CHAPTER 284: SUMRANN’S CHAMPION

When Tavio landed on the Hierophant’s skull, he struck with the hammer at the end of his poleaxe, and the glowing eyes on each of the creature’s hundreds of heads flickered. The Hierophant reared back as it slid, its gigantic hooves digging house-wide trenches through the soil and kicking up clouds of dust and debris. Tavio’s weapon shone brilliantly as he shot forward to follow, driving the spear deep into the center of the beast’s face.

Crags of holy light tore through the monster’s skin and bone as its skull caved in around the spearhead, erupting in a spray of sacred gore. Tavio flowed without the slightest pause as he ripped the spear free and rotated his body, swinging the axe head around and releasing a wave of golden light that slashed at the Hierophant’s branches for fifty feet in all directions.

He did all of this with only one arm.

The air around the Hierophant was thick with the monstrous birds as they swooped down en masse, thousands of bodies covered in razor-edged feathers. Tavio wielded a kite shield in his offhand and batted many of the avians aside that descended to assist the Hierophant. The shield strikes landed with impossible force as a ghostly copy of the shield thrust forth with each block, crushing his attackers with an explosive burst of strength. Other birds fell to Tavio’s poleaxe, caught in the maelstrom of his swings, even though they weren’t his target. Several made it past his shield and wove through his swings to land hits against the Littan’s heavily armored body, only to explode as a wave of Spectral vines erupted from the point of impact and tore through their bodies with glinting thorns.

Varrin, Xim, and I had come out of the Closet portal on an arcing path, flying west as we approached the Hierophant to keep Krimsim away from our backs. Varrin took Xim by the collar of her Wyldweave armor and carried the Cleric’s bestial fifty-foot body forward at supersonic speeds while Xim gripped me in one clawed hand to bring me along for the ride. A menacing rumble purred in her throat, releasing waves of dread, but the birds were in a suicidal frenzy, ignoring her attempts to drive them off.

Without missing a beat, Xim sent them all to hell instead.

All I could see was a flash of blood red flame, and everything in our path was judged and annihilated. Birds immediately swarmed to fill the gap in their formation, and a hundred ghostly blades flew out from Varrin’s clones. They ripped into the approaching birds and shunted them towards Varrin, who parted the aerial graveyard with a single downward stroke of Kazandak. Birds flew in at our sides as well, and I hit them with Sonic bursts of Elemental Barrier, mana shaping them into eighty-foot shockwaves that sent our pursuers crashing back and tumbling from the air.

We were too fast for any birds to catch us from behind. Even if we hadn’t been, the flight of Dragons that poured out after us would have taken care of it.

The ‘young’ red Dragon at the tip of the flight was nearly two hundred feet in length, slightly larger than Ishi in her own Dragon form. The juveniles spreading out into multiple arrow formations around the leader were each between fifty and a hundred feet.

Given that these were Dragons, I hadn’t known exactly what to expect from their tactics. Part of me had expected them to spread out and start taking fights individually. From my admittedly limited experience, Dragons seemed to conform more closely to a collection of apex predators begrudgingly working together towards a common goal than anything else. What I hadn’t expected was for them to operate like a well-organized squadron of fighter jets.

The Dragons formed up into tight groups, arrayed so that they could easily support one another, and started moving through the air on aggressive strafing runs. The lead Dragon breathed out a constant wall of fire that cleared the air ahead of the entire formation, while each squad of juveniles shot their fiery breath at precise angles, collectively creating a blooming bubble of fire that fully encompassed their front and sides. They crashed through the swarms of birds, flash frying them and blowing their crispy corpses away.

They wove a worming column of smoky death in the skies.

I only had time to take their tactics in briefly. Tavio’s first swing had somehow sent the Hierophant’s heads into a daze and granted us a brief reprieve from the ceaseless onslaught of spell attacks. However, the Hierophant revealed that it could do more than throw some magic around.

The skyscraper-length staff on its back rose, lifted by dozens of limbs, a miniature forest of bark-covered arms and knotted fingers. The wood along the staff cracked, widening into organic holes reminiscent of an insect hive. Ethereal chains poured from the holes, the rumble and clank momentarily drowning out the tumultuous flutter and caw of its thousands of flying servants.

