Vol.4 Ch.75 – Showtime
Chapter 75: Showtime
“Your first priority is your own survival,” Omega said as he addressed the group.
So far Alexis had known the angel only as a brooding loner, a man of few words and the bastard who had threatened her lover, but now it turned out he actually was a competent battlefield commander, delivering a succinct battle plan in a clear voice.
“You cannot protect anyone if you are dead,” Omega went on. “Your second priority is the survival of your comrades. If you have to choose between attacking the Necromancer and saving one of your allies, choose safety over offense. Your third priority is not getting in our way.”
Alexis felt herself bristling at that. Why even take them all along if he considered them a liability?
But he immediately clarified: “In a fight against a Necromancer we cannot afford to hold back. Attacking with less than full strength will doom us, all of us. But that also means we cannot avoid collateral damage. So make sure we do not have to.”
“Omega's magic is more focused than mine,” Kaja interjected, “so his attacks should be easier to avoid. If the battlefield allows it, listen for my voice. I tend to announce my spells quite loudly.”
He gave a terse nod, then began looking at specific fighters. First was Cassie. “Your ability to teleport and defend is almost at the level of Angel Lord Raphael, possibly even on par. Focus fully on defense, do not waste any energy on offense, no matter how open the Necromancer appears.” He shifted his gaze to Ophelia. “Your offensive magic is excellent but your healing is far more important. You are too powerful to waste you solely as a healer but prioritize healing and defense when you have to make a choice.” He turned to Alexis. “As I said before, attacking with less than full strength is pointless. Focus your power and only use your strongest attacks.”
Alexis nodded. She had far more ways to enhance her attacks than others and unlike Evelyn she could do it without charging across the battlefield like greased lightning.
Omega turned to Abigail. “How long can you hold your Higher form?”
“The last time I used it, it said fifteen minutes,” Abigail said.
“Not optimal,” he rumbled and she flinched. “Focus on support. Your music is a highly effective force multiplier. Use your Higher form when the opportunity presents itself. I trust your judgment.”
She nodded at that, looking relieved.
Finally, Omega turned toward Marcus and his team.
“Do we really have to sit this out?” Marcus asked.
“I'm afraid so,” Kaja said.
Alexis could see Marcus balling his fists at his sides.
“We will be using your summoner and your archer,” Omega said, nodding at the conjured wolves that regarded him with far more intelligence than they should. “As for you, if we fail it is your responsibility to send word back and use whatever explosive magic your team has to blow up the building. If we die, then that will be the last chance to stop the ritual.”
Marcus' lips thinned but finally he nodded.
**
The training Abigail had received had been just barely enough to get her prepared to fight human enemies, something that had been fairly useless against the Outsiders and their cultists. She wasn't sure if those at Base 15 had received more topical training or not but she sure hoped so.
However, one thing that had stuck with Abigail was how to open doors in hostile territory. Rather than going through and immediately getting shot in the back of the head by someone hiding beside the doorway the proper way to do it was to rush through with at least three people, one focusing ahead while the other two made sure that the sides were clear. But Omega had a different idea.
The moment they reached the top of the stairs to the roof Omega summoned forth a column of water magic and used it to blast the door off its hinges, sending it hurtling toward whatever was on the other side while raising a shield to defend against whatever attacks might be launched back in retaliation. But nothing came. More concerning, there wasn't even the sound of the door striking anything, not even the ground.
Omega only just waited for the conjured wolves to rush through the open doorway before barreling forward himself while everyone else struggled to keep up. Abigail's training caused her to check the sides and she immediately wished she hadn't. It was as if they had stepped out of reality and into a nightmare.
The stormy sky from earlier was gone, mostly. One enormous dark cloud hung directly above the library but everything else looked hellish. Beside that one cloud the sky was clear, showing the night sky. Except the stars above were red and they seemed like they were staring back. Gaze not into the abyss...
And even that was harmless compared to the way their surroundings looked. Unlike the previous two floors the roof did not look like it had reverted back to the nineteenth century. No, it still looked perfectly modern. But the roof was surrounded by... She was looking at... Even just thinking about what she was seeing was enough to make her almost throw up. It was like a heat mirage, the air shimmering as if in motion. But beneath that heat mirage was something else, like reality was a wallpaper plastered onto something else, something worse. And she had no desire to peer behind the curtains.
In the center of the space was the Necromancer. Abigail wasn't quite sure what she'd expected. Something theatrical, a black cloak maybe, an armor decorated with bones, a staff, a face mask, something like that.
Instead the Necromancer was a man, a man who looked to be in his late twenties, with unkempt black hair and wearing a simple black shirt and jeans. The only things that seemed off about him were the book in his left hand and the fact that he was floating a foot above the ground, muttering an incantation that felt like nails scraping along Abigail's eardrums, a dissonance worse than anything she had ever heard.
Surrounding the man was a barrier, almost invisible but lightly iridescent, like a soap bubble that encased his entire body. And by the two strips of painted metal lying on either side of him, that barrier had clearly erased the part of the door that had struck him.
