The Fearmonger pushes my mental processing to its absolute limit.
Time doesn't actually slow down I know that on an intellectual level. Physics don't change just because I'm Awakened. The blades are moving at the same velocity regardless of how I perceive them.
But my perception does change. My enhanced cognition processes information so fast that the world seems to crawl. Each second stretches just a little longer to me.
And in that expanded time, with perfect clarity, I realize one simple truth:
I'm fucked.
Completely, utterly, catastrophically fucked.
Fifty blades. All pointed at me. All beginning their launch sequence. All moving with coordinated precision that suggests Teleb has done this exact maneuver hundreds of times before.
I have maybe two seconds of real-time before they hit. Which translates to what feels like fifteen seconds in my accelerated perception.
How lovely to get some time before I die to curse everything in my life that led me to this moment.
Where do I even start?
With my parents? The ones who hid a Federation spy and got themselves executed, traumatizing me so thoroughly with a shit life in the outskirts.
With the Empire? The machine that took my parents from me and has turned me into the same type of monster I spent my entire lift cursing?
Or maybe I should curse the gods themselves. If they even exist. If they're actually responsible for these marks instead of it being some random cosmic accident.
Because this? This is fucking unfair.
I have three marks of power. Three. I'm supposed to be special. The first in history to have three marks of power branded into my soul. The "Child of Light" that most in the Church so desperately want.
But what good are three marks when one of them is completely useless?
The Regenerator. That unbroken ring constellation in my soul sea that I can't even activate. A healing power that sits dormant while I bleed and break and rely on someone else's bond to keep me alive.
Three marks, but I might as well have two.
And the two I can use? Both of them fuck with my head.
Fearmonger suppresses my emotions. Makes me cold. Turns off the parts of my brain that make me human. Use it too long and I stop caring about anything except power and survival and even when I turn it off parts of my humanity stay gone. Eventually they will be gone no matter what. Eventually I would have learned to utilize both fearmonger and Veilshaper to their full poitrinals and who knows if I'd be the same.
And speaking of Veilshaper the god damn power requires such intense concentration it gives me migraines and leaves me exhausted. Every illusion they I try and weave without allowing the fearmonger to direct it is a battle against myself.
And I'm fighting a man who can turn mundane humans into ash with a thought. Who can rip the metals from their bodies at the molecular level and forge weapons from their remains.
Living, heat-seeking, evil-ass swords that hum with the emotions of the people they used to be.
Where's the fairness in that? Where's the balance?
I got three powers and I am a unhinged monster. Teleb got one power and became a walking apocalypse.
The math doesn't add up. The universe is a cruel, arbitrary joke and I'm the punchline.
At least... at least it seems the monster wasn't able to turn me into a sword.
The thought cuts through my spiral of despair. I latch onto it, analyzing with the clinical detachment the Fearmonger provides.
Teleb killed at least two hundred people instantly. Extracted their metals and forged weapons. But he didn't do that to me when he had the chance.
Which means there's a limit. Has to be.
Maybe it's harder to affect other Awakened. Maybe our marks and enhanced bodies give us some type of protection.
Or maybe it just takes more time. More concentration and he decided it wasn't worth it or needed.
Either way, I'm still alive when I shouldn't be. Still standing when Teleb could have just turned my skeleton to dust and my blood to weapons.
I almost laugh. Actually almost laugh, standing here in a circle of death with seconds left to live.
Why am I analyzing his power? Why am I trying to understand the mechanics of the thing that's about to kill me? I am such fool.
The gods can go fuck themselves. If they exist. If they're watching.
They can burn. All of them. The whole corrupt, hypocritical, self-righteous machine that is life.
The blades launch.
Time snaps back to normal speed as my concentration breaks. The world becomes chaos and motion and death.
I move on pure instinct. The Fearmonger is still active, still enhancing my reflexes, still pushing my body beyond normal limits despite the backlash I'm already feeling.
I twist left. A blade screams past my head, close enough to part my hair. I duck. Another passes overhead, the wind of its passage making my eyes water.
I dodge. I weave. I throw myself in directions I didn't know I could move.
And it's not enough. Could never be enough.
There are too many. They're too fast. They're coming from too many angles simultaneously.
One blade comes from the right. I deflect it with my sword, the impact sending shockwaves up my arm. The steel rings like a bell, but holds.
Two more from the left. I dodge one, but the second catches my cloak, tearing fabric, nearly yanking me off balance.
Three from above. I roll forward, feeling them slam into the platform where I was standing.
And then I hear it.
The hum.
Not the vibration from before, no this is different. Higher pitched and angrier.
The blades are singing.
And through my Fearmonger's enhanced senses, I can feel what they're broadcasting. Can sense the emotions embedded in the metal.
Hate. Pure, distilled hatred. The concentrated malice of hundreds of people.
Anger. Rage at being reduced to weapons. At being torn apart. At having their lives stolen.
And fear. Gods, so much fear. The terror of those final moments when they realized what was happening and couldn't stop it.
All of it compressed into metal. All of it aimed at me.
The weapons aren't just objects. They're aware. Sentient on some level. Carrying the last emotions of the people they used to be. But their anger is used by someone with greater will. They have no agency anymore, they are just tools.
