First Reckoning (Part II)

Hesitation gripped Hyumilla just as she was about to utter the incantation of her first spell. Her dark eyes narrowed as she felt a fleeting sensation dance across every fiber of her being, one that she could not recall within the palpable reaches of her memory-

Fear.

It was not the same as that whimpering aversion to pain and death that so frequently wracked the minds of the lesser ones around her. No, this was different. It was a terror borne of reverence, one that hailed from an intrinsic connection to an immutable force of absolution far above her-The Fear of Gods.

In that same moment, the light around her faltered and a growing shadow seemed to fall upon the entirety of the natural arena. The magic fizzled from Hyumilla's fingertips as she lowered her hand, and with hallowed anticipation in her heart, she gazed towards the heavens.

Up in the morning sky, the once pale and unassuming mist darkened into a murky shroud upon the firmament and the sun. As the radiance of day waned under the growing gloom, the dark fog condensed and coiled into the likeness of a giant skull.

Disturbed voices rose all across the spectator stands as the crowds noticed the sudden, mysterious phenomenon in the sky. The collective mood warped as confusion and uncertainty began to creep upon the masses, until finally…

...They emerged.

One by one, dark silhouettes resembling comets woven from smoke and shadow streaked out of the eye sockets of the mistborn skull. Ghoulish faces protruded from their "heads," their incorporeal bodies ending in trailing tendrils of writhing darkness. They bobbed and weaved in the air, releasing strange, eerie wails as they danced across the forsaken skies.

The uneasy whispering of the crowd escalated into panicked shouts and screams upon the sudden appearance of the mysterious apparitions. Eventually, one particular cry would be the fuse to light a wildfire of infectious horror.

"V-Vanquished Spectres! The legendary Haunting of Oaknys-it's happening again!"

As those words rang out with particular vigor from amidst the din of the stands, the crowds erupted into absolute chaos. Countless humanoids and demihumans scrambled out of their seats in a massive stampede of feet and paws, hooves and claws.

But their retreat only served to draw the attention of the dozens of "Vanquished Spectres." Like moths drawn to the flame of panic, they streaked towards the crowd in a stygian blur, releasing waves of unholy power in their wake that withered all in their vicinity. Within a matter of seconds, thousands of spectators had fallen victim to the apparitions' attacks, and the walls themselves crumbled under the decaying aura of the monsters' presences.

But the carnage had only just begun, as even more beings descended from the tainted heavens. Two massive, vaguely skeletal shapes formed from crackling white energy appeared from the mist. No features could be discerned from their spectral forms, save for two emerald lights that blazed like haunted flames in place of eyes. Instead of legs, they had sizzling tails composed of the same pale essence that made up the rest of their bodies. Two "limbs" sprouted from the sides of their writhing torsos, ending in long claw-like appendages.

The first of the two beings drifted slowly towards the bowl of the Cirque, where the Chosen had since paused their battle to stare, transfixed, at the encroaching entity.

Unlike the Vanquished Spectres, this new Phantasm made no sound as it moved through the air, slow and steady in its creeping pace. Almost all who stood within the pit could feel themselves frozen in observation, as if trapped within some lucid nightmare.

Locked within that same state of reverential fear, Hyumilla found herself similarly paralysed as she stared, engrossed at the sight of the apparitions in the sky. Unlike the rest of the Chosen, however, she felt that there was something intimately beautiful about the scene before her-like a work of art painted by a familiar hand.

Finally, the Phantasm descended upon the bare earth of the pit. It extended its grasp, and in one clean sweep of its claws, a clean snap echoed throughout the Connelier as the Standard of Peace broke in two. The protective bubble that had isolated the pit instantly evaporated.

That inconceivable act of sacrilege served as the rallying alarm that broke the trance-like state that had consumed the combatants below. Galvanised into action, several of the warriors closest to the monster pounced simultaneously towards it with their weapons raised, releasing a litany of battle cries that rang out in a resonating unison.

But suddenly, as their bloodlusted figures streaked through the air towards the Phantasm….

...everything stopped.

Their airborne bodies froze completely in the air, and Hyumilla watched in disbelief as Time itself grinded to an absolute halt.

