BRAWLER: CHP-5 Into the blender
Walking back to the bloodshed, Kade watched the shimmering blue light of his new memory form, solidifying around his neck. The light formed into an obtuse wooden set of prayer beads, the string slacking down to his mangled breastplate.
With the few moments between Kade's reemergence into the fray, he quickly brought up the runes for the beads.
Memory: [Oblique Beads]
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: I.
Memory Type: charm
Memory Description: [A devout believer prayed to the heavens, their hopes reaching beyond, but the unknown did not answer, the belief, and life that the devout had was left forgotten like his diety, and soon too he embraced the same corruption]
Memory Enchantments: [Forgotten hope].
Enchantment Description: [The hopes of the user can be instilled and rejuvenate the wearer upon us, with the enchantment recharging between each prayer]
Grasping the wooden beads, Kade appreciated his first memory, "Not bad" Having a memory that could heal oneself was vital, even if the enchantmant wasnt that potent, anything against the onslaught of challenges the spell faced was great.
The appreciation of his boon was a moment of quiet in the storm.
And the world didn't wait.
A distant scream snapped him back. A zealous war cry swallowed by gurgling blood. The clang of steel and the crunch of broken bone rang through the thick air. The nearby nightmare creatures tore into the remaining soldiers.
His boots found traction on the blood-soaked stone, the prayer beads thudding softly against his chest as he broke into a sprint, back toward the slaughter.
At this time the zealots began to recoup, forming a sort of network of spears and swords, a barrier of blades ready to cut down any who approached it, with the commander and his awakened squad weaving between the human fortification to attack and retreat back and forth.
With the tables turned, the abominations started to die at an alarming rate, as the half-hazard threw themselves into the weapons of the zealots, the hounds didn't make it that far, but the humanoids, whenever they arrived, plowed through the lines easily, only being targeted and swiftly killed by the few awakened.
Kade looked at the sight with slight jubilation. "It's going better than I thought" After all, the more zealots were alive, the fewer monsters would focus on him, so making it behind the human shield, he picked off any hounds that tried to flank the lines.
A few minutes past, and Kades blood drenched fist crushed another arogant canine, At this point he was covered in muck and the remains of his foes, slightly out of breath but alright, he gazed to the distant horde, they didnt have much left. Victory seemd within arms reach.
Kade might of had a small smirk if the smell of blood and guts on him didn't reek so much, apart from imminent death it was probably the worst thing happening in his mind, he could ignore the pain, but the stench was assaulting his nerves with far more strength.
"I cant wait till this is over" It might be him compliting the trial, or dying but either way one of the two should happen soon, with the first option if he was more fortunate. But deep in the lines of zealots, he felt a presense emerge.
It was a crushing feeling weighed down upon him, yet the actual occurance was that he suddenly felt lighter, the confused zealots in the middle of warfare feeling the same, each person darting there eyes out to the source.
The distant shrines foundation of the shrine shook, as the statue beside the featureless deity depicted began animating, its one right eye-opening to pitch white iris, the figure resembling an angelic warrior, with a single geometric wing protruding from its back, with the details of most of its body cleanly cut.
Wielding a giant two-sided sword, it broke off from the shrine entrance, but instead of crashing down, the angel somehow floated down softly, its spear-like feet inches off the ground, a light blue aura emanating from the rock as the pebbles and dust began levitating around it.
The commander and his allies looked at the beast with terror, as all focus from the battle shifted to the entity, the stone angel staring deathly at the crowd of soldiers gathered. Taking a floating step towards them, before another.
Until the 5 metre statue started to glide towards them, the graceful form of an ice skater that it took hampered by the sheer weight and force it had behind it. Sensing the impending doom the comander took to his station.
"IT'S A DEVIL—HOLD IT BACK WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE! LET THE WAR GOD GRANT YOU VIGOR—STOP IT NOW!"
As soon as the commander spoke, a bright red aura burst from him and swirled around the troops gathered, the once shocked zealots now brimming with strength and life. The commander quickly observed his leftover garrison, and out of the corner of his eye, spotted Kade.
A young soldier who covered in monsters' blood, who his red aura didn't inhabit, instead the mist that had spread out avoided him entire like driftwood in a river, in parted away from him.
"Heretic...." he whispered. Surprised and vitriol written across his face.
His death glare stared right into Kade's soul.
"Not the time!" Kade yelled, abandoning the empowered human shield, and sprinting as fast as he could away. The angelic statue was mere moments from impacting the zealots, with it beginning to spin the two-sided sword between its arms, the blades now forming a circle image as they spun like an industrial saw.
The zealots empowered in hopes and strength kept their formation, but Kade watched as the abominations near the devil began floating in the air helplessly, the ones unfortunate enough to be in its path, either pasteurizing on its stoney flesh or being minced into pieces by the spinning blades.
And like a truck into traffic, the human shield broke, the recievers of the carnage loosing footing as the started to float, the wave splitting before it even had a chance to halt it.
What happened next was hard to describe, the angelic statue shrugged offed the attacks by the awakened, and bulldozed through the zealots, about a quater of them were pulvirised by its innitial charge, the bodys of the others being insatntly bisected into dozens of peices, there remains floating off into the sky, before raining down on the zealots left standing.
The statue having taken its first charge, circled the remaining zealots, gliding like a dancer in a well-polished ballroom, it effortlessly slaughtered again and again. They awakened desperately throwing their aspects at the devil, shaving off some stone and chipping its form.
Breathlessly, Kade observed the massacre, he had managed to get from a safe enough distance, yet that could change dramatacally, the devil was far faster then he ever was, and too powerful for him to even attempt attacking.
"How could I?" he rasped, the floating fragments of coursing creating a natural shade against the sun, like a veil of flesh clouds. He could only hope that the awakened managed to either kill it or injure it to a point where he could maybe finish it off, but that was unlikely.
Bitting against his nails as he watched the slaughter, Kade was left there to watch, "I am really out of my depths on that one. If I'm going to die, I'll at least do it with some dignity,"
And then, something shifted.
The devil didn't stop its slaughter, but the battlefield around it began to thin—not just from death, but from retreat. The abominations that had once hurled themselves at the zealots now recoiled from the floating statue, their fear overpowering their hunger. One by one, they peeled away from the massacre, growling and twitching, avoiding the Devil's unnatural gravity and elegance like beasts avoiding fire.
They didn't flee.
They turned.
Kade's breath caught in his throat as the scattered hounds and malformed humanoids realigned—not toward the commander, not toward the awakened still clawing at the statue—but toward him. Their focus burned, united by something a desperate search of hunger for his soul.
"Oh," Kade muttered, realization blooming cold in his chest.
The monsters had found something else to kill. Something far more achievable
Something far more reachable.
Kade.
"Of course."