User blog:SkyrimsShillelagh/The Fall of Yokuda (Part 2/2)

The Empress locked blades with a corpse, pirouetted, tearing the weapon from its hand, and thrust her own through its chest. The corpse screamed and the Empress flinched. These things couldn’t feel pain, she knew, they were designed to terrify. But it was hard to remain stoic when skull, with strips of dried flesh dangling from its face, opening its sinewy jaws and wagged an emulsified tongue at you.

The corpse reached for her with a skeletal hand, not felled so easily, and she lopped of its arm which was quickly followed by the shrieking head.

“Empress!”

She turned. A nearby Ansei, a man wearing gold-lacquered armor and a crown on his head, pointed to the hilltop her tent had once stood on.

A tall shadowy figure had climbed onto it, leading a group of undead. Each of these walking corpses carried bows. They meant to fire on the fleet.

“Come with me!” She shouted, coming alight with the Shehai.

She shot into the sky in an arc, chainmail and cloth rippling around her.

The corpses were lining up on the cliff, preparing to release a volley on cove below. The splinter of the Adversary behind them, watching impassively, its oversized greatsword stuck blade first into the ground.

The Empress crashed into them, waves of golden light emanating from the point of impact. The corpse archers were tossed, some thrown over the side of the cliff into the water below, others knocked to the ground.

The splinter staggered backwards and the Empress wasted no time attacking it, emerging from her crouched landing with broad sweep of her sword. The crowned Ansei went for the remaining corpses, to finish them off before they could resume their attack.

The Adversary parried, its own weapon snapping the Empress’ scimitar. The greatsword swung through the air with a whoosh and came hurtling towards her head.

She slapped her hands together and raised them up, a feeble defense against a weapon that could shred metal, but then a sword forged from light was there and it stopped the Adversary’s weapon without so much as a twitch.

The splinter was noticeably surprised but its weapon own uselessness and hesitated for a split second too long. The Empress dropped her hands, twisted at the hips, and kicked the splinter in the stomach with one glowing, Shehai-coated boot.

The splinter of Entropy skidded backwards, its heels dredging up dirt behind them, and nearly fell. It recovered before the Empress could attack and stabbed the greatsword at her in a flurry, which she narrowly dodged, dodging side-to-side around the blade. She sucked in her stomach as the last stab skimmed, scrapping the edge of her armor, and then breathed out as the splinter drew the weapon back.

She swung at it twice in a quick combination of attacks, her Spirit-Sword flashing. The Adversary batted both attacks aside with the flat of its blade and swung down at her, trying to use the size of its weapon to it’s advantage.

The Empress dodged again and the greatsword cut through the ground as easily as it cut through metal. She attacked again, swinging and stabbing in expert, precise motions, forcing the splinter back. Its blocks came slower, more forced, as it struggled to keep up.

“Sloppy, Satakal, sloppy.” The Empress mocked.

The Adversary lunged between swings, trying to put the Empress of balance.

She formed a dagger from the Shehai in her offhand, used it to expertly deflect the splinter’s sword, and cut across the splinter’s stomach. The splinter’s skin opened like wet clay, and smoke began to spill out through the wound.

It ignored the hit, having successfully lured it’s opponent in. The Empress was too close to dodge and it raised the weapon high over her and drove the point down.

She leapt back, simultaneously sweeping the ground at the splinter’s feet with her scimitar.

The ground fell away and the splinter lost its’ footing, falling to its knees, barely even managing that. It looked behind to find it was kneeling on a dusty slope at the edge of the cliff. It looked back at the Empress, who stood over it, Spirit-Sword held at her side.

“You committed the greatest sin a swordsman can.” She told it.

It whipped it’s greatsword at her from it’s position on the ground. She slapped it towards the ground and kicked the splinter in the face. It fell backwards off the cliff. It didn’t twist through the air, instead dropping like a stone.

A javelin of light formed in her hand and she hurled it down after the splinter. It was speared through the center of its chest and began to rapidly deflate.

The smoke from its wounds rushed back up towards the Empress and fanned it away.

“Forgot your footwork.” She said.

