Spellheart 9: Chapter 52 (Patreon)

The Unblinking Eye Cultist turned his mind spell on my doppelganger. But he was no longer using his spell on True Mages or Mage Acolytes. Against someone of his own level, the spell fizzled out in an instant.

Then my doppelganger squeezed his hand and crushed the cultist’s skull between his adamantium fingers.

My children froze, equal parts terrified and relieved. My doppelganger stared at each of them momentarily, a slight smile on his face. Then he held out his hand.

Spell Eater soared down from overhead and landed in his grip. He turned, pivoting on his heel, and hurled it toward one of the two remaining Cult of the Unblinking Eye Demigods, skewering him straight through the heart.

My doppelganger was far from finished, though. He launched himself off the castle at the skewered Demigod, grabbing Spell Eater and triggering its zeal-draining effects in the same moment he skewered the enemy Demigod upon it like meat on a stick.

His wide and frightened eyes met cold mechanical ones. Then, at point-blank range, my evil twin opened his mouth. The ruby buried within his tongue lit with crimson light. The Demigod cultist screamed in agony as his flesh burned to a crisp beneath the crimson laser beam.

Just like that, two Demigods of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye died in an instant, throwing the whole battlefield into chaos.

Ten Demigods and an army of Sorcerers and Wizards had attacked the Hearthwood to destroy us with overwhelming power.

And now six of those Demigods were dead, and most of the Sorcerers and Wizards they’d brought with them were either dead or captured.

“Mfffgrp! Mffgrp!” shouted the Demigod with a shattered jaw. I was pretty sure he was calling for his allies to regroup. That would have been a smart move. But being a bit too smart for his own good was the whole reason I ended up bashing his jaw in.

The Satyrs ignored him. But my doppelganger didn’t. When my evil twin’s cold and merciless gaze met the cultist’s mangled face, the cultist flinched.

My doppelganger held out his hand, and Spell Eater flew from the body of the other cultist back into his hand.

He looked quite imposing as Spell Eater returned to him with a gesture. Why hadn’t I ever thought to do that?

He pulled back his arm again for a throw, but this Demigod had forewarned and didn’t plan to die as quickly as his allies had.

He cast an advanced variant of Twisted Step beyond anything I’d seen so far. It was clever, and Spell Eater struck through the heart of an illusion instead of the real target.

The trick was smart, but risky. It was essentially a fake illusion. Someone who could see through illusions would know it was an illusion and his real body was a step ahead. But there was also a trick of the light that let him swap his location with his illusion a second time. He was exactly where he looked to be, as though he hadn’t even cast a spell at all. Lower-level cultivators wouldn’t have even seen anything happen.

While hunting down the remaining members of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye might have been nice, I had bigger problems. So before my evil twin could recall Spell Eater, I summoned it to my own hand.

“It seems I owe you something of an apology. It looks like you were right. They broke my treaty and came for us anyway.” My trusty spear landed in my hand just as one of the Satyr Demigods drew a wisp from a pouch at his waist. It glowed deep crimson and was probably somewhere in the Wizard realm. Not impressive compared to what Prince Tivar had thrown at me, but I was wary all the same.

While these brutes were manageable when using only the raw physical strength of a Demigod, I wasn’t sure I could handle the true power of their Sacred Grove magic.

A lot of whooshing noise filled the air, like a bonfire catching the wind and growing brighter and hotter by the moment.

A wave of heat spreads in a wave. Leaves from the Hearthwood’s toppled trees burned to a crisp and caught flame. Wooden beams and pillars caught fire, though I saw no spark jump to them. The flame looked normal at first, but as it grew, it turned darker and deeper.

This was a magical flame, likely cultivated over the course of a lifetime by a powerful elven fire cultivator. And now the Satyrs were burning, the power contained within that wisp all at once.

Even my skin felt the intensity of the heat. Whoever this elf had been, she had to have been an extraordinary wizard.

“His Majesty will be furious that I used this wisp. But you won’t kill me like you did my foolish allies...” the Satyr Demigod grinned at me as he crushed the wisp to nothing within his hands, dispersing the zeal within in all directions.

