"Fine, Mr. Veil. I have given you a chance for an easy surrender and death." Haim lifted his side sword and lifted it to his face in an odd salute. "Do not let it be told that the Pathless is without mercy."
Beef slammed his maul down, shattering the skull of a Paladin and he laughed.
Until the guy just got back up.
"That's not fair!" he shouted, and launched the Paladin back with a savage kick. "How come you're all immune to bludgeoning damage?" He flipped around his maul, where the back had several savage spikes, and struck another one to little effect. "Piercing damage too?"
"It is the light they are wrapped within," Hallow said, calm as ever. Beside him was the biggest of the repurposed god-warriors, a man almost as big as Beefhammer himself. The spirit's Risen were spread out around them, punching with a sizable fraction of Beef's own Strength. It was cutting a swath through the battle, but none of the Paladins were staying down. "It is negating any damage we inflict."
"That's cheating!" Beef growled, blocking another sizzling bolt of light Mana. It splashed against his chitin armor, ripping a hole in it that Beef couldn't easily fix, not in the midst of a fight. "What're we gonna do?"
The teen-turned-Minotaur had rushed down the spiral staircase as fast as he could, but Agility was not his strong suit. It had taken way too long, and by the time Beef and his Risen has reached the ground floor again, Felix had already started fighting. Now Pit was flying around somewhere above, dropping more exploding ice, which wasn't killing anyone either, but at least kept throwing Paladins off their feet. And it distracted a number of them, who were shooting wild spears of light into green cloud after the Chimera.
And then there was Felix.
He was fighting Haim, a guy that Beef was pretty sure was a Master Tier. And not just fightingFelix was going toe-to-toe, giving just as good as he got, even if that stupid light was protecting the Paladin. Their movements were a chaotic blur, especially Felix who moved faster than Beef could even track. One second they were both on the ground swinging their swords, and next second they were twenty feet away slinging blue and gold spells at each other. More than anything, it filled Beef with a startling, upsetting realization. If Felix had fought me seriously...I think I'd be dead.
A cold shiver shook him, quickly replaced by the stabbing blade of another Paladin. The pain drove the memory from Beef's Mind, sharpening his focus as he backhanded the warrior. He roared in surprise and pain, and hauled off on the bastard. His uppercut caught the Paladin in the chest and hurled him bodily through the air over thirty feet. The guy would have doubtlessly gotten back up, completely unharmed, except Beef had unintentionally hit him into that whirling cage thing. The moment he hit the array, that huge, building-sized mass of bones and grossness inside shook and screeched.
The Paladin, however, was held in place as his body was squeezed dry. He tried screaming, but only managed a choking gasp, until a crumpled suit of gold limned armor fell to the ground...and the Paladin didn't get back up.
The curse thing Felix mentioned! Beef grinned and grabbed another warrior, using both hands to hurl them into the air. The same thing happened as the to the first, and Beef cackled. "Hahah! Ain't much when you get a face full of curse!"
Beef advanced and this time the Paladins ran away.
Felix spun away from another strike from the High Justiciar, this one scoring a line of melted stone in the tiled flooring. Dodging was easy, but the problem was doing any sort of damage at all. Nothing Felix tried seemed to work, from magic to physical force from either of his swords. The only thing he hadn't tried was his talons, but activating Sovereign of Flesh still felt dicey. His core space was less full of Essence, having used a good chunk of it to fuel the cutting edge of his Fang, but the abyss of Hunger was still unpleasantly satiated. It didn't make sense that it would affect his Sovereign of Flesh Skill, but it caused ripples of disrupting pain throughout the ability regardless.
Haim wasn't a Grandmaster, but he was at the upper edge of Master Tier, that much was clear. He was strong and fast and tough, with Stamina and Mana pools that were likely very deep. Down so close to the cage, he found his Voracious Eye relatively nonfunctional sadly, but the way the man was throwing Skills around it was clear he had plenty of gas left in the tank. Felix did too, but if he couldn't remove that golden glow, the fight would never end.
"You are stronger than I anticipated, Mr. Veil," Haim said, breathing light and easy. "That Strength of yours; to have devoted so much to it and yet still remain remarkably fast and deadly with magic, it intrigues me. What is your secret?"
"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," Felix said, circling the man warily. "How does your little shield work?"
Haim scoffed. "It is the Light of God, heretic. The Pathless Himself descended to gift unto us the knowledge of this Divine array, a tool to grant his chosen warriors protection and strength unheard of on the Continent. Even if you knew its workings, you could not stop it. You are a mortal man: worthless before the might of the Divine."
Felix only narrowed his eyes, sensing with everything he had. Suppressed as they were, his various sense Skills could only barely pick out the heavy golden threads that connected Haimand the other Paladinsto the array...and up, toward something else far above them.
The array is clearing doing the lifting somehow, and something up above is helping. That piece of Regalia at the center of their formation is key, but every time I get close Haim shoves me back. Felix bared his teeth as Haim threw another spear of radiance at him. It missed, but the splash damage as it burst hit and consumed another Risen far behind Felix. Damn. Okay, destroy the center and take that cloth.
But if he did that...how would it affect the Primordial's cage?
"Hey!"
Beef was yelling across the battle, but his huge lungs made themselves known. Felix glanced at the guy just in time to see him hurl two Paladins into the Primordial's cage. Both of them were almost instantly desiccated and their armor crushed as if by some immense force. The cage itself flickered dangerously.
Meanwhile, Beef laughed in dark delight. "The big bone pile hurts them even through their fancy shielding!"
Haim's face went ashen before it flushed with rage. The High Justiciar kicked off the ground, shattering it beneath himself as he accelerated toward the Minotauronly to be tackled to the ground by Felix himself.
"Focus on the Inscriptionists! Stop them from finishing!" Felix shouted at him, and grappled with the Justiciar.
Yet the Divine shield made the bastard positively slippery, and Haim wriggled free of Felix's grasp, just far enough to shout out a command himself. "Fallen Judgement: Nightfall!"
Above them all, a flare of gold, orange, and black vapor flashed into existence...and nine massive figures manifested, each twenty foot tall and half as wide, shimmering with all the colors of a fading sunset. Golems unlike any Felix had ever seen before.
Haim kicked at Felix's clawing hands and howled. "Drop!"