Rudjek's fate took a turn for the worse beyond this newest, most terrible advancement, but so did the fate of my team under his relentless presence. Shiloh successfully wounded the behemoth that had been sent after her, rendering it useless to its master via a state of confused rage; but she had done so at the cost of grave, personal injury. Miraculously, she survived being subsequently thrown against the chaos ruby from several meters away and then falling to the ground below, but the injuries she sustained from that counterattack were too great to shrug off. She remained motionless on the ground following her landing, and that left only Mira still standing.
Soon, the phoenix would be wounded as well, but not by Rudjek's hand. His own beast distracted him long enough for the salamanders from before to overwhelm him, and their sacrifice allowed the high-priest's next victim to escape. Mirannda used that newfound freedom to approach me, but then foolishly threw it away. Rather than escape to fetch reinforcements, she wounded herself in a foolhardy, last attempt to end the battle. She used the same explosion spell I had guarded her from just moments prior, this time shielding me from its fire while also trying to reverse the damage I had already inflicted on myself.
The result of this attempt was nowhere near a victory. Instead, all it got us was an even angrier beast and yet another injured teammate. Rudjek's pet? It had taken most of the brunt, completely shielding its master from the blast even as salamanders covered every last inch of his body. This slowed its rampage considerably, true, but did not destroy it or the lich it served. To top off that situation, the healing Mirannda provided was barely enough to repair my ribs, whereas she had given herself 3rd degree burns in the attempt. No one could call that a victory for my team, especially since all three members were now severely wounded while our enemies still stood.
Despite this terrible twist of fate for us, however, Rudjek suffered far worse. Yes, the crystal he had been entrusted with was cracked considerably. Yes, his own pet had turned against him. Yet that was not the worst consequence he had endured since our battle began. In fact, Rudjek, as we had come to know him, was no longer around to see his any of his setbacks anymore.
After Mirannda retreated to the flames and I meekly sat up at the foot of the statue, I noticed that the battlefield's atmosphere began to twitch and distort. It was faint and could have been written off as a figment of my imagination, but then I noticed that the salamanders were retreating in mass as well. They were afraid of something, enough that they were now running out of the room to escape its signaled arrival. Ultimately, the only creature left moving in their wake was Rudjek's beast itself: a beast that had now turned its full attention toward its presently stationary owner.
At least, we thought that stationary figure was still Rudjek. The high priest's personality and gaze had dimmed considerably following Mira's escape, but I couldn't place what had caused this apparent shift until I saw him cut his own pet in two with barely even a smile. The sand whip he used to commit the act squealed terribly on the wind for the duration of its life, and then died out with the death yelp of the mutated dog it had slain.
"You three are brave, I'll give you that." A new voice now came from that mummified creature in front of us: this one dark and unfeeling. "But bravery does not equate to strength." Whoever had possessed Rudjek's body was now stretching, as if it had been a long time since they inhabited a body of their own. This mysterious individual continued his monologue during that "warm-up," while also taking great care to point out the newly created carcass next to him. "That is strength: the ability to unmake, in an instant, that which has been made in your name. You three, on the other hand, have only flailed like guppies in the pond of something you don't even know how to pay proper respect toward."
In that moment, my worst fears were realized. Sardon had returned, using his priest's body as a puppet to temporarily circumvent the last portion of his resurrection ritual. His arrival brought renewed vigor to the crystal overhead, causing it to begin healing itself even as the undead riders across the desert continued their search for sacrifices. Even more terrible, his arrival marked the final subjugation of the woman I loved. While I sat on the floor of his throne room listening to him gloat, a large mummy captured Robin outside the city limits; and I couldn't do anything to stop it.
"All your whining," Sardon said as he took that distressing image from my grasp. "All your effort and I still win. The last sacrifice is mine, and so I will be reborn tonight despite your best attempts to deny me what is rightfully mine." I instinctively tried to draw Toirneach in response that taunt, to fire off one more, desperate, last attempt. Maybe I thought I could escape and steal Robin away before he could get to her; or maybe I really thought I stood a chance of taking him down. Whatever my beliefs in that moment, however, Sardon wasn't intent on letting me do as I pleased. He quickly closed the distance between us before I could get off a clean shot, hitting Toirneach out of my hands, and then he easily lifting me up by the collar.
"You know, I recognize this scene in front of me," he said while dangling me about in the air like a toy. "A girl, almost a woman, providing me with a sacrificial item. Last time I took the item first with the intent of saving the girl for later. I paid for that choice with my life; so… lesson learned." Sardon's right hand transformed into a wicked blade just then: sharp and menacing. He aimed it straight at my chest, and then proclaimed his intent with that infamously twisted smile of his. "I think I'll give your heart to the last sacrifice before I consume her soul, and also let her watch her lover's corpse walk about as my servant. I need some entertainment for my birthday celebration, after all."