She turned, looking for the crowned Ansei that had come up with her. He was dead, face down among the corpses. A sword was through his chest, but he’d drove his through the thing that had killed him.

The Empress knelt over him. “May you reach the Far Shores.” She murmured, passing a hand over his eyes.

The dead Ansei had no response. A corpse was a corpse.

The Empress left him and walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. She gasped at what she saw and felt her legs give out. She dropped to his knees, holding a hand to her mouth in horror.

Bodies filled the valley, mounds upon mounds of them. Atop this the reanimated dead climbed. Limbs, severed from their hosts, rolled about, trailing gore and blood. Heads too, eyes drooping and tongues hanging limply. The corpses of friend or foe were indistinguishable from one another, the chaos of battle having turned it all it one disgusting mess. The smell along was something she would remember. The stink of evacuated bowels and open, gushing wounds, of rotting flesh. But the sight of it was something else. The valley was a washed out painting, a mess of reds, blacks, greys, and golds. What wasn’t blood was smoke, what wasn’t smoke was dirt, what wasn’t dirt was armor and weapons lit by the faint light of the Shehai. It was a painting of the apocalypse. A nightmare come to life. A moment so terrible it seared itself into her mind.

The Ansei had been routed. The walking corpses surrounded them on all sides. Many fell, but for every twenty zombies destroyed a Sword-Singer also fell. And there were plenty of Satakal’s splinters left. They themselves could fight two or three Ansei at time and hold ground, the corpses pushed forwards and overwhelmed them through sheer numbers.

It was a disaster. The battle was lost.

The Empress watched as the lights of her army winked out one by one. Total annihilation was eminent.

And the Adversary’s minions would go on to destroy the fleet, killing all the Na-Totumba. The Ra Gada alone were not capable of carrying on the legacy of the empire. Yokuda would be wiped from history, destroyed completely.

The Empress could rejoin the battle below. She might be able to turn the tide. She was skilled. Powerful, the greatest Ansei out of them all. It was the right thing to do. The noble thing to do. To place survival above others? That would be weak of her. Cowardly. No, the Empress of Yokuda would wipe the wetness from her eyes and descend into that valley with the wrath of a thousand suns and kill until there was nothing left to kill.

But it was more likely she would die, killed alongside them, and then trampled by the walking dead, becoming part of the churning soup of bodies that was the valley floor. The Empress was not an immortal, all-powerful god. She was merely an old woman, no different than those dying below, separated only by her gifts and talent for leadership.

She looked up at the sky, black, foreboding. The lights of the gods at had left now, even the two that had remained. It was dark once again. In the distance she could see flashes of light as the gods battled with Satakal. The Adversary would kill them and then it would truly be over.

They had lost. But they needn’t lose everything.

A candle in the wind. The Empress’ mind clung to this idea. Something to carry it on. The fleet need only time to escape Yokuda, whatever the cost.

She burst alight, filling herself with the Shehai, and took to the sky. She drew heavily from it, perhaps too much so, greedily drunk from the power it granted, steeling herself.

Whatever the cost.

Malooc was the first to die. Satakal had dropped out of the sky and struck the goblin king in the torso. He fell down, holding his stomach, and did not get back up. Zeht and Morwha followed immediately. The sheer proximity of Entropy’s power proved too much for them. They had fallen to the ground, spitting blood, and then lain still.

Satakal was different now. He took on the appearance of one his splinters, a barely formed, shadowy figure, and grew in size. At nine feet tall he was capable of engaging multiple gods at once. The gods themselves could not shapeshift—it was not an ability which they had access to. Illusions were one thing. But to physically change one’s size? This they could not do. Unlike Satakal they existed solely in the mortal world and for this reason they restricted in ways he was not.

“Such weak, detestable creatures you are.” The Adversary was intoning with all emotion of a eulogy.

Ius swung at Adversary with his human arm, missed, but caught the Adversary around the throat with his left arm—the limb that was a snake.

The python hissed as it tightened, strong enough to crush bones. The Adversary didn’t react. It ripped Ius’ arm off, then proceeded to pummel the animal god with it.

“You are ants. Gods of dirt. Gods of nothing.”

