The New World Chapter 299: A Shining Massacre

Chapter 299: A Shining Massacre

Lehesion took a step onto the seafloor, and it cracked as he grimaced, “You shall try, but you shall fail, as all have failed before you.”

My armor grinned, “From how I see it, you’ve lost against a Spatial Fortress already. You lost yet again on Gyspum if not for their nanomachine construct. What makes you so certain I’ll fail if you’ve been at the rcy of two already?”

His eyes turned to glimring coals under his brow, “You question that which you don’t understand, child.”

I growled, “Then co and test yourself. Let’s go.”

Lehesion roared out with enough force to silence the region. It bounded past , rolling off my shoulders like water dripping from an umbrella. Beside , Helios fell to his knees, blood dripping from under his mask. Lehesion seethed, “You feel that? That is my scope. That is my magnitude. You will never exceed it.”

“Quit stalling and fight.”

Outrage surged over Lehesion’s face before he condensed his aura into his body. The energy flowed without end as he bolted towards through the water. Gritting my teeth, I t his rush. The behemoth collided with , exuding enough force to crush mountains, but I withstood it. My arms didn’t crumble, they stayed strut, and my legs didn’t break. I still stood on solid ground.

But Lehesion kept applying pressure, pushing back with a clawed hand. Both my arms pressed against his scaled armor. As he crushed into the sandy stone, he laughed,

“It is as I’ve said. You are an insect.”

My armor laughed as mana saturated my fra. The will to destroy inflad , a point of ignition. My hands gripped his crystalline plates. Supergolems to my left and right raced outwards to evacuate civilians and Vagni while I kept Lehesion planted with my hands. I grasped harder and harder still, my muscles tightening like cords of steel.

His condensed mana armor cracked then snapped, and my living armor flooded in. He kept stomping down onto , his massive palm sinking lower. I did not descend. I sank up. His flesh and skin softened from our last bout, neither part of him as dense or overwhelming. He didn’t crush under his mass. He didn’t even cause my knees to buckle.

No, my hands seeped into his, and I sapped his blood, flesh, and bone. Event Horizon poured over him, the aura condensing over his skull. He grimaced, but I wanted him to hurt. I opened my armors jaws and bit into the saturated at before . Lehesion pulled his hand back out of reflex. My jagged jaws tore him open, and he found chunks of his golden body gored out.

The delicious at hung from my dark, tal hands and my jagged, dripping maw. As his flesh soaked into mine, I leaned down and shouted,

“Co on then.”

Lehesion’s eyes widened before he took a step back. Behind , Helios pulled himself up from the ntal whiplash of Lehesion’s roar. The golden gialgathen’s eye crossed over to my ally, and I grimaced. Lehesion might aim for my team instead of . Ensuring that wasn’t a possibility, I bent down and shot forward, telekinetic pads synergizing with heavy gravity wells.

Lehesion whipped his tail towards . I used my pocket dinsion, his whipping limb sinking into the starry abyss. Reaching him, I grabbed the underside of his jaw, my fingers extending into bone and skin alike. He roared and whipped away, a chunk of his face tearing out as he did. Reacting in pain, he side-slashed a clawed hand. I didn’t dodge away.

I closed in. Ducking under his arm, I turned on my feet. Turning my hand into a dark spear, I slamd my hand into his chest. Tendrils of armor spread outward into his organs, along with my fingers before Lehesion slapped sideways. I didn’t see it, but the sheer force sent barreling away from the beast. He was still strong.

I smashed through an underwater hillside before piercing deep into the depths of Blegara. The landscape reford under as I pierced it. Nestled under many layers of stone, I laid broken, but my body pulled together before my eyes in a second. So quick was my reformation, it acted with a startling violence, my guts whipping together at frightening speeds.

Nearby, several chunks of Lehesion spread throughout the ground. My armor shot out in hunger, absorbing them despite the ground’s pressure above. Leaping out of the underground pit, I found Lehesion gawking at the wound I left behind. Exposed ribs and golden blood seeped into the ocean. That blood clouded around Lehesion as he grimaced at . Despite the anger, a asure of panic unfolded over his calm deanor.

He took quicker breaths, his heart speeding up in his chest. It wasn’t long before he composed himself, and he charged up a ball of energy around his mouth to retaliate. Before he finished, Helios made a portal in front of his jaws. The condensed energy beam blasted into Lehesion’s side, wounding the massive beast.

I turned, finding Helios hiding on an ice tower within the blue core’s shielding. He oversaw the fight there, ready to assist when necessary. He gave a quick nod, no retreat or fear oozing from him. No matter his past mistakes, I couldn’t fault his bravery in battle. If I had my way, Helios would say the sa of .

So when Lehesion charged his energy for another world-ender, I assaulted his mind. Dual consciousnesses ran rampant across an unseen horizon right at him. When the telepathic connection ford, a majestic, ancient mind lashed out at . It found a legion waiting for its arrival. Swiveling around it, my minds evaded his attacks like schooling fish. My defensive psyche shepherded this mass and deflected Lehesion’s onslaughts all at once. Simultaneously, my offensive consciousness acted as a juggernaut, tearing across the gialgathen’s exposed thoughts.

In one mont, I tread over mories. Another second passed, and I smashed his lines of logic. Lehesion brightened himself until blinding, but I persevered and wounded his more thodical processes. He lost control. The goliath gaped at his surroundings, staring around in dismay.

It stunned seeing how vulnerable this monster was, but it also explained how Elysium gained control of Lehesion in the first place – his strong body held a weak will. Those psionics controlling Lehesion lood when I reached the further recesses of Lehesion’s anima.

There, I found a prodigious mass of minds suppressing him.

They created a cord of so kind that any of them could connect with. Just grazing this enormous tether, I found thousands of minds working in unison at all monts. They maintained an iron grip over the gialgathen, ensuring no lapses in control. That’s why Lehesion was undefended; his mind fought elsewhere.

That mass of psionics took notice of my intrusion, and many detached from this unbreakable bond with Lehesion. They crashed into with the unity of a nation and the malice of an enemy. As individuals, I could’ve smothered them. When together, they acted like a wave of ants running over a mantis. Each of them hacked away at my enormous consciousness, the minuscule traumas mounting into a beating.

But I was no mantis of flesh. I was like a mantis of tal. Exhaustion and pain radiated from the ntal wounds, but I held a tight grasp of my mind. I fell onto a knee, control of my left leg lapsing. I twitched, my body being arrested from . Reorienting my approach, my defensive mind shot into action. It sliced through a connection point, weakening the assault. My offensive mind charged, ripping out psyches left and right.

I blinked, orienting myself again. Able to stand, I bolted forward towards Lehesion’s actual body. I couldn’t afford to relent or ease up on the pressure, and so I hit Lehesion’s healed chest. As I did, the minds within him quivered. They felt the unbridled agony, the crushing bone, and the ripping sinews just like Lehesion did.

In the wake of that pain, they wavered for only a mont. I smiled, a drop of blood oozing from my lip. I’d found their weakness – pain. I pulled a hand back, turning on the balls of my feet and striking Lehesion. I amped the incoming blow with my gravity wells and telekinetic sharpening. At the sa ti, I charged my fist with pure cold. That chill seeped through him, flash freezing his muscle.

Force erupted outwards, and pieces of Lehesion fell. I breathed in his blood, and I beca an engine of destruction. I reached back, and another murderous strike landed across his fra. The water around us carried a shockwave that disintegrated stone. I heated my body, turning into a molten behemoth. Each ti I landed a punch, stab, or strike, the mass of detached psionics flinched.

I amassed heat into my body until I glowed. A thin layer of steam poured from my armor, subrging in a thin later of air. Shards of salt fell from this dispersal of ocean water, and I sared those shards into Lehesion’s wounds as I stabbed a hand into his fra. Lehesion howled out, but his screams turned into a symphony in my ears.

His pain was my survival.

I honed in on this weakness. Moving forward, I shot out electricity into his nerves when I touched him. He winced, and more elents molded in my hands as I assaulted him. Burning ice left pieces of Lehesion frostbitten. Heated plus of magma burst from my knuckles as they grazed him. Even Helios struck out with void ice as well.

The ruler of worlds calculated each attack, making the most of his mana and ntal endurance. Lehesion lifted a hand to strike, but Helios blocked it with void ice. Lehesion swiped a tail, and another blot of the violet snow lodged itself around him before Lehesion got montum in his tail whip.

