Path of Stars, Ch 32: Touch of Starlight (Patreon)

Sam swore as he was pulled toward the vortex. Even with his sense of caution, he’d still underestimated what the Outsiders were capable of. He’d been prepared for them to blow up the fortress, but he hadn’t expected they were able to disrupt spatial energy like this or set up such a massive enchantment.

The gleam of light from the message rune was still there like a blood-drenched ruby in the wild darkness of the trap. He could feel the commander’s heavy presence in it, watching him to see if he died. It was the only stable thing above the vortex.

“I will find you and erase your existence from the Void,” he promised the creature, his voice heavy with power. But he didn’t have any more time to deal with it.

The astral threads he’d locked onto as possible escape routes were still there, but the spatial energy around them was snarled by the vortex. The light from them was twisting around in a chaotic mess. It wouldn’t be possible to step onto them like that. Regular teleportation was also out of the question. The spatial pressure was already ten times higher than normal and continuing to increase. It would be like teleporting into a stone wall.

His best hope was to get to the edge of the enchantment and try to break out with Shatter Aura.

Within moments, the remains of the fortress below him were gone, including the essence signature of the last three Outsiders, who must have been some sort of focal nodes for the enchantment. As for the commander, he was nowhere to be seen. He’d probably left that message spell behind and retreated to the main world even before Sam arrived.

Now, there was nothing but a roaring spiral of dark essence spinning in place as it tried to drag him down. Above, the pillars had stopped their expansion and were now releasing a twisting force that stirred the space around them and drove the vortex below, while the red web had finished forming and resembled a net of red runes.

The symbols were angular and shone with a glistening crimson light from the blood energy inside. He could feel his own blood heating up in response, but the reaction was limited and it stopped completely as he let his essence constellation spin faster.

The force of the enchantment was trying to crush him into the vortex, and if that happened, the energy there would twist him apart, even with his Titan physique. Despite the danger, his reactions were smooth and precise.

His thoughts flashed like lightning as Astral Focus stretched out around him at full strength and he assessed the spatial energy and runes that were everywhere. The Outsiders were using unfamiliar runes for their enchantment, but the Void was his home. He could feel the changes in the spatial energy that the runes were causing throughout the area, as well as their effect on the elements. As he compared them to his current knowledge, it gave him a vague idea of what each one did.

As quickly as possible, he scanned through all of the runes near him, cataloging their effect on space and other concepts. He didn’t have time to study them in depth, so he stored them in his memory as he searched for the ones that were the most useful, the ones controlling the spatial vortex and the structure of the trap.

The runes were strange, each of them like a crimson flame carved with diamond edges in the air. Their final forms were strangely curved, but they were still precise, their structures exact and spidery, like a crabbed and ancient hand writing in an unfamiliar language, etching each rune separately into the fabric of reality.

At the same time as he worked on the runes, he released a flurry of scrolls and abilities around him, sending explosions of astral energy and chaotic spells into the Void to see if something would disrupt the enchantment. Scrolls of ice, flame, wood, metal, wind, and earth erupted in a furious whirlwind around him, releasing whirlwinds and roaring blasts in a dozen separate colors throughout the tightening enchantment. It looked like the Chaos Wild was giving birth to some chaotic treasure or new elemental law.

As the scrolls exploded, most of the spells from them were sucked away toward the vortex. They turned into streaks of color that were compressed under the spatial force and spiraled downward. Their only effect was to add a brilliant expanse of multicolor light to the slowly closing trap. Two of them, however, had a slightly better effect.

One was a Field of Frozen Ice scroll that he’d designed after his cloak, which was imbued with astral energy and principles of Ice. It was designed to freeze everything in place and to prevent teleportation. When he released it, it exploded away from him in a rain of icy streaks that sliced through the twisting currents all around, temporarily causing them to slow down. The effect only lasted for a moment before the icy rain was torn apart, but the interior of the trap shuddered slightly before it resumed its spin.

Surprisingly, the other one that had an effect was a scroll he’d made using the aura of Silvas and the other moons of Aster Fall. He called it Moonlight’s Domain. It was modeled after the Moonlight’s Edge spell he’d once used and the Moonlight Blade Domain on his lunar bracer. When he released it, the aura of the three moons sliced outward in looping strands of blue, green, and purple.

