IV-9 Enough

You should cultivate a certain madness in your heart. To be a good warrior and a great Pathbearer, one must hold two conflicting desires at the same time. A willingness to be gentle and nurse the wounds of your flesh and mind after battle, to be a creature of boundless love for yourself. Understanding is essential. Understanding and impossible amounts of forgiveness for all failures.

Then, at the same time, you must be merciless. You must drill every last failure out of your body and soul. To push yourself to the brink over and over, to arrive at a place where few others dare to tread. It is not brutality that will prevail here. That is a mistake. Internal brutality is not the adversary of self-affection, but its sibling. It is a maladaptive practice of the same desire to mend yourself—by cruelty or kindness. What will prevail is coldness. Is determination. Is absolute focus.

And you must shift between the two paradoxically so that you can reap every last level from your struggles.

I remember the people I have slain. So many deserving. But too many who were not. I did not mean to shed the blood of the weak; the brittle blood of the lamb. The act has debased me many times. Collateral damage is unavoidable; collateral damage is an unacceptable display of incompetence and weakness.

Both of these statements stand true at the same time.

I was too weak, too inexperienced, too emotional, too unfocused, too unwise, too wounded, too lost to do the right thing. Everyone becomes an unfailing paragon in retrospect, but I have come to learn that many of these mistakes are inevitable. The ones who will not admit this have the softest hearts of all.

But inevitability does not mean they are allowed. So I learned. So I drilled. So I turned these moral failures into lessons and made sure I would never fail the same way again. Until I encounter a new point of defeat. A new unacceptable failure. And I comfort myself. And then I learn. And the process continues.

There is no emotion that will make you a Legend. There is no singular philosophy. There is only you and the struggles you have faced. The ones you failed. The ones you will fail. And the ones you might be able to overcome.

Embrace who you are—and lift yourself high. Hatred, sorrow, or joy… They are all meaningless unless what follows is change.

Unless what follows is evolution.

-Legend: Reforged from Ruin, Written by Semper Paragon Caine Hauser of the Descenders Union

IV-9

Enough

Shiv was falling.

The air screamed around him, licked at his aching flesh with a harsh, cold tongue. He didn’t know where he was or where he was bound, but the fragments of his mind were coming back together with every meter he dropped. And what followed was fury with no one to vent it on. 

His Berserk Skill almost triggered, but another skill interrupted Shiv before he could descend into a blind frenzy.

Psycho-Cartography: We can be pissed off and effective at the same time. There’s nothing for you to go Berserk on right now. We’re Delving. Whatever the hells that means. By the end of this, we’ll have Legendary Skill. We need to focus on getting that and then breaking out of this felling prison we’re in. Spend your rage through your Farsight Skill. Figure out where we are first and then discover what or who you can break after.

The wounded child in Shiv’s heart wanted to ignore his Skill out of spite, to scream and lash out blindly. Yet, his time with the orcs granted him a level of awareness that made him cringe. He spent so much of his focus watching the gray-skins’ behaviors that he started studying his own. Impotence disgusted Shiv. Waste made his blood boil. There would be no satisfaction that would come from scream into the void, and it wouldn’t let him help Adam, Uva, or anyone for that measure.

He needed to solve the problem—to push through the shit before he was good enough to make an actual dish.

And so he used his Master of Rage Feat to fuel his Farsight. His vision magnified beyond its previous limits. Dense folds of frigid moisture battered his body, but gradually began to part below. Something came into view. It resembled a place—a place Shiv knew. The town of Blackedge greeted Shiv as he crashed through the bottom of the clouds.

Shiv tugged back on his gravitic field and his plummet became a glide. He scanned the town from above and immediately noticed several things that were wrong. The first was the buildings—some of the structures were of Blackedge, they were from Gate Theborn. There were residential blocks planted along the periphery of the town. So many people walking the streets were also slaves.

A sickening feeling built in the pit of Shiv’s stomach as he recognized a few faces. He noticed a boy among the few hundred people in the city. The slave boy that suffered under Oldsmith’s lashing belt. The one that met his end at the hands of 811. Another woman passed by him, and Shiv’s recollections stirred. He knew even less about her, but she saw her among the dead when the Jealousy crashed down inside its teleportation anchor. 

