Hope you like the chapter!
The cold of essence use tore through Hump like knives. Every scrap of power he fed into White Flame came at a cost, and that cost was mounting. His soul felt stretched thin, burning from the strain. He wanted to let go. Every instinct screamed at him to stop before he broke himself entirely.
The big cloud of evil fog made that option just unappealing enough for him to push through.
He couldn’t stop. His friends were behind him. His people. And the only god actually willing to help out any of them was busy at his back.
So Hump planted his feet, gritted his teeth, and pushed back against Baelkor’s spell with everything he had left. To stop was to go. To keep going… well, if it killed him, better to die fighting.
The Book of Infinite Pages floated before him, its pages opened and shining with essence. His staff radiated that same white light. Before him, the complex spell formation that governed Baelkor’s power was etched in the cloud like lines in the fog.
The pressure was immense. His domain was forced back again and against until it barely encompassed the gates at all. White fire formed a blazing dome around him, a screaming hiss filling the air as the endless tide of miasma crashed against it, just barely burning away before it broke through.
The fire vanished from the edges of his domain, powered through by the corruption, only for Hump to force more essence into the breach to rebuild it. The cold became everything. Agony tore through him as his channels emptied out, essence turning to ice inside him. The pain was blinding.
People moved around him in a blur. He heard voices shouting. The stamp of boots. The clash of steel. Wounded soldiers staggered through the gates while Chosen and adventurers fought around him to keep the path open. Any demon foolish enough to cross into his domain was immediately forced onto the defence by his fire, only to be carved down a moment later.
Nishari stood at his side, golden fire blazing from her scales. He felt her presence through their bond, steady and unwavering. Celaine was nearby too. He heard her voice somewhere beyond the roar of essence, though he couldn't make out the words.
Then two familiar presences entered his domain.
“We’re back, Hump,” Bud said, his voice cutting through the chaos. “Both of us.”
Relief washed through him. Not enough to banish the pain, but enough to make the burden feel lighter. Bud and Emilia were alive.
A faint smile touched his lips. A little strength returned to him. A little more fight.
The scream of essence grew louder around him, like a kettle that had come to boil. Burning tore through his hand as a little miasma seeped through, and Hump roared against the pain, throwing more will into the fight. His left cheek stung. Sickness ebbed up from his stomach, a terrifying discomfort coming over him. The cold suddenly felt hot. His skin tightened. Sweat broke out on his forehead, running down his eyes. His mind became clouded. Decay, death, disease—Baelkor’s intent tore through him.
Just as Hump reached his limit, he finally sensed a change. A razor slid across his senses. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. The battlefield seemed to hold its breath. There was a blade on the wind. An edge to the world itself.
The Huntress had awoken.
Baelkor must have sensed it too for the torrent of essence pouring from him abruptly ceased. The pressure on Hump’s domain slowed, and for a moment, he could breathe again. Deep, agonised breaths. He almost stumbled at the change, only for Bud and Celaine to prop him up under the arms.
Baelkor’s attention was fixed on the palace gates. For several heartbeats, he simply stared. The poison surrounding him churned violently. Essence continued to stream into him from the Trees of Damnation, their roots now spread across vast stretches of the battlefield. Corpses littered the ground around them—demons, warlocks, soldiers of Alveron—all drained by their roots and added to the formation. Yet despite the power flowing into him, Baelkor appeared uncertain.
The giant took a step back. Then another.
He’s trying to flee, Hump realised.
“Stop him!” Hump wheezed. He levelled his staff, calling upon one of the spells stored in his spellbook. “Grasping Hand.”
The earth exploded beneath Baelkor. A colossal hand of stone surged upward and wrapped around the giant's body, fingers closing around his chest and limbs. The force would have crushed most creatures instantly.
Baelkor was not most creatures.
Cracks immediately spread through the stone as he strained against it.
“No,” Baelkor barked, voice panicked. The giant’s confidence cracked. His eyes widened.
Killing intent so pure and terrifying that Hump’s own instincts screamed raged from behind him. Even with his domain protecting him, he felt a chill run down his spine.
He only had to keep Baelkor in place. Hump felt his spell falling to pieces and didn’t have the power left to hold it tight.
But he was not alone.
At the same moment, Dylan rushed forward and thrust his staff at Baelkor. “Briar Cage.”
Thorned vines erupted from beneath the giant, trapping him in a prison of black thornes.
“This will not hold me,” Baelkor snarled.
Even as he spoke, poison flooded outward from his body. Hump watched it eat through their magic. The stone hand began to crumble. Dylan's vines blackened and withered. Every spell cast against Baelkor had to force its way through the vast cloud of essence surrounding him, and that cloud seemed capable of corrupting anything it touched.
Hump gritted his teeth and pushed back.
Domain against domain.
Will against will.
Yet even now, tired and wounded, Baelkor’s power seemed endless.
“General!” Hump shoulded. “I need Baelkor held in place. Whatever you have, use it!”
General Korteg gave a weary nod. His face had turned purple from the poison, but he managed to muster up some strength. “You heard the wizard! Hold him!”
Chosen surged forward. Chains of shining essence wrapped around Baelkor's limbs. Ice spread across the ground and climbed his legs. To the side, Vivienne stabbed her wand forward and water erupted from the air itself—Hump hadn’t even realised she’d made it to him. Her magic spiralled around the giant in the shape of immense dragons, each large enough to swallow him whole. They wrapped around his chest and shoulders before freezing solid.
