The Enmity of Scolrys, Part IX: LANU DU!

Interrupting the clash of Abhorash and Chakrasul against Lahkencai, a gargantuan tentacle abruptly punctured the realm, crashing in with the doom of inevitability. It sank straight through the ground in its path, ripping open a window to Prime as a new set of Combatants took the field.

The heavens bled once more as something bulged against its membrane, thousands of grotesque tumours undulating across the skyscape. The first abscess ruptured in a spray of fetid clouds, opening a sore into Chaos once more; a writhing tentacle protruded from the opening rift, scribing its horrifying domain upon the sky. Hundreds like it burst forth soon after, forging a forced bridge between Prime and the cacophony of Madness and, through the jagged contours eviscerating reality, the theatre of Divine warfare found itself laid bare for all of Sapience to witness.

The screaming impossibility that is Lanu Du dominated the bellicose performance; in Its realm, It was at once disparate and whole, Its remit absolute over the very fabric of existence upon which Fire, Water, Life, Strife, and Morale now flanked Tyranny and Corruption.

Seven faced down One, the tension of a breath held racing across the land.

Bamathis was the first forward, indifferent to the movements of His companions. Gone was the Tactician, His charge unburdened of caution and stratagem; all that remained was the Soldier – nay, the Berserker and Butcher. Raw emotion suffused His unending mania, its harsh, uninhibited peal every bit the match of Insanity Incarnate before Him.

Caelestis sundered the battlefield with the reckless abandon of the Lost, His argent essence barreling forward through the maelstrom of tentacles that lashed out from unfathomable dimensions. Each notch claimed by the once-Warlord exacted a heavy price in turn, lacerations and blisters sullying His sculpted flesh with the sting of eldritch torment. Despite the catastrophic damage delivered unto Him, Bamathis made no move to parry. Impetuous temerity raged in His every strike, the whole of His being given over to a demand for carnage absolute – be it upon the enemy or Himself. Fervent chimes hastened the path of the blade of Sapience as Morale found Themself inexorably drawn to the singleminded purpose that claimed Strife.

Raindrops wept upon the chaotic battlefield, the purity of Water cleansing eldritch Insanity where they fell. Though the initial sight evoked tranquil serenity, the resultant puddles rapidly rose, each joining its like in rapid osmosis that carved through the essence of Chaos itself with an undersea trench’s dangerous pressure. A tsunami formed, its grasp defying Chaos’ tenuous, half-imagined spatial limits as it expanded to submerge the battleground. At its apex surfed Slyphe in a Dauntless charge, Audacity a blurred vortex that stabbed and sheared at all in Her wake.

Spores drifted through the air where Immortal Water assaulted Unending Madness, borne upon the breath of insanity itself; these motes of Chaos marshalled together at impossible speed, climbing atop another to condense into a ravenous abyss of tooth and claw – a pit towards which Slyphe was too late to halt Her charge.

Corruption intervened in a show equal parts magnanimous and pragmatic, Her insidious domain unleashed to clear the way. Cloaked in a tumultuous mantle of jade fire, Chakrasul plunged into the tsunami, scant heartbeats before the abyss could claim it. Intricate lacework spiderwebbed across the wave in response, its waters sent sizzling with the acidic intensity of pure Malice. Bereft of any support from Morale, Whose chimes fell silent whenever the dreaded Chakrasul took the front, Corrupted Might yet still held Her own. She wove vindictive spite into Her path, Her fury made manifest as thousands of withered spectres coalesced within the wave. Homage and vengeance entwined in unholy union when these simulacrums of the Umbral Crone stolen from Her surged forward, and they screamed their ear-splitting displeasure as they filled the abyssal maw with rancorous hate. The gaping chasm heaved as its entirety melted from existence, smote by acidic distaste.

Across the battlefield, Life and Tyranny found Themselves side by side, each having moved to assault the same flank of the eldritch monstrosity that threatened the Divine of Sapience. Examined side by side, these Gods could not be more different: one a hulking beast, the other slender marble; one scarcely covered by a simple loincloth, the other attired to the nines; one flush with the vitality of life, the other pale as snow in its absence; one a grave warden, the other a grave robber.

Within the bloody din of violence, however, the unlikely pair found common ground.

Haern barreled forward, His wargauntlets pounding together in time with Life’s ineffable rhythm. The thrill of Divine hunt writ clear across the Hunter’s mien, He cut a brutish, predatory figure eager for the brawl to come. Matching Hunter stride for stride, Abhorash slithered forward in the silent stalk of midnight grace, His hilunite sword tempered with the buzzing swarm of Virulence.

