Chapter 59- Punishing Ambition

Preserve- Temple of the Sun- 3rd day of Vanahiem’s Month the 6983 GR (Evening)

Nath’aniel-                   

Despite his vision telling him he needed to hurry. He didn't want them to think him desperate. So he jogged towards the statue and the ritual site, instead of running. He had thought to simply glide to the site, but on his way down he saw the woman who had told him how some of his people had survived. So he deviated and aided her.

As he arrived in the inner sanctum, Nath’aniel heard the Sun woman cry out in frustration.

She wasn’t alone. The other man that had come with her to the Citadel stood by her side and eight of their Enhanced stood at the ready to serve her. Off to the side was the pile of corpses, the human lives wasted in an amateur ritual.

Next to the pile oddly were the two adventures. Shanna and Kevin, or Ka-zar and the She-Devil, were tied to a log driven into the ground. They were guarded by a half dozen regular Sun people.

“Shec reck tor nall?” She cried to them. Nath’aniel quickly wrote a comprehension spell and cast it on himself.

He was in time to hear the answer to the woman's question, it somewhat made him angry hearing the worm speak the words of his people. "(That was the last rebel priest. There are no more.)"

“(Don’t think I don’t know your there mage!)” Zala shouted at him, with her back still turned to him. “(What was it you said, no political interference? What do you call attacking us?”

‘I could end it all right now, kill the two mystic arts users and it would be over.’ Said mage thought. Instead, he said in English. "I also said I am the Protector of the Northern Savage Lands…It’s over. This ritual must cease.”

Then she turned to face him before saying. “(You must think me weak if just words are going to stop me.)”

“I was actually thinking you are acting childish, conducting a ritual you know little about. Your actions threaten us all. The Veil is being weakened by your actions. Living horrors from the plane of death are gathering hoping to breach over and reap us all.” Nath’aniel answered honestly.

She looked at her feet at his words, she may not believe him or she did. Either way, he must stop her.

She stomped her foot before she vented. “(If only you had agreed to help me. Then we could have united the Savage Lands together!)”

“I am not here to rule.” He corrected.

“(All that power and what do you use it for?)” She tried to guilt him.

But it was his life, so he said as much. “I live my life a day at a time, and help those with reasonable requests.”

“(You waste it… just like…)” Zala drifted off as she panned over to the two adventures. Then she switched her tongue as her mouth moved differently as she spoke. “(We have one more to offer. Bring me the She-Devil!)”

“I will not let you murder her.” Nath’aniel said before bracing himself for battle. He wasn’t going to use dark force energy, not here with the Veil was weak as it is, and not after what happened against the Nazis.

As he watched the cut the struggling woman free of her restraints. He thought about the spells that he trusted he could cast quickly in battle and settled on a few that he knew well. It took three of them to begin dragging her towards the altars.

Ka-zar also struggled and fought his own restraints. He cried that they release her, to take him instead. His eyes and arms glowing a blue light as his body reset itself from the damage he was inflicting on it by his attempts to escape.

Hearing him Zala pointed her blood-stained stone dagger at him and ordered her Enhanced. "(Don't let him interfere. Kill him if you must.)"

The large men chuckled as they accessed the mage's threat value. Then he gave them pause, as he cut first a vertical line in the air followed by a horizontal one. The heavenly wind and light surged from the large rune and both pushed and spun one of the large men so that he landed on his neck dying immediately.

Then he aimed his bladed staff at a small group of them as he wrote the runes for Abyssal Lighting with three separate fingers. A second later his staff fired of dark crimson lightning bolt into the gathered men. Cutting off an arm, a leg, or just taking a large part of the last man's chest away from him on impact.

The four remaining Enhanced stopped laughing and took the fight seriously after that short fifteen seconds, as two of them started hurling javelins at him and the last two charged him as fast as their powerful legs could carry them. And for their credit, it was a well-organized assault. The wrist-sized spears couldn't just be ignored, and the melee warriors were already halfway to him.

