"Your turn," he said calmly, and stepped forward.
Priestess Gut took a single step back and snarled.
"You think you have won little heretic?" She reared back and let out a dry and raspy laugh, "You may have had easy work with that fool Dror Ragzlin but I am different!"
Her hands began to hum with a dark, almost sinister kind of energy, and with a guttural grunt, she unleashed the magic outwards.
The magic, dark, ominous, and radiating a chilling coldness, began to spread rapidly towards the fallen goblins, surging into their lifeless bodies as easily as water would seep through a sieve.
With a smirk that revealed a mouth filled with yellowed, rotten teeth, she spoke, "I command you to rise!"
After a momentary pause something happened.
CRACK!
A sound of bones, previously broken beginning to move under duress echoed in the temple.
SPLAT!
CRUNCH!
SQUELCH!
With the sound of bones tearing through flesh, the goblin guards' very skeletons began to violently free themselves from their fleshy prison.
William could not help but take a step back as the sight was the single most brutal thing he had witnessed with his own eyes.
"Y... You would do this to your own allies, deny them even the comfort of death?" His eyes flared with subtle purple light, and he could feel his oath burning with primal fury within his soul.
The Priestess Gut's laugh was so powerful that it seemed to cause the very light from the torches and braziers to sputter and flicker.
"Their lives as well as their deaths belong only to the Absolute. Now die, heretic!"
As she finished her last sentence, the blood-soaked skeletons of the goblin guards, still twitching with a faint shadow of undead energy, started to shuffle towards William.
The sockets where their eyes had once been were now filled with the eerie glow of undeath.
The closest goblin skeleton managed to lift its scimitar with surprising ease, given its lack of apparent muscle mass, and brought it down with surprising speed and precision.
William reacted with remarkable agility, managing to sidestep just in time to avoid the incoming blow.
Simultaneously, he delivered a swift knee strike directly into the ribs of the skeleton, sending it sprawling backwards before it finally crashed to the ground.
Two more approached him from his left and right, the one one the left preparing a horizontal sweep of his blade while the other was preparing to deliver a downward vertical slash.
Before they could even land on the ground, William vanished into the swirling mist, then reappeared moments later right next to the fallen goblin skeleton. He held the Widower's tip up towards the goblin's skull and plunged the blade downwards.
CRACK!
The skeleton let out a raspy, wheezing cry, and then, with a final shudder, it collapsed to the ground, its once rigid joints no longer held together by the necromantic magic that had kept it standing.
William's hand erupted in a blinding flame as he cast the fire bolt cantrip.
Just as the two other skeletons turned their heads to stare at him, William sent the flaming bolt screaming into the skull of the one on the left, then immediately charged towards the remaining skeleton, his sword raised for a decisive blow.
With all the strength that its skeletal frame and the necromantic magic coursing through its bones seemed to allow, the goblin skeleton on the right lunged towards William, its blade held out with all its might.
William, caught off guard, was forced to block its attack with the flat side of his own blade.
The impact reverberated through the temple's walls, and the force of the blow sent William tumbling backwards.
William felt a shiver run down his spine as he looked over and saw the skeleton on the left had already risen to its feet again, its eyes fixed on him, and it was preparing to strike once more.
His eyes flared with the light of vengeance itself as he met its blade with his own.
CLANG!
The blades clashed with a shower of sparks but the blow left what appeared to be rust where the Widower had struck the goblin skeletons scimitar.
Again and again they clashed until the goblin's scimitar was reduced to a rusty hunk of metal, and William delivered the final blow by severing the skeleton's neck, releasing both its head and its soul simultaneously.
William was about to turn to face the remaining two skeletons when Priestess Gut reached out towards him in a grasping motion and stopped him cold.
"Wh... What is this?" he cried out, his eyes wide with surprise as he struggled mightily against an unseen force that held him captive. He then muttered to himself, "Telekinesis?"
He was unable to move as the remaining two skeletons closed the distance, their weapons raised with killing intent.
William's efforts to fight back against the telekinesis were futile; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even manage to move his body by an inch. And just as the blades were about to fall upon him, he closed his eyes, his heart filled with a sense of dread, and thought to himself that this was indeed the end.
"Don't you fucking dare!"
A voice, filled with a fire that seemed to burn with an intensity only rage could produce, pierced through the silence and reached his ears.
He instinctively opened his eyes, only to find Karlach lunging towards the two skeletons with a battleaxe raised high above her head, her movements surprisingly swift considering the formidable weight of the weapon.
With a speed that seemed to defy the very laws of physics, she brought the axe down with a thunderous crash, directly connecting with the skeleton closest to her.
CRACK... POW!
The blow, it seems, not only completely destroyed the skeleton but sent its remains flying in the direction of the other skeletons.
This caused both bodies to explode simultaneously on impact, leaving Karlach huffing and puffing as she struggled to maintain control of the immense heat surging through her veins.
William met her blazing eyes with his own and could not help but say out loud, "You are a wonderful woman!" He flushed after realizing what he had said out loud.
Karlach's infernal heart beat audibly and she struggled to hide the faint blush creeping along her face, "Sh... Shut up and focus!"
