My world-tree system-Chapter 42 - 41: The link

Ash... The battlefield was a mass of destruction, the ground ploughed by the intensity of the clashes that had ravaged the area.

In the gaping crater he had created with the sheer force of his attack, a demon lay, its body twisted by the impact. A massive creature, covered in a broken obsidian carapace, its torso caved in, its fangs clenched in a grimace of pain and rage. He struggled to breathe, his crushed lungs searching in vain for a breath of air that would never come.

A dull growl rose from the back of his throat, a mixture of anger and incomprehension.

His brother...

His brother was dead.

Not all of him. Not yet. He could feel it. But something was eating away at their bond, devouring it, and the tenuous thread that held them together was unravelling inexorably.

Despite the pain, the demon looked up.

And he saw it.

A golden shadow slowly descending into the crater.

It was no longer Foster.

It was something else.

The roots of the World Tree spread out around him, sliding over the charred ground, vibrating with an ancient, sacred, implacable energy. Each of his footprints left behind a trail of vital energy, an echo of the primordial force he now embodied.

His golden tattoos, usually barely visible, blazed, pulsing with the rhythm of his breath, radiating a light so intense it seemed to chase away the darkness itself.

And his eyes...

He no longer had pupils.

Just a pure, burning light that pierced the demon to its damned soul.

Foster wasn’t walking towards him.

He was advancing, like an inevitable tidal wave, an implacable force, an irreversible flood that was going to sweep away everything in its path.

The demon tried a gesture, a final provocation, a bravado to mask the primal fear rumbling inside him.

- You-’

A flash of gold.

A lightning impact.

His arm shattered.

Not cut. Disintegrated.

The demon screamed, his carcass thrown backwards like a rag doll.

The pain was excruciating, intolerable, but worse still...

He wasn’t healing.

There was nothing left to heal.

Foster was already ahead of him.

The demon wanted to raise his other hand, but she didn’t respond.

- ’There will be no escape.’

Foster’s voice was absolute.

No threat.

Just a statement of fact.

His hand rose slowly...

[Roots of the World Tree]

They sprang up from the ground, sinuous, sharp, alive, and wrapped themselves around the demon’s legs, preventing him from moving. They dug into his skin, seeping into his flesh, burrowing into his very essence.

The demon screamed, sending out a wave of hellish energy in a last desperate attempt.

BOOM!

The explosion shook the air, kicking up waves of dust and sending debris flying all around.

But when the smoke cleared...

Foster was still there.

Untouched.

His body shimmered with an unearthly glow, a halo of light filtering around him, inviolable, untouchable.

The demon tried to tear himself away from the roots... but they refused to let go.

- ’You still don’t understand, do you?’

Foster held out his hand towards him.

- ’Your bond no longer has any meaning.’

A second spell activated.

[Cocoon of the World Tree]

Basically it was a spell to protect the user in the hardest roots and branches of the World Tree, yet it was used as a death trap. Inside, the branches pierced the trapped demon from all sides.

A foreign energy seeped into him, a parasite growing within his putrid flesh, annihilating everything he was, attacking his very strength.

And he understood.

Foster was devouring his essence.

He wasn’t just killing him.

He was erasing him.

Destroying everything that made him a creature of Hell.

The demon felt his bond with his brother distort, as if Foster was tearing him apart, crushing him, smashing him to bits under the influence of a power far beyond the laws of Hell.

No.

It was impossible.

No one could...

No one could undo their blood bond.

Foster fixed his incandescent gaze on hers.

And the demon knew he wasn’t lying.

- The Avatar of Life does not bend to the laws of the Underworld.’

His tone was unmistakable.

The golden tattoos pulsed harder.

The demon screamed one last time...

And exploded in a cloud of black ash.

The fight was over.

But not the war.

Foster breathed slowly, feeling his energy stabilise as his Avatar State slowly began to dissipate.

His gaze wandered to the others in the distance.

They were still alive.

But Lorie...

He could feel his breath weakening.

His consciousness, linked to the elves of the World Tree, captured her agony. Her fight against death.

He wanted to move.

He wanted to join them.

But his body refused.

The pressure that had built up in his muscles, in his mind, in his entire soul exploded in one fell swoop.

His Avatar State was extinguished.

His tattoos lost their lustre.

And his whole body collapsed.

A heavy silence hung over the battlefield. A heavy silence, broken only by the uneven breathing of the survivors.

The ashes of the vanquished demon had scattered in the night wind, leaving behind an almost unreal void. Foster lay on the ground, his body exhausted, drained of all strength, his tattoos barely visible on his now livid skin.

But Känn couldn’t look after him.

Not now.

His gaze fell on Lorie.

Her torso was rising faintly, like a flickering flame ready to go out at any moment. Her ghostly white skin was stained with blood, and her breath... God, her breath!

Too slow. Too fragile.

- ’No... no, no, no...!’

Känn hurriedly knelt beside her, frantically searching for a way to steady her. His hands trembled as he tried to apply pressure to her most critical wounds. But he knew... it was useless.

He had no energy left.

His own strength was exhausted, burnt out in the fight against the infernal general. And he was alone.

Köflik was out of action, his body shattered by the battle.

Yhänn and Giovanni were no longer moving, unconscious after the hell they had been through.

Foster... Foster was an immobile corpse on the ground.

- ’Wake the fuck up...’ he whispered as he put his hand on Lorie’s chest, searching for a pulse he could feel getting weaker by the second. ’Don’t leave me on my own.’

His breath quickened.

Panic overwhelmed him.

There was no-one left to help him.

No-one left.

A wave of rage surged through him. Hatred for his own powerlessness. He should have been stronger. He should have been faster. He should have-

-The link.

The idea struck him as obvious.

His gaze went back to Foster.

The link they all shared, the connection that made them more than just elves... the World Tree.

An invisible thread, imperceptible to ordinary mortals, but omnipresent in them.

He could feel it.

It was always there.

Even if Foster was unconscious, even if he seemed broken... the link was intact.

And if he could...

Känn took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

He plunged into himself.

He felt the chaos of his mind, the pain that wracked his skull, the fatigue that weighed on his bruised muscles.

But he also felt something else.

A light.

A pulse.

An undercurrent of energy, dormant but very much alive. An underground river waiting to be tapped.

Känn held out his hand.

And he pulled.

A burst of energy exploded inside him.

His chest swelled under the sudden surge of magic, and his whole body lit up with a green glow.

It was insane.

He’d never felt anything like it.

It was as if every fibre of his being was connected to something immeasurable, to a force beyond himself.

He could hear.

Whispers.

The voices of the other elves of the World Tree echoed within him, the echoes of their strength, their spirit, their existence woven into a single entity.

And through it all...

He felt Foster.

Still there. Still alive.

Still the Avatar.

A bitter smile grazed his lips.

- ’Thank you, brother.’

Without waiting, he directed that power towards Lorie.

Green light poured from his hands, seeping into the elf’s wounded skin. Her convulsed body reacted immediately, absorbing the vital energy like a desert absorbs rain.

His wounds stopped bleeding.

His muscles relaxed.

His breath... became firmer.

His pulse, weak and chaotic, regained a steady rhythm.

Känn released a shaky breath.

He’d done it.

She was saved.

His hand trembled as he withdrew it, feeling the full force of the fatigue. His body demanded a toll for having pulled on a force that was beyond him.

But he smiled.

Because this time, nobody had died.

He placed his hand gently on Lorie’s forehead and whispered:

- ’Rest. You’re safe.’

Then, exhausted, he too collapsed.