The plane of Chaos itself yawned wide in response, this vast swathe of the outer realm tearing apart as lips that once held reality together ripped free of their stitching. From its cacophonic depths echoed a deluge alive with alien voices, its terrifying clangour a sonic wave that halted the advancing Gods. It transfigured the air about Them into a discordant slop of molasses that birthed razor-sharp tongues, one and all winding hungrily towards Hunter and Hegemonist.

The Lord of the Hunt bellowed a chelonian evocation and turned His back to the onrushing tide of gelatinous paralysis, His homage to a long reclusive Guardian manifesting as a titanic tortoise’s shell that spanned from shoulders to thighs. Acting as a bestial phalanx, Haern shunted aside wave after wave of Chaotic hindrance, rendering its endless torrent naught but ineffective spittle.

Once more leaping into the fray, the Heart of Sapience glimmered into view behind Haern’s aegis and bathed Him in the resilient radiance of Their domain, straightening His hunched back and imbuing Him with strength beyond even His prodigious brawn.

Using the precious seconds bought, Zyrialith peeled back from the edge of Its Captor’s sword like a noxious wave in recession. The pestiferous swarm rose above Its fortified position and then sharply descended but a heartbeat later, drowning every sharpened articulator in thousands of eviscerating stings and pernicious, gnawing bites.

In a flash, the Righteous Fist of Judgement descended like an inquisitor’s anointed warhammer. Eschewing Daybreak’s burning edge, Lightsworn Fire invoked the incendiary devastation of His domain. He streaked forward like a lance wrought from aureate morningtide, spreading cleansing flame and sanctified wrath in His wake. In a contrasting flash of low-lit brilliance, Morale emerged at Celezor’s side, the uplifting power of pure virtue suffusing His every motion to magnify thousandfold the searing judgement delivered unto the abominations of the Mad God’s realm. Gibbering insanity became ashen serenity. Anarchic, infinite Chaos found cessation at the hands of Sapient Spirit’s burning Order, freeing Hunter and Progenitor alike from Madness Incarnate’s gelatinous grasp.

Gathered now, the Divine sovereigns of Bloodloch, Enorian, and Duiran banded together and surged forth in one unbreakable rank. In a rare reflection of an equally unlikely mortal alliance, the Godly trio closed in upon the thickest tentacle protruding from It That Woke’s hyperbolic silhouette.

Together, this triumvirate of Tyranny, Righteousness, and Savagery proved a nigh-unstoppable force. Their actions blended into a whirlwind of Divine fire and martial brutality that reaped through anything unfortunate enough to be caught within the gravity of Their awe-inspiring violence.

Faced now with Seven where once was Five, Lanu Du reeled back. Its tentacular infinitude swirled and writhed in the wordless expression of a faceless Immortal’s agony, Its city-obliterating might matched by a pantheon suffused with power to rival ancient Elders never known.

Here within the outer realms of Chaos, however, the Faceless One existed as a Fundamental truth that could not be so easily subverted or overridden.

A haunting groan rumbled throughout the boundless expanse of a plane constrained only by imagination and willpower, flooding its infinite landscapes with a call from the ancient force that is both the birth and death of every twisted shard of countless possibilities.

Innumerable unknown realms of Chaos dissolved to sate the hunger of ravenous madness, empowering Lanu Du yet further. Each tentacle that fell burst into dozens of its like, facsimiles rapidly regenerating in unholy genesis; when they swelled back to grotesque proportions, each converged upon the fray once more, threatening to overwhelm this conjoining of realms with a veritable flood of writhing flagella.

As the situation hastily escalated far beyond mortal intervention, Abhorash and Chakrasul found a scant moment to spare. With mirrored flicks of Their wrists, They sent Their followers soaring out of Chaos, ejecting them back onto Prime like a swarm of jade and sanguine comets.

Before the gaping wound in the sky knit shut once more, one final glimpse of Sapience’s seven defenders crowded the swiftly closing aperture. Shining as one beacon of multifarious power, They strode forward to engage a Fundament catching Its second wind.

A sickly squelch rang throughout the realm in the extraplanar vacuum of an aperture shut, leaving in its wake an ominous uncertainty.

Penned by my hand on Falsday, the 6th of Dharos, in the year 3 AC.