Universe's End

Chapter 237: The Radiance that outshines Brilliances

Apostolos didn’t often compare himself to Rory, or at least not for some time. With age came some semblance of wisdom, and while Apostolos hardly felt like an old man creaking at the knees, he was a great-grandfather.

So, while Apostolos had let go of comparisons decades prior, he couldn’t pretend he never had moments of comparison or childishness.

One thing he did compare himself to Rory about was his ability to protect Ehkorrus. Since the Fall of Ehkorrus decades prior, he’d been forced to reevaluate what strength meant, where he derived it, and what strength even meant.

His strength was his family, his literal family, and the family that Ehkorrus represented. In a more literal sense, his strength was the Radiance of the suns.

So, when the E.O.N. damned Bird attacked his family and empowered his followers with ‘Brilliance’, Apostolos had a sort of territorial anger that he’d never felt before. Not just his family, but his very affinity was being besmirched.

While the most impressive battlefield was the sky above, where Rory did battle with the Bird, the next most impressive battlefield was wherever Apostolos found himself, in golden armor and with a grim scythe, tearing through his enemies with ease.

In theory, the Brilliance Touched should have countered Apostolos, their natural resistance to light and heat quite the coincidental advantage.

“The False Light must be repudiated.”

The whisper, less actual words and more of a sympathetic feeling, seemed to resonate with Apostolos to his very core.

Of course. Apostolos thought, agreeing with the sentiment of his maybe-sentient armor.

Brilliance versus Radiance, Apostolos tore through the False Light users; their resistance meant nothing so long as Apostolos expanded his ‘aura of inner self,’ as Rory called it.

He really does suck with naming things.

Apostolos had adopted a much simpler term.

His mantle flared, and a Brillance-Touched Hodag, which should have been resistant to sunlight magic, was slashed in two by a radiant blade of pneuma.

As the metaphysical light vanished from the Hodag’s eyes, its literal light was drawn toward Apostolos, his armor drinking in the barely present luminescence.

A question for Rory… later.

For some time, Apostolos focused on nothing more than doing his best to slaughter the endless horde of monsters, humanoid enemies given no more mercy than any monster. As an Anzu, perhaps Apostolos should have felt more empathy for his fellow non-humans.

But he really didn’t. Death for those who would dare turn a weapon toward his home, his people.

Eventually, though, something changed. In the distance, far behind the battlelines of the organized monster horde, the presence of two tier-eights.

Uh oh.

There wasn’t a chance in the world that was a good sign, not when they’d only planned for the tier eight wave boss and the Bird itself.

At the same moment, Apostolos saw something launched through the sky, straight toward where he’d felt the two tier eight presences appear.

Oh. I understand.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out. An ambush of sorts, intending to take advantage of a numerical advantage to deal with Rory and prevent the battle from becoming an extended affair.

After all, the Bird probably wants a quick victory in preparation for the other Founders.

“Not on my watch,” Apostolos muttered, preparing to launch himself in the direction that Rory had been flung.

Which was his intent, but clearly the enemy forces understood the plan, as every monster seemed to instantly converge on Apostolos with the sole goal of keeping him locked down.

Subconsciously, Apostolos understood it was probably a general plan that once the other two tier-eights made their presence known, all peak or near-peak tier sevens under the Architect’s banner were to be kept locked down, unable to render any form of aid.

Truthfully, that didn’t matter much to Apostolos. All he knew was that his brother was in danger.

What felt like hours passed, but in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, max. All sense of self-preservation was abandoned as the monsters threw themselves at Apostolos like suicidal lemmings.

In truth, Apostolos probably wouldn’t have been able to make it to Rory in time if it were just his own efforts.

Which is why it was good that it didn’t come down to his efforts alone.

Like a prayer answer, from Ehkorrus itself, Apostolos felt two presences appear, tier eights, and more importantly, Apostolos recognized them. In an instant, the two presences split, one taking to the sky, launching herself into the air with the sheer force of her jump, the other somehow swimming through the earth itself.

Seeing an opportunity, Apostolos shot forward, the distraction caused by the two tier-eights suddenly appearing all that he needed to flash through the horde, breaking through the backlines in mere moments, a glowing trail following him like the path of the suns across the sky.

“Seismic Impact!” Apostolos heard from the figure who had shot upward in a single jump into the sky before crashing down like a red meteor.

