Leon brandished Iron Pride at the golem, silver-blue lightning racing along the blade, when the golem stood up straight and the ten-foot blades of blue light emanating from its wrists deactivated.  Before the situation turned violent—or more violent than it already was—the golem straightened out, and a voice resounded from it.  The voice sounded young and feminine, taking Leon somewhat by surprise, but he couldn’t understand the words as it spoke a different language than what he’d learned from Tiraeses.

Without knowing what the golem said, Leon didn’t lower Iron Pride, but Tiraeses stood down, a look of incredulity on his face.  The old monk replied to the golem apparently in its language, before glancing at Leon and adding another phrase.

“Of course I speak azurian!” the golem said.  “It’s my mother tongue!”

“Then you are from the Kingdom of the Blue Sky?” Tiraeses asked in a rather confrontational tone.

“Is this the time to discuss my origins?” the golem asked as it folded its arms in an uncanny display of human body language.  “You two are doing something here, aren’t you?  I was going to try and help you to escape, but since it seems like you’re doing something specific, I’d like to help.”

“W-Why?” Leon asked, his mouth struggling to form the word.  He and Tiraeses had continued to mostly speak their own languages with each other since they understood each other’s tongues but lacked the muscle memory to speak them well.

The golem turned its head to regard him curiously, its armored frame gleaming in the light of the lightning that still flickered across Iron Pride.

“You…  You’re not from Arkhnavi, are ya?” the golem asked.

Leon gave the golem a suspicious look, though he nodded anyway.

“I can explain more later,” the golem said, “but for now, I’ll say that I worked with another mage who arrived here from elsewhere, like, two months ago?”

Leon frowned, glanced at the dead creature the golem had just killed, and decided to take a gamble.  He classified the golem as a potential threat, but if it was going to offer to help them reach the center of the city…

“We’re getting to the heart of the city,” Leon explained.  “We’re going to destroy whatever’s making all that purple light.”

The golem turned its back on them to look deeper into the city.  “You’re going after the ritual focus?” it asked.  “I can help.  I’ve done this before.  Come on!”  The golem waved for them to follow as it took off running down the street, the ground shaking as its massive thirty-foot frame shattered the street tiles beneath it with every step.

A quick questioning look was all Leon needed to send Tiraeses’ way before the old monk responded.

“The core of the Azurian army were mages inside heavy suits of armor much like this, though I’ve never seen one so large.  She’s probably trustworthy—at least, for now, may she be judged harshly by Just Helior if she should turn on us.”

Leon responded, “Fine.  Let’s go.”  Despite his agreement, he quietly resolved to keep his guard up.  However, now that he was relaxing a bit, he couldn’t help but study the golem as best as he could from a distance, admiring how the armored plating formed a smooth and nearly seamless exterior.  He could barely sense anything from its internal workings and magics, though that didn’t seem to impact its maneuverability at all, judging from how quickly and surely the thing moved.

‘I need to find out how that thing works…’ Leon thought to himself.

He and Tiraeses quickly caught up to the mage in the massive golem—or suit of armor, Leon honestly wasn’t quite sure how to classify this thing—and the three pushed deeper into the city.  The mage piloting the suit, however, hardly let a few seconds pass before striking up a conversation.

“Ya handled that watcher pretty good, didn’t ‘cha?  I’ve seen them with fewer heads stop whole armies.”

“Is that what those things are called?” Leon asked, looking briefly back at the many-headed and many-armed creature that the newcomer had killed.  “You got the killing blow.”

“I did, didn’t I?” the newcomer said proudly.  “But it was lookin’ at you, made it easy for me.”

“Chat later,” Tiraeses growled.  “This city’s beasts are not done with us, yet.”

As if on cue, an earth-shaking roar interrupted their push further into the city, and a ten-story building practically exploded as an enormous black-scaled creature came barreling through it, the brick putting up about as much resistance to its charge as wet paper.  The creature was ‘only’ about six stories tall, but resembled the raelon in some respects, with a long, elongated snout, and a pair of arms that ended in wickedly-sharp claws that looked like they could cut even stone giants into pieces.  It stood upon four stout legs, each as thick as a large Heartwood Tree, and its upper body was built and toned, almost looking like the torso of a dedicated human athlete.  Set in its skull were a pair of large eyes, glowing red much like all the other creatures Leon had faced since arriving on this plane.  Radiating from the new monster was a robust eighth-tier aura, though its sheer physical size would greatly augment that magical strength.

