186 (II)

Udraal [I]

Every time she tried to Analyze that weapon, she failed to see what it truly was, because it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. It was a mechanism of impossibility. A thing that went beyond mana, magic, or skills. It didn't belong here. Every second it existed, something in Integration soured, and every skill, every feat of magic felt lesser than before.

And at that, she heard Maiden cry out. Suddenly, one of Udraal's many clones was right next to her, and it pried Maiden's Avatar free. She detonated in a shard of reflective glass and twisting gears.

Veronica denied him. "Mend," she commanded, and her words clashed against Udraal's will. His claw leaped out to slice into her. It was parried from its path by Hawgrave, and she drove a twisting elbow into his chest.

And it was here that Udraal's primary flaw made itself known. Udraal was many things: prepared, capable, overwhelming, a genius among geniuses. But he was ultimately a coward. He feared death, and he loathed risking himself, blade to blade, regardless of the martial talent inherited from his father. He retreated, then, dismissing his Chronomantic clones entirely. They faded in faint motes of gold as he left.

Harlock came once more, his darkness surging over Udraal as a tide. But before the Abyssal Lord could vanish entirely into the black, he slammed his banner down, and a valley was rent through the darkness that comprised the Ascendant of Midnight. It was as if a great blade had cleaved a path through a dense sea of shadow, and at that, the Ascendant cried out. Incandescent wounds bled into the air, and Udraal held his hand high. Transgression's flag fluttered across Veronica's eyes, and she could sense the souls of billions of Pathbearers writhing, trying to break free, trapped, trapped, trapped, and never to be released.

And just then, as she looked closely, she saw Harlem's Avatar reach up from the burning sea. Connor was among the souls as well, his plate glistening and bright, but his being befouled by torment, by this undeserved purgatory.

"Councilwoman," he cried out. "Councilwoman Veronica, please! Please!"

She could do nothing. She could do nothing but try to strike Udraal down. Lyrical insults and venomous curses left her tongue. The air before her soured and crackled, becoming corrosive and then poisonous. Udraal's god-hound froze Veronica's words and held them in place. Pieces of the world cracked, and chaos reigned.

"Councilwoman," Hawgrave called out, "I think we should get away from here. Move him to a place where we can all use our skills a bit better. You know. To actually hurt him. Just a thought."

And before she could say anything else, Kathereine's voice joined the fray. "Still and silent, the bastard born of the System became…"

And for the first time, Udraal went still. He was powerful. He was prepared, but Ascendants were still Ascendants, and the slightest crack of psychology was a vulnerability for Kathereine to exploit.

And with that brief lull in concentration, Anthony struck. He burst out through a coiling patch where fire and ice raged, ignoring the wounds he suffered to deliver a brutal stab straight down upon Udraal's face. Yet, just as his blow impacted the Abyssal Lord, he found himself thrown off as a golden shell lifted free from Udraal's body. The bastard had deflected the blow using one of his temporal clones, Veronica realized. More importantly, he was gliding along with the clones.

She didn't know where he was anymore. His damned banner was gone too, so she couldn't track him by—

Something blurred through the air, moving faster than even Veronica could perceive. It was the divine hound that Udraal controlled. It slashed out with mighty paws, leaving gashes upon existence. Trailing mana opened into massive rifts, and enormous maggots bearing both plague and corrosive tissue spilled over into the crawlspace, filling it fast.

"Seal!" Veronica called out, and the rifts obeyed. They crashed down, a few of them cutting some of the maggots in half. Anthony moved back. A trailing lance of Animancy barely missed him, but then another came, and it was too much for him to dodge. The old man brought his blade down, and a resounding clash followed. His knife cracked, but the scything wave of Animancy dispersed entirely. And just then, a slashing hand carved out from another gap in space, taking Anthony's left leg off at the knee.

To his credit, the Avatar responded with dignity and control. He threw himself into the dark instead of writhing in pain, and before he dove in entirely, he projected a false body. That false body was promptly destroyed as Udraal sent the Hound after him once more. It slammed a foot down. The world seemed to crackle, and more ice spilled over, ice followed by those humongous maggots that filled the air with choking filth. Anthony escaped, however, and that was all Veronica could hope for. She breathed in deeply.

"Udraal! Show yourself! Show yourself! SHOW YOURSELF!"

She repeated her same command three times, and she felt something inside her crack. Blood filled her mouth. It was a consequence of repeating her commands; with every repetition, the strain on herself grew greater as well, for her Rhetoric leveraged her spirit and conviction against her adversary, and three invocations were a mighty wager.