Karlach barely had time to draw breath.
Priestess Gut's grin split wider, her ruined wrists twitching as if pulled by invisible strings.
The air around her compressed, whining like a bowstring drawn too far.
"INSOLENT WRETCH."
She hurled her will outward.
The force hit Karlach like the hand of a god.
Not a shove. Not a push.
An absolute command.
Karlach's feet left the ground instantly, her massive frame ripped backward through the air as if she weighed nothing at all.
There was no time to brace, no chance to roll with it.
She slammed into the stone wall behind her with a sound like a collapsing forge.
BOOM.
The impact detonated through the chamber.
Spiderweb cracks exploded outward from the point of contact, racing across the wall in jagged lines as chunks of stone sheared free and clattered to the floor.
Karlach's body bounced once before slumping, a line of drool and blood dripping in a single line from the corner of her mouth.
Priestess Gut turned her attention back to William, her lips pursed as if she were about to do the same, but she suddenly halted, her hand hovering in the air.
Williams expression was dark, but there was a deadly power burning behind his eyes that flowed through the shadows that clung to his face.
"You dare... YOU FUCKING DARE!"
The shadows around his face suddenly gave way, and a powerful purple light enveloped him from all angles. He reached out towards Priestess Gut, and she felt an immense weight pressing down on her, as if she were held within his fist, which continued to close around her.
"You... You can't... I serve the Absolute... If you kill me....ack!
She felt a sickening crack as the weight continued to press onto her hand, and her own telekinesis seemed to be working overtime against the immense pressure, but it was no use, the weight was simply too much.
William reared back, the pressure building on his hand as he formed a fist.
The ground beneath him began to split and crack as the immense force he concentrated in his fist continued to build.
The priestess, Gut, was now drenched in sweat, her face pale with fear, and she started calling out for help.
She could feel the oppressive presence of the gods of death closing in upon her and began to panic.
"You will all pay..." Williams' voice, now a deep and gutteral rasp, sent a shiver down Priestess Guts' spine. His eyes narrowed to slits, leaving his pupils almost completely obscured as he lunged towards her.
Despite being unable to move, the Priestess Gut was still capable of calling upon her divine patron. Without a moment's hesitation, she began her invocation, and as William drew closer with his fist, a shadowy set of armor began to materialize around her.
"My God gives me power beyond your petty mortal understanding. You will fail, and then you will die!" She kicked him openly feeling safe within her divine shell.
Ignoring her completely, William reacted only by the rising intensity of the psionic pressure building up around his fist as he drew closer. It was as if the sheer density of that pressure was warping the air right around his closed hand, creating a palpable ripple effect.
As William's fist reached her, the air pressure in the immediate vicinity seemed to shift abruptly. Even with the protective divine armor already in place, her defenses felt strained, and she found herself breaking into a cold sweat, as if some primal, instinctual force was fighting against the will of the Absolute, pushing its way through her defenses.
William did not slow.
He did not hesitate.
His fist crossed the final inch of space.
The instant it made contact with the divine shield that Priestess Gut was wielding, the chamber erupted in a deafening roar of both psionic and divine energies.
The dark, shadowy armor she wore, along with her shield, seemed to bend and yield under the impact, not shattering like glass or stone, but rather collapsing and snapping like rotted wood struck by the force of a siege hammer.
The divine shell exploded outward with a deafening roar, showering the area in a storm of splinters and screaming fragments of condensed faith. Each shard shattered into oily smoke, dissolving into nothingness before it could even touch the ground.
Gut's eyes widened.
"No..!"
William's fist was already there.
It crashed into her abdomen with a sound that did not belong to flesh.
A wet, catastrophic impact.
For a heartbeat, nothing made sense.
Then the force finished its sentence.
His fist punched clean through her body.
Blood erupted outward in a violent arc, superheated by the psionic pressure behind the blow, splattering across the cracked stone floor and steaming where it landed.
After the bone fragments, torn cloth, and something darker and thicker, which had once been her spine, followed.
Priestess Gut's entire body seemed to lift off the ground, suspended for a mere fraction of a second directly onto William's arm, looking like an unnatural, grotesque offering to some outer god.
Her mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Her eyes, which had once burned with a fierce intensity, were suddenly filled with a chaotic, almost frantic movement as the Absolute's presence vanished from them all at once, seemingly ripped away in a single, decisive act.
William's fist clenched.
Then he pulled back.
The last vestiges of Gut's body crumbled down at his feet, her body folding inwards on itself in a manner no living creature should ever have the misfortune of experiencing.
Blood began to pool rapidly beneath her, forming thin rivulets that spread across the surface of the stone, following the lines of the fractures like veins.
The chamber went deathly silent.
The torches steadied.
The pressure vanished.
Away from the temple, a deafening scream echoed through the air, as if something immense and powerful was desperately struggling against its restraints.
William stood there, chest heaving, his arm slick with blood up to the elbow.
The purple glow that had been emanating from within his eyes began to gradually diminish, fading away as the shadows on his face started to recede.
