Depthless Hunger

At first Zae Zin Nim had blundered into the smoke, using only her qi senses to search for anyone else. The area had become more complex due to the destroyed walls and she thought that Omilaena had fought her way into side chambers, but it was impossible to tell where she was.

Then everything around her exploded and she knew where at least one battle was.

Zae Zin Nim ran through a door of what had been an underground chamber and into the empty air. A massive crater had been blasted out of the city, including partially underneath the First Crest. If there had been any Crestguards outside in the area, there was nothing left of them. Now she could clearly see the First Crest, cables leading to a column that must be a weapon. She flinched when she saw Matiavel there, fighting some sort of monster.

No, that was her monster.

Kai had transformed into an even larger monstrous form, but she could see something of him in his face despite the toothy jaws. The form was partially covered in the Beggar King's Rags, which were proving their worth by growing along with his new form.

But against one of the great powers, Kai was clearly at his limits. Zae Zin Nim saw him make an admirable attempt to evade the ferocious assault, but he was off balance. When the flames began to close in on him, Zae Zin Nim was ready to leap to his defense.

For a split second she was hurtling toward the ghostly flames that killed anything, which was absolute madness. She had already gathered her qi, though, increasing its phase as far as she could. When she released a qi technique, surrounded with the Coldfire Corona, it managed to strike a single one of the demon's flames and they neutralized one another.

She reached through that gap, grabbed Kai, and pulled him to safety. They leapt across the crater as the flames crashed together, eerily silent but terribly destructive. Another part of the city burned away into nothing.

"You alright?" she asked as they regained their footing.

Kai growled in response, but one of his claws settled on her shoulder in a way that made her certain he was still himself.

If only the two of them together would be enough.

"The weapon looks damaged," she thought out loud. "I don't think we need to do more than that. Let's get Omilaena and get out of here."

Another growl in response - good enough. They moved back toward the destroyed levels, only to be stopped by a massive wall of fire. It wasn't as intensely destructive as the ghostly tongues of flame, but she could feel the heat even from several paces away, so it could have only one source. Zae Zin Nim turned back, already certain who she would see.

Matiavel floated in front of the weapon, hovering like a true cultivator. Up to that point he must have been conserving his energy in preparation for other opponents, because she felt his power pouring forth like never before. First in a dome of flame that defended the weapon, then in a wave of ghostly techniques that spread throughout the death zone between the walls of flame.

Staying next to Kai was impossible - they were both stretched to their limits just evading the attacks. But even separated and dodging, even with the changes to his face, she saw that he was looking toward the weapon. It had been damaged enough that it couldn't take much more...

They managed to coordinate wordlessly: Kai unleashed a massive claw technique that forced Matiavel to take a moment to deflect it. That bought Zae Zin Nim time to release a qi technique of her own, a bolt that arced around the defensive fires. She didn't think she could pierce the central walls of fire, but her target had been the lines of power that flowed from the Insanity to the weapon that tried to harness its power.

Her attack worked and she saw the cords of power go dead... but the column hadn't stopped rumbling. Even though so much had been destroyed, it was still pumping power through the pipes into a great chakra-imbued sphere, which was glowing with ever more ominous light.

Apparently it had gathered enough power already. Maybe not for the fullest use of the weapon, but Zae Zin Nim didn't want to see even a fraction of the power of an Insanity.

When they tried again, Matiavel let out a cry and stomped one foot. All of his flame walls burned with new intensity, unleashing waves of heat and blossoming with new flames. The heat shockwave knocked Zae Zin Nim off her feet and while tumbling she saw one of the flame arcs catch Kai's wing, sending him crashing into the side of the crater.

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Both of them were down, slowed long enough to be vulnerable. No Omilaena in sight. Matiavel was already turning on them, fatal flames shooting toward both.

In that moment she seemed to have all the time in the world to think and yet her legs were stuck in their position getting to her feet. Did she have any chance at a defensive phase, or was she going to die here? Could she really have overcome so much and fought this far, only to die because they went on a suicide mission for a bunch of ungrateful elves?

As if the world itself answered her, at that moment Zae Zin Nim felt a glorious soul appear beside her. A graceful hand grasped her arm and pulled her away, then she was standing atop a nearby building.

"Phew, that was close!" Ceryyn Sandflower pulled her upright and patted her on the arm. "No harm done, looks like! I'm sure glad I finally mastered teleportation, or this would have been nasty."

