870 - Better Off Dead
Something was wrong.
Flicking a claw out, Lex surveyed the battlefield even as he tore open the throat of another of Kryonex’s minions, a white-scaled bipedal lizard wielding an oversized icicle as a club. A single swipe of his tail was all it took to send the dying creature into the path of a snow serpent twice as large as himself, the thing’s momentum arrested. Lex paused just long enough to raise a spike of black crystal from the ground – impaling a six-foot long beetle that radiated frost like a firefly did light, the bug making a loud screech as its legs kicked helplessly – before blasting a hole directly through the serpent with dark magic.
And all the while, more creatures poured through the portal, eager to fight and die for their god.
That shouldn’t have been the case, Lex knew. Not with how he’d been fighting for hours now, slaying thousands of monsters without rest. There already mountains of corpses littering the valley, all of the snow in the area having been dyed in blood; yet not so much as one of the creatures he’d been slaughtering had evidenced the slightest hesitation in throwing their life away.
It was one thing to see such a profound lack of survival instinct in ghouls. Those creatures had already been dead, their minds warped by the negative energy animating them. But Kryonex’s minions were, without exception, among the living. Each time one of them threw itself into the fray, despite having to know that all it would accomplish was to waste its life, Lex grew more and more suspicious of what was driving them.
Nor was their behavior the only thing that was unusual, as by his estimation their numbers should have tapered off some time ago.
Between what Nenet had told him, and what he’d been able to scan of Adagio’s thoughts, the reason Kryonex had been late in pursuing the Siren was because he’d needed to collect more minions. That was because Adagio’s children had slain most – if not all – of the ones they’d encountered within the demigod’s realm. But therein lay the issue.
Everything he’d seen of Adagio’s hideout here suggested that she couldn’t have had more than a few dozen children at the absolute most. There simply wasn’t enough space, or provisions, to account for anything more than that. Yet that had apparently been enough to lay a successful siege to a demigod’s realm. Even if each of Adagio’s children had been powerful warriors beyond what even Sissel had been capable of, Lex couldn’t imagine them defeating a force of more than a few hundred.
Yet now Kryonex was fielding an army far larger than that.
The discrepancy was one that had become more and more blatant as the endless waves of monsters had come through the portal. While it made sense that – notwithstanding the souls of those who’d worshiped him in life – Kryonex would only allow for his realm to be populated by his strongest and most capable agents in order to shore up his power base, his having few enough of those that Adagio had been able to overcome them all, but having so many weaker minions that he could afford to throw them away like this wasn’t something Lex could reconcile.
Especially since gods needed worship to survive. With his realm having been invaded, his prestige marred, and a piece of his own divinity stolen, was Kryonex really in a position to discard so many of his faithful?
Something was wrong, which was why Lex had been scanning the battlefield using every esoteric awareness and supernatural sense he could think of.
And as a titan, he could think of a great many indeed.
But actually looking for something to explain what was happening wasn’t easy when he had no idea what he was looking for. Particularly when he needed to keep a considerable portion of his awareness on the battle, focusing on both the present and immediate future as he kept track of each and every creature around him, the terrain, the weather, the portal, Nenet’s position and status, and how best to respond to each and every such factor with the physical and magical resources at his disposal, without utilizing anything that couldn’t be renewed-
OV-...-MY...-ST...
The sudden perception of something he hadn’t been aware of before almost caused Lex to take a hit, his horn flaring as he telekinetically caught four things that looked like flying manta rays – each with two eel heads and a long whiplike tail – barely an inch from his face. Distractedly waving his flame cloak so that it ignited all four of them, Lex flung their burning bodies among their fellows as he focused more on what he’d just picked up.
As well as on the fact that he hadn’t foreseen his detecting that ahead of time.
Focusing on what he’d momentarily picked up, Lex paid only the minimal amount of attention to the monsters around him. Whatever he’d just stumbled across had been coming from Kryonex himself; that much was obvious. But exactly what the god was doing was less clear. That hadn’t been a magical emanation, instead seeming closer to a numinous gradient, but at the same time unlike one; those forces were akin to urges, which creatures could act upon or not depending on their personal nature and self-control. For a god to use something like that...