Not wanting to be late to the party, Apostolos folded the aspects of sunlight itself into his body, for a moment becoming a ray of sunlight and clearing the remaining distance in a single breath. It wasn’t something he could do regularly, only capable when he had a clear shot between point A and point B, but by golly, did it work.

Scythe swinging as he re-materialized, Apostolos was somewhat surprised as a man caught the attack on his own elongated weapon, a great axe composed of an aquamarine-colored mineral.

“Sorry,” Apostolos huffed, glancing toward Rory, who looked a bit disheveled after being jumped by a group ambush. “I tried to race over as fast as I could after I felt the appearance of two extra tier eights attacking, but there are a lot of monsters out there.”

“Hah,” Rory laughed before his eyes landed on the oversized Bird, its aura demanding attention. “It’s fine.”

“It does not matter the-”

“Shut up,” Rory interrupted as he flickered in front of the Bird, catching it by the beak and yanking it through space as they flickered back into the skies above.

Apostolos’s grin wasn’t hard to miss as he saw Rory kidnap the Bird back into the sky.

He really does love ruining others’ moments.

“You smile as if this changes anything,” The man that Apostolos was clashing weapons against said.

“And you are?” Apostolos asked, finally taking time to look the man in the face, a pack of groupies surrounding him.

“I am the Right Wing of the Brilliant Lord,”

“Uh-huh,” Apostolos said, for a moment feeling like he could understand Rory. “And what exactly does that mean?”

“I am one who has seen the errors of my way and been adopted by the Brilliant Lord. A former errant follower of the Voice, I-”

“I was fuckin’ with you,” Apostolos said, purposely snorting in contempt.

Information warfare, as Rory would call it.

Apostolos wasn’t a moron; he could guess what such a title meant. But if he could purposely irritate or piss off the man, a fellow peak-tier-seven, that would only help Apostolos.

Which was probably a good call, given that supporters surrounded the man, whereas Apostolos was alone.

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“Here.”

Alright, not fully alone.

“Such a contemptuous attitude,” The man shoved Apostolos away, his followers muttering quietly in the background. “I once was like you. I followed a false prophet, one who promised safety and security, when what we needed was growth and adversity.”

Oh, oh no.

Instantly, Apostolos understood the gist of what he was dealing with.

Cultists.

It wasn’t as if Ehkorrus was without its share of… religious folks. What had once been a rather disorganized group had evolved into the Circle Votaries. As a group, they believed the first ‘circle’ or ‘ring of divinity’ was none other than E.O.N itself. After that was the World Spirit Aelia, considered coequal with the Founders as a pantheon, with the third ring being the Founders as individuals.

It was all rather nonsense in Apostolos’s opinion, but the roots had dug in long ago, and there was no real way to rip it out at this point.

Plus, the clashes in the sky probably didn’t dissuade such beliefs.

The point was, Apostolos could recognize religious fervor, and it was beyond obvious that the man he was facing and his groupies had it in spades.

The man had continued prattling on for longer, proselytizing… something, in truth, Apostolos wasn’t listening, nor did he care to know.

All that mattered was that he was in the way, an obstacle to overcome in the road to ensuring the safety of Ehkorrus.

“Enough,” Apostolos said before pointing his hand skyward. “The Bird, the ‘Brilliant Lord’ you claim is the one true lord?”

“It is so,” The man said, pointing his great axe at Apostolos. “Renounce your false prophet and follow the true Lord. You are already walking along a path close to the truth.”

“Uh-huh,” Apostolos said. “I decline.”

“Then you shall fall alongside your false prophet.” The Right Wing of the Brilliant Lord said, his aura spiking and aquamarine axe glowing with energy, before a ray of light shot toward Apostolos.

Hand still raised, Apostolos could only look at the zealot with pity.

“And who decided that?”

Once, Apostolos had leaned upon the blessing of the Khan of Blue lightning, granting him a fraction of heavenly energy to empower his own sunlight magic. With the Khan’s passing, that power had been taken from him into death, leaving Apostolos without the ability to rely upon the concept.

That was no longer the case.

A bolt of heavenly lightning seemed to strike downward from above, the energy cracking down upon his upward-pointing finger and blossoming into a miniature sun that Apostolos flung forward.