The strands tore through the blood runes near him like red-hot swords through a stream, sending up crackling explosions of power. The runes ruptured, falling away into pieces as the spatial energy around him shuddered. Of the three auras in the scroll, Silvas’s green light had the greatest effect.

Silvas had been turned into a celestial ward above Aster Fall to oppose the Demon of Blood, and although he didn’t know exactly how its aura worked, it seemed that even here in the Chaos Wild, the Moon of the Forest opposed the concept of blood. The two energies were anathema to one another.

The other energy that had the best effect against the blood runes was pure astral energy. When he released a cutting wave of silver flames with Shatter Aura infused into it, the blood runes cracked and burned. It made sense, since astral energy was basically starfire and it had intense purification and other flame properties to it.

Once he saw what worked the best, a plan began to form in his mind. The only problem was that there were a vast number of runes all around, something in the tens of thousands that covered the space. The trap’s strength was intensifying as it shrank and the runes pulled together. If he wanted to get out, he had to do it now.

He couldn’t wait until the net got any closer to him to try and shatter it. As far as he could see, there were only two ways out. He either had to make it through the spatial distortion to the edge of the trap or...he glanced down at the vortex below him, which was tearing through the remains of his scrolls like a hungry maw.

That was the other way out. He could try a brute force method to shatter the vortex and break through the heart of the trap, but it was the most difficult route.

At that moment, the twisting forces around him clamped down harder, tearing at his muscles and bones. His body was incredibly durable and attuned to elemental pressure of all types, but the trap still sent cracks through his bones and he felt his ligaments begin to tear under the opposing spatial distortions. It was like being yanked and twisted in a hundred different directions at once.

A wave of silver essence poured through the damaged areas, sealing them together, but it would take time to heal. With that, a thought suddenly occurred to him and he focused on a different ability, pouring his essence into it. His body became translucent as he turned into a titan of silver flame.

Instantly, he could feel his essence draining away. Wisps of silver flame streamed away from him like banners in the night as they twisted into spirals that were elongated, stretched, and then crushed into oblivion under the surrounding forces. It relieved the pressure on his body, but the strain was transferred directly to his essence pool as he struggled to maintain his physical structure.

His maneuverability didn’t improve, but the change allowed him to endure for a little longer as he turned toward the edge of the net and pushed against the current. A trail of astral flame blazed in his wake as he struggled to walk toward it.

It was difficult to make headway, but he was unrelenting as he unleashed all the powers that were effective. His cloak released a wave of starry and condensed astral ice, freezing the space around him to stillness. Motes of blood essence, dust, and random elements hung still in the air, their forms crystallized into miniature stars that glistened with ice.

In the moment of stability that gave him, he lunged forward, leaping across the distance toward the edge. He only made it about a quarter of the way before the effect shattered, breaking down under the distorted space.

Immediately, he did the same thing again, releasing another massive burst of starry motes and frozen ice all around. This time, the spatial distortion crushed the effect even more quickly as he lunged forward, but he still ended up close to the middle point.

The charge on his cloak was dropping precipitously, but he ignored it. It wouldn’t be of any help if he was dead. He was relying on his artifacts as much as possible, since Spirit of Astral Flame was draining his essence at an astounding pace. His body was wavering like a candle flame in the wind, collapsing and returning to its original shape moment by moment.

The third time, he made it to about the sixty percent mark, but the spatial twisting was even stronger as he got closer to the edge where the black pillars were driving the vortex around.

Seeing that, he raised his hand and unleashed an enormous wave of moonlight from his bracer at the distorted space ahead of him. A storm of tricolored crescent blades ripped outward, their edges gleaming with bright lunar auras. The blades shattered in the hundreds, but at the same time, they clashed with the spatial distortions and broke through a wave of the red runes, creating a brief window of more stable space that he hurled himself into.

With his other bracer, he unleashed a barrage of astral ice into the opening, each of them a shimmering blue-white spear that tore forward into the runes ahead. He was trying to extend the distance as he flew toward the side of the trap, but the closer he got to the edge, the harder it became to move. The pressure from the black pillars was like an iron wall shoving him backward, even as it tore away at his astral flame.

