The city of Naxor Amis was silent; only the footsteps of Leon’s team could be heard.  There was no wind blowing amongst the tall stone buildings, nor the sounds of any kind of wildlife in the area.  Even the air felt thick and stifling.  All was still; all was dead.

It was unnerving, to say the least.  Leon’s eyes continued darting from shadow to shadow, searching for any sign that the figure’s invitation had merely been bait for a trap they were about to spring.  He didn’t trust anything about this and there was a small part of him that was demanding he simply turn around and leave.  Investigating Naxor Amis was hardly critical to the mission, after all.

However, if there was any way to stop what was happening on this plane, then he thought seeing ground zero for the cataclysm it was undergoing was essential.  If he was lucky, then he might even find some way to leave or contact Ambrose.

He doubted he’d be lucky.

Behind him, the rest of the team was stone silent, save for the muted sounds of their footsteps, seemingly suffocated by the stillness of the city.  No one spoke as their tension rose higher and higher—Leon wasn’t the only one expecting an ambush.

To Leon’s surprise, they reached the glowing purple crystal in the center of the city apparently unharmed.  The darkness magic that inundated the environment swirled about them in thick clouds, but their defenses, including whatever Ard’Nara was using to stave it off, held. 

The center of Naxor Amis had once been a beautiful park if what Leon could see was accurate.  He could see the thick black puddles where pools and ponds had once been, as well as the cracked and broken remains of paths through whatever greenery had once existed here.  However, there was little left of anything else, and in the center of this park stood a massive purple crystal nearly identical to what he’d seen in Yu Nok Tor, complete with the pile of desiccated corpses trapped within.

Concerningly, hovering above the crystal was a red light, only about as large as a human head.  It bore some slight resemblance to the eye of the Primal Devil he’d glimpsed after destroying the previous channeler crystal, but no more.  Leon, after reaching out with his magic senses, saw the magic in the area churning about the light like it was the eye of a hurricane, but oddly, no magic entered or left it.  Leon didn’t know what to make of it.

Standing in front of the crystal upon a raised dais was the figure, cloak of darkness still intact.  They turned and laid their glowing red eyes upon Leon’s team, and spread their arms in welcome.

“You made it!” they cried out.  “How wonderful to see you accept my invitation!”

Ignoring the figure, Leon addressed his soul realm’s residents.  [What in all the hells am I looking at?]

[A closed channeler’s rift, but outside of a body,] Xaphan said in an awed tone.  [This is what remains of a channeler once their body has completely decayed.  That used to be some poor fucker’s door to their soul realm—the same that lies at the heart of every mage.]

[Vile,] the Thunderbird whispered.  [Even at the height of the final war of the Primal Age, the Devils never went quite this far.]

[How is it even possible?] Leon asked ‘aloud’.  [If the mage is gone, how is their connection to their soul realm still around?  The soul realm itself should be destroyed…!]

[That… is a question only the Devil itself can answer,] Xaphan said in a hungry tone.  He may claim that he never used channelers or blood sacrifices, but Leon could tell he wanted to know what kind of magic this was.

Leon didn’t blame the demon; he wanted to know, too.

He was pulled from following that short exchange up with any other question as Nara threw a small pebble at him, ringing his helmet.  Leon glanced at the Prince, who stared at him and nodded toward the figure.

Leon scowled and nodded back.  First things first, the figure had to be dealt with.

While he was distracted, the rest of the team had fanned out, with several dozen feet between them to allow them to cover more ground.

“Join me!” the figure called out.  “Come and sit up here, away from the dirt and the grime of this mortal plane!”

Leon snorted.  He could sense all kinds of magic at play around the dais; there was no way in any hell he was going to approach under his own power.

Mari said it best for the whole team.  “Fuck you!  Your dumbass can come and join us!”  Her Ulta suit made a gesture that Leon supposed was rude, but he lacked the cultural knowledge to know for sure.

