Chapter 13 - Part 2

["Araya confirmed the location in that pyramid shaped structure but can't know for certain. We're looking for something that has this inscription on it or near it." Ad'hm opened his palm and sand from the ground pooled in his hand shaping itself in the form of the inscription. "Commit this to your memory and look for it. Our priority is the womb of E'a and to copy any inscription from the same place as the womb. Everything else comes last. Got it."

"Yes captain!" Hat'ri, Then, and Volyk said simultaneously.

"Good, let's move."]

The group walked the streets made of smooth stone as if cut from a single piece with no defects. It baffled Volyk, nothing here was like anything he had ever seen, not even the ground he stood on. It didn't smell like stone but it felt like it. Glass towers flanked them on either side. Between each one there were plots of land where the remnants of trees and plants laid bare, eons dead from the lack of natural light. He deduced these were mere guardians purely esthetical. The dead arrangements were geometric and stone ways crossed them and merged into the main street. The streets were empty of any signs of the living. No remains, no littering, no footprints. It was clean. Not even dust accumulated on the surfaces of the metalical structures that were scattered at the base of the glass towers. The towers lacked any entrances that they could see and the glass was pure opac black with a mirror finish. Nothing like that existed in their world, it was of a knowledge much beyond theirs.

Ad'hm went to inspect the levitating stones emanating the pure white blue light. They were suspended by energy funneled from the ground through a circular outlet. As an empath he tried to sense how far it went and what was the origin of their energy but his reach wasn't enough, it seemed to go on forever, a maze that connected to each building and light post on the streets.

"I would never believe something like this existed if I didn't see it with my own two eyes." Then broke the silence.

"I long lived the life of an unbeliever too, until I met Emperor Ryel," said Danil. "But he showed me the true path. Only with him will we find eternal forgiveness and love at the mercy of our Creators." He spoke with ferverence. Ad'hm saw Then roll her eyes at him and preferred to ignore her for the most par,t moving forward through the streets. Hat'ri followed suit but Volyk stayed back, taking and recording everything he could; quick sketches, descriptions, assumptions and theories. Every chance he got he would try to see if there was an entrance to the towers but he couldn't find a single way in.

"What makes you think that the pyramid has an entrance? All these other structures don't." he asked Ad'hm.

"Araya said it would." he shrugged. "If not, we'll punch our way through. Either way we're not leaving here empty handed."

"Fuck yeah!" Hat'ri punched the air excitedly.

"Punch..." Volyk's jaw dropped to the floor. "We're not punching through anything! These are invaluable artifacts, remnants of our actual Creators. Our Gods! Creators know what repercussions there would be" He shouted after them.

"We'll see" Ad'hm added under his breath with a chuckle.

They have been walking for more than an hour on the unbending street leading directly to their target. The city had a circular gridlike pattern with concentric lines leading to the center that made it easy for them to follow. They began to discuss amongst themselves if the Creators actually lived in these monumental glass towers and structures that defied all logic or if the sky scraping towers had any other purposes or even maybe have been built by the first humans created. Danil's matra through the whole discussion was "I shall not doubt the awe worthy power of my Creators. Only they would be capable of such grandeur." opening his arms to show the city. The rest gladly discussed the philosophical implications and Ad'hm liked hearing the other's thoughts. However, one thing he was not glad to hear was something outside of their lively group beyond the next tower up head. They all stopped abruptly ceasing any and all conversation. The sound resounded from a distance and was barely noticeable were it not for the silence of the dead city; to Ad'hm it sounded as if someone dragged their foot behind as they walked in spite of the fact that they the city was definitley unoccupied for eons. They waited in silence. Ad'hm rose his arm and held a fist to his team letting them know to keep alert and be prepared. Hat'ri immediately took a fighting stance, her fists itching for battle. Then and Volyk waited behind her and Danil was calm as always.

Ad'hm the ever cautious and prepared as he was used his Empath abilities to try to identify the source before it came into view. Immediately as his awareness expanded around him his stomach sunk. "We're surrounded." As soon as he said it, heavy slaps on the street's stone made by bare feet resounded around them.

"Shit!" Then spat and turned to cover their backs.

The eerie white blue light of the stones barely gave away their attackers. The first to come into view from around the corner of the glass tower, cutting their way. Grotesque would have been a pleasant word to describe it. Ad'hm recognized the organic pulsating mass covering the cadaver. It was an Ophio. It was the second time Ad'hm encountered these atrocious creatures. Fungi formations covered headless cadavers. Oozing out of various orifices was an unidentifiable liquid as the mass of fungi pulsated in anticipation of releasing its spores onto fresh prey.

"Everyone, cover your mouths and noses with a shield!" Volyk shouted. "It's an Ophio." They did as instructed. As the creature closed in with it's lazy gait and left foot dragging behind they got to see it in full light. The fungi inhabited a tall slender humanoid host. Its head was missing, replaced by the fungi formations, organic, alive, it breathed greedily for them, yearning. They crave fresh prey as their life culminates to maturity, their only release being the release of spores onto their prey and soon after the release of death. From each surrounding street way the other Ophio started to appear. One by one they blocked their escape, reaching for them from afar with putrid decaying limbs.

As Volyk got a better look at them he stopped, dropping to his knees and praying fervently.

"This is not the time, Volyk!" Hat'ri said between her teeth, she was ready for the battle.

"No, no, no. That cannot be." Volyk said and started praying again. "They cannot be." he repeated in desperate whispers.