She slowly took in the world around her, her usual icy expression turning into wide eyes of naked shock. It seemed like existence itself had come to a complete standstill, for nary the faintest breeze nor the slightest shifting of the earth could be felt in the air and land. Nothing, living or dead, moved so much as a millimeter in this void of temporal stasis. Hyumilla spotted Sfeiza in the corner of her eye, locked in an unmoving stance with her hunting knives drawn at the ready. Even the Phantasm above had been consigned to the same fate, its pale essence ceasing all manner of movement.

For decades, she had known naught but the superiority of her own power-a peerless, unstoppable force that lingered in the shadow of the Elothris Coalition. But as she stood in that vacuum of time, surrounded by unspeakable happenings that defied her very conception of strength, she realised that the world she thought she knew was crumbling to dust before her eyes. And then she felt it-

-a skeletal grip upon her wrist.

[Delay Magic: Greater Teleportation.]

Hyumilla recoiled in awe as a being garbed in lustrous black robes materialised beside her. Her mind went blank for several seconds, and she could hear the exaggerated thumping of her heart as the overwhelming sensation of inexplicable familiarity washed over her once more. The stranger turned to look at her, his crimson gaze smoldering with power as it bore into her own shocked, blank eyes.

He lifted his other hand, and a fistful of dust trickled through his bony fingers onto the ground on which they stood. But before she could question the strange gesture, or anything else for that matter, the gears of time began to turn once more. In that same precipice between stasis and succession, the two of them vanished into the misty air.

In the next instant, the Chosen continued sailing through the air towards the Phantasm, their powerful figures blurring in acceleration as they activated their martial arts to strike down the monster at hand. Just as their weapons were about to come into contact with its spectral form, it retaliated in one bone-chilling shriek.

The creature extended both its phantasmal limbs, its emerald gaze blazing as it unleashed a nova of pure white energy that emanated outwards from its body. The combatants in closest proximity immediately disintegrated into dust upon contact, but the ring of unholy power did not stop there. It continued to expand, leaving no life behind in its wake.

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What the hell is going on? Why is this happening?!

Randell's face turned the color of ash as he processed the absolute chaos that had so abruptly taken over the tournament.

For countless days and nights, Randell had labored and stressed over the Connelier, determined not to tarnish the reputation of Oaknys and the Brave Coalition. He had hoped to deliver a memorable event, one he could look back on as a moment of shining pride in a career of tedium and overworking.

And yet, as a result of forces far beyond his control, everything was spiraling into ruin. He could never have even thought of accounting for the inexplicable things that were now unfolding before his eyes, and he knew that he was powerless to stop them.

Randell clenched his fists, and momentarily gathered up his fractured spirit as he turned to address the Oracle. Regardless of what was happening, he could not falter in his immediate duties.

"Madame Oracle, we must leave this place at once."

The demihuman woman gave a grim nod and slowly got off her seat with the Quartermaster's assistance. Before turning to leave, Randell slid a suspicious glance at the other two leaders, but the two individuals seemed just as shocked and disturbed at the events unfolding before them.

Suddenly, Randell jolted as he heard a deathly gasp from beside him. The Oracle had turned to stare off in the direction of the balcony's edge, her small hand pointed straight towards a white shape looming closer towards them in the sky.

Soon, all those present upon the Luminary Terrace began to notice the approaching Phantasm.

"Wh-what is that?" Randell sputtered in desperation.

Upon reaching the edge of the balcony, the monster paused, rotating its fleshless body as if to survey the breadth of the Terrace. After several seconds, it extended its ethereal claws straight towards the Oracle.

As the Oracle met the inhuman gaze of the Phantasm, the distress on her face turned into a hollow calm as revelation dawned, and she whispered:

"Death."

Within a heartbeat later, her skin, flesh and blood were ripped instantly from her small frame, converging into a pale stream of her physical essence and sucked in to join with the Phantasm's flickering white energy.

The same fate would befall Randell before he could even process the Oracle's appalling demise. His very being was inhaled into the monster, leaving naught but a bare skeleton behind.

Having finished with its first two victims in a matter of seconds, the Phantasm drifted towards the next hapless figure in its path.