On the opposite side of the crater, Kai had also been teleported to safety by another elf, not one she recognized. But more importantly, it seemed like the elves had actually taken the field. There was a graceful sandstone ship hovering over the city bearing more elven souls.

If that wasn't enough, Elder Graveylin stepped off the ship and descended like a goddess, her full presence suffocating the entire region. Several Commonwealth soldiers who had been rushing to join the fight fell unconscious immediately, and even Matiavel's flames seemed to shudder and dim in her presence.

But the demon himself didn't look cowed. He placed a hand against the column of the weapon, and even though most of its power had been severed, it began to glow brighter. All around Zae Zin Nim, the rest of the city went dark as its power was forcibly drained until the sphere was the only light that remained.

.

..

.

The explosion had knocked Omilaena off her feet and half-buried her in rubble, and even though her Physique had endured it, she needed time to claw her way out. When she finally pushed out into the open air, she saw that the weapon's power storage chamber was still intact and Matiavel was floating in his full power, ready to incinerate everyone who stood in his path.

Suddenly the totem she carried seemed very heavy. Attacking a great power with god abilities was absolutely insane - even staying on the battlefield was near suicidal. She should use the totem and flee, get out of his madhouse.

Omilaena cast off the remnant of her old self and looked at the battlefield again. Kai and Zae Zin Nim were down there and they needed her help. She would take them all away if it meant saving their lives, but she would never, ever abandon them.

They seemed to be hard-pressed, but would jumping down there truly help them? Working together, their coordination might be able to inconvenience Matiavel, but if they failed for even a moment... she could imagine the horror of watching a loved one die, and the rest of them would probably be consumed immediately after. No, they were only going to get through this via careful work.

She knelt down and focused on herself, trying to refine her newest experiences. The absolute most she could hope was one opening, so it had to count.

When the flame walls exploded and knocked the others down, for a terrible moment Omilaena feared that her hesitation might have killed them. But at that moment an elven vessel arrived, launching teleporters and then even an Elder. In an instant the tide of the battle turned.

"Cease this at once!" Elder Graveylin commanded in a ringing voice. One of the surviving Commonwealth soldiers threw down his arms, but Matiavel sneered.

"So you guessed that this weapon was for you? Come down here and you can experience it yourself."

The two great powers seemed locked into a battle of wills, flames drifting on one side and being pushed back by soul presence. It seemed like they might be vulnerable, but when one of the elves tried to loose an arrow at Matiavel, it burst into flames before it got close to the demon.

They wisely turned their attacks toward the weapon instead, releasing javelins and qi techniques against the flames that shielded it. While Matiavel was locked in place they pummeled it, Ceryyn and other elves unleashing their own techniques. The others had recovered, so Zae Zin Nim added a burning qi flame and Kai leapt closer and unleashed Baleful Breath. Even Omilaena jumped up and hurled a globe of acid into the flames to try to overwhelm them.

For several seconds the flames flickered and it seemed like they might overcome Matiavel. But when he seemed to fall back, he instead stomped on the ground, and all his flames exploded again. Kai and others were thrown back violently and even the elven ship was swept back.

Everyone was stunned except for a single elven archer. Omilaena hadn't thought about him in a long time, but she recognized Yonto Bludshard, the amiable guard from the north. In the silent moment that the flames became explosions, he loosed his arrow.

When it left his bow, the feather on the back crackled with thunder. It shot forward in that instant, piercing the weakened flames and smashing into the side of the weapon sphere.

Immediately it erupted, further devastating the crater. Matiavel was partially caught in the blast, and though he emerged able to fight, he abruptly dropped to one knee.

"That's enough." Graveylin fully fixated her divine gaze on him, and in his unbalanced state, Matiavel couldn't resist. He grimaced and tried to rise, fighting against her overwhelming presence.

Omilaena breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that her desperate work might have been completely unneeded. But she'd made an extremely foolish miscalculation. This was the center of the demons' power, and not all of Matiavel's allies had been killed or disabled.

A group of demons, too weak for her to have noticed them before, unleashed a weapon from a nearby building. It was nothing compared to the destroyed super-weapon, but several black columns sailed through the air toward the elven elder. The sigils on the side began to glow as their anti-glamour aura flowed over the city.

Graveylin cried out and stumbled, clutching her head. And in that instant Matiavel rose, a triumphant smile on his lips and fire leaving his fingertips.

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