Blasphemia II: Deus Vult Pt. 07

They ran through the archway into what had once been the courtyard in front of the Basilica in its normal position on the ground. The circular space was ringed by high arches surmounted by statues of the saints, all of them staring down with cold, dispassionate stone gazes. Judith's rational mind knew that there was no way a space of this size should be able to fit inside the cathedral's interior, but she was past trying to wrap her head around the nonsense that Yog-Sothoth's power warped the world into. She didn't have to understand it, merely operate within it, and she knew that here in the open space was a better place to make a stand.

"Spread out!" she called. "Don't let them corral us!"

"Pretty boy, come here!" FIlia yelled. She lofted into the air with a flap of her wings, grabbing hold of Luca and spiriting him away from the fighting towards the top of one of the stone structures. With Luca reasonably safe and out of the way, Judith was free to cut loose. She began chanting a litany, the tattoos on her arm glowing brighter than they had in ages. Fire heeded her call as she swept her arm wide, not enough to incinerate the verdes wholesale, but enough to set them alight. She extended Celerity's blade with light and wielded it like an axe, cutting down all who dared approach her.

The Archbishop had switched to wielding the Lance like a quarterstaff, using the point to incinerate the mutants and the stock to break them with crushing blows. Despite his wizened appearance, there was still great strength to his limbs, and his strikes with the Lance's haft were enough to crush verde cartilage wholesale. He too called forth fire, and the smell of cooking verde meat quickly filled the space. Despite the gains, he too had taken injuries, blood matting his cassock with dark stains.

Filia dove into the fray like a comet, her chains extended out. The succubus laughed as she went to work, her strikes strong enough to turn verdes into plumes of gore from the strikes of her chains, as if they'd been hit by cars going highway speeds. Judith saw the succubus was absolutely caked in viscera, and wasn't sure how much of it actually belonged to Filia.

The lapse in concentration earned her a sharpened protrusion to the bicep for her efforts. Judith snarled and sliced off the offending limb, then ripped it out and drove it back into the owner's chest. She lit another verde on fire with a snap of her fingers before turning and hacking another in twain from shoulder to shoulder. Her arms felt heavy, her grip on Celerity loose due to the blood flowing down her arm. She squeezed the hilt tighter as she cut down three more.

Frustration was beginning to guide her actions, making her attacks more brutal. Celerity caved in a collarbone before Judith ripped it out of her target's shoulder. Something cut her back, slicing deep. Judith roared in pain and fury before turning and cutting the verde who had hit her into three large pieces with her sword. Her entire being became dedicated to violence, pain becoming all she took and all she gave. DId the verdes even feel pain? It didn't seem like it, but Judith knew that they had been people once, and strove to give them death's release as quickly as possible. They hadn't chosen this.

She kept hacking and killing until the swarm stopped coming. The ground around her was a carpet of verde corpses, their thick blood sticking to her boots and dripping off her skin. Stinging pain from her cuts made her stomach churn, as did the smell of the melange of sweat and verde blood dripping off her skin. Judith's felt her throat tighten. If she'd had anything in her stomach, it would've come up. All the energy she'd recovered from resting was gone, leaving her feeling heavy and weak.

Filia made an angry noise and kicked one of the verde corpses by her feet. Gore dripped off her once pristine wings, the membranes torn and punctured by verde. "Is there anyone else!" she yelled, looking all around the courtyard. "Huh? Come on!"

"Can you please not goad the eldritch abominations?" Judith snapped, shaking gore off Celerity.

The Archbishop was limping due to a nasty cut in his leg. His wizened face was streaked with his own blood, his expression a grim mask as he used the Lance like a walking stick. "We must keep moving," he panted. "Then we can-"

The floor lurched underneath them with such force it knocked them all off-balance. Judith propped herself up on her hands. The floor of the plaza was moving in several directions at once, sections moving clockwise opposite other sections moving counterclockwise, like the lense of a camera trying to focus.

"Above us!" Luca cried from his perch. Judith and the others looked up to see the ceiling going through similar motions, revealing the night sky above them. A night sky that was visible past the increasingly clear outline of a massive, gazing eye. More verdes swarmed around the edge of the hole appearing in the ceiling, eager to jump down and slaughter them for their master.

"Now what?" Judith whispered.

The foulest odor she'd ever smelled touched her nose a moment later, making her sinuses burn and tears stream down her face. Filia, with her enhanced senses, had it even worse, and rolled around on the ground cursing. It took Judith a moment to realize where it was coming from - the large hole that had appeared in the center of the room from the shifting floor. Noxious gas rose from within, and she staggered closer to get a look.

Below them inside the pit was a roiling mass of green liquid the color and viscosity of toxic waste. Bubbles popped on the surface, each one releasing another wave of that awful smell. Judith gagged and recoiled, wiping gore off Celerity to better her grip on the weapon. "What now?" she repeated, yelling the question in frustration.

