Half the tunnel lights up with heretical light, its rapidly swirling power tearing apart all I hold dear. It strips the tunnel of anything not redstone and I weave around it. My feet twist into position, my body lowering around her overreach. The air pops, my arms locking around the arch-traitor.
Her magic slips around her, cocooning herself away from me. She pops out into the air, smashing against the distant wall and spitting blood. She gnashes her teeth, her ruined hair shining bright as the entire width of the immense tunnel fills up. With the depth of a Valkinvar's magic backing it up, I come to a stop. I throw myself into the magic, punching and punching, each blow driving my body one step forward.
I keep ongoing, going and going. Her magic swells to fill in for the lost space, her desperation so eager to claw me every which way. My senses see her where my eyes can not, and she flees. The magic loses its controller, and it erupts with nowhere to go but back and around. The tunnel both ways lights up.
The artefacts assure me of how empty they are and I rush back after her. She meets me half-way, her staff alight with the four colours of her magical mastery. I drop down into a slide, going under her swing as it sparks the redstone walls. Her lightning magic as responsible as her disrupted wind magic is.
She perfectly spins to meet me, thrusting and swinging away. She keeps me on the back foot, keeping up the attack with area denying spells and focused edges. Where her blows land are ineffective, not enough to harm even the meekest divine pewter. Let alone Waionr's very war-bronze.
Torchlight starts to disrupt the tunnel and her overwhelming emerald presence. I spare a glance that way and look towards the slaughter grounds of the quarry. The Ordoar Ammimpaurst have lost many sisters and brothers to the traitors. But, even in their labour-induced exhaustion, they've crushed all that have tried to come against them.
It's spectacular, the timing of our arrival. They've just finished and the last of them is racing up the lift to the surface join the fight. I dodge one more thrust from the arch-traitor and grab her badge of office. We wrestle on the ground and break into the air.
She snatches it away from me, her desperate attack throwing me right to the quarry ground. I rise through the shattered timber and rush for my closer than ever goal. Cenotaph beckons me and all the darkness vanishes. Unondsburic Emerald blazes past me, arch-traitor's fingers outstretched as far as they can go.
I change course, slamming right into her and knocking her aside. Her magic sends her back my way, an impressive weight keeping my hands occupied. She keeps on pushing and pushing. External and internal-magic all working as one in the effort. Her roars and screams keep bouncing back our way, physically shaking the air.
Everything loose and nailed down flies about, breaking into an unending storm of splinters. Metal, wood, clothes, bodies — it doesn't matter. It all bathes in the four colours of the arch-traitor, becoming a truly fearsome weapon. The debris follows her blows, refusing to back down unless it somehow gets caught in my armour.
I throw my arms out, drawing out my own spell making potential as much as I can. The arch-traitor matches my movements, forcing me around and away. She backs up, her magic unrelenting in its efforts to destroy me. It washes about, taking on aquatic inspiration and it floods right back, dense as lava and teethed with lightning and upside-down tornadoes.
I flip back across the air, my Valkinvar-Imdvarce training shooting me back down. The sea of arcane power parts and I wade through it, all to the esoteric plans of the artefact on my head. The greaves keep me marching as if nothing is there, their seemingly ceremonial protection more than deceiving me. The arch-traitor's magic flickers, too much focus on Cenotaph.
It flickers again and my sonic boom washes back the power. I shoot over and ahead, rolling right by her. She turns, screaming with all she has and she runs for the great-axe. She jabs and thrusts, sending out tracking spells and aimed ones all the same as edged ones. Her steps turn explosive and she leaps ahead.
I intercept, knocking her aside and kicking off of her. My hand grabs onto Cenotaph, the beauty and glow of its chamber only finally coming into view. Though the candles and more are gone, destroyed. The redstone carvings made with it are still around. Even its whetstone-like construct to help with the making of redstone-dusted tools.
I come to a halt, watching as the arch-traitor refines herself even through the bone-shaking terror. Her magic hones its edge along her staff and I hoist the great-axe closer to my head. I dare not touch its edge, but I can't help but feel entranced by the flat-face of the double-headed blade. It's...