As demons, warlocks, and plant creatures tried to support him, others fought them back with reckless abandon. Wizard Aldric’s Silver Rain was a constant barrage against the onslaught. The fighting was so chaotic that even with Accelerated Thought Hump could hardly take it in. All he knew that was this was far from a one-sided fight—many on both sides were falling. He could only cross his fingers that his friends would stand amongst the living once this was over.
For every wound inflicted, Baelkor healed it. For every restraint, he tore through it or corrupted it to its very core. Yet for the first time since the battle began, time was on their side. Hump could feel Owalyn’s power building behind him like an encroaching dragon. They were all prey before that power.
General Korteg reached Baelkor. The Chosen was almost as tall as Baelkor in his current state. He cast aside his sword and wrapped both arms around Baelkor’s waist. War essence exploded from him as he dug his feet into the stone and held on with everything he possessed.
“Molten Pit,” Hump barked, the ground beneath Baelkor’s feet turning to lava. He directed it up the giant’s legs, hardening it over them.
“No!” Baelkor roared.
He struggled violently, roots erupting in every direction as he tried to tear free of the bindings. The stone hand shattered. Dylan's vines exploded apart. General Korteg was dragged several steps across the ground, his face turning an even darker purple. Veins popped in his eyes, until they appeared entirely red. His body throbbed with Baelkor’s poison.
There was a flash of power, so sudden and powerful that Hump struggled even to place its direction, his senses overwhelmed by it like a sound that was far too loud.
Silver streaked through the air from behind Hump, so fast he barely saw it. One moment, there was nothing.
The next, the silver arrow struck.
Baelkor jerked within his bindings and looked down at the shaft protruding from his chest. Poisonous essence surged around him in a violent maelstrom. The thirteen Trees of Damnation blazed with crimson light as the formation poured power into its master. Rivers of essence flooded toward him. The sky darkened. The roots beneath the battlefield twisted and writhed.
Baelkor threw everything he possessed against the arrow, and all of it was destroyed before the power of Owalyn’s arrow.
Silver light spread in cracks across Baelkor’s body. His bark armoured fractured like glass. The miasma dissipated wherever the light touched. Runes and channels winked out across the battlefield, the vast formation collapsing in moments. Even the trees began to wither and die, all of them connected to Baelkor.
“No,” Baelkor whispered. Fear in his voice.
Baelkor tore one arm free and grabbed the arrow. Poison flooded from his hand. Bark spread across the shaft. Roots burst from the ground around him, twisting around it to try and tear it free. It didn’t move. The silver light only spread further. It shone between the gaps in his fingers in bright rays as the cracks across his body only deepened.
“Owalyn,” Baelkor’s eyes searched the battlefield wildly. “Spare me, Huntress! My master shall reward you greatly.”
No answer came.
The giant staggered. He looked smaller all of a sudden, diminished somehow. The towering servant of Uvdar that had dominated the battlefield moments before seemed to be shrinking before their eyes.
The silver cracks reached his neck, his skin splitting. The blood that flowed from within was thick and oozing like tree sap. The fractures spread. Climbing his jaw, his eyes, his head. Silver shone from within him now.
He let out an agonised cry as he stumbled again, falling to the ground. A chunk of bark broke free of his arm and struck the ground. It crumbled instantly into dead leaves and black mulch.
“By the gods,” Korteg murmured at his side.
Another bit followed as Baelkor’s body came apart. Baelkor’s screams grew louder as he watched himself decay. The silver consumed him from within, turning flesh to bark and bark to rot. Great sections of his form sloughed away, collapsing into heaps of dead vegetation at his feet. His arm gave way. His shoulder followed. The giant sagged in on himself as though the structure holding him together had finally failed.
Then the brightness reached his face. For a heartbeat, Baelkor’s mouth stretched open in a silent scream, then that too turned to mulch, until all that remained was a pile of rotten plant matter.
That, and a silver arrow standing upright at its centre.
Across Heaven, his creations died with him. Trees of Damnation withered where they stood, their vast canopies collapsing in showers of dead leaves. The stench of decay filled the air as plant monsters that moments ago had been in a frenzied fight against Alveron’s army stumbled, their bodies collapsing into heaps of rotting vegetation.
The battlefield fell eerily still as the pressure over the battlefield dwindled. There were still a number of powerful warlocks and demons, but without Baelkor, nobody with true strength remained. Demons paused. Warlocks stared at the mound of mulch where their master had stood.
Disbelief ran through both armies.
Baelkor was dead.
The giant that had destroyed so much of Alveron—caused so much death, was nothing but mulch.
General Korteg was the first to move. His face was purple from poison. Blood ran down his chin. The whites of his eyes had turned entirely red. He looked like he could barely stand, yet he pumped a bloodied fist high into the air.
“Now is the hour!” he roared. “Kill them all! Drive these dark beasts from Heaven!”
Alveron’s army raised their weapons and charged. The roar that answered him boomed like thunder in Heaven.
Hump watched with wide eyes as the demons broke first. Panic spread through their ranks. Some turned to flee. Others fought on in blind rage. The warlocks fared little better, suddenly finding themselves without the giant that had anchored their advance, but their leaders managed to organise somewhat of a defence.
And just like that, the tide turned.
“We did it,” Bud said.
Dylan and Emilia laughed. Celaine took Hump’s hand and squeezed. Nisha let out a victorious roar.
Days of running and fighting were coming to an end. Now they just needed to live through it.
Survive this, and on to the next fight, Hump thought bitterly. The Old Gods were coming, and the people of Alveron were in for a rude awakening when he showed them what was in the Great Palace.
***
That catches us back up to before the rewrite. Hope everyone liked this version more. I definitely do.