Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 572: Interlude - The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy II

Xocoh’s arms trembled as she held them up, her knees weak as she’d held the pose for days.

“Son of the sun. Son of the sun.” The kobold ardents chanted. Thousands chanted and marched around Xocoh’s position at the top of the ziggurat, where a gigantic spell was being channeled. It was too bright to look at, a second sun to attract Itzel’s attention and divine favor.

“Son of the sun. Son of the sun!” The chanting reached a fervent pitch, and Xocoh did her best to aim the massive skill.

The kobolds of Tonaltzintli had gotten a bit of the short end of the stick in life. A mortal nation surrounded by Immortals, the deadly jungle environment and grand rituals were enough to keep the younger elves at bay, while the elders usually didn’t care enough. But there were no easy trading partners, and the kobolds were isolated, the elves snubbing them at every turn.

They weren’t aware of the greater goings on in the world - simply that a group of elves had put one of their cities to the sword, tearing down one of the ziggurats sacred to Itzel, and the kobolds operated on an ‘eye for an eye’ principle - nevermind that the elven eyes were far larger than theirs.

The skies split to fervent cheering from the kobolds. Some started speaking in tongues while others passed out in relief. Xocoh was simply happy that the end of the ritual was in sight. A divine hand reached down out of the heavens, picking up the [Second Sun] and lifting it into the skies.

Then in a mix of divine and System energies, Radiance mixing with the very sun itself, the ball turned into a beam of light, breaching the shields and protections of a city and burning it to the ground in a great conflagration.

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Depths flinched back as a sword came for her face, a wall of water appearing in front of her thanks to [Water Echo]. It fouled the swing enough that she was able to continue dodging, the knee-high water not slowing her down at all. The slash ended up nicking her cheek, simply another line added to her face.

“Warning. Disaster. Seek shelter. Warning. Disaster. Seek shelter.” A Sound Classer’s alerts were chiming all over, a hilariously unnecessary alert. [Persistent Casting] had to be involved, and the source was likely unconscious.

The sheer amount of water was hint enough that there was a problem.

Depths flicked a finger out, another echo of water appearing behind it and shooting out like a crescent blade, slicing through an arm. Depths couldn’t follow up, three spears seeking her back. She dove forward into the water, another [Water Echo] splashing down and adding to the huge amounts of water available to her. Once she was in water, she was too slippery, impossible to catch, and Depths popped up three blocks down. The Sentinel crossed her arms and ‘slashed’ out again, Water forming in an X as it blasted down the street, turning her latest pursuers into mincemeat.

If they had taken Depths seriously when she first arrived, they might’ve had a chance. She doubled over as a rock tore through her stomach, diving back into the steadily rising water to try and find the [Mage] responsible, leaving a bloody trail behind her.

One that only a shark could’ve picked up, given that all the water was already colored with blood.

Veltrax had spent his mortal lifespan building a large bullhorn. From mining the copper and tin in the mountains, to building his own little smithy to melt them down, the parasaurus-type saurian had spent his life on the project.

It wasn’t ready when the horizon lit up with explosions. It wasn’t ready when the sun flickered through a thousand colors, and a huge black dragon ripped herself from the mountains and took off. It wasn’t ready when the earth shook and heaved.

It was ready enough though, and Veltrax put his mouth on the horn and blew, a crystal note entwined with a thousand curses, amplified and cast over the plains of the Silver Horde.

Shame it didn’t reach further. He had wondered if he could make it echo around the world.

“What was the point of the flat society!?” Vorstenhel, demon of wrath, raged at the assembled demons. “What was the point in staying low, staying out of the way? We were promised that nobody would interfere! That! Was! A! LIE. All it’s done is fractured us! Made us weak! Made us prey! We are demons! We only bend the knee to one - the strongest. Crown me king, and I will throw out the invaders!”

Vorstenhel’s speech was only half of it - the other half was his level and his living armor.

The System made all things possible, and ancient [Demon Kings] of old had committed vast atrocities. One in particular was a legacy that empowered whoever found it, whoever could pick it up.

A set of living equipment.

[Mantle Spirit] was a prerequisite, and millions of mortal lives were spent in pursuit of the few who could obtain it. Following that, the mortal in question picking up a skill to turn themselves into a sword, or shield, or helmet, or gloves, or any other piece of armor, then engaging the skill. Extra care was taken to have those who wouldn’t retain awareness once they were transformed, effectively making gear that could level up, that had their own skills.

The only true weakness was the inability to class up.

