Living Failures [Eliana POV]

‘Don’t fuck it up.’

That was the singular thought on Eliana’s mind. A laser precision that guided her footfalls when she stepped through the rift in space Lee had made for them. They were the last party to deploy and they were trusted with the territory furthest away from it all.

Lu Zhi had pledged them her aid. She hadn’t yet mobilized her people when she had sent that message, but she had pledged it all the same. She would need a safe spot to land, both by air and sea. They were sent there to make it happen and to link up with the Creator Puppet. Vital tasks, that she refused to allow herself to contemplate to fail. She could not fail him. Not when he had suffered like this already.

Eliana glanced up at her sole companion on this journey. Aclysia nodded back with grim determination. They did not speak. Unity was found beyond words in the need to tear asunder that which had hurt their man so.

They left the Protected Space Lee had dropped them into. For a brief moment, they saw the busy streets of Los Angeles’ inner city. Moving crowds of people of all colours and creeds, flickering into view before a Trap Barrier dragged the duo into its influence.

The brief vision of normalcy was replaced by an empty city. In the middle of the street, seated on a throne of filth, was a man. His body was decayed by mould and diminished by famine. What skin he still had stretched over his arms, legs, hips and ribs. There was too little of it for even that. The hips jutted out, the muscle fibres on his thin limbs were exposed, and fleshy bodies of red-black fungus sprouted from the gaps in his ribs, both at the front and the back. His stomach fully wasted away, leaving behind a naked spine, kept upright by black Lorylim matter.

Despite all of that, the lower half of the man’s face remained whole. His skin was as pale as Eliana’s, his lips the purple-ish colour of a corpse, yet they were spread in a slight smile. Up from the curls of his mouth, the man’s face was truly monstrous. Empty were his eyesockets and pitch black despite the daylight. Lorylim matter had not just eaten the skin, but fully replaced it, giving everything around and up from the eyes a veiny, wet texture. The top of his head had burst open, the brain expanding as a mass of wiggling black and dark pink wrinkles. From its sides, two dull horns sprouted, dripping corruption.

The mouth may have smiled and the empty eye sockets locked in a gaze of eternal sorrow, but the third eye of the man stared with rage. It was almost human, despite its vertical alignment. A sclera turned pink and red by agitated blood vessels around an almost plain brown iris with a simple, round, black pupil.

[AI Picture: https://i.imgur.com/W068xp0.png]

Eliana and Aclysia charged instantly. They did not need to know what this was, they already knew it was powerful. More importantly, it was Lorylim and therefore it needed to die.

Glacial Exoskeleton and bone plate covered the charging women. “For the sake of what I treasure, I will immolate myself – Bloodburn.” The incantation flowed off Eliana’s lips. Flaming wings of crystals flowing ichor sprouted from her back, screaming like distorted violins as she accelerated further, streaking past Aclysia and then swinging her fist at the man.

Her fist stopped.

Eliana snapped back. She landed on one foot and immediately twisted into a sweeping kick. The man tilted his head. The shockwave from the supersonic motion tore open the street behind him. Windows exploded inside their frames in every building around. Eliana’s foot slammed back down, her fist went up and stopped again.

Marice thrust forwards. The ice-crusted blade came to a still between pinching fingers. They were so thin, their nails chewed away down to the root, leaving a bloody and exposed nailbed. He twisted his hand and the entirety of the weaponized maid was turned with it. Then, with a loose gesture, he threw her off to the side.

Aclysia slammed through concrete, glass and steel. A dust cloud rose two streets away, where Eliana’s unparalleled hearing noted her stop. The raised hand of the Lorylim came down, a gesture no more urgent than shooing away a fly. All buildings that Aclysia had blown through were flattened under pure telekinetic ****.

“You are in pain, child.”

The voice of the man was grieving, empathetic to the core, and seething with hatred. Eliana tried to take a step back. She hit a wall of invisible ****. She grit her teeth and pushed through it. She stopped after skipping back twice, now several metres removed from the still seated Lorylim. ‘I’m a failed fucking goddess, but I am still one of the strongest fucking things in the known world!’

