... Nothing.
Only the roiling, oily smoke coiling upwards from the burning homes below, a pyre consuming what little remained of the town. The smoke seemed to thicken as he watched, absorbing the ambient light, growing unnaturally dark, as if the sorceress's corrupting influence was physically staining the air itself, weaving into the very fabric of the destruction she wrought.
Xayn: "Now we're the ones being toyed with...!"
The darkness wasn't just visual; it pressed in, heavy and suffocating, stealing the sounds of the crackling fires, muffling the world.
Visibility plummeted. Below, beside, ahead -- only swirling, impenetrable blackness remained. Xayn tilted his head back, a desperate glance towards the sky, the only patch of dreary grey still untouched by the encroaching gloom.
Bazren: "Xayn, we gotta move... Get us out of here!"
Her voice was tight, strained.
The ethereal blue flames beneath Xayn's boots flared brighter as he pushed them higher, seeking escape in the vertical. Slick, shadowy tentacles immediately lashed out from the churning darkness around, grasping, slicing through the air where they'd been moments before. Xayn banked and swerved, a desperate aerial dance, while Bazren, despite her own precarious position, deflected the questing limbs with instinctive sweeps of her summoned shield, the pink energy flaring defensively against the encroaching void-stuff.
They burst through the upper layer of smoke, into the temporarily clear, grey air above the unnatural cloud.
A brief respite. A single, gasping moment of relative calm.
It didn't last.
Directly below, a disturbance in the blackness. The sorceress ascended, not flying so much as borne upwards by the churning shadows that now constituted her form. She rose through the pocket of air they had just vacated, her silhouette shifting and indistinct within the smoke, leaving a trail of deeper darkness in her wake.
Bazren: "Higher, higher...! At this rate, she'll get us!"
The jets beneath Xayn's feet sputtered, the blue flames flickering erratically, threatening to extinguish. The ascent slowed, became laboured.
Xayn: "Easy for you to ask... I can't keep climbing forever, you know...!"
The strain was evident even in his dispassionate voice, a grating sound like stone grinding against stone.
Bazren: "Just go as high as you can, leave the rest to me!"
With a final, shuddering surge of power, Xayn pushed them a few metres higher, the effort leaving the flames weak, almost transparent. He hung there, suspended, momentum bleeding away.
Xayn: "I-I'm all spent..."
Bazren: "Good, my turn now!"
Dispelling her shield in a shower of fading pink sparks, she seized Xayn's chest plate with her left hand, the grip surprisingly strong. Simultaneously, her flail materialized again in the right, the chain shooting straight upward and pulling them higher some more.
Xayn: "What's the big idea?!"
Bazren: "I need you to shoot a volley downwards... Make it a pretty wide spray -- but leave an opening in the middle. Big enough for one of us to fit through."
Her voice was clipped, focused.
Xayn: "Bazren...?!"
A note of alarm, of understanding dawning.
Bazren: "Come on, Xayn! We'll do things my way now, alright?!"
There was no room for argument in her tone.
Hesitation warred with necessity on Xayn's skeletal face. He summoned his bow, the ethereal weapon snapping into existence. Aiming downwards, towards the rapidly ascending horror.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Xayn: "So we must..."
He drew back the string and released. A single arrow turned into a seed of energy that blossomed outwards. It split, then split again, a cascade of replication, multiplying exponentially until a torrential rain of glowing blue projectiles hammered downwards. They filled the sky beneath them, a deadly, inescapable curtain of light, save for one calculated corridor of empty space slicing through the very center of the barrage -- the gap Bazren had demanded.
Bazren: "Thanks. Now --"
She braced her feet against Xayn's chest plate, her grip tightening for a crucial second.
Bazren: " -- get -- "
With a grunt of exertion, she extended both legs with all her might, releasing her hold on his armour in the same instant.
Bazren: "Away from here!"
Xayn: "B-bazren...!!"
His cry was lost as he was flung sideways, tumbling through the air, away from the center line.
Bazren, now anchorless, began to fall, accelerating downwards towards the sorceress who was just now navigating the gap in the arrow storm.
Bazren: "A little arrow won't carve a big enough hole in her... But I sure as shit will."
