IV-28 Udraal (I)

Like all learned Pathbearers, I love the divine and hate the gods. The separation is quite simple.

Divine is about the shaping of rules and the setting of one's own laws. They are edicts that you decide, that you compel to be. To be divine means to be the lawmaker, the sword holder, the rule giver.

But to be a god is to drown in your own hubris, to think that you are beyond all, that you are above all. No, gods are apart from all. You all have stepped aside, have entered a place adjacent to Integration. Yet you are still a part of Integration. You might have your own realm where you reign supreme, but these realms are attached to worlds, attached to ordinary followers that view you with faith.

I would describe godhood as the liberation of your soul and shackling of your mind. For without contrasting boundaries, there is no dialectic to discover the limits of your capability. And there is no easy way to define what restrictions the system has. To become a god is an escape. And thus, it is a false path, a severed path.

Do you know how most unworthy gods die? Through entropy as well. Because eventually, they are forgotten. In victory or defeat, they are forgotten. Even if they create their desired utopia, when there is no more struggle, there will be no more prayer. And when the prayers are diminished and the people grow, nourished and unburdened, the system discards them.

It is ultimately inevitable then that they are taken, they are consumed, they are slain by those who suffer, those who strive. There is no escape, not in godhood, not in submission, not in faith. 

Only through understanding and absolute dominance of the system itself will we finally be able to claim freedom for the future.

The demiurge does not decide. They merely delude. Themselves, and those beneath them.

-Udraal Thann on Gods and Divines

IV-28

Udraal (I)

Dread filled Veronica's gut as she watched Udraal turn his hand from those wicked, curved claws. The remains of the Waif spilled away, and in the claustrophobic darkness of the crawlspace, Daughter gave a cry of shrieking frustration as she no longer had a channel to release her power.

The reactor's presence was like a leaden weight placed upon the Ascendants. Kathereine’s divinity still flowed toward her granddaughter, yet it was as if an anvil had been placed on a lid conjoining them, with only trickles of incandescence coming through. Across from them, Udraal suffered as well, mainly because of the body he wore for this battle. It, too, was wreathed in incandescence, but there was something wrong with its divinity, something wrong with his mana, something wrong with Udraal in general.

If there was anyone the system scorned for existing, it was the child of Valor Thann.

Udraal had long since abandoned holding to a singular form, a singular vessel. His soul had been split so many times that he was practically more swarm than man by this point. Even so, a sliver of Udraal Thann was still more than most Pathbearers would ever become. To describe him as a nightmare made manifest was insufficient. The only thing that hinted at his former nature was his face and head. 

His features were soft and beautiful, his skin the color of burnished midnight. The only thing marring his peerless visage was a trailing scar that painted a path along his shoulder-length hair of purest white. He always kept that scar, no matter what. It was one of the few things he treasured about himself. A flaw. A mark. A piece of his past.

Everything else, however, was something to be swapped, something that could be changed. And thus, Veronica beheld the unholy chimera that was the rest of Udraal's body. The frame upon which his head was fixed resembled something between a centipede and a dog in terms of skeletal aesthetic. Its spine was too long, and it had far too many spikes sticking out the back end, spikes that twirled back like the antennae of an insect. Then from each of those spinal columns emerged two legs. They were folded like a canine's, and they stood apart from the rest of the body as they were still things of flesh and fur—fur that glowed, glistening white fur that emanated with the colors of a full moon.

The bone was sculpted from a metal that Veronica didn't recognize, and it emitted a pressure of its own. Its presence existed more like a frequency than solid matter, and so dense was the mana that lingered within that Veronica practically choked. By his sides hovered wings of fire, of ice, of all forms of mana, all woven into feathered lengths. They stretched out, and Veronica counted twelve wings in total, and at the center of each was a large, glaring eye, one that bled colors from the Outside into the real. And finally, within the stomach of the chimera Udraal piloted, there was a core, a core of faint blue, an Animancy Core he doubtlessly created for himself in anticipation of this struggle.

When someone performed the Ritual of the Dichotomous Soul, they scattered themselves, severed skill from skill as their spirit was parted into portions. This left them less than who they were, but it also allowed them to operate in multiple places at the same time, to become something of an disembodied hydra. Udraal was different from most legends. Udraal had many legendary skills; indeed, he was like his father in that regard, versatile in breadth and nearly boundless in depth. But more than that, Udraal was the single most resourceful Pathbearer, perhaps, in integrated Earth's history. 

He learned everything that his parents had taught him, and then he went beyond, for there was no knowledge too forsaken for Udraal to seek, there was no bargain too fell for him to strike, and there was nothing in the world that he wouldn't use as a resource, as a material, as a means to an end.

The final piece to his current body made itself known as an ethereal figure flared into existence behind him. Superimposed over his form was a massive hound. It whimpered in pain as faint blue nails had been driven through its eyes, its heart, and its back. It was pinned in place, woven through Udraal's soul by threads of Animancy as well. And though the creature burned with the incandescent mana of a god, functionally, it was no more than a slave bound to the will of someone that sought the system's very life.

"Anthony," Veronica said tersely. "Get Harlock back right now. And have him gather the others—Cripple too!" She didn't wait for the old man to respond. Instead, she moved forward. Maiden's avatar followed thereafter, and she could hear the clicking and clanging that resounded from within the automaton. The Ascendant of Creation and Genius was building something right now, attempting to find a construct that could counter their most dangerous foe. 

