Chương 10: Total Celestial Alignment

The change in the environment was instantaneous. The Cahtuli warrior assumed an offensive stance, the unclassified mage started weaving magic, and the trio of gnosiamancers—whilst standing still in the Physicality—started moving in the Cognition with their minds. Nolotl was outnumbered at impossible odds. Empyrean or not, a 2v1 would have been hard. A 5v1? He didn't believe he had a chance to begin with. But he had a slight advantage. Preparation.

Not only were they attacking him on a field he had personally readied with his magic, but they had also allowed him to shapeshift. There were a lot of moving pieces, but his tricks were also many. The Starguided Blessing thrummed with power as the eclipse was getting closer and closer by the fraction of the second. His terian forms—plural—were infusing him with untapped strength and clarity. Perhaps not as physical as Azithromycin's ocelotl form, but all animal forms boosted strength to a degree.

His Crow Crown and his Quetzal Wings were no pushovers. The crow side of his blood boosted his mental capacity and eyesight, beyond the de facto strength boost. For other types of mages, such increases would have been trivial, but that wasn't the case for a gnosiamancer. A power that specialized in information gathering and processing was invaluable for him. The quetzal side of his blood gave him passive illusion magic and increased agility.

More trivial compared to the crow, but still useful as it covered the empty spots of the toolset gnosiamancy didn't provide. His wings and talons were mostly cosmetic as he couldn't fly—glide at most—but they weren't a setback either as the increase of attributes of his released animal forms more than compensated for the increase body surface.

The Empyrean of Information tapped on both of the power of his blood; his Starguided and Touched By Information Blessings; his Empyrean, Gnosiamancer, and High Priest of Nochochenca Titles; and his Cognition Connection and Lesser Read Thoughts Boon. He was going all out from the very start.

The Cahtuli biomancer was already rushing to him, only a few milliseconds had passed by as he readied his magic; gnosiamancy and his Crow Crown was boosting his thought speed to unprecedented levels thanks to the partial celestial alignment. But his attack wasn't directed on the approaching warrior, but the fellow gnosiamancers on the back. They were a coterie, meaning that they had a synergetic effect that boosted their computational capabilities when working together. But a coterie of three was pathetic.

After all, his coterie was a whole faith. FEAR ME! Nolotl sent a wave of fright so powerful over the Cognition that even the uncategorized mage backpedaled. His High Priest of Nochochenca Title worked at full power trying to squeeze out the much he could from the tithe of Nochochencan believers. It wasn't much, he was a disgraced icon, but it was more power than a coterie of three could manage.

After getting the Second Mind, I'm going to reinforce my ties back to the faith, he thought with absolute confidence of his success, his bestial blood impeding him from pondering failure. The image the enemy received was one of primeval terror based on the Tezlan and Cahtuli legends of the House of Fright, nondescript but effective. They saw Nolotl's terian form, but instead of just a man with wings for arms, they saw a skeleton bird-man with a grim beak ready to pluck their eyes out of their sockets.

Whilst his Quetzal Wings mostly boosted Light-based illusions, mental ones were still illusions. Xanax's secretary was mostly unaffected by the mental assault, but the same couldn't be said for his companions. Unlike the graduated astromancer, those were students, and the title of Empyrean didn't mean being the best student for nothing. One panted as the illusion tried to violate his mind, but the other buckled from the terror and started screaming. Nolotl didn't waste his chance at dwindling his numbers.

He infiltrated the terrified mage's mind with the help of Lesser Read Thoughts and infused more illusions into his psyche, alongside boosting his physical response to fear to lethal degrees. The screaming gnosiamancer's howls intensified as Nolotl's talons gripped on his brain. The bloodcurdling screams were enough to distract and affect the other members of the shared coterie. And then, with the slightest touch of fear as his illusionary self plucked the eyes out of the man, his heart gave out.

