Chapter 299: A Shining Massacre (2/2)

I allowed them to smash my consciousnesses. I lost awareness at times, forgetting pieces of the fight. Evertime I awoke, an unbridled terror flooded through me. Without my perpetual fighting, Lehesion would wipe out my guild in a blaze of light. I'd lose everything.

Despite my growing desperation, I never ceased fighting. Whether I fell apart or not, I would become whole again within a second. They shattered my mind over and over again. I broke out of those deaths without fail. Even if they killed me each second, I regenerated faster than that.

My rejuvenation was infinite. It defied any expectation or demand. It held my mind together under an unholy stream of damage. It struck dread in me at first, but I became comfortable with this dance of death over time. My durability became evident then undeniable. Forgoing my defenses, I kept mounting my attacks with greater fury.

Each of those soul-wrenching blows and earth-shattering strikes tortured Lehesion. Over time, this frenzied, chaotic battle sunk into the wells of a monotonous slog. They grew desperate for an end, but I was unending. I'd been here many times. I made my home here, in this living hell. Lehesion had not.

This torture kept mounting until Lehesion's movements slowed. He wanted to escape. He found himself in purgatory, one of my making. He couldn't sustain my punishment, yet he couldn't die from it either. Eonoth revived him even if he wished to die.

He swung his tail towards me, but I soaked it into my shield and struck him. He snapped his jaws at my neck, but his maw fell onto a ball of spines. He flew into the air above for relief. Lehesion met void ice before I pulled him back into the depths. And those depths sunk deeper.

I pulled him into a dark sea. Minutes of fighting turned into hours. Pain turned to misery, and Lehesion fell into this horrific eternity. His attacks, while cataclysmal and ruinous, took time to generate. His eclipse magic couldn't be cast because I offered him no room to breathe. He couldn't blow me apart with his laser breath either as Helios reflected it back to him each and every time.

This disarmed his arsenal of world-ending weapons. His most potent tools voided, Lehesion relied on his physical and mental techniques. They waned with time, but mine did not. And so, I devoured with abandon. I ripped out chunks of flesh and meat, using this as an opportunity to charge my runes and gain ambient mana. I practiced skills, combining elemental energies.

But most importantly, I needed Lehesion to understand that if he ever fought me again, he'd be trapped in this endless cycle. I pulled no punches as he faltered. I left no mercy as panic coursed over his eyes. His will to defy me would be expunged until nothing but a hollowed husk remained of it, one that ran from the whisper of my name.

I took no pleasure in the process. I gutted him. I tore skin from flesh and flesh from bone. He couldn't escape me with speed or distance as I kept pace. He couldn't run to madness as his controllers kept him sane. Lehesion fell into that hellfire, one kindled by harm but sustained by his masters' unwillingness to give in. Despite being in the middle of that tug of war, Lehesion still remained cognizant. He tried many tactics. He spread his aura, keeping my physical form away. He opened portals for warping out, and he even tried attacking my people instead of me.

For the aura spread, I discovered Event Horizon couldn't pierce it, but the Rise of Eden could. Warping proved even simpler to stop. He still had to physically jump through a warp, and I wasn't about to let him. As for attacking my guildsmen, he succeeded.

I couldn't stop him from purposely crushing Vagni and the like, as he proved too challenging to control. It was a bitter pill I had to swallow, but I made sure he paid his own blood price. Reinforcements attempted aiding Lehesion, but they perished in the umbral blots of my singularities. The Adair's mental ambushes proved lethal, but I kept them minimized by unleashing wave after wave of physical anguish through Lehesion.

Anytime Lehesion dove down towards me, I met his dive head-on. The resulting impulse disintegrated blocks of the cityscape. I crushed Lehesion's left arm with a sharp hook from my left hand, and the gialgathen's shearing bone released enough force to level buildings. The shockwave itself tore across the sea, leaving it unsettled like a pool being cannonballed continuously.

These waves swallowed the skyline above the sea, making a mockery of the ocean's size and scale. It was like a puddle to us, and that pool rippled with an intensity unbounded—the same devastation wrought from the heat of our strikes. Even the slightest blow induced otherworldly volumes of friction. A grazing kick or shredding claw boiled the water around us, killing many in our warpath.

These impacts...they killed many. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Vagni perished. Remnants, espens, and Hybrids died in mass. We scorched Saphigia until little of it remained. The sheer volume of damage made the conflict feel meaningless for us both. What were we fighting for anymore? We killed and killed but obtained no ground, neither of us.

It saddened me, but I overwhelmed grief with rage. This was my homestead, a new frontier for my people. If I let Lehesion ground himself, he'd induce an apocalypse over everything we built here or the little left of it. There'd be nothing but a dried sea and a molten wasteland left behind when he finished us. We'd never expand over Earth either if Elysium knew they could send Lehesion over at any time.

And so, I enacted a living hell for Lehesion. I never relented. I poured forth like an eruption with no end. I bit at his heels like a pack of immortal wolves. I mauled his spirit, and I tore his bones. At times, I felt his fear and his terror, but I swallowed that sickness in my stomach. He was my enemy, and no enemy would be left living.

