The arch-traitor narrowly avoids my executing blow, flying off into the forest of tornadoes. They throw about fire, lightning and water, each as deadly as each other. I give chase through the storm, the shield-dome crackling with each shattering stride I take. Cenotaph swings one way and then the next, felling the limbs of the storm without issue.
The air erupts, rocketing me near Gemorli. She matches my attempt to kill her with another blow against it. The force sends the sky clear of all storm clouds and her magic drags it all back in. Natural lightning strikes across the sky, some pale and godless, with some as golden pure as the God of Thunder himself. The arch-traitor's own lightning seems so false next to it.
She screams her fury, throwing more and more of this hurricane against me. Gale-force winds, uprooted trees and more. I chop and slice it all down, butchering my way closer and closer towards her.
'Gemo-'
Another letter comes to Cenotaph's face. My smirk grows and the distance between me and the arch-traitor does much the same. She glows with an impossible brightness, her desperation seemingly trying to one up the dead God of the Stars, Ihtuntar. I slash forward, sliding across the shield-dome and the sky of Thurnmourer-Jherikra.
Her magic gathers up, smashing right against me and sending me across the Great Bridge. I smash Cenotaph down, cutting open the shield-dome effortlessly. It weaves back together as the double-blade rises and I charge back her way. I clash with each of her spells and knock them aside. A tidal wave of sapphire magic building up from the abyss of the Redstone Canyon.
It crashes down for me and I slice up, cutting it in two and parting the sea she's tried to create. More and more magic comes down, the ambient magic of All-That-Remains rushing into the arch-traitor. She's expending so much, but every drop she can bring in is more to throw out at me. I meet a fireball fist-first, letting it erupt around me to knock away some of this dagger-like rain.
Mach cones burst across the sky, my knee able to find her chest so quickly. She flies off, smashing through the top of a mountain and out the other end. I drop down after her, my magic amplified weight cracking me through the earth. It takes me thousands of halfmans deep and I leap for the sky, the world exploding after me.
Our weapons meet near the peaks of a range, and they crumble. We move over and over, smashing against each other without end. Ancient stone melts, shatters and more. Flying into the air only so much as to make it seem like gravity never existed. Everything we so much as pass by turns to sand and grains and the world is vanishing.
I swing overhead, meeting the length of her staff. Her magic fills it out, reinforcing it to a crystalline shine and she growls up at me. Her rain strikes my wounds, letting my blood wash across her face. Each bit fills her with a grim hope and she lashes out with all she has.
Her hand throws itself back, and she thrusts it forward. Her strength knocks me into the air and drags an ocean up with it. Cenotaph's head spins, its closest edge meeting the colossal geyser. Magic pumps my feet around and I spin away, sawing my way back into the earth.
I bounce across the valleys, coming back to my feet and a tectonic shift. I throw myself forward, watching the world melt as more and more fire and lightning comes for me. Spells go far and wide, blowing apart the country. I can't even see Thurn's Forge clearly any more. We've gone beyond the Line Before and we're somewhere approaching the Seventh Line.
I meet her again, Cenotaph's head glowing particularly bright in this moment. Another letter forms, a chorus of suicidal bravery from the arch-traitor announcing its arrival. I keep pushing the axe down on her as we flail in the sky. Another hand slips up, trying to knock it into her and she slips away, the tendrils of her storm pulling her out.
I can only manage a fist to meet her at our next collision. The sky ruptures, showing the whole world beyond the battle-soaked land. She keeps on rising and rising and I give chase, smashing apart any spell she tries to smite me with. The air warps, the sights changing so drastically.
The land isn't what it seems anymore. But a field of endless clouds and shattered islands falling apart as we do everything at this incomprehensible speed. I can't help but look across Jherikra, towards all the great cities rising above the lowest clouds. The empire of the heretics, to see it from here makes it so clear why they see it the way they do.
The Union of Seven-Peaks... The Great Peaks.
"DAMN YOU, VALKINVAR-IMDVARCE VAPOOLIAR!" Gemorli roars, her magic chasing up after us into the sky, towards the very limits of the world. Dark shadows cross the sky, dragons roosting in curiosity of our fight. The lowest clouds vanish as a swarm of rubies, sapphires, golds and emeralds come for me.
