IV-36 Euthanasia (II)

"It could have worked, Veronica. You have to believe me. It could have worked. The ritual, so much of it, was going well. But, but..."

"Enough, dearest Ascendant. Let's just say that you are creating a building, and one of the structural supports gives out at the end, causing the entire building to collapse. Now, the rest of the building is pristine, wonderful—a thing of artistry to behold. I ask you now, would you still call that building well done? And would you have rated the building on its process of completion, rather than the final outcome?"

“...”

"Ah, silence. So you know that you're being fooled. 'It could have worked,' as you keep repeating. But you see, we don't know enough about the Ritual of the Dichotomous Soul to attempt it. Yet, you defied what your fellows agreed on, and now you suffer the consequences."

"I was close, Veronica. Towards the end, I was close. I had a perfect vessel. And the sliver of my soul was burning away. I was drawing it out of the grasp of the Great One. Look, look. I know you can feel it. I know you have the Animancy to feel it."

"I do. And what I feel is a broken fragment of yourself wrenched free from your soul, leaving you disfigured, damaged, and disturbed. A dichotomous soul, that means divided into two distinct parts. But it doesn't mean severed. Those who successfully complete the ritual are still one person. They just exist in multiple places, their souls bound together. So no, this likely wouldn't have worked for you anyway."

"You don't know that. You don't! You're just a mortal! You're just a mortal!"

"Correct. I am just a mortal, but I'm not the one trying to steal Cripple's namesake from him. Now. Be proper and let me take another look at you.”

-Enoch the Builder and Veronica Chandler

IV-36
Euthanasia (II)

With all tertiary matters settled, Cripple departed to rejoin the other active Ascendants in their hunt for Shiv's decoy and to continue providing cover for the coming raid on the mana core. Shiv took his place between Solzimort's gums and did his best to ignore how much mucus was coating his armor. The hydra hummed along happily as it reared its twelve heads back. Its body turned fluid, and he felt a pull from Solzimort's flesh. The Shapeless Tides resisted the new mana that allowed the hydra to fuse with other pieces of matter.

Solzimort giggled as Shiv's Shapeless Tides came ablaze with mana resistance. "Hee, you're making me pretty ticklish in there," Solzimort declared, and then it was off. It splashed through the Orichalcum and slammed hard against the mithral supports. One after another they shattered, and he realized the hydra couldn't absorb magically infused objects. That didn't stop it from swimming through materials and practically everything else, however. The composition of its body changed with every bit of matter it dove through. He felt its biological architecture transform with his own Biomancy—every time it shifted, he did too, and the effects were staggering.

Peeking out from the underside of the hydra's gums, he saw the crawlspace blurring by. Nothing broke. Everything was fluid. Matter was a sea to the Hydra, and it swam freely, a fish surrounded by things that should have been impediments. "Going really, really fast today!" the hydra cheered aloud.

“We’re about to get even faster,” Shiv declared. “Gone!”

As the hydra continued undulating through the dense infrastructure, Gone emerged from Shiv's cape. Her body crackled with golden lightning, and she held out her hands. “Hydra. Going to give a bit of a boost. Go fast. Don’t stop. Don’t get nervous.”

"Okay, little goblin! I'm really thankful that—"

And just then, the lightning coursing around the goblin's body flowed outward. It spilled over into Shiv, and the world around him slowed. It wasn't like time stopping when he used his Chronomancy. No, instead he felt part of time flinging him forward. The present had been outpaced, and his speed was something else altogether. But it wasn't ultimately his speed. It was a speed born of Gone. And that speed flowed over into the hydra as well, and in a crushing instant, it exploded forward.

This time, the matter around Solzimort scattered. It was like a projectile cleaving a clean tunnel through a crashing wave. The hydra let out a loud "Whee!" as it zoomed through the crawlspace, bursting out from passing cubes, surprising entire groups of prisoners and wardens still warring with each other. As the hydra crashed into them, it spilled through their bodies as well, phasing through their physical forms without ever being impeded. 

And just as fast as the hydra came, it was gone. It was a spear passing through water; it was liquid lightning in motion.

"Broken godsdamn moon," Shiv managed through clattering teeth. "Hell of a skill you got there." The goblin didn't reply. She was too busy channeling her power through everyone.

As they grew even faster, the hydra's body was enwreathed by a massive bolt of golden lightning. The world outside slowed; the world within turned smooth. It was like Shiv was gliding through a space consumed by grease. Air friction became non-existent, and even the grip of time slackened. With every second they remained in motion, the sheer amount of Chronomancy spilling out from Gone grew. 

The Deathless beheld the Legendary goblin and found himself stunned by her Skill Fusion. She wasn't just fast and always getting faster; she was displaced forward into time. They started a second ahead of everyone else, leaving only an echo of herself in the past. But with every passing moment, that single second grew by increments, and they lurched further and further ahead.

The effects flowed through Shiv as well. He didn't resist it with his Shapeless Tides; he felt his own body elongate as if it were a piece of dough. Looking behind, there was a smear of gold and blurry motion, and at the end of that messiness was another version of himself from almost a second ago.

"Well, this is a Skill Fusion I might wanna go for," Shiv commented to himself.

"Not an easy one to get," Gone shot back, "likely impossible for you."

"Why is that?" Shiv asked.

The goblin's body sparked, the golden currents surging out from her. "Because you already have the wrong Chronomantic skill. Dragon Skill. What you're probably going to get next will allow you to strike ahead into the future or steal time from someone else. I've seen that from Golden Dragons. If you want my advice, try fusing it with one of your lesser Magical Skills. Chronomancy's rare. Chronomancy skill fusions between two lore of magic? Even rarer."

The goblin recited this information with such overwhelming flatness that it sounded like she was bored.

"Gone," Shiv asked. "Who are you?"