My sword comes up to deflect another strike. The blades meet with a screech of metal on metal.
And my sword shatters.
Just... explodes into a million pieces. High-quality Imperial steel, folded and forged by master craftsmen, breaking like glass.
But the fragments don't fall.
They hang in the air for a fraction of a second, suspended by Teleb's power. And then they move. Reform. The steel liquefies and flows like water, merging with one of the blades trying to kill me.
Making it a little bigger a little sharper and a little deadlier.
He just turned my own weapon against me.
Panic hits me like a physical blow. Raw, primal terror that cuts through even the Fearmonger's suppression and I can feel myself losing control over my concentation as the backlash from my illusion catches up to me.
The first blade pierces my left leg.
I don't see it coming. It's too fast, too precise. One moment I'm moving, trying to evade. The next, there's white-hot agony exploding through my thigh.
The impact lifts me off my feet. Slams me backward. Pins my leg to the wooden platform with enough force to crack the timber.
I scream the sound tearing from my throat before I can stop it.
The second blade takes my right shoulder.
It punches through muscle and bone like they're paper. I feel it grate against my scapula, feel something important tear and snap. My right arm goes numb instantly.
The third blade pierces my other leg. Right through the calf this time, angling down to pin me more thoroughly.
I can't move. Can't dodge. Can't do anything except wait for the next impact.
The fourth blade takes my left shoulder. Mirror image of the first. Punching through the joint, severing tendons, making my other arm useless.
I'm crucified. Pinned to the platform by four blades, my limbs useless, blood pouring from the wounds in thick streams.
And then the fifth blade comes. Moving with more force. Aimed not to pin but to end.
It hits my stomach dead center.
The impact drives all the air from my lungs. I feel it punch through abdominal muscle, through organs, through my spine. Feel it slam into the wooden platform beneath me with enough force to embed itself deep into the timber.
Pinning me completely. Impaling me through my core.
I should be dead. But I'm not.
Because Lucian's healing is working overtime. I can feel it through the bond knitting tissue as fast as it tears, sealing blood vessels, keeping my organs functional despite the massive trauma.
It's not enough to heal me or even stop the inevitable. The damage is too extensive, too ongoing. But it's enough to keep me conscious. Keep me alive. If only for a few extra seconds.
Keep me aware of every second of this agony.
My Fearmonger drops. The concentration required to maintain it shattered by pain and shock.
The world floods back into color.
But all I see is red.
My own blood. Pooling beneath me. Soaking into the wooden planks. Dripping from the blades that pin me like an insect in a collection.
Everything is red. The platform. My clothes. My hands when I weakly try to reach for the blade in my stomach.
Red. The color I only see when I'm killing.
Except this time, I'm the one dying.
The voices start whispering.
They're saying something. Multiple voices overlapping, urgent, insistent. But I can't make out the words. My thoughts are too scattered, too fragmented by pain and blood loss.
All I catch are fragments:
...get up...
...not over...
...fight...
...RISE...
But I can't. Can't move. Can't fight. Can't do anything except bleed and breathe and wait for Lucian's healing to finally fail.
And then I hear something else.
A smile tugs at my lips despite the agony. I can hear screaming as Helix does what Helix does best.
Enacting hell.
My smile widens, blood bubbling at the corners of my mouth. At least I will be avenged.
Movement in my peripheral vision.
The figure on the rooftop who I believe is Teleb finally moves.
He steps off the building. Not falling. Not jumping.
Walking.
The blades that aren't currently pinning me to the ground fly outward, arranging themselves in mid-air. Creating a staircase of human-metal swords, each one perfectly positioned to support his weight.
He descends with theatrical slowness. Each step precise and measured. The pink robe flowing behind him like he's some kind of twisted royalty.
The obsidian mask never turns away from me.
Step. Step. Step.
Down the sword-staircase. Across the platform. Through the pools of my blood.
Until he's standing directly above me.
Looking down at where I'm pinned. Bleeding. Dying.
He pauses. Tilts his head in that same mocking gesture.
Then he crouches. Brings that faceless mask close to my face.
And in the polished black surface, I see my reflection.
My own face. Violet eyes glazed with pain and blood loss. Skin pale from shock. Blood trickling from my nose and mouth. Hair matted with sweat and gore.
The mask is a perfect mirror. Showing me exactly what I've become. What all my power and training and determination have brought me to.
Nothing.
I try to speak. Try to curse him. Try to spit defiance in his face.
But all that comes out is a wet cough. More blood.
He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just watches me die in silence.
And in the reflection, I watch myself fade.
The voices in my head are screaming now. I can hear their anger in the deepest corner of my mind.
But I can't hear them clearly. Can't focus through the pain and the blood loss and the failure.
All I can feel is cold spreading through my limbs as Lucian's healing finally starts to fail.
This is it.
This is how I die.
Not in some glorious last stand. Not saving anyone. Not accomplishing anything.
Just... pinned to a platform in a city I don't care about, bleeding out while my reflection watches in polished black glass.
The strong do what they will.
The weak suffer what they must.
And I'm learning, very concretely, which category I actually belong to.
The world is going dark at the edges. My vision tunneling.
But that mask remains crystal clear. That reflection of my dying self.
The last thing I'll see.
My own failure, perfectly mirrored.