Agmon witnessed as Igbar strayed too close in the effort to better aim at Blackhand, and the leering smoke pushed itself into his mouth. He was writhing on the ground frothing blood from the mouth in the space of seconds; a skillful man, a well-trusted contractor. Perhaps not an elite, but even so, he was felled in this manner. Agmon cared not for the man in particular, but witnessing his death brought him concern for his own safety. He had done his job in finding the target, so now he had every right to simply flee, and that he did, employing a skill in which he prided himself, an obscure defensive thod well suited to retreat.
He dove into the Astral Gulf, and thereafter froze in terror at the sight of Blackhand from within the gulf; his mind did, at least. His body, driven by his wise choice to implent redundancies, was already sprinting in the opposite direction.
From the midst of his retreat, he witnessed the true severity of his circumstances. The green-eyed demon was no longer stationary, now tearing across the battlefield in unearthly concert with that demonic raven, the red-haired man, and his puppets. It was easy to keep track of her, for the artificial eclipse hung above her head wherever she went. One mont, scarlet light seared three Stillborn into slag in one go. The next, a re gesture of opening the hand scored deep gashes into a Dreadmorph’s armor and ruptured its sonic emitter mbranes, and a smoldering ball of glass shoved into the forr socket of such a mbrane resulted in his explosive demise. Even as a constant onslaught fell upon her, it was as if it didn’t concern her at all; at one mont, she dove into the astral plane or skimd through an opponent’s place to flee another way, and at the next mont, jets of fire erupted from her arm and altered her course just-so to cause one projectile or another to brush by her, at tis missing by the widths of a single finger. Hope grew in Agmon’s body nonetheless, seeing that the woman’s output was finally running up against its limits and her maneuvring did not suffice to prevent her from being surrounded. Even that blackened sun of pale fire was fading at last!
And the raven returned to its master, to perch upon her upraised hand, and with a scarlet flash, Agmon’s hope was snuffed out.
Even as a tsunami of destruction fell upon her, she remained still. The ring upon her hand, a silver plate with a scarlet star jewel, ca alive with a red glow of malicious glee and imperious pride. A shockwave blood out from it, and where it simply passed over the green-eyed demon and all her wretched works, it cast down all attack that was leveled against it, and crushed the warriors who, rather than flee, strove to push onward. Its relentless expansion ground them into the soil and broke the necks of several whose defenses had been eroded, dashing them like wayward ships against protruding boulders.
It had to have a limit, but what difference did that make?
The monstrous raven, laughing and mocking them from its perch, had swallowed its gun and reached to its chest, wrenching open in imitation of the false man-god Zavesh. With its last flickers, at the mont prior to its disappearance, the artificial eclipse set light to that monstrous raven, and its feathers and scaly skin were bleached white in a consuming roar of pale fire.
Three words, the raven and its master spoke in concert. No — three Words.
There was nary a sound to their intonation, but a tremble of the world, the roar of overwhelming power. Agmon recalled rumblings of rumour, of the creation of a new High Theurgy, within city limits, with no wards to conceal it. And he knew that it had been her.
From the raven a pale-red killing light flowed, and none beneath its purview were spared. One after another, Stillborn and Thaumaturge and Dreadmorph alike were simply unmade.
HIGH THEURGY
VASARA OF RUINATION
THIRD EYE OF THE EXECUTIONER’S RAVEN
OPENED TO CARRY OUT THE FINAL SENTENCE
BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: DAEMON CORE
IN THE PALEFIRE REGENT’S GREAT NA
Agmon’s retreat only ceased when that Thing glared in his direction and t his gaze. Indeed, the green-eyed demon’s eyes t his, and, in foolishness, he did not think to avert all of his eyes at once, to flee without looking back. An alien terror crushed him, arms from the deep, arms of black salt, clawed and foreboding, grasping and digging into him, yet not harming him. Before he knew it, he was no longer, and yet he was. Agmon felt himself halt, he knew sothing had taken place, but he knew not what, his thoughts raced and yet stood still. Only the delirious terror of this state was distinct enough to realize.
Three-tenths of a second, his existence had been made to halt, dragged into the material. His mind was swift, swift enough to dive again right away, but not swift enough. A black hand shrouded in pale fire grasped him by the head, and he burned. Only, it was not re fire. His robe remained unhard, and his wards flared in protest, but they didn’t burn as they would before a fireball; it was as if the pale fla unraveled the very structure of his wards and the construct-arm drew them into itself. Theft. Consumption. Vampirism. A second such grasping hand ca from the dark, and joined the first, He would have dived again by now, were it not for the smaller missiles that fell upon him and bit into him, mutated as they were by the theurgic rite. No harm ca upon his flesh as they tore at his wards, and yet he the searing pain of being torn into by fangs of heated tal coursed through his body, and Agmon lost his composure altogether. He was simply in too much shock to effectively defend himself, and died right there, writhing on the ground as the fire vampires devoured him, leaving him a dessiccated cadaver.
The midnight slaughter continued on well past the death of Agmon, the Seer.
Out of a task force that had been considered sufficient to raid and subsequently occupy an enemy compound, not a single survivor had escaped.
What transpired in the ambush gone awry could, perhaps, be interpreted and understood if a scholar were to pore over a recording over it for many days, but none of the task force would live to deliver such a mory recording.
To them, it was, simply put, a massacre. There was no logic to what they faced here, and despite being the servants of a dark god from the outer reaches, it was they who now shrank back in terror from that green-eyed demon.
The Raven of Ruinous Eyes, the Executioner’s Assistant, feasted and glutted itself blind.
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