Chapter 268: Chapter 268

One hand outstretched towards Madness showered him with sonic pulses that could shatter glass and send teeth chattering.

Another hand outstretched towards the Simurgh caught the birds in a net of spells creating explosions that should have plucked the little avian flock feather by feather.

Phantom limbs encircled the sniveling Evil Eye and bombarded it with all manner of plasma projectiles, poking the massive eye with excited state matter that no mortal being could ever hope to endure.

At the same time, as if picked up by an invisible great cat, Kelser, the three Ikons, and my friends who had been rushing over, were all lifted up by the scruff of their necks and tossed onto the current of a prevailing wind which took them away like debris caught in a tsunami. The ground shook as other unconscious bodies were dug up and followed the other beings far, far away.

Madness’ laughter became broken and disjointed but he kept laughing through the sonic bombardment. Like a malfunctioning radio, Madness kept up his terrible laughter and did not retaliate against me. In fact, he closed his eyes, brought both arms to his stomach, and began laughing so uncontrollably that I became frightened. Why was he not trying to attack me? A strange feeling crept up my spine, and I jumped backwards just in case. Yet nothing happened.

The thirty birds of the Simurgh began to tweet and chirp and shriek discordantly as they were blanketed by explosions. These explosions, most of which were chemical in nature, produced loud booms that shook the air and could be heard for miles around. But despite the booming explosions the sounds of the birds seemed to pierce through the air and they arrived in my ear as if the birds were standing right in front of me, separated only by a thin pane of glass. It reminded me of the birds that would sit on a branch outside my dorm room in college, inviting me to come outside instead of working on my next assignment or writing a boring old paper that would never be seen by more than three people.

The Evil Eye was the only one that gave me a satisfying reaction. It shrieked and hollered and cried out in pain as my plasma poked into its massive eye and burned what seemed to be some sort of physical manifestation of the otherwise Immortal being. The Evil Eye flailed its tentacles all over the place and even fired one of its powerful red beams of energy but a burst of plasma neutralized it as I had hoped and the Immortal was too incapacitated to try and maneuver his attacks to avoid my counters. The barrage of plasma neutralized more of the Evil Eye’s frenzied attacks, but a cloud of dust began to form around the Immortal thanks to its flailing. Despite the painful and direct attacks, I did not see any blood or pieces of matter being separated from the Immortal’s body. There were no marks on its body, either, and no smoke that might suggest the plasma had left some sort of permanent damage. The Immortal’s eye was, however, shut tightly, which made me hope that some damage might have been done on the Immortal’s eyeball.

A piercing cry shook the air. The dust and smoke that had surrounded the Simurgh was cleared by the cry and the Simurgh emerged in its unified form. The Simurgh did not have a single scratch on its body, but its feathers were messed up and ruffled. There was a wild look in the Simurgh’s eye, one that betrayed its anger. The angry glint made the Simurgh look less imposing than before. The Simurgh had been angry at me before, but that anger had been a righteous, almost justified anger.

This anger, it was different. This anger was a wild, base, more emotional sort of anger. To use a coarser but more accurate description: the Simurgh was pissed.

The Simurgh cried out again and my stomach churned. This cry was rough and hoarse, unlike the harmonious cries that the Simurgh had let out before.

The Simurgh dove towards me with both wings unfurled. The unfurled wings probably made the Simurgh slower, but it also made it look bigger and more frightening. The rainbow colors on its feathers shimmered in all sorts of colors, rapidly switching between them in a hypnotic manner. Perhaps I would have been pulled in by it if I could not resist emotional manipulation magic.

I flew backwards at blinding speed, leaving a loud boom in my wake. The Simurgh crashed into the ground where I had stood, sending up a cloud of dust and another frightening wave and burst of sound.

The sonic booms I had been blasting at Madness ceased but the explosions happening in the distance around the Evil Eye kept going. The Evil Eye, for its part, was being smacked around by the explosions like a ping pong ball, and the sound of its beams crashing into plasma created a strange high pitched but muddy sound that seemed like background noise against the chaotic thrum of the Simurgh’s screeching and the fluttering of its wings.

Madness’ laughter cut through it all.

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The laughter that should have become clearer without the sonic pulse magic, became more chaotic instead. Except, now it didn’t sound like a malfunctioning radio, and began to sound more and more like one of those comically manipulated music videos, where the sound of a heavenly chorus had been perverted into a deep, almost satanic hymn. Think Frère Jacques on reverb and heard through a pair of tin cans connected by a loose string.

The Simurgh flapped its wings again and sprung towards me, but I surrounded it with another barrage of explosions. The Simurgh shouted a long, loud, sustained cry, one that sounded like a high note in an opera, and the booms of the explosions seemed to be consumed by the Simurgh’s singing and a wave of power washed over me, making a knot in my gut and sending a sharp pain into my skull.

I grit my teeth.

A wall of air muffled the physical sound from around my ears, but I needed to wall myself off even further. Madness’ laughter was also beating against my skull as if a wild beast was knocking against a wooden door, just waiting to be let in.

I couldn’t let him in.

I entered into a meditative state. I began walling off my mind from all thoughts and feelings, numbing my senses, and replacing the stimuli I was receiving from the Immortals with thoughts of my own.

I began thinking about magic, about power, about metaphysical concepts that would protect me from the Simurgh’s cry and Madness’ broken laughter. I thought of a poem from my old world, a little on the older side, but which I had prepared in my mental playlist for exactly this purpose.

“...Gladly, as his suns fly through the heavens' grand plan, journey, brothers, on your way. Joyful, like a hero to victory…”

Accompanied, of course, by its more famous musical accompaniment, more easily identifiable in its original language:

“Freude, Schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium…” began the words in my head.

I figured this song would be useful enough against a bunch of Immortals. The Simurgh had said the Immortals were not gods. Perhaps another song about unity and god could help distract me from the godlike beings trying to incinerate me with their glorious rainbow and silver colored flames.

The Simurgh crashed into the ground right in front of me. Madness’ laughter got closer. And a single beam of red light escaped my bombardment and zigzagged its way across the battlefield, aiming for my back.