Echoes of War, Ch 26: Spear of Devouring (Patreon)

Vastes looked down at the three artifacts on the stone table in front of him. Some of the runes on them were broken and they didn’t have the luster of their past, but they shone with power. It had taken him four hundred years to gather these fragments from the remains of ancient outposts and then centuries longer to restore them.

Each of them was a weapon of old.

They weren’t at their peak, but even in this condition, artifacts from the First War were impossible to take lightly. Vastes ran his hands over the surface, sensing the Fourth Evolution energy inside. His lips twisted as he tried once again to force his mana and aura to combine into essence.

The weapons lay inert on the stone.

“Wrath devour you!” he swore fiercely, glaring down at them. “I’ve put so much effort into repairing you and still you refuse me!”

He redoubled his efforts as he tried again, pouring his energy out toward the artifacts. Mana roiled around his hands, forming turbulent currents of brilliant white wind and sparkling water that cut through the air and tried to hammer their way into the weapons, but they were repelled by the dull gleam of the runes on the surface.

“Once you would have obediently served me,” Vastes growled at them again. “You forget your purpose.”

The weapons should have devoured his energy and flared to life, burning with the curses that had echoed from the hands of the conquerors. The runes should have repaired themselves and reached out to consume the elements, gathering them for their own power.

Instead, they just sat there.

After a moment, Vastes turned away in disgust, looking toward the center of the outpost where the control node was humming. It was the same problem as always, and as angry as it made him, he’d had a long time to work around it. He had no ability to control his aura, much less to create essence.

Fortunately, there were shortcuts to everything.

Calm returned to his spirit as he walked over and placed his hands on the runes, moving them from place to place as checked on the status of the outpost. Reviewing his progress on the repairs was relaxing for him, a way of reflecting on his progress. It had become a habit.

He’d sacrificed the blood and cores of dozens of Second and Third Evolution monsters to infuse the control node with aura and then given it as much of his own mana as he could. He couldn’t control aura directly, but blood magic made up for some of the gap. It allowed him to channel the aura from monster cores in a crude way. With that, the self-repair enchantments were working to restore themselves. If he could gather more aura to infuse it, the outpost would continue to repair itself.

The stone plinth in the stone room was covered in a bright array of runes now, with almost half of them active. The shards of silver and embedded gems were shining, creating a foundation for the runes that floated above them, which flickered and changed as he watched. The designs were the same as he remembered, creating the basic controls for this outpost.

It wasn’t fully repaired, but it was working.

It was the best solution he’d found after all these years. Blood magic was able to affect many things, from healing to altering bloodlines. It was one of the reasons he’d been able to live for so long. It was also useful for his Alchemist of the Dark Storm subclass. Despite that, using it left him with a sense of distaste, since he should have been able to accomplish the same thing with his own bloodline ability: the Path of the Elements.

He pushed the old thought aside as he focused on the control node, flicking through a series of runes as time flowed past him. Eventually, he waved the runes away and rolled his shoulders, his bones crackling as they slid past one another.

The outpost’s outer defenses were still useless, but the interior shielding around the control room and some other secondary features were available, including lines of communication. All the outposts that had been built were connected through dimensional message runes that enabled secure conversations. Not that it mattered at the moment.

There was no one else to talk to.

The thought of meeting another Voidborn sent shivers of anticipation down his spine, even as he bared his fangs. He was strong by the level of this world, but not strong enough to face a Voidborn in full control of their abilities. That was why he wanted this outpost.

Once he would have scoffed at the idea of the structure being useful. It was only designed to withstand damage from the Fourth Evolution, which made it quick to build and repair. That was a low standard during the First War when hundreds of similar ones had been scattered in every direction. But things were different now.

Now, it meant something.

If it could be fully repaired, it would place him above the World Limit, giving him a fortress from which he could plan his return. It was also nostalgic. Although it was a weaker emotion that he would have thrown away like trash in the past, over the last 6,000 years, he had learned to appreciate that.

It reminded him of better days when he’d been at the height of power, holding the life and death of worlds in his hand. He growled as his fingers dug into the stone of the control slab. Progress was slow, but if he could sink his fangs into that Astral Titan...new opportunities would open.

With a deep breath, he calmed himself again. He rested his lower pair of hands on the edge as he leaned forward and tapped a series of runes at the upper right corner. The runes changed, fading away as they were replaced by a projection that hovered above the control node.

A dark orange glow appeared above the stone slab and swiftly formed into the image of an arched gateway. Even as a miniature version, it radiated a sense of power. Vastes’s lips curled as he studied it, the smile a rictus on his skull-like face. The orange glow reflected from his eyes and skin, bathing his features in a savage light

“Passion’s old gate will open soon,” he murmured. “It should be a dimensional transfer point, but who knows what she left inside.”

