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Chapter One: The Present Future
🕑 Added 2024-06-02 00:43:39 +0000 UTC1.
A flash of golden light illuminated the world far below them. Santi’s eyes stung as he activated Slipstream and started to dive down the eye of the tornado. He had built a career and reputation around his speed and he utilized every dreg of it now. He flew head down staying inside of the iron black walls of the tornado. The spinning winds contained jagged bolts of golden lighting, giving the faintest of light for Santi to take in the chaos of the attack on the cultist base.
Even Gus, the Champion storm mage who had made the tornado, lagged behind as Santi dove. Santi rode Air Capsule in complete silence, his skill forming an isolating bubble of air that was propelled through Slipstream. It was good for speed, though it was near impossible to make quick changes in any direction.
A second bolt of gold flashed across the world and struck a dome of muddy brown mana that rose up and over the deserted town. As Santi got closer to the ground, the world came into focus and he took in the desolate little town the cultists had taken over. It was Nowherevillle, USA.
Dilapidated buildings, crumbling under the weight of history and neglect, littered the perimeter of the shield. The golden bolt hit the shield mana with the force of a bomb, air displaced in a crack as the ground was torn asunder, and a concussive blast spread out, flattening what little vegetation had survived years of the system.
Kelly Tran’s skills no doubt. The archer Champion was famous for her mercurial temper and hitting like a heavyweight boxer. The shield flickered, fading out for a moment before snapping back in place. Just in time to catch the tip of the descending tornado. Thin as a needle, it pierced the shield as if it wasn’t there. More and more of the funnel slid into the shield, the generated winds stirring the stable earth mana of the shield. In only a moment, the shield ripped apart as the wind magic dispersed it and then they were falling toward the center of the town.
Santi was still far above the ground, racing down the relatively calm center of the tornado as the crumbling buildings were tossed around like toys. Black blurs rose up, fighting their way through the wall of the twister to rise up to meet them. Santi had prepared for this, as the bloodsworn cultists wouldn’t go without a fight. The rest of the squad couldn’t keep up with his dive speed. He would get to draw first blood in the final battle, the thought made him smile as vengeance presented itself. He ran Analyze and was instantly rewarded.
Demonic Chimera Lv. 21
It was a twisted mockery of life, animal parts welded to each other with little rhyme or reason. Tentacles lashed out at the air as its human sized dragonfly wings forced it higher. These were the rejects of experiments, often used as a first line of defense or attack. Santi measured and took aim in the space between heartbeats and unleashed a Razor Wind blade ahead of him. The invisible blade of air entered the creature and bisected it in a shower of gore that was whisked away by the twister. Three more blades followed that one as Santi created a hole in their formation, the body parts of the unholy experiments being flung away. The monsters were barely inside of the Acolyte tier and not a challenge at all.
He passed close enough to them that they could have reached out and touched him. The jetwash of his passage tossed some aside, disrupting them even further as the rest of the squad fell on them like a hammer. Above him, Gus was controlling the twister’s path as a trio of heavyweights guarded him from the chimeras.
The ground was racing up towards Santi, he only had moments before he’d faceplant going over a hundred miles per hour. Above him, Gus dispelled the twister outwards, the once constrained winds detonating in a blast that leveled the town. The imprisoned lightning was released, exploding outward and targeting the chimeras. Hundreds died, falling like flies as the lightning incinerated them.
Santi canceled Slipstream and used the skill Float to stop himself from turning into paste. He bobbed a foot off of the ground, saber held loosely in his hand as he looked around. He stood in the epicenter of the explosion, the only building left standing several hundred yards away. Santi cocked his head, that building shouldn’t be standing, he thought to himself.
Floating alone through the destroyed downtown of the city, he kept his eyes peeled for more of the chimeras. While not a true threat individually, their strength as a pack could be a real menace. Hundreds of fighters were pouring into what remained of the town, beginning to search for the cultists. They had to be here, their diviners and seers had worked hard to pierce the veils to find this spot. The strength of the protections had been impressive, requiring two Champions to shatter the shield. That type of investment wasn’t given to any random base.
Santi was hundreds of yards ahead of everyone else as he floated to the roof of the rundown warehouse. The rusted steel hulk was listening to one side, but had somehow survived the tornado's destruction. Santi prepared himself for a fight, there was no way that some of the Apostates weren’t ensconced inside. Ignoring the rooftop door, he floated up and entered through a broken window.
And nearly died.
A black claw materialized from the shadows and slashed the air with violet threads of mana trailing behind. Santi swung his sword up and blocked the blow, his arm going numb as he was thrown toward the ground. He hit a catwalk and busted straight through, the rusted metal failing to cut his reinforced skin before he crashed into hard concrete. The breath whooshed out of him, but hard won instincts kept him alive, his body instinctively rolling away even as his brain fought to catch up.
Onyx claws tore through concrete like it was paper, the floating claw chasing after him. Santi threw a Razor Wind at it and watched with a grim smile as the construct broke apart in a black miasma. He spun and looked around to see what he had walked into. The rest of the attack force was coming, he only had to survive for a few seconds before help came.
The warehouse was dim, lit by hundreds of small black candles. Shadows crept and danced out of tune of their flames, things inside of them. Cultists filled the warehouse, hundreds of them, seated and chanting around the candles, oblivious to his entrance. They were all motionless, seated carefully among the lines of black salt that snaked through the warehouse. Santi took one glance at it to recognize a spellform, the cultists sitting so that they didn’t break the spell's containment.
Santi only had a moment to look at the spell. Ritual magic wasn’t his expertise but the sheer power of the large circle gave him pause. Black salt formed a large circle that all of the mortal cultists sat inside of. The candles formed rivers of flame as they followed along the crisscrossing lanes of salt as it formed patterns on the inside of the spell form. Cultists were packed so tightly together that Santi couldn’t see past the middle layer, activating Float and drifting up to see the center of the warehouse.
Six hooded and masked figures stood in the center, inside of a final circle, holding hands and swaying slowly. There was a gap for one more, the seventh. Santi felt a bolt of horror roll through him as his mind connected a thousand disparate thoughts.
These were The Seven, the Apostates. Some of them had been reported killed, others had been missing for years. Only three were thought to be currently alive and active. Their identities were unknown, at least to him. Myths and legends who had killed hundreds, but where was the seventh? Santi felt a ripple of air, causing him to twist and dodge on instinct. A crushing blow hit him in the side and threw him into the heart of the warehouse. Into the circle.
Entering the circle was hell. Rampant magic flowed through it, burning and freezing, wild and full of the vile taste of the cultists’ patron. Rancid meat and spoiled milk combined with gasoline. Even as he flew, he was casting his skills, Capsule of Air and Float. He froze, twisting in the air as he straightened himself to meet the shocked gray eyes of his attacker.
Looking down at the ground several inches from his feet, Santi looked around him and had to suppress a groan of exasperation. He was hit right into the center of the ritual, in the only empty space. He looked down as black salt lines turned white, then silver, and finally the red-gold of the dawn. A scream ripped its way free of his throat as Santi was dragged down through solid concrete.
He floated for a moment, the other six figures staring at him with their faces bared. Well, everything was bare and Santi was trying not to think of that. He stared at them, imprinting their faces on his memory as they glared at him with murder in their eyes. His heart shuddered as he met the eyes of one of them, a woman with thick brown hair and soft brown eyes. A button nose and a scar that left her mouth permanently quirked upward. Lips that he was intimately familiar with. A scream started to bubble up. They disappeared. Flashed away with a pop.
“Good luck, young man.” The voice was more presence than words, stroking at the back of his mind as the world twisted. Santi was just holding onto the thought that one of The Seven, the enemies to humanity, was someone he knew and loved. He had watched her die, and now she stood with the foe.
The world inverted and then Santi was flying. In a numb despair he looked around at the surroundings as he flew and he felt it. The Patron. There was nothing else it could be. It was. Well, it just was. And it was looking at him. Santi snarled, hate broiling his blood as he stared at the foe. Years of fighting, of heartache and despair came boiling out in a stream.
“You won’t win. I’ll stop you!” Each syllable was filled with venom, the hate burning his heart.
“GO FOR IT,” the voice reverberated through Santi’s body and he couldn’t help but notice that the voice seemed apathetic.
