IV-25 Dark (II)

Harlock the Midnight claims to be a God of Darkness and Stealth. I would believe him if it weren't so easy for me to slip unnoticed through his domain as a shortcut between worlds.

Darkness is not stealth. Darkness at its simplest is an absence of light. It makes things hard to see. Conceptual darkness is an idea of something being hidden, an obfuscation against senses. But this is where Harlock’s childish notion of the unseen collapses. Because prior to his transformation and false ascension, he has only lived as a man. And human senses are quite pitiful.

Do you know what it takes to mask yourself from a human? It’s quite simple. You stand beyond their field of view and make no sound. A trifling feat. But for you to avoid the notice of a god in their realm? That is a struggle worthy of a Legend, and it is not something Harlock managed to achieve.

He boasts about wandering the Void as if it is a grand achievement, but his survival came at extreme cost. He twisted himself into a thing of the dark to blend and camouflage himself. The first time I ventured into the Void, I was barely a man, and I found the hungering black to be sloppy, predictable, and ultimately blind. Because though it yearned to sup vitality from the living, it loathed the presence of light and flame, and I used that against the darkness. I created a wildfire and vanished into the flames, where the dark could not follow.

For what is stealth but the obfuscation of one’s senses, hm?

No. Stealth is more than that. To be unseen means the mastery of another’s ignorance. I did not need to submit to the dark and surrender the shape of my body. I simply bothered to learn the nature of the void and how it interfaced with Integration.

Do you know how I managed to achieve Legendary-Tier Stealth? By successfully hiding against an Omniscient being. Or so-called Omniscient being.

Uulthathed the All-Seeing was a far grander foe than the bestial Voidlings, and true to her word, she could see all within her realm, notice everything happening across that little stretch of reality she owned.

But though she could see everything, she was blind to herself. To her own thoughts. To her own mind.

And when you are evolved enough in terms of Stealth, you learn that there is nothing you can’t use as a potential disguise. And this is a lesson that a god should have learned.

Power stolen is not power seized, Harlock. You know this. And someday, you will suffer for this.

-Valor Thann

IV-25

Dark (II)

Even as Shiv's vitae tore free from his corpse, he could still feel the cold length of Anthony's dagger pressed up against the roof of his skull. Pulsations of pain radiated through the Deathless's senses, and he felt like he was going to drown beneath a tide of suffering. The wound that was inflicted on him was more than material, more than even mental, it was metaphysical as well. His spirit had been gouged open, and as such, Shiv was in no condition to resist as the darkness collapsed around him.

Faintly, he heard Adam scream his name, but the Gate Lord's voice was muffled as if Shiv was underwater. As tendrils of darkness burrowed into Shiv’s red-white form, a sense of overwhelming doom consumed Shiv. Things were beyond hopeless. He knew that he was facing an Ascendant he had no true counter against, and their avatar. And with the wound he'd just sustained, fighting back meant little to nothing at all.

Should have just stayed in my cell, Shiv thought. The weary ache of depression soaked his mind, and soon he found himself utterly despondent. It was foolish of him to think he could have escaped from this prison. Everything he managed to do was a little less than a fluke. An undeserved set of possibilities engineered by the path he was on. If he wasn't the Deathless, he would be nothing at all. 

Nothing. Not even a chef. He was a bastard born of murder and bloodshed; a wretch shaped from misery itself.

"It's alright," Anthony whispered through the darkness. The Legendary avatar sighed as he guided Shiv deeper into the blackness. Compared to the lashing limbs of shadow wielded by the Ascendant, Harlock's avatar was comparatively gentle. His tone was grandfatherly, and he even seemed slightly reluctant about this whole matter. But slightly reluctant didn't mean he was going to let Shiv go. "There's no shame in it. Come along. I can still feel you fighting. But there's no fight anymore, not after I pierced your soul. Your skills will be compromised soon, as will your memories. It won't feel so bad in the moment. Harlock will release you once the rewrite takes full effect. Just let it happen. Give yourself mercy.”

The shadows around Shiv parted, breaking like shifting waves, and through a sudden gap, Shiv caught sight of the old man once more. He was dressed in a gray ensemble, looking like someone heading for a formal gala of some kind rather than the battlefield. He wore a wide-rimmed hat and a dusty double-breasted coat swayed around his waist, but it was his silk shirt and slacks that drew Shiv's full attention. Veins of mana circulated through the man's silk threads, and a faint hint of interwoven magics made itself known, pressing against Shiv's various mana fields. 

In the man's right hand was a dagger bearing the shape of a porcelain needle. Beyond the brightness of its metal, there came a faint glow of soft blue. It was the color that Shiv had seen before. It was the color that was imprinted over what remained of the Recollector after its brutal defeat. The old man bore an Animancy blade, and Shiv had suffered a wound that was now rewriting the fabric of his very soul.

Inertial Overdrive [Error]

Aegis of Assimilation [Error]

Frictionless Vector [Error]

But there was something wrong. Something was prying and twisting inside Shiv, battling against all his skills. Yet, even though it brushed through his body like a spreading infection, clawing and mangling his deeper architecture, it failed to twist him entirely. Instead, searing bursts of agony pulsated from random spaces within Shiv. 

His skills were under assault, but even as the Animancy tried to reshape them, the skills resisted, the skills remained for Shiv was different from most Pathbearers. His vitality and his soul were fused together, and one couldn't reshape one without harming the other.

By now, a frown pulled at the old man's face. The wrinkles that defined his aged features grew ever more creased. He stopped pulling at Shiv for a moment and simply observed the Deathless. He held on to a branch of vitae while dragging the rest of Shiv's sprawling mass across the ground. 

The Deathless was practically catatonic with depression now. He thought little and felt only the overriding sensation of defeat. But where his mind had succumbed, his vitae fought on, and that bade the aged councilman to stop, to consider just what was going wrong with his dagger.