Lord Sagittar Elothris recoiled backwards as it came close, visibly shaken by the swiftness and simple brutality of the previous deaths. His long beard quivered with fright, but the authority that shone from his emerald eyes did not falter as he barked an order to the shadows:

"Two, to me!"

A female spriggan draped in dark green colors immediately emerged from stealth to stand between Elothris and the encroaching monster. Brandishing a steel chakram in her hand, she began to grow in size, her petite figure expanding and expanding-

The Phantasm swept its ethereal claws casually through her growing body, and the spriggan disintegrated upon contact. Elothris watched with his mouth agape as the creature drifted slowly over his bodyguard's ashen remains to float face to face with its intended prey.

The two of them now close enough to touch, Elothris could finally behold with clarity the ethereal visage of the unstoppable monster. The mysterious white essence sizzled like an amalgamation of vapor and flame. Translucent one second and solid in the next, the only constant of its shifting structure were the twin green flames that blazed like haunted reflections of Elothris's own eyes.

The Phantasm extended one of its phantasmal "limbs," but rather than the wispy, clawed appendage from before, the hand of Randell Forris reached out from the pale essence to clasp onto Elothris's face.

And then his screams began.

Unlike the swift, silent demise of the others, Sagittar Elothris writhed in agony as his flesh and innards grinded into liquid before being siphoned slowly at the Phantasm's leisure. The seconds crept by like eternity until finally, his skeleton clattered to the ground in a heap of bones.

It turned, at last, to the final two individuals left on the Luminary Terrace.

But then, it hesitated.

In place of where the hooded lizardman previously stood was an armored suit, reinforced with interlocking plates of gears and metal. A long, cylindrical weapon was holstered upon its right arm, which was now pointed straight towards the Phantasm. Ri Laris Kabelia could be seen huddled behind the suit, trying desperately to appear as little a target as possible.

The Phantasm stopped momentarily in its tracks, tilting its "head" as if carefully examining the unexpected obstacle between it and its quarry. After several seconds of pause, the creature finally turned and drifted away from whence it came, its pale form appearing smaller and smaller as it withdrew back to the distant sky.

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Kazer's knuckles grew pale as they tightened around the shaft of his axe. He heard an ominous thumping sound as a humanoid body tumbled down the stands to land right next to where he stood. The withered husk was a shriveled, emaciated shadow of the lively spectator that had once been- chunks of flesh had been torn off its body as it toppled down row after row of the stands, revealing blackened bone withering from an unnatural rot.

It was only another of many such drained bodies, piled in a tragic heap around the hapless Chieftain as he stood; a rare survivor in a sea of death. Some of the corpses were wracked with more natural injuries-victims of the fleeing stampede, trampled underfoot by the tidal wave of those desperate to escape. Nonetheless, the bodies tangled together around the orc, forming a mountain of the deceased-a warped shelter against the ongoing carnage.

The spectral culprits danced in the skies around him, continuing their ceaseless onslaught as they swooped in and out of the stadium. Their horrific wails mingled with the untold number of screams and cries as they cut a swathe of death through the helpless masses. In certain parts of the stands where multiple Spectres congregated, the wood and stone of the stadium itself decayed and crumbled, loosening from the cliff to careen down into the pit below. Dozens of bodies-alive or dead-plummeted down in tandem, like some twisted form of waste disposal into a landfill of death.

Kazer's bloodshot eyes shone with a mixture of terror and rage. He wanted so badly to shout a challenge to those vile fiends in the sky, to leap into the air and cleave them all to oblivion with a swing of his axe.

But he could not.

His courage failed him; his voice faltering under the horrors that unfolded around him. The very sight of those dark blurs induced an instinctive fear within him, and it took all his willpower simply not to cower in a huddle within the mound of corpses.

He had heard tales of Vanquished Spectres in the past, but a part of him had dismissed them as the exaggerated ramblings of attention-seeking minstrels. Now, however...

He gave a dark, crazed chuckle as he considered the matter further. In a way, he had been right. If those things had actually shown up a hundred forty years ago during the Connelier, there would be no doubting their authenticity. He was certain now that the "Organizer of Oaknys" fiasco was nothing more than a fantastical cover up for simple mismanagement. Perhaps today was some unholy reckoning for the folly of invoking such a dreadful legend as an excuse.

