Chapter 51

“Everything the Alliance has told us, made us to believe, is a lie. They are not our protectors, they are our jailors, controlling all that we see and hear. They work to keep us blind and dumb, placated, and weak, while they, the masters of all, gorge on the secrets the universe has to offer. That ends today. It is time we rise to take back what is rightfully ours, it’s time that we take back control of the truth.”

—Truthseeker propaganda, Anonymous

Sylvas tore through the air at speed, his flight taking him through the passages far faster than his body could ever hope to carry him on the ground. He moved so fast in fact that it was barely more than a ten count from when he bid a final farewell to Ironeyes that he reached the gate, casting a Gravity Spike to open it the second he was within range.

Reacting instantly, there was the same flash, the same concussion, that there had been the first time, and Sylvas found himself looking through a mirror and into pandemonium. Before him he saw a full-scale battle in progress on the far side of the portal, the crack and thunder of magic and violence reaching his ears.

It looks like we aren’t the only ones who realized something was amiss! Mira exclaimed as Sylvas plunged through the portal without so much as a heartbeat of hesitation, guiding himself straight upwards the moment he was through. Shedding speed from there, his first act was to assess the battle, spotting perhaps the most critical thing there was to notice by virtue of its sheer presence.

The blood wolf is still in stasis! He exclaimed with relief as he spotted the eidolon at the center of the room, instantly relieved to see that the spellforms cover it were still intact and that it was in fact not slaughtering everyone. However that was about the extent of the good news that he could find in the battle that he charged into. With all the spells that were flying around all it would take is just one ill-timed deflection or miscalculated mark to hit the thing, break the stasis and then end the world. 

Shifting his attention from there, Sylvas next discovered that he’d just passed Kalisdrothan who had been cowering behind one of the pillars of the Gate. But fortunately he wasn’t alone, for Bael was standing over him with a shield up to protect them both, even going as far as to cast a new one to keep fire from striking the blood wolf. 

Good, at least he’s paying attention to things, Sylvas thought with relief, watching an errant blast of magic splash across the shield just at that moment. Wincing as it did so, he quickly followed the magic back to its source and saw that it had come from the far left line of the battle where two members of the research team that had by some twist of fate pinned Kaya down by one of the chamber pillars. But if that wasn’t enough of a problem in its own right, Sylvas spotted the forms of both Luna and Orson on the ground of either side of her held in the suspended animation of the crests. Granted, it meant that they were still alive, but only by the thinnest of margins. One stray blast could spell their end. 

Which meant that was exactly where Sylvas needed to be.

“About time you showed up, stanzbuhr!” He heard Kaya shout out as he hit the ground right behind the researchers, the force of his impact causing them both to whirl towards him, sudden fear written upon their faces.

And for good reason considering the mana he poured into the spell that he then unleashed on them.

They were tougher than the others…and is that…armor? He noted a brief moment later when he was standing over the twisted remains of the researchers, noting that they both were wearing a matching set of shimmering, vaguely crystalline looking clothes. While it hadn’t been enough to do anything more than slightly blunt his magic when he unleashed his spell, it had somehow stopped them from being crushed into the size of coin as he’d intended. After a second’s thought he shrugged, the mystery one better suited for another time. Whatever it is, it didn’t help them enough to matter.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, attention shifting as Kaya rushed out from his pillar to meet him, noticing that despite her face being half covered in blood, that she appeared to be otherwise fine. “Now tell me, what the world happened here?”

“Kraghin got stabbed in the back is what happened!” She immediately spat with more vitriol than Sylvas had ever heard from her, the two of them wasting no time in rushing towards the main battle. “Got an urgent call of panic from one of the researchers up top that a horde was seen on the horizon and that a handful of their surveyors were missin. It sent half of us racing up top through this damned place to respond, but we never made it. The traitors hit us with some sort of…trap along the way. Dropped Luna and Orson in a blink with wicked magic I ain’t ever seen before, and about did the same to Vaelith.”

The dwarf paused to make a spitting sound as they reached the main battle’s edge, Sylvas then discovering that there was yet another handful of researchers wearing the same crystalline clothes he’d seen on the other, plus two more Ardent from his security team. 