"Should have taken effect by now," Anthony muttered to himself. He looked down at his needle-thin blade, and then there came another flash of blue—a blueness that slashed through the shadows around him.

The Ascendant of Darkness let out a brief breath of discomfort as a raging azure dawn cleaved through this realm of absolute black. The azure sun vibrated with building power, hovering near the ceiling, and slowly drew closer to Anthony and Shiv. Beneath the defiant star born of Adam Arrow was another raging fire cast forth by a pyromancer of unparalleled potency. Candles laughed like a madman as tumbling waves smashed into the writhing shadows. 

The Ascendant pushed back with his own considerable power and two concepts went to war. Light against dark, despair against hope, flame against the coldness of oblivion.

"It seems you have some good friends," Anthony commented.

Shiv didn't reply. He was still wrapped tight in the grip of the Ascendant, but just then he felt the old man let go. A resounding clash of steel on steel echoed through the air, and Anthony tumbled back, letting out a ragged cry of surprise. Blood spilled over Shiv then. Blood stroked free from the elderly avatar's face and neck. Shiv caught sight of a flickering shape blinking from place to place, striking and flashing at Anthony as if a half-meter-tall whirlwind of unstoppable violence. The avatar threw himself backward, diving into the embrace of his ascendant. Curling fingers of darkness collapsed around Anthony just as the small shape tried to strike at him once more.

Finally, Shiv saw his savior for a brief moment as she kicked off the dense shadows guarding the avatar. It was that legendary goblin that accompanied Adam, Gone. Her quills vibrated with electric-like Chronomancy, and whips of shadow cleaved through her body over and over again, but they never struck her true form. Instead, they were always a second behind, always a second displaced. 

Shiv saw Gone’s skill for what it was. He, too, was a user of Chronomancy, and he realized that her reflexes in chronomancy were likely fused together based on how she moved. She wasn't in the present, not entirely. It seemed like as she moved faster, she simply cast herself further into the future. There was a displacement between her visible self and the Chronomancy field that outlined her silhouette. But more importantly, the Chronomancy field was filled with lifeforce instead of her body still trapped in the present.

That made Shiv realize he was looking at something of a temporal afterimage, and just how fast Gone moved, even without Chronomantic enhancement, it was little wonder why the dense jungle of darkness couldn't claim her as a victim. And so it was only a matter of time before she made a mistake, before the darkness encircled her and drowned her. Even the fastest swimmer would grow tired, and there was no out-swimming the ocean itself. They were legends, but Legends were no different from other insects when it came to the overwhelming might of a god.

Shiv's depressive thoughts were cleaved asunder as a beam of righteous essence slammed into his very being. Deathless felt his Vitae strands twitch as the shadows coalescing around him were banished. Rage and disgust ignited within Shiv as he realized how much the Ascendant had distorted his thoughts, had twisted him into a pathetic creature so willing to surrender themselves as a slave to the enemy.

Shiv wasted no time exacting his revenge. He drove a branch of Vitae into the shadows, but instead of contending against them using his shapeless tides, he left context once more, ignoring the fact that he was on the verge of running dry of vitality. For a moment, the darkness lost track of him. He could tell by the hesitation how the shadows went still. 

Despite becoming a god, he knew the Ascendant had once been a human. Freezing, after all, was a very human habit when one was shocked, and Shiv ripped the vitality hidden inside the darkness. He burst out into existence in a splash of red and white, and those colors only grew brighter as he absorbed more and more vitality, refueling himself in an instant. Gods were like bottomless oceans of life force, but Shiv had felt the same way about the Tarrasque as well. 

Where Shiv couldn’t drink an ocean alone, the world would gulp in his stead.

When he connected the god to integration itself, he was sapped as well. He was hollowed of that precious resource which kept him in existence. Such was why the Ascendant flinched back, unveiling a massive patch of stable space amidst the coiling darkness.

As Shiv hatched free from his Vitae once more, he reached out with his strands and ripped the Orichalcum dagger he dropped upon being killed from the ground.

"Touch my mind again, motherfucker!" Shiv snarled at the retreating blackness. "Do it!"

But the Ascendant hesitated. The Ascendant stayed away. The Ascendant left a clearing for Shiv and a few legendary prisoners to recover, unwilling to suffer another vitality drain.

The color flickered in the corner of Shiv's eye, and he saw the faint static of an opening dimensional rift come into existence beside him. The atom emerged, and soon there was a swell of near-unbearable heat. Candles followed the Gate Lord, chuckling all the while, muttering things about how pretty the flames were, how he yearned to see the dark itself come ablaze.

Shiv was pretty sure Candles was not all there mentally, but considering the enemy they were facing, Shiv didn't mind someone being not all there. One probably needed to be a little insane to face the Ascendants, and Shiv wasn’t about to complain about the help right now.

"Shiv," Adam said, patting Shiv on the shoulder. "You alright?"

The Deathless briefly regarded Adam and gave a nod. "Yeah. Probably wouldn't have been if it wasn't for you. Felling shit, my skills.”

Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides [Error]

Pillar of Orichalcum [Error]

He still didn’t feel all that good. It was like his insides were swirling. Just what the hell kind of enchantments does that knife have?

Just then Shiv felt something leave his cape, and he saw Rebis and Bonk take their positions to his left.

"What fresh hell have you gotten us into this time, insult?" Bonk said with a wide, vicious grin. He stared at the curling shadows dancing before them.

The clearing they held was approximately twenty meters wide, barely any space at all, but from the receding black were several Legendary prisoners that had once been trapped. They rose with groans from the ground and found their flagging spirits bolstered by the glow of Adam's Righteous Dawn. Among them were a few people Shiv recognized. 