He attacked again as he pressed ahead, unleashing a wave from his cloak and both bracers in a gigantic explosion of energy, and this time the black pillar shuddered. It was like a wavering cyclone in the air and it wobbled as the spells struck it, the middle bending outward. At that moment, he leaped ahead and reached the edge of the net.

A golden spear tore forward, slicing at the web of red runes that stretched across the Void.  Shatter Aura flared around him in a corona of flames, infusing his strike. Now that he was close to it, the spear ripped a gash through the runes, shattering them into pieces. He drove it in farther, yanking it from side to side as he tore at the structure. The gap slowly widened.

“You think you can escape just like that?” Behind him, he heard a mocking laughter that carried to his ears like a bloody wind. The message rune was still hanging there and it flashed as the commander spoke. “This Bloodrune Vortex isn’t so easily broken, even by a Titan like you!”

At that moment, the black pillar straightened out again and the pressure from it crashed back toward Sam. It was a massive force that hurled him away from the red net he was cutting through. He crashed back through the distorted space in the trap, flying uncontrollably through the space he’d crossed a moment before.

His body rippled and twisted, flames curling in on themselves and straightening out again as his shape curved like a sail and was then crushed into a spiraling column that finally righted itself again. When he was able to stabilize himself, the force of the vortex below his feet was pulling him downward, stretching him out like a long column of flame.

The message rune was hovering just above his head, gleaming brightly.

“I created this trap long ago, but I never had the chance to use it.” There was a heavy sense of contempt and satisfaction in the commander’s voice. “You Titans were far beyond me back then, when I was just a mid-level commander. But I never forgot the sight of one of you, when you appeared like a golden giant and crushed everything on the battlefield with a single hand. I barely escaped with my life.

“Since then, I’ve plotted ways to kill one of you, even with all your traits of space and flame. This trap turns space against you, so how will you escape it now?” The commander’s laugh was loud and crashing, filled with the power of a roaring ocean of blood that swirled through the message rune.

“I’ve spent the last ages perfecting it while trapped in that damnable prison, and I still wasn’t sure if it would work, but I never thought one of you who was so weak would appear here. It will give me great satisfaction to watch you die in my hands. I’ll rejoice in the pain your death brings to your family and allies.”

Sam ignored most of the Outsider’s gloating as he focused on the structure of the enchantment around him again, and then his eyes settled on the rune. It was still there, the only stable thing in the entire enchantment. If the Outsider hadn’t been taunting him, he might not have noticed.

His feet were being pulled down toward the vortex and his essence was draining away, but he shoved that out of his mind as well as he focused on the rune, his thoughts running like wildfire.

It had to be some type of control node.

The commander was probably also consciously operating the enchantment from somewhere, which was what let him see what was going on. For that to be the case, it meant there was a stable connection between the inside and outside of the vortex and that the rune was important to it.

Instead of trying to escape again, Sam took a gamble and poured out the last bit of essence stored in his cloak. Space around him flashed into a field of frozen ice and even the vortex below his feet slowed for a moment, trembling as the currents spinning into it were coated in shining ice crystals that reflected a thousand stellar hues.

In that instant, he launched himself upward, the golden spear in his hand infused with a flood of astral energy as he stabbed it directly into the message rune. As soon as the spear tip touched it, the rune shuddered. It was like stabbing into a clay riverbank. The structure was dense and solid, the resistance increasing as he drove the spear deeper, but Shatter Aura flared around the spear tip, along with a brilliant arc of silver flame.

For a moment, it shuddered violently on the edge of breaking, but it still held against his attack until he added a twining strand of Silvas’s aura as well, merging the green moonlight into the spear, and the rune cracked like a mirror struck by a boulder. Crimson fragments exploded away in every direction, their edges sizzling like they’d been burned by acid.

The blood-tinged sense of the commander’s presence was cut off in an instant as the vortex all around Sam shuddered. The spatial energies in it lost their focus as the black pillars began to wobble, losing their careful balance that kept the vortex spinning. As they wavered, they crashed into the red net, sending sharp waves through it.

