The Worldeater Saga, Part XLVII: A Debt Repaid

Tormented by onslaughts of prismatic lightning at the claws of nightmarish, cackling Omei, flagging Chakrasul staggered back as She drew upon Her sickly jade essence to ward away further harm. Immortal Instinct stalked nearer to Her prey, the spear clutched in Her grasp gleaming with overwhelmingly eldritch potency. A cheshire grin decorated Her sable visage, as if She were a cat toying with an injured mouse.

Chakrasul’s gaze fell then upon the serrated head of that wicked weapon in Her Sister’s grasp, the first flickers of fear churning within the vivid, virescent light that served as Corruption’s cruel eyes.

“What is it You have scrounged up from the corpse of that foul thing, Lurli?” Corruption rasped, Her stare fixated upon the chitinous shard crowning the reforged armament as its head – a fragment of a long-defeated creature, torn from the corpse of the Rampant’s kerrithrim child. “You dare wield its tatters against Me? I, who sealed its progenitor alongside Our Father?”

Dispensing with even the thin veneer of familial civility, Omei snarled as She lunges forward – and then staggered back as the Hegemonist’s claws raked into Her side, sending Her reeling away amidst agitated hisses.The Crimson Virulence lumbered forward and lifted one of Its bladed arms to menace the wounded Goddess, withering illness and wasting disease spawning in a noxious spiral of macabre melange.

The Nightmare shrieked as She drew upon more of Her promised kingdom, palpable waves of chromatic obliteration rolling forth from Her lithe frame. She swept Her spear through the air as though it were an imperial sceptre, commanding sevenfold siphons of Astral potency that drowned Abhorash, Chakrasul, and Zyrialith in an avalanche of meteoric starfire.

The Court of the Gods trembled as Ivoln called upon Immortal geomancy so great as to elicit a shudder from the terrestrial span of Sapience, the marble transfiguring beneath His igneous will. Jagged spears erupted from the trembling earth, one and all yearning to lance through Damariel’s shining silhouette. Lightbound inferno emanated from Him like the heat of the glorious sun at its zenith, reducing stone to ash and clearing the way for His charge towards Bamathis.

The chipped bones of long-lost mountaineers and gritty pebbles of Memonaransa’s craggy face conspired per Ivoln’s irresistible call to war, compressing as one into a crozier He soon closes His stony fingers around. “Steep is the price for transgression,” intoned Sapient Earth in echoing tribute to the Earthen Dirge as He strode forward to join Bamathis in His efforts against brilliant, burning Truth. “The wrath of Azvosh is great. And I am its Master.”

Burly Haern lumbered back into the fight then, lending Immortal Life’s implacable strength to the chill inevitability of Death. Taking up His place beside Dhar, the feral God thrust one of His wargauntlets directly into Slyphe’s jaw, the impact eliciting a sloshing ‘splash’ that splattered water across the Court of the Gods. Slyphe batted away Haern’s offending arm with Audacity, landing a shallow cut that soon wept virescent ichor upon the Hunter’s rugged flesh. Moving once more with fluid grace, the Maelstrom’s form contorted in an impossible wave that repositioned Them for another strike at Dhar’s back – a strike warded away by another batting blow from one of Life’s ursine paw.

The Underking then shifted one of His robed arms in a sharp gesture, His ghostly essence discorporating and reforming elsewhere. A symphony of restless souls emit shrieks and wails as they clawed upward from the marble Dhar once occupied, the gelid clutch of the grave digging into Slyphe’s liquid form to force solidity. The Maelstrom flung out one arm to the tune of an ocean breaking upon jagged rocks, Their hand outstretched towards the ice and snow stubbornly clinging to the Mountain of the Gods. A dull rumble was all that heralded the sudden avalanche of ice that converged upon Slyphe’s position, its contact with the Deity rapidly thawing it to useful waters. Laughing in the face of danger, Incarnate Water whipped Their cutlass about like a conductor’s baton.

Thrashing tides rose, casting Haern down upon the Court’s hardened marble with a loud splash. Gyres and spumes of mountain mist manifested as extensions of Slyphe’s cyclonic bravery, driving Death back with tempestuous gusts. Mercurial misdirection and tricksome duplicates of shimmering water sprouted from the Maelstrom’s liquid canvas, serving as a valuable tool in a lopsided duel.

Abhorash carved a billowing tunnel of sanguine smoke into reality’s tender fabric, allowing He and His virulent Godling to escape the hyperchromatic cataclysm besieging Them on all sides. Omei then sneered as She turned Her full attention to Chakrasul once more, Her dramatic demeanour a veneer concealing the Astral Empress’ manifest reluctance to expend Her reservoirs of gathered might. “I have no time left for You, My broken Sister,” She hissed. “When I am through with Our Father, perhaps I shall come back and put you out of Your misery. Or perhaps not.”

The Goddess of Instinct then crooked one claw as if beckoning something forth, Her expression a chilling portrait of patient, murderous intent. Cerulean, cyan, cobalt, sapphire – myriad blue hues lit up the air overhead, forming a crackling storm of colourful tumult that boomed throughout the heavens as percussion to rival the Triomachy.

The stentorian roar of a beast awakened rolled across the frozen Tundra, heralding the notice of Tanixalthas, First Dragon and Unquestioned Ruler of the Skies.

The Star of Midwinter unfurled Her wings to the fullest extent, their colossal span casting murky shadow over the entirety of the Theocracy of the North. Issuing one more challenging roar, She ascended to the heavens on a gust that upturned carts, toppled towers at their very foundation, and set the skies trembling in anticipation. Amidst serpentine lightning and whistling winds, Tanixalthas soared through the darkness of a world’s final days – towards the site of its last battle already slick with the glowing ichor of Varyan’s Children. The tumultuous sonic boom that marked Her passage scarcely grazed the catastrophe-riddled skyscape of the heavens as She soared, the skies yielding to Her passage with an agonised groan.

As the First Dragon veered toward the sacred Mountain of the Gods, She opened Her maw and unleashed voltaic wrath, a crackling storm of azure bolts directed with unwavering focus and set loose with impossibly accurate precision. Divine lightning scoured Memonaransan marble, plunging Chakrasul into a world of galvanic torment. Her screams of agony echoed down the mountainside as She struggled to raise a shield against the Dragon’s sudden, savage assault, Her back pressed to the side of Her throne. Ragged breaths escaped the Jade Goddess’ mouth, Her eyes lolling back in Her head as unconsciousness rendered Her mute; fabled Might defeated but – barely, somehow, hardly – alive.

“WE ARE EVEN NOW, VENGEFUL DREAMER. A DRAGON UPHOLDS THEIR PROMISES,” the Queen of All That Spans the Skies roared.

Glorious Pride then wheeled about in the doomsday gloom, the mighty clap of Her wings signalling the beginning of Her return to Spinesreach. Issuing a defiant, almost petulant roar of azurine incandescence in the direction of the warring Creators above, the First Dragon’s snarl rippled across the entire world before She alighted atop Her grandiose spire, Her interference ended.

Too enraptured by Her glee at witnessing the Star of Midwinter’s repayment of debt, Omei scarcely noticed the hulking figure looming behind Her.

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 18th of Omeian, in the year 0 AC.