Letting out a roar of anger and anguish as he staggered back, the Pontiff's left hand shot to his heart and tore the golden fabric above it to reveal a branded insignia of a rising sun that began to flicker and glow as the Pontiff began to shout, "Azul — the Radiant Flame, the First Sun! Grant me the strength to push back the wicked undead!"
"Manashield! Manashield! Manashield!" Esmerelda's voice split through the chaos, her tone sharp and commanding as three overlapping blue walls materialized before Deacon, stacking over one another.
Her call was then quickly joined by three more voices shouting from beside her, "Heal From Afar!"
Three Healers, their robes tattered and faces ash-streaked, had broken through the chaos and fallen in beside her, drawn by the narrow path she'd carved out minutes ago after she bombarded the group of paladins that had cut down the group of undead soldiers that were protecting them with Wind Arrows.
The healer in the middle of the circle held his wand up in the air seconds before a bright green light shot out from it, arching across the air before it tethered onto Deacon and began to heal his wounds. The two other healers did a similar action by plunging their staffs into the earth as their magic raked across the battlefield, searching for Gael and engulfing him in the same healing light that began to heal his internal injuries that he sustained from the paladins prior and the constant kicks in the chest he received from the Pontiff, that had broken a few of his ribs.
As they both charged towards the Pontiff, as he looked as though he was in some sort of power-up sequence, the Pontiff's sunken eyes began to burn gold, resembling twin suns within his sockets, seconds before an enormous amount of holy mana erupted out of his body and surged throughout the Inner Sanctum.
The explosion ripped through the Inner Sanctum, shaking even the holy mana fence that the Pontiff himself set up to keep back the majority of the undead army. Deacon and Gael were hurled backward like they'd been fired from a catapult, ash trailing their paths as they cratered into the ground on opposite sides of the Pontiff.
Deacon rolled over his shoulder, breaking his momentum and coming up on one knee as harsh coughs tore at his throat. "Was that some kind of suicide attack?" he rasped, brushing the dust from his face as tufts of Ignis flared to life around him, lighting the darkness that had swallowed the Inner Sanctum after the Pontiff's eruption snuffed out the torches along the walls and columns.
Through the dust cloud choking his vision, Deacon saw the Pontiff's body swelling, light crawling beneath his as though gold was traveling within his veins. His yellowish-red outline began to contort as the air around him began to spike and grow heavy.
Then the screaming started.
Across the chamber, the paladins who had been locked in combat with the undead convulsed where they stood. One by one, they collapsed — their bodies twitching, mouths and eyes bursting with threads of gold light that peeled away from their corpses and arced across the air toward the Pontiff, where they began to converge and sink into the rising sun brand above his heart.
"We need to stop him!" Deacon strenuously shouted as he began to painstakingly push himself upwards and stagger towards the Pontiff while under the growing oppressive aura pressing down on his shoulders.
However, before Deacon could even make it further than a few meters away from the crater he crashed in, the Pontiff was gone from his sight – along with the oppressive aura that filled the Inner Sanctum.
Closing his eyes for but a brief moment to blink, a flash of gold and red suddenly flickered right in front of him.
As Veladoros slammed against the flat of his blade, the clash detonated. Holy power tore loose in a roar of heat and light; even with Echoform Reliquary between him and the strike, the blast caught him full on the side. Agony ripped through him as the right half of his face burned raw, his ear vanishing in a burst of golden fire while a molten gouge seared across the marble behind him.
"Ghh— fuck!" Deacon staggered, gritting his teeth as the searing pain of dense holy mana infesting his undead-transmuted body.
Relishing in the sounds of pain from his opponent, the Pontiff kicked Deacon in the midsection backwards before letting loose a blinding flurry of golden strikes from his blade at Deacon.
Deacon gritted his teeth, tears pricking the corners of his eyes as three of the Pontiff's strikes punched through him; his left bicep, thigh, and the edge of his jaw. He forced his body to move, matching the empowered Pontiff blow for blow, his own strikes blurring red as he parried, attacked, and countered with desperate precision while being under the constant barrage of the Pontiff's increasingly powerful attacks.
Out of the corner of his left eye, Deacon could see Geal rushing towards Esmerelda and the three healers that joined her to intercept a squad of paladins that had broken through the line of undead and cadets.
"Focus on Deacon!" Gael bellowed as he swung his greatsword, cleaving through one paladin's chest before pivoting to intercept another. Behind him, the tip of Esmerelda's wand flickered for a moment before glowing brightly as she cast yet another barrage of Wind Arrows at the massive form of the Pontiff, while the healers around her rushed to get up off the ground and cast their healing spells onto Deacon.
