Threads of the Soul

Keeping his soul confined to his true body, Seth pulled Corvus away from the corpse of the Hemogoblin he had slapped to death and quickly had him glance around, looking for someone in particular.

Things were not going well inside the castle, and they needed to get in there now and stop whatever this ritual was before those spawning creatures fully dragged themselves into this mortal realm.

Although when he wasn't possessing his alter ego puppet, his speech wasn't as good as when he was, he had practised his 'Ventriloquism' skill enough that he was decently passable. He couldn't let Corvus go back to speaking like a neanderthal, now could he?

So, when he finally spotted who he was looking for amidst the death, destruction and all round general chaos of the war occurring around them, he shouted out to them without fear of exposing his identity. True, it would have been easier if he did possess Corvus, but he didn't want to leave his body without vital senses for a single second in this environment.

"Fox! Castle courtyard, get inside the dome with blood pool now! Immediate danger!"

The grey haired man turned at the sound of his nickname, before nodding at the orders he was given. Even though the man behind the beaked mask was no doubt younger than him by a few decades, Fox didn't bother with something as futile as arguing.

He took no offence at the thought of being ordered around, in fact it sort of reminded him of his younger days.

With his blood soaked katana clutched tightly in his hand, Fox turned on his heels and darted off. Yet it wasn't towards the castle, he was instead running along the combat line, heading directly towards one particular point within the chaos with utmost focus and determination.

Despite the appearance that his orders had been disobeyed, and that Fox was running away from the objective instead of towards it, Seth didn't stress about it. It might have appeared that way, but he knew better than that and knew personally that appearances were deceiving, more so in this new world.

After all, he had eventually figured out how Fox's abilities worked. It clicked in his mind one day when he was eating, and when it finally fell into place he simply felt like a complete idiot. He should have released it before.

Crouching down, Seth channelled his energy into Corvus' legs, before the puppet burst forth and shot into the air like a missile. A thunderous boom echoing out from the sheer force of his herculean leap that sent him high into the air, much higher than the castle walls were tall, until he was nothing more than a tiny shadow in the sky above the castle.

When he eventually reached the crescendo of his leap, and swiftly began to plummet back to the ground under the whims of gravity, Seth didn't try to slow Corvus down this time. The only control he put into his descent was slight angling of his body, so that he would properly hit his big, glowing target.

Plummeting from the skies like a meteor, Seth channelled his energy into Corvus' hand and curled it into a trembling fist, until he finally reached the glowing shield covering the ritual sight.

Just before he slammed head first into the translucent surface, Seth lashed out the empowered punch, sending countless ripples throughout the shield, as if it was made of gelatine, before a spider web of cracks erupted from the point of impact.

He could see the mages cowering behind the shield, the panicked expressions on their wretched faces as they desperately channelled more and more mana into the shield, causing the cracks to slowly knit themselves back together.

But how could Seth just allow such a thing to happen? Channelling more energy into his fists, this time a little more than a trickle so that he didn't run himself dry, he began to pummel and pound the cracked portion of the shield.

One punch, two punch, ten punches, twenty. Over and over, he slammed his fists against the shield over and over, getting faster and faster until he was raining blows like the bullets of a machine gun, his raining fists becoming little more than a blur.

Every punch required him to refuel his fists with more mana, each one increasing the cracks that the mages were working so hard to repair. They were at an impasse, with every second he rattled against the shield he was burning through his limited mana supply, and if Seth fell due to the exhaustion that caused everything would collapse with him.

But the same could be said about the mages. One had already collapsed, panting heavily on the ground as it tried to gather more mana to contribute to the shield, while the others worked even harder to compensate.

It was one against many. However, Seth didn't need to win this tug of war. He just had to keep their attention on Corvus. Because with all eyes on him, no one noticed another figure rising from the pool of blood, amongst the forest of fighting arms and limbs.

With the mages either focusing on the shield or chanting at the edge of the ritual, there was none to stop the figure as he swung his katana.

***

A few seconds earlier.

As Corvus blasted off again, sending a tremors through the earth beneath their feet with his extraordinary jumping abilities, Graham Vulpine, otherwise known as Fox, dashed throughout the backlines of the army.

His sword flashed and glinted, tasting the flesh of the Hemogoblins he passed by as he kindly relieved their bodies burden of their heads, all while charging directly towards one individual in particular.

Biting his lip, he let out a sharp almost deafening whistle, the type that every older man seemed to be able to do, and immediately caught the attention of his target.

Erik whipped his head around towards Fox, before glancing down at his armour which was covered in blood, grime and viscera. With a solid blast of water, the gory coating was quickly washed away, returning his armour to its glistening, golden state once more.

Even though it was just blasted with water, it seemed like it was freshly polished just seconds ago, holding within it a perfect golden reflection of the chaos unfolding in front of Erik.

Fox commended the young, cerulean skinned man in his head as he finally reached him. But instead of slowing down, he sped up, giving himself one last burst of speed before leaping forward. With his sword pointed forward, like the nose of an aeroplane, he flew straight and true.

His sword easily plunged through Erik's armour, however the golden knight didn't react at all, as the sword of the sword followed through and even the Fox himself. In one smooth motion, he dove directly into Erik's armour, and disappeared in the reflection it held.

The world flashed a dazzling gold, before plunging into darkness around Fox as he plunged into the golden reflection. A pressure formed around his body, as it felt like he was forcing his entire being through a hole the size of a penny. And yet, despite how uncomfortable and sickening it was for others, all Fox could think of was how hungry it always made him as his stomach was compressed to tight.

Within this boundless void, there were hundreds and thousands of windows passing him by every second. Windows of different tints, sizes and shapes that showed the world outside from all sorts of different places. They were all the reflections in the world.

Well, not the entire world. Within as much of the world as was in his range, which was currently around half a mile.

The view from some windows was static, no doubt being the reflections from actual windows, while others moved and were no doubt reflections within weapons and armour. Those were also the ones dotted with a scarlet coating, that with the constant motion was acting like a barricade across half of the window.

He could work with blood, water and all sorts of liquids. But they needed to be still, he needed a solid and unshifting reflection to jump through. That was the one downside of his abilities, other than only being able to move through doorways his own size.

The next second, a purely crimson window appeared in his view, and rapidly grew in size as he directed himself towards it. As he dove into that window, he began to rise from the stagnant pool of blood in the middle of the shield dome. Dodging the forest of flailing arms, he quickly stepped onto dry land and got to work while Corvus was distracting them.

With a flick of his wrist, his blade glinted in the crimson light of the runes beneath his feet as he sliced through one of the mages necks like it was butter. First, he targeted the one focusing the ritual. He didn't know how all this magic stuff worked, he just left that to the kids, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Before that mages head had even hit the floor, he was already moving. His face illuminated by the deep red runes, gave him the image of a demon on a warpath, as he carved his way through the mages like a blender.

As soon as the shield began to falter, most likely due to the pillars of its support being reduced down to nothing more than piles of bloody meat cubes, Corvus was quick to join in the massacre. Ramming his fist through the failing shield and finally shattering it, as he clamped his hand over one of the mages faces before clenching his fist and popping its head like a grape.

However, as the shards of the fading shield fell like shattered glass and they stood in a pile of blood and viscera, they still heard a sickening wail emanating from the pit. Even with every one of the mages working on it dead, the runes still burned as bright as ever, as more and more arms fought for their right to be born.

As the first of many creatures began to finally pull the rest of its body into the mortal world, it became painfully clear, the ritual was not stopping.