“So am I.”

The response to her thoughts made her pause. Her eyes went wide. “You are-“

“Izha, in the flesh.” The man rose and began to bow. He only got halfway through the gesture, before Eliana had charged in. His own hand rose to meet hers in the middle of the motion. She stopped herself just in time and pulled back again. “Or, rather, I am the flesh of the mind that stretches across two realms. You may call me Izha’s Beacon.”

“I don’t give a shit what you want to be called. You’re a dead man walking.”

Izha laughed. It was a laugh totally devoid of care, like a dictator’s child that just gunned someone down in the middle of the street for their amusement. “Yes, yes, I am.” He raised his hand and closed a telekinetic grasp around her.

It was similar and yet so different from being constrained by gravity magic. The **** was not as uniform in its application or direction. It was an invisible hand, rather than an empowerment of a natural phenomenon. It was also too weak to hold down what she was now. Eliza had trained and trained so that she may not be so far behind Thana. The fluctuations between their powers, where they occurred, were no longer disastrous.

Pure physical strength let her burst through the shackles. The veins of exterior ichor that crawled through her bone armour opened, spraying droplets into the air. Magic took hold of them, gathered them into a lance that congealed into hardened crystal. Izha had dodged before she finished the aiming motion. A single step to the side, that was all he needed.

Behind him, the spear opened up into a wide membrane. Liquid one moment, then crystal again the next, it obeyed the pull of the greatest of all blood mages, returning to her in a hailstorm of sharp projectiles. Izha flicked a finger, opening a gap in it big enough for his body to fit through.

“Isn’t this unfortunate?” Izha giggled and grabbed his own forearms, rubbing them as if he was cold. “We are each other’s opposite. You are too resilient for me to corrupt by my spores alone and too strong for me to hold you down. I am too capable of reading your mind to be struck.”

“Let’s keep fucking trying, see what happens,” Eliana growled.

“You are worried about Aclysia, child. I can sense it even if you do not glance towards her.” Izha settled back down on his stump. “Like I know that you know she is alive, because you looked at the party interface. She is waiting beneath the rubble, for her health to regenerate. As if it will change anything for you children.”

“Shut the fuck up, you living dick mould.” Eliana charged in again. Her fists drummed against the sightless shields put up around the body of the Latebloomer. His slight smile remained, steady and gracious. Nothing about him moved as she moved around him, hoping to outpace his reflexes by constantly striking him from different angles. “RAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Eliana raised her right leg, leaving the foot loosely dangling. Her aura ignited, slurring thick and red in the air like a drop of blood in water. Then, she brought her foot down, a cataclysmic wave of ki rushing through it and to her sole, just as she flexed her foot for a flat impact.

The Seismic Stomp ripped the street open. Dirt and asphalt moved like a lake disturbed by a heavy stone. Such was the **** that the buildings around them were torn apart by the vibrations before the actual wave hit them. Destruction brought upon the city was absolute.

Except for that one asshole that still sat right in front of her. He clapped, shaking his head like a moved actor at an award ceremony. During that entire explosion, he had moved back to his stool. It and the ground around it were all untouched. “Very good, child.”

“YOU KILLED HIS FUCKING PARENTS!” Eliana screamed, spittle flying from her mouth. She went on the offensive again. Claws cut through the air. Spiked knee pads stabbed. “YOU KILLED BRENDA! YOU KILLED BEN! YOU KILLED THEM BEFORE THEY COULD MEET THEIR GRANDCHILDREN! YOU----” There were a thousand curses on her tongue, none potent enough to describe her emotions. Screaming in hatred was all she could do.

“No, no, his parents killed his parents,” Izha corrected. “They reached for the pills with their own two hands. They gulped them down, one after another, until the overdose killed them. Brenda did it after she made a wrong cut in her rosebush. Ben did it after seeing his dead wife. That is the truth, child.”

