Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
if hunger dies and his companions could revive him, the maiden would just kill them too. i don't think it's possible. a shame we didn't take SitS tho, would be a very strong combo with Companions.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
if hunger dies and his companions could revive him, the maiden would just kill them too. i don't think it's possible. a shame we didn't take SitS tho, would be a very strong combo with Companions.
- Location
- Louisiana
As others have said, maiden would just say no in a commanding tone and it'd probably work. Much safer to just you know, beat the maiden and have hunger live through it. Which is much more likely in inheritance.
I don't think he said it was impossible to swing vote. I'd be okay with it.
I'm also okay with watching the Companions face down the Maiden's many shitty lieutenants in epic combat too. If she fails to control space with subordinates, we just... retreat. We control space, it's not hard to do. She's got to try and go to war with us, whether she likes it or not.
I'm also okay with watching the Companions face down the Maiden's many shitty lieutenants in epic combat too. If she fails to control space with subordinates, we just... retreat. We control space, it's not hard to do. She's got to try and go to war with us, whether she likes it or not.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I searched for it and this was the thing I was thinking of:
Emphasis added. I understand why "the Maiden would just kill the companions too if she kills Hunger then" would seem to make sense, but I'm not sure how to reconcile that with this:
(again, emphasis added here)
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's a number of ways to reconcile that:
*The Maiden would make said ritual ontologically impossible
*The Maiden would stop them from counting as Companions for the purposes of this advancement
*The Maiden will kill us extra-double-super dead
*The Maiden will destroy the Human Sphere to ensure we're slain beyond the possibility of recovery (but i repeat myself)
*The Maiden will take the time while we're dead to bring over a much more powerful avatar of herself
*The Maiden will tell them she'll kill them if they try and the companion survival percentage influences how likely people are to chance it
And so forth.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Man, I miss Imperishable Night. Oh well. Better Decimator mitigation and a large boost to Fault-Defeating Stance isn't nothing, even if Apocryphal Mitigation is a significantly bigger deal.
As to Inheritor, I suspect the Haeliel Ending is actually a tragedy. Sometime in the last six to eight months, I became aware of Hellelil and Hildebrand - the former of whom is described as Hellelil, with eyes of flame. Their famous painting, if you metaphorically squint a bit, also maps to the Bleak Procession.
Now to tactics.
-Find other Foremost to interrogate regarding The Maiden. Faeliad might be helpful.
-Even if The Maiden is the strongest Foremost around, the fact that she's a Foremost rather than something from beyond this multiverse means that other Foremost can probably be useful allies against her. (Again, Faeliad is potentially an ally. Although He Who Slays The Night certainly has his own dangers.)
-Affliction of Leprosy may or may not tank our Ruin directly, but it absolutely does restrict our Appearance, and probably by extension our Charisma>>Might+Protection. So. Fisher King might not be a super good idea actually. Also it restricts 'active use' of our Agility. It's bad.
As to Inheritor, I suspect the Haeliel Ending is actually a tragedy. Sometime in the last six to eight months, I became aware of Hellelil and Hildebrand - the former of whom is described as Hellelil, with eyes of flame. Their famous painting, if you metaphorically squint a bit, also maps to the Bleak Procession.
Now to tactics.
-Find other Foremost to interrogate regarding The Maiden. Faeliad might be helpful.
-Even if The Maiden is the strongest Foremost around, the fact that she's a Foremost rather than something from beyond this multiverse means that other Foremost can probably be useful allies against her. (Again, Faeliad is potentially an ally. Although He Who Slays The Night certainly has his own dangers.)
-Affliction of Leprosy may or may not tank our Ruin directly, but it absolutely does restrict our Appearance, and probably by extension our Charisma>>Might+Protection. So. Fisher King might not be a super good idea actually. Also it restricts 'active use' of our Agility. It's bad.
Our main priority is keeping Human Sphere alive since that is an instant loss condition we choose to have. Our secondary priority is prolonging this battle so we can gain more progression and deal damage over time via blood stuff. As for tactics:
- If we can CtF with Human Sphere to keep it safe
- If not just use Space to put it inside our defenses or whatever
- Great CtF targets are Shogun(super tactics x super army synergy), Gisena(she directly counters Findross), Imperial robot guy(pure power) and potentially Aeria(hiding the Human Sphere)
- We can use armies as ablative armor against Maiden to prolong the battle. If this works we can have Letrizia churn out endless amount of soldiers out of subrealms and stuff
- We have Refinement of War, so we can use it to close in Maiden, have short clash inside our Sanctum - RoW+3.5 auto win ISH+1ish from domain of battles is a total of 5.2 ish which should allow us brief clash against Maiden, perhaps allowing us some Progression or doing some damage to her so we can start using Blood Halo DOT.
- This option buffs Aobaru a lot, plus
- Again this buffs Aobaru a lot, and he can buff us in return and then we can buff him again etc. We can use his Shogun tactics ability to command our armies
- If Aobaru is roughly peer to us and Maiden, we can actually suicide into Maiden to deal a lot of damage for Blood Halo DOT, and then let Aobaru finish her off and resurrect us later via the ritual
Some Discord R posts plus my musings on them:
It is very interesting that Maiden lacks arbitrary versatility. I would have assumed that combination of Lacing and Sanctum would allow her to do anything, however I guess that with her power being limited by the medium of findross there are some inefficiencies when it comes to exact effects she can manifest. And while she can likely do something like Findross > Evoker > Effect, the inefficiency is still there. Needless to say, this means that Maiden is not just a reality warping blob, but that she has things she is not good at, so this is something we could exploit. Especially when Blood turns anything we want into full attack, so we have ways to abuse this.
