The Administorum
Battle Related Forums => Board Battles => Board Battle Archives => Topic started by: Cameron on July 07, 2010, 12:25:29 PM
-
Abbadon breathes heavily as he swings around to face the group of companions fighting him once more. He is bloodied and bruised, but not yet close to beaten. Blood drips from the Talon of Horus, and the demon sword Drach'nyen howls with fury, it's thirst unquenched.
He gazes on the remaining companions. They have put up an amazing fight. He cannot remember the last time he had been challenged to this degree. Yet this battle has raged for far too long. Most moments pass like an instant to the close to immortal Chaos warrior, but this fight... it feels like he has been fighting this fight for years.
Some of the companions have fallen by the wayside. The one known as Diego had apparently run out of ammo and had retreated. Abbadon had not bothered to trace him: he would hunt down anyone remaining after he had finished with these fools. If Diego was lucky, he would be struck down by another before Abbadon located him.
He had controlled the one known as Sypher like a puppet for some time, but the creature had wrested enough control away from him to escape through a warp gate. Abbadon assured himself that the creature would not be making the mistake of venturing into the Eye again.
The insolent Xeno, who had taken Abbadon's money willingly enough but then had turned on him quickly once money was offered from the other side... predictable. He had out up a good fight, but had been predictably... disposed of.
But still, these fools press on. And Abbadon is starting to feel the battle taking it's toll. His armor is cracked. He feels pain in places that he forgot he could even feel pain in. His helm has split in two, and with a swift gesture, he rips it from his head. His pale, scarred face is revealed. His eyes are unblinking black pools, threatening to devour the soul of anyone who makes eye contact. And he grins, revealing teeth that were sharpened into points long ago. His soul aura whirls about him, filled with the screaming faces of his countless victims, and he speaks to the warriors before him.
"I must admire your tenacity. But the time for games is over. Come to me, so that we may end this farce!"
Abbadon hovers off the ground and awaits the mortal who would be foolish enough to be the first to strike.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BATTLE!
Opponent: Abbadon the Despoiler (2nd Round)
Number of Enemies: 1
Difficulty: Boss
God-Modding: Fuck no.
There is an OOC companion post for this post, read before replying.
-
The battle had raged fiercely until now, and this momentary lull most certainly would not last. Even so, it was a chance to survey the situation.
Soul Reaver stood, his body streaked with blood from the battle - much of it his own, some of it not. His cape was torn, and his armour showed numerous rents and chips. His shoulders heave as he takes deep breaths, and both his hands are locked on Blooddrinker's hilt with almost feverish strength.
With every blow that had been struck, he had felt more power welling up within him, burning through his veins, scorching him from within. He felt like a sealed vessel, still filling with flame despite being ready to burst. His hatred for Abaddon almost made him sick.
Not once during the battle had his eyes wavered from his quarry. He watches as Abaddon rises into the air and issues his challenge, probing for a weakness, for a moment of distraction. None arrive.
Then he would create his own.
Even as Abaddon still speaks, Soul Reaver bares his teeth as he murmurs words of magic. The syllables sound strange and distorted, falling from his lips like a toxic ichor. As he speaks, his magic swirls around him, and a distant metallic clinking can be heard.
Soul Reaver shouts back at Abaddon defiantly.
"I will take that challenge!"
Sword held back to strike, Soul Reaver leaps forward... and simultaneously, thousands of razor-edged, spinning, bat-like metallic constucts swarm from the air behind him, trailing clouds of dark magic They heave and expand outwards in all directions behind the leaping Soul Reaver, ready to simultaneously eviscerate Abaddon from above, below, and his flanks as the roaring Soul Reaver attacks from the front.
-
The evil radiating off of the grim creature in front of Faidth was nauseating. It seethed off Abaddon in waves before reaching the form of the Fyrellian, who shuddered with uneasiness.
Still, she knew that she would not have any hope of ever reaching home again if the people she was to trust with her return were to be defeated. Faidth watched as Abaddon discarded his helmet, letting it fall to the ground, only to reveal his grotesque face.
She swept her hands forward and they began to pulse with a dim, glowing, orange light. Heat began to pour from her palms and she focused all of her attention upon the discarded helmet and the armor that Abaddon wore. She could feel many natural elements, though several had been eroded with the powers of chaos he commanded. She even sensed other components... terribly macabre additions that the creature had likely added himself: bones, flesh, blood, and the remnants of fractured souls.
Slowly, Faidth's Atom Transfiguration began to take effect. Shards of plasteel fractured within his armor, forming small flechettes with which Faidth could strike. With a quick wave of her hand, they would begin to bore inwards, towards his unsuspecting flesh.
The helmet, she had special use for. It was cruel, yes... but she was certain that this creature deserved no mercy. A gout of annihilating heat poured from her hands and encompassed the helmet. The metal began to liquify into small beads of melted plasteel. She raised her hands upward, and her pupils were simply gone as the entirety of her eyes were little more than glowing orange orbs.
She directed these molten beads of metal towards every orifice on the creature's face. She began to reform them into minute balls of metal, each laden with small, exceedingly dangerous spurs. If even a few would succeed in entering his body, they would deal a great deal of damage from the inside out.
-
Abbadon having avoided the brunt of Danyael’s initial attack, the nephilim lord was less than pleased, though all the same unfazed. Projecting his essence to the surface, he walked through the ground as if it were mere steps, his now white cloak billowing in the after winds. The vibrations of the land rippling through the threads of muscle and vein as easily as bloodflow. His black cloaked companion, while still present about the battlefield, was nowhere to be seen, or so it appeared.
His distance from Abbadon was, curiously, further than prior, though his presence seemed spread across the battlements; both closer and farther than the companions and their prey. In one view, he could see the warmaster within a hand’s reach, while in another, he could see the building engagement from afar and back to his present, physical standing. He could feel everywhere and amusingly at place simultaneously, his connection to the world all the more bolstering his standing.
Dipping into the wellspring, and with a vivid shink!, he unsheathed an arrowhead styled longsword from the ether, partially wrapped in a blood red sash that flapped in motions too unnatural for even winds to puppeteer. His frame pulsing with foreign powers to which he was all too familiar, his eyes opened to reveal irises of deep, reflective green, veiled only by the dimness of his trademark style of an upraised hood to partially conceal his visage in flickering shadows.
He approached from his position so many yards away, a simple forward stance adorning his march as he held the sword diagonally behind him, as if preparing for an overhead slash. His steps were steady, fast and yet appeared miraculously as if he were walking at the same time, all the while not making a single sound. His eyes, beneath the sheen of green, darted in directions so fast and too numerous that they appeared as blurred orbs, spinning without cease. He felt the heat beneath the ground as he felt the air miles above. He felt the vibrations of the companions like he could feel the beat of his own heart. And he felt the vile hoggishness of the chaos warmaster who was far and near at the same time.
Every step he took came in the company of hissing snickering, though the source could not be traced to him. The closer he came, all seemed calm about him, all save for his shadow; which waved and clapped of its own volition. At each turn, when it would sprout to life, one could pick out the distinct apparition of dozens of misty white slits which blinked and batted with their own timing. Another few steps closer and the slits grew mouths and the phantasms became faces frozen in an infinite cackle, bursting from the darkness in the shapes of living shadows number at two dozen strong as the Nocturne Kenshi were once again brought into the living world.
A swift command from his free hand and his minions bolted with such speed that they seemingly vanished and appeared stretching their numbers to spread out behind him, their invisible steps burning a smoking, ashen circle comprised of symbols and calligraphy of a long forgotten language. Another silent command from the nephilim lord sent them back into the ether, visibly having made no attack toward the chaos warmaster.
Onward Danyael marched, sword firmly in hand, ready for a killing blow and the faint semblance of an inner vibration about the blade that was quickly gaining in intensity.
He watched as an old friend rushed in for the kill while a new friend prepared an assembly of fortitude of her own. He watched Soul rush their enemy while he was also aware of this new warrior readying her own arsenal for a full frontal attack. Still on his approach, he lifted the fingers of his free hand to his lips, kissed them and projected his will deep into the grounds below, reaching out to the young warrior physically too far from him. “Take caution.” the voice of his mind reached out to hers while still connected with the waking world.
Letting the tip of his blade kiss the ground, its smooth edges skirted up white embers as it scrapped across the ground. He felt the force building in his legs, moving down from the flesh, through the blood, to the bone and piercing the marrow, slithering from the shins and flushing through the ground where he found the force to kneel low and vault himself into the sky with such speed he appeared to have vanished into the distance, the only proof of his existence preceded by the roaring thunder of a sonic boom.
-
Fei stands at 50 paces from Abbadon but barely an instant in time."It's finally gotten personal... that is exactly what I wanted to hear." Fei's voice resonates through the air with a sense of content. With a quick swiping gesture with the Kurusunami, the paired blades burn backwards like cigarettes into Fei's grip and disappearing in wisps of black smoke.
Abbadon's helmet clatters to the ground revealing the man behind the mask. Dipping down low with a grounded stance, Fei brings his arms down and around behind him in a sweeping motion, reality rippling and trailing like water around his hands. Crimson droplets of vitae float along the stream, weightlessly following his hands as he brings them up and around, creating a circular pattern of blood that spins in a wide circle before him like the boundaries of a gateway.
Bringing his hand before his face, he clenches his fist. The droplets before him form a perfect ring of blood and turn to a polished black glass as well as the space within its borders. When viewed through, viewable are the creatures of shadow. The various horrors stop to look from within begin to approach, seeking freedom.
Plunging his hand through the gateway, the glass wavers and refracts. Black tendrils uncoil from the other side and dart and lasso, hooking into his companions shadows, linking them to the gateway. With a vicious pull backwards, the gateway shatters, the shards scattering to the ground.
Blackened flames emanate from the shards like flares, and from the smoke unfurls featureless shadow forms that are strikingly similar to those of Fei's companions.
With a commanding gesture, Fei points at Abbadon and the shadowy dopplegangers howl like banshees in the night before dashing towards him through the air, weapons drawn, their forms stretched and trailing behind them.
-
As Abaddon removes his helmet one being is unintimidated by the sight before him. Almost as if an exact opposite, golden glowing eyes gaze at black orbs of pure evil as Jharm listens to the challenge set before him and his comrades. He watches as his comrades launch one attack or another at the vile creature. Knowing that they must not fail in the battle, the Seraphim kneels down and begins to utter a chant. As the chant continues a circle of golden light appears under him, glowing brighter and brighter until suddenly the chant stops and the ring flashes brightly and then disappears, a feeling of courage and bravery washing over the companions. Seeing that with all of the attacks currently headed towards Abaddon, Jharm decides to hang back to see the results, standing ready to aid his allies with either healing or defense should they need it.
-
Kitharsis rubs his hand over his forehead as he sits up. Rubble falls down his chest and bounces to the ground as he rises. He shakes off whatever hit him, his mohawk flicking back and forth as he does so. His left hand reaches beside him and grasps the handle of his warhammer. The runes on the head flash red when his hand wraps fully around the weapon. Kitharsis pushes off the ground and rises to his feet. The rest of the rubble rains down below him.
How did I come to be lying on the ground...? He thinks to himself.
No matter, there were more important issues at hand. Abbadon was proving to be more resilient than anticipated. Kitharsis's tattoos flash bright red for a moment as his frustration grows. The bag of sand at his hip calls to him, begging to be set free to assault their foe.
His companions were assaulting The Despoiler all around him. Lethal projectiles were flying through the air like mad. A sonic boom marks Danyael's accent into the air as their shadows themselves rise from the void and rush Abbadon.
There were too many projectiles for a head on assault at the moment. But once they pass there would be an opening to approach from Abbadon's rear. Kitharsis makes his decision. He takes off to the left, circling around the melee. His left palm begins to glow as he runs.
Once there is no danger getting in the crossfire of the projectiles Kitharsis activates the rune for speed on his shoulder and leaps at Abbadon from behind. His warhammer is fully charged with Tirthandaran energy. A two-handed blow is directed squarely at Abbadon's back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kelvack is standing hunched over, off to the side. His mouth is hanging open as he breathes heavily. Four replicas of himself are standing behind him, doing the same. Their bodies are still composed solely of energy. The edges of their skin are blurry. Gusts of wind catch the tails of tiny strands of energy that are tying to escape.
“This usually works a little quicker than this...” One in the back says, between gasps of breath.
“Shut it, we all know that!”
“Don't yell at me, you idiot!”
The two Kelvack's in the back begin to brawl behind the others. Kelvack in the front smacks his palm into his forehead and growls.
“Everyone back! Now!”
The four figures lurch forward and are quickly absorbed into Kelvack's back. Shaking his head, he stands there alone, watching the battle rage on before him. His body wavers like an out of tune television. Then, like a propane torch running out of fuel, his body sputters and extinguishes.
Kelvack stands in what one would can a human's body. His face is strained and he is still gasping for air.
“I shouldn't be this tired. Something is wrong here...” He says as he goes to one knee, his hand hitting the ground hard and kicking up a small cloud of dust. “This is not the time or the place to be having some sort of weird breakdown... Dammit!”
He pounds the ground with his fist, cracking the rock below him. He raises his fist again, this time his eyes go bright green at the apex of his swing. His fist hits the ground again, but instead of cracking the rock he tears open a warp gate below him. A shield snaps around Kelvack as he falls through the gate.
The gate dumps him out at his compound inside a small planet a galaxy away. He lands in a heap on the floor. Fluorescent lights flicker on as the compound begins to power up. Kelvack grunts as he rolls over onto his back.
Staring at the lights above him, his thoughts go out to his companions.
I'm sorry...
-
Abbadon roars in approval as Soul Reaver begins to charge. As the immortal warrior surges forward, a veritable cloud of razor-edged constructs swarm out from behind him, darkening the sky. Abbadon leaps into action quickly. Lunging forward, he plunges into the oncoming cloud, parrying most of the blades with the Talon of Horus. The gauntlet's anti-matter field knocks the vast majority of the small constructs off their mark, and most just graze Abbadon or chink off his power armor. At the same time, Abbadon meets Soul Reaver and uses his other hand to bring up Drach'nyen. The daemon blade cleanly parries Soul Reaver's attack, and Abbadon prepares to swing into a counter.
But then pieces of his massive Terminator armor begin to stab him from within. Abbadon roars in surprise and disengages from Soul Reaver, attempting to impose his will over his armor once more. It is this movement and this movement alone that allows him to just catch the incoming molten balls in the corner of his vision. Acting quickly, Abbadon allows his corrupted Soul Aura to burst forth. The whirling field of screaming faces surrounds him and sweeps the metal spurs off target. Still being stabbed by the inside of his armor, Abbadon is distracted by Danyael's sonic boom and looks up to find the source, leaving himself wide open for Fei's attack.
The shadowy Fei doppelgangers blow right past Abbadon, cutting through armor and flesh with their weapons. Abbadon howls in pain and lashes out at them, only to then be struck in the back by Kitharsis's hammer and sent crashing to the ground. The Chaos Lord lands in a heap. He quickly rises to his feet again, cursing under his breath, turning to face the last person who hit him, Kitharsis.
But Abbadon finds his attention drawn yet again. This time by... music? Is that a guitar?
Abbadon turns to find the Elemental warrior Karyl, electric guitar in hand. He strums a few more chords, and then swings the instrument over his shoulder like a bat, grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh YEAH, baby! Number 1 in Imperial Space and still rocking the charts! Here's another show stopper from yours truly."
The Elemental leaps forward. As he approaches Abbadon he times a huge home-run swing at his head with the guitar, but Abbadon vanishes as the swing is about to connect. Appearing behind him, Abbadon swings out his Talon to skewer the cocky upstart, the anti-matter field crackling with energy...
Until it makes contact with Karyl. The anti-matter field inexplicably shuts off, and the now mundane Talon scratches harmlessly off of the armored plates underneath Karyl's jacket. Abbadon stares dumbfounded at the blades. Not once had they ever malfunctioned since he had taken the Talon from Horus. Something must be-
"BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG"
Abbadon takes the business end of Karyl's musical axe directly in the face and is thrown 50 yards. The instrument releases a sour chord that rings across the battlefield. The shamed Chaos Lord crashes through a ruined support wall and rubble collapses on top of him. Karyl cheers wildly.
"YES! What a hit! Another grand slam for the intrepid musical dynamo, Karyl Sheed-"
Karyl's celebration is short lived. Abbadon bursts from the pile of rock and hits Karyl with the full force of his bulk at near sonic speeds. He smashes the defenseless Elemental into the ground with the force of a meteor impact, leaving the bard embedded into the ground. Rising back into the air, Abbadon roars with anger and turns to face the other companions, knowing that they have probably used this delay to prepare more attacks.
-
Faidth glances sympathetically upon Karyl, who is firmly embedded in the ground. She moves to aid him, but realizes he has likely just sacrificed his consciousness, or at the very least, his mobility, so that the others could continue to assail Abbadon. She was pleased that her Atom Transfiguration was successful at distracting the furious Chaos Lord, as well as it's capability to inflict a considerable about of damage, but she wasn't yet done using Abaddon's body against him.
Before he can turn to face her, Faidth takes a flanking position and rushes forward; the impressive weapon of the behemoth denizen of darkness is her obvious target. Electricity crackles within her fingertips as she takes a line from Karyl's songbook. Her Stun ability begins to surge through her body sending coursing shocks of vibrant blue light towards her knuckles. Drawing her deceptively strong fists back, she aims to strike two blows to the defiler before her.
The first blow is trained on his head. Her Stun ability affects organics as well as synthetics, and as such, it should succeed in buying them at least a little more time. She focuses the second blow on the enormous claw upon his right hand. Should the blow connect, it will render the Talon unusable, at least for a brief amount of time.
Faidth's intention is to throw Abbadon off balance by interrupting his bodily and combat actions. Though the attack will likely not inflict any damage, it is her hope that this further delay in his actions will allow the others to prosper.
-
Soul Reaver snarls in rage as Blooddrinker is deflected... and the blade itself seems to growl in unison. He thuds back onto the ground, the rapidly spinning metallic constructs whizzing around him in large, twisting ribbons. He suddenly senses a change in the energies around him - it seems that Kelvack has left them.
Never mind. Only a fool would rely on that one.
