Faiz almost immediately regretted trying to look imposing and cool by jumping down into the fray; As he had realized, hearing about an act and performing it required two very different sets of skills. It was only by the fortunate grace of a conveniently placed fluffy body that he avoided being splattered on the soil.

  “Thanks for that friend! You ar-dead, ah. Your uh, sacrifice won’t be in vain…” Making sheepish apologies to his long deceased landing pad, Faiz turned back to the melee. Almost immediately he noticed the acrid stench of ruined flesh and burning feathers and a thousand other things wafting up in a truly delightful combination.

  But even below that, beneath the horrid effervescent war, there lay faint notes of

  Subtly flowing and washing over him, over everything he felt, tasting and smelling like a dying dream. And as Faiz squinted past the billowing smokes and echoing screams, he saw the source: Aujyav

  This wasn’t the Aujyav he knew. Lacking the blade through the chest, or the aura of patient control. No, this Aujyav looked angry. Madly so. He wore aught but cuffed and trailing robes (filthy and ragged and marred with blood and viscera), and fought by-rather savagely!-ripping into his foes with his bare hands.

  “Faiz startled a bit, understanding that the incredibly hateful whispers in his ear were coming from the man. They were filled with such malice and rage, he could scarcely believe it came from Aujyav.

  Apparently the Regent remembered her killer well enough to have a whole construct dedicated to him. Faiz had just worked up the courage to approach the man when Aujyav’s gaze fell on him.

  Horror.

  Faiz felt a pressure descend on him, stalling his breath, stuttering his heart. His tongue felt leaden, his hands clamming. Those eyes…he felt like prey, weak and vulnerable, faced with a raging inferno of death. The man’s eyes were filled with hatred and cold calculation as he sized Faiz up. Faiz felt absolutely certain that if Aujyav wanted to kill him now, he’d be gone in moments. There was nothing which would possibly save him, no person either.

  And just as utter terror had gripped him, a flicker of recognition entered Aujyav’s eyes and he took a slow breath, now having a stern but thankfully non-murderous manner. “

  Faiz blanked on what to say. He couldn’t very well go, ‘How do you do, big guy? The future you sent me here to kill a Regent, we’re big pals in the future.’ The man would eviscerate him for lying poorly. Racking his brain for a moment, he remembered something the present Aujyav had told him, and said, “I…want to fight, sir! That Regent, she took everything from me and I can’t let her be…I need to kill her dead, I have to for my family! …and for the one I love.”

  He’d planned out a whole big speech, but remembering Allie saddened him greatly, and he only hung his head low. Thankfully, it must’ve seemed like (somewhat half-baked) determination to the other man, for Aujyav relaxed further, looking slightly thoughtful.

  “He looked around at the slow and steady building to another great clash all around him, “

  Hang on, was Aujyav writing him off as fodder for the battle? Faiz was incensed; He wouldn’t be tolerating such humiliation, no! Drawing up his sleeve, he thrust his lightdial clad arm forth, at a distant armored figure. A sigil shot forth at great speeds and blew the being apart. Then Faiz looked back at Aujyav indignantly, “I can hold my own, sir! I won’t die before seeing her. I am capable..”

  “

  Ah. Faiz sputtered, a deep heat flushing his cheeks as he shrunk under the other man’s withering stare. In his defense, all those warriors of yore looked mostly the same! And-was there a punishment for team-kills? Faiz dearly hoped not, “I…what I mean to say is uh..yeah..”

  Aujyav cut him off, appraising him, “Approval? Faiz didn’t know what the man was talking about, or how he’d ever managed to command his troops if he was this unaffected by their deaths, but this was nice.

  “.

  On that menacing note, Faiz set off into the fray with his extremely brutal new (old?) friend.

  As they went deeper into the extremely violent field of battle, Faiz gained a new, slightly queasy appreciation for the many ways one could use their body to massacre another being. Whenever any opposing figure made the fatal error of getting even slightly near Aujyav, the man sprung into action like a well charged automata, literally disassembling his foes in a shower of blood.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Seeing his fellow men being demolished left a bad taste in Faiz’s mouth, but he wasn’t in much mood to anger the supremely lethal Jeighva, and so opted to instead focus on dodging the frequent sprays of gore, and avoid slipping in the bloody mud.

  Taking a look around, all he could see closer to the epicenter of the main clashes were piles and piles of dead people, all in the process of a slow unravelling that went unnoticed by everyone except Faiz. Here and there, smaller scale clashes rung out, humans and apparent nonhumans trying their hardest to take down as many of the opposing side as they could before perishing themselves.

  Faiz felt…confusion? He knew how the touring silver threads back in Shaiher had spoken of battles, of wars against dissenting provinces and estates. He had heard of the legendary conquests of the Descenders and their thousandfold ancestors. All those had prepared him for a version of grand combat that now seemed utterly divorced from his current vistas.

