His soul bursting forth, a suggestion of a figure outlined in light, Ishtar flew out of the way further down the neck of his tamed demon and away from the reach of Raziel’s talons.
In reaction the worm swung its entire body upwards, slamming its head with a tremendous crash into the roof of the chamber above.  Raziel dove across the wide head just in time, catching onto a ridge of a section of exoskeleton for a hold. Above, the song of the singing house of faith faltered quite suddenly.
Screams of alarm replaced the words of praise and a few robed Hylden fell through the circular gap; plummeting down screaming past the demons to the dark abyss below. Even with the loss of some of its choir, the song of the Ziggurat did not diminish. The slow building vibration had been growing stronger and stronger; the entire spire seemed to vibrate with its resonance.
Ishtar paid no heed to the plight of his kinsmen and instead darted down the length of his long insect demon, straight towards the still figure of Janos Audron. The ancient was crouched on the stone ring on the far side of the chamber, clasping tightly to himself the Nexus Stone.
Janos would try to protect the artefact with his life but in his weakened state he was no match for Ishtar one on one and Raziel had no intention of letting the Hylden get his hands on the stone again.
He was too far away to be stopped directly or even be struck by bolt of force. Instead, Raziel decided to cut the very ground out from under him. Holding onto the ridge for support, he brought his arm back, tensed and then stabbed his talons forward. With a sleep tearing sound very much like torn fabric, his talons stabbed into the eye on the left hand side of the demons head.
The eyeball ruptured with a spray of stinking translucent juice and blood, bursting forth to splatter down his front.
The screech of pain the insect made in response was like the shrillest pig’s squeal, its entire body writhing back in agony. The convulsion caused Ishtar to loose his footing and he stumbled, unable to balance himself on the back of the twisting centipede.
Raziel sprang forward, scrambling over the body of the creature as fast as he could; racing towards Ishtar with his talons ready to strike.
Ishtar managed to see him coming and dodged the swings, sliding around the lunges the blue wraith made and smashing a kick into his chest in retaliation.
Screeching, a lightning demon swung its sparking pincers around in a wide arc, aiming the blow at Vorador’s head. The limb met the vampire’s sword and the blade cut vertically up through the flesh and bone, slicing it neatly in half.
Vorador drew his sword out trailing blood and cartilage and, reversing it slammed it point first through the creature’s chest. It pieced the heart easily and the demon toppled back with a gurgle, blood spurting from the mouth. With this last obstacle cleared, Vorador’s path was clear
“Sire!” He shouted, vaulting over the body and coming to the side of his creator. Janos was just sitting there, arms and wings curved protectively about himself and the prize he had torn from Ishtar’s grip. Janos was looking deep into the polished olive stone in the centre of the golden scarab setting, his expression enthralled. Once more he was oblivious to the world around him.
Vorador gently knelt beside him, laying his hands on his Janos’ own.
“I thank you, my lord.” He said softly. “Let me have the stone.” Janos gave no sign that he had understood, or even if he had heard, but his hands relaxed around the Nexus Stone and Vorador lifted it away from him without resistance.
In its agony, the demon centipede whipped his entire body around and slammed itself against the side of the wall. This blow was far stronger and was sufficient to do a great deal of damage, the stone and brick crumbling away at the impact leaving a large hole in the side of the wall, cracks spreading out from the new opening.
Ishtar crouched on the top of an inverted ‘L’ shaped pipe, snarling down at the scene in obvious irritation. The louder and louder disturbances in this chamber were beginning to distract the attention of his house from their choir duty, their song waning.
There was Raziel’s only hope of stopping this doomsday scenario. He had to create enough of a distraction so that there would be no way the Hylden could reach the genocidal crescendo. 
Gazing up at the cracked side of the Ziggurat’s wall he guessed he knew just how to do that.
Ishtar even obliged him, stabbing down at them all with a trembling finger.
“Destroy them!” He said with a voice that wavered. “Leave nothing, not even their bones!”
After the maiming it had received at the hands of the blue wraith, the demon insect was more then happy to oblige.
It snapped at him, its massive jaws seeking to devour him if he let go.
Clinging onto the head, he made sure that its good eye could see him and using that he kept the creature tugging in that one direction to get at him. Blinded in one eye and maddened with the pain it was ignoring its instincts that might have told it that it was being led into a trap.
When, finally, it was pushed past caring and only knew only its desperate need to kill that which had been the source of so much pain, it screeched and slammed it’s had forward.