Soul Reaver spins around to see the other companions striking at Abaddon. Fei has already completed his attack as Kitharsis' warhammer smashes Abaddon square in the back, and Karyl can be seen approaching in the distance. The packed melee gives Soul Reaver some time to prepare for battle.
Soul Reaver intones harsh words and gestures in the air, his hands trailing wisps of red and purple energy. Dark power surges through his body. His muscles bulge and veins start to throb as his face twists with rage. Crimson fire flickers in his eyes. Soul Reaver grits his teeth as he suppresses the urge to leap straight into battle.
As Karyl is smashed to the ground, Soul Reaver prepares a second spell. Abaddon was using his gauntlet to counter most enemy attacks - Soul Reaver would see if he could counter it with his own. Chanting again, he runs the metal-clad forearm of his free hand against Blooddrinker's blade. Sparks fly and metal screeches. A sizzling noise builds as arcs of red lightning run up the sword and into the Black Steel Gauntlet. When the spell completes, the gauntlet is suffused by a standing field of crackling power, sparking and spitting furiously in all directions.
As Soul Reaver looks up from his spellcasting, Abaddon has regained his footing, but Faidth is moving in for an attack of her own. Soul Reaver charges regardless, and his face breaks out into a mad grin when he realizes the target of Faidth's attack. This would be perfect.
The whirling metallic constructs fan out behind Soul Reaver as he brings his sword down in a hard, curving arc towards Abaddon. He suspects that Abaddon will counter the attack, but intends, with a flick of his wrist, to twist Drach'nyen aside and create an opening to seize Abaddon's talon in his own crackling, gauntleted fist.
-
So many lights of vibrant colors flourished below as his companions fought a stalwart offensive against their enemy. One of the brighter lights came from the divine, clerical powers of none other than Jharm himself - the Seraphim using his abilities as field defense and support, one of the more tactful decisions in this bout. But when he saw a different spike of energy claim the emptiness around the warriors, he was awed to see the very shadows themselves eject from the hold of their masters, finding a new master to mold them as he saw fit, sculpting them into shrieking replicants of themselves. The shade warriors were a nice touch. He had to admit, he liked this man. If his shadow were a real shadow instead of one of many portals for the Nocturne Kenshi, he would have enjoyed seeing a shade version of himself join the fray. But a sudden dip in the well of power made Danyael consciously aware of a thinning in the companions’ numbers. Kelvack was no longer among the vanguard. An unfortunate declination of allies against a foe where as many as possible were necessary.
The black hooded warrior made his appearance once again, this time seemingly from nowhere, just as Karyl soared overhead. The reaction was delayed, though timely all the same, as hands touched the earth, allowing the grounds themselves to open and catch Karyl in a cushioning embrace, dampening the impact by folding in on itself. To the untrained eye, it would appear as a collision, contrary to the truer nature beneath. “Be still.” a different voice said as a cocoon of bramble and vine twined around the elemental in an attempt to shield him from the battle that claimed the brunt of his health. A sudden quake shivered through the warrior’s body as he made a straight glance toward Faidth.and the Tirthandara Be wary of the Soul Reaver. Keep your distance.
The cracks in Abbadon’s armor didn’t go unnoticed. Another twang! resounded in a fusillade of sound made physical, parting the cloudscape in a full, circular radius as Danyael descended from the sky, brandishing two crescent bladed reflective black swords. Sound resonated around him in an unending bell toll; heightening in decibel after decibel as he touched down to the ground, a miniature shockwave spreading from his feet upon landing. The twin swords appeared still in his hands, their only motions prompted by the consistent vibration of sound reverberating around their edges. Then they began to spin, taking the blurred shape of wheeling black discs, further heightening the thrumbing hum to such a degree that it generated its own breeze. A pop of his neck and he was gone, swishing forward as all time around him slowed to a crawl.
As Kith lands a debilitating blow with his warhammer, Danyael bolts by, cracking his swords down, though not to hit the despoiler, rather colliding the blades with one another a centimeter in front of his armor, keening a high note strong enough to expand the cracks along the warmaster’s armor - before vanishing in the same split second of speed.
He crosses back by Faidth just as she fires an attack at Abbadon’s head, clashing his swords immediately after the attack, continuing on his high speed path away. Though the attack didn’t noticeably make any contact with the despoiler, it did serve to increase the possible damage done by Faidth by coupling another deafening sonic boom in his wake. In real time, it would only appear as a whisp of wind preceding an intense, mind numbing tone.
Still in high speed, reversed direction, dashing back toward the despoiler, crossing by Soul Reaver as the nephilim lord cracked another high note with his blades, this one stronger than the first, right at the center Abbadon’s chestplate.
He dashed over and over again, every attack overlapping the other as the vicinity around the warmaster was blurred white by the crossing attacks of the nephilim lord, each attack preceded by the deafening twang! of the swords now connecting both in unison and against Abbadon’s armor; the latter attacks increasingly stronger than the former, until all one could hear was a single increasing tone comprised of tens of hundreds more.
Further away, another black hooded warrior approached, two peculiarly foreign weapons in his hands. In one hand was an eight bladed sword in the likeness of a large fan. In the other was a massive curved sword whose blade appeared to have once been three swords now fused into one, giving it a three-crescents appeal. A bestial snarl rumbled through his fangs as the light reflected from the blades, briefly revealing a face that could only be... Danyael?
-
The Seraphim watches as Karyl lands a successful attack on Abaddon, only to be crushed into the ground by his counterattack. Jharm raises his right hand to his face and as he closes his palm, his entire hand begins to glow white. He then opens his hand back up and aims his palm at the area Karyl is currently imbedded in. A faint flash of white can be seen as the heal spell washes over Karyl's unmoving form.
"There, that should help stabilize him at least, I just hope it helps."
He then hefts his massive warhammer and launches himself into the sky. As he soars higher and higher, the head of his hammer begins to glow brighter and brighter until it is clearly visible from the ground miles below. Suddenly Jharm stops his ascent and soars downwards, aiming directly at Abaddon, the light trailing backwards until it appears as if a bright white comet is headed directly for Abaddon.
-
Kitharsis grips his warhammer more tightly as Abbadon turns and faces him. The rune for speed on his shoulder was fading back to its normal black color. The Tirthandara begins walking towards the Despoiler intently. The tattoos on his arms slowly beginning to glow.
Before he can face Abbadon, one of the elementals comes forth and lands a hefty blow. Kitharsis narrows his eyes, being robbed of his chance to trade blows with their enemy directly.
Faidth and Soul Reaver enter in close quarters with Abbadon, both reaching for his Talons. Jharm had launched into the air and was streaming from the sky like a falling star. Kitharsis did not want to be nearby when the Seraphim lands. Danyael was whizzing by, soon faster than Kitharsis could track. The high pitched sounds coming from his swords sharp, probably a sonic attack.
Kitharsis slips the warhammer into its sheath on his belt and takes off in a sprint. As he runs his left hand begins to glow behind his clenched fist. Upon reaching his desired position he stops and braces himself. He raises his left hand towards Abbadon and opens his palm. The circle on his hand was glowing intensly, the buildup of energy was sending tremors down his arm. He braces his arm with his right hand as he lines up Abbadon.
After Faidth and Soul Reaver perform their attacks a huge blast of Tirthandaran energy careens towards Abbadon, aimed at his flank.
-
"Blood so sweet... so sweet to drink, so nice to drink. Blood so red, so very red... so nice to kill... kill....kill…Kill Kill Kill KILL KILL KILL"
Sepher took a deep breath as voices called to him, sang to him in their sweet seductive voice. His fists curled tightly around the haft of his pole arm, his muscles bulging as he forcibly repressed the voices into the corners of his mind.
I will not let them have what is mine, Sepher thought to himself, but was soon brought out of his little trance by what was going on.
The battle still raged on around him and his companions. Diego had retreated and others had fallen, yet not without some gain. Abaddon was not looking in the prime of condition. Sepher took one more deep breath before planting his feet. It was time to put forth his utmost effort.
Energy began to well up in him. that of fire an earth, all the ingredients necessary for shaping metal. The top end of his pole arm slowly dipped to the ground, becoming more head, widening into the shape of a giant block hammer. The hammer appeared to be too heavy to lift.. a ton or more in weight. Closing his eyes, Sepher began to search once more.
Pain wracked him, and he growled as he slowly began to shift. His body slowly grew in size, another several feet or so, and his bulk increased considerably. The fur of the catlike demon he had taken the shape of slowly grew into think, scale like plates of bone and flesh, armoring him naturally. Giant horns like that of a ram curled out from his head, and his clawed feet slowly turned more hoof-ish.
As his transformation finished, he stood 12 feet tall, the hammer was resting with its head on the ground and he looked an intimidating sight. Or at least would to most people. His opponent today was not most people, so he decided it would be best not to mess around any longer. With a grunt, his hands tightened on the haft of the hammer, slowly lifting it until it rested on his shoulder.
“Let this be the end, then” He said in a deep voice, in response to abaddon’s challenge.
Sepher starts to charge forward, his steps thundering along the cracked ground, as he sees faith moving in to flank the warrior. He would move to the other side with a snarl so they could pincer him to the best of their abilities.
As he moved he noticed soul moving in as well. They were going high, he would go low. Raising the impossibly heavy hammer over his head, he spun it counterclockwise, building momentum as he closed with Abaddon and brought the massive weapon sideways in on the creature just after the bolt of energy from another of the companions struck, in hopes of further wounding its mobility as the others distract him,.
-
The displaced Fyrellian, Faidth, rushes forward, her outstretched hands aimed at two distinct targets: Abaddon’s exposed head, and the Talon of Horus. Because of Abbadon’s immense power, the first attack is only minutely succesful. It manages to throw him off balance a bit, but that is the extent of its usefulness. So much of his being has been corrupted by chaos that Abbadon can scarcely pass for organic or inorganic. He stumbles slightly as a result of the blow, but easily manages to maintain his balance.
Faidth’s second blow connects with Abbadon’s coveted artifact. Abbadon’s crimson eyes flash with fury as he realizes what is happening. Electricity explodes through Faidth’s outstretched hand and envelopes the Talon of Horus in a blinding, azure light, effectively disabling Abbadon’s disruption field.
Simultaneously, Soul Reaver’s quest to cripple the Talon reaches fruition. Abbadon takes the bait and successfully parries Bloodrinker. However, in the process, he leaves himself quite exposed for attack. A terrible sound of immense magnitude explodes in volumes as the two demon blades connect.
Danyael, too, charges forward, slamming his blades together merely centimeters from Abbadon’s deteriorating armor. The sonic boom that is left in the wake of this effective distraction inhibits the denizen of evil from being able to respond to the next attack.
Soul Reaver’s gauntlet is crowned in a brilliant flash of scarlet as it clutches the artifact in its punishing grasp. Had the Talon not already been altered, this tactic would not have worked at all. However, fate smiles upon Soul Reaver as a gratifying CRUNCH emanates from the confines of his clutched gauntlet.
Abbadon cries out in unbridled rage, and the Chaos Lord wheels backward. The companions easily notice the sputtering sparks coming from the mangled weapon, leaving a trail of blue and green smoke in its wake, and billowing around the form of the stricken Abbadon.
As Danyael launches by Abbadon a second time, the Despoiler’s armor cracks further. As Danyael attempts to attack again, Abbadon moves as if to parry the blow. Danyael again strikes mere centimeters from the Chaos Lord, and Abbadon looks down at his chest plate, noticing the widening fractures in his armor. Danyael proceeds to launch himself by Abbadon in a furious flurry of whirling blades.
In response, Abbadon’s form becomes blurry, his terrifying visage transformed into a translucent nightmare. The white light created by Danyael’s attacks increase exponentially, however, quite suddenly, they dissipate into nothingness, and when the last glimmer fades, Abbadon has completely disappeared from view.
Meanwhile, the benevolent seraphim, Jharm, has managed to stabilize Karyl’s condition, and the elemental gratefully thanks the angelic being.
A flash of sickening, green light appears ten meters above Abbadon’s previous location just as Jharm begins his meteoric descent towards the battlefield. Abbadon, still disoriented from the effects of his own teleportation, is unprepared for the hefty blow that Jharm levels upon his unsuspecting skull with the hammer. He is unceremoniously slammed towards the ground and he lands hard upon the cracked marble platform below, narrowly missing one of the twisted, flesh-covered spikes that litter the area.
As Abbadon struggles to regain his composure, Kitharsis prepares to attack. Just as Abbadon manages to haul himself to his feet, the Tirthandaran energy blast erupts from Kitharsis’s hands. It slams into Abbadon’s chest, knocking him several yards backward, and towards the rapidly transforming Sepher.
As Abbadon’s seemingly unconscious form careens towards the now 12 ft. demon, Sepher directs a punishing hammer blow towards Abbadon’s lower body, seeking to affect his mobility further. However, as the blow is about to connect, Abbadon wheels around in mid-air, effectively dodging the hammer. Aggravated by his own incompetence and further irritated by the blows he has already suffered, Abbadon unleashes his fury upon Sepher.
Drach’nyen erupts with green light that is accented by veins of purple. With a cry of unbridled rage, he directs a devastating blow at the massive, horned head of the demon. Sepher finds that the unfortunate part of being a creature of immense size, is that it makes him a much bigger target.
Abbadon’s sword slams into Sepher’s skull, violently knocking him to the ground. A shockwave of chaos-laden energy erupts outward, causing the ground to shake tumultuously. With the demon dealt with, at least temporarily, Abbadon turns his unsettling gaze back to the other companions. The Chaos Lord’s overconfidence has been severely punished, but he will not make the same mistake twice.
The dark champion looks down at the smoldering Talon of Horus. It is heavily damaged, and it’s sparking innards are exposed, but the ancient artifact has seen much worse in the ages since it was pulled from the corpse of the Warmaster Horus himself. Some time at the infernal forges and it will be as good as new. But Abbadon needs it now. And he has just the thing to keep it running for the short term.
Abbadon pulls a small glowing dial from inside his armor. He slams the gear into the Talon of Horus and twists it. The mangles parts of the lightning claw seem to suddenly pull themselves back together, and the weapon is engulfed in green flames. The recovered gauntlet radiates with chaos energy, far more powerful then it was before. Abbadon grins. It is time to test it’s power.
Abbadon allows himself to fall to the ground. As he falls, he raises the Talon high above his head, trailing green flames behind him as he plummets to the surface. As he reaches the ground, he slams the Talon’s blades through the marble and into the planet’s crust, sending green flames deep into the earth.
Suddenly, tendrils of green flames erupt from under all the companions. The swift moving tendrils will attempt to wrap themselves around each companion, engulfing them in chaos fire if the companions fail to avoid them.
-
After slamming into Abaddon, Jharm immediately takes to the air once more. He gazes down on the battlefield, surveying the outcome of his companions attacks. He watches as Abaddon seems to completely repair all the damage caused to the Talons and then launches green flame down into the ground. Jharm gazes down in time to see a tendril burst out of the ground and soar up towards up. Without hesitation Jharm erects a shield around himself as he launches a golden beam down at the tendril, hoping to negate the vile chaos magic with the beams blessed light.
-
Jharm's holy beam forces the tendril of balefire to split into many smaller tendrils to avoid it. These manage to swarm around the beam and still strike Jharm, but the smaller tendrils are too weak to penetrate Jharm's shield and dissipate quickly.
-
Soul Reaver grins once the Talon of Horus gives a satisfying "crack" and allows himself a momentary maddened glance at Feidth.
"Good work!" he growls from behind gritted teeth.
He then watches in satisfaction as Abaddon is pummeled from all sides. However, the grin quickly turns into a rictus of rage when Abaddon restores his gauntlet, and thrusts it deep into the ground.
Mere split seconds after this, an urgent thought enters Soul Reaver's mind, and he finds himself uncounsciously mouthing words not his own.
He attacks us from below!
The urgency of the thought is not lost to Soul Reaver, and the muscles in his legs tense before he launches himself into a mighty leap, high into the air.
At the same time, the many daemonic constructs that had been spinning around behind him rush to the space now below him, clicking together as they form a huge disc of seething, screeching metal blades. Once the flames burst from the ground, the constructs are prepared to suicidally fire themselves straight at them, suffocating and crushing the tendrils before they can escape.
Soul Reaver meanwhile somersaults through the air, holding his legs tightly up to his chest. At the apex of his leap, he spreads his limbs again in preparation for his landing. Already, words of dark magic flow from his lips, his eyes locked on Abaddon below. He extends his free hand toward the Chaos lord, and casts a powerful Flesh Blister spell on him.
The spell will bubble and scorch his flesh, causing it to slaugh off in burned lumps... and more importantly, will inflict indescribable, incapacitating agony as it does so.
Blooddrinker in-hand, Soul Reaver begins to fall toward Abaddon...
-
Kitharsis feels a buildup of energy beneath him after Abbadon has plunged his Talons into the ground. There were many points of energy travelling quickly towards the surface. He springs into the air as the ground erupts in tendrils of green flame.
As he travels higher into the air he crosses his arms in front of his chest. The spiraling tattoos on his arms burst into life, glowing fiercely with crimson energy. He forcefully swings his arms downwards and tendrils of Tirthandaran energy burst forth from his tattoos.
The crimson tendrils race to meet Abbadon's green flaming tendrils below Kitharsis.
Having reached the apex of his leap, Kitharsis starts to fall to the ground. His tendrils spread out below him as he falls, snapping at any of Abbadon's tendrils aiming to engulf him.
Kitharsis lands but his feet don't touch the ground. A few tendrils from each arm are keeping him suspended in the air, the others are still snaking around him.
"Right back at you!" Kitharsis shouts as a multitude of his crimson tendrils launch themselves at Abbadon. There is a mass of them, and they've spread out to cover a large area. It will be difficult for Abbadon to not be caught by at least a few of them.
Kitharsis takes off like a spider after them, the few tendrils keeping him suspended propelling him forward through the air. He clenches his left hand and his fist begins to glow. If Abbadon gets wrapped up in any of his tendrils Kitharsis is going to quickly pull himself towards The Despoiler. He is going to try and place his left hand directly on his body and fire a charged blast of energy directly onto Abbadon's skin or armor.
Whether he reaches The Despoiler for the close range attack or not. If any of the crimson tendrils touch Abbadon they will burn into whatever they come in contact with, searing flesh and melting his weakend armor. This, combined with Soul Reaver's spell should prove exceptionally painful.
