Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (73 page)

The eldritch god had more experience than any elf could
ever have. He exploited the mutation of his vessel's arms to make them stronger
and faster. Even when the vessel was fatally injured, he used stolen
kon
to mend the damage instantly. Finally screaming with rage and fear, Meza
attacked recklessly. Order took the wind out of him by punching his stomach.
The elf warrior sank to his knees, breathing heavily.

"Elves
may have conquered Death, but you will never conquer me. Between us, I am the
one who is truly eternal. Despite all your spells, technology, prayers, and
sweat, you have inflicted no lasting damage to my vessel. This outcome, where
you kneel before me, was, is, and always will be inevitable."

Suddenly, his vessel was blind once more. Annoyed, he
searched for its cause among spiritual, magical, and religious sources. These
were the lines elves typically thought along when trying to disable his
vessels, on the absurd notion that they could somehow harm him personally. They
never tried anything chemical or biological, so Order did not immediately check
for anything chemical or biological. This was why he didn't notice the pair of
spiders racing down his vessel and jumping to the ground.

Annala chose the dress she did because Eric recommended
it, and he recommended it because Tiza hid her mother's tiny helpers inside it.
When Annala smacked Nulso's corpse, she unknowingly provided them the bridge to
their target. More were waiting nearby in case she didn't get the chance. With
their mission accomplished, they returned to their mistress' daughter. She was
waiting nearby with her new best friend and a second nasty surprise.

"A tent may be able to fight, but can she
throw?"

"Ha! Heleti Amateur Darts champion two years
running."

Together, they threw a total of thirty-two Order
Nullifying Snares and all of them hit their mark. Nulso's corpse was now
enshrouded by the chaosified threads and pulled to the ground by their weight.
The girls high-fived.

Further annoyed, Order immediately burned through five of
them. This was nothing more than a minor delay. Then he heard someone playing
“Flight of the Valkyries.”

 “What
madness is that Trickster up to now?”

From the direction of Hariana Inquires, a dust cloud
stirred. A terrible rumbling and chorus of roars was heard. As it approached,
Nulso’s ears
determined it to be a stampede of monsters.

All of them were subjects of Nunnal’s mana mutation
research, the HPLC. All of them were horribly mutated and resembled no creature
known to man or spirit. Order himself had never seen their like before. As a
single mass, they ran in his direction and were led by three creatures mightier
than any of them.

 These three ran along each flank of the monster horde
like sheepdogs. To the left was a chimera wielding a white staff bearing a
clear arrowhead crystal. She shouted at the monsters and struck the strays to
keep the pack together. To the right was a blue-furred unicorn with a silver
horn; in its teeth was a white staff. Both of them fired into the horde to mend
damages each did to others, to amplify their defenses, and keep them in line. At
the rear was a grendel wielding a black staff who ensured that none of them
wandered off or escaped.

Order sent his hands into their minds and encountered
resistance in all of them. Without Nulso’s eyes, he couldn’t distinguish
monster from demon or mana breed. All of them were so heavily infused with
chaos that they formed an amorphous mass. He couldn’t
immediately
take
control of any of them, and Nulso’s body was so entrapped by the chaotic nets
that it couldn’t avoid being run over by them.

Biting, clawing, raking, constricting, and smashing; even
as they were absorbed into the void in his host’s stomach, they continued
tearing at him. With so much damage and chaos, Order could not properly channel
his power through his host. The unicorn zapped it to further disorient it and
maintain the mob's consistency around it.

Chimera counted to ten and then beat the monsters away to
make room for Grendel and Heleti Unicorn. The former picked the vessel up and
tossed it to the latter, who bucked it out of the village. As the body soared
toward the enforcer blockade, Tasio appeared ahead of it.

Now dressed as a cross between an engineer and foot
soldier, “Tasio the Toppler of Cities” withdrew a great war hammer. Facing the
cloud of silver-grey, his hair glowed like a star. The light channeled to his
arms and then discharged through his hands as an almighty swing. Under its
power, he demolished the enforcer wall just in time for Nulso’s body to fly
through the hole he created.