"What is -" Danil too had noticed but he restrained himself. He was a veteran of war and a much more skilled Wielder than the rest, but even for him witnessing something that went against his beliefs in such a blatant matter was nerve wracking. His tall forehead was shadowed from exaggerated frowning, with a vein bulging angrily. He let his emotions behind and got ready for a gruesome battle with the rationale of later finding salvation in prayer and flagellation. With the front of a calm voice he simply stated. "They're Creators." Everyone gasped and finally they too saw their second pair of arms behind them.

"Get ready to run and shoot." Ad'hm warned. "At my mark. Shields up, their spores are airborne. Immobilize their legs and burn them to ash, nothing to be left. Volyk, get up. This is an order!" Ad'hm shouted instructions. The moment Ad'hm said the last word, the man stopped and his face was too ready for battle. By now, they were in twos and threes blocking every way with more to come. "We proceed to our target location, no stops." Ad'hm took a few more moments to gather his strength and shouted. "Now!" They broke into a run towards the first Ophio. Volyk with every motion of his arms trapped decaying feet in hard stone from the streets and Then froze her targets from the waist down in quick succession. Hat'ri being the heavy hitter she was, incinerated everything that was immobilized on the spot. The fire caught most of the spores but some green specks escaped on the updrift of hot air. Ad'hm twisted the hot air feeding into the fires Hat'ri created slowly giving birth to a blazing twister that swept around their targets slowing their attackers down.

"Nice one, Ad'hm." Danil commended as they ran with a hoard of Ophio on their backs.

"How come he's not doing anything?" Then complained while stopping any approaching creature.

"He's our ride back, we can't afford having him run out of juice under a few million tons of water, do we?" Ad'hm replied.

"No, definitely don't want that." Hat'ri shouted between gasps for air. She stopped for a breather taking down a few more creatures. They were closing in on the pyramid but the hoard of Ophio had no end to it. More creatures began emerging by the hundreds from their front and sides and they had to stop abruptly with those behind catching up quickly.

"Leave this to me." Volyk said and with a swift motion of his arm a wall rose straight in the middle of the street splitting the Ophio up ahead into two groups. The wall cracked down the middle of it's thickness and the two slabs of stone wall pushed the creatures aside. Then with a circular motion of the same hand, Volyk surrounded himself and his group with a wall just before the creatures reached them. "Quick! They'll climb it quick!" He shouted and began running towards the entrance of the pyramid. Just as Araya said, it had a vast triangular entrance. The walls did not last long as the Ophio stepped to get on the other side of the wall and began chasing again, but it gave them the time they needed to reach the entrance. Once inside Ad'hm stopped just beyond the entrance.

"Let's deal with this fast and efficiently, shall we?" He erected a barrier over the entrance just in time for the first Ophio to smack against it. It, along with its friends, began banging desperately on it. They did everything they could to reach them, completely disregarding any harm they did to each other but the barrier held strong. "Everyone, help concentrate a good amount of pure oxygen around them."

"Smart." Danil commended while the rest looked at each other in confusion but did as ordered. It was hard work with the already scarce oxygen in the air outside, and the banging and heavy groans of the Ophio that strained on their concentration. Up close the creatures were truly a monstrosity. They took some of the characteristics of their hosts and deformed them, mutated to look just similar enough. But the mass of fungi that replaced their heads was a dead giveaway. The mummified cadavers of the Creators were strong and slender. Their limbs looked more like branches or sticks rather than flesh and bones. Some dripped with liquids of unknown origin while others were more skeletal with fibrous mutations of the fungi holding them together. Some had teeth like protuberances that stuck out from odd places while others no discernable hole for a mouth. Not that they needed one. As they prepared the oxygen for Ad'hm's plan some of the Ophio burst in a cloud of green spores hoping some would get through and propagate. They oozed even more of the unknown slimy liquid as they fell down to the ground having already dispatched their loads.

"Almost there," Ad'hm called out. "Keep it up!" soon the condensed oxygen laid as a blanket of fog and he was satisfied. Everyone except for Danil who tried to reserve his energy as much as he could dripped in sweat. "Ready for a real show?" he smirked to his group and with a snap of his fingers the scene in front of them was set ablaze in white fire. They could feel the heat through the barrier but it did not falter. Beyond the barrier the Ophio let out a semblance of screams of pain as they burned to ash. The fire roared and flowed like a furious river downhill, engulfing everything in its path. They would never have thought the Ophio would feel pain, but none felt bad for the creatures. They were parasitic and probably killed their victims eons ago and such had to be exterminated at all costs. They could not afford to bring it back to the Empire. They stood in silence watching them one by one fall in ash until the entrance was again clear. Not one Ophio stood, not one green spore could be seen in the air.

"We're clear." Hat'ri reported.

"Good." Ad'hm dropped the barrier to conserve energy and they were washed with vast warmth, he instantly regretted it. Now with the threat gone, they let reality sink in. They have committed the ultimate blasphemy. Volyk cried in dispayr in Hat'ri's arms while Danil contemplated his actions in solemn silence. Then and Ad'hm were just as calm but their faces grim with internal turmoil and dark thoughts. Before they managed to regain their composure something short of a miracle happened. From each of the brunt skeletal remains from outside, a blinding sphere of light emerged, bursting into a flash before disappearing. They had to cover their eyes from the sheer intensity of the display. There were a few thousands lights going on simultaneously that illuminated the city in a shower of pure white. This was the moment that Danil broke his straight face and composure as tears flowed on his cheeks in an ugly cry that only a child would dare. Volyk and unexpectedly Then followed.

"They have shown us mercy and forgiveness." Danil said between sobs.