Kura scrambled to her feet, shaking her head. Three golden shadows stepped free from her body and formed a defensive perimeter against the dark. A loud groan sounded nearby and Shiv looked down to see the blade-covered prisoner, rising not far away from him. The Deathless leaned down to pick the man back up. As soon as he did, he felt a jolt of surprise flare through him as the blade-covered Pathbearer suddenly turned, swinging an arm out to claim Shiv’s life.

Two blows were delivered in that instant. The first was the blade-covered Pathbearer. He thrust a gleaming sword toward Shiv's skull, attempting to impale him through the right eye. The second was Gone. The goblin proved her staggering speed once more, bringing her claws up to intercept the blow. But where her reflexes in Chronomancy were legendary, her strength was anything but. She was knocked aside—flung backward past Shiv's peripheral vision. 

But she'd slowed the strike enough for the Deathless to react. By the time he caught the blade coming to claim his life, Adam had loosed six veil piercers into the blade-covered prisoner's chest. Then, a golden length that burst out from the back of the man's head. The blade-covered Pathbearer let out a rasping gasp as his body went rigid. His legs kicked and twitched, and with another swipe, his head came free.

Behind him stood a golden shadow. A few meters away, Shiv saw Kura looking at him, offering him a nod. The Deathless reciprocated, and realized that she was relatively serious about this whole honor-debt thing.

Beat the shit out of the right person, you might make a good friend, Shiv thought to himself with a feeling of odd disbelief. He then looked down at the blade-covered Pathbearer and snarled. “Really, asshole? I was trying to help.”

Just then, Gone appeared beside him. She prodded the unmoving body of the blade-covered path-bearer and spat on his corpse. "Think this one saw his opportunity. Tried to take it. Tried to take it by playing possum." She looked Shiv up and down and shook her head. She was constantly vibrating from the sheer amount of speed rushing through her. "You don't go near anyone. No, you never go near anyone. Too much risk. Can't afford your death right now. We'll unbalance the fight right now."

Her words came in rapid bursts, and it took a while to decipher them. At the same time, Shiv noticed how the shadows were still held at bay. 

That was when he noticed the shield wall comprised of golden shadows standing guard against encroaching blackness. Though the darkness lashed at them, the golden shadows of Kuru appeared and dissipated, only to be replaced by another the moment after. Shiv guessed that the elven chronomancer was constantly replacing her magical clones to avoid a buildup of depression.

As the fight reached a brief stalemate, Shiv looked at him and cast out his psychomancy. The Gate Lord triggered his Commander's Foresight, and the two of them began to plot once more.

“Okay, so I managed to run into the Ascendant’s avatar.”

“You did?” Adam asked. “Is that who killed you? I had no idea when you went down, just that you did.”

“Yeah. Calls himself Anthony. Just walked right out of the black and stuck a knife up my chin.” Shiv felt his vitality spasm. “Whatever he did jack up some of my skills. Feels like I have a soul flu of some kind. Bastard has an Animancy dagger.”

“He does, does he?” Adam hummed with building disquiet. “Well, we know a few things now. The first, this Ascendant isn't that good with Divination. Or at least, he has a hard time using it.”

“How can you tell,” Shiv asked?

“Because he can't seem to track you very well. I noticed how a few of the others were looking in your general direction back when we were fighting the Tarrasque. I felt their Divination mana as well. They were powerful. There's still some Divination mana coming from this Ascendant, but it seems reduced somehow, as if the dark doesn't conduct Divination well.”

Shiv thought about that for a moment and added his own observations. “Well, it hides the Ascendant's life force pretty good too, but it's there. You can't really see it, but I managed to drain some of its vitality.”

I guess there are costs to hiding too well, Adam commented. “All right, so our fires work, my azure sun dawn works, your shapeless tides can hold the black at bay, and it despises your Vitality Drain, so we have means of repelling it, but we can't just hold them in place. There are probably other avatars coming, other Ascendants as well.”

“Barely handling this one, I don't want to think about how we'll do against two, or three, or twelve,” Shiv grumbled.

“Or twelve,” Adam agreed with a shudder. 

“So we don't wait for them to come,” Shiv said. “Listen, I have a skill that's about to evolve.”

“Again,” Adam cried aloud. “Really?”

“Yes,” Shiv said, entirely serious. “It's my Outside Context Problem.”

Just then, a few of his other skills flickered. The error notifications appeared before his vision, and something assailed his memories. Things changed in his past, and then reverted to normal. He remembered losing to the elemental golem inside passage, losing and burning to death within the teleportation anchor. 

His Physicality skill briefly winked out, and his Legendary-Tier Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides changed to something else. Something that was little more than a stream of nonsensical letters and errors. But the change wasn't just visual, it was quite little as well. His strength left him for a moment to felt as weak as he was as a pathless, but then he was fine again. 

Yet it wasn't just his Legendary-Tier skill that was affected, his other skills were also compromised. One after another, from his Reflexes to his Toughness to his Magical Skills, his vision was filled with error notifications. 

A groan escaped Shiv, and Adam's mind filled with worry. “Shiv! Shiv, are you alright?”

“No, it's just the godsdamn Animancy dagger,” Shiv groaned. “It’s felling jacking up most of my skills. It's not affecting my Outside Context Problem, though.” 

And that was the truth. Despite all the skills that had been compromised, Outside Context Problem was untouched. It was untouched, primarily, because Shiv was practically part of Shiv. It was unique. Shiv couldn't find it in himself, even as he rooted through his very soul using his Vitaemancy. And right now, in the heat of battle, he didn't have time to isolate whatever damage Anthony did to him. 

However, he could evolve his Outside Context Problem, and he could take a risk, take a gamble, and see where that led them. It didn't seem like they had any better options anyway.

