With just the two of us, the world became oddly silent. The demons did not make any sound, and only the shaking earth announced their movements, and so in this moment, united by grief, silence descended on us... It was almost peaceful.
After a few seconds, Dara whispered, "Are we all going to die for nothing?"
Those words made me shiver, and I turned to her, and found that she was staring at my face with a strange look, as if she was expecting something from me. I shook my head, "No, we do not die for nothing."
Dara looked at me more deeply, and she nodded, "Good, I don’t know how that is possible, but the threads tell me you are telling the truth, and that is enough for me. I can die in peace."
She raised her hands, and her Threadwork around her arms unspooled, "I am no longer holding back, Elric," she sent the pale blue threads toward the oncoming demons, as she sent out waves of it, and they fell like rain.
Hundreds of Khaaz were bound by the threads, and they were struggling to escape, but they were simply packed tighter by the glistening threads. As if the threads had a mind of their own, they began to spread, weaving out like a gigantic net, and the bound demons reached a thousand, and the number was growing.
There was even Khaazim, who was struggling to tear through the web that Dara was creating.
I was stunned at what I was seeing, not because of the scale, but due to the limited amount of power I could feel in these threads. Dara was somehow binding all of these demons as an Acolyte.
Whatever Dara was doing, she was so efficient with manipulating these threads that I think not even Adepts would be able to.
"Now, Elric!"
Her voice drew me away from my head. I grabbed the ends of the thread on her hands, pulled it from her, and sent Lightning Cascade and Surge through it. The lightning found the bound Khaaz, and they died in waves.
Lightning Dominion bloomed from my body, and the arcs found the struggling Khaazim and began to fry them. As I focused three arcs on each Khaazim I could reach, burning through their armored scales until they could reach the fragile flesh underneath.
[Stored Essence: 18,745 → 26,320]
The Narghul Sorcerers flew through the haze of smoke from the burning demons below. Two of them. Two-horned, their red skin glowing. They raised their hands, and flame lances crossed the distance toward us.
I was about to grab Dara to dodge, but she stepped in front of me and raised her hands. Hundreds of threads emerged from both her hands and wove a lattice in front of her, and she caught the flame lances. The threads glowed red, then white, and the flame dissipated.
"How..." I began.
"I am a Blessed," she said, "My whole life. I’ve been hiding what I can do. Because if the Academy knew..." She coughed. Blood on her lips. "...they would have taken me apart. To see how I worked."
"I thought that mages could not acquire blessings from a god?"
"There’s no time to explain, but I was born with this blessing."
She raised her hands again. The Threadwork that had caught the flame was still intact and glowing from the heat. With a cry, she sent the lattice in the shape of a net toward the Narghul Sorcerers.
They tried to dodge, but it wrapped around one of the Sorcerers, and he screamed as Dara began to squeeze her fist, causing the burning thread to cut through the demon, and in a second, the demon collapsed into little flaming chunks.
"I am not strong enough to take that... thing apart, but Threadwork is not about tying things together," Dara said. "It’s about finding the places where things are already coming apart."
Then I looked again at the first Narghul Sorcerer and noticed that it had collapsed into its component pieces. Chitin, flesh, flame, shadow, all of it unravelled into a heap of smoking ruin.
The second Narghul Sorcerer, seeing what had happened, hissed and retreated into the darkness, and in the next moment, waves of demons in thousands began pouring towards us.
Dara’s hands glowed blue, the light travelled up her limbs into her chest, and with a cry that resounded for hundreds of meters, thousands of red glowing threads burst out of her body and fell onto the incoming demons.
She stretched out her hands, and all the ends of the threads moved towards both her palms, and she held them. I looked at the threads and saw that they were made from both Anima and what I suspected was her blood, as she was now incredibly pale.
"I can’t hold them," she gasped. "Elric, I can’t hold them, there are too many..."
"You don’t need to do it alone, I can..."
"Then help me hold it," she snarled, and threw me a bunch of threads.
I grabbed it, and I froze in place as I felt as if I had become a small part of a giant machine. The moment I grabbed hold of this spell, I lost control of my body and simply became a part of the spell.
I groaned in pain and struggled to move my body. Dara’s eyes widened in astonishment, "You can still move? Good, I cannot hold on much longer, and that thing is coming again, and it needs to die."
Dara was speaking about the second Narghul Sorcerer, and she stepped forward. Not knowing where I found the strength, I grabbed her hand.
"No, free me from this thread, I can kill it."
She looked at me, "I can’t hold on, Elric, you hold my threads, so see how I wield my blessing, that may be the only way you survive."
She smiled sadly, pulled free from my grip, and walked toward the Narghul Sorcerer.
"Remember this," she said. "Remember what I showed you. The places where things come apart."
"No, stop... I can fight. Hey! You!" I cried towards the hovering demon, "Look here, you ugly red bastard, I am your enemy."
The Narghul Sorcerer did not even look at me and sent another flame lance towards Dara. The flame lance struck her in the chest, and she did not raise her hands to catch it.
It tore through her body, and she fell, but her Threadwork did not fall; they erupted from her hands as if she had loaded them into a catapult and found the Narghul Sorcerer who did not have the time to scream before he was torn apart.
I felt how he died through the threads, but I was not focused on the demon, but on Dara, who no longer got up, and even without Storm Sense, I knew she was dead, and I was alone.