Seraphine
High in the roiling skies above the battlefield, Kai was on the brink. The last Messenger descended with terrifying speed, wings slicing the wind, talons aimed to rend flesh, beak gaping like a jagged black maw. He had struck down one Messenger already, wounded another, and avoided two more, but this last one bore down with relentless precision.
However then, an arrow flew upon the approaching messenger and exploded once it sunk itself into one of the messengers limbs.
Then, a streak of motion caught his eye. An arrow whistled past him and slammed into the Messenger's limb, the impact detonating into a burst of shockwaves. The creature shrieked, its talons flailing, thrown off balance.
Kai squinted upward and saw Seraphine, mounted on her serpentine nightmare echo, slicing through the sky like a streak of determination. Her hair whipped around her face, bow drawn, quiver nearly empty but every arrow loosed with deadly precision. Her mount twisted and dove, circling the Messenger like a predator sizing up prey.
Seraphine released arrow after arrow, some mundane, some the memory. Each arrow hissed through the air, cutting the wind, striking flesh, forcing the Messenger to recoil. Kai met her assault from below, their movements in perfect, unspoken coordination. Together, they began to push the creature back, making its attack look almost… hesitant.
But the Messenger was cunning. It lunged for Seraphine's mount, beak snapping, wings thrashing in a violent attempt to shred the creature's fragile membrane. The mount twisted, talons gripping the air, but the Messenger's strike grazed its wing. Panic surged, one misstep, one tear in the wings, and they would plummet.
Then, a flash. Something faster than thought tore across the sky, colliding with the Messenger's beak with a sharp, metallic clang. The Messenger screeched, veering off course just enough to give Seraphine the opening she needed.
Drawing her bow with practiced ease, she let an arrow fly. It split midair into five smaller, glowing shafts that plunged into the Messenger's thick flesh. At first, nothing happened, the arrows sank but didn't wound as she had expected. Then, in a violent eruption of force, each arrow detonated, sending shockwaves tearing through the air.
The Messenger was thrown back, wings flailing, screeching as it plummeted toward the dark whirlpool of the battlefield below.
[You have slain a fallen…]
Seraphine's chest heaved. "Holy-" She couldn't even finish her exclamation before another Messenger came diving toward them. She leaned forward on her mount, eyes narrowing, assessing the next threat with deadly precision. Her hands moved almost on instinct, summoning the memory arrow.
The wind screamed past her ears, carrying the stench of blood, ash, and ozone from the lingering shockwaves. She twisted in midair, loosing the arrow, and for a moment the battlefield below seemed to pause.
Kai caught her gaze for a heartbeat, a silent nod passing between them. In that moment, she felt it: the pulse of the battle, the rhythm of the chaos, and the sharp, exhilarating edge of survival.
From one point, Kai shot the Blood Arrow, from the other side of the messenger, Seraphine shot the arrow that disassembled into five smaller ones.
***
On the blood-soaked battlefield, a small hill of writhing monsters moved and shifted, every abomination lusting for the flesh buried beneath. Their claws scraped the coral, shrieking in anticipation, but beneath their feet, one figure descended with absolute command.
The Blasphemer appeared among them, the air around him bending with the weight of his presence. His face was streaked with blood, though no wounds marred his skin, giving the illusion that he had devoured one of the nightmare creatures on his way down. His garments fluttered in the wind, elaborate and untamed, as he weaved through attacks with impossible precision. The ground seemed to bend to his will, guiding his steps, or rather, eliminating the need for them.
In his hand, a translucent saber glowed a pale blue. Each swing cut through the horde effortlessly, yet no blood spilled; the wounds froze the instant they opened, the victims suspended in an icy tableau of death. Every monster that lunged toward him found itself shattered before contact, as if he had read the very thought of their attack.
Around him, a dozen abominations moved, their eyes ignited with green flames. They obeyed his will without hesitation, attacking his enemies with precision that mirrored his own. Every strike was exact, every movement terrifyingly efficient. The battlefield, once chaos incarnate, became a deadly dance orchestrated by a single hand.
Some of the Sleepers recoiled in fear at his presence, the uncanny control over the abominations unsettling their minds. But the members of the church, seeing their lord descend into the fray, were electrified. Excitement and awe rippled through their ranks. They charged forward, their cries mingling with the distorted howls of the abominations, refusing to fall back. Even the more random Sleepers, who had been fighting for mere survival, felt the spark of hope ignite inside them, spurring them to action.
A hissing sound cut through the air as the icy blade struck again, and the wind carried with it the metallic scent of blood suspended in frost. One Sleeper, eyes wide, whispered to himself, trembling:
"How many aspect's does he have?"
The Blasphemer advanced, unbroken, untouchable, a singular force that promised the nightmare horde would no longer dictate the flow of battle. Around him, the tide of war began to shift, even as screams of the fallen echoed across the battlefield.
For the first time in hours, the Sleepers felt it: the impossible was now possible.
***
Veynar
Veynar stood up to knees while gritting his teeth. A familiar deer had walked up to him, it seemed too beautiful at his moment. Around the deer, there were many sleepers that were fighting against the horde of abominations, and overwhelming them for the first time with Changing Star's command and The Deer's support.
Veynar touched the deer, and felt his wounds mend themselves, his stamina came back to him, making him feel like he was alive once again.
"You saved me once again, my friend." He patted the deer's snout, and the deer happily accepted it. "Would you like a drink?"
The deer then stopped accepting pats and turned away from Veynar, which made him laugh.
And then, he sipped from his alcohol, dismissing the memory, he walked towards the horde with a mad grin on his face.
It was time to butcher some nightmare creatures.
***
The Dreamer Army became much smaller, but still held on. In fact, it was slowly pushing the horde of the Nightmare Creatures back.