The gate had activated about a year ago and its presence immediately showed up on the outpost’s detection enchantment. It was in the ruins of another outpost and they had all been linked together at one time. As soon as it started gathering energy, he’d begun making plans. Unlike his outpost, the gate was radiating with essence.

The orange color meant it was one of the teleportation gates built by the followers of the Goddess of Demented Passion. It should be linked into the retreat that she’d built as a locus of power during the First War. Without the Dimensional Convergence, it wouldn’t have activated, but that event had brought the subdimension closer again and stirred up the gate’s old connection to the goddess’s domain.

All of the three leaders in the First War had created their own domains, places where they could build their forces and rest. They had waged the war from them. Each of them had been filled with warriors from their homeland, artifacts, and more. This outpost paled in comparison.

It was hard to say what was inside this one after all this time, since it depended on what the flow of time had been like for it. If he was lucky, only a few years would have passed inside. If he was unlucky, there might be nothing but dust left.

If he’d had the choice, he would have chosen the domain of Shattered Skies, since he was more familiar with it, and his old palace might still be inside, but he had no idea if it still existed. This one would have to do.

If he was lucky, it would have something inside that he could use, perhaps wraiths or nightmares or some of her other old forces. Controlling them would be impossible. The best thing was to let the gate open completely. Then anything inside would pour out. The locals could deal with it while he slipped inside.

Even if he could make contact with some remnant force, it was unlikely that he could convince them to follow him, so there was no reason to try. If any of Passion’s lieutenants remained, they would try to kill him on the spot rather than listen to him. That bloodline was hotheaded and he looked like a local.

Vastes folded his hands in front of him as he leaned forward, placing his eyes just on this side of the gate, watching it like a viper stalking its prey. He wasn’t sure when it would open, but it would be sometime soon. He could be patient.

Until then, he would focus his attention on the titan. His plans for the astral were already underway. He turned to look at the stone table with the three artifacts again. They weren’t at their best, but no weapon from the First War could be taken lightly.

There was an axe that followed the Path of the Elements, a staff from the Path of Passion, and a short spear from the Path of Devouring. As his gaze landed on the third one, he hesitated. The first two were powerful, even broken as they were, but that spear was truly dangerous. It was by far the most fearsome of the three weapons he’d gathered.

It was also forbidden.

Among the Voidborn, his original race that the locals thought of as demons, there were five paths to power, as well as a sixth that was forbidden and strictly controlled, which was where this spear came from.

All of the paths had long traditions and unique abilities. As a follower of Shattered Skies, he had followed the Path of the Elements, but the Path of Blood was important enough that he had many memories of it, including of spells that drew on its concepts. The other paths were useful in their own ways and he had some familiarity with them, except for the sixth one. That one left him uneasy.

The five main paths were Elements, Blood, Transformation, Stealth, and Passion. Each had their strengths, whether it was commanding the elements, harnessing the energy of life and death, shapeshifting into monstrous forms, shrouding oneself for deception and assassination, or inciting lust and dominating the minds of weaker individuals. All five were common and well accepted. Then there was the sixth Path, the forbidden one.

The Path of Devouring.

Even the thought of it sent a shiver of fear down his spine,

Voidborn evolutions were governed by bloodlines. Those six ancient paths had been carved into their nature over millions of years of existence, ingrained into their racial history with immensely powerful blood magic. Unlike the locals, there was no need for complicated choices that could go wrong at any moment.

All of the ancient Paths could reach the Divine Realm of the Sixth Evolution, even Devouring, where you earned your title as a god. None of them were easy, but the first five guaranteed stable progress. You just needed enough essence and to master your abilities. The sixth was different. Devouring could consume anything that was weaker than itself. It tore it apart and used the energy to advance.

It had been developed with the other paths as a fast route to power, a desire that all of the Voidborn shared, and some fragments of it belonged to the other paths where concepts overlapped, but in its pure form, it was something else.

Those who followed the path were doomed to a short and destructive life as the power warped their minds. They were voids that drank in the world around them until their strength grew greater than their ability to control it, while their emotions and thoughts ran wild, full of chaotic impulses and the need to consume more.

It became their desire and their only goal.

As soon as a Devourer appeared, they had to be destroyed or destruction would follow. The longer they existed, the more damage they did. History had proved it over and over. The followers of the Path went insane as they tried to consume everything around them.

Eventually, they would lose control of their energy and explode, releasing all of their power outward in a giant blast of devouring magic that consumed the area, reducing everything to a pure explosion of essence. If they were powerful enough, entire star systems could be destroyed.

The path had been allowed once, although it was never seen as a wise choice. Most of them died in the First Evolution. Sometimes, they would survive to the Third or Fourth Evolution and begin to destroy entire races or planets in their greed, and that was when most of them were killed by enemies.

