162 (II)

Descend [I]

Legend-Councilwoman Veronica Chandler’s right eye twitched as she watched a Dragon-Knight fly by just a few hundred meters below her. Atop the head of the Descender was an orc—one who was loudly laughing and swinging what looked like two fetuses still attached to their umbilicals. The orc jumped off the back of the dragon just as the Tarrasque lashed out with a whipping tendril. A crack of force followed, and the Dragon-Knight’s maimed form blurred toward Veronica.

She teleported it into her personal Plane of Healing. She was probably going to be talking with the Abyssal nations after this mess, and she wanted that dialogue to be as clean and cordial as possible, because she really didn’t want to fight another bullshit war because of Roland Arrow, his Ascendant, or anyone else, for that matter.

But if one of the Five Faiths was responsible for dropping a world-ending monster into her territory and ripping one of her towns out of the sky, the Yellowstone Republic was probably going to have to take a trip downstairs and massacre an unreasonable amount of people for a certain number of years once more.

For someone like Veronica, there were few things less sexy than watching her nation’s economy plunge deep into the red because of some bullshit. Bullshit that Veronica suspected her own Ascendant was involved in.

And that was what annoyed Chandler the most: the possibility that her own god might be the cause of all this madness.

Approximately half an hour ago, Veronica was dealing with matters of supreme importance, trying to settle the feud between two noble houses. It was a particularly ugly feud with the whole “some fool’s son killing another poor fool’s daughter” thing going on, but she really couldn’t afford to lose either of them or to have them fight a civil war under her nose. The Republic was already besieged on all sides, and the last thing she needed was the City Lords of Delphia and Old Salem to come to blows, especially with the Jotun getting real cute up north with their border raids.

And right as she was about to bully both sides into giving each other concessions, a Quest notification appeared before all their eyes. A World Quest notification.

Somehow, someway, a Tarrasque had spawned within the Yellowstone Republic’s territory. An Undying Tarrasque at that. That was when Veronica called out to her Ascendant, but found her own insides strangely cold and empty. Veronica knew that feeling. That was a feeling of her goddess being absent. And by absent, Veronica meant that she was probably with that poor idiot, Stormhalt.

Kathereine the Songbringer had a great many Avatars. Practically all the Ascendants did, though most of them were intended to be expendable. All of Cripple’s avatars were expendable, for that matter. But then there were the hidden Avatars used to perform acts of questionable fuckery they didn’t want the Auroral Council or their fellow Ascendants to know about. One such hidden avatar was City Lord Stormhalt.

This made Veronica a mite-bit more furious, as she was supposed to be Kathereine’s true Avatar. But being Kathereine’s true Avatar was less an honor and more like being married to someone that was a chronic cheater who never bothered with protection. Thus, the relationship between Veronica and Kathereine was less “faithful and master” and more “bug-chaser and chief STD receptacle.”

Which made things even messier for Veronica, considering Katheriene was her grandmother.

Seconds passed. The Tarrasque made a run at Blackedge again, but Stormhalt crashed down upon its head with his mace. The skies above flashed with a stratospheric tree of black lightning, and Halsur, the Endbreaker, stood at the tree’s apex. He held his great shield high. With a brutal blur of motion, he spiked it down, and the lightning tree thundered like never before.

A rush of electricity slammed into the Tarrasque and exploded in forking branches, driving it through the air. Its crystalline shell cracked, blood spilling free from its colossal form. But even so, the Tarrasque grasped the lightning and launched itself free from the tips of the branching bolts. It healed a near-instant later and teleported in a burst of Dimensionality.

And it would have gotten to Blackedge immediately if Veronica hadn’t made a swiping gesture with her hand. Dimensional mana flooded freely from Veronica’s body, flowing as easily as a breath due to it practically comprising her body by this point. Rather than ending up at Blackedge, the Tarrasque was diverted through a hellish series of inner planes hidden within Veronica before she cast it back into existence, where it had just been.

The Tarrasque crashed down on the ground with melted eyes and severed legs. Its scales were pooling off its flesh in oozing dollops, but then a second later, it shook itself like a wet dog and recovered once more.

“I forgot how much I hate fighting these freaking things,” Veronica muttered to herself. Then, she frowned as she looked to her left and right. Ten other Avatars and fellow Councilmembers looked on with flat expressions of annoyance or frustration. “You know what would make it easier for us to kill it? Working together.”

“Call her, Veronica,” Legend-Councilman Anthony de Diego replied with a sigh. The man was still dressed in his purple bathrobe and reeked of whiskey and sandalwood. His aged face was covered in stubble and lined with exhaustion, and his eyes were currently only faintly ablaze with the power of the divine. He hovered in the air beside Veronica, and past him, she caught the other Avatars nodding in agreement to his words as well. “If I let mine inhabit me right now, a new fight might occur—and I’m not talking about a fight between me and the Tarrasque.”

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A groan of frustration escaped Veronica, and she reached out for Kathereine once again. “Songbringer? Songbringer?” Veronica’s lip twisted in a near-snarl, and she invoked her Legendary Rhetoric. “Ahem! Songbringer! I, your Avatar, need your aid!”

Her words reverberated across Integrated Earth as if reality were a long tunnel. At the same time, the Tarrasque managed to break out and backhand Stormhalt once more—only for Halsur to intervene and turn aside a blow that should have rendered the City Lord to something less than paste.

The massive beast shredded through the forest of black lightning—only to have its head struck from one side by Hawgrave and the other by some Dragon-knight swinging a giant Orichalcum pillar like a baseball bat.

