Depthless Hunger

Name: Matiavel the Destroyer

Total Power: 1860

Pureflame Demon: Diamond Rank (1000)

Demonic Cultivation: Earth Soul (445)

Physique: C-3 (315)

Soul Level: 10 (100)

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Heartbeats passed, agonizingly slowly, as Kai stared at the overwhelming strength in the man's soul. If this was truly one of the great powers of Rosemount, then fighting him head on was suicide. Kai had depended on Behemoth's Heart for a long time, but he had a feeling that if the crimson flame touched him, it wouldn't matter. Nothing he had so far could stand up to one of these god abilities.

Then their only hope was speed. Kai let go of Tyrant's Claw and Baleful Breath, which he assumed would be useless, and tried to draw on the Thunderbird essence and Garuda's Wing. Yet even as his mind raced between heartbeats, he couldn't change his own soul quickly enough. The statues in his mind's eye grated agonizingly slowly, inch by inch...

"I think some of the others talked about you, but I don't pay enough attention." Matiavel's voice was surprisingly quiet, almost lost in the sounds of the battle around them. "This is troublesome."

"Forgive us for disrupting your city." Zae Zin Nim stepped forward and gave a respectful bow. "I fear an internal conflict in my sect has spilled over into violence. But all I want is to return to Cloudspire, and my pursuers will follow me afterward and leave you undisturbed."

It wasn't a bad idea: humility and suggesting that they were uninvolved. Kai desperately strained to shift his soul as the demon's eyes flickered over them. If anything he seemed apathetic... until his eyes fell on Ceryyn. Kai had adjusted to her weight and almost forgotten about her before that moment.

"An elven elder." Matiavel sighed and began to raise his hand. "I don't suppose this is a kidnapping... no, perhaps I might as well..."

As the crimson flames began to blossom, the Thunderbird finally locked into place. Kai grabbed Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena and leapt to the side as fast as he could.

His shoulder scraped across the street and he lost his grip on the others, who tumbled out over the stones. But behind where they had been standing, a building was silently burning away. Matiavel still had his hand raised in that direction, but his head had turned to follow the dive with little more than mild interest. If he came after them for real...

In that moment Kai was caught between hope and despair. His theory had been right: Matiavel had unstoppable offensive force, but his speed wasn't beyond belief. Unfortunately, he wasn't slow, just apathetic. If he began using his full speed, then Kai wasn't sure he could stay ahead of it.

"Up!" Omilaena pushed him to his feet. Zae Zin Nim had already picked up Ceryyn, though she struggled under the elf's weight. They would be staggering down the street, too slow to escape.

But the battle had caught up to them now, Dominion and Commonwealth soldiers clashing on the streets. One of the more powerful Dominion warriors, a woman wielding a spear twice her height, charged at Matiavel.

He didn't even look at her, she just burned away in silent crimson flames.

At first Kai thought that their escape was an act of mercy or perhaps just an unfathomably lucky stroke to balance out all the bad luck he'd experienced in his life. Then another force hit the battlefield and he understood that Matiavel's movements weren't sluggishness, they were cautious.

When it first happened Kai didn't even understand what had occurred, he just saw a line of Commonwealth soldiers die. They slumped to the ground, bleeding from apparently small injuries, but they went almost unnoticed compared to the rush of flames around Matiavel.

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The most powerful demon in the Commonwealth, one of the strongest forces on the continent, had thrown up a wild defense and then leapt back. Now he stood in a tense combat position, his eyes wide and flickering wildly around him. There was another instantaneous attack and more Commonwealth soldiers died, but once again Matiavel threw up a defense in time.

Kai couldn't see any of the actual movements, but his instincts told him that someone was moving unbelievably fast. He drew on the Thunderbird essence as hard as he could, willing himself to stretch the space between his heartbeats even further. His eyes ached and the world swam strangely blue, then for one moment he saw deeper.

Dust blown across the street froze in place and all the combatants became statues. They weren't moving slowly, they might as well have been a painting. And yet, amidst that frozen tableau, a single person moved.