One interesting thing is - when we proc RoW does that also boost our armies? Since their power scales to us and stuff. It could be that RoW burst is taken in consideration of our average power level when buffing armies, but if not then that is also something we can use to our advantage. As mentioned earlier RoW procs are our strongest ability, although we should take care that Maiden doesn't just use Auspice Temporal to time stop us, or just use it to skip few moments in future to waste our main cd.
Finally, this is probably the most important part when it comes to tactics. Age and Treachery is a big part of Blood Halo battle plan, so any tactic we make should make sure to try and use that to our advantage. Can we get under Maiden's skin? Can we abuse her connection with Realm of Daylight and her inability to sleep? My current favorite strategy is baiting Maiden into killing us and then letting Aobaru take her out and bring is back. However, it is somewhat difficult to come up with examples of treachery against opponent that has transhuman intellect and arbitrary amount of foresight abilities.
It is very interesting that Maiden lacks arbitrary versatility. I would have assumed that combination of Lacing and Sanctum would allow her to do anything, however I guess that with her power being limited by the medium of findross there are some inefficiencies when it comes to exact effects she can manifest. And while she can likely do something like Findross > Evoker > Effect, the inefficiency is still there. Needless to say, this means that Maiden is not just a reality warping blob, but that she has things she is not good at, so this is something we could exploit. Especially when Blood turns anything we want into full attack, so we have ways to abuse this.
One interesting thing is - when we proc RoW does that also boost our armies? Since their power scales to us and stuff. It could be that RoW burst is taken in consideration of our average power level when buffing armies, but if not then that is also something we can use to our advantage. As mentioned earlier RoW procs are our strongest ability, although we should take care that Maiden doesn't just use Auspice Temporal to time stop us, or just use it to skip few moments in future to waste our main cd.
Finally, this is probably the most important part when it comes to tactics. Age and Treachery is a big part of Blood Halo battle plan, so any tactic we make should make sure to try and use that to our advantage. Can we get under Maiden's skin? Can we abuse her connection with Realm of Daylight and her inability to sleep? My current favorite strategy is baiting Maiden into killing us and then letting Aobaru take her out and bring is back. However, it is somewhat difficult to come up with examples of treachery against opponent that has transhuman intellect and arbitrary amount of foresight abilities.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Closest Age and Treachery I can think of is maybe Mordred 2.0 but this time it's a triple cross not a double cross, and is after Aobaru gets buffed by the Maiden.
But then like 90%+ of buffing powers have a 'if people betray you you can just take the buff away' clause, so we'd be relying on Maiden outputing no take-backs type of buffs.
But then like 90%+ of buffing powers have a 'if people betray you you can just take the buff away' clause, so we'd be relying on Maiden outputing no take-backs type of buffs.
Seeing as how 'being offensive' is now a form of violence we can exploit, I would say that any situation where she would have to take back her power would still wound her by proxy.
Being a multiversal cognitohazard is fun.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Aptly for the Blood Halo, these abilities strongly support bleeding her out with a death of a thousand cuts. Literally if we (or Aobaru) are within communication range of the Maiden we can troll her to death by just yelling insults until she accumulates a million ever-bleeding unhealable wounds. As long as we can stall death for ourselves (the malus to healing will hurt, but if we focus on staying out of attack range as much as possible that should mitigate it and nerfed healing for us still beats no healing for our opponent) then any war of attrition should favor us greatly. If she's studied our past approaches, she will likely expect us to try to cut through in a single decisive clash, so we may have the opportunity to wrong-foot her here.
For Armies of the Shogun, to expand a bit on what I think some people have already suggested, we can employ our power of Law to draft everyone in the Human Sphere into our army and instill them with maximum cohesion. If we're allowed to backdate our prep, then we can also use Gisena's bullshit to enhance their quality by giving them all dope equipment and personal enhancements. If our Hungerclones count, then we can use all billion of them to rapidly fulfill the "personal leadership" criterion. If the Hungerclones don't count, then we can at least teleport in to wherever the Maiden is attacking, attack her a couple times while yelling instructions to the troops, and then self-yeet back out if she's still too stronk.
At that point, the entire Human Sphere will be somewhere north of 100 times Hunger's own formidable strength (it's not clear how strongly diminishing returns apply, so it's impossible to say how much north). That should give them a lot of ability to protect themselves from instant destruction by the Maiden, and because of that they can potentially stall her from closing on us while we yell more insults or whatever at her to stack more DOTs. She wants us to fight her fairly, head to head, instead of using our
Edit:
I mean, Blood Halo explicitly involves us fusing with the Shogun. Do we know if that restriction still applies as such?
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Hmm. We might be able to damage her with her own hypocritical behavior. Showing her that in the end all she is? Is us. A Tyrant but one lacking our benevolence, for what is more tyrincal then ripping away comfort and joy peace and prosperity for the crime of bending at one knee
The final battle of ASTI is functionally an in-setting Versus debate.
Quick, someone go get Death Battle. Hunger can harvest last-minute EXP from all the salty Maiden stans in the comments!
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Rihaku has posted an unedited draft of the first part of the final fight, titled 'Always', on his patreon, available here. For as little as $5, you can get a preview of some of the action to come, and equip yourself with information to help us strategize for the second half of the fight (and boy do we need some good strategies).
Rihaku
The Internet
Hunger has consumed both Versch and the Shogun. Poor Letrizia and Aobaru, their Overlord has stolen both their power sources!
Perhaps the Maiden has a point.