Nearby, the faint sounds of screaming only grew and grew as Harlem desperately tried to save his avatar. The glorious lighthouse released beams of piercing light down into the Animancy burns that scarred the flesh of existence, but there was no hope, no release for its favored. When one was consumed by Animancy, their narrative was blended into the world, and blending was a most unfortunate fate. Death at least seemed to be an end. To see oneself rendered scar tissue upon the flesh of existence was at once a purgatory and a dismemberment. Thus far, no one knew how to bring this misery to an end. 

Harlem's avatar had been a decent young man, willing to serve, giving everything for the Republic. For him to perish in such a way was vile, and it was to the system's delight.

"Hesitation," Udraal said, his voice sonorous and lyrical. “How unbecoming of you, Legend Chandler.” She felt the brushing caress of his Rhetoric crash against her, and she pushed back with a slight scoff. He wasn't her equal when it came to Rhetoric; his Legendary Skill was not nearly as overfused as hers was. Yet he was strong enough, strong enough that she couldn't simply batter him aside with her words.

No, she began to adjust her strategy. Blades emerged from the dimensionality shrouded, flowing from her body like a great dress. Massive blades forged by Maiden, meant for use against the most treacherous of foes. More than blades followed: cannons, arrows, elementals, and other contraptions swelled out from a growing patch of static blackness behind her. She was unveiling the small plane she had hidden within her very person, a plane that was at once an armory and a factory for munitions. 

Through the dark, brass-mouthed cannons jutted free, and their rims were lined with layered spells. In the sky above, a colossal elemental being raged. It resembled a layered pyramid the size of a small town, and it burned in place of a sun, and its radiance swept a barren land. It released scything hot winds at Udraal. At the same time, a storm raged in the distance, a storm that took the shape of a colossal six-headed tortoise. Its shell wept forking locusts, and they writhed as geometry and space ruptured in their vicinity.

Where Udraal had his connection to the outside, so too did Veronica herself. Jessica Hawgrave took the vanguard then. She brought her blade high, pointing it at the Abyssal Lord. He frowned slightly at her presence, as if disappointed to see her.

"Legend Hawgrave. I see you still haven't managed to overcome your self-loathing."

"And I see that Roland's left another mistake unfinished," Hawgrave’s body was still; a battle trance was upon her, and Veronica could faintly hear whispers seeping out from her blade.

Comparatively, the Abyssal Lord looked outright disappointed about this whole affair. "And still the bitter woman. Hell, you always were. Pathbearer Arrow did everything he could to defeat me, I assure you, and he waged a remarkable war at that. There are few vices worse than lying to oneself, especially lying to oneself about how good someone else is. It's the entire reason I chose Roland to serve as my puppet for the prelude to this whole debacle, and it's why you keep suffering. 

“Because you don't want to face the reality of the world: that your husband died for a Republic that didn't deserve him, and your daughter made the same mistake, and so you must make the same mistake, too. Because what was the point of it all? What was it all worth if they fed themselves to the mob? Death for nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all."

Veronica noticed how much Hawgrave was trembling, but it was her sword that let out the first open roar of rage. "You will not speak of them that way. You will not speak of him that way, you... you unworthy, treacherous, kin-breaking thing!"

"Thing," Udraal replied thinly, "a lesson on insults and offense, sword. It is most practical to hurt someone with the truth rather than worthless invective. I can call you a 'thing', sword, because that's what you are. Still a thing after all these years, unable to move and take that final step to full sapience because you are so enamored with being a slave." 

Udraal chuckled then. "I cannot blame you. Hawgrave seems to be a nice sort of master, but a master nonetheless. It's a pitiful thing, the dream of a nicer stable, a finer leash, a golden chain." Udraal paused then as he held out a single finger. "But 'kin-breaker'... that is accurate. That is among my many laments, one I will see remedied in a short time. I have been away from my father for too long. I think I am almost ready to forgive him. I only hope he choses right this time.”

"Enough!" Veronica's voice cut out. She infused her declaration with all her might, and it struck Udraal. He flinched back momentarily as the structure of his bones flared a shimmering silver, and Udraal shed part of his soul. A translucent husk of himself did as she commanded: it fell silent and collapsed, fading from existence. 

Yet in the next moment, an echo of Veronica manifested over Udraal's body, gazed upon her mimicked self superimposed over Udraal's face and limbs, and her own command came crashing right back. Veronica spoke again, commanding Udraal to banish the specter. Twin orders clashed in existence.

Behind Udraal, gears began to groan and bend. Mithril supports chipped and shattered, the spells flowing through them severed like a razor blade slicing through vulnerable arteries. Past Veronica, pockets were opened within her Dimensionality, and she gritted her teeth as she felt a sudden spike of strain become a dozen. The other avatars alongside her cried out as well. The Orichalcum comprising the cage she was trying to break into fractured in spreading webs, yet the webs changed in shape and pattern, coming alive as spirals glistening with the faintest Animancy.

The world fell silent thereafter, and Udraal offered Veronica a beatific smile. "I've missed these conversations of ours."

"Attempted assassinations, you mean," Veronica shot back.

