"I CAN'T HOLD THIS LONGER", Elsie groaned, her teeth grinding in retaliation.
The time barrier flickered violently, and her feet skidded another inch across the stone. Both beams of energy surged against her, the pressure doubling as the Ogres leaned forward.
Shaxx spun. The voice had reached him, and his eyes widened. He couldn't allow the Ogres to harm the portal, but he couldn't leave the battlefield out of control.
There was no time; he had to make a choice.
"Tevis. The battlefield is yours." Shaxx growled; he charged his light, and dark lightning erupted across his frame. Shaxx jumped.
The arc energy detonated against the crater floor as he launched skyward, the shockwave rolling outward beneath him. He rose fast, clearing the ruins, clearing the smoke, leaping into the sky.
As his figure rapidly crossed the horizon, the Daughters of Crota were shaken; they hadn't expected anyone to try to clash against them head-on.
Their magic flared to life, chains exploded upward from Kinox and Voshyr's hands, dozens of dark tethers lashing through the air to stop Shaxx's ascent as he broke towards the skies.
Coiling chains swam upwards, akin to a tide that followed the lightning rippling towards the cloud.
Tevis's cloak fluttered, a fraction of a second after Shaxx had jumped; he had also moved.
The onyx dagger's edge grew, lengthening into a short sword. Tevis swiped across the air, and a torriental slash struck the chains.
"GO!"
Once, then again. The chains were cut before they could even reach Shaxx. Tevis flipped in the air and landed on his feet.
"Levi! Bandit! Cory! On the Daughters, now!" Tevis barked.
Following his command, the three Nightstalkers broke forward immediately, and Tevis took a half step back, taking in the battlefield with eagle eyes.
Up above, Shaxx had reached his apex. He stood above the clouds, the dust, the smoke, and the ships, striding from cloud to cloud like a surging bolt of lightning. His eyes were darting below, searching for the perfect moment.
Phogoth's fire still hammered Elsie's failing barrier, and just then, the Might of Crota had already begun redirecting its massive frame, swinging its beam closer to the portal.
That was his chance.
Shaxx tucked his body and dove through the clouds.
A storm brewed above, lightning rumbled, and thunder roared. The skies split.
An azure column flickered and struck the ground, Shaxx thundercrashed between the two Ogres with an impact that shook everything around him in a hundred metres. The shockwave threw everything within that radius off its footing. Both fiend fires cut off as the Ogres staggered and braced.
The beams of energy faded, and Elsie's barrier finally came down.
Elsie collapsed to one knee. She pressed her palm to the stone, lungs heaving, vision scattered. Her arms shook with residual strain. Holding off the two Ogres had exhausted her beyond measure.
Across from her, Shaxx now stood at the crater he had created. Around him, both Ogres recovered fast, dark energy beams igniting again, this time erupting from opposite directions towards the warlord.
Shaxx tussled. He threw himself between them, conjuring a barrier that shattered in seconds under the fiend fire. The beams of energy struck his chest, pushing Shaxx back. He hurled his arm over, using his lightning to grab the energy beam and redirect it.
Shaxx shifted forward under the intense pressure from Phogoth and the Might of Crota. He raised his fist and smashed it ahead. A lightning bolt cascaded towards Phogoth and burst into a wide arc, hurling the Ogre backwards.
He whipped around, dashing towards the Might of Corta with a shoulder charge. The two bashed against each other, the Ogre stumbled a step back, and Shaxx was pushed back.
The fight against them was brutal. There was no room for Shaxx to make a mistake; every punch, every step, every breath had to be perfect, or he'd get overwhelmed. The warlord juggled the Ogres, engaging one at a time with gusto.
His confidence alone carried through the former half, but as the Ogres were roused with his relentless punches, they only got stronger.
Shaxx was jostled by the Ogres, forced to brawl in a close-range frenzy, until a fist of lightning smashed into the back of one Ogre.
Wei Ning hit the Might of Crota from behind without a word. Her thunder cracked against its back, and it staggered forward.
