The Forsaken Hero

Fable lifted his head as the explosions rolled closer. A deafening blast followed each one, the noise tearing through the network of fissures and caverns beneath the tundra, reverberating through the Core Chamber with the ferocity of a roaring dragon.

I winced as one particularly loud explosion left a painful ringing in my ears, the sound sharp against my eardrums. My grip on the core tightened, and my tail began to twitch, tracing anxious lines across the fine powdery snow of the chamber floor. I was blind to the world outside the small cave, without the faintest idea who was attacking us, or why.

My soul was exposed and vulnerable, a brilliant flare to any demonic moths circling about. The gate itself was bait for Enusians; distant enough, it would make rallying any sizable force difficult but big enough it couldn’t be ignored. It would have to be one of those two forces, but the question remained: which one?

Another explosion shook the ground, shaking small chunks of ice from the ceiling. I flinched as one landed beside me, stabbing into the ground beside my tail. Whoever it was, demon or martial, was close.

As anxiety latched onto my heart, squeezing tight, my gaze settled on the core. Millions of glistening threads of mana extended from it like a spiderweb, trailing off to the most distant depths of the gate. An idea blossomed in my mind, and I reached out to the Ice Spirit, gently tugging on our bond.

It responded almost immediately. ”Yes, my lady?”

I hesitated a moment, chewing my lower lip thoughtfully. ”Do you, um, know what’s going on out there? The battle, I mean.”

”I’m afraid the task at hand limits my senses. I was uncertain how powerful the infernal mana would be, and mobilized my entire being to shield you from its might.

”And? Do you really need all of your power to protect me from the taint?” I asked, more curious than anything.

It hummed faintly for a moment, thinking. ”If things continue as they have been, I would need only a portion of my strength to hold out until you are done. My current state is rather limiting, however, and it would be difficult to manifest any sort of avatar or physical presence. Perhaps I could defend you from enemies below the fifth level, but any more would require sacrifices on your part.”

”Okay, I think I understand. But what about the core? Would it be possible to use it to use it to observe the battle outside?”

The anomaly was quiet, its thoughtful hum vanishing the moment the words left my mouth. As the silence stretched on, growing deeper with every passing second, I wondered if I had somehow offended the spirit by asking. Its aura grew stifling, and my tail began switching back and forth, ignoring my attempts to control it.

At long last, the anomaly sighed, a curios sigh coming through the soul bond. ”If that is your wish, my lady. It would not be impossible for me to take control of the gate, though doing so might have...unintended consequences.”

There was a hint of warning in his voice, giving me pause. I opened my mouth to ask, but a new explosion ripped through the gate, overpowering my voice with the ensuing shockwave. That was no mere fifth or even sixth-level attack. There shouldn’t have been any demons alive capable of using such a move.

Had we been betrayed by one of the demons? Had another hero already mobilized to strike us? Or perhaps Luke had decided he’d honored his commitment long enough and was here to finish the job.

Regardless of the situation, a sixth-level combatant was powerful enough to threaten my companions. Orion’s face flashed through my mind, and my grip on the crystal core tightened. It didn’t matter if there was nothing I could do. I had to try!

”Do it, please.”

The anomaly moved in accordance with my request, desperate and hasty as it was. I shivered as it pulled away from my soul, realizing I’d grown accustomed to the spirit’s otherworldly embrace. Without its comfortable weight against my soul, I was alone and vulnerable, like a child missing their blanket in the dead of night.

Fable, his ears pricked alertly toward the cave entrance, snuggled up against me, smothering me in his warm, silver fur. The cold wasn’t actually a bother–my wards protected me from the worst of it–but he filled the emptiness left behind by the ice spirit’s departure. I couldn’t help but snuggle against my wolf, leaning against him for support even as I continued to exhaust my strength healing my soul.

As the fringes of its soul reached through me to the core, it slid over the tangled strands of mana like rain dripping down a spiderweb, using them as a conduit to reach the furthest depths of the gate.

Only after it had entwined itself within the very fabric of the gate did I remember his warning about entanglement, and a chill coursed down my spine. Was that not the very thing I had just asked it to do?