“Alright, so next steps are evolving the skill, and…” Shiv thrilled off. “Well, that's all I got, Adam. I'm going to see what I can get if I evolve this skill. I'll be honest, the situation's looking kind of fucked. The dark's all around the entire cube, so we can't exactly break out and make a run for it. Five might be able to tap into some of the dimensionality flowing through the entire prison, though, but we need to find the right mithril column, and it needs to have the right spells running through it. I don't think we're going to have that opportunity when the fighting gets started again.”

“I have doubts as well,” Adam said. “Wait, you said you have a means to contact Cripple.”

Shiv's thoughts ran still. “Yeah, yeah, I do.”

“Give it to me,” Adam said. “I'll see if I can communicate with him. Let's see if he can offer us any aid. In the meantime, how are you going to level your skill quickly?”

“I was kind of hoping that you or one of the other Pathbearers could kill me,” Shiv muttered. “Most of my other skills are out of whack right now. My pillars on and off right now. I don’t think we’re going to get a better chance at putting me down than right now.”

“Alright, best let me do it.” A shudder ran through Adam's being, and Shiv realized just how much killing him might bother Adam.

“Thanks, Adam. I'd prefer to be you than someone else anyway.”

“Don't mention it,” Adam said. “Fingers crossed that the Skill Evolution will be a new level of bullshit.”

“Well, that's a first from you,” Shiv chuckled.

“It's probably not going to be the last, either.”

As their conversation came to an end, Shiv called out to the others nearby. “Hey. Adam’s going to kill me now. Don’t get surprised.”

Candles nodded. He offered Shiv a flaming grin that turned into a frown of confusion. “Huh? What you say?”

Adam then fired a Veilpiercer through the back of Shiv's head as his Pillar of Orichalcum stopped working. Several of the other prisoners nearby flinched, and Shiv held out his branching vitae before Kura. He cast a telepathic thought into her, calling out, stating that Adam was doing what Shiv asked, but the telepathy broke down halfway as Shiv's skill was compromised. Even so, Kura blinked as she looked between Shiv's corpse, and Adam.

"It's all right," Adam said. "We're just testing something right now."

"You have an odd way of testing things," Five said, looking down at the gore-ridden hole in Shiv's head.

Ten strands of Vitae stretched out and drank some vitality out of Bonk. The orc winced slightly at the Deathless’s touch but just hummed to himself with amusement.

“You can take from me,” Adam offered.

Shiv waved a hand in his face. Need you in top condition, Adam, Shiv thought to himself. The Gate Lord understood and pulled his hand back. As Shiv grew closer toward resurrection, a series of notifications appeared, and his skill went over the threshold.

Pillar of Orichalcum > [Error]

Outside Context Problem 100 > 101 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Skill Evolution: Outside Context Problem (Unique) > Non-Sequitur (Unique)

Outside Context Problem began changing inside of him, and Shiv's vitality grew fainter and fainter. Yet, it didn't feel weaker. His light force didn't fade from his being. Rather, it simply felt like it was stretched, spread apart, and made more flexible. He couldn't fully describe it. A metamorphosis was taking place at the core of his soul.

Shiv emerged from his Vitae once more, but rather than seeming like a dense fluid, it became as if a curtain of mist. He passed through a haze, and the Outside Context Problem Skill felt like it was turning into something sublime. 

Shiv looked down at his hands as he felt an odd sensation pass through him. His fingers, bones, even his very blood vessels felt disconnected from his body, and as he waved his limbs around trying to reorient himself, he saw something. He saw his vitality rip free from his flesh, saw that white and red manner that comprised his existence slip out from the confines of his material form. 

More importantly, as it slipped free, it barely cost any vitality at all.

"You're all right. You're just waving your hands." Adam blinked at Shiv.

A sounding crash echoed from all around, and Shiv noticed the darkness was slamming into the golden shadows over and over. Kura directed her temporal clones to strike back, their bladed limbs cleaved gaps into the darkness, displacing the black using waves of Chronomancy. At the same time, their shields unleashed pulses of counterforce that sent the darkness reeling back. 

Even so, the struggle came at a cost. The elven Chronomancer began shaking, her legs were quivering, and she could see how much strain she was under, trying to contend with the might of a god.

"Alright, skill," Shiv said mostly to himself. "Please don't be shit."

He triggered his new skill for the first time, and suddenly felt himself unlatch from his body entirely. It was a disturbing sensation, a bit like birthing his bones out from his parting skin. She emerged and looked behind. There he still stood, his gaze vacant, his body frozen. Everyone else could still see him as well. 

Worse, Shiv felt himself lose a fourth of his vitality doing all that. The damned skill was expensive to maintain.

So far, it seemed like a downgrade. He wasn't out of context. Everyone else knew where he was. And right now, he was simply a mass of vitae that faintly resembled his humanoid form. He could move freely, yes, but even so, he didn't know why that was better. Maybe it reduced the vitality he spent, but all the advantages he had before were gone.

"Shiv," Adam said. He reached out and prodded the Deathless’s left arm. But Shiv couldn't feel it. In fact, he couldn't feel anything at all.

"Hey, Adam, I'm over here," Shiv called out. Yet, even as he waved in the Gate Lord's face, Adam didn't look away from Shiv's material form. He couldn't notice Shiv. Neither could anyone else, for that matter.

And suddenly Shiv changed his mind. Maybe this wasn't a downgrade. Maybe his material body was something like a decoy. Still, no one could notice his Vitae form. What if they destroyed my material body? Shiv wondered. Would I just die? But something told him otherwise. He consisted of Vitae. It would only kill him for good if all his Vitae were destroyed. And right now, it seemed like breaking his living body would do little more than cost him some already expended vitality.

