Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Eight – 808

"Wow, that's one way to get the blood pumping!" Pit exclaimed. Above them, the Manaships and Thalgrym's aerial warriors clashed with the shadowbeasts. Bloody lightning raged across the skies as the gods cried out in annoyance.

For the moment, they were forgotten.

"Can we get the princess to the ships?" Pit asked. "We could run.”

“We'll never outpace a goddess." Scylla cast about and fired off another Skill. Shadowbeasts were collecting around them again, but they melted away under her assault. "But we must flee this place regardless. The darkness closes in on us."

Ondine looked tired and drawn, as if she'd aged ten years in the last ten minutes. "False princess," she said quietly.

"What?”

“Noctis. It's what she... it doesn't matter. She's wrong, and I know it. Come!" Ondine spread her wings. "Follow me."

They flew ahead through the fallen spires of the Halcyon Hold, over the crushed entrance to the Sanctuary, all of it now aflame with a bloody light.

“Where are we going?” Pit asked.

"The Seat and Seal!" she shouted over the roar of the wind. "I've read about them in the archives. There are accounts—” They dove through a horde of shadowbeasts, but Pit tore them out of the air with a roar. “Accounts that detail extraordinary things. We should be able to use it against the goddess!”

"Yes!" Pit knew this play. Felix had used it before against invaders, and the gods were basically the same as a bunch of armored soldiers, right? "Wait, if you know it's here, why didn't you claim it before?"

Pit dodged a surge of crimson lightning. Shadows whirled behind them, reaching for their legs.

Talon of Tumult!

He shredded the shadows.

"I was afraid of it. The process is said to be complicated, and it has prerequisites in Tier and Authority. I haven't learned much until recently, but now I have little choice."

The shadowbeasts crowded after them, but they were cake compared to the full attention of Noctis. Pit silently thanked Vess and the others for their timely arrival. So long as the goddesses remained distracted, they had a chance.

I See You, Children.

Well, crap.

It Will Avail You Not.

Noctis broke away from the Manaships, destroying one of them and sending it careening into the Halcyon Hold. It exploded, a flower of brilliant orange that he could feel from where he flew. Pit's eyes widened, and his heart hammered in his ears. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the flames.

I knew those people. And now they were gone, far beyond the reach of his healing.

Noctis' tentacles crashed into the Hold, smashing through buildings and latching onto the island itself. I Take From You The Very Basis Of Your Authority!

A massive chunk of the island lifted up, torn from the very foundations as the corrupted Stormwarden pulled up a section of the island, the rock and earth erupting with dark, bubbling power like black magma.

Worship The Bloodstorm!

Accept Her Control, And I Will Let Your Allies Survive.

"Fuck you!" Pit gathered up Scylla and Ondine again and shot ahead, blasting bodily through a wave of shadowbeasts until he trailed a wake of blackened ichor. �

"There!" Ondine cried. "Down!"

A dome was below them, tilted now at a slight angle thanks to the upheaval of the earth. It was at the center of the Halcyon Hold, half-collapsed, due to the Ages. Pit swooped down through a central shaft, twisting to accommodate his massive body before Ondine pointed them through a break in the slab flooring. They slid through, just barely fitting, tucking his wings for a moment before snapping them open again to arrest their descent.

Beneath them, Pit saw a Seat and Seal—but the entire place was a mess. Moss and plants grew up through the inscriptions on the ground, and the walls were more than half-broken. Little remained of what was once the most likely the most beautiful place in the entire Hold.

Pit landed gracefully to the side of the Seal, and Ondine squirmed free of his forepaws. She stepped out onto the Seal, and it came alive beneath her. Sort of. Light welled up beneath her steps, but only for a five-foot radius around her. Everything else remained dark. A booming voice echoed across their ears and vision.

Authority Recognized, Princess Ondine.

Do You Wish To Establish Your Authority?

Y/N

"I do," she said. The Seal powered up around them, some of the moss burning away as Mana churned through its ancient mechanisms.

Authority Rejected.

The Seal flared with silver and gold sparks that burned at her skirts. She gasped in pain and was hurled bodily from the Seal. Ondine spread her wings, landing with remarkable grace while her face was twisted with pain.

"Damn it! It called me Princess! The System recognized my Authority. I thought that would be enough."

Scylla poked at the Seal, but it didn't light up for her at all. "Can you try again?"

Ondine rubbed her arm, and Pit noticed new burn marks across it where the Seal had flared up. "It's impossible. The System is broken."