There were non-slaves here as well. On the lawn behind Starhawk’s Perch, Shiv saw the automaton Pathbearer that gave its life protecting Georges. He saw Feather, the Arrow Family Guard—the elf who offered his breastplate to Shiv after he passed. There were Umbrals here too. Umbrals that died during the raid at Passage. Umbrals who were recently slain during the Vulteg raid.

Shiv wanted to ask why they were here, but he knew. Inside his bones, he already knew.

Psycho-Cartography: You think you failed these people because you weren’t strong enough. The system took notice. And now they’re here to make our lives more difficult. Because—

“Just no end to the fucking strife, is there?” Shiv spoke to his skill. Psycho-Cartography offered no further reply. Nothing needed to be said.

Shiv landed just before Starhawk’s Perch. He slipped past the inner ring of the town and found the parapets unmanned. Truthfully, Blackedge seemed quite barren, aside from the people Shiv thought he failed. He hadn’t taken a look inside the buildings, though. He wouldn’t be surprised if there were people in them. Shiv saw the faint glow of vitality signatures all around him—but their lifeforce all flowed back to him.

It’s like they’re created from me. Makes sense since they’re part of this skill. Well. They’re actually dead. These are just recreations, I guess. But still, these are some really godsdamned accurate recreations. Accurate enough to scare the shit out of me.

He surveyed his surroundings as he began walking toward the perch itself. He looked up at the top of its central spire and considered launching himself straight up. Shiv wondered if there was a clone of Roland up there. If there was, well, Shiv deserved to have a practice punch in this skill-plane as a pregame to the real deal.

But before he could do anything, a scroll of massive text manifested before his eyes.

Environment finalized.

Simulating critical encounters…

Initializing Skill-Shaping

Delve Quest Gained: Defend Blackedge from major threats. Prevent the town’s destruction and keep at least ten percent of its population alive. Deaths from collateral damage will result in an immediate failure.

Reward: Finalized Legendary Skill Evolution

Failure: The simulation is reloaded.

Shiv took in the information. His hands tightened into fists. He saw the system’s game here. It didn’t just bring the slaves and other victims here to mock him, it was testing him on the basis of his worst failures. He fought too recklessly, too careless; his skills were too destructive. That bothered Shiv, and so his failures were carved into the skill as well.

Valor had warned him about this, about how every feat he performed was recorded by his skills. That didn’t just mean his triumphs. Considering how often he died, he likely had more defeats than victories stored for the system’s use. But he also considered the failure condition. The simulation being reloaded made it sound like he would get to try again. So, if that’s the case, why was Valor so worried about him delving? Was it just a matter of time and difficulty? The way the ancient Pathbearer was speaking earlier made it sound much worse.

Shiv was still missing something here. But he would find out soon enough.

“Alright,” he said to himself. “Let’s get this done, turn ourselves into a Low Legend, and get back to Blackedge. The actual Blackedge.” He looked up at the sky and sneered. “Hey. System. If you’re conscious at all, eat fucking shit. All I’ve done is give you more struggle, give you more strife. And all you’ve ever done is make things worse. I don’t know why you’re so determined to do this, but whatever the reason—if there’s an actual reason—go fuck yourself.”

Initiating Encounter (0/5)

As soon as the text appeared, Shiv noticed the space around him stutter. An enemy just got added to the Delve. It didn’t take long for Shiv to hear screams in the distance. His head snapped to his left and he saw a beam of fire slash high up into the air.

Shiv stopped time and moved. The world went still as he shot up into the air. As soon as Shiv climbed beyond the parapets once more, he followed the magical beam back to the threat. He recognized the enemy immediately. An elemental golem was attacking a group of slaves. It was the same kind of elemental golem he faced inside Passage’s teleportation anchor.

A savage grin pulled at the corner of Shiv’s lips. Now this brought back fun memories. Well, that and the intense suffering that came from being slowly burned to death inside what basically amounted to a magical incinerator, but no pain, no joy.

