Tales of the Linchpin

Soul ascension

"Wh... What's going on here?" Peter asked, his face contorted with utter confusion as he strained against his restraints.

"Well, it seems that old man over there has been working with the demon," Hiron stated grimly, his sharp eyes locked on the unfolding horror.

"Oh... about your daughter," the compressed demon purred, turning its eight glowing crimson eyes toward the trembling villager. It took a slow, deliberate step closer to the man. "If you want to see her so badly, I will take you to her right now... inside me."

Before anyone could react, the demon lunged forward. It grabbed the old man by his hands and legs, violently stretching his limbs apart. The old man screamed, a piercing sound of absolute agony echoing through the misty street.

"We have to hurry!" Peter shouted, violently thrashing against the stone wall, trying desperately to tear free from the dense webbing.

"Turn off your energy completely!" Hiron snapped. "The webs get stronger and tighter the more our Presence feeds them!"

Realizing the trap, both of them immediately suppressed their spiritual auras, dropping their active energy to zero. Deprived of its energy food, the thick webbing suddenly went slack, releasing its crushing grip on their bodies.

A few feet away, the demon grinned maliciously, stretching the old man’s body little by little, savoring the deafening screams that grew louder and more frantic by the second.

"Now what?" Peter whispered urgently.

Hiron forced his hands inside the loosened webs, reaching down toward his boot until his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his concealed hunting dagger. Blade in hand, he began aggressively sawing through the thick, rubbery strands. In the distance, the horrific sound of the old man's muscles tearing apart filled the air.

Come on, Hiron urged himself, his jaw clenched as he hacked through the final sticky string.

With a hard yank, Hiron finally broke free. Dropping to the ground, he immediately flicked his wrist, tossing the dagger over to Peter so his partner could cut himself loose. In the same fluid motion, Hiron grabbed his massive double-edged axe from the rubble, lifted it high, and hurled it with every ounce of his remaining strength toward the monster.

The axe spun through the air at blinding speed. But a split second before the weapon could connect, the demon gave one final, brutal wrench and completely tore the old man's arms from his torso.

The flying axe slammed into the monster an instant later, cleanly severing two of the demon’s gray arms. The old man’s mutilated body fell heavily to the dirt. Blood poured rapidly from his shoulders, soaking into the soil as his face twisted in unendurable pain.

Hiron dashed forward, closing the distance instantly. He spun into a powerful sidekick that caught the demon square in the chest, sending the creature stumbling backward across the debris. The demon quickly regained its footing and snarled, charging right back. To Hiron's horror, the demon's severed limbs regenerated instantly, and all four of its hands struck out in a simultaneous, rapid-fire barrage.

Hiron raised his forearms, barely blocking the onslaught. Channeling a quick burst of his purple energy, he materialized a flat shield projection directly behind the demon. With a harsh grunt, he forced the barrier forward, slamming the monster toward him while launching a devastating punch straight into the demon's gut. The impact sent the creature flying backward several feet.

In retaliation, the demon thrust its hands forward, spraying a massive wave of siphoning webs. Hiron flipped backward, seamlessly dodging the sticky ropes as he conjured a localized shield projection beneath his boots, lifting himself high into the air out of harm's way.

Down below, Peter finally sliced through his final restraints and dropped from the wall. He rushed over to the fallen villager. A thick pool of blood had already formed, heavily saturating the dirt beneath them.

The old man weakly rolled his eyes toward Peter. With the absolute last of his strength, his lips trembled as he tried to speak.

"I... am... s..orry..." he choked out.

With that final gasp, the old man's eyes went blank, and his head slumped to the side. Peter closed his eyes for a brief moment, a heavy wave of solemn resolve washing over him.

Snapping his eyes open, Peter grabbed his sword and snatched Hiron's fallen axe from the ground. He charged back into the fray, his entire body exploding with a raging, brilliant blue Presence. Erratic sparks of lightning crackled violently across his skin.

"Hiron! Catch!" Peter roared, hurling the heavy axe high into the air toward his partner.

Hiron dropped from his platform, stretching his hands forward to catch his weapon mid-fall. He swung the axe in a wide, horizontal arc, striking the demon and sending it crashing hard into a neighboring brick wall.

But the demon was resilient. It rapidly fired a concentrated mass of webbing, snagging the head of Hiron's axe. With a wicked laugh, the demon yanked the webbed line, dragging Hiron directly toward its razor-sharp claws, aiming straight for his chest.