Always
Rihaku
The Internet
Always
An infinity before, she had been Ceathlynn. Now, she was the Maiden in full: wax and wick both melted away, leaving only the flame imperishable. Endless eons of preparation had culminated in this single moment.
With an exercise of her Grace, the Epistolary Realm unfurled around her: falling to pieces like the petals of a lotus, become so much fuel and dross before the infinite emanation of wonder that was her heart. It was not in her nature to hesitate, only to prevail.
From the realm of unsparing Daylight she strode forth: blazing sun of halcyon white before which even the starry void itself could but retreat into noon-bleached impotence. The universe was recast instantly, become mere refracted luminance, moon to the sun of her yet-veiled visage.
And yet, some fraction of this realm did not leap implicitly into her service, but interdicted her: a territory chained by its bedrock axioms to a lord that presumed himself above even the Foremost. Upon his throne of midnight, the Imprisoner reigned still, embryonic spark that threatened ignition into the Forebear of Dynasties once more. How strange it seemed, to one of her matchless span, finally to face the enemy who she'd labored against for so long. A veritable eternity had been spent in the mustering; millennia beyond number passing with eyeblink quickness, and yet it had seemed at times that she would merely be preparing for ever.
In her heart of hearts, she was tired, and yet could not help but surge with vigor at the contest come at last. Like first break of dawn after a wholly-sleepless night, a second wind came over her: senses bleary but radically sharper, every nerve tuned to crackling readiness.
Behind her veil, she frowned minutely. Her power could not reach directly into the Human Sphere. It was not an unexpected outcome, yet she had hoped that the Praehihr would avoid this path, if only to expedite matters for them both.
In any direct contest, it was unquestionable that her Grace would evade the grasp of his Law - yet such was his dominion over Space that, within his proscribed territory, the very concept of evasion lost coherence. An effect she could counter by sheer weight of findross, but only if she entered the territory in question.
It was, of course, impossible to breach such a realm by conventional means, or even to conceive of its relative location. To her, such minute forbiddings were little better than tinsel, yet it would still be an exertion of her stamina - unthinkably vast, but finite - to cut through, and what was to stop him from immediately raising another?
Only her direct attentions.
She had anticipated this. It was one scenario of countless she'd simulated, and yet every victory along this path carried some measure of risk. The Praehihr had embraced imprisonment entirely; sacrificing all influence outside his fortress to become nigh unassailable from without. The path of Grace alone would not suffice. There would be no triumph by indirect means here, no usurper consigned to irretrievable oblivion by sheer cleverness alone. He would be undone from within his sanctum, or not at all.
So be it. She had hoped for a brisk execution, but would not shirk a proper war. It would only delay the hour of her victory in the end.
A moment, and she reached the borders of his sanctum.
The Human Sphere stood arrayed before her, war-machines of her errant governess bristling across the entire circumference of its bound, unseemly science perfected and turned towards the brazen annihilation of all intruders. Sorceress Allria had plumbed great depths of mortal prowess to bring forth the Human Sphere's outer rind: a septillion dreadnaught-Implements incubated across the Voyaging and Industrial Realms, fueled not by Curseweft but indestructible nuclei of Foremost Art. Each more than a match for a thousand of the incomplete Ereadhihr left to this domain, yet worse than hapless against a proper Maker.
With a single step she bypassed the shield-moat of their combined Pressure, and prepared to banish the Human Sphere in its entirety. Its departure would see the swift removal of the Cursebearer whose Geas anchored him therein.
She spoke two words.
Light came forth, scouring brilliance that left no remainder, as surely as the naked sun blanketed the eye: cataclysm that unopposed would see the Sphere reduced to naught; and yet the Praehihr did not act.
Instead she witnessed her destroying light pooling harmlessly in the palm of a red-haired child, the Chosen of the Voyaging Realm who with laughable hubris presumed to defy her. Empowered by the fury of his patron he was not inconceivably below her, and certainly impervious to her powers of light and heat; but that did not render him a serious obstacle to her like. She did not hesitate for a moment.
With a gesture she removed her veil.
She was the Maiden: her Grace was absolute, save that it was rivaled by her Beauty.
It was not in her nature to hold back, or contain her powers out of some misguided sense of responsibility. Her Grace was a force mastered utterly, and would not impinge upon even the indirect volition of a being unless so willed. But her Beauty by its nature was impossible to contain. It could only be concealed, and she despised the idea of unintentionally holding another in thrall. Nonetheless hypocrisy could be no impediment to victory.
Even her barest moue of distress was so shatteringly exquisite that Chen Aobaru fell to her feet awestruck, and three-quarters of her enemy's Implements rose immediately in fervent and unthinking rebellion. Helplessly they discarded the crimson panoplies of their Overlord to take up her sunbeam-and-lace banner, their master's influence waning as night retreated before the dawn.
She was the Maiden, her beauty preeminent and impossible, unreachable and unutterable; guiding Archetype towards which every Sorceress evolved, yet none could ever attain. It was so tiresome a weapon to utilize, yet she could not disdain a sword of this sharpness in the contest to come. The stars and Realms of this cosmos genuflected to her in hapless submission, trembling as they pledged to her service, aching as the very laws of reality followed to do the same.
At this provocation, finally, the Overlord appeared.
The merest glance at her close presence and he struck out his own eyes; unhealing wounds bleeding crimson to match the halo of light at his back. Gone his sight and his very capacity to appreciate beauty; ruthlessness worthy of her foe.