Sardon drove his blade toward my heart after that comment, but the end result of his attack was not what he intended. His dagger definitely impaled my shoulder, but, as was typical for overconfident people like him, he wasn't paying attention to the protection spell I had cast and that had deflected him at the last second. He also didn't notice the paralysis that came after until it was too late. Yes, Sardon had hurt me, but he had also repeated history in his foolish pride.
"What?!" Immobilized and confused, this shadow of an old god tried to remove himself from me, but soon realized he could not. The two of us were locked in stasis, even as blood dripped from my body onto the floor beneath us; and neither party was going anywhere unless I allowed it.
"So predictable," I repeated whilst scowling at this newly ensnared phantom. "Isn't that what your minion said, Sardon? Well, if you wanted a predictable opponent, the last thing you should have done is piss me off."
Unsurprisingly, this merited a scoff from Sardon himself.
"Did you forget I can't die and that you only have one arm left in this state? You're only delaying the inevitable, peasant." He still believed that he had the upper hand, so he didn't take my threat seriously. Who could blame him? I couldn't use my left arm anymore, and I was stuck dangling above the ground without the strength to remove myself from my opponent's clutches. Not only that, said opponent still had a blade right next to my heart that could kill me the instant the paralysis wore off. By conventional wisdom, that meant I had already lost the battle and the war.
However, conventional wisdom requires a conventional combatant, which I was not at the time of my final confrontation with Sardon. True, Toirneach was out of my grasp and required more than one arm to operate, but it could be summoned and didn't necessarily have to be held by hand. Knowing this, I summoned the implement of destruction to my right arm, and then stabilized it with my teeth so I could aim point blank at Sardon's head.
"I recall this situation too," I said via SAI as Sardon suddenly realized he was pinned between his beloved crystal and I. "Of a god thinking he had won, just before I shattered his dreams." In that moment, my own power surged. A jack-o-lantern phased into existence on my shoulder, and arcane empowerment swirled around my body. The air chilled as I absorbed heat from the surrounding area to power myself, causing sheets of ice to form on the nearby sandstone as my spectral arrow spell began to manifest. Last, but not least, the anima rings on my fingers flared once more, surging back to full occupancy as I absorbed more of the slain lieutenants upon their return. "I told you I'd make you bleed," I growled at Sardon through gritted teeth. The energy influx peaked immediately afterward, blinding the two of us as Toirneach shattered the sky with a final, deafening roar.
The old god could not have known how much of my hatred lined that shot, at least not until the loud blare filled the room. He heard it long before he felt it, and even longer before he smashed directly into the ruby he treasured so much. The Heart of Sardon was both literally and figuratively pierced by unbridled rage that night, and the attack that did it didn't stop with just a crack or two. Toirneach's bolt smashed a hole straight through that relic and then blew a massive chasm in the pyramid's roof until everyone within that final chamber could see the moons again. The spectral fire kept going even beyond that, scorching the sky above and obliterating Sardon in the loudest rebel yell to grace the battlefield yet.
Calm fell upon the ruby thereafter, silenced by the shattering of the renaissance I had used to suppress my pain. The massive gem finally stopped glowing for a time, and all the mummies throughout Harena simultaneously stopping moving. Robin was freed for that sacrifice, but, as for myself, I could no longer stand by her side.
After the blade was removed from my chest and Sardon's grasp released, I fell to the ground, barely alive. SAI kept me from bleeding to death and had summoned some last minute earplugs to keep me from going deaf, but even she could not heal me fast enough to get me back up on my feet. Not only that, I actually couldn't feel anything anymore. I was in so much pain that my body had shut down, leaving me a crumpled mess on the floor. I tried to tell it to get up and walk, tried to say that Rudjek or Sardon or whoever would be back soon enough and that I wouldn't be able to use Toirneach against them again thanks to it disintegrating from that last attack; but my muscles would listen. The only thing I had strength left to do was repeat Robin's name over and over through blood-soaked teeth, even as Jack came in through the ceiling to fetch me.
"I got you, frozen buddy of mine," I vaguely recall him shouting as he picked me up from the floor! He could sense the presence of Shiloh and Mirannda still in the room upon arrival, but knew he didn't have time to worry about them since I failed to immediately respond to his words and actions. In my family, any lack of snark from me was usually a bad sign, let alone if that lack was accompanied by severe wounds. As such, the mere sight of me made Jack worry, so he settled for a warning toward the two strangers before rushing me out of that chamber through its newly created roof-ramp and to the nearest hospital. "I suggest you two get out, just in case that prick comes back! As for me, I am definitely outtie!"
So ended my confrontation with Sardon: a conflict that would likely be lost to the ages just like all the others. Sadly, however, the war for Aysut, the backdrop for that entire battle, was far from over despite the mastermind being beaten. Minutes after his lord's defeat, Rudjek returned, and so the relentless pursuit began once more. The Heart of Sardon, it seemed, was not so easy to kill.