Veronica did a double-take. Is that a guy encased in that pillar?

Still no reply from Kathereine. Veronica rolled her eyes. “Hey? Grandbitch? You there?”

And that immediately did the trick. A rush of divine flame combusted within Veronica, and the ethereal form of a frowning woman blinked into existence beside the Councilwoman. “Veronica. Dearest. What seems to be the matter?”

A blossom of happy feelings ignited inside Veronica’s chest, but she immediately suppressed them, refusing to let the Ascendant get away with this mess. “Grandmother. What, and I do mean this, but what the thorough hells did you do?”

Kathereine placed a hand on her chest, a hand lined with so many rings and exquisite pieces of jewelry that she seemed ready to go to an ostentatious gala instead of an active war zone. “What did I do? Why, Veronica, how can you blame this on me? I am just as surprised by this brazen attack as you are.”

Veronica glared at her Ascendant. Just then, she felt a tingle of heat dance across the nape of her neck. She twisted her head sideways, and a jet of flame missed her by the barest margins. Even so, a few strands of her long, ebony hair were fried. Veronica glared at the small flames dancing at the ends of her hair while Kathereine reached out and extinguished the fire between two fingers. Then, she ruffled Veronica’s hair until it was as good as new; unburned, uncharred, and with a healthy gleam.

The Ascendant smiled at her Avatar, but the latter refused to do anything other than glare.

Veronica pointed a single finger, not at the Tarrasque, but at a badly damaged town over a kilometer away. A badly damaged town that was slowly shivering its way through the air, trailing both divine mana and the colors of what seemed to be the Outside as magical emissions in its wake. As the war raged on nearby, it was clear that the people of Blackedge were making a getaway—and for the Abyss, no less. “Explain to me how things got to this point. And also, why can I see a bunch of dead inquisitors scattered across a wasteland that wasn’t here a day ago if I just squint my eyes a little?”

Kathereine put her hand over her mouth as her eyes widened in concern. “Oh no, is that Blackedge? How—”

“Grandma,” Veronica interrupted, spitting the word through clenched teeth. “Fuck me with a burning sword, but I know you had a hand in this. I felt you missing earlier. I know you were inside Stormhalt.”

The Ascendant opened her mouth for a moment, but she didn’t say anything as Veronica simply glared harder. It wasn’t a lack of power that stopped Kathereine from continuing her lies. No, she was an Ascendant, and they were far beyond even Legends. But Veronica had a special edge over Kathereine that few other people did. For one thing, Kathereine actually cared about Veronica’s feelings and their relationship.

So. Where Stormhalt was a useful idiot and some people were sacrificial pawns, Kathereine had to deal with her granddaughter using honesty.

Or something almost approximating that.

“Alright, fine,” Kathereine said, rolling her eyes. She held her open hands up as if in mock surrender. “First, I didn’t destroy the town.”

“Wow, dove right over the lowest bar possible,” Veronica sneered. “Good job. Did granddad do it?”

“No,” Kathereine replied. “That is mostly the doing of the Tarrasque. A terrible beast summoned by rogue Necrotechs.”

“Rogue Necrotechs,” Veronica echoed flatly.

“Yes. I can hear your doubt, girl, but I’m being entirely honest. Just use your skills if you don’t believe me. But perhaps the better thing to do would be to secure Blackedge. We wouldn’t want the noble Starhawk’s Sacred Phylactery to be lost to us, would we? That would be a crippling blow to the Republic. Especially with the Town Lord’s current status in doubt!”

“Explain,” Veronica said.

“Blackedge was invaded and captured by Necrotechs earlier! Though Master Arrow fought hard and well… Why, I shudder to imagine the potential fate of the survivors if we don’t intervene on his behalf and secure the town ourselves.”

Some part of Veronica’s bullshit senses were still tingling, but they needed to find out about Blackedge’s actual situation anyway. That meant getting to the Perch and finding Arrow so they could speak to the Starhawk.

If Arrow was still alive, that was. There weren’t that many ways to stop an Ascendant from possessing their Avatar in desperate times.

Veronica held her right hand high, and a swirl of mana manifested along her arm. It flashed with Dimensionality, and she clenched her hand into a fist. Rings of spiraling mana twisted and coiled above Blackedge. The spell patterns grew impossibly complex, and the Dimensionality infusing the innermost ring pulsed to life. A massive gate tore open, a gate that blotted everything above Blackedge.

“Prismatic Guard,” Veronica called out. Her voice echoed across the battlefield, but it was not a shout. It was not a bellow. It was simply a declaration that all could hear, that was carried across the winds, as if the world itself served as her messenger. Legendary-Tier Rhetoric was a useful skill in more ways than one. “March forth and secure Blackedge! Cleanse the town of all non-citizens and deliver aid to those who require it!”

And through that grand gate came a flood of Pathbearers. Aerial Calvary came first, then dense wedges of vanguards, followed by the Republic’s vaunted Poly-Magi Corps. And before the Prismatic Guard entered the fray, drawn over from the capital well over a thousand kilometers away, Veronica made a final declaration. “Also, mind the Dragon-Knights, and…” She glared at the laughing, fetus-wielding orc as he shot past her again.

Yeah, she wasn’t putting up with that kind of stupidity.

“…you can cut the orcs down if you find any present.”

And the orc learned the sting of Veronica’s Rhetoric as he was cleaved in twain along his midriff.

***

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