Sep stabbed the Adversary from behind and it whirled around, moving a hundred miles an hour. The Snake proved quick and the Adversary slow, and Sep carved pieces out of the Adversary before it was able to wrap its arms around him like a vise. There was a crack and Sep fell.

Ebonarm and Tu’whacca came next, side by side. The god of war and the god of death. Two of the most powerful.

The Adversary and Ebonarm squared off trading blows, both physically massive. Ebonarm plunged his blade through the Adverary’s chest and Satakal replied by doing the same. The God of War slid backwards and fell. The Adversary did not.

Death stood before the Adversary next and the following battle was an impossible dance of movements and countermovements as the two pieces, both of unimaginable depth, attempted to gain the upper hand on each other. It was a chess match playing out in real time. There were no attacks, only posturing, careful allocation of movement.

Tu’whacca’s foot scuffed the sand and the Adversary was a sudden whirlwind around him, cleaving the god into a thousand pieces.

The HoonDing flanked Satakal and hit the Adversary with a punch powerful enough to crack mountains. Entropy was knocked backwards, onto Leki’s sword. She buried it deep into the shadow’s back, twisting the blade.

The Adversary’s limbs rotated around, twisting in place, turning ways that were unnatural for a person, until it’s back was its front and its front its back and Leki’s sword was instead stuck in its stomach.

It slapped the goddess of swords to the ground hard enough to separate her weapon from her grip. Satakal pulled the sword out of its middle and bent the blade into an L.

Satakal saw Leki trying to raise and stomped down on her hand, eliciting a pained shriek from the goddess.

HoonDing jumped onto the Adversary’s back and locked an arm around its throat. Satakal ignored him, grinding Leki’s sword hand beneath its heel. Onsi buried twin knives in the Adversary’s side. Tava swooped down, raked Entropy’s blank face with its claws. Diagna put himself between Leki in the Adversary, stabbed it in the chest.

The Adversary caught his wrist before the sword got too close, and lifted him up in the air by it. HoonDing struggled to pin the Adversary and Onsi attempted to pull Satakal to the ground with his knives, but it was futile.

Four gods tore at the Adversary. Four immortal, seemingly all powerful beings. They broke around it like a river around stone. It stood there, unstoppable. A monument to their impotence.

“Child of nothing.” It spoke to him. “Your existence is a crime against the Void.”

“What are you talking about?” Diagna demanded.

“Your destruction will be swift and complete. The balance demands no less.”

Diagna was thrown back to the ground. The Adversary punted Leki aside, pulled the HoonDing off its back and tossed him, and swatted Onsi away.

It strode over to Diagna and was stopped as a bolt of lightning shot of the sky, and struck it in the chest.

The Adversary flew backwards, crackling with visible arcs of electricity. The sky boomed and another burst through the smoke, striking the Adversary.

Rays of sunlight shot through the smog, clearing it away as Ruptga launched his attack.

The king of the gods came down from the heavens, surrounded by an aura of light, radiating pure power. Diagna could feel it from his position on the ground. It was like the heat of the sun. Being any closer to Ruptga might’ve been fatal.

A third bolt of lightning formed in his hand and he threw it at the Adversary. Satakal shielded itself with an arm and the lightning broke around it, fizzling out.

Ruptga raised an arm, fist clenching, and slowly mimed a chopping motion at the Adversary.

A beam of fire, sharp in intensity and concentration, sheered through the clouds, and immolated Satakal on the spot. When it cleared, the Adversary remained, smoking, the ground around him charred black in a perfect circle, but remained still. It lowered its, arms resuming a

“I nearly underestimated you.” The Adversary noted. It waved a hand at Ruptga, and the king of the gods was knocked from the sky. “Nearly.”

The Adversary looked at Tava who circled high above, aimed a hand at her much as Ruptga had done to it, and closed it into a fist. There was the crunch of snapping bones as the winds defied Tava and bowed to the Adversary’s strength instead, and she fell from the sky.

The surviving gods stood, each alone on the battlefield, the corpses of their brethren around them. The HoonDing, Ruptga, Diagna. Leki joined them, clutching her ruined sword hand. Ruptga traced his eyes over the corpses of his wife and children.

