The Hundred Reigns 240: The Land of the Warlords (20)

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Simon’s dark eidolons merged into something utterly new. 

Their miasma swirled and recombined. Their very essence resonated and aligned like two songs harmonizing into a pleasant equilibrium. The Devil-Mirror and the Chainpiper were consumed into a singular creature completely unlike its components.

It was entirely humanoid for a start; a slim figure with two legs, two arms, and a head. It vaguely resembled a knight, except its armor was made of polished obsidian mirrors rather than steel, and its face was a ghastly, eyeless grin full of razor-sharp teeth. Its edges blurred like unreal shadows on a wall. 

“My Darksense…” Alphonse tensed up in sudden alarm and nervousness, like a common man facing a new predator. The entity unsettled him as much as Simon himself. “Like needles under my skin…”  

A strange sensation seized Simon at the sight of this being, and not just because of its bizarre appearance and the nature of its existence. His own body felt lighter all of a sudden, fragile and evanescent. The very fabric of reality appeared to warp and bend slightly around him. 

Phul, the Vainglorious

Level 61 Syncretic Dark Eidolon of Vanity, Mimics, Actors, Mockery, and Anxiety.

Type: Artificial.

Auspices: Delusional Space: Your illusion-type spells and effects become tangible and can inflict real damage. 

Syncretic Dark Eidolon?

The creature, Phul, turned towards Alphonse and immediately transformed once again. Its armor became an identical replica of the Paladin’s own, and a Mana Sword copy appeared in its hands. 

“We’ve lost their trust,” the fake Alphonse said, perfectly mimicking his voice before swinging his blade. “Northstar Strike!”

A crux-shaped burst of magic shone beneath the real Paladin’s feet and blasted him. 

A Paladin like Alphonse had such a strong Light affinity that the attack inflicted little damage, but the shock was written all over his body language. So great was his surprise that he barely managed to hastily raise his sword when the dark eidolon lunged at him.

“How?!” he wondered upon meeting the enemy with a mix of alarm and disbelief. “No creature of the Dark can use that Technique!” 

“The people of Lore don’t believe in us,” the fake Alphonse taunted the real one as their swords clashed. “And how can they, when we don’t even believe in ourselves?”

“Silence, impostor!” Alphonse snapped back before countering with Bladebreaker. The impostor easily dodged, forcing the Paladin to follow through with that Glint Saber Technique he used earlier. “You know nothing!”

“How can we save the world when we can’t even save our friends?” Phul replied after avoiding the attack with contemptuous ease. “May the Lightstone of the ancients smite thee, Starshot!”

The impostor fired a radiant star at Alphonse, forcing the Paladin to deflect it with his sword while Simon could only blink in surprise. Mimicking Alphonse’s Techniques was one thing, but Prayers required either a strong faith connection to a divine patron or Perks. Was Phul capable of mimicking the Paladin Class’ innate abilities?

No, my Heretic Title cancels out the Prayers of lower-level individuals within my aura’s range, so this fake shouldn’t be capable of casting them at all, Simon guessed. This must be an illusion. One capable of inflicting real har—

A sword lunging for his head forced Simon to focus on his own battle. 

His mace deflected Alcyone’s blade, but he quickly found himself on the defensive as she followed up her opening strike with a flurry of them. Channeling the chimera eidolon unfortunately demanded as much concentration and miasmic control as summoning its components individually, so Simon was short on spells and unable to throw her back with Chaos Wave. Even his Hellfire Gaze fizzled out due to his unstable mana, and Hector was too busy clashing blades with Mel a few hundred feet away to assist. 

Alcyone’s Agility vastly surpassed Simon’s own, so it didn’t take her long to find a flaw in his defense. Her Mana Sword replica struck below Simon’s ribs and drew blood, which she immediately followed with a spell. A massive fist of stone appeared out of nowhere to punch him in the face so hard his helmet cracked. 

Heavy Earth damage! Critical hit!

