Shrouded in mist, the defenders of the Architect rose from the mossy mountains that were its lair.
The first stood at full height as they appraised Ethan, each one a colossus with arms like carved pillars, faces little more than a blank plane of rock from which two pinprick emerald lights burned. Four of them had sent their spirit-arrow attacks at him, and in the second he blocked and made to return fire, four more wrenched themselves free from the other mountain walls, bodies pocked with lichen and glowing with faint runes beneath the moss. When they moved, stones ground against each other, echoing like thunder rolling between the peaks.
They rose in silence, ancient guardians reawakened, and the fog around them thickened—as though even the mountain wished to hide what was about to unfold.
And each of them beheld the Dark Angel advance towards them through the mist.
Ethan charged the one to his Northeast, both his fiery blades slashing through it in a double strike that tore clean through the golem’s torso, leaving it a mess of broken stones and charred moss. As it fell, its companions did nothing to mourn it. Silently they aimed their stone greatbows at Ethan and took aim.
On reflect, Ethan activated Repulsion Shield and deflected the attacks. He recognized them – Spectral Snipes. Powerful variants of his own skill. In response to the golem brood firing again with unnatural speed for their size, he sent his own variant of the Skill hurtling towards them, launching a scintillating blue thread of death from both his swords towards two of the reloading golems.
The spectral arrow clashed with their own and dispelled them easily, charging through the air, cutting through mist and ruin to smash the head of one before curving and searing through the stone chest of the other. Both beings crumbled to the ground as nothing but a pile of smoking grey-matter.
Then – from behind – Ethan felt force assail his back. His shield activated again, dispelling the damage from the greatbow strikes, but what he couldn’t dispel was the sheer kinetic energy that had been expended from the golems’ arrows. He felt his whole body lurch, being hurtled through the foggy air and ending up dashed against one already crumbling ruin on a mountaintop. As he recovered, he Appraised the arrow sticking out of his shoulder blade:
Stormlash Greatarrow
Effect: [Repulsion] 100ft
Ethan rose, shook himself off, and was up again just in time to behold the storm of arrows that was now raging towards him, shrouding the sun with their numbers. Each one of them, he saw, was tipped with some kind of explosive charge, and at least fifty of them were the Stormlash Greatarrow variants – meant to push him back, unseating his defenses, while the rest finished the job.
He looked at the cloud of death and took it – every arrow that slammed into the ruin around him hit him square in his torso, and the entire mountain crumbled and fell – decimated utterly by the storm of projectiles. The ruin collapsed, the moss and stone melted away, and the place where the Archon had once been was reduced to just smoke, dust, and dead air.
The ever-increasing golem army looked on from their ancient vantage points, unsure if they really needed another volley. For a moment, their mountain valley was wreathed in silence once more.
Then: it all came to a crashing end.
A stream of fire gushed from the spot where the Archon had once stood, spreading out an whipping through three golems at once, throwing back two more who happened to get struck in the crossfire. While Storm of Revok did its work, lightning sailed from Ethan’s blades and pierced the hearts of three more golems as they tried to reload – their bodies being picked apart piece by piece by the devastating blast heralded by Cry of Baphomet.
In response, more golems rose – at least ten more activating like an automated defense system hidden deep in the mountains. They rose from the innards of each mossy mountain peak and readied their greatarrows for another volley of death.
But they never got the chance to fire. As they reached for their arrows, a flash of divine light speared into them – a wave of burning, killing energy disintegrated their bodies. They unraveled at the level of the atom, their very structure torn apart until there was only dustless void.
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When the dust cleared, Ethan Hawke was revealed to be floating in place where the downed mountain once stood, both his blades flaring with light as he deactivated Angel Arm and stared down his still rising opponents.
Spirit Cores Gained: 0
He frowned at the notification.
He’s playing with me.
You’re playing with yourself! Sys shouted as more mountains began to groan, golems rising from every facet of their rocky structures. Why are you wasting your time with these stone maggots? You’ve got bigger fish to fry!
Sys was right. He was right – and Ethan didn’t care.
“If he wants to see what I can do,” he growled. “I’ll show him.”