The HoonDing moved to stand next to Diagna.

They stared at the Adversary, each of them battered, while it was completely whole. The black sheen of its shadowy figure was untarnished.

“You see the futility of defying me.” Its disembodied voice droned. “You cannot halt the crawl of time. Entropy comes to all things, whether it is wanted or not.”

The Adversary began to stalk towards them. A massive greatsword formed in its hand.

“It cannot be stopped. You can rage against it, but it comes all the same. It will find you. I will find you. The most you can do is accept that.”

“That is what separates us.” Ruptga boomed. “The hunger of Satakal is legendary. Were we not here to slow you, you would swallow everything. You know no limits. Your patience is a trait born of necessity, a result of the resistance you face. Were no one here to stand against you, there would be nothing at all.”

“Such is my nature, first immortal.” The Adversary said, indifferent. “I have not been shy about this. I am here to destroy. It is the purpose of Anu to push against that. But you are not Anu. You are leftovers from a past world. One thought devoured. You could have lived here, in safety, away from my hunger, unknown to me. But instead you fought.”

“Couldn’t be any other way, Satakal.” Diagna called out. “Your nature is one thing, and ours is another. Neither is compatible with each other. Neither other stands the other. But I see you for what you are. You are not destruction, or consummation, or chaos. You are decay.” Diagna spat. “You are lower maggots. If we are dirt than you the other worthy insect that nestles in our flesh. All that power, all that wisdom and look at the result.” Diagna gestured around at the barren, war torn wasteland that had once been the greatest empire on Nirn, a shining pinnacle of civilization. The gods looked between the two of them, watching the verbal sparring in silence.

“I understand why you embrace your nature, Satakal, you’re incapable of doing otherwise. But when I look this… I don’t see an all-powerful entity, sure in its purpose. I see a sadist who enjoys what he does. A callous, reckless worm. If we are children, you are infant, making messes of the real world, and expecting those more enlightened to fix things for you.

“You are sad and low and there will come a day, a better day, when you will overstep and be destroyed.”

“Entropy cannot be killed.” The Adversary said, its tone implying Diagna didn’t understand what he was talking about.

“No, it cannot.” Diagna agreed. “But you… you’re not it. You’re a parasite. A moth circling to a flame, clinging to something that doesn’t belong to you, something you will never possess.”

The Adversary showed zero reaction to Diagna’s words. “You are wrong.” It simply said.

Diagna smiled smugly, feeling like he’d won some small victory here. The Adversary had come up with a loss for words. “Well we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

The Adversary ran at the last gods of Yokuda and they charged in reply.

The Empress flagged, exhausted. By the time she reached her destination her access to the Shehai was cutting in and out; she was too weak to hold onto it.

When she was making her landing she lost control of it completely and fell the last few feet to the ground, landing in an undignified tumble of limbs.

She brushed herself off and stood up.

In front of her, extending towards the sky, was the Orichalc Tower. It was made entirely out of the viridescent metal Orichalcum. A metropolitan city had once surrounded this Tower, a city centuries old, tracing its roots all the way back to the arrival of the first Yokudans on Yokuda. It had been one of the first things the Adversary had destroyed, burning the entire thing down its foundations, and then tearing those up.

It had left the tower untouched, however. That had puzzled the Empress then. Now she knew why.

A massive doorway was situated at its base and the Empress entered it, running her hand along the cool metal. A steel gate used to bar the way, but the Adversary had torn it down when it’d stormed the place.

She was in a foyer, once beautifully decorated, now stripped bare. Blood splattered the walls and floors, but there were no corpses, the Adversary had seen to that. More fodder for its armies.

She entered a stairwell at the rear of the foyer and climbed and climbed and climbed. The stairs wound around the interior of the tower and were lined with empty windows, giving a view of the outside. A view once of gold sands, of glistening towers and domes, of an orange sky, now only looking out on to a blackened wasteland. She stood there for a moment, taking it in, resting her hand on the wall, before continuing upwards.

She stopped near the top at the royal apartments. Her former home. She much had happened her.