The blow sent him crashing against a nearby ruined house, but Alcyone wouldn’t give him a moment’s respite. She teleported to his side to press her advantage, taunting him all the way. “Seems your Mirror effect has finally run out!”

Argh, he had lost access to Carbuncle’s and Culebre’s individual Auspices when they merged! Worse, his pain and loss of concentration destabilized his summoning and caused Phul to collapse into miasma particles. Alphonse immediately renewed his Haste effect and rushed to reinforce Alcyone.

However, the loss of the dark eidolons meant Simon could finally throw Alcyone off his back with a well-placed Chaos Wave. The surprise telekinetic push threw her back, with Simon immediately following that by attacking Alphonse. “Darkflare!” 

A massive blast of darkness swallowed the Paladin, to no avail. Alphonse rushed through it without suffering any harm, which Simon took as a sign that he packed some elemental-immunity gear of his own.  

Alcyone immediately supported her ally by throwing an ice-coated knife at Simon’s face. He immediately retaliated with Arrow-Snatcher and caught it in midair. Simon only had the barest amount of practice with the Technique, so he nearly stumbled when twisting around. Still, he managed to complete the gesture and threw the knife back at his own intended target.

Namely, Alphonse. 

The Paladin easily deflected the projectile with his sword, but Simon used the opportunity to lunge at him while casting Soul Sacrifice to renew his buffs. His sudden Haste-powered burst of speed took Alphonse by surprise and let him smash his weapon with Bladebreaker. He immediately attempted to follow through with Underworld Hammer and finish Alphonse off when he suddenly vanished out of his mace’s way. 

The Paladin and the Adventurer reappeared a few hundred feet away. 

I need something capable of casting Anchor. Simon was starting to realize why every high-level opponent he had fought had learned how to inflict that ailment. A teleporting opponent is truly a pain to fight. 

It didn’t matter. The reinforcements were finally here. 

Swords fell from the sky in a bombardment centered on Alcyone and Alphonse, forcing the two to teleport away to avoid being skewered. Fear spread across their faces the moment they reappeared to see a familiar figure climbing down a stairway of shields. 

“Ah, Lady Hyades.” Louis smiled as he landed next to Simon. “Shall we end our long dance?”

Alcyone took one good look at Louis, then disappeared with Alphonse. Mel vanished midswing too, leaving Hector’s axe to strike at an empty spot. 

“She always does that. Truly saddening.” Louis sighed in disappointment before checking on Simon. “Are you well, brother?”

“I’m wounded and under an Anti-Heal effect, but I’ll do fine for now.” Simon wondered if he should hit himself with Magic Eraser to remove his ailments, though he decided against it. He had no idea if it would work, and he would rather avoid accidentally killing himself. “What’s the situation?”

“A deadlock, but that plays into our favor.” The ground shook beneath them. “Our foes are out of time.”

The already terrible tremors only increased in violence and ferocity, with cracks spreading across Zephyr and the kish village. Lady Junon’s fossilized roots and manalith veins became visible alongside the miasmic infection spreading through them. 

“We should leave, Your Majesty… after opening up the prisoners’ pens,” Hector rasped upon returning to their side. “This place is tearing itself apart… we must fly away.”

“We’re still falling?” Simon’s blood ran cold. “Has Lauriane failed to reroute the Sanctuary?”

“We have already begun to evacuate. I came to pick you up on our way out.” Louis met his brother’s gaze. “It is time to leave, Simon.”

“No!” Besides the fact that the captive kish—including Eole—would likely die in the collapse, Simon couldn’t allow the damage that would result from the following impact. “I refuse this!”

“I’m sorry, Simon, I truly am.” Louis sounded vaguely sincere, though not truly remorseful. “I know you would get more experience if you had ordered and organized this bombardment yourself, but there is nothing more we can do at this point.”

He was wrong. There was something Simon could do, though he wasn’t looking forward to it. He contacted his wife through telepathy. “Anna?”

Her fear and distress were palpable with every thought. “Simon, this is bad, we’ll fall into the sea within—”

“Evacuate. Now.” 

