Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Twelve – 812

Puppet soldiers plummeted, and Siva was right after them, her long form turning to grasp at the earth, only to have it break beneath her many-fingered grasp. They were silent, but she cried out in frustration.

Felix bared his teeth as he fell, too, and the massive cavern beneath Levantier opened up all around them. The walls were solidified Mana, a clouded, corrupted orange crystal, its facets reflecting the light from the sky above. There was little else to see as they tumbled into blinding vapor and thin air.

How Useless. Siva spread huge, bat-like wings and flapped them hard, lifting from the swirling Mana.

Adamant Discord!

Felix blasted downward on a bolt of lightning, slamming into her back and flaring his Skill for all it was worth.

You’re Desperate, Indeed! Siva cried, twisting to face him as lightning burnt away her clutching limbs. You’ve Killed All These Poor Soldiers.

Siva slashed, grasped, and strangled Felix by turns, stymied only momentarily as the lightning charred her bones, and his talons slashed them apart. His claws sliced through pale limbs by the dozen, but they always reformed.

What Will Become Of You, I Wonder?

With a terrible crash, they hit the surface of a vast lake.

Blind from the vapor, Felix tumbled forward, tossed free by the impact as cloudy orange liquid burned at him. He knew the feel of liquid Mana better than most, and he sank deep, pulled down by thick bubbles that swirled around his arms and legs like chains. The puppet soldiers landed all around him, their flesh rendered into nothing but smears within seconds.

Siva herself appeared stunned, if for only a moment, her many arms going strangely listless. She pivoted the golden orb upon her brow, gleaming with a muted light. My Authority! What Is This—?

Her dominance over the Mana around them suddenly slackened, and Felix knew why.

The Will of something else laid claim to the Mana Well.

Felix could feel it crawling against him, seeking to dissolve his flesh or change him into something...other. A twisted slave to the remnant Will. It encountered his Sovereign of Flesh, however, and found it could not touch him; not in that way.

The Fleshcurse had no hold on Felix Nevarre.

The enormity of its Will, however, was something altogether different. While Siva moved her limbs sluggishly, Felix could barely move at all. The liquid was heavy and full of a nameless Need that dragged them down into its clouded depths.

Empyrean Embrace!

Liquid Mana streamed into his channels, pouring directly into his core space and sending a thrill of power across all of his Aspects.

Cease Your Consumption! Siva growled before extending herself in his direction. She may have moved slowly, but her flesh was unnatural and imbued with Divine power. It burned at the liquid, clearing the way as she smashed Felix directly into a crystalline wall. She followed, bashing her many fists into his chest and hips, the speed and strength of which was beyond anything he'd ever faced.

He broke.

WARNING!

Your Health Has Dropped Below 50%!

He sputtered but held onto the power that sat in his core space now. The Will around him had backed off almost immediately as he ate. There was a moment there, a moment of connection that seemed to suggest...but it was swiftly gone, and Siva was tearing him apart.

WARNING!

Your Health Has Dropped Below 35%!

He kicked off the wall, shattering more crystal and narrowly avoiding a clawed fist.

Stride of the King is level 103!

...

Stride of the King is level 109!

Brutal, unavoidable attacks scored his flesh, and caustic Mana scoured his wounds. Felix braced against them all, squeezing every drop he could out of his movement Skill.

Stride of the King is level 110!

He swam along the walls, using them to kick and hurl himself with all the Strength he could muster in that thick, thick liquid that he could not quench. Siva followed, bashing into him whenever she could, even as he did his best to evade.

He slashed his dark talons into the wall, scratching sigils there. You Cannot Even Evade My Strikes. Give Up Now, Nevarre. Join Us. We Still Need Vessels.

"Eat me!” He scratched another sigil onto the wall before kicking off to the side.

That Can Be Arranged!

Siva paused in her assault. Looking back at the sigils he had just marked. You—This Is Pathetic, Nevarre.

She reached out and slashed through the sigildry he'd left behind, but Felix was already at the next portion of the wall. He scratched another.

Stop!

She surged forward, arms twisting into flipper-like paddles at her sides and propelling her ahead like a sea monster of vile proportions. He clawed another and another mark, connecting them with an ease of long use and the muscle memory of a great many repetitions.

I Know What You Are Attempting. It Is Not Allowed! She reached out, arms melding into one huge limb that caught Felix between powerful, silver bones. This Power Is Meant For The Gods Alone.

Her chest spread open, the arms unfolding into a web of tarnished silver threads. They speared outward into the liquid power of the Mana Well and began to absorb it.

Hey, that's mine! Sonata of Dominance!

Using the Skill was difficult. Felix felt his Will immediately clash with the near-dead Primordial’s. Though it was a remnant, it posed a significant barrier against his own. However, it also served as a barrier to Siva's. Her claim over the power of the area faltered, or had already faltered. Felix focused, pressing the Skill as best he could, narrowing his dominion until it was no more than a thread.