A lightning bolt followed it.

Nulso’s body crashed outside the village’s boundaries,
bounced, crashed a second time, and skidded to a stop. It was now mangled and
grotesque. The void in its stomach encompassed its entire chest. Regardless, Order
was about to power jump back to the village when his senses picked up a life
form behind him.

He fired an ethereal construct and grabbed it. A veil of
darkness slipped away to reveal Annala being choked. She was still wearing the Subjugation
Collar and still brainwashed.

“Lord Order…what have I done wrong?”

The only possibility for her appearance here was Eric
Watley ordering her to be here, but the boy was so protective of her, it didn’t
make sense for him to do so. This paradox stalled him long enough for a
golden-brown scythe to cut his head off. Tasio stepped into full reality.

Gone was his previous guise. He was garbed in a long and
draping cloak, similar to that of a reaper. Unlike them, his scythe was a solid
color in both blade and shaft; only its gradient of gold to brown changed. Now
he was “Tasio, Reaper of Gods.”

 “Arrogant
nephew.”

The immediate area bleached as Order pulled its mana into
his host to repair it and reattach its head.

“
Smelly uncle.”

Nulso’s aura threw a spirit pulse and Tasio countered with
a pulse of his own. The two negated. Nulso's aura threw ethereal constructs and
Tasio countered with his own and pressed forward with his scythe. He cut
through Order's Divine Presence and straight to the vessel. Order blocked it
with his staff's shaft and smacked Tasio in the head with the end. As Tasio
stumbled, another ethereal arm came around to punch him in the face and then
kick him in the stomach. Tasio fell back and performed a Reaper Cleave. It was
blocked once again, but this time, the blade reshaped into a net. For the third
time today, Nulso's body was entangled on the ground.

“How will
you reap this vessel without your scythe?”

From under his hood, Tasio smirked.
“About that, I decided to stick with
my original plan.”

From Nulso’s right, Eric dropped his Shadow Cloak. Then he
brought his staff point up and a dot of red appeared in the air.

 "Fire!"

He swung it straight down and a dark blue dot appeared.

"Water!"

He swung diagonally left for a bright blue light.

 "Wind!"

He drew his staff directly opposite for a brown light.

 "Earth!"

From Nulso’s left, a flash of lightning revealed Kallen.
She brought her staff to the upper left and a yellow dot appeared in the air.

“Lightning!”

She brought her staff to the lower right and a green dot
appeared in the air.

“Forest!”

She brought her staff to the upper right and an orange dot
appeared in the air.

“Lava!”

She brought her staff to the lower left and a purple dot
appeared in the air.

“Ice!”

Nulso’s body tried to stop them, but Tasio’s net held it
fast. As no mortal can escape death, neither can a god inhabiting a mortal
body. Tasio sat on it and endured its attacks to buy time for his chosen.  

Their grids were almost complete; only one more remained.
The most important one of all; the one that would unite the other four. The two
mages took a deep breath, drew back their staves, and plunged their crystal
through their elemental grid. A grey sphere appeared in the center and
connected to the other spheres; connecting them to each other. The entire grid
glowed with a harmonious light and fired a massive golden-brown beam.

"CHAOTIC STARLIGHT!"

Tasio held Nulso's body steady until the last possible instant.
Then he vanished along with the net and Order’s vessel was caught in a pincher
of pure chaotic energy.

It washed over him, burned him, corrupted him, and finally
drove him into a fetal tuck. The mages followed him with their beams and
violently shaking staves. His screams became shock waves that tore the frozen
ground in his agony.

The beams pushed him deeper and deeper into the earth.
They created a pit between the mages and a hill underneath their feet; creation
and destruction mixed in one. Layer by layer, they erased Nulso’s being and
annihilated Order’s connection to this world.

Eric's head throbbed and his arms burned. The recoil was
making his whole body ache. His very soul was on the line. All that power, the
one thing that could destroy the invincible vessel, was right next to it. Even
now, he could feel it eating away at him.

