The Worldeater Saga, Part XLVI: Theomachy Renewed

As bestial Haern reached out to claim the blazing trophy within Ethne’s ruined remains, a cataclysmic tide of burning light crashed down upon Him. He rolled away to avoid the worst of its searing vengeance, His wargauntlets punching craters into the marble court as He barreled away.

When the blinding effulgence abated, the Unbound Lord stood over Ethne’s broken form. He extended one hand towards the quintessential fire that once was Mebrene, its hearthlight strands sailing upwards from Her smote shambles to meet His hand. Raging incandescence then suffused Damariel mot Lanosaryon’s form, tongues of radiant fire emanating from His silhouette as His union with Mebrene’s remaining power marked Him as a twofold incarnation of the Light’s fury.

“Before the sun rises, My Savage Brother,” Damariel intoned with grim intent, “I shall see You smote to ash for what You have done. As Strife’s hands bear the stain of Passion’s demise, so too do Yours reek of Mebrene’s,” the Unbound declares, the weight of judgement’s passage thickening the tension all around.”

With peace drowned ‘neath tides of burning blood, Mount Memonaransa’s Immortal occupants swiftly descended into chaotic carnage.

Chakrasul was the first to make Her move; tendrils of saccharine corruption swirled outward from Her pale vessel in a doomed spiral that sought to snarl Omei in its labyrinthine wiles, ominous glimmers of sickly jade lurking within the darkened depths of Her sorcery. With a flick of Omei’s wrist, spirals of multifarious wonder bled into the Prime from Her promised kingdom, balancing out the deceitful despair that converged upon Her. She offered Her Sister an imperious wave of Her spear, a cascade of hyperchromatic lightning crackling forth to scourge Ancient Might.

“You have lost Yourself so utterly, Jakrasul, that You remember not what You once were,” Instinct mourned, genuine empathy weaving pity into Her tone. “You would have had the strength to withstand Me – or better yet, the wisdom to stand beside Me – if You were as You once were.”

“No matter,” She continued. “I will free You from this despair.”

The unnerving clamour of Divine weaponry clashing against its match rang out through the Court of the Gods as Damariel and Bamathis met in its very centre, murderous intent the only value They now shared. Scalding waves of light seared rippling scars into the marble beneath Truth’s starmetal leg, its ominous thud heralding each militant motion of His shining greatsword. Reality trembled in the wake of each vicious arc, plunging His surroundings into lightwrought cataclysm.

Unbowed, unbroken, Strife Incarnate meets His heretical foe head on. Hefting Caelestis on high to meet the heavier, larger blade in His opponent’s hands, Bamathis wasted no time with clever feints. Silvery essence spilled forth from His frame, plunging all present into the maniacal throes of His virtue – a hysteria-inducing aura to hamper judgement and tear at the environment all around. The cobble cracks underneath Damariel’s astral prosthetic as He weathered the onslaught, His mind intent upon delivering retribution for a fallen Sister. Truth reaffirmed His stance amidst the carnage, His gleaming greatsword upraised to ward away Strife’s flurry of blows. Unrelenting, bereft of mercy, the Favoured Son intensified His cascade of quintessential soldiery as He pressed the attack against Damariel. Each blow found the flat of Daybreak or else stopped short within the golden morass exuding from a Brother empowered thrice over by the essence of His lost kin.

Intrepid Slyphe flowed forward like the lapping waves of a tropical cove, Their grace so fluid as to inspire jealousy in countless generations of learned blademasters. Audacity gleamed in Their grip, its cutting edge shimmering with Denan Arloi’s unveiled might. The tides buckled and roared leagues away as Sapient Water’s aqueous domain yielded its latent force to its Master, the strength of crashing tsunamis suffusing the barbaric swipe They aim at the target in their sights: Underking Dhar.

As cresting waves of elemental force manifested in the wake of Slyphe’s savage swing, the Lord of the Grave lifted His spectral hands upward in a simple gesture of denial. The air surrounding the ghostly God rapidly descended to wintry depths, transfiguring His Sibling’s assault into vaporous nothingness.

A screech arose then from the southern reaches of Sapience as the despotic Hegemonist and the enslaved Zyrialith emerged from Their place within the Sanguine Fist’s borders, Their passage marked by the virulent haze of crimson divinity. Travelling across the sky as if it were a promenade cleared for forbidding nobility, the Two intruded upon the horrifying theomachy playing out within the once-sacred Court of the Gods. The Sickening Scourge lumbered behind Abhorash, each step scattering clouds or else tainting them with the innumerable illnesses trapped within the foetid bounds of Its enslaved shell.

Upon billowing steps of bloodied darkness did They descend into the chaos, cruel opportunism lighting tyrannical fires within the Hegemonist’s eyes. That clever gaze met Ivoln’s own ochre stare; understanding passed between the Lord of War and the Bloody Tyrant.

As One, They nodded – and then set Their sights upon others, intent upon division and conquest.

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