“ENOUGH!” The voice screamed out, sounding like two in one, as the foe the crew were fighting shrugged off the Spear of Longinus like it was nothing. “WE WILL SHOW YOU DIVINE JUSTICE!”
Pallad took an involuntary step back as his winged compatriots did the same in the sky. Pallad felt his sword shudder in the power of what they were facing, and then a new system message appeared.
[Heavenly Dealer of None has Descended!]
[Floor Completion Condition Changed!]
[Floor Completion Condition; Defeat Insanity and Save the Church -> Survive for 3 Hours.]
What previously held the skies together failed to do so as it split apart showing maddening colors that Pallad had never seen together, nor seen alone. Insanity itself sprouted wings of green light with red eyes that seemed to track a different member each.
The previously thin man wasn’t placed within armor, nor did a crown now cover its head with the descension. Instead, one of its eyes was encased in a green flame as the other openly wept. A staff entwined with a green and red snake appeared in its hand.
The sky spat out all sorts of attacks at Pallad’s party members still flying, and Pallad attempted to get in the way of their downfall, but there were too many, too spread apart. Pallad got there in time to prevent flame from burning Shammus’s wings, but Bariton was struck down with a terrible orange lightning.
Pallad felt the fire melt through his shield and his bone armor, the heat properly fusing the armor to his flesh. Clara rushed forward to heal the burnt bard actively falling. Pallad was busy protecting Shammus in his retreat, but the attacks grew in frequency.
He felt the shield drop in durability as cracks formed against new attacks the paladin had never seen before. He couldn’t afford to look back at Shammus retreating, lest he himself would be overwhelmed.
The attacks consisted of golden tentacles, which seemed to strike the shield across time, alongside bright green flame that burnt at his mind and awareness. His vision was quickly fading as he felt the area around him shift from hot to cold similar to a poorly designed shower.
He fought against the battle of consciousness as the same orange lightning that struck Bariton down flew into his shield launching him quickly into the ground. He saw shadows of pain through the rifts, and even saw Blue Lightning lash around the descended god.
The descended god screamed, while Insanity kept fighting against Reality’s own attempts to contain it, with the rifts opening and turning the attacks randomly against everyone around.
Pallad made it to find his allies as the sky only tore apart more and more, and Clara was clearly working overtime to heal him, Shammus, and Bariton. He tossed her a mana potion, which Clara caught in her hands with a quick look of thanks as she downed it still casting the healing spells.
The System wound together the spells for her, and it was both far more efficient and a lot nicer for Pallad and the two injured alongside him to not risk cancer. The screams of Heavenly Dealer of None grew more succinct as the chaos of the skies expanded.
The skies cleaved open and seemed to rotate separately to the earth the party stood upon as more lashes of the Blue Lightning struck down, not just Heavenly but near the Party as well. The screams with the lack of visible damage implied something terrible, and the way the lightning bolts visibly burnt into his retinas was terrifying as well.
He pulled Bariton from the area one strike was about to hit, and the way it didn’t sear the earth, but rather left an impression of what was once hit was enough for him to yell out a simple command through his armor; which while it was hardly audible with his armor sealing his mouth…
“RUN!” They listened, quickly diving between the strikes of blue and orange lightning, the plantlife previously populating the forest already gone, some erased from existence by the golden tentacles.
They reached a plain that was swiftly turned into a ravine from a singular swing from Insanity/Heavenly rushing forth a green flame that left nothing remaining from the land, leaving just a ravine to the void.
The party all leapt back, with Pallad and Bariton both grabbing Clara and Shammus respectively. Judine was fine enough to handle herself as reality itself kept crumbling. From the ravine in the earth, something arose but Pallad was not going to stick around to find out what.
Shards of the sky fell burning red hot glassing areas meters around, falling at speeds unreachable by any conceivable object on the same earth. They were lunged down as beams of light slowly reached the stars above.
