(II) Grievance

159 (II)Grievance

A loud cry of metallic pain flooded Blackedge. Rusty was screaming once more, and the Dimensionality surrounding Blackedge began to tear once again. Everyone rushed to the edge of the chamber. And as they stared beyond the broken glass, they saw a colossal figure trying to push its way in.

The Tarrasque had returned, and a sea of fire spilled through the spatial rupture along with it. The titanic beast reached in with a humanoid hand, clutching a blade. It hewed the fraying Dimensionality deeper, rending mana like it was solid flesh. The Tarrasque itself was wrapped in a membrane of magic, and it boiled against the Dimensionality. Spells crashed over its body through the gap it was pushing through, but they ricocheted off at odd angles.

"Well!" The largest of the orcs clapped his hands together. "With that fun story told, who wants to tell us the tale of how we're going to get out of here alive? I will be honest, I wouldn't be overly bothered if the Tarrasque ate us. Certainly an interesting way to die. But the rest of you might not like it so much.”

Uva's left eye twitched. "Starhawk," she said. "Can you contain the influences of the Outside within you?"

"No!" the Town Lord cried, but the Starhawk held out a hand. "Lord—" Roland tried to continue, but the deity spoke to Uva instead.

the Dreamtaker whispered from Uva's eyes, a melodious facsimile of the Umbral’s own voice.

"Then I wish to forge a bargain with you right now," Uva said. "I offer my Dreamtaker's Gaze skill as collateral, if you allow me to serve as a bridge, a conduit for both your power and the Outside. So that we may all survive."

Silence washed over the room. Adam's eyes grew wider and wider.

"If the Outsiders attempt to do anything, at all," Uva said, a hint of desperation entering her voice. "You can shatter the skill, and it should be enough to choke their influence."

the Dreamtaker confirmed.

The shadowy visage of a god regarded Uva for a long moment, then strode toward her.

"And you are not alone when it comes to risk," Uva replied sharply. "I dare say we have more to lose than you do. You have a higher likelihood of containing the Outside's influence and recovering from a broken skill. And the Dreamtaker does not wish to be caged, does she?"

the Dreamtaker replied, voice spiking higher by a few octaves.

At the edge of the vast pocket dimension within Hawgrave’s blade, the Tarrasque continued clawing its way toward Blackedge. But before it could reach the edge of the town, it was suddenly struck in the back of the head. A rage-filled roar escaped the creature before another blow slammed its jaws together.

Behind the Tarrasque, appearing diminutive in comparison but still massive in its own right, a dragon encased in a suit of stone-like armor rose into the air, swinging a colossal pillar of red-golden light like a bat. The dragon struck again and again, battering the Tarrasque across the pocket dimension.

"Rusty! Rusty!" Rose cried out, her lips bared back in a snarl. "Listen to me, you fucking sword! Let us out! Let us out! The damn Tarrasque is inside! Let us the fuck out right now!"

But Rusty could only groan in misery and ultimately offered her no reply.

"Well," Georges said, letting out a breath as he lit a cigarette. "Think all that needs to be said has been said. Starhawk. Ascendant. God." He coughed awkwardly as he regarded the divine entity. "Maybe just do what the lass says, yeah? She's already placing her head on the chopping board next to you. Takes more than courage to do that."

Just then, a flash of light washed over everyone. Roland winced as the brightness speared into his eyes. Multiple people cried out. A second thereafter, there came a deafening blast that rattled the room. As the brightness faded, Roland watched as two forms shot toward Blackedge. The first was a dragon, and it smashed through a series of buildings, tumbling tail over head until it finally impacted the base of Starhawk's Perch. The entire structure shook. The shadow of the Starhawk briefly vanished before returning.

And just then, there came another projectile. It was much smaller than the dragon, but it was heading right for them. It tore through the air like a missile, and it was Adam who reacted, and Whisper who aided him a moment after.

"Shit, Shiv!" Adam cried out. He formed over a dozen hydrokinetic arms, and they extended out from his spine in rivers. He also waved a wand, and it formed a barrier of hydrokinetic mana along the outside of their room. The projectile, now recognized as the Omenborn, crashed into the barrier of water.

He slowed significantly, but he still burst out the other side and tore through what remained of a wall and struck Adam. The Young Lord grunted and caught him with a flare of his vector wings. The robed orc braced Adam from behind, and the Young Lord offered the orc the quickest of nods before they both took Shiv by his arms, looking him over.

A pained wheeze sounded from the Omenborn. His face was a bloodied mess. Part of his skull was caved in, and his left eye was dislodged, hanging on by the optical cord.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Composer! Shiv!" The Umbral was by his side in an instant as well. A mana strand sank into his mind, and she cupped his face in her hands and surveyed the damage. Roland caught the flash of pain and worry playing across her features. She suppressed it quickly, but Roland recognized it for what it was. He'd seen it on Rose's face many times when she had to patch him up in the middle of battle.

Suddenly, the Town Lord's instincts were doubly unsure about the girl. Something wanted him to shoot her and also shoot the Omenborn just in case. There was too much at risk, but he hadn't the power, and the bulk of his mind was gripped by uncertainty.

They laid the Omenborn down on the ground, and it struck Roland then just how bloody large Harlon’s boy had gotten. His father had stood two meters tall and could fill up a doorway. He'd looked like a wall of muscle beside Roland. Shiv, meanwhile, made his father look like a middleweight in terms of size. The damned boy was built more like a small orc than a man by this point.

A loud sigh sounded from beside the Town Lord, and the orc Biomancer that had saved Roland earlier walked over to the Deathless, forming a crimson helix between his hands. "Your armor's destroyed, I see," the orc said conversationally.

"Fuck the armor," Shiv croaked. " destroyed." He coughed and made a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh as he grinned at everyone through bloodied, broken teeth. “I came to save you guys, by the way.”