She turned and stared at him over her shoulder. "You're not the only one of questionable birth," Gone declared. 

With that, she said no more.

As they burst out from another cube, Shiv found them soaring through an empty space. Peeking out from up over the hydra's furrowed lip, Shiv saw broken, mithril supports swaying tangles of emulated mana. Ultimately, utter nothingness occupied this portion of the nadir. It was like a massive explosion some two kilometers wide had cleanly sheared a spherical space in this area. But at the center was their final destination. 

A massive wall of stacked cubes glistened over two kilometers away, and layers of magical wards were projected out from its surface. She saw Dynamancy, Psychomancy, Biomancy, Chronomancy, and even more magic. Then there was the incandescent mana pulsating out beyond the ward, choking the air as if a divine mist.

“Alright,” Shiv grunted to himself. He began concentrating his mind and gathering more Overflow Tides in anticipation of what was to come. “Keep going Solzimort. We’re about to hit the wall. I’m getting everyone else out!”

“Speeeedddd!” The hydra cheered.

"Adam," Shiv called out, and in an instant the Gate Lord appeared, and Can Hu came with him. Adam's skills still shone bright, especially his Righteous Dawn. No further things needed to be said by Shiv. The azure sun hovering over Can Hu’s head flared bright, and a rush of power suffused Shiv's soul. He wasn't the only one boosted. The hydra grew even faster, Gone outputted even more cruel electric currents, and her power was joined by Shiv's as massive striped vectors curled around the hydra’s vast body.

"That looks like a pretty bright wall there, guys," Solzimort, the hydra, sounded worried. “Are you sure just going super fast will be enough?”

“Yeah. Probably.” Shiv couldn't blame Solzimort. Even with all this, Shiv wasn't sure if they could just smash their way in. If that didn't work, he would go Non-Sequitur, slip past and try to drop the magical fields on the inside. But that was risky. That left him cut off from the others. And in turn, it would see the others immediately counterattacked by Republic forces as well. There was no way they were about to impact the set of magical wards without ringing any alarm bells.

"Don't worry, Solzimort," Shiv shouted. "It's not just you. We’ll all be helping. We’ll push our way through.”

"It's really big," Solzimort declared as the massive wall of interlocking cubes protecting the mana core came closer. "I don't know about this."

"It might be bigger than us," Shiv said, "but it's probably not nearly as heavy as all of us put together. Besides, we're not punching through all the cubes. We're just about to smash through one. Just a small section of the wall. You're bigger than a small section of the wall, aren't you?"

Silver Tongue 49 > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

And with that mutilated logic, the hydra found his courage again. Every one of Solzimort's heads reared back and thrust itself forward in a burst of explosive motion. Gone gave it all she had. Shiv pumped up more of his Shapeless Tides and a few lances of force erupted off the sides of Solzimort's body—Overflow Tides Shiv lost track of. But together, they slammed into the protective wards guarding the mana core, guarding the innermost cubes. They were a spear of time, of Magical Resistance, of Legendary strength further boosted by a sun that nourished the soul. And against them was the ambient power of the Ascendants, the overwhelming might of the mana core, and soon, every warden still stationed within.

A calamitous reaction followed. The world turned bright as trickling waves of force exploded from the epicenter of the clash. Solzimort reared back in fright, but Shiv speared more of his Shapeless Tides into the wards. They crashed again and again, like tsunamis dashing themselves upon wooden walls. Though the mana core was powerful, though the divine mana wrapping around everything like mist tried to sear Solzimort. 

Shiv endured in Solzimort’s steady with his Legendary Magical Resistance. Gone made him faster, the hydra's body had its own Magical Resistance, and Adam brought everyone to new heights.

The Deathless strained. He reached out from Solzimort's mouth, clenching the prismatic barriers, holding them back from the cube right before them. He aimed his vectors in opposing directions and tore. His shapeless tines dug deep and carved furrows in the mana, but the divine magic choking the air like smog crashed down against him, lashed at him. Shiv bit back a snarl as a spike of searing pain nearly split him to the core. The vectors around him flared bright, and they turned incandescent as well, responding to the godly attacks.

A cry of effort came from Adam as he funneled a blast of azure radiance into Shiv, straightening the Deathless's body. But the furrows lining the wards were now faded, and Solzimort was beginning to flag. "Guys, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I don't think we can get in this way."

But before Shiv could say anything, Can Hu interjected. "Hold!" the penitent declared aloud, its voice crackling with authority. From its eyes poured a flood of ones and zeros. These numbers and symbols spilled through the wards and sank into the cubes themselves. A second later, Five appeared and he too began gesturing. His will was not nearly as overt as the Penitent’s Skill, but it unleashed a strange signal all the same. The many automata heads lining Five’s back came to life, and they all began channeling their electricity into him. Once more, the wolf-man's head shifted, became cybernetic, and a dense beam of light flashed out from his newly installed optics.

The flashes of light spilled into the binaric streams, and Shiv wondered what the twosome were doing. 

A second thereafter, he got his answer. 

An entire section of the wards collapsed, and it was the section that was stopping the party the most. The Chronomantic wards vanished, and everyone tore on through.

The divine mana tugged at Shiv, and he let out a ragged cry as he found his Legendary Skill driven to its very limit to stop everyone from being barred from this final passage. At the last second, when he felt like his skills were going to rip apart inside him entirely, they plunged deep into the cube before them. The cube flared red, gold, and then finally a silver. It was a silver so bright and so dense that Shiv could feel it hardening the atmosphere itself. 

But Solzimort wasn't trying to barrel his way through; Solzimort just wanted to swim. And as the legendary hydra kissed the orichalcum, matter became fluid, and its body shifted to become the same material that lined the outside of the cube.

