CHAPTER 123: BLAZING GLORY

I would love to claim that when the High Priest’s sword came screaming down, golden light carving a line straight for my skull, I met it with cool dignity and the unshakable composure of a seasoned warrior.

In reality, my entire brain shrieked something along the lines of oh shit while my body threw the spear up on pure reflex.

Sparks exploded between us, blinding, hot, like someone had shoved a forge in my face and then kicked me backwards through a door.

The impact ripped through my arms, down my ribs, and into the marrow of my spine, every inch of me singing with the kind of pain you only get when you’ve made several consecutive bad life decisions and the universe had decided to give you a single, very personal performance review.

I flew airborne, the world spinning in a haze before landing down, hard, my body bouncing once, twice, before I lay sprawled on the cobblestones outside our defensive circle.

If not for the incarnic enhancements burning through my veins, I’m fairly certain my spine would have peeled open like a poorly stitched book. Instead, I wheezed like a drunken flute and tried to convince myself this was all part of some grand strategy.

Spoiler: it was not.

The priest did not pause. Of course not. Why would a demonic sun-fueled maniac pause when he had the chance to cut me in half and use my ribcage as a decorative lampshade?

He came storming down the pile, his blade carving arcs of blinding light as he waded through our defenders.

His zealots barely had time to shout before their heads left their shoulders; others combusted where they stood, shrieking, their robes catching like dry tinder as his attacks of light tore them apart.

Panic gnawed at my throat. This wasn’t some distant figure anymore, some sermon-giving menace to an unseen force. He was here. Bearing down upon me. And I, bless my decrepit little heart, was fresh out of clever hiding places.

But then there was Salem.

Saints preserve him, he appeared between us in a streak of motion so sharp I swore reality tore itself open at the seams. He slammed forward with both blades raised, his sonic burst propelling him like thunder given legs, steam venting from his body in furious trails. His swords blurred in a savage arc meant to cleave the priest in two.

The priest blocked them with terrifying precision.

One sweep, then another, his golden sword rising, falling, intercepting both strikes with insulting ease. Sparks burst like fireflies in the night, steel screaming against steel, the ground splitting from the sheer pressure of their clash.

And then, because irony is a cruel mistress, the naked knight came charging in from behind.

He was no longer empty-handed. No, somehow in the middle of this chaos he had managed to acquire a broadsword. A massive, crude thing, iron-forged, ugly as sin, and yet when he swung it, the blade seemed to hum with dreadful purpose.

It fit his hand as though destiny itself had decided: yes, this idiot deserves a very large piece of metal to swing at people.

"Behold!" he bellowed, his voice rising above the chaos like an operatic announcement. "My true blade!"

"What the hell—" I started, but the rest of my sentence was devoured by the sound of him rushing at the priest’s exposed flank.

The tension shook the air.

For a heartbeat, it almost looked like they had him—the priest caught between Salem’s storm and the knight’s raw fury.

But then the priest laughed.

I hate that I heard it. A laugh, sharp and delighted, spilling from his lips as though this entire battle were a children’s game played for his amusement.

He twisted with impossible speed, blade arcing in a wicked curve. He caught Salem’s left sword, forcing it aside, before pivoting into the knight’s swing, locking it against his own with a crash of sparks.

For a second they strained together, muscles bulging, the ground beneath their boots cracking slightly under the weight of their force.

I scrambled to my feet, lungs heaving, spear clutched like it might miraculously decide to do the fighting for me if I believed hard enough. But every step forward was intercepted by cultists hurling themselves at me in blind devotion, blades flashing, their voices raised in half-sung prayers.

"Really?" I gasped, parrying one before tripping another with my shaft. "You people see your leader about to get dog-piled by two half-naked lunatics and you think me—the sarcastic man with the stick—is the bigger threat? Flattering, but saints above, get your priorities straight!"

One lunged for my chest. I ducked. Another, a women this time, slashed for my throat. I pivoted, pen already in my palm, scrawling two quick marks across her sleeve before she lashed out in agony, forcing me to drive my spear to form a shallow cut to her side.

She went down screaming, only to rise again seconds later as I marked her one final time, my ink binding her will like a chain. She, now he, turned his blade on the next cultist without hesitation.

"Good boy," I muttered, spinning to intercept another. "Now go make some friends."

All the while, my eyes kept flickering back to the main clash.

Salem was a tempest now—slashes and stabs raining down with the kind of fury that might have cowed a lesser god. His face was pure focus, lips peeled back in a snarl, every tendon screaming for blood.

The knight, meanwhile, was less tempest and more avalanche. Each swing of his broadsword came with such raw, reckless power that the air boomed with it, forcing even the priest to give ground.

The priest’s golden armor burned brighter with every blow. His blade left trails of light in its wake, arcs so hot the very air shimmered. He parried, blocked, countered, his movements precise, beautiful, horrifying. When he struck, he struck with the force of a sunrise condensed into steel.

And saints above, he laughed again, enjoying the spectacle.

I wanted to be there. Wanted to throw myself into the clash, to tip the balance with my spear, my pen, my wit.