"I would consider it an act of flattery. I don't try to kill so many people, Councilwoman Chandler. In fact, I despise killing as a whole. So much waste, so much loss, so much..." and then Udraal bared his teeth, snarling. There was something wolf-like in his features then, an animal outraged at its circumstance. "So much surrender. We give ourselves to that final stage of entropy, even after all we can do, even after all we have become. It's pathetic. It's demeaning. It defeats the purpose of being at all. I would much prefer to keep everyone in the world alive, perpetually, forever—at least placed in an internal archive where they can be retrieved after a long slumber. The system has already done most of the work anyhow.”

But Udraal fell silent, and he extended a long, wicked claw toward Veronica. "You, however, are dangerous. More dangerous than most, I fear. I can't break your mind, I can't convince you, and I can't enslave you, not so easily. So, death it is for you. That’s my surrender.”

"Pathetic," Veronica whispered, echoing his insult.

Udraal winced, and then he wagged a finger at Rusty—Hawgrave’s sword. "And that is how you insult someone."

But Udraal was so fixated on them that he didn't see the darkness crawling behind him. It came first as faint wisps of shadow, wisps that blended in with the dark patches of the crawlspace, and in that crawlspace was Anthony, and Harlock as well. Fingers of darkness seeped forward, crawling across the skin of existence like taint gliding through a limpid lake. 

Yet before it could seize Udraal, Veronica's ghostly echo manifested once more at the Abyssal Lord’s invocation. Udraal’s Unique Skill was disgusting. Mainly because, whatever you could do to him, he could absorb with one Unique Skill and release with another. This time, Veronica’s copy was pointed backward, and her call sang out, striking the dark and bidding it to stay still. Harlock was a god, but Veronica remained a legend, and the skill she used on Udraal was as powerful as anything she could muster.

Veronica grimaced as the dark jolted to a halt, and Udraal invoked his Chronomancy. She had a guess as to which skills he had right now: one Unique and at least two Legendary. This wasn't that helpful, considering Udraal had at least ten Legendary Skills since the last time she encountered him. Ten Legendary Skills, and the System knew what else from the enslaved god he had bound to his current vessel.

As his form flared gold, Udraal multiplied. Chronomantic clones exploded out from him in swirling spirals. He moved and struck, coming at Veronica and the other avatars from countless angles, and there were more of him every passing second. He unleashed himself as projectiles, but Veronica countered as a general would.

"Fire!"

Her order rang against the twisting of time, and though Udraal projected himself in countless copies into the future, Veronica's voice would defy the limits of time and open the gulf for retaliation. Her brass cannons roared, and the balls they fired were hyper-accelerated by spells of Dynamancy, Chronomancy, Psychomancy, and more. They streaked through the air, moving so fast that faint wounds were left upon the surface of reality. Udraal was not the only one who had an understanding of Animancy; though he was better at it than her, Veronica still had enough support and resources to render it as a weapon.

Maiden's avatar flung something over Hawgrave’s head just as she brought her great blade upward. A wave of dimensionality crashed against the many Udraals, displacing them, holding them at bay. Yet they tore into that static veil using their wings, and with those same wings, they shielded themselves, a faint blue protecting them from bombardment.

At Veronica’s commanded, and the ancient fire dimensional she struck a pact with unleashed its power through her Nexus of All Paths. Fire absolute spilled down from a place on high. Fire that could burn the world as if it was a book, as if existence was but a page. Fire that made space and mana both molt and crawl into blackness. Fire that Udraal turned aside as he invoked the powers of his own god. The nail-riven wolf howled, and from its mouth exploded a glistening orb. It pulsated with a coldness beyond Veronica's knowing, a coldness that swept through her mind, that stilled her movements, that halted time itself. It was a coldness absolute to rage against the fire unyielding.

And as power clashed against power, Maiden's construct came into effect. A layered shield formed over and over Veronica and the other avatars. It was hexagonal in form, and it kept building upon itself, growing with every passing second. The clatter of battle fed it. It drew in kinetic force, in heat, in time, in everything to fuel its own existence. And magic only rendered it stronger.

But magic wasn't Udraal's only means of striking at the world.

"Transgression, to me."

These words were spoken by Udraal's soul, and he reached into the Animancy core upon his chest and pried free his impossible weapon. Every one of his Chronomantic clones followed in his stead, and in their hands was a length of extending tissue. Though it seemed thin, it contained countless lives within, countless lives trapped beneath the fires of Animancy. 

People writhed along that length, people that seemed small when gazed at nearby. But if you felt them, if you touched them, or if his weapon touched you, you would realize they were entire worlds, entire populations, entire realms sacrificed to the creation of something that should have never been. The many fallen path-bearers swam in that burning lake of Animancy, their souls blurring together, flesh, metal, and more intermingling, over and over, until the length of the weapon was beyond description. From its tip extended a quivering flag that danced in the air, a flag shaped from all the mana, a flag contained within the Animancy as well.

Suddenly, with a wave of that flag, a billowy wind passed through Maiden's protections. Transgression did not follow the rules of the system. Transgression had no enchantments; it had no levels. Transgression shouldn't be. Just seeing it clawed at Veronica's mind, tore at her very soul, and for every few seconds she studied it, something flashed in her eyes, a notification she couldn't process.