Glowing.
Words, letters. Of all faiths, peoples and lands. My touch, however, helps it narrow its focus, and the blackened bronze ticks a letter into view. G. For Gemorli... The Crown of Conceptual war explains to me.
A letter a second. As the name fills out, instant death for the one its strikes well and true. My grip tightens and I rush ahead, time seeming so painfully slow all of a sudden. I keep swinging and trying and the arch-traitor matches me blow for blow.
She knows. She knows Cenotaph's secret and she cannot bear to see her own name. The name of a traitor to all Valkinvar. My grip switches and spins, masterfully combing over the great-axe's shaft even with my penchant for swordsmanship.
I come around wide, aiming for her legs, and she leaps and flies. She comes overhead, thrusting away with spells firing about. The axe spins, the edge now skyward. I heave and throw it, coming back down to cleave effortlessly into the quarry. I relinquish the weapon, avoiding a blow, and come back to grab it, sliding it up and out.
She dodges, a trailing lock of her emerald quarter of hair falling away. Sweat continues to soak away at her features and I chase her up onto one of the mined out walkways. She keeps her distance, poking and prodding at my defences while I expand said walkway. Rock dribbles away, the touch of divine power moulding All-That-Remains to its weakest state.
We quickly reach the lift out of the quarry, and she leaps away. My blow knocking down one of the support columns for the entire quarry. The invincible rock holds its own, but the strain echoes above it all. I leap after Gemorli, meeting her with blow after blow. She keeps on sending spells at me, forcing the flat of the blade her way.
Almost as if to tell the time... A second letter has yet to form.
Her magic keeps on spilling out, her reserves impossibly swollen with prodigal talent. She combos a series of blows on my limp grip, knocking the blade aside and going straight for my face. I lean into the motion, rocketing down and then jaggedly going about the quarry. I meet her blow for blow, too much redstone joining in with the destruction.
She keeps throwing it at me, the divinely touched rock more than enough to draw my blood. A shard cuts across my biceps, reminding me so dearly of what I still am. Mortality is the gift I hold. Immortality is for gods alone and even men of old like Thunder died.
Gemorli's magic webs across the quarry, netting me still for but an impossible fraction of however much of this second remains. I twist my way of her power, running along the quarry as she gives herself to the hunt. Winds carry the redstone shards and debris. Fire heats them high into the air and lightning batter ups. The shock attracting them into cannonballs and bigger.
Sapphire water continues to flood the quarry, washing in from wherever the arch-traitor can fit new places of her magic. The entirety of Thunlanann-Jherikra is within her aura and yet, it's all here. All here and coming for me with such vicious desire. Geysers of steel-cutting, crystalline clouds pop on out. Each crack in the redstone I make only making new hoses.
One catches me, a large, pointed boulder dulling on my chest-piece. It crashes me against a wall of spikes, much of it drawing my blood. A gnash my teeth in pain and it all comes for me. Even the bits trapped before begin to dig in, the force of her magic pushing it against my skin. Trapping it in my very own movement.
I shoot forward, bringing Cenotaph up and wide. I slam it right through her magic, almost cutting it down across her front. She backs up, her magic now giving chase. I keep after her, cutting her off at every moment and chance.
Her screams come from the front. Her magic roars behind. But this is no rock and a hard place. It's mortal flesh on the chopping block for War's axe!
I swing hard and wide, lodging the blade right into the far wall. She shoots up the lift shoot and I launch after her, not even dislodging the axe. It drags out a small mountain with it and it all joins the water. Though my magic gives the impression of Mach cones and more, we've gone too far beyond the speed of sound. We have been from the very start.
The Orbital-Halo meets us in the open and the Great Bridge and all of Thurnmourer-Thunlanann does, too!