-
A sense of panic affects Faidth as she realizes the flames descending upon her are not composed of normal fire. Though she has resistances to fire, she senses that, should this hit her, it will likely inflict great damage upon her. She attempts to surmise some way to defend herself, but as she is contemplating a way, she feels herself being pulled again.
The space that was once occupied by Faidth is now vacant, and the Fyrellian finds herself suspended in mid-air, once again, teleported without her knowledge. These constant fluctuations in her position are exceedingly rapid and each time it occurs, she feels as if she is being yanked through time and space. This sensation nauseates her and sends her reeling. She continues to reappear and disappear at different places in the battlefield, likely making it very difficult for these sentient flames to seek out their target.
-
Drach’nyen erupts with green light that is accented by veins of purple. With a cry of unbridled rage, he directs a devastating blow at the massive, horned head of the daemon. Sepher finds that the unfortunate part of being a creature of immense size, is that it makes him a much bigger target.
Abbadon’s sword slams into Sepher’s skull, violently knocking him to the ground. A shockwave of chaos-laden energy erupts outward, causing the ground to shake tumultuously. With the daemon dealt with, at least temporarily, Abbadon turns his unsettling gaze back to the other companions. The Chaos Lord’s overconfidence has been severely punished, but he will not make the same mistake twice.
The world exploded in a brief flash of pain as the sword slammed into the horned daemon’s skull. Echo’s rang in Sepher’s ears as bone and hide chips flew from the wound which he had sustained. Only years upon years of keeping the souls of daemons in check allowed him to keep control of his own mind as his concentration was briefly faltered by the blow.
A small string of black blood strung out from the wound as Sepher’s body careened backwards with the force of the blow, rock and soil giving way as the heavy body crashed into the earth, his hammer remaining in his grip. The daemons eyes remained closed as it lay motionless on the field of battle for just a moment as he rested there on the scorched land. The daemons chest rose and fell slowly at first but soon became more rapid. A loud snarling can be heard and suddenly there is a loud roar that rings out across the landscape, black-flecked spittle leaking from the angry daemon’s mouth as it moves to stand.
Green chaos tendrils burst forth from the ground under Sepher, and there is another unearthly roar as pain lances up his body. He brings forth the mighty hammer down upon the earth, as he does so its shape takes that of a spear. He slams it into the ground, removing his hands from it, to free them. The daemon braces its feet in the roaring inferno under them and holds its hands out in front of him. With a supreme effort of will, Sepher growls, attempting to bend the raw chaos at work here to his will.
Even his muscles cord and veins bulge in his neck as he puts forth all his effort into taking this green flame into a ball in front of him. If this succeeds, he will slam his hands together, forcing a giant bolt of pure chaos energy directly at its source of origin, Abaddon. It would burn with the intensity an angry sun as Sepher moved to pick his spear up once more, the energy safetely away from him.
OOC
-
The invisible world of energy came all the more clear to Danyael’s eyes. And what he saw now gave him no feelings of comfort. He watched the black energies of the Despoiler blast to the sky as the sparkling energies of his companions swirled around him, each of which providing their own volley of attacks and counters. And then the sickening pale verdigris of Abbadon’s powers made light of the coming foreboding. It didn’t matter what Danyael did at this moment, as he knew he couldn’t escape what was to come. But he knew what he could do after it passed.
He looked to Karl, the elemental both he and Jharm had protected a moment ago. Simultaneously, his sight reached out to Karl and Kith. His will blurred over the landscape as his link with the world itself allowed him the luxury of total omnipresence. Dipping into the wellspring to partake of a taste of the Source, he bid cooperation from the planet beneath their feet to aid once again in their time of need. The cocoon that once surrounded Karl doubled in reinforcement around, if not beneath, him. It was an action made in haste. And if it couldn’t entirely protect him, it could keep him safe long enough to prepare either an escape or another onslaught.
As Kitharsis implores a clever tactic of his own, Danyael’s geokinetic omnipresence reached out to his old friend as the grounds beneath the Tirthandaran took on a scaly surface, reaching deep beneath the roots where the scales would absorb the impact of the flames, each defense dissolving one out of the many scales away, giving his friend enough space to not focus on defense as much as initially needed. The only issue was that this would only serve to add to the coming pain to the Nephilim. So be it, then. He watched the dark viridian comet of Abbadon’s energies streak downward on an impact course with the ground. This was going to hurt. A lot. And then came the pain.
The sensation came quickly, the polar opposite of total ecstasy. It overtook him, smothered him, coated him in an anguish none could ever compare. A quivering gasp preceded a sudden scream of absolute, unmitigated torment as he howled a scream so frightening it could make any seasoned warrior’s blood run cold. He felt his skin curl inward as his knees were forced to buckle, nailing him to the ground. His screams gained in such volumes that his vocal chords almost snapped, and yet he kept screaming, howling, shrieking into the emptiness as if he, and not the world, were on fire. And that, sadly, was just the prelude. The flames curled around him, wrapping him in absolute anguish, twisting torture made physical to coil around him, penetrating him to the core.
He felt his life reach its medium as the physical world began to drizzle away, the emptiness around him beginning to take hold. He felt the warm and cold reach of the other side teetering, the hands of the hereafter reaching for him at all angles. And yet the pain kept him away. The pain kept him centered. The pain kept him... alive. No... the world was keeping him alive. The world refused to let him go. The world refused to let him die. And before he could pull himself free of the threshold, the sudden twinkle of divine light breached the darkness as Jharm’s holy beam punched through the flames. Danyael, through his link with the world, snared the light as it rushed through the flames, allowing the prismatic luminance of the divine anoint the grounds. He forced it deeper until the world devoured it whole; and with it, feeding Danyael.
Danyael’s senses glanced to view his echo, black cloaked warrior identical to himself in almost every way. The echo found itself standing in the very spot where the Nocturne Kenshi had burned an ashen circle into the ground. And it was here where the echo would do what was now necessary. Both swords in hand, he lifted the Fan Blade to the sky, while he held the Culling Blade off to his flank. In a single motion, he cleaved inward, completely slicing himself in half at the median separating the lower and upper torso, letting his blood spill across the engraving as the remains of its corpse dissolve away. The Fan Blade, with no wielder, fell to the center where a whirlwind of crimson vitae screeched across the battlements to engulf the nephilim lord.
With the ritual complete, he began the next stage as the bloody tornado swirled to a halt, splattering the grounds around him with blood. He lifted his hands to the sky, and the sudden change of alteration could be felt among the clouds. The change was slow at first, only to snap to life in an instant. He yanked his hands down and all gravity around Abbadon found itself displaced with a force so strong around the Despoiler that it was a vacuum of pure geokinetic force, aiming no where but straight down.
Imbued with the very fury of the planet itself, a great maw opened beneath Danyael, vomiting an enormous, ichorous ooze in an erupting pillar. The vitae burst into a spreading flock of multiple tendrils of their own, many of which doubly as large as the tongues of green flame. They catapulted toward Abbadon with immense speed, the sudden likenesses of Danyael materializing at the tip of each, shrieking with pure insanity as they careened and twisted around each other, some even smashing into and merging with one another only to sprout just as many copies as before, the screams growing louder and louder so much so that their voices were doubly as intense as Danyael’s previous assault of sound made deadly.
The Nephilim Lord spread through the living nightmare, a new set of weapons readily brandished in both hands; a long, triple bladed staff formed in the likeness of a “Y” and a long, curved, menacing sword forged in the likeness of a bladed feather. While the sword pulsed with an aura of outward violence, the staff gave off an aura of inward emptiness. An essence of eerie hollowness surrounded the staff, standing as the more menacing of the two. It was best Abbadon stay as far away from Danyael as possible now. For if the nephilim lord came within striking distance, his weapons, imbued with the most forbidden essences of his nation, would feed off of the Despoiler; both flesh and soul alike. With a silent command, the tendrils doubled in number before railing toward Abbadon in an explosion of speed while their semi-divine master also vanished in a blurr of hypnotic alacrity, unleashing an unending volley of bladed attacks from every direction around the Despoiler. The consistent, ever growing shrieks around only serving to empower their master while dealing additional adverse affliction to Abbadon's armor, both physical and mental.
His face, like the those of the hundreds of tendrils sprouting through the sky, was frozen in an eternal scream, so defined that his features no longer held the beauty of the nephilim, but the sheer horror of the warp itself. His eyes, now two different shades clashing against one another, mirrored the very chaos of the warp, his prison for so long he no longer counted the days or the weeks or the years, but millenniums in a place with no doors and many doors, no future and many futures, no life and something beyond such. The voices of thousands of presences screamed from the reflection in his eyes alone. And so was it now true that it was more than just the Nephilim that Abbadon was fighting.
-
Jharm allows a slight grin as the tendrils harmlessly bounce off his shield. He doesn't allow himself any time to celebrate for he knows that every second that Abaddon is not under attack is another second he has to unleash more of his twisted power. With this in mind he closes his eyes and begins to utter a chant to the Light. As the chant continues, his entire body begins to glow white as he gathers the power granted him by the Light, extending it down his right hand so that the head of his massive hammer also glows a bright white and a sphere of bright white light forms around his left hand. Suddenly he ends the chant and soars down towards Abaddon.
As he gets close to Abaddon he lands on the ground and continues the charge on foot, raising his left hand and releasing a massive flash of light, focusing on Abaddon's eyes with the intention of burning his eyes and at the least blinding him temporarily. The moment he reaches melee range he brings his massive hammer down towards Abaddon, aiming for his limbs and proceeds to unleash a string of attacks, the hammer emitting a humming sound as he focuses more Light into the head, the purity of the Light causing further damage wherever it makes contact with Abaddon's twisted visage. The Seraphim is intent on crippling the vile monster before he can unleash more terror and pain on his companions.
-
The urgency of the thought is not lost to Soul Reaver, and the musclesin his legs tense before he launches himself into a mighty leap, highinto the air.
At the same time, the many daemonic constructsthat had been spinning around behind him rush to the space now belowhim, clicking together as they form a huge disc of seething, screechingmetal blades. Once the flames burst from the ground, the constructsare prepared to suicidally fire themselves straight at them,suffocating and crushing the tendrils before they can escape.
SoulReaver meanwhile somersaults through the air, holding his legs tightlyup to his chest. At the apex of his leap, he spreads his limbs againin preparation for his landing. Already, words of dark magic flow fromhis lips, his eyes locked on Abaddon below. He extends his free handtoward the Chaos lord, and casts a powerful Flesh Blister spell on him.
Thespell will bubble and scorch his flesh, causing it to slaugh off inburned lumps... and more importantly, will inflict indescribable,incapacitating agony as it does so.
Blooddrinker in-hand, Soul Reaver begins to fall toward Abaddon...
Soul Reaver’s whirling metal constructs are more than powerful enough to smother and kill the tendrils of flame that leap after him, although they are all destroyed in the process.
Abbadon expects a counter attack from Soul Reaver, and his heightened senses pick up the whispers of dark magic on the wind. As Soul Reaver locks his gaze on the Despoiler, he can see Abbadon whispering himself, speaking a long lost language. The words of arcane power practically fall from his lips, twisting and corrupting reality to the Despoiler’s will. As Soul Reaver’s spell is cast, Abbadon counters with his own. Sinister runes form in the air around the Chaos Lord, and Soul Reaver finds his spell reflected back at him. If he does not move quickly to dispel it, he will suffer a corrupted version of the fate he had intended for his foe.
-
"Right back at you!" Kitharsis shouts as a multitude of his crimson tendrils launch themselves at Abbadon. There is a mass of them, and they've spread out to cover a large area. It will be difficult for Abbadon to not be caught by at least a few of them.
Kitharsis’s tendrils meet Abbadon’s tendrils, and the tendrils of green fire are smothered and destroyed by the crimson energy. However, the tendrils are not nearly as effective on Abbadon himself. A stroke of bad timing quickly reverses Kitharsis’s fortune.
Abbadon is not aware of Kitharsis’s impending attack, nor is he ready for it. Unfortunately, the massively powerful counter-magic responsible for deflecting Soul Reaver’s attack seconds earlier is still very much active, and as the crimson tendrils collide with the runic barrier, they are instantly halted and corrupted by the dark sorcery woven through the very fabric of reality surrounding the Despoiler. The corruption races back up the tendrils towards Kitharsis. Should the corruption make it to the warrior, it will attempt to enter him, twisting and corrupting the energy within him and attempting to turn it against him.
-
The space that was once occupied by Faidth is now vacant, and the Fyrellian finds herself suspended in mid-air, once again, teleported without her knowledge. These constant fluctuations in her position are exceedingly rapid and each time it occurs, she feels as if she is being yanked through time and space. This sensation nauseates her and sends her reeling. She continues to reappear and disappear at different places in the battlefield, likely making it very difficult for these sentient flames to seek out their target.
Faidth’s teleportation leaves the tendrils that were directed at her confused and aimless. They eventually seek her out again, only to have her disappear again. After a few minutes of this, the tendrils do not have the energy to maintain their shape, and they collapse into green flame that falls from the sky and extinguishes itself on the dusty ground below. Faidth finds herself out of harm’s way for the moment, with the Despoiler’s attention firmly fixed elsewhere.
-
Even his muscles cord and veins bulge in his neck as he puts forth all his effort into taking this green flame into a ball in front of him. If this succeeds, he will slam his hands together, forcing a giant bolt of pure chaos energy directly at its source of origin, Abaddon. It would burn with the intensity an angry sun as Sepher moved to pick his spear up once more, the energy safetely away from him.
Sepher’s attempt at trying to wrest control of the green tendrils meets with success, as Abbadon is not focusing his attention on maintaining the attack. The large demon is easily able to form the fire into a ball, and he hurls it in a bolt back in the direction of its creator.
Abbadon is still focused on his anti-magic barrier. He hears the crimson tendrils of Kitharsis slam into the barrier behind him and is about to look in that direction when he detects a large amount of Chaos magic coming back towards him. With the anti-magic barrier fading, Abbadon turns and witnesses the huge green bolt of chaos energy swiftly closing on him. A horrible rictus forms on his lips and a low, dark laugh can be heard ringing across the battlefield.
The last of the barrier crumbles away just as the bolt of chaos energy reaches Abbadon. He simply holds up his gauntleted fist, and the chaos power is absorbed back into it harmlessly. The Talon of Horus crackles with newly regained energy, and the Despoiler pulls some of it into his other hand. With this hand engulfed in green flame, he opens his palm and extends his arm towards Sepher. Grinning wildly, he crushes his hand into a fist, and the fire snuffs out.
Sepher suddenly finds himself within the grasp of a giant flaming hand. When Abbadon closes his fist, the massive fist closes on Sepher, engulfing him in magical fire that burns with the intensity of an angry sun. Abbadon now has his attention focused on the attack, so this will be much harder to control.
-
Soul Reaver, still in mid-leap, curses in fury as he senses his spell being reversed by Abaddon's dark runes. Although he begins to cast a Dispel Magic spell, he quickly realizes there isn't enough time - the tightly-woven strands of sorcery are too complex to be disassembled. Like a sudden burst of hot, feotid wind, the spell strikes home.
A burning pain shoots all over Soul Reaver's skin, from head to toe, and he grits his teeth to suppress a cry of agony. A patch of flesh on his upper arm blackens and bubbles, and acrid smoke begins to rise from it. But there is no time for him to respond to this now - he is falling straight towards Abaddon!
In his current state, Soul Reaver is at a disadvantage, and he decides he needs to make a temporary retreat. As he approaches the Despoiler, Soul Reaver somersaults in the air, bringing Blooddrinker down on the ground in front of Abaddon in a massive, two-handed overhead strike.
The earth beneath everyone's feet shudders as the shockwave from the impact ruptures the ground, pushing a sheet of solid rock diagonally upwards between Soul Reaver and Abaddon - unless the despoiler steps back, it will likely smash him backwards as it impacts on his face.
In a single quick movement, Soul Reaver braces his legs against the newly created sheet of rock and launches himself away from Abaddon, somersaulting once more through the air and skidding to a halt behind a large pile of rubble.
Soul Reaver still feels the searing pain enveloping him as a piece of his skin blackens, crumbles, and falls off, but he knows he has little time before Abaddon resumes his attack. With an intense act of will, Soul Reaver clears his mind, concentrates on his magic, and carefully begins the process of unweaving the Flesh Blister spell affecting his body...
-
The earth beneath everyone's feet shudders as the shockwave from the impact ruptures the ground, pushing a sheet of solid rock diagonally upwards between Soul Reaver and Abaddon - unless the despoiler steps back, it will likely smash him backwards as it impacts on his face.
Abbadon finishes his attack on Sepher just as Soul Reaver lands in front of him. Seeing the huge sheet of rock pushing up out of the ground and threatening to impale him, the Despoiler unsheathes Drach'nyen and pumps chaos energy from the modified Talon of Horus into the blade.
With a one-handed slash quicker then any mortal eye can detect, Abbadon cleaves through the solid rock face, allowing it to fall into two pieces on either side of him. He then lashes out with the Talon of Horus and the chunks of rock are obliterated, leaving only a mound of fine dust at Abbadon's feet. He looks to retaliate against Soul Reaver, but the immortal warrior has already leapt out of range.
-
The Nephilim Lord spread through the living nightmare, a new set of weapons readily brandished in both hands; a long, triple bladed staff formed in the likeness of a “Y” and a long, curved, menacing sword forged in the likeness of a bladed feather. While the sword pulsed with an aura of outward violence, the staff gave off an aura of inward emptiness. An essence of eerie hollowness surrounded the staff, standing as the more menacing of the two. It was best Abbadon stay as far away from Danyael as possible now. For if the nephilim lord came within striking distance, his weapons, imbued with the most forbidden essences of his nation, would feed off of the Despoiler; both flesh and soul alike. With a silent command, the tendrils doubled in number before railing toward Abbadon in an explosion of speed while their semi-divine master also vanished in a blurr of hypnotic alacrity, unleashing an unending volley of bladed attacks from every direction around the Despoiler. The consistent, ever growing shrieks around only serving to empower their master while dealing additional adverse affliction to Abbadon's armor, both physical and mental.
As Abbadon prepares to leap after Soul Reaver, his attention is suddenly caught by a huge force heading directly towards him. Upon seeing the figure of Danyael and the wave of tendrils approaching him and attempting to overwhelm him, his first reaction is a strange one to him… fear. The Despoiler has not felt fear in ages, and he knows that this cannot be natural. He quickly shakes it off and recovers his composure. Moving swiftly, the Chaos Lord draws a circle around himself in the dust with the tip of Drach’nyen. As he completes the circle, the ground beneath him buckles and cracks from the force of something pushing up from the ground underneath him.
The Despoiler rises from the dust, and just as the nephilim’s attack falls on him, a wall of corpses explodes from the ground and surrounds him. Souls imprisoned in Abbadon’s soul aura for millennia inhabit these corpses, and soon the Despoiler is surrounded by an impenetrable dome of living, wailing flesh. Danyael’s attacks cut into the living corpses. Blood gushes in all directions and the screams of the tortured souls being brought back to life only to die again ring across the battlefield, hurting the very heart and soul of any living being who hears them.
And as the nephilim’s attack washes over this corpse mound like a wave, Abbadon appears in the sky well behind him, held aloft by transparent glowing daemon wings that he has crafted out of chaos energy. He watches the living dead die their second death, feeding off the pain and suffering and re-absorbing the bound souls as they come back to him. He waits for the next of his opponents to be foolish enough to strike out at him, the words of dark magic already forming on his lips.
-
The plaintive, agonized cries of the living dead resound through Faidth’s ears and nearly bring her to her knees in empathy for the terribly afflicted creatures before her. However, her sorrow for the twisted husks quickly transforms into anger towards the grotesque puppeteer, who would dare to inflict such travesty upon others. She watches as they are all obliterated by the Nephilim’s attack.
It seems that Abbadon has his hands quite full and has forgotten about Faidth for the time being. She uses this as an opportunity to draw his attention away from the other companions. She takes stock of the numerous marble pillars and cracked marble stairs that litter the field of battle. She feels the components of this metamorphic rock and finds that there are underlying veins of iron oxide. She quickly extracts the chemical compounds and sends the cloud of rust towards the Despoiler.
The accelerated rust particles latch onto his armor, penetrating the cracks and crevices, and wearing away at the electrical components. A cloud of particles hang around his head like a reddish-brown halo and pervade his nostrils and seek to irritate his eyes, or inhibit his breathing.
If nothing else, the damage to his armor should severely impede his mobility, perhaps even interfering with the defenses provided by his suit. In addition, the collective cloud around his face should irritate his eyes and make it very difficult for him to breathe, disorienting him and making it more difficult for the chaos lord to exact his revenge upon the companions.
-
Perhaps the warmaster didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation he’d now dug himself into. The very bubble of gravity Danyael had formed around the Despoiler remained, likely from Abbadon being so occupied with the offense from the companions. The streams of energy screeched through the sky as Danyael’s eyes traced Abbadon’s movement exactly. So long as the warmaster used energy, he would never be out of the Nephilim Lord’s reach. The assault stopped promptly, his weapons glowing an unnerving swirl of differing hues just as a mad smile gleaned through his lips as it cracked his skin, broadening the grin from ear to ear and he disappeared within the living nightmare, its screams around him having acted as a defense of their own, muting out the screams of Abbadon’s corpse wall to nothing more than a quiver of ignorable silence.
A sudden surge of energy caught a portion of Danyael’s focus - a reversal of energies against one of his own. Though he didn’t speak with words, Danyael’s mind reached directly out to Kitharsis, the a telepathic tapestry of images rushed through in a plethora of patterns, all giving Kitharsis the same message: Get off the ground!
A tone rippled through the sky as a shadow suddenly loomed over the battlefield, preceded by vivacious thumping, its bass even muting out the screaming of Danyael’s living nightmare. And suddenly the real reason Danyael spent so much time in the sky from the start of the battle came to sight. A globular, throbbing mass hovered high above Abbadon, pumping sluggishly with the drab rhythm of a heartbeat. With each thump, the mass grew larger, until it blotted out the radial view of the sky around them. Sappy ooze bubbled and vomited through its veins, dribbling sloppily back to the surface as the rain of vitae sloshed and splattered across the battlements. The death wails of the thousands of presences living within Danyael screamed into the living world, combining with the unending shrieks of the living nightmare thriving below, now creating a physical reaction. As the spherical mass throbbed to greater sizes, the living nightmare arced upward toward the bulbous structure and thus too began to grow. And grow. And grow. And grow until it plugged itself into the dead sphere suspended in the heights of the sky.
It was true, this creature of a man is by far one of the most dangerous adversaries the Nephilim Lord had ever faced. But the warmaster made one small mistake, if even for a fleeting moment. He showed fear. It didn’t escape Danyael’s notice. And how could it when at the time Abbadon showed fear was while he was standing on the ground. The ground of the very world Danyael, like all other worlds, was connected to. Even more so that the Nephilim Lord’s bond with the planet had heightened exponentially thanks to Abbadon’s recent attack that brought it all about in the first place.
Perhaps it was time to exploit that psychological loophole. Faces began to appear across the hovering mass, struggling to maintain a presence in the land of the living. One stir of voices crooned sloppily, gurgling in a fluster of echoes. They moaned a second time, their accent gaining a stronger foothold on the laws of the physical realm as it’s visage coated the dead sphere. The thousands of faces took on the same countenance to a face Abbadon could never forget as the faces of the many betrayed by the Horus Heresy howled into existence, accompanied by twisted faces of Ignance Karkasy and Garviel Loken, notable remembrancer and space marine respectively, grimaced in unending suffering. But none stuck out so much as a face that dominated the others as a massive polyp of a shape revealed to be the face of Warmaster Horus himself. No words were necessary to voice the open rage of betrayal as empty, lidless eyes bore into the Despoiler harder than any blade or bullet could inflict.
Within the sprawl of chaos made physical, Danyael’s eyes watched Abbadon. One might have questioned how he knew these men’s faces, having not met them during the time’s of their death. The better question would be, how could he not, having spent so much time in the warp, so close to the Eye of Terror. Having been a temporary resident of Aileron’s Universe during the elemental’s campaign, he was subject to a great many things while trapped within the warp, one such being the pasts of the Eye of Terror. Visions connected to visions, connected to more visions. One in particular being that of a man known only as the Emperor and the predators of a great force known only as Chaos. During his time of imprisonment, he couldn’t make sense of what he’d seen. But when he saw the one known as Abbadon, all of it made sense. All of the faces. All of the voices. All of the visions. And what better way than to share his experiences of imprisonment than a fellow traveler of the warp?
The face of Horus rippled and grimaced, trying to maintain its form in the physical world. It spit curses of betrayal at Abbadon, his voice accompanied by another stir of despoiled echoes; their voices, combined with the increasing screams of the living nightmare, taking on such intensity that they came to physical blows against Abbadon, sending wave upon wave upon wave one after another with the force of a meteor storm. All the while, the dead sphere spread in size over and over again.
-
Kitharsis gives a mental nod to Danyael as he reinforces the ground beneath him, relieving him some of the concentration needed to thwart the green tendrils beneath him. It was thanks to the Nephilim's act that he was able to focus more directly on Abbadon.
His crimson tendrils clash with Abbadon's counter-magic barrier and instantly halt. This stops Kitharsis in his tracks as the tendrils bend and contort as the dark sorcery of the barrier infects them. Danyael's message comes into his mind as he instantly closes off his tattoos, cutting off all of the tendrils trailing out from his arms. If the dark energy reaches his body it would spell disaster, mixing with his own sinister energy. Regardless of Danyael's warning, the ground is a better alternative than allowing himself to be tainted. The Tirthandara falls to the dirt as Abbadon's dark power fully infects the tendrils that came in contact with the barrier.
The tendrils flail wildly in the air around Kitharsis. He quickly throws up a shield from the triangle on the back of his right hand but does not have time to solidify it. The shield is shattered by a corrupted tendril moments later, the force of the blow sending him directly into the path of another.
Pain shoots through his body. He can feel the twisted power trying to influence the energy inside of him. The dark, unpurified Tirthandaran energy bubbles beneath his skin, relishing at the though of mixing with this dark sorcery. Thankfully his skin is resilient enough to not let the dark energy in or out, and he falls to the ground before the sporadic movements of the corrupted tendril can twist and wrap around him.
He hits the ground on his feet in a crouch, but quickly doubles over onto all fours. There is a dark burn still smoking across his back from slamming against his corrupted tendril. The ground rumbles beneath him as Soul Reaver's shockwave erupts with a sheet of rock aimed at Abbadon. With clenched teeth he scurries away as The Despoiler cuts the wall to pieces.
And then the screams come. The sight of reanimated corpses being torn asunder and their souls being sucked back into Abbadon was nearly too much to bear.
He shakes his head, vainly trying to get the sound out of his ears. Kitharsis knew the Nephilim didn't intend what had happened. The attacks of The Despoiler were more than physical, and Kitharsis didn't know which was worse...
The diamond tattoo on back of his right hand springs to life an a long glowing blade slides out of it. He unsheaths his warhammer and holds it in his left hand. The long spike is pointing away from him, ready to pierce into Abbadon's flesh.
The life-like skull tattoo on his left forearm starts pulsating with energy. Red arcs of light twist over the surface of it as he raises his arm into the air. A flash of light engulfs the area around him. As it fades the air around him is dry and hot, with specks of sand being whipped around by the wind as they fall to the ground. Two red, glowing skeletons hover in the air next to Kitharsis. They are about 5 feet tall with curved horns jutting from their head and fingertips and toetips ending in long, sharp points. Their hands and toes are alight with red flames that lick at the air around them.
Kitharsis and his new blazing skeletal companions charge forward towards Abbadon, but their trek is cut short as Danyael's attack comes to fruition. The huge mass in the sky was unsettling, and their screams were sending down waves of blows upon Abbadon. Thinking better of charging into such a maelstrom, Kitharsis paces around the outskirts of the storm. Patiently waiting for an opening to strike with his skeletons.
-
The enchantments of the Flesh Blister spell unravel beneath Soul Reaver's concentrated assault - it seems his companions have bought him sufficient time to complete the Dispel. As the last threads of dark magic drift away into the ether, the burning pain ebbs from his mind and Soul Reaver feels his flesh knitting itself together again.
Yet as he is about to stand, screams of anguish and agony rend the air. He winces at the pained chorus as Danyael slices into the barrier of flesh that Abaddon has erected... and yet, strangely, part of him relishes the sound. As the screams reach a crescendo, the desire to hear more of them only seems to grow.
Looking up at Abaddon, Soul Reaver sees streams of souls rising from the tortured, maimed corpses and being absorbed. His lips twist into a smirk. This was going to be a petty gesture, but Soul Reaver was feeling vengeful.
As Danyael summons the face of Horus to taunt Abaddon and Kitharsis prepares his burning skeletal minions to attack, Soul Reaver formulates an assault of his own. His arm draws back Blooddrinker, muscles flexing as he prepares to throw the blade. With a shout, he sends the sword spinning from his fingers, the crimson blade appearing as a flattened red disc as it whips through the air.
But the weapon is not aimed at Abaddon. Instead, it aims at the large mass of flesh still piled below him. The blade curves through midair, unerringly slicing through the remaining bodies, drawing forth more of their horrendous screams. Soul Reaver does not seem to care about the effect this will have on those around him - instead, he is concentrating on one thing only...
Steal from the thief, then use the spoils to make him pay!
His gauntleted left hand is extended as Soul Reaver uses the power that is his namesake. His eyes blaze red as the remaining souls, freed from the fleshy confines but not yet drawn back into Abaddon, are suddenly, violently pulled toward Soul Reaver.
His eyes unwavering from the targets that remain unseen to his companions, Blooddrinker curves back towards Soul Reaver like a boomerang, ending its arc with a loud 'clang' in Soul Reaver's raised right hand.
-
Jharm, the benevolent Seraphim, attempts to debilitate Abbadon by temporarily blinding the Chaos Lord, using nothing but the sheer force of the angelic being’s command of Light. Abbadon, his attention being elsewhere, is momentarily disoriented as he is forced to bring his arm over his eyes to block the Light.
In the meantime, Jharm delivers a flurry of blows directed towards the creature’s extremities. Abbadon struggles to regain his might as Jharm’s hammer catches him in the shoulder. The hammer hums as the angel forcefully continues to pummel the Chaos Lord.
Abbadon, his patience wearing thin, strikes forward with the Talon of Horus. His strength is heavily augmented by his boundless rage, Abbadon easily finds his mark and the warhammer is unceremoniously knocked out of Jharm’s hands and clatters to the ground.
Faidth blindsides Abbadon with a well-placed Atom Transfiguration. The rust particles explode forward and latch onto the Chaos Lord’s armor. The accelerated particles invade the joints of his armor, making it a bit more difficult for him to move. A cloud of rust gathers around his head where it is inhaled by an infuriated Abbadon.
He coughs heavily as the particles enter his lungs, slither up his nostrils, and burn his eyes, but this setback only fuels his rage and he plunges the Talon of Horus into the ground, sending a shock of chaos energy through the earth and towards Faidth. If she does not move, or find some way to block the attack, she will be thrown off her feet and heavily injured by a powerful shock of chaos energy.
Danyael, hoping to affect the Chaos Lord with vestiges of his heresy, even the very face of Horus himself, are met with contempt by the Chaos Lord. Abbadon’s cracked lips part in a horrific smile, and a strange sound begins to emanate from somewhere within the recesses of his corrupted soul.
The Chaos Lord is overcome with laughter, and had he still the ability to cry, he would have wiped tears of amusement from the corners of his eyes.
“You fool! You dare to threaten the Avatar of Fear and Agony itself with these paltry offerings to a weakness that I no longer possess!” Abbadon lets out a roar of indignation and holds the Talon high above his head. The lightning claw crackles with inordinate amounts of chaos energy that are sent upwards, towards the bulging, grotesque mass that Danyael concocted to taunt the Chaos Lord.
The chaos energy strikes the orb, eviscerating it from the bottom to the top, and leaving it little more than a putrid, slime-ridden husk. Abbadon’s eyes become slits as he levels his gaze upon Danyael. He begins to mutter a spell under his breath, and the ground beneath him begins to shake with tumultuous reverberations. Shards of bone, haphazardly strewn across the field of battle, begin to collect at Abbadon’s feet. The last word of the spell erupts in a bloodcurdling cry that causes the bone shards to rise into the air, where they begin to forcefully hurtle towards the nephilim.
Kitharsis, flanked by his skeletal minions, is presented with an opening that is impossible to ignore. Should he choose to strike now, he will certainly have at least a fleeting advantage over Abbadon.
Soul Reaver uses his Soul Control ability to harness the souls that Abbadon had imprisoned in the writhing, tortured piles of flesh below him. These are the souls of the victims of Abbadon, hapless, vacant refuse left over from once vibrant, animated creatures of all walks of life. As Soul Reaver absorbs these piteous abominations, corrupted from a millennia of agony at the hands of their tormenter, the insanity that had been building within Soul Reaver roars to an astounding crescendo. Such corruption will surely draw the attention of the demon-blade that Soul Reaver wields.
Abbadon makes no move to intercede to preserve the souls that he had temporarily relinquished back to the earth. A smug twitch of a smile affects the corners of his lips as he feels them being drawn from existence and into the virtuous warrior.
-
Soul Reaver is unmoved as the pitiful souls are drawn into him - his millenia of experience protect him well enough from the suffering within these souls.
But it is nonetheless this suffering that he is after. The moment the last of the souls disappear into Soul Reaver's hand, his face forms an expression of intense concentration.
He reaches DEEP into the newly aquired souls. These ragged, pathetic things have suffered for centuries immemorial. Oh, how they must hate, hate, HATE the one who did this to them. How they must wish for vengeance. How they must BEG for a chance to have him share their pain, even for a moment. And now, at last, that one chance...
Soul Reaver's left fist closes over Blooddrinker's blade, and the tortured souls within Soul Reaver pulse with new life, the pyres of rage burning and roaring. Their suffering, and hate, and despair flow through Soul Reaver's arms, channeled by his concentration, focused and bound by his sorcery. A writhing mass of sinister black energy suffuses Blooddrinker's blade. Tentacles of energy flail around the weapon, which gives a deep sigh of approval. This would be glorious, yes, glorious indeed!
Soul Reaver's gaze snaps upwards, toward Abaddon. Kitharsis was moving in to attack, and Abbadon was distracted with Danyael. This mistake would cost him very dearly.
Red lightning crackles from Soul Reaver's body as he hurtles forward. His steel-shod boots crack the ground as he runs, his whole body a blur. Both fists close over Blooddrinker's hilt in an iron grip, and he draws the sword back to his side for a massive swing. Kitharsis was closer to Abaddon than he was, and this was ideal - he would attack from Abaddon's flank and time his strike to coincide Kitharsis' own.
-
Abbadon is distracted. The attacks of his companions draw his attention and leave an opening for Kitharsis to strike. Without a word he charges forward, the blade on his right arm glowing fiercly and his warhammer charging Tirthandaran energy of its own. His skeletons were flying ahead of him, their appendages trailing with blazing red flames.
The skeletons reach The Despoiler and their entire bodies burst into intense flames. The pair circle Abbadon, surrounding him in a cyclone of flames. They latch onto him as Kitharsis crashes through the flames, his blade held above his head. With the skeletons hopefully hindering Abbadon's movements, Kitharsis lets loose a vicious cry and brings the blade down. He aims for Abbadon's arm holding the Talons, intending to remove it from his body. He follows up with a heavy blow with his warhammer. It is fully charged with Tirthandaran energy and upon impact it will explode with great force and knock Abbadon into the air, if not destroying part of his already weakened armor in the process.
-
Abbadon finds himself stuck between a Tirthandaran rock and a Soul-infused hard place. Abbadon, his attention split in many directions at the same time, is not fully prepared for Kith’s attack, and even less prepared for the strategic flanking carried out by Soul Reaver. Soul Reaver, his body teeming with the energy of countless vengeful souls, launches himself towards the destructive harbinger of Chaos.
Soul Reaver’s massive swing connects with Abbadon’s chest, and the enormous pulse of energy released by the long overdue catharsis of these souls, is enough to unbalance the Chaos Lord, and send him careening in the opposite direction.
