Rebirth of the Nephilim

Chapter 690: The World Burns

“Vattene via da me, demone!”

Syd did not initially turn to look at the shouted words. Her attention was concentrated on the simulacrum that had clawed its stony body out of one of the many yawning pits that riddled the muddy and ruinous landscape. The rock Demon had grabbed hold of her leg and used its great weight to pull her down into the quagmire, sinking her all the way to the knee. It took a few hard knocks with the hilt of her sword staff to crush its arm, then a couple more blows to pound the Demon’s boulder of a body into pebbles. The shouts of cries of the soldiers around her were almost a background noise, made easier to push aside by the fact that she couldn’t understand the language, for the most part. Demone was easy enough to translate, especially with how the word was being slung about the battlefield with great frequency, but Jadis did not have enough experience with Voltonian to comprehend full sentences. So, Syd did not give much of her attention to the angry shouts behind her that were targeted at a Demon.

The shouts in Imperial, though, gained her immediate interest.

“She’s your fucking ally you fucking shite head!”

Whipping her head around, Syd found Bridget easily thanks to her continually burning aura of blue flames. The warrior orc had become a beacon for the soldiers who had been trapped in the pitfall and more than a hundred of the still combat capable infantry had gathered around her, forming lines to fend off the Demons and create a safe zone for the badly wounded to have at least temporary refuge until they could either be lifted out of the pit by the Seraphim, or the battle ended. Syd and Alex had stayed with Bridget, though while the orc stood at the front and center of the line, Nephilim and Demon moved beyond, striking down enemies and picking up survivors wherever possible.

At that moment, Alex was standing near Bridget, another wounded man who looked unconscious hanging limply in her monstrous arms. While the heavy rain made the evening even darker than normal, Bridget’s flames lit up the area so well that Syd had an easy time making out her surroundings. Alex’s body language was clear as day to Jadis, and it was obviously angry. Not as angry as Bridget’s fierce pose, though.

“Are you bloody blind or are you completely without a brain?” the flaming warrior demanded as she shoved a mud-splattered soldier in the chest. “Get to the back of the fucking line!”

The man shouted something back in his native tongue, motioning wildly at Alex, but Bridget had already turned her back on the apparent fool and was ordering a group of soldiers on the south flank forward to shore up a gap in the line. Syd watched for a moment longer, seeing two of the soldiers who were next to the shouting idiot grab him by the shoulder and shove him back behind them while a third man moved up and took his place.

Syd filed the incident away to a small space in the back of her mind. It was a moment to be remembered and addressed, but not while she was in the middle of a raging battle. She would talk to Alex and Bridget about what had happened later; perhaps the man had made an honest mistake and mistook Alex for a hostile Demon, or maybe he was a prick with a grudge who had taken the opportunity to strike at someone he perceived as an enemy. Whatever had happened and whatever the cause, Jadis had other issues to focus on at that moment.

Unless the fucker attacked Alex again, at which point he would be finding out what it felt like to be thrown into the air by a woman with five hundred and ninety points in her Strength stat.

As Syd sliced her way through another Demon, Jay did much the same in a mirror of her counterpart. The horde was finite, yet it didn’t feel that way as she stood as a bastion amidst their dark flood. Most of the Demons were mire hounds, negligible to her with the great disparity between their stats and strengths, but there were more dangerous enemies mixed in among the chaff. Whenever she saw a simulacrum or a scythe wight, she pushed through the clawing masses and took out the more powerful foe, ensuring that the greater threat would not reach the soldiers.

Pausing for a second, Jay saw two simulacrums who had spotted her and were charging as a pair to meet her. The massive stone Demons did not care if their smaller kin were crushed under their feet as they sprinted towards her, and for a moment Jadis wondered how many mire hounds she could kill by leading the two around like a carrot on a stick. Shaking the idle thought away as it had no place in the current circumstances, Jay lifted her hammer in preparation for the coming collision.

Like a shell fired from a canon, Dys slammed through a long stretch of Demons, crushing as many as she could with her speed and bulk. Actions coordinated by her multiple viewpoints, she struck the back of the two simulacrums’ legs with the edge of her axe, cutting the stone and forcing the pair to fall. The impact was enough of a drag on her trajectory that Dys had to immediately pull up or risk crashing, but the damage to Demons was done. Before either could do more than stumble forward, Jay was swinging her Demon-bone club into the side of the rightmost simulacrum. With a stone-shattering crash, the splintered Demon was knocked to the side and into its twin, and both were sent into a tumbling mess of destroyed rocks that flattened several more mire hounds in the wake of their destruction.

“Okay, two more down, another billion to go…” Jay muttered as she took to the sky to avoid the mire hounds trying to dogpile her.

