Chapter 39: Lyra

Lyra moved past Karl toward Armando while Seraphine remained several steps behind them, her staff planted against the ground as more golden threads gathered around her.

Atherion watched Lyra carefully before glancing toward Karl.

"You are seriously letting her do this?"

Karl kept the Death Stick raised.

"I don’t trust her either, just watch."

Another wave of undead rushed forward and joined Leon and Mira around Armando, giving Lyra enough space to approach without immediately being caught in the fighting.

"Master!"

Armando ignored her totally as Leon attacked from the front while Atherion came from his right, but Armando stopped Atherion’s sword with telekinesis and caught Leon by the wrist before throwing him into the debris.

Lyra called again.

"Master, look at me!"

Armando finally did but the moment their eyes met properly, Lyra slowed.

His face was younger now, almost the same as the man she remembered from decades ago, yet the eyes looking back at her carried almost none of him.

The hatred she had sensed earlier had become much stronger after the Divine Flame entered his body, while the Sovereign’s presence continued mixing into it.

Armando raised one hand and a burning chain shot toward her.

One of Karl’s skeletal beasts slammed into Lyra from the side before the chain pierced the street where she had been standing.

Karl looked toward her irritably.

"This isn’t how you’re planning to stop him, is it?"

Lyra pushed herself upright and stared at Armando again.

"I can see that myself."

Whatever hesitation remained on her face disappeared.

She placed one hand against the centre of her chest and dug her claws into the skin and something inside her broke.

Lyra’s body convulsed as blood ran from her nose and mouth and the aura around her rose so sharply that even Karl felt the pressure from several metres away.

Seraphine briefly glanced over while continuing her preparation.

"She destroyed the limiter on her bloodline."

Reddish-white fur spread across Lyra’s shoulders, forearms and legs while her ears lengthened and her claws became sharper.

The first tail emerged behind her through a burst of crimson light, followed quickly by another until nine large tails moved around her.

Her body remained mostly human, though the fox traits had become far stronger than before.

Crimson markings spread across her skin and through the fur while the pain slowly disappeared from her face.

Armando watched the entire change.

"You dare go against your master and break what he placed?"

Lyra said nothing two tails struck the ground behind her and launched her forward while another three swept aside the burning chains coming toward her.

Armando stopped one tail with telekinesis, but Lyra twisted with the pull instead of resisting it and came toward him from the side.

Her claws struck his forearm but Armando pushed her away before the second attack could land, but Lyra landed on one hand and immediately rushed back into the fight.

Leon came from the opposite direction.

Armando caught his axe, but one of Lyra’s tails wrapped around his arm before he could throw Leon away.

Armando released Leon and forced both of them backward with a burst of telekinesis, only for Lyra to jump through it and slash toward his chest.

Her claws stopped several inches away and Armando looked directly at her.

Lyra’s forehead suddenly lit up and a thin crimson beam erupted from between her brows and struck Armando in the centre of his forehead.

Both of them froze, Lyra’s body remained suspended several feet above the ground, her nine tails spread behind her while the crimson markings across her body pulsed in the same rhythm as the light connecting them.

Karl frowned.

"What did she do?"

Seraphine looked toward the connection for a moment.

"The soul pact between them, she’s entered through it."

Armando’s fingers twitched and then his body moved again.

A golden chain tore through several undead while telekinesis sent Atherion sliding across the street.

Lyra remained completely still in the air.

Karl looked from her to Armando.

"She’s inside his mind while he’s still fighting?"

Karl clicked his tongue and sent more undead forward.

---

Lyra entered expecting Armando’s consciousness, what she found almost forced her back out.

Darkness stretched around her with no clear end, filled with resentment so dense that every step through it dragged unfamiliar memories against her mind.

Human Alliance soldiers surrounded Armando in one memory.

Researchers argued with him in another, while faces she did not recognise appeared again and again beneath anger that had been accumulating for nearly a century.

Golden light flowed through all of it.

At first it appeared only in thin streams, but the deeper Lyra went, the more of it she found moving through the darkness.

She forced herself onward and then she saw him.

Armando sat alone upon a black rock in the middle of everything.

His head was lowered and his body already carried a faint golden glow, while streams of light continued entering him from the darkness around them.

Lyra stopped several steps away and for a moment, she remembered someone completely different.

She had been three years old when Armando found her.