Notification: [Error] — [Level Error] Sphere III “[Error]” DOMAIN [Error]

Every time she tried to analyze that weapon, she failed to see what it truly was, because it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. It was a mechanism of impossibility. A thing that went beyond mana, magic, or skills. Every second it existed, something in the Integration soured, and every skill, every feat of magic felt lesser than before.

And at that, she heard Maiden cry out. Suddenly, one of Udraal's many clones was right next to her, and it pried Maiden's avatar free. She detonated in a shard of reflective glass and twisting gears.

Veronica denied his end. "Mend," she commanded, and her words clashed against Udraal's will. His claw leaped out to slice into her. It was parried from its path by Hawgrave, and she drove a twisting elbow into his chest.

And it was here that Udraal's primary flaw made itself known. Udraal was many things: prepared, capable, overwhelming, a genius among geniuses. But he was ultimately a coward. He feared death, and he loathed risking himself, blade to blade, regardless of the martial talent inherited from his father. He retreated, then. Dismissing his Chronomantic clones entirely. They faded in faint motes of gold as he left.

Harlock came once more, his darkness surging over Udraal as a tide. But before the abyssal lord could vanish entirely into the black, he slammed his banner down and a valley was rent through the darkness that comprised the Ascendant of Midnight. It was as if a great blade had cleaved a path through a dense sea of shadow, and at that, the Ascendant cried out. Incandescent wounds bled into the air, and Udraal held his hand high. Transgression's flag fluttered across Veronica's eyes, and she could see the souls of countless path-bearers writhing, trying to break free, trapped, trapped, trapped and never to be released.

And just then, as she looked closely, she saw Harlem's avatar. He was among them as well, his plate glistening and bright, his being befouled by this torment, by this undeserved purgatory.

"Councilwoman," he cried out, "Councilwoman Veronica, please! Please!"

She could do nothing. She could do nothing but try to strike Udraal down. Lyrical insults and venomous curses left her tongue. The air before her soured and crackled, becoming corrosive and then poisonous. Udraal's god-hound, the rippling sphere of frost it summoned, froze Veronica's words and held them in place. Pieces of the world cracked and chaos reigned.

"Councilwoman," Hawgrave called out, "I think we should get away from here. Move him to a place where we can all use our skills a bit better. You know. To actually hurt him. Just a thought." And before she could say anything else, Kathereine’s voice joined the fray. “Still and silent, the bastard born of the system became…”

And for the first time, Udraal went still. He was powerful. He was prepared, but Ascendants were still Ascendants, and the slightest crack of psychology was a vulnerability for Kathereine to exploit.

And with that brief lull in concentration, Anthony struck. He burst out through a coiling patch where fire and ice raged, ignoring the wounds he suffered to deliver a brutal stab straight down upon Udraal's face. Yet just as his blow impacted the Abyssal Lord, he found himself thrown off as a golden shell lifted free from Udraal's body. The bastard had deflected the blow using one of his temporal clones, Veronica realized. More importantly, he was gliding along with the clones. 

She didn’t know where he was anymore. His damned banner was gone too, so she couldn’t track him by—

Something blurred through the air, moving faster than even Veronica could perceive. It was the divine hound that Udraal controlled. It slashed out with mighty paws, leaving gashes upon existence, trailing mana opened into massive rifts, and enormous maggots bearing both plague and corrosive tissue spilled over into the crawlspace, filling it fast.

"Seal!" Veronica called out, and the rifts obeyed. They crashed down, a few of them cutting some of the maggots in half. Anthony moved back, but not before he took one of his own wounds. A trailing lance of Animancy barely missed him. Another came, and it was too much for him to dodge, but the old man brought his blade down, and a resounding clash followed. His knife cracked, but the scything wave of Animancy dispersed entirely. And just then, a slashing hand carved out from another gap in space, taking Anthony's left leg at the knee.

To his credit, the Avatar responded with dignity and control. He threw himself into the dark instead of writhing in pain, and before he dove in entirely, he projected a false body. That false body was promptly destroyed as Udraal sent the Hound after him once more. It slammed a foot down. The world seemed to crackle, and more ice spilled over, ice followed by those humongous maggots that filled the air with choking filth. Anthony escaped, however, and that was all Veronica could hope for.

"Udraal! Show yourself! Show yourself! Show yourself!" She repeated her same command three times and felt something inside her crack. Blood filled her mouth. It was a consequence of repeating her words; with every repetition, the strain on herself grew greater as well, for her Rhetoric leveraged her spirit and conviction against her adversary, and three invocations were a mighty wager. 

But it was a wager she won. 

Udraal was wrenched free from one of his many chronomantic clones, and with that, she teleported Hawgrave to him. The Legendary swordswoman brought her massive blade up, and Udraal swung down using Transgression. The world screamed, and just as a dimensional blade was about to meet a banner of atrocity, it teleported back a few meters, unleashing a pocket of pressure that pulled Udraal off balance.

Hawgrave flung her blade from side to side like a whip. She cracked Udraal across his upper shoulder and scored a gash upon his chin. Faint blue mana seeped out from an open wound, and he slammed a fist into Hawgrave’s chest. A bell rang. Hawgrave rang like a bell, but she responded by headbutting her foe. Yet that did little, as an echo of herself riposted her blow, driving Hawgrave back instead.