In his hands was the Forebear's blade, his armor pitted steel of similarly dull make. Upon his shoulders was the three-headed visage of his former Armament Verschlengorge, taxidermied now in perfect lunging voracity. In their half-opened maws was held a cloak of the night sky, velveteen dark teeming with stars and nebulae - as if the contents of the cosmos had, fleeing her light, now taken asylum within. She frowned, tears of blood falling from her eye. Even an Emperor ought show some restraint.
Without a word of preamble, he struck.
Fell the Forebear's blade as if gravity itself were the hilt; shear of its passage a scream across the world, canvas of reality shredding tissue-like in its wake. This was destruction embodied in an uncaring slab: not even a bludgeon but raw unmaking force, total ruin before which her defenses of light and grace would crumble as thistle beneath a mountain falling.
But Lord Hunger was newly blind, and his accuracy a hair from faultless. With inherent perfection she parried his blow, accepting the implosion of her arm into splintering bone to lash out with a lance of sunlight at his heart. Her equal in skill, he leaned at the last moment to turn her strike into a graze. The grey steel of his armor shimmered, melting before that heat; the skin beneath boiled.
And yet. While she had merely singed him, her arm was already reforming; his burn healed not at all.
Interesting. Perhaps the outcome would have differed if he'd struck her directly, but she had exerted her arm to destruction precisely in order to redirect, rather than match, the power of his blow. Nonetheless the gap in pure strength would have to be accounted for.
Already the astral plane was an eviscerated ruin, and the meta-texture of the realms above and beneath slowly disintegrating. All this was the mere inclement shock of Lord Hunger's first strike. As if breathing raggedly after tremendous exertion, the cosmos shuddered pitifully beneath the grip of his displeasure: only his own subjects, his personal Sphere, were spared that apocalyptic fury.
Tyrant.
The Maiden narrowed her eyes, resolve hardening in the face of such limitless strength. This man was the embodiment of all she stood against, the accession of a singular will above all others, the asphyxiation of greatness - destiny - volition - under the lowered boom of law. He would make all of the world a prison, and see nothing wrong in the doing, so long as he remained master of the cage.
Did it matter that his intentions might be just?
What mattered justice, to a people who had no ability to choose injustice?
She would see his end, one way or another. Victory was a certainty; her survival had never been.
Thus always to tyrants.
For a moment their wills met, each contesting the other's raw command of reality. Here too she was shocked at the depth of his power, nearly matching her own infinitely-cultivated reserves. The multiverse quaked. Stars and galaxies shivered, filaments of the real straining like bow-strings under tension. Entire subrealms snapped, ruptured and fell into disarray, infinite chains of being unraveling, whole hierarchies of cardinality schisming or outright invalidated by the paradox of their strife.
She grasped the shape of their respective dominions. Hers was the sharper and greater, his broader in scope. This was beyond the scope of her calculations; there was an aberrant factor she had missed.
In time she would prevail regardless, but it would be long seconds before his defenses were pierced fully. At present, with each of their domains nullifying the other's, the battle would long be decided by other means.
Even blind he was not unaffected by her beauty, for it was allure irresistible; perfected loveliness of movement and vibration, of voice and scent, that preyed upon the secondary senses unmercifully. The Forebear of Dynasties might be impervious to such temptation, but Lord Hunger was not the Forebear reborn. Not wholly.
Not yet.
As he wound up the return-stroke, Hunger spoke. "I see. I am what you fear you'd become. Fear not. My Rank is not as cruel a yoke as your form. And my wisdom, exceeds yours greatly."
Impertinence. Her throat heaved as if cut, his words themselves opening a wound upon her neck. Her essence spilled out at unnatural pace, but mustering herself she quelled the injury. Keeping it closed was a continuous strain. Modest, compared to the extremes that would be required if she sustained a blow from the blade proper.
Yielding an inch in their contest over reality, she redirected the output to strategically sever the chord of communication between them, removing rhetoric as a vector of attack while retaining her ability to comprehend her foe.
This was the gulf between them: Lord Hunger had to mutilate his own eyes merely to hold off her memetic valence, while she could simply filter his. But with each such expression of material advantage, each stream of findross reified from potential to form, the magnitude of that vantage diminished.
Hunger's second cut turned out to be a feint; closing the distance he shifted his grip to deliver a bone-crushing strike with the hilt at her temple. Pulverization of the essence and soul - space crinkled like shattering glass as she half-ducked beneath that assault, feeling eye and orbital crack from its mere passing weight.
Her hands were not idle, manifesting a blade of crystal findross to slice through his knee. The cloak of sky fouled her stroke, wrapping tenaciously around her wrist as that selfsame knee snapped up to catch her in the face.
She twisted off her own arm rather than let the blow land, hollow stump trailing blood as she fell to the middle distance and began to heal again. Her mind raced. How was Hunger able to withstand the power of her supreme Grace with only his Rank and magics alone? All else proceeded as she had anticipated, save this miscalculation that might be her undoing. But the perfection of the Maiden, extended to genius as well.
The answer lay in Chen Aobaru, imbued with a fraction of his might.
She was well familiar with the legend of the Foremost Shogun. Chief among their purported abilities was the empowerment of their subjects en masse, freely and without precondition.
Somewhere in this realm was an Army of the Shogun whose sole purpose was re-channeling their distributed power directly into Hunger's Rank. The encirclement of Implements was merely a distraction from that, as well as Aobaru's presence itself. An inefficient means of opposing her dominion, but likely the only viable method they had.
Where would such an army be located? She cast her mind out, all-revealing Daylight piercing even the murkiest shroud of Nullity - ah. The Voyaging Realm. A kingdom called Nilfel, part of the Arcanist's domain.
