Now

  Particles reformed as lightning tore down, biting into the spawn of Hell, forking between them and those farther out. Angar’s hammer swung immediately, infused with Energy, striking a stunned survivor.

  The air was fouled with unholy auras, corroding his armor and seeping through breaches to eat at his flesh.

  As he dodged one coming from the front, another fell bolt slammed into his back, its rancid energy sizzling against the rotted plate, sending a spike of pain through his flesh.

  Thunder tore from the blighted sky of Abyssalhome, its crimson and yellow clouds roiling like a festering wound, casting jagged shadows across the corpse-strewn earth.

  The soulreapers swarmed around him, enveloping him in a miasma of necrotic hunger, sapping his life and strength with every passing moment.

  His hammer landed, imbued with Glory Thunders, carving a brief void before and beside him, hurling gouts of spectral ichor across the cursed earth, though fresh horrors pressed into the breach with relentless, mindless hunger.

  He kept moving, always moving, denying the skeletal horrors the chance to channel their draining sorcery. To stand still was to die, slowly hollowed out by their fell spells, a husk ripe for their scythes to claim.

  He wasn’t certain they were soulreapers. His education at Cloisteranage had been a rushed affair, a brutal cram of lore focused on the low to mid-tier threats a Crusader of the first Realm faced.

  These were something darker, dredged from the higher-rated gateways, their nature guessed at from fragments of the grim tales of lore.

  If he was right, those scythes of coalesced shadow didn’t just kill, but stole on a kill, binding a man’s soul within their obsidian edges, denying him the glory of Heaven.

  A fate not worse than Hell, but one preventing the eternal bliss he’d earned. A fate Angar would not abide.

  The horde pressed in, a tide of emaciated forms cloaked in writhing shrouds, their ivory bones gleaming with veins of sickly green.

  Hooded skulls leered, eye sockets ablaze with unholy hunger, their scythes slashing, glowing with profane power.

  Too many.

  Too damned many, and too strong.

  He’d done his job, kept his oath. He’d pulled them away from the crashed ship. He stood, fighting an army.

  The sheer weight of numbers pressed against him, scythes clanging off his plate, some biting through, drawing blood that burned with unnatural cold.

  Their whispers slithered into his mind, a bombardment trying to break him, to give in to despair, urging him to kneel, to surrender.

  He growled, shaking off the assault, his will, forged in blood and fire, well up to the task. But employing more Electrokinesis wasn’t. He'd used too much already.

  The strength of the dark whispers was surprising, and he couldn’t risk his Resilience being gnawed any lower.

  His maul swung in a brutal arc, its graviton pulse amplifier blazing with infused Energy. The hammer’s head warped, a micro-well of gravity erupting as it smashed into a soulreaper’s skull, shattering it into wisps of unholy filth.

  Another strike caught a second in the chest, its skeletal frame blowing out.

  He turned, lashing out again, the haft deflecting a scythe’s bite with a shriek.

  The Templar ship roared past overhead again, its weapons blazing, tearing into the foes around Angar, culling their numbers.

  But far too few to matter, to shift the tide.

  The Hellspawn swarmed, a writhing mass, mindless in their hunger, seeking to overwhelm him in a pile-on of slashing death.

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  Angar roared, swinging like mad, his cybernetic leg’s claws whirring to life, kicking out, drilling into a reaper, sending it staggering back in a spray of unnatural blood.

  Sharp relief flooded him as Tempest ticked off cooldown. Lightning Strike and its shield had two seconds left, but he couldn’t wait. He was surrounded, battered, just trying to survive another moment, and needed to act now.

  Gripping his maul with both gauntleted hands, he hurled himself into a cyclone, spinning with relentless fury, the hammer’s head pulping the spawn of Hell.

  The foes slowed, lurching as if mired in tar, while his own speed surged, propelling him deeper into the horde.

  Lightning erupted from the hammer’s head, weaving a storm of sacred wrath, tendrils of electric fury lashing out, searing flesh and bone.

  As a whirlwind of destruction, the lightning’s range stretched further, forking into new targets, splitting, a cascading storm of crackling death.

  Soulreapers shrieked as the bolts burrowed into their shrouded forms, blistering their spectral hides, even melting some of their scythes into slag.

  Angar spun through the press, each hit sending shockwaves through the mob, crushing skulls, shattering limbs, and driving him toward the distant Templar Company’s battle line.