But it was a wager she won.

Udraal was wrenched free from one of his many Chronomantic clones, and with that, Veronica teleported Hawgrave to him. The Legendary swordswoman brought her massive blade up, and Udraal swung down using Transgression. The world screamed, and just as a dimensional blade was about to meet a banner of atrocity, it teleported back a few meters, unleashing a pocket of pressure that pulled Udraal off balance.

Hawgrave flung her blade from side to side like a whip. She cracked Udraal across his upper shoulder and scored a gash on his chin. Faint blue mana seeped out from an open wound, and he slammed a fist into Hawgrave's chest. Hawgrave rang like a bell, but she responded by headbutting her foe. Yet that did little, as an echo of herself riposted her blow, driving Hawgrave back instead.

And Veronica took advantage of that opening. When Udraal copied someone else's skill, he overwrote the previous copy. That meant he couldn't counter Veronica anymore, not until he decided to discard his current overwrite.

"FALTER!"

Her word slammed into Udraal like a warhammer, and he was briefly knocked askew. Yet he shed another one of his spirits, letting it take the wound on his behalf. She didn't know how many husks he held in reserve, but as Kathereine sang, she saw more of him break away. And soon, the tide of battle shifted. Udraal collapsed his wings around himself, bracing under an onslaught of blows.

Hawgrave's blade flicked and blurred through the air, every cut becoming many as it teleported from place to place, striking at multiple angles. Scores of cuts and gashes lined Udraal's body. And soon, his divine hound, taxed between attacks from the other Ascendants and Veronica's dimensional ancient, was overwhelmed as well.

A beam of flame singed its fur and made it burn and boil. The hound wasn't a true god. No, it was merely a demigod, something that still had a foot in the material. And if its flesh could burn, it could be slain.

It screamed in misery—screamed for death, and Veronica felt a swell of triumph dance within her pounding chest. Udraal was a deadly foe, a treacherous foe, a foe that could slay you if you made but one mistake, but she knew for a fact that he could be bested, for ultimately, he was still just a mortal, still just a…

Udraal laughed. "Oh, Veronica. Tunnel vision is such a childish flaw to have."

There was a flash of blinding light.

Something slammed into her head so hard she momentarily lost consciousness. And with it came a crushing wave of anti-magic. Every bit of magic she had cut out. Her connection to her grandmother was severed, and for a few seconds, she felt her flesh burn, felt a tickling sensation as radiation sliced through her skin, crawled into her meat, and settled in her marrow as her biology began to break down at its basis.

But she was still there, deep down inside herself. Her Legendary Toughness skill activated, and her body flashed red, gold, and then finally silver, before shattering.

Veronica hatched free from her ruined form. Her skin was unblemished, but she emerged as nothing more than a babe. Yet her cognition remained, as did her intelligence.

She had been reborn; nested within herself was a collection of infants prepared to be primed for use in case her present body was destroyed. The Councilwoman frowned as she reached into herself using Biomancy, yet when she tried, the mana wouldn't flow. Nothing would flow.

The light began to fade, and there was simply darkness around her thereafter, darkness and scattered bits of debris floating in an empty space. A massive piece of bone nearly crashed into her, but she managed to pry it aside using a faint pulse of Dimensionality. Veronica's Dimensionality was among her highest-leveled skills, but using it felt like she was lugging a boulder around on her back. Bit by bit, the crushing anti-magic faded, and she felt more herself. For the first time, her Biomancy returned, and she began to age her body, growing rapidly as she tried to clean away the radiation chewing at her cells.

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As she looked around, she saw a ruined husk of a cube behind her. Three of its six sides had been utterly disintegrated, and she could see severed tunnels exposed. The structure was vivisected. Worse, countless orcs and wardens drifted through the mess, floating momentarily as the System struggled to reassert itself. The nuclear reactor had gone into meltdown, and then it had detonated.

The Councilwoman scowled.

That reactor was one of the few things that remained of the old world, a point of metaphysical stability that predated the System, that Integration hadn't intruded upon. And now it was lost, used as a diversionary bomb by her fleeing quarry.

The other Ascendants were nowhere to be seen, but she caught sight of a few floating gears drifting past her. She suspected those were from Maiden's Avatar. "Dammit." Veronica sighed. "Well. Some people are going to be happy. Been a while since we had any promotions."

Just a shame. I liked this group. They managed a decade. That's longer than most Legends last. Hell. Longer than most Heroes.