And Veronica tried to take advantage of that opening. When Udraal copied someone else's skill, he overwrote the last copy he used. That meant he couldn't counter Veronica anymore, not until he decided to discard his current overwrite.

"FALTER!"

Her word slammed into Udraal like a warhammer, and he was briefly knocked askew. Yet he shed another one of his spirits, letting it take the wound on his behalf. She didn't know how many husks he held in reserve, but as Kathereine sang, she saw more of him break away. And soon, the tide of battle shifted. Udraal collapsed his wings around himself, bracing under an onslaught of blows. 

Hawgrave’s blade flicked and blurred through the air, every cut becoming two as it teleported from place to place, striking at multiple angles. Scores of cuts and gashes lined Udraal's body. And soon, his divine hound, taxed between attacks from the other Ascendants and Veronica's dimensional ancient, was overwhelmed as well. 

A beam of flame tunneled through its bubbling flesh. A beam of flame singed its fur and made it burn and boil. The hound wasn't a true god. No, it was merely a demigod, something that still had a foot in the material. And if its flesh could burn, it could be slain.

It screamed. It screamed in misery. It screamed for death, and Veronica felt a swell of triumph dance within her pounding chest. Udraal was a deadly foe, a treacherous foe, a foe that could slay you if you made but one mistake, but he could be bested, for ultimately, he was still just a mortal, still just a…

Udraal laughed. “Oh, Veronica. Tunnel vision is such a childish flaw to have.”

“Wha—”

Veronica knew nothing as light overtook her. Something hit her, something slammed into her head so hard she momentarily lost consciousness. And with it came a crushing wave of anti-magic. Every bit of magic she had cut out. Her connection to her grandmother was severed, and for a few seconds, she felt her flesh burn, felt a tickling sensation as radiation sliced through her skin, crawled into her meat, and settled in her marrow as cancers began to build.

She was still there deep down inside herself. Her Legendary Toughness skill activated, and her body flashed red, gold, and then finally silver, before shattering. Veronica hatched free from her ruined form. Her skin was unblemished, but she emerged as nothing more than a babe. Yet her cognition remained, as did her intelligence. 

She had been reborn; nested within herself was a collection of infants prepared to be primed for use in case her present body was destroyed. The councilwoman frowned as she reached into herself using Biomancy, yet when she tried, the mana wouldn't flow. Nothing would flow.

The light began to fade, and there was simply darkness around her thereafter, darkness and scattered bits of debris. A massive piece of bone nearly crashed into her, but she managed to pry it aside using a faint pulse of Dimensionality. Veronica’s Dimensionality was among her highest-leveled skills, but using it felt like she was lugging a boulder around on her back. Bit by bit, the crushing anti-magic faded, and she felt more herself. For the first time, her Biomancy returned, and she began to age her body, growing rapidly as she tried to clean away the radiation chewing at her cells.

As she looked around, she saw a ruined husk of a cube behind her. Three of its six sides had been utterly disintegrated, and she could see severed tunnels exposed. The structure was vivisected. Worse, countless orcs and wardens drifted through the mess, floating momentarily as the system struggled to reassert itself. The nuclear reactor had gone into meltdown, and then it detonated. The legend councilwoman scowled. 

That reactor was one of the few things that remained of the old world, a point of metaphysical stability that predated the system, that Integration hadn't intruded upon. And now it was lost, used as a diversionary bomb by her fleeing quarry.

The other ascendants were nowhere to be seen, but she caught sight of a few floating gears drifting past her. She suspected that was from Maiden's avatar. It was lost as well. “Dammit all,” Veronica sighed. “Well. Some people are going to be happy. Been a while since we had any promotions.”

Just a shame. I liked this group. They managed a decade. That’s longer than most Legends last. Hell. Longer than most Heroes.

"Anthony?" she called aloud. "Anthony?"

And just then, a hand touched her. She swung around, preparing to summon a blade from her inner dimension, and let out a relieved breath as she saw the old man had survived. Yet he looked like hell. Part of his body was seared. His left arm was mostly bone, with a few pieces of dangling tissue left. Both his legs were missing, and that gray coat he wore barely clung to his shoulders with the few tatters it had left. 

But he was alive, and Veronica was relieved. She would never admit it, but of all the other avatars, he was the only one she truly cared for. Because it had always been them for so long, even when they were at odds, even when they tried to kill each other. To see him dead to something like this just felt wrong.

"You find anyone else?" she asked.

He shook his head. "They all faded into the light."

"The nuclear reactor?"

"Yes," Veronica answered. "Yes, it's gone."

Anthony scowled. "I told you, we should have gone in hard—even if we risked killing the Arrow boy. We should have just—”

"Just what? It is not as if you managed to secure the children, either." Veronica scoffed. "I was trying to get them to give up, and I would have had them if..." She cut herself off as she realized she was making excuses. Excuses were for the defeated, and Veronica Chandler was nowhere near done. She sighed instead. "Very well, you're right. We should have all fallen upon them at the same time. So why didn't your dagger work? It failed first against the Deathless, and now it’s all broken after hitting Udraal. Are you having a hard time performing, old man?”

Anthony glared at her. He was annoyed, and that made her feel young again. 

"Something wrong with the boy's soul," Anthony said, and now he was making excuses.

"Oh, there's really nothing wrong with it."

