Chapter 441: What Is This?

The warband moved towards the tunnel, and I watched them go until the darkness swallowed them whole. Then I turned back toward the altar.

The Minor God was kneeling before the seated figure, his arms outstretched as if he was beseeching its grace, and I noticed that his fingers were black and curved, like talons.

He had not noticed the warband yet, but that would soon change, and so hidden among the bodies, I began to walk towards him.

The first sound of conflict came from the tunnel mouth and I turned to see Ruggah put the glaive through two men who must have seen them. He twisted the glaive before sweeping it to the side, ripping the two men into four large screaming pieces, and the silence was banished.

∞

The warband could no longer be hidden after this commotion and they did not hold back, as they tore their way through the men in front of them, using the advantage of surprise and their weapons.

I was a bit surprised that it was Thurrim that became the vanguard, but I was convinced when the dwarf became an avalanche of blood and flesh, as every soldier that came at him from the tunnel found an axe that had been forged by a god and a very short man who had been waiting his entire life for moments like this.

His swings cut men in two, disregarding armor and any resistance they brought up, and he rushed through their steaming guts, followed closely by the warband behind him.

"COME ON THEN," he roared. "COME ON, YOU BASTARDS, THERE IS A QUEUE TO THE AFTERLIFE AND I AM YOUR DELIVERER."

Ogg came in behind him and grabbed men out of the press and threw them backwards into their own ranks, three and four at a time, and the tunnel began to clog with people trying to get up off their comrades, and this gave the warband the opportunity to tear through them.

Ines came from behind them, ensuring that any who were foolish enough to pursue had an arrow in their eye.

∞

The son of the Naga stopped praying to the masked figure and he straightened up and turned towards the tunnel. His tongue came out once, and I saw his shoulders settle in a way that made my stomach drop, because I knew the shape of interest.

Walking away from the seated figure, he watched the fighting in the tunnels with keen interest, his focus I think was mostly on the weapons being used by the warband, and then he raised one hand, palm out, towards the warband pushing their way through the tunnel, and I felt the chamber change, as the green light bent towards that hand. The air went thin, and somewhere in the middle of my chest something began to ache in a way I had not felt since the pillars.

How ruthless. If my senses were feeding me the right information, he was going to unmake them and all the other soldiers around them. I knew this particular disregard for life, whether for enemies or allies, and I sighed and walked towards the seated figure.

I made no effort to reveal my presence, and the god was focused on the warband, and he did not see me, even when I stood behind him. I turned away from him to look at the figure that he was worshipping... my senses were keen enough that I would be able to tell the moment he unleashed the attack that would wipe out most of the life in that tunnel.

Up close, the masked figure was even more unsettling. It sat motionless, its hands cradling the crystal, its blank white face staring at nothing. I could not feel any life from it, and its blue skin was as cold as ice... Looking at this figure more closely, it felt more like a vessel waiting to be filled.

I rubbed my chin in thought as I looked at the crystal filled with so much lifeforce, and recalled the small portion of this same lifeforce hidden inside the bodies of every corpse here, and I wondered what sort of unholy workings were going on here.

Behind me, I felt the pressure from the god reach its peak, so I reached out and tapped the crystal the figure held.

"Tap... Tap."

The motion had felt effortless, but there was a pressure surrounding the crystal that made it feel as if I was pushing my fingers through wet wood. My eyes widened a bit when I realized that this pressure was not a ward, just the sheer pressure from the lifeforce contained inside the crystal. I could not even begin to imagine how many people had to die to contain all of this power inside this crystal.

"What is this?" I murmured.

Behind me, the power that was about to erupt became silent, and slowly, very slowly, that hand about to unleash death came down, and his head came round to face me without his body moving.

Unblinking, slit-pupiled yellow eyes found me standing at the altar with my hand over the crystal, and seeing his attention on me, I smiled and tapped it again, as I asked him.

"What sort of material can hold lifeforce? I always thought that the essence of life must be tied to an individual soul, but clearly I was wrong."

∞

"Do not misunderstand me," I said, tapping it for the third time. "I am genuinely asking. I have found nothing at all about this chamber that makes sense. Why keep millions of bodies here with the residue of life still in them? I cannot work out whether the crystal is the focus or if it is the residue, and it has been bothering me for hours."

He did not answer, but his tongue came out, tasting the air, and went back in.

"You are Broken," he hissed.

I sniffed. "You know, you are the second god who called me that. The first one gets a pass, not you... I hate your eyes, it’s just something about those shades of yellow."

"You are not anything." His body turned in an eerie manner as if he did not have bones. "No god has touched you, and you should not be able to stand there."

"Hmm, interesting, and yet..." I tapped the crystal a fourth time, pushing through that strange pressure.

The serpent-kin laughed. It was a cold, hissing sound. "You are bold for a mortal. I will give you that. But boldness is not power."

"Bold? You do not know the meaning of that word... not really." I laughed, grabbed the crystal with both hands, and pulled it from whatever was holding it.

The eyes of the god widened for a moment in disbelief, and that was replaced by fury so pure that it nearly made me speechless.

He lunged towards me, and I was already moving, my body responding before my mind caught up. I dodged to the side, the crystal clutched against my chest, and the Minor God’s clawed hand passed through the space where I had been standing.

"Give it to me!" he screamed. "You do not understand what you are holding!"