Bloodstained Blade

Chapter 200 - The God’s Themselves

By the time the Ebon Blade advanced through the second line of defenses, there were few who stood to oppose it. Even so, the body of its wielder had paid a terrible price thanks to the violent fire that flowed through its veins and burned around it like an aura.

While few had managed to injure it, most of the flesh had been removed from its charred bones. Surprisingly, instead of making further movement impossible, that made its strikes quicker and more sure. It was like the flesh had been an anchor, and the revenant was only free now that the overwhelming amounts of Life Force had burned it away.

+22 Heavenly Souls.

Energy Reservoir Full.

Life Force reserve limits exceeded!

The revenant is more spirit than flesh, the weapon reminded itself. Still, it knew it had a time limit. Geral’s body was coping with forces far beyond what could be expected of it. Still, when the flesh burned away completely, there would be nothing left to hold the spirit. It wasn’t even sure that a pure spirit could hold its hilt, which increased its urgency to find the god of gods.

It devoured several spirits, both to keep them from stoking its flames higher and to get a better layout of this place. None could resist it. Who do you worship, what dangers await me, and where can I find your master, were the blade's most common questions, and each of those terrified spirits, no matter how devout, spilled their guts. Still, their answers varied.

Some said that the Lion of Eglabron would soon be on its scent, while others claimed that the heroes of ages past would rally together to stop it. Images of those fanciful creations flashed through its mind, but no matter how fierce they looked, it wasn’t afraid of them. Why should it be? They were the same translucent soul constructs that it had faced so far.

No matter how far it proceeded, though, it never found them. A true avatar would have faired better against it, but those seemed to be in short supply, or the gods were loath to lose any more of them. That left the blade to climb the stairs ever higher in search of its true prey, Hydonar himself.

The blade stopped fighting with the ghosts that filled this place, passing by them in greater numbers as it moved toward the center of things according to the map of stolen knowledge in its mind. It did this not out of any sense of mercy, but because it didn’t need to burn any hotter than it already was. It was burning down the celestial palace in its wake, and where it found nothing but golden finery, it left nothing but purple flames and ash.

+107 Heavenly Souls.

Energy Reservoir Full.

Life Force reserve limits exceeded!

Still, souls died in those fires too, and the blade claimed them whether it wanted to or not. By the time it made it up the five floors to the grand atrium, it was a living pyre, and the skeleton at the heart was little more than an ember. The blade’s revenant wielder was closer to a demon in a man than that moment, but still, perhaps because it was Geral’s body, it stubbornly refused to come entirely undone until it had its chance for vengeance.

After the first couple of floors, the building had been a fortress. Then it had slowly become a palace, but now it was a temple, and each nook was a shrine to someone. It was beautiful, at least until the revenant that carried the weapon got too close and dispoiled it. The blade wondered what effect that might have on the wider world, but not so much that it let itself get distracted.

With every floor it advanced, it expected to find some dread guardian, empowered avatar, or mythical beast, but it encountered no real defenders until it reached the throne room of the gods themselves. There, it found a level of grandeur that would have been shocking had it not already glimpsed it through the minds of others.

The throne room was the top of the tower, but really, it was the place where the top should have been, because there was no top. Instead of a small room, there was something akin to a colosseum, lording over the rest of the heavens. It was built from luminescent marble, veined with gold, and the entire floor of the place was a mosaic of the world made from gems and semi-precious stones.

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Above the colosseum floor, seated in chairs in a broad semicircle, sat the gods. It couldn’t have named them all easily, but the way they radiated power made it impossible for them to be anything else. There was an elf, a dwarf, another woman, three empty chairs, and the god that it had come for, sitting in the center. He wore a gleaming white toga, had a bemused look on his face, and seemed utterly unconcerned by the blade’s sudden appearance.

It was fairly certain the reason for that was the only man who stood between them. Man was a word it used loosely. He glowed just as brightly as the other gods etherically, and from the armor he wore, it was impossible for him to be anyone but Argandin, the God of War.

He stood before the blade, at the center of the wide, bejeweled plaza, and though he was relaxed, and his weapon was still in its sheath, the blade could see the tension coming off the man almost as thickly as the power and violence that engulfed him. Arrogant or not, he knew what he stood before was dangerous and didn’t look down on the blade.

Still, at first, the blade ignored him. Using the revenant, it raised itself high into the air and issued a challenge to the Lord of Light. Hydonar! I have come for you! You shall pay for your crimes.

The god regarded it with a certain indolence for a moment as he reclined in his huge golden throne. “Crimes?” he smirked. The God of War had a grizzled face, but the lord of light was more youthful, and while not young exactly, he struck the blade as frivolous. “I am the lord of creation. Nothing I could do would be considered a crime, but even if it was, I never wronged you. I’m not responsible for your cursed fate. If you must blame something, then blame Nuella herself, not anyone here.”

Nuella did not kill my wielder, the blade countered. I slew her long before Geral’s family was reduced to ash before his eyes.

“Well then, you’ve done us all a favor,” the god answered with a cold smile. “Perhaps you can rein in hell as its new lord, then. It's clear that's where a damned creation like you belongs.”

It would have been hard to insult the blade more than by suggesting such a fate. The very last thing that it wanted was to go back to that place, and it raised itself menacingly as its wielder started to crouch for the attack.

As it did so, though, the War God took a step forward. “You will not face him. Not in here, not with me.”

I will gladly fight you once my vengeance is sated, the blade spat, But he is who I have come here to slay.

“That may be true,” Argandin answered guardedly, “But I’ve made this place our battlefield, and neither of us will leave it until the other is dead.”

The sword paused to consider those words. It was true there was a strange magic that connected them now. It hadn’t noticed it, but they were definitely linked. The blade considered severing it immediately, but decided against it. That was an ability best saved for the fight itself, if it was going to have to fight the god.

Now I know why no one else is joining the fray, the blade realized. The same magic that binds us together locks them out.

This was a power the blade could appreciate. It was perhaps the most honorable magic power it had ever come across, and it coveted it for itself. Studying the currents of magic, it could see that even the battlefield was defined and distorted in such a way that the two of them were locked in a distorted space that wasn’t so different from Position of Privilege.

You are brave to lock yourself in here with me when I did not come for you, the weapon answered. If you flee the field, I will not follow.

“I am incapable of an act of such cowardice,” the god declared, hands on his hips.

The blade considered what else it might say to that, but it decided that Argandin was right. They would have to fight. It might not be the battle that Geral had wanted, but it was certainly the one that the Ebon Blade did, and it was less afraid that it would lose or that it would be ambushed by the other Gods while they fought, than that even in victory, once the match was finished it would be too worn out to give Geral the justice he deserved.

That’s not a decision I can make; it reflected as it looked around the room at the other divinities who were watching. It was the way they looked at it that finally forced it to move its revenant to a combat stance; Some were afraid of it, but contempt and anger were more common than fear.

After that, there were no more words anyone needed to say. The War God sneered and drew his weapon, then he and the sword charged toward each other. They would speak in the language of violence, and the weapon would get its answers that way.