This continued while I tore at his weakened mind. In this relentless charge, I poured on punishnt in all its forms. I crushed. I froze. I electrocuted. I smashed. I ripped and gored. The endless torrent of wounds weakened the mind mages that fought against . They retaliated in kind, sending more of their mbers to throttle my psyche.

This mounting ntal pressure stressed my split consciousnesses. At tis, my physical control lapsed. Those lulls lastest for short, instant bursts before I retook physical command. Despite their success in that domain, they never gained authority of my minds. With those wills, I ripped and gouged out portions of Lehesion’s body, one section at a ti.

I froze his blood and pulled the air from his lungs. He choked, drowning in a void. Lehesion gasped, being strangled while I sent out waves of electricity and impacts to his body. I existed like breathing darkness, a black hole swallowing a bright star. In that mont, I lost myself in anger and rage and fury. It consud , but I allowed it to. This was not the desperate rage I leaned on once before. It was a controlled and cold frenzy.

My relentless annihilation ca from necessity. Any mont Lehesion gained an understanding of his surroundings, he unleashed overwhelming strikes and attacks. Several veered off my city’s forcefield, and each ti they did, I trembled in fear. Everything I owned fell in that do of energy. I put that fear behind , using it to surge myself into action.

My dread converted into an animalistic fervor. I darted in, consud, and rampaged until Lehesion scrambled to even reply. And yet, Lehesion still pulled himself together. The psionics nested in his brain bore down hard on , and their perpetual pressure crippled . I missed attacks, failed magic, or even fell at tis.

These lapses led to the deaths of many. Hordes of Vagni perished in blindings fires, storms of light, and furious eruptions. Several supergolems evaporated in those attacks, and I still rember their deaths. My own guildsn died while evacuating to the city as well. For so of them, I saw their faces.

Those faces still haunt .

But the psionics paid a dear price for weakening . Their tether waned in strength, and each mage sent to reduced the Adairs’ absolute control of Lehesion. This gave Lehesion more freedom. The freedom to express rage and hatred of . His ntal defenses bolstered, no longer stripped bare by his psionic controllers. His movents beca less hazy, no longer dulled by the lag from being controlled. Lehesion evolved before my eyes, becoming the monster I rembered.

Yet, I fell into a rhythm all my own, and in my wrath, I poured forth slaughter without end.

I swung, parried, dodged, deflected, blocked, stabbed, hooked, tore, maid, and mauled him. Each hunk of flesh I devoured played on his fears of being eaten, a fear entrenched after his encounter with his first Spatial Fortresses. I leveraged that vulnerability like twisting a knife lodged in soone’s ribs.

I wielded that knife in other ways. I infested his mind with insidious thoughts of being devoured. Those fears wracked at his sanity and the psionics piled more mages onto their unified offensive. I grimaced at the numbing pressure, so many minds pooling onto mine that it felt that my body wasn’t my own.

I allowed them to smash my consciousnesses. I lost awareness at tis, forgetting pieces of the fight. Everti I awoke, an unbridled terror flooded through . Without my perpetual fighting, Lehesion would wipe out my guild in a blaze of light. I’d lose everything.

Despite my growing desperation, I never ceased fighting. Whether I fell apart or not, I would beco whole again within a second. They shattered my mind over and over again. I broke out of those deaths without fail. Even if they killed each second, I regenerated faster than that.

My rejuvenation was infinite. It defied any expectation or demand. It held my mind together under an unholy stream of damage. It struck dread in at first, but I beca comfortable with this dance of death over ti. My durability beca evident then undeniable. Forgoing my defenses, I kept mounting my attacks with greater fury.

Each of those soul-wrenching blows and earth-shattering strikes tortured Lehesion. Over ti, this frenzied, chaotic battle sunk into the wells of a monotonous slog. They grew desperate for an end, but I was unending. I’d been here many tis. I made my ho here, in this living hell. Lehesion had not.

This torture kept mounting until Lehesion’s movents slowed. He wanted to escape. He found himself in purgatory, one of my making. He couldn’t sustain my punishnt, yet he couldn’t die from it either. Eonoth revived him even if he wished to die.

He swung his tail towards , but I soaked it into my shield and struck him. He snapped his jaws at my neck, but his maw fell onto a ball of spines. He flew into the air above for relief. Lehesion t void ice before I pulled him back into the depths. And those depths sunk deeper.