“Don’t know how she survived it,” Kaya added as they readied themselves to join the brawl. “But she ported us out and back down here where we fell into this mess, well, most of us at least. Haven’t seen Gharia or Havran since.”

Sylvas felt his Clearmind tremble yet again as Kaya finished her explanation, the allure of the rage he knew he should have otherwise been feeling without its mask almost cracking his composure. But even so, he resisted it, shifting his focus to battle in front of him, or specifically where he saw the aforementioned instructor and Malachai on their back feet as they fended off the traitors’ assault. Trusting that Kaya would follow him, Sylvas didn’t waste another second before lifting himself off the ground and plunging himself into the chaos, intent on changing whatever tide had kept the otherwise twin forces of nature at bay. 

And with Mira’s aid, devouring and processing the torrent of magical energy before him, he quickly found it.

Right by the two Ardent traitors, the box they’re standing over, she told him right as he cast a gravity spike that sent one of the researchers cartwheeling through the air. There’s a clutch of Tandonian Roc eggs inside it. The life mana that they’re pouring out is what’s keeping your prince at bay.

That was all Sylvas needed to know as he adjusted his flight, spiraling and twisting in the air to avoid a blast of magic and a hastily conjured wall of force. Then, when he was certain he’d drawn enough attention to give Kaya a clear path into the battle, he cut his flight, increased his weight tenfold, and cast teleport. In a blink he shifted places with his now plunging momentum taking him directly into the chest of one of the two Ardent traitors and bearing them straight to the ground with a crash. Hearing and feeling the soldier’s armor crack from beneath the titanic impact, Sylvas gave the man no time to recover from the surprise attack, his fist coming down with the force of a falling meteor upon their helmet and burying itself into the stone behind it. The crest that the man wore, spluttered once then went dim. There was nothing left for it to save.

One down. Sylvas thought through the numbness of Clearmind as he scrambled to dismount from his target, quickly spinning towards the second Ardent traitor, all while surrounding himself with a gravity shear in anticipation of needing to fend off an attack. But he soon discovered, he needed have not worried, for when the white armored betrayer came into view, they did so with two long metal blades protruding from their body. A clear sign as any that Kaya had made it into the fray. Make that two.

Whirling to his feet from there, Sylvas then turned his attention towards the nearby crate that had prompted his arrival, the thick aura of life mana making it impossible to miss. But despite its effect on the battle, Sylvas didn’t move to destroy it with a blast of gravity, rather instead he sliced his hand through air and opened cold storage, sucking the box and the eggs it contained into it. The effect was all but immediate in the seconds that followed, with a surprised shout calling out from the researchers who had otherwise been engaged with both Vaelith and Malachai.

Not that a shout did anything to stop the latter of the two as an unmistakable presence of darkness fell over the room, quickly turning them into horrified screams of agony.

“Kragh, now that’s a sight that is gonnae haunt me for a time,” Kaya muttered once the storm of sickle blades and faceless wraiths that Malachai unleashed started to vanish, leaving only ragged clothes wearing clean, bloodless bones behind. Yet despite the battle effectively coming to an end, the dwarf cursed for a second time before uttering a single word. “Vaelith.”

But by then Sylvas was already moving, having already spotted the grievously injured woman, somehow still standing amid the freshly created pile of bones. That is at least until her single remaining eye shifted up to meet Sylvas’, instant relief appearing across her face.

“You survived,” was all she managed to weakly say before her legs finally gave out from under her and she fell to the ground. Or would have, had Sylvas not arrived in time to catch her, gently bearing her downwards. As he did, he couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that she was somehow still alive. The woman was not only covered in more blood, cuts, and other wounds than he had ever seen before, but the majority of the flesh and skin that he could see had been turned a putrid, rotting black.

Plague mana. Decay mana. Poison Mana. And more that I even can’t untangle at a glance, Mira told him before he could even ask. There Aion sigils that I’ve never seen before either…all woven into some sort of a curse. It’s going to kill her if we don’t get her help.

