299. Finale (V) (Patreon)

“Go in the Chamber and stay there,” breathed Dorian.

“Why?” said Sun.

“So you don’t get whiplash or worse. With how fast I’ll be moving, and how much collateral damage this’ll cause, cloaking will be fairly pointless! Don’t worry, you won’t be in there long.”

Sun looked like she had a lot more questions, but she knew better than to ask them right now. With a nod, she went in.

Now he could unleash himself in full. And oh Heavens was he eager to do it.

[Blessing of Hecate!]

A gentle white glow, marking his strengthened magics. Casting it on himself cost half Yeshima’s qi. As for the other half—

[Blessing of Hermes!]

On its own, the Blessing was potent enough. Stacked with Hecate it would’ve made him the quickest being in the Multiverse.

And then he drew out long spools of Speed Qi, draping himself all over with it—but especially his feet and wings.

Then he was off.

The floor must’ve had hundreds of corridors, and Dorian explored them all in a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye. He found a stairway up flanked by two tense-looking guards. Empyreans both. He blitzed right past them, and the wake of his movement flattened them against the walls. The next floor was some kind of armory-cum-practice-facility, racks of weapons everywhere, a giant shooting range with real grass, and soldiers scampering about. He might’ve inadvertently wounded a dozen soldiers by the time he found the staircase. Every weapon, in hand or on a rack, was either in slow motion descent or in someone’s limb. Half the soldiers were off their feet. He hadn’t slowed time, only sped himself up, but the effect to him was nearly the same.

Up he went.

Past a floor full of alchemists slaving away.

Past a floor that looked like it had once been a magnificent garden, but was for some reason cratered and smote now—as though some God had thrown a temper tantrum here.

Past a floor of hairless pale creatures suspended in vials of fluid.

Up, up, up, chasing the resonance in his soul…

He rose up one final grand staircase so wide it could’ve fit an army. And entered a room drenched in darkness. In the distance, gleaming softly, was the only bright spot in the room. At first he thought it was a wall. And then, as he drew closer, he saw the slit down its center. It was a door made of solid gold. An Infinity symbol stretched across its stern face. Etched around it were carvings of one boy. A boy staring up at the stars. A boy holding forth to a crowd of adorers. A boy tending to a sickly hound. A boy with a gentle smile and shining eyes. It was obvious who it was meant to be.

Dorian had met many good people in his life. But none of them had felt the need to proclaim their goodness so loudly. Or was it to remind the man of his own goodness, every time he stepped foot in the chamber that lay beyond—the chamber of his ultimate power?  Dorian wasn’t sure which was worse.

Standing here, it was impossible not to feel the gravity of the moment. It was like some great weight sinking in his chest from the inside, quickening his breaths. His heartbeat beat out a wet pulsing rhythm in his ears, rising with each breath. Intellectually he remained undaunted as ever. Nobody told his body that.

How long had it been since he’d really felt this way? Sure, there was the anticipation, the breathy excitement when he came upon big moments in runs. But they always had a certain lightness to them—a certain playfulness that came with knowing your actions had no real consequences. But this, all of this, was no joking matter.

If he let himself think about it too much, he could probably get in his own head about how this was the culmination of his run. That if he failed here, the Multiverse was sunk. His friends would perish out there. And so on, and so on. He knew how these spirals went.

So he chose not to think about it. The task was simple. Destroy the Heart.

“Sun,” he said, eyeing the arrays binding the door. “I’ll need your help. One last time.”

“Mm!” She nodded, looking as certain and determined as he pretended to be. Maybe they were both pretending.

“For cloaking? In case there’s guards?”

“No need. Just the aura will do. Besides…” He smiled grimly. “There will be no hiding what we’re about to do.”

She did. They went up to the door, and he shoved, and silently, slowly, it caved open.

Beyond, it looked like the central chamber of some great church—except unlike Yeshima’s, which was suffused with light, this was empty, echoing, dark. Its walls curved in a cylinder, plastered with murals staring at nothing. More of the same as the door—Jez high up, the hordes of craven masses far below, him extending a hand, here to minotaurs, here to humans, here to jiangshi. Though that one was notably defaced. Columns broke them up.

They surrounded the centerpiece of the room. The Prime Heart. It looked like some huge crystal embedded in the ground, with cancerous growths of more crystal breaking up its surface. The whole floor was covered in gold lines, arching to form some arcane pentagram—with the Heart as its center. A constant qi flow beamed up and away.

“You… are not supposed… to be here…”

The voice came hoarse and soft from two mouths in an ugly disharmony.

A chimera hung from the rafters. Sun let out a little eep!

