Threads of the Soul

From his humble beginnings as an ADHD riddled mess that could barely focus on one thing at a time, multi-tasking had always been a part of Seth's life, whether he liked it or not.

Of course, when he was younger he didn't actually know that he was even an ADHD riddled mess, his... peculiar childhood led him to believe that he was cursed or possessed, but such was the woes of being born into a cult. But he couldn't afford to go into details about his tragic upbringing. Not now at least, he would probably have to save such details for a later entry in his life's story.

It should be noted, however, that even now after all of his improvement and evolution, that such issues hadn't been 'cured' or poofed away with the wave of a magic wand. He was still the same scatter-brained idiot he had always been. It was just now he was being restricted by consequences, but that didn't stop him from forgetting about some things or occasionally becoming distracted in his own thoughts. Kind of like he was doing right now... Dammit!

For now, Seth just had to make sure to keep his mind focused, concentration on the chaotic action he found himself embroiled in rather than the misery of his memories. For now, he just had to keep completely and utterly focused on doing four separate tasks all at once. Pretty simple, right?

Task one, fight off the Hobgoblin that was attacking Corvus. Task two, micromanage the puppets composing half of the shield wall so that he didn't get people killed from his Spirit Animals ignorance when it came to certain subjects. And Task three, Control half a dozen of his specially assigned arrows, kindly gifted to him by the archers of their group, and use them to attack priority targets within the army.

Of course, the observant amongst you might have noticed one particular issue in the previously stated. Although it was said that Seth was performing four tasks, and indeed he was, only three were listed here.

That was an issue, but one that will be addressed in due time. Just you relax little duckling and have some patience, we will get there soon. In the meantime, give yourself a little pat on the back and a special cookie for paying attention.

And if you didn't notice... Well, I'm not mad. Just disappointed.

Now, regarding the tasks that had been mentioned, you might be surprised to discover that of the three, it was actually task one, the fight against the Hobgoblin, was the easiest amongst the lot.

When Seth had previously fought against a Hobgoblin, he had been under the impression that the Hobgoblins were the transcendent, or tier 1 versions, of the standard Hemogoblins. But now that he had a better grasp on what it meant to be transcendent from personal experience, it was clear that simply wasn't the case.

Before, he was not ashamed to say that he won mostly through luck. He was lucky that Hob goblin chose to wield its powers in such a way that it gave him an opening. If it wasn't for that, Seth wasn't entirely sure if he could have one that duel. I mean sure, he could have cheated a bit, but when it came to pure power levels, his previous self was lagging behind.

But such a thing couldn't be helped, Corvus was nothing more than a powerless puppet when he fought. The only advantage he really had was his unkillable nature. But now?

Now it was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that these Hob goblins were not transcendent beings. What that made them, if not the evolved versions of Hemogoblins, Seth had absolutely no idea.

Where he had struggled before and relied partially on luck, now it was akin to slapping around a child. An act Seth would not condone, but you understand the purpose of the comparison.

It was just so... pathetic. Corvus wasn't even as strong as Seth's actual body, not yet at least, however he could still dodge every blow the Hob goblin sent his way with barely any effort and strike back with such force that even his weakest slaps were as powerful as its serious punches.

A fact he knew for real, because he had repeatedly slapped this creature in its disgusting face as if he was its pimp. An act that both humiliated and enraged the Hobgoblin, while also knocking out half of its teeth and leaving its already ugly face completely disfigured and bloated with bruises.

Seth had to admit, it was pretty fun slapping this thing around and making it feel inferior for once, but he had other things to do and couldn't have fun forever. All it took was one more, good hard slap that echoed like a clap of thunder to sent its head flying from its shoulders, as if it was launched from a cannon.

As its head soared off into the distance and splattered against the wall of a distance building, the Hobgoblins body still followed through with its hopeless slash before finally realising it had nothing at the helm, and collapsing to the ground like a puppet who's strings had been cut.

Such was the end of task one.

