Originally Posted by
grampagen
Held's spiralling beam loosed just as the intensity of the Priestess's lightning increased, its trajectory coalescing forward in a precise path of obliteration.
Not a moment too soon. In this battle where their opponents clashed with forces sufficient to level planets, precision in each shifting moment was key. There, in the space between seconds, swifter than the fall of thunder and the slipstream of white-hot energies invoked in Auroc's name, there was a narrow path to take.
The call divine fell to light the path of the Threshling God. If it were to align with the seal, it would draw the source of their worship towards the fatal prayers of Priestess Cin, and their excursion would have been for nothing.
The Fire of the Phoenix, Hoyokusen! A technique that was formerly brought to arms under a Red banner now dashed against the light of Threshling fanaticism! The hard, jagged shapes of the thunderbolts fell upon them, a divine lash to smite them to ruin, but when Ochazuke and Zaofan threw hand and eye forward, a thousand burning feathers folded into two great, flaming wings, crumpleing the collected energy into a white plume, arresting its fall just so as it reverse the energy flow.
Yet even with both of their efforts in diverting the energy, the font of prayers from the Faithful Converted gathered such sheer mass towards the wounded body of the Threshling Priestess that with its nigh endless surplus to tap into, it continued to slowly bear down on them. Flashing current discharged into the remnants of the ziggurat, each flash of ligh seeming to grind stone and alloy alike to smoking ash.
Tethers of energies began to cascading below, converging towards those seven focal points where the runes stood, emblazoned with that energy. To behold it was to know the shape of their true energy, and in their minds briefly raised the spectre of that day of the Great Eye wreathed in fire vermilion and viridian. The flash of its horrible gaze fro some distant star was to cripple what it beheld with fear and call knot the yoke of servitude.
Then the spiralling horn cast from Held's spear pierced the rune array, and the foundation holding the Priestess' spell together unravelled. With nowhere to go, the raw energy crashed over the focal points, twisting directionless...and outward, snaking through and shattering the ki constructs of Piercing Horn Forest as it washed over the rapidly disintegrating Ziggurat's peak.
In the final push with Zaofan, Ochazuke's eyes widened as he sensed a sudden discrepancy. The energy collected and put into this battlefield, something in the ether was pulling at it, twisting it upward into the sky, to the atmosphere above and towards...
Without further hestation, he seized upon the retreating thunderbolt. Banjakuza!
Fathoms below under the jungle canopy, the Navigators under Captain Ulysses had marshalled a final peacekeeping effort, encircling the Converted and forcing a surrender. When teh column of white fire alit from the peak of the Ziggurat and tore a hole in the sky with such fervour that darkness bled into the day, the locals on either faction could see it. The awe as much as harrowing terror rose in them just as well as the Silver Knight Canon, and the Lord Herald Blacktongue where they were restrained as the eyes of Auroc's effigy lit up for a moment, then collapsed entirely as it toppled and fell gracelessly down the stories of steps to the ground below.
And in the end, amid the smell of the blooming ashes little remained. Crouched in the collapsed mass of the ceiling, Ochazuke, Zaofan and held now stood before Cin, High Priestess of Baradur. Divested of her strength, she had diminished to something frail, rendered all too mortal, her eyes, empty amber pools, stared ahead listlessly from her swarthy face, a gentle quiver upon her lip carrying no words, only shallow gasps of utter disbelief.