He felt the sting of more arrows pierce his back. In response, he turned and flashed Azure Arc from his eyes – sweeping the death-ray over a whole row of golems and exploding their mountain-dwellings. After he’d cut through them, he used Eyes of Raziel to detect where the rest of them were out there, rising slowly from their hiding places to oppose him.
He wouldn’t give them another chance.
He flew towards the sky, shrugging off the next hail of stone arrows with a reflective Wing Buffet. When he reached cloud cover he turned and looked down on the entire southern mountain range, pinpointing where every golem was standing – where each one was currently aiming their next shot.
He counted at least one hundred and sixty of them now. In the last few minutes of this melee, no more had risen.
Ethan!
Take a look, Sys, he said. I’m going to give our friend a show.
As the golems loosed their next collective volley, Ethan let Winterbreath fly from his throat – freezing the arrow rain as it came within a few inches of his form. The projectiles fell limply to the bottom of the mountain floor and exploded down there, throwing flashes of brilliant crimson light across the entire range from below.
Bathed in that light, Ethan made his next move.
He drenched his blades in the inky darkness of Twilight Edge and sent a miasma of abyssal black out to cover him, obscuring the morning sky entirely. The golems each gave s ingle twitch – they’d lost visual on their target.
A flurry of ice crystals then materialized above Ethan’s head, signaling the onset of Ice Barrage. He launched them at each dumbfounded stone man, activating and reactivating the skill to clamp one crystal down on each of their feet. The creatures moved to try and dislodge the ice spikes but found that their legs were unresponsive.
Their Appraisals popped off just before Ethan made his final strike:
Ice Barrage (Grade S)
Grade A Upgrade: Summon a hail of eight ice-bolts that each deal 230 DMG and destroy surfaces of STR 60 or below.
Spirit Core Cost: 5000
Spirit Core Cost to upgrade: 7500
Grade S Upgrade (Tundral Impale) Unlocked!
Each spike from [Ice Barrage] now impales the body parts of foes, giving them the [Burden] debuff for 30 secs.
He wasn’t going to let them go.
He was going to show this Architect the power of a real Archon.
Ethan!
His eyes flashed with power taken from the hand of God.
Angel Annihilation (Grade S)
Effect: 5000 [DIVINE] DMG in a 300ft area
He commanded it to strike.
He spread his arms and wings wide and let fly a meteoric shower of divine energy – a series of dazzling beams that each sought out one golem and dashed its form apart, liquifying hardened rock and then toppling the mountain each stone man stood upon. One by one, the cloud of golden threads passed over the southern mountain reaches, deleting every living entity they found down there. Even the fog itself seemed to peel away in the face of the divine strike. It was death from above of the highest magnitude, and as Ethan watched his enemies die, he felt only more burning rage fill his being.
Foes Slain: Sentinel Golem x165
Spirit Cores Gained: 0
His teeth clenched, angelic white being marred by blood he was drawing from his own lips. He watched the mountains crumble, watched the golems tumble down into the dark, and found that it didn’t alleviate any of his turmoil.
Once the divine strike was done, he surveyed the collapsed mountains and ruined golem army at the very base of the range. Down there, among the piles upon piles of golem corpses, some of them were still moving.
[Skitter]
[Wing Buffet]
[Dive]
With godlike alacrity he barreled down to stamp out the stragglers. He crushed one of them at the base of the mountains with his booted heel, throwing up entire swathes of the golem bodies as he did so. Another one he carved through with a grunt of irritation. Another he zapped with Azure Arc and watched it disintegrate to burning ash before him. And yet, out of the remains of the dead, the horde of stone just kept on coming.
His HP was still full. Any damage they’d done had been instantly stitched right up by Skein of Typhos. Even if they managed to break through his defenses and overwhelm him, he had Balm of Krea to get him right back up.
And yet they just kept coming.
Ethan, Sys warned. Listen, this is pointle-
I don’t care, Ethan snapped back.
He stared at the eyeless faces of the Architect’s little toy-soldiers, feeling the thrill of combat thrumming in his chest.
I’m going to break them all.
