The city groaned, crumbling beneath him. Buckler, wand, push-dagger—intact. His Mantis suit had kept him breathing.
Crushed arm. Collapsed lung. Burning guts. Each breath is a battle.
He saw his reflection in a shard of a mirror. Green eyes met him through the visor. He strained his muscular frame. Blood seeped over the mangled suits' remains. Too much of it my own. But I'm not yet broken.
A distant rumble. Deep and deliberate. Then the roar came. Curse this. A wall of force slammed into his chest, stealing his breath. Then the heat—a blistering wave scorched his back. The air itself splintered.
Shockwaves tore through his body, rattling his bones, and forcing a raw gasp from his throat. His knees buckled. Blood hammered in his skull, his vision shuddering with the concussive blast.
Move. Move or die. He staggered forward, breath ragged, lungs heaving against the pressure. He rasped a prayer—half habit, half despair. “Weaver, grant me the strength to sever their threads.” Might die for good this time.
He clenched his teeth as he cast the regeneration spell. At first, it tingled. Then, flesh wrenched itself together, forcing pain through his nerves. He could not sense the feedback from the revival blessing. The city’s necropolis was gone—no revivals, no second chances.
He convulsed. Fire tore through his nerves, flaying muscle and marrow. His breath faltered. Limbs locked. His body was a fortress reduced to ruin. He swallowed the scream, refusing to give it voice. Too much. Too—
No. A thought clawed through the haze. This might push my Regeneration Spell beyond mortal reach—from Constructor to Enforcer. He clung to that thread, wrapped it around himself like a lifeline, and willed his body to mend.
Light flared—an impact, too close. He hit the ground, rolling with the shockwave. Heat washed over him. Two more shells slammed into his last position, splitting the air with concussive force. His combat suit barely held, its dying symbiont writhing against his skin, shrieking its distress.
Edict take them. A competent artillery crew—foul fate. I would have been dead if not for those extra attributes invested in movement.
The ground crumbled beneath him, breaking apart like shattered rock washed by a tide.
He lurched—then froze. Not just the ground. Helacium was gone. Its people were nothing but red smears on sinking ruins. May the Mother rot the Purists' flesh and drag their bones into the earth. A sharp, acrid stench curled through the air—familiar. But the adrenaline flooding his veins left no room for thought.
Gunfire snapped him back to the present. He dove behind a hip-height wall, chest heaving, spitting out bloody phlegm. The artillery thundered again. The Prophet steadied himself. No way out—but if the gunners live, my men will not.
Another shot cracked the air. A hill. One path left. Heal. Flank. Kill. Rally. He grinned, blood and gunpowder sharp on his tongue.
His arm tingled—already mending. Good enough. He ran, breath steadying, the blood pounding through his veins. He forced his body to rebuild his ears—just in time to catch chatter before him as the roaring blood quieted down.
He slowed. Five voices. Four manning the guns. One giving orders. The others? Scattered. Wounded. Dead.
He crept forward, boots crunching over loose brick. Then he jumped. The ruins of the house fell away beneath him. His mind sharpened as he spotted the squad of Mundanes. Two guns. Four corpses.
He grinned as he plummeted down toward his victims. Seems as if the counter-battery units had the same idea. He dropped from the sky, impact jarring his knees. Five Mundanes—scattered, barely standing. Dead men.
The arc spells capacitor whined to life. A soldier turned, mouth opening—too slow. A snap of power. Copper wires surged forward, latching onto armor. The air boiled with static.
Lightning carved through armor, fire veining the metal. Screams drowned in the thunder of munitions cooking off. A figure crumpled near the munitions pile, body spasming. Curses. Should have checked that first.
Amid the wreckage, something small caught his eye. A crushed form, limp and broken—a boy of a few seasons. The Prophet’s throat tightened.
He lunged, his push-dagger flashing. Stunned or dead, it made no difference. They would suffer. He was a healer, after all.
Four strikes, each one deliberate. Joint. Artery. Nerve. Groin. His blade found soft flesh, metal sinking past resistance, warmth spilling over his fingers. Screams wrenched free, raw and jagged. Blood bubbled, gurgling from ruined throats. Feel it. The pain. The fear. Who you serve.
