Chapter 5 – Fuck the Death God In the Ass

He gave his breastplate a defiant thump with his fist. The army of horsemen that had been boastfully riding into battle, had mostly fallen on the ground, many men trapped under their rides, others hurrying to flee as far as their boots could carry them. The thump was a gesture of respect and a challenge.

“Best way to go, dying in glory fighting a worthy enemy”, Boros cackled.

His traveling companion looked at him stunned. Nembra shook her head in disbelief, her lips silently emoting the word “men”. The sight of the colossal unnamed thing wasn’t nearly as confounding as watching a man prepare to fight it with a mere hammer and his black armor. He stared fiercely back at them.

“Fuck you guys waiting? We fuck the death god in the ass!”

 

A good gallop away from where the army stood, the necromancer corrected his pose after his spell. Barely had the long litany of exhausting words slithered from his lips when the gargantuan monster was already clawing up from the pits of hell. As the sand on which it stood was set on fire by its shadow, he was unmoved, even with the flames licking his boots. He dropped on his knee having completed the summoning, marveling at the monster before him from the lowest angle. It was the size of a royal tower, deformed like a thicket of thorns, like a snake with four arms.

“My research shall not be interrupted this time”, he muttered to himself.

While much of his field of vision was filled by the monster, he could just about see the ant-like figures of the military expedition at the faraway dune. Curiously, one of the men seemed to be marching towards the summoned giant. It was such a strange sight to behold, the mage slipped his fingers in a pocket of his shirt, fetching a small cylinder with a glass on both ends. He whispered a short spell, making it larger and longer, it took the form of a spyglass. Her peered through it.

 

As everyone watched aghast at the warrior in black marching proudly towards the abominable giant, the two monks dropped on their knees in prayer in similar poses. From memory and his heart, Karma summoned the words to his lips:

“From faith, I gain clarity. From clarity, I gain purpose. From purpose, I gain strength.”

What he spoke after that, none of the bystanders quite understood, but the sentence followed the same structure as his prayer. His skin took on a sudden glint, his body was encircled by lights. Next to him, his brother continued to pray, while he rose from his knees to his feet, head bowed. The blonde woman waited for his next words as their eyes met.

“We play every card in our hand. It suffices or it doesn’t”, he stated bluntly.

A hazy, shadowy aura enveloped Tarot who remained focused on prayer. His limbs rapidly changed shade to the darkest, followed by his torso. The transformation enveloped him, until only his head and a few spots remained normal skin-color. Where a young skinny boy had been kneeling, something else was now standing in his place. As he lifted the skin curtains of his eyes, two black holes emerged.

Karma nodded calmly at Nembra, who was now wielding her scythe with two hands.

“It’s alright. When we engage that monster, he’ll have a clear target”, the monk said with a hint of sadness.

“You can’t rob what belongs to death. She’ll take what’s hers”, Nembra gasped.

“I assure you, no necromancy was used”, Karma replied.

“He suffers symptoms of a revival spell! He’ll kill us all!” the mage hunter cried out.

Nearby soldiers had noticed the black-skinned, darkly glowing novice monk. The boy’s body proportions were changing rapidly into something beastly and strange. Grown men were scurrying out of his way, like panicked rats.

“No spells were involved. Tarot cannot die”, Karma sighed.

As if the towering abomination standing between the army and the digsite had heard, it turned its tentacled face towards the men on the dune. As its many eyes stared directly at them, the minds of the soldiers were flooded with gruesome scream-inducing visions of their own bloody deaths. Within seconds, they all died a dozen deaths in their own minds in that instant, before averting their eyes and snapping back to reality. Many men shrieked, many vomited on impulse. But even with the hallucinations quickly dissipated, vivid imprinted memories remained like gaping wounds, making the men hold their heads and weep like babies.

But one man was utterly unaffected. The armored warrior calling himself Boros stared right back at the monster, laughing maniacally.

“You cannot rape my mind, dark god! I am a revisor fighter, imagined my death a thousand times already! Come at me, fag! Meet the wrath of the greatest military culture this world has ever known!!”

Heeding his articulated death wish, the nameless god laid its claws on the sands with a thundering crush. Everyone expected the giant to rush towards them, but it did not. Instead, the slender white-haired necromancer casually pranced from its side, his hand raised in a greeting.

“Welcome, oh mercenaries of the bloodied crown! Behold what studied magic can do! My heart skips a beat to be in presence of such refined minds! I shall address you as my audience, with reverence for your profession as killers! Who among you is the leader with whom I may parlay for a truce from hostilities?” the necromancer asked loudly.

The boisterous greeting was met with grave silence. Many men were still gripping their guts while vomiting their stomach acids on their boots.

“Stop this madness, Maron! You’ve gone too far!” Nembra shouted.

As the words left her lips, the air near her and the monks and the soldiers turned cold. The next moment, the roughly shaved face of the necromancer appeared right beside them. Everyone turned to face the casually clothed, broad-shouldered magi, those with weapons fiddling those weapons.

“For all your information, should I die, the monster will be released from my control”, the necromancer stated.

“What are you doing, Maron? What could you possibly want from this?” Nembra pleaded.

“I want the persecution of academics to end”, he replied firmly.

A sly smile carved itself on the magi’s rugged face.

“Been some time since our last debate. You look good, woman”, the man named Maron sighed.

“You’re proving with your actions why that’s not feasible”, the mage hunter said.

“This isn’t a philosophical back-and-forth, Nembra. We had those conversations and are past that point. I know what’s wrong with this world.”

“I can’t let you demolish the entire social order we’ve built. Your ideas are complete gambles.”

“A gamble is the best chance we’ve got.”

The proud magi surveyed the small army that had been dispatched to kill him. His curious eyes met with Karma’s and lingered on the hulking, transforming Tarot. The magic-users sized each other up but exchanged no words.

“I want to make it absolutely clear to all of you, the only reason any of you still breathe is because of that woman and her tight pussy!” Maron stated.

The female mage hunter broke into a bright red blush. Karma stepped forward.

“What is it that you believe in?” the young monk asked firmly.

“What I believe? The structures of our nations incentivize stagnation. Those obstacles will be removed. They must be”, the necromancer replied.

“You say that, having studied the history of civilizations, how they were decimated by magic?” Karma inquired.

“You’ve only studied what you are spoon-fed by the dull-minded and the sheepish. And whatever grains of truth those stories hold, the ruling class exploits as justification for oppression! There are heavy reasons to discard their weak ways of thought.”

“And what are those reasons?” the monk asked.

“Our universe is dying.”

There was a restless murmur among the soldiers. As several people were stepping forward, about to weigh in on the topic, the necromancer interrupted all of them and resumed his speech:

“It is dying fast. Star maps dating back even some thousands of cycles confirm this. The forces that push it cannot be studied, lest the persecution is ended. Hence I am ending it.”

He turned his piercing stare towards the scythe-wielding female mage hunter, who was assuming a fighting pose.

“Nembra-dear. Do not stand in my way”, Maron stated coldly.

Chapters MenuRead Chapter 6

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *