Rebirth of the Nephilim-Chapter 638: Failure

Moving the massive stone altar to a safe location was one of the most nerve-wracking efforts Jadis could remember undertaking. She had no idea what the myriad enchantments on the object were, or what purpose the Demons had in trying to move the thing towards the Voltonian defensive lines. For all she knew, the thing was a magic bomb and was primed to explode. Or maybe it was some kind of a curse generator that would hurl maledictions at all living things for miles around. There was really no saying what it was until someone more qualified was able to take a look at it.

Still, Jadis was fairly certain that there was no imminent threat of the altar’s magic being triggered. With her enhanced sight, she could see the magic flowing through the stone and across the runes, and it wasn’t anywhere near as intense as what was going on inside of the Demon domes. In fact, the magic engine inside of the Leviathan gave off a stronger aura than the runes on the altar were. That didn’t mean it was safe; there was a big difference between the way a dormant enchantment and a fully operational one looked with Succubus eyes. The altar could just be waiting for a triggering effect before it activated.

With those thoughts in mind, Jadis carefully yet speedily moved the stone edifice as far behind the Voltonian lines as she could get. The field she chose to put the altar down in was nowhere near any person or place that could be harmed. In the calm quiet of the nearly moonless night, miles away from Nonia and the Demon shells and all of the death and blood, it was almost hard to believe there was anything bad going on in the world at all.

The sight of a badly wounded unconscious woman impaled with an iron spike on a stone altar dispelled that thought before it could take a single breath.

“Do you think this is far enough away?” Jay asked as Lucia landed next to her in the fallow field.

“Since I do not know the altar’s purpose, I cannot say with any certainty,” the Paladin said as her piercing red eyes scanned over the structure. “But I believe you have chosen as safe a place as you can under the circumstances.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jay nodded, though her expression was grim.

“I hate leaving her here like this, but I need to get back to the battle,” Dys growled in frustration. “Someone should be here for her. What if she wakes up alone like this?”

“A good point,” Lucia said. “Thank you for reminding me. I should have done this earlier.”

“Done what?” Jay asked as the therion floated into the air and over to the unknown woman, careful not to touch any of the runes etched into the stone. “What are you doing?”

As Jadis watched, Lucia’s hands pulsed with Divine light as she hovered over the victim, her fingers just barely brushing against the woman’s face. She was silent for a few heartbeats as the glow faded, then a new glow took its place and shined brightly again. Once the second light had left her hands, Lucia nodded once and backed away from the altar. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

“She is not dedicated to Samleos, nor is she possessed by a Demon,” Lucia announced.

“Oh, right,” Syd said as her eyes lit up with understanding. “You have a spell that tells you if people worship Samleos. Did you get one to detect possessions, too? I don’t remember you mentioning that.”

“Yes, I can detect if someone has dedicated their soul to The Corruptor,” the paladin nodded in agreement. “And yes, I recently acquired a spell that allows me to detect possessions.”

“Good thinking, checking her for that,” Jay frowned at what could have gone wrong. “I didn’t even consider she might have been a willing sacrifice.”

“Madness runs deep in those who follow Samleos. This woman may not even be a follower, but simply one with a broken soul who succumbed to His lies and false promises.”

Jadis had no idea what kind of lies that Samleos or his cultist followers could say that would convince a person to work for the destruction of the world, but the idea of the mentally ill being taken advantage of made a horrible kind of sense to her. The Playwright certainly came across as an insane maniac. How many of the people who served him were afflicted with deep psychological issues that led them to do the terrible things that harmed so many innocents?

“I will stay here and watch over her,” Lucia said as she stared blankly at the impaled human woman. “Until someone else can be sent.”

“I’ll get people over here as soon as possible,” Jay assured the Paladin. “I promise.”

“Valtar guide you,” Lucia said as Jadis wasted no more time and took off into the sky.

As Jadis rocketed back to the battle, she took a quick inventory of her status. She had been gone for several minutes at least, since moving the altar had been a relatively slow process, and she had been forced to recast her wing spell twice over since she and the others had arrived at the battlefield. She had let her Eyes of the Succubi spell lapse at that point, since she was running low on magic points.

Jadis Ahlstrom

Race: Nephilim

Primary Class: Mirror Knight (44)

Secondary Class: Perverted Ritualist of D (36)

Tertiary Class: Progenitor of the Succubi (23)

Combined Level Rating: 103

Health: 1803/3150

Magic: 305/1460

Attributes

Strength: 494

Dexterity: 190

Agility: 904

Vitality: 240

Fortitude: 275

Endurance: 222

Arcane: 0

Divine: 0

Eldritch: 904

Focus: 116

Resilience: 115

Will: 35

After a quick assessment, Jadis admitted to herself that she was worse off than she had thought she was. Her magic was nearly depleted, with barely enough left in the tank to cast one more flight spell, and her health was, while better than earlier, not in an ideal condition. She would need to stop by the triage station to get some healing, and some magic if Alex could spare any, so she would let Eir and Jocelyn know about Lucia and the altar victim. Hopefully they could arrange for someone to go relieve Lucia so she could get back into the fight.

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Moving at top speed, Jadis was back at Nonia in no time at all, and from what she could see, the tide of the battle had turned in their favor. There were far less living Demons on the field, and the lightning effect of the domes looked like it had been completely neutralized. Jadis wasn’t sure who had done it, but the metal spike of the third shell had been destroyed, and no more lightning bolts were striking anywhere. Once again, the demonic domes were no more than hard to crack shells, lacking any offensive capabilities.

Well, except for whatever the fuck that black goop protecting the inside of the shells was.

As she passed over the initial breach, Jadis saw Thea and Bridget had taken over the defense of the opening. Aila and Kerr were there, too, floating on two more of the magister’s arcane discs. With a quick glance, she spotted Noll and Ludger further into the field, the two men slashing and crushing the remaining force of simulacrums that were still slowing making their way from between the three domes. When a black and white winged figure made a low pass along the north side of the village, Jadis realized that Severina had switched to flying solo, and she was using hit and run tactics to cull the remaining enemies along that front of the battlefield.

Landing within Nonia’s walls, Jadis quickly entered the triage station and found Alex, who instantly donated another two hundred points of magic to fill her drained power pool. Instead of Eir this time, Jocelyn rushed over to their side and almost instantly poured a thousand points of health into her. As her lover and her friend aided her, Jadis quickly explained what she had done with the altar, and where Lucia was with the nearly sacrificed woman.

“I will make sure that someone is sent there quickly,” the Oracle stated in an almost surprisingly firm tone. “There is a cleric here who is nearly out of magic. If Alex can provide her with some more magic, I will send her and a small force of soldiers to secure the altar.”

“My reserves… Are low…” Alex admitted after a second. “But I will… Be able to… Give her… A little…”

With her message delivered and her own health and magic improved as much as could reasonably be done in that moment, Jadis got back into the air and headed for the enemy domes. She wanted to ask Alex and Eir how they were doing, check on the situation, and make sure everyone was okay, but the battle was still raging. The fact that they were still alive and operating without interference would have to do.

Looking at the forward dome, Jadis couldn’t see Wilhelm, Halvor, or Rein anymore. She guessed that the three had finally made their way inside of the shell, since the gaps along the outer edge were still present. Since she had confidence that they would be able to handle themselves, Jadis steered towards the northernmost dome, the one she had focused on originally before going after the altar. It didn’t look like Tiernan had cast any spells to create an opening along the bottom, but Jadis already had a way inside. Looping high into the sky, Jadis aligned her three selves with Dys in the front and Syd in the back. Then, with a roar of anger, she dove at the hexagonal hole in the top of the dome.

Dys slammed axe-first into a wall of black goop that rose up to meet her. The impact was like running headfirst into concrete, and she could feel her whole body shake from the whiplash. Whatever the shit was, Jadis’ inner nerd was telling her that it was acting like a non-Newtonian fluid, flowing like slime normally but solidifying when struck. Still, it didn’t really matter if the black gunk hardened up like stone or not. A thousand pounds of raging Nephilim could not be stopped by mere physics.

As her Dys self crashed through the demonic substance and to the ground below, her Jay and Syd bodies followed behind. Jadis’ extreme dive took out multiple support structures and chains inside of the shell on the way, and her bodies ended up knocked off center course as they landed. The interior of the shell was almost completely dark save for the slight glow of pulsing runes, and the shine of many demonic eyes glaring at her.

And then there was the screaming.

Recasting her Succubus eyes, Jadis saw that the obelisk hanging in the center of the dome was still pulsing with power, though it was now leaning to one side thanks to her destructive entry. From her multiple viewpoints, she could see that each side of the hexagonal edifice had a victim pinned to it, just like the obelisk they had found before. However, there was an immediately noticeable difference between this stone pillar and the first one she had encountered. Namely, the huge, throbbing ooze creature that was growing out of the top.

Bubbling like a tar pit that had grown eyes and come to life, the demonic horror looked like an eldritch fantasy given form. The main mass was stretched out over the top of dome’s interior, with a central trunk protruding up from the obelisk’s crown. Multiple extensions of the goop that looked like a mix between tentacles and bubbling arms reached out towards Jadis, gaining unnatural mass as they grew towards her.

“Well, that can fuck right off,” Jay cursed before swinging her hammer hard at the closest bracing structure of the dome.

Wood splintered and the interior shuddered as her blow broke something that was probably important. Jadis still wasn’t sure how the dome and the obelisk worked, but she knew that the men and women who had been sacrificed on the stone pillar were powering the magic. If she could disconnect the pillar from the larger structure, she could cut off the power to the runes, and probably the horrifying goop monster, too. She just hoped she could do so without killing the poor souls who had been impaled onto the obelisk.

Jadis set about the task with all the speed and strength she had available to her. Thanks to the potion Amarantha had provided her, Jadis’ Strength was much closer to the high it had been before she had changed up how her rituals were empowering herself and her lovers, and she could feel it with every swing of her hammer, axe, or sword. Combined with her vastly increased Agility, and Jadis had been turned into an unstoppable force. She felt like the blades of a blender as she rocketed around the inside of the shell, striking down every unrelenting simulacrum that got in her way, along with the black mass of demonic slime trying to latch hold of her bodies.

“Get off me you piece of shit!” Syd shouted as one of the goopy protrusions wrapped around her leg. “You’re a fucking carpet stain with delusions of grandeur!”

Syd found that she was able to cut through the slimy mass, though there was more resistance than she thought there should be. At least, there was a notable difference when compared to when her Dys self cut through a chunk with her axe. In the back of her mind, Jadis realized that the likely cause was the enchantments built into her sword staff. There was a lot of magic powering the black blade, while her axe barely had any. If the goop had some kind of anti-magic defense, it would make sense why Wilhelm and the others had such trouble getting through the monstrous slime mold. They didn’t have the level of Strength Jadis possessed to brute force through the demonic mass.

As each cut and slash sent pieces of the dark goop falling to the ground, Jadis saw that the remains were fizzling into a toxic fume that was filling the space. Each breath told Jadis she was taking in some truly nasty contamination, and if she didn’t work fast enough, she could suffocate from the lack of clean air. Still, she persevered, striking at the chains and gantries that held the obelisk up, focused on freeing the impaled victims both for their sake, and to cut off the Demons’ power supply.

With a shout of effort, Dys swung her axe through another cobbled-together trestle. As the structure fell apart, she saw the magic runes on the interior of the dome flicker as the connections powering them seemed to reach a breaking point. The feeling of triumph growing inside of her died in the next instant as Jadis watched a surge of magic flare up from the obelisk. There was nothing she could do but watch as a white-hot heat blazed across the obelisk, melting the runes and destroying the enchantments. And, of far more devastating consequence, burning alive the men and women who had been staked to the sides of the hexagon.

“Fucking… dammit,” Jay croaked out as she watched the horrifying sight. “Damn them…”

Jadis wasn’t even sure who she was damning. The Demons. The cultists. Samleos. Herself, maybe? She had chosen to break apart the interior. Had that been the wrong call? She wasn’t sure what else she could have done. The ooze seemed endless, so long as it was powered, and she couldn’t see any other way of stopping the enchantments. Based on the last dome, she had thought that the obelisk had burned out due to an overexertion of magic. Now, she was all but certain that the burning was a self-destruct, built into the pillar so that the runes could not be read, and so that the victims would never survive the ordeal.

All three of Jadis darted out of the way as the mass of bubbling flesh collapsed onto the ground in a grotesque puddle of putrescence. That much she had been right about. Without the magic empowering it, the dark mass of slime Demon fell apart. The final burbling noises of the melting abomination echoed inside the utterly still dome, as Jadis hovered in the air, staring at the silent obelisk that had fallen most of the way to the ground.

“Jadis! Are you alright in there?”

Jay looked up to see Severina standing on the edge of the dome, her beautiful face showing an anxious expression. Seeing her winged lover was like taking an electrical shock to her system. Jadis shook her doubts away, unwilling to let a failure force her into making more mistakes. She hadn’t been able to save these people. But that didn’t mean there weren’t more people who needed her help. If she actually cared about those who had been slain so horribly, then she needed to keep fighting for them. Standing around feeling bad wasn’t going to help anyone.

“I’m here!” Jay shouted as she and her other two bodies flew up to the hexagonal hole. “This dome is neutralized.”

“Any survivors?” Severina asked when Jay came up to meet her.

“No,” Dys shook her head grimly. “They burned.”

Severina nodded once, her own expression a mirror of Jadis’ feelings.

“No different than for Wilhelm and the forward shell,” the Seraphim said as she touched a gauntleted hand against Dys’ shoulder. “But there is still the third shell. We are already gathering for a concentrated assault.”

Jadis could see what Sev meant. While she had been in the dome, the battle had progressed without her. Dead Demons littered the landscape, and it seemed that only stragglers remained. Looking to the south, she could see that Wilhelm and his melee party were already gathering on top of the third dome, with Tiernan floating overhead. She could even see Noll and, strangely, Sorcha and Kerr riding on top of Meli’s giant spider form, standing on top of the Dome. Jadis wasn’t sure why those three had come forward, but she supposed she would find out soon enough.

“Alright,” Jay said with conviction. “Let’s get over there and finish this.”