Chapter 28
Harald blew out his cheeks and sat on a rock. Green fog swirled around his shins. He set the Dawnblade beside him and focused on his new level.
Returned to the fold were his prodigal powers: Tenebral Surge and Grave Concordat.
Man, but he could remember how much he’d loved those powers, once. How mighty Tenebral Surge had made him feel. How much he’d missed its simplicity when he’d consolidated Abyssal Imperium.
Smiling wryly, he closed his eyes and summoned the abyss.
The abyss responded, geysering up within his soul, erupting into a ring of ebon shadows that blasted outward in every direction, whipping the green mist into a frenzy as it swamped the rocks and hill slope, screaming skulls of purest jet contained in its devouring edge.
Did it go farther than it once had? He thought it did.
And where before he’d thought he could make out screaming faces in the shadows, the skulls were a delightful upgrade.
A little morbid, to be sure.
But great.
Harald smiled and rose from his rock. For all that Tenebral Surge was going to be a welcome addition to his repertoire, it was Grave Concordat that was going to change the balance.
Which meant it was time to hunt.
Equipped now with knowledge of how the spiders fought and operated, Harald looked at the terrain differently. Moved through it with more confidence. He wouldn’t blunder into the next web. Wouldn’t panic and throw everything he had at his foe, even as he watched it manifest its Abilities.
No.
This time he was the predator.
Veil of Shadows wreathed him in darkness, and he prowled forth as silent as Shadowpaw. His body was lethal and other; he felt the abyss’ powers infuse his muscles, his tendons, his heart and lungs so that he moved like a ghost, breath shallow, pulse powerful and slow.
Across the broken rocks, he ranged. Up hills, down sheer cliffs, through giant archways, searching, always searching, for that telltale glimmer of gold.
It didn’t take him long to find a fight.
Or for the fight to find him.
Turned out spiders weren’t the only threat on this floor.
His first intimation of danger was the sky darkening.
All around him saplings began to push up between the rocks, growing at an impossible speed, so that within moments he stood in the heart of a grove that reached some twenty yards into the air.
Branches expanded to interweave and knit into a canopy.
Spores began to drift down much like his void motes, to drift and hang in the air.
Harald lowered into a crouch, thoughtful, raking the environs with his discerning eye. The air grew oppressive, sound dampened, his own body grew ever more lethargic. The urge to break into a run and dash out of this expanding grove was intense, but that’s what would be expected of him, wasn’t it?
So, Harald waited and watched.
He doubted whatever was attacking him knew just what kind of a tangle it had gotten into.
Three figures appeared at last, each of them a variation upon a theme: encased from head to toe in teal plate armor, they wore crests of emerald oak leaves about their helms, which fell in thick composite cloaks to their heels.
Tiny pinpricks of green light burned in the dark holes of their helms, and there was something organic to the armor, the way their surfaces were scrawled and fibrous like bark, that made Harald think they were their armor.
One was massive and bore a tower shield and mace. The next was slender and svelte in comparison, a flanged mace in one fist, a buckler on his other arm. The last was as gangly as he was tall, his armor the least substantial, his hands burning with green light as he kept them raised to the canopy.
Harald rose to his feet. “You sure you want this dance?”
The big warrior settled in place, and then his legs swarmed as roots boiled out of his greaves to plunge into the rocks.
In seconds, he’d rooted in place as firmly as an ancient tree.
The slender, short one broke into a light, skipping run, circling out wide to come at him, even as the tallest closed its eyes, hands burning brighter, so that a flood of spores began to drop from the canopy.
Harald raised his palm. A spore landed on his skin and immediately put forth tiny hooks that dug into his skin, the spore wriggling as it sought to shove itself into the cut. But Harald’s shadow flesh was too dense; the spore failed.
“That could’ve been nasty,” observed Harald, shaking his hand and dislodging the spore. Still, the overall aura was growing truly oppressive. Each breath required focus and work, and he felt shin-deep in mud.
Harald smiled and went to work. First, the Tyrant’s Halo.
It blazed upon his brow, and the lightly running leaf warrior shied away as if spooked.
Then, Harald flung a Demonic Edge at the tallest one, intent on disrupting his domain effect.
The sizzling black fire washed over its chest, cutting deep—only for the rooted tower shield guy to pulse with green light, which immediately healed his companion.