The figure chuckled—a deep, rumbling sound that echoed about the former park, causing some of the piles of dust to jostle and spread.  The figure seemed only ninth-tier, but the power to do that with only laughter…  Leon redoubled his guard; this cultist—as if it wasn’t obvious enough—was clearly enhanced with borrowed power.  A spark of power borrowed from Krith’is was enough to make Jormun stronger than Leon in single combat; he didn’t want to see what a Primal Devil might bestow under these circumstances.

“Can we not talk as fellow humans?” the figure called out.  “Have we grown so uncivilized that such discourse is impossible?”

With a mocking sneer, Nara asked, “How do we know that you’re even human?  You coul—”

Before he finished, the darkness enshrouding the figure dissipated like they were throwing off a coat.  What was revealed was a man of about middle age with a skin tone that matched Mari’s lighter peach tone than Tir and Anu’s darker orange.  He was in remarkable shape, which was shown off proudly as the man wore nothing at all, the space between his hips and his knees covered only by lingering darkness.  Most remarkable about his body, though, was that it was covered almost completely in scars.  Burns, lacerations, whip marks, and so many more, each one drawing Leon’s eye like a beacon.  This man had known suffering and battle; that much was clear to his eyes.

“You four are on the wrong side,” he said as he walked to the edge of the dais.  “There is nothing that can stop the true gods’ awakening.  All is in place.  To fight against them is to fight against the universe itself.  But the gods are merciful; pledge yourself to their loving embrace, and know peace, know the tranquility of the dark!”

“You plunge my Kingdom into war, slaughtering its people, poisoning the land, defiling the sacred sites…” Nara whispered.  “I will eat my own heart before I surrender to the death you promise!”  Nara surged forward and thrust Cloud Piercer at the dais.  A river of fire erupted from the spear’s blade, but it didn’t even make it halfway to the dais before a black cloud appeared before it and smothered the flames.

The cultist then snapped his fingers and darkness magic appeared around Nara, completely obscuring him from view.  So much power was concentrated within the clouds that Leon was almost blinded when he tried to look at them with his magic senses.

There was no doubt in his mind now; the cultist was directly channeling the power of a Primal Devil.

Leon’s heart rate accelerated and his fingers tightened around Iron Pride.  A tiny bolt of lightning danced around the hilt, lending him no small amount of comfort with the reminder that the Iron Needle and its power were there with him, ready for anything.

And Leon was intent on using that power immediately; there was no way he was just going to let Nara be swallowed by this darkness without attempting to stop it.  He swung Iron Pride as quickly as his magic allowed him, slashing much faster than the mortal eye could follow.  The power in the air seemed to try and slow him down, but with the Thunderbird’s lightning surging through his limbs, this attempt amounted to nothing.

A torrent of lightning erupted from Iron Pride and surged into the clouds.  Thunder boomed around Leon so loudly that the ground cracked and dust exploded into the air.  The black clouds melted away before the Thunderbird’s lightning, revealing Nara lying on the ground, unconscious.

Leon appeared almost instantly beside him, causing a small sonic boom from crossing those few dozen feet so quickly.  He conjured a powerful healing spell and laid it upon the fallen Prince.  Fortunately, he could sense that Nara was still alive, though his body seemed strangely devoid of magic power.

Mari and Tir, meanwhile, charged at the cultist.  Tir punched in the cultist’s direction, firing beams of light from his fists.  Mari went for a more personal approach, conjuring her blue light blades and trying to close the distance between herself and the cultist.

However, the cultist grinned and snapped his fingers again.  A wave of darkness erupted from his body, consuming all of Tir’s magic and washing over both the old monk and the young pilot in her massive Ulta suit.

Leon reacted instantly; a bolt of silver-blue lightning erupted from the blade of Iron Pride, extending the blade by dozens of feet.  Leon swung the blade in a vertical slash, cutting the wave of darkness in half around him.  A follow-up sweep dissipated the rest, revealing Tir and Mari’s Ulta suit lying on the ground as insensate as Nara.

