The Power of Ten

The Servants didn’t last overly long. What magic they wielded was either useless against the Forsaken, or torn down by Dispels as it was going up.

That left the nine of them facing the uncaring King in Yellow, His cloth-wrapped body supremely aloof as He considered the nine mortals coming up there before Him.

“I imagine you think you are something special, having made it up here,” He said languidly, voice so full of arrogant superiority and bow-to-me hauteur it was like soup.

Even Briggs jerked at His voice. Ki flashed as everyone’s Sun Saves went off, and they Refocused hastily indeed.

“Damn! First time I’ve heard Allspeech!” Sama hissed with feeling, ignoring the poseur on His seat up there, flashing a look past at everyone behind her. “That was a 40, in case anyone was keeping track!”

“A blight on His poxy balls and the swamp rat what birthed ‘em!” The Mick piped up cheerfully.

“Sir Pellier,” Briggs pointed calmly, completely ignoring the antics of the thing on its throne.

Helix stepped up next to the Paladin as Sir Pellier stepped up between Briggs and Sama. A strip of bright metal snaked out of Helix’s Masspack and plugged into the side of Lady Florentine as the Rifle abruptly transformed, extra weight in gems and precious metal Morphing and shifting as it became something else completely.

The Gatling-works mini-gun cycled up, all the fires forming a torus on it...and Bane of Legends was among them! Sir Pellier grimly Proclaimed, “Aru and Mithar send you back where you belong!”

The King probably didn’t like those Names being mentioned in His presence, but He really should have been paying attention to the Silver Flames that had ignited on the most advanced portable assault weapon on the planet.

Tens of thousands of dollars of depleted-uranium-tipped bullets came out of that gun, like Sir Pellier was holding onto a plasma cannon of lots and lots of colors.

There was some deflective field in the way that imploded under the impact of the Smite, and the vivic lock on reality, along with Interdictions from the three strongest Forsaken on the planet, prevented the King from shifting, phasing, or timewalking away.

Despite this Avatar’s knowledge that it was only part of the real King and that it couldn’t really die, when that much Divine power, magical enchantment, and very hard reality comes hosing into you, welp, it also noticed the Pentagram flashing into existence about it a bit too late.

Sir Pellier literally erased the King, who seemed to be etched into reality there as the Smiting rounds played across and ate Him away. Cerulean fire and vivic power blazed over Him, and seemed to grow brighter and brighter as bright lines of silver played up, down, over, through and into Him. The holes and edges flared silver and cerulean, Heaven and Creation teaming up to finish the job, and the Pentagram contained it and fed it all back onto itself until...

---

The explosion blew the lid off the ancient fortified palace, and took out most of the walls and floors that had been weakened by infestations of Leng reality ripples, too. The remaining monks, moonbeasts, and Servants in the area were instantly destroyed as the blast of cerulean and unwhite flames blew past them. A pillar of those fires ascended towards the coiling dark and yellowness in the Haze above that happened to look like a malevolent and sneering eye. It seemed to widen in some shock as the fires came for it.

It was not the Summer Equinox, but the death of the Yellow King Cracked Open the Sky, and peeled the Haze back clear to the horizon there, at the top of the world.

Tibet was dead, but on this day, it finally saw the sky looking down upon it, and the Vernal Equinox got its final tribute.

The Forsaken who had spent half a year and more chewing their way through the fears and nightmares of the whole world tilted their heads back and screamed as the Glory swept over them. Most of them had felt the Glory of bringing down a Shroudzone, even if they hadn’t been there at the time, but it was nothing like this. The wave of blue and white washed over them and past them, and the touch of the Land’s reward for faithful service to its immune system was everything a warrior who had sacrificed so much for their homeland could ask for.

------

Sama walked up, dug her hand into the mound of glittering dust where the King in Yellow had once been standing, clenched her fingers, and lifted something out of it.

Sir Pellier had definitely eradicated the King’s skull first, but there it was, the inhuman lines of it unmistakable, frozen in streaked crystal and burning with white and blue fires, the Cerulean Sigil carved right into the top of it.

“Brother Ai Ren, I would give this to the Brotherhood, but I don’t think they need it. If you don’t mind, I will remand it to Sir Pellier, who can use it, and if you ever think you need to borrow it, I’m sure he will not mind.”

The hyn Brother looked at the Landbound Paladin, such a dichotomy of obligations, and simply nodded.

A Legendary Baneskull to Aberrants , a full empowered Dreadskull, was definitely something that might be useful to anyone, but such things could be gained by Slaughter on his own Truth and Death. The Powered were the ones who made the most use of Baneskulls, as the Forsaken only needed them if they wanted two Banes active at one time.

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Out in the distance, the Heavenly Sky Sect quavered when they saw the hole in the sky, and realized what it portended.

Those mud-born, Qi-less mortals had laid low a Demigod of Fear itself, despite the infinite numbers of living fears inside His yellow fog.

