I remembered the impossible requirements that the Jade Oracle gave me: to have a body powerful enough to bear the burden of imprisoning an immortal demon inside the earth, to prevent her from escaping.
The reason the Conclave could wear down the seals was that they poisoned the Jade Oracle to death, and so, to stop them, I had to replace her. She had all but stated this plainly, and I accepted this burden. If that is what it meant to keep my family safe, I would protect this pyramid for as long as I lived... even if it meant I never saw the morning sun again.
Whatever brief flash of happiness that filled my body after I acquired a new Unique Skill was pushed down under as I prepared for what the future might hold for me.
I was getting so close to the end now, and knowing a glimpse of what was to come, I could not help but shudder.
Looking around me, there was nothing but the sand and the pyramid, and I had never felt so alone.
I held my staff close to my body as I played with the charms on top of it, waiting for the demons to come.
[ Stored Essence: 0 / 500,000 — Fifth Earth Gate ]
∞
The red sky opened, and fissures split the earth. The Khaaz poured out like a flood, and hanging my staff behind me, I met them with the Loom and the Edict and the Tribunal... and they died.
This was the eleventh loop since I first met Vrakth. The eleventh morning I had woken to Mel’s voice, killed Orath and Rel and Rex, sent the Adepts west, and settled into the crater to wait for the demons.
The eleventh time I had fed on two-horned Narghul Sorcerers and grown my channels and pushed my essence count toward a gate that demanded more than I had ever given.
The rhythm of it was almost comfortable now. The Loom unspooled from my fingers, silver-white threads cutting through the Khaaz like a scythe through wheat, and as the two-horned Sorcerers descended from the clouds, I harvested them one by one, pressing their crystals and their cubes and their flame into my chest.
[Cor Telluris — Channels Grown: 7,800 → 7,850 → 7,900]
The number climbed slowly; the closer I got to completion, the more my channels demanded, and I gave them. My body tore through the sky and impacted against the ground like a lightning bomb as I reaped lives in their thousands.
About two thousand channels remained. A hundred two-horned Narghul Sorcerers, perhaps, a hundred more deaths to feed the shell.
I could do that. I had done worse.
The Khaazim tried to interfere. I swept them aside with the Loom, threads of lightning cutting through their armoured bodies. In my hands, the threads were like a thousand sharp blades, and their defenses were trivial before their edges.
My hunt was for the Sorcerers, and everything else was simply a distraction... but these distractions fed my path to the Fifth Earth Gate, even if it was becoming more difficult to fill it.
[Stored Essence: 178 → 180/ 500,000]
[Anima Depth: 89 (Adept) — Crystallization: 14% → 15%]
As I fought, the grain in the center of my Anima Depth was growing. It was slow, but as I pulled power from my Anima Depth, and new Anima was regenerated, some of that Anima flowed into the grain, and it became deeper.
I was pacing myself, not truly pushing because I knew that Vrakth would soon be coming, and I needed to face this demon at his peak.
Three two-horned Narghul Sorcerers suddenly dropped from the sky, surrounding me. I killed them in seconds... a thread of Tribulation lightning pierced through the forehead of the first one, burning his soul to ash, my left hand already turning toward the second before the first hits the ground, and the Soul forge opens in my chest as I sent out a wave of silver flame that reduced him to a crystal, cube, and flame essence, and they were drawn into my body.
The third one I don’t even look at; the threads of my Loom take it off my flank while my eyes are on the sky, because the sky is changing.
The lesser demons stop. Ten thousand Khaaz drop flat at once, tendrils pressed to their skulls, and the red clouds part, and Vrakth comes down.
He doesn’t hurry; it was one of the things that I had noticed about him. He never hurries, not even when I was slaughtering dozens of his coven. He settles onto the corpse-field forty metres off and folds the dark behind his head into the crown, and his six eyes find me, and he breathes in slowly through a mouth full of teeth.
"You smell of stars and blood, little one." His voice arrives in my chest, not in my ears. "You have killed so much of my Coven. Kneel, and I will make it quick."
"Hello, Vrakth," I say.
He tilts his head, and I could almost smell his surprise, "You know me, little one?"
I looked up into the red sky. I knew in the distance there must be other three-horned Sorcerers out there in the red sky, and if more seals are loosened, greater monsters would rise.
"You watched me kill your Coven, tell me, Vrakth." I pointed at the sky. "Will they watch me kill you?"
The demon grinned, and I smiled... I don’t know why I found his smile to be somewhat compelling; maybe it’s because, in some ways, I have spent more time with this demon than I have ever done with anyone in this loop, and I knew more of his expressions and thoughts than he would ever believe.
He stamped one foot to the ground, and it cracked for dozens of meters. "If you can kill me, they would not touch you."
His crown expanded as a wave of flame arose around him. The demon knew I was not afraid of him, and Vrakth did not know the reason for this, but this made him more careful... I would not be able to surprise him again easily.
Good, this was what I wanted. I did not want my true final fight against him to be won dishonorably.
"Fight me with everything you have, Vrakth."
The smile I gave now was more true, and I attacked.