Her magic nips away at my feet, more than fast enough to catch up with its casting master. I spin out into a deceptive roll, controlled so well, it seems not. My speed picks up and I meet her ahead of her. She panics, her magic washing past her without getting her out of the way.
She forces the magic open to give her some space, only making it easier for me to reach her. It all erupts, covering her retreat and my instincts let me follow. I knock aside more spells and meet her at the very limits of the world. The results of the six Guardian Mountains and their endless flow of magic.
The Wind Mountain, Jhroungijherammujhernosumonaterikra, it keeps up with us.
The tallest mountain in the world and we still cannot escape the view it gives. Let alone the view of the very heart of the heretics themselves, the Finger's Reach Palace. The highest of highs. A palace that overlooks the world, one blooming with a single True Emerald flower that I can feel watching us.
One of the strongest men in the world, if not the... His Lunar Majesty.
I shake my attention away from the distant, subdued power, focusing on the irony I find myself in. Gemorli is strong, so very strong and yet, she's heaving. Struggling and heaving to handle such heights and dense magic. No element is clear in its power now, it's all one swirling mass of pinks, purples, golds and blacks.
The unusable eighth form of magic.
I smash up against the Guardian Shell, the last stretch of All-That-Remains before the void of what is left of space meets us. The gap between the planet and the Orbital-Halo itself. It cracks slightly under the strain of my power, almost daring me to try harder. The Crown of Conceptual War shocks a warning across my mind.
I need... I need to get away from it. Lest the six guardian mountains turn on me. They're to protect the world from the Fourteen, beyond the sky. The fourteen are divine in power and so am I, right now...
I shoot down, grabbing and slipping away from Gemorli. Though she is struggling, she keeps herself close to the Guardian Shell. It barely acknowledges her and she overwhelms herself in the face of such magic. Drowning herself into a drunken state with such power. She lashes out at me, smashing me aside and sending me soaring down to the ground.
The air quakes in my brake, Cenotaph finally reaching the second to last letter. Gemorl. My smile comes back, and it vanishes as a groan overtakes me. I'm in a lot more pain than I realised...
The sky continues to rain with all the power in the world, Gemorli's prodigal talent snatching up two additional schools of magic. Her screams fill the sky, swelling my ears as a pair of wings forms behind her. All this power and not all of it can fit in.
Emerald, sapphire, ruby, gold, diamond, amethyst... Wind, water, fire, lightning, light, and dark. The touch of all of the six. It's all coming for me so long as she's up there, cracking under the strain.
Cenotaph shifts in my grip and I move to meet the centre most beam of her power. Light and dark lose all meaning as she shifts from mastery to buffoonery and back again. It tries to swallow me whole, becoming an epileptic void of the six colours and all their shades. I close my eyes, already fearing I might be blind before such overwhelming power.
I keep ongoing and going, letting the ground go further away. The Guardian Mountains warn me, the artefacts all warn me. If I miss this blow, the power of six gods will destroy me. I need to-
"GOT YOU!" I roar in triumph, only managing to hook Gemorli on the shaft of the great-axe. I spin her around. She slides towards the beard of the blade, its edge cutting into her. She screams and I throw her back to the earth itself.
I rocket after her, showing my submission to the will of the divine by tossing Cenotaph away. I latch onto Gemorli, striking away at her as my raw strength batters away against her magic. Invisible and shadowed blows strike me again and again as much as four other kinds do. It keeps seeping away, reducing her to an already impressive mastery of four elements.
The lowest clouds poof open to us, the light of the day vanishing as Gemorli's storm returns. We crash into the ground, too much of the Theocracy's former land rupturing up into the air. Whatever life somehow survived this fight, it's not gone. I look around, one hand on the arch-traitor's scruff. Everything in front of Thurn's Forge is gone.
We're so far from the city and now it is but an open plain of still falling rubble. Cenotaph cracks the earth, landing with such violent grace that seems so modest for what it is. Gemorli strikes me, knocking me aside. She shoots for the axe, the last letter forming already.
