Godkiller - The Lumberjack Journal - 5 - Some Terrible Sword

Sorrow is all I feel for those who cross my brother. I have seen some of the strongest Zol has to offer felled like trees simply to clear his path. There have been a few who could stand against him. Morana, Draedon, and others like them. But no one beats him.

I often think back to Shaelfiend. The only voice amongst the Assembly to ever truly oppose him. Do not mistake my sympathy as fondness. Shaelfiend was a terrible man. A being of hate and terror, kept alive for centuries by the ritual sacrifice of innocents. But he had protested when my brother commanded the use of Feral Ichor to create Hunters.

The Assembly knew it would sow seeds of destruction for later ages, but they were desperate, and my brother needed to ensure a second plague after The Chaos War. The Grand Insightors didn’t know this of course, but they suspected he stood to gain something. Shaelfiend didn’t trust him, and his skepticism nearly turned the Assembly against my brother. I think he may have been able to do it too, if he hadn’t foolishly challenged him to a duel. Undoubtedly my brother planted the idea in his head, that’s always his way.

But I even fell for his games that day. I hadn’t seen my brother truly fight in a few centuries, and I worried he had fallen out of practice. I actually believed Shaelfiend may succeed in killing him. Another Dradeon perhaps? My brother’s plentiful stamina caused the fight to drag on. Shaelfiend had turned his body into a mess of blood, and his wounds weren’t closing fast enough.

I asked one of The Growth’s spawns if we should interfere, but she just laughed. That woman’s blind faith makes me sick, but she had been right. I even considered killing Shaelfiend myself. I could have bisected him with a door, assuming I could catch him off guard. Being such a powerful mage, I would have had to destroy his nervous system instantaneously. I only stayed my hand knowing the ensuing battle against the Insightors would have leveled Archaic.

Then Shaelfiend began to speak. No one got to hear what he said, but you could tell it was to be a taunting phrase. He had my brother in a seemingly inescapable, crushing bind across the room from him. But before Shaelfiend could get more than 3 words out, my brother broke free and closed the distance in an eyeblink.

Despite his wounds, his expression was unphased. Unpained. Shaefiend could barely flinch before my brother got one of his powerful hands around his neck, and its opposite on his shoulder. The whole room froze as he dangled the arcane man like a doll. In horror, we watched as he ripped Shaelfiend’s head and spine from his body in a single, visceral motion. As if he were unsheathing some terrible sword.

As I had mentioned, the most surefire way to kill a mage is to destroy their nervous system. Some can cast rudimentary, dangerous, or preserving spells using only thought. However, my brother wanted him to feel what he was about to do. Before Shaelfiend could use what little life he had left, my brother thrust his thumb into his eye, making contact with his brain. What was left of Shaelfiend’s biology allowed the mouth to open, but he didn’t have lungs to scream.

A white-hot blanket of silence stole the sound from the room as my brother spoke his Word. An all too familiar, nauseating aura filled the space. I knew he was torturing what was left of Shaelfiend. In that terrible moment, he probably felt the white-hot pain of every person he had sacrificed 3 times over. Once my brother could no longer sense a mind to influence, he threw the gruesome spine at the feet of the Insightors. It was the first, and final time the Assembly stood against him.