"Finally!" Shaxx roared and drove into the gap she created.
The two Titans moved in sync and tore into the Ogres from opposite sides. Their thunder synchronised, and they unleashed a barrage of slams and punches that pushed Ogres back hard. Harder.
With Wei Ning by his side, Shaxx still couldn't win, but that had never been his goal. As long as he stood, the Ogres would not get any respite to even think about attacking the portal.
Elsie was back on her feet; the time the two titans had bought for her was immensely valuable. She moved and set up her rifle, aiming into the Hive infantry lines and began firing, placing each shot to open space, covering whoever was closest.
Around her, the battle had reached a pitch that none could truly comprehend.
Cabal legions buckled where the Hive concentrated their push. Vex units stuttered and failed inside the Hive's interference. Without Shaxx leading the charge, even the guardians dodged and scrambled and held on by margins that kept shrinking.
Levi cut through a cluster of Knights and came out beside Pahanin.
His eyes scoured the Hive's movements across the crater. Every attack, every push, all of it pointed in the same direction.
"They're not fighting us," Levi said, wiping his daggers against the coarse sand. "They're all focusing on the rift."
Pahanin's eyes narrowed, his figure already split into seven clones that were mid-combat. Neither of them said the next part out loud. They didn't need to.
The Hive had come for Void. Somehow, they'd known that he was vulnerable when inside the strange rift. But how?
Before that thought could finish, the Hive ships shook overhead.
A high-pitched shriek reverberated across the battlefield. Those who recognised what made that sound stopped moving for half a second without meaning to.
Dense fog came next.
It poured over the crater's edge in a rolling curtain, and where it spread, the Hive rose, and everything else fell apart. Cabal soldiers dropped. Vex units froze mid-sequence. Guardians already running on empty felt the last of their light reserves drain faster inside it.
A dark figure descended through the fog. Every existence in the crater could feel it.
Whoever had come possessed power of a different scale. Power that was inherently and overwhelmingly evil.
The dark silhouette scattered the ethereal shadows that obscured it.
Omnigul appeared.
A Pale mark burned across her face. Her presence felt heavy and vast. Her ascendant fog rolled ahead of her across the crater, and her spells of ruin were already building in her hands.
She didn't look at the Guardians. Didn't look at the Cabal or the Vex or the Ogres or the Daughters.
Her gaze was glued to the portal. As if reading the chaotic patterns of space in and around it.
Omnigul's lips curved into a wretched smile. One of recognition and revenge.
Her spells surged; Dark and lightless fire took the forms of worms that rolled towards the rift.
Elsie dropped her rifle in a panic and threw both hands up, throwing up her barrier of time.
But Omingul's magic was different this time. It was a magic without origin, without end, a magic beyond time itself, ascending the laws of the world.
Elsie had realised that too late, and Omingul's spells of ruin passed through the barriers unfazed, striking the heart of the rift
"NOO!"
-
Void raced forward; his instincts told him to rush, and he had. His figure turned blue, using up whatever remaining light to move at lightning speeds.
He sprinted towards the rift, but only inches away did he finally understand why his instincts were unsettled.
Fog covered the rift, and strange fiery worms ate it away from the inside. A fraction of a second later, the rift inverted, and the shockwave hit him at full force, sending him flying back into the illusory road Zamyr had carved.
The tremor passed through the entire Black Garden, and the horizon's pale hue began to fade away. The realm shook, as if the concept of space itself had collided against something immense, something unmoving.
When he finally looked up, the conflux was gone. There was no lattice, no rift, nothing remained.
The players who had raced after him had finally arrived.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then Waffles looked at the space where the exit had been. Her head tilted in confusion, and she looked back.
"Wait...was that. Wait." Confusion colored her face. Waffles cried out, "Are we... stuck here?"
Void's jaw tightened, but he had no answer; the rift was gone, and now only the Garden stretched endlessly around them.
-
A/N: Thank you for reading! Throw stones and check out Patr*on for more!
patre*n.com/Writers_Ablood