Shiv felt something clash against him and realized Solzimort was trying to convert his body as well. The Deathless dropped the Shapeless Tides at the last moment; any second later, he would have been the only thing clipped by the approaching wall. He felt his biology change once more. He was still flesh-like and cellular in some ways, but a portion of him was laced with a strange material he had little experience with. 

Shiv was capable of shifting himself into a state of Orichalcum, but Veronica had gone red, gold, and silver when he had hit her before. Whatever the skill was, it was a step above what he had now, and as Solzimort tore through to the other end, it emerged into a tight and narrow chamber staffed by dozens of wardens.

They noticed the hydra a second too late, because the Hydra and the others were already upon them, a second ahead in time. Shiv did a quick sweep of the room. There were several mythical pylons here, and he could feel the magic flowing out from them. However, instead of conducting a mixed assortment of mana types, the main lore being channeled through this room was Psychomancy. 

This was like a psychomancy command center, or whatever the wardens called it, and so all the wardens in this room wore focused crystal helmets meant to allow them to serve as better logistical mages. As such, they weren't wearing armor meant for battle, and ultimately a Legendary-Tier Mage—especially if they were a pure mage—was often more fragile than even a Master-Tier warrior.

Shiv blasted out from Solzimort's mouth, but by the time he crashed down upon the Psychomancers, Gone had already torn through them. The goblin was unspeakably fast. She drew all that lightning back into herself, and her claws were a blur of misting blood and violence. There were fifty or so Psychomancers holding the chamber; all fifty were then down on their arms and knees, wailing and screaming as their tendons had been severed. All of their tendons.

The Deathless adapted. Instead of attacking any of the wardens, he slammed through the Psychomantic pylons they were channeling their magic through. He broke five of them and spared the final one at the center. Truth be told, he didn't know how the whole system for this room worked, but it was still good to keep one at least for a second. Adam and the others would survey and then sabotage as they discussed earlier.”

"Orcs! Out!" Shiv called aloud. "We're in!"

A second later, the grayskins erupted free from his cape, and they swept and cleared the room with methodical efficiency. The wardens were down, and so the orcs focused on securing hostages to interrogate. Those among the orcs with Psychomancy reached out to interface with the minds of the downed wardens. Helix, however, unleashed his magic, and with a wave of overwhelming Biomancy, Shiv felt something flash within the skulls of every single warden. A second later, they had all gone stiff. The silence that followed told him they were unconscious as well. Their organs were still working, their bodies were still alive, but they were truly incapacitated now.

"All right. You know the score. Ten seconds. Grab a few commanders, leave your traps, keep it moving. Scouts on watch! Mortar?" Adam directed everyone as they executed their planned manuvers.

The large artillery-piece-carrying orc chuckled grimly as he placed a makeshift mana bomb at the center of the room. It resembled an ugly, hollowed egg, but seeping motes of pyromancy leaked out from the horizontal slit lining its center.

"I got a surprise for the reinforcements coming in later," the orc chuckled. He wrapped a large hand on the top of the mana bomb and turned. Immediately, it began to click over and over. "They're gonna need to assign some specialists to make sure this thing doesn't go boom."

Shiv's lip twitched, but he allowed the orc to play his game. The wardens were going to be taxed by the many bombs they were going to plant across these cubes, and ultimately that was part of Adam's strategy: Force the wardens to split their logistics and resources by flooding the zone with problems.

A loud crack came from right next to Shiv, and the Deathless glared at Tequila as he lifted his foot from one of the warden's necks.

"Godsdamn it, no," Shiv said. He ripped an injury away from the warden and used the crystallized wound to swat Tequila. A burst of red spread through the chamber, and the orc was nearly launched from his feet by the force of the blow. 

Despite this, Tequila remained in good cheer. “Nice swing, Insul.”

"Hostages mean they have to come. Focus on binding the hostages and leaving them here. Adam," Shiv called out. “Pylon?”

“Nothing useful here!” The Gate Lord wrapped a curled limb shaped from water around the final pylon, and slowly he squeezed. The room felt drier as Adam's hydrokinetic hand grew, and Shiv realized the Gate Lord was drawing from the moisture to empower himself.

"Yeah, I guess that wand really left an imprint on his soul, huh?" As the final mythical pillar burst, a spray of telepathy washed through the room, and Shiv pushed it aside, using his shapeless tides.

"Ten seconds," Adam called out. "Ten seconds, we move again. Solzimort, we're going deeper."

"Got it, little guy," the hydra said, and by then Shiv noticed that a few warden Psychomancers had been absorbed into Solzimort’s body. The Deathless grunted but decided not to complain. Solzimort was a “kind” soul that wanted to be a guardian, from what Shiv could tell so far, but the hydra's notion of kindness was practically traumatic for almost anyone else.

With the room secured and the bomb planted, they continued. Most of the orcs got back in Shiv’s cape, and the designated Maestros stayed out with Shiv as they continued their chaotic operation. Solzimort moved again, and temporal lightning danced across its body. The core-raiders glided through the matter again. This time, the orcs clung to the edges of Solzimort's teeth. They were large and plenty, so Solzimort's mouth was stuffed full of the grayskins. Despite this, the hydra hummed a jaunty tune as they proceeded closer to the core.

With every passing meter they progressed, Shiv felt a heavier pressure settle against his body, and he felt a building tension climb inside him. I need to cook. I need to get out of this hellpit and cook or I’m going to lose my felling mind.

Shiv had no idea where they were going, as the matter before them turned into a slurry of Orichalcum substance mixed with dense sliver mesh. The hydra and Adam, however, weren't so blind. Every few seconds, one of the hydra's heads would tip down, and from its jaws, Mortar would fling out another bomb. The wardens didn't retaliate, probably weren't even sure where the Hydra was, and Shiv quickly realized the sheer difficulty of running a prison filled with Legendary prisoners. It wasn't just the sheer power a Legend had, but also the sheer variety of Skill Fusions and how strange they got.