In a matter of seconds, a perfectly healthy student dropped to the ground from a heart attack before any of the ambushers could react. The remainder of the coterie hesitated as one of their members fell. His own 'coterie' worked only one way, but from what he had heard, the snapping of the mental connection was painful. That was both the strength and weakness of coteries, they depended closely on each member.

The other two mages weren't as affected by something as mundane as a death, but one started crying as rage took over his nervous system. Something that made it even easier to infiltrate the mind of the other unidentified gnosiamancer. Everything was moving at slow motion, the Cahtuli warrior was only one step away from the wind barrier now and the last mage finally revealed his magic. That of purple lightning. Huh? All synaptic connections in Nolotl's brain fired at the same time.

That's Arcane magic, not Space one. Does he have topomancy on his repertoire? Or… The Cognition rippled the same instant he came out with that realization. He almost didn't have time to dodge for the dagger aiming for his heart. With quick footwork and even faster hand movements, Nolotl slashed the air where he felt the movements on the Cognition.

"Ugh…" A pained groan came out of nowhere, only to reveal a figure. A person materialized in front of him on the Physicality, traces of light-devouring shadows vanishing from their skin. Akyromancy, of course. He comprehended what had happened. They were teleported, yes, but not by a topomancer. The akyromancer put a hand on their bleeding chest and they donned Voidform again, disappearing from the Physicality, partially with Nolotl's acknowledgement of the Void user. Can't worry about them now.

They can't attack me unless they materialize. The warrior and the taximancer take priority. But I don't like how I'm back to a 1v5. Even as his body sluggishly moved to face the approaching biomancer, his mind still fought the gnosiamancers. The remaining duo had somewhat recovered in the fractions of a second he had given them, but the one student was still shaken by the death of his mate. A weakness that Nolotl exploited.

Most people considered gnosiamancy the weakest of schools of magic, one used by scribes and clerks, not archmagi. But truth was, it was one of the most terrifying ones. As Nolotl raised his spear to meet the warrior, he decimated the other student's mind. Not assaulted it. Decimated it. He was using every card up his feathers to do so.

Starguided to power himself with the total celestial alignment as now they were well into the nine minutes of power, Cognition Connection to exploit the tangible yet severed coterie link, Lesser Read Thoughts to infiltrate his mind, all his Titles in tandem, and both his terian powers.

His mind screamed at the overloading usage of Alignment as he suddenly found himself shouldering an entire foreign mind, but he accomplished his task as he ruptured key blood vessels in the gnosiamancer student's mind and blood poured out of his nose and eyes as he collapsed on the ground. Two out si… uughhh! Nolotl squinted as the whiplash from overpowering a gnosiamancer's mind assaulted him back.

As excruciating as the pain was, dulling emotions and responses was the first thing they taught gnosiamancers for a reason. The same couldn't be said for Xanax's secretary. The astromancer had his whole coterie die in less than ten seconds, which induced a bigger mental load than Nolotl's murderous whiplash. Funnily enough, if they hadn't been on a coterie, he would have died by now as his mind was fully unprotected to mental attacks.

The offense wasn't always the best defense, but it had certainly worked this time. But now he couldn't focus on the Cognition as the following attacks came over the Physicality. The Cahtuli warrior completely ignored the wind barrier as he trashed it with a single swing of his macuahuitl, though it did leave him open for attacks. Instead of aiming for a lethal strike, Nolotl went for maximizing blood loss and lunged for the man's carotid.

A surface cut was more than enough to cause a gnarly wound with his serrated spear. It was basically impossible to kill a biomancer with such shallow attacks, but most used tonalli—or vitality as Originals called it—as their resource, and as their life-fire was bound to the Physicality, the more blood they lost, the weaker they would become.

Awakened by the sun, bolstered by life, and bound by blood, the tonalli of foreign biomancers like the Cuhtali before him was their source of power beyond that of an expendable resource. Nolotl quickly removed his spear as he couldn't afford to keep his guard down. With a backstep, he gained distance between the biomancer and him, who already was recovering from the wound even if only five heartbeats had gone by.