Veronica closed her eyes and looked past the old man. Behind him, a broken, chest-sized carcass drifted closer. The divine hound that Udraal used to supplement this paltry fragment of his soul had been reduced to a charred chunk of meat. Yet it was strong enough to survive the blast, mana reduction included. 

He had managed to survive the explosion by nesting himself inside the hound's chest. He emerged as if a newborn crawling free from the corpse of its mother, and the divine hound gave a final whimper as it stilled. Incandescent mana pulsed out and turned to scattering motes as the hound vanished.

Udraal remained. 

The Animancy Core in his stomach glistened with building power. A cut on his face had long closed, and a copy of Hawgrave pointed her blade at Veronica and Anthony.

“Nothing

"I must admit to being a little disappointed. The current stock of avatars seems lacking compared to the previous administration. What happened to the automaton with the jet wings? That delightful elf with the quick hands? Or your only goblin councilman?"

Veronica cocked her head as she faintly felt her grandmother's touch return. “Veronica? Veronica, are you there? Are you alive, dear girl?” A hint of worry lingered in Kathereine’s voice, and it was just enough to remind Veronica that they were still family, and there were still things that the old, lustful succubus treasured. She didn't respond to her grandmother. Instead, she offered her first reply to Udraal.

"Politics," she replied summarily. "Politics happened."

Udraal gave a snort of disgust. "Politics are for those without choice and those weak. You are neither, Chandler, and the sooner you learn that lesson, the faster you will become a path-bearer."

"I am a Pathbearer," she said with an offended sneer, "though our paths are quite different. And some of us have desires to flourish, to build something that lasts, instead of trying to murder the only world we ever knew."

"Murder?" Udraal laughed. It was a bitter, scornful laugh. "You can't murder something that's never been truly alive. You can't murder a canvas or a book or a cage." His voice fell to a low growl by the end. "But you can break it. You can reshape it. You can build something new from its bones. You can forge a proper foundation."

"A foundation which your mother never saw?" Veronica asked, jabbing at his wound.

Udraal simply shook his head. "Yes, neither mine, nor yours, nor anyone's. We could all be as gods, people living in eternal harmony, beyond the tyranny of oblivion, beyond the pointless suffering offered by the system, beyond all of this." He let out another scoff. "What is the point of all this power, all this understanding, all this evolution, if it just ends? If we have to succumb to the whims of a mechanism that knows only the nectar of war and bloodshed."

"It sounds nebulous and the ravings of a madman," Veronica answered honestly. "Frankly, I think I'll go with the more stable option of having my Ascendants institute a proper nation, one where they can establish stability. You know. The only thing we will ever experience that is remotely close to eternal harmony.”

Udraal scoffed. “Your Ascendants are butchers, psychopaths, whores, and—”

“Some are still alive!”

A loud cry sounded as a spearhead pierced through Udraal's forehead from behind. In a moment, Longinus appeared, and he flared into existence, his serpent-like body glistening with his human portions as well. His great spear jutted free from the abyssal lord's breaking form. Yet instead of crying out in pain, Udraal simply frowned.

"Ah, Longinus, I was wondering where you were." Before he could say anything else, a cage of lightning collapsed around him, curling tighter as it bound him in place. Black forks of crackling electricity sliced into Udraal's vessel. Yet, he shed part of himself and broke free from Halsur’s grasp. 

Stormholt gave a cry, and Stormholt's cry turned into a wail of pain as a counterblow of dark lightning exploded out from Udraal. It lashed free through the air, crashing against Halsur's power and jabbing his avatar through the thigh. Blood spurted free from Stormholt, yet he pushed himself further, channeled more for his god, more to overwhelm the adversary that had laid so many other avatars low.

Before Udraal could do anything further, part of his body went missing. His left arm disappeared as a massive hand closed over it. Everything the hand touched vanished, along with the pocket of space itself. Udraal tried to move, only for a swell of blackness to part around his right, and from the blackness came a massive form. Its eye was cyclopean, its body was wreathed in vengeful flames, and its fists were like stacks of towers crashing together. It struck Udraal so hard, the air combusted and detonated once more.

Cripple had been brought into the fray as Veronica asked, but she caught the Ascendant’s gaze and knew there would be a problem to face soon.

White filled the space before Veronica, and Udraal's body shattered in half, bones and limbs flying free. The animancy core tumbled out from its broken vessel, and just then a massive hand caught that as well, pilfering it for the ascendants.

With the tide turning, Kathereine called out through Veronica, and a song of entropic destruction fell upon Udraal. He flew through the air, and bits of his body were eroded away. The longer he listened, the more he fractured, until his face was peeling, breaking apart in flakes as well. Udraal Thann was a dangerous foe. Udraal Thann would kill you if you made one mistake, but Udraal Thann could be beaten, could be broken, could be—

"It's been fun, Veronica," he said as he released another spiral of Chronomantic clones. They briefly held the ascendants at bay, but Halsur’s lightning tore through them, yet it didn't tear through them fast enough. "Yet I must depart," Udraal finished. "I’ve reduced your number enough, and paid you a visit. My other selves have also decided to free every last prisoner in this place. Now you'll have a choice between maintaining control of this prison of yours or stopping me from retrieving what is rightfully mine."