The elemental golem looked much the same as it did before. Seemed about as powerful, too.

The same couldn’t be said about Shiv. Compared to the boy that entered the teleportation anchor, present Shiv was practically a demigod. He wasn’t just faster, tougher, stronger, he had a whole suite of Magical and Social Skills he could unleash as well.

There was no fight between him and the golem. It remained frozen in place as he slammed into it like a pickaxe descending on fractured stone. He rammed his fist through the golem’s chest and crushed the mana core inside. The entire encounter took less than two seconds. He let time resume, and the golem crumbled around him.

Shiv shrugged the remains of the elemental aside as he brushed off smears of dirt and dust from his partially bare torso. He noticed that his Voidmantid armor was beginning to regenerate. That brought a flicker of joy to life in his chest. After losing his mask, his knife, and his gauntlet, it was nice to have one piece of equipment that could rebuild itself from the ground up.

Helix really knew what he was doing when he picked out a bribe for me. I need to figure out how to apply the regeneration for my next knife or something. The Skysplitter was good, but I need something with a bit more durability…

Encounter Complete (1/5)

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

The notification appeared before Shiv’s eyes and he frowned. He wasn’t sure how his Skill Fusion was being adjusted. So far, it still just felt like he was using Gravitic Wrestler and nothing more. He couldn’t even trigger his Magical Resistance in any way. Maybe I need to finish all the encounters before I get anything.

Something moved in the corner of his eye. Shiv turned to greet the people he just saved—and shuddered at the sight of Guardshead Leu.

“Thank you, Pathbearer,” Leu said, her voice monotone. “Your aid was most welcome.”

It wasn’t her. Not really. But even the shadow of a dead Vulteg was enough to remind Shiv of her fate. He grimaced as he regarded her. She and the nearby slaves took on neutral postures now that the golem was dead. He saved them here, but he failed to do it in life. He had no chance to save Leu. Not from the Recollector. Maybe not even right now.

“I’m sorry,” Shiv whispered. The words were wasted on this imitation. But they weren’t for her. It was one thing to logically know he had limits, that he couldn’t save everyone. Feeling that was a different matter. Accepting it was impossible. Shiv didn’t blame himself. Not really. But he did hate the system, hate the world, and hate his lack of power.

The last thing he hated the most. Because in a reality molded from conflict, only the hardest fist and the strongest will prevailed—so long as they were supported by worthy allies.

Initiating Encounter (2/5)

The delve shuddered again. There came a loud, rumbling laugh he recognized. A vicious laugh he would never forget. Shiv’s features twisted into a snarl as he blasted skyward once more. He was a hundred meters up in the air when he noticed the slaughter happening on the patio behind Starhawk’s Perch. Blood glistened along fresh blades of grass, and Shiv flinched as he watched 811 rip Feather in half.

“Godsdamned orc bastard,” Shiv snarled to himself. He surged forward through the air with a crack of force, and 811 turned to greet him. The massive orc offered a jubilant smile to Shiv as he held a crystalline first high. 

He opened his mouth to say something.

Shiv drove a boot through his jaw instead. The orc’s chin shattered into pulped flesh and skipping shards of bone. His head snapped back—but Shiv seized him before he could be launched anywhere. As soon as the Deathless touched the orc, a rush of electricity blasted through Shiv. He let out a hiss of discomfort and pushed through the orc’s Aeromancy. Shiv yanked 811 off-balance by the orc’s wrist; slammed the gray bastard against the ground through a hip-toss.

As the orc bounced, Shiv brought his foot down on 811’s chest. Flesh tore. Cartilage and bone snapped. Hot blood welled around Shiv’s ankles as he drove his foot down against the orc’s spine. 811 gagged and choked on his blood as the ruined flaps of tissue constituting his chin jiggled before Shiv’s eyes. He was trying to say something, but Shiv didn’t give a shit. He wanted this orc dead more than most others, and he wasn’t going to lift his foot until 811’s body was completely—

Something else let out a loud crunch beneath 811. The orc gave a gargling laugh—and twisted his body. Shiv caught sight of a goblin strapped to the orc’s back. A dismembered goblin being worn like a backpack. Their face was nonexistence. Completely caked against the ground. And that was Shiv’s doing rather than the orc’s.

