After explaining the puppeteer's identity to Jenkins, Alexia transford into a streak of blue light and shot toward the sky. The middle-aged man on the spire gave a mocking sneer as countless copies of him materialized all over the rooftops. Then, like a swarm of flies, they too took to the air.
Streaks of black and blue light crisscrossed the snowy sky as thunder cracked overhead, but this was clearly no natural storm.
Jenkins was worried for the petite woman, but he couldn't afford to make a careless move. The man standing on the towering stone steps before the Parliant House had his eyes fixed on him.
Though his power felt sowhat inconsistent, this man was undeniably a demigod. He was dressed in a stern, formal suit, looking less like a cultist performing a dark ritual and more like a high-ranking nobleman on his way to a eting in the Parliant.
His eyes were his most striking feature, with pupils of an exceptionally rare gray. As the man’s gaze fell upon him, Jenkins felt a faint prickling on his skin. It took him a mont to realize what it was: a magic eye.
The low, droning prayers and incantations continued, undisturbed by the battle raging overhead. After passing through the inner barrier, the chaotic, blasphemous sounds beca even clearer. The chanted words were gibberish, holding no discernible aning, yet they were clearly reaching out to the spirit of the world, seeking a great being beyond the material plane.
"Lack Stuart is dead down below. You can't possibly succeed now. Give up."
He knew the chances were slim, but Jenkins still had to try to convince him to surrender.
"That useless oaf. Just as I thought—mortals are unreliable."
The demigod from the Tree House remarked in a perfect Ruen accent, then extended a hand toward Jenkins.
"The Orthodox Churches have sealed off every path for demigods to achieve greater heights. To advance, we can only rely on ourselves. Friend, join us. Being a demigod isn't the final destination for mortals. I'm sure you know what I an."
"I don't gain power through blood sacrifice. I believe you've chosen the wrong path."
Jenkins replied with a frown. The calico cat on his shoulder tilted its head back and let out a "ow" in agreent.
"We don't gain power from the blood sacrifice. We use it to make contact with a greater being and achieve our own ascension. We have no conflict of interest..."
"If you're just trying to stall for ti, then I'm afraid this conversation is over!"
A blade of light flashed. The White Bone Holy Sword appeared in Jenkins's hand, slashed down, and vanished just as quickly. He couldn't risk connecting his current identity to Nolan's Believers of Lies, which ant the coming fight would be incredibly difficult.
The blade of light, almost solid, cut through the falling snow as it swept down. The demigod raised a hand and blocked the strike head-on. It was an astonishing feat, even if Jenkins had only been testing him without using his full power. But when the man lowered his arm, Jenkins saw blood dripping from his hand.
There was sothing odd about his skin; it was steadily shifting, taking on the color of aged brass. As he leaped into the air, jets of steam suddenly erupted from his back.
The man vaulted into the air, and as he chanted a strange incantation, the spectral image of a massive gear, like the face of a clock, materialized behind him.
Click.
A distinct click echoed as the gear rotated forty-five degrees. The man's brass-colored skin now completely enveloped him, and at the sa mont, a filigree of intricate patterns appeared on the gear's teeth. Amid a strange, droning buzz, a terrifying swarm of copper-colored insects burst forth from his skin.
"What now?"
Jenkins wondered, bewildered. He raised his palms, sweeping them in a counter-clockwise circle at his sides. The falling snow and the frost on the ground converged in an instant, drawn to his hands to form a thick, curved shield of ice before him.
The bizarre insects charged the shield without hesitation, shattering against its surface with a tallic clatter. Only then did Jenkins see they weren't living creatures at all. They were chanical bugs, pieced together from intricate clockwork. Their eyes were black stones set in the hollow centers of gears, and their wings were illusions created by small jets of steam puffing from their bodies.
"A demigod who actually commands steam and machinery!"
Jenkins stared in astonishnt. He took a step back as a dark shadow flashed past him. With a series of rapid beeps, it detonated, blowing the ice shield and the swarm of chanical insects to smithereens.
Reaching into a snowdrift, Jenkins pulled out a newly ford spear of ice. At the sa mont, the demigod in the sky began a new incantation, and the massive spectral gear behind him clicked another forty-five degrees.
A tallic clanking echoed from beneath the corpses littering the plaza. Near the edge of the square, several bodies began to stir, swaying unsteadily to their feet. They were far from whole, with bone exposed, and Jenkins could see a tallic sheen on their skeletal fras.
"Turning corpses into puppets he can control chanically? Where in the world did this demigod co from?"
He wondered suspiciously. With a sharp cry, he stepped back and hurled the spear. The weapon sliced through the frigid air, pinning one of the corpses to the ground. But even as it fell, more bodies were already lurching to their feet.
"Life and death have their order; all that lives must die! I pay homage to Death! Let bone be the body, and let all who live be the enemy!"
Jenkins, too, began his own incantation. The power of death spilled forth uncontrollably as he spoke. Beneath the snow-covered ground where he stood, unseen by any, the frozen earth began to blacken with decay.
Bony claws reached for the sky, ripping away rotten flesh to free the skeleton within. The newly risen undead creature violently tore apart the nearby corpses, absorbing their bones into its own fra. With a terrifying shriek, it charged the copper-boned automatons.
Relying on his abilities alone, without the White Bone Holy Sword, Jenkins could only control one undead at a ti. However, his creation could grow infinitely stronger as long as there were bones to absorb. The demigod in the sky could rapidly transform corpses into tal soldiers, creating a vast army, but not one of them could stand in the way of Jenkins's champion.
The two clashing types of undead tore into each other amidst the mountain of corpses and sea of blood in the plaza. The brutal fight made Jenkins feel a pang of guilt for desecrating the dead. But this was no ti for a crisis of conscience. The demigod in the sky was still chanting, and the massive spectral gear behind him clicked for a third ti, rotating another forty-five degrees. A sudden scent of rust filled the air. Jenkins glanced around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was only when he tried to turn his head and felt a strange stiffness in his neck that he realized he was starting to lose control of his own body.
"What is th—"
His warm, smooth voice turned raspy, then devolved into a harsh, chanical clicking. But an instant later, a green radiance flared from his chest. The curse's rapid chanization of his body was reversed as the brilliant glow of life restored him.
Reviews
All reviews (0)