"No, it's just the Seal," Pit said as a rock formed in his gut. "We gotta fix it first."

And he knew how.

Pit, where are you? We need to leave.

Vess soared through the horde, her glaives ending hundreds as they spun around her like a cyclone of steel. Yin roared to her left, unleashing his own Prismatic Cyclone. It tore through thousands at once, ending the lesser spawn easily and even greatly harming the giant beasts that raged against them.

"Company, fire!"

The ships to her right loosed another salvo, aimed again at the corrupted Stormwarden. A wave of shadowbeasts rose up, tanking the majority of the attack, though some still slipped through to scorch the hide of the creature.

Goddess, she corrected herself. They were fighting the Divine. Again.

"Forward, helmsman!" she cried, and the ship shot ahead, accompanied by three others. "Fire when ready!"

"Company, fire!" cried a lieutenant, and another volley arced outward. The ships somehow amplified the magic of the soldiers, their elemental attacks bolstered by some strange enchantment in the hull itself. Vess didn't pretend to understand it, but Laur and Tzfell, the two who had discovered the feature, had eagerly explained it all to the soldiers during their hectic race to this battle.

Shadowbeasts fell to their attacks over and over, while Thalgrym and his Chimera made short work of their foes in midair. They weren't winning, but then, that was never the point. The enemy was as relentless as they were innumerable. For every shadowbeast they killed, three more replaced them, spawned from the hides of the strongest creatures...and from the corrupted Stormwarden itself.

Useless Gnats! You Are Not Worth My Time!

The corrupted Stormwarden, Vessel of the Goddess Noctis, turned away from them, reaching back down with its innumerable tentacles toward the ruined cityscape below.

Vess cursed. Even keeping Noctis' attention on them for so long was a miracle. Pit still hadn't appeared, but the wounded Guardian Beast they'd saved had told her that he was down there, protecting the Sylphaen Unbound. They needed more time.

"Bring the ship around!" she bellowed at the helmsman. "Close as you can get to the Stormwarden!"

"Aye, my lady!"

"Yin, Evie!" Her friends gathered close. "I am done with ranged attacks. Let us bring this battle into melee."

Evie whooped. "Finally!"

Pit focused, reaching through his bond to grasp at his Companion’s Skills. I'm just gonna borrow this, Felix. Alright? There was no answer from his friend, which happened at times, when he was busy. Pit’s grasp solidified on the Skill, and with remarkable ease, he pulled Unite the Lost from Felix's core space toward his own.

Way too easily. Something’s wrong.

Noctis' earlier words echoed through his memory, and Pit wanted nothing more than to reach out and contact his Companion. But he had no time. He seized Unite the Lost and sounded its pattern.

Unite the Lost!

Pit's pupils dilated as a piece of his mind expanded beyond himself, and he suddenly became aware of the wide breadth of Sunara. The cliffs and the storm he saw were raging eternally. The lashing rain and punishing winds accompanied their troughs and crests. The floating islands were protected by fabricated storms and filled with people huddling against the darkness that spread across the sky. He could see them all spread out before him as if he flew at a great height. But then he was back to the midnight Tempest that raged eternal at its center, where he stood, silhouetted in gold beneath the dire shadow of a god.

A shadow that should not be.

Divine Influence Detected.

Do You Wish To Reject?

"Hell yeah!" Pit marshaled the power over the Territory and bent it to his Will. There was no menu or selection he grabbed, but a song he recognized—a feeling of power that Pit guided against that which should not be. The presence of the Divine was impossible to ignore, a target so large it could not dodge the force of the Territory's rejection. It hit, and the corrupted Stormwarden screamed, and thunder roared.

I Deny You, Little Lordling. You Shall Not Win!

The blast of Territorial Authority still sank in, despite Noctis' protests, and Pit could feel it weaken the bonds Noctis clutched—the same ones that laid claim to the Stormwarden’s flesh. They wobbled, thinning ever so slightly, and Ondine raised her hand, blasting imploding chunks of the creature's flesh and shaking Noctis' attention.

"You will not claim these bonds, Noctis," Pit howled.

The Void Is Mine, Just As This Creature Is Mine! Gah!

Ondine threw her power into the corrupted Stormwarden's face, breaking a piece of his collapsed features. They fought, Unbound versus Divine Vessel, and Pit couldn't do anything but hold on. Vellus raged, the crimson lightning around the Stormwarden searing through his ally's ranks. People were falling, dying in droves, even as shadowbeasts were rent asunder by the same power.