  Where were the arrogant declarations of power or challenges filling the air? There wasn’t any feeling of charged magic in the air, nor eye searing spells being flung about by honorable warriors; Instead, the present scenario was a mostly drab and unpleasant affair (a filthy one at that!), and none present seemed inclined to launch into grand speeches or display their might.

  “Is-er, is it always like this, sir?” Stepping over a mulched up and ‘deconstructed’ barbed thing, Faiz inquired, gesturing out at the scenes of aesthetically displeasing carnage.

  Aujyav seemed to have misunderstood his question, for his voice was heavy, “They

  did this to us, and so we shall spurn and break them. No traitor-human or abominable filth

  Hearing the finality and vitriol in the other man’s voice, Faiz didn’t have much heart to correct him. A sort of awkward nodding from him went unseen as Aujyav raised a hand, plucking a flighted fighter out of the air and crushing their throat, all very fluid. And on they went.

  After a load of walking, the promised foe was here! The great enemy, bathed in sourceless radiance, all grand and awe inspiring...if she were more..'lifelike.'

  Their supposed foe, the Second Regent Taraneum…looked distinctly off. Whatever she used to be in life, she clearly wasn’t now. Faiz had a clear idea for how non-incarnated Stellar beings should appear, since every Star back home used to look like a barely constrained construct of light, the edges fading into nothingness. On festival days, they even unbounded themselves to give an appearance of lost sky!

  This -and it was a creature, for there was no other way of describing it-was half-baked in its nightmarishness; If Faiz had to rate the current entity, it’d be moderately horrible at best. It had the usual characteristics: Body hard to look at, some grotesqueness, maybe even a whiff of ontological wrongness. Supremely generic. The only unique features were the massive blindingly bright rings unceasingly tearing apart the sky and land, set in orbit around it.

  “Is it possible for light to feel, ehm…? I guess these lost remains are more lost than remains, huh…” Faiz sighed in mild disappointment, turning to look at Aujyav. The tall man in contrast to Faiz looked very serious, glaring swords at the shambling stellar husk.

  “You speak true, child. These shameless murderersThoroughly.Well, alright, it seemed like only Faiz considered the facts of his opponent being a somewhat disappointing shell of light to be important.

  Somewhat creepy sounding whispered keens came from the Tephra, “Kkho—aaus—pai—sjsnn---hel---pnpn

  Faiz coughed, checking his ears. No, it seemed like he hadn’t suddenly lost his hearing. Aujyav, the absolute madman, seemed to have made something of that stream of gibberish, growling like a diseased beast, To curse the sacrifice of my kin as so-Beast! I shall end you and kill you and break you and ruin you and-“

  “Why is everything wrong here?! Oh for pities sake, there!” Being in no mood to be privy to a one sided conversation between a raving lunatic and a nearly dead corpse, Faiz imagined forth a line, turning the air around the Tephra shimmery with death. He had only wanted to jumpstart the battle, but the leftovers of the departed…

  …they lost all cohesion instantly, becoming fully departed.

  “….” Faiz didn’t-

  blink. This…was this allowed to him? (was he dreaming or something..?) “I, ahem. WHAT?!”

  He couldn’t believe it, surely his long awaited big bad enemy wasn’t just..dead? “This-this can’t be happening! It’s not possible! Why…oh come on, there uh, there has to be come gimmick! Yeah, I wouldn’t have gotten this worked up over that…would I?” Faiz looked around desperately, trying to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating, or insane. Surely even the lingering remains of a super powerful being had some tricks up her sleeve? He couldn’t have just killed it in one move? Well, it had seemed rather unassuming but..

  As Faiz contemplated praying for the Regent to return, an ear piercing howl from besides him made Faiz jump, yelping as he whipped his head around.

  It was Aujyav, a strange blueish light streaming from every pore of his body as he heaved, doubled over and clutching his chest, “

  It took Faiz a moment to realize Aujyav was wailing madly at him, but as he heard the words being spouted by the other man, he immediately took off, screaming, “Ahh! What-what in the firmament is wrong with you?! You couldn’t kill her so you’ll kill me? Are you insan-AH!”

  Faiz leapt to the right just in time to avoid being bowled over by Aujyav, who let out bestial cries as he pivoted and launched himself at Faiz again. Faiz managed to raise his Rebuke into the lunatic’s path, letting him take a breath and examine his ally-turned-enemy.

  Aujyav looked feral, raving and frothing at the mouth, his musculature bulged in odd ways, sickly blue liquid visibly flowing from his heart to every other organ. There was barely any intellect left behind those eyes, as the man desperately scrabbled and clawed at the prismatic light, trying to get to Faiz.

  Against all odds, a perverse eagerness overtook him. Finally, a real battle! And payback for being thrown to a myriad monsters, even if the actual one wouldn’t feel it. Hoping he wasn't too outmatched, since he only needed to survive until this memory collapsed fully, Faiz readied himself for…A Battle!