'I just have to reach the fragnts.'
Everything else could co later. With his resolve set, Atticus dissolved into lightning and streaked forward. Raziel burst into uncontrolled laughter and surged to et him, staff whirling forward in a lethal thrust. Atticus' senses locked onto the surrounding molecules as the words slipped from his lips. "Cease motion."
Raziel froze mid strike. Atticus barely registered the sudden spike of pain tearing through his head as he passed by, his blade carving cleanly through Raziel's neck in one smoothmotion. The head had not yet touched the ground before chaos erupted.
Ordan was already upon him, launching into a flurry of relentless thrusts. A thick black aura was boiling violently around his form as he attempted to counter what had just happened.
Atticus didn't engage him directly. Instead, he answered with another quiet command. "Vanish, darkness."
Ordan recoiled instantly, squinting and throwing up an arm as though slamd by blinding light, and Atticus erased the distance between them in a single step, driving his blade straight through Ordan's eyes.
As Ordan's body struck the ground with a heavy thud, Atticus' gaze swept around, already tracking the next threat. The Marquis were on him, weapons surging from every direction.
'Close enough.'
He reached outward and seized control of the molecules surrounding each of them.
"Vanish light. Vanish darkness."
Shock appeared across their faces as their vision left them, and Atticus flowed and weaved through their ranks in spiraling currents of motion. He reappeared behind them in a flash, the only sign of his passage the thin, precise lines now carved through their bodies.
One after another, they collapsed in echoing thuds, only for Atticus' eyes to sharpen as each corpse suddenly vanished in a flare of light.
He spun, taking in the sight ahead. Raziel. Ordan. Every Marquis he had just killed now stood once more, fully restored, their eyes blazing with an unnatural purple glow.
Atticus frowned and lifted his eyes to the faint radiance emanating from the ancient eye above.
'It's him… he's reviving them.'
The strange woman had been right. Here, it didn't matter if he severed heads or reduced bodies to ruin, they were effectively immortal. But being right didn't matter nearly as much as what it ant.
No matter how many he cut down, they would rise again. An endless wall of enemies standing between him and his goal.
He fixed his gaze on the fragnts hovering silently beyond them.
'I'll kill them and make for the fragnts before they co back.'
What ca after didn't matter. For all he knew, the fragnt itself could overwhelm him and leave him open to be torn apart, but there was no alternative. Atticus launched himself forward once more, reaching out to freeze one of the Marquis in place, only for his eyes to narrow as a sharp, stabbing ache tore through his mind.
'What…?'
He forced himself back under control and severed the frozen Marquis' head in a single motion before lunging away to create distance. His training with the strange woman underground had greatly reduced the strain that ca with commanding the elents, especially for singular, one process commands like the one he had just issued, yet the pressure he felt now was far heavier than it should have been.
Atticus narrowed his eyes as he took in the shimring purple light radiating from each Marquis.
'It's affecting the molecules.'
The force bled outward, pressing down on the surrounding molecules and weighing on them like an unseen force. The sudden increase in strain made sense now. He had been controlling the molecules around the Marquis themselves, but Solvath's power was acting on them as well, interfering with his control and making every command far more difficult to execute.
Atticus frowned and lifted his gaze toward the ancient eye once more. A counter had already been ford against a power he had only revealed monts ago. That wasn't coincidence. Sothing had been watching, observing, learning, and had moved to erase his advantage almost imdiately.
He exhaled slowly. If he had harbored any doubts before, they were gone now.
Atticus curled his fist.
'Solvath…'
Did this an he was already too late? Had Solvath fully awakened and begun taking over his mind? Just how was he supposed to contend with a primordial star…
The thought was cut short as a Marquis surged toward him with a descending strike. Atticus brought his focus back and raised his blade just in ti, only to be driven back a step by the sheer force behind the blow.
His eyes narrowed. It wasn't Ordan or Raziel, but a random Marquis whose power shouldn't even be comparable to his, yet he had been pushed back all the sa.
'He's enhancing them.'
The situation continued to deteriorate with every passing second. It wasn't just the strain of controlling the elents anymore; the Marquis' strength and speed were increasing as well.
Atticus retracted his blade, forcing the Marquis forward, then spun sharply, his blade tearing cleanly through the Marquis' neck before he hurled himself aside, narrowly evading Ordan's lethal thrust. Raziel followed imdiately, his staff whirling in brutal arcs that made the earth tremble beneath their force.
With swift, precise movents, Atticus slipped through the barrage, feeling the air pressure crash against him with every narrowly avoided strike.
"Vanish darkness."
Pain hit his mind, but he grit his teeth and forced through it, capitalizing on Raziel's montary blindness to cleave his body in two.
'Another…'
Using the montum of his movent, Atticus twisted, bringing his blade up just in ti to block a sudden strike from another Marquis, and frowned almost instantly.
'What…?'
Solvath's energy coiled thickly around the enemy's weapon, affecting his weapon. The elents warped and distorted, threatening to collapse.
Atticus shot back once more and stared at his blade. Solvath's purple energy had latched onto it, spreading along it like a living disease.
Atticus discarded the corrupted blade without hesitation, forming another along his arm. The Marquis he had just cut down were already back on their feet, each one closing in on him once more. 'What now…'
The situation had worsened yet again. Solvath's energy was no longer just reinforcing them, it had begun to behave like a disease. Atticus had no desire to discover what would happen if he allowed it to make direct contact with him.
At so point, Raziel and Ordan had stopped looking like themselves. Their eyes scorched with an unnatural purple glow, their faces slack and empty, as though stripped of their wills and reduced to nothing more than puppets. Atticus tightened his grip as the Marquis closed in. Reaching the fragnts was no longer even a distant thought, at this point, simply breaking through this army seed impossible.
They surged forward, and Atticus moved. He slipped through them in streaks of motion, avoiding direct clashes whenever possible, cutting them down only when an opening presented itself.
But that caution ca at a cost. Each kill took ti, and by the mont he killed another, the one before it had already been restored, rejoining the assault almost imdiately.
User Comments
0 comments from readers