…Hollow Shade… Bourge District…
lantha dashed at the titan queen in a burst of lightning and slashed her sword in a downward arc. Ananta t the sword with her two daggers, Honorem and Votum. The three orichalcum blades clashed in a storm of sparks and resonated chaos mana outwards in undulating waves.
The neighborhood air seed to shine with silver-blue and jade-green motes of light. Each mote glowed for a brief mont before sputtering out.
rchants and their families hid in their hos, hoping the horrors of the war raging outside wouldn’t reach them. From their windows, they furtively watched the motes’ dazzling display, like a snowfall of light. Gradually, the motes began to flow into their hos right through the windows and walls.
The particles flowed freely through one nearby household but disappeared as they touched the frightened drow family within.
The father held his wife closely and glanced around anxiously. “What is this…?” he muttered.
His daughter, no older than 5, watched with mouth agape, and reached out to snatch a mote from the air. The condensed chaos particle seeped into her pudgy grey hand and disappeared. She suddenly started coughing violently.
Her mother picked her up into her arms. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?!”
The toddler’s face went pale and her eyes grew bloodshot. Muscles seized up. Blood frothed at the edge of her lips. And then her body went slack.
“No! No, no, no!” the mother scread in horror. She shook her daughter, but the light in her eyes was gone.
A cold sickening pain seared through the mother’s chest and she began to cough uncontrollably. Her husband reached out to grab her, but he abruptly bent over and coughed. Their vision darkened and the two collapsed next to their daughter, all the while the chaos motes flowed above them, shining in a toxic display of concentrated chaotic energies.
Outside the ho, the titans’ battle raged on. lantha lunged forward with her sword in a blur, but Ann managed to move even quicker. She evaded the thrust and slashed out with a quick riposte. lantha raised her orichalcum shield and blocked, though the daggers’ force sent her careening back.
Holo Flickered from behind and brought Lyra down in a diagonal blow. Ananta spun around and blocked the scythe with Honorem. Lunae leaped from above, a spear of glowing ice in her hands. Ananta raised Votum and the spear clashed in a cloud of frost.
Lightning erupted from lantha’s sword and struck Ananta in the back. The queen went flying into a nearby house. Her body crashed through the central beam and the roof collapsed on the family inside.
By a stroke of luck, a teenage boy managed to avoid being crushed and he crawled out from the rubble with only a few scrapes. He looked around in disbelief and cried out for his family.
Ananta staggered to her feet, smoke rising from the small spot between her shoulder blades. She glanced in disgust at the boy and snatched his head in the palm of her giant hand. He kicked and scread in horror before she crushed his skull in a splattering of blood.
Holo Flickered from below and sliced her thigh. Ananta grimaced and kicked her in the chest. Holo crashed into the wall, sending the last of the foundations crumbling down. A white spear of ice flew through the crumbling wall and pierced Ananta’s shoulder. She cried out and staggered back.
Ananta yelled angrily and a storm of jade lightning erupted out from her body, incinerating the frost spear and the wreckage all around her. lantha charged into the storm, her shield held in front; bearing the brunt of the lightning. řἁɴ𝐎ꞖЕs̈
The two clashed their blades in an explosion of chaotic mana. Condensed particles of chaos burst to life, raging against one another, with every strike of the orichalcum blades.
Ananta channeled Chaos and slamd her foot down. The ground trembled underneath them and exploded. Hundreds of jagged rocks ripped out from the earth all around them, tearing through every ho in the vicinity.
lantha grimaced and parried the countless projectiles, but despite her speed, she was overwheld by the cascade of stones and was swallowed by the storm of swirling dust and stones rising into the air.
A giant white wolf broke through the dust cloud and snapped her jaws on Ananta’s shoulder. She jerked back, barely avoiding Lunae’s fangs. Pale leathery wings sprouted from Ananta’s back and she took the sky.
Holo Flickered past the dust cloud and hurled a torrent of azure flas at her. Votum reverberated with power and summoned a sphere of wind around its wielder. The flas splashed across the powerful gale in a roaring clash.
A massive owl dived from high above in a steep stoop, her figure a silver blur. Like a teor, the owl pierced Votum’s whirling sphere and crashed into Ananta. Without losing montum, her talons wide open, the owl grabbed the queen’s wing and tore it clean off. Ananta scread and tumbled out from the sky, crashing hard into a ruined ho.
Lunae stared at the wreckage and growled. Holo Flickered next to the giant wolf, her scythe, Lyra at the ready. The silver owl swooped down and landed next to them, transforming back into lantha in a silver twirl of light.
“You alright?” asked Holo.
“I’m fine,” replied her sister. “She’s slower than I thought.”
“She was much faster when I clashed with her earlier. Her battle with Kaleidrog must have weakened her,” guessed Holo.
lantha smiled ruefully. “She killed a dragon lord and she still has this much strength left?”
“Keep sharp. This battle isn’t over,” growled Lunae.
The rubble shifted aside and Ananta erged with staggering steps. Her breath was heavy but her wounds were closing up before their very eyes, leaving only a sar of blood behind.
Lunae glanced at the two sisters. “She’s healing from the wounds of Death so easily...”
Holo narrowed her eyes. “She shouldn’t be able to, but she’s the titan queen, I’d expect no less.”
“We need to finish her off in one strike,” said lantha. She shared a knowing glance with her sister.
“It’s dangerous,” said Holo grimly.
“It’s our best bet,” replied lantha. “Besides, I can handle much more of it than you.”