Sonata of Dominance is level 119!

...

Sonata of Dominance is level 124!

He wove through Siva's restraints and her extended grasp as she absorbed the liquid Mana around them. He shoved his intent against the enchanted wall. A sigil formed, and the array was complete.

Magus of the Grand Design is level 108!

...

Magus of the Grand Design is level 125!

Grandmaster Tier!

You Gain:

+175 INT

+195 WIL—

Felix cut it off, holding it at bay with his immense Will. He couldn't spare the time to temper it.

Not yet!

The siphon array activated.

Empyrean Embrace!

He hauled in the power around him, his Authority greater in that split second than even Siva's.

Like Calls To Like! Hunger bellowed.

Primordial Power rallied to Primordial. Sigils flashed, and it was as if he were in the center of his own tornado.

Vile Unbound! Her innumerable hands slashed outward, breaking through his array with a whirlwind of strikes...but it was too late. The maelstrom had been kickstarted, and it would not be denied.

The liquid power around them poured into Felix, funneling into his open maw and pouring down into his core space. His muscles bulged, black scales regrowing as he outgrew his previous size. He bashed away Siva's grasp, shattering her massive hand as his teeth sharpened, and his eyes burned blue-white.

Yet all that power had a downside. He could no longer hold tight to his core space, and his Grand Master Temper ripped through him.

Primordial Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Vanished Horizons]

Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!

Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!

All Pillars Have Been Formed! Bonus Added!

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence of Vanished Horizons]!

Calculating Effects...

Choose A Feature:

Path - Walk The Earth

Orbit - Traverse The Heavens

Domain - Claim Yourself

Visions assaulted him, pouring across his senses like memories from lives he'd never lived.

Path - Walk The Earth. Meaning flowed through him, resolving into an old Goblin woman trailing a gnarled stick through the dirt of an ancient forest. The trail extended ahead of her and behind for a great many miles, some of which were lit by the summer sun and others that were cloaked in deepest shadow. Gossamer threads of golden light rose from the line she left with her stick, weaving through the air like ephemeral braids. He knew, almost instantly, that the Path was to take the steps of his journey the long way, and by doing so experience the slow turn of the world.

Orbit - Traverse The Heavens. His viewpoint expanded, pushing outward from the forest until he could see the whole of a world, shining in the depths of space. From this vantage point, Felix could see the planet move through the dark, and it trailed its own kind of light. Patterns formed in its wake, pulled and pushed as invisible forces acted upon them at a scale he couldn't quite grasp. It was the same as the Path, only larger and more complicated. But the specifics were lost, left behind on the surface of the world in favor of a greater importance.

Domain - Claim Yourself. Planet and star-speckled space vanished, replaced by a full-length mirror edged in decorative, red-gold tree roots. His own reflection stared back, and Felix was startled to see all the blood that covered him. He reached out, talons tapping against the silvered surface...before his scales and muscles and bones vanished. He was left as a pair of invisible eyes, hung between a network of raging rivers. Pathways, leading in complicated loops up and around before returning to a darkness at his center. Red-gold and blue-white gleamed there, twin stars in the dark, alongside opalescent roots that threaded through it all. This was a different route than Path or Orbit, focused not on the world outside, but the one inside.

He’d had plenty of hard decisions during a Temper before, but this one was clear.

I choose Domain!

Congratulations!

You Have Absorbed The Essence Of [Domain]!

A wave of power washed over him, subtle and sweet compared to the onslaught of Primordial Soup that already poured across his core space. Magus of the Grand Design glowed, gaining an ethereal quality he couldn't name, but it felt potent.

Forbidden!

Siva tackled him down farther into the Mana Well as her feeding strands stretched ever wider, forcing them both so deep that the clouded orange liquid became nearly opaque.

Her golden orb flashed close to his face, and it, brighter than bright as unnatural silver, unspooled from her form to spear into the walls. She grasped Felix's body, still in the midst of his consumption, and slammed him into the crystals. A shockwave tore through it, rippling it into a massive wave that, for a moment, sent all liquid away from him. Then it came crashing back.

The pressure was enough to shatter the crystals behind him into a thousand shards, and his head snapped back, teeth broken and body rent across the chest, shoulders, and face.

Cease Your Heresy!

He gagged on his own blood, but never stopped eating. Felix moved, rolling away from Siva's follow-up assault, his body reacting without conscious thought.

Stride of the King is level 111!

Stride of the King is level 112!

Consuming the power of the lake-sized Mana Well was enough to occupy his entire attention. Felix was only vaguely aware of the wounds he could not evade, and the ruin Siva visited upon his flesh. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

The liquid of the Mana Well was Mana, Essence, and no small amount of significance, all mixed into one, and it flowed through him in a raging torrent that he could barely control, until Hunger rose from the dark.

