Chapter 698: Together again
“I’ll prep, then go straight in,” Mason said, mind already on the violence ahead. “Follow when you’re ready, but be careful. It’ll be a mess.”
Explanation given, he put Blake from his mind, then spread his wings over the lower walls of Nassau. He dropped his weight so low he was basically hovering, taking a few seconds to fuse himself with natural magic.
He wanted his entrance to be…splashy. For the demon army to take notice. He Shapeshifted and sculpted his own body into a weapon of war, triggering every ‘buff’ spell he could fit as his form contorted, draining his mana back with his rose belt.
Having ten sections of brain like Blake would definitely be useful. But then he had enough of a mess in his head already. Every tree and animal for a few miles was back to letting him know urgently there were demons everywhere.
“Yes I can see the God damn demons,” he growled to the air. “Everyone can see the demons.”
He ordered his animal companions to the front, feeling their impatience through their bonds. Wolves howled from all over the lower city. Violet dug out beneath the enemy. Shawk and his kin screeched and dove away from their aerial battle above.
Mason’s body twisted and grew. The fake horns of Eve’s Vestments wrapped around his real horns like armor, the weapons more like a ram than a stag. His feet split and spread into huge, eagle talons. His jaw distended and grew fangs. His arms lengthened, hands thickening and sprouting claws like a bear. Before he was finished, there was very little left of a man.
He flapped his wings dropped his weight, launching himself at the nearest planar lord before starting a Solar Wrath. If the timing was off he’d interrupt it and end up helpless for a few seconds. But he’d practiced it many times.
The lord was some kind of hellish flesh creature. It was roughly in the shape of a huge, armored man, but twisted and malformed, covered in arms and weapons. As Solar Wrath started, a beam of light broke through the unnatural darkness above.
Mason felt the eyes of his players from the wall, and every demon in sight.
Good, he thought, let them all see.
Maybe it was the beast talking. But there was an anger inside him that never went away. A quiet rage maybe since being abandoned as a child, now directed at this alien for what it had done to mankind. What it was still doing.
He’d always felt a kind of responsibility to remember the billions of dead. The impersonal, apathetic destruction of so many lives. All that anger warped and twisted with the personal, and the arrogant—that these creatures would challenge him. Come here and attack his forest. His city.
He picked up speed, lowering his head. Maybe he couldn’t hit roboGod. But he could start killing a whole field of his stupid little minions, and see who got tired of it first.
The timing was perfect. He slammed head first into the wide-eyed demonic lord in a swirling vortex of physical and magical power.
Everything exploded in a maelstrom of dirt, stone, and demon parts as he hit like a mortar round. Mason couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Didn’t matter. Everything here was an enemy.
He was up and raking with claws and Honor Blades with impossible speed, the explosion still raining down all around him. He slashed at anything and everything blindly, using all his strikes, relying on his Mark to try and highlight targets in the madness.
The flesh-demon lord had survived the blow. It was trying to re-form itself after being shattered, impressive regenerative powers absorbing the slashing wounds, re-filling it like a mountain of dirt.
Sol’s eye went from squint to glare as Solar Wrath really struck. The pretty light that was really just the opening blast became a pillar of death. The demon roared in outrage and confusion as the power bathed them both, targeted right on Mason’s position. It had probably assumed he wouldn’t hit himself. Bad call.
Mason’s edge was always a lack of self-preservation. To beat his enemy, he was willing to suffer. He hadn’t been afraid to get punched, to get teamed up on. He didn’t think about after. He liked fighting. And as long as he was hitting his target, he was willing to take anything. Because he’d always instinctively known a simple truth about fighting: nothing beat tough and crazy.
It was a few minutes later before he remembered where he was and what he was doing. Which was chewing on a demon lord’s spine, apparently.
“I think it’s dead, brother. Also, that’s gross. Also, earth elemental lord—six o’clock. I’ve brought the physical shield down. Masonize it, please. I’ll keep its friends off.”
Mason looked up and snarled until he realized it was Blake. Then he remembered he was a man and not a beast, and dropped the dead lord’s corpse. He spun for the new threat, grinning as he saw Breaker roar and hurl himself into the army. Strength of the Pack flared with power. Streak and his kin followed behind, whipping back and forth as they chose targets and leapt.
