Chapter 299: A Shining Massacre (1/2)

Lehesion took a step onto the seafloor, and it cracked as he grimaced, ”You shall try, but you shall fail, as all have failed before you.”

My armor grinned, ”From how I see it, you've lost against a Spatial Fortress already. You lost yet again on Gyspum if not for their nanomachine construct. What makes you so certain I'll fail if you've been at the mercy of two already?”

His eyes turned to glimmering coals under his brow, ”You question that which you don't understand, child.”

I growled, ”Then come and test yourself. Let's go.”

Lehesion roared out with enough force to silence the region. It bounded past me, rolling off my shoulders like water dripping from an umbrella. Beside me, Helios fell to his knees, blood dripping from under his mask. Lehesion seethed, ”You feel that? That is my scope. That is my magnitude. You will never exceed it.”

”Quit stalling and fight.”

Outrage surged over Lehesion's face before he condensed his aura into his body. The energy flowed without end as he bolted towards me through the water. Gritting my teeth, I met his rush. The behemoth collided with me, exuding enough force to crush mountains, but I withstood it. My arms didn't crumble, they stayed strut, and my legs didn't break. I still stood on solid ground.

But Lehesion kept applying pressure, pushing me back with a clawed hand. Both my arms pressed against his scaled armor. As he crushed me into the sandy stone, he laughed,

”It is as I've said. You are an insect.”

My armor laughed as mana saturated my frame. The will to destroy inflamed me, a point of ignition. My hands gripped his crystalline plates. Supergolems to my left and right raced outwards to evacuate civilians and Vagni while I kept Lehesion planted with my hands. I grasped harder and harder still, my muscles tightening like cords of steel.

His condensed mana armor cracked then snapped, and my living armor flooded in. He kept stomping down onto me, his massive palm sinking lower. I did not descend. I sank up. His flesh and skin softened from our last bout, neither part of him as dense or overwhelming. He didn't crush me under his mass. He didn't even cause my knees to buckle.

No, my hands seeped into his, and I sapped his blood, flesh, and bone. Event Horizon poured over him, the aura condensing over his skull. He grimaced, but I wanted him to hurt. I opened my armors jaws and bit into the saturated meat before me. Lehesion pulled his hand back out of reflex. My jagged jaws tore him open, and he found chunks of his golden body gored out.

The delicious meat hung from my dark, metal hands and my jagged, dripping maw. As his flesh soaked into mine, I leaned down and shouted,

”Come on then.”

Lehesion's eyes widened before he took a step back. Behind me, Helios pulled himself up from the mental whiplash of Lehesion's roar. The golden gialgathen's eye crossed over to my ally, and I grimaced. Lehesion might aim for my team instead of me. Ensuring that wasn't a possibility, I bent down and shot forward, telekinetic pads synergizing with heavy gravity wells.

Lehesion whipped his tail towards me. I used my pocket dimension, his whipping limb sinking into the starry abyss. Reaching him, I grabbed the underside of his jaw, my fingers extending into bone and skin alike. He roared and whipped away, a chunk of his face tearing out as he did. Reacting in pain, he side-slashed a clawed hand. I didn't dodge away.

I closed in. Ducking under his arm, I turned on my feet. Turning my hand into a dark spear, I slammed my hand into his chest. Tendrils of armor spread outward into his organs, along with my fingers before Lehesion slapped me sideways. I didn't see it, but the sheer force sent me barreling away from the beast. He was still strong.

I smashed through an underwater hillside before piercing deep into the depths of Blegara. The landscape reformed under me as I pierced it. Nestled under many layers of stone, I laid broken, but my body pulled together before my eyes in a second. So quick was my reformation, it acted with a startling violence, my guts whipping together at frightening speeds.

Nearby, several chunks of Lehesion spread throughout the ground. My armor shot out in hunger, absorbing them despite the ground's pressure above. Leaping out of the underground pit, I found Lehesion gawking at the wound I left behind. Exposed ribs and golden blood seeped into the ocean. That blood clouded around Lehesion as he grimaced at me. Despite the anger, a measure of panic unfolded over his calm demeanor.

He took quicker breaths, his heart speeding up in his chest. It wasn't long before he composed himself, and he charged up a ball of energy around his mouth to retaliate. Before he finished, Helios made a portal in front of his jaws. The condensed energy beam blasted into Lehesion's side, wounding the massive beast.

I turned, finding Helios hiding on an ice tower within the blue core's shielding. He oversaw the fight there, ready to assist when necessary. He gave me a quick nod, no retreat or fear oozing from him. No matter his past mistakes, I couldn't fault his bravery in battle. If I had my way, Helios would say the same of me.

So when Lehesion charged his energy for another world-ender, I assaulted his mind. Dual consciousnesses ran rampant across an unseen horizon right at him. When the telepathic connection formed, a majestic, ancient mind lashed out at me. It found a legion waiting for its arrival. Swiveling around it, my minds evaded his attacks like schooling fish. My defensive psyche shepherded this mass and deflected Lehesion's onslaughts all at once. Simultaneously, my offensive consciousness acted as a juggernaut, tearing across the gialgathen's exposed thoughts.

In one moment, I tread over memories. Another second passed, and I smashed his lines of logic. Lehesion brightened himself until blinding, but I persevered and wounded his more methodical processes. He lost control. The goliath gaped at his surroundings, staring around in dismay.

It stunned me seeing how vulnerable this monster was, but it also explained how Elysium gained control of Lehesion in the first place - his strong body held a weak will. Those psionics controlling Lehesion loomed when I reached the further recesses of Lehesion's anima.

There, I found a prodigious mass of minds suppressing him.