Suddenly, he knew exactly what it was.
Cursing inwardly, Lex adjusted his mystic senses, calibrating them just so-
OVERWHELM MY ENEMY. DEFEAT HIM NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. THE ONLY EXCUSE FOR FAILURE I WILL ACCEPT IS DEATH.
The next creature bearing down on Lex could have been a human woman, having pale skin and blue hair so dark it was almost black, clad in a robe and sash. She had literally flung herself at him, hands outstretched as if to grab him, a blue glow of weak cryomancy gathered in her palms. It was a feeble attack, one that had no hope of harming him even if she’d tried it a thousand times, and with her near-total lack of defense he could have slain her in a hundred different ways.
Instead, he caught her by the wrist and flung her away, this time avoiding tossing her into any of her fellows, instead letting her land harmlessly in a nearby snowdrift. He did much the same to the hydra that bore down on him a moment later, stepping between its snapping jaws and delivering a kick – making sure to keep his talons and the flames surrounding him from touching its flesh – which sent it skidding across the blood-strewn ground, stunned but alive. Another serpent – this one with a human-like face – was similarly spared, a sudden protrusion of black crystals from the mountainside it was slithering across sending it tumbling down the slope.
It was the same with each subsequent enemy, as Lex made sure to attack it only with nonlethal means, leaving them unconscious, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to continue fighting.
And all the while, he cursed himself for his shortsightedness.
How could I not have realized this?!
As a mortal, such a failure of imagination would have been embarrassing. As a titan, it was utterly inexcusable. All of the clues had been there. The number of enemies. Their unwavering fanaticism in the face of certain death. And most telling of all, his sensing that bringing Solvei with him would have been a disaster. And he still hadn’t realized what was happening before now!
The Night Mare was a goddess of, among other things, supernatural beasts; it was in that regard that she had given him the Charismata, imbuing him with authority over such creatures.
He should have expected that Kryonex would have a similar power over beings of intrinsic cold.
RECOVER WHAT WAS TAKEN FROM ME. LET NOTHING STOP YOU. NO RETREAT OR REST OR RECOVERY. ONLY VICTORY IS ALLOWED.
Lex grit his teeth, now aware of the divine message coming from the demigod, knowing that the creatures facing him were completely unable to resist it. Even their thoughts were affected, overwhelmed with a desire to obey Kryonex’s commands, completely bent to his will.
Adagio had been wrong. Kryonex hadn’t been gathering up his scattered worshipers; he’d been dragooning creatures from across the Plane of Ice, using his power over them to draft them into his service so that he could launch an attack without losing more of his faithful! With no other god on the Plane of Ice – and these creatures apparently belonging to no other religion – there was nothing the creatures of that plane could do except obey Kryonex’s orders...and die at his claws, victims who weren’t responsible for their actions.
“If you’ve stopped killing them, you must have figured it out.”
Standing by the portal, the massive, misshapen spider that was Kryonex spoke for the first time in hours, pedipalps twitching as it suddenly closed the gateway. “A pity. I collected quite a few more, and was hoping to deploy them all against you. But I suppose this will have to do.”
Sending a pack of sabertoothed cats that shed snowflakes flying back with a wave of his foreleg, Lex glared at the demigod. “You abducted innocent creatures, forced them to fight for you, and your only regret is that you couldn’t slaughter more of them?!”
Kryonex’s blue eyes grew a shade lighter. “‘Innocent’? None of them worshiped me; that makes them guilty of apostasy. That they should lose their lives working my will is penance.”
“Carnage is not penance.” Rising up into the air, Lex deftly avoided several flying enemies, sending a massive bird made out of ice spiraling down to land roughly among the throng below. “That you think it is marks you as unfit to claim the mantle of divinity.”
“It was you who slaughtered them, not me,” retorted Kryonex easily. “But if it bothers you, take heart. They did not die in vain; nor will the rest.”
Lex didn’t have a chance to ponder what that meant before the demigod’s influence reached out again, this time with new orders.