“Don’t talk,” Sylvas replied as he glanced at Vaelith’s chest where her crest should have been, and found that it was indeed still there, but had been charred completely black to the point where it had started to melt. 

That means it must have worked to slow some part of the curse down, he thought as he quickly reached up to pull off his own crest and pin it to Vaelith. Yet before he could, she caught his arm and stopped it cold with a surprising amount of strength.

“N-no…n-not yet,” she said in an urgent if still weak tone. “Need…need to know. Not…over. Sending…from Wartback…unknown ship in orbit. Citadel hit and damaged. There…there is no help coming. Do…you…understand?”

Sylvas’ heart fell at the news, at the sheer scope of what had happened, at what was still happening, but even so he didn’t let it show on his face and simply nodded back down at Vaelith.

“I understand,” he said simply while reaching down with his other hand to gently loosen her grip. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll take care of it. I promise.”

Vaelith stared back at him with her single remaining eye, the other one having long since been reduced to a rotting mess and eventually nodded, allowing him to remove her grip.

“I trust you.” Was all she said as Sylvas placed his crest directly beside her own, the device instantly coming to life and enveloping her in a protective shell of time freezing magic.

Sylvas let out a breath of relief as the crest did its work, all traces of the mana and magic he detected from the curse vanishing to his senses. He slowly rose up to his feet, finding that Malachai was standing nearby.

“They had an interesting, expensive, trick, but I would have overcome them as a matter of course,” he said without any preamble. “Though…given our circumstances, your timely aid is…appreciated.”

Despite everything that had happened today, Sylvas couldn’t help but incline his head and smile thinly at the man’s response, the simple normalcy of their rivalry giving him a touchpoint he desperately needed in that moment. But that brief moment was all he allowed himself to have before he turned his attention towards the room, spotting the still glowing forms of Luna and Orson where he’d last seen them and what seemed like two dozen of the expedition researchers scattered throughout the chamber. Yet while there were a decent number of them, not all of them appeared to be wearing the crystalline clothes that Sylvas had seen on the ones he’d fought. A few even appeared to have familiar looking spikes thrust into their bodies.

So it wasn’t all of the researchers that turned against us, Sylvas noted, even if the realization didn’t get him anywhere closer to figuring out what had actually happened.

“Aye, so that was all a right mess, but least it’s done,” Kaya’s voice announced, breaking the silence that had fallen over the chamber. “Now, anyone need any patching before we go huntin for the rest of stone-cursed traitors?”

Malachai simply grunted in response to the question and Sylvas turned to shake his head as Kaya walked over towards him. That left all three of them turning in the direction of portal, where they had last seen Bael, Kalisdrothan, and the blood wolf.

“Bael, professor, are you both alright?” Sylvas called out as the pair came into view. Bael had moved to stand beside the wolf, while the professor had pressed himself against one of the pillars of the portal, both hands supporting his heaving body against it as he sucked in and exhaled, deep steadying breaths. 

“Sylvas, you made it. I was not sure if you would be gracing us with your company.” Bael replied with a soft smile.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Sylvas replied, his attention then shifting towards Kalisdrothan who’s rapid breathing against the pillar, even from across the chamber, started to look more than a little concerning. “Professor, are you—”

A vision of light and rapid movement filled Sylvas’ vision.

Sylvas, stop him! He’s doing something to the gate! Mira voice shouted as the scene before him snapped into focus just in time to see a spark of magic erupt from the venerable elf’s hands and into the stone they touched. But as with all of the other premonitions that Sylvas had experienced so far, it had come too late for him to do anything about it, the image fading away for him to discover that he was somehow on his back with the echo of a cacophonous thunderclap fading all around him.

Get up, Sylvas! Mira shouted at him urgently as a bunch of fragmented images and visions began to bleed through into his mind, all of them carrying a dire tone. You need to get up!

Dazed, but not incapacitated, Sylvas grabbed hold of his internal gravity and did exactly that, pulling himself up into a hovering position just in time to see the portal upon the hyperway gate shift. One moment it still showed the worldsoul core of the planet, then the next it revealed somewhere different, a place of worked metal. Realizing what that meant, Sylvas pushed his senses through the opening to find out exactly where it led to, only to instantly regret his rash choice. 

