Nysa struggled to catch her breath, locked in a stalemate with the Temple of Stars' Bishop.
Every inch of her body was howling its pain with rhythmic throbs due to the Dusk Raiment's embrace, making it hard to focus on the battle itself. If not for the Sculpted Persona earring, which fragmented her brain into two separately functioning entities, she would have died long ago.
She glanced at the two wounded magi on the ground, assessing their condition.
Her shadow had stabbed the man in a vital spot, and he was bleeding to death. She would have preferred to pierce his heart directly, but between the agony of her black robe, the consecutive shadowsteps, and her strained senses to follow the Bishop's arrows of light, she had lacked the necessary accuracy.
As for the woman, she had only managed to wound her shoulder. From her reflexes, the volume of her Mana, and her weak physical bearing, Nysa guessed she was an Astrologer—a 9th-class magus of the Astral Sorceries.
While not a threat in a one-on-one fight, they were extremely dangerous when supporting a more powerful ally from the backline. If she joined the fray, it would quickly turn in their favor, and Nysa couldn't allow that.
At my current speed and this distance, I can lop off her head in about 1.5 seconds. That's more than enough time for the Bishop to nock another arrow of light and fire it at me. I need a distraction.
The Bishop seemed to lower his bronze bow briefly, but Nysa didn't move, for it could prove fatal if he were baiting her.
He took out a strange, hand-sized effigy from his tunic, pouring his golden Mana onto it with a look of reverence.
At that instant, Nysa shivered.
The surroundings darkened, and colorful nebulae swirled from the shadows atop their heads. The sun, which had been shining brightly above the clouds, was stifled by the dim glimmer of a starry night.
Dots of light flickered in the artificial sky, and Nysa soon realized that they had clustered into the form of a human face—beautiful, feminine, and deeply ethereal.
A monster... That was the only thought lingering in Nysa's shocked mind.
The presence she felt, overwhelming and vast like the expanse of the firmament, could crush her with a mere blink.
The sidereal face gazed upon the crumbled temple and sighed, raising the wind and making the entire building quake through that simple act.
"And so it appears that Aristophones' nest of shadows lost a chick. That accursed man seems to have taken our absence as an invitation and now dares to trample on Her Divine Majesty's sublime ritual."
The surrounding flow of Mana grew erratic and dense, threatening to crush everyone and everything underneath.
"How foolish. Sethia shall know the wrath of the Five Graces once more."
Her voice dug painfully into Nysa's skull, reverberating everywhere in the ritual site.
"You have done well to call upon me, Antenor. This one is shrouded from fate, so much that I cannot see even an inkling of her existence in its tapestry. A discrete fledgling bred and raised to whisk away the life of the Celestial Offering at the most opportune moment. None of that shall happen."
The ground trembled, the vestiges of the ancient sepulcher crumbled, and Mana itself coiled around Nysa in a strangling grasp. An unknown force clasped her body and stifled her breath, squeezing her very life with so much strength that it made the Dusk Raiment's constraint feel like a gentle caress.
She could no longer move, her wits blurring as the overwhelming power slowly crushed her.
Is this the end?
Perhaps it was the realization of her impending death, but Nysa felt oddly at peace. Soon enough, she would abandon the destiny of a tool and head to the promised lull of the Netherworld, freed from suffering and misfortune.
I am going to die.
She could only see an endless cloud of celestial dust, glistening with countless wisps. It drilled into her flesh and coated her soul with a numbing touch, too kind for a being like her. Such an end was almost comforting, for never, in her wildest delusions, would she have dreamed of a demise this tranquil.
And just when she was about to finally accept its embrace...
—
A wave of pale death swept over the entirety of Priene.
The pale-white feathers fluttered in response to a call from beyond, siphoning the souls of their plagued bearers and channeling them underneath the Divine Capital.
In a single instant, thousands upon thousands of Hierapetran citizens heaved their last breaths.
The next moment, the Blighted Crater cracked open, and a pillar of malevolent light surged upwards. It branched into ten strands, each thicker than a building, and spread into the sky like the twisted roots of a divine tree.
"Be born into this world, O winged tormentor!"
Lieli's raven-black hair flickered in the wind as he spread his arms wide towards his Relic, the smile of a maddened zealot etched on his face.
"Keeper of the primordial prisons, captor of misbelievers, bane of blasphemers! We offer this husk and chiliad feasts of flesh and blood—for only thee, Rahatiel, the Ruler of Gaols, could bestow thy gift and grace upon us."
The underground, ten-branched cross crooked and fused into a large humanoid shape, crowned with a wreath of chains and holding a blood-covered flog. A pair of immaculate yet twisted wings sprung from its back, and its face, which had a gaping hole bordered by an inhuman grin, oozed a tide of corrupting malice.
It hummed words in a language no creature from the physical realm could fathom, and at that moment, the spell activated.
The radiating pillar of light split its branches into two groups; the first three crashed against the Great Sanctuary, struggling against the combined glimmer of a miniature golden sun and the thousand glints of a starry arc. They pressed their assault and buried the hill in an ominous, mind-collapsing glow before the eyes of countless believers.
The seven remaining strands traveled outside the city, meeting the peak of Mount Eurymedon with the resounding impact of a giant hammer. They surrounded the Caphygae Palace and imprisoned its bounds in a cage of foul radiance, completely cutting it off from the rest of the world.