"Now, it begins."

Yog-Sothoth's voice boomed out of a particularly large verde standing at the edge of the hole in the ceiling. The body looked as though it had been a Swiss Guard commander before being infection, the muscles bulging with Yog-Sothoth's otherworldly power coursing through it, like an overinflated balloon. Four eyes burned in its face, gazing down at them dispassionately. "My release is almost at hand. And you have brought me just what I needed to make it happen, Templar." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers.

The verdes jumped down, and Judith braced herself to be set upon. But they weren't aiming at her. The creatures instead had jumped right into the pit of green liquid. They hit the surface, floated for a moment, then dissolved into the concoction.

"What in the fuck..." Filia muttered as more and more of the verdes flung themselves to their demise.

"The flesh is no longer needed," Yog-Sothoth said. He snapped his fingers again.

Judith nearly jumped out of her skin as the verde corpses around her slowly began to move. They slid across the floor, leaving trails of soupy blood in their wake as they were dragged towards the pit by forces unseen. One by one they too dropped in, until the only thing that was left of them was the green gore smears on the once-pristine tiles.

Only Yog-Sothoth was left. He stepped off the edge, but himself didn't aim for the pit. Instead, he dropped down in front of the Templars. Despite the relative normalcy of the body he had assumed control of, the tile still cracked under his weight as he landed. He rose to his full height, towering above them.

"Crap," Filia muttered, slapping her arm as her natural healing factor kicked into overdrive. "Heal faster, dammit."

"I'm afraid, Infernal, it will do you no good," Yog-Sothoth said. He shifted his weight into a combat stance, legs wide and fists raised. "I am putting an end to this here."

The Archbishop brandished the Lance with a flourish, only canting off-balance slightly. "We will stop you, foul demon."

"Oy, let's keep the terminology straight here," Filia said. Like a striking asp she threw out a chain, the sharpened point embedding itself in Yog-Sothoth's chest. "Get him! Stick him with the pointy thing!"

Judith and the Archbishop attacked, throwing themselves at the monstrous vessel. Yog-Sothoth lifted his leg and tried to crush Judith underneath it, but she slid around the limb, slashing open his hamstring with Celerity. She pivoted with a smooth motion, using the vessel's calf as a springboard to leap up and jam Celerity into the meat of the thing's shoulder. Judith vented every ounce of holy magic she had through the blade into the thing's body. "Finish it!" she yelled.

The Archbishop leaped with all the strength he had left, a look of faithful defiance etched across his features. "For the glory of God and the Church!" he bellowed. He landed true, driving the point of the Holy Lance into Yog-Sothoth's chest. He put his full weight behind the blow, the weapon sinking in another half a foot with a loud crunch.

"Yes!" Luca cheered from atop the stone archway. "It's done!"

Yog-Sothoth looked down at the weapon impaled in his chest. Then he fixed his eyes upon the Archbishop. "You honesty thought," he said in a slow voice, "that such a pathetic weapon would actually harm me?"

He reached up and casually yanked the Holy Lance out of his chest as if it was no more than a splinter. The Archbishop hung on, his face frozen in the first shocked expression Judith had ever seen on him. Yog-Sothoth whipped his arm around, the force of it too much for the Archbishop's grasp to resist. He was flung off the weapon, crashing into the ground with an ugly noise. "Sir!" Judith cried. She looked up just in time to see the attack coming, and flung herself off Yog-Sothoth's back to avoid getting stabbed in the face by the Lance.

Filia gamely hung on, trying to keep Yog-Sothoth in place as he stalked towards the Archbishop. She muttered something in an archaic language that sounded like a profanity as she hooked another chain into Yog-Sothoth's hide. The Before God casually reached down and ripped those chains out as well, turning Filia's weapon against her. He wrenched in the chains, pulling Filia off her feet. Before the succubus could react, his meaty fist slammed down on her and drove her into the floor. Judith heard the sound of Filia's spine snapping and the succubi's howl of agony.

Yog-Sothoth stomped on towards the Archbishop, as if he were swatting flies. Her mentor was trying his best to get back to his feet, using the lance as a crutch. Judith chased after them, throwing a bolt of fire at Yog-Sothoth's back. It stuck home with a large crack of electricity, but the Before God didn't even flinch. He reached down and picked up the Holy Lance, making the Archbishop collapse to the floor. "No!" Judith screamed.

"Where," Yog-Sothoth asked, "Is your God now?"

The Archbishop looked up at the face of a being older than creation, and simply smiled. "With me. Always."

"Hmph."

Yog-Sothoth drove the Lance through the Archbishop's body with such force it pinned him to the floor.

