The beast before him, the Heart of Redgate, stood silent for a single heartbeat.
Then it screamed.
"GAHHHHH!!!! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT!!! GLORY...GLORY!!"
A warped cathedral bell rang in its throat, a metallic shriek that rattled the stones beneath Alaric's feet. The tower quaked.
The Heart charged.
Its two cleavers cut the air, leaving bloody red crescents behind. The monster moved faster than its bloated body should have allowed — a lunging blur of robes, teeth, and gnashing metal.
Alaric didn't retreat.
He advanced.
His spear snapped forward, the tip dragging an arc of lightning that tore through the dust cloud. The first cleaver met his strike—
CLANG!
The entire rooftop flashed white-blue. The impact sent shockwaves scattering across the tower's rim. Tiles shattered.
The Heart staggered back, robes whipping in the stormwind. Its golden mask tilted, as if studying him.
Then it attacked again.
Three limbs unfolded from its back. Skeletal appendages ending in barbed fingers. They clawed for Alaric while the cleavers came down in a crossing cut meant to split him into three.
Alaric slid low.
Lightning burst behind him, propelling him like a launched arrow. The cleavers slammed down where he stood moments prior, carving twin trenches into the tower's roof.
He rose under the monster's guard.
WHRRRRM—BOOM!
The spear punched upward, point-first, exploding against the underside of the Heart's ribs. The force shook the creature's entire frame, hurling it backward. It crashed into the bell tower's great pillar, stone cracking as dust plumed around it.
But the Heart did not fall.
With a convulsion, its spine rearranged. Limbs bent the wrong way. Its torso folded, joints snapping into new angles. It pushed itself upright like a deranged spider dragging itself across broken tiles.
"You keep telling me to repent? Were you a priest?" Alaric asked.
"GLORY!! SUFFER!!"
Alaric scratched the back of his hand. "I guess you can't understand me, huh?"
A cleaver cut through the air at him. Alaric dropped low, the pillar in the cleaver's path was cut clean.
"Tch," Alaric clicked his toungue, he spun his entire body and directed all that force into a lightning-charged punch. His fist met the Heart's mask. Lightning crackled and with a shockwave that shook the air, the Heart was sent flying.
CRASH!
The beast cratered the house it landed on. For a second it was quiet and then it stood up. It's mask was cracked, showing the twisted face partially underneath. One large red eye surrounded by smaller eyes stared up at Alaric.
"SUFFER FOR GLORY!!"
It screamed, pointing it's cleavers at Alaric.
Alaric smiled and leapt towards the beast. The beast did the same, leaping upwards at Alaric. They met in a powerful clash.
_____________________________________
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Adam didn't dare look back.
He and Brutus sprinted through the dead city, each footstep echoing among the broken walls.
Another blast shook the ground.
A tower of blue lightning stabbed upward like a jagged spear thrown by the heavens.
Adam nearly stumbled.
"…Alaric…"
Tani clung to his shoulder, scales bristled, throat clicking anxiously.
Brutus wheezed out, "T-that light… i-is he—?"
"He is fighting the damn Heart!! He is really fighting it!" Brutus was in awe. Adam on the other hand was somewhat mortified.
'Power...such great power. What type of person..'
A second blast rolled over the rooftops. A chain of distant buildings caved as if flattened by an invisible giant.
Tani squeaked and buried himself into Adam's collar.
'...Did I meet?' he finished his thought. He was somewhat terrified, but the emotion that overtook his mind wasn't fear. It was excitement.
Brutus stumbled after him, clutching the holy symbol at his chest. "T-that strength. Amazing. Amazing!!"
He grinned.
Adam ran faster. 'I wonder if I can ever become like him. A hero.'
Suddenly, Brutus brought his hands together, the clap broke Adam's line of thought.
"The hell?!"
"O-oh! Sorry..."
_______________________________________
_______
Lightning burst outward from Alaric's body, crackling across the rooftops in jagged veins. The Heart's cleavers spun like twin guillotines, sparks raining as they clashed with the spear in a blur too fast to track.
Each strike echoed like a cathedral collapsing.
They descended, locked together, slamming into a street in an explosion of dust and shattered stone.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling down every alley.
Alaric hit first, sliding back on one knee.
The Heart landed in a twisted crouch, joints snapping loudly as its body rearranged once more into some nightmare posture.
Its cracked mask hung crooked.
The single red eye glared with manic devotion.
"RE—PENT!! RE—PENT!! SUFFER FOR—"
"Shut. Up."
The Heart convulsed.
Suddenly it vomited forth a gush of thick, black blood—tar-like and bubbling. It streamed from its mouth, then its eyes, then its nostrils, pouring down its robes in viscous ropes.
"That's a bit unusual....I think," Alaric tilted his head at the strange behavior.
The Heart twitched violently, its body ballooning in odd pulses as black sludge poured out.
A wet, rattling sound escaped it — halfway between a sob and a bell toll.
The monster spasmed, its cracked mask splitting further down the center.
Through the fracture, a stretched, half-melted face pressed outward, one enormous red eye rolling madly, smaller ones orbiting it like frantic insects trapped in flesh.
"GLORY—GLORY—GLO—GLO—GLLLL—"
The voice warped mid-word, disintegrating into gurgling static.
Alaric's brows rose.
"You really like saying that word, huh? Guess that happens when you get infected with the Scourge,"
The Heart's limbs convulsed.
Bones cracked outward.
Its back split.
And from the spine —
new arms
like wet, screaming branches, sprouted.
Each ended in a warped cleaver fused into bone.
The monster's shriek became a tidal wave of broken bells.
"Is that what you were holding in?"
The Heart launched.
All the cleavers descended at once.
Alaric stepped into the center of the kill zone.
Lightning blossomed from his skin like a second body, a storm-silhouette wrapping around his frame. Sparks danced from his hair, flickering like fireflies caught in a hurricane.
The cleavers hit the lightning barrier.
KRA-THOOM!!
A shock pulse blasted outward, sending dust exploding in all directions.
Alaric's boots slid an inch.
Just an inch.
Then he shoved forward with one hand.
"Let's see if this works."
A burst of raw force, pure, compressed electricity, detonated from his palm.
The shockwave shattered every window on the street.
In that split second, Alaric poured out two streams of mana into the Heart's body. Then those two streams collided into one another, creating a violent force.
The Heart's entire front half convulsed violently, its limbs blown backward as if caught in a hurricane. The area in which Alaric had struck him cratered and shattered like fleshy stone.
Still, it didn't stop.
Still, it screamed.
"SUFFERRR—SUFFERRRR—SUFFEEERRR—!!"
Alaric kicked off the ground and shot forward.
The spear spun in his hands, lightning braiding around the obsidian shaft until it glowed white-hot.
The Heart's entire body crumpled around the spear, blasted through two walls and pinned to a third before sliding off the end and collapsing like a sack of rotten organs.
Its cleavers scraped the stone.
Its limbs twitched once.
Then it convulsed again, shrieking as more tar-blood erupted from its throat.
"Are you dead yet? Oh, right. You can't die normally. I have to beat the regret out of you," Alaric smirked. 'Am I taking on some of the Elder's personality? I really don't want to....' he wondered for just a second.
And just then a cleaver shot at him with brutal force. He barely managed to block the attack with his spear, he was sent flying a dozen houses down. Blood trickled from his brow, leaking into his eye.
The Heart stood back up. It's large exposed red eye glowed brightly and menacingly as it aproached Alaric.