A starving orphan lying beside a street wall with nowhere left to go.

He had brought her home, fed her and kept her there long after she was healthy enough to leave.

She remembered sitting beside him while he worked because she refused to sleep alone.

She remembered learning to read from his books and following him through the laboratory until he finally gave up trying to send her away.

Years later, when his experiments changed her into a Beast Human, he had been the one who kept her alive through every failure.

The limiter she had just destroyed had been placed by his own hands.

Master.

Armando’s head moved slightly and the golden light flowing into him increased.

Outside, his hand suddenly went to his forehead.

Leon immediately tried taking advantage of it, but Armando still caught his axe with one hand and threw him down into the debris.

Karl sent several undead toward his back while Mira emerged from a nearby shadow.

Armando pushed them all away without looking.

Inside, Lyra continued toward him.

Master, look at me.

Armando slowly raised his head.

For barely a moment, his eyes looked normal but then the darkness around the rock moved.

Hatred rushed toward Lyra while the golden streams entering Armando’s body became thicker.

His voice reached her through the connection.

Get out.

The force behind the words struck her soul directly.

Lyra staggered but remained inside.

Outside, Armando clutched his head again.

His next chain missed Atherion by several feet and tore through the remains of a building instead.

Karl noticed immediately.

"Keep attacking!"

Hundreds of undead pushed forward while Leon and Mira returned from opposite sides.

Armando still kept them away, but his movements had lost some of their earlier ease.

Inside, Lyra reached the black rock, you took me in when nobody else would master.

Armando’s expression tightened.

You are not this master you must stop.

Another wave of darkness struck her and cracks spread through Lyra’s consciousness, but she forced herself to stay beside him.

Armando looked at her and for a moment his lips trembled but then the golden light covering his body surged.

Outside, his eyes snapped toward Lyra’s suspended body.

Telekinesis seized her before Karl could react and dragged her through the air toward him.

"Lyra!"

Karl sent several undead between them, but Armando crushed them aside and caught Lyra by the throat.

Her physical body still did not move.

Inside the connection, Armando stood from the black rock.

The darkness around him rushed into his body while the Sovereign’s golden light spread farther across his skin.

I told you to leave.

Inside the soul realm, Armando struck her before she could reach him again.

The force tore straight through Lyra’s consciousness and threw her out of the connection.

At the same moment, Armando’s awareness was dragged back into his own body as well.

Lyra’s eyes opened, Armando was already in front of her.

A golden blade formed in his hand and pierced straight through her chest before anyone could interfere.

Lyra’s body jerked against it blood ran down the blade while another stream spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Their eyes met and the golden light filling Armando’s eyes receded for a moment as his natural brown pupils appeared.

Armando looked at the blood covering his hand and then at her.

"Lyra...?"

Lyra’s breathing had already become weak, but when she heard it, the tension in her face finally eased.

"There you are..."

The gold had already begun returning to Armando’s eyes but Lyra did not give it the chance.

All nine tails wrapped around his body at once while the crimson markings across her skin flared brightly, forcing the soul pact between them to tighten again.

Armando tried moving, but his body remained locked in place.

Lyra could barely keep herself standing now, yet she held every tail around him and turned her eyes toward Karl.

"Karl..."

Karl immediately turned.

"Seraphine!"

Seraphine opened her eyes and the golden threads she had been gathering throughout the battle rushed into the sky and disappeared above the clouds.

A moment later, the entire golden city brightened.

An enormous sword began taking shape overhead.

It continued forming until the blade stretched across the sky above the ruined district, covered in golden patterns while Seraphine held the staff with both hands below it.

Leon looked upward from the debris.

"What the hell..."

Seraphine brought the staff down and the sword followed.

Armando looked upward while Lyra continued holding him in place.

The golden light was already returning to his eyes, but he could not break the connection before the sword reached them.

The impact swallowed the entire district.

Karl recalled as many undead as he could before the shockwave struck, while Balder raised his shield and Atherion pulled the remaining Fitzalans behind him.

The street collapsed beneath the attack.

Buildings around the tower ruins broke apart as golden light and debris swept through the surrounding area, throwing Karl across the ground.

When the light finally weakened, he forced himself back up.

Seraphine remained leaning against her staff while Karl, Mira and Atherion looked toward the centre of the impact.

The dust slowly cleared and Armando was still standing without even a single scratch on his body.

[Descent:90%]