As the multicolored beams of light reached the sky, the sky’s shade shifted constantly from the beautiful oranges and pinks of the horizon to the blues of midday, to the blacks of midnight. Pallad was evading attacks, and eventually had to block a severe strike from the stars above. Heavenly was off somewhere else fighting against the areas of reality torn apart there.
“He sure is showing us Divine Justice huh?” Bariton made one of his usual quips as another strike of the Orange lightning struck down, burning everything in its path. Ice shards fell up ahead, tearing through the earth and leaving the environment cold.
The planet itself was scorched under the attacks, and frosted over just a few meters to the side. Everything was wrong, and it didn’t help that sometimes it felt like they were moving uphill despite staying in the flat zone of the forest.
Heavenly screamed more as Insanity yelped, the duo merged in one body wronged by reality itself as something or other hits them, Pallad inable to focus on the god trying to kill them over the constant strikes from reality.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Nobody responds to Bariton’s witty remark as Pallad tanks another strike from the heavens, this time being lime green fire that seemed to be spewing out from a hole of black and blues. The fire felt cursed as it struck against his shield, reminding him of a time long since passed.
Bariton pulled Pallad out of the fire as they kept running, their high agility allowing them to see everything yet also have to experience everything. Clara was working overtime to ensure none of them died, especially Pallad as he felt his muscles rebind to one another.
When a spear of red mana splashed out to strike Clara, Pallad let it deflect off his shield, pushing the mana upwards into another rift. The cracks in the sky quivered like veins of a massive beast as the mana hit it, and then spears of bright pink lashed out at the party.
Judine deflected them and launched them towards Heavenly instead, with some random skill she probably accrued over the ages. The fighting raged on between Reality, themselves, and the god. They were lucky Reality was on nobody’s side since that god would turn them to paste in a singular instant.
Especially since it was tanking all these hits, including a spear of pure black that Shammus slashed at with his swords. Pallad placed his shield against Shammus’s back to force two people’s leverage against the spear, and they managed to not deflect it but angle it elsewhere.
The spear pierced clean through the ground, never stopping nor slowing down. The very attack seemed to absorb light to keep going at the same pace constantly, and the party kept fleeing. They fled north, avoiding the capital like a plague for various reasons.
And obvious ones like trying to avoid killing everyone within as reality kept up it’s attacks, including a ginormous sword slash, seemingly from a historical battle cleaved the land of Forsivo clean in two, the cavern beneath almost swallowing the party whole had they not stopped for a mere second.
Time was passing, but it was passing way too slowly for Pallad’s taste, as he was forced to brunt a purple lightning strike, this one seeming to physically eat away at his shield. He dived back as he looked at the notification one more time to double check how long remained.
[Time Left: 1 hour 30 minutes]
Pallad swore under his breath as Bariton knocked a dagger from the aether out of the way, the blade Bariton threw chipping visibly. The dagger dipped into a tree and exploded in vibrant shades.
Shammus dove in to slash another attack as Pallad grabbed the two and began running once more, Clara and Judine close behind. The party had to survive, and Pallad had an idea better than fighting against Reality’s tearing.
He narrowly avoids another slash from the cosmos, this one leaving a shadow where it cut through light itself. Shammus is caught under a greataxe’s cleave, and Pallad twists Shammus off to the side to evade it.
A bomb seemed to go off to the right of them, as the sky visibly darkens. The party were all thrown at least a few meters westward from it, but they regrouped quickly as more bombs fell from the stars themselves.
It felt nothing was going their way whenever Heavenly was involved, and the System kept its unrelenting attacks targeting both the party and the god. Judine stopped suddenly and pulled at Pallad. He gripped the back of Bariton and Shammus, who grabbed Clara as the section of earth they were approaching was replaced by a beam of starlight, full of all colours of the rainbow.
Pallad utters a thanks despite his jaw being held closed by his armor, and he throws his sword at another threat. He may be out of a weapon and shield, but he was the shield now. The sword shattered anyways beneath the weight of the attack, only buying a few moments to dive out of the way as something flew overhead.