Tentatively, Shiv moved away. He strode past Kura, who was also looking at the unmoving Shiv, past the golden shadows keeping the dark at bay, and once more walked into the black. Apprehension rose within Shiv as he reached out to grasp the lashing darkness. Yet as soon as he touched the black, a rush of determination rushed through the Deathless. It wouldn't be like before. He would make descendant pay for everything he suffered.

Shiv prepared to surface into existence once more. He expected something to happen for his material body to snap into place where he currently was upon making contact with the darkness. Instead, Shiv managed to touch the blackness and still remained submerged in his vitality regardless. His eyes widened, his breath caught. He gripped the darkness tighter, and the surrounding shadows were clenched so tight they went still.

"What is this?" the Ascendant's voice rumbled in confusion and worry.

Shiv pushed his luck further. He tore into the black, striding deeper as he circulated his tides through his body. Pushing through the shadows was a rough process, especially with most of his skills still compromised. Every few moments his vectors would flicker out, and he would be caught as if a fly trapped in a web. But without any hint, it would return to its stable state, and Shiv would be Legendary-Tier again, allowing him to rip his way through the shadows, progressing like a machete hacking dense foliage.

Alright, so I can interact with the darkness without surfacing for myself, Shiv thought. Useful. But What else can I do? 

He swept his surroundings using his mana hydra, trying to find where the avatar was. Luck was on Shiv's side as he felt one of his hydras impact something hard, something impossibly dense. A loud gasp sounded from the shadows, and Shiv flung himself in that direction. He arrived a moment too late as he caught sight of Anthony’s right leg sinking into the deeper darkness beyond. Shiv cleaved out with his Biomancy again, stretching his mana-hydra as far it could go. Kilometers of distance were covered, but the avatar was gone—without a hint of where he went.

Shiv didn't continue any deeper, he had already pushed his luck far enough as it was. But since he could use both his attuned and unattuned skills, there was something else he wanted to try.

Let's see if I can top myself off while being out of context. Shiv reached out and drew in the vitality empowering the Ascendant. That caused him to surface, a burst of white and red expanded from Shiv's body, but it rose free from his back like curling fingers of mist rather than spraying fragments.

He was a softer, subtler, and freer presence now compared to before. At the same time, his original body turned into a puff of vitae as well. Shiv guessed that was technically an upgrade. Part of him was still out of context, but part of him remained in. It wasn't a perfect upgrade, there were times Shiv didn't want to be noticed at all. 

Like right now, as the darkness collapsed around him like the maw of a great beast.

Shiv used his Shapeless Tides to hold back a few slashing tentacles and triggered Non-Sequitur once more as he made his escape. The moment he did, the darkness overwhelmed his abandoned body, and it burst apart in a spray of vitality.

Suddenly, Shiv felt his life force drop precipitously. He was growing cold and at an alarming rate. And that's when he understood that the bodies he left behind weren't just for show. They were stability anchors for his vitality. 

As soon as the body was destroyed, however, the surrounding darkness went still as if it couldn't remember what it was doing. And Shiv couldn't help but laugh as he fled behind the golden shadows holding the clearing's perimeter. It was outside context problem and then some.

As Shiv stumbled back into place beside Adam, he surfaced once more and a sheen of white and red lifted free from his body. The world around him spun as a bout of lightheadedness took him, but Shiv managed to stop himself from falling over. "Okay, the skill is kind of bullshit, but I'm not sure how we're going to be able to use it to escape," Shiv managed to say. He was shivering from how cold his insides felt. He needed to drain from someone again and soon.

Adam stared at him with bright violet eyes and shook his head. "Took a while for me to figure out what you just did, but did you just unlatch your literal soul from your body and go on a jaunt?"

"Yeah," Shiv said. “Something like that.”

"And after that, when your body gets destroyed, are you still moving around? I can’t seem to remember who you are when your body is lost."

“Yeah, the body lets me do things without surfacing into reality. It’s like a stabilizer or something.”

Adam shook his head and let out a sigh. "It's confusing as hell when you get new skills."

"Yeah, it's pretty weird for me to too, but something like that."

"Alright, good, good. I have an idea. It might be enough to repel the Ascendant for a while, but you might not like it."

"I don't know, Adam. You said repel the Ascendant. It's got to be pretty shitty of a plan for me to hate it."

"It's going to involve me hitting you with the Necromancy arrow."

Shiv should have seen this coming. "Yeah, okay. It’s shit but what did I expect. The hells with it. How are we doing this?"

"I want you to run back into the blackness again," Adam said. "But not too far. Maybe just a meter. As soon as you do, leave part of yourself exposed. The Ascendant will wrap his tendrils around you, so that might be able to blunt some of the blast.”

“Should be?” Shiv asked.

“It’s my best guess. If it goes sideways.” Adam winced. “It’ll hurt, but I think most of us will survive. I don’t have that much Necromancy in me. Not without my vambrace.”

“Alright. How are you going to track me?” Adam’s eyes flared with Divination mana. Shiv nodded. “Got it.”

"Elf!" Adam hissed. Kura turned and narrowed her eyes at the Gate Lord. "When I draw my arrow, I need you to pull your Chronomantic clones back from the space ahead of us." 

She stared at Adam as if he was insane, but Shiv gave her a nod. "Just do it." To the elven prisoner's credit, she simply swallowed but didn't complain any further. 

"Candles! Gone! Get the others together and set up a perimeter of fire again. We need a final point of retreat if everything goes to hell. Which it probably will," Adam sighed. "Shiv, whenever you're ready."

"Yep." The Deathless coughed. "Just give me a second." He placed a hand upon the thin sheen of vitality infusing existence and began to refill himself as well. Slowly a rupture opened above them and Adam looked up nervously.

"Shiv…” 

“I know. I’m not going to tear it open all the way. I just need a bit of energy right now.”