The hydra's ability to swim through matter and incorporate it into his own flesh was nightmarish. It didn't matter if Shiv was stronger than the hydra; if he made contact with Solzimort, the hydra could absorb him in an instant if his Shapeless Tides failed. And then there was Gone. Despite Shiv's overwhelming might, Gone was someone he had to surprise if he wished to take down, because if there was one absolute advantage, it was being faster than someone so fast they couldn't react to you. 

It didn't matter if you were stronger or tougher if you never had the initiative. Or so many other prisoners like them. 

The moment they got out, it was little wonder that the Ascendants needed to personally intervene to regain control.

Shiv tried to imagine this breakout causing a flood of Legends to spill out from within the Yellowstone volcano. "Yeah," Shiv breathed. "This is gonna keep their hands full for a while."

After depositing a few more bombs, they accelerated even faster, and suddenly they were through. Shiv found himself falling, and he looked out from Solzimort's mouth to see a wide-open space. The chamber before them was around 800 meters in circumference, and at the core of the room was their objective. It was a massive, pulsating core that radiated with prismatic mana. It didn't glow like the sun at Gate Piety, instead resembled a fracture: A breach between worlds from which incandescence flowed.

Several bridges ran from sealed Orichalcum gates to the mana core—They were likely passes leading to the essential cubes surrounding this place. An endless mass of mithril supports looked like a series of crystalline needles poking through the fracture. A mess of ten bridges extended out from the mana core as well, and standing upon one of them was someone he recognized, someone he expected, and someone he didn't exactly look forward to facing. 

Using Farsight, he took in Rebis. He was clad in Adam's sky-blue armor, but worse yet, he also held the Gate Lord's Spellstring and Vambrace. It seemed the Ascendants were determined to piss his friend off.

“Well, at least we don’t need to go on a miserable hunt for all my equipment in the surrounding cubes,” Adam muttered humorlessly.

But stepping out from behind Rebis was someone else Shiv recognized.

The Gate Lord let out a snarl. "Stormhalt."

“The hells is he doing here?” Shiv asked.

“He probably anticipated this,” Adam said. “Veronica didn’t warn you about him?”

“Nope,” Shiv replied. “So. Either she decided to give me one last shit-sandwich surprise, or Stormhalt’s being a walking sack of piss again and going rogue.”

“The latter is much more likely,” Adam said. He cleared his voice. “This doesn’t change anything. We stick to the plan and we make this quick. We don’t need to beat the Ascendants in a straight fight. We just need to disable Rebis and have you get to the core. Once we collapse it, we should use the unfolding chaos as cover to retreat. The orcs will act as spoilers and a rear guard against the wardens or anyone else who might intrude.”

“Got it,” Shiv said. “Kura. Candles. Out!” At his call, the other Legendary prisoners started emerging from his cape as well. “Orcs! Out. Secure the entrances into the core chamber and hold them.”

Solzimort slid down atop once such entrance and allowed everyone to egress upon a bridge. As he did, a small army of orcs did as Shiv commanded. They moved along the walls and made for every entrance, while Solzimort partially sank back into the walls. “Those two look mean.”

“Yeah. They are.” Shiv spun his Orichalcum dagger and grinned viciously. “But we’ll fix that soon enough. You know what you gotta do while we bust everyone out of this prison?”

“Yeah! Hide in the walls and floor and pull more people into my body if they try to get close to this place.” The hydra nodded his many heads. “You can count on me!”

“Alright, Solzimort,” Shiv replied. “Do it well, and I’ll be sure to make you a happy hydra. You ever have any cooked basilisk?”

“Uhhh, no?”

“Well, you’re going to. And it’ll knock your crowns off.”

“But I like my crowns…”

“He means it will taste extremely delectable, you snake’s bastard,” Kura snarled.

“Yeah,” Shiv said. And then leaned close to the elf. “And don’t be a prick to him. He’s risking enough helping us.”

“He’s risking getting put back into an enclosure if he doesn’t,” Kura shot back. “And Deathless—point your gaze high. We do not have long here. If we do not overcome our foes fast, the other avatars will be summoned.”

As Shiv looked up, there were panels above, panels also made from mithril, panels lined with cascading spells. This place wasn't just a containment chamber for the core; it was also a teleportation anchor. It wouldn't be long until the other Ascendants and the entirety of the prison's defenders knew where they were. But for every second of confusion they bought, it would increase their odds of claiming the mana core, collapsing it, and finally bringing all this bullshit to an end.

The chamber was wide, but the incandescent mana came alive with activity. It rippled and lashed at the air around the mana core, and soon both Rebis and Stormhalt were glaring at the invaders. The former’s wings glowed with divine mana, and his body twitched with excess energy.

"Impudent prisoners," a low, rasping voice sounded. It had a reverberation, an echo to it, and Shiv guessed that was Enoch talking. "You have come to free yourselves, then, to set your fetid kind upon the capital and debase my Republic. My Republic. Mine. Forged at my hands! Shaped by my genius! MY GLORY!”

Enoch's words were laced with near madness, and it sounded like two people were talking at once. The first was slightly rational, more controlled. The latter, emotional, constantly hissing and seething. "You will not get further. I know not how you surpassed my defenses. My defenses were failed by the weakness of our wardens. They were pathetic. The wardens have done all they could. They are worthless. But you go no further. You die here. We will flay your bones and use them to build new effigies for this moment."

"For once, I would like to fight a god that is mostly sane," Adam commented thinly.

"You know what, Adam? When I go find the Challenger and try to take his head, I'll bring you with me. How does that sound?"

