[ Book 7 ] Chapter 327. To the Death (Patreon)

Maria watched silently as Ian played the role of Ancient Black, enticing Achemiss into revealing his true body with the promise of knowledge.

The arrogant Achemiss that stood before Ian was completely different from the obsequious man she’d observed over the past two days. His gaze was sharp, and he let his expressions show plainly on his face–a personal choice. This Achemiss seemed straightforward, but Maria wondered if perhaps even this was just a ruse. If Achemiss could play the role of a milquetoast so effectively, she knew that he could assume whatever role he desired.

His acting skills made it more difficult to learn anything about him. Maria had thought it odd that Karanos and the white faction didn’t know more about Achemiss, but having met the man, she now understood.

Perhaps no one in all of Eternity could claim to know him.

Although Achemiss was closed off, Maria and Ian had still tried to intuit more about his origins. Unfortunately, even after chatting with him for days, they only knew that when he ascended, he had a view of a lake that spanned the horizon. Given Soolemar’s intelligence that Achemiss was from Adrillon, they assumed this to be Lake Adrian, the enormous body of freshwater that dominated the subcontinent.

Such knowledge was as good as useless since Lake Adrian butted up against Shibaria, Iastra, and Flatochre. Should the return beacon bring them to the place where Achemiss ascended, they could appear practically anywhere. And given the gap of time between Achemiss’s ascension and the present day, the old necromancer’s ascension site could have become anything at this point–farmland, a town, possibly even the lake itself if the water level had risen.

Of course, if Achemiss had ascended in a truly remote area, like the western Iastran steppes, the terrain might be virtually unchanged, giving Achemiss an advantage.

As Ian demonstrated the soul technique on Achemiss, Maria’s fingers gripped his arm like a vise. Somewhere in the past few years, her life had become intertwined with Ian’s, and not because of the lich bond. She knew that their relationship was different from the one that Ian shared with Euryphel. Ian and the prince had spent relatively little time together yet had an instant affinity and a mutual faith in one another that was inexplicable.

Her relationship with Ian had proceeded in a more typical manner, growing over several years. She knew him, understood him, perhaps better than anyone else. It was a relationship rooted in friendship and mutual respect.

Maria had known going into this mess with Achemiss that her time with Ian might be cleanly severed, that she might never see him again if his plans failed. She imagined him leaving her in a blink, never to return. Even with the dulled emotions of a lich, a blistering, desperate fury filled her.

She didn’t want to be left behind. She wanted to help her partner. But more than that, she wanted to save their world, too. And perhaps she could even see Zilverna, though the thought filled her with a mix of hope and dread. She didn’t want him to see her as an undead lich, especially not in person. Suncloud’s diadem made her seem lifelike, but it wasn’t perfect.

Maria knew she needed to recenter herself. If her thoughts swirled like a maelstrom, she wouldn’t be much help against Achemiss if she did go down with Ian. She cleared her mind and listened intently as Ian lectured.

“Gaining an affinity is akin to fundamentally changing the self to be more in tune with the world. When the self changes, it may destabilize the foundation of the soul, its anchor points. Within Eternity, where the soul is held beyond our reach, inspecting those anchor points is difficult.”

Achemiss’s free hand balled into a fist. “Like seeing motes of dust in darkness.”

Maria felt as though a switch flipped in Ian, a decisive determination passing through the lich bond. This was it. Were she alive, she thought that her body would be vibrating with anticipation. She mentally braced herself.

“But what if you could find a way to sense anchor points, even in Eternity?” Ian asked.

She didn’t see him click the return beacon; he hid the gesture well. But she suddenly felt something tugging her away.

Euphoric relief filled her.

She didn’t remember the transfer to Eternity since she’d passed out on arrival. In Ascendant Holiday’s Discardia simulation, Ian had taken a return beacon to the Hall of Ascension, but that had simply felt like taking a transport array.