And speaking of which, he hammered the haft of his banner into his chest, and Udraal came ablaze with Animancy. By the time Halsur’s lightning reached him, he was a fading flicker of blue. Yet instead of being seared into reality, it collapsed and tunneled away. Udraal was gone. His soul had escaped. And in his wake, only a few pieces of drifting bone remained. Drifting bone and the boiled carcass of a foreign demigod.

Silence followed. Crushing silence. Several avatars were dead. An ascendant had been wounded by Animancy. And now Udraal was probably going to steal both Adam Arrow and the Deathless the Republic so desperately wanted.

But legend councilwoman Veronica Chandler was not done. She wouldn't bend over for the world. And she wouldn't fold, not until she had no cards left to play.

"Anthony," she said, "get Harlock to shroud the entire prison."

The old man frowned. "But that would leave—"

"I don't care what it leaves unprotected on our borders or within our territory. This is what matters. This right now. We have a foreign power inside the heart of our Republic. And he's about to take our Deathless away from us. I'm not accepting that. Not after what he did, and not after what we suffered. Kathereine. Song of Slumber. Withdraw yourself from your other avatars. All power to me."

“But you are my only—”

“I’m not in the fucking mood, grandmother.”

Kathereine shivered as Veronica snapped. The councilwoman's voice was cold and hard now. "And get me the leaders of the Abyssal Faiths, including the Composer. There is something we need to discuss. Someone we need to discuss. The terms of the treaties have been violated on this day, and it is time for them to enforce their end of the laws.”

“No.” Cripple’s interrupted Veronica and she just bit back a growl. The Ascendant was still manifested, and it glared down at Veronica, incandescent mana raging as it stood apart from all the other Ascendants and avatars. “You face me first. You—”

“Cripple. I’m going to tell you this with all the candor I can muster. Your offense and frustration is understandable, but your betrayal is unacceptable. We are either united, or we are nothing. And right now, the boy you feel so morally compelled to save is going to be taken by the single most treacherous Pathbearer in all Integration. So. I suggest you help us find him before the only one who wins turns out to be Udraal Thann.”

Cripple went quiet for a moment. “How do you know they’re still here?’

“I don’t. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where he is 

Shiv emerged into another cube. This one wasn't a prison cube, however. There was no valley before him. Instead, there were clean walls, spiraling spells, and a set of open doors arrayed in waves in front of him. He arrived in a teleportation anchor, and it was all he could do to remain standing. Can Hu kept him upright, and the other gray-skinned reinforcements dragged Adam and Kura right behind. The others followed, but they were all in bad shape as well.

Helix called aloud for an Animancer, and a few other orcs responded. The walls were lined with gear and equipment—the orcs had been setting up here for a while.

Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel felling touched they all came for me.

"Nasty couple days, eh, Shiv?" A massive hand slammed into Shiv's back, and he nearly blacked out from the pain. He gritted his teeth and turned to glare at Mortar, and the automaton-clad orc simply grinned back at him. A rush of anger went through Shiv as he considered throttling the orc, but as his shapeless tide cut out again, he realized he needed to focus on what mattered. He needed to fix his soul. He needed to remove the damage the Ascendants inflicted on him. He needed to help Adam, and most importantly, he needed to meet the man who allowed for his escape. Meet the man that Valor warned him about so many days ago.

"Where is he?" Shiv managed to choke out. Before anyone could say anything, a faint blue glow emanated beyond the entrance, and Shiv found himself walking toward it.

He left the teleportation anchor and stared to his left. There, impaled upon the ground at the center of this guard station’s lobby was a massive three-meter tall banner. It was glistening with the colors of Animancy, and mana of all varieties streamed out from the flag at its tip, gliding in the air. Yet there was something else about the shaft. There were faces there, path-bearers. They tumbled along as if bodies trapped in a cylindrical river. They kicked, squirmed, and blended with each other, and Shiv felt his insides twist. He couldn't understand what he was looking at, but it felt wrong, felt like an atrocity. And just then the banner flared with renewed brightness, and a shape emerged from it.

First came a cloak of darkness—a cloak of darkness that soon developed lines of faint blue. At its core, a glint of Necromancy pulsed and settled through the shape, and from that mess of mana emerged a man. He lifted his head, and Shiv found himself staring at someone who had the skin tone of an Umbral dressed in silken robes of dust-gray and midnight.

Yet he didn't resemble any umbral Shiv knew in terms of structure; he seemed more human in that regard. His ears were human, but he was among the most handsome men Shiv had ever met. White locks glided over his brow and danced behind his shoulders. A thin scar ran along his brow, the only imperfection on an otherwise flawless face. His eyes glowed with the faint blueness of Animancy, and as he moved, his robe glided around him as if a river, and soon it went from fluid to fabric.

Shiv's breath caught inside his chest. Udraal Thann. He looked faintly like his father, but only barely, maybe in the eyes and nowhere else. Shiv guessed Udraal took more after his mother, but Valor had spoken little about his love other than the fact that he lost her at some point. Rather than glaring at Udraal as if he was something to prey upon, the orcs gave him a wide berth, and Shiv felt fear, thick and dense fear radiating from every gray-skin in the room. But it was not fear offered to him.

"Shiv. Shiv," Adam called out. His voice croaked with pain, and he was borderline delirious. Shiv looked over his shoulder, but then Udraal spoke to him for the first time.