“Colossus!” the newcomer shouted as the blue blades of light in her suit’s wrists reactivated.  Her suit’s legs then glowed red-hot for a moment before leaping at the creature.

Leon, not one to let any ally, even a newly-made one of convenience, fight alone, leaped after her, Iron Pride blazing with silver-blue lightning, and Tiraeses followed only the briefest of moments later.

Lightning fell upon the monster, drawing its attention to Leon as the colossus’ black scales were burned and blasted off.  He kept up the pressure, dancing around the buildings even as the monster lunged after him, swiping with its massive claws at a speed that belied its massive size.  Buildings were crushed and obliterated as the creature pursued Leon, roaring in rage and pain as more and more lightning rained down upon it.

At the same time, Tiraeses targeted its now-exposed skin as scales were destroyed and fell away.  The newcomer eschewed that entirely and sliced and cut around the creature’s legs, apparently hoping to trip it up or disable its surprising mobility.  Leon figured that she might know what she was doing and redirected a few lightning bolts to tear off scales around the colossus’ ankles.

With the three of them working together, the colossus fell in less than a minute.  None of them had been harmed by it, though the city around them couldn’t say the same.

“Woooo!” the newcomer shouted in elation as the monster fell.  “I’ve never seen one of these things meet the Red Bitch so quickly!”

Leon heard a strangled cry of disbelief from Tiraeses, though the old monk remained otherwise quiet.

“Let’s keep going!” Leon shouted, not even waiting for the dust to settle.

“Yeah! Yeah!” the newcomer agreed, and the three once again barreled further into the city.  As they moved, the newcomer said, “All of the creatures are summoned by the big crystal thingy over there!  It’ll summon almost anything as we get closer!”

Leon nodded in understanding.  “This ‘crystal thingy’ is the focus, right?” he asked for clarification.

“Yep!” the newcomer confirmed.  “Big flower plug thing!  Lots of dead people inside!”

Leon wasn’t sure he could picture what she described, but he figured he’d know it when he saw it.  At the very least, he figured it had to be glowing purple to be casting all the purple light that he could see.  Tiraeses, however, he could hear muttering something about ‘shame’ and ‘impropriety’ and praying to the Mother Below.

He knew they were drawing close when his magic senses—already limited to only one mile in range thanks to the darkness magic in the air—hit a large circular area they couldn’t penetrate, amounting to some three city blocks in diameter.  The area was surrounded by Yu Nok Tor’s tallest buildings, which had Leon feeling somewhat concerned, but what had him even warier was that after the colossus, the group of three faced little opposition to pushing deeper into the city.  The streets certainly grew darker and filled with more and more ash, but he couldn’t see even a single hair on a cultist head, let alone anything more dangerous.

The newcomer offered an explanation.  “I’ve seen this happen before.  The bitches in the center of the city are feeling the pressure, so they’re probably pulling back to the crystal to guard it.”

“Let’s not keep them waiting,” Leon replied, his trust in the newcomer growing.

The newcomer laughed giddily and charged ahead, Leon only keeping up thanks to his lightning magic.  Again, he couldn’t help but marvel at the suit the newcomer wore, given the speed and power it was showing off.

The purple light grew more intense as they drew closer, and Leon could practically feel the darkness magic held at bay with the ancient rune enchantment he’d inscribed pushing against those defenses more and more with every step.  He could also feel weak magical probes rattling against his armor, unable to penetrate the armor’s defenses.  The newcomer hardly seemed to notice—though Leon could hardly say that for certain given she was concealed within the armor—but Tiraeses was having to noticeably channel with greater strength as they approached their destination.  The old monk seemed to still be going strong, however, so Leon didn’t make a big deal out of it, though he kept an eye on the man anyway.

Finally, they made a final turn and were able to stare down the street unobstructed, and Leon was able to see what the ‘crystal thingy’ was.  And he almost wished he’d never laid eyes upon it.