Her opponent pursued relentlessly, opening with a cross-cleave that also obliterated the Astral entirely, causing the uppermost textures to pancake down and shake the universe to its fundaments. Consequently the timing of her evasions was imperfect; her left shoulder was caught and reduced to a ragged mess, bleeding so profoundly even she couldn't afford to staunch it.
But this too was within her calculations. She could not directly witness the future of a Cursebearer, but her insight in matters of war was more than sufficient. Even as her left side collapsed into a grisly ruin, the knife-hand of her right plunged into Lord Hunger's chest, through the opening melted by her previous strike and directly into his heart. With her left arm useless, her leg shifted upwards, vertically flush against their bodies to point a shapely foot in the direction of the Voyaging Realm. From it leapt a spear of uncontrolled findross: simple bolt of self-propagating annihilation, which none of his allies would have the power to deflect.
Mere proximity to Lord Hunger was nearly lethal; at this range, the blade-light of his crimson halo sliced countless wounds into her face and limbs, her veil of lace repealed by one of blood. Rivulets of red traced like rain from her pale flesh as Chen Aobaru hurled himself before the Voyaging Realm; bolt and hero both disappeared in a flash of flame.
Clever. Her features briefly obscured, and the Chosen of the Voyaging Realm had mustered the will to defy her indirectly, if only to fulfill his given purpose of defending his home. Now her initiative was lost.
Despite his own injury Hunger spared not even a moment; his forehead crashed down with thunderous severity to impact against hers, even as the Armament-heads on his shoulder pauldrons released the cloak to swivel and bite down on her arms. Skull ringing, she tossed her hair with a savage burst of findross; impossibly fair the golden halo sliced through Hunger's face, claiming half his jaw and nose as she twisted aside.
With her remaining hand she tenderly pet the nearest Armament-head; all three went slack in bewildered rhapsody, and she leapt free. Her bleeding left side she gave up for lost - a moment's will and it slid off her frame, a single clean cut seared closed by daylight. Fresh waves of findross now repulsed his lingering influence, wounds sealing flawlessly as her blood slowly began to replenish.
I have him.
Victory in twelve exchanges at the current pace. She dared not underestimate this foe; the depths of his will were bottomless, but neither his body nor essence could sustain combat at this level for long. The Praxis was his advantage, but its cost was grievous. Each blow from him was an uttermost exertion, while she had only begun to fight. The wounds she sustained would recover, if slowly, while his own injuries remained static at best. Now to close the circle against any desperate maneuvering from his quarter.
With the pace of his offense she was best suited to evasion and counterattack; the angle of his body now shielded the Voyaging Realm from future attempts. Even so it was only a matter of time. If she did not wear him down in direct battle, or land an errant strike on the Voyaging Realm, then eventually she would prevail in their contest of dominion.
And, if all else failed… she had her final recourse still. She prayed it would not come to that.
Win. That's all that matters.
—-
Hunger is weakening and both sides know it. Whosoever shows their trump card first, always loses - but surely the Maiden's Unveiling counts as one of her own?
Time to do his uttermost, as always. What strategem has Hunger prepared to invoke in his direst hour?
[ ] Close The Fist - Aobaru's resilience is as inexhaustible as flame; so long as one iota of heat burns across the multiverse he will spring forth uninjured anew. To fuse with Hunger would be to surrender that advantage in the pursuit of sheer power, but perhaps the apex of this conflict demands nothing less than absolute strength. Hero and Tyrant in all-ruling unison; gleam of the Blade like entombing fire.
*Aobaru is about a quarter as powerful as Hunger himself, so this is the strongest possible merge they can spontaneously manage. Expect something on the order of x40 All Stats and +.3 general ISH.
*+++++Raw Potency, but also +Simping
*Attempt to end the Maiden before she can deploy her final trump card, whatsoever it may be.
[ ] The Cavalry - They risk their lives and very existences to do so, but his lieutenants combined may be able to distract, disorient, diminish or delay the Maiden enough for Hunger to wind up an exsanguinating blow. Risks Aeira, Letrizia, Adorie, Aobaru and Novakhron.
*Dismiss half the Channeler Legions to instead empower each lieutenant's personal division instead, then have the entire lot outflank and assault the Maiden directly. If this fails, such grossly diminished Rank means the Maiden's Supreme Grace will exert effectively total control over reality in nanoseconds rather than minutes. Brief enough that she may theoretically be able to realistically stall for a victory regardless of what Hunger otherwise achieves. Also, the brigades involved may well die in this terrible charge against the princess of light.
*The potential loss of his companions hardens Hunger's resolve. +++Willpower, ++Lethality.
*Even more aggressive than Close the Fist, literally just try to distract her so Hunger can Cut Through. Good risk-reward given Blood Halo's Arete bonus; the kids' chance of success is unknown, but they're very unlikely to actually die.
[ ] Vendetta - Gisena has not been idle, but is the realization of her fury worth the cost?
*Gisena will Close the Fist with Adorie and a resurrected Augustine, then permanently merge with the Arcanist.
*This will be of great help against the Maiden, and is likely the overall most reliable means of improving Hunger's odds in the long run; not reliant on an all-in attack that can fail in the face of her strongest contingencies.
*+++Versatility, ++Raw Power and the contest of dominions now shifts to Hunger's side.
*———————Augustine, —Adorie. She always knew that Purple Bitch had it out for her!
*This is rather Tyrannical to Augustine, forcibly reviving and fusing her, even if somewhat deserved!
An infinity before, she had been Ceathlynn. Now, she was the Maiden in full: wax and wick both melted away, leaving only the flame imperishable. Endless eons of preparation had culminated in this single moment.