“How about—”

"No." Shiv said, rejecting Adam’s offer. "I need you as healthy and capable as you can be. Besides, the rupture might serve a purpose in a few moments. If everything does go to hell, and without any other options, I'm going to tear it wide open and let chaos do its thing.” Adam stared at Shiv with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. "It's that or get eaten by the depression shadows.”

“Depression?”

“The shadows give you depression if you let them stab you for too long,” Shiv deadpanned.

“Shiv… I think I hate my gods.”

“That makes the both of—”

A deafening roar shook the air itself as a massive form exploded out from their right. The golden shadows shielding a hole left in the shredded tunnels walls were knocked aside as the massive form of Urri barreled through them. However, Uri had changed. Darkness seeped out from his eyes, from his head tentacles, from every single pore of his body. 

Gone and Rebis intercepted the massive Vulteg, but though they were fast, their blows bounced off Uri's body as if pebbles skipping the side, skipping off the hide of a charging bull. Darkness followed in Urri's wake, crashing down into the perimeter, just as Shiv prepared to go Non-Sequitur once more. Deathless strode forth to stop Urri, but just then his Inertial Overdrive and Shapeless Tides skills broke down. Shiv’s Reflexes went back to Pathless levels, and his death came so fast he didn’t notice at all.

Inertial Overdrive > [Error]

Pillar of Orichalcum > [Error]

Non-Sequitur 101 > 103

When Shiv emerged as a mess of Vitae, he found Adam barely keeping out from Uri's reach, his azure dawn slowing the huge Vulteg as it sapped the Urri's very strength.

"I'll rip you apart. Uri will deliver your skull as a gift for Lord Scorn. There is no escape from..." And then Urri's booming roar changed into the cold, droning tone of the Ascendant. “THE ASCENDANCY!” 

A mess of shadowy tentacles exploded out from the Vulteg’s massive eyeball and washed over Shiv.

Spearing bursts of despair filled the Deathless again, but he went Non-Sequitur, accepting the sudden loss of his vitality as he seized his only chance to fight on. As Shiv launched himself at the oncoming darkness, Adam twisted through the air, barely avoiding a huge fist. His vector wings were flaring bright as he fired shot after shot into Urri's chest. 

Adam had also transformed. His body went fluid once more, becoming as if a crashing set of tides comprised in the vagueness of a human form. Urri swung another blow at Adam, and though he came short once more, a lashing tendril of darkness swept through the Gate Lord's Hydrokinetic body, and that inflicted a wound. 

Adam was cleaved out from the Hydromancy that shrouded him. The waters he once used to form a new titanic body were dissipated into a puff of steam.

Shiv called out to Adam, but no sound came. He was little more than Vite himself in that moment. Adam tumbled to the ground as more darkness slapped beard into him. As soon as they did, however, the gate lord's body flared. He shot into the air with a loud cry. It was the shrill cry of some kind of bird. Shiv didn't think it was a hawk, though. It was too high-pitched for that. 

And then he recognized the burning avian. He had seen it before as he was tumbling toward the Rubix Well. That was a phoenix, albeit a small one, and it bounced off the darkness several times before it finally crashed against the ground once more. Adam rolled, trying to recover. The darkness chased him, Uri reached out to squeeze his head.

Shiv intercepted the attackers, wrapping his Vitae around the darkness, around the Vulteg’s outstretched hands. And then he drained, vitality detonated within his shuddering soul. At the same time, there came a shape near where his physical form was discarded. 

A humanoid shape that bore a faint blue dagger. Anthony stabbed Shiv's Vitaemancy anchor, but to his delight, the man's dagger bounced off with a resounding impact. Stabbing Shiv's body was one thing, but trying to carve Vitae itself did little more than leave slight gaps in a large, amorphous blob. 

Before Anthony could realize what was happening, Shiv resurrected, and he used a brief moment of stability and surprise to counterattack his foes.

Urri was a powerful Pathbearer. His body was immune to both magic and physical attacks. Shiv didn't have time to figure out how to kill him. However, when Urri was unprepared, he could still be overpowered. So Shiv did just that.

A rush of tides exploded out from Shiv's body, enhanced further by Adam's azure dawn. As the tides passed into Urri, Shiv flung the huge Vulteg at Anthony in a blur of motion. Adam fired arrow after arrow into the sailing Vulteg, and Anthony dove backward, vanishing into the darkness before the large Pathbearer could hit him. 

However, Urri flexed out his arms and grasped onto the darkness. Instead of being launched through a wall, he held himself in place and began fighting in tandem with the Ascendant. Before he could turn and launch himself back at Shiv, a beam of fire spiked him through the walls regardless as Candles roared with laughter. “BUUUURRNNN! CALAMARI! BURRNNN!”

A spear of darkness punched through Shiv's shoulder. A growl of pain escaped him. He went Non-Sequitur once more. As more tendril ripped into his material form, Shiv began a guerrilla war as he rushed to assist the other prisoners. 

First, he found Gone pinned against the ground. A layer of shadowy fingers clutched her in place, keeping her pinned. He reached down and pulled up. His tides went taut, sailing in toward the ceiling. The dark bands holding Gone in place were ripped asunder, and Shiv continued on as the goblin vanished before his very eyes in an explosion of speed.

He went for Kuro next. The elven chronomancer had been their bulwark against the darkness, and if he bought her some room, maybe she could be once more. He tracked her via his ability to sense life force, and he saw her kicking and writhing as curled claws of darkness dragged her deeper into the black, trying to take her out of the fight.

Shiv went after her immediately, and then felt something shatter his Vitae anchor as his vitality dropped. He no longer had the full effects of his skill, so he surfaced from being out of context before he lost too much of himself, blasting across the three or so meters left between him and Kuro. 

