Universe's End

Chapter 241: Architect of the Precursors Vs. Born of Brilliant Feathers Pt. 3

“Aspect of Noon – The Lion.”

It was at the fourth breakpoint that things had gone from a game of keep away, like a boxer trying to win on points alone, to something far more dangerous.

“King of the Forest – Might.”

The summoned clones of the Bird had, after the main ‘power’ of the 4th Arcana was invoked, become far more tangible, worth something like sixty percent of the real deal.

Talons began to tear into Rory, and wings turned into razors that bloodied him. He attempted to defend himself by layering his aura into panels, a smart idea, but against an opponent like the Arcana-enhanced Bird and its many apparitions, it was like expecting a cardboard sheet to protect against an arrow.

Flickering around as quickly as he could was the only way Rory could avoid being mobbed by the literal flock of birds, tornadoes of hard-light glass spinning through the air after him, stallions still charging about, and the usual prismatic rays rebounding and bouncing about off the hard-light glass.

C’mon.

Part of Rory was tempted to accelerate his time frame, perhaps by tweaking a parameter here or there-

No. No, stay the course.

He had a plan, but it had to be played smart.

Information warfare.

Clapping his hands together, red lightning sparked up as Rory exhaled. The one good thing about having a bunch of pissed-off godling-pigeons tearing you apart was that all that bleeding meant there wasn’t a reason not to add it into his magic, given it was going to be wasted anyway.

Discarding his weapons entirely, Rory teleported away from yet another swarming assault, cracking to red lightning whips through the air, splitting several apparitions at once.

Perhaps had it been one or two apparitions, the whips might have proven more effective. Yet before Rory could fully destroy one, it pulled away, only for the sunlight to restore it within moments as the other apparitions covered for it.

On and on it went, until the main body cawed out for the fifth time.

“Aspect of the Penultimate – The Tortoise.”

Going to take a jab that it increases their durability.

Another apparition appeared, and sure enough, where just moments prior the blood lightning whips had managed to cause actual damage, the apparitions now felt closer to flesh and blood than to magical reflections.

Oh, I really wish I had projections on the table right now.

Flicking his ‘awareness’ to one of his mental threads, Rory mentally nodded.

Getting there.

Parameters giveth, and parameters taketh. Time was needed, so he would make time, simple as that. Plus, he still needed the Bird to finish its ace move; the Arcana-thingy was clearly building up to something big.

“Why the games?” The Bird asked. With as many of the apparitions as had appeared, it seemed far more confident, and given that it was always a cocky little cock that was impressive.

“What games?” Rory asked, playing dumb. “Monopoly? Sorry? Bingo?”

While the Bird lacked a human mouth, Rory could sense the scowl all the same.

“Arcana Art: Light that Burns the Sky!”

That doesn’t sound like something that will be fun.

As one, the Bird’s main body and its apparitions flew together for a split second, aligning themselves like the celestial alignment events that horoscope fans always seemed to lose their minds over.

And then a tidal wave of harsh light raced forward, incinerating even the tiniest specks of dust.

Wave that Burns the Sky would be more appropriate, but that’s really not the point now, is it?

Throwing out what looked like an entire bag of marbles, Rory snapped his fingers as over thirty barrier gems popped at once. While that might have seemed overkill, when the wave breached all but one of the erected barriers, Rory could feel sweat beading at the back of his neck.

Alright, this Arcana stuff is no joke.

Having barely withstood the combined attack, Rory’s reward was the Bird screeching out once more.

“Aspect of the Penultimate – The Jackalope.”

When it rains, it pours.

“Here.”

“Thanks,” Roxy sighed, taking the flask and drinking deeply. It was nothing more than an energy brew meant for getting people back on their feet, far from some magical healing potion. While it lacked any actual healing properties, the adrenaline rush was hard to deny.

The battle was… well, they were winning, Roxy was reasonably certain of that. There was still a horde of monsters out there, but with the wave boss slain, it was only a matter of time; even the fact that the forces of the Bird reinforced the wave wasn’t enough to overcome Ehkorrus. The Empyrion Casters had ultimately been too much of a difference maker, and every attempt to attack those manning them had been thwarted by Tsarina and her brood that lived within the very walls.

