Chapter 34 #2
Harald, feeling a growing wooziness, feeling his body begin to grow wrong, summoned the Rootwarden. In his peripheral vision, it immediately planted itself in the flagstones, roots enshrining its legs, tower shield raised, and healing energy began to flood into Harald.
Just in time.
The structure of his arms had grown weak.
Key tendons had been severed. Harald reared back, willing the darkness to continue tearing the figure apart, but somehow it managed to roll back and out of the crater and into a crouch, its hide now lacerated so badly it was a study in gore, and it burst forward to tackle Harald around the waist and drive him back into the wall.
Such strength.
Harald’s vision blacked out.
He came to, still standing, arms raised before him in a defensive stance, chin tucked, turning from side to side as the slender foe slashed and pummeled at him, threatening to break the bones of his forearms.
But the Rootwarden’s healing energies were blazing across his wounds like a livid corona.
The slender white figure drew back, hesitated, then blurred and was gone.
Harald peeled himself out of the wall, heaving for breath, wiped blood out of his eyes, and saw the white monster shear the Rootwarden in half. It toppled, fading into mist, and immediately the healing energies dissipated.
Problem with the Demoniac Body: Harald couldn’t access his scales while in it.
The slender monster turned to glare back at him over its white shoulder. The angels wept, how was it still standing? Its pristine white hide was so gouged and torn that it fair looked flayed. One eye was burst. The architecture of its head was askew.
And yet.
And yet.
Harald bared his fangs, splayed his arms out wide to welcome it, and then the last of the demon essence ran out, and he shrank into his human form.
“Well, shit.”
The monster smiled, a sweet, almost innocent, smile and began walking his way.
Another pulse washed out, the mightiest yet, and the monster staggered, sank to one knee.
Two void shards passed over it, digging deeper cuts into its raw flesh. The Well drank, and drank, each passing moment devouring ever more of the foe’s essence.
And that’s when Harald smiled.
“You took too long to defeat me,” he rasped.
The slender monster rose shakily to its feet, swayed, took a step closer.
So much vitality was flowing out of its innumerable wounds that it was become a torrent.
Harald shoved his hand in his scale pouch, healed as much as he could, and raised the Scourge. The huge blade caused the air around it to waver, abused, distorted.
Another pulse washed out, and again the pale-skinned foe rocked in place.
“Too late,” said Harald.
But he had to give the monster credit. It lowered its chin and darted forward. No longer blurring, unable to harness its nigh-impossible speed, it now simply ran at him, lurching from side to side, tail working overtime to keep it balanced, and closed.
Harald flourished the Scourge before him, and the monster hesitated. It could intuit the Epic-ranked threat the sword embodied, and so it sidestepped, tried to find an entrance, darted back around.
But it grew slower with each moment.
Its chest was heaving. Blood was pouring out of its mouth. Shoulders rose and fell, rose and fell, and when the next pulse hit, the slender creature staggered back, tripped, and fell on its ass.
“Good fight,” said Harald, looming over it. “But not good enough.”
And with a mighty sweep, he hewed the monster’s head clear of its slender shoulders, sending geode-blue blood skittering across the paving stones.
The small corpse collapsed onto its side and fragmented into white mist.
Harald waited for the confirmation that the Well had snatched its essence—this would prove a tremendous Servitor—but nothing happened.
Instead, the mist rose and flowed gently back toward the corpse hill, where it sank into the scores of corpses.
“Oh.” Harald blinked, wits slow. “So, you weren’t… huh. Some kind of composite… thing?”
The chamber was filthy with Aurora Veils. Had to be hundreds. Harald limped around the room, absorbing them and collecting others, and in moments found himself healed.
With a sigh, he lowered himself into a crouch and checked his window. The Soul Needles were indeed gone. He was down to four Servitors now—his Rootwarden had died after the last of the tentacle monsters.
Hmm.
Harald considered dousing himself with his waterskin to wash some of the blue gunk out of his hair, but then settled for carefully wiping his face with a spare shirt from his pack.
Something.
He was overlooking something.
Nonplussed, he stared out into the middle distance, pensive.
He’d done something significant.
But it eluded him. Curious, he glanced back and up to where Exeros’ mote always followed him, just out of the way enough to remain out of sight and out of mind. “What am I missing here? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Something important.”
To his surprise, the mote expanded and became the heavily scarred, dour child with six wings, who remained hovering over the blood-slicked floor. The Seraph stared at him, expression heavy, thoughtful, focused.
“You know what it is.” Harald didn’t phrase it like a question, more like an accusation. “You saw something.”
“I did.”
“What was it? Can you tell me?”
“Of course I can. It is within my power.”
Harald forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Will you?”
Exeros stared at him, hands linked behind his back, then began to float away, taking a tour of the chamber, circling the giant mound of corpses, frowning as he stared at the dismembered bodies and chunks of flesh and pools of blood.
Harald watched him go and return in silence.
“It is not the dead who perturb me,” said Exeros when he came to a stop before Harald once more. “I have slain far more foes than you can hope to in a mortal lifespan. Nor is it the fury with which you fight. I have felt the same self-righteous ire.”
At this he stopped speaking, as if catching himself.
Harald raised a brow and waited. He could play this staring game with the Seraph child if that’s what it took.