DIE FOR ME. KILL YOURSELVES. SLAY EACH OTHER. LAY DOWN YOUR LIVES SO THAT I MIGHT HAVE THAT WHICH I DESIRE.
“NO!” roared Lex, turning downward as the monsters fell upon each other with all of the ferocity that they’d shown toward him only a moment earlier. Immediately, he pulled out Belligerence, intent on laying a spell over the area that would stop the remaining creatures from dying pointlessly-
But before he had a chance, Kryonex opened up another portal.
Unlike the previous gateway, which had shown a driving snowscape on its other side, this one was utterly black. Dark and freestanding, dozens of feet in diameter, nothing emerged from it. To all appearances it simply hung there, a silent circle of darkness that affected nothing.
Lex knew better.
To him, the negative energy leaking out of the portal was nothing less than a miasma of unlife, spreading out over the battlefield with all the force of a shockwave.
In an instant, he knew he couldn’t save the rest of the creatures down there. He was capable of casting multiple spells at once now, but not through Belligerence. Although the quill was a mighty weapon, capable of conducting a spell over a wide area, it could only do that for one spell at a time. And it would take at least two to stop the loss of life that was already occurring.
Right now, Kryonex’s creatures – no, his victims – were carrying out the demigod’s self-destructive order. Unable to resist, they lashed out at each other and themselves indiscriminately, weapons and fangs and magic tearing through their ranks. Each injury was immediately exposed to the negative energy already permeating the area, causing the life force to leak out of their wounds, turning moderate injuries into fatal ones.
Stopping the slaughter would have meant both paralyzing them, so that they ceased to cause harm to themselves and others, and warding them against the negative energy infection that was already affecting everyone who’d been wounded...and Lex could already tell that they’d all been wounded.
It took only a few moments for the last of them to fall to the ground, dead.
Silent fury settling over his heart, Lex wasted a half-second cursing his own powerlessness before he began casting, gripping Belligerence tightly.
He hadn’t been able to save the denizens from the Plane of Ice, but at least he could save Nenet and Adagio.
And himself.
The Night Mare had told him that, as a titan, he’d be immortal. In that regard, she’d been correct, as Adagio had so helpfully proven during their fight. Her sonic disintegration spell had blown through his defenses, stripping the flesh from his bones, but had caused him only moderate pain and no real inconvenience. Despite his lack of muscles or organs, he’d been able to keep functioning just fine.
That, he knew, was because his transformation into a titan had changed how his soul was connected to his body.
Normally, the body acted to produce and maintain positive energy – life force – in a quantity great enough that it could attract and retain a soul. Damage the body’s functionality, and its ratio of positive energy would dwindle. If it became completely unable to generate any, then the soul would have no anchor, and be unable to maintain itself on this plane of existence.
For Lex, however, it worked the other way around. Now his soul was the source of positive energy, generating it and feeding it directly to his body, allowing it to repair itself and continue functioning regardless of any breakdown to his biology.
He was, quite simply, too alive to kill.
But negative energy was the exception to that. It didn’t rely on interrupting biological procedures; it simply attacked the life force directly. And just like how it worked for mortals, if his positive energy threshold – incredibly high though it was – was hit by a quantity of negative energy great enough to overwhelm and negate it, then there’d be nothing holding his body and soul together...at which point, his soul would be drawn to the Night Mare’s realm, and his body wouldn’t have anything to sustain it.
Kryonex clearly knew that; hence why he'd just opened that portal...one which, Lex knew, led directly to the Negative Energy Plane, the great gaping void mentioned in the Libram of Ineffable Damnation that was the source of that foul substance which caused life itself to fail.
And as the first of the corpses down below began to twitch and shakily rise, their bodies now flooded with enough negative energy to induce a state of undeath, it became equally clear just why the demigod had consigned so many creatures to die.
The undead plague that was rising now was going to be far worse than anything Vanhoover had ever faced.
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Typical necromancer. Just wont lay down and die.
Red shoes wont work on these guys either.
Lex doesnt know about Twilights Gravity spell? As most creatures only have a limited strength and so cant move against a relative week, strong enough spell?
Or even Rock to Mud, Mud to Rock?
