299 A Shining Massacre (Patreon)

Lehesion took a step onto the seafloor, and it cracked as he grimaced, "You shall try, but you shall fail, as all have failed before you."

My armor grinned, "From how I see it, you've lost against a Spatial Fortress already. You lost yet again on Gyspum if not for their nanomachine construct. What makes you so certain I'll fail if you've been at the mercy of many already?"

His eyes turned to glimmering coals under his brow, "You question that which you don't understand, child."

I growled, "Then come and test yourself. Let's go."

Lehesion roared out with enough force to silence the region. It bounded past me, rolling off my shoulders like water dripping from an umbrella. Beside me, Helios fell to his knees, blood dripping from under his mask. Lehesion seethed, "You feel that? That is my scope. That is my magnitude. You will never exceed it."

"Quit stalling and fight."

Outrage surged over Lehesion's face before he condensed his aura into his body. The energy flowed without end as he bolted towards me through the water. Gritting my teeth, I met his rush. The behemoth collided with me, exuding enough force to crush mountains, but I withstood it. My arms didn't crumble, they stayed strut, and this time, my legs didn't break. I still stood on solid ground.

Yet Lehesion pushed me back with a clawed hand, both of my arms pressing against his scaled armor. As he crushed me into the sandy stone, he laughed,

"It is as I've said. You are an insect."

My armor laughed. Supergolems to my left and right evacuated nearby Vagni before I squeezed my hands tight. His condensed mana armor snapped and my living armor flooded in. He kept stomping down, his massive palm sinking lower, but he mistook the situation. I did not sink down. I sank up. 

He was softer than before, not as dense or overwhelming. He didn't crush me under his mass. He didn't even cause my knees to buckle. No, my hands seeped into his paw, and they sapped his blood, flesh, and bone. Event Horizon poured over him, the aura condensing over his skull. 

I opened my armors jaws and bit into the saturated meat before me.

Lehesion pulled his hand back as pain radiated up his arm and chest. As he did, he found chunks of his golden body hanging from my dark, metal hands and my jagged, dripping maw. His flesh soaked into mine before I leaned down,

"Come on then."

Lehesion's eyes widened before he took a step back. Further back, Helios pulled himself up from the mental whiplash Lehesion placed on him. Keeping the fight away from him, I bent down and shot forward, telekinetic pads synergizing with heavy gravity wells. Nearing Lehesion, he whipped his tail towards me. I used my pocket dimension, his whipping limb sinking into the starry abyss. Reaching him, I grabbed the underside of his jaw, my fingers extending into bone and skin alike.

He roared and whipped away, a chunk of his face tearing out as he did. Reacting in pain, he side-slashed a clawed hand. I didn't dart away. I closed in. At his chest, I made my hand into a spear, lodging it into the monster. Tendrils spread outward, along with my fingers before he caught me with a different attack. I didn't see it, but the sheer force sent me barreling away from the beast.

He was still strong. I smashed through a hillside and deep into the depths of Blegara, the landscape reforming under me as I pierced it. Nestled under many layers of stone, I laid broken, but my body pulled together before my eyes in seconds. Attached to me, several chunks of Lehesion spread throughout the ground. My armor absorbed them despite the pressure from above.

Firing out of the underground pit, I found Lehesion gawking at the wound I left behind. Hunks of his torso had come with me after his attack. Exposed ribs and golden blood seeped into the ocean. That blood clouded around Lehesion as he grimaced at me. Despite the anger, a measure of panic unfolding over his calm demeanor. 

He took quicker breaths, his heart speeding up in his chest. It wasn't long before he composed himself, and he charged up a ball of energy around his mouth to retaliate. Before he finished, Helios made a portal in front of his jaws. The condensed energy beam blasted into Lehesion's side, wounding the massive beast.

I turned, finding Helios hiding on a ice tower within the blue core's shielding. He oversaw the fight there, ready to assist when necessary. He gave me a quick nod, and I refocused on the battle. Lehesion began charging energy for another world-ender, but I assaulted his mind. Dual consciousnesses ran rampant across an unseen horizon right at him. When the telepathic connection formed, a majestic, ancient mind lashed out at mine.

