LIGHTNOVELONLINE 143 – BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: DAEMON CORE
Krahe pushed and pushed, closing up the shell, until, at last, it wouldn’t enclose any further. She briefly thought Barzai was refusing again for some petulant reason, but the next moment, alien words pushed into her mind’s eye. Indistinct and formless, exuding not a linguistic meaning, but an altogether more primordial sort of truth. In that instant, she knew that they were the incantation necessary to make the Daemon Core function, just as the talisman was necessary for Wandrei Faust. Despite Barzai serving as the power source, it had to be her who triggered the theurgy.
But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t speak them. They just hung in her mind, three burning keys awaiting a hand to grasp them. The saurian duo’s dragon head reared back, its form becoming more concrete, and Krahe knew she had only moments before it would drown her in burning acid. She wagered, at best, a fifty-fifty chance that she would manage to get out of the zone of death, given her rapidly-rising entropy level and the initial burst of Hard Entropy she suffered whenever diving. Such was the cost of this theurgy; a high price in entropy to give the shell the necessary properties.
The only option she could think of, besides pushing harder, was to attempt, somehow, someway, using the Wound-like Grin. After all, it manifested itself readily upon her left arm when she wished to access her Kenoma Pocket or to conjure a Tar tendril. She mentally envisioned a black tendril wrapping around the first word, channeling it into her arm.
A fanged maw yawned open, and Krahe spoke from it. Despite speaking it, she couldn’t hear it. As far as she could tell, no sound came out at all. Beak and Raptor stumbled, clutching their heads. Nonetheless, they persevered in their effort.
The second word came out all the same as the first, opening a second mouth on her forearm. At this point, it felt as if time came to a standstill. Nonetheless, with the mouth in the palm of her hand, she spoke the third, and time resumed.
THREE KEYS TO SWING WIDE THE GATES OF BLACKEST BLACKNESS
THREE WORDS SO MIGHTY NO MORTAL MIND CAN HOLD THEM
THREE BREATHLESS MOUTHS WITH WHICH TO SPEAK THEM
In the palm of her hand, a gordian knot of blackest pitch now hovered. An ominous, rising hum emitted from it, and every once in a while, arcs of black lightning jumped off of it, almost as if the flares of a black sun.
With only a thought and a gesture, she impelled it forward. This, too, was an advantage of using a True Eidolon; it solved the delivery issue.
Panicking now, Beak and Raptor exchanged glances and began feverishly gesturing, taking more direct control of their dragon head construct to try and shoot down the projectile. The Daemon Core simply dodged passed the ghost dragon’s snapping jaws, coming to a halt in mid-air right above the two saurians.
Krahe engaged a dive and pulled the mental trigger. The Daemon Core’s exterior shifted.
The last thing Beak or Raptor ever saw was that ominous spheroid and a green-eyed demon of billowing smoke.
With a flash of impossibly-vivid scarlet and thunderous burst of buzzing noise, they were erased. Neither flesh, nor bones, not any of their possessions remained; only shadows scorched into the red-hot stones. Only a seething ember was left behind, and it, too, popped out of existence a moment later.
AN EYE OF CRIMSON IMPRISONED IN BLACKNESS
ITS GAZE ERUPTS FORTH TO SCOUR AWAY THE UNWORTHY
BLACK HAND OF DESOLATION: DAEMON CORE
She felt sick.
Not due to her surroundings or what she’d just done, but some strange, non-physical exhaustion. It felt, for lack of a better description, as if the muscle involved in theurgy had been strained to the point of exhaustion. Just thinking about using Wandrei Faust again made feelings of exhaustion and sickliness bubble up… And the Words were gone. She decided to try asking Barzai later. For now, she pulled the souldregs out of Blondie’s corpse, taking her dregsteamer belt and moving on to try and find what was left of Weasel. She managed to find his mangled head, which was good enough for the souldreg extractor. His dregsteamer had also outlived him, it would just need a replacement belt.
Knowing that she wouldn’t have a great deal of time before someone came to investigate the commotion, Krahe dragged Blondie to the wall and rifled through her pockets, managing to find a wallet with some ring-cash, a DD gem, and a contractor ID card.
An hour, a shower, and a cursory investigation at a church branch later, Krahe had learned that Weasel had a bounty on his head for several crimes, though it was slashed for bringing in only his souldregs. Blondie turned out to have been a completely unassuming independent contractor with no particular negative or positive marks on her record.
When she had the time to herself, she queried Chernobog’s Mystic Wisdom regarding those Words. No knowledge came. So, back to theurgic texts she turned, and found nothing. Not a word in any of the books she owned. Barzai, however, gave the answer she sought, once he woke up. He simply pulled up her memory of the first time she drew the Wandrei Faust medallion, specifically the final strokes, and sent her the sentiment that speaking those Words was somewhat equivalent to that. He also, as if to placate her, made her aware that she would not need to repeat the feat each time she wished to invoke the Daemon Core.
Meanwhile, Zachariah was in a huff, as were several of his acquaintances, as they had all felt it: The creation of a new High Theurgy. It wasn’t necessarily a once-in-a-lifetime event, but the fact it was so detectable meant that the feat had been performed by someone who either didn’t know or didn’t care enough to take concealing precautions.
