Wish upon the Stars chapter 883

Belial was my very first form. It had changed, of course. Evolved. But it was my root. My origin. And I was most familiar with it out of any of my forms. Channeling it through my staff, I was able to push that even further, elevating the form itself to a C-rank ability for a short time, and my control of it reached a supreme state of pinpoint accuracy, especially when I let Dantalion unfold through the vines alongside it.

As they wove and twisted through the still growing vines, I was able to perceive more of the battlefield, to see more of what I was doing, and what I saw gave me a clear grasp on some very important information.

Firstly, my archers were a fucking menace. Especially from perfect cover. Whisper’s arrow had blown a chunk out of the titan’s thigh, and none of the other arrows that had hit had done any less. Feet blown off, kneecaps severed, one guy had a hole the size of a grapefruit through his shoulder, and it appeared to have VAPORIZED the ball and socket joint at the top of his arm. That one made me wince.

By the time Belial reached them through the vines, everything was in chaos. No one noticed the slight tinge of green and black creeping up through their shoes, and I waited and watched as Bethy tore into them from seemingly a dozen angles at once, appearing and disappearing alongside Donuts and Poptarts.

The cats were holding their own much better than expected. The Night Pride were born in darkness, and had a natural power similar to Callie’s. They were ALSO thralls. Bethy fed on her pets as an emergency food source, and I knew that becoming a thrall had certain benefits to the recipient.

Because of the combination, the cats were putting on almost as good a show as their mistress, and it was more than enough for the distraction I needed to complete the corruption of one of the enemy, a completely unassuming man with bottle green hair and bronze skin holding a strange combination sword and shield the size of a door. As soon as I assumed control, he became my weapon, and another fulcrum for me to bring my power to bear against the battlefield.

His giant sword spread the corruption even faster, and I was able to easily direct him into a series of spinning slashes that carried the huge weapon through large crowds of enemies, speeding up the corruption of multiple enemy warriors.

Within about two minutes, I’d corrupted fifteen or twenty more people, and was using them to surgically dismantle any attempt being made to establish order. “Abel, Mel, Dom, Sable, Dastan, Gabe, Serah, and Holly.” I called sharply. “You’re up, Callie is going to mark your targets. I’m stopping them from putting together a proper resistance, but some of them are building small groups I can’t crack. Shatter them.”

My mentor cackled with delight. “FINALLY!” he crowed as he strode forward, his body shimmering as he became a living blood warrior. He was quickly surpassed by Dastan as the werewolf transformed and loped forward into battle with a joyful howl.

The battlefield was in complete disarray. My controlled fighters were tearing into any alliances they could get to, and with random fighters turning on friends for seemingly no reason, cohesion was shot. When Abel hit the first group, they barely noticed he was coming until a train sized fist bulldozed them all.

Dastan fell upon the copper titan, fangs gleaming and jaws slavering as he tore into the metallic flesh with savage glee. The titan tried to grow, but as soon as his size started to shift, Bethy appeared like a ghost from behind him, her teeth flashing as she bit into his neck. His strength drained away, accompanied by the soul crushing agony of being fed on without being a thrall, screaming as his stats were siphoned away.

Leaving him to the vampire, Dastan bounded off the giant man (who was about ten feet tall at this point) and landed on a nearby minotaur, bearing him to the ground with reckless abandon.

Randall appeared, the D-rank bear glowing with the powerful enhancement of his mistress, smashing through a huge group of mid level flunkies to get to what appeared to be an actual rhinoceros someone had pulled from SOMEWHERE.

Then things changed. There was a buzz in the air, the world started to shift, and dark clouds gathered above us. I recognized what was happening, and pulled out a few scrolls. One after another, I wished, grinding away at the gathering power of the wish above us. Because thats what it was. A wish. I could see the flickers of purple lightning playing across the clouds. That wasn’t a scroll. There was a candidate granting a combat wish right here.

I searched through the vines. Wishes varied in difficulty and time based on how powerful the candidate was, how powerful the wish was, and what the person actually asked for. This one was probably something really complicated that only targeted enemies and needed time to ramp up, and the scrolls were dragging it out.

I couldn’t stop the wish. If it had been paid for it was coming, but I COULD take down the candidate who was granting it before they got another one off. Above me, the clouds rumbled ominously. I’d just dropped five D-rank chits on five wishes to nullify that attack, and they were struggling. The candidate in question was clearly much stronger than Nat. Finally, I found him. A short young looking guy with floppy brown hair and mismatched eyes. I could see purple light glowing in his eyes, and I knew this was the right one.

