Curselock

Chapter 210: Cracks

Apprehensive silence flooded the inn at Glenny’s words. None had spoken about it, but everyone had noticed the lack of real battle. Ivory Reach was supposed to be under attack, and yet, besides a small raid on the warehouse district, there was only waiting.

But now? Now the drums of war had been sounded and the mark of the enemy filled Glenny’s mind with whispers.

“What do we do?” Carmon asked his son with chalk in his mouth. He didn’t like being the one left in the dark, and he especially didn’t like that he couldn’t do anything to truly help.

Glenny’s eyes continued to shift from pure white to grim black. Crimson sprouted from his hand. “I guess we prepare.”

A thick portal opened. Spencer said, “We can’t fight here. Let’s go.”

Ashford raised his head, the blood of his master coursing through his veins like tar. He groaned, the message more than apparent.

It was time.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice like a hammer to glass.

Before him, pathways began to open.

Leland hadn’t been to the capital in a long while. Since he was a kid, really. He remembered imagining the Lordly battle that created the landscape in his mind. Two beings so utterly powerful that they created mountains from falling into the dirt and rerouted rivers with their footsteps. One was the hero, the other the villain. Their battle took a century and the outcome shaped history forever.

A city built in the bones of a fallen, nameless Lord. Ivory Reach.

A city he was not helping to defend.

Leland was no stranger to powers far beyond him doing things without his say-so. Most, when he thought about it, were the same as him. Kings, queens, Lords, and even parents to a certain extent. But here, now, he had a choice. To defend, to fight, to run, to war.

To kill.

The Sightless King had been a thorn in his and his friends' side for nearly a year at this point. Thrice was the superstition, thrice wins, thrice losses. Lose three, and you weren’t coming back.

He had never been a subscriber to such an outlook on life, but here, standing in a random courtyard in the shipping district of a city built in divine bones, Leland hoped the rule of threes won out.

A grand outcome in a grand location after a grand battle against a grand enemy.

Strange how things worked out.

Leland watched Glenny subconsciously roll his grip around the handle of his dagger. His friend stared off into the distance, his eyes flashing from white to black.

“Glenny,” he called. “I think you should ease up on the Void use. I remember you told us it hurts to use.”

The rogue shook his head, “No. He’s close, I can tell.”

“Can you?” Jude asked, leaning into the conversation. “How?”

“I can feel him. He’s here.”

Almost punctuating his sentence, fog rolled in. Leland swallowed, a palpable greed entering the courtyard. He recognized it instantly as the Sightless King, a being so vile it declared its own divinity by claiming the lives of those who worship it. Long ago he and the others had theorized the Sightless King was a monster of sorts. Perhaps even a corrupt Guardian Spirit Beast.

The being they fought in Shoutwell was but a husk of his true self. A flawed copy used to expand his influence like seeds carried far away by birds. The resonating aura the beast carried back then was extreme, at least for three green adventurers.

Now, however, the aura of greed amounted to little less than what High Inquisitor Rushwin could produce at full power.

A snide chuckled wobbled through the fog, a chilling call for those listening. Even Leland, who stood up to Rushwin, felt his legs go slack. Glenny and Jude? They were on their knees.

“Look what we have here.”

The voice haunted the fog, whispering everywhere its white mist touched.

“Three bodies to eat.”

The statement redoubled the aura, now crushing far harder than Rushwin could produce. It focused on Glenny, the one who had stolen from him. Pitter pattering echoed, the aura and fog completely blinding the boys.

Leland was the only one to react, a figure in the mist appearing. Draped in golden silken robes, stained with blood, bathed in crimson, the figure radiated primordial anger. The figure raised their hands, a sword made entirely of spite ushering to creation.

A toxic bolt cut through the fog, piercing into the figure, killing him instantly.

Leland swallowed, forcing himself to his feet. A bolt of lightning ripped past his shoulder, no doubt another cultist dead. He helped Glenny and Jude to their feet, practically carrying them as he moved. One step— something exploded in the distance – two steps, three. A portal opened, and they fell through.

