Chương 565: BECMI Chapter 564 – Immortal Crusades

Egged on by the vivus, the wall of fire was flowing over the entire planet below my Sims and I, refusing to stop. The rot and decay infesting every inch of the world with its Entropic bias was being Burned away, along with pretty much everything that lived, save for a few Fiends and Immortal Creatures in Tzentotl's service who managed to throw up protections against the all-consuming fires in a panic. The Seal in my hand shattered into three pieces, and flowed into the forms of the women materializing before me.

Matter, Time, and Thought bias. The Plane around us shuddered as new Immortal Wills went out, and wrenched at it, even as Staves that had fed quietly on Entropic creatures for two millennia materialized in their hands. The Plane began to up-shift as it was forcibly realigned to a higher standard, and a new direction that wasn't going to be friendly to Entropics at all.

"Good hunting," I told them.

"How shall Heaven and us call you?" One brunette, one cerulean, and one verdant-haired vaguely elven women looked at one another.

"Tzen!" the brunette of Matter stated immediately.

"Totl!" the green-haired of Time smiled in counterpart, clearly both of them appreciating the irony.

"And I will be Glimmer," the pale-blue haired new Immortal of Thought agreed. All three of them were attuned to the Plane, and so it could have the remarkable status of being friendly to three Elements, a nonesuch combined world. But one thing they had to do was eliminate ALL Entropic influence here now. Tzentotal also had nearly 10, 000 IP to divide up between the three of them, which vaulted all three of them right to Celestial in status…

although they didn't have the ability scores to back it up, save for Intelligence, so they immediately had to Consume a lot of that IP just to upgrade their minds and bodies, which rather quickly plummeted them back from a raw Celestial to a high Temporal in actual power. Still not bad at all for just rising to the status! Especially since they'd need no Immortal permission or help to rise to Tzentotl's Eternal rank themselves...

"Good hunting. Call me if you need me," I told them, and all three nodded as they turned their gazes to the burning world below, and the unwanted creatures surviving the apocalypse consuming it. Magic flickered, and they were off to begin clearing the place of unwanted vermin. With three of them working together, I had little doubt they could handle anything here, as the paranoid Tzentotl didn't have many powerful minions, and they'd had two thousand years to gather Truenames on the bastards for just this moment.

Also, they were direct conversions of me, not Immortal Ascendants, and so hadn't burned and lost their mortal skills. That included Weapon Mastery, among other things, which was a significant advantage at this point. Tzentotl's home realm was already Sealed, and its Astral coordinates were changing. To any outsiders trying to find it, it would have basically vanished, especially since its nature was changing.

The three new Immortals had a lot of work ahead of them, but now had their own place after two thousand years of work… And I had ex-Sims among the Immortals now, who were not Elementals...

The world seemed to be going crazy if you were a mortal. Every Immortal everywhere was calling for war against someone or something. Whole nations and peoples were raging to the attack, especially any theocracies, throwing themselves into fights against neighbors, rivals, enemies, and basically anyone looking at them funny who could be called a heretic and killed without reservation or remorse.

The Entropics were fanning all these flames, but their own people were being slaughtered, too, and vengeful Immortals were hunting them across the planes to settle ages-old scores. Sometimes these wars ended in utter despair when the priests of one side abruptly lost all of their power, a sign that their Patrons had been at least temporarily destroyed or slain, and possibly permanently. This was the fate of the Nazcan Empire in the Hollow World, and the Shatzenelves making war on them.

With the death of Tzentotl, their priests lost all of their power instantly and overwhelmingly, meaning they suddenly had no true authority remaining, and it threw his worshipers there into crises of faith immediately. Hiawatha and Gaebrel were actually quick to pounce on these opportunities. Hiawatha's mortal life had been as a Nazcan priest, and he moved quickly with his clerics to claim the seats of power and rise up in rebellion against the loathed priests of the Feathered Serpent.

There were many sacrifices to the Thousand Spirits as the Nazan Empire came to a close. Likewise, Gaebrel personally manifested, admonished the Shatzenelves for leaving their people and His rules behind, berating them for their lack of faith, and giving them firm instruction to return to His fold… if not to the depths of the Shaden, preparing them to act as a release valve for loyal Shaden who wanted to emigrate, and otherwise re-securing his power.

In the northeastern areas of the continent of Olso, the violence was sporadic, but didn't embroil whole nations like it did in other areas. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The existence of the Church of the Morning and Eismark Federation throttled a lot of Immortal ambitions. The peoples there had just gone through a war started and fed by Immortals, and had little stomach for another one.

Instead of going on crusade as many Immortals wished, the Siricilans instead hunkered down, built up their defenses, and dared any nation to come to them, while troublemakers within the country were unceremoniously killed if they tried to start violence. Not even the confirmed appearance of half a dozen Immortal Avatars berating their faithful to take action moved the nation as a whole or its new Empress in the slightest.

Fanatics who attacked other citizens were unceremoniously killed, while those who wanted to charge off and die against foreigners were allowed to… and generally died quickly. The nation most expected to take action, that of the Sheikdoms of Zakarum, did a great deal of nothing except for their priests preaching for peace between warring Immortals.

