(III) Grievance

159 (III)Grievance

First, it materialized behind Marikos, and it seized the Dragon-Knight by the tail before he could turn. Marikos was immense. He made Shiv look like an insect. The Tarrasque, however, manhandled the dragon like a cat toying with a mouse. Caught by surprise, Marikos barely managed a cry of alarm before he was flung across the horizon like a reverse meteor. He tore through the air, ripping a bloody path through aerial Pathbearers of all factions, including his own.

Hawgrave swung on the Tarrasque again, but the massive beast raised a dagger in a parry, and her arms jolted to a brutal halt. Her entire body shuddered. She made herself grow even larger, and she managed to push slightly closer to the Tarrasque. But that was all. Where the Tarrasque was slower than Hawgrave and couldn't move Marikos when he was prepared, it was faster than the Dragon-Knight, more versatile in its magic than anyone else on the field, and it was stronger than Hawgrave in a direct contest of strength.

Strong enough to rip her off her feet and slam its immense bulk into her face. Her armor let out a metallic crash as she was launched through the sky as well. Aerial Pathbearers scattered around her, doing their best to avoid being crushed by Hawgrave’s gigantic form. As she tumbled over and over, trying to right herself with her Pyromantic propulsion skill, her blade left her hand to move off its own accord, swiping and slashing blindly, scoring marks along the Tarrasque's body. But that was all they were; marks. Each cut barely left a slight chip on its flesh, and every successive blow grew less and less effective.

The Tarrasque was growing more resistant to physical force with every exchange.

"Holy shit," Shiv breathed at the sheer carnage on display. The fight here was like watching hell unfold on earth. And it was felling . It also reaffirmed one thing: Sullain would have Shiv if he weren’t so emotionally compromised.

Hawgrave managed to right herself using the wheels of flame beneath her feet, but then she let out a cry as the Tarrasque slammed a fist downward in the air. A massive blast of gravity struck her in the chest, and she went down, plunging into the Abyss chasm next to where Blackedge had once been at jaw-dropping speeds. The air combusted around her, and Hawgrave vanished into the darkness.

Her blade tried to go after her, but it was held in place. Crashing waves of gravity collapsed around it, and the Tarrasque teleported, channeling its massive form into a stream of dimensionality mana. Spells bombarded it from all sides, but then it detonated its Magical Resistance once more, and the protective wards containing the devastation it wrought collapsed one and all. A collective scream followed. Every mage on the battlefield howled in misery as their mana fields were utterly shredded.

Shiv spiked himself faster. He was still just over a kilometer above the cathedral ship itself. As he made his approach, he activated Creeping Void, releasing a deluge of blackness through the air.

“Stealth Skills!” he shouted. “Patrols incoming.”

The orcs shouted confirmations to each other, and as one, they followed Shiv down, using the sound of his gravitic pulses to guide them.

Some of the Inquisitorial patrol formations rose through the cloud-beds beneath Shiv. Two wings of aerial cavalry shot forth in his direction. They were followed by a group of jet-winged automata, each bearing long lances that sported gleaming tips. Shiv looked behind himself and studied the small army of stealth-specialist orcs that followed in his wake.

"All right, guys, you know Bonk’s plan. We take the ship, then we fly it into the battle. Failing that, we move it into the danger zone by whatever means possible, and we force the Inquisition to expend itself. Hopefully, we'll find the City Lord aboard the ship. In that case, we should be able to use him to force Hawgrave to release the town as soon as possible."

He wanted to say more, but his voice trailed off as he squinted with his Farsight. His vision zoomed in to find Hawgrave's sword struggling against the Tarrasque. Bursts of Dimensionality mana washed through the air. It was like a flicking tongue of black and static, tracing waves from the Abyss to the sky.

A gap formed in the sword, and a dull cry of pain sounded. The Tarrasque slipped in, but just as it did, Marikos rejoined the fray from above, roaring in anger. His body was incandescent with a blazing inferno. He impacted the side of the Tarrasque with his axe and went off like a bomb. A small sun manifested over the Tarrasque. The world grew bright enough to part the Abyssal darkness below.