"Anthony?" she called aloud. "Anthony?"

And just then, a hand touched her. She swung around, preparing to summon a blade from her inner dimension, and let out a relieved breath as she saw the old man had survived. He looked like hell. Part of his body was seared. His left arm was mostly bone, with a few pieces of dangling tissue left. Both his legs were missing, and that gray coat he wore barely clung to his shoulders with the few tatters it had left.

But he was alive, and Veronica was relieved. She would never admit it, but of all the Avatars, he was the only one she truly cared for. Because it had always been them for so long, even when they were at odds, even when they tried to kill each other. To see him dead to something like this would have felt wrong.

"You find anyone else?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They all faded into the light. The nuclear reactor?"

"Yes," Veronica answered. "It's gone."

Anthony scowled. "I told you, we should have gone in hard—even if we risked killing the Arrow boy. We should have just—"

"Just what? It is not as if you managed to secure the children, either." Veronica scoffed. "I was trying to get them to give up, and I would have had them if..." She cut herself off as she realized she was making excuses. Excuses were for the defeated, and Veronica Chandler was nowhere near done. She sighed instead. "Very well, you're right. We should have all fallen upon them at the same time. So why didn't your dagger work? It failed first against the Deathless, and now it's all broken after hitting Udraal. Are you having a hard time performing, old man?"

Anthony glared at her. He was annoyed, and that made her feel young again.

"Something's wrong with the boy's soul," Anthony said. Now he was making excuses.

"Oh, there's really nothing wrong with it," she retorted. Sensing something, Veronica looked past the old man. Behind him, a large, broken carcass drifted closer. The divine hound that Udraal had used to supplement this paltry fragment of his soul had been reduced to a charred chunk of meat. Yet it was strong enough to survive the blast, mana reduction included.

Udraal emerged from it as if a newborn crawling free from the corpse of its mother, and the divine hound gave a final whimper before it stilled. Incandescent mana pulsed out and turned to scattering motes as the hound vanished.

Udraal remained. He winked at Veronica.

The Animancy Core in his stomach glistened with building power. The cut on his face had long closed, and a copy of Hawgrave pointed her blade at Veronica and Anthony.

"I must admit to being a little disappointed. The current stock of Avatars seems lacking compared to the previous administration. What happened to the automaton with the jet wings? Or that delightful elf with the quick hands? Or your goblin Councilman?"

Veronica cocked her head as she faintly felt her grandmother's touch return. "Veronica? Veronica, are you there? Are you alive, dear girl?" A hint of worry lingered in Kathereine's voice, and it was just enough to remind Veronica that they were still family, and there were still things that the old, lustful succubus truly treasured. She didn't respond to her grandmother. Instead, she offered her first reply to Udraal.

"Politics," she replied summarily. "Politics happened."

Udraal gave a snort of disgust. "Politics is for those without choice and those who are weak. You are neither, Chandler, and the sooner you learn that lesson, the faster you will become a Pathbearer."

"I am a Pathbearer," she said with an offended sneer, "though our Paths are quite different. And some of us have desires to flourish, to build something that lasts, instead of trying to murder the only world we ever knew."

"Murder?" Udraal laughed. It was a bitter, scornful thing. "You can't murder something that's never been alive. You can't murder a canvas or a book or a cage." His voice fell to a low growl by the end. "But you can break it. You can reshape it. You can build something new from its bones. You can forge a proper foundation."

"A foundation which your mother never saw?" Veronica asked, jabbing at his wound.

Udraal simply shook his head. "Yes, neither mine, nor yours, nor anyone's. We could all be as gods, people living in eternal harmony, beyond the tyranny of oblivion, beyond the pointless suffering offered by the System, beyond all of this." He let out another scoff. "What is the point of all this power, all this understanding, all this evolution, if it just ends? If we have to succumb to the whims of a mechanism that knows only the nectar of war and bloodshed?"

"It sounds nebulous and like the ravings of a madman," Veronica answered honestly. "Frankly, I think I'll go with the more stable option of having my Ascendants institute a proper nation, one where they can establish stability. You know. The only thing we will ever experience that is remotely close to eternal harmony."

Udraal scoffed. "Your Ascendants are butchers, psychopaths, whores, and—"

"Some are still alive!"

A loud cry sounded as a spearhead pierced through Udraal's forehead from behind. In a moment, Longinus appeared, and he flared into existence, his serpentine body glistening with his human portions as well. Yet, instead of crying out in pain, Udraal simply frowned as his eyes turned upwards to look at the spear jutting out from his skull.