“Stop fucking calling me that,” Thana growled, a voice like a wolf. “I am one made from millions.”

“Cute,” Izha giggled. His hands were on his arms again. There was barely any muscle on those bones. The dull fingers dug into the skin, drawing red blood. “I can hear the world think, Eliana. I was there with you in the tank. Emotionless cold. I suffered with you. Counted the seconds with you.” He giggled, an empty tone. “The trees yearn to grow. The crows wish to feast. The maggots crawl around their own thoughts. Mankind… mankind is everywhere. Everywhere! AHAHAHAHA!”

Rage. There was rage now. The third eye, the only actual eye. Widened until the corners of the lids tore, sending a tear of red and black down its crawling path to his chin.

“CONSIDER YOURSELF BLESSED, GODDESS OF GENOCIDE! You are ONE born from MANY! I am my own soul alone! No burden shouldered, just thoughts, just thoughts, just thoughts! I SHALL EAT! I SHALL DRINK! I SHALL BREATHE! I SHALL! I SHALL! I SHALL!”

Aclysia burst out of the nearby ground. Moisture in the air turned into snow at her presence, caught in the glacial winds howling around her. She swung overhead. The massive sword descended. It stopped between two fingers again. Eliana threw herself into the gap, pressing with all of her might against the forcefield he created to stop her attack.

“I don’t get it…!” she growled. “I’m capable of breaking out, so why can’t I break through?!”

“That would be because of the item I am using. Show them, Hyozuma.”

The seat of Lorylim filth beneath Izha began to unfurl. Layers of liquids sloughed off the body within. It rose beside its master, a thing with reddish-puprle skin of matted tendrils and ruptured blood vessels. Hair and most of the face were completely covered, leaving nonsensically squirming tendrils in the place of strands. The eyes looked like suckers. The broad grin was lipless, yellow and sharp. Embedded in the stomach of the creature was a formation of yellow gemstones.

[Hyozuma AI Picture: https://i.imgur.com/am5uGkN.png]

“You might remember this man. He was at your little tournament, alongside so many others that let me in.” Izha circled around the taller man. “Innate Abilities are such an interesting thing. They develop in response to character and wishes. The stronger the Innate Ability, the more there is to shape. The stronger the wishes, more specific the outcome. He wished to wield all the powerful items in the world. Thus, he became a thief, and with my aid, he is stronger than he could ever be. A rare defence item becomes a true **** generator at our behest.

“As for me, I wished to change… everything. I want the world to understand my chaos! I want everyone to understand that there is no point in any of this. It will all come crashing down, by powers beyond your control. We are all helpless to the tides of life.” Izha tilted his head and smirked at them, revealing incredibly white teeth. “Let me in, children, and it will all be you-“

The leader of the Lorylim hivemind suddenly went rigid. His smile dropped. His expression as a whole finally fit with the rage in his eye, which darted around wildly.

“It has a name now… no… no… how did you do that?!” Izha snapped at them. “HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!”

The gemstones in corrupted Hyozuma’s stomach flared in intensity, sending both Aclysia and Eliana flying back. ‘What the fuck is wrong with him now?’ she asked herself.

“No… no, you don’t know what happened either. What… there was… where is… did she… where… where… Oh. Oh.” Izha clicked his tongue several times. “You took little Unswift from me. He was an innocent lad. Is there something else afoot? Oh, the balance shifts… this is no longer my place to be.” His neck creaked as he smiled again, just slightly. “Understand that the fate of Lu Zhi has nothing to do with me.”

Lorylim matter flowed into a different shape. The filthy hides turned into a facsimile of human skin. The master of the hivemind and his puppet turned into brown-haired humans, complete with clothing. Simultaneously, Izha raised his hand to the sky.

“YOU FUCKING-!” Eliana was incapable of stopping them. The spellpower of Izha outclassed hers, putting him in charge of the Illusion Barrier and giving him the ability to leave at his leisure.

“Disappointing,” Aclysia hissed.

Eliana shared the sentiment completely.