But somehow my voice came out steady and non-confrontational, as I said, “Do it now. Okay? Now. My power is primed.”
“You’ll need to hit it in a fraction of a second.”
“Well aware. We’ve been over it.”
He shifted his weight, then upturned his own palms.
Instead of magic erupting in a burst, his hands glowed with his midnight-blue power.
Because he wasn’t looking to fire or stream, but to absorb instead.
I braced myself.
Here we go.
He thrust his hands above his head, and the Core responded, a rush of the midnight-blue tearing toward him, then pulling away from the sides too, disrupting the integrity of the cylindrical form.
In moments, it was swirling around him, while he battled to direct it back into himself through his palms. He roared, as so much of it all at once tried to take control of him, rather than the other way around.
The urge to make sure it took him was intense. I was so close to it, my own power at the ready. But it would fuck up everything. And if I failed…urgh,I couldn’t even imagine.
So, instead, I waited and just watched as he got control of what basically became a swirling vortex of his own magic, and forced it into two streams traveling into either palm.
He slumped to his knees halfway through and it was honestly a little satisfying.
Obviously that was kind of undermined by the fact that he’d done this to me. I never would have taken delight in anybody’s suffering before. But he’d somehow made himself an exception to that—a disrupter to who I really was.
“It’s… time,” he croaked.
I watched the last vestiges of his magic pull from the Fuel Core until all that remained was a translucent shimmering cylinder stretching all the way up to the ceiling and feeding the realm through veins that were now currently empty.
I thrust my hands upward, my power erupting with epic force, a violent rush that filled up the cylinder, then shot into the ceiling and flooded outward, filling those veins, all in a matter of seconds.
With a flick of my shadows, I knocked Ruxnoth out of the Fuel Core.
As soon as he was gone, I pulled my shadows and frost back, and then I was immersed in the center of my own streaming power radiating soothingly all around me.
I didn’t like the sensation of the nasty pull on me, though, that was coming from it feeding Sanctus. It was like an unsettling ache, kind of raw and making my insides twist.
“It is done,” Ruxnoth rumbled, straightening with an eerie glint in his eyes as he took me in. “Mmm… so freeing. The weight that’s left me… the relief is immense.” He turned his hands over, studying, gazing in awe. “Such power all mine once again.”
He signaled the necromancers then.
And in the next moment, they all started chanting.
Well, except six of them.
Transmortalis. Transmortalis. Transmortalis.
It echoed hauntingly around the room.
Ruxnoth smirked at me. “It is deeply apt for this situation. You see, there is something I neglected to mention. I am the creator of this almighty realm. As such, no one can bond withit in the same way that I can. Not with the same freedom I am afforded. So you will remain here trapped within this construct, your own power eternally bound to it and unable to ever break free. You will be paralyzed with no ability to act, to affect anything around you.” His nasty smile widened. “Least of all me and my designs for the supernatural world.” He scoffed. “Raising Sanctus without conquering and bringing those fools up there to their knees? I think not.” He roared in a sudden burst of fury, “I am agod!You do not command me! That which makes you so powerful, your own nature, will now torment you for eternity! There is no other god! Only I will reign!”
I sank to my knees.
Ruxnoth let out a groan of gratification at the sight. “Say it. Say the words to me and I will allow you a single concession, a single mercy. Tell me you’re my deathborn darling.” He gestured dramatically around the room. “Say it with pleasure for all of them to hear.”
I brought my palms together, guiding some of the power surrounding me between them, forming a controlled sphere.