Where the treaty making her Empress was signed into law. Her first, and last, night with the Emperor. Her negotiations with Leki. Her crowning by Ruptga. Meeting Diagna. That night with him, and all those nights since… Where did all go wrong?

She went to her weapon stand in one of the apartments and retrieved a scimitar from it. The weapon’s green blade was coated in dust. No one had been in here since they’d fled the city.

She left the apartments behind and climbed further and eventually reached the top.

The wind was loud up here, whistling in her ears. It pulled at her armor and she braced herself against it. If she was pushed off the tower she wasn’t entirely sure she had enough strength to catch herself.

“Ruptga. Diagna… if there’s still a god that can hear my prayers… please forgive me.”

She cut the air with the scimitar, whipping the dust from the blade.

She hoped to all the heavens that there were gods to forgive her.

She held the sword in front of her and began the first few movements of a sword kata.

The first few movements of Pankratosword.

The Adversary’s fist cracked into the side of Leki’s head again. She moved slightly, feebly, and this time its hand split her head open.

It dropped her corpse and swung it’s sword at the HoonDing, who flying at the Adversary in a rage. The Make Way God made way, diving aside to avoid the blade.

Diagna stepped forwards to help his father, but found his way barred.

“Diagna, one of us must make it out of here.” Ruptga said.

“But my father!” He shouted, watching the HoonDing and Satakal wrestle, trading blows in the soot-stained sand. Each punch that landed shook the earth, resonating louder than a thunderclap. They were literally tearing the world apart.

“There is nothing for you here!” Ruptga said. “You must go! Secure your Empress! Secure the Ansei!”

Ruptga shoved him in the chest, throwing Diagna a considerable distance backwards, where he only just managed to land on his feet.

Ruptga rose from the ground, summoning a bolt of lightning in his hand. The Adversary saw him and shoved the HoonDing aside to lunge at Ruptga. The lightning speared Satakal just as the Adversary tackled Ruptga from the sky.

“Go!” The king of the gods thundered.

Diagna went.

The Empress’ movements were precise and fluid. Each stroke trailed into the next, like a brush upon canvas. Her feet traced the circumference of the tower as she stabbed, sliced, chopped, pirouetted and spun, her sword twirling around her in a whirlwind of steel as she changed grips, hands, and stances.

It was the most complex sword kata there was. The most complex sword move in existence.

Each cut she made in the air rippled, like the heat rising from the fire. A visible tear in Mundus—in reality. As the move progressed, the ripples got more perceptible. Those at the start were barely visible to the human eye. Those at the end be as clear and disparate as windows, windows into somewhere else.

And then, once the move was complete, once the Empress returned to where she had begun, and once again cut through the very first ripple, the move would be complete.

The Orichalc Tower would be destroyed. And, along with it, Yokuda.

But not only would Yokuda be destroyed. It would banish the Adversary from here. Satakal would lose his hold over the land. Yokuda was already doomed.

The Empress thought it was fitting that the Adversary should suffer the same fate.

She was halfway through the move when someone spoke behind her.

“Empress.” She faltered.

The Empress turned around, coming face to face with someone she had not expected to see. The last person she had expected to see.

Her joy at seeing him alive was soured by her anger at him for being here. He was wasting precious time. Each second this tower stood was a second that the Adversary could destroy the fleet.

“What are you doing here?” She demanded. “Where are the other gods? Where is the Adversary?”

“Ruptga sent me away.” Diagna said. “He told me to escape. He sent me to get you.”

“Diagna, I…”

“Come with me.” He urged, stepping forwards. He shoved her sword aside and took her hand. “Please. We can escape together. Finally be together. Beyond all of this. Not god and mortal, or ruler and subject. But as people.”

She rested her eyes. “Diagna...”

“We have a chance. A chance you’ve given us.” He cupped her face in her hands, not altogether gently, and forced her to look up at him. “This what you’ve always wanted. An escape. Freedom. True freedom.”

“It is but… I can’t.” She gently freed herself from his grip and met his gaze. “I can’t abandon this place. It is my home. And… there’s one last thing I have to do. One more thing to do for Yokuda.”

“You’ve given them enough.”

