Chapter Text
Warning(s): T, some gore
Dāo clutched at the hilt until her knuckles blanched, Guīzhōng could feel her heart throb in her chest as the dusty tempest she’d conjured as a smokescreen provided enough cover for her people as they rushed within a cave, the pinpricks of light that bled through her massive automata bleeding through the thick obfuscation. She could barely hear over the howl of wind and the rise of dust that accompanied it, but her eyes widened in alarm when one of the automata of a battalion she’d devised to combat any pursuers exploded in the distance, the concussive dissonance quaking the ground under her feet.
A bright corona of light from the expelled inferno rolled into the dust cloud, heat waves radiant through the heart of the storm as a roar thundered into the air above the maelstrom, Guīzhōng shuddering briefly when she realized what it meant as twin, amethyst orbs trained on her through the darkness.
She had to draw his attention away!
On a current of dust in her storm did Guīzhōng alight to the higher rapids she stood upon like solid ground, watching as two of her automata—twin, enormous mechanized tigers—snarled and reared up on their hind legs to claw with the superheated claws that protruded from their paws, their cauterized swipes singeing the air as the god raced past.
Their foe howled in pain, and Guīzhōng’s heart clenched.
Memnoch was one of the more powerful contenders in the Archon Wars, a great, shadowy titan Guīzhōng had heard was self-styled as a God of Darkness, and she was beginning to see why he bore that epithet. However powerful her dust storms were, she wasn’t as powerful as the other gods. Even with her automata reconstructed to serve as warriors that fought in her people’s name, there was only so much she could do. While she had her own savvy with swordsmanship, it seemed so little compared to these gods that could terraform the earth, sculpt and dredge the seas, or tear apart the heavens on a whim.
Guīzhōng’s oceanic blue eyes widened in alarm as a surge of wind blasted through the storm and nearly unseated her, raising her arms before her so the dust wouldn’t blast her, honey-brown hair snapping like a flag behind her. She cracked an eye open before slowly lowering her arm, terror shrinking her pupils at what loomed over her.
Memnoch’s massive face towered over her, all three sets of his hellion-bright eyes honed malevolently on the goddess. She heard the sputter of static as her automatons had been crushed underfoot as though they were nothing. His lips pulled back in a snarl, mouth open like the gates of hell as a wave of smoldering heat and cinders washed over her and made her eyes water.
It didn’t matter, though. She’d sooner die than leave her people undefended!
Primed to retort with a redirection of her dust storm, Guīzhōng recoiled in surprise when an igneous meteor hurtled towards Memnoch and smashed into his skull, the inertia of the offensive rocking Memnoch’s head forth as the projectile splintered and sent massive boulders and hunks of stone to rain on the earth below, the lingering dust cloud blown away by Guīzhōng’s storm while the god’s heart climbed in her throat.
It couldn’t be him, could it?
Memnoch wheeled on the new opponent with a bellow, rearing back a fist to clock whoever was behind him, but Guīzhōng’s brow furrowed with determination. By a silent entreaty, two of her ballista that had been stationed nearby shot massive harpoons into Memnoch’s arm, a spray of shade gushing from the wounds as they swiftly reeled in the chains connected to the harpoons and staggered the titan.
The cacophonous shattering of the ground at Memnoch’s feet rose in a crescendo as an enormous crevice yawned open and sunk the god of darkness to his chest while Guīzhōng aided by filling it with a rapid onset of dust that flooded the artificial gorge and arrested Memnoch, even if Guīzhōng knew better than to think it would hold permanently.
“Do you mean to keep fighting?”
Guīzhōng wheeled to be completely blindsided by who joined her, jaw-dropping at the sight of none other than Morax himself. Clad in his signature, sleeveless white and gold robes, baggy black pants, and defined by the dark hue of his arms split by geometric veins of gold and gradated, black to amber hair, he looked regal atop the earthy hands he utilized as a platform.
Shoving aside her awe, Guīzhōng nodded resolutely. “Yes, Morax-gōng!” she affirmed resolutely, and though Morax’s features didn’t betray any significant emotion through his deadpan, he wordlessly raised another hand as a platform and ushered for her to board it.
Leaping to it adroitly, Guīzhōng braced herself as the construct shuddered and they raised into the air, just noticing as multitudes of similar rocky hands followed behind that sprouted from the ground as if a colossus was due to rise from the earth with them. It felt strange to be in the palm of such a platform, but she didn’t question it as Memnoch issued a roar of challenge that vibrated the very air.
