The hexes, glowing red glyphs, pulsed aimlessly, their sensors unable to lock onto the invisible intruders.
However, the heat was an invasive force.
Even with Sacran endurance, the scorching atmosphere began to warm the oxygen inside their suits.
A bead of sweat rolled down Molan’s temple, stinging his eye.
He reached up instinctively to adjust the fit, but the slick moisture shifted the diamond mask just a fraction of a millimeter.
The seal broke, and the crematorium’s defenses screamed.
The ravenous wards caught a slice of Molan’s divine signature, and all hell broke loose.
Wights, restless, hollowed spirits of long-dead Sacrans, sacrificed and slaughtered to protect the mausoleum, materialized from the ash.
They were shadows of screeching terror, their forms elongated and translucent, clutching necrotic energy bolts.
Fokkin’ hell,Molan hissed, drawing his sidearm as their first hex-bolt charred the ground at his feet.
Brother, I’ll cover you while you do the same for Sheba!Idan roared, his eyes under the mask igniting with a lethal, incandescent light as he unsheathed the glowing Sun Eater.We’ve got your six, Sheba. Your priority is getting your ass into that crematorium.
The brothers moved with practiced fluidity, a display of divine carnage as Sheba surged ahead.
Idan’s spectral blade carved through the phantasmal mass of more of their assailants, while Molan became a whirlwind of solar fury, incinerating the shadows before they could solidify.
Sheba remained a phantom; her mask held, its diamond lattice undisturbed by the chaos.
Her boots raced over the basalt, leaping over volcanic rivers and fireballs rolling over the ground.
Moments later, she pushed open the towering, iron-ribbed doors of the Crematorium, entering a silence so absolute it pressed into her ears.
Sheathing her weapon, she reached into her chest pocket and withdrew the star-gem dagger, her vision narrowing on the altar at the end of the hall.
Where a figure encased in glowing, translucent chains lay prostrate on an altar of sacrifice.
The interior of the Crematory was a cathedral of calcified grief; the air reverberated with a potent frequency that threatened to shatter Sheba’s mask.
At the center of the nave sat the sarcophagus altarium, a slab of obsidian and corroded metal.
On it rested a Shackled King, Saitoni, a grotesque distortion of divinity; his skin had the texture of cured vellum stretched over a frame of blackened bone.
Rusted iron spikes protruded from his joints, anchoring him to the stone, while his eyes were twin pits of stagnant, gray fog that leaked a fluid resembling liquid mercury.
As Sheba crossed the final threshold, the sanctuary’s dormant defenses detected the intrusion of a foreigner.
The hexes here, different from those outside, ignited in the rafters, and a horde of wights erupted from the ground like geysers of darkness.
The floor buckled under a psychic shockwave, throwing Sheba onto the cold basalt.
Her diamond mask skittered across her face, but it held, slipping back into place.
The apparitions crowded her, sensing her presence but unable to latch onto her. Their translucent muzzles surged inches from her face, their screams a discordant harmony of a thousand deaths.
They howled, a sound of tearing lacunas and broken nebulas, but as their spectral claws raked at her, they found no purchase.
‘Fokkoff!’ Sheba screamed, her voice cracking as she swung the star-gem dagger in a frantic arc.
Because her biology lacked the divine spark they got programmed to devour, their essence passed through her like smoke, leaving only a coating of crystalline frost.
