I See The Light

“John, what exactly is your new ‘ally’ planning by picking a fight with my father?” Moira asked as they sprinted down the hallways.

“What is your father thinking picking a fight with the only person who might be able to stop this war?!” John responded, concern and indignation weighing equally in his voice.

“My father hasn’t picked a fight since- there! Look, they’ve surrounded the entire area in a Barrier!”

John couldn’t quite see what Moira was talking about at first, but with a bit of concentration and a quick Observe he was finally able to perceive something – a large notification, hovering in the air several feet in front of a set of double doors.

Barrier Modifier: Mutual Combat
Duel ongoing. Any hostile action within this Barrier other than by the participants will cause ejection.

“Those two are dueling. Why would they be having a duel?” John asked as they barreled through the doors, feeling the slight tension in the air as they passed over the division between realities. Sophia strode in behind them, in lockstep and her eyes far more alert than they’d been mere moments ago.

“Perhaps the woman you dragged out of a ruined city isn’t in the best mental state?” Moira asked, exasperated sarcasm leaking through her teeth. “By Gaia, they’ve got this place completely barricaded!”

Her exclamation came as they approached an arcaded courtyard, a particularly large one John remembered well from Maera’s training sessions. There was a spacious, paved walkway around the outer edge, after which the arches began and led into a wide open space filled with several training areas and a fair amount of equipment. None of the gear had made it into the Barrier, though, and all along the arches two barriers stood in their way – a physical one and a magical one. Golden light shone in a solid wall at the perimeter along the arches, cutting off the covered walkway from the interior. Interwoven with the light were what John quickly recognized as Adantia’s cables, weaved in a pattern so tight that even if one were to make it past the golden light, they would struggle to fit more than a single finger through any gap.

But beyond the barrier was the truly shocking sight.

Lord Brighton stood with a kite shield extraordinarily similar to the one that Moira wielded on one arm and a mace in the other, clashing again and again with Adantia, who John at first thought was wielding no weapon at all, but after a moment’s study realized was controlling a small metallic object of some sort. It was zipping along her body, always managing to place itself at the point of contact between her and Lord Brighton at the last possible moment, moving so quickly John could scarcely glean its shape, and could not hope to Observe it.

“Father! What’s going on out here?!” Moira shouted over the din of the two warriors’ combat. “Why have you declared a sacred duel?!”

”Sacred duel? Must have something to do with that message I saw on the Barrier and why both of them have decided to block us out,” John noted to himself.

“What better way to ascertain the truth of the matter?” Lord Brighton called out, his voice so filled with amusement it was practically a laugh. “Would you deny your father the chance to stretch his limbs for the first time in years?”

The sound of Lord Brighton sounding enthused, even outright ecstatic, about any form of combat was a ringing note of absurdity to John. But John could not deny the nearly cheeky grin on the Lord Protector’s face. Lord Brighton’s blows struck with tremendous ****, such that the physical and magical barriers surrounding the courtyard trembled and glistened with each resonating crash. Adantia for her part seemed somewhat less enthusiastic, and far less pressed and involved with the matter. If anything, she seemed almost as if she were going through the motions.

“They’re taking things far too seriously for a casual sparring match,” Moira said quietly, her jaw set and her teeth clearly grinding as she spoke. “If my father is hurt because of his pride and an unknown woman you’ve dragged into our compound, I will hold you personally responsible, John!”

“What makes you say that they’re taking things that seriously?” John asked, without glancing away from the duel. “It just looks like a normal duel to me. I don’t even think either of them have been hurt yet.”

“Can you not feel that? Can you not sense the way they strike at each other, the spells they cast almost as a formality, simply to ensure their foe is worthy of standing against them?”

John thought for a moment that perhaps Moira was being dramatic, but there really was something to what she was saying. He noticed it in the silence after she had spoken, as his mind was free to focus on the environment. John couldn’t quite put words to what he was feeling, but the space around them felt almost electric, and there was a certain pressure in the air as if some great being were towering over them.

John tried using Observe a few times, but it only brought up details about whatever he happened to be staring at – the barrier, the architecture, the grass, even a fly that happened to buzz past at an opportune moment.

”No good. If I can’t see it, I can’t Observe it,” John thought, a frown erupting across his face.

The annoyance had just reached a peak when an odd idea occurred to John. Something he had never tried before. Focusing in on that strange awareness of a feeling beyond his physical senses, John closed his eyes and cast Observe.

Observe failed. No target detected.

”That’s a first step. I can’t Observe myself because I don’t need to, because I already have access to all my information, so if all I can see are my own eyelids it doesn’t work. If I could just...”

John ignored the worried noises Moira was making, the whispers of the crowd around them, and focused in on the oppressive feelings from whatever mana Lord Brighton and Adantia were leaking. He did his best to enter an almost meditative state, to fully tune out the distractions of the outside world and focus on that feeling.

Observe… failed?

”That message… just like when I was advancing Deception. How do I push this further?”