"Where the hell is our general!?" one of the healers beside Esmerelda shouted, panic edging her voice as she poured more mana into her spell as a spray of blood burst from Deacon as he wasn't able to react fast enough to the final strike in the Pontiff's sevenfold feint, and it nearly took his left shoulder clean off as a result.
"He got incinerated along with everyone else that was nearby that massive beam in the Upper Bailey," Gael shouted in answer as he avoided a stab to his liver and got close enough to cleave through the torsos of three of the paladins that stood in front of him. "Apparently, some Bishop was blessing crates upon crates of super dynamite or something, and they were going to launch them at us today if it weren't for the Outer Wall falling."
"And when we broke through the Inner Wall, I heard someone say they saw some big fat old guy standing in the middle of a plaza with crates all around him and holding off General Kaius mano a mano with no priests or knights around him. And when the undead army and we climbers rushed to help the general, he did something with the crates of super dynamite and set off that giant-ass holy nuke that wiped out everything around him, including himself and the general. Must've leveled at least a kilometer, maybe two."
To his right, Deacon could see a much larger General Obi being bombarded with spells and arrows from every direction and being kept in place by the hundreds of warriors that were from the undead army and cadets. However, despite being so overwhelmed, General Obi seemed to be growing larger and stronger with every paladin nearby him suddenly falling down like puppets with their strings cut.
Back in front of the dais, Deacon's focus narrowed again.
Shifting his stance to the side, Deacon's focus narrowed back to the Pontiff as they drew forward and their blades locked together at the midsection.
"Why must you betray Azul? Humanity?" The Pontiff growled as his molten eyes locked onto Deacon's dark ones. "You would have brought us victory against the undead with your skills."
Deacon's teeth gritted as the sanctified heat rolling off the Pontiff was almost unbearable now, and along with the Pontiff's increasing strength, his body was trembling under the strain to keep up.
Not getting a response from Deacon, the Pontiff pressed his holy blade forward with more force, uncaring of the sparks flying and his own body getting nearer to flames rising from Echoform Reliquary. As Deacon continued to struggle to push the Pontiff back, he felt in slow agonizing pain as the holy blade easily tore through his armor and dug into the outer side of his bicep.
Blood streamed down his arm, sizzling as it met the fire of Flame Armament.
"Answer me!" The Pontiff shouted as his furious face was mere centimeters away from Deacon's.
Deacon's eyes dipped down for a moment at his own blade before meeting back with the Pontiff's and giving him his answer.
"Ignis Sanguinis: BloodFlame Armament," Deacon cast as the flames of Flame Armament doubled in size and intensity as it took on a deep crimson flame.
The Pontiff's holy blade bit deeper into his arm, splitting through armor and into his flesh. Despite this, Deacon didn't even flinch; instead, he pushed himself into it.
With his jaw clenched, Deacon snapped his forehead forward and cracked his skull against the Pontiff's with enough force that blood splattered out from both of their heads and caused the poofy-looking dick-shaped hat the Pontiff wore on his head to fall off his head.
Before the Pontiff could recover from the hit, Deacon's broadsword was away from the Pontiff's blade in a blur of crimson red that sent sparks of gold and red to burst out.
Not stopping for even a brief moment, Deacon cut down a lance of holy mana that fired at him almost at point-blank range before clashing his blade against the Pontiff's, where he began to move like a man possessed.
Echoform split mid-swing as it became dual short swords in his hand.
The left blade caught the Pontiff's guard, the right ripped across his ribs, carving crimson gashes across the Pontiff's linen armor and flesh that sent out blood that sizzled against the crimson flames wreathing his left blade.
Twisting his wrist, and both blades melted together again, reforming into his crowbar that bashed against the side of the Pontiff's face and sent his blood spraying into the air, before it shifted back into its Broadsword form.
"I'm such a dumbass," he muttered under his breath, half a growl, half a laugh that cracked in his throat as he finally realized what that mysterious, yet familiar energy was that was coursing throughout his body and into Echoform Reliquary.
Blood.
I mean, it was even in the name of my newly gained spell and Affinity.
He roared, the sound tearing from his chest as his flames surged higher. His voice joined the Pontiff's own as he shouted in defiance, their cries overlapping in a storm of light and fury as gold and crimson crashed together, spraying flame, blood, and marble fragments into the air – uncaring of the undead, paladins, and even cadets that got caught in their clash as their blades collided.
Gael, having cleaved through the last of the paladins rushing Esmerelda and the healers, turned sharply toward the chaos and sprinted back into the fray to help out Deacon.
"Deacon, move!" he shouted as he raised his greatsword overhead and brought it down in a powerful arc.
But before the strike could land, a massive wave of blinding holy flame erupted from the Pontiff's outstretched hand. The blast struck Gael mid-charge, sending him hurtling through the air and crashing into a line of broken pillars with a sound like collapsing stone.