"Ah, Longinus, I was wondering where you were." Before he could say anything else, a cage of lightning collapsed around him, curling tighter as it bound him in place. Black forks of crackling electricity sliced into Udraal's vessel. Yet, he shed part of himself and broke free from Halsur's grasp like stepping through an unlocked door.

Stormholt gave a cry, which turned into a wail of pain as a counterblow of dark lightning exploded out from Udraal. It lashed free through the air, crashing against Halsur's power and jabbing his Avatar through the thigh. Blood spurted free from Stormholt, yet he pushed himself further, channeled more for his god, more to overwhelm the adversary that had laid so many other Avatars low.

Before Udraal could do anything further, part of his body went missing. His left arm disappeared as a massive hand closed over it. Everything the hand touched vanished, along with the pocket of space itself. Udraal tried to move, only for a swell of blackness to part around his right, and from it came a massive form. Its eye was cyclopean, its body was wreathed in vengeful flames, and its fists were like stacks of towers crashing together. It struck Udraal, and the air combusted and detonated once more.

Cripple had been brought into the fray as Veronica asked, but she caught the Ascendant's gaze and knew there would be another problem to face soon.

White filled the space before Veronica, and Udraal's body shattered in half, bones and limbs flying free as a cataclysmic detonation bloomed within the scoured space. The Animancy Core tumbled out from its broken vessel, and just then a massive hand caught that as well, pilfering it for the Ascendants.

With the tide turning, Kathereine called out through Veronica, and a song of destruction fell upon Udraal. He flew through the air, and bits of his body were ripped away. The longer he listened, the more he fractured, until his face was peeling, breaking apart in flakes as well. Udraal Thann was a dangerous foe. Udraal Thann would kill you if you made one mistake, but Udraal Thann could be beaten, could be broken, could be—

"It's been fun, Veronica," he said as he released another spiral of Chronomantic clones. They briefly held the Ascendants at bay, but Halsur's lightning tore through them quickly. "Yet I must depart. I've reduced your number enough and paid you a visit. My other selves have also decided to free every last prisoner in this place. Now, you'll have a choice between maintaining control of this prison of yours or stopping me from retrieving what is rightfully mine."

At that, he hammered the haft of his banner into his chest, and Udraal came ablaze with Animancy. By the time Halsur's lightning reached him, he was a fading flicker of blue. But instead of being seared into reality, it collapsed and tunneled away. Udraal was gone. His soul had escaped. And in his wake, only a few pieces of drifting bone remained. Drifting bone and the boiled carcass of a foreign demigod.

Silence followed. Crushing silence. Several Avatars were dead. An Ascendant had been wounded by Animancy. And now Udraal was probably going to steal both Adam Arrow and the Deathless that the Republic so desperately wanted.

But Legend-Councilwoman Veronica Chandler was not done. She wouldn't bend over for the world. And she wouldn't fold, not until she had no cards left to play.

"Anthony," she said, "get Harlock to shroud the entire prison."

The old man frowned. "But that would leave—"

"I don't care what it leaves unprotected on our borders or within our territory. This is what matters. This, right now. We have a foreign power inside the heart of our Republic. And he's about to take our Deathless away from us. I'm not accepting that. Not after what he did, and not after what we suffered. Kathereine. Song of Slumber. Withdraw yourself from all other Avatars. All power to me."

"But you are my only—"

"I'm not in the fucking mood, grandmother."

Kathereine shivered as Veronica snapped. The Councilwoman's voice was cold and hard now. "And get me the leaders of the Abyssal Faiths, including the Composer. There is something we need to discuss. Someone we need to discuss. The terms of the treaties have been violated on this day, and it is time for them to enforce their end of the—"

"No." Cripple's voice interrupted Veronica, and she just bit back a growl. The Ascendant was still manifested, and it glared down at Veronica, incandescent mana raging as it stood apart from all the other Ascendants and Avatars. "You face me first. You—"

"Cripple. I'm going to tell you this with all the candor I can muster. Your offense and frustration are understandable, but your betrayal is unacceptable. We are either united, or we are nothing. And right now, the boy you feel so morally compelled to save is going to be taken by the single most treacherous Pathbearer in all Integration. So. I suggest you help us find him before the only one who wins turns out to be Udraal Thann."

Cripple went quiet for a moment. "How do you know they're still here?"

"I don't."

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