With a sudden flash of white across her eyes, Maria smacked down on the ground, landing hard on her knees. She inadvertently yanked Ian forward, slightly destabilizing him. She felt like a shirt that had been turned inside out and back, though her undead constitution prevented her from feeling any nausea.

Her heart sank to her stomach as her eyes adjusted, and she saw the crush of vitality and the countless End arrows around them.

This wasn’t Selejo. It wasn’t a remote mountain or pastoral field. It was an unfamiliar city–somewhere Maria had never visited, so probably not a political or commercial capital. It was warm and muggy, the sun partially covered by clouds. From the quality and direction of the light, Maria figured it was mid-morning.

They had appeared on a marina wharf filled by restaurants, shops, and civilians. It was an area completely unprepared for a fight between three wielders of ascendant energy.

If Ian couldn’t finish this as fast as he planned… the consequences were unimaginable.

Even though Maria felt a compulsion to help and hit Achemiss with a blast of ascendant-energy-empowered fire, she knew the plan. She released Ian’s arm and swiped the return beacon from his off hand. At the same time–still on her knees–fire erupted from her legs and arms, propelling her backwards from the two necromancers.

Spray from the lake soaked her back as she rocketed away, stowing the return beacon in a void storage.

She shut her eyes out of fear, but she couldn’t unsee the End arrows that stretched from her to Ian and Achemiss. Over two seconds had passed at this point, but both arrows were present. Neither were dead, and Maria reckoned that the duo hadn’t moved from their initial spots.

She couldn’t sense any specific emotions from Ian over their bond to give her a hint as to how the fight was going, but her thoughts were in disarray. She knew that Ian planned to end everything in a moment with the element of surprise.

Every second the conflict dragged on increased the chance he would die.

That made Maria’s task even more important. She couldn’t let the return beacon fall into Achemiss’s hands. She knew worrying for Ian–and the civilians of the unfamiliar city–wouldn’t help. She focused on her personal mantra as the flames clung to her skin.

Move forward or die.

—

Ian reacted the instant the return beacon activated, his ethereal energy tendrils burrowing deeper toward Achemiss’s soul before the transfer completed.

His Beginning affinity was flooded with inputs from his Remorse affinity. He’d already prepared for the possibility of arriving in a city–he had reckoned that there was a fifty percent chance they would arrive in Cunabulus–so he knew better than to let hoards of unprotected regular minds overwhelm him.

He intentionally filtered out all distractions other than the man in front of him whose hand still lay in his own.

Achemiss knew what had happened immediately, even if he didn’t fully understand how or why “Ancient Black” had used a return beacon on him. His eyes were wide with indignation as he began the fight for supremacy, his opening salvo the activation of numerous artifacts. Scarlet chains snaked forth to entangle Ian, glowing intensely like a forge. An unnaturally disturbing music box hovered in the air, its song threatening to ruin Ian’s concentration. Thick pieces of plate armor covered Achemiss’s body, black and stylized with ravens and feather motifs.

Several more items appeared one after another, but Ian didn’t wait to discover their effects. He used his shard of black rock to summon its tethered kin. A hundred or so spectral rocks formed around the shard. Since they had all been invested with his necromancy, Ian mentally controlled them so that they formed affinity-dampening fortification. The rocks couldn’t encompass a huge volume, so to properly isolate Ian and Achemiss from the outside, it pressed their bodies together.

Achemiss’s Dark energy washed over the cramped space, but it was weakened from the proximity of the black rock and failed to create a zone of total annihilation. At the same time, Ian and Achemiss wielded decemancy to destroy the body of the other. Since they were both weakened by the black rock, neither was at an advantage.

Ian was shocked by the forcefulness of Achemiss’s Death energy as it pried its way into his body, threatening to rot his flesh. His skin–resistant as it was to Dark–also partially resisted the decemantic energy, but Achemiss’s attacks had exceptional penetration.