“Dispel your storm, if you would.”
Guīzhōng’s gaze shot to Morax and she nodded tensely, sweeping her arm across in a cutting motion to do as he’d requested, the torrent fading as the destruction wrought caused Guīzhōng’s breath to catch in her throat.
The rampage of destruction was more devastating than she’d thought previously; many of her automata had been crushed into heaps of disjointed parts, some ballista planted on the road had been smashed to smithereens, while the bodies of the dead amassed along the path Memnoch had taken to try to flush them out. Brave men and women who fought to defend their god and comrades. Though her heart sank, she knew better than to squander their sacrifices by giving into despair.
“Morax-gōng,” Guīzhōng addressed urgently, the other god meeting her eyes, “since Memnoch is going to break out soon, allow me to make a distraction! I have an idea that will ground him enough for you to strike!”
“I’ve heard word of your feats of strategy, Guīzhōng-tàitai. I trust you with this plan of yours,” Morax informed her with a shadow of a smirk. The god felt her innards flop, unsure if she was just imagining the warmth in his amber gaze or not.
Nodding vigorously, Guīzhōng elected to stave off the vertigo rising in her mind, instead.
With a swift gesture, a whirlwind of dust encompassed the goliath’s head that drowned out his roars of ire, tearing free from his prison and wrenching the harpoons free, yanking the chains harshly enough to tear apart her ballistas' mechanisms.
Leaping with swift alacrity from the platform, Guīzhōng flipped elegantly onto Memnoch’s shoulder and charged her dāo with her elemental burst, dust swirling along the blade to drastically sharpen its cutting power. With an elegant slice through the titan’s shoulder, it caterwauled in agony as she then repeated the motion before swiftly backflipping back to the ground where she landed superfluously on her feet.
She swore she could see Morax’s approving look from aloft as he then utilized those hands he’d created to seize Memnoch in a vice and hold him crushingly, all before the ground below rumbled as another crevice clove through the earth and magma burbled to the surface, the goddess escaping on another current of dust to avoid the cauldron that opened, Memnoch flailing as be began to be boiled alive.
Her gaze was utterly transfixed as Memnoch was dragged into the boil, body dissolving while tortured screams rent the air and he flailed wildly, vainly, to try and flee the hellish demise he faced. Flesh and bone caught afire and slipped from his frame, the shadows escaping in piercing whines in the inexorable slough while burning flesh singed Guīzhōng’s nostrils.
It barely took a moment more before it was wrenched with a violent pull into the boil, a splash soaring into the air before collapsing with passive hissing as the magma quickly cooled.
The god stared in shock as the fissure was closed and Morax descended to the earth, blinking numbly. Had they really done that? Had she really just fought alongside one of the most powerful gods in the world? The god of war, nonetheless?
The air quelled and the disturbances in the earth leveled at Morax’s discretion, but the decimation from before remained and Guīzhōng felt her spirits fall significantly.
“Do you and your people have anywhere to go?” Morax queried once he came within earshot, canting his head at the smaller god. Despite it, the cold ruthlessness in his gaze seemed largely abated, thankfully. The last thing she needed was to become his enemy next.
Guīzhōng sighed and gazed back at the cave mouth where her people tepidly drew into the open, lingering at its threshold, uncertain if Morax could be trusted. Despite herself, a fond warmth bubbled in her breast knowing most were okay.
“I’m… not sure. We’re a nomadic people forced to fight sometimes, but otherwise, we avoid the bloodshed,” Guīzhōng explained with a sigh. “Might I ask why?”
Sustaining their matched eyes for a long moment, he turned back to scrutinize her people.
“My own kith have sought shelter in a gorge not far from here. You’re welcome to stay as long as you wish. Think of it as recompense for your aid today,” Morax said with a curt nod, but Guīzhōng couldn’t sense any rudeness in his tone.
Mustering a small smile, she acquiesced, “You’re known for your constancy, Morax-gōng, and keeping your word. I must speak with my people, but perhaps we’ll find this valley you speak of.”
When the small smile on his lips grew and became so much more than imagined, a dark blush graced Guīzhōng’s cheeks. How unreal, how dream-like! Ducking her gaze away lest her staring be construed as rude, her heart sang when he replied.
“Very well. Until then, Guīzhōng-tàitai.”