For three days and three nights, Zelsys watched over the Third Truthseeker as golden lightning hammered down on him.
For three days and three nights, she watched the man thrash against his restraints, screaming, ranting, monologuing.
She sat, only meters from the man, for she was the only only who could do so without being scoured out of existence by the occasional errant bolt. The first time she was struck, it felt like she was back atop the roof of that cabin again. Something that had been out of place snapped back, and it was just as painful as resetting a dislocated limb. Third seemed amused and pleased by the sight of her in pain, but it quickly turned to disbelief and resentment when he realized that his execution was benefitting her cultivation. The bolt thrummed with power, doubtlessly the divine aura of Bishamonten, but its elemental composition was pure Fulgur. It flowed through her just the same as any other lightning bolt would, burning away impurities, and in the process growing even brighter.
As Third's stolen vitality was torn from him, the air grew thick with arcane essences, from pneuma, to sovereignless aura and vitae alike. It was a tiny fraction of the energies involved in the rite, and even what was released into the air by one strike would be inevitably consumed by the next. Even still, it was more than sufficient to sustain her, with the Essentia Crucible serving as a makeshift third lung. Zelsys shamelessly drew in what vitae she could to speed along the healing of her lungs, feeling not an iota of corruption in it. The constant hammering of thunder soon became background noise. Before long, a gnawing hunger made itself known. She could have ignored it, but she saw no reason to. And so, as an added indignity to the Third Truthseeker's excruciatingly thorough demise, the only direct witness devoured slabs of dragon meat and hundreds of metres in crab noodles to nourish her body, while devouring whatever lightning graced her with a strike to nourish her soul.
Day in, day out, she watched him. With each strike, the Third Truthseeker came closer to final, absolute, irreversible death, and with each strike, Zelsys ascended, not merely returning to her previous prime state, but inexorably marching towards a greater one. Each strike after the first became no less intense, but just like any extreme exercise, Zelsys grew to enjoy it. In the absence of major, glaring problems with her cultivation, the heavenly lightning could only correct the countless smaller spiritual imbalances built up over the course of her short, yet extremely eventful life thus far, starting with the most recent ones.
By the end of the first day, she had regained enough use of her lungs to sustain herself. Not remotely enough to facilitate any significant exertion, but enough to not worry about it.
Time had not stopped outside the ritual circle.
The moment the rite began, Victor descended to ground level in a manner only very slightly more graceful than a free fall, and thereafter made his way to join the Newman Sect's forces in a not-so-nearby building. He didn't have the strength to run or even walk, and so he relied on Dawnwolf's remaining energy, making the suit carry him. It was an astonishingly intact high-end restaurant that stood well within sight of the ritual site, but still several hundred meters away. Any insights to be gleaned from communion with Bishamonten had to wait, as did the implication of what the deity said to him before the rite had begun.
The youth lost consciousness soon after, fatigue overtaking him.
Strake Sodan was in perhaps the most severe state of them all. His condition improved rapidly following the battle, but he remained interred within Zero's cockpit out of his own will, deciding not to take the risk of disconnection under field conditions.
Victor slept through most of the three days, awaking every few hours, usually to the sound of distant thunder, its noise dulled thanks to a formation set up by Lady Zefaris. Both his body and spirit were utterly drained of energy, to the point that all he could do during his short stints awake was watch.
Neither a speck of sun nor moonlight pierced the clouds. So dense and black they were that they resembled a ceiling.
And yet, the city was alight, half thanks to the golden glow that issued from the clouds themselves, and half thanks to the ritual site. With each strike, the Avatar of Bishamonten and its staff were stripped of aura, and with each strike, they gradually turned to white stone. If Victor looked carefully, he could glimpse bursts of energy and spectres of the dead flowing across the fulguric channel that connected the heavens and the earth.
Rarely, terribly rarely, the golden lightning struck, only to arc from the Third Truthseeker to Elder Zelsys. On such occasions, a surge of blue-white light exploded at ground level, and a terrifyingly huge bolt of the same colour returned into the heavens on the backstroke, flowing like a giant serpent rather than a bolt of lightning and painting similarly bestial images within the clouds. So bright were these flares that they cast Eberheim into stark daylight for a few moments each time they occurred..
He couldn't help but think back on Borea, and he was not alone.
"A flame that burns so bright, to lighten the darkest night sky."
These words echoed through the building every once in a while.
On the first day, upon learning of what had transpired in Eberheim, Crovacus Estoras could swear that his liver would explode.
On the second, he dispatched a relief force to the devastated city, and requested the same from Rigport.
On the third, he received confirmation of the operation's success, and a strange immortal turned up at his door.
She would never admit it, she didn't think of it that way, and Third's final words would never escape to the wider world, but when he spoke them, moments before his death, she knew them to be true.
"In the end, all this still served the breakthrough of a real monster."
With herculean effort, Third raised his head. With broken teeth, the dead man grinned, and with empty eye sockets, he stared at Zelsys Newman.
"It just wasn't me.”
Another, bitter chuckle came out of him, and with it, a spurt of blood ran down his chin.
“ I leave you with this, as my final retort: Upon my death, my True Soul will ignite and obliterate everything within several kilometers. You have… Perhaps ten seconds.”
Zelsys felt, in her gut, that he was lying. Third seemed to realize this, as he slumped over with a cackling laugh. The next strike of lightning obliterated him, not leaving even a skeleton or a speck of dust. Nothing of his body remained.
The barrier fell, the rest of the world rushed in, and a deluge of golden rain fell from the clouds. It rained for eight seconds, causing plants to sprout and bloom amidst the desolation, and at the moment the rain stopped, the clouds dispersed.
On the dawn of the fourth day, the sun rose in Eberheim once more. The scarlet hues of dawn’s light coloured the stoic, stone-wrought visage of a statue that would soon come to be known as Eber-Bishamonten.
Zelsys Newman stood up and stretched to the sounds of metallic creaking and popping. She called back the Fang Spears which had held the Third Truthseeker in place, and in the same act, brought out six swords whose only distinguishing characteristics were their similar size and decent quality of their cold-iron. She took them in hand, filled them with Metallum, and one by one twisted them into approximations of her Fang Spears. One by one she replaced them, welding them in place. Finally, she clapped her hands together in imitation of Bishamonten and bowed before the statue. Only then did she return to her comrades, using a Thundergod to grab the Oculus from atop the northward pillar as she went. The previously silver conduits within the holy implement now ran golden, and an eye-sized golden star burned in the center of its ring. It gave off a momentary feeling of indignation when it first fell into her hand, just for a moment, as if it took it a split-second to realize it was her.
Zel found, to her relief, that in the time she was preoccupied, help from outside had arrived. The city and its people were devastated, but despite everything, Eberheim would live.
A new holy site had been formed, and the face of the continent had been reshaped once again. In the midst of eight pillars, two imprints had been melted into the ground. One was a scorched-black, uneven crater, filled with jagged shards by its creator’s thrashing and struggle. The other was a simple imprint of someone sitting, legs crossed, its interior coloured with metallic sheen.
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