Whatever the zealot had expected, it wasn’t for a ball of heavenly sunlight to be flung forward, consuming the fired ray of prismatic and solar energy as if it were a delightful treat. Exploding, Apostolos kept the radius small, concentrating the destructive force in a smaller area.

When the heavenly light faded, the enemy zealot commander remained standing, his arms outstretched as if he’d been holding back a boulder from rolling over him.

“I renounce my offer of invitation,” The man huffed. “You, your light, is not what I assumed. Heretical, blasphemous, false.”

“Sure, buddy,” Apostolos snorted. “It’s just sunlight.”

And that was the crux of the difference between Radiance and Brilliance. Radiance was ultimately nothing more than the encapsulation of the physical light of the twin suns overhead. Oh sure, he could leverage further meaning from the affinity, but it, at its core, revolved around the physical light.

Brilliance, meanwhile, was centered on the concept of light as a harsh, sterilizing force.

A stark reminder that even if two concepts seemed the same at a surface level, it was only ever the tip of the iceberg.

Having shared enough words, the two began to battle in earnest. While the man was a zealous nutjob, there was no denying he was good. Dancing about, their two man swept their oversized weapons at one another, each treating the large weapons like they were weightless. The lead shaman would fire off rays of harsh, prismatic, solar-infused brilliance, while Apostolos would twist out of the way. When not using heavenly-infused sunlight, Apostolos was forced to flare his mantle to overcome the innate resistance to ordinary sunlight that the opposing man’s magic contained.

Dipping and dodging for several minutes straight, Apostolos found an opening, rushing in as his fist seemed to glow with the memories of countless punches thrown over the decades. It was the old effect of a gauntlet Rory had made him long ago, but when his armor had been reforged, it had kept the effect.

Striking the man who hadn’t expected to be struck with the echo of thousands of punches, the man was launched backward, smashing through trees and boulders.

Turning his attention to the gathered shamans, Apostolos was just in time to see them finish some group chant, as from where he’d launched the opposing zealot, his aura spiked.

Turning back to face the man, Apostolos was just in time to deflect the great axe as it swept toward his head, the sort of injury that could potentially result in an instant respawn back in Ehkorrus.

Not just had the man’s aura spiked, the group magic was seemingly healing his body. The punch that had been delivered with the memory of thousands of other punches had quite literally blown a cannonball-sized chunk out of the side of the man’s body and even ripped through part of his spinal cord. Standing before Apostolos, the cavernous hole in the man’s side was all but finished stitching itself back together.

I wonder if that’s what it feels like to fight me.

“Let the Brilliant Lord shine through my mein veins!”

The zealot’s aquamarine great axe suddenly exploded; the shards, rather than flying outward, rushed toward the man, embedding themselves into his body as his veins began to become clearly visible, coursing with the same aquamarine color.

Rory will definitely want to investigate this material.

Whatever magic, skill, or other sort of ability that man had just used, it was effective; his speed stepped up past where it had been only seconds ago. Fists began to pummel into Apostolos, each striking as if they’d been delivered from a sledgehammer. Not to mention, any time Apostolos managed to swipe his scythe forward and wound the man, it seemed to stitch itself closed in a split second.

Smarter, not harder.

While Apostolos could bash his head mindlessly against this brick wall, times like these were where a bit of thinking went a mile.

Which is how Apostolos found his attention turning toward the gathered shamans aiding the zealot leader. His opponent had worse gear; there was no denying it, but it was being made up, and then some, by the boosting magic or abilities of his group.

So, what’s the obvious answer?

“Kill.”

Yes, kill th- I swear you’re getting more lucid.

Agreeing with the maybe-sentient armor, Apostolos suddenly juked the zealot, twisting out of the way at the last second as he shot toward the group. Scythe swinging, Apostolos frowned as it rebounded off a barrier of sorts.

Tsk.

“Cowardice!” The zealot leader shouted as he caught back up to Apostolos, driving a fist forward as a lance of green molten glass shot forward.

“You brought a peanut gallery,” Apostolos retorted, simply side-stepping the lance of molten green glass.

“Such confusing tongue will not detract from the will of the Brilliant Lord!”

Confusing tongue-? Oh, Rory idiom.

While Rory had never really shied away from using whatever phrasing had come from the ‘before times,’ clearly, the Founder that the zealot had once followed wasn’t quite so loose with their language. After which, it wasn’t as if the Bird would be any more knowledgeable than the rest of them.

Whatever. Hey, why don’t we turn the tempo up a step?