Eventually, Lehesion and I stood amongst a scarred horizon. We shattered swaths of Saphigia. We stared at each other, both of us exhausted. Lehesion grimaced at me, a deep disgust bubbling out, but an even more profound dismay simmered under the surface. He howled,

”How do you live knowing you are an abomination? Do you ignore it? Do you hide from the pain of knowing you're a calamity?”

My arm, just disintegrated, reformed in a flash. Liquid metal shot out of my torso and snapped into its previous shape, ready to go. I remained silent, but my armor laughed for me, cackling out in a haunting reverberation like metal. I spoke between its unsettling echoes,

”If you choose to stand behind me, then I am your guardian. If you choose to stand beside me, then I am your leader. If you stand against me, then I am your destroyer. Tell me, Lehesion-”

I spread my hands,

”Where do you stand?”

Pieces of his crystal armor fell from his frame, few shards of it remaining over him. Fresh scars over his skin dissipated, but the mental ones wouldn't mend so quickly. His breathing quickened as he sputtered,

”You...you are only a monster. I may stand anywhere I wish with you, and it will serve no consequence. You cannot affect me.”

I raised a hand, and he backed away. I scoffed,

”You fear being eaten when you've already been swallowed.”

Lehesion's eyes widened, ”No. You are wrong. I am not prey. I am the hunter. I-I must be.”

I stood tall, ”No, you are a sword that is wielded by others and swung where they cannot reach. The Adair's have torn your mind to pieces, and now I battle the fragments they hobble together. You fight without urgency because you don't fear death. You battle without cunning because you've never needed it. You even strike without intent since even a light brush is all you've ever needed to kill.”

I pounded my chest with a fist, ”But I've wallowed in my own blood and fought through it. I've lived with death. It made me strong. You'll find I fight without mercy because I've never been allowed to have it. I strike to kill because I can't afford to do otherwise.”

I spread my fists, ”The lives we've lived, they're worlds apart. That's why when you crushed me, I decided to stand tall even when I was in your shadow. Now that you lie in mine, you cower in the dark. That is what your reincarnation has given you - a weak strength.”

I spit blood into the sea, the silver shifting through the steam layer evaporating from me. The shining blood dispersed amidst the water, siphoning back to me. I stared him down,

”Grow a backbone and come fight me again.” I cracked my knuckles, ”Or I can keep carving you up. It's your choice.”

The congregation of psionics controlling Lehesion ceased attacking me at that moment. A palpable relief flooded me as they did, their unrelenting pressure similar to my own. That reprieve lasted only so long as I leaned back, an inkling of concern sprouting in my chest. Something changed in Lehesion.

Lehesion's eyes grew bloodshot, orange, nanomachine-infused liquid surfacing through his veins. He whispered, ”No more.”

Around him, something snapped. Lehesion's energy spiked, and it flooded his frame until he sheened with radiation and an ominous, blue glow. I remounted my offensive on his mind, but I found something strange waiting for me. The psionics no longer defended Lehesion. They joined my own offensive, tearing as much as they could.

No, they didn't tear. These mages gnawed in absolute desperation. Their urgency infected me, and I redoubled my own efforts. It wasn't enough. Lehesion wrestled full control of his mind. Once more, he became whole. I no longer faced a shell of his former glory. I faced the full wrath of a legend, his powers and instincts no longer stripped.

He was the shattered god no longer. He was whole.

His ancient, full luster returned. He emitted intense radiation near him, the energy encapsulating everything in a dangerous but warm glow. His scars receded, and he took deep breaths of appreciation,

”Ah, I am myself again. To be given freedom is a blessing, one I've lacked appreciation for in the past. I'll do so no longer.”

His words sent a chill down my spine. I kept attacking his mind, and I uncovered pieces of what was happening as I did. They only made my stomach sink faster as I discovered more. I learned the Adair family helped break down the connection Lehesion had with Eonoth, the Old One. They'd lessened the barriers between the two, giving Lehesion more of the Old One's primordial, inconceivable energies.

But, I hadn't faced any of those new powers. No, I had met a living factory that powered Elysium's entire stat system, even while we fought one another. The whole time, he carried the brunt of a new society on his shoulders, and I hadn't known it. Lehesion grumbled,

”And with this freedom, what will I do? Tear down my manipulators? They stand beyond my reach, hidden amongst the stars. Destroy their armies? They number many, and they sprawl across planets. It would take time that I no longer have.”

I continued attacking his mind. Memories of our fight flooded me. When Lehesion wanted to maul, the mages weakened him. When he wished to devastate, Elysium enfeebled his attacks. As I ruptured and cleaved him apart, Elysium kept his unchecked rage shackled. The psionics faltered as I put pressure on their limiters and controls. Now, I faced Lehesion with his mind returned and his powers unbounded.

And staring at me, the beast's overbearing confidence returned,

”But, you stand here, Harbinger. You've earned my ire and my gaze. Now, little one, let us see if you may survive its fury.”