I meet her and knock her aside, catching the weapon before she has a chance to interrupt it. I slide away and as does she. We come to a stop, the world finally allowed to catch up with us. The endless downpour of her pour stops it from burying us in it, but it hardly makes it impossible to see.
Sapphire water becomes black and more with ruined country, the building flood washing away into nowhere as Gemorli continues to call in all the magic she can. She heaves and heaves, her exhaustion catching up to her as specks of light flee Thurn's Forge. The traitors have lost and they're retreating!
"Dammit... You just had to live that day a decade ago..." she spits, her blood coming out and at least offering some colour to all this black destruction. I look around what has become of my home. The Crown of Conceptual War has guided to me to victory to this point and now all I can hear is... The endless cries of the dead. Their fear, exhaustion. It's all hitting me.
I look to Cenotaph as it vibrates and glows brightly with a full, single word. Gemorli. Arch-Traitor Gemorli. Betrayer of the Valkinvar and of all of Waionr's Chosen Theocracy.
My eyes snap back to her as the last of her able body works itself to painful exhaustion. It builds up into an emerald spear, what's left of her gear offering all the grounding she needs. The sky clears up, letting the shine of the Orbital-Halo reach us. Drying up the world as much as it can.
"Sad as it makes me to say it, what I see now would be far worse if your... Lover... Didn't fail to kill me that day." I point out, spinning Cenotaph unnecessarily flamboyantly. It comes to a stop, the wind itself cut down so that not even a quiet whistle reaches us. It's just me and her.
"I... I shall... I SHALL HAVE YOUR LIFE!" the arch-traitor roars, rushing towards me. A Mach cone forms ahead of me and I shoot ahead, avoiding her blow. Gemorli shines as bright as it can on Cenotaph's face and the edge comes up for her. Her eyes widen and all that magic blows back in an instant.
Cenotaph cuts through her armour, slicing open the cloth and drawing blood. It keeps ongoing up and up. Breaking her emerald-shining staff and parting across her face. She screams hysterically in pain.
Then, laughs triumphantly mad. She's alive. I blink at my failure and look to Cenotaph as it continues to bear her name. I keep on staring even as she staggers away, her blood soaking the ground in so few an amount compared to how much she has cost us...
"WE WILL BE BACK!" she cries, her anger and fear all coming out as one with uncontrolled red-faced tears. The fear of death so painfully fresh in her adrenaline-soaked mind. She shoots away, whatever she can muster coming for me.
I knock aside the magic and watch her vanish across the countryside to join the rest of her specks. I blink and blink, uncertain of what to do. All this fighting and it should be clear what my actions should be and yet... I'm content to wait here, wait and stand about.
A long, heavy breath parts my lips and I steadily remove the helmet, clearing up my head of all this nonsense.
I died, I died at the start of this whole affair. When it was still night and now, the day is almost half done. In but a morning I've met a god, donned his war gear and have ascended to heights beyond what I should be capable of.
Gemorli kept screaming my place in the Valkinvar, my name and title as one with begrudging respect... And... And...
"Why me...?" I ask myself, looking back to Thurn's Forge. Across the destroyed lands that lead to the Line Before. Were the fortresses not made of redstone brick like the rest, they'd be completely gone. How much did I destroy, how much did Gemorli? Seven seconds for her name to spell out across Cenotaph and all of this is gone, still sludging away in the dimming rain.
To think this all seemingly started in these mountains, the events of what... The past few... Cycles, days... Weeks?
Ow...
"Ow, my head..." I remark, breaking into a chuckle and then a laugh as I trudge my way back to Thurn's Forge. Redstone-caused wounds all over me, the armour and the axe of a god about me and in my grip. No matter my thoughts for the moment, no matter at all. Just walk, keep on walking so I can meet all that I've saved.
My home. I saved my home. My home is saved and... And I have the power to keep it safe for as long as I live.
"I... Saved my home." I whimper, lingering but a step so I can cry my joy in solitude, away from prying eyes and ears.