**
Kaja put on one of the most powerful relics in her arsenal, one that had taken Angel Lord Samuel and her an entire year to get just right.
Outsiders used glamours and illusions that, while not as sophisticated as what mages of this world were capable of, were far harder to pierce. And even if you did manage to pierce them, what was lurking behind them had a good chance of driving a normal person, even an angel, insane. Necromancers were unique in that they could see through the illusions in a way that insulated their minds from the worst of the madness. A highly useful effect to have, except the way they accomplished this was... too unsavory for even Heaven and Hell to consider.
The ritual that allowed a Necromancer to do this was called The Eyes of True Sight. It involved the fledgling Necromancer carving the eyes out of a prostitute while she was still alive, then eating them and sacrificing the rest of the body to the King in Yellow. Even after fighting Necromancers for over a millennium Kaja was still not sure why it had to be a prostitute specifically. Was it because of some kind of perceived impurity or did the Necronomicon point the Necromancer at targets that were less likely to be missed?
Either way, while both Heaven and Hell would have unfortunately been fine with the idea of sacrificing a single mortal for the greater good, that same ritual also tied the soul of the ritualist to the King in Yellow, permanently tainting their immortal soul with the muck of the Outside. Thankfully this meant that any desire on the parts of Up-Above and Down-Below to harness that ritual for their own ends was off the table. But that, of course, left the problem of how they could see through Outsider illusions without going mad or becoming tainted by the Outside themselves.
And that's where the glasses she had just put on came in. These had been created from the pupils of a Necromancer, carved out while still alive and kept alive until Lord Samuel and her had found a way to integrate them into a pair of glasses without the tissue dying. Even now she had to remind herself of all the heinous acts that particular Necromancer had performed and that they more than justified having his eyes sliced apart while still alive in order to be of use to Heaven.
All of this was a very long-winded way of saying that Kaja put on a pair of glasses and saw through the illusions.
The stars in the sky were not actually red, though the massive thundercloud above them was very real, as was the lightning snaking around inside it. The shimmering surroundings that seemed to be hiding something worse absolutely were. They were windows to the Outside, and nameless creatures even she had never seen lurked just outside, waiting for the Necromancer to drag them into Creation. They were up against a single Necromancer and even so they were surrounded and outnumbered.
And then there was the Necromancer himself. Without the glasses he looked like a young man holding a book. Taking a closer look at the book would reveal that it was bound in human skin, a peeled face locked in an endless scream adorning the front cover. But with the glasses on Kaja saw something different.
Kaja could see through the young man and his body was a kaleidoscope of horrors. His flesh was red, already belonging to the Black Goat even if she hadn't yet claimed her prize. His bones looked jaundiced, property of the King in Yellow, he was a puppet dancing on its own strings. His nervous system, his brain and every firing of neurons pulsing through him was black, the influence of the Crawling Chaos corrupting every thought, every urge, a metaphorical cordyceps urging its host to destroy his own.
And then there was the book. God above, the book.
The Necronomicon, which looked like a book bound in human skin to those whose eyes could not pierce the veil, was a fat, pulsing jellyfish, black as ink at the center and yellow around the edges. He did hold the thing in the palm of his hand, yes, but it had dozens of thin yellow tendrils wrapped around him, coiling like a lover's embrace. They went into his ears, into his nose, into his tear ducts, and Kaja could see them wrapped around his brain. Of course Necromancers wanted to do all the vile rituals the 'book' offered them. It knew just which parts of the brain to stimulate to get them to do it.
This was why she had no compunctions about killing Necromancers. Even if they hadn't, to a one, chosen to betray the world for personal gain, by the time they were strong enough to be dangerous killing them would be a kindness, a way to save them from the horrible things that had taken hold inside them.
“The mirages around us are doors to the Outside,” Kaja said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Keep your eyes peeled, he can likely drag the monsters out there into reality.”
“Very observant,” the young man didn't say. He couldn't say it. He was still chanting his ritual. But even though he didn't speak, everyone heard him. “You must be the Necromancer hunters I've been warned of. Radiant Prism and Acheron Vector, was it?”
“Knowing of us won't do you any good,” Kaja said. “There is only one way this ends.”
“Indeed,” the Necromancer didn't say. “[___]” Whatever he hadn't said it refused to stick to anyone's ears. Which could only mean...
Kaja felt herself being shoved forward and turned around just in time to see Cassie raising his sword to block the jaws of some grotesque parody of a dragon. Its entire head was covered in tiny luminescent feelers like a deep sea creature and its body looked translucent like a jellyfish, though from the way Cassie's blade bent in its maw it was significantly more solid than an actual jellyfish.
A moment later Alexis' spear slammed into the side of the dragon's head and the creature flinched away, then retreated its long neck back into the portal it had come out of.
Before Kaja could breathe a sigh of relief, however, the head of what looked like a giant wolf made exclusively out of teeth and eyeballs broke through reality and attempted to bite Ophelia in two.