Where might all those who had been fighting go next?

It wasn’t all that hard to figure out...

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Three days later...

The little guys were kinda cute there, all lined up and waiting to be treated badly. They had Eternal Flames under their hoods, Eternal Lights to complement their showiness, Explosive Runes all agleam on their chestplates, some movement magic to further trip out anyone looking for magic, and they were sort of marching in unison as Briggs led them into the area of the Black Dragon Claws that had been taking the brunt of the recent fighting, much to their dismay. When the Trembling Song began to echo through the hills, all the Daoists looked like they had to clench their bowels now, which was exactly the effect Sama wanted.

Void Brothers and Nulls operating without any magic on them whatsoever had been active around the border area recently, teaching the disciples of the Sect that being posted out here was a death sentence, and encouraging a little productive shirking of duty and staying alive.

There was a blaring alarm as thousands of Messenger Runners girt in illusions and replete with magic surged into that Formation, letting everyone know that a full army was invading. Audible Glamers began to sing out the Trembling Song like whole choirs, letting it thunder out there in harmony with Tremble and Endure and the most elite of the Forsaken, who had the best chance to survive what was coming.

Oh, and they had to kill the most advanced Scouts savagely, letting the survivors run and blare messages to their leaders about the massive army coming with burning swords and Singing and led by That Hammer and That Sword and the two who bore them...

There were Powered with the Runners, all prepped to get out of there... and maintaining those illusions over top of the Runners, making sure those watching did indeed see lots of troops with Weapons burning Baneflame to Cultivators moving in a fast, steady tide towards the Sect, plainly going to be able to reach them in just a couple of hours.

If they noticed that we noticed when their Formation shook just a little bit, they gave no sign. Sama had been pretty damn good at not giving away that we knew what they were doing.

---

Smuggling in the cruise missile hadn’t been hard. Inscribing the Vivic Enchantment inside the casing took a bit of time, as did painting it with gold foil to hide the magic inside and then blackslaking it, while a True Seeking spell was wound into its targeting computer to make sure it found its way to its target.

Item spells shrinking down the missile, its payload, and launch system, then throwing it all on Disks and actually running it overland off the main trails, made it fairly easy to get close to the border of the Hellfire Ice Note Sect, which was acting as the most central lynchpin of the Formation. It had one of the most senior Daoists Called in from outside the Shroud handy, enforcing their position of honor.

The whole landscape was programmed into the terrain-following radar with great precision, anti-Qi defenses for the electronics were all in place, and when Sama and Briggs led the first wave of attacks on the skirmish defenses and the great Formation kicked up to the second level of power, the launcher was raised among the trees. It waited as Qi thickened at all the main Sects and most of the minor ones that had been connected into the Pattern, waiting to surge out and be ignited.

The thirty miles to the Sect would be covered in approximately two and a half minutes. The shooters waited, watching the fighting through the eyes of those who were present, and listening to that burning /voice in their heads giving orders with grim timeliness. A burning Song carrying notes of schadenfreude and vengeance coming due was building up in Markspace.

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The vanguard team had just reached the edge of the Black Dragon Claw Sect’s outer defenses, trailed by a line of flaming Messengers visible as moving flames through the trees, when the alarm went out from the Voids in place that the Qi was coming.

Vast currents of Qi from waiting Cultivators flashed through the air like wrongly-colored lightning, dancing and arcing from one collection point to the next, lighting up and linking like a broad net of massive energy. That energy poured into the central nexus of the Hellfire Ice Note Sect, then surged out in a wall of raging power towards the Black Dragon Sect.

The Formation around the Black Dragon Sect lit up, while a wall of solid force came down behind the invaders, trapping them within. From out of the west, a long arc of writhing flames came, slamming down atop the Black Dragon Sect and entering the complex Formation the Sect had devised to protect itself.

Dark flames exploded into existence over the Sect, rapidly forming themselves up into a gargantuan black Oriental dragon, five-clawed and impossibly long. It turned burning eyes down on the conflict below, and opened its maw to breathe doom upon them.

It was a truly massive discharge of fire, a cone of annihilation that swept over and swallowed everything before it as devoured the whole world. It stretched out for miles, incinerating everything in its path as it did so, and that included the entire incoming force of invaders.

-------

Briggs and Sama had dug into the ground, and everyone in the vanguard team was assembled tight behind them. A Wall of Force arced in front of them, deflecting much of the force of the blast, and by the time it was ground away by the overwhelming amount of fire, what was left was definitely not strong enough to overwhelm their Forsaken Auras.

-All the Runners are destroyed!- Brigette Morningflame /called out from behind him, her phoenix flames boiling and holding off the edges of the world-eating flames dying out above them. Their explosions as they ignited would make the Sect members even more overconfident.

-It’s coming!- Briggs /smiled back.