Suddenly, one of the Spectres drifted dangerously close to where Kazer was situated, and an icy chill tightened around the orc's heart. He had been lucky enough to barely avoid the range of a previous Spectre's lethal aura. If yet another arrived at his position….

Panic shot through him, and yet he dared not move a muscle. The apparition drew closer and closer, but suddenly….

It stopped.

The wails and shrieks of the Vanquished Spectres abruptly ceased in unison. Kazer stared with bated breath as they floated, one by one, back into the mouth of the skull in the sky.

Is it over?

As dozens of black shapes swarmed into the eerie nebula of dark fog, a glimmer of relief sparkled in Kazer's desperate gaze. He considered perhaps that the spectres had finally had their fill, and that the worst of the horrific storm was over.

But as the apparitions vanished into the mouth of the skull one after another, the latter only darkened as the fog that formed it grew blacker and blacker with each infusion of the Vanquished Spectres-and the spectacle did not end there.

Kazer watched in weary silence as two white shapes, far larger than the black spectres, drifted slowly into the eye sockets of the skull and out of sight. Several seconds crept by without so much as a sliver of commotion, and then it all culminated in an unspeakable awakening.

White flames burst from the eyes of the giant, smoky skull, and it opened its gaping maw to let out an earth-shaking shriek of unimaginable horror. It came to life in that instant, bobbing slowly through the air towards a distant section of the stadium. It widened its monstrous jaws, and in one massive chomping motion, consumed a great chunk of the stands. Tens of thousands of those who thought they had survived the previous onslaught perished instantly in that terrible moment.

Kazer observed, transfixed, as the skull's gigantic maws opened and shut again and again, and soon over half of the stadium had been reduced to nothing, exposing the barren rock beneath. Finally, it loomed near Kazer's position.

The horrifying mouth opened once more-a massive fissure of darkness that emerged like some abyssal vortex, threatening to devour all in its wake. Kazer braced for his own inevitable demise, but the fatal moment never came-for instead of delivering yet another dreadful bite, the skull released a second screech.

This time however, it was no longer the simple shriek of an awakened monster. It was a unified chorus of howls and screams-the tortuous collection of countless vocal cords vibrating together in a requiem of the damned. They were the voices of the hundreds of thousands of humanoids and demihumans that had died today; crying out in unison as they languished within a mass of defilement.

It was finally too much for Kazer-the voices were too loud, too painful. He crumpled to the ground, clamping his thick hands over his ears while squeezing his eyes shut to block out the sights and sounds of his surroundings. He felt himself unconsciously curling into a trembling ball, too shocked and terrified to mind the countless corpses still piled around him.

One…

Two…

Three….

The seconds ticked away, but Kazer refused to release himself from his self-induced shell. His senses failed him; his reasoning dominated by an all-consuming fear that resonated through every fiber of his being.

That pitiful state lasted for what felt like eternity, until Kazer's spirit finally flickered back into existence as he felt warm light filtering in through his eyelids. Slowly and steadily, the orc forced his bloodshot eyes open to find himself bathed in the radiance of the sun once more. Dazed and confused, he stood himself up and looked around.

The nightmarish skull and mist had disappeared, and nothing remained to obscure the warm afternoon sun as it dawned upon the ruinous aftermath of the Connelier. Kazer soon realised that all but his own section of the stadium had been consumed, and as his gaze lingered upon the Luminary Terrace only several feet above his right, a dark realisation finally struck him.

Ri Laris Kabelia stood tall alongside her hooded retainer, staring out upon the scene of despair-the only surviving leader of the three coalitions.

All this time, he had been wary of the Elothris's Coalitions reckless encroachments, but he now realised that all their petty conflicts were but childsplay in the face of true, unbridled might.

Kazer recalled all the rumors he had heard regarding the Kabelia Coalition's dark and mysterious dealings, and he realised that despite all his miscalculations and folly, there was one thing that he had gotten right at the council meeting.

Laughter, mad and uncontrollable laughter, began to fill the air. Kazer found his voice once more as he descended into a roaring fit of hilarity. He chuckled and guffawed at the sheer absurdity of it all, and red hot madness filled his vision as his laughter echoed throughout the basin-the only sound in the wake of annihilation.