An opening! Deacon's eyes practically sparkled.
He pivoted, dragging his blade through the air, the crimson fire tracing a perfect arc that cut parallel to the Pontiff's side. Echoform Reliquary bit through gilded linen, through flesh and bone, and into the air as the Pontiff's left arm arced into the air with a spray of sizzling blood before hitting the marble with a dull thunk.
Gotcha!
He pivoted again, feet sliding against scorched marble, flame flaring beneath his boots. Echoform flipped in his hand, tip aimed for the Pontiff's heart — ready to finish it.
But before he could drive it home, the world slowed.
His vision stuttered, flickering like a dying flame.
Sound fell away; the roar of the battle, the crackle of fire, Esmerelda's voice, all gone, muted under a golden hum that grew louder and louder in his skull.
"Ray of Sacrifice," the Pontiff muttered, voice distant and cold – yet the sound carried out through the entire Inner Sanctum.
In that same breath, opposite the holy fence wall where the fighting still raged, General Obi's massive silhouette froze mid-swing. The dozen cadets and undead soldiers pressing him back suddenly faltered as the air around them warped and bent. Their weapons trembled in their hands as if some unseen force was pulling at them before a flash of light erupted before their eyes, and General Obi vanished.
And as that breath passed, a giant glowing orb was absorbed into the Pontiff's brand, empowering the Pontiff once more.
[Holy Pontiff – Floor Boss Lv 20]
The Pontiff's body blurred as he sidestepped Deacon's thrust with impossible grace, and with his holy blade in hand, he swiped it towards Deacon's neck.
"To think you have made me go this far," the Pontiff said softly as his blade was less than a millimeter away from Deacon's neck.
The edge of Veladoros bit deep into Deacon's neck, slicing through skin, tendon, and the edge of bone as sparks burst from the contact point. Each fraction of a second stretched like eternity as he felt the holy fire spreading through the wound, searing his veins open.
"Deacon!" Esmerelda's scream cut through the chaos from across the chamber, her eyes wide, her hands trembling mid-cast as she caught sight of the Pontiff's blade digging into Deacon's neck.
Am I… dying? Deacon thought as his vision began to pulsate around the edges, as everything began to move in much slower motion.
Am I dying, just like that? Before even hitting Floor Ten?
He felt everything—the blade carving through muscle, blood running hot and fast down his neck, his body screaming from the strain. But despite that–
Before even finding Dad?... Or Mom?
His right arm, still clutching Echoform Reliquary, shifted toward the Pontiff. Even knowing it wouldn't connect in time, it would probably just clatter to the ground in just a few seconds once his head would be lopped off his shoulder.
However, despite that.
If I'm dying… I'm going down swinging.
The thought burned through him like a spark in dry tinder as a sharp crack resounded from his chest as the serpentine pendant around his neck split down the center, hairline fractures running across its surface as red light poured through the cracks. The ancient seal that suppressed his nature could no longer hold.
Hundreds of thousands of glowing crimson sigils ran across Deacon's skin, each carrying various scenes of countless figures and beings. The image of a woman in a fur pelt standing just above Deacon's heart fired her bow upwards and faster than what could be perceived by normal eyes, the arrow tore across the various scenes of countless other warriors fighting various beasts and beings, and reached the Pontiff's neck, where the arrow erupted.
Clang!
"What!" The Pontiff's eyes widened as Veladoros stopped mid-slice in Deacon's neck and lowered his gaze from Deacon's still defiant eyes and towards his neck.
The area around Deacon's throat had somehow turned into something like molten stone, strong enough to entrap the blade in place.
Before the Pontiff could pull back, Deacon moved.
Enormous twin geysers of flame erupted beneath his boots as Flame Steps burst to life, launching him forward as Deacon bottomed out his entire mana reserves.
The grinding sound of holy steel against molten flesh filled the air as he drove Echoform Reliquary straight through the Pontiff's chest.
The impact was a thunderous burst of crimson flame that punched through the Pontiff's heart, bursting out his back in a spray of molten gold and blood.
A soundless roar tore from Deacon's throat as he hoisted the Pontiff's body into the air, locking eyes with the dying man's flickering gold. The Pontiff's body arched over him, suspended in the air by the last vestiges of Deacon's strength and indomitable will to fight until his last breath.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
The red sigils burning across Deacon's skin began to flake away, the flesh around his neck shedding as its molten, rock-like texture faded, and his skin quickly began returning to its normal fleshy state while the Pontiff's holy blade, Veladoros, remained buried in his neck.
"Deacon!" Esmerelda's voice echoed through the ringing in his ears, distant and hollow.
He turned his head slightly toward her voice — or maybe he thought he did. His vision was fading too fast to tell.
Then everything went dark.