Chapter 9 The Colossus
The Colossus
Aion
The colossus opened its eyes to a fractured world.
A blazing heat bled from the torn weave of the city, pressing heavily against its chest. A deep, ancient compulsion thrummed to life within its bronze shell. The balance of Asphodelia had been shattered, demanding a singular response.
Destroy the infection. Restore the quiet.
The bronze giant rose from the dark bed in the den.
It marched down the stone corridor, cracking the floor beneath its immense weight.
As it emerged into the chaotic garden, its knowledge of the pure wrongness surged further.
Men in dark armor, reeking of unnatural, decaying magic, trampled the white asphodels.
Near the edge of the path, the golden sphinx lay wounded by a form of corrupted magic.
She was a sacred pillar of the city, and she was dying. All because of them.
Intruders! Silence them!
The mortals instantly sensed the underlying threat. “Captain!” one of them gasped, stumbling backward. “What is that?”
The colossus rushed forward. The men scattered and screamed, and the taste of their terror fouled the air in the garden even more. To the side, the sphinx let out a raspy laugh.
“You see, human? It is your own end you chose here.” She turned her eyes toward the colossus. “Tear them apart, guardian. Destroy the filth.”
The sphinx’s simple command flowed over the colossus like a wave. The guardian easily caught up with one of the fleeing humans and closed its massive hand around his throat.
Mortal lives are so frail, someone had told the colossus once. You need only squeeze, and they will be extinguished.
The colossus couldn’t remember who the speaker had been, but squeezing? Yes, that was easy. Enjoyable too, perhaps, in a way that made no sense.
The mortal thrashed and kicked, trying to free himself, to save his ridiculous life.
The colossus tightened its grip, and the bone and cartilage instantly gave way.
The human’s eyes bulged from his sockets as if he hadn’t quite realized his fate was sealed.
A low gurgle left his pasty lips. “Captain…”
But whatever plea the mortal might have wanted to make came too late. The colossus ripped his head right off, then discarded the broken body onto the ground. “Hold the line!” another mortal screamed. His voice cracked with panic as he thrust a heavy iron spear forward. “Bring it down!”
The weapon struck the colossus’s chest and instantly shattered into a shower of useless shards. The physical impact barely registered. The only thing that mattered was cleansing the garden of the foul magic.
The colossus stepped right through the falling iron and reached for the spearman, grabbing the mortal by the face. The man shrieked. He battered his bare hands wildly against the arm holding him aloft. His frantic blows felt like nothing more than falling leaves.
How could something so weak carry such a deep corruption?
The colossus slammed him backward into a basalt pillar. The man’s skull caved in with a wet, heavy crunch, and his body slid down the dark stone, leaving a bright red smear in his wake.
“Gods, it’s not stopping!” a third man wailed.
He swung a heavy sword, putting all his meager strength into the blow.
The blade clanged harmlessly against the thick plating.
The vibration was merely a buzzing annoyance, like an insect begging to be crushed.
The colossus swung its arm in a devastating arc, catching the swordsman and the man beside him simultaneously.
The sheer force hurled them both across the terrace.
They tumbled limply onto the ground, their chests caved in from the impact.
Only two fighters remained. Weeping openly, they abandoned their weapons to scramble over the broken pillars in a desperate bid to escape.
The colossus pursued them effortlessly. It caught the first fleeing man by the shoulder, tightening its grip until the delicate joint popped under the pressure.
The mortal crashed to the ground, blubbering and crawling in absolute terror.
He didn’t make it far before the colossus brought its heel down, crushing his skull against the pavement.
The final intruder lost his head a moment later, silenced by a single decapitating swipe.
The immediate area fell quiet. The dark taint in the air was rapidly dissipating. But the battle was not yet over.
“You mindless piece of scrap!” An angry shout echoed over the garden. “How dare you?”
A dense blast of purple fire slammed into the colossus’s shoulder. The surface hissed, glowing a furious red as the dark magic was absorbed into the plating. This strike carried a much heavier weight. This was the root of the sickness.
The colossus turned toward its final opponent. The leader of the intruders stood near the fallen sphinx, glaring. This one did not weep, nor did he try to flee. But his face was still pale with fear, and he’d have the same fate in the end.
“You won’t get in my way!” the man yelled, raising his blighted staff. “The sphinx’s power is mine.”
Phix bared her teeth at the necromancer.
Despite the creeping decay on her golden fur, she tracked the approaching giant, her dark eyes filled with ancient recognition.
“You have unleashed a vessel completely devoid of a leash, human,” she rumbled.
“My power was never the one you should have wanted or feared.”
Ignoring the warning, the man unleashed another massive wave of purple flames. The colossus strode directly through the blinding heat. It needed to crush this corruption into dust.
The necromancer’s eyes widened as his magic splashed harmlessly against the metal. He scrambled backward, violently twisting his empty hand in the air.
