It was a cloudy night. This far south, though it was still autumn, the weather was nice enough for someone to go without an overcoat or boots. Bugs still frequented the area, and many birds had come to roost. The country of Martes was one of the small nation states in the south western corner of the known world. To its own south were nigh impenetrable jungles, and unless one wanted to traverse the sea to the east of Martes or trek through a slew of other nations to its west, it was as far removed from the politics of the Diell Empire as anywhere in the hemisphere. It was, quite naturally, a staunch ally state of the Empire and worshipped exclusively the Accepted Pantheon. Tonight was no special occasion for Martes, save for the severity of the situation.

  Donnerstag, one of the major port cities in the country’s east, was under attack by an unknown force. The city had over 200,000 inhabitants, with a capable naval fleet in its harbor and a standing military garrison. It had walls, bell towers, Passengers and even a Chosen on standby.

  Tonight, outside the city walls of Donnerstag, the bodies of thousands of corpses had piled up high. It was the site of a major battle between the military forces of the country and the threat that, as of yet, was still unknown to the populace. The military had lost.

  The bell towers of churches all over the city were ringing incessantly, signaling the danger the town was in. All those who could had already gathered in the various churches. The prayers of tens of thousands of people escaped into the winds, begging for salvation from a slew of angels and devils, both Accepted and not.

  A single figure was approaching Donnerstag from the far side of the battlefield. Earlier in the night, this figure had waved his hand and caused a mass internal organ failure of hundreds of soldiers at once. It had taken less than 2 minutes for the figure to kill over two thousand soldiers, some of whom were experienced Passengers.

  The figure was wearing a dull white cloak with a slight discoloring to it, causing it to almost look yellow. His eyes were sewn shut, and his face was stretched back into a caricature of a smile-one that extended straight to the backs of his ears.

  A volley of cannon fire salvoed out from the walls, erupting earth on the plain outside the city. The cannons got near to the figure, but were unable to hit their mark.

  …

  Inside the largest church in Donnerstag, a pair of individuals in sea blue robes were discussing with hushed voices. The conversation was unclear, but if one was there, they would have been able to make out the words “Cherubim” “Pray” and “Me”.

  One of the figures went to a prayer room, while the other went out towards the gate.

  …

  The sewn eyed figure was smiling, unconcerned with the cannon volleys and rifle fire that rained down from the walls. Whenever a rifle round struck him, whatever wound it would make would close instantly. Even the cannon volleys, when they were able to hit near the figure, could do nothing more than slightly unbalance the being as he continued to leisurely walk forward. With an almost graceful waltz, the figure began to wave his hands as if he was conducting an orchestra.

  The bodies in the field began to twitch.

  …

  Inside the prayer room, a young girl no older than five years old was tied down and gagged. She was wearing an exquisite blue robe and a necklace made out of pearls.

  The priest, still in his sea blue robe, likewise had tears in his eyes. He did not relish what had to happen. He began to pray an honorific name.

  “Augur of Storms,

  King of Shipwrecks,

  God of the Blasted Sea,”

  He brandished a golden ritual dagger in his hands as he moved towards the young girl.

  “Please accept this sacrifice. Please hear my call for aid. I am but a humble servant of your divinity, unwise to the ways of this world. All things are malleable, I offer this to you.”

  The priest slit his hand open, causing blood to spill on the dagger’s edge.

  “Like a ship lost at sea, wrecking itself on the rocks, I offer this to you.”

  Tears were in her eyes as she struggled to resist the ritual dagger plunging into her heart. The priest was likewise crying.

  “God of the Blasted Sea, enter unto this world through this ritual, send your Cherubim to your faithful. Let this shipwreck not be in vain. Save this city!”

  In the skies above Donnerstag, a storm began to brew.

  …

  Outside the city walls, the other priest walked without hesitation. He brandished a large copper hook. Attached to it was a copper chain. The figure out at the edge of the battlefield smiled a too-wide smile, its teeth gleaming in the dark.

  This priest was a Chosen, and he had no regrets left to think about. Before him was nothing more than another monster to be slain. He only needed to buy time.

  And buy time, he was determined to do.

  The two figures met near the middle of the battlefield. Amidst a skittering swarm of limbs and flesh and sinews that were acting of their own accord. The priest paid no heed to the undulating masses of flesh around him as he walked. He merely muttered prayers under his breath.

  The sewn eyed figure snapped his hands, and pillars of bones erupted from the ground. Ten meters high, they were crowned with human skulls. The stench of the grave permeated the area around them.

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  Still, the priest continued walking forward.

  Swinging the hook gently from side to side, the sound of running water could be heard across the battlefield. And then, he swung.

  The ensuing jet of water clove through the pillars of bones and rendered flesh and sinew apart from its connective tissue across the field. The various squirming corpses were cut in half, or thirds, or quarters. They continued to squirm, for as the jet of water reached the figure at the other end of the field, the water soured, splashed to the ground, and grew algae.

  This took five seconds.

  The sewn eyed figure was still smiling as it outstretched its left hand, sending a wave of darkness towards the priest. This darkness swallowed the light nearby and sizzled and burnt the ground as it passed.

  The priest responded by twirling the hook around his body in a mesmerizing pattern. Water began to pour out of the end of the hook, following the movements of the magical item as it became a flowing barrier around the priest. The dark, sizzling flames impacted the barrier and dissipated with a smell of burnt meat. Up in the sky above, a storm cloud was brewing.

