Chapter 23 #2
They were massive, hulking figures clad in overlapping plates of folded, blackened adamantine.
They wore no capes or ceremonial crests.
Their faces were entirely hidden behind heavy, sloping visors of smoked quartz.
They did not carry disruptive spears. In their massive, armored hands, they wielded thick, brutal war-hammers designed with oscillating aether-cores—weapons built specifically to shatter stone fortifications and liquefy bone through localized acoustic resonance.
"Form up!" Riven shouted, his amber eyes tracking the heavy elites as they fanned out across the tiered seating, surrounding them.
He reached into his own biology, trying to pull enough bio-aether to compress the amphitheater, to crush their adamantine armor just as he had done to the Inquisitors.
But the crimson light on his arm violently stuttered, a sharp, stabbing pain piercing his chest. His caloric reserves were critically low.
If he attempted a macroscopic architectural edit on this scale, his heart would detonate.
"I cannot shift the room!" Riven yelled, falling back toward the center of the dome. "The math is too heavy! We have to break them in the flesh!"
"Then let them come to the anvil," Vael growled.
The Praetorians did not speak. Operating on perfect, silent tactical doctrine, three of the heavy guards rushed the center. They raised their oscillating hammers, the heads of the weapons vibrating so rapidly they blurred, emitting a high-pitched, localized shriek.
Vael charged to meet them.
Her new mechanical legs tore massive gouges out of the amethyst floor. She did not attempt to dodge. She used her terrifying, newly acquired mass. She slammed shoulder-first into the leading Praetorian.
The impact sounded like two steam engines colliding.
The Praetorian, clad in indestructible adamantine, was physically lifted off his feet by the sheer, crushing momentum of the iron-grafted Vanguard. He flew backward, crashing through two tiers of crystal seating.
Before the second Praetorian could swing his acoustic hammer, Vael spun the Abyssal Cleaver.
The pitch-black crescent blade cleaved through the air, drinking the ambient light.
She struck the heavy adamantine haft of the enemy's hammer.
The anti-magic gravity of her weapon instantly devoured the oscillating aether-core.
The high-pitched shriek of the hammer died instantly, turning the devastating magical weapon into a useless, heavy lump of dead steel.
Vael reversed her grip and drove the heavy iron butt of the halberd directly into the smoked quartz visor of the guard's helmet. The quartz shattered, driving sharp shards of glass deep into the skull beneath. The giant fell.
From the upper tiers, the remaining three Praetorians realized the melee was a meat grinder. They changed tactics.
They slammed the heads of their oscillating hammers directly into the amethyst floor of the amphitheater.
The acoustic resonance violently activated the terrain.
A devastating, localized earthquake ripped through the crystal dome. The frequency was designed to shatter stone on a molecular level. Massive, jagged fissures exploded across the floor, racing directly toward the center of the chamber where Carys and Riven stood.
"The floor is failing!" Carys screamed, stumbling as the ground violently shook beneath her boots.
A yawning, black chasm split the amphitheater in two, tearing the floor open.
The gap widened terrifyingly fast, revealing the bottomless, echoing dark of the lower strata beneath them.
Carys stood on the very edge, the amethyst crumbling under her heels, waving her arms wildly to maintain her balance.
Riven did not hesitate. He could not crush the Praetorians, but he was the Architect. The foundation belonged to him.
He threw himself forward, dropping to his knees on the very lip of the expanding chasm. He slammed his bare, bleeding hands onto the violently vibrating amethyst floor.
He didn't draw from his reserves; he bled his very life into the stone.
Bind.
The crimson-gold circuitry on his arms flared so brightly the skin of his forearms began to smoke. He pushed his mortal intent across the empty air of the chasm. He didn't move the stone to close the gap; he forced the sheer, ambient aether of the room to manifest physically.
A massive, glowing bridge of solid, pure golden geometry erupted from his hands.
The translucent, shimmering bridge of right angles and locked vectors shot across the twenty-foot gap, anchoring itself flawlessly to the far side of the crumbling crystal floor.
"Cross!" Riven roared, the blood vessels in his eyes bursting, turning his sclera a horrifying, solid red. He was physically holding the terrain together through sheer, agonizing willpower.
Carys didn't freeze. She leapt onto the glowing geometric bridge. The golden aether held her weight perfectly. She ran across the span, her heavy satchel bouncing against her hip. The moment she reached the far side, she turned back toward the Praetorians across the chasm.
She raised her ink-stained hands, the obsidian rings catching the crimson light of Riven’s magic.
She didn't fire a polite concussive blast. She fired pure, invisible artillery.