The priest, just like the Aspects of Light, was a hundred levels above me. He had the strongest divine magic and layers upon layers of shields. Nergal’s direct gaze bestowed particular power upon him, but he was still human. A mortal creature with a health bar of one hundred and ten million, which hadn’t so much as trembled while the divine shield was active.
Half a mile up in the sky, the beams from the Aspects of Light stopped burning holes in me, but I was still taking damage from Shining, an aura of deadly light like the one that surrounded the Great Portable Altar, but with a smaller percentage increase. Apparently, the high priest was relying entirely on his shields, and hadn’t bothered learning any combat moves. When his defenses fell to my Reflection, Shining ended as well. One Combo charged with vindication was enough to deprive Nergal of his most zealous follower.
A gigantic column of light covered the desert where Nergal towered. It took a while for the enraged deity to fall silent. Blood flowed from my ears, but his scream ended eventually. The radiant god disappeared, and with him went the Aspects of Light too, dissolving into thin air.
I wiped the blood off my face, out of my eyes, found the other two priests of Nergal. I locked on target, sent Monty after them.
“Sic ’em, Monty!”
The priests burned me with their eyes and hurriedly tried to cast some sort of high magic. Monty approached them from behind, caught them unawares. The dinosaur bit the first follower of the radiant god in half, swallowed him down. The second priest screamed at the sight of his colleague’s death, raised his staff in a defensive gesture… But there was nobody to defend the priest, and the ancient reptile dropped a gigantic foot down on him. There was a crunch. Blood sprayed out, shining at first, then dull. Black droplets rained down on the sand.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Forcing Nergal off the battlefield had given me a second wind. I licked at the blood flowing down my face. I should tiy that trick again! I thought, and zoomed off for the High Priest of Marduk. My sharpened vision allowed me to see what was happening below.
Having exhausted their Armageddons, the remnants of the Alliance fought against my pets. The temple durability had dropped to a pathetic eight percent and continued to go down under the barrage of miniature black holes firing from the Colossi of Darkness. Crash died again—for the second time in a day. Crusher, it seemed, hadn’t survived even five seconds of the battle. Storm was down too. Monty and Sharkon, on the other hand, seemed to be doing fine, tearing through ranks of panicking preventers. Both pets had lost over half their health, but the Alliance had apparently used all the tricks up its sleeve.
Gyula stood anxiously frozen by the altar—he was repairing the temple, slowing the building’s destruction. Tiamat’s avatar shimmered next to him, taking on her usual form. Iggy was chasing preventer sappers around the perimeter. They were kiting the needier, distracting him.
Vindication! Vindication! Vindication!
All the sappers and other saboteurs were blown away like dust in the wind. Until now, my friends had been standing with our allies from Yoruba, surrounded by a hundred soldiers from Excommunicado and Azure Dragons, but after the explosions, they looked around in surprise—all their enemies were gone. My inventory was filled to the brim. Loot lay on the ground untouched, but nobody reached out a hand—the battle still raged, and my friends ran toward the suspiciously survivable leaders of the preventers.
“They must have some kind of defensive artifact, Scyth,” I heard Crawler say through the comm amulet.
“I’ll deal with the preventers once I’ve taken out those Marduk priests. Protect the temple!”
I grabbed the Thunderbearer trident and fired a charge at the high priest of the god of darkness. His health bar didn’t move, as expected, but the charge knocked down the ink} layers of his divine shield.
When I crashed into him, his toothy orcish mouth spat curses, but soon the priest stopped trying to offend me and started praying for help. Gloom, a version of Shining, turned out to be stronger than the proactive defenses of Nergal’s high priest. The DoT grew and I was forced to drop my enemy. Reflection and the fall from half a mile up broke his shields, but the priest himself survived.
He crashed down a few hundred yards from the temple. Diving down toward him, I saw that the Colossi of Darkness and two other priests were headed for us.
An ore is an ore. Unlike Nergal’s priests, the servant of Marduk accepted the fight honorably; he pulled a spiked flail out of nowhere and span it skillfully. The weapon fumed, created clouds of mist, tore the air and sang a song of war.
“Rot of the Sleepers, you have not power to resist darkness!” the high priest growled in broken Common. “Marduk, I call you! Punish the corrupter who dar…”
I caught the enemy’s weapon with Reaper’s Scythes and hit him with a Hammerfist to the chest. The mighty ore withstood it, but completely lost his desire to talk. The blades of the fist weapon curved with predatory thirst, feeling yet another life unlived. A jerk of the hand, and the now hook-like blades of the Scythes broke through the priest’s ribcage and tore out his still beating heart.
“Vile fool…” the priest forced out along with bubbling blood.
The sky darkened for an instant and all fell into darkness. When the mist dispersed, the Colossi and Marduk were gone. Both the remaining priests ran toward me, baring weapons, but I didn’t quench their thirst for battle—I was in a hurry. I just threw Sharkon’s Mane at them, charged with vindication. They fell and didn’t get back up again.
Once done with the servants of the two strongest gods of Disgardium, I headed for the temple. A suspicious silence reigned there—no one was fighting.
The Alliance leaders:
