Book 7, Chapter 59 - Dialogue From a Thousand Years Ago (1/2)

Book 7, Chapter 59 - Dialogue From a Thousand Years Ago

As the tree focused all its might on Belial, Cloudhawk struck. He destroyed it from the inside with vicious lightning, turning the magnificent tree into a puddle of liquid metal. The mystical effects it once possessed were gone forever.

The many membranous creatures that lived inside of it had also perished.

Tadpole sacks burst open, becoming part of the mercury-like substance they came from and raining down through the chamber like a glittering rain. Aborted gods that were within hit the lake surface with sickening impact. The entire scene was as astounding as it was grotesque. Unforgettable.

It wasn’t clear whether the silver fluid was harmful.

To be careful, Cloudhawk deployed his shield. Droplets of liquid metal plinked off his defenses and pooled around his feet. With his sword slung over one shoulder and the white light around him, Cloudhawk sauntered over to one of the bodies. First he prodded it with his foot, then gave it a quick poke with the sword.

Well, looks like they’re dead.

He was at last able to put his guard down. Hundreds or a thousand gods – fully formed or not – would have been too much for him to handle. That threat appeared to be eliminated.

A quick flash of his sword and one of the armor casings cracked open!

Cloudhawk hacked again and again, before like a crab the protective shell was removed. At last, the real form of the gods was revealed.

“What? Humans?”

What lay inside the armor was the body of someone that looked a lot like Cloudhawk, only two and a half meters tall and radiating a gentle light. He had no hair or even pores, so the skin was a perfect jade-like texture. But still, decidedly human in appearance.

It was hard to understand. These ‘gods’ didn’t seem so different. For a wastelander like him he’d see all assorts of hideous things; half-human things that dug through the earth and flew through the skies. A bald man, from the point of view of an ordinary person, gave the impression of strength not any sort of illness.

Why were the gods so human-like? It didn’t match with what he’d seen before!

Cloudhawk’s pupils contracted and his vision, like x-ray beams, bore into the corpse. His organs had crystallized and the stagnant fluid in his veins was the same liquid metal that was all around them. So while the features were human it was clear their internal organs were much different.

Cloudhawk straightened, rubbing his jaw. “I see…”

Could it be all the gods were as remolded as his friend here? What they looked like on the outside wasn’t important, any race could be altered to become a ‘god’. But the question remained: Where did this race originally come from?

It wasn’t a ‘chicken and egg’ question. Transformation was not evolution, something didn’t come from nothing. It was deliberate. The gods didn’t just appear from a stone somewhere, something as perfect as the body of a god had to come from some complicated system. But what force led to their original creation?

As Cloudhawk was lost in thought, he felt a malicious presence come up behind him. Belial was so full of rage that her eyes were bloodshot. Rings of black flame swirled around him, forming a storm of sizzling sickles. Without a word, he hacked at the hateful human that had stolen his freedom.

He lashed out in a wave of fury. Hundreds of flaming bites roared toward his enemy.

This old bastard doesn’t know when to quit! Cloudhawk didn’t dodge. He wasn’t worried. Without the dark furnace Belial didn’t have the endless mental reserves he did before. So he watched the Elder come without a hint of fear, and a glint of silver in his left eye.

A large swath of the chamber had become a tempest of fire. The swirling black blades moved on erratic trajectories, but Cloudhawk saw where they would all end up.

If he was determined to be so stubborn, what choice did Cloudhawk have? He’d have to teach him a lesson.

A plain sword wrapped in hideous purple lightning lashed out!

In the same instant Belial activated the power of several more relics, all of which Cloudhawk saw with his Eye of time. With Immortal Godslayer in hand, he deflected them with little effort.

Belial was unable to claim the treasure he’d searched so long to find, but he did not possess a strong desire to fight any longer. Although the two combatants were close enough in strength, the Elder had already lost his will. What’s more, Cloudhawk’s mystical Eye negated whatever advantage Belial and his many relics possessed.

Several dozen clashes followed. Belial was slowly losing ground.