They wore a gray uniform with wide shoulders that reminded him of Dominion Armor, but theirs was composed of simple cloth. It had a high collar that obscured most of the face and a haze of gray-green smoke floated over the top half, so it was impossible to see their face or even guess at their gender. The body was slender and graceful, not that it mattered compared to the frankly insane level of speed.

It had to be the Windlord, ruler of the entire Flaeren Dominion.

Whoever they were, they moved through the statues, casually killing each with a well-placed blow. The twin daggers looked well-made and had edges burning with gray-green mana, but they weren't powerful beyond belief. The problem was that no one could defend against an attack they couldn't even see.

The Windlord killed their way through a line of Commonwealth soldiers, leaving a trail of smoke and blood just beginning to fall in their wake. Based on what Kai had seen, this moment was so extended that they might as well have all died at once. When they reached a demon the Windlord paused briefly, dealing seven different cuts that severed limbs and cut open arteries, but the wounds had barely begun to bleed when the Windlord moved on.

In that stretched moment Kai couldn't really think, the Thunderbird essence was letting him see just briefly. So there was nothing he could do when his instincts used his spiritual sight.

Name: The Windlord

Total Power: 1855

Heart of Wind: Diamond Rank (1000)

Wind Soul Robe: Emerald Rank (550)

Physique: D-1 (205)

Soul Level: 10 (100)

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The Windlord's head immediately shifted toward them. In that moment, Kai was fixed by a bright green eye blazing from out of the shroud of smoke. He wondered if he had just killed them all, because his body was as trapped as everyone else.

Then the Windlord looked away and the moment was over.

Another line of soldiers died, ending in another burst of flame from Matiavel. Kai realized that for these two great powers, everyone else on the battlefield basically didn't even exist. If Matiavel relaxed his focus for even a moment, he could potentially take a lethal blow, but if the Windlord slipped up even once, they'd be consumed by the crimson flames.

Even though it felt like far too much time had passed, Kai was still running down the street with the others. He shook his head sharply and tried to return to thinking normally. For a start he grabbed Ceryyn so that Zae Zin Nim could run more easily.

The experience reminded him of the attack at the abyss, when they had moved within a rainbow aura that slowed down everything around them. This must be the "phases" that the Frontier elites had mentioned: the Windlord wasn't really a god, they had just tapped into a greater power. It wasn't impossibly far above him, he could even grasp it for a moment.

That should have been encouraging, but Kai really wanted to get out of the city.

He couldn't help looking over his shoulder to try to catch glimpses of the battle. Because he kept looking back, he saw when a god emerged.

At first it looked like a normal elven woman, but when she stepped onto the street where the great powers fought, she pulled back her hood. She wasn't beautiful, she was... transcendent. Kai couldn't even imagine feeling desire for such a being - it was humiliating for him to even be in her presence and he should have thrown himself to the ground and begged her forgiveness for existing.

"Steady!" Omilaena grabbed Zae Zin Nim, who swayed on her feet as the aura washed over them. "Remember what this is."

Of course: it was another aura. Kai couldn't pierce it enough to see the elf's power, but she wasn't a goddess, just someone who had taken their soul cultivation to its logical extreme. She must have been the greatest of the Council of Elders, the Elven Wilds' final resort.

On the street behind them, soldiers on both sides threw down their weapons and wept. Matiavel and the Windlord didn't bow, but they did hesitate, their attention suddenly fixed on the new arrival. If either of them could manage to attack, Kai assumed they could kill the elder, but her presence flooded out like a physical force and rendered attack impossible. The three stared at one another, all marshaling their powers and yet hesitating to attack.

That made three of the great powers on one street. Kai simultaneously wished he could have seen the Empress of the Coiled Empire and was glad she wasn't there, because a fourth might have killed everyone watching.

Yet somehow he and the others were still running. They might not be the strongest on Rosemount, but their souls had been forged in countless trials against overwhelming opponents and they refused to give in. Maybe they couldn't fight opponents like this yet, but they were walking the same path.

Then the lights of the city began to give out. Kai thought that the First Crest might have been disconnected, but the core was still bright. No, the darkness began at the edges and advanced inward... and something at the center began to glow brighter, rivaling the sun.

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