By then Raziel had positioned it in the right spot, so that when it came forward its head crashed into the compromised wall, bringing more of it down in a cascade of broken masonry. The sound was deafening and with that interruption the song of the Hylden began to falter.
Sally had to race out of the way but she was fast enough, sliding between the startled demons that looked up, that moment of hesitation depriving them of the opportunity to escape.
The falling stone collapsed onto the path, crushing both them and pinning the head of the demon insect down. More and more rubble was falling loose now, smashing down onto the pile, adding more and more weight before finally…
Even Raziel flinched at the sound of that crack, the unmistakable sound of bone breaking into dozens of pieces all at once.
The head had been completely crushed, the skull shattered into fragments from the pressure and from between gaps in the in the rubble oozed thick rivulets of blood and brain matter.
A shudder ran the length its body from its tip and down to where its tail must end far below. The legs all along its side jabbed out erratically in all directions in a series of terrible convulsions. Then it grew still, its body going limp and collapsing with a thud against the Ziggurat wall, breaking it even further.
It twitched several times in its death throws but finally it went still. Slowly the long body began to slide backwards, its weight pulling it out from its precarious hold on the wall. Stone and brick tumbled away with it as the monstrous insect crashed down the entire length of the Ziggurat, smashing against the wall of the inner walls of the structure several times before it collided with the foundations.
That impact shook the entire spire from bottom to top, sudden cracks running across the walls and ceiling. There was a loud crunch from somewhere below, a reverberating sensation that was less sound than force. The entire spire seemed to lean slightly to one side, the floor beneath their feet changing angle to a definite slope. The song of the Hylden House of Faith wavered, panicked cries breaking through the chorus and then when finally, jagged slabs of stone started falling down from the ceiling it broke entirely. Cries of alarm blocked out the song completely and the Ziggurat’s building hum came to a stop.
Suddenly, in this display of structural deficiency, Raziel saw the weakness of the spire. Like all Hylden structures it was built for a singular purpose, the harnessing of the sound of the singers inside and unleash it as a destructive force outside. But the humans who had built the Cathedral on which this structure had been based had also taken other factors into account, such as its need to remain standing against constant attacks by vampires. But that was not the Hylden way, they built one building for one purpose and that lapse of judgement had cost the Ziggurat the endurance to withstand any sort of serious damage.
Looking up at his spire as it began to slowly collapse, Ishtar’s face was twisted with an expression of supreme anger and frustration. Evidentially that had clearly dawned on him as well.
“Damn you, Raziel!” He snarled, spittle flying from his lips in his fury as he turned to face the blue wraith.   
Raziel stared him down and shrugged.
“It’s been done.” He remarked and quickly rolled to the side as Ishtar sent forth his soul as a projectile of burning energy, smashing into the spot where he had been moments before and breaking the stone platform to let it crumble down into the darkness.
The spire of the Ziggurat began to shudder and convulse, massive cracks spreading down its length from the outside. Screams of terror ran through the tower as the many Hylden standing in the galleries abandoned their posts and ran for whatever exits they could find, scrambling down the twisting stair cases to try and escape. Some stairs collapsed underneath them, plummeting screaming priests into darkness.
“Sire, this place is collapsing!” Sally declared, rushing to Vorador’s side. “We must leave before we are crushed!”
“You were going nowhere!” Ishtar snarled, dropping down almost next to them. His eyes burned with an intense green fire of madness, teeth bared and arms spread wide with his fingers arched like claws. “You’ve ruined everything!” His soul came out, blasting forth as a vengeful incandescent ball of energy.
Before it could impact, Raziel leapt at him from behind. His talons sank into Ishtar’s flesh, tearing through skin and muscle until they grated against bone.
“No!” Ishtar hoarsely cried out, trying to shake the blue wraith off of him. But Raziel had him now, his grip unbreakable. The talons of his free hand stabbed into the Hylden’s body again and again, puncturing him and leaving massive bloodied holes with each stab.
Then, to finish the job, Raziel stabbed his hand directly into his stomach and pulled back sharply; dragging with him the twisted red intestines of the Hylden’s belly. The organs ruptured forth with an intense spray of blood. His life spilling out of him, Ishtar stumbled back and collided with the wall.
“No... I can’t die yet.” He said but blood was beginning to form on his lips. “Too much left to do!”
Raziel flicked the blood and flesh off his talons as he walked up, watching the Hylden slid down into a slumped sitting position.
“Can’t let my people… can’t let them ….die.” Ishtar was vainly trying to force his intestines back in but he had lost too much blood and he was struggling to breath.