His breath came slow and steady. He adjusted his grip. Another cut. A wet gasp. A body slumped against his leg, twitching. One left. He moved for the last stab.
A spell's heat flashed—his victim’s skull ruptured, spraying bone and brain. The ground trembled. Not from artillery. The air turned brittle. A shadow stretched long over the bodies.
He whirled. "A cruelty befitting a zealot." The words dripped with disdain, each syllable a blade carving judgment from the air.
Kato, Sage of Trebass, descended like a falling star, ice trailing from his robes in spiraling streams. His cloak shimmered, faceted ice swallowing the light, swallowing heat.A staff of black iron rested in his grip, its gems burning red, drowning blue, swallowing black.
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His gaze locked onto the Prophet—dissecting, stripping him to the bone. “The Mother and Worm won’t even glance your way. You don’t exist.” This is the end. He took in the scene.
Helacium had vanished, swallowed whole. Trenches sagged, bodies draped over their edges like broken dolls. Walls jutted out from the sinking ground—ribs of a dying beast.
A corpse lay beneath the Sage, half-buried in dust. Small. Memory pierced through smoke and pain. A small hand, warm and trusting, curled around his finger. A child’s voice, fragile with hope—'You’ll always come back… won’t you?' The voice cut through the carnage sharper than any blade, a cruel whisper from the past.
He closed his eyes and looked to the sky. It's coming.
Laughter crawled up his throat—raw, broken. A giggle, ghost-thin, echoed in his ears. He clutched his gut, gasping. The Sage sighed, unimpressed. “Care to explain, or have the False Gods finally broken you?”
A third of the crater frothed in green fog, the air thick with an acrid sting. Purple veins pulsed within it, shifting in unnatural patterns, whispering their unseen blasphemies. Another glance skyward confirmed it—an uneven grey sphere roiled above, its jagged edges gnawing at the clouds.
The oracle’s caverns had ruptured spilling hallucinations into the minds of those who inhaled. The gods would answer in kind. He whispered. The Sage’s brow furrowed. “Come forth, Watcher, come forth, I call—”
A flick of the wrist. The Prophet’s throat ceased to exist. Blood sprayed across the Prophet’s face before he clamped the arteries shut. “Pathetic. It won’t save you.” The sage surveyed the sundered city with a sad smile. No. Not like this. Edict take you, arrogant blasphemer.
The Prophet’s eyes locked on the sky again. The sphere loomed, now fist-sized, its uneven surface twitching at the edges. Chains hung from the void, swaying in silence. He gurgled blood, throat raw, muscles locking in agony as flesh wrenched itself back together. His ribs ground against each other with every breath. Fire scoured his lungs. Stars burst behind his eyes.
But I will not fall. He breathed in with an excruciating effort. Pain narrowed his world into a black tunnel. I cannot… Then, he released the air. Connected loose flaps of flesh in his throat. Until the airflow made a sound.
"Wahhhhhtccc…" The wheeze of a dying man. Something popped like fire in the distance. Yes. It had been enough. A distant part of his mind, trained to track system metrics, stirred. Might even earn me a fifth-tier resilience deed.
He shuddered as the battlefield was wrenched away, like a cloth ripped from the world. The scent hit first—vanilla, thick and cloying, pressing against his senses. The air vibrated, wrong, layered with whispers that slithered through his skull.
Thought unraveled. Then the eyes opened. Sage Kato cursed as the world convulsed. Eyes erupted from every surface, surging and churning. Shimmering tentacles bled into existence, curling like ink through silk. The air warped, pulsing as if reality itself drew breath.
His jaw creaked. Painless. Inevitable. Healed.
I COME TO WITNESS.
The words struck his mind like a drowning wave, dragging him under. He shuddered—helpless, exultant.
The Sage clenched his opulent staff. Ice crusted his robes, cracking with every breath. Kato stumbled back, ice splintering from his robe. “No! The Compact—You have no right!” Somehow, through shredded nerves and broken breath, the Prophet managed a grin. His voice, was raw, a whisper more than sound. "Look up."