One by one the demons knelt, each one proclaiming their allegiance.

“My [King].”

Amber’s coin spun high up into the air, catching the fiery light on the horizon. In a smooth motion, Amber reached out to grab it, like she had a million times before.

The earth shook right as she was grabbing the coin, her bad leg throwing her off balance and forcing her to stumble to the ground. The coin bounced as it hit the dirt, and landed on a tree root.

“No!” Amber yelled as the coin merrily rolled away over the root, taking an impossible highway. Amber scrambled in the dirt as she tried to get up and run after her errant coin, her lucky guide in life.

It vanished into the deep woods faster than she could go, and Amber briefly despaired.

Her coin!

She calmed down and reached for her braid, a thousand and twenty four gems woven into it. She had eight different gems simply for retrieving her coin in case of a problem, but then she paused, narrowing her eyes.

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Amber Coin Rule #4: If the coin does something unusual, pay attention.

Her hand shifted down from an amethyst with a skill designed to attract all metal disks in a huge radius to her, down a bit to a quartz for light. Shining a bright light all around her, Amber went deeper into the woods, off the path, ignoring how the branches seemed to reach out and tried to grab her. Dismissed the wolf’s howl and the serpent’s hiss.

“Ahha!” Amber spotted the glint of metal, followed a moment later by a familiar flash of lights. The shameless merchant hurried over, snatching up her coin before grabbing the amulet. Half a spot was spared for the long-dead bones that crumbled around it, the string entirely rotted away.

Amber whistled at the find.

This was the largest onyx she’d ever seen - and her skills were telling her that the skill bound inside was still primed and ready for use.

Iya Sahel, ruler of her clan and city, looked with calculating eyes as mushroom clouds erupted over three neighboring cities. She assumed it wiped them off the map, but none of her calculations, plans, or contingencies had started with ‘these three specific cities are removed from play due to external parties’. It simply wasn’t a reasonable assumption.

Two enemies and a sometimes-ally had been abruptly removed from the board, and the first to strike would be the first to benefit.

“Steel sharpens steel.” She breathed to herself.

The vanguard was marching twenty minutes later.

Cailchanar flicked his wrist, expertly shedding all the blood from his sword. He shook his head, and if anyone could’ve seen past his blank silver mask, all they would’ve been met with was overwhelming disappointment.

“There is no reason for the world to go mad.” He complained to his partner, his blade clean of Immortal blood. “All these idiots think we’re just going to stand by and let them slaughter each other and mortals…” He shook his head again.

His partner didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. Simply pointed to where compressed balls of sword strikes were rising up on the horizon.

“No rest for the wicked means no rest for the protectors.” Cailchanar grumbled before the two Wardens flew off, trying to be a finger in the dam that had long been breached.

Night wasn’t able to brag about one of his greatest coups.

It was still ongoing, and revealing one of his greatest triumphs would entirely negate it.

The ancient vampire tended to take the long view of things, setting in motion plots and plans that would take centuries to execute, and pay dividends over the millennia. Arguably his greatest achievement centered entirely around pottery.

The elves were obsessed with properly tracing lineage and heritage, and loved nothing more than to excavate their old cities, properly tracing and labeling everything. One day, an excavation team encountered some old wine amphoras.

It had been dutifully collected and entered into the records as a curiosity, the style unfamiliar. Perhaps a single [Potter] trying something new.

But as more cities were unearthed from the time period, more and more jugs in the style were found, leading to a great debate among the [Scholars] of the time.

Had they unearthed a previously unknown part of their history? Or was this a massive fraud on the part of the [Diggers], looking for a sweet bonus in their contract?

The loudest voice insisting that skills had been used to artificially age the pottery had become more and more unhinged, eventually being expelled from polite society after nearly attacking an - admittedly obnoxious - child.

Night smiled the whole time as the ‘lost ancient heritage’ made waves, the ‘modern’ elves adopting the style and methods of the ancients. Night regularly sent ‘poorly made’ - he was no expert [Potter] with fantastic skills, simply a humble vampire - jugs of wine from himself to the elves, laughing himself sick in private with Susan as the elves carefully checked it over for sabotage, not realizing the imitation of the style was the sabotage.

The bottom had a high, hollow arch, permanently casting a shadow in a large enough space for his skills to operate in.

In every town, in every household, Night had a foothold.

And that was all he needed.

The motives were endless. From love to hate, from defensive patriotism to naked aggression, old revenge being enacted as entities revealed themselves to ancient grudges being settled, from looking to the future to being stuck in the past, the drives and motives were endless.