Silence met them nicely. Glenny and Jude threw up, the sudden weight off their chests like a punch to the stomach.

“We’re safe,” Leland muttered, his breath labored. “We’re safe…”

And for the first time in an hour, Glenny stopped using the power of the Void.

He began screaming.

Spencer felt Glenny scream instantly. They were half way across the city from one another, but he still noticed. That was his job, that was what his magic excelled in. He had always found focusing on multiple things easy. It was his greatest talent if he was being honest. It was what made him a powerhouse on the battlefield, it was what made him an archmage.

He watched over the boys, his wife, their friends, even the Huntress. He watched them all, as well as looked out for the Sightless King, Ashford, and the Witch.

So when Ashford and the Witch appeared for but a second, Spencer noticed.

Unfortunately, their short appearance was at the same moment that Glenny started screaming.

Nestled in the bones of a fallen Lord was a city. At the heart of the city was a castle, which, almost exactly, rested where the fallen Lord’s heart would have been if it was still alive – center of its chest cavity, with plenty of ribs for protection.

Once called unreachable, there was no air assault possible that could directly target the castle. Not if the enemy didn’t have a way to cut through divine bone. Few resources could even scorch divine bone, even less could slice cleanly through it.

Luckily for Ashford he didn’t need to cleanly cut it. He only needed to bend it until it snapped.

High over the castle, two people appeared from a twist of magic. One was an average middle aged man with dead eyes that held more than one secret. The other, an adult woman whose hair mimicked the first moments after an explosion.

He walked smoothly a few steps, green filth filling his hands. His magic came to his call, the device had already been set.

She, on the other hand, moved like lightning had replaced her bones. Jerky and abrupt, each step of hers laid the foundation for countless fractures. Pathways dealt in fate, and fate could be exploited. Even if the exploit was divine in origin.

“Ready!” she declared, saluting her partner.

Ashford growled, scowling at the Witch. For a moment he hesitated, thinking of a different way forward. The hands of his master collapsed around his throat in the very second. Cold, uncaring, murderous. Very little could kill a Harbinger of the Undying Lord. The Undying Lord himself just so happened to be one of those things.

Knowing it would be his last for a little while, Ashford took a deep, deep breath. The air was nice, he decided.

Then, like someone buried alive clawing their way out a grave, a “fist” burst from his chest sending blood and viscera high into the air. Few had seen the true form of Ashford’s parasitic weapon. Most thought it just a deadly sword. But in reality it was just another piece to an eternal goal.

It had been forged from the first Legacy of the Undying Lord after her failure to free the master. The first Harbinger in a long line of Harbinger. The first failure in a long, long line.

There was one thing this first had achieved better than any other, however. And that was power. Raw, unfiltered power.

The weapon had been called “Sovereignty.”

Named by the Undying Lord in hopes that such a supreme power would originate from the weapon and one day free him. The soul of the first, the only soul to have ever mattered. She would be the one to free him, even if she was nothing more than a tool for others to use.

Sovereignty split Ashford’s chest apart, pulling itself from his organs. In its true form, it looked similar to how she had been before. A young woman with flowing green hair and vile resonance to go with it. The weapon posed her in eternity, her arms out in prayer like a statue repurposed to become a sword.

Ashford grabbed her, yanking her fully out. Next came that flowing hair and the attached head. She looked down her stiff arms, watching her wielder with a blank, dead expression. Then came her shoulders, chest, legs, and feet. A person in her entirety, and yet no more than a weapon.

“I’m sorry,” Ashford whispered as soon as the Pathways Witch removed herself from the area.

He thrust his hand into her chest, squeezing her “heart.” Her soul crumbled, the parasitic aspect of the weapon finally coming to an end. In the undying dance, this time the host claimed victory, not the parasite.

Sovereignty’s power then failed, and Ashford gained the missing key to transcendence.

He radiated death. He radiated undeath.

The world was his to take in the name of his master, so he did.

He took a step, and the bones of the nameless dead Lord cracked.