The Power of Ten

Chapter 10-324 - Stay Inside

The Outsider attempted to blow a Killing Wind out... I Spellflared her. She tried scythes of manifested bone... I Spellflared her. She tried hundreds of little balls of deadly black-green necroic fire, aimed at the Purgers. I Chain-Spellflared that, and the combined feedback damage blew her a hundred yards away, sending her sprawling again, while the fighters ducked for cover behind the Shields and angled Ward Walls from the Warlocks. Some weren’t quick enough, and died almost instantly, their remains instantly set on vivus by their companions so they wouldn’t have to fight an undead version of their friends.

I was riding forward leisurely, watching the Outsider in my Behold the Heart of Darkness, BiTcHoOD alive and well and tracking her.

Legion was in full devil mode, oversized and moving like a four-winged, tail-lashing killing machine, Pure Wrath as lightning around Idiot, Thunderbolts kicking out of their Grit. Despite themselves, they had a contingent of Heavenbound playing follow-up, and Legion tore into the undead Daoists who could not even slow them down.

Sama and Briggs were basically Whirlwinding and Storm of Steeling and Avalanche Running through their enemies, only needing one crit to turn the undead trying to keep them from their mistress into a blender of layered Cleaves and Attacks of Opportunity and whatever was needed to just send burning body parts flying, all hacked, hewn, and cut apart by two Sages of their Weapons.

The Dragon-Wielders were just going green watching them go. Yep, that’s two Sages going to town like that; you couldn’t even see them for how much the multi-colored Flames from their Weapons were surrounding them.

They were closing in on the Outsider, who was receiving an additional Thunderbolt every six seconds now, just to keep her company. The only thing slowing the two down was all the undead who were jumping in their way to make themselves speedbumps, and getting hacked and smashed to burning bits as they did so.

I found it rather amusing, atop The Old Steed as he trotted through the whole conflict after them. Rapid Gunshots and constant Arrow fire was focusing down the Cultivators, whose edge in numbers had dropped precipitously and was continuing to do so.

I watched the Outsider’s face blanche as she saw the angels moving in her direction. More undead moved to intercept them as she moved in the other direction, trying to Summon some massive shadowy jaws to attack them. She instead watched them blow up in front of her, further depleting her Aura and reserves of Qi.

“<AHHHHHH! YOU BITCH! LET US SEE HOW MUCH POWER YOU HAVE!>” And she started letting go again.

Well, it was true. She had a monstrous amount of juice, and could probably outlast me, sure enough, even with half her spells blowing up in her face.

But that’s what Arcane Fusion was for, and me dumping off a Shards spell to harvest me some more critical hits, and thus more ki. Four points was enough to totally pay for a Spellflare and a Dispel, and thus my Reserves weren’t even getting touched, while I could selectively beat the shit out of a couple other targets at the same time.

She wanted her minions to focus on me, but the Old Steed was much too fast for them to follow, dashing about with magically-aided speed that could easily outrun Sama and Briggs, never in one place long enough for them to gather. If they did gather, they were a great target for a Shardray to blow them ALL to heck.

She was sending Rays, Beams, Bolts, Palms, Fists, Knives, Whips, Chains, Skulls, Orbs, Blasts, Vortexes, psychic assaults... just all sorts of things at me, trying to break me and/or injure those behind me. The bigger effects with the most feedback got Flared, the lesser ones got Dispelled, and when she tried illusions, I just laughed and blew those up in her face, too.

She was not happy when the Sealing Formation suddenly unfolded out of the blasted and pocked bricks around her. She was an Outsider, and susceptible to a lot of stuff normal creatures were not. Manifestly, just like a Shroudlord, she lost control of her servants momentarily when the Formation came up, which meant that they all stopped fighting and surged towards her to get her out of the thing. If that meant they took a lot of shots in the back as that happened, or ran right by the fighters now spread out all over the place and suddenly freezing into the equivalent of travel lanes for all these Daoists to run through...

She saw it happening, and despite herself, just froze to watch it all go on.

The shooters shot them in the back. The undead ran past the Melees, provoked, and were hacked at as they ran by. The Purgers were hacking and slashing faster than they ever had in their lives, and the Daoists were dropping like flies as the combination of ranged fire and unceasing AoO’s turned into a blender for them.

Still, they were inhumanly quick, and it only took twelve seconds for the most distant of them to sprint towards her, reach her, and start pounding on the Wall of Force I’d put around her for the moment.

That particular spell wasn’t going to last very long, it was true, but it didn’t have to. The Outsider looked up toward the many holes punched in the Shroudcloud, burning with Sacred Light from the distant stars showing up there, and my last five Thunderbolts for a while came crashing down.