However, Abbadon makes it only a few feet when he is assailed from the opposite direction mere moments later. The skeletal minions commanded by Kitharsis surround him in a cyclone of flames, causing him to become more disoriented as he struggles to regain his balance. The creatures latch onto the Chaos Lord as the Tirthandaran hurtles through the flames, his blade trained upon this horrific creature of darkness.
Unfortunately, the blow from Kitharsis’s blade is rendered obsolete as Abbadon seizes the blade and holds it firmly in the vice-like grip of the Talon of Horus. His eyes wild with a mixture of rage and desperation, Abbadon reaches into the depths of his blackened soul to surmise some way to put a final stop to this insanity. As Kith’s warhammer slams into his body and launches him into the air, Abbadon is able to contain his composure just long enough to utter another spell.
The ground beneath Soul Reaver and Kitharsis begins to shake violently and long, undulating tendrils erupt through the surface. The tendrils, their might great and their grip unyielding, wrap about the limbs of the two companions and hoist them high into the air where they are dangled gleefully like a child’s plaything. Six-inch thick shards of bone emerge from the ends of these tendrils and dig into the flesh of Kitharsis and Soul Reaver.
A smile of satisfaction crosses Abbadon’s lips as he gazes skyward towards his opponents, not just because of their current situation, but because of the knowledge that if they do not somehow escape, the bone shards will begin to channel a powerful, virulent, chemical agent that will slowly kill his adversaries.
-
Abbadon should have paid closer attention to what briefly surfaced from Danyael’s eyes, then he would have seen that it wasn’t just the greater souls of the long fallen that inhabited the Nephilim Lord, but the very antithesis of celestial order. In his time of exile did Danyael encounter, and master, what Old Earth knew as the Gerasene Demon - best known as “Legion”. By the divine blood in his veins did he claim the entity for himself, molding it to his will to do as he deemed. As the Talon of Horus ignited with chaos energy, the orb of grotesqueries rippled with anticipation, opening itself to the energies as the mouths of the many faces, cackled in a cacophony of mad. The faint grin of satisfaction pierced their insanity before the globe exploded from pole to pole. Alas, Danyael was nowhere to be seen.
The field of gore began to quake and shutter and a snaking funnel slithered into the sky where the remains of the orb began to sew itself together. Choruses of voices came in rivulets of sound, curving around the air, chanting in vague gibberish. They raised an octave, screaming the dark lingo none could translate. And then the chanting stopped and the sphere exploded; having done its deed by incubating the creature meditating within.
The cocoon splattered below, sloshing in thick gore that spread across the radial distance, leaving something eerily phantasmal behind. There Danyael hovered amidst the emptiness, the upper half of his wardrobe burned away to reveal the fleshly tapestry adorning his skin. His face looked, for lack of a better word, empty - hollow. Black, soulless eyes looked up to Abbadon as the Nephilim Lord clenched his fists in preparation for the coming attack. He watched quietly as the missiles of bone streak toward him. A pop of his neck and he vanishes, with a platoon of Nocturne Kenshi hovering in his place, just barely taking the hit for him. Reappearing mere meters from the assault, he prepared to rush the Despoiler head on.
Before he could act, however, he noticed a certain tinge to the flux of energies and his sights focused immediately on two of his comrades. He watched from his haven in the skies as the grounds beneath Kith and Soul were suddenly overcome with another of the Despoiler’s snares. He looked once to the Despoiler, yearning for engaging the coward head on, but looked back to the men, or at least one of them, that he called friends. A deep snarl curled up his throat and he chose an option any would deem foolish. A sudden will of speed brought him directly over his companions where, with claws protracted, he sliced his hand across his chest in a blood sacrifice. As the warm red ick gushed from front and behind, he his hand free, letting the eruption of crimson splatter into the air. Arms and legs formed from the thick red where Nocturne Kenshi in the forms of bloody phantom limbs of their own. peaked once more into the living world. As these were directly connected to him through a physical bond, the risks were far greater. But he didn’t care. If he could save them both, great. If he could save only one, that was better than none.
The blood creatures embraced Kith and Soul, yanking Danyael into the fray as he set himself between the two. And then he let the pain take him. He took a sipping breath through his lips and allowed the flow of Qi to course through his skin, letting it vibrate and envelope him while the limbs of blood attatched themselves to the tendrils, extending, expanding and multiplying, pushing the amount of blood in his body to ridiculously fatal limits. The influx of energies began to spin, whirling around him in a sphere of prismatic light that forcefully shrank with each whirl. And then when he could hold it no longer, he let the build up explode in a shimmering, globular burst, the energies of his own power completely merging with the strength of Abbadon’s spell.
He folded moments in time into simple seconds, taking in the structure of the tendrils to where he could feel himself inside of them. As he felt his essence expand throughout the tendrils, he could physically feel Kith and Soul. The virulent properties of the tendrils proved more overwhelming than prior anticipated, though not all a surprise. He knew he wouldn’t come out in one piece from this one. The next surge of energy came from within once more, this time forcing him to tear both men away, forcing himself in the hopes of taking their place amidst the tendrils instead.
He mentally swore at the situation, but knew that no manner of power would ever be able to place on the value he put in his friends. And if that meant he couldn’t unleash deadly force against Abbadon, then that is a price he will gladly pay. Such as right now.
-
As Danyael effectively intercedes on behalf of Kitharsis and Soul Reaver, the Tirthandaran and the warrior find themselves discarded, freed from the clutches of the tendrils.
However, Abbadon is not about to let them escape unscathed, and as the two plummet towards the ground, the Chaos Lord stomps his heavy, Ceramite boot upon the earth. The area beneath the tendrils erupts in a field of long, skeletal stalagmites, waiting to exacerbate the situation and impale Abbadon’s quarry.
Danyael, having successfully freed his companions, finds himself in the crushing grip of the tendrils. The long, tentacle-like appendages readjust themselves to acquire a better hold upon Danyael. Several wrap around his legs, and the creations continue to inject their venomous bile into the nephilim through the use of the bone shards. More tendrils hastily seize Danyael’s arms, digging painfully into his wrists. In a coordinated motion, each set of tendrils begin to pull in opposite directions, intent on tearing Danyael apart.
-
Sepher snarls as Abbadon aborbs the fire he had sent hurtling back at him, and he reaches his spear.
He hefted it just in time for his eyes to widen as a giant hand of swirling angry green flame to engulf him. He hardly had time to respond.
Quickly flinging out his right arm, another transformation begun, Demonic Transformation concentration. Sepher snarled in pain as a demonic soul is allowed to flush freely into his right arm. The arm quavered as it began to bulge, muscles rippled along the flesh as it grotesquely expanded in size.
Fragments of iron, steel and other metal were instantly attached to the new arm as he used his metal shaping to form a giant gauntlet on it in a matter of seconds. This was intensely painful for Sepher, using his transformation so fast, but times like this made it necessary.
As the giant green flame hand crushed down around him, his own would collide with it, a giant fist the size of Abbadon's talon itself. It would close with the flame and the stench of heating metal and burning flesh wafted around him as he growled aloud, fighting with the flames. He would put most of his focus into this, and trying to close his own fist around the flame to smother it.
-
Perhaps the current situation wasn’t so unfortunate for the Nephilim Lord. Amidst the coming pain, it provided a moment for him to reflect. Perhaps he was approaching this battle all wrong. His mind reminded him of the Yamato, still sheathed at his side.
His eyes could see the energies that held the tendrils together. He could see them ebb and flow in wild miasmas invisible to all eyes save for his. He saw the currents and torrents washing around the tendrils, keeping the monstrosities in existence. And since he could depict energy, he could manipulate it. Centering himself into his chakra points, he opened himself to the raw energies, both those he produced and those that puppeteered the spell that sought to rend him apart. He felt the heating throb of Qi penetrate and bind itself around him, feeling out the strings of muscle as a spirit would feel out the smoothness of a new body.
The limbs of blood that attached him to the tendrils began to flatten and quiver, taking on the forms of tens of blades. The action was instant and the blades of blood tore the tendrils to ribbons, freeing him from his prison instantly, all the while his eyes locked entirely on Abbadon and nowhere else. No longer was this a matter of whose powers were larger, but rather who could overwhelm whom first.
He looked to the sky to note the warp energy holding the Eidolon Wastelands together, watching the true threads of energy make their way into existence. Noticing the invading forces still trying to enter his body, he willed the bad blood to purge itself from his body, purging the virulent forces with them. Adjusting his vibrations to that of the warp energies above, he started the process of pulling energy inward, like light to a black hole, letting it resonate and compact, folding over itself again and again until it was ready to explode. In a blip of speed, he vanished, only to appear directly in front of Abbadon and let the explosion howl free in full force.
-
Sepher’s gauntleted hand attempts to thwart the progress of Abbadon’s fiery green flame as it attempts to crush him. Sepher is ultimately successful in slowing the progress of Abbadon’s creation, however, it seems that the Chaos Lord has something different in mind.
With Sepher still cradled in the palm of the flaming, green menace, Abbadon repeatedly smashes the hand upon the earth.
Sepher sees the ground rushing towards him and is met with a jolt of pain as he is slammed into the unforgiving terrain again and again. If Sepher does not manage to fully liberate himself, it appears that Abbadon will attempt to bury him alive in the rocky depths of the Eidolon Wastes.
-
His skeletons relinquish their vice-like grip on Abbadon as Kitharsis's warhammer connects and sends their adversary into the air. They float in the air above Kitharsis and Soul Reaver, waiting for their master's next command.
But before Kitharsis can act the ground erupts with a mass of tendrils. They quickly wrap themselves around Soul Reaver and himself before large shards of bone jut out and dig into their flesh.
Kitharsis's eyes widen as he realizes the severity of his situation. His skin was unnaturally hard, preventing the majority of the bone shards to pierce through is flesh. Yet this battle was long and it was taking its toll. The burnt streak of skin across his back was weakened, and the shards crack and tear through it. He tries to concentrate and contain his energy, but it fights against him at is chance for freedom.
Flashes of crimson Tirthandaran energy pulse out of his back. It arcs through the air like splatters of blood, incinerating anything that it touches.
Thankfully, Danyael frees Soul Reaver and Kitharsis from the tendrils before any more damage can be done. Kitharsis is able to gain control over himself and the blasts of energy stop coursing out of his back. He quickly runs away from Abbadon and any of his companions, not wanting them to be caught in his destructive injuries.
His two skeletons fly to his back and place their hands on his wounds. Their intense flames quickly char his skin and close the tears in his skin. Kitharsis yells out in pain as his skin pulls itself together. He lost more energy than he would have liked through the whole ordeal. As his skeletons back away he takes stock of the situation.
Sepher was in a deal of trouble. The green flaming hand was slamming him into the ground repeatedly.
"Go! Aid him."
Kitharsis's two skeletons take off in flaming streaks through the air and latch onto the green flaming hand. Their sharp fingers and toes dig into hand as it clutches Sepher in its grasp. Their crimson flames combat the green flames of the fist. They pull at it, slicing through the construct and attempting to give Sepher a chance to free himself.
-
Soul Reaver feels a sense of intense satisfaction as Blooddrinker crashes into Abaddon, unleashing a punishing blast of power that slams the warlorld away like a lifeless doll.
But his victory is short-lived, as the ground beneath him ruptures open and coiling tendrils of dark power emerge from the earth. Blooddrinker screams through the air and slices one of the tendrils in two, but already another has wrapped itself around Soul Reaver's ankle. He is yanked from his feet, slamming hard into the ground. That moment's disorientation given Abaddon all the time he needs: in the blinking of an eye, Soul Reaver finds himself restrained and hoisted helplessly into the air.
Veins bulge on Soul Reaver's biceps and neck as he fights against the inhumanly strong tendrils - quietly, slowly, he can hear their insides snapping and tearing. But at the same time, vicious, venomous shards of bone start to grow outwards from the tendrils as if in response. Those near his armour scrape against it, screeching loudly but harmlessly... but those that touch his skin push inexorably deeper. He feels them sliding through his flesh, a burning agony pulsing from the wounds and growing ever stronger.
Blooddrinker vibrates in his hand. The blade feels hot, like fresh gore. It feels like salvation.
And then, in a flash, he feels his body wrenched through space, tearing free of the tendrils. Unceremoniously he sprawls onto the ground, throwing dead grey dust into the air. A streak of blood running from his scalp to his jaw, he looks up to see Danyael caught in the tendrils instead - Kitharsis was free nearby, but struggling to contain the energies roaring destructively from his wound.
Grunting with effort, Soul Reaver gets back onto his feet. This battle was taking a heavy toll, and did not seem to be near finishing. His regenerative powers were being pushed to the limit, rapidly attempting to purge the poison that the tendrils had pumped into his veins before his rescue. His Strength and Berserk spells were dissipating. Danyael had managed to free himself and was still battling Abaddon, but Sepher was being pummeled by the warlord and Kitharsis was only just recovering from his injuries. Soul Reaver needed to do something decisive.
Soul Reaver's hand gripped Blooddrinker tightly. The throbbing heat was still there. Now he needed the Daemon Lord's strength, but he needed to be cautious... measured. This place, this battle, the sword, they all threatened to upset the finely balanced scale of his control. It teetered now on a razor's edge - he dared not fill it too much more.
Cold and hollow words drip form Soul Reaver's tongue as his eyes crackle with blackness. The air around him shimmers with Daemonic energy. The spellcasting seems to hollow out Soul Reaver from within, leeching his magic from his body... yet power pours freely from his cursed sword, filling that hollowness with fresh, hungry, burning light, racing like fire through Soul Reaver's bones. He holds the blade parallel to the ground, his arm completely unmoving and still as the power coruscates over him.
Motes of red light begin to materialize in the air around Soul Reaver, floating up lazily around him and growing ever brighter. His left hand seems to move independently, almost without thought, gracefully tracing a rune in the air, leaving behind a glowing white outline wherever it passes.
His preparations were almost complete... it was almost time to strike.
-
Though successful in landing a blow against the vile creature before him, Jharm's hammer is sent flying through the air and crashing into the ground a short distance away. Jharm launches himself into the air and observes the battle. After observing his allies being attacked by vile tendrils and now one being slammed mercilessly into the ground Jharm begins to chant a battle hymn. The Seraphim's form begins to glow a bright white light until suddenly he stops and stretches his arms out to his side. The healing spell washes over each of his companions slowly working to attempt to heal their wounds and strengthen their resolve.
Knowing that something must be done to aid Sepher in escaping from the massive hand, Jharm begins to channel another spell as spheres of light envelop his gauntleted hands. As the spell reaches its end the angel brings his hands together, aiming directly at Abaddon as a massive beam of pure holy light soars directly at Abaddon.
-
A shock of chaos energy rips through the ground and towards Faidth. Reflexively, she slams her fists into the ground, a hastily drawn together Atom Transfiguration her motivation. A sheet of rock, bone and metal forms before her and she kicks it with the toe of her boot, forcing it up in the air and into her awaiting hands. She lowers the shield towards the ground, and as the chaos energy slams into the constructed barrier.
She pulls the Skeerya from her back and calls upon her growing dominion over fire. Flames erupt from her skin and travel down her arms, dancing over her fingertips, before lighting the Skeerya. She explodes forward in a flurry of motion, the bladed weapon rapidly flashing as she goes. Abbadon, hopefully with his attention focused elsewhere, should not be expecting the fiery Skeerya trained to connect with his exposed face.
-
Abbadon effortlessly manages to block Faidth’s attack. As she moves to strike him with the Skeerya, the Chaos Lord simply raises Drach’yen and blocks the blow.
“Pathetic,” he mutters, as if bored by the attempt.
He swipes forward with the Talon of Horus. The lightning infused claw moves too quickly for Faidth to avoid and the blades slash across her stomach. Blood begins to pour from her wounded abdomen and Abbadon, satisfied that she would likely bleed to death, focuses his attention on more adept enemies.
Luckily for Faidth, Jharm’s spell manages to heal the wounds of his companions, at least partially restoring their heavily abused bodies and strengthening their spirits.
The angelic being aims a massive beam of holy light directly at Abbadon. With full force, it catches Abbadon directly in the chest, sending the Chaos Lord stumbling backwards, and nearly causing him to falter. His armor, heavily weakened, begins to buckle and crack under the force of Jharm’s blow.
A dark, ebony liquid, begins to seep from his wounds and flow down his armor. As it collects in small puddles at his feet, the ground begins to sizzle and react, an unpleasant side-effect to the creature’s corrosive blood.
Abbadon’s transparent, green wings begin to pulse with a grotesque green light and he launches himself into the air. He hurtles towards Jharm, the Talon of Horus stretched out before him. He lowers his shoulder as he nears the angelic being, and his spiked pauldron catches Jharm under the chin, snapping his head backwards and causing him to bleed heavily from the wound.
However, before Abbadon can take any further action against Jharm, Danyael appears directly in front of Abbadon. Danyael, his body attuned to the warp energy that permeates through the Eidolon Wastes, unleashes an immense explosion against the Chaos Lord at point-blank range.
Abbadon’s eyes widen in surprise as the explosion mercilessly pounds his already heavily injured body. Unfortunately, the laughter that follows is not the reaction that one would expect when greeted with their imminent demise. Rather, the Chaos Lord grins at Danyael in wicked delight as he absorbs the energy into himself and his body rapidly begins to mend as he finds his powers exponentially renewed.
Kitharsis, freshly liberated from Abbadon’s creation, quickly removes himself from the area as not to allow his powerful, Tirthandaran energy to unintentionally harm his companions. Seeing Sepher in trouble, he orders his skeletal minions to aid him. Flashes of brilliant crimson and sickly green vie to determine just who the superior, summoned creation is. It seems that Abbadon’s hand may very well get the upper hand, but Kith’s relentless inferiors are a force to be reckoned with. They finally manage to wrest the fingers of the flame, green hand open, thus allowing Sepher to escape.
However, Abbadon, growing angrier by the minute, is not about to just let Sepher leave. The hand grows to frightening proportions. The ground begins to shake violently as the hand plunges deep into the craggy terrain. Moments later, the hand begins to emerge again, this time with something grasped within its eerie fingers.
What emerges from the ground is a sight that practically defies description. It is a creature of horror incarnate, torn and reformed from the flesh of thousands, and filled with the unbridled hatred and spite of its master. When last the hand desists in its course of action, the being that stands before Sepher is several stories high with sharp, pointed teeth, and a gaping maw that drips a sickening combination of blood, pus, bile, and other unmentionable oozes best left forgotten. The fingers of its exaggeratedly long arms dangle at its knees and its legs are little more than mounds of blistered pustules.
The creature lets out a ferocious growl as it locks eyes with Sepher. The pustules ooze and pop, sending rivulets of vomit-inducing liquid splattering across anyone unfortunate enough to be in the immediate area.
Abbadon draws back his sword to strike out at Danyael and Jharm. However, he finds his attention drawn to the far end of the battlefield. He sees the motes of red light that collect around Soul Reaver’s form as the warrior traces a rune in the air.
Abbadon realizes that if he does not act quickly, the battle may very well be lost. The entirety of his body is enveloped in a putrid, green light and a wash of sickness falls over all upon the field of battle as his command over chaos energy is further exemplified. He begins to mutter words in a long forgotten tongue under his breath, and each syllable that falls from his lips brings dread to all who hear them.
Kitharsis, Danyael, and Soul Reaver find themselves teleported to the center of the battlefield. Abbadon’s sickly green wings periodically flap behind the Chaos Lord, allowing him to hover over the aforementioned companions. The slew of words that cross his cracked, bleeding lips, begin to grow louder until his speech reaches a crescendo and can be heard across the battlefield.
-
Abbadon’s ghastly, green wings flap behind him as he ascends higher into the air. He is enveloped in an aura of screaming specters, the faces of all those poor souls that were unfortunate enough to be squelched beneath his heavy hand. Each visage laments their own sorry existence in intonations formed of all the grief and agony their broken spirits can manage.
The harbinger of chaos raises the Talon of Horus high above his head, and as he does so, the faces around him begin to whirl faster and faster, causing his silhouette to appear even more exaggerated and menacing than before. The Talon crackles with lightning and the purplish sky above seems to become more accented with blistering shades of red. Thin, ragged lines streak across the horizon, making it appear as if the sky itself is bleeding.
Beneath the companions, the ground begins to quaver tumultuously, making it difficult to maintain one’s balance. The terra under their feet cracks and separates, allowing a wash of foul-smelling green air to escape the crevices. The scent itself is enough to cause anyone to question the stability of their stomachs.
Abbadon’s sour note, still resonating across the battlefield, becomes amplified and continues its assault on the ears of anyone who can hear it. The longer his cry of hatred persists, the greater the danger of the terra becomes. The ground violently tosses and turns, instantly crumbling the few remaining pillars that have managed to survive upon the surface.
A loud crack! can be heard in the middle of the battlefield, and a fissure tears into existence, then proceeds to widen rapidly. A gout of magma surges upward, nearly hitting the three, valiant companions who currently have Abbadon’s undivided attention.
As the crack continues to grow, razor-sharp shards of obsidian begin to sprout from the perimeter of the fissure. These dangerous, pointed edges become as gnashing teeth, and there is a great and terrible sound from somewhere within the molten abyss below. It seems that this desecrated piece of dead planet has been forcefully reawakened, and twisted to Abbadon’s cruel devices.
Danyael, Soul Reaver and Kitharsis find themselves precariously balanced upon unsteady bits of earth, and can be consumed by the gaping maw at any time. Abbadon stomps his boot upon the ground, and the unsteady bits of terrain beneath their feet lurch drastically to one side. If they cannot manage to effectively escape, they will find themselves consumed by the magma below.
-
Faidth, still quite shaken from her injury, rises to her feet as Abbadon teleports several of her companions into the middle of the battlefield. She struggles to maintain her footing as the ground surges beneath her feet, tossing her violently to and fro.
Her level of alarm and need for self-preservation both increase dramatically, as she notes Kitharsis balanced precariously upon a meager bit of earth, the ground separating below him. She has great regard for the Tirthandaran, who has pulled her out of harm’s way on more than one occasion. He had even once carried her weary form from danger when she had exhausted her power, and she desperately seeks some way to return the favor.
Her heart thunders in her chest as her feet are spurred into motion. She explodes forward, barreling across the battlefield at breakneck speed, but she doubts she will be able to make it to him before he is tossed into a burning, liquid grave.
Suddenly, it is as if time itself seizes her by the arm and yanks her through the remaining bit of space between herself and Kitharsis. She finds herself “pulled,” inadvertently teleported once again. Wasting no time, she seizes him roughly around the waist and gives in to whatever benevolent force is charting her movements. She laments that she did not have the time to aid Danyael or Soul Reaver, but having no control over these teleportations, she knows that she is lucky to have gotten at least one of them out of the way.
Teleportation is a new and rather unpleasant experience for Faidth, and when she and Kitharsis find themselves behind Abbadon, but out of the range of the magma maw, the dizziness affects her immediately. The Fyrellian falls to her knees and takes a moment to catch her breath before taking stock of any elements around her that she might be able to use against Abbadon. Though Abbadon will surely notice the Tirthandaran has at least temporarily evaded his grasp, perhaps Kitharsis may be able to utilize this moment to assault Abbadon from behind.
-
As the dust settles from Jharm's massive form crash into the decrepit planet after Abaddon's violent counter-attack a glow can be seen. It would seem Jharm managed to erect a shield around himself before the collision protecting him at least from suffering any further damage. A groan of pain eminates from the holy being as his damaged helmet clatters to the ground, the enchanted metal not being able to withstand such a blow in tact. Jharm can feel blood running down his face, the wound from the Chaos lord's attack draining him of strength every second. Stumbling to his feet he begins to concentrate on at least sealing the wound.
As a glow of white light begins to envelop Jharm and the wound begins to seal closed he is able to focus on the battle once again to see that 2 of his companions are now in mortal danger of being consumed by yet another horrific spell of the Despoiler's doing. He also see's some horrific apparition..for lack of a better word...standing before Sepher. Realizing that he is the only one not actively either being assaulted or in grave danger he decides something must be done.
He gazes at Abaddon to see that he has once again healed himself by turning Danyael's attack against him. Anger begins to flood the Seraphim, anger that this creature has time and time again avoided the death he so rightly deserves. That this creature before them is responsible for the death's of millions and yet try as they might they can not seem to defeat him. Anger that will no longer be held in check...
Jharm clenches his fists, his veins raising as he begins to focus all of his power, a chant echoing from his angellic lips as his entire body illuminates, spheres of white appearing around his hands once again. Finally with a loud roar the angel launches into the air directly at Abaddon, aiming to collide with the horrific being and literally beat him into the ground with righteous fury. As he nears him though Jharm has one final thought.
If I should die, let my death honor all those innocence this creature has slain. Let my death aid in his downfall... once and for all.
It would seem the Seraphim is intent on bringing this battle...and Abaddon's reign of terror and genocide to an end even if it costs him every drop of blood in his angellic body.
-
As Soul Reaver draws the final strokes on the rune he is creating, Abaddon's chaotic powers wrench him through space once more, depositing him below the chaos warmaster. Normally such teleportation would induce momentary nausia and disorientation, but Soul Reaver is so lost in concentration for his spellcasting that it does not even register to his senses.
The final stroke is made, and with a faint bass note, the rune glows brightly in front of Soul Reaver's hand, then fades away. The same moment, Soul Reaver's senses return, and the ground beneath his feet cracks and ruptures. Bursts of pestilental air jet from the cracks, making Soul Reaver gag and his eyes water, and his ears are assaulted by a cacaphonic thundering. Next to him are Danyael and Kitharsis, all apparently caught in the same predicament.
A burst of molten lava hurtles into the air next to Soul Reaver, and in that same moment, Kitharsis seems to vanish into thin air. Soul Reaver can see the faint wisps of Faidth's spiritual energy glimmering in the air where Kitharsis had stood - it seems she had intervened rescued him somehow.
But as Abaddon slams the ground hard, causing the earth to crumble further beneath his feet, Soul Reaver's thoughts return to his own present predicament. Originally he had intended to teleport himself into position, but not only does his unsteady footing make any accurate teleportation difficult, but his close proximity to Abaddon meant there was little need. Speaking words of magic, Soul Reaver casts a Levitation spell, small glimmers of sorcery removing the pull of gravity from his body and allowing him to fly. His feet quickly leave the buckling ground and Soul Reaver soars several meters into the air.
In the distance, Soul Reaver feels a sudden flare of holy energy - the angelic Jharm, suffused with divine white energy, was hurtling towards Abaddon like a comet. Soul Reaver saw his chance. Thankfully Jharm's holy magics had helped neutralize the poison in his veins and replensish his flagging powers earlier, for he would need all the strength and precision he could muster for his attack.
Soul Reaver swoops aside in a lazy arc around Abaddon, intent on making way for Jharm and making it appear that he is attempting to withdraw. However, at the widest point of his arc, Soul Reaver hurls Blooddrinker away from him. The sword spins through the air, first away, then returning, rapidly gathering speed as it homes in on Abaddon.
Yet this, too, is a feint. Soul Reaver is intent on keeping Abaddon from preventing his real attack. Jharm's assault was imminent and Blooddrinker moments from impact. The motes of crimson light around Soul Reaver grow ever brighter as his gauntleted right hand is raised in front of his face, ready to deflect any incoming attacks, and his left hand is pulled back to deliver a bone-crushing punch. In the aftermath of the imminent strikes, Soul Reaver will hurl himself forward at the warmaster and concentrate all his efforts into landing that one, lightning-fast hammer blow.
-
The healing of the Despoiler was unpleasant to behold. Damn bastard was so smug, cheating death at every turn. The more they pounded him, it seems, the more he’d bounce back. To say the situation was disheartening wouldn’t do this event justice. The whole circumstance was just one big fucked up mess of inconsistencies.
Danyael’s stance jostled only slightly by the sudden change in location, though the discomfort went unnoticed, the true expanse of his concerns being on the series of events that led up to this very moment. A whiph of energies caught his attentions and he watched as Kith was rescued by Faidth, allowing himself a temporary smile. Without physically speaking, his mind reached out to the young warrioress, presenting a slew of soft images that translated to a simple phrase: Thank you.
He looked once more to the sky, then to the ocean of magma far below. His breath was ragged. His skin was pale. He swore in silence at the folly of empowering Abbadon with an attack that was meant to deal him the felling strike. There would be no elaborate rituals or summoning of ancient demons this time around. His trump card was insultingly turned against him and he now had put his companions into even more danger than before he came. He then closed his eyes, lifted his head, outstretched his arms and resigned himself to his fate, leaning back and letting himself fall into the depths below where the torrents of magma consumed him, leaving nothing left.
-
((This is a requested post for Fei. Please see my OOC for an explanation.))
Fei Serumen finally finished fighting off the tendrils of green flame that had beset him. Normally an attack like this wouldn't trouble him, but he has been finding his abyssal powers harder and harder to control due to the wasteland's proximity to the warp, and therefore to the void itself. Now, as he cuts through the last of the tendrils and they dissipate, he sees Abbadon threatening to crush his companions. He disregards their fate; they can take care of themselves. Instead, he focuses on the fact that Abbadon now has his back towards him and is directly behind him. A perfect opening.
In a blur faster then any eye can see, Fei launches himself at Abbadon's back. His intentions are to simply impale the Despoiler on his blades while he is distracted. But just as he is about to impact with Abbadon, his control over the Abyss slips again. Fei looks up in irritation as an envelope of darkness surrounds him. All warriors on the battlefield hear his final thought echoing in their mind.
"Fuck."
The envelope of darkness closes, and Fei's presence can no longer be detected anywhere. He is gone.
-
As Danyael falls towards the molten rock, a flash of blue lights the area just below him. A crackling hiss fills the air as the superheated magma suddenly solidifies in a burst of intense, bone chilling cold. The rocky maw created by Abbadon to swallow up the companions freezes in place. Massive crystals of ice form over the structure, making it look more like a glacier.
Danyael is caught just before he smashes into the now solid magma. Garr, the lunar Elemental, sets him neatly on the frozen surface. Kari, the water Elemental, stands close by. She is winded from expending a large amount of energy. But her ice pulse did it's job and the Despoiler's attack has been foiled. Garr nods to the nephilim.
"This abomination has killed enough today. There will be no more."
Leaving Kari to recover, Garr leaps from the pit. He lands gracefully right next to where Karyl has finally recovered from being pounded into the ground. Seeing Garr, Karyl smiles.
"Hey bro, what kept you?"
Garr shakes his head.
"We searched for Cameron and Mary. Whatever their current location is, it is hidden to us."
Karyl frowns.
"Well, we can look for them later. I'm sure they're just peachy. Now how about we deal with this happy sack up here?"
Garr regards the Despoiler. With a twist of his arms, the Elemental's wrist blades spring out from where they are concealed under his armor.
"Capital idea. Why not assist me with leveling the playing field?"
Karyl grins again and extends his hand. Arcs of electricity spring from his fingers and light on Garr's blades. The enchanted weapons crackle with electrical force. Karyl nods.
"Light em up."
Garr leaps into the fray, intent on giving Abbadon something else to worry about. With Jharm coming in from the left and Blooddrinker to the right, Garr comes dead center. This leaves Abbadon's back exposed... a perfect target for Soul Reaver.
While all this is going on, Soul Reaver hears a familiar voice behind him.
"Master Reaver. Sorry we're late."
Soul Reaver suddenly feels a wave of psychic energy wash over him. His gauntlet, already pulled back to strike, is heavily augmented with a latticework of glowing blue runes. The power of his charged attack surges to even greater levels. Kalana breathes heavily behind him as she maintains the effect.
"Go. Hit him now."
-
Jharm's healing spell seals the wounds on Kitharsis's back more firmly. One less thing to worry about in this struggle for their lives. His skeletons are able to do enough to wrest Sepher from the fist, but things take a turn for the worst as it emerges from the ground a towering nightmare. The two glowing skeletons float behind Sepher, ready to help however possible.
There is no time to help personally, as Abbadon speaks Kitharsis finds himself standing next to Danyael and Soul Reaver in the middle of the battlefield. The ground cracks and rumbles beneath them, and the smell is nearly overpowering. Magma bursts out of the fissure, and shards of obsidion jut out of the ground.
Without the power of flight Kitharsis finds himself at a great disadvantage. He makes a mental note to create a new tattoo for it... If he ever gets out of this situation.
He franticly searches for anything he can stretch a tendril out to and pull himself away, but before he needs to act Faidth suddenly appears at his waist and wraps herself around him.
"Faidth!" He exclaims. But before he can utter another word He finds himself behind Abbadon with a dizzy Faidth falling to her knees.
She was just dazed, and already coming to her senses. Knowing she can defend herself, Kitharsis whispers a "Thank you..." as he takes off towards Abbadon's back.
The tattoos on his arms flare to life as a multitude of crimson tendrils burst out of them. They all end in wicked spikes and speed towards The Despoiler's back at breackneck speed. His body may have been healed, but his armor was still in disrepair. If the spiked tendrils connect they should be able to pierce through Abbadon's armor easily. And the sheer number of them will make it very difficult to dodge.
-
He felt the coming embrace of oblivion rush in a delight he'd not known since his return from exile. He felt the sudden rekindling of the shattered wastelands' life force spark vibrantly back to life. The fall to the magma, while viewed as dishonorable suicide, was in fact nothing more than a ruse. He would have let the magma consume him, only to feed off of the resurrected energies of the battleground, letting himself and the land be as one. He could feel the ecstasy of life sprout all around him. And in his mind's eye could he see himself being swallowed whole by the ocean of magma.
And then.... everything slowed down. His descent, uninitiated, maintained a balance he didn't intend. The sudden chill of cool temperatures snapped his attentions to widening his eyes, beholding the ocean of lava now an ocean of ice. Puzzled, he qwirked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes as if this would give him a better understanding of the slew of surprises that came to the fray. His eyes caught hold of the sudden influx of energies and he looked to see that the elementals had 'saved' his life.
Dammit... he swore to himself. Oh what a surprise it would have been for the land Abbadon awakened to suddenly turn against him. Atleast the elementals had the good graces to not let him crash unceremoniously into the ice. "You know, I wasn't really going to--" he was about to say before Garr suddenly darted off to Karyl. "--nevermind..." he resigned himself with an embarrassed sigh. This was the first time he physically spoke, and the meddler didn't care to listen.
Looking over the ice, his eyes honed in on its creator, leaping the full distance, landing gracefully beside her. Kneeling down, he comically realised he was still too tall to look her in the eyes. "Hi." he said, not bothering to notice that he still had no upper garments. A waft of slight of hand brought his everworld cloak back into the physical world, where he draped it over the water elemental. Forged with dimensional travel in mind, the cloak acted as a shield on many different fronts. So long as she wore it, no harm would come to her. "I kind of had a plan. But thanks for helping anyway." he knelt and lifted her in his arms before bounding out of the declivity, landing far away from the engagement. If Kari noticed, she would see there wasn't a scratch on him, hinting to his auto-reactionary healing factor. Setting her down tenderly, he kept close to her until she was ready to rejoin the battle at hand.
-
As the cavalry arrives, the tide of the battle rapidly crashes against Abbadon. Soul Reaver finds his powers augmented by Kalana. Garr, his weapons enchanted by Karyl, explodes forward, intent on striking Abbadon dead center. Meanwhile Jharm and Kitharsis intend upon making the Chaos Lord pay for his crimes.
Kari, the Water Elemental, has exhausted much of her power, and regards Danyael gratefully as he removes her from harm's way. She is concerned for his well-being, given his recent close call, but feels much better when she notices that the majority of his wounds have already been healed.
Abbadon watches as Blooddrinker careens towards him and he swipes out with Drach’yen to knock the blade away. The parry is successful, unfortunately, this was a fool’s folly, and perhaps, Abbadon’s biggest mistake of the day.
He hears the sound of something rapidly accelerating towards him and turns to attempt to parry the hurtling Seraphim. However, Jharm’s convictions are far too powerful to allow him to fail in his pursuit, and his clenched fists, silhouetted by holy, white light, slam into Abbadon’s torso, knocking him off balance.
Almost simultaneously, Kitharsis bursts forward, crimson tendrils billowing from his form. The deadly spikes that dot the end of the tendrils launch forward towards Abbadon’s back, embedding into his armor and ferociously ripping bits and pieces asunder. Shards of bone, metal, and other materials fly into the air as the spikes tear into Abbadon’s back, pauldrons, and even small areas of his sides and torso.