“Medea!” he screamed. “Destroy it!”
“No! You can’t! You can’t make me!”
The female voice washed over the colossus. It held a power far more fiery than any magic the necromancer commanded. The bronze guardian stopped in its tracks.
“You don’t have a choice, Medea,” the intruder bellowed. “Attack him!”
A chaotic storm of lethal magic swept through the entire garden. It went beyond anything the necromancer had tried to do. Unlike the man’s paltry attempts, this was a light of such power that it couldn’t be controlled.
Instantly, the colossus lost all interest in the necromancer.
Elsewhere. The source of the corruption is elsewhere.
Pivoting away from the purple flames, the colossus located the massive anomaly. Huddled among the ruined asphodels was the woman the man had spoken to.
She was small, her fragile form barely covered by torn robes. Tangled silver hair fell around her pale face. The colossus sensed the staggeringly lethal energy radiating directly from her skin. The magic pulsed with the exact same aura of pure decay that had originally awoken the sleeping giant.
This was the true threat. The reason Asphodelia was bleeding, the true infection that needed to be eradicated.
The colossus marched steadily toward her. Deep inside the suffocating fog of the magic, a sudden resistance flared. Fighting an invisible current, the colossus forced its stiff bronze limbs forward. The ancient spell simply pushed past the hesitation. The anomaly had to be removed.
The girl looked up. Her dark eyes were wide, overflowing with frantic, desperate emotion.
“Aion?”
The single word pierced the roaring white heat in its mind. The sound slipped past the ancient command, reaching the dark, buried hollow where a soul was drowning.
Aion. Who is Aion? What is happening?
“Aion, please,” the woman begged, reaching out with a small, trembling hand. “It’s me. It’s Medea.”
Staring at her outstretched hand, the colossus felt the overwhelming magic forcing a singular path into its mind. It had to strike. It had to crush her pale skin and silence the taint permanently clinging to her fingers.
But as it held its fist motionless in the air, the buried spark of consciousness protested. The man beneath the bronze remembered her touch.
Tearing itself apart in a blinding internal war, the colossus groaned aloud. Somewhere beneath the crushing weight of the magic, the fractured piece of a soul screamed in defiance.
She is not an anomaly. She is perfect. A treasure. My mate.
A mate. The colossus could never bind its future to anyone living because its existence was one of static eternity. But that didn’t matter, because somehow the idea still made complete sense.
Medea didn’t pull away. Staying on her knees on the ground, she fixed her eyes directly on the colossus.
“I know you’re in there,” she choked out, hot tears spilling over her ash-stained cheeks. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone.”
The colossus fractured from the inside out. A single, overriding truth crashed into its mind. If it crushed the woman kneeling on the ground, Asphodelia’s safety would mean absolutely nothing.
It was her, the spell woven into its creation shrieked. You have to do your duty.
Two opposing forces violently clashed against each other. The colossus’s core of death magic burned hotter and faster. The man trapped inside the bronze realized he could not hold the magic back forever. Eventually, the magic would overpower his will, and his fist would fall.
Inside the bronze shell of the colossus, Aion finally won the battle.
He hadn’t been able to protect Medea at the bride market, but this time he wouldn’t fail. And there was only one way to keep her safe now. He had to destroy the source of the overwhelming power that saw her as a target.
Forcing his raised arm to lower, Aion bypassed Medea entirely. He brought both of his massive hands directly to the center of his own chest.
Better to die than to harm you.
With a simple thought, Aion parted his chest open. He had been crafted to contain death energy, but within his hollow interior rested his true center. His core was the wellspring of his immense power. It was the sole anchor of a fragile soul, and the biggest threat to Medea.
“No!” Medea screamed. “Aion, stop! What are you doing?”
From the edge of the path, the wounded sphinx watched the agonizing exchange. “The only thing he can do, Medea,” she offered. “Even a guardian crafted by Charon can only ever protect one thing.”
Scrambling forward, Medea grabbed Aion’s massive wrists. “You can’t! I won’t let you.”
But Medea couldn’t stop him. Her touch still carried the lethal tinge of death magic, and that connection gave Aion the strength to finish his last task.
Pushing his mate away, Aion plunged his hands into the open cavity and gripped the burning knot of his core.
The staggering heat seared his metal fingers, but he held his grip incredibly firm. Pulling with every ounce of strength left in his massive frame, Aion snapped the magical tethers anchoring the core, one by one. A terrifying emptiness began to bleed rapidly into his limbs.
The searing heat forced Medea away, and she staggered back, weeping. “Please, Aion!”
Aion would have liked to reply. He’d have liked to apologize for leaving her behind. But speech had become impossible. The energy required to form words was already gone. Holding the beautiful image of her face in his final, fading spark of awareness, Aion poured his last silent wish into the dark.
Live.
Ripping the core completely from his chest, Aion, the colossus of Asphodelia, succumbed to the nothing.