Task two was only slightly more difficult in the sense that it took a lot of precise and rapid adjustments according to what the Spirit Animal couldn't handle. While it did learn from his constant micro-corrections, such as with stepping over a body, it also was incapable of adapting them.

You see if Seth controlled it to step over a body and the next body required you to lift your leg even a centimetre higher, the Spirit Animal would fail to do so and would trip. It wasn't the best system in the world, but for simple automation it would have to do for now.

Of course, as thrilling as hundreds of constant micro-adjustments of his autonomously controlled puppets sounded, it was actually quite a mind numbing task. It was much like old office work really.

It was, thankfully, Task three that was more interesting and took up most of Seth's attention.

With around half a dozen arrows under his control, he was wielding them like surgical instruments of death. As they flew throughout the army of Hemogoblins, he was intentionally targeting only the most important figures that he could find. That essentially meant that these self propelling arrows were the bane of the Goblin Mage's existence.

Multiple times throughout the battle, they were forced to stop particularly long casting spells to defend themselves with magical shields, whether it be formed of surrounding blood, earth, compressed air or just a translucent force-field.

At a certain point, they finally learned to stop even trying, as any time they began a long winded chant an arrow would home in on them like it had killed its arrow father and was desperate for vengeance.

However despite their best efforts to continue their miserable little lives long enough to cast even a few of their strange spells, not every mage was able to keep up with the onslaught of arrows. On the front lines, the mages numbers had been cut in half already.

The first one to go was the mage who cast that strange empowering spell that created the Hobgoblin Ogre creature. There was no way Seth was going to wait and see if it could create multiple of those things.

With every mage that fell, the pressure gradually increased on the remaining mages, leading to more time spent defending themselves and more who would eventually fall to the orchestra of death.

It was a vicious cycle indeed. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the mages inside of the castle. Those ones were a little more tricky.

While the mages outside were scattered and working on their own, solely defending themselves, the mages inside were all working on the strange, barbaric ritual. They were all gathered together, surrounding the pit full of churning and bubbling blood, that looked like a crimson volcano of viscera ready to erupt at any moment.

As such, that when Seth's hail of arrows descended upon them, all but one of the ritual mages stood and raised their hands to the sky, before beginning to chant the same garbled, choking words in harmony.

From their chant, a translucent dome of pure energy surrounded the ritual sight, which had stopped accepting the channels of blood into the pit. A fact that was not a good sign, in Seth's opinion.

Unlike the exterior mages shields, who could only endure against one or two attacks before having to recharge, or could simply be pierced with enough force, this dome style shield was completely impenetrable. As arrows pelted against the shield, like rain against a window in the midst of a hurricane, it showed no signs of faltering or failing.

Each impact simply sent a wave of energy throughout the dome and caused a slight twitch on the faces of some of the mages maintaining it, but they were quick to empower it once again.

Perhaps it was an issue he could solve with enough time, by gradually wearing them down, but that was not a luxury he had, all because of the one mage who wasn't contributing to the shield.

That mage in question was still on his knees, directly next to the churning bowl of blood carved into the earth, as it put the finishing touches on the runes surrounding the ritual.

With one last stroke of blood, the final rune was complete, causing a pulse of vile, miasmic energy to erupt from the pool and fill the shield like a thick, black cloud. All at once the runes surrounding the pool lit up in a dazzling display as the pool churned even more violently, acting as if it was about to erupt... before collapsing and falling still as a tranquil pond.

There was not even a single wave or tiny disturbance within the confines of the crimson pool. Not even when a long fingered, clawed hand started to emerge from the pool and slam onto the ground, so that it could pull the rest of its body out.

This hand was not alone, more and more hands slowly emerged from the pool yet never created even the smallest ripple, as if they were merely illusions. Yet as they grasped at the air and clawed at the ground, fighting each other for the right of vile, unholy birth, it would be far too optimistic to believe these were only an illusion.

As the first unholy abomination began to claw its way into the land of the living from whatever hell they came from, a thunderous boom echoed throughout the surrounding area as a small, barely noticeable shadow shot high into the air above the castle.