It found a legion waiting for its arrival. Swiveling around it, my minds evaded attacks like schooling fish. The consciousness controlling my mental defenses shepherded this mass and deflected Lehesion's onslaughts all at once. Simultaneously, my offensive consciousness acted as a juggernaut, tearing across the gialgathen's exposed thoughts.

Treading over memories, lines of logic, and methodical processes, this assaulting force left Lehesion confused and overwhelmed. It stunned me seeing how vulnerable this monster was, but it also explained how Elysium gained control of Lehesion in the first place. The psionics controlling Lehesion loomed when I reached the further recesses of Lehesion's mind.

And I found a prodigious mass of minds.

They created a cord of some kind that any of them could connect with. Just grazing this enormous tether, I found thousands of minds working in unison at all moments. They maintained an iron grip over the gialgathen, ensuring no lapses in control. Those psionics took notice of my intrusion, and many detached from this unbreakable bond with Lehesion.

They crashed into me with the unity of a nation and the malice of an enemy. As individuals, I could've smothered them. When together, they acted like a wave of ants running over a mantis. Each of them hacked away at my enormous consciousness, the minuscule traumas mounting into a beating.

Exhaustion and pain radiated from the mental wounds while my defensive mind shot into action. It tore off connection points left and right, preventing further damage. Orienting myself again, I bolted forward towards Lehesion's actual body. My mental warfare required physical backup, and as I hit Lehesion's healed chest, the minds within him quivered. 

They felt the unbridled agony, the crushing bone, and the ripping sinews just like Lehesion did. In turn, their mental offensive lessened, no longer overwhelming me. I kept moving forward, hitting Lehesion with monstrous blows amped by gravity wells, elemental magic, and telekinetic sharpening. Each time I landed a punch, the mass of detached psionics flinched.

I honed in on this weakness. Lehesion remained discombobulated as I wrecked his weakened mind, and this let me pour on punishment. That harm ended up weakening the mind mages that fought against me. Understanding this new dynamic, I kept the pressure high. As I did, they sent more of their mages against me.

This mounted the mental pressure, stressing my split minds as if they wore anchors around their necks. To weaken them, I dashed at Lehesion to close the distance between us. I ripped and gouged out portions of his body, one section at a time. While doing so, I siphoned his energy and being into my own. 

I existed like breathing darkness, a black hole swallowing a bright star. Despite my rampage, Lehesion pulled himself together. Partly because I was too preoccupied with the psionics to rip his mind apart. Another part of his return to form came from the weakened mental tether between him and Elysium. Each mage sent to me reduced the Adairs' absolute control of Lehesion. 

This gave Lehesion more freedom. The freedom to express rage and hatred of me, but hey, at least the guy wasn't utterly subdued. His mental defenses bolstered, no longer stripped bare by his psionic controllers. His movements became less hazy, no longer dulled by the lag of his tetherings. Lehesion evolved before my eyes, becoming the monster I remembered.

Yet, I still overwhelmed him.

I swung, parried, dodged, deflected, blocked, stabbed, hooked, tore, maimed, and mauled him. Each hunk of flesh I devoured played on his fears of being eaten, a fear entrenched after his encounter with his first Spatial Fortresses. I leveraged that vulnerability like twisting a knife lodged in someone's ribs.

This gave my mind magic more bite, amplifying its potent repercussions. Concurrently, the psionics kept sending more mages my way, so I muted their cries by beating the hell out of Lehesion. The golden beast was unable to withstand my punishment yet unable to die from it. With each soul-wrenching blow and earth-shattering strike, that reality materialized further.

Lehesion was in hell, one of my making.

