Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

Besides… Zorian was almost done with his summoning. Even though he had started his spell later than Quatach-Ichl’s simulacrum, he seemed to be working faster.

Quatach-Ichl realized it too.

"You are to manage this alone with a while. I need to speed things up," Quatach-Ichl yelled, and then flew off in the direction of his simulacrum. He soon took place beside him, causing the demon summoning to speed up immensely.

Gritting his teeth, Zorian sent even more mana into the angel cube in his palm, causing it to suck in even more ambient mana from the environment and increasing the strain on his concentration and shaping skills to the edge of the breaking point. Even with the help of his simulacrums, his awareness constantly shrunk, until the golden cube above his head became his entire world.

Suddenly, the pressure completely disappeared. The air above him warped and twisted, and there was suddenly a huge shadow looming over him.

It was the same angel he and Zach had spoken to earlier in the month. Or at least it looked the same to Zorian. A mass of black branches with orange eyes instead of leaves, wreathed in fire and light. However, this incarnation of the angel was bigger.

Much, much bigger. The angel in front of him dwarfed virtually everything around it. Even Oganj and Mrva looked like children before it. Other than the sulrothum’s flying sandworm, this was the largest creature Zorian had laid his eyes on in his life.

The angel wasn’t alone. Flying around him were what Zorian could only describe as animated balls of white wings. There were at least 20 of them, and if there was a body hidden somewhere beneath all the feathers, Zorian couldn’t see it. They looked tiny next to the titanic burning tree of eyes, but Zorian estimated they were twice as big as he was.

Another four angels, these ones twice as large as the wing things, silently floated next to the main angel. They looked bestial, reminiscent of lions with a very long, flexible body. They flew through the air without wings, their bodies undulating in a serpentine manner, and they had no head. Instead of a head, they had a ring of white masks, each with a different expression, circling above their neck.

The sudden appearance of the huge angel and its group put an immediate end to all the areal fighting. Oganj immediately vacated the area, retreating towards Iasku Mansion and its defensive wards, while Zach, Alanic, and Xvim landed next to Zorian, grateful for a chance to take a breather and replenish their mana reserves.

When Zorian looked towards Iasku Mansion, however, he realized the angels weren’t the only new arrivals. Quatach-Ichl had apparently finished his summoning at the same time he did, because there was an army of demons arrayed in front of them.

The demons were… a diverse bunch. They were hundreds of them huddling around Iasku Mansion, divided among 30 or so different species . One group looked like man-sized black cats with blood red eyes and shark-like grins. Another consisted of large, hunched, pale-skinned humanoids with four arms, no eyes, a long tail, and quills on their back. Yet another looked like brown eggs scuttling around on long, thin, spider-like legs. A multitude of human faces danced on the surface of the eggs , most of them looking as if in pain. Isolated and given a wide berth even by the other demons, a large dark red rose towered over most of its demon brethren, supported by a multitude of thorny tentacles that probed all around it as if looking for targets. A regimen of humanoid demons stood at attention in one corner, carrying spears and covered in head to toe in black armor with way too many spikes and blade-like protrusion on it, mimicking some ancient human legion. A flock of disgusting, grub-like creatures floated from place to place, dripping saliva everywhere.

However, this multitude of demons didn’t look too impressive in Zorian’s eyes. There were a lot of them, but they were pretty small, at least compared to the angels. Zorian was leery about drawing too many conclusions from size difference alone, but the way the demon horde subtle covered every time they looked at the massive burning tree in the sky told Zorian it was not something to completely discount.

No, what really worried Zorian was the giant humanoid torso floating above the demon horse. This demon was big. Not as big as the burning tree above Zorian, but big enough to rival Oganj and Mrva. The torso was headless and armless, but there was a gigantic eye embedded into its torso, purple and glowing. An armor seemingly made out of various bones – some of them human, some from animals, and some from strange entities that Zorian couldn’t recognize – covered the torso like armor, leaving little except the eye visible to the world.

The lesser demons beneath it covered before the group of angels, but the eye in the torso looked completely unafraid, studying the scene before it with detached curiosity.

For a moment it glanced at Zorian, and Zorian made the mistake of meeting its gaze. He immediately felt his soul shake and his vision began to blur.

A massive black branch extended from the tree above, stabbing into the earth in front of Zorian and breaking the eye contact between him and the purple eye on the horizon.

Zorian’s mind immediately cleared and he quickly reinforced his soul defenses, directing a silent thanks towards the angel above. He didn’t think that would have killed him, but he really didn’t want to engage a powerful demon in a soul magic fight, no matter how minor it was.

For several seconds, the battlefield was silent, neither side wanting to make the first move.

Eventually, Jornak amplified his voice and spoke out to Zorian and the others.

"If we fight here, the city will get leveled," he said.

"If we don’t fight here, you’ll release Panaxeth and the city will still get leveled," Zach responded, his voice still amplified. "What’s your point?"

"I’m just foolishly hoping you will see reason," Jornak said. "No matter what you do, the city is doomed. You are doomed. You were doomed the moment you accepted that poisonous contract with the angels. We both know they probably hoped something like this would happen and that you would end up dying at the end of the month, even if you achieve your goal. The primordial is stopped and the hero conveniently disappears at the end of the story, unable to use his godlike abilities to upset the status quo or enact any real change. You were never supposed to survive this."

Several seconds ticked by in silence. Zorian glanced at the looming angel above him, trying to see if it would speak up to contradict him. It did not.

He had no idea what that meant. Maybe Jornak was right. Maybe the angel thought his words were not even worth responding to.

"But I… I have a chance to live through this. To chance things… to change everything for the better," Jornak continued. "Is the sacrifice of one city, a city that spit on your family’s sacrifice and robbed you of your birthright, such a heavy sacrifice?"

"You’re wasting your time," Zach told him. He turned his head skyward, towards the angel above them. "What are you waiting for? Every moment they stall for time, the cultists and their sacrifices get closer to the Hole. Let’s finish this."

" Not yet,"the answer said simply. Its voice rumbled all around them, deep and resonant.

"Fine," Jornak said, sounding a bit angry. Zorian didn’t understand why… did he honestly think Zach would suddenly roll over and die if he asked nicely? They’d even summoned a huge angel and everything! "Since you’re being like this, let’s raise the stake a little."

He snapped his fingers, the sound amplified along with his voice, and three different detonations occurred at different spots of the city. Instead of dust and gravel, however, what erupted out of these detonations was a geyser of smoky black shapes. They were difficult to make out from this distance, but Zorian could easily puzzle out what they were.