Simon broadcasted the order to every individual he could reach, though Anna refused to listen. “Simon, we have to try and save—”

“I can save the Worldtree, but the Sanctuary… the Sanctuary won’t survive.” He might very well end up condemning everyone on it to a fate worse than death. “Leave now, and take as many people as you can with you. This is an order.”

Anna remained silent for a second, her words echoing with the tremors. “You’ll be right behind us, right?”

“Yes, I will.” Simon would live with his crimes. “Leave now.”

“We have to go, Simon.” Louis scowled as a new quake shook the ground beneath them. “It’s over. You can’t do anything to change that.”

“You’re wrong.” Simon gathered his breath. “I can stop this.”

Louis remained quiet for a second, his expression a blank and soulless mask. “Oh.”

Simon barely deflected his sword strike with his Deathmace. 

There was no warning, no hesitation, no reluctance. A switch simply flipped in Louis and turned his empty concern into relentless aggression. He attempted to commit fratricide with an unclouded mind. 

A Mana Sword replica appeared in his hand and went straight for his heart the same way it had once claimed their father’s life. Simon had never lowered his guard around his brother at any point, so he reacted swiftly and shattered it with Bladebreaker. 

However, he immediately recalled Louis’ first and most important lesson the moment he felt his buffs unwind.

Magic Eraser stripped you of all magical effects!

Always pressure the enemy from multiple angles. 

The gap in Agility and the loss of Hasten allowed Louis to strike again before Simon could cast Chaos Wave. His Storm of Blades attack summoned dozens of Mana Sword replicas from his Armory, each of them launching themselves at Simon at immense velocity. They struck his limbs in an attempt to nail him to the ground, and though he deflected a few, one tore off his left arm and another skewered his knee.

Hector immediately lunged at Louis from behind with his axe, but more of the projectiles struck the Executioner. The Warrior did not hold back against him and targeted his soul-possessed helmet first, shattering it to pieces. 

Hector was doomed. 

“I’m truly sorry,” Simon personally apologized to his retainer through telepathy. It was the least he could do, even if it came as cold comfort. “But since you’re already condemned…”

“You should have stayed in the ground the first time, Ser Hector,” Louis said. “My sister would have been better off for i—”

Simon activated Pandemic Bomb and caused the remains of Hector’s soul-helmet to burst open into a swarm of flies. 

The attack actually took Louis by surprise, and he instinctively summoned a sphere of shields around the bugs to contain them. This caused a brief reprieve in his onslaught of swords—likely because he couldn’t use the Armory for two things simultaneously—and allowed Simon to follow through with Hellfire Gaze. 

Simon wounded Louis for the first time in his hundred lives. 

His flames burned his brother’s unarmored face and scorched half of it, leaving the left cheek a festering scar of charred meat. Simon poured all of his miasma in an attempt to finish the job, but his brother’s gauntleted hand grabbed his helmet and then slammed him against the earth. Simon’s vision went white from the shock, and blood poured down his forehead. 

“You have gained might to go with your cunning, brother,” Louis said, his voice brimming with a sinister kind of glee. “Alas, our war has made me stronger than I’ve ever been. Stronger than you.”

“You planned this from the start, traitor!” Simon snapped angrily. 

“Not quite. I had hoped you would come to your senses and stop clinging to half-measures in a few months’ time, but Lauriane decided to speed up our schedule.” Louis kicked Simon’s Deathmace out of his hand. “This is for the best, brother. I can’t let you save the Worldtree.”

But why? Why would he intentionally risk destroying it and cause a worldwide disaster and ecological collapse almost as bad as the Zodiac Parade?

Unless… unless that had been the goal from the start…

“Why did you kill our father?” Simon asked, doubt gnawing at his heart as he recalled the vision he saw in his brother’s heart at the start of this reign. “The real reason.”

“Why?”

Louis leaned down over Simon, his eyes glimmering with a spark of madness Simon had glimpsed in so many reigns before. His true, savage nature was exposed by the burned half of his face, stripped of House Magnos’ handsome features; a bloodthirsty monster that only pretended to wear the veneer of humanity.