I pulled him into a dark sea. Minutes of fighting turned into hours. Pain turned to misery, and Lehesion fell into this horrific eternity. His attacks, while cataclysmal and ruinous, took ti to generate. His eclipse magic couldn’t be cast because I offered him no room to breathe. He couldn’t blow apart with his laser breath either as Helios reflected it back to him each and every ti.

This disard his arsenal of world-ending weapons. His most potent tools voided, Lehesion relied on his physical and ntal techniques. They waned with ti, but mine did not. And so, I devoured with abandon. I ripped out chunks of flesh and at, using this as an opportunity to charge my runes and gain ambient mana. I practiced skills, combining elental energies.

But most importantly, I needed Lehesion to understand that if he ever fought again, he’d be trapped in this endless cycle. I pulled no punches as he faltered. I left no rcy as panic coursed over his eyes. His will to defy would be expunged until nothing but a hollowed husk remained of it, one that ran from the whisper of my na.

I took no pleasure in the process. I gutted him. I tore skin from flesh and flesh from bone. He couldn’t escape with speed or distance as I kept pace. He couldn’t run to madness as his controllers kept him sane. Lehesion fell into that hellfire, one kindled by harm but sustained by his masters’ unwillingness to give in. Despite being in the middle of that tug of war, Lehesion still remained cognizant. He tried many tactics. He spread his aura, keeping my physical form away. He opened portals for warping out, and he even tried attacking my people instead of .

For the aura spread, I discovered Event Horizon couldn’t pierce it, but the Rise of Eden could. Warping proved even simpler to stop. He still had to physically jump through a warp, and I wasn’t about to let him. As for attacking my guildsn, he succeeded.

I couldn’t stop him from purposely crushing Vagni and the like, as he proved too challenging to control. It was a bitter pill I had to swallow, but I made sure he paid his own blood price. Reinforcents attempted aiding Lehesion, but they perished in the umbral blots of my singularities. The Adair’s ntal ambushes proved lethal, but I kept them minimized by unleashing wave after wave of physical anguish through Lehesion.

Anyti Lehesion dove down towards , I t his dive head-on. The resulting impulse disintegrated blocks of the cityscape. I crushed Lehesion’s left arm with a sharp hook from my left hand, and the gialgathen’s shearing bone released enough force to level buildings. The shockwave itself tore across the sea, leaving it unsettled like a pool being cannonballed continuously.

These waves swallowed the skyline above the sea, making a mockery of the ocean’s size and scale. It was like a puddle to us, and that pool rippled with an intensity unbounded—the sa devastation wrought from the heat of our strikes. Even the slightest blow induced otherworldly volus of friction. A grazing kick or shredding claw boiled the water around us, killing many in our warpath.

These impacts…they killed many. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Vagni perished. Remnants, espens, and Hybrids died in mass. We scorched Saphigia until little of it remained. The sheer volu of damage made the conflict feel aningless for us both. What were we fighting for anymore? We killed and killed but obtained no ground, neither of us.

It saddened , but I overwheld grief with rage. This was my hostead, a new frontier for my people. If I let Lehesion ground himself, he’d induce an apocalypse over everything we built here or the little left of it. There’d be nothing but a dried sea and a molten wasteland left behind when he finished us. We’d never expand over Earth either if Elysium knew they could send Lehesion over at any ti.

And so, I enacted a living hell for Lehesion. I never relented. I poured forth like an eruption with no end. I bit at his heels like a pack of immortal wolves. I mauled his spirit, and I tore his bones. At tis, I felt his fear and his terror, but I swallowed that sickness in my stomach. He was my enemy, and no enemy would be left living.

Eventually, Lehesion and I stood amongst a scarred horizon. We shattered swaths of Saphigia. We stared at each other, both of us exhausted. Lehesion grimaced at , a deep disgust bubbling out, but an even more profound dismay simred under the surface. He howled,

“How do you live knowing you are an abomination? Do you ignore it? Do you hide from the pain of knowing you’re a calamity?”

My arm, just disintegrated, reford in a flash. Liquid tal shot out of my torso and snapped into its previous shape, ready to go. I remained silent, but my armor laughed for , cackling out in a haunting reverberation like tal. I spoke between its unsettling echoes,

“If you choose to stand behind , then I am your guardian. If you choose to stand beside , then I am your leader. If you stand against , then I am your destroyer. Tell , Lehesion-“

I spread my hands,

“Where do you stand?”