  The mitigation of 90% of the incoming barrage greatly dulled the spells slamming into him, keeping him upright, sustaining him against the onslaught.

  Still, his HUD flared with warnings, the armor’s gears hitching as corrosion seeped in, slowing his movements.

  Angar pushed forward, a vortex of death and Holy wrath, making his way closer to the Templars, until Tempest waned then ended.

  He stood surrounded by a charnel field of smoldering corpses, their remains twitching in pools of shadowy vileness, the air reeking of burnt and profane decay as ash sifted down from the roiling sky.

  The legion seemed endless. Fresh horrors surged forward, their scythes raised, loosing volleys of fell energy that tore furrows in the cursed earth as Angar dodged, triggered Lightning Strike, a shimmering shield snapping into place around him.

  The monsters were on him in a heartbeat, their blades slashing, unholy auras biting into flesh, dark whispers clawing at his mind with renewed ferocity.

  His hammer, imbued with Glory Thunders, thunked into a skull, sending a shockwave rippling outward, liquefying spectral goop, hurling bones and pieces of Hellspawn backwards in chunks, giving him a moment of peace.

  New enemies filled the cleared field in a heartbeat.

  His maul arced behind him, a graviton charge warping its head, smashing through a reaper’s shroud in a plasma infused burst.

  Four seconds remained until Ground Current came off cooldown.

  Four more seconds.

  A blink in time, but an eternity in this battle.

  It would carry him nearly the full distance to the Templars, close to safety, to Saints and Seraphs fighting under a Zealous Few banner.

  But he knew, deep in his heart, he’d never make it.

  The horde was too vast, their hunger too unrelenting.

  The ash choked his filters, the whispers clawed deeper. He shoved it all down, the maul trembling in his grip.

  Bolts pounded his armor, breaching plates, tearing into flesh. A scythe sank into his back, its profane bite searing like freezing acid.

  His hammer struck in a wide arc as he staggered, and blood welled beneath his battered armor.

  He moved as best he could, his cybernetic legs propelling him through the press, kicking out knees and crushing skulls.

  The whispers roared, promising oblivion, but he roared too, his maul swinging defiantly, endlessly.

  Three seconds. A fell bolt lanced, striking his hammer’s head, absorbing the hit, but another scythe breached, slicing into his shoulder, drawing a torrent of blood.

  Just three more seconds until Ground Current could carry him closer to the Templar line.

  The ship was turning, coming around for another pass.

  His HUD flashed, warnings screaming of damage. His maul crashed down, pulping a Hellspawn in a burst of foul ichor as more swarmed, an unyielding tide of skeletal horrors, their scythes slashing through the ashen air, their spells searing his battered armor.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  Maybe not, but he’d go down fighting, offering a glorious tithe of blood and battle to a thirsty God, blazing like a titan of war, a defiant flame against the unholy darkness, his last breath a tribute, his soul trapped in cold metal.

  Then time shuddered, slowing to a crawl, as if the world held its breath.

  Behind him, he heard a noise. Boof.

  A shockwave slowly lifted the Hellspawn from their bony feet, hurling them backward in a languid arc, crawling slowly through the air.

  Angar twisted, his movements sluggish, like wading through mud, but much faster than the stilled world around him.

  His eyes locked onto her.

  Spirit was there, hovering just above the scorched ground, a vision of Divine repose shattered by injured grace.

  Her presence hit him like a hammer, relief warring with horror at the sight of her battered and bloody form.

  The blessed Mother, radiant as always, but ravaged somehow, her seamless vestment torn and frayed, its hues dimmed in a strange way.

  Gashes disfigured the fabric, exposing glimpses of what should never be seen, that his eyes dared not look upon, averting his gaze before desecrating her sanctity.

  Her face bore the marks of a brutal struggle, as if she’d endured a pugilist’s war.

  One eye was nearly swollen shut, leaking rivulets of luminous blood that shimmered like quicksilver.

  Her cracked and bruised lips bled freely, and cuts and gouges littered her face.

  Her platinum-blond hair was matted with filth, hardened strands hanging loose.

  She moved, and the air itself seemed to bow before her. With a flick of her fingertips, she redirected a fell bolt, its rancid green arc bending into a Hellspawn.

  Another bolt followed, and she twisted, her twig-like legs spinning in a blur of impossible grace, redirecting the energy with a dancer’s precision.

  “What happened, Spirit?” Angar asked, his voice cutting normally through the slowed time, infused with worry. “Are you okay?”