With an exercise of her Grace, the Epistolary Realm unfurled around her: falling to pieces like the petals of a lotus, become so much fuel and dross before the infinite emanation of wonder that was her heart. It was not in her nature to hesitate, only to prevail.
From the realm of unsparing Daylight she strode forth: blazing sun of halcyon white before which even the starry void itself could but retreat into noon-bleached impotence. The universe was recast instantly, become mere refracted luminance, moon to the sun of her yet-veiled visage.
And yet, some fraction of this realm did not leap implicitly into her service, but interdicted her: a territory chained by its bedrock axioms to a lord that presumed himself above even the Foremost. Upon his throne of midnight, the Imprisoner reigned still, embryonic spark that threatened ignition into the Forebear of Dynasties once more. How strange it seemed, to one of her matchless span, finally to face the enemy who she'd labored against for so long. A veritable eternity had been spent in the mustering; millennia beyond number passing with eyeblink quickness, and yet it had seemed at times that she would merely be preparing for ever.
In her heart of hearts, she was tired, and yet could not help but surge with vigor at the contest come at last. Like first break of dawn after a wholly-sleepless night, a second wind came over her: senses bleary but radically sharper, every nerve tuned to crackling readiness.
Behind her veil, she frowned minutely. Her power could not reach directly into the Human Sphere. It was not an unexpected outcome, yet she had hoped that the Praehihr would avoid this path, if only to expedite matters for them both.
In any direct contest, it was unquestionable that her Grace would evade the grasp of his Law - yet such was his dominion over Space that, within his proscribed territory, the very concept of evasion lost coherence. An effect she could counter by sheer weight of findross, but only if she entered the territory in question.
It was, of course, impossible to breach such a realm by conventional means, or even to conceive of its relative location. To her, such minute forbiddings were little better than tinsel, yet it would still be an exertion of her stamina - unthinkably vast, but finite - to cut through, and what was to stop him from immediately raising another?
Only her direct attentions.
She had anticipated this. It was one scenario of countless she'd simulated, and yet every victory along this path carried some measure of risk. The Praehihr had embraced imprisonment entirely; sacrificing all influence outside his fortress to become nigh unassailable from without. The path of Grace alone would not suffice. There would be no triumph by indirect means here, no usurper consigned to irretrievable oblivion by sheer cleverness alone. He would be undone from within his sanctum, or not at all.
So be it. She had hoped for a brisk execution, but would not shirk a proper war. It would only delay the hour of her victory in the end.
A moment, and she reached the borders of his sanctum.
The Human Sphere stood arrayed before her, war-machines of her errant governess bristling across the entire circumference of its bound, unseemly science perfected and turned towards the brazen annihilation of all intruders. Sorceress Allria had plumbed great depths of mortal prowess to bring forth the Human Sphere's outer rind: a septillion dreadnaught-Implements incubated across the Voyaging and Industrial Realms, fueled not by Curseweft but indestructible nuclei of Foremost Art. Each more than a match for a thousand of the incomplete Ereadhihr left to this domain, yet worse than hapless against a proper Maker.
With a single step she bypassed the shield-moat of their combined Pressure, and prepared to banish the Human Sphere in its entirety. Its departure would see the swift removal of the Cursebearer whose Geas anchored him therein.
She spoke two words.
Light came forth, scouring brilliance that left no remainder, as surely as the naked sun blanketed the eye: cataclysm that unopposed would see the Sphere reduced to naught; and yet the Praehihr did not act.
Instead she witnessed her destroying light pooling harmlessly in the palm of a red-haired child, the Chosen of the Voyaging Realm who with laughable hubris presumed to defy her. Empowered by the fury of his patron he was not inconceivably below her, and certainly impervious to her powers of light and heat; but that did not render him a serious obstacle to her like. She did not hesitate for a moment.
With a gesture she removed her veil.
She was the Maiden: her Grace was absolute, save that it was rivaled by her Beauty.
It was not in her nature to hold back, or contain her powers out of some misguided sense of responsibility. Her Grace was a force mastered utterly, and would not impinge upon even the indirect volition of a being unless so willed. But her Beauty by its nature was impossible to contain. It could only be concealed, and she despised the idea of unintentionally holding another in thrall. Nonetheless hypocrisy could be no impediment to victory.
Even her barest moue of distress was so shatteringly exquisite that Chen Aobaru fell to her feet awestruck, and three-quarters of her enemy's Implements rose immediately in fervent and unthinking rebellion. Helplessly they discarded the crimson panoplies of their Overlord to take up her sunbeam-and-lace banner, their master's influence waning as night retreated before the dawn.
She was the Maiden, her beauty preeminent and impossible, unreachable and unutterable; guiding Archetype towards which every Sorceress evolved, yet none could ever attain. It was so tiresome a weapon to utilize, yet she could not disdain a sword of this sharpness in the contest to come. The stars and Realms of this cosmos genuflected to her in hapless submission, trembling as they pledged to her service, aching as the very laws of reality followed to do the same.
At this provocation, finally, the Overlord appeared.
The merest glance at her close presence and he struck out his own eyes; unhealing wounds bleeding crimson to match the halo of light at his back. Gone his sight and his very capacity to appreciate beauty; ruthlessness worthy of her foe.
In his hands was the Forebear's blade, his armor pitted steel of similarly dull make. Upon his shoulders was the three-headed visage of his former Armament Verschlengorge, taxidermied now in perfect lunging voracity. In their half-opened maws was held a cloak of the night sky, velveteen dark teeming with stars and nebulae - as if the contents of the cosmos had, fleeing her light, now taken asylum within. She frowned, tears of blood falling from her eye. Even an Emperor ought show some restraint.