Pieces of his crystal armor fell from his fra, few shards of it remaining over him. Fresh scars over his skin dissipated, but the ntal ones wouldn’t nd so quickly. His breathing quickened as he sputtered,

“You…you are only a monster. I may stand anywhere I wish with you, and it will serve no consequence. You cannot affect .”

I raised a hand, and he backed away. I scoffed,

“You fear being eaten when you’ve already been swallowed.”

Lehesion’s eyes widened, “No. You are wrong. I am not prey. I am the hunter. I-I must be.”

I stood tall, “No, you are a sword that is wielded by others and swung where they cannot reach. The Adair’s have torn your mind to pieces, and now I battle the fragnts they hobble together. You fight without urgency because you don’t fear death. You battle without cunning because you’ve never needed it. You even strike without intent since even a light brush is all you’ve ever needed to kill.”

I pounded my chest with a fist, “But I’ve wallowed in my own blood and fought through it. I’ve lived with death. It made strong. You’ll find I fight without rcy because I’ve never been allowed to have it. I strike to kill because I can’t afford to do otherwise.”

I spread my fists, “The lives we’ve lived, they’re worlds apart. That’s why when you crushed , I decided to stand tall even when I was in your shadow. Now that you lie in mine, you cower in the dark. That is what your reincarnation has given you – a weak strength.”

I spit blood into the sea, the silver shifting through the steam layer evaporating from . The shining blood dispersed amidst the water, siphoning back to . I stared him down,

“Grow a backbone and co fight again.” I cracked my knuckles, “Or I can keep carving you up. It’s your choice.”

The congregation of psionics controlling Lehesion ceased attacking at that mont. A palpable relief flooded as they did, their unrelenting pressure similar to my own. That reprieve lasted only so long as I leaned back, an inkling of concern sprouting in my chest. Sothing changed in Lehesion.

Lehesion’s eyes grew bloodshot, orange, nanomachine-infused liquid surfacing through his veins. He whispered, “No more.”

Around him, sothing snapped. Lehesion’s energy spiked, and it flooded his fra until he sheened with radiation and an ominous, blue glow. I remounted my offensive on his mind, but I found sothing strange waiting for . The psionics no longer defended Lehesion. They joined my own offensive, tearing as much as they could.

No, they didn’t tear. These mages gnawed in absolute desperation. Their urgency infected , and I redoubled my own efforts. It wasn’t enough. Lehesion wrestled full control of his mind. Once more, he beca whole. I no longer faced a shell of his forr glory. I faced the full wrath of a legend, his powers and instincts no longer stripped.

He was the shattered god no longer. He was whole.

His ancient, full luster returned. He emitted intense radiation near him, the energy encapsulating everything in a dangerous but warm glow. His scars receded, and he took deep breaths of appreciation,

“Ah, I am myself again. To be given freedom is a blessing, one I’ve lacked appreciation for in the past. I’ll do so no longer.”

His words sent a chill down my spine. I kept attacking his mind, and I uncovered pieces of what was happening as I did. They only made my stomach sink faster as I discovered more. I learned the Adair family helped break down the connection Lehesion had with Eonoth, the Old One. They’d lessened the barriers between the two, giving Lehesion more of the Old One’s primordial, inconceivable energies.

But, I hadn’t faced any of those new powers. No, I had t a living factory that powered Elysium’s entire stat system, even while we fought one another. The whole ti, he carried the brunt of a new society on his shoulders, and I hadn’t known it. Lehesion grumbled,

“And with this freedom, what will I do? Tear down my manipulators? They stand beyond my reach, hidden amongst the stars. Destroy their armies? They number many, and they sprawl across planets. It would take ti that I no longer have.”

I continued attacking his mind. mories of our fight flooded . When Lehesion wanted to maul, the mages weakened him. When he wished to devastate, Elysium enfeebled his attacks. As I ruptured and cleaved him apart, Elysium kept his unchecked rage shackled. The psionics faltered as I put pressure on their limiters and controls. Now, I faced Lehesion with his mind returned and his powers unbounded.

And staring at , the beast’s overbearing confidence returned,

“But, you stand here, Harbinger. You’ve earned my ire and my gaze. Now, little one, let us see if you may survive its fury.”