“No.” The Empress shook her head. “What I do will never be enough. It never has been. Look around us. If anything, I needed to do more. But this… this last sacrifice… that will be my repayment.”

He frowned, finally seeming to wonder what she’d been doing up here.

“I’m going to destroy the tower, Diagna.” She told him, answering the unspoken question. Sink Yokuda. And along with it, banish Satakal.”

“How…?”

“Pankratosword.”

Diagna’s look of horror was the beginnings of a protest, but she overruled him.

“I have to do it, Diagna. I’m sorry. I can’t go with you.”

The stricken look slowly faded from his face, giving way to a resigned acceptance. “You were always better at this than me. Ruling.”

She smiled at him. “It was what made us such a good pairing.”

“It is an intelligent plan.”

Both Empress and god spun around to face Satakal. He was back in his human form, the pale, average man in his white farm colors.

“One that would be successful.” The Adversary said. He pulled something out from behind his back—a bent, melted Orichalcum breastplate. He threw it to the rooftop, where it skidded to a stop at the Empress’ feet. She looked down at the armor that had belonged to the king of the gods.

“Had you used the time they bought for you.” He finished.

“You… you…” Diagna’s lips curled back in a snarl, and he left his threat unfinished, instead throwing himself at the Adversary with a bloodcurdling howl. The two gods clashed and the Empress continued her kata. There was no rushing it, but she found there was a new urgency to her movements, now that the threat of the Adversary’s victory drew so close.

Stab, slice, pirouette, repeat. A dozen different katas, a dozen different moves. Pankratosword was everything. The sword move to end all sword moves. Each was a variation of it and Pankratosword was a sum of everything. The whole of the Way of the Sword, expressed in one single, continuous stroke.

The Empress’ feet found their original position. She cut the air. It shimmered, and rush of power surged into her.

“Satakal!” She shouted, the tower shaking from the strength of her voice. “Today, the approach of Entropy has proved too slow.”

The Adversary broke off from Diagna and leaped towards here. It collided hard with a wall formed from the Shehai, and slid to the ground. It jumped up, tried to get around the wall bound another had formed at its right, its left, above it. It was caged in a box of golden light.

Diagna lowered his sword and came to stand alongside the Empress, watching as the Adversary was imprisoned.

“Today Yokuda says farewell to your brand of evil once and for all.”

The Adversary stared out at her impassively from its trap. He pounded a fist against the translucent walls, testing their strength.

“And today Yokuda greets a new dawn. One free of gods.” She pursed her lips. “And Emperors.” She looked now to Diagna. “I’m sorry.”

He opened his mouth to ask why, only to find himself unable to move, frozen by an expert construction of the Shehai.

“But I won’t have you dying with me. Good-bye, Diagna.”

He was launched into the sky with immediate force and rapid speed, his flight powered by the Shehai, and vanished into the distance. He would land somewhere near the fleet.

“This won’t hold me.” The Adversary said and the Empress turned her attention towards her again. “Nothing will. I will return. I will return again and again. This will not change.”

The tower began to shake. From up here, they could see the whole of the continent was shaking. Sinking. It was being swallowed by the sea, as rapidly and immediately as the Empress had launched Diagna to safety.

“I don’t care.” The Empress told him bluntly. “I’m just sick of seeing you win.”

“I will dog the members of your family to the ends of Nirn.” The Adversary said, venomously. “I will inflict torments undreamt of upon them.”

“No you won’t.” The Empress replied.

The continent continued to sink. Around them, walls of water rose in massive tidal wave, preparing to come crashing down. It cast a shadow over the Empress and the Adversary, even here at the top of the tower.

“There is no escape from me. There is no where you can hide I cannot follow. I am a half of everything. I am destruction incarnate. I am Entropy.”

The Empress ignored it’s ranting, finding it nothing short of pathetic. She craned her neck back to look up at the gargantuan water feature rising above them. She was in awe of the size of it. A wave the size of a mountain. The size of a hundred mountains.

“I be a curse upon your household unto eternity. I am constant and all knowing. I will never forget this. I will never forgive this. Do you understand me? Do you hear me…

“al Din?”

The water came crashing down, smothering everything beneath it.