B4 Chapter 521: Tyrannomachia, Finale

Cosmic fury bombarded the frontier, whiting out Rieker’s vision. He watched it silently. One moment, there was nothing, the next there was a strip of void and dozens detonations.

He’d seen war magic many times in his career, but this.

Flicking his eyes to the boy, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit of a chill. Unleashing something like that, in an instant? It wasn’t normal — let alone the fact he could do it and still be so blasted good with his sword.

A godsdamned monster, that’s what he was. All of them, really. He’d been fighting and warring for decades, and sixty years later he’d clawed his way to the three-forties.

Two years. That’s how long it had taken his little batch of psychopaths to catch up to him. He had a hundred bloody levels on them, and they kept pace easily.

Rieker clenched his jaw, remembering the Tyrant’s passing jibe. Once Great. How true it was. It might not chafe as much as it once would have, he’d taken this post for a reason — he needed a godsdamned break. Not that he’d gotten one. A bare handful of years into his and Ro’s sabbatical and he’d gotten a pair of freaks turning up at his doorstep.

Taking a deep breath, he felt the nauseous burn of the Tyrant’s energy lingering on his chest. It sapped at his strength, wore him down in much the same way its Authority did. Fighting back against it felt like strapping an anvil to his back, but he’d suffered worse.

Kaius and the others seemed barely affected, their own aspects helping them fight back. Once great, indeed.

It was strange, to wake up and discover that the world had left you behind.

He spun the hammers in his hands. Hektran and Detmenkoz, gifts from his last foray into the Drozags. He found the weight of the dwarven steel comforting. Two decades, and they had yet to fail him.

Tightening his grip, Rieker readied himself. Their fight wasn’t over — the blood didn’t stop flowing until the System chimed. The Tyrant still lived, somewhere in that chaotic deluge.

Silently, he fell into formation. Kaius and Porkchop took the centre; as much as it galled. They were the anchors of their fight with their resistance to the Tyrant. He took the left flank, Arc took the right — spread wide, to catch their foe should it try to break through and reach their back line.

The dust settled, and the light dimmed. Cratered and broken, the dead ground had been flashed black, with the odd orange ember glimmering in the soil. At the centre of the devastation a smoking form rose. The Tyrant was slow, but the steadiness of its movements sent a chill down his spine. It was broken. Great rents had been torn in its flesh, and its black skin was rapidly painted yellow from the blood that poured from its wounds. One of its arms hung limp, its shoulder twisted unnaturally.

Not one iota of its speed or grace had been lost to the wounds. It was flowing granite and liquid steel; indefatiguable.

There was no moment of dramatic pause. The second their target was visible, they burst into motion as a cohesive group.

Rieker made it a dozen strides before the Tyrant ignited into a conflagration, and a mountain landed on his back. Authority. It was incomparable to what he’d felt before, banishing the very world until there was only a bone-cracking pressure, and the burning totem that stood across the field.

Kaius and Porkchop made it a few steps further, before they too staggered. Rieker could see them straining, quaking as they forced themselves into a slow jog — heading right for the Tyrant.

Hells. He was getting too old for this shit. Desperate battles and last stands were a young man’s game.

Kaius raised his hand shakily, a Nail snapping towards the Tyrant. It swayed, stumbling to the side — a hair too slow. The spell slammed home into its ribs.

The sight of it made Rieker’s heart beat just a little faster. Could they actually do it?

“A well executed ploy. Laudable, even,” it whispered, sound carried right to Rieker’s ears.

It sounded genuine. He’d put down some mad bastards, but this hellspawn was right up there.

Feeling a vein throb in his forehead, he strained against the suffocating weight that surrounded him. A single, shaking step was the best he could manage. A terrible show of it, considering his protege’s had already worked their way to a full sprint.

“Unfortunately, all the guile in the world matters little in the face of strength!” the tyrant hissed.

Rieker felt the illusory crackling edge of a knife against his throat, joined by the pressing urge to hurl himself a step to his right. His eyes widened — fuck.

Red fire erupted.

He barely managed a drunken stagger before the Tyrant appeared in front of him. A lance of cold punched through his belly and up through his chest, erupting out the back of his shoulder.

Rieker blinked, and stared down at the arm that was buried up to the elbow in his guts. He coughed, a splatter of red landing on the Tyrant’s grinning face. Joy. Oh how he wished he could cave in its skull. Utter fucking bastard.

Foreign energy surged out of the Tyrant’s arm, and then he was gone — lost in a sea of consumption that attacked his very soul.

…

“No!” Kaius roared, staring in horror as the Tyrant hoisted Rieker into the sky. Blood ran from the guildmaster in a steady stream, pooling at the creature’s feet.

Then it hoisted Rieker further. Blood gushed from his wound as he let out a pained groan.

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The casual disrespect of the motion slapped Kaius. He didn’t think; there was no need to. One moment, he was across the field of battle, gripping his blade in a white-knuckle grip.

Then space devoured him with hungry fangs. Pain exploded through his body, rents opening throughout his body as impossibly fine ripples tore through his flesh like it was paper.

Instantaneously, he arrived behind the Tyrant. The violence of his arrival tore into its back, reopening its many wounds and spraying him with blood. Kaius barely noticed, too focused on his descending cut. His blade burned red and hot, honed to an impossible degree by Investiture. Violent azure shone on its edge, a screaming Mystic violence.

Burnt carapace offered no resistance. He cut through the arm that was buried in Rieker’s stomach. Rend detonated, a burst of blood and fluid spraying wide. Rieker dropped limp as his blade continued down — gods he hoped it was just the Tyrant’s Authority. Worry didn’t slow his strike.

Focused to the extreme, he threaded his blade through the gap in its natural armour surrounding its elbow. That too, he severed.