But rather than shatter, the beast's crystalline shell held this time.

The Tarrasque briefly reared back from the compromised sword, and it grappled with Marikos. Its massive hands closed around the Dragon-Knight, trying to fling him aside. Marikos's greataxe licked up, and its edges were bright with an impossible amount of Pyromancy mana. As Marikos struck the Tarrasque, an ocean of fire washed over its body. Yet even through the Inferno, Shiv could see the Tarrasque's outline. Its Magical Resistance glowed brighter even than the flames consuming it.

Marikos cried. He struck, hammered, and slashed with every bit of his greataxe. Its butt cracked into one of the Tarrasque's eyes. And then the Dragon-Knight adjusted his grip, dropping the bladed end against the Tarrasque's forehead.

As he battered the beast, it let out an annoyed shriek and began to cut into him as well. The crystalline blades it had stabbed over the edges of his shield. Chunks of obsidian burst free from Marikos' armor while sparks filled the air as its dagger met the tip of Marikos' greataxe, the former weapon proportionally smaller compared to its wielder, but much larger than that which it met overall.

But while Marikos held the Tarrasque at bay for a moment, the instant it turned its full focus on him and released the blade, Marikos cried out. The air turned fluid with the plasma, and Shiv watched as the Tarrasque shuddered and then reappeared behind Marikos.

It cleaved into his back, slashing deep through his armor. The Dragon-Knight doubled over, but he refused to be launched aside. He swept out with his axe, but the Tarrasque dodged and opened its mouth. It clamped its huge jaws down on Marikos, but recoiled as several teeth burst apart in bloodied fragments. Marikos then did what Shiv often used to face gargantuan monsters. He launched himself down the Tarrasque's throat.

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But the titanic beast had learned from its earlier encounter with Shiv. It tore itself in half immediately, ripping its throat open with a burst of Biomancy mana from a tentacle. At the same time, it projected itself upward into the air, and Marikos tumbled free from inside the Tarrasque's chin in a downpour of blood.

Surprised, Marikos tried to reorient himself, only for the Tarrasque to swat him over the head with a claw. The world shook. Marikos' armor shattered. Blood erupted from the dragon’s face. He blasted down toward the Abyss as well, and in the same instant, the Tarrasque teleported once more.

Hawgrave’s blade had been falling while Marikos and the Tarrasque warred, but it went stiff as a stream of Dimensionality speared into it. This time, the Tarrasque managed something of a partial jump as its upper body vanished in a stream of blackened static pouring into the blade. Shiv's heart rate accelerated, and he realized the Republic patrols were within his Creeping Void.

It was time for him to start causing some chaos of his own.

He immediately began creating a Vitae Golem and started infusing it with specific skills—one among which was Omnimancy.

"There, capture that ship, drive it toward the chaos, bring me the City Lord, and get out afterward," he declared, and as one, the orcs behind him pumped their fists in practiced silence.

But the Deathless was distracted. His eyes kept flicking to the Tarrasque as it slowly vanished into the blade. He needed to be faster here. The battle was going worse than he'd hoped.

Hawgrave suddenly launched up out of the Abyss, and she caught the Tarrasque by its hind legs. It kicked against her, and a few of its tentacles whipped and channeled beams of magic to drive her off. But the Tarrasque's spellcraft was raw and primal, and Hawgrave’s armor was anathema to attuned mana itself.

Hawgrave shouted. She reared back with all her might and struck the Tarrasque with a brutal uppercut. The wheels at her feet were spinning faster and faster, jet streams of fire erupting behind them. She reached into the dimensional gap the Tarrasque had partly disappeared into. In the same instant, a field of Dimensionality collapsed around the Tarrasque, and it began to pull as well.

Some of the mages in the battle had recovered, and together they formed spells of force to dislodge the Tarrasque. Yet they were weak after having their mana fields shredded, and their spells broke apart against the Tarrasque's Magical Resistance. However, it did surprise the Tarrasque long enough for Hawgrave to rip it out with an animalistic shout.