Then one had managed to consume two star systems and reached the Sixth Evolution. The other deities hadn’t dared to face them, so they’d blockaded them into a region of the galaxy on their own. The man had gone insane long before and without a clear target, it turned to the worlds and stars all around it and began to consume them.

A dozen stars and their worlds had perished, all of their essence ripped away. Then the man had lost control of his energy and destroyed another half dozen in the explosion that followed, wiping out billions of lives.

Since then, the Path of Devouring had been restricted except under the observation of a Sixth Evolution deity, each of them sworn to destroy them before they reached the Third Evolution. That was the only way to ensure the path didn’t get out of hand.

Ironically, it was the study of that Devourer’s rampage that had changed their galaxy. They’d learned that it was possible to absorb essence from the stars and planets, as well as other rich sources, and they’d developed more stable methods that relied on the other five paths.

Vastes had grown up learning to consume elemental essence to strengthen himself, all within the defined boundary of the Path of the Elements. It was one of the reasons he’d followed Shattered Skies to this galaxy, in search of new and unclaimed sources to strengthen himself.

Similarly, followers of Blood consumed the essence in the blood of living things, Passion devoured mental energy and emotions, Stealth drew in the essence of shadows and silence, Transformation focused on gathering energy from bloodlines of stronger beings, and so on.

It hadn’t been possible to excise Devouring from the Voidborns’ bloodline, and it might have harmed their potential if they had, but since that time, however, Devourers had only been used as living weapons to throw at an enemy.

Voidborn typically had two or three options available to them from the Six Paths, depending on their family line, and they could choose which one they wanted to follow at their First Evolution. Very rarely was there only one choice in front of someone. It happened, but it was fewer than one in ten million.

If someone chose it on their own, they were captured by local forces and imprisoned until they could be used in war. They were raised up to a certain level of madness and then released in an area that the local deity wanted to destroy.

The Path of Passion was the best method to control one, since it could dominate their mind, but at a high enough level all of the other paths had their own methods. Elements could freeze them in place and incinerate them if they disobeyed, Stealth could shroud their senses and leave them in a daze until they were needed, Transformation could shape them into a more controllable form, and Blood could alter their bloodline ability so it could be activated or deactivated at the command of their lord.

If a deity wanted a Devourer and one wasn’t available, a weak prisoner would be raised to the First Evolution and forced to take it, and then used as a weapon. It was a favorite tactic of some lords to do that with a weak hostage. Then they would send them home to their families and wait for the destruction to follow.

Even if the family killed the hostage, it would still cause chaos. If they didn’t and the hostage managed to endure their madness, the lord would use it as an excuse to invade and settle the matter. It was a common thing. The Voidborn civilization was ruled by power and had no room for sympathy to enemies.

Vastes shook himself out of the old memories as he looked at the short spear on the table. Although it was forbidden, Devouring held enormous power. He was familiar with it in some ways. For example, he knew an elemental spell of Water that could devour the energy of an ocean and turn its tide against an enemy.

The question was if he could use the spear for what he wanted. It was a Fourth Evolution weapon, so it should be enough to wound the titan, but not to kill him. Then he could move in with his plan for a bloodline extraction. With the other artifacts he had, he would borrow a technique from the Path of Transformation and try to absorb the Titan’s abilities.

If he was discovered by a deity while holding this spear, he would be destroyed, but there was little fear of that. The risk was in the weapon itself. A weapon based on Devouring would consume everything nearby once it was activated, and it could only be truly controlled by someone who had the same pure Path. This one must have been crafted for a suicide mission and then lost. With its high rank, it meant one of the three deities must have been raising a high Evolution Devourer in secret and planning to use them as a trump card, perhaps even to kill a titan.

He was still leaning against the table with his lower arms, and now his upper set of hands folded inward as he rested his chin atop them, thinking. After a few moments, the red glow of his eyes shone brighter as a twisted smile spread across his face.

“When in doubt, make someone else do it,” he chuckled, the sound crackling like bone spurs rubbing against one another. “There shouldn’t be much risk of the devouring getting out of hand if it’s used by a different path, so the danger is just in using the weapon.”

For that, he had an entire race of bellisagi who would follow him to death, but fortunately for them, he didn’t want to waste them. They had few children and it took time to restore their ranks. For this mission, he had a more disposable option.

He pushed away from the table as he reached into a pocket and retrieved a rectangular crystal plaque. It was a solid piece of translucent material with a polished surface that was slightly concave. With a flicker of mana, the surface turned into a blur of wandering runes and glowing lines.

He waited patiently and eventually the image changed, revealing a humanoid figure with a deep cowl pulled up to shroud his features. Vastes made no effort to conceal his own appearance as he looked down at the man. There was no point in the assassin trying to hide, since Vastes had raised him to the position himself, but he allowed the man his vanity.

“I have a job for you,” he said with an authoritative rasp as he began to give the orders. “Send me two of your elites, the ones who usually work with the Cabal.”