Before the demon’s talons could pierce Hiron's flesh, a streak of blue lightning flashed violently between them. Peter blurred through them, his sword humming as he sliced downward, cleanly severing the demon's extended hands. Finding the perfect opening, Hiron followed up instantly, driving a brutal, kinetic-infused punch directly into the center of the demon's chest.

The sheer force of the blow shattered the demon's ribs, plowing it backward. Suddenly, Peter materialized right behind the stumbling monster, executing a spinning heel kick straight to the demon's face. The impact launched the creature sideways, smashing it heavily against the stone foundation.

Before the demon could even catch its breath, both Pantheon Warriors charged forward in perfect unison, raising their blades high to deliver the definitive, decapitating blow.

Then, the world vanished.

The entire surrounding area instantly turned pitch-black. The village, the fog, and the moonlight were entirely swallowed by an ink-like void. It was so profoundly dark that Peter and Hiron couldn't even see their own hands in front of their faces.

"Where are we?!" Peter shouted, dropping into a defensive stance, his heart hammering against his ribs.

A mocking, multi-layered voice echoed from the heavy darkness around them. "Welcome to my soul... Dark Eclipse."

Hiron’s voice came out tight and deadly serious from the dark. "This is soul ascension—the advanced technique where a person soul completely manifests its essence to form a localized domain. Get ready, Peter. It's about to get rough."

Before the words could fully leave his mouth, a sudden, invisible strike tore through the dark. A deep gash ripped across Peter's back, drawing blood. He spun around wildly, slashing his sword through the empty air. There was nothing there.

An instant later, a heavy impact slammed into Hiron’s side. He swung his axe in a counter-arc, but his blade met only cold, empty shadow. The demon was entirely gone.

The strikes came over and over again, relentless and unseen. From the left, from above, from behind, Peter and Hiron were brutally battered, their Presences flickering under the continuous assault as they were pushed to their absolute limits.

"I can't see a single thing in this place, and I can't even sense his energy!" Peter yelled, wiping blood from his cheek. "It's like he's appearing and disappearing out of thin air!"

"I have a plan," Hiron rasped, anchoring his boots into the dirt. "Charge up your lightning essence right now. When I give you the signal, release a maximum burst. Charge it enough to strike two times!"

"Okay, then!" Peter roared. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, focusing his mind entirely. His blue presence began to glow blindingly bright, humming with a volatile, highly compressed electrical charge.

Hiron slammed the shaft of his double-edged axe into the ground, expanding his purple kinetic energy into a paper-thin, vibrating grid that coated the floor and the air immediately surrounding them.

A wet, skittering sound echoed from everywhere at once. Suddenly, a sharp hum vibrated through the metal of Hiron’s axe. A massive displacement of air and shadow had just materialized right above Peter’s head.

"Now! Above you! Now!" Hiron roared.

Peter didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. He flared his compressed essence, unleashing it not into a blade strike, but into a massive, omni-directional explosion of raw, blinding electricity.

BOOM!

The absolute black of the dome was instantly illuminated by a brilliant, jagged web of blue lightning. A horrific, multi-layered shriek of pure agony tore through the domain. Caught mid-leap, the demon writhed in mid-air. Its eight hyper-sensitive crimson eyes smoked intensely from the sudden, deafening brightness, its sophisticated shadow-shifting technique completely short-circuited by the overwhelming light.

Peter didn't waste a single second. Dashing forward through the brilliant sparks, Hiron flanked him on the right. Both Pantheon Warriors raised their respective weapons, their blades flowing with an immense, concentrated surge of their combined energy.

With a unified roar, they struck down hard.

A catastrophic blast of kinetic and electrical energy slammed directly into the blinded demon. The sheer magnitude of the combined strike completely pulverized the monster's core, vaporizing its gray flesh into absolute nothingness.

With the demon destroyed, the suffocating dark domain began to violently crack and fracture. The ink-black walls shattered like glass, and the ruined streets of the village of Imo rapidly materialized around them once more.

"We... we did it," Peter panted heavily, resting his hands on his knees as steam rose from his lightning-burned gauntlets.

"Yeah... we did," Hiron replied, his voice raspy with total exhaustion.

Above them, the oppressive ink of the night finally began to recede. The first pale golden rays of dawn began to peek over the horizon, casting a warm light over the battle-torn village. Standing side-by-side in the quiet morning air, both men finally let go of their weapons, collapsing heavily onto the dirt ground as sleep and exhaustion finally claimed them