”My lady, do not trouble yourself over it. I will do what needs to be done,” the spirit said as if aware of my thoughts. Perhaps, given our interconnected state, it was.

”But...” My loose lip trembled as I fought back a protest. I could just leave the battle to my friends. Didn’t they ask me to trust them here?

I hesitated, just a hair too long. With a sound like a long sigh, the spirit’s soul settled into the gate, dominating it entirely. My stomach churned with regret and guilt, but it was done.

I began to catch glimpses of events happening throughout. They were blurry and unfocused at first, like a hundred dreams overlapping at once, but things came into focus as the spirit gained more control.

The Last Light Company battled in every corner of the gate, cutting down scions and lesser evolved demons with ruthless efficiency. The three fifth-level demons Kahlen brought aided them on the front lines, dispatching their own without flinching. It was oddly heartening to see them working in such close coordination with the mortals of the army, a promise that achieving my goal of peace wasn’t as impossible as it sometimes felt.

A powerful explosion rocked the Core Chamber, nearly jolting me from the extrasensory array of information. My grip on the core tightened as I filtered through the images and scenes, searching for the cause of the disturbance. Navigating the rush of sights and sounds was almost impossible, but with the spirit’s help, I found what I was looking for.

My breath hitched, a shudder running down my tail, as I found a battle raging above and below the surface of the tundra. The elite soldiers of the Last Light Company, including the Star Guard, Korra, and Kahlen, defended the main crevasse that held the entrance to the Core Chamber. Beyond them, hundreds of human soldiers and thousands of demons overran the frozen surface.

The demons were a diverse assortment of Blade, Fire, Curse, and Ice Demons, none of which were native to the gate we were in. They lacked the distinct fiery sense of the forces that the Lord of Ash sent to support me. Instead, their souls felt heavy and oily, like the demons who served under the Apostle’s direct command. I didn’t fully understand what made them feel different, only that it was real.

The humans wore tabards and sigils with loyalties as diverse as the demons’ assorted attributed species. I recognized a few from the southern continents, likely here as part of the church’s forces, but most came from Brithlite and the surrounding kingdoms.

The two forces were locked in a bitter struggle to control key points around the gate, beginning with the entrance portal and concentrated most densely around my allies defending the Core Chamber. It seemed too much of a coincidence, but there was no cooperation between them, and they seemed more intent on killing each other than bothering with the last Light Company. But why were they even here at this time of all times? Gaining control over a gate was paramount for both sides, yet had they really just arrived here at the same time by coincidence?

Then I noticed a black fog of writhing tendrils of darkness spreading over the battlefield atop the tundra. Demons wilted in its shadow, their souls suppressed and drained until the weakest among them were nothing more than dried husks awaiting a human’s blade.

Divine forces waded through the musts unaffected by the necrotic touch. If anything, it seemed to empower them, driving them to slaughter the demons made helpless in its grip. The magic was obviously powerful, capable of altering the outcome of entire battles, but it felt...wrong.

My tail stiffened as the black power continued to spread, unwanted memories rising unbidden in my mind. The humans in the mists fighting the demons weren’t humans at all. Their rough, jerky movements and crude techniques, not to mention the dim lights of their faded souls, revealed it all, and I searched through the depths of the mist until I found a tall, pale figure wielding a dreadful scythe.

Connor, the Undead Hero, raised his head as though aware of my attention, eyes focusing on the space from which I perceived the battle. A faint smile tugged at his lips, his gaunt, pale flesh flushing with anticipation.

No, it wasn’t me he was looking at, but a figure floating just behind my perspective, one I hadn’t seen until now. When I finally laid eyes on him, my heart sank in my chest, a thrill of fear clamping down around my heart.

It was the leader of the demons and the only one capable of inciting such excitement in the ordinarily drab Connor. Gayron, the Apostle of Fire, led the demons from above, launching streams of fire into the undead fighting his forces.

A hero and an apostle, locked together in the same gate. Fighting over who had the right to kill me.