In any normal scenario, backstepping on a fight would be a bad decision as it would be easy to trip on something, but such were the advantages of being a gnosiamancer. Instinctual knowledge of the surroundings was a given. And the boosted Starguided Blessing now elevated that to impossible degrees. He truly was now being guided by the heavens now. Xanax's secretary still pounded on his mind, but the problem right now wasn't the battle at the Cognition but the Physicality.

"You've got quite the sharp battle instincts," the Cuhtali warrior announced. He's a serious warrior. Serious warriors don't talk in a fight. It's a distraction. Nolotl quickly realized with his greatly accelerated thought speed. He's gaining time. The taximancer is casting something. Even though taximancers didn't dispose of an infinite growth system, they were the mages who packed more of a punch from any other school. Akyromancers notwithstanding, those didn't play by the same rules.

Akyromancer, why does it feel I should be worried about Void magic? The Tezlan prince thought for a moment before refocusing on the Arcane practitioner after nothing came to his mind. Doesn't matter, I need to do something about him. As powerful as taximancy was, any spell lost most of its efficacy once you knew it was coming. But that wasn't enough for Nolotl.

"It is an honor hearing such praise from a distinguished warrior like you," Nolotl said as he slowly walked to the side, circling carefully around the warrior with a heavy and secure footing. The Cuhtali biomancer frowned, he hadn't expected an answer, and that made him nervous. Good, Nolotl thought. His magic fed on doubt and fear, and he would exploit that.

"You know," he continued acting as if he didn't know about the taximancer aiming at him, "you could join me instead of trying to kill me." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Join you?" The warrior scoffed in both rage and bewilderment.

"Has the fear of death consumed you?" Aaand… got you. Now that the opposing party was distracted, he could make his magic work. It was something quite simple really, just some disorientation cantrips and a bit of basic illusions from his Quetzal Wings. Both working together to alter the reality the taximancer gazed. Greater purple lighting far more powerful than before flied toward them, but somehow, the target wasn't Nolotl but the warrior.

"Arghh!" The Cuhtali screamed in agony as the lighting hit him right on his back. Still, biomancers were built differently, and the Arcane fulmination only staggered to the ground, making him kneel and support himself on his macahuitl. An aperture was an aperture though. Once again, Nolotl slashed the man's neck. It would have been easy to stab his eye, but piercing flesh infused by Life was difficult.

He could've destroyed the eye, but considering biomancers had sharper senses, the loss of depth perception wouldn't have affected the warrior much. Blood loss was the only way to knock him down. A searing pain in his arm reminded Nolotl that he was vastly outnumbered.

"Uhk," the diviner let out a dry moan. The source of his pain was none other than a low-intensity laser, and its source the astromancer. Xanax's secretary had somehow escaped the Empyrean's mind-hold when he was busy setting the illusion on the taximancer's Cognition.

"Y-you… are quite the nuisance," the astromancer spoke with difficulty, showing that he was greatly weakened by the mental attack. More than Nolotl. Hmm, the situation is really bad. The gnosiamancer assessed the situation calmly in his mind. The taximancer now is aware that I am messing with his perception. The biomancer is already recovering. The astromancer can fight, even if his capabilities are greatly diminished. I need another strategy. Nolotl cast a few illusions of himself and got on the move.

Normally, he would have shrouded himself with Light and Information-based invisibility to be both invisible on the Physicality and the Cognition, but that would be impossible right now. The astromancer knew his exact position, so he couldn't hide from him. So he charged at him. The enemy astromancer was aware of that, but the same couldn't be said for the other two. The taximancer in the background saw Nolotl charging at him, whilst the biomancer sensed Nolotl backstep and holding his ground. Keyword, sensed.

