Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex could feel the Singularity Core within him. Well, that was technically nothing particularly new. He’d been aware of its presence for a short while now. But this was different. The Singularity Core sat in the very center of his being like a radioactively charged lead marble, humming with a steady stream of power.

Absolution stood on the other side of the room. The man’s eyes were cold but calculating as he studied Alex, the rage within them nowhere near enough to push the Outworlder into a blind charge. Alex could practically feel himself getting sized up. Absolution was reevaluating him.

His broken arm squirmed at his side like a snake of gray skin. Bones popped and flesh shifted within Absolution. It wouldn’t have been right to say that the wound was healing. The hollow-chested man’s arm was still mangled. His bones were still broken and flesh still torn. Absolution’s arm just seemed to be… re-aligning itself, as if it knew the proper position that its components should have been arranged into but had no way to actually glue them back together.

To Alex’s side, Claire managed to stagger back to her feet using the wall behind her. Her wings still hung at her sides, ruined, but her eyes had managed to re-focus once again. It didn’t look like she had much strength left, but that wasn’t stopping her.

She wiped the blood from her lips with the back of a hand, then lowered her stance as she let out a hissing breath. Claire flicked her hand to the side, sending her thorned whip spooling out. She grabbed it with her other hand and dragged her palm across the thorned black vine to coat it red. “Partial Soul Manifestation: Hollow Court.”

The toll of a struck church bell reverberated through the air. It wound through Alex’s body as it passed through the entire room in an invisible wave of raw power. Claire’s hair whipped as a violent gale kicked up around her and blue energy coiled off her body like tongues of flame.

Above her, the air warped. A sheet of lifeless gray stretched into being. The sheet folded and bulged outward, molding around the body of a ghastly, looming woman with eyes of splotchy red hatred. Withered flower robes wreathed her, the brilliant crimson color they had once held now nothing more but a pale, tattered memory.

The woman’s eyes locked upon Absolution. She cupped her hands, blowing into them. A torrent of deep crimson petals poured forth from her palms, cutting through the room in a dancing river of blood that cut straight toward the Outworlder.

Absolution blinked out of being, re-appearing on the other side of the room. The petals snapped to the side, following him faster than Alex’s eyes could ever hope to track. Absolution teleported once more, but it was as if Claire’s magic knew what he was thinking before he did.

The petals met Absolution as he reappeared, racing right through him with a howl before coiling back and returning to the apparition looming over Claire’s shoulders. Several of the petals clung to him, clustered largely around his injured arm and the hole in his chest.

Absolution looked down at the petals sticking to him. Then his lips twitched into what almost might have been a smirk. He released his scythe and clenched both of his hands into fists, pressing his knuckles together before his chest.

It seemed nobody had told him not to move a broken arm.

“I’m done wasting time here,” Absolution hissed. “Soul Manifestation: Devouring Abyss.”

A red eye snapped open in the hole inside his chest.

It darted to look toward Claire as she pulled her arm back to send her whip slicing forward. She froze in place. Her limb trembled, but she couldn’t move while Absolution’s Soul Manifestation was watching her.

Alex would have loved to activate his own domain, but the anchor chained to his wrist stubbornly refused to let him use anything other than the Singularity Core. It was like his connection to his Mind Palace had been completely blocked off.

Absolution vanished.

But Alex already knew where he was going. He’d seen how Absolution fought — and it really wasn’t hard to guess how anyone would think in a two-versus-one situation. Absolution had Claire locked down and unable to move.

If he finished her off, then he could turn his domain onto Alex and theoretically end the fight in just two blows.

So Alex reacted preemptively. He lurched forward. The white chain binding him to the anchor behind him rumbled as it drew taut. If they actually reached their max length, the anchor would tear his arm out of his socket as it pulled him to a stop.

But Alex had no plans of trying to move the huge weapon with his physical strength alone. Instead, he pulled.

The Singularity Core turned over within him.

A whump tore through the air as the massive anchor tore itself free of the ground, pulled by the immense force within Alex’s core, and whistled toward Claire. Alex leapt, letting the huge weapon pull him through the air behind it like a human flag.

The anchor slammed into the wall behind Claire with a crash, and Alex landed feet-first beside it. He leapt down, landing on the ground as debris rained down all around him, and drew on the Singularity Core again as his eyes darted to find Absolution — only to realize that the man had re-appeared exactly where he’d been standing before.

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Shit.

He realized that I’d read his attack and faked me out to bait my attack.

Absolution vanished again.

Then he reappeared at Alex’s side, scythe already raised high in the air. The eye in his chest shifted targets, moving to look straight at him.

Every muscle in Alex’s body locked up.

Absolution’s scythe fell.

Claire’s whip cracked through the air. It wound around the shaft of the scythe and she yanked the weapon to the side, pulling it from its course. Black metal flashed past Alex’s face as the scythe hurtled down to embed itself in the ground just an inch away from him.