Upon a quick assessment of the battlefield, aided by Dys’ viewpoint, Jay darted to the north, aiming for Wilhelm’s brightly shining form. When she landed next to him, she made sure to sweep the area, clearing a small space around the Hero so that she would not be immediately pounced by Demons. However, considering Wilhelm’s aura, Jadis wasn’t wholly sure she was in any danger of that happening while standing next to the man.

“Wilhelm! They need more support north!” Jay shouted over the din of battle.

“Yes!” the Hero responded, not wasting a breath on needless discussion.

The army had moved several companies of soldiers to the north and south sides of the collapse, but the northern units had been slowed in their approach by further crumbling along the sides of the pit. Whenever they tried to move into a better position to cover the northeast lip of the crater, more of the edge would collapse, forcing the men back else risk falling into the muddy deathtrap themselves. The southside had not had as many issues; Jadis guessed that the tunnels did not extend as far in that direction, so the ground was more stable. She also knew that more of the Hero’s party as well as her own companions were on that side of the pit. She had seen Ludger, Thea, Meli, Halvor, and Lucia leading the soldiers, and she knew that Tiernan was in that direction as well, though she had lost track of the mage. The northside had support as well in the form of Noll, Rein, Tegwyn, and a bevy of elite avatars, but that front of the battlelines were definitely having more trouble than the south.

As Wilhelm dashed away from her Jay noted the way more of the Demons chased after the golden man rather than divert their attacks to more readily available targets, like herself. Jadis guessed that Wilhelm had some ability similar to her own Mirror Shine, which made sense considering the way the Hero always seemed to gleam heroically whenever he was in a fight. Since Jadis had Mirror Shine active to help pull demonic attention away from struggling soldiers, and the Demons still focused on the Hero rather than her, she assumed Wilhelm’s version of the skill was much more powerful than her own. That, or Samleos was driving his spawn to throw themselves after the Hero above all others. It was hard to say.

Seeing that Wilhelm was well on his way and the area was cleared of allies, Jay shot into the air to join her other self at a point just above where the Leviathan and Aila were hovering. Dys had already spared a moment to warn her redheaded lover of the imminent maneuver since she didn’t want to get hit by friendly fire, so the path ahead was ready. With the bowl of the collapse serving as the middle point, the two arms of the Voltonian army were closing in from either side, encircling the collapse to protect those who had been caught inside. There was still a wide front along the northwest of the pit where Demons were pouring into the muddy crater, but that gap was shrinking. Further, Jadis’ Syd body was down in the muck with Alex and Bridget, and with the help of several hundred soldiers forming a shield wall, they were holding against the crush of enemies. While the ambush and trap had taken them by surprise, Jadis and her allies were recovering, and they would succeed in defeating their demonic foes.

Jadis was just going to make sure of that fact.

Lining her two selves up, Jadis held her weapons braced crosswise in front of her two bodies before diving down with as much speed as she could put into her flight. At the same time, she cast her Mirror Magnification spell, rapidly doubling in size and increasing her surface area dramatically moments before reaching ground level.

Jadis wasn’t sure it could be called a scythe of destruction. Rather than blades, it was more like two boulders rolling through a field of wheat, carelessly flattening everything in their path. Running parallel to each other, Jadis pushed her two bodies to go as far as they could through the mass of Demons, crushing as many as she could. At the start of the twin path of destruction, no more than a second after Jadis’s two forms had cleared the area, one of Aila’s lightning-aligned explosions struck the land just at the lip of the collapse, frying and paralyzing any of the Demons who had not already fallen to Jadis’ double flyby attack.

“Push forward!” Syd cried out, her sword staff raised like a banner over her head. “Secure the land! Save your allies!”

Syd put action to word, leading the charge forward to the edge of the collapse. There were more tunnels and pits, rougher terrain made worse by runnels and waterfalls of rain, but there were still survivors amidst the wreckage that needed to be rescued. Many had already fallen to the claws of the mire hounds or had been buried alive under the dirt, but there were those who had managed to hole themselves up in shrinking pockets of resistance. In particular, Jadis could see several of the mages who had making the land safe with Tiernan, their magic saving their skins if not allowing them to flee the melee.

Next to her, Alex slid along the ground, tentacles lashing out at any of the mire hounds or scythe wights that still survived. The two led the leading point of the advance, like a great wedge pushing into an open gap. Behind them Bridget stayed with the main line of shield bearing soldiers, marching forward at a slower yet still quick pace. As their line moved ahead, the bodies of allies, living or fallen, were taken up and moved back, giving them a chance for life or a guarantee that their flesh would not be corrupted for a foul purpose.

Reaching the closest edge of the pit, Syd used her greatly increased height to stab and slice at any of the Demons who were on level ground while Alex darted around her legs, pulling the wounded and the dead from out of the mud. The loud crack and snap of her smiting blows would echo despite the dampening rain, but Syd did not take her eyes off of the enemies before her. With her Mirror Shine active, the Demons were drawn to her, attacking with mindless aggression. It was only when she heard her name shouted that she looked down.