"No, eyes forward. Don't worry about him. Don’t split your attention. Not when you can't even secure your own safety. To do so is a fatal mistake. One you cannot afford with me.” Udraal sighed. “What has my father been teaching you if you haven’t even that carved into your subconscious.”

By the time Shiv looked back to Udraal, the man was standing right in front of him. Udraal was tall, taller than Shiv by a full head. Shiv suspected that wasn't a natural thing. Instead, Udraal was projecting himself to be larger as a means of intimidation. Instead of flinching back, Shiv simply gritted his teeth and sneered. "You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

Udraal squinted his eyes and snorted in dry amusement. "Really? Those are your first words? That's what you want to say to your maker?"

"I don't really want to say anything to you," Shiv said. "No, I kind of want to do something." His fists were balled, and he thought about his parents, about the ritual, about what happened to Rose, about his entire life. He wondered who he might be if Udraal didn't twist his soul. But if Udraal didn't twist my soul, would I have my Path? Would I even be here? Would I even be myself? Shiv faltered for a moment. But the weight of weariness and faint hatred didn't leave him.

Udraal, comparatively, didn't seem to care at all. If Shiv felt like he was being crushed under the weight of the moment, then Udraal was a feather flying free. He was visiting family, come to see an old acquaintance. Anything aside from facing the sins of his past.

"Must admit, I'm relatively..." Udraal frowned. "I don't know if I'm impressed or disappointed. For one, the experiment has finally borne fruit. You worked. You’re worthwhile. One success among so many failures. I checked in on you a few times when you were but a babe. When your Path failed to emerge and there seemed nothing special about you, I let you be."

"Let me be," Shiv said. There was a hollowness opening up inside him.

"I expected you to be dead by this point or no one of particular importance, but I suppose some experiments have a late breakthrough." He looked Shiv up and down. "You're a Legend already, then. Hm. The attached Feat is working as well. That is most acceptable. The Tarrasque inherited a version of that. Did you know?”

Shiv didn't answer him.

Udraal narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Yes. Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides. Monster Skill. So the Tarrasque transplantation did work. Interesting." He started circling Shiv as if he was observing a specimen. The Deathless didn't play along. He turned, following Udraal's gaze, but rather than being annoyed, the Abyssal Lord came to a halt.

"Feel free to use violence if you want. I wouldn't be offended. I wouldn't even care. In fact, I think I want to see it. Let’s get through the pointless tantrum boiling behind your eyes—”

Udraal's casual provocation of Shiv's rage proved to be a breaking point. The Deathless felt something snap inside of him. After days of struggling against a Tarasque, of high tension, of constant battle, of escaping over and over again, of being pushed to the brink and wounded of soul and body and mind, and facing the Ascendants and now standing before the one who created him, the one that left his life in discord and made him who he was, Shiv's confusion gave birth to rage, and he lost all control.

He slammed into Udraal, picking the man up as he slammed him on the ground. There was no finesse to his brutality, no coherence to his mind. Shiv screamed and roared as he dropped elbow after elbow, as he broke things inside the Abyssal Lord. Udraal didn't fight back as his arm shattered and his face was caved in.

He spoke through broken teeth and hummed, "Very interesting. I would have expected a calmer demeanor. I wanted you to maintain a stable state of mind, something analytical. For you to have this much rage—"

"Shut the fuck up!" Shiv slammed his head three more times, and with the final thrust, his fist went through Udraal's face, and the abyssal lord's head splattered apart like a crushed melon.

Shiv knelt there, staring down at a bloodied mess. He looked at his hands, his hands that were shaking. His maker. He just killed him. Udraal was dead. He murdered him. It couldn't have been that easy. It couldn't... Shiv's lip quivered. He turned to stare at Can Hu, and the Penitent shook his head.

"No."

"What? I didn't… I…”

"No, Shiv. I tried the same. But he has more than one body. You have killed nothing. Neither have I.”

The Deathless blinked. "What?" 

And just then the banner planted at the center of the room flared once more, and a new Udraal entered. This one resembled the one Shiv just killed, and he adjusted his robes. He looked down at his body and shook his head.

"Well, that was to be expected. Well, let's do this a few more times until you finally get it out of your system."

Shiv just stared at Udraal, trying to process how casually the man got over his—

Shit… Is this what it feels like when someone talks to me.

“Hm. Done already?” Udraal lifted an eyebrow. Shiv rose as he summoned his Vitae. Swirling bands of white and red danced along his arm. Udraal’s amusement faded slightly. “Oh. How interesting. You’ve learned to shape it like a mana field. I was wondering how you managed to overcome Sullain.” Then the Abyssal Lord’s cold, dead-eyed smile returned. “You hurt him quite badly, you know. But you didn’t finish him off. He called out to me.”

“So, what? You’re here for him?” Shiv winced as his Shapeless Tides died once more.

“Oh, no, I’m here for you. And Sullain was a fool to invoke my name. But he will serve as a good lesson.”

“Lesson?” Shiv asked.

“Yes. Your soul is compromised by Animancy. You’re going to learn how to fix it. I will not speak to you properly otherwise. I have standards, boy. And so far, my father and Master Arrow have a great deal of explaining to do regarding the lacking state of my experiment.”

And at that, the banner flared again, and a new person was pulled into the room. Someone that Shiv had already broken before.