The Wall blew apart, unable to take the force, but that was fine. That meant she did, too, and so did all her minions, none of which survived the experience.josei

I pulled out two rods from my Masspack, tossed them sideways, and Sama snatched them out of the air as she Skated by at speed.

Staggered by the impact of the Thunderbolts, the Outsider made an abortive attempt to go underground, but the earth refused to move aside for her, and she abruptly realized I was in total control of it underneath her. Dimensional movement didn’t work, and then Sama handed the other rod to Briggs; they pulled apart, and suddenly a Permanent and very powerful Wall of Fire, all horizontal, was coming for her, while the stone about her was rising up again.

She certainly wanted to retreat, but to where? Suddenly there were some very oversized people around her from all directions, who looked monumentally under-impressed by her power and prowess, and who were completely ready to slap her down.

The Sealing Diagrams of the stone that came up around her as two Spellflares completely stopped her ability to set off point-blank AoE’s accepted the rods set into them, and the Wall of Fire was extending right through the dome I put up around her as it sealed tight.

There were immediate crushing impacts on it, stone giving way, the Seals flaring against the onslaught, and her scream came rising out of it with the rubble.

I just Shaped more stone into place, fixed everything, and like everyone else, just waited.

Briggs and Sama could have done a lot more to her, and were totally prepared to do so.

“Hey, you want me to just wrap her up and hold her in place while she fries?” Briggs asked.

“I don’t think you want to keep getting slammed for 20d6 every time she elbows you,” I replied. He thought about that. “And she keeps venting Death Qi, so you’d never be able to pin her,” I added before he could say anything. “Sama, tell your Fuzzy to be patient.”

“Fuuuuuuzzzzzzzyyyyyy,” Sama drawled, rolling her eyes. Briggs, now sitting at fifteen feet tall, just threw up his hands.

I hadn’t been paying too much attention to the Trembling Song, but it was a good thing to focus on. Above us, the Shroudcloud was thinning quickly as the Outsider burned constantly, screaming and cursing as she beat on the stone, broke it, and I just fixed it as the Seals lashed at her and drove her back.

Oh, as did at least twenty shots to her face whenever she showed enough to shoot at, too.

Briggs and Sama did step up close enough to pound her back into the place when she showed herself up higher, however, and she could only scream in despair as she burned, and her Aura dropped faster and faster.

“Death from beyond, they thought they’d call

Death was their fate, doom like a pall

Deserved it true, their fate to rue,

And now their traitor itself will fall.

Tremble, oh ohhhh oh tremble, tremble, tremble...

Living stone defies your grasp,

Poison touch like an undead asp,

Seal you tight, defy your might,

Scream, scream, until you rasp,

But Endure, We Come!

Deathly thing come from beyond,

You thought you’d find power in a helpless sphere.

A big shark in a small pond,

Come here now to revel in our pain and fear.

Feel that hope ignite in the burning mist?

Feel that hope slipping now from your fist?

Ashes, ashes, all that you were,

Unwept, unmourned, less than a cur,

Born a parasite, and died a slave!

Tremble, oh ohhhh oh, tremble, tremble, tremble...”

She was screaming now about prizes and knowledge and gifts and offers and slavery and whatnot, that chalk-white skin burning, her robes flaming and nigh-skeletal body revealed as she rent and clawed in mad desperation.

-Anyone who wants a laen Weapon better get it on there quick,- I /told them, and the first fifty Melee boys to dart forward and stuff a Weapon into the stone cheered.

The Weapons only reinforced the Seals. After the last ones were stuck in at the indicated spots, the dome resealed one last time, and despite the literally stone-breaking blows she was putting off, failed to move any more.

Her detonation was meant to be a last mighty spite attack against us, but the vivus just leapt for joy as the sum total of the atrocities she’d committed in her life abruptly became pure life energy. Those watching shouted out as the Sealing stone went all marbly white, and the Weapons stuck into it began to glitter and shine in crystalline glory.

The Shroudcloud above imploded, and the clouds slowly peeled back, burning at the edges with holy fire and revealing the alien stars above, which was the first time in their lives that most of the Chinese here had seen such a thing with their own eyes.

It was a perfect sight to feel the Glory Award of a fallen Shroudzone and annihilated Sect combined rippling through the Chinese here, who actually had never managed to do that before, either. So, a night of wonders.

--------

I actually left the dome mostly there, at the side of Tiananmen Square nearest to the Forbidden City. Nothing of hers was going to be intact after her detonation, and so I just pulled out the rods the Wall of Fire was connected to, the plain stone they were made of now marble-white, glittering and veined with delicate crystals that seemed to swirl with a light of their own in the face of the Wall held between them.

I clapped them together, bound them tight, and shoved them back into my Masspack.

One more sect of Daoists down, one deliberately-created Shroudzone gone.

Mithar and Sylune, I despised Cultivators...