Blood runes began to crack and burst as distortions appeared across the area. Quickly, those areas turned into smaller vortexes, except these were white and sharp, their energies condensed from wind and the other elements that had been trapped by the runes. They spun wildly as they cut into everything around them, tearing away at the structure of the enchantment.

Near the center, Sam was once again hurled in every direction, his body twisting around chaotically as the changing pressures pulled on him. Before, the enchantment had been dangerous but stable. Now, it was swiftly becoming a true chaos storm, one that was deadly even to him. The fragments of the runes and the vortexes all around were like a thousand destructive blades slicing through the area, clashing with one another and everything else they found.

Bit by bit, the area was breaking apart, unleashing the massive amount of essence that had been contained in it. Each piece was also tainted by the blood aura on it, making them all extremely dangerous to him. If he was caught by the ruins of the spells, they would tear his body apart, even with the Form of Astral Flame.

He made the only choice that was possible as he flipped around and headed down, straight toward the vortex that had been pulling on him. It was still deadly, but as the central pivot of the entire spell, it was somewhat more stable than everything else around it and it was clear of the fragmented runes that were flying everywhere else.

The final Ice Armor scroll he had in his aura activated, covering him in a layer of dense, icy runes as he poured all he could of Silvas’s aura and his astral energy into it. His Form of Astral Flame pulled together at the same time, placing the armor between it and the outside, and he concentrated as he shifted the elemental property he was emitting from flame to ice, reinforcing the armor with his Blessing of Ice. The inner layer of the armor began to harden in response.

He raised his hands as he unleashed all of the remaining charges from his bracers into the vortex ahead of him. A wave of astral ice and moonlight carved through the materials that had been sucked into the spiral. They were still there, but they resembled thick bands of dust that had been condensed hundreds of times. It was slowly churning as he approached. The driving force that had been making it spin and sharpening the area into a devouring maw was absent now.

The pillars were the true nodes of the enchantment, while the vortex was the result when it worked together. The material was dense, but it no longer had any wards to reinforce it. As the spells struck, fragments exploded outward in every direction. He pointed his spear ahead of him as he dove straight for the center.

The impact was like smashing into a mountain. Despite his attempt to carve a path, bars of immovable force struck him, shattering his ice armor in every direction in a wild spray of sparkling snowdust, and his body warped, folding around one impact only to be knocked away into another, which slammed him into the opposite direction.

He twisted and crashed through from one gap to another, all of his attention on finding the next opening where there wasn’t something in the way. His form bent around like flames twining through logs in a fireplace, weaving around the obstacles as he tried his best to fly through.

Partway through the vortex, his essence finally ran out.

The spear in his hand flickered, its light dimming until it shattered into motes of golden flame. All he could see was waves of gray dust filling his vision as he struggled to reach forward and came up empty. As his empty hand reached out to grasp at the distant Void on the other side, there was a flash of green light from the sun of Alora’s system, so close and yet still infinitely far away.

Thoughts of his family and his Path in the stars filled his mind, along with his desire to return to Aster Fall. They mingled with the sympathy he felt for Alora and her home that was threatened in the same way. The two of them were similar in that, each trying to save their people while life never quite lived up to their expectations.

For him, it was the cities around the relic and the pressure of the church and his grandparents that weighed heavily on his plans for building a new life. For Alora, it was her uncle that opposed her father and the powerful backers he had who wanted to disrupt the peace of their Wild Grove and take it for themselves. Both of them were just fighting for what they thought was right.

He struggled to access his storage to get another aura, but time and the violence of the vortex was against him. His body was becoming solid as Form of Astral Flame lost its cohesion, and the remnant spatial forces smashed into him like iron pillars, sending cracks through his bones even before they were fully present.

He reached toward the green sun, willing himself to step toward it. Its presence filled the Void ahead of him, filling his vision as he focused on it. The dust in front of him was clearing away, spreading outward under the force of the Void as it was slowly pulled apart.

He was almost there.

As his body fully reformed and more cracks splintered through his bones, a tiny surge of essence from his passive regeneration flickered through his spirit. He reached out and touched the sliver of green starlight that was bathing his face.

Then he was gone.