She muttered, a grim promise carried on the wind. Retracting the flail's chain completely, gripping the hilt tight with one hand and the ball with another, the weapon trembled menacingly in her hands. Pink sparks crackled violently between the components, the weapon humming, vibrating with contained fury, desperate for release. She plummeted, a vengeful comet aimed at the heart of the darkness.
The sorceress, clearing the last of the arrows, looked up. Bazren got a clear, horrifying view of her transformed state. A shifting silhouette of pure shadow, barely humanoid. A vast, abyssal maw stretched wide where a face should be, lined with teeth like obsidian shards. Countless slithering, undefined limbs writhed around the central mass.
Bazren: "And here I thought we'd left abominations like you behind..."
The monster's jaw gaped wider, ready to swallow her whole, an abyss opening to consume her.
Bazren: "... Dodge this, 'witch bitch'!"
In that final moment, Bazren released her grip.
With a deafening roar, the flail head erupted forward, propelled by an explosion of incandescent pink flame. It wasn't thrown; it was launched, a meteor strike burning through the air.
It slammed into the creature's open mouth. The impact was catastrophic. A shockwave pulsed outwards as the flail head punched through, obliterating the shadowy construct of the skull, blowing a massive cavity clear through the top of the monster's form, severing it.
As Xayn's arrow volley dissipated, clearing the smoke momentarily, two figures were visible against the grey sky.
The monster, headless, tumbling end over end, suddenly inert.
Bazren, falling, panting raggedly, anticipating the brutal impact with the ground far below.
Bazren: "G-got you..."
A triumphant, breathless whisper.
A sound ripped through the air, not of pain, but of horrid, gurgling laughter. It echoed from the monster's gaping neck cavity.
Sorceress (Demonic Echo): "AHAHAHAH..."
A fresh torrent of black smoke vomited forth from the wound, instantly coalescing, not just rebuilding the shattered skull, but solidifying, sharpening into an elongated, vicious spike aimed directly at the falling Bazren.
It shot forward with impossible speed. Bazren, energy utterly depleted from her attack, felt her limbs turn to lead. She couldn't dodge, couldn't move. Instinct, primal and desperate, flared. Her shield materialized again, her remaining left arm snapping up defensively.
The spike struck.
The shield screamed, a high-pitched whine of tortured energy, flaring blindingly pink as it met the crushing blow. It held -- for a fraction of a second. But the force was too immense. With a sickening crack, not of the shield, but of bone and sinew, Bazren's left arm and a chunk of her torso were ripped away, sent spinning away into the air, the hand still clutching the violently pulsating shield. The sheer force of the impact reverberated through her body, agony blooming in what remained of her chest.
As the spike retracted, coiling like a serpent preparing for the final strike, a streak of faded blue light intercepted its path.
Xayn.
He grabbed Bazren mid-air, his remaining momentum barely enough to yank her sideways, out of the spike's trajectory.
The blue flames powering his flight sputtered, flickered, and died completely. Exhausted, barely conscious, Xayn wrapped his arms around Bazren, his grip iron despite his state.
Gravity reclaimed them fully, their descent now terrifyingly fast, a collision course with the unforgiving earth below.
Bazren: "Xayn!! What are you doing?! The landing will knock you out...!"
Panic edged her voice.
Xayn: "So?! Would it be better to leave you to die...? Kill her, Bazren... Do everything you can, but kill her. We cannot lose here, no matter what...!"
The ground rushed up to meet them. In the last second, Xayn twisted, rotating his body beneath hers, positioning himself to absorb the brunt of the impact.
Xayn: "... Their sacrifice cannot be in vain."
The collision was sickening. A brutal crunch of metal and bone as Xayn hit the earth. His armor crumpled like paper, limbs shattering, fragments flying outwards. His body went limp, consciousness instantly extinguished.
Above, the shadowy monster descended, slowly, deliberately, a predator savoring the final moments.
Bazren pushed herself up from Xayn's broken form, agony ripping through her. With practically half her torso missing, and the other half still recovering from the previous dismemberment, she grit her teeth against the pain. It was all on her, now.
Bazren: "Fuck..."