Spellheart 10: Chapter 21 (Patreon)

“Let me take care of those Hydras,” Sam said. “They might be able to heal from ordinary wounds, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“You can take them out without making them more powerful?” I asked hopefully. Dealing with those things would be difficult with our conventional arms. The only thing I could think of was launching a few of the Hearthwood’s new nuclear weapons at them.

“When something is fated to die, its ability to heal matters little,” Sam spoke confidently, so I decided to leave the Hydras to him.

“Then it looks like big and ugly is ours, Dean.” I tilted my head toward the Void Kraken.

It was one ugly beast to behold. It had that twisted and malformed shape of something that wasn’t put together quite right. It had no symmetry, and any similarities to conventional creatures were a poor imitation crafted through writhing tentacles. Four broad ropes of braided tendrils made up something akin to legs, though dozens of equally large appendages shot out of its back and rear.

The only discernible structure to the beast was a head-like shape, complete with a rounded, gaping maw that led into utter blackness. A wide assortment of thinner, faster tentacles swirled around it, each ready to grab something or someone and pull them into that inky darkness.

“You think those are eyes there?” I asked as I pointed Spell Eater at the closest thing to a vulnerability I could find.

Dean shrugged. “Hell if I know. I’m just going to do my usual and start chopping tentacles off. Hopefully, that’ll keep it distracted for you.”

With our plan settled and agreed upon, we launched into battle. Dean’s axe materialized in his hand, and each step he took carried him far greater distance than it should have. He seemed to pop in and out of existence as he materialized in different places around the Void Kraken’s body. Each time he appeared, he swung his axe and took another chunk out of the beast. The smaller tendrils he could slice off entirely in a single swing. The larger ones required a bit more effort.

A creature of lesser size and scale would have been disabled quickly, but this Void Kraken was simply too big. There were too many tendrils, and new ones were forming from the bloody stumps of the ones Dean severed.

Dean wouldn’t be able to kill this thing alone, no matter how quick and strong he was with his axe. I waited for the right opportunity, then launched myself off the ground with my spear. I soared over the monster’s back, still targeting those glowing orange orbs. I wasn’t sure if they were eyes or not, but they looked important enough to be worth stabbing.

When I finally reached them, I realized the glow I sensed from afar was less an optical organ and more a mass of flesh filled to the brim with strange, chaotic zeal. Not an eye then, but still potentially important. I smashed Spell Eater down into the center of that mass of zeal and activated it.

Energy drained out of the beast I’d stabbed and flowed through my weapon and into me. The energy flow was as thick as the massive tendrils whipping around me. The power I pulled from the beast every handful of seconds represented more zeal crystals than Dean had left for me in the dungeons beneath the Hearthwood. If I could drain one of these regularly, we’d not need prisoners generating zeal for us.

The Void Kraken wasn’t about to let me drain it though. A massive tentacle swept down to where I was standing and nearly smashed me if I hadn’t swung over to the other side of Spell Eater at that same moment. More tendrils came at me, and I swung left and right to avoid them. Those things were fast, and I didn’t like their sinister energy. Was that Void zeal? I wasn’t sure what void zeal did when shaped into a blade, but I didn’t want to find out.

Dodging and weaving around the approaching tentacles made me feel like a pole dancer, swinging around Spell Eater as I was. I couldn’t break contact with the spear without the void zeal Spell Eater was stealing running loose. Plus, I still had a few more tricks to put into play.

“Want to play rough, then?” I chuckled as I shoved Spell Eater a little deeper and gave it a twist. I wasn’t just being vindictive there. The twist and shove ground off some iron from Spell Eater’s edge. That was a dangerous material to any creature of zeal. This Void Kraken was far less vulnerable to it than elves, but that didn’t mean it was immune.

I surveyed the damage while I focused on putting the Void Kraken down. More monsters were spilling out of the open rifts, but so too were the defenses and allies of the Hearthwood rallying to greater defense.

Many of our ally’s vassals, such as the Golden Sword Sect Leader or the Yllienarena of the Auqualian Isles, were present for the protests earlier. Combining those extra Sorcerers with my own harem’s rapidly growing powers meant that we had quite an arsenal at our disposal.

And combining those forces with the defenses of the Hearthwood, we’d turned our city into an impregnable fortress. The walls stood strong, and all the enemies that had slipped past them were swiftly dealt with.

But the same could not be said for our surrounding countryside. The ground shook with the power of our battle. Mighty trees that had stood for hundreds of years cracked and tumbled.

Local monsters cowered in fear, many retreating into nearby dungeon entrances to hide from the chaos of the world around them. Birds dropped from the sky, dead before they hit the ground. They were likely killed by the tremendous pulses of energy being released during this clash of giants.

I suspected people could hear this battle in the Deania’s old capital. Clashes between Demigods were neither quiet nor peaceful. I knew for a fact that a Demigod was strong enough to destroy an entire planet if they aimed their strength at the right location.

We weren’t trying to do that, but the energies exerted during our fight were still enough to crack the ground beneath us and send fissures shooting in all directions. Molten magma from the world’s core burbled up, turning the forest into a firey hellscape.

Already, the damage was spreading. This was the reason I had opted to drain the Void Kraken rather than beat it into submission. Had I chosen to do the latter, we’d probably end up with a new volcano right at our front gates. Even so, our efforts looked like they wouldn’t be enough. So many Demigods were fighting here that some potentially continent-destroying side effects were inevitable.