Raziel narrowed his eyes, looking at the spectacle with something approaching pity. The Hylden were, in a way, no responsible for their actions. The madness of the demon dimension had robbed those most affected of any empathy or respect for other living things. All they knew to be good was the continuation and well being of their own kind.
“I have no intention of massacring the Hylden, Ishtar.” He said, offering the priest at least this much. “Even if life goes on for us, there is no one left to do you or your people harm.”
Ishtar leaned back against the wall, coughing blood and worse. His body was trembling violently.
“N.. trust no one…” He managed to spit. “It’s how we survived. Kee…keep to ourselves, destroy outsiders.”
Savagely he turned his head to glare defiantly at the blue wraith.
“It is our way!” Then he coughed once, a racking tearing sound and slumped back against the wall going limp.
His body lay there, still for a moment and then piece by piece his soul began to emerge from the corpse. It came slowly, as if reluctant to leave the flesh, a sparking essence crackling with power.
Raziel did then what he knew he must do. He drew down his cowl and pulled the soul towards him.
.
“As I consumed Ishtar’s fanatical soul, I took to me his ability to project my soul as a form of energy. When that new gift came to me it did so in a form I was more than familiar with.”
.
Ishtar’s soul was not like any other spirit he had absorbed before. It was like trying to swallow a live eel as it struggled to get away. Grasping it hard with his mind and every ounce of willpower in his soul, Raziel dragged it down slowly into himself. Even in death Ishtar refused to submit and went to oblivion kicking and screaming.
The surge of energy that burst through the blue wraith’s body upon its absorption shook him down to his core, rocking him to his knees his arms held out before him.
The ability of the Hylden priest, the ability to project his soul as physical energy, was coming forth and his own soul struggled to deal with it. He felt as if his own spirit was bursting out of his body in several places at the same time, ready to fly apart never to be whole again.
His body was glowing with a light that pulsed from within. He lit the entire chamber with the light, the light expanding out until it filled the entire collapsing Ziggurat.
Outside the spire the Serioli vampires, who had retreated once their role as distraction had been fulfilled, watched from a nearby cliff as every opening in the spire radiated with that light. For a brilliant instant, the entire Hylden settlement was lit up like a star in the northern sky.
Then the light retracted, sliding back over the stones and condensing in one spot; spiralled like a coiled snake around Raziel’s right arm.
Slowly the blue wraith turned his head to look at the spark of constant energy that gently snaked across his skin. He stared at it for a long time, slowly coming to understand what it meant.
It was impossible… and yet there it was.
He did not react immediately with horror and revulsion as he might once have to such a development however, for he could sense no second presence and realised this was a not a curse but a blessing. Ishtar’s ability was being used in the only way his soul knew how to remodel itself.
.
“And then I remembered the words of the Keeper, for the he had asked me why I had referred to the Soul Reaver in third person.”
.
Slowly he stood up, holding his right arm out in front of himself watching the band of energy twist itself up his arm and around his talons.
Once again, as he had first done when he had been revived in this dead era, he felt the same laugh begin to bubble up out of him. It was a slow chuckle at first, growing more intense and hysterical with each passing moment.
.
“In that instant I realised the profound but simple truth. There was and had never been anything to fear from the Reaver. I could no more fear it than I could fear my own arm or leg.”
.
He thrust his arm high in the air and called forth the Reaver blade.
.
“How could I fear myself?”
.
The blade came faithfully, bursting forth from his palm like the blast of fire from a dragons mouth. The blade screeched as it erupted, a sword of spiritual fire feared by the entire world since time immemorial.
Seeing it, even in his mentally damaged state, Janos recoiled slightly with his wings coming forwards to shield himself from the sight of it. Vorador and Sally only stared in mute incomprehension and wonder.
Now it truly was his own soul, forged into a weapon and projected through the ability Ishtar’s soul had given to him. He watched it flare about him and felt was if he were looking into a mirror, seeing himself from the outside in; a sensation of double observation as he were looking back at himself from the sword as well,
 In the white fire he saw the truth which had been in front of him since he had been reborn in this ruined body.
 “I AM THE SOUL REAVER!” He declared with a voice so loud that it reverberated through the Ziggurat’s falling spire.
The Ziggurat was crumbling down, collapsing quickly down to the Hylden settlement below.
As the chamber began to break apart around them, Vorador held forth the Nexus Stone and called upon its power.
For not only did the stone diminish the power of the Soul Reaver, it could also open doorways to almost any location the wielder desired.
The four of them stepped through the portal that opened just as the Ziggurat trembled one final time and then crashed down to the ground with a sound that was heard for miles in any direction.