“The blood of the Thunderbird…” the cultist said with an audible appreciative smile.  “The moment you appeared in the skies of Arkhnavi, I was told of you and your power.  So remarkable the kinds of powers that can be passed down in blood, isn’t it?”  He spoke in an eminently pleasant tone, and Leon felt no killing intent radiating from him.

But he still assumed an aggressive stance and channeled his power through Iron Pride.  The Iron Needle seemed to vibrate in response, and when Leon raised his weapon high, a titanic bolt of silver-blue lightning erupted from the sword and punched clean through the black clouds above.

A moment later, the black clouds were filled with purple and green lightning as Leon pushed his power through Iron Pride.

The sky belonged to him, and he felt it was about time to reassert his dominance.

The cultist laughed as the ruins of Naxor Amis were illuminated by the flash of lightning and shaken by the boom of thunder.  He grinned at Leon but wasn’t able to say a word before Leon charged.

To attack this cultist in a place that seemed to be a focus of power for his patron was not a wise move.  Unfortunately, Leon knew that the opportunity to do anything else had passed the moment Nara raised his weapon against the cultist.  Now, there was only one option: kill or incapacitate the cultist and make sure that Nara, Tir, and Mari were all right.

Leon moved with all the speed of his element, using both his weapon and his offhand to conjure lightning to strike at the cultist.  The cultist laughingly dodged and weaved, often only avoiding injury by the skin of his teeth and the thin strands of darkness that appeared to protect him.  He fell back further down the large dais, and Leon hesitated only a moment before following.

He felt the dais spike in power the moment his foot fell upon it, however, and he immediately cut his pursuit to fall back away from the dais.

“Ahh, don’t be like that, Leon Raime!” the cultist called out.  “The true gods accept all who come!  There’s no need to fear!”

Leon answered with several bolts of lightning that the cultist attempted to counter with jets of darkness.  The darkness magic wasn’t much of a barrier to the power of the Thunderbird, but Leon’s power was still weakened enough that the cultist was only thrown back with injuries, his arms bleeding from fresh lightning burns severe enough to blacken and split his skin.

The cultist growled as he steadied himself against Leon’s power.  A snap of his fingers caused the hovering ball of red light to pulse with power, and Leon ceased his barrage to fall back again.  He used his power to grab Tir, Nara, and Mari, pulling all three back with him.  It took quite a lot of power to do so, preventing him from stopping a river of power from flowing from the red orb into both the cultist and the dais.

The cultist sighed in relief as his wounds healed and his aura stabilized.  The dais seemed to soak up the magic flowing from the red orb, causing the magic to seemingly vanish after flowing into the dais.

“My god is with me,” the cultist said.  “Can any of you say the same?”

Leon once again answered with lightning, though this time, a shield of red light sprang into place at the dais’ edge, completely blocking his strike.

“Let’s put our weapons down and talk!” the cultist again insisted.  “I think neither of us will get far with the other if we continue to refuse to break words!”

[Leon…] Xaphan breathed in barely contained excitement.  [Ask him about the orb!  I must know what it is!]

[As much as I hate to agree with the candle, a parlay may be of some use,] the Thunderbird added.  [Look for better ways to kill this arrogant fool.]

Leon softly snorted.  He would’ve done that much whether or not the Thunderbird suggested it.  However, he minutely relaxed his stance and took a few steps toward the dais.  He kept his blade raised and filled with power, but he made no further attacks against the cultist.

“Speak,” he commanded.

The cultist seemed not at all offended by his curt attitude.  “I only seek peace between us, Leon Raime.  Peace between the Thunderbird Clan and my people.”

Leon scowled.  He hardly wanted to dignify that with a reply.  Peace, he believed, was something always worth striving for… but in this case…  A glance around at the ruined city was all he needed to know about where making peace with this cultist would lead.

“If you don’t desire peace,” the cultist continued, “perhaps an offering to assure you of my intent?”  He waved his hand and conjured a cross in the air.  Nailed to the cross was the very tenth-tier mage that Nara claimed he’d escorted to the outskirts of Naxor Amis: Iluva, the Chosen of the Lords Three.  He was dead, with his face frozen in an agonized scream.  His eye sockets were empty, and his tongue had been removed.