He swung his tail towards me, but I soaked it into my shield and struck him. He snapped his jaws at my neck, but his maw fell onto a ball of spines. He flew into the air above. I followed him and pulled him back into the depths. Hours passed, and Lehesion fell into this horrific eternity. His attacks, while cataclysmal and ruinous, took time to generate. His eclipse attacks couldn't be cast because I offered him no room to breathe. He couldn't blow me apart with his laser breath either as Helios reflected it back to him each and every time.

This disarmed his arsenal of world-ending weapons. His most potent tools voided, Lehesion relied on his physical and mental attacks. And so, I devoured with abandon. I ripped out chunks of flesh and meat, using this as an opportunity to charge my runes and gain ambient mana. Even more importantly, I needed Lehesion to understand that if he ever fought me again, he'd be trapped in this endless cycle. I pulled no punches as he faltered. I left no mercy as panic coursed over his eyes.

His will to defy me would be expunged until nothing but a hollowed husk remained of it, one that ran from the whisper of my name. Necessary as this was, I took no pleasure in the process. I gutted him. I tore skin from flesh and flesh from bone. He couldn't escape me with speed or distance as I kept pace.  He couldn't run to madness as his controllers kept him sane.

Lehesion fell into that fire of torment, one kindled by harm but sustained by his masters' unwillingness to give in. Despite being in the middle of that tug of war, Lehesion still remained cognizant. He tried many tactics. He spread his aura, keeping my physical form away. He opened portals for warping out, and he even tried attacking my people.

For the aura shift, I discovered Event Horizon couldn't pierce his aura, but The Rise of Eden could. Warping proved even simpler to stop. He still had to physically jump through, and I wasn't about to let him. As for attacking my guildsmen, it was a messier affair. I couldn't stop him from purposely crushing Vagni and the like, as he proved too challenging to control.

It was a bitter pill I had to swallow, but I made sure he paid for it dearly. During all of these incursions, many reinforcements attempted aiding Lehesion, but they perished in the umbral blots of my singularities. The Adair's mental ambushes proved lethal, but I kept them minimized by unleashing wave after wave of physical anguish through Lehesion. 

This continued for a time, the entire landscape reshaping under our battle. Many died during the struggle from both the Vagni and Elysium alike. Anytime Lehesion dove down towards me, I met his dive head-on. The resulting impulse disintegrated blocks of the cityscape. I crushed Lehesion's left arm with a sharp hook from my left hand, and the gialgathen's shearing bone released enough force to level buildings. The shockwave itself tore across the sea, leaving it unsettled like a pool being cannonballed continuously.

These waves swallowed the skyline above the sea, making a mockery of the ocean's size and scale. It was like a puddle to us, and that pool rippled with an intensity unbounded—the same devastation wrought from the heat of our strikes. Even the slightest blow induced otherworldly volumes of friction. A grazing kick or shredding claw boiled the water around us, killing many in our warpath.

It saddened me, but I overwhelmed grief with rage. This was my homestead, a new frontier for my people. If I let Lehesion ground himself, he'd induce an apocalypse over everything we built here, and the gialgathen would do so with ease. There'd be nothing but a dried sea and a molten wasteland left behind when he finished us.

And so, I enacted a living hell for Lehesion. I never relented. I poured forth like an eruption with no end. I bit at his heels like a pack of immortal wolves. I mauled his spirit, and I tore his bones. At times, I felt his fear and his terror, but I swallowed that sickness in my stomach. He was my enemy, and no enemy would be left living.

Eventually, Lehesion and I stood amongst a scarred horizon. We shattered swaths of Saphigia. My golems saved many, but many more still died in this battle. Lehesion grimaced at me, a deep disgust bubbling out but even more profound dismay simmering under the surface. He howled,

"How do you live knowing you are an abomination? Do you ignore it? Do you hide from the pain of knowing you're a calamity?"

While I remained silent, my armor laughed for me, cackling out in a haunting reverberation like metal. I spoke between its unsettling echoes,

"Deny me, but I will remain. If you stand behind me, I am a guardian. If you stand beside me, I am a leader. If you stand against me, then I am a destroyer. Tell me, Lehesion-"

I spread clawed hands, 

"Where do you stand?"