He was instantly hit with such a profound sense of disorientation that it almost made him throw up as he suddenly felt like he was not only here but hurtling through space an impossible distance away at speeds that he couldn’t begin to comprehend. More than just that too, he sensed that there were dozens of people on the other side, coated in magic that Sylvas didn’t recognize. 

The same kind of magic that he’d sensed upon Vaelith.

“I am truly sorry that you had to see all this my dear boy,” Kalisdrothan’s voice tore Sylvas away from his nigh overwhelming disorientation, causing him to yank himself back into his body. Blinking, he then saw the professor standing directly before the newly changed portal right as figures in grey, matted armor began to charge through, each them bearing weapons of every variety. “But I am afraid that there was simply no other way.”

“You knew,” the words tore themselves out from Sylvas’ throat as he finally lost his hold on Clearmind which in a blink filled the emptiness within him with hot, boiling rage. “You did this.”

“I did,” came the other man’s reply as he vanished from sight, hidden behind the onrushing bodies. “And if would like to learn the tru—”

A shield leapt up in front of Sylvas and the invaders, cutting off the professors words as he thrust his hand forward and sent his orbitals streaking forth from cold storage to slam into it. Nor was he the only one, with a spray of steel darts from Kaya, and a ray of black light from Malachai lancing out. Though in the case of the latter, it prompted a second shield, this one a vibrant green of pure life mana, behind the first in order to stop it.

A blindingly quick, and all too perfect reaction that had Sylvas twisting towards the only person here who could have done it.

“Bael.” The word all but ripped itself out of Sylvas’ throat, the magnitude of the betrayal hitting him full force in that moment. He’d been duped from the beginning, from when the first hand of friendship had been extended to everything up to the moment where he had opened the gate to help find Strife’s greatest secret. “You too?”

“Yes, Sylvas,” the elf replied, Sylvas twisting his head just in time to see the grey clad invaders arrived beside him, their attention fixated upwards upon the blood wolf, sending lines of magic towards it. “I’m afraid so.”

Bael moved his shields to intercept another blast of magic from the others as the eidolon then quickly began to move towards the portal, seized by several spells of kinesis at once. In rapid succession, Sylvas saw Kaya’s spell impact again uselessly into the protective barrier, and for a pair of death-curses from Malachai simply unravel themselves into harmless globs of mana midflight. But even so, that didn’t stop him from sending his own magic at his once friend, focusing a gravity spike directly upon his chest.

Yet just like Malachai’s spell, the spell fizzled away to nothing before it could arrive.

“Sylvas, you don’t need to do this,” Bael called out amid the clash, mana tangled in a dense web between his fingers as he manipulated the barriers and neutralized their collective magic. “We are not your enemy! We are merely looking for the truth!”

But Sylvas, nor any of the others cared about what the man had to say, and he switched tactics, calling upon the mana in one of the gems he’d implanted in his body. A heartbeat later an imitation of one of Ironeye’s lightning bolts carved a line across the shield, prompting Bael’s eyes to widen. Still Sylvas didn’t stop there, pulling mana from another gem and throwing a fireball, before drawing from a third, then a forth, weaving them into a barrage of spells.

Yet for every spell that he sent towards Bael, the elf stymied them, showcasing the very brilliance in magic that had been the foundation of their friendship.

“Sylvas! Please!” Bael called out to him once more amid the chaos. “You don’t have to do this! Just listen to—”

“You didn’t give Ironeyes a chance to listen,” Sylvas countered in a fury as he cast Inversion, only to have the spell fold itself in half and crumple the moment it left his hands. “You didn’t give Luna, Orson, Vaelith, or any of the others a chance to listen! Why should I be any different?”

“Because you above all would be better served with us than with the Ardent.” Bael looked genuinely upset as he spoke, which only served to make the aching void of betrayal that had opened up in Sylvas chest all the greater. “Please, come with us. Please let us explain. If you do not…well, there is nothing that you can do that I haven’t seen. That I can’t unmake. We both know it.”

