Tales of the Herd - An Under Gods Story

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Grace growled as white fire bloomed along the length of her arms. Engilmu drew a sigil in the air and charged it with imageon, and Nenema formed gelatinous orbs in the air around her, igniting them with her aura.

Arda'il wasted no time creating the summoning circle for Yummi Chaac. Within his shadowy visage, the teal glow of the gem embedded in his face was visible. He chuckled, sounding like the twittering chime of an ocarina. The room seemed to stop in time. Nobody made a move as the air became thick with heat and the smell of dead Elohimians.

"So, you bring a mortal to this round," Arda'il said. His voice was a cold draft through the wall of heat before the siblings.

Nenema shrugged. "Trust me when I say it won't matter if you use that. He's more likely to spare us than you."

"So you'd think. But my experiences with this entity provide a different expectation."

Grace tried to calm herself. She noticed what he was doing this time. The aura moved like waves over her, each passing motion feeling more intense than the last. The energy chipped away at her mind, reducing her more and more to a reckless beast with little regard for consequence. She had to think. She had to make sure she didn't let this aura overcome her.

Grace let the heat in her arms travel to her eyes. The ethereal cracks of her imageon formed over her vision, dividing everyone in the room into shimmering cascades of themselves, each radiating a different aura. They looked – rather, they felt – like different moods of every person around. The aziza flashed into Niyamako in a spark of white, and it seemed aware of what Grace could see as it carefully studied the spirits before it. The aziza darted towards Nenema, heating the cascading aura around her with its own aura.

"Now, Arda'il, I know you think your plan is reasonable," Engilmu started. It sounded echoey to Grace, each reverberation in a different tone that caused the different shapes around Engilmu to move independently. "But what you're trying to do is madness."

"Madness would be serving the Kahilyians towards their desired goals," Arda'il retorted. "Madness would be ignoring their potential to right creation. The equation is simple. The chaos they bring will ravage the cosmos, as we have seen. But once the pendulum swings in the other direction, all will be well. And once that is done, their deaths will ensure order for countless eons."

"Come on, already," Grace whispered as she watched the aziza work. The little sprite picked up small orbs of some glowing substance repeatedly before allowing it to dissipate, then it would return to its task.

"That doesn't even make sense," Nenema interjected. "Chaos and order aren't just reactions to one another. They're just labels. Quit the stupid games and drop the ink before we make you."

The aziza held something and sang happily, then flew back to Grace. The little flaming marble shimmered in an iridescent manner like oil. It was unstable, slowly breaking down as the aziza carefully carried it towards Grace's navel. It whistled, calling for Grace to ignite her heat as hot as she could make it.

"If you say so!" Grace muttered. The fire engulfed her body, as well as the aziza, causing her siblings to jump out of the way.

Arda'il's shadows burned away in the imageon glow as the Elohimian stared on in wonder, completely enthralled in the display of power Grace was enacting. His focus was so drawn that his ink circle became a muddled mess. It bubbled and reacted horribly to the flames, bursting in a horrendous cloud of violence and shrapnel that sent Nenema, Engilmu, Arda'il, and the corpses flying.

–

The tower became a molten mess, leaning and dripping as the flowing, reddening metal arched into the ground, destroying another tower as it fell. The billowing pillar of fire had vanished, but the heat was demolishing the tower even further. The shifting metal tried to correct itself but was far too hot to construct anything stable. As silver liquid reached for other tendrils of itself, huge gaps formed and caused more damage to the construct.