Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Chapter 460: Awirren and Tali

The Golden Dawn

A tendril reached up so high to catch the ship that Tali and Sig were standing on, she threw a technique to separate its bonds, and it did. Only for it to reform into a dozen smaller tendrils that stabbed forward so fast that she couldn't react fast enough. The roots pushed through the ship, impaling it, and she spread her wings, flying with Sig under arm, getting higher as she threw techniques to slow the monstrosity down.

It was a slaughter, Awirren's people were dying, and she could only see an ember of golden light through the squirming mass of roots that had churned the earth and exploded to the surface. Awirren's fire was spreading, but there was too many roots piling up on top of her.

"What do we do?" Tali asked, their plan was not to help, but wait for the moment Awirren was at her weakest to strike. Now, it looked like Awirren was in trouble. The Dome was too strong.

Sigmund signed, and Tali grimaced. Letting the Dome kill her might even be what was for the best. But she wanted to be the one to do it. To look her in the eyes and have her know that it was Tali who won in the end.

Sigmund stepped to the side, his flying disk array appearing out of his storage and she let him go then joined him on the construct. Standing on it, they looked down, caught in a moment of indecision.

Awirren's body burned through the pain. She felt her flesh pierced by tiny roots that burned even as they sought to push further into her body, she felt her bones cracking as giant roots tried to crush her.

She had stood triumphant in the sky, taking in the adulation of her people. Of all those who watched from afar, the spies and those who heard her name and dreamed of one day just breathing the same air as she did. And this wretched monster had dared to intrude on her moment, to taint and tarnish her image. All had seen her pulled back, all had seen her image tarnished. She was bleeding, even if she survived, if she prevailed, nothing would erase what was now burned in everyone's mind.

They had seen her weak, and that was unacceptable. The great burning fury bubbled out of the core of her being. Her Qi churned in her body, and the anger in her soul flowed right through. There was no thought after that, only action. Emotion overwhelming every pillar that she had crafted inside of her mind to keep control of herself. Impulses suppressed rose to the surface, and she reacted.

A piece of her Soul tore off, it passed through that intangible boundary between the body and the Soul, and it entered her core, and there it burned. All her anger, all her hate at the world, all her resentment, the disdain for all those lower than her.

Her Qi burned hotter, fueled by the Essence of her Soul. A River of Qi flowed through her body, her {Unbreakable Feathers} toughened her body. Her Soulfire Cloak ignited around her and the roots holding her burned. Ash and smoke filled the air as she blasted with her wings, breaking free in a display of golden and red fire. Her soul pained her flames in the color of anger and hate, the piece that she had used to fuel the power of her Qi beyond what it could ordinarily do. She hated that others would see this display, that her golden image would be tarnished by those red flames. But those thoughts were buried deep within her mind, not important at the moment. Only the fire was, only the glorious flame.

She spun as she took to the air, ripping the burning tendrils in the process, spreading ash and smoke in all directions.

She spread her wings and on pure instinct reached out with her Master of Soulfire grabbing hold of all the fire around her. With a primal reflection of her will, she shaped it in a raw attack. A technique outside of her body. She gathered her Qi and Essence of all types of Fire present,a thousand, then more and more small spheres of Essence gathered all around her in an instant, then they changed shape to resemble her feathers.

With a cry, she unleashed it. {Blast of Feathers} unleashed thousands of thousands of golden and red feathers in all directions beneath her.

They carved through the monster below, blowing holes in the roots that tried to reach up toward her, igniting them from within, cutting the smaller ones, and then hitting the mass below in an explosion of fire.

She could see it now through all the smoke and ash, through the dirt and the roots that rose all around her some attacking her forces, above her. The roots were spread all around her, in every direction, but their heart was below, beneath the now cracked earth. She saw her target, a gnarled trunk-like shape beneath the cracked ground, thick bark covered it, and roots grew out of it in all directions.

New growths appeared on the roots around her, firing thorns and acid sprays in Awirren's direction, but the fire around her protected her. Everything burned before it could touch her.

The Qi inside of her body shifted in a different pattern, and as new roots grew, as the monster tried to overwhelm her fire with pure mass and insane amount of roots trying to get at her.

{Field of Everburning Fire} blossomed out of her, incinerating everything around her in a ball of deadly heat. With the enough room, she reached deep within herself, and pulled the core of her being out.

Golden Dawn

The power of her Ideal had grown as the adoration of the world had filled her Soul. She had defended them, she had fought armies for them, or at least that was how it looked to all. It didn't matter to her, only their love did.

Her Ideal spilled out of her, and Essence of Soulfire was born above her. Golden fire, marred with the dark red of the deeper parts of her soul. It grew in size rapidly, its heat burning to cinders everything around it and her. She heard screams in the back of her mind, but she gave no heed to anything. There was no deep thought in her mind, only the desire to burn everything to ash. To show her terrible glory.

The sun grew until it filled the sky, and she raised her head in a haughty display of disdain for the monster under her. With her will, she reached out to the sun, and it answered. The fire streamed down as the sun's form collapsed. Like a river, the flames flowed, churning and shaping with her will, techniques were born buried deep within the surface of the river.

Roots pulled back, layering themselves over the core of the being beneath, attempting to protect it. It wouldn't matter in the end, nothing ever did before her.

Her fire fell, and everything burned. A while later, notifications pinged inside of her mind.

Anatalien watched as Awirren fought her way free, just a moment before she and Sigmund interfered. She was obviously injured, her golden feathers were ruffled, some pulled out or broken. Blood was spilling from her wounds and flowing over her Evolved Form, as resistant to the flames as she herself was.

"Now?" Anatalien asked, wondering if this was their chance, the opportunity to strike.

Sigmund raised his hand to sign, but her attention was drawn back to Awirren as she felt her Qi move. There was something there that caught her attention, something that she felt with her Soul. Awirren did something that Tali couldn't identify, but that felt so familiar to her. Like meaning of her Qi, the meaning of Soul. It felt cruder than what Ryun had been doing, what all of them were trying to do, but a moment later Awirren's fire changed. Dark red traces appeared amongst her golden flames, and Tali could feel an intense hate from her old friend.

She attacked with a renewed savagery, her technique ripping the roots apart. Then a field of fire around her burned everything else, and then it echoed in her mind, an Ideal being used.

A moment later, a golden and red sun appeared, and the screams started. Awirren was too far gone, the heat of her ideal burned her own warriors, killing the weaker ones near instantly. And then the sun grew and consumed those who couldn't get away.

"Now! Do it now!" She yelled over the roar of flames, as the sun fell apart and fell down on the Dome monster.

She felt Sigmund's will sharpen then spill out into the world around them. It was almost like a physical thing, enough so that she took a step back and nearly fell of the construct. She shook her head and prepared her techniques, activated all her items and got ready.

Sigmund's eyes were closed, and his arms spread wide as if he was grasping something. And he was, he took hold of the world and then spoke.

"WE ARE CONCEALED," his words were a whisper, but their power echoed against the very fabric of the Infinite Realm.

In the same breath, she felt the scrying abilities, the arrays and formations that were watching the fight, all go dark. Light around them bent and shimmered, preventing anyone from the outside to look in. With no eyes on them, Tali launched herself off the platform and headed straight down.

It was time.