“Dorian…”

The voices drifted out from behind. Three more had stalked up the steps behind him. And unlike those misshapen wretches he’d fought earlier, these were all full-fledged chimeras. Each glowed with the Infinity’s powers. They glowed brighter as they stepped forth.

There was no use speaking with these creatures. And for once, Dorian was not in a particularly jokey mood.

He stretched out his hand, and Soulreaver answered his call.

The chimeras closed in, gold light sprang from their fangs and their fists, burst from their skin and their eyes. Pyres of gold qi descended upon him.

When he was very young, he recalled having a debate with his brother Houyi. Which was more important—speed or power? Houyi had snorted and said skill trumps both. But if he had to choose one attribute to express that skill, it would be speed. It mattered little how strong you were if you couldn’t land a blow. And the faster man landed first. If you were a skilled fighter, it was only a matter of time before you found a weakness.

When the current version of Dorian looked out at all these creatures, all he saw was weakness. He did not play with them. He simply sliced into them, drawing fountains of blood.

One slash. Two slashes. Three slashes. He felt like a painter making wanton strokes on four separate canvases, and all of them in lurid red paint. His blade danced freely, speckling the air with blood.

It took until the seventh slash until the creatures realized they’d been cut. Until their eyes widened, until their mouths sagged open, until they started drawing back, throwing up their petty little shields. But the damage was already done.

[Life-snatcher!]

The wounds on their bodies began to boil, leaking crimson light. The chimeras hissed at him, drawing more from their Infinity Heart, shining brighter.

Which only made Dorian’s crimson qi shine brighter too.

Before, one slash of that size would’ve been like puncturing a hole in a dam. Manageable, something you might even ignore. But with the Blessing of Hecate it was like opening up a giant crack down that dam’s center.

And Dorian hadn’t slashed only once.

He saw panic creep into their deadened expressions as he turned on them, the prey suddenly turned the predator, sword sweeping out in wide arcs, falling upon their force-fields, returning to them their own force.

It was unfair. He had turned their greatest power against them. He was so much faster than them they seemed to exist in parallel realities. Their qi might’ve been strong, but he slashed one thousand times in one second with force backed by their own powers. Shields broke. Blood splattered the air. Cries of pain issued from toothless mouths.

By the time their echoes returned, the battle was over.

The more wounds Dorian opened up the faster it went. There was a momentum to a losing battle, just as there was momentum to bodies toppling over, many arms spayed, heads lolling back. Slowly, then all at once.

Oh, they’d thrown Techniques, sure. Techniques he had stepped around, minor inconveniences on his way to more slashes. It was incredible even to him how his body synergized. One soul, nine of the most powerful cores in the Multiverse, and still they managed to be more than the sum of their parts.

Now nothing lay between him and the Heart.

…

“I’ve…won?” said Jez.

It didn’t feel as satisfying as he’d expected.

The land before him reminded him of his home, once, after a certain Godking had plundered its lands and ascended. The land was a grisly mausoleum, riddled with bodies and parts of bodies, none moving. The battlefield was nearly silent. There were still some small pockets of resistance on the grounds below—flickering like embers in a harsh wind. Entire species, stamped out. Ash flaked over the scene, blanketing the bloodstained lands. Laying it to rest.

Before him, on his knees, was Old Man Fate.

There was not a speck of qi left in him. There was hardly a speck of life. Half his limbs were missing. Tears dripped slowly down his lined face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Though Jez didn’t know who he spoke to. His cohort of Godkings were broken, scattered, lost. They had put up an annoying resistance for a time, but that was all. He had drowned them in raw power.

Truthfully he took little satisfaction in this, the killing of Fate. Fate, he respected. Fate was a good man, like himself.

“What a waste,” he sighed. “If only you’d surrendered, all of this suffering, all of this death, could’ve been avoided. You only have yourself to blame.”   …He’d lied to himself. He seemed to be doing that more and more of late. He did take some satisfaction in seeing how Fate’s head bent lower at that.

“A pity Dorian isn’t here,” he said. Jez would’ve taken great pleasure in gloating to him. But it seemed their last fight had scared poor Dorian into hiding. Just as Jez had anticipated.

He knew the man. There was but one thing Dorian cared about in the Multiverse, and that was himself. His instinct for self-preservation would make him a pain to hunt down. But with the resources of the Multiverse on his side, it was merely a matter of time—

He gasped. Stumbled.

“He’s here?!”

A blink, and he was gone.

***

Another, and there he was. Stood before his Heart. The closer he was, the more he could draw—and this body could draw nearly without limit. Its capacities defied physics, bent spacetime. Even Jez did not know the true extent of its powers.

He allowed himself a moment to enjoy Dorian’s shocked face.

Dorian acted fast. Surprisingly so. He was halfway through a lunge before Jez blasted him off his feet.