The pommel of Fei’s blade cracks against Soul Reaver’s jaw. Red sparks flash before Soul Reaver’s eyes and he spit dark blood from between gritted fangs.
Blooddrinker hurtles down and Fei dashes sideways, as planned. Fei’s blade streaks toward Soul Reaver’s right arm and strikes true, but then recoils in a shower of sparks as it hits the metal tendrils chorded through Soul Reaver’s flesh.
A flash of holy energy surges around Fei and distracts him at a key moment. Soul Reaver’s scythe flies through the air, becoming ethereal and then rematerializing at the moment of impact. It soundlessly shears through Fei’s right leg, lopping it off and leaving a trail of rippling darkness in its wake.
Fei is thrown backward, a trail of thick blood streaming from his wound. Yet before he even hits the ground, Fei lurches back upward on a pair of shadowy wings. The blood seems to shudder in the air, then uncoils like writhing snake, whipping forward and around Soul Reaver’s shadowy left arm.
Soul Reaver seems to wince as the blood crystallizes, sharp spines penetrating deep into the swirling shadows of the talon. But his eyes betray a dark triumph as Fei yanks at the bloodied whip.
The shadowy arm tears cleanly away from the bubbling stump of Soul Reaver’s left arm with little resistance. The shadowy talon and scythe spasm in the whip’s barbed grip, but not with pain. Composed of sinister daemonic energy, the talon takes on a life of its own. Fluidly, like smoke, it transforms itself, lengthening and narrowing. Fei had already pulled it toward himself, but it accelerates in mid-air, now a lance of blackness pointed at Fei’s heart. Upon striking the surface of the glowing shield that Jharm has erected, the two forces are at a split-second stalemate – both the shield and lance spit and pulse. But she lance is specifically designed to penetrate enemy defences, and even the holy shield is not strong enough to prevent the tip of the lance from punching through. The moment the black tip punctures the shield, the entire lance shatters into hundreds of long, thin slivers that burst into the barrier; a bristling explosion of needle-like spears intent on skewering the antediluvian.
Soul Reaver looks down at where his arm was. In his right hand, Blooddrinker’s cracked blade heaves and pulses like a malign heart, and smoky blackness billows forth from the stump, re-forming the smoky taloned limb and the sinister scythe.
Meanwhile, the Plague Daemon struggles against the hordes of incoming orks. Bullets trailing glittering streams of gold fly and thud into its flesh. Unlike before, they actually seem to cause the creature discomfort, and spurts of black fluid begin to ooze from the wounds. The gashes left by the choppas that strike its flesh do not close, and the Plague Daemon seems to grow angry. It bellows silently, sweeping its mace in a wide arc left and right as it advances. Orks are thrown through the air like broken rag dolls, their bones pulverized by the monstrous, rusting hulk of a weapon. A black cloud of bloated insects burst from the creature’s innumerable open sores and descends upon the Orks, flying into eyes, nostrils, mouths and ears, biting and stinging with wild abandon.
As this is happening, the Steelheart’s battle with Gulgrim nears its fatal conclusion. A spear of sorcerous energy thuds into the Steelheart’s chest, the point penetrating the armour, only to be followed immediately afterward by a second spear that punches right through. The Steelheart’s frenzied stabbing weakens as it drops down to one knee. Its charred eyes cannot see the source of the attack, nor does it realize what has happened when Gulgrim slams his bomb-filled pirate hat in front of its face. Sensing something there, it moves its arm, causing the hat to drop to the ground in front of it a moment after Gulgrim has launched himself toward the Plague Daemon.
The timer in the hat reaches zero, and there is flash of white hot light. The Steelheart’s massive body is lifted off the ground by the resulting shockwave, the flesh inside the armour incinerated, the armour itself buckling and melting. The blast propels Gulgrim forward toward the Plague Daemon, while the bubbling, lifeless metal remnants of the Steelheart’s armour smash to the ground some distance away.
Alerted by the sudden bright light, the Plague Daemon turns around just as it is hit by a blast of hot air and small chunks of rock. It squints its eyes and braces itself against the blazing light – only to have Gulgrim slam straight at it kutlass-first. The Ork’s blade slices through part of the Plague Daemon’s thick skull but gets lodged firmly into the bone. Blackish-green ichor sprays from the wound and onto Gulgrim. In response to the wound, rage fills the Plague Daemon’s eyes and it unleashes another jet-like torrent of acidic, drowning vomit, unleashed at point-blank range from its maw at the huge Ork.
For his part, Soul Reaver erects a hasty, shadowy barrier with his left arm. It dissipates into wisps of nothingness the moment the mushroom cloud’s shockwave hits, but it seems to have absorbed the force of the impact. Behind it, Soul Reaver is left largely unharmed.
He has finally completed his spell, and his gaze turns upon Danyael and Jharm hiding within Danyael’s protective barrier. He points Blooddrinker at the pair and traces a small circle with the tip, guttural words issuing silently from his lips.
They sense something changing around them – a massive surge of sinister energy that seems to darken the very fabric of reality. But they have little time to contemplate the repercussions of the spell, as Soul Reaver himself streaks toward them. Moving with terrifying speed, he leaps across the rapidly-cooling ground, closing the distance in a matter of moments. As he approaches, his talon passes over Blooddrinker’s blade, leaving a scintillating bluish energy clinging to the weapon - an anti-magic enchantment to complement the blade's energy-draining nature.
The sword impacts violently against Danyael and Jharm’s barrier, sending coruscating arcs of anti-magic rippling from the sword...