20 minutes ago…

Where the Inquisition, orcs, and Dragon-Knights had been fighting each other the last time Shiv saw them, they sure as shit weren't doing it now. At present, everyone was focused on the Tarrasque, and even then, it wasn't enough. Thousands of spells bombarded the massive beast from all sides. Projectiles painted paths through the air, crashing against the Tarrasque so hard that shockwaves burst off its body, bouncing off hard enough to cleave gaps in distant clouds.

But even so, the Tarrasque was barely inconvenienced.

Shiv used his newly gained Farsight Skill to survey the battle from a distance. The skies above were painted in billowing waves of orange. The atmosphere was so hot that distortions hung in the air like quivering curtains. Massive formations of magi were actively trying to contain the blasts. Their ranks included Dragon-Knights, orcs, and even Inquisitors. They mainly cast spells from the ruins of Lost Angeles, as the sky was no longer theirs to hold.

There seemed to have been an attempt by their aerial vanguards and cavalry to intercept the Tarrasque. Only some Dragon-Knights and a smattering of orcs survived that attempt.

The magi shaped a massive cage of bright-yellow mana, extending for kilometers around the warzone. They were trying to make a quarantine to contain the Tarrasque's destructive movements. With every swing of its blades, with every burst of gravity it displaced, the air itself ionized, the world shuddered and cracked.

And near the Tarrasque, only two could contend with its might in proximity. The first was Sir Marikos, Dragon-Knight, Legend, and bearer of a Unique Skill. The other was the titanic Jessica Hawgrave, wielding a blade containing the very town that Shiv had been trying to save.

A scream rose through the air, and a barrage of arcing missiles slammed down upon the Tarrasque. Blasts of Cryomancy, Pyromancy, Dimensionality, and more enveloped the massive beast, and they did little more than briefly stagger it. Shiv followed the path of the missiles back to the flying cathedral—the colossal automaton that Shiv had briefly resided within during his semi-successful attempt to infiltrate the Inquisition.

Things were different there. The Inquisition was keeping most of its forces in reserve, hoping to have the Dragon-Knights and Orcs exhaust themselves. If Shiv had to guess, the Inquisition Cathedral ship was about forty kilometers away from the Tarrasque and struggling Legends, and there it was content to remain, dispatching singular formations of Pathbearer formations to aid in the struggle while keeping the rest of its near-hundred-thousand-strong army in reserve.

Every now and again, one of the cathedral's missiles would find its way over to strike the city, consuming small groups of orcs in balls of spreading fire. Shiv scowled at the Inquisition's game. To call the bastards underhanded was an understatement, and holding back as a Tarrasque was rampaging was something only a fool might do.

Too bad for the Inquisition, Shiv intended to force them into the fray regardless if they wanted to join in or not.

Bonk chuckled. "What a mess we find ourselves in. But I told you that the Inquisition would be trying to exploit the situation for their own gain."

"Yeah," Shiv replied, "you did say that, didn't you? Well. Let’s get on with ‘motivating’ them. Can Hu? You really up for this?”

A loud whir sounded from within Shiv’s cape. “We are dealing with mechanical opposition. My presence will allow us to optimize our use of force and contain the adversary.” A beat followed. “And… I wish to discover how recovered I am in the field.”

Shiv breathed. “Fine. Just don’t let yourself get broken.”

He was descending from high above, using clouds to mask his approach. Following him was a small army of four thousand orcs gathered from across the city—all focused on speed and stealth.

An especially loud detonation drew his attention back to the battle.

Farsight 51 > 52

Just then, the Tarrasque emerged from the explosion, moving faster than Shiv could track, and it was immediately upon Hawgrave. She was the largest of the three Legendary-Tier combatants, but by no means the slowest either. Her blade shrank, becoming the size of a short sword, and she brought it down, parrying the Tarrasque's charging bulk downward. At the same time, her arms blurred into after-images, striking the Tarrasque at the same time. Another afterimage erupted from her body and deflected a gravitational blast emanating from the Tarrasque.

A deafening explosion shook the world. The Tarrasque was spiked downward, and in the same instant, its many tentacles unleashed a flood of magic all upon Hawgrave's body—that did little to nothing, splitting around Inertium armor. Yet the Tarrasque righted itself before it was launched too far, a detonation of force washed over its enormous shape, and it held out both its hands; a singularity formed there. And then it was Hawgrave who was ripped out of position.

But she went with the Tarrasque's overwhelming force, not even bothering to fight it. Her blade extended once more. It didn't grow as Shiv's former Skysplitter did. Instead, it elongated like a beam of light. A line of mana reached skyward, making her blade twice its former length. She slashed upward, and the blade passed through the singularity, utterly unaffected. Just then, as it descended against the Tarrasque's face, the Dimensionality faded, and the blade became a colossal hunk of rusted metal.

A flash of light washed over the world. A shockwave burst out and was held within the cage of spellwork as the magi tried to keep the devastation at bay. The Tarrasque lurched backward, its head erupting in a spray of blood. Its singularity vanished, but before it could respond, Sir Marikos was upon it, and he brought his greataxe down upon its back so hard that the crystalline shell protecting it cracked.

The Tarrasque tried to move, tried to discharge its gravitic powers once more. But as it did, Marikos simply blocked, and while Hawgrave was flung back and forced to manifest two flaming wheels beneath her feet to counteract the forces pressing against her body, Marikos remained in place. He didn't move an inch.

An awkward stalemate had formed between the two, but in the time it took for Hawgrave to recover, and for Marikos to anchor himself against the Tarrasque's gravitational powers, the behemoth regenerated. Its bifurcated face came back together, and the cracks lining its shell filled. It let out a vicious cry, and it teleported.