It was a huge purple crystal, perhaps three stories tall, and shaped like a frozen candle or drop of water, though he could easily see why the newcomer had called it a ‘flower’.  It seemed to have several layers, making it resemble a furled flower, though he wasn’t sure where she got the ‘plug’ part from.  It gave off a tremendous amount of purple light, though most of it was directed upward.

Far more disturbing was what was within the crystal: at least a hundred bodies, all with eyes glowing red with power.  Their bodies greatly resembled the husks they’d been fighting: emaciated and charred, while what little flesh remained on their faces was twisted in grim expressions of anguish.  The bodies were almost stacked on top of each other in a chaotic pile, and the one at the top seemed to be trying to reach for the top of the crystal, though they’d frozen in place only a few feet from the top.

The bodies inside the purple crystal seemed to be staring at the one at the top, but the red eyes of the one at the top seemed to eerily follow Leon as he and his group made their final approach.

[Just like a channeler,] Xaphan observed, his punishment at the hands of the Thunderbird over.  [Magic flows through the people in that Devil’s Cage and into the Devil.  I’ve never seen one before…]

[I have, at a distance,] the Thunderbird said.  [Lightning will free them, one way or another.]

A soft whisper he’d heard after pushing through the husks outside the city reached his ears again.

“You found us…” the voice said.  “Please… end us…”

“By Mandious, Lord of All in Heaven,” Tiraeses murmured.

“Grim, ain’t it?” the newcomer asked.  “They’re not dead in there, though… that ain’t much to brag about.  We should kill ‘em, nothing else to do.  Let the Red Bitch take her due.”

“Do not anger the gods,” Tiraeses chastised.

The newcomer chuckled but didn’t otherwise respond.

Leon rather agreed, and if the voice he heard on the wind was coming from the people in the crystal, it was what they wanted, too.

“They’re coming,” the voice from the crystal said, and a moment later, the shadows around the crystal deepened.  Figures formed from the shadows, resolving into twelve humanoids cloaked in smoky darkness, one glowing eye in each of their ‘faces’.

“These fuckers,” the newcomer bemoaned.  “Too bad they don’t run anymore…”

No one else got a chance to vocally react before darkness rushed over the ground like a flood.  Leon reacted almost instantaneously; he thrust Iron Pride forward and let loose with a cataclysmic torrent of lightning that cut through the darkness with ease.  The figures scattered, though one was caught in his barrage.  The darkness was torn from him, revealing the headless body beneath, and the red eye hovering where his head once was.  With the backing of Leon’s power and the Iron Needle, the cultist was only seen for a moment before he was vaporized.

Leon was given no time to savor this small victory as the crystal pulsed with power as soon as the cultist was destroyed.  A tsunami of darkness magic erupted from the crystal and crashed into Leon’s group, sending them reeling backward and submerging them into a dark, featureless abyss.

Pressure built around Leon’s helmet, but Leon responded with more lightning.  He gripped Iron Pride tighter, letting the Iron Needle fuel his power, and the darkness around him melted away, leaving him standing in a dome of normalcy surrounded by darkness that shrank away from him.

[Press forward!] the Thunderbird insisted.  [Reach the crystal and destroy it!]

Leon followed her urging without hesitation.  However, he’d barely taken a single step before an enormous gaping maw the size of Red’s head came snapping out of the darkness.  Had Leon not already been channeling his lightning magic, he would’ve moved too slowly to dodge, but as it was, he leaped into the air just in time for the jaw to catch nothing but air beneath him.

He twisted in the air as the darkness was pushed away from him and swung Iron Pride in the direction the offending attack had come from.  Lightning pierced the veil of darkness and struck something, which responded with a shrill shriek, but Leon spared no time to see what it was.  He hit the ground and ran for the crystal.

Hands and tendrils of darkness attempted to stop him, each one increasingly desperate, but his lightning tore through them all, resulting in nothing more than a temporary and marginal slowdown.  He pushed forward as the pressure on the darkness around him increased, but the Thunderbird’s power he’d inherited didn’t let him down, and the darkness found no purchase upon him.