It crashed into the ground beneath them with a resounding boom, the rift ahead of them pulling gravity towards it more than to the planet beneath. Shammus and Bariton both caught Pallad and Clara caught Judine.
The rift had a singular eye looking out at the five, but Pallad couldn’t have too close a look at it as he caught a mountain jabbing up at the trio. He batted it aside once he caught his bearings alongside it, and the tip of the mountain landed a few kilometers away.
More splashes of incandescent mana hit the party as they wove through the skies. Pallad thankfully was still able to deflect it against his bone armor, but that was wearing thin as well, as he felt very minor effects from the red mana, including an odd tingle within his arms.
It felt like they were falling asleep and even with his high agility he could move them at only half the speed as regular. When Clara healed him of whatever afflicted him the sluggishness vanished. Bariton and Shammus worked together to cut away the weapons that flew at the party while Pallad tanked the magic and tossed it aside.
Judine helped Pallad the most while they kept running, ‘balancing’ the effects by splitting it with the environment. Pallad was grateful for the entire party being together as some odd metallic structures flew overhead between rifts.
They dropped bombs of some kind, but they had no pyromancy within them, despite the burning flame that flew out from each of them. The wind from the flying objects only helped fan the flames.
The flying objects were gone as fast as they appeared, and Pallad found himself thanking whichever god was watching them, not even thinking of any one of them in particular. Pallad let out another roar as he caught another mountain, this one falling from the sky.
Shammus and Bariton joined him in lugging it towards Heavenly Dealer of None as Clara and Judine helped magically, pushing it with Geomancy. The jagged stone being lunged over kilometres of space to collide with a barrier formed with Heavenly’s and Insanity’s gaze.
It was hard to tell which gaze was more pissed off, the one actively weeping or the one with the fire inside of it. The flame collected in a ring above the beast, as the world seemed to calm for just a moment, the rifts leading to differing regions seeming to stop growing as more divine flame collected in front of the beast.
The minty green flame was formed into a spear, which was then thrown in a moment. One moment it was in the god’s hands, and now it was piercing through Pallad’s arm pinning him to the ground as the rifts once again continued the hell’s release.
Pallad could’ve sworn he saw Sornid in one of the rifts, but having been thrown up in the air by the gravity of one rift, then knocked aside with a mountain left him disoriented, so he was unsure if it was a real vision or a false one.
And Pallad’s vision was fading once again, before he felt an arm grip his leg. He was pulled out from the rubble by Judine, and Clara quickly healed him. His mana felt practically empty, as everything was dangerously close to stopping.
He still stood tall though, catching an entire ocean from falling onto his team. Reality felt dangerously close to collapsing as he felt space move around him like a river. Heavenly’s screams grew louder as the god fell from the sky.
The remaining divinity fell onto the earth, and Pallad walked slowly towards the passed out puppet. He walks forward, and his feet land one in front of the other in the wartorn land. It was slow, and the rifts didn’t stop attacking.
His party said something or other about stopping, but he couldn’t. Not when it was so tough to move currently. The fight was tough, sure, and the way licks of flame still short out and burnt his armor to his skin over and over didn’t help. The pain numbing effects of his magic were wearing out.
As were the boosts from the pain as he felt a chunk of his soul empty as a massive rock was lugged from another realm onto his back. He felt some bones snap, but then they refused shortly after the injury.
The inner workings of reality kept smacking Pallad around as he approached the downed divinity further. Each step felt like a mountain was over the legs, but they were free to move as of now.
A strike down of the blue lightning finally hit him, but he walked through as he felt his soul tear slightly, fray like a poorly tightened knot, fray like a rope at the end, small strings peeled away like a processed cheese.
Then finally he collapsed, after just a few more steps. He felt his vision fade one more time, but he felt a weight fall into his arm. It was Insanity, for nothing else was so thin. And Pallad dragged the weight of the body inwards.
And he muttered a singular sorry for the deaf ears. He felt space itself collapse inwards as his eyes went dark once more…
[Times up! Congratulations!]