“Jadis…!”

Alex’s voice caused Syd to instinctively move in her direction, and she stepped to the left, half crouching as she sought out her lover. Alex had found a deeper section of the collapse, a hollow that was rapidly filling with muddy water. Inside were eight or nine men and women, some of whom Jadis recognized as army mages. Alex was trying to pull the survivors out, but her efforts were being hindered by several possessed myrmidons that were attacking both her and those who were trapped.

Lunging with her sword staff, Syd pierced the body of one of the ant-like beasts and pulled the skewered foe out of the pit before tossing it aside. She did so a second time, killing another myrmidon as Alex pulled two of the mages out with her tentacles. Then, as Syd moved to kill more, she felt as much as heard a nightmarish sound.

The ground around the edge of the collapse began to crumble.

“Shit and piss—!” Syd let out a grunting curse as she threw herself at the wall.

With legs spread wide, she tried to maintain her footing but felt the ground give way under her right boot. She was forced to flatten herself against the wall of dirt, wing tendrils splayed as far as they could go as she shoved against the section of the edge where the hollow with the survivors were. With her helmet pressed into the mud and her head twisted to the left, Syd couldn’t see anything on her right, but she heard the rushing rumble of the wall there collapsing. Tens of thousands of pounds of water-soaked ground sliding down, covering everything in its path. If the same happened to her small section, Jadis had no doubts about the inevitability of the deaths of those who were stuck in the hollow.

As Syd used all of her strength to hold the wall up for just a few more moments, she felt the impact of a heavy blow on the top of her head. Something scratched and bit at her armor, increasing the weight on her body, yanking at her arms and legs and making it that much harder to keep the wall from falling. With the mud and rain running over the visor of her helmet, Syd could barely see anything, but she knew what she felt were any number of Demons attacking her, trying to find a way through her armor, trying to find any means to sink their fangs into her flesh. She could hold out, she knew; her other two selves were on the other side of the battlefield, but she was already moving her bodies to join her Syd self. It was only a few moments. She just needed to give Alex time to save the mages. Just a few moments longer…

The cry of pain that came from her throat was involuntary. Some great force had slammed into the side of her head, striking her not just with a physical blow, but one packed with arcane energy. She couldn’t see what had struck her, but she felt the strain on her muscles increase as her body shook under the weight of a second blow that threatened to send her falling back. But all she could do was endure the attack, absorbing the punishment as her Jay and Dys selves were still—

A sudden roar, different from the rumble of shifting earth, filled Syd’s ears as a bright blue light surrounded her. She felt the force of an explosion pound against her back from above, then the light weight of a boot landing on her left shoulder. Through the rain and mud, Syd saw Bridget’s armored foot, wreathed in such an intense flame that she had to close her eyes against the brightness. Then Bridget’s weight was gone and Syd heard the sound of fire and flames move ahead of her, roaring like an inferno.

“Jadis…!Clear…!”

At Alex’s shout, Syd leapt away, pushing off the muddy wall to get clear of the collapse. With a shake of her head, she tried to get the mud out of her visor but found that she couldn’t do so, it had clogged her helm so thickly. What she did feel, though, was the pull of the mudslide against her legs, which forced her to fly higher into the air to avoid being dragged under. As Syd ripped the helmet from her head and felt the rain soak her hair, she realized that Bridget had leapt up onto the brim of the pit. With the rumble of the collapse still filling the air, Jadis moved to dive down and find her lover, hoping that the warrior orc had somehow managed to keep her head above the avalanche of mud.

However, as Syd’s vision cleared and Jay and Dys converged on the point, Jadis was met with an unexpected sight. Burning bright with her blue flames, Bridget stood on top of the collapse, swinging her flail with forceful abandon at the charred and smoking Demons around her, many of which had been dragged down by the mudslide in a way that she had seemingly avoided.

No, Jadis realized half a second later, Bridget wasn’t standing on top of the collapse. She was floating above it. Her feet did not touch the ground, instead skating a short distance above, like she was an oil flame dancing above the water’s surface.

Crashing down around Bridget on three sides, Jay, Dys, and Syd struck down all the Demons around them, cutting out a swathe of free space that gave Syd a moment to approach the orc directly. Jadis could only imagine how shocked her expression had to look as she stared at the flaming form of her lover. Gazing up at her with a face made of fire and light, Bridget’s eyes burned a deep orange red in contrast to the blue flames that had replaced her flesh. When she opened her mouth to speak, steam flowed out in a wave that dissipated in the cold rain.

“Hey,” Bridget spoke in a voice like a furnace. “I leveled.”