Chapter 9-267: Alternate Methods

His Crystal Dragon Heavyfoot was still apparent in her stride, all his clothes having morphed with the change in convenient fashion. I didn’t have Tremblesense, but when her heel came down, and her sole rolled forwards, the hellfire on the ground was getting out of her way.

It flowed past and over her, but refused to touch her. The sight was definitely eye-catching, especially as it blazed around her dual wings. She wasn’t a four-winged angel, but, mmm, given that level of strength and power right now, Master Fred probably qualified regardless.

She stepped up to the dais, crouched down, and drove her nails into the solid basalt with an audible crunch.

Now, there’s no way physics would allow her to lift the thing. Even if flesh wouldn’t compress to powder and blood spurt out as bone shattered under the pressure, the stone she was holding onto would crack and crumble both in her grip and the amount of weight it was being forced to take.

However, all Strength has a TK component once you pass a certain level, where the body is being supported by the mind and soul, not just physics... well, supported by a lot of magic, too.

That means it can do things that are not physically possible, no different than using Telekinesis might be... except since you were doing it with your body, it was a LOT more powerful.

Wrath spat in opposite directions along the seam on the floor even as she straightened up in a perfect dead lift weight-lifting posture, and whatever was fusing this stone to the ground cracked and broke with an ear-splitting protest.

The massive energy stream heading up top was instantly thrown off-center and stopped, which would naturally bring down the islands-wide Ward they’d thrown up. That was way, way down on my list of concerns, although I was plenty sure everyone up top would be starting to panic soon.

Master Fred lifted the edge of the dais over her head, then hand-walked along into the center of it, sending the hellfire streams washing across the walls as she turned it nearly vertical, nails scoring the stone in swathes as she kept it under control.

Master Fred reached the middle of the circle, let it come down onto her shoulders as she drove her nails into it, and calmly and smoothly, every step making the floor crack in protest, walked it out into the Hellstar Pattern, holding it up above the ground on her hands and head.

It was about thirty feet across and a foot thick... the thing was not light, especially with that huge rock Altar sitting atop it, still burning the planetar caught there, but now unable to vent that pain anywhere. Streams of celestial pain and gloating infernal Scorn were splaying around and off the ceiling, some getting vented up top, but not enough to really do anything.

It looked like a nice big door leading in here now, is all.

Master Fred set foot outside the Hellstar Circle, and the Greyfield effect in the air cut off entirely. The devil writhing there on his own stela was still burning, and I took the opportunity to stride ahead, dragging two men in body armor adorned with the unholy symbols of the Lord of the Second Layer, their faces plastered white by the impact of the shots that had knocked them out cold.

A moment later, I slammed the first one down upon his own stela, even as the floor was shifting under my feet. That carved stela suddenly got a lot sharper, and as it punched through him, his eyes popped open at the soul-searing agony, but the mouth that started to scream wasn’t physical.

Shaping Stone at VII writhed through the vulnerable stone as I remade the Pattern, and long impaling spikes rose up out of the floor at many, many places, while the carved stelae that had been mere power regulators suddenly became taller and larger and much, much sharper.

I waved my hand, and a Chain Unlock swept through the manacled Hellbound, all their chains and bracelets springing apart, even as their torturous drain of Pact energy was halted by the disruption of the master Pattern. I whipped up Disks to accept each of the shattered Warlocks, easing them onto the circles of force as I lifted the second Illrigger and kindly drove him down upon his very own impaling spike, to begin his Torment and fueling of the Ward.

The nine-pointed Star now had new six-sided Stars inside each of its arms, all of them beginning to glow and burn with holy silver light, taking the hellish energies and turning them inside out, purifying them to a new and greater purpose.

The entire nature of the Hellstar began to change, and suddenly the absence of the Altar didn’t seem to be having the effect that it could have. New dark energy, now being happily directed by the silver, began to swirl up into the conduit and head for the surface there.

The Ward wouldn’t have near the red in it that it had had before, however.

I completed my circuit of the Hellstar, hearing the first beatings coming at the thick door there as someone arrived to inquire as to what was going on quickly.

Master Fred watched from the side, arms across her chest, as silent as ever as I stepped up onto the dais, and moved up to the side of the planetar.

He was still impaled, body and soul still being seared by unholy fire, but it wasn’t draining him, wasn’t ripping at him. However, I could see that he had been fused to the thing, and there wasn’t any way to cut him free that probably wouldn’t kill him in the trying.

All by design, of course.

“Suppress that hellfire!” I snarled, and before I could reach out and grasp the angel’s quivering head, Master Fred had slammed a hand down on the impaling spike, and thoroughly quashed the hellfire it was emitting.

My hands came down on the head of the angel in those few seconds of relief from his torment.

“HOPE.”

The Word tore through his pain and despair, clearing away the rage and fear and trauma of those times, and for a key and vital moment, pure clarity shone in his shining silver and emerald eyes.

“VALOR.” Enabling this angel to face this moment without fear, with all his belief and courage, and not be held back by such.

“TRUTH.” That what he saw and heard was no lie, as clear and pure, driving away any attempt at illusion or falsehood.