He looked down at what was left of Priestess Gut and sneered.
"You got what was coming to you, foul bitch!" He delivered a kick to her slumped-over corpse and spat on her corpse.
Following Priestess Gut's passing, the silence that followed felt as though it lasted exactly the length of a single heartbeat.
Then the temple screamed.
From the depths of the far corridors, the goblins' panicked and furious shrieks echoed out, mingling with the sounds of their frantic footsteps as they burst in through side passages and shattered doorways.
Torches rattled in their sconces.
Drums began to pound away from somewhere deep within the sanctuary, their rhythm frantic and completely off-kilter, sounding like a dying heart desperately trying to recall its own heartbeat rhythm.
William tore his fist free from the corpse and stepped back, gore dripping from his knuckles.
He did not look at the body again.
His eyes were already scanning for movement, his mind meticulously cataloging potential threats. The oath that burned deep within his chest still held a fiery intensity, a force capable of leaving lasting spiritual scars on those who dared to cross him.
"Company," Astarion said lightly from the shadows above, voice almost bored.
A goblin archer barely had time to look up before a dagger punched through its throat.
Astarion dropped from a pillar like spilled moonlight, boots hitting the stone without a sound as the body collapsed in a wet heap behind him.
"Honestly," he added, flicking blood from his blade, "they really should learn to duck."
A roar cut through the temple as Lae'zel charged.
She did not slow.
She never slowed.
With a mighty swing of her greatsword, she cleanly severed the head of the first goblin from shoulder to hip, and the momentum carried her right into the chest of the next one.
Bone cracked.
Armor folded.
She wrenched the blade free and reversed the swing in one fluid motion, beheading a third before it could even raise its shield.
"Pathetic," she snarled, eyes blazing. "You die as you lived. Weak."
A pair of goblins rushed her from behind.
They never reached her.
A crack, like the thunder of force, ripped through the hall as Wyll's eldritch blast tore right through them, mid-stride, sending broken bodies flying into a stone column that was hard enough to leave dark, permanent stains wherever they slid down.
Will stepped forward, his rapier gleaming menacingly as he parried a desperate thrust aimed at him. With a swift and brutal motion, he drove his blade straight into the goblin's eye, causing it to scream in agony. "Blade of Frontiers," he said grimly, twisting the weapon free. "At work."
Fire blossomed at the center of the room.
Gale stood with one hand raised, arcane sigils orbiting his fingers like obedient stars.
A bead of flame arced outward and detonated among a clustered knot of goblins.
The explosion lifted them off their feet.
When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left but scorched stone, scattered limbs, and the lingering scent of burned hair.
"Crude creatures," Gale muttered, adjusting his posture as another spell coiled patiently in his palm. "But numerically enthusiastic."
A goblin leapt at him anyway.
Roots erupted from the floor.
Halsin's magic surged forward with the force of a living thing, thick vines lashing out and snagging the goblin mid-air, sending the creature crashing violently onto the ground below.
The druid stepped forward, his gaze fixed on his opponent with an icy intensity, his eyes barely shifting. At the same moment, he subtly shifted his weight, revealing two sharp claws extending from his fingers.
He did not roar.
He simply tore.
Flesh parted.
The goblin's scream abruptly ended as Halsin straightened up from his crouch, his hands now dripping with blood as he turned his attention towards the next apparent threat.
William moved through it all like a storm given shape.
A goblin rushed him with a jagged spear.
William instinctively caught the haft bare-handed, snapping it in two with a crack. He then drove his knee directly into the creature's chest, his force so great that it seemed to cause the creature's chest cavity to cave inward.
Another came from the side.
His sword flashed once, twice, and the goblin fell in pieces that did not immediately realize they were dead.
Karlach staggered upright against the wall, wiping blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.
Her infernal heart thundered, heat bleeding off her in shimmering waves.
"Oh no," she growled, grabbing her axe. "You don't get to do this without me."
She charged.
The axe came down like judgment, each swing a furnace blast.
Goblins burst apart under the force, bodies hurled aside as if the world itself rejected them.
One tried to flee.
Karlach hurled the axe after it.
The weapon embedded itself in the goblin's spine and pinned it to the floor.
She ripped it free and kept moving, laughing through clenched teeth, fury and joy braided together.
Within moments, the temple floor was slick with blood, goblin bodies strewn like discarded refuse.
The drums fell silent. The last scream echoed once, then faded.
Breathing hard, the group regrouped amid the carnage.
Astarion surveyed the scene, hands on his hips. "Well," he said, stepping carefully over a corpse, "that was delightfully excessive."
Lae'zel wiped her blade clean on a fallen banner. "Acceptable," she said. "They died screaming."
Wyll exhaled slowly, lowering his weapon. "The Absolute has lost its grip here."
Halsin nodded, eyes lingering on the shattered altar. "And this place will remember it."
William stood at the center of it all, blood drying on his skin, oath still humming beneath his ribs.
He looked at his companions, at Karlach still standing despite the pain, at the ruin they had carved through the cult.
"This isn't over," he said quietly.
The temple, cracked and broken, seemed to agree.