Path of the Forsaken Sigil

Chapter 44

Bruce was alone in the plaza. He walked slowly toward the massive, eighty-foot gate. 

The glowing blue Runic Defense Array shimmered brightly, blocking the entire exit. The magic was so thick it looked like a wall of solid blue glass. 

Bruce stopped right in front of the barrier. He looked up at Lady Hestia, who was standing on the wall, staring down at him with wide, crazy eyes. 

"You think you have won, Bruce?" Hestia yelled down at him, her voice cracking with madness. "You think you can just walk out of my city? That barrier is powered by the deep earth! It is older than you! It is stronger than your pet angel! You cannot break it!"

Bruce did not say a word. 

He raised his left hand. He placed his open palm flat against the shimmering blue wall of the barrier. 

The blue magic immediately flared up, trying to push him away. It sent a shock of electricity up his arm. But Bruce pushed back. He dug his bare feet into the cobblestones. He closed his eyes and focused all of his willpower onto his cracked mana core. 

"I am the Void," Bruce whispered to himself. "I eat the world."

He activated Devour at maximum power. 

WUMMMMMM.

The entire eighty-foot wall of blue magic shuddered. The bright blue light began to flicker violently. 

Bruce pulled. He used the hunger of his brand to rip the energy out of the runic array. The magic flowed into his hand like a massive, rushing river. It was so much power that Bruce’s left arm began to glow with bright blue light under his skin. 

"No!" Hestia screamed from the wall. She looked at the stone pedestal. The blue key she had inserted was turning black. The magic was draining away faster than the earth could replace it. "Stop it! You will kill yourself!"

Bruce gritted his teeth. The pain in his core was immense, but he kept eating. He watched the massive blue barrier slowly turn gray, then transparent. 

But as Bruce devoured the final layers of the barrier, he noticed something strange. 

The magic he was eating did not taste like the cold, hard energy of the earth or the iron. 

It tasted like blood. It tasted like sorrow. 

Suddenly, the shimmering barrier stopped being blue. It turned a dark, sickly crimson red. 

Bruce opened his eyes in shock. He tried to pull his hand away from the barrier, but his hand was stuck. The barrier was no longer just a wall of magic; it felt like wet, sticky flesh. 

"What is this?" Bruce gasped. 

Hestia began to laugh. It was a hysterical, completely unhinged sound that echoed over the heavy rain. 

"I told you, you stupid boy!" Hestia screamed, leaning over the edge of the wall. "The Iron-Heart Clan does not play fair! The barrier is not just magic anymore! If I cannot keep you in the city, I will make sure you die at the gate!"

Hestia held up a large, thick glass vial. 

Bruce’s enhanced eyes zoomed in on the vial. It was filled with a swirling, glowing mixture of pure silver soul essence and thick red blood. It was the blood she had stolen from the vats in the Catacombs. It was the concentrated life-force of hundreds of innocent people. 

"Bontus told me I was weak!" Hestia yelled. "He said the church would take my city! But I will not let them! I am the Matriarch! I am the true power!"

Hestia did not throw the vial at Bruce. 

She opened her mouth, and she drank the entire bottle of glowing, bloody magic. 

"NO!" Bruce yelled, struggling to pull his hand free from the sticky, red barrier. 

Hestia dropped the empty glass vial. It shattered on the stone wall. She threw her head back and let out a scream that did not sound human. 

Her body began to violently mutate. 

The stolen, concentrated magic was too much for a normal human body to handle. Hestia’s expensive robes ripped to shreds as her muscles expanded massively. Her skin turned the color of rusted iron. Sharp, jagged spikes of dark metal erupted from her spine and her shoulders. 

She grew taller, wider, turning into a twisted, hideous monster of metal and flesh. Her face stretched, her jaw unhinging to reveal rows of sharp, iron teeth. 

But she did not stop mutating. 

The giant, monstrous version of Hestia leaped off the eighty-foot wall. 

She crashed down onto the red, sticky barrier right in front of Bruce. But she did not bounce off. She sank into the magic. Hestia fused her own mutated body directly into the Runic Defense Array. 

The massive iron gates of the city groaned and twisted, coming alive. The red barrier morphed into giant, muscular arms made of hard-light and rusted iron. 

Hestia’s giant, monstrous face emerged from the center of the eighty-foot gate. Her eyes glowed with chaotic, bloody light. She had sacrificed her own humanity to become a living, unstoppable siege monster, physically blocking the only exit to the Gray Wastes. 

The giant Hestia-monster opened her massive iron jaws, letting out a roar that blew the rain away and shook the very foundations of Oakhaven. 

"YOU ARE MINE!" the monster roared, raising a fist the size of a house to crush Bruce into the mud. 

Bruce stood frozen at the base of the living gate. His hand was finally free, but his path was completely blocked by a nightmare made of stolen blood and iron. And somewhere behind him, in the dark city, the Golden Hounds were still howling, getting closer every second.