Judith let out an incoherent, bestial roar of rage as she leaped through the air, coming down and driving Celerity into Yog-Sothoth's back. The Before God didn't even acknowledge her as she ripped the blade out and stabbed down again and again, screaming with berserk fury. He simply leaned down over the dying Archbishop and regarded him curiously as the once-mighty Templar choked on his own blood. "Then if He is with you," he said in a low voice. "What happens if I make you a part of me?"

Tendrils of green flesh slithered out of Yog-Sothoth's body. The tips were sharp like scorpion stingers, and they hooked into the Archbishop's flesh. The remaining rational scrap of Judith's mind recoiled at the wet slithering noise that the tendrils made as they retracted, lifting the bloody, limp body of the Archbishop off the floor. They kept retracting, until the Archbishop's body was pressed right up against the disgusting green skin of the vessel. Like moss growing on a rock, the flesh undulated and sucked the Archbishop in with an ugly squelch. In mere moments, Yog-Sothoth had absorbed him.

"Ah," the Before God sighed. He looked back over his shoulder at Judith, as if seeing her for the first time. "Thank you for bringing me another suitable vessel, Templar."

Judith didn't see the blow that swatted her off his back. She hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop a few hundred yards away from Yog-Sothoth. Celerity clattered to the tile next to her. Pain flared in her left arm, sharp and hot - an internal fracture. It almost didn't even register with her. Cold emptiness closed around her soul, leaving her feeling numb and empty. Now she had nothing left - no home, no church, no clean soul, no mentor.

"Fucking asshole," Filia muttered somewhere near her. Judith picked up her head to see the succubus rise, her spine popping back into place. "If you're going to eat someone, at least make it a hot piece of ass like me."

Yog-Sothoth's face was impassive as he regarded her. "Your kind is a mere byproduct of the power I need to complete my return. I cannot assimilate you, nor can I use you like the humans." He raised a hand, and a sickly golden light formed a halo around it. "Therefore, I will simply destroy you."

Filia spat out a mouthful of blood, drawing herself up to her full height. Wings flared wide, she looked like a warrior goddess. She spread her arms wide, then brought them together with a bang that sounded like a gunshot. As she drew them apart, a gordian knot of chains swirled into existence between them before clattering around her arms. Two large blades capped the lengths off, her fingers curling around the hilts. Her lilac skin became shot through with lances of red, and her entire eyes burned with hellfire. "Bring it on, jolly green jackass."

Filia moved so fast she seemed to vanish, appearing behind Yog-Sothoth in the blink of an eye. But the Before God was quick on the upkeep, and blocked her first powerful strike. Filia's wings flapped with such force physics seemed to take a backseat, the succubus almost teleporting back in front of the Before God. But Yog-Sothoth blocked her again, and a moment later, they went at it hammer and tongs like nothing Judith ahd seen before. Had Filia been holding back this whole time?

"Judith!"

Luca knelt down by her side, his strong hands pressing on her body. "Come on, come on," he muttered as his healing magic flowed into her.

Judith felt her arm bone snap back into place, relief making her whole body shudder. "Thank you," she said, picking herself up. Celerity thunked back into her hand at her call.

"The Archbishop..." Luca muttered, sounding like he was on the verge of breaking down. "What can we do now?"

Judith swallowed. She knew that she couldn't tell him die, which was the likely scenario. Near where Yog-Sothoth and Filia battled, the Holy Lance rested on the ground forgotten. "Keep fighting," she answered. As I've done all my life.

Judith took off at a dead sprint, reaching the Lance quickly. She scooped up the weapon, surprised at how mundane it felt to hold. With sword in one hand and Lance in the other, she charged Yog-Sothoth while his back was turned. No matter how powerful this Before God was, every other foe they'd faced so far had fallen after being stabbed enough. He would be no different.

At least, that was what she'd thought.

Before Judith had even gotten a single hit in, Yog-Sothoth batted Filia away and turned to face her. Judith faltered as his gaze fell upon her, coming to a screeching halt. She watched, waited to see what he would do. The Before God simply canted his head to the side.

"And still you persist," he said. "Ah well. At least your body can still be useful."

His arm extended like a bolt of lightning, the clenched fist smashing into Judith's torso. The blow reduced her entire collarbone and ribcage to gravel, rupturing just about every organ in her body cavity. It was like being hit by an asteroid. All Judith managed as she was launched over the open pit in the floor was a strangled wheeze from her mangled lungs.

She heard Luca and Filia call her name as she fell. Pain made everything else abstract, and the fall took a long, long time. Judith caught a glimpse of the night sky through the ceiling, the same night sky she had stared up at when she was a child. She raised a hand towards them. Why? She thought the question rather than voice it, given that all that would've come out of her mouth was a strangled gurgle. Why have you forsaken me?

Her hand was still extended as she hit the surface of the liquid in the pit, and remained extended as the foul substance dissolved her body into nothing. The last thing Judith saw before her eyes dissolved was the stars shining down, indifferent to her suffering.