“Mac, I need you to stabilize the ground to keep us from causing any earthquakes.”

[If I was not already doing so, things would be far worse right now. Believe me!] Mac replied.

I cursed inwardly. If Mac and all his dungeon cores were already taxed to maximum capacity, then we really were pushing the limits of what this world could handle. Not for the first time, I realized why so many Demigods preferred to stay in the Primordial World. Things were just tougher there, and better capable of surviving something like this.

If I wanted anything beyond the reach of our walls to survive, I realized I’d have to help Mac a little. I reached toward the ground, focused on solidifying the surrounding terrain. It wanted to break, shatter, and otherwise be sundered apart with every enormous blow.

I focused on making it like sand. The ground shifted and shook, but it absorbed the blows instead of being carried by them. Mountain-sized dirt clods might be tossed in the air, but they would tumble back down and settle into something that somewhat resembled their previous configuration.

The continent would survive. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of any elves living on the surface near here.

“Minerva, make some undead and evacuate people from Queenshold and our surrounding settlements. They should all be in bunkers by now, and you can just carry them through the Teleportation Array into the Hearthwood.”

[Your will is my command, Master,] Minerva replied.

In the far distance, I felt several Wizard-level skeletons spring to life and start running for our surrounding settlements. Unfortunately, we probably would have to rebuild everything outside of the city. But that would be a small price to pay if it meant our people survived this with the city intact.

I felt the Void Kraken in its death throes now, flailing wildly and mindlessly as he tried desperately to buck me off. Dean had been busy with his axe, and most of the limbs that had the reach to swat at me had been hacked clean off. That made my job much easier, and I was draining the beast beneath me all the faster.

Sam was still only partway through his battle with the Hydras, but he had unexpected help in the form of Elara. The Late Demigod wielded bolts of lightning in either hand, and when she struck each Hydra, it spent a few moments completely paralyzed. That gave Sam the perfect opportunity to cast his Fate spells.

From a distance, I could see rivers of sweat running down his brow and more than a little blood dripping out his nose. He was using his concept, and though nothing seemed to change when he was done, I could tell something had changed in the world, as surely as when I used Identity to change the nature of an object.

Yeminel and Melaris assisted the two of them against the hydras, and I could sense more concepts at work.

Ordinarily, multiple Demigod concepts did not mix well. They were more likely to conflict than to work for a single purpose, even when their users were allies working together. But something about what Sam had done had countered that effect. His concept was the glue that held others together and urged them to work in harmony.

Whatever was happening was near completion. If only it had a little extra help. I lent my Identity concept to the cause. It felt like my power was carried by strong winds. It reached out further than ever before, bolstered by the efforts of four other Demigods.

Suddenly, each Hydra froze in place, no longer capable of movement. But that was the least of their worries as I held out my hand and focused. Their blackish-green hides tuned to light brown, the color of beach sand. With a twist of my fingers, they cracked like sand castles left out too long.

One moment, the hydras were there, ferocious and roaring. The next moment, they were blowing away in the wind, every one of them destroyed in an instant. A cheer rose up from the walls at the tremendous display of magical might. Fought normally, those hydras would have been next to impossible to kill.

But when they’d been transformed from living monsters to piles of sand, not even they could heal back to their original form. We’d done it!

“Dean! The rifts!” I shouted. “I can put the Hydra down from here.”

Tivana and Lyanva were already working feverishly to close the rifts. Now that there were no longer several Demigod monsters pushing from the other side, they were having a much easier time shutting the open rifts. With Dean’s help, they could hopefully close them completely before much more came through.

Here and there, I spotted a few shades, and I called them out for the Sorcerers to put down the moment they were struck by the power of a Level Reducing Sentry Tower.

Seconds turned to minutes, and the monster assault slowed. With the progress our spatial Demigods were making on the open rifts, the fight would soon be over with minimal casualties on our behalf. It had been a good fight, but we’d been more than a match for our enemies.

The Void Kraken collapsed beneath me. The remainder of its body began rapidly dispersing into zeal. Normally, something this big and strong would linger for years as it decayed, but I had drained so much power out of it through Spell Eater that there was little left of it but a shell.

I jumped off it while it fell apart, then turned to survey the rest of the city. “We’ve got our work cut out for us repairing the city. Does anybody know if it’s possible to trace the origins of those rifts? I’m not fool enough to believe that those were a coincidence. Especially after the Immortal Ascendant we just fought. We need to conduct a full investigation. I want--“

A voice came down from above, speaking loud enough that the entire city could hear.

“There’s no need for an investigation, Theo. I freely admit it. Both the Immortal Ascendant you faced and these little pets we found were sent to you by us, the Cult of the Unblinking Eye.”

I looked up in the sky and saw Ethan’s smiling face looking down at us. Wearing a suit and tie, he looked just as I remembered him. Standing calmly with his hands clasped behind his back and a placid smile, he looked like he was waiting for an invitation inside rather than announcing he’d been behind our recent attacks. Attacks during which several of the Demigods present had nearly died permanently.

And his confidence was well deserved, for he hadn’t come alone. Louis, the supposed leader of the Cult of the Unblinking Eye and a powerful Late Demigod, stood off to one side. And on his other flank stood Liora, the Immortal Ascendant we’d barely escaped with our lives.