The chinks in Abbadon’s armor have been exaggerated by the tendrils, and he finds himself quite exposed when Garr, his blades crackling with electricity slams his blade into Abbadon’s stomach. A burst of dark, evil smelling liquid seeps from the wounds, and Abbadon’s eyes blaze with fury. He raises Drach’yen high into the air, as he prepares to slash Garr into a bloody smear upon the battlefield.
However, the collective use of distraction, and the force of unity that the companions have employed, make Abbadon ill-equipped to avoid Soul Reaver’s next attack, one that has been infinitely enriched by Kalana’s aid.
-
Soul Reaver hovers in mid-air for a few moments as Kari, Garr Kalana and Karyl join the fray and the companions all assault Abaddon. He feels a surge of psychic energy suffuse his left gauntlet but his eyes remain firmly locked on the warmaster - timing was crucial.
To his relief, Abaddon react predictably to Blooddrinker, using his own blade to deflect the sword, sending it spinning out of control until it embeds itself, blade-first, in the rocky ground below. But his reaction has left him exposed, and the companions unleash their combined fury on him.
It was time to do or die. Soul Reaver hurls himself forward, his legs pushing off an invisible cushion of sorcery. His hair whips his face, his eyes barely peeking over the top of his protectively-raised right forearm. Before him, one by one, the companions' attacks hit home, sending Abaddon roaring in fury as chunks of armour fly from his body.
Soul Reaver speeds ahead, between the baleful green wings on Abaddon's back. Soul Reaver sees how Abaddon, rage virtually boiling from his form, raises his Daemonblade high into the air, preparing to strike down Garr.
But his back was turned, and now, it was too late for him to react.
Soul Reaver throws his fist with all his might, smashing hard into Abaddon's back. Kalana's runes activate and send out a crackling, rippling shockwave of psychic energy that surges through Abaddon.
It was indeed a mighty punch, delivered by a superhumanly strong being, augmented by Kalana's psychic powers, and with the whole kinetic force of Soul Reaver's flying form behind it. The mighty impact sent out a loud echo across battlefield.
But the punch was not Soul Reaver's true attack. It was merely a delivery mechanism. A second after it strikes, a hollow, bass note can be heard thudding into place. The white rune that Soul Reaver drew earlier flashes back into existence on Abaddon, then sinks into his form. Abaddon was now cursed with a Seeker rune, and it would cost him dearly.
The motes of glowing light that previously had been floating lazily around Soul Reaver's body suddenly seem to snap to attention, zipping into position all around Soul Reaver's body and then freezing in space. A sinister laugh builds in Soul Reaver's chest as the glow from these motes of light grows exponentially. The tiny energy spheres vibrate in mid-air while a whining sound becomes audible, growing rapidly louder and more high-pitched.
Normally this dark spell would unleash beams of destructive energy in all directions, repeatedly firing in wide arcs around the caster and scorching through anything unfortunate enough to be in the way... but with the Seeker rune now in place, they would instead unerringly focus all their firepower on one single target: Abaddon.
At the moment that all the spheres are glowing as brightly as tiny stars, they simultaneously unleash beams of screaming crimson light at the Chaos warmaster.
-
The giant gauntleted hand of tainted metal and twisted flesh smelled putrid as the green flame burned hot into sephers skin. He had however, endured much more pain then this before, and would not allow himself to succumb to such an attack.
Sepher's demonic face twisted into a snarl as he clenched the demonic fist as tightly as the bulging muscles of the limb would allow, but to no avail. His bulky form is smashed into the ground, jolting his senses for a moment and just as he regained them, he hit the ground again.
He was struggling to get free just as Kith's skeletal minions showed up to begin to pry at the hand. It seemed like it was not going to help much but as more and more minions poured in, Sepher finally managed to wrench free of the grasp. Jerked himself away in a lurching motion, Sepher stumbled ad turned to face what was the giant hand, his spear of odd crimson like metal clenched tightly in his hand.
A wave of energy hit him... some peaceful, serene... he could feel energy and resolve seep back into him, he could feel his body becoming stronger once more as jharms spell washed over the companions. It was fortunate that it did... as for what Sepher saw next was going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Sepher, fortunately had backed off enough that he was not immediately going to be hit by puss, but this was going to be interesting. He had to do something... and do something fast. He leapt back, locking eyes with the beast as a flash of white light emanated from sephers body, blinding for only and instant and suddenly the man was standing before the several story creature. Nothing but a man, who looked so small and insignificant compared to the creature.
"I...have had..." Sepher panted.. this was a long battle "ENOUGH OF THIS!" Sepher finished in a snarl.
There is a loud sound.... a reverberation of sort as an explosion of dark energy exudes from Sepher’s being in a sphere of darkness. Everyone, the companions, Abbadon, the giant puss monster can feel a massive buildup of daemonic energy. Those who were sensitive to daemons would feel it more than others, but the sphere of darkness grew. It was pitch black, no one could see through it or what was in it. It stopped growing when it was nearly 2 stories tall.... and then a sound echoed for from the inside of the sphere.
A roar of nearly unmatched proportions, which seemed muted at first, suddenly shattered the air around them as the sphere of darkness exploded out like glass, shards flying in every direction until the dissolved. As the swirling mist of dark energies subsided.... a dark creature of terrifying visage.
The Great creatures eyeless sockets seem to suck in all light around it and its head swivels to meet that of the giant pustule creature before it. It's thick hide armor plating was layered thick and the spear that Sepher had carried... well the creatures claws were encased in the metal that had made its composition.
Once more it let out a loud earsplitting roar to announce its presence, and then everyone in the near vicinity can feel power being too well in its chest as it begins to draw on all things around it for a vicious attack.
(OOC - See OOC post for a picture and name)
-
Abbadon’s abomination barrels towards Sepher with relentless haste. The daemon god before him may be terrifying to some, but this creature, being composed of chaos energy, is immune to fear.
The creature launches itself at Sepher and a spray of pus erupts from its grotesque form and splatters across Sepher’s eye sockets. The liquid is foul-smelling, but worse than that, it is incredibly corrosive. It seeps into the sockets, bringing terrible pain, and slowly begins to course its way through Sepher's body. The effects are quite debilitating and will inhibit the daemon god's actions by decreasing his strength, slowing his movements, and making the creature more difficult to evade.
The creature swipes forward, its closed fist connecting with Sepher’s chest. As the gooey, flesh golem’s hand connects with the daemon’s chest, Sepher can feel something incredibly strong boring through his well-armored torso. A strong pulse of chaos energy erupts outward, leveling Sepher in the chest and violently flinging him backwards.
Sepher will likely be able to use the new-found distance between himself and the creature to his advantage.
Abbadon lurches forward as Soul Reaver’s gauntleted fist connects with his back. The pain that ensues, though mildly discomforting, is nothing compared to the shockwave of psychic energy that rips through him as Kalana’s runes activate. A loud crack echoes through the battlefield. It is immediately followed by a thunderous resonance as the rune lodges within Abbadon’s form.
Moments later, Abbadon’s screams tear through the entirety of the battlefield, piercing the hearts and minds of all who are there to bear witness to the sight before them. Searing charges of crimson light erupt from the vibrating spheres. Each one pulses rhythmically as they unleash a barrage of brilliant crimson light as bright as the stars themselves.
Abbadon cries out in agony as the orbs begin to tear him asunder. Bits of flesh and armor arc into the air in vicious splatters as each bit of light penetrates the Chaos Lord’s form. His eyes blacken and his body wilts as both his power and life begin to be disintegrated by the effect of Soul Reaver’s attack.
Soul Reaver’s true attack is ultimately a success, leaving in its wake little more than a simpering, broken creature that clings to the few fragile threads of life that are left in the Chaos Lord. Abbadon collapses to his knees in a writhing, frothing mess. However, seeing that his fervent efforts of superiority have culminated in a terrible defeat, and ultimately cost him his own life, he expends what little will and energy he has on making Soul Reaver, and all others who dare to look upon Abbadon the Despoiler in his final moments, pay for their crimes.
Abbadon slowly reaches the Talon of Horus over his head. His entire arm trembles noticeably as every movement he makes is now a huge exertion. The artifact weapon crackles with energy, though it is easy to recognize that its power is failing.
This is wrong. Abbadon struggles to understand how he could have failed this badly even as his physical body is torn asunder. He reaches out to his Gods, but the 4 pillars of Chaos do not respond. He is forsaken. All fear and pain disappears. All that remains is rage.
An earth-shattering roar violently trembles the earth under all of the companions as Abbadon’s death knell accusingly assaults their ears.
"NO!!! I will NOT be bested here. I REFUSE! If the ruinous powers refuse to help me, then SO BE IT. I will not die here, for I am BEYOND DEATH. I AM THE DESPOILER OF WORLDS AND DEATH WILL BOW BEFORE ME!"
Summoning the last of his strength, Abbadon rips the armored shell from the top of the Talon of Horus. He plunges his hand into the ancient machinery, ignoring the new wave of pain that rips through him as the gauntlet's matter-disruption field rips his hand apart. The millenia-old technology used to design the weapon has been lost to the ages. But Abbadon learned it's secrets from Horus, the original owner of the device. The tattered remains of the Despoiler's hand grasps a small hidden gear buried deep within the Talon and twists it. At the same moment, he uses the very last of his energy to mutter a powerful incantation.
The Talon of Horus springs back to life, the artifact erupting in an explosion of effervescent light.
There is a brief, brighter flash from within the blinding light. Any warp-sensitive beings nearby detect the unmistakable sensation of reality being torn asunder. A fraction of a second later, the Talon of Horus explodes.
The 50-megaton blast is detected from orbit by all Imperial ships. Those witnessing the explosion from above briefly see a grotesque apparition in the clouds of debris kicked up by the blast. The face of the Despoiler.
-
He turned to face the coming battle, shielding Kari from danger while watching with silent levity as the Despoiler falls to Soul’s attack. But mirth devolved into wariness when the Despoiler’s desperation brought about a final calamity. Deeply sensitive to the warp, Danyael’s eyes conceived the twisted energies shuttering throughout the landscape, prompting him, through biokinesis, to dull his senses to the assault. As Kari was protected by his Everworld Cloak, he didn’t worry for her well being. Then came a sudden tone, preceding the very fabric of reality being cleaved to shreds as the Talon of Horus explodes.
He only had a moment’s window of opportunity to react; knowing he couldn’t save everyone. By use of his agelessness did he exist both in and out of time. And by pushing the limits of this gift would he have to act quickly. Thoughts and tactics blew through his mind at speeds equaling blinks of time, calculating a fitting strategy. He knew conventional means would not work. Nor would a single defense prove effective. So he would use many defenses all at once instead.
Another tense sip of air preceded the focus needed to culminate a proper defense. With the dead world now brought back to life, if only for a fleeting moment, he would use it to his advantage. With the conduit of his own body as a focal point, he felt the level of electromagnetism gyrate beneath him, coiling its way up, riding the invisible leylines of energy connected to him and him alone. And like a diver to a pool, he plunged his will into the Eidolon Wastelands, feeling his body extend throughout its every fiber. And with it, he heard the pained cries of the world rival the death wails of the Despoiler. As he was fairly tuned in with the elements, the Elementals weren’t difficult for him to hone in on, stretching his will to snare around them. Feeling the vibrations of his companions, he was able to snare hold of only two: Faidth and Kith, as Soul and Sepher were too far out of range.
The greater elements of the unseen universe swarmed into the living world with the presence of a tumultuous deluge, washing over him with such tidal force, he felt it engulf his essence in a skein of raw ferocity as his body arched with the coming power. Even for a world clinging to life, the Eidolon Wastelands offered a strength that belied its appearance. With the deed done, he extended another limb of his will to tap into the Wellspring, this time reaching out as far as the timing could permit, traversing the cosmic webwork while simultaneously keeping him centered at the point of origin.
Finding the ideal place in time, he began to pluck away at the treasure trove of hosts from beyond the mortal plane, pulling them into full sync with his own, bringing about a quickening of the collective of energies he’d herded around him. Feeling the coming doom, and with seconds before impacting, he lifted his will, with the weight of the world, to encapsulate himself and his companions in a wheeling cocoon of clashing celestial energies, brought to the forefront by use of the Source with the intent of buying his companions enough time to think of a better plan. He had no idea how this would turn out. All he could do was brace for the worst and hope for the best.
-
The motes of light next to Soul Reaver blaze forth with lances of magical energy, each drawn inexorably straight toward the Despoiler. The high-pitched screaming noise is deafening, overriding even Soul Reaver's own involuntary, mad laugh.
The beams strike Abaddon's immense powered armour with phenomenal force. They hammer home in rapid-fire succession. After a second of intense fire, the beams vaporize fist-sized chunks of Abaddon's ancient armour, and the surrounding metal explodes into a thousand superheated shards. In moments, the raking beams have slashed, torn and cut their way through Abaddon's already tattered powered suit, yet the attack does not relent. Flesh, blood and bone are blasted away. A dark rain of steel and boiling blood patters down to the earth amidst blinding flashes of scarlet light.
By the time the beams have finished firing, the chaos Warmaster has been crushed down to kneeling on the desolate, scarred ground. His body is a shivering, blackened mass of scorched flesh, only the faintest spark of his twisted soul still clinging to its ruined husk.
Soul Reaver looks down at Abaddon's remains with a mad, twisted grimace of satisfaction of his face. The warmaster feebly reaches for the skies, the spitting and crackling Talon on Horus still on his hand. But then, he lets out a fierce, spite-filled challenge to death itself, and tears the plating from the talon. Soul Reaver's mad grin disappears in an instant.
He means to destroy you all! FLEE!
In a flash, Soul Reaver has turned his back on the Warmaster. Already he could feel a dreadful sense of impending doom - a feeling that he had long ago learned to heed. Diving down from the skies, he swoops down toward Blooddrinker. As if in response, the sword pulls itself from the ground and back into Soul Reaver's hands. A surge of hot energy washes over the exhausted Soul Reaver with the blade in-hand.
Behind Soul Reaver, Abaddon reaches into the ancient talon and grasps a forbidden mechanism hidden deep within.
Soul Reaver speeds away as fast as he can. Diving as low as possible to gain velocity, he still does not think it will be enough.
There is a 'click' as the gear in the Talon of Horus falls into place, and Abaddon's sinister incantation takes hold. Soul Reaver can feel an incredible energy surging from within the Talon.
Faster, FASTER!
The battlefield is bathed in a baleful green light. So much energy cannot be contained in one spot for long. Reality itself screeches and tears asunder beneath the stress. There is a moment of silence, then...
Soul Reaver heedlessly throws himself forward, pushing himself past his limits. The ground beneath him is nothing more than a grey blur. He is so close to the ground now he is half running, half flying, using his muscular legs to push himself foward ever quicker. Scintillating arcs of red lighting course over his body and dissipate into sparks as he passes by. Blood and sweat streaks over his face and his tattered cape streams out behind him. All his muscles ache from the exertion, but still he pushes himself further. More and more power pumps from Blooddrinker to refill Soul Reaver's flagging reserves. Soul Reaver scrapes away at the energies he still has, casting a powerful Shielding spell to erect a shimmering blue sphere around himself.
...a terrifying explosion of gigantic proporitions mushrooms out from where Abaddon had fallen. A wall of red fire and chaotic, green energy expands in all directions, chasing the fleeing Soul Reaver. Solid stone is disintegrated in its path, and globules of molten rock are driven forward by the roaring winds.
The bright flash almost blinds Soul Reaver, but he is hardly even looking where he is going at this point. The heat of the explosion is the first thing to hit, then the sound. Then, a storm of hot air.
FASTER!!!
Globs of magma impact on Soul Reaver's shield, spattering away from the scintillating barrier. But no matter how much he pushes himself, he cannot completely outrun the explosion.
The blast throws Soul Reaver forward like a limp doll, and the world spins around him in a roaring cacaphony of flame and heat. He is smashed down to the ground, breaking his left arm at the shoulder, before the roaring winds threaten to pick him up again.
But before he is hurled back into the air, Blooddrinker thrusts straight down into the ground, the high metallic ringing noise of the impact sounding like bells of sanctuary to Soul Reaver's ears. Soul Reaver's right arm holds on for dear life as the flames and noise and sheer pressure wash over him. His muscles bulge as he grits his teeth and averts his eyes from the explosion's epicentre. The shielding spell shimmers madly, cracks forming over its surface from the force of the blast it is enduring. Even within, the heat is incredible, and the smell of burning skin is unmistakable.
Soul Reaver braces himself with all his might against the blast, hunkering down behind Blooddrinker, the sword stoically and immovably standing against the explosion.
And then, miraculously, the air cools, and the noise quietens, and the wind stops.
Soul Reaver sinks down to his knees, his fist locked around Blooddrinker's hilt. The Shield crumbles into splinters around him. His body steams from the exertion, his cape is mostly incinerated. Soul Reaver is barely conscious... but alive.
-
Kitharsis cuts off his tendrils after they caused their damage to let the others get their attacks in. He stood waiting for another chance to strike, but it never came. Soul Reaver's combination of attacks rendered The Despoiler worthless, clinging to life. But Abbadon was not finished. In a final act of manevolence he triggers something within the Talon of Horus.
The intense buildup of energy strikes Kitharsis's keen senses sharply. In the split seconds he has to think Kitharsis finds himself at a loss for an escape plan. All of his tattoos flare to life and spew out thick strands of crimson energy. The strands wrap around him and merge together into a thick shield. A vicous, angry roar can be heard from inside the glowing crimson sphere as Kitharsis pumps more and more energy into it. The bag of sand at his hip explodes and the it mixes with the energy circling around him. The sand exponentially hardens the shield, the energy of the desert mixing in with his own.
Danyael's shield of clashing celestial energy wraps around Kitharsis's shield. The combination should hopefully be enough.
But he knew it wasn't going to be. His salvation was there, inside him. The dark, corrupted energy sitting in the shadows of his mind. Waiting to be released. An unlimited supply of power waiting to be siezed and unleashed. It wouldn't be a contest. The dark energy would envelop him and not a scratch would become of it. But what damage would it do? The toll may be too much, even if it means saving his life.
Another roar rumbles out from within the shields. He was running out of pure energy. Dipping into the corruption was tempting him more and more. And it would be so easy...
He doesn't have any more time to think as the Talon of Horus explodes.