"Absolutely terrible," Adam shot back. "But practically a dream compared to this. Maybe I'll go back to the Gate and bother Lord Scorn again. At least he's very clear about what he wants."

"Yeah, a nasty-ass dildo rammed up into our wounds. Shit, I can't believe I miss that bastard after everything we've been through." Shiv turned. "Alright, you ready to get this shit done?”

A snort came from the Gate Lord. "I have a few choice things to say to Stormhalt, but I think I want to make it known with my arrows rather than my tongue. And want my armor back. Alright. Strategy—One final time. Shiv moves to ambush; I distract and traumatize, we overwhelm and hold; Shiv takes and collapses the core. Then, we use the chaos and move to escape after securing Rebis.”

“Plan’s a bit hopeful,” Gone said. “Few of us are probably going to die.”

“Thank you, Gone,” Adam sighed. “We truly needed this final dose of realism and morale lowering. The goblin just grunted in agreement. “Alright. Signal when you’re ready, Shiv.”

"I'm going to say this to you once," Stormhalt suddenly interjected. A flash of darkness emerged from the city lord, and branching sinews of lightning crawled high up into the air. Immediately, a dark tree, which harkened the arrival of Halsur the Endbreaker, blossomed out above the master tier adversary. And over that tree stood the looming giant, bearing his spear and his massive shield in equal measure. More stormstuff pulsated free from his body, and it crackled down the tree back into Stormhalt, and the City-Lord rose into the air, drawn aloft by cords of lightning. "You came here seeking a release, and I will give one to you. Simply surrender. Surrender, and I will see you shackled and caged mercifully. I give this to you because of my better nature. I have every right to slay all of you right now.”

“Every right,” Shiv snorted. “What a fucking sack of shit. Hey, Stormhalt! I was gonna say the same thing to you," Shiv said. "Surprised Veronica let you stay around after all your fuck-ups, but I guess you're exactly the type of person to get on the Auroral Council. Easy to control, easy to abuse, no political savvy, and a chip on his shoulder the size of a small mountain. You know what, I get why you hate Roland.” 

Shiv laughed bitterly. "But I despise Roland properly. I got a good reason. You? Well, I'm afraid there's no cure for being a bitch, Stormhalt. It’s not his fault you’re completely worthless without an Ascendant? What are you? One hundred? Fifty at least. The hells are you still doing at Master-Tier?”

Shiv felt his Silver Tongue skill teeter on the brink. It quivered inside of him, and the lightning erupting out from the City-Lord grew ever more intense.

"Be silent. I will not take this from a mongrel bastard made so by the hand of a vile deceiver. You're barely a person, Deathless. You're little more than a thing, an experiment. And soon, when we cast your master back into the pit he came from, we will see how much your tongue wiggles and how much defiance hides in that miserable body of yours."

A genuine laugh came from Shiv this time. There was always something so amusing about talking to someone who was emotional, especially when they liked insulting you as well. If one wished to banter or trade barbs, it was best that they held their own temperament in good control. Shiv didn't think of himself as much of a bully, but if he was, he probably would have bullied Stormhalt with much glee. 

And that came with an uncomfortable realization. Shit, that does make me slightly like Roland. Maybe. Did Roland ever even bully this guy, or does he just have a problem with the Town-Lord being better than him? Hard to tell with all the whimpering he's doing.

"I'll tell you what, Stormhalt," Shiv said. "I'll keep you alive if I can, mainly because I find you pretty pathetic, and Adam needs something to vent his frustrations on. We've had a hard couple of days, but since you're here, I think this is going to be a pretty good consolation prize on top of what we'll get from shutting this mana core down."

"Enough!" Stormhalt shouted. “Lay your arms down and surrender. I give you five seconds and no more.” His voice was accompanied by a rumble of thunder, and just then Shiv gave Adam a nod. It was time for the Gate Lord to take over, and for Shiv to go Non-Sequitur. Soon the fight would be on, but Shiv intended to make it as messy as he possibly could for the ascendants and their avatars.

As he ventured across the bridge, Rebis and Stormhalt approached. The massive tree lashed and pierced several bridges, drawing them closer, and as they were wrenched free from the walls, the steel groaning and then breaking with rattling screams, the alloyed matter began to change. It began to curve and twist into strange arms. 

They resembled coiled wires wrapping around each other, their tips were whipping tendrils that  licked at the air as if leaves from a willow tree. The wires struck the walls and cleaved a few orcs in half. Rapidly, they began to construct a frame around the chamber—a mesh that outlined the edges of the room Slowly a pulsating flood of divine mana began filling the space in between the frames, and a heaviness filled the atmosphere.

Shiv guessed what was happening. Enoch was likely using Stormhalt's showboating as a distraction. He was trying to build something around Shiv and the others. Too bad the builder wasn't going to get that chance. As Shiv accelerated across the bridge, he came to a halt right in front of Enoch and Stormhalt. 

As he did, the expected thing happened. Stormhalt's eyes flashed aglow with Divination mana, and the tree he was connected to pulsated with violet energy. The ascendant who empowered him pointed his spear down.

"There. Something approaches.” Halsur was an Ascendant with few words, and when he spoke, the world shivered beneath his awesome baritone.

"You think a feeble ambush like this will allow you to take us by surprise?" Stormhalt spat. Rebis waved his hands, and Shiv watched as a messy spray of incandescence expand out from the former prisoner’s body. The incandescent seemed fluid at first, but they spilled out from the gaps in Adam's armor, and Shiv saw what seemed to be a hexagonal grid that slipped past him. As the Deathless tried to move through, he found himself stained with Divination mana. He might have been able to slip out with his non-sequitur, but that didn't mean he was unaffected by the powers they infused the construct with. 