Yet they faced the son of Adalora, General of the Magi. So with his staff tip, he cast one spell powered by the energies of Svartalfheim and wrote an Abyssal spell with his free hand. Darkness began manifesting around him by the time half of the other spell was written. By then it was too late, as he crushed the Abyssal Embraceable spell cast at the Expert level.

His body took its demon form, and with its denser base muscles also meant his wings were stronger than they appeared to be. And they easily knocked away the spears. His magic-enriched eyes watched as the two men charging him tried to slow down now that they couldn't see.

Leaving them open for him to slash their chests open with the blade of his spear. The necrotic toxin he etched the blade with made quick work of their altered flesh. With the darkness centered on the staff’s crystal, he braced and threw the weapon at the last two Enhanced men. Who had chosen to station themselves near the altars they had set up.

They tried to run from the wall of darkness that approached them, but they just ran into each other and fell down, as the radius of the spell embraced them. Neither was hit by the blade, but now they and the altars were obscured by his spell.

However, Zala hadn't been idle during his fight. She had run to meet the struggling warriors. As his fight finished, Nath'aniel watched as the woman began to swing and carve the first character into the captured woman's chest.

The mage leaped to try and stop her but was hit in the chest by a blast of light. The other sorcerer had retrieved another flint blade and was using it as a medium to shorten his cast times. Nath’aniel was about to ready a spell to disable the man, but a spear flew passed him and impaled the hooded man in the groin.

The mage was stunned as an older bald Eastern tribesman charged the warriors that were moving towards them. “(Go Founder, I’ll stop them. You stop her.)” Then he conjured a pair of astral disks and began punching and jabbing the armed men, his disks both cutting and burning their unarmored flesh.

‘Thank you.’ The mage thought, but seeing Zala was already almost done. He started writing a spell instead of trying to stop her. ‘Only read it once, but it will have to do.’ As Nath’aniel willed Hell’s energy into the runes he was writing.

Zala finished just as he did, instead of flicking it he threw the spell above both of the women. The runes collapsed into a mote of light mid-flight and hovered above the now-dead Shanna's body. To everyone else, it just floated there, but to the mage's eyes, he saw it stretch and curl and trap the poor woman's soul in a jar.

Zala snapped her face towards his before she asked. "(What did you do?)"

“Soul Jar. She may be dead, but you’re not offering her to anyone.” The mage said as he walked over to them. The warriors dropped the now clearly dead body. Then Nath’aniel stopped and ordered the Eastern Tribesman. “If you have an emergency signal send it now!”

A second later, the air between him and Zala cracked like broken glass.

Then the sorcerer quickly threw one of his disks into the face of his opponent, before he gestured and conquered into being a blot of blue light, which he fired into the air.

'I have to do something with her soul. Either push it through the tear or…' Nath’aniel thought.

Ka-zar cried at him, still tied to his post. “Help her. I know you can… please. Please, save Shanna.”

Then a left arm made of fragments of bone punched through the crack, it was as long as he was tall. The mage now knew he had to act. He ran towards the trapped soul and the stubborn foolish woman staring at the tear in reality.

Normally he would shout or ask the stubborn woman to move out of the way, but he didn't have the time to be nice. So he used his wing to knock the woman in her face and chest onto her ass. Once under the soul, he reaches his arms up towards it, but Nath'aniel felt no reaction unlike with both Betsy and Curha. Then he looked at his transformed limbs and realized the problem. So he quickly channeled the spell to turn him back into his old self.

As he did another left arm punched through the crack. Unlike the first arm, this one didn't end in a hand, but a blade. Not that the mage watched it.

Nath’aniel felt colder once he was back to his old self. Then he held up his arms towards the soul again. Unlike with the last two reactions, he had two of his tattoos respond. Both were on his right arm, first the spear and then the horned face.

‘Two reactions? Is it because of her other persona?’ He wondered. The sounds of reality tearing more, made him push aside such considerations.

Zala stood up and ran over to him and pulled on his right arm as she asked. “(What is that?)”