“
TASIO!
Don’t think you’ve won!
As we speak, I am
preparing
a superior vessel! When I come with my
full power, I will crush you and your chosen!
Until then, enjoy your victory.”

The twin beams crossed where he lay and burrowed into the
earth. The ground quaked and threw up irregular rock formations. Lava sprouted
like geysers and crystal towers of infinite colors grew like trees with
lightning sparking from their peaks. The land seamlessly shifted between fire
and water and ice and dirt. Species of life never before seen sprang up in the
valley and a tornado whirled horizontal to the ground. The worst was still to
come.

At the point the two beams met was a gaping hole in
reality. The veins of Noitearc were clearly visible. Pure and unfiltered
kon
gushed into the world. Enough
paku
for a million spirits wailed as they
flew into the night sky. Already mutated by the beam’s radiation, the area
entered a continuous cycle of change as mana rushed forth. Finally, shapeless
and formless
things
appeared on the other side, and their presence agitated
local reality further. Drawn by the Chaotic Starlight, they sought to cross
over.

Madness, fear, despair, hunger, sickness, disappearance of
reality; their proximity filled the young mages with all of these and more.
Only one coherent thought remained in both their minds.
Is this what
happened to Dengel in Ceiha?

Tasio appeared between them and shouted, “Focus on the
plan!”

“Right!” they chorused.

Both of his chosen pulled their crystal blades out of the
Chaotic Starlight grid, and with it, the spirit light holding it together. The
connection between the elemental lights vanished and the beam shut off. The
rest flew deep into the veins of Noitearc and the Creatures paused.

Acting quickly, the demon mages channeled the power of the
avatars separately. Lava to fill the hole and water to harden it into rock.
Forest to create new life and fire to reduce it to ashes. Lightning to energize
it and air to compress it. More rock to reinforce it and then ice to cover it in
snow. Finally, harmonization with their own spirits to fully mend and fortify
it. Kallen provided the River of Chaos Enlightenment to restore the balance,
and Eric provided the Universal Mana Enlightenment to restore the previous
form. Residual chaos strengthened it further by creating many and diverse
layers of life and death.

The area now looked as it did before the battle plus a
brand new chaotic zone. The hole in reality was gone. Tasio gave them each a
thumb-up and disappeared.

 
Now
that calamities had ceased, there was deathly silence. Heavy Fog settled in. It
filled the valley to the brim, just beneath the feet of the mages. Eric gazed
into the chaotic zone he created with his partner, then across it to that partner.
She did the same. As one, they fell backwards and sighed in relief.

"I...did it...I really did it...The third level of
chaotic enlightenment...Dengel’s failure...I REALLY DID IT! I SURPASSED
DENGEL!"

"What...what are you talking about?
I
figured
it out...I taught you... you just piggy-backed... on my accomplishment."

"
Our
...accomplishment...You couldn't have...done
it without me...”

"Yeah...ours..." Kallen struggled to get up.
"Now...let's...let's get..." She fell back down. "Some rest. Let's
get some rest."

The hills rumbled and two creatures sprang from the Fog.
They were long stalks leading up to a bulky head with rows of serrated teeth
below a trio of triangle eyes with strands wrapped between them like the mast
of a ship. Their saliva dripped on them; it smelled of brine.

Kallen groaned and dug into her pocket for her scry.
"Emily...bring
Albatross IX
around...Targets are the carnivorous
vegetables."

The monsters lunged and burned to ash in a cloud of
flames. From the haze of their death, a griffin-shaped airship flew towards the
exhausted mages and landed next to them. Emily ran out and immediately slung
Kallen’s arm over her shoulder. On their way back to the ship, she asked, “Are
you all right?” in a hundred different ways.

Eric, she ignored entirely. He tried to get up, failed,
and fell backwards. Tasio appeared next to him but didn’t help just yet. First
he shape-shifted into someone shorter, younger, and white-haired. His feet
touched the ground and Eric couldn’t help but smile. This was Tasio’s weakest
persona and represented Eric’s fondest memories: “Tasio, Friend to Mortals.”