blade, and as it did, Runes lit up along the massive, multi-ton length of metal. Greater Ki-Bound Bane to Undead Enmity/Evil Bane to Legends Holy Blooding Vivic Valorous+I blazed down the full length of it, a configuration shared by more than one of the Weapons out here.
Idiot was a Legendary Weapon now, too, the final one Commander Haru’Ara had completed in time.
The whole damn Sword was made out of adamant, too. It had to weigh...
Legion picked it up and held it straight out to the side like it was a willow wand.
I found myself grinning ear-to-ear despite myself. Master Vrune and the dwarven smiths of St. Paul had a Really Dumb idea once they found out how strong Legion was, and man, it really did look anime stupid.
Made a mockery of ALL the laws of physics. Looked really cool, however, especially as Legion spread their wings and the butterfly Runework there was all brimming with The Light.
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There was still a formality to this, as it was a big event, and all the showmanship was on our side.
Spreading around the Seal about them, we all picked targets, lining up, communicating telepathically, and then the ding-ting notes, laced with Threnodic power that could affect even the undead, rang out over the undead, who could not help but stop their own actions to listen.
“You came from Darkness, from Death and Gloom,
“Bearing endless despair, inevitable Doom,” Sama began with a choffed note of scorn.
“A World to conquer, a world to slay,
“A world to forever deny the day,” Luminous Chalker of Aru from Sydney contributed forthrightly.
“You gave us a Sword in Steel and White,
“You gave us a Hammer to show our might!” Father Bowen continued grimly, and glanced to his side.
“You made us hard, and we stayed the course,
“With a bow, and a prayer, and a blazing horse!” grinned Helix at the hand-off, and both Sleipner and the Old Steed added their own punctuation. Of course they were here, Azaia and Morningfire had been riding them right along.
“TREMBLE!” thundered a thousand voices, and add a few zeroes to that over the rest of the planet. The ley lines BOUNCED at the word, and the undead flinched despite themselves. “Ohhh OHHH ohhh, TREMBLE, WE COME!”
“Busy hands with busy tools,
“Noble hearts and noble fools!” my Seneschal Abigail also added in, here at the end as she had been at the beginning, now much more than just an Alchemist.
The dracoliches over there tried to roar and challenge us, but the Sublime Chord backing the Song just swamped over them and muted them to almost nothing. They almost sounded cute the way they turned into a burpy meep.
“The sky is open, and the sun beats down!
“The Shroud bows low, and gives up its crown!” Jaelez Morningfire added in, a vision of fire atop a burning not-a-horse prancing and ready for the fight.
“Tigers walk where dragons tread,
“Hunters stalk where fear the dead!” bellowed Mohono Blakhamar, waving about a six-foot Sword enthusiastically. I noticed Shvaughn sending a sly eye the ogryn’s way.
“Slaves to a dream, a nightmare waking,
“Broken on life, your hope we’re taking!” Sinead Morningflame called out from among the Blood of the Irish.
“We rose from the low, we came down from the high,
“We remembered the pasts we’d thought let lie,” The Mick’s startling tenor added in, and Amaretta picked it up instantly.
“Where history stands, the future glows,
“Shatters your grasp where Destiny flows!”
“TREMBLE! OHHHHH OH OHHHH TREMBLE, WE COME!”
They couldn’t hear all those voices across the planet, but they could definitely feel the ley lines seething with the emotion and focus of them. Undead technically couldn’t feel fear, but that just meant a -20 modifier to one HELL of an Intimidation check going on.