Chapter 126: The Continental War (14)

Gorak ripped the spine out of a screaming paladin and tossed the gory trophy aside. He turned his crimson-glowing eyes toward the bubbling sinkhole of toxic Omni-Biomass sludge a half-mile away. The descended Blood-Mage struggled to levitate out of the trap.

The Grand Hemomancer’s vessel hovered just above the highly corrosive industrial runoff. A swirling shield of stolen blood kept the acid from eating through his bones.

“Leave the meat to the mortars!” Gorak roared, slamming his Star-Iron gauntlets together to shower the mud with sparks. “That one smells like a false god! I want to see how much it bleeds!”

Iron-Scale landed silently on a spike of bedrock next to the Warlord. The Kobold Inquisitor wiped his scythe clean. The violet flame hissed against the rain of ash.

“Target is isolated,” Iron-Scale hissed. “High regeneration. Standard lacerations will prove inefficient. We must dismantle the core structure faster than it can mend.”

“Then we break everything at once,” Gorak grinned, exposing rows of serrated teeth.

“The Ka-Lam-Tee demands slag!” Krug bellowed, marching up behind them. The Violet Flame roared fiercely off the metal edge. “If it calls itself a god, we will test its melting point!”

Up in the Void, Red tracked his three vanguard commanders on the primary screen. He cracked his knuckles and typed a command into his terminal to drop a localized ping directly on the Blood-Mage’s head.

“Pest control,” Red transmitted over the vanguard comms. “Exterminate.”

Gorak launched himself off the bedrock, charging straight toward the sinkhole. He barreled into the thousands of enemy infantry blocking his path. His massive bulk crushed ribs and shattered shields, plowing a bloody furrow through the dense ranks of the surviving vanguard.

The Blood-Mage finally managed to pull his boots completely out of the corrosive sludge. He hovered a few feet above the sinkhole. His features contorted into a vicious snarl as he raised a hand toward the approaching Warlord.

“Filthy mortal,” the Blood-Mage sneered. He activated his vessel’s blood-curse. “Rot from the inside.”

A massive spike of hardened blood shot out of the swirling shield. The projectile tore across the battlefield, burying itself deeply into Gorak’s shoulder. The curse immediately tried to boil the Troglodyte’s veins to siphon his health pool.

Gorak kept sprinting forward. He had survived the radiation of the ??? fragment and spent months living in toxic bio-gas clouds and bathing in alchemical runoff. His internal biology was a highly toxic nightmare. The blood-curse hit his veins and immediately stalled against his mutated immune system.

“The pups bite harder!” Gorak laughed. He grabbed the crystallized blood spike sticking out of his own shoulder and snapped it off.

Gorak reached the edge of the sinkhole and leapt. He tackled the levitating god mid-flight, wrapping his massive arms around the Blood-Mage’s waist. They crashed right back down into the boiling, corrosive sludge together.

“Get off me!” the Blood-Mage shrieked. His divine composure completely vanished as the Omni-Biomass immediately began eating into his vessel’s skin.

He triggered his continental regeneration, forcing his flesh to heal as fast as the acid burned it away. The struggle became a horrifying loop of melting and knitting tissue. He drove his hands into Gorak’s carapace, trying to rip the Warlord apart with his combined stats.

A sharp metallic clank cut through the god’s screaming.

Iron-Scale’s clockwork grappling spools bit deep into the Blood-Mage’s shoulders. The Kobold Inquisitor stood on the edge of the sinkhole with the chains pulled taut. He anchored the god securely in place inside the acid pool.

The Blood-Mage thrashed wildly. He tried to sever the chains with his blood magic, but the Star-Iron links completely ignored the spells.

“Heretic!” Krug roared, stepping up to the edge of the pit.

He raised his massive greataxe high above his head. He struck directly at the swirling barrier of blood. The Violet Flame acted as the absolute counter to biological magic by burning away life energy.

