I stood before the portal of blood, frustration building in my chest. The force pushing me back was not a spell that I recognized; it did not feel like a barrier, just sheer weight.
It was impossible to burn this weight or cut it to pieces; it almost felt like a Law that prevented anything from passing through this portal.
I looked around the hall, at the golden statues still holding their seals, and the barrier covering them still flickering with the last of the Jade Oracle’s vitality.
Despite killing everyone here, the blood was still flowing, and I looked at the constructs that were waiting to harvest the Celestial Essence; their rings were spinning, and their inward-pointing arms were aimed at the seals, as if they were patiently waiting for the barrier to fall and the harvest to begin.
I sneered as I walked toward the nearest construct. If I could not go through the portal, then could I not break these machines?
It was a machine of dark metal, floating rings within rings, humming with a low, hungry vibration. As I got closer to the machine, I could feel the Anima in my channels begin to resonate with them, and I forcefully broke this bond.
Then I realized that these machines were not just waiting for the barrier to fall. Even as this barrier was being poisoned by blood, they were also pulling on the essence that was packed inside the barrier, accelerating its destruction.
If I had gone to the top of the pyramid and taken the place of the Jade Oracle, would the Celestial Essence now flowing inside me become the fuel for this shield?
My Anima Depth could endlessly regenerate Anima, and after the infusion of the Celestial Essence and the transformation of my Anima Depth, what I regenerated inside me could no longer be called Anima and was closer to Celestial Essence.
This was one reason why spells hit with that much oomph, and I could fight across levels.
I reached out and touched the nearest one, and the moment I touched it, I felt the thing I felt from the flavor of demon-craft hidden inside the human machine.
My suspicions were confirmed; the Conclave did not build these alone. Something demonic taught them the method, and that confirms that the Conclave was a partner to the demons.
Were the Conclave foolish enough to align with a corrupted power like the demons without fearing for the sanctity of this alliance?
How strong was a Sovereign, or specifically the Sovereign of the Stars, that he would play these terrible games with the demons?
I shook my head. None of this concerned me. All I knew was that the Conclave had failed its purpose, and I would judge them all.
I do not use lightning to destroy the machines; they were too close to the barrier, and I do not know what a stray bolt may do to it.
Both of my hands expanded until they became very massive as I used Titan’s Marrow, while also covering my palms with the silver fire of the Soul Forge.
My massive hand began to press the machine, folding the rings, snapping the arms, and where the metal resisted, I burned just that part with Soul Flame, the silver fire eating the corruption out of the steel, and as Soul-Forge blazed, the machine unraveled under my grasp.
The rings collapsed, the arms folded, the core crumbled to dust, and the irritating hum became silent. I saw that the orb above the golden statue glowed brighter.
I moved to the next construct. Then the next. Then the next.
The constructs fell apart under my hands, one after another. As I took apart these machines, I was aware that there were countless tiny pieces of it that were ridiculously complex, runes, and so many other magical pieces that I did not understand.
I doubted these machines had been easy to create by the Conclave, and for such delicately refined machines like this, years, if not decades, would have gone into producing it. I destroyed all of them in minutes.
I take my time. There is no one left to fight.
∞
When the last construct crumbled, I stood in the centre of the hall, surrounded by the ruins of the Conclave’s work. I looked at the portal of blood. The waterfall was still rising, gallons of innocent blood pouring from the void and climbing toward the darkness above.
I raised my hand, silver fire curling around my fingers.
"I can’t go through," I said. "But I can burn."
The blood coming from the portal was what killed the Jade Oracle, and if I stop the blood from reaching her, then she would live. I refuse to believe that I could not hold on longer than the Conclave, as the blood they were using was a finite resource, and if I hold on for as long as possible, then it was possible that I would succeed in this World Quest and stop the Pale Matron from rising.
With a loud whoosh, the silver flame leaped from my hand and struck the waterfall of blood, and it began to burn it. The blood evaporated like the way a candle flame consumes wax.
As I burned, the screams of the dead that were a faint whisper at the edge of my perception began to grow louder. I flinched, but I did not stop, and as more of the blood was disintegrated by the flames, I could feel the threads of souls inside the blood fading away as well.
I realized with horror that someone had fused the souls of the dead to their blood, and only now that I burned the blood were these souls fading away to a place I could not see.
However, even though I could not see the destination of the souls, as time went on, I began to see the souls. Not all of it, fragments, the way you catch a face in a crowd.
I saw a woman’s hands kneading dough in a kitchen that no longer exists. A child running down a row of something green, laughing, looking back over his shoulder for someone following. An old man’s last clear thought, which was a name, said once, gently.
I did not know I was crying as I felt these souls pass through my flames, and soon the memories come off the souls as I burn them free, just for an instant each, a life flashing as it lets go... and I take each one, because someone should.
The Conclave used these people as a murder weapon, and the least I can do is see them before they go. I free a hundred souls, and I see a hundred lives end, and I carry them, the way I carry everything now.
It is the only thing that makes the hour bearable. Oh, and the fox, it made the time I spent burning the blood bearable. I really should think of a name for the little critter.