“He seemed to be in a hurry…no way would he take the time to think about going down a side hallway. He probably went straight,” Thalys thought to himself. With a sigh, he hurried straight ahead.
**********
Meanwhile, the battle outside Tier Bastion continued.
Ezekiel, who had finally regrouped with everyone and took a quick break to catch his breath, was now back in the fight. Faux and Kara continued their tag-team efforts against the enemy, making a circle of destruction wherever they went. Ezekiel, however, needed no such tactics. He plowed through the enemies with a combination of brute strength and elemental might. He noticed Garis Cord working furiously nearby, still mounted on a horse, cutting down enemies wherever he went.
Draven noticed Ezekiel tearing through his ranks too easily for it to be safe. Grinning, he decided to take care of the troublesome adept himself. The void master quickly tore through wind adepts as he made his way to the powerhouse earth adept.
Ezekiel, no novice to war, quickly noticed the void adept moving towards him. He readied his scythe with a grim expression. Suddenly, the void adept leaped into the air with both knives bared. Draven slammed into Ezekiel’s scythe with both blades, giving off a blast of neutral energy as he did so. The sheer force of Draven’s energy shook Ezekiel’s grip, yet he stood firm and shoved the void adept back. He reversed his shove to come back with a might heave of his scythe. Draven ducked under the slash, but a small portion of his hair was cut off by the attack.
Draven dashed towards the earth adept very low to the ground. Ezekiel, however, moved the bud end of his scythe handle surprisingly fast, bringing it down to smash into Draven’s face, knocking him backwards. The void adept fell into a spinning roll and came up slashing, trying a more direct method attack. Ezekiel moved perfectly, blocking every single attack from Draven despite the size of his weapon. The two moved in and out of the rest of the combat, Draven getting in a few quick nicks but nothing too deadly. Draven’s nose had finally stop bleeding when Ezekiel got another hit in, this time a fist to the mouth that busted the void adept’s lip open. Enjoying the fight more every second, despite the two hits he received, Draven began to push on harder. Ezekiel met Draven’s fervor with sheer ferocity, swinging around his scythe with a single hand while punching with his left hand.
The two broke apart for just a second, giving Ezekiel the chance to punch his left hand into the ground. As he lifted his hand up, a large ball of rocks clamped onto his hand, and he used it as a club in combination with his scythe. As the two met again, Ezekiel used the sheer size of his boulder hand to keep a distance between them. Finally, he scored a hit on Draven, knocking the void adept into the air with a mighty upswing. Next he drew back his scythe and let it fly at the air-prone Draven. Thinking quickly, Draven locked both of his knives against the scythe blade and tossed it and his knives above his head.
“Time to end this…!” Draven declared as he came down with both fists clenched together.
Ezekiel held up his boulder hand to block, exactly what Draven wanted. The void adept slammed both of his fists into the boulder, shattering it with neutral energy. Ezekiel held his left hand back, shaking away the numbness in it. Just then, he held up his right hand and caught his airborne scythe by the handle. Draven’s daggers both fell at Ezekiel’s feet.
Draven, hardly slowing, fell to the ground and snatched up his daggers. Ezekiel clenched his left hand and spun in a circle. As he did this, Draven took a step back and held up his daggers. Good thing he did, for a burst of energy from Ezekiel’s spin brought up a cyclone of rocks and dirt from the ground. Draven knocked away most of the attack with neutral energy, but he was still covered in dirt and shoved back many yards. As he landed back on his feet and shook the dirt out of his hair, a soldier called out his name.
“What is it, soldier?” Draven demanded.
“Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but there have been word of intruders inside Tier Bastion. It seems two people have infiltrated the fortress and have been moving around Lyx’s forces, taking out any guards they see,” the soldier explained.
“Are you sure there are only two people doing this?” Draven asked.
“Yes, sir. And they seem to be doing it independently in separate areas,” the soldier continued.
“One of them is probably Voyse…good, good,” Draven said, licking his lips eagerly. “Alright, I’ll take care of these intruders personally. I want you to release Mourn and Lament immediately,” Draven ordered as he began to move away.
A moment of hesitation crossed the soldier’s thoughts, but he quickly shook them away and headed off.
Ezekiel looked at the situation curiously and kept note of the void adept.
Several moments later, the soldier Draven ordered to release Mourn and Lament finally reached an upper chamber with a giant fortified gate. Several other soldiers were in the room, all of them taking notice of the thundering crashes against the triple fortified gate that held the two giants captive.
“Draven has ordered to release them into the fight immediately,” the soldier declared.
Without question, but a look of fear on everyone’s face, the soldiers went to work. Many clockwork mechanics cranked and shifted until finally the gate began to slowly rise. It hardly mattered, for a massive hand grabbed the bottom of the gate and shoved it all the way up.
Ezekiel continued to take out Bladenheart soldiers, taking a few seconds to look at the last place he saw Draven ever once in awhile. Suddenly, one of the upper walls of northern Tier Bastion buckled and broke away. Two huge figures leaped from the makeshift passage, falling down into seemingly bottomless crater that encircled Tier Bastion. The earth adept stared in surprise for several minutes until finally a huge, heavily armored hand grasped the lip of the crater and pulled itself up. A second giant pulled itself up as well.
What stood before Ezekiel were two enormous giants, much larger than the earth adept had ever seen. Both were heavily armored and had huge weapons to suit their size. One that had the word “Lament” written across its chest plate had a giant flail while the other, with the word “Mourn” written on its chest plate had a huge hammer. Both towered at least twice the size of the giants Ezekiel had taken out earlier.
“By the gods…what could these monstrosities be?!” Ezekiel stuttered.