  This took a further three seconds.

  The sewn eyed figure glanced at the skies up above, its smile disappearing. An aura of intense bloodlust lashed out, causing the priest to nearly stagger. But he held his resolve. He put his energy into his legs and blasted out towards the sewn eyed figure, riding a large wave of water across the field. Innumerable bodies were taken away and dispersed by this wave, but still they squirmed.

  The sewn eyed figure outstretched his right hand, and a torrent of wind and yellow, pus like watery substances flowed towards the priest, engulfing the battlefield and contaminating the wave of water with pollution.

  The priest swung the hook in front of him to create another barrier, but was still thrown off the wave of water by the force of the impact that the barrier couldn’t fully dissipate. As he moved to get up, the sewn eyed figure was standing there. It had covered the area faster than the Chosen could even sense, let alone react to avoid. With both hands, the sewn eyed figure grasped the throat of the priest.

  Crunch.

  Another body fell to the ground, joining the others as it began to squirm in the field.

  This took five seconds.

  As the body hit the ground, a bolt of lightning struck towards the figure, who narrowly avoided it based on instinct alone. Rain began to downpour around Donnerstag, and a lightning storm was beginning to besiege the docks in the distance.

  The sewn eyed figure outstretched both hands into the sky, causing thousands of sharp, needle-like bones to spew out of the ground and into the air, peppering the sky as if to strike the clouds themselves.

  A humanoid figure descended from the clouds, hurling a second bolt of lightning as it floated to the earth. The sewn eyed figure once again was forced to dodge as the bolt struck, ceasing the squirming of a dozen corpses nearby.

  A scaled figure had landed on the other side of the battlefield, positioning itself between the sewn eyed figure and the gate to Donnerstag. It had fishy eyes and thick puckered lips, with long talons. On its back was draped a cloak of water double the length of its own form. It seemed to have its own tidal forces as it lapped around the figure and draped to the ground.

  Lightning strikes permeated the clouds, illuminating the battlefield as if it were dusk, or perhaps dawn. The sewn eyed figure spread both hands with a smile and softly spoke.

  “A Cherubim? Oh how I shall enjoy making you squirm! Come, let us make a beautiful symphony for my Lord!”

  The fish eyed creature did not respond with words. Instead, it condensed a trident of lightning in its hand and caused the rain pouring down from the skies to shoot in jets towards the figure. It was as if a thousand javelins had been thrown towards it.

  The figure snickered and waved its arm, causing the corpses in the area to fling into the sky. For each water javelin, a corpse or part of a corpse rose up to intercept.

  This took ten seconds.

  The sewn eyed figure tsked under its breath.

  The sinews in the ground suddenly rose up to bind themselves to the Cherubim, entangling it in a web of organic matter.

  It paid no heed to the attempt, as a dozen bolts of lightning rained down on its form, causing all of the sinew in a wide radius to be utterly charred. It sprung into action at this, fast enough to make a shockwave of rain and wind batter the stone walls a dozen meters behind it as if it were a hurricane.

  It covered the distance between itself and the sewn eyed figure in less than a tenth of a second. Its lightning trident extended to its max extent, the sewn eyed figure barely had time to move its head out of the way. Its hand was brought up in a punch to the Cherubim’s solar plexus, but missed entirely as the entity twirled its body midair.

  The cloak of water that trailed after it enveloped the sewn eyed figure, carrying it high into the air before slamming it down into the ground with enough force that it was faintly felt at the city walls a quarter of a kilometer away.

  A slew of lightning bolts bombarded the sewn eyed figure, charring its skin black before it could get up to dodge.

  This exchange took an additional ten seconds.

  Before long, the lightning bolts stopped in midair. The rain reversed direction, and the wind, though it was howling like a hurricane, had failed to move so much as a blade of grass.

  The veritable crater that the sewn eyed figure was in had an entity step out of it. A Partial Divinity had awoken its Partial Divine Form.

  It was a mass of sinew and tendons, with eyes on the ends of stalks and dozens of skulls making up its spine. It stood five meters tall, with its flesh and skin sloughing around its form like waves. The demigod began to chant.

  “A splinter of bone,

  An eye wet with tears,

  A graceful extension of your Lord,

  I am the Composer of the Corpse Symphony,

  Lord of Squirming Tendons.”

  Pillars of bone erupted from the ground around the figure. The lightning attempted to descend from the sky, but was thrown off its course by a violation of the laws of nature. A great dome stretched into the sky, its form made out of corpses. Like the kingdom of some tyrant Devil, the dome pierced into the clouds in the sky.

  The Cherubim did not waver. Plunging its trident into the ground next to it, the air began to crackle and sizzle with electricity. The water mantle on the Cherubim’s back became corporeal, morphing into a red and blue cloth. It grew in size, soon towering over the battlefield like a ten meter tall watchtower. Its claws elongated to the size of swords, and hundreds of miniature lightning bolts manifested around it, hanging in the air. Squid like tentacles protruded from its back, forming a pair of wings.

  The rain began to swirl around into a whirlpool in the surrounding area, and the scent of ozone permeated not only the battlefield, but the entire city of Donnerstag. It smelt so strongly that even those hiding in the far end of the city in the depths of cathedral basements and noble estates were momentarily struck with fear of a rapid plume of plasma and fire.

  In the midst of the night, two Partial Divinities stared each other down.

  …