The sky stretched—too thin as chains plunged earthward. The Fist’s Edict loomed. Doom, for all of us. But a Purist Sage will fall beside me. A fitting end. Peace settled over his mind. Or maybe just blood loss.
A choked sound tore from Kato’s lips. His knees buckled. His staff clattered against the stone. The Prophet barely felt the tentacles slither over him—a farewell touch. Yes, old friend. Our last meeting. He thought at the Eldritch creature—once his patron, now powerless in the face of an edict.
YOUR SERVICE WAS SATISFACTORY, THIRD.
The cold decree curled his grin wider. It feels generous today.
The sphere clenched into a fist. Chains scraped against unseen metal, a sound deeper than thunder, heavier than time. The air itself seemed to shrink away. Then silence.
The city gasped its last breath as the fist unfurled. Its fingers stretched wide, swallowing the crater beneath its shadow. Chains plummeted—iron rain, deafening and absolute.
The Sage shattered the moment with a raw, defiant cry. He tore a dagger free—its blade wavered, slipping in and out of focus. He drove it toward his own temple. A breath from oblivion. The tentacles hardened—chains snapped taut, halting the dagger’s plunge.
The Sage convulsed, a raw, inhuman scream shattering the air. The chains wrenched him upward, stretching, breaking—until he dangled, limp, above the broken stones.
The Prophet coughed blood. The Fist suppresses magic. Of course. That is its due.
SATISFY YOUR REVENGE.
ONE LAST BOON.
He forced himself upright, fire ripping through his gut, his body driven by little more than pain and will. The dagger waited. He seized it, staggered toward the screaming Sage, and halted—savored the offering, blade trembling in his grip.
Their eyes met. Dread and anticipation clashed. "This? This is nothing compared to what you deserve." Kato choked out a defiant growl. Right, die like the dog you are.
The prophet ripped the robes aside, revealing a Mantis suit—like his own, but crimson. I wonder what mutagens it holds. The tentacles acted unbidden. They slithered over the armor, peeling it away like rotten flesh.
He lifted his gaze one last time. The chains fell. The Edict’s doom was here. Time was gone. He had only the blade. The Prophet pressed the blade against the Sage’s stomach. He felt the tremor, the shallow gasps, the fading fight in the man’s breath.
Silent tears streaked his face, but there was no plea. No excuse. He took a deep breath. And drove the dagger in, slow, unrelenting. Twisted. The Sage shuddered, a hollow whine escaping. "For them," The prophet muttered. Was he the one behind the order? No matter. He dies for it.
He let himself fall, sinking into the writhing embrace of tentacles. Above, iron rained down in sheets. The Edict will devour everything. The Sage. The dagger. The ruins.
Then chains tore him apart, piece by piece. Cold swallowed him. Darkness. Stillness. A void without end.
One last thought surfaced. Preserve us, Champion.
The void answered in silence.
A flicker. A ripple. The Watcher unraveled, dissolving like ink in water.
Data streams flickered, aligning. No aberrations detected. A package crossed the firewall. Cleared security. It calculated which OTP key to use.
The message unfurled.
THIRD PROPHET STATUS:
LOST
CAUSE:
FELL INTO JURISDICTION OF INTERNAL SECURITY SYSTEM
NO SIGNIFICANT VARIABLES ALTERED.
INSTRUCTIONS FROM CULTURAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:
OBJECT CLASS:
CHAMPION
TIER FIVE STATS
DIVINE BLESSINGS: THREE
PERMISSIONS ACQUIRED
INITIATE ASSESSMENT OF SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL INSERTION COORDINATES
The Watcher could do nothing but comply.
It found a location. A time. A champion. Aaron Blackwell. From Earth’s past.
His personality was compatible with key players. He would do.
“Three are the Prophets, their warnings ignored.”
“Two are the Champions, laid low by the sword.”
“One is the Angel, its vengeance adored.”
“And he world twists by the Edict’s accord.”
– Children’s Rhyme
As always, this chapter was edited using the mighty Infomancy Analyst Spell called ChatGPT.
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