Absolution snarled. He grabbed Claire’s whip and yanked it to the side with such force that he pulled her off her feet, sending the Dhampir slamming into the wall beside him with a loud crash.

The Outworlder raised his scythe again, eyes still on Alex.

Alex’s finger twitched. He still couldn’t move the rest of his body. Absolution’s Soul Manifestation had him frozen.

Damn it! Come on! Break me out, Sovereign Cataclysm! Faster!

Claire blurred from the cloud of dust around where she’d fallen. She lunged at Absolution before he could finish his attack, her mouth open wide and fangs glistening as she made to bite down on the side of his neck.

Absolution flickered. He shifted an inch to the side, not even glancing in her direction, and brought his scythe down in a flash. The curved blade punched out from her chest in a splatter of blood and a wet thunk.

He stepped to the side as Claire tumbled past him, rolling to a stop several feet away with a pained wheeze. Absolution continued the motion, bringing his scythe around and driving it straight for Alex’s heart.

Alex strained.

And Absolution’s hold on him shattered.

He threw himself to the side. The scythe carved deep into his side but failed to achieve the fatal blow that it had been aiming for. Absolution’s eyes widened in an instant of surprise.

Then Alex re-activated the Singularity Core.

The anchor tore itself free from the wall and blurred through the air in a white streak toward him — and Absolution was standing right in its path.

Even as fast as Absolution was, he clearly hadn’t been prepared for Alex to break out of his Soul Manifestation. That cost him an instant. And, in that instant, Claire’s whip snapped out. She hadn’t managed to lift herself off the ground, but she still managed to flick her hand with enough force to send the black vine winding around Absolution’s legs.

The tip of the whip wound up to slash against his injured arm. It connected with one of the flower petals still clinging to him. An explosion rocked the room. Coils of crimson magic exploded from Absolution’s arm.

He staggered and let out a snarl of pain— and Alex’s anchor caught him in the chest. It tore him off his feet, folding Absolution like a piece of laundry before crashing down into the ground a few feet away from Alex with an earth-shaking thud.

He scrambled to his feet, preparing to yank the anchor back, but Absolution was no longer beneath it. The Outworlder had teleported an instant before he could be crushed beneath the massive weapon’s mass, re-forming on the other side of the room.

Alex’s teeth grit against each other. They couldn’t keep fighting like this for much longer. Dizziness prickled against the edges of his mind and made the room spin around him. He could feel the massive wound that Absolution had left in his side burning. Princess’ magic hadn’t been able to heal it completely before his reserves had completely run out.

But Absolution wasn’t in much better shape. He leaned against his scythe, crimson smoke still coiling from his injured arm. His breath came in ragged gasps and his ribcage was clearly broken. Fragments of bone jutted out from his skin like bloodied shoots of bamboo growing out from within him.

“How?” Absolution hissed. “How did you break free of my Soul Manifestation?”

Alex just grinned. The results of that were probably muted by the fact that Absolution had no way to see his facial expressions behind the mask covering his face. They were finally on close to even ground with Absolution.

With the two of us working together, we can actually hold him off. And if I could actually use this damn anchor properly, we might actually be able to win. But I don’t know if we’ll survive another exchange of blows. Killing him won’t be worth if it gets me or Claire killed in the process.

A groan rose up through the room. Wess shifted in the corner of Alex’s vision, pushing himself upright. The huge wound on his body had started to seal over. It was still weeping blood, but he was somehow moving again.

Alex tightened his grip on the white chain.

A distant roar of pain shook the Ancestry, making the debris scattered across the ground all around them dance as the floor trembled. Alex fought to keep his footing. It sounded like somebody had managed to kill a boss.

Absolution’s jaw clenched. His eyes lingered on Alex for a second longer, but Alex could see the realization in his expression. The Outworlder couldn’t win the fight. Not without paying more than he was willing to lose.

Then Absolution’s head inclined in the slightest gesture of respect.

“Well fought,” Absolution said, backing up until the hall leading out of the room was at his side. Not once did he let his gaze break from Alex’s. “It seems there are more worthy opponents on this world than I had expected. I did not expect someone to be powerful enough to injure me without the use of their Domain. I don’t know why you would throw your lot in with Nativeworlders… but I do not stand enough to gain from continuing this fight.”

“Then leave,” Alex said. He wondered what Absolution would have thought if the other man knew who he actually was. That was probably going to be an amusing revelation at some point. “We both know what happens if this fight continues.”

“Do not interfere in my other hunts,” Absolution said.

“No promises,” Alex said. “I have every plan of defeating this Ancestry.”

Absolution’s lips pulled up into a cold sneer, but the pain in his posture was too much for even him to suppress. The man had been beaten — and he knew it just as well as they did. “It is not the Ancestry that I hunt.”

And then he backed into the darkness of the hallway, vanishing from sight. Alex only heard the man take a single footstep before all traces of him vanished, leaving him only with a questions and aching wounds.

What the hell is that guy even after?