Kor’Thank: Chapter 66

Eun was punching through different worlds, different times, different levels of the Tower itself.  Horror and wonder flitted by, too fast for her to comprehend.  All she knew was that an unimaginable (literally) variety of beings were trying to destroy her.  She was running her guns as hard as she could, blasting out streams of weaponized theory.  Somewhere between Gehenna and Imajica, the craft had sprouted radiant bayonets from its mechanized gun-arms.  They’d proven useful in Hyperspace Valhalla, where she’d had to fight off sword-wielding mind-forms.

As Dissona infected the outside aether, she felt Peter tapping at her mind.  She couldn’t make out the exact words, but she got the gist of it:  he was saying goodbye.

Oh well.  She allowed herself a faint smile.  We had a damn good run.

And then she heard it:  a timeless melody that cut through the dark.



Thaumaturgic brilliance—battle-magics cast by Kora, Wodec, and a few of the others who knew combat arcana—zipped through the air, smashing apart entities left and right.  If Lord of the Rings had crazy ass-sex with Faces of Death and the Evil Dead, their fucked-up offspring would resemble the conflict unfolding on ANOS’s parking lot.  Barbarians were mowing through fiendish atrocities that wore their organs on the outside, that spoke in nerve-shredding tongues borne from the exact opposite of human sanity, that wielded whips and chains tipped with screaming heads and gibbering faces.  It didn’t matter to the bloodthirsty Indashi; they were having the time of their lives as they parried and cut, trampled and smashed.


“Hark!” Wodec cried.  He pointed at the sky, now filled with miasmic fog. “Our end draws nigh!  If this is the end, then make it such an end, that will echo throughout eternity and the Unbound Realm!”

The barbarians responded with a bone-quaking cry, slicing apart hellspawn with renewed fervor.  Kora allowed herself a grim smile.  They’d done their best to thwart Dissona, but it hadn’t been enough.  Maybe they’d find each other after existence rebooted.  Maybe they’d—

Wodec’s voice pierced her thoughts.  “There may still be hope!  Look to the stars!” 

A ray of light cut the heavens, filling Kora’s eyes with reflected brilliance.  Her smile went from grim to joyous.

Give her hell, Peter.