"You doom." Was all he said before shoving her back towards the ground to free his arm. His heavier body made her fall easily. Then he reached up again and spared a glance at the still-bound adventure. When their eyes met Nath'aniel said. "She won't be the same if I do this."

“Please…” was all the other man could mutter.

Instead of thinking about the choices he just recited the first chant that came to him. “Born amid a jungle of concrete and steel, you never lost your origins. A hunter and stalker of balance you will again hunt, but now for prey of my choosing. Ready yourself and pierce where I cannot reach, my Lancer.”

Just like last time Nath'aniel was so focused on forming the spell that he lost sight of the world around him. When he came again, Shanna was standing beside him again, and he could feel her in the back of his mind, beside his link to Elizabeth.

She was dressed in a rather tight-fitting two-piece outfit, which covered just her breasts and groin. It looked like it was made from her old scarf. Though that was impossible as her old body still had that wrapped around her shoulders and neck. Tied to the waist and lower left leg were a pair of heavy-bladed knives, and held in her right hand was a bamboo spear, whose spearhead looked to be made from a massive animal's tooth. Like Betsy, she had a red tattoo too, but not on her face. It was buried in the valley between her abundant breasts and instead of a dagger, it was a lance.

“Your Lancer is ready, who is our prey today?” Shanna stated. She sounded less like either of the two personas before, but rather a blend of both of them.

The sound of something heavy landing made the mage turn around. A bone horror, a being built probably from the remains of thousands of bodies had landed behind him from the now blatant crack in the Veil. It was large, at over nine feet in height and had two arms attached to each of its shoulders and like the left side, the back pair lacked hands and instead had blades. From the middle of its back grew a long and spiked tail that coiled up and over the beast's head.

“(Who dares steal from my Lady?)” It asked in whatever language the creatures from his plane used.

“You do not belong here horror.” The mage stated to the creature from beyond their plane.

It took the beast only two steps to turn and face him, but it did so in only a couple of seconds. “(An ageless one, I should have known. One of you steals from my Lady, so of course we would come here.)”

Nath'aniel didn't back down from the monster, instead arguing. "And we respect and acknowledge that, but we have sent hundreds to her to stop those responsible. So please return?"

It stretched its arms and tail before stating. “(Perhaps I should reap a few of you to confirm the truth of your words?)”

Thinking now of his father’s words the few times he saw him negotiate, Nath’aniel said. “Do so at your own risk. We are not afraid. Although I doubt your Lady will be pleased at you tainting us with your dark energy before we meet her.”

Over the creature's shoulder, the mage was surprised to see transport from Asgard floating above the city and temple. Its weapons are armed and aimed at the creature. Disembarking from it were a man and woman. The man Nath didn’t recognize, but the female was the leader of the sorcerers that came before them.

“(An Infinity stone.)” The mage heard the horror mutter, Nath’aniel wasn’t even sure if anyone else even understood the creature. Then it shifted to face him and it added. “(Fine, judge the guilty, and I will leave, but not before.)”

Nath’aniel understood that this was the only compromise that he would get, so he turned to look down at the Zala. When she noticed him and blinked, he then he glanced over at Shanna and said. "As the most affected here, you will have final judgment, but first. Zala Dane! You have murdered and condemned many to horrible ends, what have you to say in your defense?”

She snarled at him. “What can I say that will spare me? Nothing. You have already made you’re…”

Zala didn’t get to finish as Shanna drove her spear into her chest. After she pulled it out, she threw it at the limping form of the hooded priest. Her bone tooth tore through the man's chest and easily landed in one of the altars.

Not that anyone else saw it. However, Nath’aniel did, as he policed his face as he saw how vines spontaneously erupted from the ground in the darkness of his spell and grappled and choked the life out of the last two Enhanced. The two still trapped by their inability to see.

The mage suspected that the horror also had some way of knowing the total death toll, as after the last Enhanced perished it stated. “(And it is done. But be warned ageless. My Lady and we are watching.)” Then it moved and climbed through the hole in reality that it had made from crossing over in the first place. After it left the tear seemed to slowly close in on itself.