Gives them an easy way to track me. Well, this is annoying, Shiv thought to himself, but this was also anticipated. Adam knew certain Ascendants had powerful Divination, and even his personal divination skill could anticipate where Shiv was coming from. But him getting close was only part of the ambush.

As soon as Shiv was noticed by the Ascendants, Adam moved to the next part of their plan. "Before we begin, I just want you to know that I will do to you, Enoch, what the Storm Lords couldn't finish at the Pacific Islands." And suddenly the wire-mesh construct being shaped by the Ascendant came undone. There were several out-snapping sounds as the stolen matter harvested from the bridges fell, crashing down in a spill of unstable matter alongside the flowing spell stuff.

"What? What did you say?" Both of Enoch's voices were aligned, and Shiv could practically taste the Ascendant's dismay.

"I said, why don't you tell me what happened at Aina Huna?" And at that, Rebis jerked as if mortally wounded. The Ascendant cried out as well. For the first time, Shiv saw Enoch as it birthed free from Rebis's body. 

As the mutilated prisoner clutched his head, so too did Enoch. But Enoch was even more of an abomination compared to Rebis. Instead of having one body, it had two, conjoined at the hip. Yet, though one of its bodies was massive, well-muscled, bearing an enormous hammer in its right hand and a stack of papers fluttering in its left, its head was swelling, pulsating, and there was a portion of its skull missing. 

It looked like a horrific deformation, but Shiv could tell how delicate the cut was. A portion of Enoch's mind had been split, and that portion was dedicated to the other body sprouting out from its midsection.

The second body was far smaller, and it was connected by a mess of cancerous tissue. Yet, these cancers were infused with divine mana, and embedded within the cancer was the pulsating gray matter harvested from Enoch's brain. Shiv didn't know what the Ascendant did during the Ritual of the Dichotomous Soul to result in such an outcome, but to say that Enoch botched it was an understatement.

Little wonder why Veronica wanted him punished. Enoch was ruined. He was ruined in ways Shiv couldn't even begin to conceive of fixing, and he probably could only slot himself into Rebis because they were mutilated in such a similar way. And Rebis was deliberately ruined at that, to give Enoch something to wear. Two ugly lives tortured out of existence for one god's fuckup, Shiv thought to himself. What a world.

"Enoch," Stormhalt called aloud. He reached down, thinking to wrap some of his dark lightning around Rebis's body, shielding him from the assumed attack. But the mutilated Pathbearer pushed him aside, slamming into Stormhalt. The City-Lord was knocked back, and Rebis flared his bladed wings as he tried to wrestle himself free from the Ascendant.

"No, I'm not! Enoch. I'm not. Out of my mind. Get out. Get out!"

As chaos reigend, Shiv emerged from Non-Sequitur. He delivered a descending stab into the back of the City-Lord’s head, and a sickening crack followed. But Stormhalt didn't go down; instead, a counter-burst of dark lightning slammed against Shiv. Yet instead of being overpowered this time, he grappled with it. Shiv's many Overflow Tides halted the lashing lightning unleashed by Halsur, and as a forest of black bolts crashed down on him, the others made their move. 

A wave of curling fire slammed down on both Rebis, and Stormhalt. The City-Lord, already disfigured from his many injuries sustained against the Tarrasque, burned even more, sizzling within his battered armor. He cried out in pain, and Halsur fed him more electricity to spare him from more harm. He wrapped himself in a bundle of living lightning and soon became utterly impervious to harm.

Shiv wrenched some of the electricity aside and slashed his knife up along Stormhalt's torso at a diagonal angle. Sparks flashed. His might made the black lightning bend, and Shiv felt an explosion of satisfaction spread through his chest as he heard Halsur grunt with surprise.

Deepest Edge 66 > 67

Inertial Overdrive 161 > 162

Yet though he expected Deepest Edge to deliver a fatal wound, the lightning splashed apart, revealing no one within. A second later, someone slammed into his side. Stormhalt erupted back into existence carried by a bolt of piercing electricity cast by the tree looming overhead. Shiv's armor groaned and split, but it endured long enough for Shiv to shift his body and absorb the attack. He converted every bit of force Stormhalt sent his way, but Stormhalt's lightning was more than just kinetic energy. It was magic as well, a deep, lashing magic that tore at one's soul. The Deathless spent the Overflow Tides he gained from Stormhalt to blunt the man’s magic.

Stormhalt snarled as he clawed at Shiv’s throat. "Did you think that this would be enough? That you could simply—"

Before Stormhalt could say anything else, Shiv Shouted: "Golems!"

Deception 35 > 37

Golemancy 25 > 26

From his cape emerged two additional helpers. The first seized Stormhalt by his midsection. The other swept the City Lord's legs out from under him. The two Vitae Golems Shiv had manufactured ten minutes joined the fray in a sudden frenzy of Chronomantic violence. Temporal shells faded from their bodies as they pinned Stormhalt in place. And just then, Shiv fell upon the City-Lord as well, draining his vitality from him, and by extension, Halsur's as well.

Halsur was a hardy god. He betrayed little in the way of pain or discomfort, but as Shiv wrenched at his life force, he gave a soft gasp that became a hurricane. A literal hurricane birthed free from the tree. Shiv felt its power slam against his body—and he heard the others cry out in surprise. He directed his Shapeless Tides against the crushing force and used it to harness more shapeless tides from the hurricane, converting what he could to overflow vectors. A pulsating blast of vitality rippled out from the very center of the chamber, and nearby, a sound came: a crashing body, announcing Enoch's and Rebis's sudden collapse.

The mutilated prisoner lay there on the ground, and Shiv caught a glimpse of what provoked him to succumb: coiling strings of ones and zeros flooded Rebis's mind, and Can Hu, along with Five, advanced upon the downed path bearer. Gone slammed into Rebis and began prying at his helmet. Her claws dug in underneath the gaps lining the head armor, but despite everything, she couldn't pull it free.