“Because I was set to inherit an empire unworthy of my rule. A rotten carcass of a land infested with leeches and other vermin, which its neglectful creator mistakes for a garden.” Louis sneered at the nearby kish village. “Look at this place, Simon, at this paradise full of parasites incapable of even defending themselves. This planet is drowning in filth unfit to live.” 

“Because they can’t fight?” What insanity was that? “The kish deserve to die for, what, not being capable of protecting what they have?”

“Why not? Because some self-proclaimed goddess on her rock decided that all lives were equal? Why should someone who is a burden to the state have as much of a right to live as a provider?” Louis rarely showed emotion, yet each of his words now brimmed with contemptuous scorn. “We humans adapted to exist without needing mana, so why should we abide by an overmighty dryad’s rules? Why should she decide who we reincarnate into?”

Simon’s heartbeat skipped as the full scale of his brother’s madness and ambition became all the clearer. “You want to kill the Mana Goddess.”

“Brimir has spent eons trapped in the mold she set for us, but it doesn’t have to be.” Louis smiled a blissful smirk that would disturb even the likes of Valravn. “Once she’s gone and the vermin who benefited from her rule are purged in the chaos to follow, we’ll be able to create a new world, a pure world. A Brimir where people are free to decide their own paths without being beholden to a patch of grass or false deities.” 

“That is a pipe dream!” Simon snarled back, having witnessed for himself the ruins that awaited Brimir without the Worldtree. “Only a handful will survive!” 

“How is that a bad thing?” Louis scoffed. “All lives being equal means they are valueless.”

There was no reason to his argument, no humanity nor empathy; only an all-consuming desire to prove his own mad ideology. He would never stop or reconsider. He would never be talked out of his insanity, because there was never a rational explanation at its root.

Louis Magnos only wanted to prove a point. 

Simon called upon Anna’s Devil Brand in an attempt to contact her and found her telepathy muted. This meant she had already evacuated past the barrier. Good. 

He might have hesitated otherwise. “You’ve taught me… a valuable lesson, Louis.”

“Have I?”

“Yes.” Simon’s bloody hand reached for a fossilized root. “We Magnoses talk too much.”

Ser Richard earned his escape, and Lady Junon moved into his cell. 

The old knight materialized next to Simon, his face frozen in silent terror and weeping despair. This was a mere preview of the horror to come when the Sanctuary’s sky turned red with hellfire. Its barrier grew teeth, closing in on the Sanctuary with ravenous hunger and malice. 

Louis’ eyes widened in alarm. “What is this?”

“I’m casting the Sanctuary’s dryad… into a pocket dimension… and this place along with it.” Simon wasn’t sure if the people caught on its surface would suffer the same fate, but at this point, this would still be a meager price to pay compared to the apocalypse. “No more crash—” 

Louis impaled him through the chest in an attempt to cancel out his magic, but Simon Magnos was too scornful a man to die. 

Moreover, the Abyss’ hunger would not be sated with this blood sacrifice alone. The demiplane of torment continued to drag Junon and all of her extensions into itself until it tore up the very ground beneath them. 

“Even my death… won’t stop the process…” Simon broke into a dark, bitter laughter fueled by hatred and the rush of experience. Condemning an innocent dryad—a friend—and likely everyone left in the Sanctuary to eternal torment gave the Overlord Class much pleasure. “You… lose!”

Simon wasn’t sure if his brother would die with him when time reset, but if some part of him did endure in the hellish demiplane… then Louis Magnos deserved it more than anyone else. 

“Why?! Don’t tell me you’re under the delusion our foes will be grateful if we spare them, brother?!” For the first time since Simon had met him, Louis Magnos’ face twisted in anger. “Who are you even trying to save?!”

Simon glared at his brother as Zephyr was cast into Hell’s jaws. “Myself!”

Simon Magnos might not be a good person anymore, but he would never be a monster.