It wasn’t just his animals now. Mason could feel the forest rising. Tree roots were sprouting out of the soil like the fingers of ten thousand angry guardians. Soon those fingers would curl unto fists.
He charged the new elemental lord as it tried to channel some power—maybe re-activating whatever Blake had brought down. The arrogance. To channel so close to him.
He activated Aspect of the Cheetah and picked up speed, highlighting its heart gem with his Mark. It would be dead long before that spell finished.
**
Mason ripped and tore his enemies. Demon, undead or elemental. Large or small. Weak or strong. He never stopped moving, never stopped breaking or rending them apart as he swept in front of the walls of his home and ended the attackers.
He killed thousands of demons, twice as many undead, and three of the lords. Between Blake’s ability to shut down magic, their combined powers to identify an enemy’s weaknesses, and pure killing power…nothing lasted long.
It felt a lot like old times. Working together to beat all the world’s bullshit. Rounding each other’s edges. The brain and the brawn. ‘The dynamic duo’ indeed.
Mason turned and leapt at another huge demon lord without thought, trusting Blake, trusting himself. His bonded beasts snarled and followed, all driven into some wild frenzy that had them fighting like they were possessed.
Had it been minutes? Hours? His only clock was the size of Yalor’s champion as it lumbered forward. And it was close now. Too close. They would have to deal with it soon.
Above the sounds of the battle, and his brother zipping by on his disc and shouting about some fresh horror, he could hear the forest screaming.
Wherever Yalor’s champion walked, death followed. Mason could feel a kind of absence—a shutting down of everything around it. ‘Doom’ didn’t destroy the world in some fiery apocalypse. He erased it. He left nothing but barren rock in his wake.
“We’re out of time,” Mason said as he stopped, mostly to himself. He couldn’t let that thing reach the great tree. They had to bring it down outside.
He glanced around at the army still attacking them from every direction. They’d killed some of the lords, but nothing had really changed. There was no ‘killing all the adds’ first, as Blake suggested. It had been a good plan, but there wasn’t time.
His profile was filled with messages trying to keep him informed. His players were coming down now from the east, teleporting in their hundreds and moving to the walls.
As he stopped and paid attention, he heard fighting to the south and realized the centaurs were attacking. Thank you, Nighteyes, he thought with a brief smile. But he didn’t expect them to accomplish much. Not against that champion.
The trees were fighting with the intruders properly now, probably enhanced by nymphs even Mason couldn’t detect. It would maybe help isolate Doom. It would have to be enough.
“What’s the hold up?” Blake zipped down beside him on his disc, pulsing with magic and surrounded by flying constructs that were basically just spinning blades. “Chop chop, yes? So many demons, so little time. Wanna get another lord? I think there’s one uh….”
Mason pointed a claw at the champion, and Blake turned and stopped talking. For a moment the brothers stood in the eye of a violent storm and stared, their constructs and animal companions forming a protective ring of destruction around them.
“Well. Time’s up, I guess. Should we have a meaningful moment? A heart to heart? Mason, you’re the best minion ever. The OG. My first bodyguard construct. Though your command function could use a little work. Too much willpower.”
Mason took a deep breath and let it out. There was something comforting about having Blake natter on with his nonsense. A jolt of familiarity in an otherwise insane world.
“You’re consistent, I’ll give you that. Can you tell me anything useful about that thing?”
Blake’s eyes lost focus as he stared, his familiar zipping off with some kind of warp power.
“It’s not using runes. Normal magic, I mean. It has no items I can see. And I don’t think that’s a spell around it, or anything it’s channeling. It just…is. Like a natural aura. I don’t think we’re shutting any of those powers down.”
Mason wasn’t exactly surprised. As he watched the thing he felt a rare moment of…concern. Like it was designed just for him, to counter him. That all this struggle was pointless because he’d lose. Like the synthetic overlords of this entire farce were setting it all up just to knock it down.
In his dream, Blake abandoned him. Mankind failed. And Lilith’s mirror showed he might die to solve it. He clenched a fist, claws digging into his palm, and ran to his literal doom without hesitation.