I keep on swinging after her, my war-bronze decorated body drawing as much attention as the arch-traitor's magic does. My eyes scan the skies and so much of it is free of traitors. The artefacts tell me they're falling back, as far back as the Valkinvar Gate itself. They're holding their ground, waiting for the arch-traitor to back them up.
"DAMN YOU VALKINVAR-IMDVARCE VAPOOLIAR!" she roars with all the contempt she can muster. Perhaps even respect for such a foe as I am, clad like this...
The entire Redstone Canyon lights up with all four colours of her magic. It fills out. Emerald, gold, sapphire and ruby. It all shoots up, from actually as far as the northern tips of the Redstone Canyon, to the very edges of the Dragon Coast itself. It all washes up for us and rises, an impenetrable wall of the four colours blocking out the day itself.
It comes for me, heading for the glowing mistress of such power and focusing down her staff. She roars, recoiling away with her magic as it continues to flow to her and at me. The artefacts beckon me to block, to plant the blade, shaft first, into the Great Bridge.
I do so, letting the unharmed bridge gain a new scar as all the Valkinvar retreat a great distance. The cries of millions come from the other half of the city. Such terrifying might, an unimaginable feat. I go along and along, kneeling against the power as it continues to build up.
I blink in confusion, watching the axe finally gains its second letter.
Ge.
I look to the chestplate, my eyes widening as far as they can go as it speaks far quicker than any mortal possibly can. All this power is coming for me and yet there are lives already lost around us. The innocent and war-absolved, Valkinvar loyalists and even odd traitors.
Par'tryont shifts about the ruined temple complex, coming into the barest view in the flickering arcane. He roars, he demands I move. Waionr speaks through him and a shimmering image of a bronze-tanned man stands at the lion's side. His hand in the beast's mane out of love as much as it is control.
"Save my city." War himself orders and I roar in acknowledgement, twisting the blade's edge to face the magic. The caught-up redstone slides along my flesh, knocking even more away as it constantly humbles me. Through the hissing, I rise, the great-axe reeling back as I aim to swing up.
I do so, launching myself right for the arch-traitor as my magic spreads out across hers. The tyranny of the gods is my ally, and it drives the blow home. Her screams grow ever clearer and I hear metal creak. My eyes open for her to see, and her life remains in hers.
The shield-dome of Thurn's Forge sparks and shimmers. The power of the divine forcing us against it as much as the Zaphadren-Valkinvar's might does. I keep on pressing and pressing, hearing it crack where not even a hundred-thousand airships could break it before.
It shatters far and wide, and the spell ends as we flip out into the open. Sparkles rain down the black abyss of the Redstone Canyon, and we smash down onto the repairing barrier. The three loyal Points of the Compass race across the abyss, able to keep up with us at this speed. Their magic already seeping into the citizens of the city.
I turn towards the arch-traitor, not letting time come to its senses even now...
"Hear me now... YOU DIE!" she roars, not even her terror allowing her to believe the truth. Even as the mother of all hurricanes truly blackens the sky. I look it over, from one horizon to the other. Into the Thunderstricken Wastes, towards the holy secret of Anvil-Peak. To the very Seventh Line that drove me to come back to the war...
The place that led to now, with me donned in the armour of War himself... The fate of all Valkinvar resting on my shoulders. I look back to the arch-traitor, the eye of the storm such an arrogantly small and focused thing around her. All that shines from the heavens must come by her. The world, our world...
All-That-Remains.
Sapphire rain, as majestic as the kings of the Grand-Kingdom of Ibenorocco are. Fireballs as vicious as any siege of the Fire-Mountain's sacred ground by the noble houses of Errakur. Golden bolts strike away, their power just daring a continent to fall apart on their watch. All to the backdrop of overwhelming Unondsburic Emerald winds.
A smirk comes to my lips as the shield-dome fizzles and cracks against the power. I reassure my grip on Cenotaph and kneel into the motion. A Mach cone appears instantly above my head, as a halo crowns any head. A motionless ebb, wounding sound so torturously. Rise, shooting up into the sky, ready to take the arch-traitor's head.
Her head.
Gem-