The web of electricity bounding Rel and Orath was making zapping noises as Rel tried to force her way out. Her effort only led to injuries, and she stopped when her body began to smoke.
Seeing the way I was effortlessly dragging two Adepts closer to me, the three Adepts behind me took a step back, and I could feel more powerful spells beginning to bloom around them; they were a single trigger pull from unleashing their might upon me.
Was there any way that I could have resolved this situation better? Yes, but at the moment, I could not find the energy to cultivate interpersonal relationships.
Killing Rex was simply a way for me to fully ensure that Orath did not play any sneaky games with him that I could not anticipate... he was far too calm in this situation.
Orath was not struggling. He simply watched me with cold, calculating eyes, his face a mask of scholarly calm that had fooled me, and I am sure a lot of people before now. I deposited them a few feet in front of me.
"You’re making a mistake, Voss," Rel spoke, her voice a bit tight from the pain of being shocked repeatedly. "You don’t understand what you’re interfering with."
"I understand enough," I said, then glanced at the Adepts behind me, " You’ve been draining their power since the day we arrived for the Ascension Ritual, and even after I kill Rex, in less than three hours, this camp is going to be overrun by demons. Is there anything that I missed?"
The Adepts behind me stirred. Torvin’s staff wavered.
"Demons?" Fenara said. "What demons?"
"The ones that are going to pour out of the earth when the ritual completes." I nodded toward the black facade. "The Conclave of Ysmar has been inside for centuries. They’ve been breaking seals, weakening the structure. And today, the last seal falls. When it does, the things that have been locked inside for ten thousand years are going to come out."
"That’s impossible," Varis said. "The pyramid is sealed. No one has ever..."
"You have seen me pull out the stakes, draining essence in the air," I interrupted. "With my powers, why would I lie to you? War is here, and you are in the center of one of its eruptions." I looked at Orath. "Isn’t that right, Scholar?"
Orath’s eyes flickered, and the way he looked at me changed, from cold and calculating to something that was getting closer to fervor and worship, "That light under your skin... You smell like stars and blood. You have surely tasted of the Harvest, why do you now choose to deny me what is my due... Have I not paid enough in blood and sacrifice to stand when the Harvest is ready?"
I cocked my head to the side, understanding that somehow Orath could feel my Celestial Essence or that my Anima was different, which I should have expected because I believe that, unlike the rest here, Orath must have seen Celestial Essence.
There could be more to be learned from them, but maybe in another loop; right now, the way he was looking at me filled me with disgust, and even Rel’s eyes had changed, beginning to be filled with something like hope.
Her eyes were still bright when her head rolled away from her shoulders. Her body oddly stood in place and did not fall. Her head had been sliced so cleanly that no pressure had been exerted on her body, and with the body of an Adept, if she was not pushed, then her dead body would remain standing until her body structure began to change as it decays.
She had injured herself against my web, and lightning essence had penetrated deep into her body, and as she was this close to me, it was easy to transform that lightning essence into threads and slice off her head before she realized what had happened.
The other Adepts had not even fully realized what had happened, when I turned to Orath, but I did not see any fear in his eyes, and I did not kill him, but I sent forth my senses to touch his body, and my theory in the past was confirmed, Orath here was just a shell, just like Rex, and his real body was most likely somewhere else.
"You are not afraid of death, are you?" I said to Orath, "Because you are not truly dying... your true body, where is it?"
Orath’s eyes widened in shock. He looked at the body of Rel and then at me, and then he grinned. "We all play with the tricks our talents give us. You have your lightning, and I have my bodies."
Looking at his smug face, I smiled when I recalled something Orath had blurted out when his consciousness and Rex’s had been fused from touching the edge of my tribulation lightning.
"They swore it would not sing, that the heavens would not hear. Why can I not leave this shell..."
His first words were gibberish, but at the end, he had said what was important: he could not leave the broken body of Rex, as if enduring a part of my tribulation had fused his soul to this dying body.
I smiled, and the golden glow in my eyes brightened, and I began to touch the edge of my new spell, as I felt my channel beginning to creak, and the golden glow under my skin could no longer be hidden.
For a normal Adept, this spell was meant to call tribulation lightning from the heavens; it was devastating and would probably drain them to nothing, but like I was doing with Lightning Edict and the Loom, I was not choosing to wield this spell the way a normal Adept would; instead, I was commanding it.
Golden lightning began to snake down my body, and the sky grew dark, and the smirk on Orath’s face vanished before it was replaced by sheer horror.
I sensed the three Adepts behind me stumbling back in shock, and they would have collapsed if they had not supported each other.
The camp began to shake as lightning and thunder rumbled, as if my presence was changing the sky.
"You... you... you..." Orath could not make a single coherent sentence, and his eyes kept widening as I brought my hands, which were being covered with more golden lightning, towards his face.
I saw that he was struggling; he wanted to move, but something about this lightning held him in place, like a deer transfixed at the sight of a thunderstorm.
My hands had not even reached his face when the heat from them made his white hair begin to smoke and curl.
"Orath, I really want to see you escape from me."
And he may not know this, but I was serious... I truly wanted to understand how he could jump across bodies.