She flung the Tarrasque through the air, and at the same time wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her blade. She swiped it up in a reverse grip, accelerating toward the Tarrasque even as it flew. Shiv couldn't tell how many times she cut it. With every strike, she seemed to perform ten others, each one something between an after-image or a mirage, or maybe she was simply cutting so fast that she utterly exceeded Shiv's ability to perceive.

The Tarrasque went tumbling through the sky, and every time it tried to summon its gravitic powers, Hawgrave would drive the tip of her blade into its skull. The interruptions kept the Tarrasque on the back foot for now, but Shiv noticed that her cuts were merely dealing concussive damage. Its shell wasn't even getting scratched anymore.

"Eyes forward, Insul," Bonk said, knocking Shiv on the side of the head with a club. "Focus!"

It was the first time the Heroic-Tier orc properly chided him, and Shiv just nodded. He realized why a moment later, seeing his small army of stealth orcs butchering the patrols sent their way. Cuts of sound had formed around the patrols, and the orcs were upon them, ripping them asunder with bare hands, daggers, short swords, stilettos, or in one case, what looked to be piano wire.

"Go! Go now!" Shiv ordered his Vitae Golem. It shot forward through the air, and with a flash of gold, it vanished. A moment later, a massive blast detonated over the flying cathedral.

Golemancy 9 > 12

Shiv grinned and accelerated himself forward. Chaos swept through the inquisitorial ranks, and it only got worse as a blanket of Creeping Void splashed down over them, blackening the space around the colossal, cathedral-shaped ship. At the same time, the magi formations near the ship had pockets blown into them. Some were set ablaze, glittering like embers in the air, while others were annihilated outright.

The survivors were scattered and ultimately, unready to contend with a small army of Master-Tier Stealth and Reflexes orcs in their midst.

Shiv's Golem had been infused with four skills aside from Omnimancy. The first was Pillar of Orichalcum. What followed were Gravitic Wrestler, Strider of the Unbending Path, and finally, Inertial Overdrive.

He dispatched it with a single order. To have it fly as close to the ship as possible, brutalize as many magi as possible with Omnimancy, activate its Pillar of Orichalcum, and then spike itself as much as it could and as fast as it could before discharging just before it ran out of vitality.

Inertial Overdrive 125 > 126

Gravitic Wrestler 170 > 171

The resulting explosion had two effects. The first was utterly disrupting the protective formations surrounding the Inquisitorial cathedral ship-automaton thing. The second was damaging its upper section, large enough that someone might be able to lodge themselves within its hull if they couldn't get inside it.

And that was when Shiv froze time himself.

He shoved Bonk inside his cape alongside Can Hu, whom he alerted to the plan along the way, and taking advantage of the chaos, he accelerated through the air, leaving most of the formations to the mercy of the stealth orcs he managed to wrangle up with him.

As he got within 500 meters of the ship, he felt that dense field of shifting Magical Resistance that had troubled him earlier. Shiv went out of context to avoid risking his temporal shell. Coldness licked through him, but he was going to start draining from the ship, or reality itself, later, and ultimately, he wasn't going to stay out of context for long.

He slammed against the top side of the ship and found its outer hull badly mauled. Where once the upper section of the ship was lined with large towers and parapets, now it was flattened and fissured, with many sections rendered mangled furls of alloy.

However, it was a testament to the cathedral-sized automaton that its insides weren't breached at all. Shiv thought to himself. He lodged himself against a particularly deep chasm in its hull, and he dismissed both his outside context and his temporal shell to avoid suffering any damage to his Chronomancy.

In the same instant, he manifested his Pillar of Orichalcum. A flash of red and gold extended skyward from Shiv's body and also staked down into the ship’s damaged hull.

He clung hard to the ship's damaged exterior, and he committed every bit of focus he had to increasing his Toughness. He didn't bother with his Inertial Overdrive yet. He didn't want to be distracted. The pillar grew more solid with every passing second, and as the orcs slammed into the ranks of the Inquisition, chaos erupted in all directions.

Shiv could hear the roar of battle, of screams filling the air, but he ignored them. He ignored them because a sweeter sound greeted him. The sound of metal groaning and parting, and the feeling of the ship shuddering to a brutal halt against his pillar.