Sylvas scowled as Mira ran through his entire repertoire of spells, looking for anything that Bael wouldn’t have seen. But there was nothing in his history that the elf wouldn’t be prepared for, nothing that he wouldn’t have seen. He had trusted the elf with everything he had ever done.

Then why don’t we show him something that he has no hope in stopping? Mira asked him, her words arriving at the same moment a vision, a memory that wasn’t yet a memory, appeared to him.

One that showed him a glimpse of crimson fur with his hand reaching out towards it.

“You really think that you can stop everything, Bael?” Sylvas asked as he raised his hand and extended his senses once again, focusing upon the memory that had come to him. “Then stop this.”

 And then Sylvas pulled.

In an instant the blood wolf stopped moving. Six of the black-clad soldiers had it held in kinesis and had been dragging it towards the portal steadily, but suddenly they were not strong enough. Inch by inch, it started moving back towards Sylvas, drawn by the pull that he was exerting on it, and it alone. Etherium crystals blossomed along his scars with every second that passed, flooding his system with more and more mana in the process. 

“Sylvas, stop!” Bael called out in a clear panic, the magic of his barriers quivering as he tried to block whatever it was Sylvas was doing. “You must let it go! Now!”

“No.” Sylvas growled from under the exertion of his efforts. “You will need to kill me.”

Bael cursed, his expression completely thunderstruck as he stared back at Sylvas in disbelief. But that moment quickly passed and he then turned to add his own kinesis spell to the ones that the soldiers were using while rushing towards the gate. But even with his assistance, they couldn’t wrest the blood wolf from Sylvas’ grasp, and nor could they let go to try and stop him otherwise. 

Sylvas’ scowled as he pulled upon the creature, the mental exertion so great that he felt darkness start to crowd the corners of his vision. Yet even so, he not only persisted, but split his mind to focus upon the mana, the etherium, filling his body and shaping it into a single, impossibly strong spell that even Bael would have no hope in unravelling in time. 

“Sylvas, don’t!” The elf cried as he inevitably sensed the buildup of power. “Stop—”

Sylvas finished his work, clawing his hand as he unleashed the most powerful Inversion that he ever cast.

Enveloping the far side of the room faster than anyone could follow, all of the invaders, including Bael were ripped off their feet as gravity viciously shifted directions. Spiraling through the air, Sylvas then watched as several of them slammed into the wall or gate pillars behind them, impacting with such incredible force that their bodies splattered into red mist, crushed beyond recognition. But not all of them did so as they flew, fate, or perhaps luck, sending them screaming directly through the portal and back from whence they had come. Of that the number, Bael happened to be the only one that fell in both camps, the elf flying towards the portal, but at such an angle that when he passed through it, one of his arms struck its anchoring pillar, the force tearing itself off in the process.

With the invaders then swept away, Sylvas had just enough time to see the horrified face of Kalisdrothan appear on the far side of the portal, their eyes meeting and boring into the other. But that brief moment was all the time that they had to share before the change in gravity that Sylvas had unleashed struck the hyperway gate, causing the portal to shatter into a thousand pieces as if it had been made glass.

The light in the room immediately shifted as the shards started to evaporate as they landed, rapidly casting the room in a deep crimson hue. Sylvas sucked in a breath as he stared at the gate blankly, his heart thundering in his chest, blood racing in his ears. All he could feel was rage, all he could see was the blood that had been split, and the desire to see more of it.

I will find them, he vowed as the rage dug his hooks into him, burrowing into his very flesh. I will find them, and I will break them. I will hunt them to the ends of the universe and I will—

Sylvas. Mira interrupted him as Clearmind was all but forced back upon his mind. Sylvas, look. Look up.

He blinked as focus returned to him, the immediate distance between him and emotions telling him all that he needed to know. The feelings were not his. He was not full of wrath after the betrayal, he was full of emptiness. He still couldn’t believe what Kalisdrothan, Bael, and all the others had done. The fury was coming from somewhere else. Cold realization struck Sylvas as he did what Mira had asked of him and tilted his head upwards.

And found the six blazing eyes of the blood wolf glaring down at him.