The Hierophant angled its head and bellowed as it drove the staff downward, sliding flush across its skull towards Tavio. The Littan spun away and kicked off the side of the staff, launching to one of the wide trunks growing out of the creature’s eye sockets and driving his spear into it.

The staff continued, hammering into the ground and fracturing the earth. A plume of debris rose from impact, dirt and rocks driving through the air fast enough for even the largest of the projectiles to disintegrate from sheer wind resistance. The cloud billowed and parted as thousands of chains spread from the staff like striking snakes. Dozens swept towards Tavio, as though the man were magnetic, and the Littan ducked and pivoted, blocked and swiped, leaping between branches and riding the force of his deflections like a fucking ballerina as he avoided each and every one.

We were at least a thousand feet from the Hierophant, but the chains cracked the air on their way to us as well. A thought to Xim had her lift and thrust me out ahead, holding me like a ward against the incoming assault. I sent a pulse of mana into Gracorvus, shifting its many plates, angling them until the massive targe created a plow. I mana-shaped Gravity Anchor, forcing it to originate at a point ahead of us and cast it in a massive cone. The technique sucked the wide spread of incoming chains into a dense column, and I ended Gravity Anchor an instant before we passed through its effect.

A hundred chains were coiled tightly together, all of which struck Gracorvus and crashed off the shield, forced aside to part around us like a wake. Varrin’s clones cut through the ghostly material of the chains before they could close back in.

Tavio’s dance routine to avoid the chains had taken all of his attention, and the birds swarmed onto the Littan as he dodged the last of the attack. Avians hammered into his torso, exploding from the man’s thorns, but managing to drive him off course. Tavio fell from the Hierophant’s massive head in an expanding cloud of bloody mist and feathers.

I dropped a portal entrance beneath him, and as our trio crashed into the Hierophant’s skull, Tavio fell through the exit to land on his feet right next to us. Without hesitation, he was back to abusing the severed heads that surrounded us.

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Varrin’s Berserk status had been lightly Cleansed so that we could do our tactical retreat, and once we were back on the Hierophant, he immediately used Enrage. His helmet returned to life with its furious gaze while he and his clones spread out to create a three-point blender of Spectral blades.

Xim’s claws were wreathed in an amethyst light that slung a dark, sinister fire in wide arcs with every slash as she pushed her Wraithclaw transformation to layer on Spectral damage. All the while, a burning orb began to build in her throat.

Death beams rained down from the sky, carving through flocks of birds to deliver eruptions of Holy and Mystical Force damage on the Hierophant’s eye trees.

I burned through wand charges to lay down Elemental Barriers, forcing back the swarms of dive bombing minions. The Hierophant’s staff came up for another strike while we mutilated its stolen faces, and the jungle of limbs thrust it down towards us like a piston.

I cast Shortcut to intercept it.

There was a moment where a strange feeling overtook me. My heart fluttered, my stomach dropped, and I felt like I’d just hit the first big dip on a titanic rollercoaster. It wasn’t a skill effect or debuff, it was my brain trying to reconcile what was about to happen with its outdated understanding of my bodily physics.

The staff was more than double the size of a very large redwood. Its blunted wooden tip was wider than a tennis court. It was so much larger than myself, that I imagined this was how a cricket might feel as a lumberjack dropped an oak tree onto the specific twig that it was perched upon. ℞₳ƝŐᛒÊs

I locked that feeling down and dismissed it. All of that was a dream of the distant past, where my body was a soft mound of water, fats, and proteins. A body that would fail when colliding with a tree at the speed of a brisk bike ride. I had no idea what, precisely, I was made out of anymore, but I knew at least one thing:

This time, the tree wasn’t the thing that was unyielding. It was me

.

I flared Gravity Anchor to root myself in place, I held Gracorvus in front of me, and I fucking blocked that shit.

The staff struck me with cataclysmic force. My arms immediately gave, and Gracorvus crashed into my chest, but Gravity Anchor wasn’t a suggestion; it was a rule. Even as my Shielding shattered and my chest deformed, my body was an immovable bulwark. The seven-hundred-foot rod of wood came to an inevitable halt against my frame.

Daily Apple consumed to negate the Stunned debuff!

The air rippled with a deafening wave of compression. The chains piled forth, but they were drawn, inexorably, to my pull. They wrapped me in their deadly constriction until light could find no crack or link to peek through, burying me in crushing darkness, but leaving my allies untouched.

I cast Shortcut to extricate myself and retook my position beside my rampaging comrades, then shook out my arms and cast Rejuvenate. Rather than the familiar click and snap of bones and joints popping back into place, it was more of a wet, crunching noise that sent a shiver down my neck. My biology was really starting to get weird.

After a quick tick from Sam’lia’s Warmth, I was almost back to full again.

The Hierophant finally recovered from Tavio’s stupefying blow, and the Cleanses were starting to roll out. The interruption had been devastating, however, and hundreds of its stolen heads lay in ruin. While the sky was filled with its avian servants, none of them were burdened with replacements for the victims we’d laid to rest.

Nuralie’s mechas, alongside the Etja clone golems, were spread throughout the no-man’s land, taking down any bird bringing the Hierophant a care package, using hit-and-stealth tactics to keep from being torn apart by the rest. It wasn’t too much of a challenge, since it seemed like every murderous avian outside of Krimsim was gunning for the foursome ripping the Hierophant’s front end to pieces. The constructs were also immune to the Toxicity aura, which helped them stay on the field.

Our group was managing the Toxicity without issue, as every pulse of the magic radiation was washed from our bodies by Xim’s omnipresent flames. Her aura helped offset the Psychic retaliation damage she, Tavio, and Varrin were taking, while I intercepted threats and soaked the big hits.

We were kicking this thing’s ass. Unfortunately, we weren’t kicking it fast enough.

[The Hierophant’s Toxicity aura is continually expanding. It has reached Krimsim.]

Dread filled me at Grotto’s psychic message. Most of the Delvers

in the city would die from one tick of that aura. Everyone else would be reduced to a glowing puddle in less than a second. Grotto continued before I could go too far with that train of thought.

[The walls are lined with mana sinks that are providing temporary protection, but their primary purpose is to protect the citizenry from the pollution created by their cannons. The sinks were already operating beyond capacity, and all cannons have been forced to cease fire to allow the walls to mitigate the Toxicity. They will not stop the aura for long.]

“State of their air defense?”

[Without cannons, it is going poorly. While the avians outside of the city migrated to support the Hierophant, the ones over the city have continued their attack. Likely to acquire replacements for the heads you’ve been destroying.]

“Team Pio?”

[They are fighting defensively and have been forced into a fighting retreat, moving north around the outskirts of the city. Nuralie eliminated the Cold Avian-Elemental and is setting up for an attack against the Hierophant from within Krimsim. Etja is two miles above you, but firing from that range is putting significant strain on her mana pool.]

While Grotto and I had our rapid-fire psychic conversation, the Hierophant let out a rumbling moan that made my lungs itch. The stench of rotting meat poured out from its skin, and the air wobbled with the hazy curl of gas. Before I could react, wounds opened all over the Hierophant’s body, and from within them a thousand tiny black flames sparked to life. They ignited the gas, and waves of rotting fire roared to life as the Hierophant unleashed a repugnant spell.

There was no heat to the flame. It was a direct assault on the soul. I felt the wet, decay-covered fingers of some foul deity run their hands over my spiritual essence, leaving a trail of corroding slime with each swipe.

You are taking Wicked Damage! Maximum HP is reduced by 147!

Wicked damage couldn’t be healed except through natural regeneration. My Divine defense, especially against spells, was nothing to scoff at. My regeneration was huge. That much Wicked damage wasn’t a problem for me. It was a big fucking problem for everyone else.

I didn’t think about it. I just used Dispel. It cost me more than seventy mana, but I was more than happy to spend that much to banish the revolting miasma. Still, it was a big cost. Between my pre-combat casting, my liberal use of spells during the fight, and the two hundred mana I’d channeled into Explosion! so far, my reserves were starting to get light.

We needed to deal with the Hierophant’s aura, and I couldn’t afford the mana to keep pumping Explosion!

Fortunately, solving one of these problems might also solve the other.