Fire elementals rose from the fires, taking shape all over the Hearthwood’s debris, rising in a variety of forms. The elementals fanned out across the battlefield, and as they took shape, many of them wore the form of a beautiful crimson-haired elf in a dress.

Perhaps the former elf’s scattered soul fragments became the foundation for these elemental, much like how a fragment of my own soul became my evil twin.

The battlefield turned into a raging inferno, and the Satyr who’d used the wisp waved his hand overhead. Fire elementals began assaulting me and my doppelganger, but most importantly, the castle.

My doppelganger and I could shrug the growing flames off, but not everyone on the battlefield was so resilient. As fire elementals lumbered toward Castle Mac, my matriarchs and companions would have to deal with them in addition to the few remaining elves and the single cultist demigod left standing.

My doppelganger opened his jaw and shot a beam of crimson light straight at the Satyr Demigod, but the flames circling his body reached up to block it.

I sensed an opportunity. In absorbing my doppelganger’s attack, he’d blinded himself. I cocked back my arm just as he had before and threw Spell Eater like a spear.

“Ha! You’ll need to do more than that too--“ The Satyr’s boasting was cut short as Spell Eater pierced his stomach.

My doppelganger jumped down, completely heedless of the magically enhanced flame that would have cooked the flesh off any living being. He grabbed Spell Eater by the handle and dragged it downward, slicing open the Satyr Demigod’s guts.

“Shit. Use the Fate wisp!” shouted one of the other Demigods. “Hurry!”

“I’m saving that for me!”

“If you save it for yourself, you’ll die when you have no allies left. Use it!”

Reluctantly, one of the other Satyrs withdrew an amber-colored fate aspect wisp. It was also in the Wizard realm but targeted and concentrated it was exhibiting power even Sam would struggle to pour out all at once.

Time seemed to flow backward between my doppelganger and the Satyr he’d just disemboweled. Spell Eater flew backward and landed back in my hand while my doppelganger was again in the air.

The wide-eyed Satyr Demigod, who’d been skewered a moment ago, jumped back, panic in his eyes. “Use everything! Throw it all at them! Hurry!”

The remaining Satyr Demigods seemed reluctant, even with their losses so far. But they heeded the orders of the panicked one we just skewered. I suspected he was supposed to be their leader, though the Satyr Demigods didn’t seem like a tight-knit group. They certainly didn’t care as much about losses as other factions I fought had.

The remaining Satyrs drew on additional wisps, some holding two of them. I suspected every Demigod had been given a powerful wisp by their king, likely alongside the Sacred Grove that gave them power. They were expending those powerful wisps now.

The Satyrs were a peculiar bunch. Few other races could afford to throw Demigods at a problem as they could. But when the source of power was a magical plot of land rather than the wielder of that power, it made sense that they’d be more willing to throw their forces away.

After all, the resources and Sacred Grove of a dead Satyr Demigod could simply be given to another Satyr, quickly restoring their race to full strength. So long as the World of Woods and Wilds remained under the thumb of the Satyrs, they would always be a power to be reckoned with, no matter their losses.

But now the Satyrs facing us were expending the wisps of their Sacred Groves one by one. There were a few unusual aspects I’d never seen before. That was a rare thing these days, because I’d seen enough elven lands to know all the most common aspects.

One of them was a blood-aspect wisp of the Sorcerer realm. Amisra wielded that power, though she kept it to herself. I never pried, but it seemed to be particularly deadly and feared. I would have to be wary of whatever powers that wisp conjured.

Another was black as night. Death-aspect wisps were black, but not this black. I got the distinct impression that it was a wisp of shadow or darkness, and that was confirmed a moment later when the sky went dark, and I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.

I felt the emanations of zeal as more wisps were activated one by one, but I couldn’t make out their colors through the darkness and gloom. Even my perception of zeal aspects was dampened.

So, I turned my attention inward. They may have blinded my eyes, but I was not without other senses.

Though there was no light, I could still feel the ground beneath my feet. Vibrations traveled through the ground and up my legs. Most were from the crumbling ruins scattered around the battlefield. Others were from the battle for Castle Mac in the distance.