And they Kronex will have sme Absorb Negative Engery spell or ability that when all teh offerings are dealt with, he can then absorb them and greatly increase his power?
11705201 The issue with Lex being unable to save the remaining denizens of the Plane of Ice was that he needed to do two things at once: arrest their movements to stop them from killing themselves/murdering each other, and also ward them against negative energy, since the massive portal was turning all of their injuries into fatal wounds. While he's capable of casting two spells at once, he can only cast a single spell at a time through Belligerence, meaning that whichever one he used on the entire battlefield, it wouldn't stop the other condition. In that sense, whether it's simple paralysis, immobilizing them with gravity, getting them caught in mud, etc. would all suspend their ability to harm themselves, but that wouldn't have done anything against the negative energy.
As for what happens if and when Lex destroys all of the newly-created undead, well...it's entirely possible that Kryonex has some further plan. At the very least, he doesn't seem to be worried about the negative energy portal he opened; maybe this is when he starts to get actively involved?
So Lex should have noticed it by now. Fighting a necromancer that was allowed to set the stage sucks. His only choice is to either escape outside of his range to a new stage, push thru to the portal but dealing with a god in his home territory is a big no, or bait him out but he seem to be ice cold so no luck there. Can Lex cut the portal or disturb it in some way?
had
So all this time Kyronex has been using essentially pressganged cannon fodder on Lex and even had them killed just to put Lex at a disadvantage and likely to punish Adagio as a bonus.
Still, this would partially explain why Kyronex personally came out to pursue Adagio instead of letting his followers carry out the task for him. Either they were all slain as Adagio's memory believes, or they were being kept back so as to preserve what remains of the demigod's following.
If it's the former, then Kyronex probably wants to get back the piece of divinity Adagio stole so he'd be less vulnerable against his rivals which means that Kyronex might be going all in while trying to also preserve what remains of his power.
If it's the latter, then the remaining followers are likely to be pretty strong and might appear to slay Lex and Adagio as Kyronex's last option. Heck, they could very well be lurking about already, carrying out Kyronex's commands. Hopefully Nenet stays safe though given how much time has passed, I wonder if Adagio has finally divested herself of her cursed enchanted accessories by now.
11705785 In Lex's defense, all indications were that the creatures facing him were willing servants of Kryonex. Both their thoughts and their actions indicated that, and it was only when he realized that the numbers were too numerous (which was itself a very large extrapolation from a relatively small clue), and that they were too fanatical, that he began to suspect something was wrong. Even then, he only found what Kryonex was doing (i.e. using his own version of the Charismata, except limited to cold creatures and more overwhelming, since it came from a god directly) because he was specifically looking for something that ordinary senses, and even most supernatural senses, couldn't detect.
As for what happened after that, it was rather unexpected because Kryonex is a deity of the cold, not death. His opening a portal between Everglow and his home plane is one thing. To open a portal directly to the Negative Energy Plane is thematically unusual...but then again, no one ever said Kryonex was limited to cold-magic only the way that Solvei is. But he seems to be aware that Lex is vulnerable to negative energy, and so he's now set things up so that the harmless army of cold monsters is now an undead army that can conceivably do some real damage to Lex.
Now it's up to Lex to do something about that.
11705911 Typo fixed! Thanks for catching that!
Kryonex's depravity in sending creatures into a hopeless battle against their will (indeed, by smothering their will) isn't something Lex anticipated. Partially that was because Adagio presumed that he'd be gathering up more of his faithful, but as you noted that's a rather poor assumption on her part; he's already lost a number of followers, ones who were dwelling within his realm; why subject more of the creatures who supply him with the worship he needs to survive to a deadly battle? However, I suspect that part of it was also that Lex isn't simply geared toward considering such despicable actions. Lawful to his core, something like that is simply anathema to him, and so even as a titan he has a hard time considering it.
That's especially true for deliberately throwing lives away just so you can then have them raised as undead creatures.
As for whether or not Kryonex has a few additional followers lurking at the edge of the fight, presumably Lex would have sensed their presence, particularly if they went after Adagio and Nenet. But then again, he's already been surprised twice in rapid succession; it's not impossible that it could happen for a third time.