But no—the zealots pressed in thicker, screaming praises, throwing their bodies at me, desperate to keep me from interfering. And every second I wasted fending them off was another second Salem and the knight stood inches from annihilation.

I had no choice but to belt my pen and act defensively with my spear.

It was then that I caught it out of the corner of my eye. Across the plaza, the tide shifted. I saw Nara, Fitch, and that monstrosity of stitched flesh circling the Man in White, their ranks thin, breaking.

Cultists swarmed like waves, crashing against dwindling defenders. Rabbits squealed and ripped at ankles, Dunny’s barriers cast from afar flickered and failed, and Fitch’s damned whistle rose above it all, jaunty and cruel.

But I couldn’t spare them more than a heartbeat’s thought. Because that’s when the priest made his move.

Without warning, he unleashed another burst of light.

Not the kind that merely scorched the eyes, but the kind that devoured the world, raw, white, and infinite. It detonated outward in all directions, searing every surface, bleaching the battlefield into blinding brilliance.

I screamed, hand flying to shield my face, vision burning. Around me, voices shrieked in panic, men stumbling, striking blindly. Even Salem and the knight, closest to the blast, faltered—both of them hunching, clutching their skulls, their bodies wracked with agony.

And when my sight finally swam back, spots dancing across my vision, he was there.

The priest. Right in front of me. His golden blade already mid-swing, arcing for my throat.

Time fractured then. My breath caught as my body bent backwards with a contortionist’s desperation, the world narrowing to the hiss of light sliding millimeters from my skin.

I saw everything.

Every imperfection in the blade’s radiant edge. Tiny notches where steel had once collided. The glowing seam where divine power had fused with mundane metal. The stream of light trailing from its tip, slicing the air so hot it turned it into liquid, shimmering waves that seared the hair from my cheek.

I smelled it too—ozone, burning flesh, the copper tang of blood not yet spilled. My own sweat turning to steam as the light grazed past.

My lungs filled with fire and ash.

The blade completed its arc, missing me by a whisper. But it didn’t care to miss everything else.

Behind me, the marketplace ignited. Stalls burst into flame, timbers blackening, cloth curling into ash. Competitors screamed as fire caught their robes, flesh bubbling, their bodies writhing on the cobblestones. The zealots were not spared—their pious cries swallowed by shrieks of horror as their own High Priest set them ablaze.

Even the market buildings at the far end of the plaza themselves bore the scar: a burning line etched across stone, glowing molten red, a signature of divine destruction carved for all to see.

I stumbled, gasping, spear raised, heart thundering with panic. I thought, for one mad instant, of unbuckling my pen again. Of letting its ink spill, of binding this man’s soul to my will with three swift marks. But no. There was no chance.

He pressed me with the inevitability of a sunrise, relentless, merciless. His blade wasn’t just a weapon, it was a verdict. Every swing declared you die here, and every second I managed to defy it felt like an insult to his god.

The first strike crashed against my spearhead, sparks erupting in a burst that burned across my cheek. My arms shook with the force, shoulders screaming, ribs shuddering from the impact that nearly drove me to my knees.

The second followed immediately, a downward arc so swift I barely twisted the shaft in time to catch it, steel groaning beneath the strain, heat searing as the golden edge scraped too close to flesh.

Then the third. A sideways sweep. My hands slid desperately down the shaft to absorb the shock. It skated off the steel tip and carved a gouge into the stones beside my boot. The cobblestones glowed red where his light had kissed them.

Every clash rattled my bones. Every block sent lightning through my arms, numbing my fingers until I feared I’d drop the spear altogether.

And yet still he came. Again and again. His strikes blurred, each faster than the last, like a storm tightening its circle until escape was nothing but a fairy tale.

Above us, the nobles roared their delight. From their lofty balloons, they shrieked and clapped, their voices carrying like a grotesque choir over the plaza.

The clash of steel was their music, my ragged gasps their punchline. To them, I wasn’t a man fighting for his life, I was the evening’s entertainment. Comedy and carnage wrapped in one trembling package.

My feet slid across the blood-slick stones, each retreat a battle in itself. One step. Another. My calves screamed with the effort, heels nearly catching on the corpses that already littered the ground.

He swung overhead once more. I barely had time to angle my spear upright to block the collision.

"Come on then," I panted, meeting another strike with a grunt. "Big scary sun man versus sarcastic femboy enthusiast. That’s fair, isn’t it? Perfectly even match."

He said nothing. He never said anything, only smiled, wide and awful, childlike joy twisted into divine cruelty. His silence made the fight even worse, because there was nothing to banter against, no words to cut, no crack in his armor.

Just that smile. Always that smile.

Suddenly, then he swept low, faster than my eyes could follow, his foot ramming itself into my ankle. Pain lanced as I buckled, my balance snapping before I found myself falling.

Flat on my back, spear tumbling from my grip, his golden sword rising above me. Gods, it was going to fall. It was going to fall, and I was going to die here, reduced to ash while nobles clapped above like trained seals in a circus for the dammed.

But salvation, as it sometimes does, arrived with a scream and a crash of steel.

"Rodrick!" I shouted as he came barreling in from the side like a force of divine retribution.