“Such a strange concept of peace you have,” Leon remarked as the crucified Iluva hovered upside down over the dais.

“You may reclaim his body, as you please,” the cultist said with the smug tone of one rendering another a favor.

“And you may stand the hells down, as you please,” Leon sarcastically replied.  “What are you even doing?  Do you not see what’s around you?  Have you gone blind?”

The cultist sneered at him before his eyes slid to Tir’Anu.  “I was happy once,” he said, seemingly ignoring Leon’s questions.  “That man there took all the happiness from me.  And all for the crime of ‘adultery’.  My father wasn’t the most faithful man in the world, but that hardly demands death, does it?  My mother’s protests didn’t demand her head, did it?”

The cultist paused and took a deep breath, steadying himself.

“I held a great deal of hatred in my heart, Leon Raime; hatred that I know you share.  Both of our fathers were unjustly murdered.  I envy you that you have a chance to still meet your mother.”

Leon glared at the cultist through his visor, his eyes momentarily darkening to a dangerous red-orange.  “How do you know this?”

“I know it for the same reason that I set my hatred aside,” the cultist said, his tone now markedly calmer.  “I sought out the gods for aid.  For Justice.  But ‘Just’ Helior was silent, and Mandious, Lord of All in Heaven, ignored me.  None of the gods of the Blue Sky answered my plea.  So I turned to others, hoping that someone, anyone, would answer me, and grant me the justice that I so craved.”

He paused again and glared at Tir’Anu.

“Exile.  Heh.  What a joke.  I was once upset that after what that man did, exile was all he was punished with.  Truly, the friends of Ard’Khil could get away with murder.

“But… when my pleas were finally answered, it was to grant me neither justice nor vengeance.  No, Leon Raime; the highest of the true gods reached out to me and offered me something infinitely greater than either.  He offered me peace.  Freedom from hatred.  Freedom from pain.  Freedom from the worry and the obsessions of life.

“And he offers to you, the same.  Lay down your weapon and let us talk, Leon Raime.  Let me show you what you may gain.  Let me show you peace.  If I can set my grudge aside, so can you.  Your life will be immeasurably enriched by it.  Believe me; I speak from experience.  Hatred is a terrible burden; it weighs you down, makes you do irrational things, distracts you from more important matters in life.”  The cultist paused again just long enough to give Leon a knowing look.  “Matters like family.  No matter what your burden may be, the true gods can aid you in lightening it.”

Leon scowled, his killing intent momentarily spiking at what the cultist was insinuating.  He didn’t need such things thrown back in his face, but neither could he allow himself to be distracted too much.  His eyes flitted between his fallen teammates, and his feet did not move closer to the dais.  Instead, he asked, “What did you do to them?”

“Connected them to my god,” the cultist answered.  “I am showing them the truth in a way that your magic cruelly keeps you from.”

“Thank the Ancestors,” Leon replied.

[You’re welcome,] the Thunderbird replied, and Leon almost burst out laughing despite the situation.

“Will you stand down, Leon Raime?” the cultist asked.  “Will you allow the true gods to speak to you?  Will you let peace into your heart?”

“What’s your name?” Leon replied.

The cultist blinked in surprise, but quickly answered, “I am Khaji’Yun.  Though I am flattered by your curiosity, I can’t help but wonder why you ask…”

“Just wondering what to put on your tombstone,” Leon stated.  “Though, now that I think about it, I might not bother.  Leaving your bones to the elements as you’ve left so many others seems fitting.”

He approached the dais, though not in the way Khaji’Yun requested—in peace, and with a mind open to the Primal Devil’s influence.  Instead, Leon approached at the speed of lightning, his sword glowing silver-blue, his golden eyes blazing with anger.  He didn’t see any more point in listening to Khaji’Yun; the only thing left to do now was to disrupt whatever the hells was going on in the city, no matter how temporary that disruption may be…

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