Biomancers could use a plethora of senses to detect someone, so lying to his sense of sight alone wouldn't be enough. He needed to have the impression that Nolotl was still before him. It was a delicate balance; he had to make all the enemies think that they were confronting the real one for a few seconds. Just a handful of seconds.

The astromancer panicked as he knew that the real one was charging at him, and he had not enough time to communicate that to his allies as speech was a slow method and he wasn't tethered to their minds unlike the coterie Nolotl he had already disposed of. His choice of magic was clouding himself in invisibility in both planes.

Unlike Nolotl, the postgraduate could afford to set up a strong enough invisibility to hide himself with photomancy and gnosiamancy in tandem, but alas, life was unfair, and tricks like those didn't work on him. STARGUIDED! The Empyrean beckoned on his Blessing and he became hyper-aware of his surroundings. Xanax's secretary may be able to hide from Nolotl himself, but not from the very cosmos, for they became Nolotl's very eyes. And they were under the clearest heavens in millennia.

The Tezlan prince was aware of everything that happened around him. He noticed how the taximancer threw another lightning bolt at what he thought to be him, but the illusion faked a dodge so it wouldn't dissipate, buying him a few more seconds of farce. The illusion he left with the Cuhtali warrior talked with him, still trying to convince him that he wasn't his enemy. Mind games were the specialty of a gnosiamancer. But his mind was throbbing.

Taking the brunt of a whole gnosiamancer had been already a lot, but micromanaging three 'bodies'? He felt his mind withering in real time. Nolotl first acted as if he didn't know about the astromancer's position as—by all means—he shouldn't know. Even if people were aware of his Blessing, not many knew of its effects. Xanax's secretary was choosing secrecy, meaning that he wouldn't attack unless he were to be revealed.

Because the man wasn't a pure gnosiamancer, he was losing the mental battle even if he was likely a way higher level than Nolotl and was older, but that meant he wasn't useless on a physical battle. Well, that was poorly phrased. Nolotl absolutely had the advantage on a physical and mental battle, but a battle on the Physicality wasn't limited to one's body.

The spot where the laser had grazed his wings still hurt, and it had only failed any critical spots because his wings were mostly an illusion in the first place. They were physical, but way smaller in reality than even what he perceived. That was part of the quetzal's charm. The Empyrean took a deep breath and acted as if he was searching for the invisible gnosiamancer. Not yet. He pondered as he kept his spear high up. Not yet. He reinforced the illusions of the other two.

The taximancer had engaged in melee combat, or rather, was doing his best to keep the fake Nolotl at bay. The biomancer wildly slashed at his illusion with his macahuitl, but the illusion kept evading. It helped that the Cuhtali warrior was so oriented to strength as it made it more believable to dodge instead of blocking. Then, as the astromancer ever-so-slightly lowered his guard once he thought Nolotl had lost him… Now! Without mercy, Nolotl drove his mental hooks on the gnosiamancer's Cognition.

It was a brutal attack that made him recoil too, and whilst the astromancer's invisibility didn't fail, it did send the man to the ground as he clutched his head in pain. Walking slowly, the Empyrean stood before Xanax's secretary and his writhing self. Bye. And drove his spear straight through the man's cranium. Mercy wasn't an option in battle. The astromancer had tried to kill him, dared to kill him for a reason as moronic as envy, so he had to be swiftly dealt with.

Some people with more valid reasons for his death required his attention. Unfortunately, the loud crunch awoke the remaining mages from their stupor. The Cuhtali biomancer was the first to react, who basically pounced on him after breaking into a dash. Biomancy could greatly enhance the body of their users, especially if one took an Animal Spirit-oriented build, but that made them ever-the-more predictable. With perfect timing expected out of a chronomancer, Nolotl sent a disorienting cantrip to the warrior's mind.