It was easy to tell oneself that the day had already been won, that the wave had broken upon their walls, and victory was at hand.

But.

But that ignored the Bird in the room.

Ka-thoom!

Roxy winced, as did several others who had been rotated out, as the explosion of power felt from far below was accompanied by a flash of light that hurt even their eyes. The skies of Aelia had always been extremely bright, being dominated by twin stars. Yet, that same brightness didn’t hold a candle to what was shining down upon them now; the light cast by the Bird was damn near biblical. The swell of power high in the sky had reached such a point that, even down on the ground, the shockwaves alone felt like low-scale magical attacks; the evacuation of anyone below tier six had proven wise.

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Dad…

Of the two sides, as much as Roxy wanted to pretend that they were evenly matched, they weren’t. Something had changed; every few minutes, the pressure the Bird radiated multiplied. With how bright it was up there, no one could look directly at the battle, but at least one person had used some skill to get an idea of the cause.

The Bird had literally multiplied.

How her father was still able to contend with multiple of them was beyond Roxy; it was beyond all of them, for that matter, except for the likes of Ms. Zoey, who had joined the fray earlier and was responsible for slaying the wave boss.

Oh dad.

Again, the Bird’s pressure radiated outward as she heard a voice from nearby.

“Witness the glory! Gods clash, and we rejoice!”

I really wish Uncle ‘Los would let us do something about those weirdos.

The Circle church was doing its thing, preaching about ‘divinity this’ or ‘heaven-sent that,’ and while it annoyed Roxy to no end, she could see it in the eyes of some of the people, the words of the preachers having an effect.

Even if Roxy wasn’t about to start worshipping the ground her father walked on, she did offer up a silent prayer, more a plea than anything.

Please dad. Win this.

Rory was hurting.

Simply put, his body couldn’t withstand what he was putting it through, slowly pushing the limit of his attribute limiter removal.

There really wasn’t a choice, what with the Bird up to his sixth Arcana active and a bunch of clones flying about. Rory had to; it wasn’t even a choice if there was any hope of holding on.

Oh, sure, on one hand, Rory felt amazing. How could he not? Uncapping your attributes as much as he had was one hell of a power trip.

On the other hand, he was still decisively losing ground.

Alright, time to quarantine another mental thread.

Escalating the limit removal by another percent, Rory was forced to lock down a mental thread in its own little corner, up to three of them that were left gibbering messes of brain-breaking pain from the degree he’d uncapped his attributes.

If tier eight was expected to take anywhere from three to four hundred years, the current extent of his limiter removal was the equivalent of a good one hundred and fifty years or so.

That’s how much of an issue the damn Arcana schtick was proving.

No, not even that.

It was how it all blended. If the Bird wasn’t so damn mobile, he could have at least tried to eliminate them in a single attack with something like a singularity strike, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Well, not yet at least.

So whatever injuries he did inflict were rapidly restored. Then there was the fact that with six bodies flying around that seemed to have a linked reserve that only grew with each reflection, the Bird had access to anywhere from eighteen to twenty-four times the pneuma reserves as Rory did at this point, and that wasn’t even accounting for the fact that they were constantly regenerating pneuma from the sunlight.

All in all, a rather shit situation.

“Aspect of the End – The Wheel.”

Seven aspects invoked, there was only one more for Rory to withstand. Everything was ready, outside of his timer and the Bird itself.

Hell, he had even thought of a proper name.

An additional clone body appeared at the second-to-last invocation, as if catching up for the lack of body on the starting invocation. Eight bodies, eight Birds. Things had truly begun to look dire for Rory, who was unable to release any more of his limiter. It wasn’t even a matter of the mind, but an issue of the body, anything more than what he’d already released, and he’d start suffering from a little-known illness called ‘body-explode-itis.’

Just a little more.

His goading and attempt at irritating the Bird had paid off, and then some. It seemed more focused on showing off its full Arcana now that it was so close to completion than ending the battle in a timely fashion, and combined with the fact that it was obvious that Rory was up to something, it seemed content to take the ‘safe’ approach by finishing its Arcane invocation completely.

Information warfare.

It came down to arrogance. The Bird believed its ace in the hole was more powerful than Rory’s. Considering how advantageous its current state was, there was no reason not to measure things carefully; it was at no risk. In its mind, it probably believed that whatever attack he was preparing to unleash could be beaten by its full Arcana.

It was that caution, that degree of intelligence, that had separated it from other monsters and allowed it to become a Founder-Slayer.

And it was ultimately what Rory believed would be its downfall.

Information warfare, baby.

Of course, there was always a chance that Rory was the one being arrogant, too much faith in his ownace in the hole. For that matter, he didn’t have any idea what the fully invoked Arcana would do. He just believed it wouldn’t be enough, not when compared with what he’d been setting up for some time now.

Only one way to find out, one more Arcana to go, no room for other plans at this point.

Almost entirely giving up on any offensive actions, Rory focused instead on cycling his flowing blood back into his body, keeping himself in the best fighting shape he could. It wasn’t anything close to real healing, even taking several ossified blood gems wasn’t enough to bridge the regeneration difference between himself and the Bird, but it was better than nothing.

“Aspect of the End – The World.”

Speaking the final Arcana invocation, the eighth and final reflection was invoked at last by the Bird.

Finally.

“You fought well,” The Bird said, any hints of apprehension now entirely wiped away. “But victory is mine. Surrender now, and the needless bloodshed shall end. I will even offer a final chance at survival, bind yourself with one of my Feathers of Brilliance, and you will be allowed to live.”

“Oh, really? Because I have no shot at winning anymore?” Rory sighed.

In the end, is that really all it amounts to? Just wanting to lord over others?

“If it would please you, I will even allow you to make your final gamble.” The Bird announced, gloating from on high. “Unleash the Stigmata you’ve been waiting to crescendo. Even with the strongest attack you can muster, it will not matter. My Arcana is complete, my divinity awakened.”

Stigmata? Is that what it thought I was building up to? I mean, I guess it makes sense from its perspective. With a hefty dose of stigmata, I probably could have unleashed one hell of an attack, but would it matter if it just regenerated after, and I was left out of commission from the backlash?

“Stigmata? Is that what you thought I was waiting on?” Rory asked, offering only the abridged version of his thoughts on the matter.

Even hurting like hell and a bloody and burnt mess, it amused Rory quite a lot to see the cocky Bird go through an entire array of emotions in an instant.

I should be an actor, because man, I played my part perfectly.

It had been a balancing act of posing enough of a danger to threaten the Bird, his blood lightning showing it that he had the capabilities of potentially nullifying its regeneration. Then there was the sheer power he’d shown off by uncapping his attributes. The Bird had subconsciously treated Rory like a powerful monster to be worn down, rather than the hunter laying out a trap from the start.

Then there were the mind games. Make it clear that he was up to something, but do a bad job of being sneaky about it. The perception that it had ‘seen through’ what it assumed Rory was up to was one of the best forms of misdirection out there.

Maybe not an actor. A gambler? They’re good at mind games after all.

Out of nowhere, the Bird and each of its eight apparitions flew up into the sky, a sense of panicked desperation that made no sense given the apparent power imbalance; to any bystander, the Bird was the one without any possibility of losing.

Oh? Good instincts.

While the Bird had been preening over the sound of its own voice –something Rory could relate to— his countdown had completed.

Well, that’s everything. No need to put on a performance any longer.

“Grand Arcana Art: Nine-Fold Descending Light!” The nine total bodies cawed out in unison.

Hot damn, talk about some serious fucking magic.

With tier eight attributes, the nine Birds –perfect replicas of one another ever since the final Arcana Aspect had been invoked– spread out several miles in an instant as a column of light appeared, miles across like the Almighty was about to smite Rory.

And, more pressingly, his daughter in the city below.

Alright, play time is over. Now you’ve crossed the line.

Hands brought together, Rory spoke the words he’d been waiting to say since early in the fight when he’d come up with the plan.

“Liminal Realm of Cognition-”

Glaring at the Bird, Rory finished saying one final word.

“-Open.”