They created a cord of some kind that any of them could connect with. Just grazing this enormous tether, I found thousands of minds working in unison at all moments. They maintained an iron grip over the gialgathen, ensuring no lapses in control. That's why Lehesion was undefended; his mind fought elsewhere.

That mass of psionics took notice of my intrusion, and many detached from this unbreakable bond with Lehesion. They crashed into me with the unity of a nation and the malice of an enemy. As individuals, I could've smothered them. When together, they acted like a wave of ants running over a mantis. Each of them hacked away at my enormous consciousness, the minuscule traumas mounting into a beating.

But I was no mantis of flesh. I was like a mantis of metal. Exhaustion and pain radiated from the mental wounds, but I held a tight grasp of my mind. I fell onto a knee, control of my left leg lapsing. I twitched, my body being arrested from me. Reorienting my approach, my defensive mind shot into action. It sliced through a connection point, weakening the assault. My offensive mind charged, ripping out psyches left and right.

I blinked, orienting myself again. Able to stand, I bolted forward towards Lehesion's actual body. I couldn't afford to relent or ease up on the pressure, and so I hit Lehesion's healed chest. As I did, the minds within him quivered. They felt the unbridled agony, the crushing bone, and the ripping sinews just like Lehesion did.

In the wake of that pain, they wavered for only a moment. I smiled, a drop of blood oozing from my lip. I'd found their weakness - pain. I pulled a hand back, turning on the balls of my feet and striking Lehesion. I amped the incoming blow with my gravity wells and telekinetic sharpening. At the same time, I charged my fist with pure cold. That chill seeped through him, flash freezing his muscle.

Force erupted outwards, and pieces of Lehesion fell. I breathed in his blood, and I became an engine of destruction. I reached back, and another murderous strike landed across his frame. The water around us carried a shockwave that disintegrated stone. I heated my body, turning into a molten behemoth. Each time I landed a punch, stab, or strike, the mass of detached psionics flinched.

I amassed heat into my body until I glowed. A thin layer of steam poured from my armor, submerging me in a thin later of air. Shards of salt fell from this dispersal of ocean water, and I smeared those shards into Lehesion's wounds as I stabbed a hand into his frame. Lehesion howled out, but his screams turned into a symphony in my ears.

His pain was my survival.

I honed in on this weakness. Moving forward, I shot out electricity into his nerves when I touched him. He winced, and more elements molded in my hands as I assaulted him. Burning ice left pieces of Lehesion frostbitten. Heated plumes of magma burst from my knuckles as they grazed him. Even Helios struck out with void ice as well.

The ruler of worlds calculated each attack, making the most of his mana and mental endurance. Lehesion lifted a hand to strike, but Helios blocked it with void ice. Lehesion swiped a tail, and another blot of the violet snow lodged itself around him before Lehesion got momentum in his tail whip.

This continued while I tore at his weakened mind. In this relentless charge, I poured on punishment in all its forms. I crushed. I froze. I electrocuted. I smashed. I ripped and gored. The endless torrent of wounds weakened the mind mages that fought against me. They retaliated in kind, sending more of their members to throttle my psyche.

This mounting mental pressure stressed my split consciousnesses. At times, my physical control lapsed. Those lulls lastest for short, instant bursts before I retook physical command. Despite their success in that domain, they never gained authority of my minds. With those wills, I ripped and gouged out portions of Lehesion's body, one section at a time.

I froze his blood and pulled the air from his lungs. He choked, drowning in a void. Lehesion gasped, being strangled while I sent out waves of electricity and impacts to his body. I existed like breathing darkness, a black hole swallowing a bright star. In that moment, I lost myself in anger and rage and fury. It consumed me, but I allowed it to. This was not the desperate rage I leaned on once before. It was a controlled and cold frenzy.

My relentless annihilation came from necessity. Any moment Lehesion gained an understanding of his surroundings, he unleashed overwhelming strikes and attacks. Several veered off my city's forcefield, and each time they did, I trembled in fear. Everything I owned fell in that dome of energy. I put that fear behind me, using it to surge myself into action.

My dread converted into an animalistic fervor. I darted in, consumed, and rampaged until Lehesion scrambled to even reply. And yet, Lehesion still pulled himself together. The psionics nested in his brain bore down hard on me, and their perpetual pressure crippled me. I missed attacks, failed magic, or even fell at times.

These lapses led to the deaths of many. Hordes of Vagni perished in blindings fires, storms of light, and furious eruptions. Several supergolems evaporated in those attacks, and I still remember their deaths. My own guildsmen died while evacuating to the city as well. For some of them, I saw their faces.

Those faces still haunt me.

But the psionics paid a dear price for weakening me. Their tether waned in strength, and each mage sent to me reduced the Adairs' absolute control of Lehesion. This gave Lehesion more freedom. The freedom to express rage and hatred of me. His mental defenses bolstered, no longer stripped bare by his psionic controllers. His movements became less hazy, no longer dulled by the lag from being controlled. Lehesion evolved before my eyes, becoming the monster I remembered.

Yet, I fell into a rhythm all my own, and in my wrath, I poured forth slaughter without end.

I swung, parried, dodged, deflected, blocked, stabbed, hooked, tore, maimed, and mauled him. Each hunk of flesh I devoured played on his fears of being eaten, a fear entrenched after his encounter with his first Spatial Fortresses. I leveraged that vulnerability like twisting a knife lodged in someone's ribs.

I wielded that knife in other ways. I infested his mind with insidious thoughts of being devoured. Those fears wracked at his sanity and the psionics piled more mages onto their unified offensive. I grimaced at the numbing pressure, so many minds pooling onto mine that it felt that my body wasn't my own.