Those few fanatics daring to lead raids against outsiders to north and south frequently vanished into the sands and night and were never heard from again, inspiring their kinfolk to cooler frames of mind. The one nation there that did unilaterally move to war was, most surprisingly to many who knew, Rukheim and its dwarves, who were directly ordered to do battle against the nifloids of the mountains…

many of whom were dithering in confusion at the very mixed messages coming to them, because many of their Immortals had gone completely silent! The reason for that was a team of many dwarven Eternals, led by Prince Ukker and the single dwarven Immortal, Himmelstern. They were hunting the nifloid Immortals across the planes with grim persistence, leaving an impressive trail of carnage and destruction behind them as they tracked down Immortals who could not escape them and the golden Truename Seals Prince Ukker bore.

The dwarven assault on the Bleaklands spurred a massive immigration of nifloids to the east and north as they fled the tunnels which had become deathtraps, while numerous Shaden from Umbravie and Sidhe from Erendyl were quick to capitalize on the nifloids' fear and harry them mercilessly from the under-realms there.

This flight of orcs, goblin-kind, ogres, and trolls to the north ran right into the riders of the plains of the Golden Khan there, and any thoughts the nomad riders had of attempting to invade Zanzyr again or to go raiding to the north into the Eisholds were soon lost in the slaughter taking place across the plains as thousands of nifloids poured into the high plateau looking for a place to live, and killed or were killed as they did so.

The one major force which remained mostly unmoved were the dragon kingdoms, whose Rulers remained utterly silent and totally unconcerned with the fighting between either Immortals or mortals. On the Other Nown, dragons watched in silence with the Storm Dragon as Immortals chased and battled across the planes, shattering worlds and destroying civilizations as they did so, while on Nown individual dragons got involved for their own reasons, but the Dragon Kingdoms did not rouse themselves on any one side.

Dragons being aloof while the world burned was nothing new, after all…

The fire was large and high, mirroring those in the distance. The lands of the Clan of the Jaguar burned. Every house, every temple. Even the stone pyramids and monuments were ablaze with white flames that fed on the blood sacrifices offered to them over the years. What remained would be unmade by the Earth Elementalists and Cryptomancers, returned to the soil and less, any trace and any legacy of them buried forever.

Briggs stood there in a hilltop clearing overlooking the city and temple all aflame with Earthfire below. The main temple of Kreggon Claw-heart was surrounded by lava, and slowly sinking into the glowing red rock, the heart of the Jaguar Immortal's religion being destroyed and wiped away, just like most of his worshipers were. The fire blazed behind him with unnatural energies. Briggs felt the pressure against his Source, and stepped to the side.

The charging figure flew right past him and over the side of the cliff there. As Briggs' foot came down, his Source aura rippled out. King Gravity looked down at the tattooed figure that was instinctively trying to fly, turned his thumb down, and Briggs watched in amusement as the copper-skinned figure as tall as he was dove a fine arc down against the stones below. Boulders cracked and shattered before the impact of a true Immortal.

A grasping hand lashed out and buried itself into stone, dragging the tumbling, bouncing figure to an abrupt halt as an outraged curse echoed up to Briggs. The dark-haired, cat-eyed Immortal below clawed himself to a halt, gritting his teeth and looking back up at the cliff he'd launched himself so awkwardly from. He had just about enough time to blink at the armored figure falling upon him before a very large Hammer backed by all Briggs' weight and strength came down on him.

The hillside blew apart from the released force, and both men went sliding and clattering down under a new avalanche. Briggs' heavyfoot bounced down the uneven, jagged slope with complete surety and control, his heels crunching into stone and finding absolute grip for every bounding step and springing leap.

The Immortal wearing mostly tattoos of tigers and fanged beasts and the like didn't look quite so graceful, cursing and flailing about as the stone came apart around him, even as he clutched at his skull and attempted to heal the massive blow to his head… Which didn't heal. Brains rattled with a concussion he should have been beyond, the Immortal couldn't focus enough to figure out what he should be doing. He couldn't fly. His foe was chasing him… chasing HIM!

What should have been a quick ambush and slaughter of a presumptuous mortal had somehow been turned onto its head! His short obsidian blades sprang to his hands as he gathered enough focus to leap into the air, above the rain of bouncing boulders and stones, turning to face his enemy- Endure slammed into his face again, hurled by the armored man above him, pale violet eyes unnaturally visible through the dust and scree. It was no mortal weapon, to be almost ignored.

Kreggon Claw-heart, greatest warrior of the Jaguars, traitor to Hiawatha and his ancient ways, was smashed away tumbling and his brains rattling around inside his head by the impact, and was soon swallowed by the descending boulders once more. Briggs didn't lose track of him, nor of the rocks bouncing and crashing around him. He deftly avoided the larger ones, pushing the medium ones away, knocking the smaller ones idly back, and let the scree rattle and bounce loudly off his Armor.

The golden Seal gleamed on the back of his armored gauntlet as he continued, orienting precisely on the location of the Immortal being battered and buried by stone.

"Don't you die yet, you traitorous worm! A Son of the Bear is coming for you, and we wouldn't want you to go out just from these pebbles, would you?!" His bellow cut cleanly through the roar of the falling stones as the tattooed form hurled aside tons of rocks and boulder to surge to his feet, rage already in the sneering savage face, unafraid and ready to rumble!