“...Fine,” Holo sighed. “How much ti do you need?”
“How much can you two give ?”
Ananta strode towards them, her wounds already gone. Votum and Honorem humd violently in her hands.
Lunae stepped between the sisters and the queen. “I’ll buy you ti. Hurry.”
“Thanks.” lantha tilted her head back, slowly spread her arms, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
Holo followed in her sister’s steps, closed her eyes and focused on the earth deep below. She reached out with her soul and touched the ever-flowing river of the world’s leylines. The Crosspoint, the very center where the leylines all t lay underneath the city of Hollow Shade.
Holo focused on a single aspect of her soul, the true chromatic facet, and aligned her attunent to it. With a tinge of hesitance, she opened herself to the leylines. It felt as if she had been dropped into a roaring ocean of liquid light flooding every one of her senses and threatening to drown her.
She could feel the leylines trying to drag her soul into its epheral eternity, but she focused on her soul’s unique facet, and with a deep breath, she reached through the endless stream of energy and grabbed hold of the limitless ocean of Orange.
The mana rushed through her soul and into her heart and her blood. Her body began to burn from within as if molten tal swam through her veins. Holo doubled over and grimaced. At this rate, the hurricane of energy would incinerate her insides. Reaching for the cold touch of chaotic energy, her body reverted to its true form. Her body shifted and grew ten paces tall. Her hair drained of color until it was as pale as the silver moon and her skin blood a brilliant soft blue.
Opening her lilac eyes, Holo spotted Lunae facing off against Ananta. Several fresh bright red gashes coated the wolf goddess’ white fur. Holo looked back at her sister. lantha hadn’t moved, she was standing still, eyes closed, head tilted to the sky, but her pale skin had also returned into a pastel blue.
Holo knew her sister could draw far more power from the leylines than her, but that ant it would take more ti. “I’ll hold on as long as I can,” she whispered.
Taking a deep breath, Holo could feel the overwhelming surge of Orange flowing through her veins. With a confident grin she Flickered in front of Ananta, their eyes locked in to each other. “You miss ?”
Without hesitation, the titan queen swung Votum with a quick flick of the wrist. Holo disappeared in a burst of Orange sparks and reappeared to her right. Then she was at her left. Above. Below. Holo Flickered in a dozen spots in a single breath, the usual downti between each Flicker gone.
Ananta snarled and swung her daggers out in a spin.
Holo Flickered in front of her, grabbed her shoulders, and smiled defiantly. “Hold on!”
Orange mana surged into Holo’s hands and overpowered Ananta’s nullifying void aura. Holo Flickered them both into a neighboring street, straight into a house. Ananta crashed into the solid listone before Holo Flickered them into the next-door house, and then another. Ananta clenched her eyes shut and tried to retaliate, but the teleportations were happening so quickly; her head kept smashing into rock before she had a chance to breathe.
From across the district, a visible aura of Blue began to grow over lantha’s body from the sheer massive quantity of mana flowing into her.
Holo Flickered from one building into the next, shattering through hos with abandon. “LEAVE. MY. CITY!”
Ananta snapped her eyes open and stabbed Votum into Holo’s stomach. She gasped a raspy sound and stiffened.
“This world was my ho first,” Ananta whispered into her ear.
Holo Flickered away, only a few ters, before stumbling to the ground, coughing up blood.
Ananta stood to her feet, shook her head with a grimace, and dusted herself off. “It’s impressive what a hybrid like you can do with the corrupted energies of the leylines, but even your body has its limits. Or did you not notice your Flickers were growing slower?”
Holo held her stomach and curled her lips in a bloody smile. “I’m not the only one with limits.”
Ananta dashed over in a blink and snatched her up by the throat. “You have no idea of my limits,” she sneered and tightened her grip.
Holo tried to Flicker away but Ananta’s void aura had suddenly increased several fold. Her eyes widened in panic and she tried to pry Ananta’s fingers off helplessly.
Ananta t her panicked gaze and faltered. The burning anger in the queen’s iridescent eyes cooled. Holo stopped her flailing and stared at her uncertainly. She softened her grip. “Why… fight , Holo? I… I swore to protect my people, our people! Can’t you see it? I’m trying to save us all—!”
Lunae crashed through the house behind them. Ananta spun around, but the wolf was upon her. She sank her fangs into the queen’s arm and shook her head violently from side to side, until she tore the arm from her shoulder in a bloody spray of dark purple blood.
Ananta cried out in pain and stumbled back. Holo fell unceremoniously and scrambled to her feet, and coughed and rubbed her neck. Lunae spat the arm to the ground and bared her bloody teeth in a growl.
“ENOUGH!” Ananta roared. A fresh pair of wings sprouted from her back and she shot into the sky. Bone slowly grew from her bloody shoulder as the flesh knit itself back together. In a matter of monts her arm had regenerated fully. “Heed my call, Votum! Honorem!”
The twin daggers flew up and into her awaiting hands. Ananta crossed the blades and channeled all the Chaos raging within her heart. The daggers shined with brilliant jade light and the sky darkened with storm clouds. An erald tree of lightning manifested down from the clouds, like roots slowly stretching to the earth.
Holo and Lunae watched in disbelief as the lightning spanned over the district, poised to smite the queen’s foes in a flash of brilliant thunder. But Ananta’s gaze wasn’t focused on either of them. She stared at lantha, standing still with eyes closed at the other end of the district.
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