John tried to recall what it had felt like when he was seeing through Vallya’s eyes, experiencing the world through her perspective after using Twin-Soul Resonance. The way he could see individual strands of mana and detect sources of magic from great distances, even through objects. John imagined what he might see and feel at that moment, immersed himself in that foreboding sense of immense mana surrounding him, and cast his spell one more time.

Observe has reached Maximum Level!
Passive Effect Gained: User can now passively see the presence of mana being used to cast active spells which are not being concealed from them, even if the action or consequence of the spell would not normally be visible to the eye. Observe may be activated on these passive presences to determine the effects of a spell if the user has sufficient knowledge of its magical school.
Active Effect Gained: The level cap on Observe has been removed. Full information now available regardless of the target’s relative level.

John had only read a third of the notification before a flash of light and a stunning barrage of purple sparks nearly blinded him, tearing his eyes away from the text for an instant. His new awareness had come in a sudden eruption as all the mana being wielded between the two warriors inside the courtyard became apparent to him.

Surrounding Lord Brighton was a golden glow, but it was not a solid column or even a formless mass – the mana ebbed and flowed like water, reaching out towards Adantia and then receding towards him. Adantia was surrounded by a similar aura but colored with a pale blue, faded to nearly white, that met each of the incursions Lord Brighton’s mana made, and occasionally ventured out on a foray of its own.

A flurry of Observe spells couldn’t discern the exact purpose of each spell – repeated warnings of lack of knowledge appeared instead – but he could at least discern the school of some of them. There were Illusion, Enchantment, Alteration, Biomancy, and a half-dozen other classifications all flying around, usually several of each. Adantia’s were labeled as a number of different damage types, while most of Lord Brighton’s were either defensive or possessed the “Holy”, “Light”, or “True” damage labels. Despite the castings and reactions John assumed must have been going on, he couldn’t see the physical aspect of their battle slowing or hesitating in the slightest. They were both still moving so fast John could sometimes catch nothing more than a flash of light, or hear the sound of metal clashing… and yet they were managing all of these spells at the same time.

”Are they that much more skilled? Or are their minds simply operating so much faster that they can handle all these different fronts at once, while still seeming so out of our league?” John wondered for a brief moment. He recalled how Adantia explained that she was trying not to kill John during their initial encounter, when she had almost effortlessly predicted his movements and evaluated his spells, even when he was teleporting around. At the time her words had seemed just another attempt at intimidation – now, he found himself marveling at just how much she must have actually been holding back.

“You’re not bad, old man,” Adantia called out, loudly enough that her words were clear to every one of the spectators gathered around. “But you’re starting to slow down already. What are you gonna do when I start to take things seriously?”

“By then I’ll have shaken off the cobwebs and be ready to show you what real power is!”

The words were jarring coming from the usually affable Lord Brighton, and the look on his face as his mace crashed against Adantia with enough **** to shake the foundations was just as unusual. John cast a glance over to Moira and saw a thoroughly worried expression on her face.

“So… if they do take things seriously, what exactly is so bad about that?” John asked, glancing between the Warden and her father. “Neither of them are getting hurt, and they seem to have intentionally walled us off so that we don’t either.”

“They aren’t taking things seriously just yet. Not really. My father, he…” Moira bit her lip for a moment, eyes locked onto the two combatants. “It has been many years since my father fought against someone seriously. I was too young to accompany him onto any truly dangerous battlefields, but he often speaks of those days with a great deal of displeasure. He has told me before that he cares little for the man he becomes during bloodshed. I find it hard to believe that a man as controlled and composed as my father could lose himself like that, but all the same… If she pushes him too far, I only pray that she’s as strong as you say, John.”

The memory of Moira’s loss of control over herself during their raid on the Cabal was not lost to John, and the implications of her words weren’t either. If Moira, a woman normally so restrained and driven by self-control, could be driven to a lust-addled state of near possession, then what would happen if that same primal drive were applied to combat…?

“So if they go all out, you’re worried one of them might get hurt?”

“I can’t know for sure… mages as strong as they are have countless defenses and are often immensely difficult to harm,” Moira whispered. “But… I don’t want to see my father hurt. By her or by himself.”

John stayed silent as he considered the full implications of those words. Although he had never seen Lord Brighton in a battle, he had certainly seen how easily Adantia could absolutely dominate him, even when he was a completely unknown factor to her. What would she do now, against a foe who could stand up to her raw strength? More importantly… what would Lord Brighton do in response, and how far would he push things?

John’s Observe could now allow him at least a glimpse into the answers of both questions, a fact which he finally took advantage of. His eyes locked first on Lord Brighton.

William Brighton
Level 217 Paladin
<Lord Protector of the Golden Rose>
HP: 26,879 / 42,395
Relationship: 115
Alignment: +99
Status Effects: N/A

“Holy fuck,” John breathed, two ideas warring in his head. The first was that Lord Brighton was clearly an overwhelmingly powerful individual, and true to his and Moira’s words, he would have easily won the battle against the Albidians. Had they not been so overly cautious about their own whereabouts and not dared to raise a finger against the Order directly until they had Moira held hostage, they would have been wiped off the map with little chance for retaliation.