He tore at the shadows that were cocooned around her and shredded them with tides and vitality. Red and white mana burst out from his being as he sapped the Ascendant once more. Harlock let out a pained gasp as a rush of lifeforce pulsed through Shiv and into the veil wrapped around Integration. The branches of darkness burst apart and Kuro was released. Shiv caught her by the midriff rift and tried to fling them both back, but again his Legendary-Tier Skill failed him.

"God dammit," Shiv cried out. He went Non-Sequitur once more and just before a needle thin dagger was driven through his left eye, but Shiv was no longer in his body. He was dragging Kuro along, fleeing toward Adam, toward several columns of fire that twisted and turned, pushing the darkness back.

But there came more cries around them. A heavy blast of gravity swept through the tunnel and Shiv found Adam flung up against the ceiling. The Gate Lord slammed neck-first against a metallic surface, and his body bent in a way that made Shiv's insides plummet.

No! Shiv cried internally. But once more, Adam’s burst ablaze and tore across the air as a phoenix. He pounded along the walls, leading imprints of varying depth as he seemed to displace all this force that was inflicted upon him. When he emerged once more, he briefly clutched at his neck rather than collapsing in a partially paralyzed heap. 

Shiv wasn't sure what kind of Toughness Skill Evolution Adam had, but he was glad he had it. Even so, that wasn't going to stop the onslaught coming for them.

From the darkness emerged prisoners. They had been contaminated like Urri was. They wept trails of blackness from their eyes and they fought in tandem with the shadows that comprised the Ascendant. They unleashed powerful magics upon Shiv and the surviving prisoners and suddenly an already dire situation became near hopeless. A tidal wave of frost suddenly tore free from the dark and it crashed against the whirlwind of flame channeled by candles. 

An elemental struggle took place, but the pyromancer that Adam recruited was driven back as billowing blasts of dinomancy supported the existing ice magic. Just then, a pulse of biomancy slipped free from the darkness as well. It crashed out, it lashed out and bounced off of Shiv's manahydra, but the Deathless cried out as he found himself the inferior biomancer. Even so, he retained one major advantage. 

He was unseen. He coiled his mana hydra around the other and began trying to pin it down. It pushed hard against him, yet the way his unseen foe used their skill was ineffective. They couldn't notice where he was, and so it probably just felt like they were wrestling thin air from their perspective. 

That didn't last as Shiv slammed into the mana hydra and used his Shapeless Tides to rip its head clean off. A spray of shredded mana filled the air as Shiv gouged a magical field wide open with a shout of fury and channeled anger. He activated both his Song of the Vigilant and his Icon of the Paindrinker as he watched more shapes come into form in the dark.

A howling shriek came from the blackened depths, but Shiv ignored the Biomancer for now. With how much damage he just inflicted, they were likely out of commission.

He focused on the ice mage that was emerging. To Shiv's surprise, he knew the ice mage. The automaton he saw earlier with the binaric crown was marching out, and the numbers that comprised its head were quivering with pale frost. Its chassis was cracked, and from the many rents lining its body came dollops of blackness. 

Shiv muttered a faint note of apology as he slammed into the automaton prisoner as well. As he struck them, however, they vanished in a burst of noise. A loud siren filled the room, and the mechanical Pathbearer reappeared next to Shiv, barely harmed. However, its magic was halted, and so candles struck back. A stream of all-consuming flames slammed into the automaton, and for the first time it let out a cry. 

It changed into waves of sound again and again, but sound couldn't fully escape the overwhelming temperatures emitted by the Pyromancer. The binaric-crowned automaton emerged, its body gleaming white-hot, melting into slag. Coiling branches of shadow surrounded it, preventing it, protecting it from further harm, but Shiv saw how the damage was already done.

He emerged once more as a phalanx of golden shadows pushed the darkness back, yet they only managed to create a five-meter-wide perimeter this time. The allied prisoners still on Shiv and Adam's side were far fewer than before as well. Some had been taken, some lay unmoving on the ground. The floor was slick with blood, and Shiv had no idea where Rebis went. That was going to be a concern for later.

"Adam," Shiv cried out, "I'm going for it."

"One second," Adam slurred as he tried to nock an arrow. He failed the first time and only managed to create an arrow the second after. Shiv caught sight of Adam's face and winced. The Gate Lord's head was half swollen. Whatever his Toughness skill did, it didn't seem to displace all the harm he suffered.

"Cool," Adam called out.

Shiv did so. He launched himself forward, ripping free from his body. He was in the blackness immediately and gripped a sprawling rush of shadows to hold himself in place. Shiv emerged from Non-Sequitur just as the tip of an arrow struck his lower back. At the same time, the cold touch of the ascendant collapsed around him. Overwhelming hopelessness descended upon Shiv once more, but that was parted by a feeling of incomprehensible pain. 

It had been a while since Shiv set his own soul on fire with a dose of Necromancy. And every single time Shiv suffered a corrosive wound, he remembered why he hated it so much. His body came ablaze. A reaction between his Vitae and Necromancy triggered. A blast expanded out from him, and suddenly the darkness that comprised the Ascendant became light itself. The Ascendant caught fire. The black was no more. And in that moment, with Adam's arrow and Shiv's Vitae, Harlock learned that even midnight could burn.

An uncharacteristic howl of misery escaped from Harlock, but unlike Daughter, he didn't retreat. Instead, he battered Shiv, slamming him against the wall and striking him over and over again with sharpened tendrils. But with the darkness of fire, Shiv felt Harlock weaken, felt his blows bounce off without doing anything more than scratch or bruise. Shiv caught a hooking claw that came for his throat and held it at bay. "Seems like you don't do so well out in the light, huh?"

Shiv tried to catch sight of Adam and the others, but as the coiling darkness moved around him, as it burned and shuddered before his very gaze, Shiv found himself drowned in a new environment, one that lashed at his very spirit. He could feel himself coming apart from the inside, and it hurt like hell. 