It was a feeble, risible thing, but that was why timing was so important. Even the most careful of warriors—especially the utmost careful—would be thrown off if their footing deviated by a fraction of a degree. And all the hemorrhaging and pain wouldn't be helping either. The macahuitl-wielding warrior stumbled to the ground, and whilst he managed to break his fall, it gave the Tezlan prince enough time to lunge with his serrated spear and cut the man's neck yet another time.

That's three with that one, Nolotl thought. He has lost a lot of blood and a bit of flesh. He hasn't been powering his body with too much tonalli so far, but that means nothing if he has had to waste it to regenerate himself. And sure enough, the lost of blood was obvious once one looked at signs of exhaustion on the man, alongside discolorations in his skin. Subtle but perceivable. Two more assaults. With a ragged breath, the biomancer stood up. There was viciousness in his tired yet lifeful eyes.

A practitioner of Life wouldn't stop fighting until their last breath, it was practically dogma. Nolotl could read it in his eyes, he wanted to put an end to this fight and soon. Then he let out a primal roar. Nolotl was surprised at the fact that the roar wasn't accompanied by a stunning factor, but a window was a window, so he stabbed the man again on the throat. The flesh is becoming softer. I stabbed him instead of sliced him. Soon the intent behind the roar became clear as lightning struck Nolotl.

Even as his whole body jerked from the voltage, he stood his ground, having already toned down his sense of pain. Of course, it was to alert his teammate and dissipate his illusion. He blamed himself for his lack of foresight, but the damage was done. Thankfully, the feathers seemed to block electricity better than skin, but now his right wing was fully unusable. The Cuhtali warrior took his chance to attack. Oh well, in for a page…

Portraying true nonchalance, Nolotl raised his wing and put it on the way of the descending macahuitl. Bones cracked, muscles snapped, feathers furled, and a wing was fully lost, crashing into the ground. But a sacrifice wasn't without its boons. Out for a book! The Tezlan prince stabbed the biomancer's heart. The motion was incredibly fluid from his enhanced comprehension of his surrounding, Nolotl perfectly avoided the man's ribs and struck true, hitting only flesh. He applied more force.

Most people would think that the brain was the most vital organ, and they would be right. Without them, people would be dead. But biomancers were weird. Destroying their heart was a better way of making them not alive. They weren't that different from a lizard that had lost its head, you had to destroy their life-source not their command center. Still, the Cuhtali warrior had a few breaths of life remaining, enough to almost bisect Nolotl.

If it weren't for Nolotl pushing his body to the side at the last moment, he would have lost his lower body instead of just a wing.

"Ah," the Empyrean panted in pain in exhaustion after verifying the silence from the warrior's Cognition. The brutality of losing an arm overpowering his pain-numbing cantrips. He then looked at the taximancer whose eyes were filled with dread.

"You are next." He ran away. How would he not? The man before him had survived an assassination attempt and killed four of his allies. Sure, now the Empyrean of Information was an arm lighter and was severely exhausted, but minds weren't always logical. Nor did Nolotl allow the taximancer's one to be.

The gnosiamancer jolted on the fleeting Arcane practitioner's Cognition, a slight hiccup only—he didn't have much computational power to spare any longer, and unlike the gnosiamancers the enemy wasn't open to the Cognition—but that was more than enough. If anything, this only hurt Nolotl more than the ambusher as his mind was already turned into mush. For the briefest of moments, the taximancer stopped in place as his mind ordered him to do so. Just enough time for Nolotl to throw his spear at him.

He had expected to make a hole in the man's chest, but unfortunately, he was too weakened for that to happen. Having one less wing had also made him lose a lot of potential energy as even if only one hand was used to throwing a spear, the other did contribute too. Still, having just a tip of a spear penetrate on your back was enough to send anyone to the ground. The taximancer screamed and collapsed. He rolled on his back and removed the spear, but by that time, Nolotl was over him already.

Hearing the enticing whispers of his avian self, he pounced on the lightning-wielder and bit his nose off.