Focusing on the nearest corrupted, I turned his attention to the candidate, and I urged him into a lunging attack with his long spear. Before he could arrive, an armored woman with a severe ponytail appeared from behind the candidate, a short sword batting the spear aside before she blurred forward to try to slit his throat.

My control wavered for a moment as he became terrified for his life, which I hadn’t realized was a thing, and he jerked free to hurl himself aside and avoid having his carotid artery opened by the severe looking girl.

She was younger than I’d thought, closer to my age, but then again, age was impossible to measure accurately for Ascendants, so maybe she was a thousand. Either way, she was dangerous, and her eyes were tracking everything nearby. “Dravus, what the fuck is wrong with you?” she spat in disgust. “How could you attack Hadrian?”

My former corrupted coughed, staggering to his feet with a look of terror. “I…I don’t know Dara. I couldn’t control my body. It was like someone was moving me, but I didn’t even realize it was happening until I’d already attacked. You almost killed me!”

She sneered. “Don’t be insipid. Bleeding out wouldn’t be enough to end you. Not that I’d have shed a tear for the death of a traitor. Help me find what’s going on. If someone is controlling people we need to figure out who. Something is wrong with this battle. At least they took Kordax out of the fight. That giant metal bastard is a nightmare to defend against.”

Well, I had a name for the copper titan now, I was pretty sure. I scowled. This woman was really competent, and getting by her would be  a mess, which meant getting rid of the candidate was going to be tough.

Then I smiled. I didn’t need to fight him. I had the vines stretching out to under his feet. I reached through them, and with a slight effort of will, triggered Pit of Despair.

Dara spun in horror at the strangled scream from her boss, shocked to see him falling through a pool of super fine dust and INTO the ground. I smirked, withdrawing the power, and the ground returned to stone. He’d get out of there soon enough, but it would be a good distraction. I turned to Callie. “We’re heading in. It’s time to hit the town, we need to be one of those winners. Tell everyone else to keep up the good work, but turn this into a moving battle. Stay within Murmur.”

I started us forward, but I used one of the corrupted to pass a message to Bethy, who I asked to pass it on to the others so they would know to open us a path.

Sure enough, within seconds, a bloody fist smashed through the chaotic lines, opening up a passage, and the space warped slightly as Abel did his thing, lubricating the space between use and the gate.

I grinned, stepping forward, and we entered the altered space, shooting through the battle at high speeds, so fast that I almost dropped Murmur. The vines disconnected, sadly, once I was too far away to use them, and our plant team was unable to reconnect because of the move, but that didn’t matter. Gabe had joined us for the approach, and I was thrilled to see his lance come out as we emerged from the spatial tunnel, smashing into the gate with all of his Adamant power.

There was a thunderous BOOM as we struck the gate, and I sighed, dropping Murmur. Between the destruction of the entryway and the noise, I hadn’t been able to cover that. No reason to waste the power, because they were all going to know what was up now.

Luckily I’d given the order to retreat after we made it in, so my forces outside were already headed back. To cover them, I had the archers start up a volley, then turned to my other D-rankers. “Anyone with a shield or main defensive Skill, front and center!” I pulled out some more scrolls. I had used ten so far, and I triggered three more for a clever bit of wishcrafting. 

First up, I wish for every one of the defensive warriors to be connected, specifically to focus all of their accrued damage on the largest and most durable of them, a man wearing C-rank armor a lot like mine. Then I wished for HIS incoming damage to be shared across all of them as a group. Then I wished for a fifty percent reduction in any damage applied to him for the rest of the battle.

Three more D-ranked chits gone (I was running low at twenty nine) and the scrolls triggered. Just as I’d planned, any incoming damage to anyone in the group was redirected to the big guy, halved, and then applied evenly across the entire force. Each person was only taking a fraction of the damage from attacks, which they were easily able to deal with. Abel and the others made it back seconds later, and I triggered Behemoth, erecting a series of fortifications to help our people hold the area.

We weren’t the only ones inside, some opportunists had slipped inside ahead of us, ignoring the battle, but they weren’t worried about us, given there was a horde of other candidates and retainers incoming.

There was a chime of a bell, and a series of golden gates slammed down outside the perimeter. I turned to look and found another candidate standing on the wall, her red hair in a long braid and her green eyes severe. She saw me looking and nodded casually, before turning and heading back into the city.

The gates held. I wasn’t sure how strong she was, but I was guessing she was pretty Might focused, given the physical power of those gates.

Sighing, I turned to my wife. “Alright, let’s go find somewhere to sleep. This is going to last a while. Nat can supply the others with scrolls if needed, but I think the main thrust of the battle is done with.” I put and arm over her shoulder and we headed into Schvitz. My first battle of the succession war was over. I had a feeling this was nothing compared to what was coming.