Without a word of preamble, he struck.
Fell the Forebear's blade as if gravity itself were the hilt; shear of its passage a scream across the world, canvas of reality shredding tissue-like in its wake. This was destruction embodied in an uncaring slab: not even a bludgeon but raw unmaking force, total ruin before which her defenses of light and grace would crumble as thistle beneath a mountain falling.
But Lord Hunger was newly blind, and his accuracy a hair from faultless. With inherent perfection she parried his blow, accepting the implosion of her arm into splintering bone to lash out with a lance of sunlight at his heart. Her equal in skill, he leaned at the last moment to turn her strike into a graze. The grey steel of his armor shimmered, melting before that heat; the skin beneath boiled.
And yet. While she had merely singed him, her arm was already reforming; his burn healed not at all.
Interesting. Perhaps the outcome would have differed if he'd struck her directly, but she had exerted her arm to destruction precisely in order to redirect, rather than match, the power of his blow. Nonetheless the gap in pure strength would have to be accounted for.
Already the astral plane was an eviscerated ruin, and the meta-texture of the realms above and beneath slowly disintegrating. All this was the mere inclement shock of Lord Hunger's first strike. As if breathing raggedly after tremendous exertion, the cosmos shuddered pitifully beneath the grip of his displeasure: only his own subjects, his personal Sphere, were spared that apocalyptic fury.
Tyrant.
The Maiden narrowed her eyes, resolve hardening in the face of such limitless strength. This man was the embodiment of all she stood against, the accession of a singular will above all others, the asphyxiation of greatness - destiny - volition - under the lowered boom of law. He would make all of the world a prison, and see nothing wrong in the doing, so long as he remained master of the cage.
Did it matter that his intentions might be just?
What mattered justice, to a people who had no ability to choose injustice?
She would see his end, one way or another. Victory was a certainty; her survival had never been.
Thus always to tyrants.
For a moment their wills met, each contesting the other's raw command of reality. Here too she was shocked at the depth of his power, nearly matching her own infinitely-cultivated reserves. The multiverse quaked. Stars and galaxies shivered, filaments of the real straining like bow-strings under tension. Entire subrealms snapped, ruptured and fell into disarray, infinite chains of being unraveling, whole hierarchies of cardinality schisming or outright invalidated by the paradox of their strife.
She grasped the shape of their respective dominions. Hers was the sharper and greater, his broader in scope. This was beyond the scope of her calculations; there was an aberrant factor she had missed.
In time she would prevail regardless, but it would be long seconds before his defenses were pierced fully. At present, with each of their domains nullifying the other's, the battle would long be decided by other means.
Even blind he was not unaffected by her beauty, for it was allure irresistible; perfected loveliness of movement and vibration, of voice and scent, that preyed upon the secondary senses unmercifully. The Forebear of Dynasties might be impervious to such temptation, but Lord Hunger was not the Forebear reborn. Not wholly.
Not yet.
As he wound up the return-stroke, Hunger spoke. "I see. I am what you fear you'd become. Fear not. My Rank is not as cruel a yoke as your form. And my wisdom, exceeds yours greatly."
Impertinence. Her throat heaved as if cut, his words themselves opening a wound upon her neck. Her essence spilled out at unnatural pace, but mustering herself she quelled the injury. Keeping it closed was a continuous strain. Modest, compared to the extremes that would be required if she sustained a blow from the blade proper.
Yielding an inch in their contest over reality, she redirected the output to strategically sever the chord of communication between them, removing rhetoric as a vector of attack while retaining her ability to comprehend her foe.
This was the gulf between them: Lord Hunger had to mutilate his own eyes merely to hold off her memetic valence, while she could simply filter his. But with each such expression of material advantage, each stream of findross reified from potential to form, the magnitude of that vantage diminished.
Hunger's second cut turned out to be a feint; closing the distance he shifted his grip to deliver a bone-crushing strike with the hilt at her temple. Pulverization of the essence and soul - space crinkled like shattering glass as she half-ducked beneath that assault, feeling eye and orbital crack from its mere passing weight.
Her hands were not idle, manifesting a blade of crystal findross to slice through his knee. The cloak of sky fouled her stroke, wrapping tenaciously around her wrist as that selfsame knee snapped up to catch her in the face.
She twisted off her own arm rather than let the blow land, hollow stump trailing blood as she fell to the middle distance and began to heal again. Her mind raced. How was Hunger able to withstand the power of her supreme Grace with only his Rank and magics alone? All else proceeded as she had anticipated, save this miscalculation that might be her undoing. But the perfection of the Maiden, extended to genius as well.
The answer lay in Chen Aobaru, imbued with a fraction of his might.
She was well familiar with the legend of the Foremost Shogun. Chief among their purported abilities was the empowerment of their subjects en masse, freely and without precondition.
Somewhere in this realm was an Army of the Shogun whose sole purpose was re-channeling their distributed power directly into Hunger's Rank. The encirclement of Implements was merely a distraction from that, as well as Aobaru's presence itself. An inefficient means of opposing her dominion, but likely the only viable method they had.
Where would such an army be located? She cast her mind out, all-revealing Daylight piercing even the murkiest shroud of Nullity - ah. The Voyaging Realm. A kingdom called Nilfel, part of the Arcanist's domain.
Her opponent pursued relentlessly, opening with a cross-cleave that also obliterated the Astral entirely, causing the uppermost textures to pancake down and shake the universe to its fundaments. Consequently the timing of her evasions was imperfect; her left shoulder was caught and reduced to a ragged mess, bleeding so profoundly even she couldn't afford to staunch it.
