Chapter 16 #2
He thrust the weapon not at her heart, but at the exposed, scarred flesh of her side, right where the crimson bodice left her ribs vulnerable.
Vael twisted violently, narrowly avoiding a lethal puncture, but the crackling aether-point of the spear grazed her skin.
The disruptive magic violently discharged.
It was a localized EMP designed to short-circuit the human nervous system and deaden enchanted armor. Vael let out a sharp, ragged gasp as the agonizing shock tore through her body. The brilliant golden enchantments of her Solar-Crest armor instantly died, turning the metal into dead, heavy weight.
Her legs buckled. She collapsed to her knees, the heavy Abyssal Cleaver clattering to the stone.
The three unarmed Inquisitors immediately dog-piled her, using their combined six hundred pounds of armored mass to pin her arms and legs to the floor. They held her down with mechanical, silent efficiency.
The fourth Inquisitor stepped forward. He stood over the pinned Vanguard. He slowly, deliberately reversed his grip on his spear, raising the heavy, crackling tip high into the air, aiming the executioner's strike directly at the base of Vael’s neck.
Carys screamed, desperately raising her hands, but her vision was blocked by the mass of armored bodies. She couldn't fire without taking Vael's head off.
Riven watched the spear rise.
The cold, calculating math of the Lexicon surged to the forefront of his mind. He didn't feel panic. He didn't feel despair. He felt absolute, terrifying clarity. The Inquisitors had forgotten where they were standing. They had forgotten who owned the room.
Riven pushed himself off the wall.
He walked slowly into the center of the blood-soaked aqueduct. His heavy leather duster swept out behind him. The golden circuitry on his right arm began to glow so brightly it illuminated the dark tunnel, casting long, sharp shadows across the carnage.
He didn't reach for an iron bolt. He didn't need to bite his lip.
The floor was already covered in a thick, pooling river of bright red blood.
Riven stopped ten feet away from the executioner. He raised his right hand, spreading his fingers wide, his glowing amber eyes locking onto the flawless white-and-gold armor of the four remaining Inquisitors.
Riven didn't target their flesh. He targeted their metal.
He clenched his glowing hand into a tight, brutal fist.
"Compress."
He drove his absolute, unforgiving intent into the blood pooled on the floor, using the ambient gore as a massive, conductive array to transmit the Eldric command.
The effect was instantaneous.
The pristine white-and-gold runic plate of the four Inquisitors violently rebelled against its own physical laws.
The metal didn't shatter. It folded inward.
The chest plate of the executioner standing over Vael suddenly crumpled like a piece of cheap tin caught in an industrial press. The thick steel-weave gauntlets shrank. The mirrored silver faceplates violently collapsed inward, crushing flat against the skulls beneath them.
The sound was an absolute nightmare.
It was the sickening, wet crunch of reinforced steel violently condensing, mixing horribly with the sound of human bones snapping like dry twigs under unimaginable pressure.
The four towering guards were instantly crushed into grotesque, twisted spheres of bloody, jagged metal, no larger than boulders.
The heavy, crumpled mass of the executioner dropped to the floor, hitting the stone with a dull, wet thud, the disruptive spear clattering harmlessly away.
The three Inquisitors pinning Vael instantly went limp, their crushed armor trapping their ruined bodies inside perfect, compact metallic coffins.
Total, suffocating silence rushed back into the aqueduct, broken only by the steady drip of blood falling from the walls.
Riven slowly opened his fist. The blinding golden light of his circuitry faded back to a steady, rhythmic pulse beneath his skin. He stood entirely still in the center of the corridor, his breath pluming in the freezing air, his face an unreadable mask of cold, ancient authority.
He looked down at the twelve ruined bodies scattered across his kill box. The elite, unstoppable executioners of the High Proctors had been reduced to a pile of scrap metal and gore in less than three minutes.
He had tested his math. The math was flawless.
A few feet away, Vael groaned.
She violently shoved the crushed, heavy mass of an Inquisitor off her chest. She rolled onto her hands and knees, coughing, her breath tearing raggedly through her throat.
The disruptive shock had faded, but her golden armor remained dead and lifeless.
She pushed herself up, using the haft of the Abyssal Cleaver as a crutch.
She wiped a streak of blood and sweat from her cheek, looking at the horrifically crushed armor of the men who had just tried to execute her.
She turned her head, her golden eyes locking onto Riven.
She didn't see the broken sweep she had insulted in the Atrium. She didn't even see the desperate survivor from the colosseum. She saw a warlord standing amidst a slaughter of his own flawless design.
"You didn't just break the line," Vael breathed, her voice raspy, a mixture of horror and profound, absolute awe. "You erased them."
Carys jogged up behind Riven, her boots splashing in the blood.
She lowered her trembling hands, adjusting her glasses as she stared at the compressed metal spheres.
"The kinetic compression ratio required to fold runic plate like that...
Riven, the sheer caloric output should have stopped your heart. "
Riven didn't look at his arm. He didn't feel the agonizing burn that had plagued him in the upper levels.
The Sanctum had changed him. The deep neural sync had expanded his capacity.
He wasn't drawing energy from his own fragile biology anymore; he was pulling it directly from the massive, subterranean battery of the deep earth.
He walked forward, stepping over a severed, mirrored helmet.
He bent down and picked up the heavy, black haft of the Abyssal Cleaver from where Vael was using it for support. He turned the weapon, resting the massive crescent blade against his shoulder. The glowing golden veins in the dark metal pulsed in perfect synchronization with the tattoos on his arm.
"They sent twelve," Riven said, his voice quiet, echoing dangerously off the indestructible basalt walls. "The Waystone alert said Morne was flooding the sector. Twelve isn't a flood. It's a scouting party."
Vael stood up straight, rolling her shoulders, wincing as her bruised ribs protested. "If Morne lost a full Phalanx in three minutes, he won't send scouts next time. He'll send the Praetorians. He'll send the heavy armor."
"Let him send the entire academy," Riven said coldly.
He turned his back on the carnage, looking down the dark, seemingly endless length of the aqueduct. The golden wireframe of the Lexicon stretched out before him, mapping thousands of miles of traps, deadfalls, and forgotten foundries.
"We have the weapons," Riven said, his amber eyes burning in the dark. "We have the high ground, even if we're miles below them. Let's go find a bigger hallway."