Pit’s chest heaved as he sucked in desperate breaths. He could feel the bonds slowly eroding between Noctis and the Stormwarden, but the Territorial rejection wasn't working fast enough. He needed more. Bracing himself, he reached for the Skill he still held tight to his core space.

"Unite the Lost.”

His significance burned away, shredding pieces of his core space into kindling. The forest faded, the hills beyond eroding into nothingness. Yet, as the perimeter of his core space became like a sketch of a memory, the bonds that Noctis and Vellus clutched began to slip. The flesh rippled, the dark shadow replaced with mottled purple and gray. The Stormwarden's eyes bulged anew, blinking with a muted radiance before they were subsumed again by a cavernous mutation.

This Skill! Siva Warned Us Of Nevarre, But You—Chimera! You Cannot Have This!

The gods were too strong. He was pulling, but his core space was dissolving faster than their bonds.

"Fuck you!” Pit bellowed. “I'm a Nevarre, too!”

"And you're in my home, bitch!" Ondine shouted as dark energies coalesced between her hands. "Get the hell out! Corporeal Breach!"

A rift tore open behind the Stormwarden, larger than even the beast itself. It was like all the air was suddenly being sucked out of the world. Shadowbeasts hurtled inside, unable to resist its pull, and even the dark clouds and tainted lightning swirled around its immense circumference.

A voice called out across Pit's mind, across his bond.

Like Calls To Like.

Hunger?

Manaships fired a barrage of power, sweeping shadowbeasts into the rift, even as they backed up, and Thalgrym's warriors landed on their wide decks.

The Stormwarden twisted its bulbous body, turned by the pull of the rift. Its tentacles stabbed through the dark, anchoring itself.

I Deny You, False Princess!

“Enjoy the Void!" Blood streamed from her eyes and nose as Ondine flared all of her considerable might. Like ink bleeding into paper, Noctis' influence was yanked out of the Stormwarden and into the empty dark.

"Corporeal Seal!"

The rift snapped shut. The Stormwarden, freed of the shadow of Noctis, muted, gray, and listless, fell dead from the sky. The Tempest, cleared of Noctis' dark influence, dissipated. The sun shone free at the center of Sunara for the first time in literal ages.

"Holy crap. Holy crap, we did it. Holy crap." Above, Ondine fell from the sky. "Holy crap!" He shot forward, up into the air, but wasn't faster than Scylla, who caught her in her forelimbs.

"Thank you, Scylla." The princess passed out.

"Oh my,” Scylla gasped. “You're very heavy, Princess."

Ouranic Dominion bolstered Pit's flight, though he admittedly had very little left in his tank at the moment. He caught up with Scylla just as she landed among the tumbled ruins of a public square. At the same time, Thalgrym, Yin, Vess, and many others dropped from the sky. Everyone stayed back, giving the princess some space.

Pit swallowed. "Is she—?”

“She's alive. Her Health is stable and climbing." Scylla rested back on her haunches, her tongue lolling in relief and exhaustion. "We won."

A cheer tore from everyone. It was a wild exultation that needed to be vented, and Pit laughed.

He'd done it.

Now all they had to do was—

An armored fist caught him square in the chest. Pit fell to his side, unable to resist its incredible Strength, and looked up in horror.

Imara?

She stood among silvered shadows that rippled around her like water. Pivoting from her punch, she smoothly seized Ondine and booted Scylla to the ground.

"Who is that—-?”

“The princess!"

"Imara!” Vess blurred forward, joined by Thalgrym, Evie, Yin, and countless others.

Pit was faster.

Ouranic Dominion!

Mantle of the Stormlord!

He all but became a bolt of lightning, flaring forward, only to crash to the space where Imara and Ondine had once stood. All he caught were shreds of silver shadow.

You Have Defeated Noctis, Goddess Of The Night!

XP Earned!

You Have Defeated Vellus, Goddess Of The Bloodstorm!

XP Earned!

Level Up!

You Have Gained 10 Levels!

You Are Now Level 109!

You Gain:

+100 STR, +90 PER, +40 VIT, +110 END, +70 INT, +100 WIL, +200 AGL, +200 DEX!

+100 AFI, RES, and REI!

You Have 500 Unused Stat Points!

Power rolled through him, but Pit ignored it, just as he'd ignored the sun as it finally broke through the clouds. The storm of his passage faded, thunder returning to an unnatural quiet. Pit stared at the place where Ondine had just been.

He'd won the fight, but he'd just lost the war.