373 - The Guardian [Sturmblitz] (Patreon)

The Guardian resolutely strikes hammer against anvil, perfectly in rhythm with the sutra he is chanting. His strikes are perfectly paced, perfectly placed, but the metal refuses to bend. His expression is feverish — veins bulge across his forehead and sweat drips from his brow. He brings forth black flame with all his strength, but the steel refuses to even turn the darkest of reds under its heat. Nonetheless he struggles on.

Before him, countless such metal segments lay in disarray. Blood runs from his hammer-hand, down the hammer’s shaft, dripping onto the anvil. The divine vessel of his shrine stands before him, doors closed, his god’s light shining through. Even this is not enough.

Though his words speak of purity and protection, and his acts are resolute, the Guardian’s thoughts are those of failure and despair. His deity has never answered him directly. Only when the adherents’ feverish prayers pour onto him like a waterfall does the deity’s strength shine through — never, not once, has his own strength been enough. He thinks himself borderline talentless, placed into this position solely because he was the only option — an atrocious, borderline worthless option, but an option.

“This world is a hellish freak-show. If this is truly my fated post, then what kind of prayer will it take to save them?!”

He vividly remembers a lifetime of struggle and failure, of watching his charges being slaughtered, unable to save more than a handful each time. The flame of guilt burns away at him with an intensity reserved for the worst sinners, his sense of guilt an endless pyre. Whether the flame is real or not doesn’t matter — it wrenches at him with such brilliant pain that it ought to strike him dead. Even still, the Guardian perseveres in his fool’s errand, hammering away. This is all he can do. Were he to throw himself against the beasts right this second, burn up every iota of strength he has, he would only delay the deaths of his charges. There was no “next time”, no “another shrine”, no “another city”. It was just here and now, the last shrine, the last try.

“Day in, day out, the powerful have claimed that their rule is meant to be, reaching out, saying “Take my hand”, yet offering only chains and butcher’s knives in turn.”

The ground quakes. An immense dragon crests the horizon, taking flight. Those of its lesser kin surrounding the shrine are stirred into a frenzy, and before long, the outermost barrier falls. Many flee, squeezing into what little space remains inside the inner barriers, but thousands are slaughtered as they feverishly pray for salvation. The flame of guilt burns the Guardian ever more intensely, even as the strength of his charges’ prayers surges to impossible heights at the moments of their deaths. Eventually, a gaping hole opens within his chest and tears of blood cascade down his face. His hands, the hammer, the anvil, all are entirely drenched in blood now. Even still he keeps hammering.

With each death, each corpse, a new wolf is born. Flames spring forth from within, bones twist into armor, flesh turns inward. A grisly sight, but also the only reason this shrine has held out this long. The people understand, they revere the dead for their sacrifice. Globs of flame, boulders, and ballista bolts all pelt the second barrier. One bolt skewers an entire family to the southern pillar. They pray even as the instrument of their death flares with dragonfire and burns them away to nothing. The Guardian keeps hammering. 

From far overhead, the incomprehensibly-vast beast swoops down upon six wings, and from its three serpent-necked heads it spews emerald-coloured hellfire, bathing the barrier. Everything outside it is consumed in an instant — man, dragon, it makes no distinction. The three-headed dragon, with its body as dark as the night sky, crashes down straight onto the shrine. One head stares at the Guardian, one bellows to the heavens, and the third draws in a great inhalation — and with this act, it devours the smoke and spirits of all those it has just slaughtered, be they human or its own kin. 

The three-headed dragon, with each of its heads possessing three eyes, digs its talons into the second barrier, and without even pausing, forces its heads through, screaming and spewing flame. Its breath washes over the inner barrier, only to tighten and become like three enormous blowtorches the length of battering rams, effortlessly cutting open even the nigh-impenetrable innermost barrier. The beast doesn’t bother to slaughter the Guardian’s charges – it leaves them for later.

The Guardian feverishly throws up every kind of magical defense he can think of, summoning hundreds of defensive artifacts and wildly gesturing with his bloodied fingers, even as he wields his hammer using force of aura alone. But… He blinks, and the steel is gone. The armor is gone. The anvil, the hammer, all gone, even his charges, all gone! There are no people, not even ghosts — less than ghosts, they are the echoes of the departed. And still. Still. Still they are praying. A sea of red-gold silhouettes, praying towards him despite — no, in spite of his failure to save them. Not only the remnant will of the dead of the present, but also those of the ancient past, of Lost Itria itself, all those who once believed in Bishamonten!

Reams of protective sigils unfurl from the many talismans and relics he has called forth, patching the hole in the barrier and binding the dragon’s body, forcing its maws shut. One by one, the relics burn up, fall to dust, or clatter to the ground, dead. Eventually even the enormous skeleton inside which the shrine is built comes to life, its eyes blazing with black flame as it rails against the dragon, grappling with the beast’s singular free arm and biting it. Nonetheless, the gigantic skeleton is barely one third the size of the dragon, and nowhere near as strong as it.

It is already too late — the Guardian has already been consumed by dragonfire. His sight swims and mind grows hazy from the pain. His skin bursts open, flesh blisters, then burns down to bone, becoming like coal. The blood boils in his veins, his teeth crack under the pressure of his own jaw. The hair burns off of his head in an instant.