I was looking for something closer. Something powerful.... there!

I whirled just in time. A fist cloaked in something rough and sharp scraped by my fist. The scratching and clawing feeling grew from the shallow cut, but I focused the attention of my World Titan Fiendbody on the wound and made it close. Ordinarily a scratch like that should have healed as quickly as it was made. Some sort of poison, then?

That was probably the effect of the blood-aspect wisp. I wasn’t sure what it was doing, but I didn’t want to take too heavy a wound so long as it was active.

I still couldn’t tell what aspect of power had actually wounded me, though. It could have been ice or glace or even some type of insect carapace. I shouted at the Satyr, hoping to taunt him into answering, but no words came from my lips.

Whatever that midnight black wisp had done, it had taken away sound as well as sight.

The Satyr Demigod must have realized how I’d caught him because I sensed his presence leave the ground. He was hovering in the air somewhere beyond my senses, where I wouldn’t detect him until he struck me.

Well, two could play at that game. If he wanted to fight me somewhere, I couldn’t sense, I would fight him somewhere he couldn’t sense.

I dove toward the nearest ley line. The Satyr in the air tried to stop me, but I made my movements unpredictable and swift. I entered the Earth and was soon beyond his reach. Here, I was far more in touch with the ground’s vibrations than I was on the surface.

My Doppelganger was doing better than I was. I sensed the earth vibrate with the steady rhythm of gunfire. I suspected he’d activated his own upgraded Sword Storm ability and was throwing bullets in all directions.

I emerged beneath his feet within the circle of firing guns. It was odd to feel them firing in all directions but unable to hear him. I sensed him grow tense at my presence, but there was some unspoken bond between the two of us.

Not like the bond I shared with my matriarchs, but more like the familiarity I had with my own hand. Now that I’d spent more time close to him, I realized that with skill, I could sense where he was just like I knew the location of my own hand.

We fought back to back. The moment a Satyr got through the rain of bullets, I lashed out with Spell Eater. It took me some time to realize how my doppelganger was sensing our enemies.

He was using the bullets he was shooting. By covering the sky with an unending rain of bullets flying in all directions, he could tap into his mastery over metal to sense when their trajectories were altered or stopped.

When I tapped into the endless waves of bullets myself, I found they provided a remarkably clear image of our surroundings. Clear enough to fight with, mitigating the Satyr’s temporary advantage from that strange midnight black wisp.

Eventually, the blanket of silence and darkness faded to the darkness of night, and muffled whispers leaked through to my ears.

“It isn’t working! When I said use everything, I meant everything!”

“His Majesty will be furious if we use the soul aspect wisp!”

“We can figure out how to survive his anger after we survive this!”

The darkness faded just in time for me to see the leader of the Satyrs grasping another wisp of an exotic aspect.

It was pure, brilliant white, and blindingly bright. Worse, it emanated the Sorcerer realm’s power, making it a far stronger sacrifice than anything I’d seen from the Satyrs since my fight with Prince Tivar.

“Careful! That one’s strong!” I warned.

“Soul aspect!” My doppelganger’s eyes went wide, and it was the first time I’d ever seen something akin to fear in his eyes. “Attack!”

He rushed forward, moving like a man possessed. The three other Satyr Demigods moved to protect the one activating the wisp, but my doppelganger was like a mad dog off its chain.

He didn’t care for the blows they struck against his metal skin, and the pain I, or any other living being might have felt went unnoticed. He fought as a whirlwind of deadly force.

While they were distracted by him, I threw Spell Eater. It cut through the heel of a Demigod, tripping him for just a moment. That moment was all my doppelganger needed to claw out the satyr’s throat.

An instant later, he pulled Spell Eager back into his hand and whirled to face the next foe. I also dove into the fray, unleashing punches and kicks left and right. The Satyr, with a ripped-out throat, scrambled to heal himself, but I stopped him before he could destroy any more wisps.

He had something at the True Mage level of the fate aspect in his hands, but I ripped it from his grip.

“You owe the Hearthwood a lot more, but I’ll take this as a down payment.”

