In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound

60 - Davnian - Bathed in Blood

"We will be honest, greedy brother. We did not expect you to come to so quickly." The thing wearing Nerin's skin spoke with the Delvori's voice, enunciating every syllable with native ease. It danced along the edge of the stage as the ravenous being lashed over and over at Davnian. Beside the beast, the last of the nectar maidens supplicated, her body wracked by cuts and gouges from failed assaults against Davnian as the gore enveloped her.

[Are any others left?] he asked the shadow within him, too distracted to process what remained of the tattered populace.

[I think we've done it,] the other replied gravely.

Davnian's clothes were soaked with Hyunisti blood. As the monster opened more gates to draw forth raw elemental power, Davnian had given into his want of bloodshed. Using the menace within, he had focused on ending talvuo that could be spared, taking their lives before the writhing hollowness could devour their final thoughts.

Evading a monster pretending to be a corpse, he sidestepped between two clawing husks. Severing each of the creature's heads from their bodies with a jagged slash from his claw, he returned to the festering thing below and dispatched its closest hand. Not blinking, he kept his cold eyes fixed on the terrifying creature at the center of the procession. While Davnian fought in earnest, the corrupted mass around him gathered at the Nerin-thing's feet. The twisting ether of nothingness swelled into a giant, putrid bubble that surrounded the terrace. Yet the monster did not attack, opting to provoke him with civil vagaries. With its jests, he heard the faintest of whispers carried by its tainted words.

"What you do to these vessels of flesh and blood is terrible, but alas, we no longer need the chemical mix of their brains intact. You only rob them of final succor now, Virage, nothing else," the creature said as Davnian tried to piece together its next action. Every time he tried to make a direct attack, a wall of gore formed between him and it. If they did not manifest, he would be faced with a rain of rifts, each delivering a new brew of fire, ice, earth, and thunder for him to evade. "Tell us, has she been kind to you at least?"

A little girl's laugh danced across Davnian's lips as he ignored the creature. He didn't have time to suppress what remained of Rais within him as he studied the terrible thing.

[It's all flowing to him,] his dark insider waxed rhetorical.

[Tell me something I don't know.]

[Maybe we need to try a different approach.]

[Whatever you have in mind,] he replied as dozens of tiny arcane gates begin to spawn all around him. Nothing the creature had done had been overt yet. It was testing his defensive and offensive capabilities. [Give me something to work with, old one.]

[You can still feel it, can't you?] the other asked as Davnian flicked an instigator with his thinblade, tripping it as it stumbled. He felt the being within him directing his attention to his claw, and deep within it, he felt a buzzing. [From when you blocked the attack?]

[The lightning bolt?]

[You still have it in your claw. You captured it. And like a raving beast, you can release it. The same way it is using those other gates against you. In fact, I think you can do one more.]

[Such as?] Readying to dodge the fanned portals, Davnian cringed as they changed positions, forming a dome around him. He gritted his teeth. [Incoming!]

[Capture them just as you capture thoughts and as you captured the thunderbolt!] the shadow said.

There was no time to determine the correct path. Picking the closest of the distortions, Davnian bent low and used his claw to propel himself to his right. As the rifts popped open one by one, Davnian snared himself along the terrace lifeline. Circling one of the stanchions, he whipped himself around and grabbed at the opening gate with his claw. The air rippled as his hand passed through the newborn portal, and he thought he felt the thing throb within his left hand before joining the buzzing force trapped within his claw.