“Interesting,” said Harald. That probably meant he had to take the biggest one out first, despite his being formidably armored. Focusing on the big guy would leave the other two to operate as they saw fit.
The slender leaf warrior closed, mace held low and at its back, and just as Harald turned to engage, he exploded.
Dozens of thorn-tipped vines burst forth from its chest and abdomen with horrific speed to curl around Harald, engulfing him in muscular coils that tore at his Form of the Black Throne.
The sheer strength of the attack rocked Harald back, then tore him staggering along to one side, the vines yanking the warrior in close as he drew them back into his chest, so that he abruptly flew at Harald, mace swinging.
Tenebral Surge.
The skulls blasted outward, screaming with the very voice of the abyss, and passed clear through the leaf warrior just before he closed. The effect was tremendous. The warrior shuddered, his vines loosening, the thorns dug deep into Harald’s flesh coming undone.
Harald lunged forward and hacked with the abyssal Dawnblade, its black nullity shearing through vines.
His foes were disoriented, the Tenebral Surge no doubt compounding the Tyrant’s Halo so that he could barely defend himself.
Harald hewed off an arm, skewered him through the chest, the fibrous plate armor surprisingly tough, and then lopped off the warrior’s head.
The warrior collapsed to the ground, only to become suffused with green light and begin healing immediately.
In seconds, he’d be back up.
Harald eyed the big guy and broke into a run.
It felt like sprinting through waist-deep water. The air sloshed about him, motes nearly blinding him as he ran. Had his flesh been human, no doubt it would have been far worse. But Strength 16 allowed him to power through. His chest was growing ever tighter.
Enough of that.
When he was in range, he hit the tall, canopy-enhancing warrior with Tenebral Surge as well.
The skulls screamed through the warrior, basting him in abyssal energies, and he flinched, staggered, and dropped his arms.
The atmosphere momentarily lightened.
A thick vine wrapped around Harald from behind, but he severed it with a backward sweep of his arm and engaged Abyssal Tether on the giant warrior.
Ropes of shadow boiled up around the hulking brute, curling around his tower shield and draping themselves over his shoulders. The warrior bowed his head and Harald felt a barrier keeping his draining effect from working. It wasn’t coming from the big warrior himself but felt more like—ah.
Harald glowered at the tall leaf warrior. His atmospheric effect was insulating his companion.
What a tidy synergy.
Harald was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.
More vines lashed around his ankles and wrists. Snarling now, he turned and cut through them again, the slender warrior following at a distance. Each vine blackened as his blade cut it in twain, but there seemed to be no end to them.
Tenebral Surge slammed through the little guy and caused him to fall away.
Pawing spores from his eyes where they were trying to cut through his eyelids, he closed the distance with the giant warrior, who pivoted smoothly to bring his tower shield to bear.
A final Tenebral Surge rocked the big guy, however, causing him to sway back, and Harald darted down and around to hack at one of his arms.
Fibrous armor split, and no healing glow ameliorated the damage.
Instead, the warrior hunkered down as roots boiled up from below to begin encasing him, sheathing him in a living mantle of wrist-thick branches.
There was no time to hesitate. Harald sensed the smaller foe coming up behind him again.
The air was now so thick with spores that it felt like fighting in the midst of a down pillow blizzard.
Reversing his grip on the Dawnblade, Harald plunged it down into the large warrior with all his strength, and the Abyssal Attunement did the rest of the work.
The black shard of pure darkness slid into the giant leaf warrior’s chest, right where his thick cuirass met the shoulder. Energy pulsed into Harald even as black rot began to course through the monster’s form.
Instead of tearing his sword free, Harald worked it back and forth, stirring the warrior’s innards with the blade’s tip.
The giant warrior groaned like an ancient oak about to go down in a storm.
The black rot caused his chest to crumble and fall inwards, his closest arm to hang limp. A blast hit Harald from behind, with what felt like a score of knives sinking into his shadowed body, but such was his toughness that they didn’t pierce deep.
Far more lethal was the sense of lethargy filling him. Enough spores had dug in that Harald could barely think straight any longer. He tore the Dawnblade free at last, and with a convulsive sweep, hacked off the giant warrior’s head.
The sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void filled his mind.
The Demon Seed Has Stirred