He reached for the pouch at his waist, but I swiped that away from him, too. His eyes went wide as he realized death was coming for him, and he could do nothing about it. I kicked him away from the fighting and left him to his fate.

I jumped back into the fray to take some pressure off my doppelganger. Despite fighting two Demigods at once, he had both of them on the defensive. Each thrust and stab with sword, axe, or fist robed in magic was blocked or dodged and returned fivefold.

He took plenty of damage, but each blow he took resulted in ten more dealt to his enemies. It was clear these Demigods had never fought a fighter of such a caliber before, and I could sense the terror in their eyes as they realized the might of a Demigod wouldn’t be enough to save them.

The thing that made him different from me was his sheer recklessness. It was like he had a complete disregard for his own survival. When I joined the fight and distracted one of the Demigods, he dealt a series of deadly blows to the other.

He jammed Spell Eater through the Demigod’s heart and left it there. Without a word, I grabbed its handle and used it to its full ability to drain the Demigod dry. He collapsed to his knees and scrambled for the pouch at his waist, but I pulled Spell Eater’s tip free cut that from his waist, and pulled it into my Dimensional Storage.

We passed Spell Eater between us, each of us calling it to our grasp in our moment of need before throwing it to the other a second later. It was a surprisingly effective strategy when we positioned ourselves on either flank of our enemies.

I could throw Spell Eater, and if I missed, it would end up in my Doppelganger’s hand. An instant later, he would do the same. Between the two of us, the two remaining Satyrs and the one channeling the white wisp spent more time dodging than they did attacking us.

Though we were the ones who were outnumbered, it didn’t feel that way. We had them on the back foot. Demigods or not, we could win this!

“Get the one with the soul wisp!” My doppelganger yelled. I pulled back Spell Eater and threw it at the one remaining Satyr. He sat hovering a few feet from the ground with the brilliant white wisp clasped in his hands. I’d never seen a satyr focus so hard when activating a wisp.

What could be so battle-shifting that he would abandon his comrades to focus on activating it?

I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to find out.

My doppelganger struck down one of the two remaining Demigods, using his Strength concept to tear through his defenses. He grabbed the Satyr Demigod by either arm and pulled until both limbs came loose, quite literally disarming his opponent.

But my doppelganger wasn’t without wounds of his own. He looked battered now. The smooth sheets of clay that lined his bronze and adamantium body were gone, and he looked much like the skeleton I’d seen when we’d met before.

Only now, soot stained his enchantments black, obscuring the designs. His limbs were bent and twisted, too, though he used them anyway. Some of his joints hung loose, and the only thing holding him together was the raw magical power of the World Titan Fiendbody.

I was on top of the Satyr Demigod with the white wisp. Sweat poured down his brow as I charged him. He didn’t even notice as I slammed Spell Eater through his eye.

But I was too late to stop him from activating the wisp. It flashed brightly, and I braced myself for the worst.

I clenched my teeth and folded my arms in front of my face as I stepped back to duck for cover. I raised a wall of earth between me and the Satyr while I held on to Spell Eater’s end to drain him, but it didn’t matter. The growing white light washed straight through the wall like it wasn’t even there and shone directly on something inside of me.

It was a sphere, bright and glowing, though a little ragged around the edges, like we had torn away something from it. Perhaps that was my human soul, comparable to an elven wisp in many ways. I could place a few similarities, but it didn’t look like what could be disconnected from a body like an elven wisp could.

The light continued washing over me, and I couldn’t think of a defense other than to brace and endure it.

But that turned out to be... surprisingly easy. The white light was nothing more than a tickle and one that faded as quickly as it came.

“Back to you!” I tore Spell Eater free of the now-dead Satyr Demigod, expecting my doppelganger to call it to his hand as he had so many times before.

But instead, my spear clattered lifelessly to the ground like it was nothing more than a chunk of metal.

My doppelganger lay limp on the ground, eyes dull and vacant. I watched the last rays of brilliant white light wash over him, revealing a tiny sliver of a soul embedded within him. It was a minuscule little thing, but it clung to its adamantium vessel for dear life.

“Ha! It worked!” The one remaining Satyr cackled before slamming his fist on my doppelganger’s prone and lifeless form.