Krug brought the iron down with a fanatical scream. The burning axe cleaved straight through the shield. The Violet Flame erupted outward, cauterizing the Blood-Mage’s defense and igniting the very mana he used to regenerate.

The descended god let out a terror-filled scream that echoed across the entire battlefield and up into the alliance comms. His regeneration simply could not outpace the alchemical fire and the industrial acid at the same time.

Gorak reared his head back and drove his bone-plated forehead directly into the god’s face. The vessel’s nose and jaw shattered with a sickening crunch.

“You belong in my mud now!” Gorak roared, pinning the deity beneath the surface of the boiling sewage.

The boiling Omni-Biomass seared away the Grand Hemomancer’s flesh as Gorak held the descended deity submerged. The Blood-Mage screamed through the localized alliance channel in his mind, feeling his Divine Points drain into the negative.

Death on the physical plane meant total account erasure. He frantically accessed his mental interface and authorized the descent cancellation protocol.

[ WARNING: DESCENT CANCELLATION INITIATED – 10 SECONDS TO EVACUATE SOUL. HOST BODY RENDERED PARALYZED AND DEFENSELESS. ]

The Forgecaster’s metallic voice boomed over the mental comms from a mile down the trench. “Do not sever the link! We lose the vanguard if you break formation!”

The Zephyr Lord immediately chimed in. “Hold the line! If they execute the vessel during the sequence, the System wipes your account!”

“My bank is empty!” the Blood-Mage shrieked. His physical body violently spasmed in the acid pit as the game engine stripped his divine regeneration to prepare for extraction. “Pull me out!”

The swirling crimson blood-shield instantly evaporated into the toxic fog. The vessel went completely limp in Gorak’s grip. The Warlord grinned, recognizing the sudden drop in muscular resistance.

“The false god runs!” Gorak roared. He shifted his grip from the deity’s waist, wrapped his massive Star-Iron gauntlets around the Hemomancer’s head, and squeezed. The skull cracked like brittle glass under the Troglodyte’s brute strength.

Iron-Scale identified the tactical opening. He engaged the retraction gears on his grappling spools and launched himself directly at the paralyzed god. He swung his alchemically ignited scythe in a flawless arc. The violet blade sliced completely through the vessel’s torso, severing the god’s left arm and ribcage.

“No sanctuary for the wicked!” Krug bellowed, stepping directly to the edge of the corrosive sinkhole.

He brought his greataxe down with fanatical fury. The Violet Flame chewed through the exposed chest cavity, incinerating the heart and the extracting divine soul simultaneously.

The Blood-Mage’s screaming abruptly cut off across the alliance comms. The physical vessel dissolved into a mess of cauterized ash and boiling Omni-Biomass beneath Gorak’s bloodied gauntlets.

Above the toxic fog of the Continental Moat, the sky violently tore open. A massive, golden system notification projected across the entire server, casting an indifferent light over the slaughter.

[ FATAL ERROR: DESCENT PROTOCOL INTERRUPTED. ]

[ VESSEL DESTRUCTION CONFIRMED DURING SOUL EXTRACTION PHASE. ]

[ ENTITY: THE BLOOD-MAGE (RANK 11) – PERMANENTLY DELETED. ]

[ ALL SOVEREIGN TERRITORIES, FAITH ANCHORS, AND VASSAL CONTRACTS SEVERED. ]

Up in his isolated instance, Red watched the enemy’s pantheon roster drop from four to three. He dismissed the massive influx of salvaged Divine Points from his screen and leaned forward on his throne.

Down on the physical map, the remaining three gods stopped their advance. The descended Forgecaster, the Glacial Sovereign, and the Zephyr Lord stared up at the glowing golden text burning in the sky above the Bastion.

The game engine had just proven its absolute rule. There was no safety net, and there was no retreat.

“One down,” Red muttered with an emotionless look on his face. “Three to go.”

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