-
The Seraphim watches as Soul Reaver's string of attacks are successful, leaving little more then a husk of the foul creature they were fighting mere moments before. After enduring such a long, hardfought battle Jharm allows himself to relax...an almost fatal action. He realizes his mistake when he notices Abaddon tinker with the Talon of Horus. Realizing that the Despoiler is planning something, more then likely a final attempt at taking the lives of those who succeeded in defeating him, Jharm does the only thing he can really hope to do...flee.
As the angel flees the epicenter of the blast he erects the strongest shield he can muster, focusing all of his available strength into it, while at the same time casting a strong healing spell over all his companions in the hope that the damage they are all likely to suffer will be offset by the healing energies washing over them...hopefully enough to prevent death from claiming any of them. With that done the Angel soars away from the blast, a trail of white light behind him as he pours the last bits of his power into himself, hoping to increase his speed and avoid the center of the explosion.
-
The giant blind daemon would take a step forward as the goo splashes across its face, lancing pain shooting through its body. The daemon was used to pain however, and had already suffered so much that it almost welcomed it. Rathotuhael opened its maw and let out an earsplitting roar as it slowly moved forward as well.
As the creatures fist comes in contact with his chest, the daemons hands grasps at it, clenching his own strong fists tightly around the others. He moves to crush the fist, but just as he does a strong pulse of energy explodes into him.
The earth rips apart as Sepher is shunted backwards, his clawed feet not leaving the ground. As the daemon’s body came to a rest, a giant tear in the plates of armor in the chest is visible, and some black slick blood runs down it. The wound seems to start slowly closing on its own, but that is not Sepher’s concern at the moment. The energy he had been building came to a crescendo in his fist as he held it up, eye sockets staring blankly at the creature ahead, but a new problem arose just as quickly as he was about to deal with this one
Even the blind could feel what was coming… as crimson light began to emanate from the screaming form of Abbadon, Sepher was mentally preparing himself for the worst.
"NO!!! I will NOT be bested here. I REFUSE! If the ruinous powers refuse to help me, then SO BE IT. I will not die here, for I am BEYOND DEATH. I AM THE DESPOILER OF WORLDS AND DEATH WILL BOW BEFORE ME!"
And then it happens…. Reality, chaos, life, death… all were nothing in that once instant as the ancient artifact that their enemy wielded explodes. All the energy he had been readying for the attack was now redirected into the strongest shield that the daemon god could muster… All of the energies that it could pull from the surrounding area, from the very ground beneath him, from the near dead sun where the daemon god originated… anywhere and everywhere as the daemon god knelt, bracing himself. He could not run, no, and not enough time to gate to anywhere… but he was Rathotuhael the Undying, and he would do his best to survive this day.
-
Faidth looks on with a grim sense of satisfaction as the darkness –laden creature before her succumbs to the blows of her companions. Being whipped through time and space is something she still has not grown accustomed to, and she finds that her body is not fully cooperative as she attempts to regain her faculties.
She climbs to her feet and prepares to bear witness to the creature’s final moments. However, it appears that this Despoiler of both worlds and souls is not about to venture into death alone. Faidth, quite sensitive to deviations of the elements can practically touch the nearly palpable energy that spreads across the battlefield in Abbadon’s final moments.
The earth trembles violently and the violent eruption of energy that explodes from the recently destroyed Talon of Horus leaves in its wake a wave of pure destruction. Faidth panics. Never before has she borne witness to a being such as this, and his incredible power is both terrifying in eminent.
She turns upon her heel, desperate to get away from the blast as quickly as possible. However, she finds herself encompassed by some strange manifestation, so alien to her perceptions that she gasps in surprise as it dances around her form. She knows not where this sudden protection comes from, nor can she readily discern who has intervened on her behalf.
However, across the battlefield her gaze falls upon Danyael and she gives a grateful sigh of relief that he had the foresight to aid her. She is rather unfamiliar with his powers, and not knowing the extent of the powers that he has used to protect her, she seeks to strengthen her defenses further.
Her voice is scarcely a whisper, and the words that she speaks are Fyrellian, a language unknown to any of her companions. It is somewhere between a prayer and a mantra, and as Marius’s teachings pour from her lips, the ground around her begins to rise, forming a nearly impenetrable shell of stone, hardened earth, bits of metal and shards of bone.
The atoms fuse together as her transfiguration melds the ingredients into a single, cohesive form. Like a loom, she manipulates the energy Danyael has expended to protect her and uses it to weave the components together.
Hopefully, Danyael’s protection, augmented by her own barrier, will succeed in affording her some security.
-
The incredible rush of energy that explodes from Abbadon’s failing form and washes over each form that dots the battlefield with intense ferocity.
Danyael calls upon a flurry of whirling celestial energies which he uses to successfully encapsulate himself, Kitharsis and Faidth. Both the Tirthandaran and the Fyrellian have supplemented Danyael’s gracious defense with their own forms of security. Kitharsis’s shield flashes intermittently as the deluge of chaos energy slams against. A flurry of projectiles careens through the air and plinks off of Kitharsis’s shield before falling harmlessly to the ground.
Faidth finds herself faltering as cracks begin to form in the barrier that is currently protecting her. Without intervention, the barrier would certainly shatter into thousands of splinters, before leaving her wholly exposed. A sudden outpouring of bright, white light washes over the battlefield and falls upon each of the companions.
She is unaware of where this grace comes from until she catches sight of the angelic being as he hurtles across the battlefield and attempts to flee the epicenter of Abbadon’s destruction. It seems that the Seraphim, the eternal protector, has blessed his companions with some much needed assistance. In doing so, he has managed to bolster the defenses of all worthy enough to call him friend.
During his attempt to escape the blast, the Seraphim is blindsided by a large piece of pillar, which strikes him in the shoulder with such force that he nearly falls from the sky. However, the Seraphim is putting all his energy into fleeing, and though the explosion relentlessly pursues Jharm, the angelic being is soon able to vacate the impact area.
Rivulets of blood trail down a deep wound in his shoulder, and he can almost be certain the bones within are broken, but he has likely seen worse.
Sepher, engaged with the beast that Abbadon had willed into being, must now content with two threats. At the death cries of its master, the creature howls furiously. If such a creature could be moved to emotion, the cry that flows from its lips could be perceived as something between sorrow and unbridled fury. Its resolve is strengthened as the final cries of its master reaches its ears. Its eyes flash angrily as it launches itself at Sepher again.
It claws, bites and screeches at the daemon. Knowing that its own demise is imminent, the creature is determined to bring Sepher with it. Another burst of some foul-smelling acid explodes from the creature’s open mouth and splatters over Sepher’s form. As the corrosive liquid comes in contact with him, Sepher can see his armor wither and feel his skin crack. The concoction burns with great intensity, peeling away layers upon layers of skin and bringing unbearable pain.
However, Sepher, sensing that Abbadon’s death will not come without consequence, erects a powerful shield to protect himself. This serves Sepher quite well as the Shield helps him to avoid the bulk of the damage dealt by the iconic blast. In addition, it effectively thwarts Abbadon’s creation as it launches itself at Sepher again.
The creature slams against the barrier, smashing its grotesque face against the shield. Its expression of ire is brought to an erupt end as the explosion reaches it and unceremoniously removes the creature from all existence.
Soul Reaver, too, fights to avoid the blast. However, his efforts are nearly rendered obsolete when he is thrown to the ground and met with the sound of his own, breaking bones. He positions himself behind Blooddrinker and struggles to maintain his shielding spell. Despite his injuries, his efforts are rewarded as he finds himself clinging to his last bit of coherence, but ultimately alive.
-
A curse escapes from the Seraphim's angellic lips as a pillar slams into his left shoulder, crushing the armor and shattering the bone beneath it. For a split second it almost seems as if Jharm is about to falter but he grits his teeth against the pain and manages to escape the blast. The moment he realizes he is safe finally his energy finally falters and the angellic being plummets to the ground, his massive form careening into the ground almost like a meteor, creating a sizeable crater. At first it doesnt seem like anything is happening but from within the dust cloud a bruised and broken form can be seen slowly walking out, cradling his shattered shoulder.
Not knowing the extent of damage the rest of his companions might have received from the blast, Jharm knows that he must get back quickly and see where his healing powers will be needed most.
"Light hear my plea...grant me your aid so that I can help my friends"
The moment the plea leaves his lips the Seraphim can feel a slight boost to his failing energy. Using but a small fraction of the restored power, Jharm casts a minor heal on his shoulder, just enough to begin to reform the bones so that he will be able to use the arm to aid any of the others that may be on the brink of death. After wiggling his fingers to make sure they still function, the Seraphim takes to the air and heads back in the direction of his companions, intent on helping any that are in need of it.
-
Danyael’s own healing factor could go but so far. But being in a realm so distant from his own homeland, and his own power spread out amidst the cosmos, he was grateful to be holding some semblance of strength in the face of such opposition. He felt the presences of the elementals; Kari, the water elemental safely shielded behind him. The other elementals, Kalana, Garr and Karyl were distant. But with them encapsulated within the force barrier, he too held the brunt of his focus on protecting those in his charge. With the Fyrellian witch providing her own barrier within his own, he could voice nothing but silent concerns for the young warrior’s well being. Then he felt a sudden surge of friction grate within the energies of his force shield, as his mind’s eyes caught focus of the chaos energy emitted from his longtime friend, the Tithandaran, who erected protection of his own.
Simultaneously both apart and separate from the Eidolon Wastelands, his consciousness was spread out wide among those within his field of shielding. Though with his own lingering string of ether connecting him to the Wellspring, he could only center himself with enough reinforcement to keep the barrier stable. He recognized his mistake, silently scolding himself for using the more forbidden powers in an unknown land. But now, centered as he was, he could only take one additional action outside of teleportation. With his connection to the invisible strings of energy that threaded through existence, he felt the energy presence of Aileron’s ships. With he Eidolon Wastelands shattering apart and his own companions in mortal danger, he sought one, and only one, thing left to do: Aim up.
With a bend of will, Kari was safely embraced in his arms and he began stretching his presence throughout the field, letting the waves of lingering gravity bend and twist, rearranging itself into an upward plummet as the barrier, and everyone in it, began to fall upward. He knew the elementals didn't trust him. They had no reason to, having witnessed the childishness of his behavior, prior to his departure and return. They may never trust him, regardless of the affinity he now shared with them all. But, if in some way, he could at least attempt to make amends, to attempt to regain their trust, then he would do so. The barrier, taking with it the collection of earth, water, magma, wind and aether - all fused together by the celestial leylines of the divine, soon became a spinning globe of pan-chromatic radiance. He watched Jharm’s sudden injury and mending of such with lukewarm concern. While the Seraphim approached, perhaps he could see the rising sphere of whirling light edging its way evenly into the sky. If Jharm’s mind was open to communication, he would bear witness to a slew of silent images gently washing through, all presenting the same message: the people Danyael was protecting were more important than himself. And that if his friend could help the two companions or the four elementals, then the Nephilim Lord, in what lingering stance he held in the physical world, would be grateful. He would no longer hold himself before others ever again.
-
It is pitch black. Blinking has no effect, it is just as dark with his eyes closed as when they are open. He waves his hand in front of his face, then touches his nose to make sure he is still actually there.
He feels empty, like his body was a hollow shell. He grunts in frustration, but no sound rumbles out from his chest.
Now he realizes his feet aren't actually touching the ground. Hovering in the air in this dark void he begins to feel helpless, vulnerable.
This is where you belong...
He wants to scream. His lips part and his lungs bellow, but no sound comes.
This is where we all belong...
A different voice. He clenches his teeth. They are familiar.
You are weak.
He crosses his arms and cocks his head to the side.
Yes, you prance around with these fools trying to save the universe. But to what end? Do you want to die fighting someone else's war? And what will you have at the end of it if you don't die? Scraps? If they knew the history of the Tirthandara they wouldn't trust you so.
His eyes narrow at the darkness. This isn't the first time they have tried to persuade him. He doesn't know what tricks they are using this time, but it is getting old.
Perhaps some of our brothers should pay your realm a visit... Yes, that would make things very interesting. Then you will see what you truly are. You will see what power you are ruining with your foolish purification.
Power. Is he really diminishing his strength by cleansing the Tirthandaran energy inside of him? The Shaman has warned him numerous times of what would happen if he were to use the unpurified energy. But the old man only knew of the tales told from ancestors past...
What is happening here? He shakes his head and centers himself. This wasn't right. The corrupted energy inside of him was evil. He feels it every waking moment. The thought that he actually considered using it sickens him.
He blinks again, his eyes focusing more clearly on what is in front of him. Not hovering, no. He was immersed in a sea of the corrupt energy. It churns and flows around him.
Look at it! The voices shout at once. Crazed excitement crackles their tone. It is endless! All you need to do is reach out and grab it! Take hold and conquer! Crush your enemies with a thought! Realize your destiny and rule this realm!
"No. I will not be tainted by you!"
He roars and bellows out into the darkness. His chest bursts with a pure white light that pierces into the darkness around him.
"And if you dare send your brethren to this realm I will destroy them all! I am not one of you! You are the weak! Allowing corruption and filth to rule your lives! Begone!"
The white light is pushing back the darnkess more and more as he screams. The presence of the voices fades as the darkness receeds back.
As you wish... See you soon, Kitharsis...
-
The ascension was symbolic in certain ways. The prospect of a source of fervent light rising above the tumult of death and shadows. It almost made him laugh at the thought of it if it weren’t for his lack of interest in talking. For the first time, since his discovery of the Source, did he find himself centered amid his companions. He felt, in some ways, balanced. It was bittersweet, considering he was no where nearly as strong as he could be at present, so far from the rest of the wellspring on this desolate scrap of dead earth. But within the chrysalis of divine energies, shielding his friends from the onslaught of dangers, using himself as the aegis, did he feel right in place.
And it was also in this moment, connected to everything around him, that he felt another influx of energy; this one taking the turn of internal turmoil. He felt the vibrations just as easily as he felt the limp Kari in his arms. But with his companions safely tucked within the barrier, they were inadvertantly connected directly to him. And thus, he need not seek out the source of disruption, for it had made its way to him instead. It pained his heart to see his friend, Kitharsis, in such a bad way. And while he could not read the soul of the Tirthandaran, he could taste the bitterness of yet another struggle of his friend’s inner demons - literally, this time.
And then he heard his friend speak. “No. I will not be tainted by you!” the rage in Kith’s voice stung Danyael, as he too felt the very fury of his friend as if it was his own. While the nephilim lord’s every fiber was focused around struggling to hold the barrier, and its ascent, together, his blind eyes watched the coalescing energies of pure white light erupt from Kith’s chest, fending back the invisible enemies into what inner recesses from whence they came, followed by a scolding rejection by Kith himself. Danyael could feel, almost touch, the lingering presences of the dark forces as they faded back into the dungeons of Kith’s internal abyss, and he could only hold out with a heavy heart for the man he was proud to call ‘brother’.
While not using his voice, his mind reached out to the warrior, a fusillade of soft images and intentions all presenting the same message without the use of a voice: “Be still, brother. None will ever touch you on my watch.” though the message was cut short as an all too familiar presence attempted an interruption, its own malevolence quietly overshadowing Danyael’s message just before also being expelled back into the inner world within Danyael’s own soul. Weakly, he smiled assuredly to Kith in the distance, returning his full focus to raising the massive barrier into the skies.
-
He snaps back to his senses. The explosion was over. His shield is mangled and disintegrating around him. Spent sand is gathering at his feet as it falls down his body. He breathes heavily as he blinks his eyes back into focus. He raises his hand before his eyes and smiles slightly as he touches his nose.
The rest of his sheild falls away and breaks apart into a pile of sand around him. He was out of pure energy, save for the spark in his heart.
Fool... Echoes a whisper in his mind.
But that wasn't the only presense weighing on his thoughts at the moment. He knew for certain that Danyael was there too. He didn't hear him, but felt his emotions pouring forth.
Kitharsis gasps when he realizes that he and a few of his companions were travelling upwards through the air. He looks over to Danyael, who gives a weak smile of assurance. Kitharsis allows a smile to crack his own fatigued lips as he nods back to his friend.
Danyael had gone out of his way many times in order to assist Kitharsis and everyone else during the battle. For that he was in the Nephilim's debt. Kitharsis only hoped that he would have the chance to return the favor in the future.
Sighing, Kitharsis relaxes and leans back onto the shield. He has nothing left, save for the warhammer strapped to his hip. Even so, it was merely a hunk of metal without his purified energy coursing through it. An empty shell, much like himself...
-
Kitharsis perks up with a start. The sand welling at his feet was warm. Curiously, he dips his hand into the dry puddle and allows the grains of sand to fall through his fingers as he lifts. A grin grows on his stoney face as he glances over to Danyael.
He lays his palm up, facing the approaching sky. The few grains of sand that still have life in them lazily float up and rest on his palm. Soon, a small board is constructed, resting on the palm of his hand. Kitharsis's grin has grown to a full smile, pearly whites shining and all. The work is clearly pleasing him.
The rest of the sand falls on top of the board and tiny figurines start to be recongnized. The Tirthandara chuckles as the last specks of sand float into place.
A full chess board, with two colors of pieces floats in the air before him. His face is now stern, as he stares out to Danyael.
"Your move!" He shouts across the distance.
-
The sudden longing for wine and women found their way to Danyael's thoughts; more for the women than the wine. Taking his thoughs back to the present, where the hollowness of time kept to the slowest, most geriatric pace, he suddenly felt the sensation to pee.
With his hands not only full, but his arse aching from all the exertion, Danyael couldn't help but to divert his focus slightly to the chess board at Kitharsis' prompting. Squinting his eyes to depict the figures adorning the lines, he set the stakes before starting the game: "I'll only play for panties."
-
"Panties..." Kitharsis works the word through his mouth. His previously chipper demeanor shifts to confusion. Thoughtfully, he looks down to his belt. There might be something in the many pouches at his hip. He starts rummaging through them, looking for something that might be a panties, whatever they are.
With an "Aha!" he shoots his hand into the air clutching the carcass of a brightly colored lizard. God knows what it was doing in there. It is a reptile that lived on Legund. When threatened it panted with deep, throaty exhales at the perceived attacker. Perhaps they were called panties where Danyael was from. It was a suitable name indeed.