A shape without form, black against black, she reached into the stream of incandescent Mana, no, incandescent power, and diverted it with a single, massive claw. It split, most of it pouring across his divine tree and dual cores, while a greater share diverted into Sovereign of Flesh.

Sovereign of Flesh is level 125!

Grandmaster Tier!

You Gain:

+400 STR

+300 END

+...

It rolled through him, inevitable, consuming what remaining shreds of his attention weren't taken up by Empyrean Embrace. He forced himself to lean harder on Stride of the King, as Siva came for his throat, and he dove inward.

Primordial Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Vanished Horizons]

Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!

Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence of Vanished Horizons]!

Calculating Effects...

Siva grabbed at him, and Felix spun through her variegated grasp, but couldn’t escape the dagger-like digits that dug into his thighs and sides.

Stride of the King is level 113!

...

Stride of the King is level 123!

Sovereign of Flesh is level 126!

Time slowed in his Perception as notifications streamed across his consciousness, but not enough. The thousand jagged claws of Siva came for his throat as blue boxes overwhelmed his vision.

Rain of Cataclysm is level 81!

Scion.Look.

Through fight and flight, Felix had reached the bottom of the Mana Well. Stretching below him across a vast, tiled floor was a deformed, half-melted skull.

A corpse.

Hunger. You’re beautiful!

He dove.

Hold, Unbound!

Silver threads intercepted his path, growing around him as if alive. He blasted through them, too agile by half to be stopped by Oaths that could not touch him. The white hands that grew from the silver, however, very much could—they pierced him, clutching at his limbs and slicing deep enough that it cut through all his resistances.

Lay of the Unfallen is level 127!

...

Lay of the Unfallen is level 131!

“GAHH—ADAMANT DISCORD!”

Lightning crawled off of him, arcing through the Mana like a halo. He yanked back on a tether of blinding light.

Siva was torn free, but she screeched from entirely too close. Felix didn’t turn around.

He surged downward, through Mana and blood, hands outstretched.

Do Not Touch That—!

He reached the Primordial’s corpse first.

Empyrean Embrace!

The twisted skull lit up from the inside, the hazy orange igniting all around him as if he’d lit a campfire behind its eyes—and then it dissolved into a stream of blinding radiance that punched upward and into Felix’s chest.

White hands slashed into him, grabbing Felix’s arms and wrenching them backward...only to screech as the radiance burned Siva’s limbs to ash.

Primordial! You Are Dead!

The Primordial of Vanished Horizons did not answer, except to thunder into Felix’s core space like a herd of bison ten million strong. Felix couldn’t speak, blink, or even breathe. It was all he could do to hold himself upright as the deluge of power ripped through him.

Hunger intercepted it all, splitting the streams among the Divine Tree, his dual cores, and herself, most of all. It filled Felix up, almost as much power as he’d taken from the Pathless, despite its decrepit state.

I Will Not Have This! Siva raged. Fate’s Unmaking!

Divine might seared through Felix, and the goddess burned, her Body igniting with a colorless flame that seemed to eat away at her being. Yet she didn’t seem to care as she brought her gleaming limbs down atop him like a threshing blade.

Scale, skin, and bone shredded beneath her Divine power—but new flesh grew in place of the old.

Sovereign of Flesh is level 131!

...

Sovereign of Flesh is level 145!

Lay of the Unfallen is level 132!

...

Lay of the Unfallen is level 140!

Primordial Essence rampaged through Felix, enough to fuel his Sovereign of Flesh against the wrath of a goddess.

For a time.

Siva fell back with a strangled cry, flesh burning and frantically smothered its flames. Felix fell to his knees, his arm cleaved clean away, as a voice echoed through him.

Mother...?

It was faint, but it was distinct from Hunger and Pit. It sounded old and young, but most of all, it sounded weary.

No...

You Are Not...

You Are...New...

A Scion...Come...Again...

The power within him coiled through his core space, and it spread outward as if questing for something.

You Have Cleansed Me...? The Fleshcurse Is Gone... I Am Forever Grateful...

Let My Meager Dominion Embolden Your Own...

Rise, Cousin.

And Cast Them Out!

The Primordial around them burst outward, exploding the Mana Well and all it contained. Including Felix and Siva.

They both fell back, screaming as the liquid power was torn from around them, replaced rapidly by howling winds as it rapidly condensed. All of it, corpse included, pressed inward until it formed an enormous star that gleamed beneath the earth. It pulsed, its light as resplendent as the setting sun, and sank toward Felix.

The Primordial Of Vanished Horizons Has Relinquished Its Power.

Primordials cannot die—His thoughts spun as his brutalized Body regrew once more. They merely change.