The methods had as many varieties as there were people. The flashy ones got attention. Meteor strikes and wildfires, floods and earthquakes, thunder rumbling in the sky while the earth buckled and heaved. Tidal waves of water and frigid snow that froze with a single flake. Clubs wielded by giants and dragonfire from the skies.

Sanguino was destroyed by an Arcanite beam of pure magical energy, the rubble falling into the expanding Bloodmoon Bay, which earned its name a second time.

The subtle ones were just as devastating. Locarno, redwood city-state of the gnomes had all the air removed, and they simply fell over. Far better than Winterthar, which burned.

Some Immortals were able to ignore the whole mess. Flora, the Witch in White, who commanded and protected the School, was a peak Immortal on her carefully groomed home turf. The School and the town attached to it had issues, but nothing on the scale that plagued other locations.

Kunchenjab negated every spell thrown his way, having a patient policy for all those who would disturb the peace. Three large stone disks were on top of the monastery, one side painted white, the other painted black. At each attack Kunchenjab deflected, he would flip one of the coins over, white to black, then pointedly look at the attacker.

Most got the hint before the third coin was turned over.

Anurak withdrew the Pekari deep down into the crust, collapsing tunnels and lamenting how long it would be before civilization provided him with new entertainments, then decided to make his own.

How many bunkers, he wondered, weren’t properly stocked, or had collapsed entrances?

For each one he rolled a weighted die.

Should the result be favorable, [Diggers] would suddenly find collapsed entrances were thinner than they thought, and the bunker would miraculously be next to another one with huge stores of food.

Should the result be unfavorable, earthquakes collapsed the supports, before a swarm of Pekari descended upon them, slipping in artifacts and books, turning the place into a proper ruin to be discovered later on.

1.

There came a time in every vampire’s life where they realized they’d been utterly screwed. Where they realized their accumulated levels and accomplishments would’ve been enough to reach divinity, should they have been any other race.

1.

Calamity had passed that point with serene acceptance. He wasn’t there yet, but his leveling rate outstripped nearly everyone else’s. He wasn’t a god yet, but as class quality improved with time, so too did the type of godhood available.

2.

However, he was shackled. Restrained from doing what he did best.

3.

Immortal populations came in two varieties. Those that struggled to increase their numbers, like trolls, vampires, and arguably giants. And those that could rapidly increase their numbers without limit, such as elves, devils, and occasionally demons, depending on how their society shook out.

5.

The cold mathematics were simple. The smaller the starting population, the longer it took for people to recover.

8.

Fewer elves surviving the Immortal War would give the humans and vampires of Exterreri more breathing room. The fewer elves there were at the start, the longer it would be before they were all stacked on top of each other like sardines, the greater the period of peace before everything fell apart again.

13.

One way or another, Sentinel Calamity was going to secure Exterreri’s future.

21.

Whatever the price.

34.

55.

89.

144.

Raiju, God of Lightning, was a passionate lover, had a temper, and was not a fan of the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft.

He was the favored target of cultivator’s taunts, his divine Lightning smites the favored method of tribulation. When he learned not to fall for their taunts, the cultivators sought out his mortal lovers and demigod children, and raised altars to slaughter them on, making sure his wrath was incurred.

One and all, those died, and he took cruel joy in smiting the entire sects responsible. Yet, he couldn’t let it happen again, and so was forced to respond to every two-bit cultivator hurling threats and insults his way.

He bore varying degrees of enmity towards dozens of sects - honestly, just about every single one - but the School also made it onto his list.

Hundreds upon thousands of layered wards made any retribution he attempted upon a cultivator in their hallowed halls futile, and in spite of poorly-enforced rules to the contrary, they continued to test him.

It was practically a fool’s errand, as borrowing another as a shield from a god’s divine judgment was a sure way to prevent any class quality from accruing, but it didn’t stop the foolish ones.

Many of the sects Raiju hated destroyed each other in the grand cataclysm, and he took careful watch over them. When a sect just barely managed to fight off an assault, their [Patriarch] wobbling alone in a sea of bodies, Raiju struck in their moment of weakness. A bolt of divine Lightning thicker than a body descended from the heavens, smiting the last remnants of the sect and erasing them forevermore.

Then Raiju’s eyes turned towards the School and the flying island it was on, noting how it was about to fly through a pair of clashing dragons.

The shields would buckle and break, but the School itself should survive.

Should no additional fingers be put on the scale.

Civilization collapsed.

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