“Yes!”

See, Apostolos knew he hadn’t been overly attached to his old armor, no matter what Violet liked to tease him with. How many other armors gained a sense of consciousness?

The Dawnbreak armor that Apostolos wore suddenly began glowing, shining not with the judgmental Brilliance that the followers of the Bird liked to use, but the pure glow of the true suns. Drinking in the warmth, Apostolos was suddenly the one on the offensive, the speed advantage switching back in his favor. Rotating his scythe in his hand, Apostolos swapped from the pick-like head to the halberd head crafted of crimson metal. The zealot leader was tough, but he wasn’t exactly made of rock or heavy scales; there was no need for the extra penetrative power of the bane-sourced scythe head.

Without the extra punching power of the scythe-head, the halberd head was the obvious choice, wounds inflicted by the red metal bleeding more than was typical. The metal cut through the zealot’s flesh like a knife through butter –another old Rory idiom— before zipping back up a second later. While it may have seemed fruitless, to Apostolos, each injury inflicted by the red metal halberd-head was a step toward victory, weeping red tears before the wound had a chance to seal itself.

Each drop of blood lost was a drop of vital energy drained from the man.

Twisting under an overextended palm strike from the zealot, Apostolos dropped low, sweeping his leg under the zealot leader’s feet as he suddenly lost his balance. The man would regain his balance in an instant, but that was an instant Apostolos capitalized upon as he struck out with the back end of his scythe, the gem-capped butt of the scythe haft striking the man between the eyes with a satisfying crunch and launching him nearly a hundred meters in a single strike.

Considering how fast the man healed, Apostolos had zero belief it had ended the fight. Instead, his attention turned back toward the protected peanut gallery of groupies or shamans that had been chanting and muttering the entire time, their magic upkeeping their leader’s strength.

Lifting his hand skyward, a bolt of heavenly energy struck downward, and at the same time, Apostolos distantly noted a notification that seemed to flash once in the back of his mind before vanishing.

Apostolos had a feeling he knew what the notification was. Still, it was neither here nor there for the time being, as his attention was kept on the small group.

“One chance. Surrender, and I’ll let you survive.”

The group continued chanting, apparently unconcerned with survival.

That was, except for two near the back of the pack, what looked like a teenage boy and girl, who momentarily broke their chants, sharing a look, before sprinting away.

Smart.

Angling himself ever so slightly so that the two fleeing wouldn’t be in the line of fire, Apostolos reached toward what he knew he would find after the recent notification, activating the skill.

Long time coming.

“Sun God’s Smite!”

Swinging his hand down, a descending lance of heavenly light shattered the barrier, the pack of shamans changing from a choir of chanting to a single scream of burning and blistering pain.

Before silence, life burned from the incinerated corpses.

“The faithful,” The zealot leader said, having returned just in time to see his choir group incinerated by Sun God’s Smite. “How dare you?”

“Well, I dare just like that,” Apostolos said, feeling more quippy than usual.

It feels… good.

With waves in the past, they were nothing more than an event to be handled, with little actual meaning.

The Fall of Ehkorrus had been a desperate struggle that ultimately meant nothing; their ‘doom’ was all but guaranteed.

But this? This time was different. They weren’t pushing back against the emotionless force of nature that was a wave or Eon or whatever. They were pushing back, fighting against an aggressor and would-be invader.

So yeah, it felt damn good to put them in their place, to revel in their pride as Ehkorrians.

No E.O.N. damned Bird and its flock are going to drive us to our knees.

“It does not matter even if you should beat me here,” The zealot leader said, eyes narrowing as the two men briefly spoke, a moment of respite. “We are but peak-tier-sevens. In the grand scheme, specks of sand against the divinities of our Lords.”

“Speak for yourself,” Apostolos responded. He understood the gulf between himself and Rory at this point, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to start worshipping the ground beneath his feet.

“Do you believe you can prevail?” The zealot leader asked. “Your false prophet is strong, but he is not the Brilliant Lord who knows no defeat. Even those who rushed to his aid, can the woman expect to beat an empowered wave boss on her own?”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Apostolos shrugged.

“Excuse me?”

“It does not matter what I believe,” Apostolos restated. “Because what is believing to knowing? And I know they will win.”

Pointing his scythe at the man once more, Apostolos shook his head.

“So why don’t we get on with it?”