He realized that Achemiss definitely had some kind of boosting artifact that increased the potency of his Death affinity. It wasn’t a big surprise–said artifact was probably what allowed Achemiss to control his second body back in Eternity and wield energy from his ethereal body at a distance.

As Achemiss warred with Dark and Death on the surface, he defended himself with rabid abandon within, his ethereal body becoming solid and springy like rubber to thwart the needle-like tendrils that aimed to eviscerate his soul.

Ian’s Beginning calculated that Achemiss had no less than four different soul-defending artifacts working together to produce the rubbery defense–an absurd amount considering that soul attacks were futile in Eternity. Ian knew that Achemiss had an ungodly number of artifacts, but he truly hadn’t expected Achemiss to wear so many aimed at guarding his soul.

It was a miscalculation–a dire one. Ian could sense the black rock barrier buckling under the assault of artifacts on the exterior. The wailing sound of the music box returned, punctuated by muted, violent blasts and pops. Meanwhile, within the black rock barrier, Dark energy methodically receded, allowing elemental attacks and the slashes of flying armaments to ravage Ian’s body.

It had only been two seconds, but Ian knew he was being overwhelmed.

The Dark energy was thick and abrasive, like sandpaper made of oblivion. It wore away everything that it touched. Standing still was the best way to withstand such an assault–moving through the Dark energy field exacerbated its disintegrating power.

Ian knew that with the way things were going, he couldn’t afford to wait. His original gambit had been foiled by Achemiss’s extreme paranoia, so he needed to pivot and carve out a new opportunity in the present.

Ian pushed the Blade of Revelation into his hands with a cluster of bone shards that disintegrated as they imparted the dagger with force, delivering it to his grip.

Moving the limb through Achemiss’s shifting field of Dark energy was like moving it through a grater. He sensed his muscles and bones shredding away, leaving bloody smears of flesh. With the protective layer of skin gone, his arm wouldn’t last for another second.

But if he didn’t end this fight in a second, his life would probably be forfeit, anyway.

Ian had glimpsed Achemiss’s reflection in the Blade of Revelation back when they were in Eternity. It hadn’t been insightful–Achemiss’s skin merely took on a reddish tint, and his eyes became pure white orbs, matched by alabaster hair. He didn’t know what would happen if Achemiss transformed–perhaps he’d become even more powerful. But Ian’s Beginning auguries insisted that the transformation would interrupt the man’s focus and possibly interrupt his defensive artifacts.

At this point, Ian had lost the element of surprise. The dagger might give it back to him, if only for a moment, which was all he could hope for.

With no time to waste, Ian slashed the dagger toward Achemiss’s armored hand. He thrust downward with all his strength, empowering the blow with ascendant energy. He also channeled ascendant energy into the blade, hoping that it would transform the armor into a weaker material.

As Ian pressed the dagger down, the armor transformed, turning into red water that was brighter than blood and filled with an inner radiance. The liquid held its shape, but allowed the knife to cleave through.

It sank shallowly into Achemiss’s flesh, but that was enough. Its energy pumped into the ascendant and initiated a transformation.

Achemiss’s Dark energy flared up, filling the space with even greater intensity than before. Ian noted the loss of his extremities with apathy–with time, he could grow them back himself, or regain them with the help of a Life practitioner. With Beginning affinity, he had every aspect of his body memorized, so the risk of mis-remembering part of his flesh as he regrew it was minimal.

Ian couldn’t see the transformation as it rippled through Achemiss. At this point, he couldn’t see much of anything, his eyes ruined and the area flooded by inky darkness. Moreover, Achemiss’s armor was dense like the wood that made up his compound, preventing Ian from seeing past it with his vital vision.

But Ian could feel when the transformation reached Achemiss’s chest, the cradle of his soul. The defensive artifacts stabilizing Achemiss’s ethereal body stuttered, allowing his soul tendrils–previously stuck in Achemiss’s hardened ethereal body–to move.

A moment was all it took for Ian’s poised ethereal energy to carve into the ascendant’s soul.