As the line of archers ran out of arrows and ammunition, those who had no suitable Memories to replace them summoned their melee weapons and joined the vanguard, reinforcing its dwindling numbers. The Artisans had done the same, abandoning their siege engines and throwing themselves into the crucible of combat.
The nightmare horde, meanwhile, had depleted its seemingly endless reserve of fresh bodies. With no more abominations crossing the bridges of crimson coral and lunging forward to join the massacre, its mass was slowly growing thinner.
With Changing Star and The Blasphemer serving as the unassailable core of the human formation and rallying fighters around them, with Effie and Veynar stalling the entire horde to give the rest of the humans time to mend the breaches in their defense lines, for a few minutes, the flow of the battle froze in fragile balance.
The two opposing forces seemed to finally be evenly matched.
No, the humans were dominating the horde of abominations.
"Come on! Hold strong!"
"Lit yourself on fire!"
"Follow the Immortal Flame!"
"Hail to the Blasphemer!"
As several people yelled, feeling that the fate of this battle was about to be decided, a gust of wind suddenly blew over the battlefield, bringing with it the smell of salt.
The light dimmed slightly.
Looking west, they suddenly stumbled and froze for a few moments. Their faces became as white as snow.
…Behind the Crimson Spire, an impenetrable wall of darkness was slowly devouring the world. It was approaching the battlefield with terrifying speed, numerous bolts of lightning illuminating its furious depths.
A storm was coming.
As it drew closer and closer, the surface of the black water that swirled around the island of the cyclopean tower suddenly trembled.
And then, it began to crawl upward.
First slowly, and then faster and faster, the black whirlpool swelled and moved forward, swallowing the crimson coral meter after a meter, its dark vastness rising and seething.
The cursed sea was coming to devour the Forgotten Shore.
The monsters that guarded the Crimson Spire, however, did not react in the same way as the usual Nightmare Creatures would have.
Instead of scurrying away to find shelter, they howled and shrieked in eerie triumph, and then crashed into the Dreamer Army with renewed fury.
Expressions of terror and despair appeared on people's faces. But there was nowhere to retreat, nowhere to run.
All they could do was stand and fight.
Even when the ground beneath their feet became slippery and slick, covered by a thin film of black water.
Even when the water continued rising.
***
On the bloody battlefield, the remains of the Dreamer Army were besieged from all sides. They continued to fight with doomed determination, abandoning all fear and doubt. Even though the black water was already high enough to reach their knees, the humans continued to resist the horde of the frenzied Nightmare Creatures, slaying three for every one of them killed by the terrifying abominations.
…As more and more of them fell, forever disappearing under the cold surface of the cursed sea, the black water kept rising.
***
High in the skies above the battlefield, Kai and Seraphine were flying through the nets of lightning, dodging the attacks of two relentless Spire Messengers. The terrible monsters were infinitely faster and more powerful than the two of them, but had to rely on their wings to propel their massive bodies through the air.
As Seraphine's mount dodged and evaded the onslaught of deadly attacks, Seraphine pelted the messengers precise shots of her bow. However, none were as lucky as her first one: the shockwaves never landed on vital points.
But she did not care, their job was to stall the heralds from attacking the humans beneath, for as long as they could.
Flying through the storm, struggling against the crushing pressure of the wind and dodging bolts of lightning, Seraphine gritted her teeth and kept doing just that.
***
The surviving Sleepers desperately fought the advancing horde of monsters. The black water had already reached their waists, making it hard to move. The army was trying to retreat up the slope of the crimson coral, but the pursuing sea was much faster than them.
"Mount the enthralled! Kill them once we are safe!"
Aether shouted at the top of his lungs. Repeating the sentence endlessly, some heard him, some did not.
Changing Star was still slaying one monster after another, her radiance only growing brighter in the tenebrous hell of the furious storm. Raindrops were evaporating as they touched her brilliant skin, its incandescence making even arching bolts of lightning seem pale and bleak.
Unlike her, Aether did not have much to do due to the lack of physical augmentations of his aspect. He simply helped the deer control the enthralled.
…Suddenly, an almost imperceptible ripple ran across the surface of the black water. A gust of cold wind blew over the Forgotten Shore, sending a shiver running through the hearts of countless creatures.
***
The whole Forgotten Shore trembled.
Out on the battlefield, the surviving humans froze for a second, startled by the sudden change that rippled through the world.
The furious onslaught of the wind died down. The torrential flood of rain stopped. The continuous, deafening roar of the thunderstrikes grew quiet.
The terrible storm seemed to have ended as suddenly as it had appeared, dissipating into nothingness like a fragile mirage.
Even the Nightmare Creatures attacking them stumbled and paused for a moment, staring at the sky.
…And then, the dark veil of clouds was broken by a blindingly bright ray of sunlight.
As soon as it happened, the restless black water stopped rising, and then flowed in reverse.
The cursed sea was retreating.
However then, Aether felt nauseates, falling down onto the ground. Around him some creatures swayed too.
"The sun is attacking us!"
High above, Seraphine and Kai.. somehow won.
The messengers fell to the ground. However, the runes did not appear in front of them.
"We.. did not kill.." Somehow forming thoughts were getting harder. Then a rune appeared in front of her.
[Your echo has been destroyed.]
"Huhhh??"
Seraphine was plummeting down the sky.
***
Aether had regained his footing with the help of Veynar.
A moment later, a clear ringing of a silver bell spread across the Labyrinth, rolling over the remains of the Dreamer Army.
"Sunny!"
Aether pointed at the source of the sound.
"Everyone! Mount the enthralled! Kill them once we have reached the shadows! They are unstable" Nephis commanded the army.