Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 145: To Keep an Oath

Toren Daen

"It's time I fulfilled my Oath on your blood," I snarled at the hovering vicar, fighting to keep my breathing under control. I'd thrown a Stake of the Morning, recognizing it as the only attack in my arsenal capable of matching the wild vicar's massive congealed meteor. The same attack that had slain the monstrous serpent in the undead zone so long ago had only served to cancel out Mardeth's spell.

But that didn't matter.

My fury burned under the surface as I stalked forward, my mana billowing out in a thrum that matched my heartbeat. I'd left Aedelgard in a panic, blurring through the streets and leaving Renea Shorn behind.

And I'd still been too late. Fiachra was burning under the assault of this madman, disgusting blithe and rotten vicars preying on the defenseless men and women of the City of Canals. I felt my fury rise even further as I spied the decrepit state of my friends, all nearly broken by the Vicar of Plague in front of me.

I took each step forward to the tune of my own thundering heart, my gaze intent on the blackened fire in Mardeth's chest.

I cannot run from this a second time, I thought. Not with so much at stake.

No, you cannot, Aurora acknowledged. She would rather I bide my time; grow strong enough that any clash with the Vicar of Plague would be a sure victory. But we didn't have time for that. Mardeth was here.

Mardeth nearly looked the same as he always had in my nightmares. A mocking, black-toothed smile. Dark gray skin that seemed to wrap too tightly over his bones, like leather stretched over a twisted mannequin. Long fingers that jutted out at odd angles, mirroring his gnarled physique. One milky eye that I could swear still saw, and another that laughed with malice.

Except there was one difference. He'd shorn his horns clean off the last time I saw him, embedding them into the basilisk blood crystal for some reason. Yet now there was another horn atop his left brow, one that imperiously drank in the light. It had streaks of red that splashed through the onyx like a gentle stream. I couldn't explain how, but the horn almost looked beautiful atop his head.

And I could feel the power it contained, entirely separate from Mardeth's own taunting King's Force.

I looked at Caera as I finally reached the center of the room. I felt the grim terror in her intent; the fear for her brother and herself. But beyond that, I could sense her determination, even as it faded into awe.

She stepped aside, the soulfire along her blade sputtering out as I finally stood before Mardeth.

"I heard you had a visit from Varadoth, little mage," Mardeth said as I walked forward, fires trailing in my wake. "That tittering old fool thought you were someone worth talking to. Worth debating. But he was wrong," the vicar said with slime, his eyes leering at all of us. "You aren't worth talking to. You're worth taking from."

I know that horn, Aurora said, her voice tinged with a spark of true fear. It was once Brahmos'. Foremost warrior of the Vritra clan. I do not know how this Mardeth found it.

It is the same dread presence I sensed behind those doors when we infiltrated the Redwater hideout, I thought with a clench in my gut. You said an asura died there. That the legends were true.

I traced the lines of energy from the basilisk blood crystal behind Mardeth to the horn on his forehead. I didn't know how the crystal had gained the energy it currently contained, but in the depths of my Acquire Phase, I could sense how the mana changed as it funneled through Mardeth's broken horns.

It changes the energy inside to his mana signature, I realized as I traced the visible path of decaying energy to Brahmos' horn. And then the horn on his forehead concentrates it even further inside of him.