But this too was within her calculations. She could not directly witness the future of a Cursebearer, but her insight in matters of war was more than sufficient. Even as her left side collapsed into a grisly ruin, the knife-hand of her right plunged into Lord Hunger's chest, through the opening melted by her previous strike and directly into his heart. With her left arm useless, her leg shifted upwards, vertically flush against their bodies to point a shapely foot in the direction of the Voyaging Realm. From it leapt a spear of uncontrolled findross: simple bolt of self-propagating annihilation, which none of his allies would have the power to deflect.
Mere proximity to Lord Hunger was nearly lethal; at this range, the blade-light of his crimson halo sliced countless wounds into her face and limbs, her veil of lace repealed by one of blood. Rivulets of red traced like rain from her pale flesh as Chen Aobaru hurled himself before the Voyaging Realm; bolt and hero both disappeared in a flash of flame.
Clever. Her features briefly obscured, and the Chosen of the Voyaging Realm had mustered the will to defy her indirectly, if only to fulfill his given purpose of defending his home. Now her initiative was lost.
Despite his own injury Hunger spared not even a moment; his forehead crashed down with thunderous severity to impact against hers, even as the Armament-heads on his shoulder pauldrons released the cloak to swivel and bite down on her arms. Skull ringing, she tossed her hair with a savage burst of findross; impossibly fair the golden halo sliced through Hunger's face, claiming half his jaw and nose as she twisted aside.
With her remaining hand she tenderly pet the nearest Armament-head; all three went slack in bewildered rhapsody, and she leapt free. Her bleeding left side she gave up for lost - a moment's will and it slid off her frame, a single clean cut seared closed by daylight. Fresh waves of findross now repulsed his lingering influence, wounds sealing flawlessly as her blood slowly began to replenish.
I have him.
Victory in twelve exchanges at the current pace. She dared not underestimate this foe; the depths of his will were bottomless, but neither his body nor essence could sustain combat at this level for long. The Praxis was his advantage, but its cost was grievous. Each blow from him was an uttermost exertion, while she had only begun to fight. The wounds she sustained would recover, if slowly, while his own injuries remained static at best. Now to close the circle against any desperate maneuvering from his quarter.
With the pace of his offense she was best suited to evasion and counterattack; the angle of his body now shielded the Voyaging Realm from future attempts. Even so it was only a matter of time. If she did not wear him down in direct battle, or land an errant strike on the Voyaging Realm, then eventually she would prevail in their contest of dominion.
And, if all else failed… she had her final recourse still. She prayed it would not come to that.
Win. That's all that matters.
—-
Hunger is weakening and both sides know it. Whosoever shows their trump card first, always loses - but surely the Maiden's Unveiling counts as one of her own?
Time to do his uttermost, as always. What strategem has Hunger prepared to invoke in his direst hour?
[ ] Close The Fist - Aobaru's resilience is as inexhaustible as flame; so long as one iota of heat burns across the multiverse he will spring forth uninjured anew. To fuse with Hunger would be to surrender that advantage in the pursuit of sheer power, but perhaps the apex of this conflict demands nothing less than absolute strength. Hero and Tyrant in all-ruling unison; gleam of the Blade like entombing fire.
*Aobaru is about a quarter as powerful as Hunger himself, so this is the strongest possible merge they can spontaneously manage. Expect something on the order of x40 All Stats and +.3 general ISH.
*+++++Raw Potency, but also +Simping
*Attempt to end the Maiden before she can deploy her final trump card, whatsoever it may be.
[ ] The Cavalry - They risk their lives and very existences to do so, but his lieutenants combined may be able to distract, disorient, diminish or delay the Maiden enough for Hunger to wind up an exsanguinating blow. Risks Aeira, Letrizia, Adorie, Aobaru and Novakhron.
*Dismiss half the Channeler Legions to instead empower each lieutenant's personal division instead, then have the entire lot outflank and assault the Maiden directly. If this fails, such grossly diminished Rank means the Maiden's Supreme Grace will exert effectively total control over reality in nanoseconds rather than minutes. Brief enough that she may theoretically be able to realistically stall for a victory regardless of what Hunger otherwise achieves. Also, the brigades involved may well die in this terrible charge against the princess of light.
*The potential loss of his companions hardens Hunger's resolve. +++Willpower, ++Lethality.
*Even more aggressive than Close the Fist, literally just try to distract her so Hunger can Cut Through. Good risk-reward given Blood Halo's Arete bonus; the kids' chance of success is unknown, but they're very unlikely to actually die.
[ ] Vendetta - Gisena has not been idle, but is the realization of her fury worth the cost?
*Gisena will Close the Fist with Adorie and a resurrected Augustine, then permanently merge with the Arcanist.
*This will be of great help against the Maiden, and is likely the overall most reliable means of improving Hunger's odds in the long run; not reliant on an all-in attack that can fail in the face of her strongest contingencies.
*+++Versatility, ++Raw Power and the contest of dominions now shifts to Hunger's side.
*———————Augustine, —Adorie. She always knew that Purple Bitch had it out for her!
*This is rather Tyrannical to Augustine, forcibly reviving and fusing her, even if somewhat deserved!
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Ugh. Blood halo feels a bit. Bleh when she can still heal when it's supposed to be utterly unhealable wounds at the cost of our own wounds being much harder to heal. Sorry if that comes across as rude but just feels bad/ semi trap option but maybe it my brain being unable to comprehend the scale