"It's bound," she called out. "It's bound to his soul."

"What?" Adam said, sounding surprised. "But oh, godsdamn it, they must have done that earlier. They enchanted my armor. Bastards!”

"Think of it this way," Candles laughed as he continued pouring fire down upon Stormhalt in focused beams. A wall of twisting flames shaped in the form of a dragon screamed at the hurricane crashing against them and a pocket of stability opened in the ebony-colored storm. "They just saved you some trouble and some expenses. You got a bunch of free enchantments, whatever they are."

And with both avatars down and Halsur's presence fading, Shiv felt a roaring sense of triumph claw through his body. They'd prevailed without even letting the Ascendants fight back. It had been a far cry since his desperate battle against Stormhalt alone during the Tarrasque's offensive. But then Shiv saw a stray string of lightning wrap one final time around Rebis's head. And just then, as it tightened, the binaric flood was cut off and Rebis stopped writhing.

"Get back!" Shiv called out. “He’s—”

Inertial Overdrive 162 > 165

Pillar of Orichalcum 245 > 248

His death came in an instant. One moment he was alive, draining Halsur and Stormhalt's vitality; the next, his head was rolling forward off his neck. Another attack flicked toward him. The only reason why he didn't lose more of his vitae was because of Gone. The goblin had intercepted a blow meant for him. Rebis was fast, faster than Shiv could react to, and so was Gone. A clash happened around him. 

The air shook, and calamitous impacts launched Shiv back. He began to cultivate his Toughness; an Orichalcum pillar erupted free from his body, climbing high into the air. With him distracted, he failed to notice how both of his vitae golems had been beheaded as well, and how Stormhalt was free.

A full ocean's worth of lightning came down from the black tree. The bridges in the room were rent asunder, split down the middle by lashing branches. A tip of electricity slammed into Shiv, and his shapeless tides responded, but were found wanting as Halsur returned his full might against the Deathless. 

Shiv felt a fourth of him crack away. He just lost a good portion of his lifeforce, and by the time he managed to cultivate enough Overflow Tides to hold the rest of the lightning back, he was already wrapped tight by the lightning flowing free from Stormhalt's hands.

"Did you think that would be enough?" Stormhalt roared. The man was near incoherent, his words were partially slurred, yet the Ascendant was there, asserting his will against Shiv. Furthermore, the mana core came alive as well, and that searing heat that lashed at Shiv before when they were trying to breach the first cube returned. And it wasn't just Shiv that cried aloud. Adam, Candles, Gone—they were all affected. It was a fire that torched their very souls, and Candles, for one, hated it. His shrieks reached new heights, and his flames ceased flowing.

The mana core was unleashing that power. Shiv could feel it—the heat radiating free from the center of the room. If they didn’t collapse it soon, it might just see them all fried from the inside out.

Shiv used Non-Sequitur again, and this time he unlatched from his sprawling mass of vitae, ejecting a portion of himself. He came close to the edge of death, close like so many times before. It was like he was hanging off a precipice, and the winds of a cold blizzard licked him deep, carving chunks out of his very bone.

Non-Sequitur 103 > 104

But Shiv was free now, and Stormhalt wasn't expecting him. He wrapped himself around the city lord, and he began to drain. Stormhalt cried aloud, surprised by the sudden lurch of agony tearing through him. Life force flowed back into Shiv, and due to Non-Sequitur allowing him to exist seemingly in two places at once, Stormhalt never knew what hit him.

He tried slashing and crushing “Shiv”; he only destroyed the decoy the Deathless left behind. Shiv went back to being purely Outside of Context, and confusion gripped Stormhalt. That didn't stop Shiv from resurrecting, bursting free from his Vitae in a splash of red and white. As he did so, he hooked his left arm around the City-Lord's abdomen, and he spiked the man through the bridge they stood upon.

Pieces of shrapnel flew into the air, and Stormhalt was launched downward. A blast of tides spiked him down to the bottom of the chamber in an instant. Stormhalt struck the ground with such force at the bottom of the room went off like a bomb. Lightning cleaved down from the storm-tree still hovering far above Stormhalt, erupting forth in a dozen whips that came for Shiv. But he was whole again, and that meant he could cast himself back in time without tearing his soul in half. So Shiv did. He blinked out of existence and reappeared right next to where Rebis and Gone were, right next to the mana core, now no longer hidden by Stormhalt's lightning tree.

Strider of the Unbending Path 158 > 159

However, rather than being able to go for the mana core, Shiv faced a dilemma. Gone was beneath Rebis, pressed down underneath the mutilated Pathbearer's boot. And all around them, the room was being reshaped. Every bit of matter here was curling, turning denser. A strange maze was rushing toward them, falling as if a distant tide collapsing inward. And Shiv knew he didn't have much time at all before they were all at the mercy of the Builder's architectural powers.

"Break!" Rebis cried aloud, and Enoch's voice echoed within his new avatar's. But Shiv could hear the pain lingering under Rebis's breath. "I’m breaking! She’s breaking!" He wasn't talking just about Gone. The goblin gagged. Adam was nowhere to be seen. Everyone else was missing. And then there was Shiv, the mana core, and a simple choice to make.

Both, Shiv decided. He was going to choose both. He launched himself at the mana core and then imprinted a temporal echo of his being upon the massive source of mana as he reached into it with his Vitae. Through the searing pain, he drove the tip of his being into the inner depths of the core and brushed the first skill he could find. The moment he did, the moment he left a Chronomantic anchor, he reverted in time and reappeared next to Rebis.