"Pathetic," he uttered after spitting the torn nose out of his mouth but tasting the delicious blood. A second later, his mind cleared and his instincts dissipated, bringing him back to sense. It made no sense toying with prey. He stepped on the taximancer's neck and crushed his windpipe. It didn't take the man long to die.

"Pulsars, this was exhausting." With great difficulty, Nolotl picked up his spear and used it as a cane as he walked back to his ritual side after having canceled his Animal Spirits.

"I gotta ask Clonazepam to reattach my arm later or something, Azi isn't powerful enough to do it. I can deal with the blood loss right now, but I wouldn't like to lose my arm if possible." It was hard making a torniquet with one arm left, but he managed to do so after using the fallen Cuhtali warrior's clothes as bandages.

"I'm so tired, yet there are many things I still have to do. The ritual, and also seemingly declare war on Cuhtali. Thanks to him I know I will win the war if I declare it tomorrow now that I've won, even if it means going back to Tezlan." And as soon as he said that, Nolotl noticed the dagger coming out of his chest. Using all the might of his accelerated thoughts, the Empyrean of Information realized what had just happened. Akyromancer, you fucker! You've erased yourself out of existence!

Nolotl let out his most potent psychic scream up to date. Such an attack was a travesty on gnosiamancy as it would permanently damage his mind, but he no longer cared. The enemy akyromancer clutched his head as he started bleeding from their nose and ears, so before they could recover, the Tezlan prince decapitated him with one feel swoop of his spear. Then he collapsed on the ground, his body surrounded by carnage of his own device.

"Ha… ha… ha…" Nolotl laughed in pain as he grasped the cavity in his torso, his blood dying the mountain's snow red.

"How ironic and anticlimactic to fall after all of this…"

"Correct, absolutely hilarious," a voice commented out of nowhere. As exhausted as his being was, the Empyrean instantly recognized the voice. It was one of his fellows, after all.

"What do you want, Enantyum?" Whether it was out of pride or acceptance of his imminent death, Nolotl didn't bother to ask for help.

"Not much, I've just decided to check on the seeds I'd unwittingly sowed," the dark-skinned chronomancer impassively responded.

"The butterfly effect is such a trickster. One single mistake of me forgetting to conceal my status and suddenly you survive the ambush," he gave him a grimace after judging the gnosiamancer's dying state.

"Kind of."

"You knew the ambush was going to happen?" Talking pained him a lot, he didn't have much time remaining.

"This is the first time, you know?" The Empyrean of Time chose to ignore him.

"You always died if I didn't intervene, no chance at all to see the total celestial alignment. But somehow, you made it this far by yourself for once. You were destined to die yet you alone defied those odds."

"What in the cosmos are you talking about?" Each subsequent word that came out of the chronomancer's mind made him more confused; he didn't have the mental power to process those words any longer.

"What I'm meaning to say is—that for the first time—you've caught my interest, Nolotl Xocoyotzin."

"Great," the prince chuckled.

"A bit late thought," he coughed out blood, "I'm dying."

"Such is not a problem; we will see each other soon enough," Enantyum Dei, Empyrean of Time, responded as a matter of fact.

"Peer unto the heavens." He did, it wasn't like he had much else to do, nor time. And what he saw was beautiful. Defying all logic, the cosmos was brightly illuminated. All the stars shone hundredfold their expected value, the sun had disappeared behind both moons in a perfect alignment that allowed only a halo of orange light to pass through, and…

"Pulsars…" The gnosiamancer moaned with the last of his strength. No, what he had seen before didn't defy logic. This did. The center of the galaxy, the supermassive blackhole was somehow visible on the central darkness of the eclipse, making an orange dot on the middle. On the exact middle. There were no words to define the mathematical precision of the alignment he was beholding. No, that wasn't right. There was one. Perfection.

With the vision of perfect order illuminating the skies, Nolotl's life finally extinguished.