Pieces of his crystal armor fell from his frame, few shards of it remaining over him. Fresh scars over his skin shrunk, but the mental ones wouldn't mend so quickly. His breathing quickened as he sputtered,

"You...you are only a monster. I may stand anywhere I wish with you, and it will serve no consequence. You cannot affect me."

I raised a hand, and he backed away. I scoffed,

"You fear being eaten when you've already been swallowed."

Lehesion's eyes widened, "I am not prey. I am the hunter. I, I must be."

I stood tall, "No, you are a sword that is wielded by others and swung where they cannot reach. The Adair's have torn your mind to pieces, and now I battle the fragments they hobble together. You fight without urgency because you don't fear death. You battle without cunning because you've never needed it. You even strike without intent since even a light brush is all you've ever needed."

I pounded my chest with a fist, "But I've wallowed in my own blood and fought through it. I've lived with death. It made me strong. I fight without mercy because I've never been allowed to have it. I strike to kill because I can't afford to do otherwise."

I spread my hands, "The lives we've lived, they're worlds apart. That's why when you crushed me, I decided to stand tall even when I was in your shadow. Now that you lie in mine, you cower in the dark. That is what your reincarnation has given you - a weak strength."

I spit blood to my side before staring him down, "Grow a backbone and come fight me again." I cracked my knuckles, "Or I can keep carving you up. It's your choice."

The congregation of psionics controlling Lehesion ceased attacking me at that moment. I leaned back, an inkling of concern sprouting up from my chest. Something changed. Lehesion's eyes grew bloodshot, orange, nanomachine-infused liquid surfacing through his veins. He whispered, 

"No more."

Around him, something snapped. Lehesion's energy spiked, and it flooded his frame until he sheened with radiation and an ominous, blue glow. I remounted my offensive on his mind, but I found something strange waiting for me. The psionics no longer defended Lehesion's mind. They joined my own offensive, tearing as much as they could.

No, they didn't tear. These mages gnawed in absolute desperation. Their urgency proved infectious, and I redoubled my efforts. It wasn't enough. Lehesion wrestled full control of his mind. Once more, he became whole. I no longer faced a shell of his former glory. I faced the full wrath of a legend, his powers and instincts no longer stripped.

He was the shattered god no longer. He was whole. 

Lehesion regained full faculties, his ancient, full luster returning. He emitted intense radiation near him, the energy encapsulating everything in a dangerous but warm glow. His scars receded, and he took deep breaths of appreciation,

"Ah, I am myself again. To be given freedom is a blessing, one I've lacked appreciation for in the past. I'll do so no longer."

His words sent a chill down my spine. I kept attacking his mind, and I uncovered pieces of what was happening as I did. They only made my stomach sink faster as I discovered more. As we thought, I learned the Adair family helped break down the connection Lehesion had with Eonoth, the Old One. They'd lessened the barriers between the two, giving Lehesion more of the Old One's primordial, inconceivable energies.

But, I hadn't faced any of those new powers. No, I had met a living factory that powered Elysium's entire stat system, even while we fought one another. The whole time, he carried the brunt of a new society on his shoulders, and I hadn't known it. Lehesion grumbled,

"And with this freedom, what will I do? Tear down my manipulators? They stand beyond my reach, hidden amongst the stars. Destroy their armies? They number many, and they sprawl across planets. It would take time that I no longer have."

I continued attacking his mind. Memories of our fight flooded me. When Lehesion wanted to maul, the mages weakened him. When he wished to devastate, Elysium enfeebled his attacks. As I ruptured and cleaved him apart, Elysium kept his unchecked rage shackled. The psionics faltered as I put pressure on their limiters and controls. Now, I faced Lehesion with his mind returned and his powers unbounded.

And staring at me, the beast's overbearing confidence returned,

"But, you stand here, Harbinger. You've earned my ire and my gaze. Now, little one, let us see if you may survive its fury."