Even so, Shiv held on to the darkness around him. He didn't care that he burned, so long as the Ascendant burned with him. And just then, a flash returned to Shiv, a moment from his past, of how it all started, the 100th lesser vampire he struggled against. And here he was, fighting something he had no business contending with, burning just to gain an advantage. 

Shiv changed more than a little, but the world didn't change that much.

Something flickered in the corner of Shiv's vision. By the time he turned, he found a knife coming for his eye once more. But then, it was knocked aside as a Veilpiercer burst into existence before Shiv. A clash sounded, as Anthony's sudden ambush was diverted by Adam's timely counterattack. Anthony vanished once more, but Shiv frowned as he realized the Avatar was utterly unburnt. And that made him wonder if the Ascendant took all the damage on Shiv's behalf. 

Maybe Adam’s theory is right.

The shadows began to pull away from Shiv, seeping through the walls and gliding along the tunnels. Only a patch was burning, but still the damage was absolute. One couldn't suffer a wound to the soul and simply walk away.

"Shiv!" Adam cried out.

The Deathless looked to his left and saw the Gate Lord hovering in the air. His Azura sun was flickering in the air, flickering over his head, and Adam looked as spent as Shiv was. The Deathless tried to fling himself at Adam, but his vectors burst apart as an error took hold of the skill again. He made it halfway through before he struck the ground, and a wild cry of misery escaped from Shiv. 

His body was a mishmash of burns and horrid scars. His Voidmanted armor was barely clinging to his body once more. It was dead again and probably needed to regenerate, but even so, they had repelled an Ascendant that earned themselves a reprieve.

Shiv felt someone seize him by the wrist and drag him along the ground. It wasn't gentle, but it was fast. Even so, Shiv howled all the way as his many burns were pulled against the uneven metal floor. He was rolled over onto his chest as Adam briefly blasted him with the surge of Righteous Dawn.

Until the azure sun winked out over Adam, and he collapsed to his knees as well. The Gate Lord was shaking. Blood was pouring out from his eyes, ears, and nose. The swelling that characterized the left side of his head was even more severe by this point. Adam looked like he was half-balloon. Shiv couldn't help but laugh. “Nice… forehead.”

"Shut up, you bastard," Adam chuckled. "I know I look ridiculous."

"I know I look," Shiv asked, "like you should be dead," Adam managed. The Gate Lord wouldn't even look at him, and Shiv knew it was pretty bad.

"All right, help me up," Shiv said.

Bonk reached down and pulled Shiv back to his feet. He barely managed to stifle a scream as he looked at the remaining survivors. Kura stared at Shiv with wide eyes and a look of absolute disbelief. Gone flinched away from Shiv as he took his first step. "All right, Ascendant's gone for now, but I think you'll be back, and I think there's going to be others coming as well. We're gonna be pushing for the outside. Adam, you got another Necromancy arrow in you?"

The Gate Lord nodded. He held out a hand and Shiv pulled him back to his feet as well. "You sure you can take another hit," Adam asked.

"Going to have to," Shiv said. "It's all we got against the bastards. You were right, though. Detonating me inside the shadows contained the blast. If the darkness is still surrounding the cage, I think we can burn our way out. Come on."

And as Shiv took another step, he nearly fell over from exhaustion and disorientation. His Toughness and Shapeless Tides Skills were having problems again, and Shiv cycled between feeling like he could tear the world in half in a bout of anger to being as frail as a Pathless geriatric.

A clawed hand caught him, and his burn wounds flared with agony. Shiv gagged as nausea overwhelmed him, and he emptied the contents of his stomach all over the ground. However, they were moving. Shiv found himself being pulled along by Five and Adam at the same time. He briefly lost track of time as they passed through the tunnel, making their desperate escape. Shiv looked behind them and didn't notice any encroaching darkness whatsoever. 

Maybe the Ascendant had retreated. Maybe, just maybe, they had a true moment of peace. But something inside Shiv refused to hope. It was never that easy.

And true to his thoughts, as soon as they slipped beyond the outer wall of this cube, they came to a halt. Shiv barely managed to lift his head. As he did, he found himself sighing as there were eleven gathered before and eleven avatars with that woman bearing a static dress at their head.

"You managed to set Harlock on fire," she said with a breath of amusement. "That's a first. I told him that he should have let us help sooner. But you know how it is with gods. They forget they were ever vulnerable mortals in the first place, and have to relearn old lessons over and over again. Still. Burning darkness itself. That really is a first.”

"Yeah," Shiv grunted. He pushed away from five, from everyone trying to hold him up. "And that's probably going to be a regular occurrence if you don't get the fuck out of my way right now." He looked at the woman and tried to impart every bit of intimidation he could muster through a glare. 

She stared back at him and her lip curled, but it wasn't a fear, rather it was a hint of wry amusement. Strangely, Shiv thought she looked familiar, somehow. He saw her earlier during his battle against the Tarrasque, but there was something about her face. “Quite a bit of your mother in you, too, isn’t there, Tanner? Regardless. I'm Avatar Legend Veronica Chandler, and—”

“And go fuck yourself. I don't give a godsdamn who you are," Shiv growled. "You teleported me into this place, and I’m getting out. Me and everyone else. One way or another. Adam. Arrow.” The Gate Lord pulled back on his bow, and a corrosive glint lit the tip of his Veilpiercer. “You better leave now, Legend Avatar. Leave, or you’ll find just how flammable you are compared to that Ascendant I just lit up.”

Veronica studied Shiv for a moment, and she gave him a near feral grin of defiance. She opened her mouth, and from her lips came forth an inexorable command. “Well, show me how you burn, then, Deathless. Make it worth my words.”