The second thought he had chilled the first… and sent shivers down his spine. Even Lord Brighton, for all his power, was barely strong enough to break free of the mobile Barrier that Himiko’s troops had established when John first arrived. And he was well under half the level required to bypass the weakening effects of her home Barrier.

”If that is what the Deities are capable of,” John thought with a growing knot of apprehension, ”then what is Adantia capable of as one who nearly joined their ranks?”

John turned his eyes to the muscular woman across from Lord Brighton as she blocked another swing of his mace and cast his Observe with a not insignificant amount of ****.

Adantia Oloquexia
Level 592 Enchantress
<Remnants of Paix>
HP: 182,471 / 216,705
Relationship: 49
Alignment: +69
Status Effects: Enkia’s Seal

“…”

No words came to John, none could. At his current maximum level, he would have barely been a roadblock to Lord Brighton – enough to slow him, not to pose a significant threat barring some major missteps from the former Warden Lord. Against Adantia, the mere fact that he had survived his encounter suddenly felt like a miracle, even with her holding back.

“John, what has come over you? Gather your wits!”

John hadn’t noticed the shocked look that must have crossed his face, but he realized as Moira shouted worriedly at him that he must have looked quite overtaken. His hands were shaking slightly as they pressed against the golden barrier separating him from the courtyard, his legs were unsteady on the ground, and his muscles felt tense and unresponsive.

“Nothing has changed,” John half-whispered to himself. “So why does it feel like it has? Why does putting a number to this distance feel so… overwhelming?”

“John, what’s happening?” Moira asked. The more concerning thing for John was that even Sophia seemed aware of his distress.

“Father, you look pale. What has disturbed you so?”

“I… I feel like I just got a glimpse into the Abyss itself,” John said honestly. His words might not have been very descriptive, but they were an honest assessment. He felt like a swimmer who had wandered a little too far from the shore and passed over the ledge of their homeland, finding themselves staring into the seemingly bottomless chasm of the ocean, suddenly realizing how small they were.

“I told you before, John… you have been toying with powers that could slaughter all of us in an instant. I cannot believe that…”

Moira continued on for a time, but her words were lost to John as he considered the feelings in his chest and Moira’s words faded into a buzzing white noise. True, he was afraid, and true, he was concerned for the well-being of Lord Brighton and all those that surrounded him. But there was more to it than simple worries. More than concern or fear could ever fully describe. Even knowing that Adantia likely intended no ill will still left a feeling of uncertainty and apprehension in John’s chest that he found hard to explain…

Until he finally recognized the warmth filling his chest. The heat that had not burned so intensely in his chest in over a year, the feelings of driving wrath that burned through his soul no matter how hard he tried to shut it out. The feelings were not that of simple anxiety or foreboding. They were the feelings of a power that had not met its equal in a hundred years finally awakening to the challenge that lay before it.

No matter how insignificant that power seemed now, no matter how hopeless it might have felt… it now had a chance to rectify its mistakes. To cull the beasts it had failed to slaughter so long ago.

”Wait… what does that even mean, though? Where are these thoughts coming from?”

Shard of Bishamonten: 5% Transcendence Achieved!

John’s thoughts, feelings, and senses jumbled for a moment as that thought and the notification jostled for primary attention. By the time he managed to re-focus his vision and his senses, by the time Moira realized her chastising lecture was mostly unheeded, the battle in the center of the courtyard was reaching a new peak.

“You’ve got a bit of spunk in you for a retired ex-Warden,” Adantia called out, just as Lord Brighton whipped his shielded arm forward, smashing aside several metal tendrils at once. “But how long can you keep this up?”

“If it’s an end to this battle you seek, you shall not be waiting much longer,” Lord Brighton responded, a glisten in his eyes that reminded John far more of Kim and Sophia than anything he had ever witnessed in Moira’s sharp gaze. “The Rose may not dwell within me any longer, but some of its power yet remains.”

“Father, you cannot do this! As your Warden, I-”

“The Lady blesses me, and I shine her wrath upon all who stand against me!”

John lost sight of the battlefield before him in a glorious blaze of golden light, but in the instant before Lord Brighton was consumed by a column of pure energy, John’s Observe cast one final time.

William Brighton
Level 367 Champion of the Lady
<Lord Protector of the Golden Rose>
HP: 66,879 / 87,395
Relationship: 115
Alignment: +99
Status Effects: Memory of the Rose

“Come on and prove it then, if you think you can do some real damage!” Adantia taunted, her voice rising clearly over a cacophony of unseen choruses that chanted out scriptures too holy for any mortal to perceive clearly.

“By the Lady I shall have the truth of your identity, or the truth of my own failures!”