That Is Property Of The Divine! Bonds Of Avarice! Siva reached for the Primordial’s strength, and a knotted web of silver cables burst from her chest. Tendrils of Divine Authority sliced through Felix, splitting his shoulder wide open before catching the Primordial’s might.

NO, THAT IS OURS!

Felix and Hunger moved as one.

Skein of Fate!

Adamant Discord!

Empyrean Embrace!

His power shattered her Bonds of Avarice, seized the star, and hauled it close. His teeth took care of the rest.

You Have Claimed The Heart Of Vanished Horizons!

Stand By...

A riot of noise assaulted him, as if he’d taken a hundred orchestras and shoved them into his eyes, ears, and mouth. The Grand Harmony roared around him...and Dissonance howled from within the Primordial’s power.

His cores responded, releasing songs of their own that swiftly matched the cadence and timbre of Vanished Horizons.

Felix grasped it and held it fast.

Your Bloodline Sings Of New Horizons!

Of Ancient Oaths Long Set Aside!

Do You Choose To Take Them Back?

In that moment, between breaths, Felix could see them. Silver cords, unstained by faithless hands, knotted deep within Siva’s open chest. So deep that they stretched beyond the Corporeal Realm, beyond the Void, and into a blasted landscape place where they were hidden long ago.

“Mine,” Felix growled.

The Oaths Are Claimed Once More.

Let Howl The Chthonic Depths!

All Choices Have Consequences.

The Oaths tore free, and deep within the world, chains the size of continents shattered apart.

Your Bloodline Has Evolved!

Greater Primordial Has Evolved Into Superior Primordial of the Unseen Tide!

The Tide that beckons all. The words rose unbidden to his Mind as he glimpsed it through cracks in the Realm. A vast field of connections, so similar to Siva’s web and yet so very different. All of it was held together by the interactions both great and small, threads that united even the smallest of beings with the greatest of mountains.

With even the gods.

I...Am FREE!

Siva expanded, as if she were taking an inhalation of terrible depth. Her Body swelled, hands manifesting from within her folded form like a nightmare magician producing scarves. Each bony appendage folded over itself, interlocking to form a humanoid torso atop a writhing, cloak-like mass of twisted limbs.

I Do Not Know How, Nevarre, But You Have Shattered My Chains.

She laughed, and it cut at him, slicing open his arms and belly. Her Spirit was incalculably heavy, pressed onto him casually, and he struggled to rise from the tiled floor.

It Is A Pity You Will Not See The Changes I Will Bring Upon This World.

I Would Have Liked To See Your Face As We Cleansed It All.

Felix bared his teeth, eyes still filled with a vision of countless strands. “Your chains are gone...but you’re still bound, lady.”

Siva’s golden orb tilted, the most Human-like gesture he’d seen her make. What Are You—

Scion!

Now!

Empyrean Embrace!

Shadow rose from within him, lunging across the intervening space to sink its midnight teeth into gleaming godflesh. Siva wailed, attempting to throw herself backward.

Veridaan! You Are Dead!

I Am What You Made Me, Hunger roared.

Hungry.

Felix and Hunger pulled, and though Siva tried to escape, she could not divest herself of her stolen nature. The Primordial power in his heart burned like a beacon, and it drew them in until their teeth found purchase in Divinity. Her supernatural flesh dissolved beneath their maw, turning into brilliant streams of Mana, Essence, and significance with every bite. Divine might filtered into Felix’s core space, tangling among his Tree and filling the black with gleaming silver. It was a glut of glory, an avalanche of avaricious assault—and it did not stop until Siva was gone.

A Divinity Has Fallen!

Let All Upon The Continent Hear This Cry!

Felix Nevarre, Autarch of Nagast, Has Killed The Goddess Of Fortune!

The announcement shook the sky until it rang like a vast bell, quaking the very mountains around them.

Felix fell back as fissures broke open, splitting the empty earth on all sides of him. Boulders tumbled from above, cratering the floor all around him and forcing him to dodge aside. Above, beyond the collapsing walls, the Mana Well now opened up to the sky, and through it, Felix could see the three moons that had risen. Bronze, blue, and silver.

The last was there for only a moment, however—for as he watched, it buckled and broke...before vanishing entirely.

Siva, Goddess of Fortune, Is Dead!

XP Earned!

You Have Gained 100 Levels!

You Are Now Level—

ERROR!

XP Consumed!

Hey!That’s—

Mine!

Greedy ass!

A dozen more Skill notifications flashed at him, and his vision crowded with blue boxes. A thunderous cacophony roared through his ears, until all the world was noise.

Scion.

Your Aspects Run Riot.

Prepare Yourself.

The earthquake intensified, and the Well collapsed, raining rock and ruin from above.

Squaring himself against the shattered tiles, Felix lifted his hands. “Bring it on.”

Adamant Discord!