A cultist appeared in front of him brandishing a large ax made of darkness, but Leon didn’t miss a step and attacked.  The cultist tried to block his strike, but the darkness was banished by his lightning and Iron Pride bit into the cultist, shredding his shield of darkness and obliterating his physical body.

The dark sea around Leon shuddered in response and grew stronger, but he was able to orient himself when he caught a glimpse of purple light.

Alone, Leon pressed forward again, his footsteps requiring more and more effort the closer he got to the crystal.  Three more cultists appeared, each surrounded by three carriage-sized spiders.  The spiders, their eyes glowing red, their dark mandibles snapping, charged at him while the cultists tried to tie him down with tendrils of darkness.  Each tendril sought a chink in his armor through which his mind might be assaulted, but Leon’s lightning and his armor proved their worth.

His fingers flexed around Iron Pride and he was free in a burst of silver-blue lightning.  He could feel his magic being taxed, but he didn’t allow himself to slow even a bit as his body flashed and Iron Pride made quick work of the attacking spiders.

The cultists again tried to stymie his advance with their darkness magic, but Leon simply gritted his teeth and cut through, killing all three in short order.

And then he found himself standing in front of the crystal, though its surface had been covered in a protective sheen of darkness that didn’t shy away from him.  The darkness was deeper than what surrounded him, and he could feel eyes within swiveling to him.

Something was watching him through the crystal.  Something powerful.  Something as great compared to him as he compared to an ant.

The Primal Devil.

[Strike!] the Thunderbird shouted, and Leon moved almost on instinct.  He brought Iron Pride down upon the crystal and channeled what felt like more power than he’d ever channeled before.  Silver-blue lightning exploded over the crystal, but this deeper darkness was stronger and more stubborn than what Leon had yet faced, clinging to the surface of the crystal even under the pressure of the Thunderbird’s lightning.

But Leon was stubborn, too, and he wielded a Universe Fragment.  He hit the crystal again, noting that something hit his armor from behind and tried to wrap around his chest, attempting to constrict him.  A bolt of lightning saw him freed and he hit the crystal a third time, then a fourth.

He was making progress, cleaving through the darkness further with every strike.  Hit sword hit the crystal’s surface on the fifth strike, and he summoned all the strength he had, wound up for a sixth, and then froze as a red eye appeared on the crystal’s surface.

The eye stared down at him, as large as a small house, as steady and uncaring as the sun.  Leon felt naked beneath its gaze; he felt as small and insignificant as he had when he faced Krith’is beneath the Serpentine Isles.

But he was stronger now, and after a moment, he roared in primal fear and frustration.  He brought Iron Pride down a final time upon the crystal, his emotions fueling the strike.

Lightning erupted from Iron Pride like it had never before, and even Leon had to fight the instinct to squint from the light of his own power.  Darkness shrank from his power, and the crystal beneath it shattered.  The bodies contained within remained in place only just long enough for every corpse to turn its head in Leon’s direction before collapsing into dust.  The darkness flooding out from the crystal ceased, and in a moment, Leon stood in the center of the unobscured city.

Tiraeses was being restrained by three cultists while the newcomer’s armor was scuffed and scratched, but otherwise unmarred by the five cultists trying to contend with her.  But above them all loomed the red eye, exactly where it had been before the crystal was destroyed.

The eye pulsed and the cultists disappeared, then regarded Leon coldly.  It didn’t do anything else, but Leon still had to fight just to remain standing as this thing, this ancient power so far beyond him he doubted he could even scratch it, stared down at him.

He couldn’t discern any emotion or attitude from the eye, and it didn’t explain itself.  After a moment, it vanished, leaving Leon, Tiraeses, and the newcomer alone in the center of Yu Nok Tor.

None of them spoke a word despite their victory.  They felt no great relief, no sense of achievement.  The red eye lingered in their minds, making it clear: this was temporary.  They could call this a victory, but they’d achieved nothing, in truth.

Leon, panting and exhausted from such intense use of magic over such a short period of time, sat down on a piece of stone rubble only a few steps away, one word filling his head even as the dark pressure on his armor dissipated.

‘Fuck.’

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