He wrapped his arm around the mutilated prisoner and tore Rebis off Gone's body and held on.  Even as Rebis tried to rip himself out of Shiv’s grasp, the Deathless held on hard, refusing to let go. Rebis slashed at him with his wings. Shiv winced as cuts opened along his body—his Orichalcum barely doing much to stop Rebis’s slashing aura. He resolved the matter by flexing his body hard and ripping one of Rebis’s wings clean off. It lacked armor; Shiv had a Legendary Physicality Skill; Rebis needed more Toughness. The equation came down to an inevitable conclusion as the poor melded prisoner screamed, and Shiv winced in pity. “Sorry! Didn’t want this.”

“This is not your vessel!” Enoch cried again. “I will show you—”

Shiv saw the mesh framework wrapped around the chamber beginning to quiver and change once more. No. Not finding out why they call him the Builder. He drove Rebis into the burning mana core and pressed him against the massive cracks. Rebis struggled. Shiv coiled an arm around his enemy’s neck and struck at Enoch once more. "Doesn't matter what you do to me right now," Shiv said, holding Rebis tight, pressing more Shapeless Tides around his former companion. "Nothing you do right now will make you right. You were broken before, and you were broken because you were always a fool. Aina Huna. Failure. That’s what they should have called you. Not Builder.”

"Be quiet! Be quiet!" both of Enoch's heads cried aloud, and Rebis turned, clawing at Shiv. He felt a portion of his upper arm get ripped away. Even with his Pillar of Orichalcum climbing fast, Rebis cut deep and true. Shiv responded by discharging his sheathe right then and there. A blast enveloped the center of the room, and the Deathless felt Rebis rattle and bounce in his grip. He kept going with his taunts. "Because you were broken before then. In Aina Huna. The Stormlords deserve your divinity more than you do.”

"No! No!" Rebis tried to fly up. He got a meter up into the air before Shiv yanked him back and tore his other wing off. Blood sprayed through the air, and before Rebis could try anything else, Shiv dropped a plunging elbow on his armored head. An echoing impact sounded through the room, and Shiv continued delivering blow after blow while he spat word after word. "You were broken because you failed the ritual. You were broken because you were a fool. Everything you do, every bit of power you have, and still you failed!”

"No!" Enoch howled. “I am not broken! I am not—”

With a final punch, two of Shiv's skills advanced. They broke apart inside of him, and then their pieces melded together. His soul forged them into something stronger. And when he next spat a phrase, when he next delivered a punch, something changed within Rebis. "The broken thing wasn't the ritual. It wasn't your action. It was always you. Unlike you, I don't need to steal power from a god. I'm just gonna find my way there myself."

Striking Proficiency 50 > 51 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Silver Tongue 50 > 52 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Skill Fusion: Cutting Barbs (Adept) - Hammerhand (Adept) > Sticks and Stones (Master)

Sticks and Stones 52

Something peculiar happened to Enoch. The Ascendant’s ethereal body came alight and remained that way. It glistened, and there was a patch of glass that emitted a ray of brightness, a ray that called to Shiv's punches. Rebis suffered the same fate. His chest was glistening, and underneath that Legendary armor, Shiv felt a calling, an unspeakable urge to drive his knuckles through that weakness. And so he listened to it. While Rebis clutched at his head, Shiv gritted his teeth and muttered a quiet apology. "Sorry, Rebis. I would have tried to save you if I could.”

Rebis went still and then gave a choked sigh. "Was never any way out. I never asked to be made. End… Just give me…” 

Shiv drove a blow directly into Rebis's chest. Adam's Legendary-Tier armor proved its worth. It echoed, and Shiv's punch barely even rattled the plating. However, he felt something behind the armor crack and break. At the same time, a portion of Enoch fractured as well. Shiv's punch was hyper-accelerated as it moved within the brilliant patch emitted by the glistening vulnerability, and when it struck, it was like bursting through glass rather than hammering against high-tier flesh.

"Look at you now," Shiv said. "Even now, after all you have, after all the power you stole, you're still pathetic. You're still just going to lose."

As Enoch heard him, another section of his being turned to glass as well, and Shiv targeted this new vulnerability. Part of Rebis's face became brittle, and Shiv struck it. The moment his elbow landed, it zipped forward in a sudden rush of amplified force, and a cataclysmic snap echoed through the chamber.

Part of Rebis’s skull caved in, and the avatar went down, going limp. There was no time to celebrate. Shiv turned his attention to the mana core and—

A chain of lightning exploded out from his gut. He felt the lightning hook inside him as Stormhalt tried to pull him back. As Shiv wrestled with a god's power, he cast his Vitae forth into the mana core and began to engineer its collapse. His soul was practically boiling out from his body, and Shiv didn’t think he could take much more.

Another two impacts slammed against his person. Shiv felt his pillar crack, but endure. He felt more Overflow Tides flood him, and he heard Stormhalt snarling some stupid nonsense or another as he tried to drag Shiv away.

So tired of this prison bullshit, Shiv gritted his teeth and pulled forward. I need to—

Suddenly, Rebis drew in a ragged breath and turned, trying to lash at Shiv—

Only to howl in pain once more as his soul was lit ablaze. But not by the mana core this time.

And then a new color exploded into existence. Azure blue spilled down from above the mana core. A flaring beam of power rushed into Shiv, and the Deathless looked up to see both Can Hu and Adam slip back into the fray. The Penitent’s body was shredded in so many places that only its torso remained intact. Through the gaps, Shiv saw Adam, his body a raging current of crashing water, but his face still human.

Stormhalt’s lightning slackened as well. The City-Lord cried out in misery as Adam drew closer. But as he did, the Gate Lord’s sun began to crack. Shiv’s eyes widened. “Adam! No! Stop! Your skill—”

Adam didn’t stop. Adam’s sun flared even brighter. Grew even larger.

And when it shattered apart, the chamber went from a burning incandescent to the perfect blue of an endless sky.