“Elder, give me your Truename, and I will free you.”

He blinked once, and said a Word that was nearly as sacred as those I’d just proven myself with, as much music and note as anything resembling a language, towering and valiant, a Word that summed up the soul of a valiant warrior of the Heavens!

“You are Sealed and Bound!” I declared grimly, and he did not resist.

Well, that Altar tried to keep him, but that was a contested Caster Level check, and welp, Infernal inspiration or no, it didn’t have the gas for it. There was a groan and shriek, and something cracked as the impaled angel disappeared into sparkling silver and emerald, and swirled around into the Sealing Pattern on my back.

Which was currently occupied by something already, which got bumped out to make room for him.

The horns erupted out of my temples, curled straight up like a hairpiece. The tail shot out the end of my spine; the black bat’s wings, tipped in moonsilver, snapped out instantly, and suddenly my shirt got very tight in front.

Celestial power gleamed ‘behind’ me as the planetar closed his eyes, freed of his pain. The displaced succubi shrieked in fear at his presence, and tried to hide variously around me and behind me while inside me from him.

I’d Feebleminded her down to Intellect and Charisma 1, making her just a bit dumber than a dog, and Major Cursed her Wisdom down to the same level. I had not gone dumpster diving through her memories, contenting myself with sending inner streams of Holy energy from my Matrix through her to wash away the Sin she’d been made of, replacing it with other stuff, or just eliminating it entirely.

She was perfectly willing to give me anything I wanted without thought, and definitely wanted to hook into my superior mental facilities, given how much I’d taken from her. I kind of gasped as one of my thoughtstreams was suddenly hooking right into several thousand years of memories of servitude to the Old God Hastsezini, a fairly boring if not too horribly humiliating a task. Being part of an Old God’s harem could definitely be seen as an honor in the Lower Realms...

Master Fred was giving me that diabolically sharp raised eyebrow as I stepped back. YOUR HORNS ARE SILVER, she noted in flaming letters.

“Still no voice?” I had to ask. Hellfire had taken his voice, so there was no perfect female version of it to be transformed. She just shrugged slowly, and the air seemed to roil. “Split this in two.” I hopped back off the dais, feeling the demonic power of the succubus running through me, wings flapping with the ease of long practice, but definitely with a lot more new power that she hadn’t had in her endless flights over the flaming lands in the blazing realm she’d been in for all those centuries.

Master Fred drew out Idiot, which shimmered with some Sundering and Breaking Goodness, and brought it down on the Altar.

The crack as the end of the Sword broke the sound barrier was matched by the protesting shriek of the carved basalt as it gave way to the adamantine of Idiot under that much force and pressure.

As he’d told me once, there weren’t many things in existence that were truly Idiot-proof, and it was only becoming more apparent by the day.

Foul Infernal energies were starting to swell within the thing. She drove one hand into the wedge cut into the Altar, put her foot on the other side, and Pushed.

Poom! POom! POOm! POOM!

There were four cracks as the top of the Altar fully split across, then all the way to the bottom, fully off to the left, and finally completely to the right, accompanied by blasts of hellfire swarming out to fill the whole room... and I Heat Sank them in protest into a little adamantine ball, the Bursts going out and down and gone, magic being back being so nice.

The final blast as the whole dais was ripped in two was strong enough to blow the door to the room right open, the thing being geared to resist pressure from without, not within, and it was ‘magically open’, as the bedchambers and our path in were not.

Needless to say, when 20d6 of burning infernal energy and molten steel came blasting through the doors, the forces outside didn’t take it too well. The screams that arose were plenty surprised, but most of them stopped rather abruptly.

I left the Heat Sink in the middle of the Warlocks, all unconscious and floating above the floor on their Disks. A gentle Wall of Fire, Valenced down to I for damage and to get its duration way up, completely incapable of harming them, billowed up beneath them, carrying caressing streams of vivic energy to dance about them.

These were not Evil people. They were Good people tricked into signing Hellpacts and becoming living batteries to help torture the angel. They likely hadn’t realized their fate until the last moment, and what could they do at that time?

As I walked towards the door, I swept a Chain Restoration through all of them, enough for them to dimly regain consciousness, and Whispered to them, “Release the hellfire, and reclaim your power.”

They couldn’t not be able to do that effortlessly now, after having it torn out of them for so long. The Scorn of Hell glimmered on their hands and vented out, and the vivic Wall of Fire around them drank it in instantly. Ravaged souls scarred by that very energy were now caressed by the remnants of its power as the hellfire was consumed, and they began a process of healing.

With one snap of four Wings, Master Fred was up next to me quickly, Idiot back in hand, and we looked out at the soldiers and Powered in the tunnel beyond, over two dozen men shredded and seared to death by the explosive blast of hellfire, the four survivors striving to get to their feet.

“Impale them all,” I said, and Master Fred swept forwards, while I reached out with Telekinesis, grabbed the nearest slender man before he could run away, and hurled him back past me to the burning Pattern behind us, waiting with so many sharp, sharp teeth to receive all of these total bastards.

And if I looked like a demon as I did that, it was totally appropriate for the moment.