The Deathless let out a snarl of pure frustration. “You piece of fucking—”

Encounter Failed

Resetting Delve

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

The delve shuddered violently. Shiv found himself falling once again. He blinked in surprise, and the snarl returned to him. “Motherfucking orc! Godsdamned—”

Psycho-Cartography: There is a social lesson in this Skill Evolution too. You’re rushing blindly. You need to get in the habit of watching and observing. Use your Awareness. You’re not bad at thinking. You have the capacity and the instinct for deception, so develop more patience. You can afford to let 811 kill a few people. He can’t destroy Blackedge on his own—

Applying Partial Skill Evolution: Maelstrom of Stars Unmoving (Heroic)

Shiv let out a gasp as power exploded out from his muscles. His marrow and sinews trembled with building pressure, and a wave of gravitic exploded out from him. But it was more than gravity. It was more than a manipulation of mass around him. It was a projection of building force that crashed inward toward his body. Waves of kinetic energy collapsed toward him as he writhed. Shiv didn’t get any bigger, but his muscles did get denser. Every fiber of his was infused with so much strength that Shiv felt his bones creak from the build-up.

By the time he recovered, he struck Blackedge like a falling hammer and tore through the battlements surrounding Starhawk’s Perch. Shiv fought to catch his breath as he tried to shrug the debris aside.

Yet the rubble clung to Shiv’s body even as he pawed at them—tried to push them away. The dust in the air was wrenched inward, pressing against his skin and revealing billowing waves of unseen force. The waves crashed against him akin to water kissing the shoreline, and with each cascade of kinetic force Shiv felt his physique grow stronger, felt the pressure around him go from magnetic to crushing. The rubble pressed against his body began to crack and turn to dissolving particulates. 

The cobblestones lining the ground and other bits of masonry composing battlements he was partially embedded came asunder as well. Even Shiv’s own body creaked underneath the build force closing tight around him. He focused on increasing his Toughness to compensate. His pillar formed, emerging as a faint rod that spiked high up in the sky. 

Unlike before, Shiv found himself capable of moving with ease. Right then he was stronger than he was tough, and with every wave, his strength climbed further still.

Shiv noted how similar the penalties for Inertial Overdrive and Maelstrom of were. Both inflicted severe damage on his body once they exceeded a certain level. But they were also skills that constantly grew, that allowed him to reach new heights of power so long as he could offset their costs. 

The fundamental weakness of both his Physicality and Reflexes now was Toughness. The integrity of his body was the bottleneck. He could move as fast as he wanted, he could take in as much strength as he wanted, but there would come a point where his toughness was outpaced and wounds would come thereafter. Meanwhile, if his toughness was too high, he wouldn't be able to move at all.

"Dynamics and tradeoffs," Shiv muttered to himself. He relaxed his muscles for a moment and the crashing waves of kinetic force died. All the strength that had been building up inside him faded, and a brief feeling of lethargy washed through Shiv. His legs shook, and he barely noticed the notification informing him that the first encounter had begun in his temporarily weakened state. 

Once more a beam slashed through the air, but this time Shiv was in no hurry. He waited for himself to recover fully, and then took to the sky.

Flying with Maelstrom was different than Gravitic Wrestler. Previously, he just flung himself like a projectile. Now, as he pulled on the kinetic tides washing over his, the crashing waves that originally shifted Shiv, flattened the other way blasted him upward. He spent some of the strength he gathered to do that, but he had more in reserve. 

Every inbound wave of kinetic energy fueled him more, and became a resource for him, something he could continue cultivating or spend, to achieve certain feats. As such, when Shiv sailed through the air, he found himself capable of modulating his force better than before. He didn't need to fling himself that hard, in fact, he could spend only a little, just enough to nudge himself through the air. 

It also allowed him to counteract his inertial sheath to some extent. Inertial overdrive fed off the momentum acting on his body, and made him go faster and faster. But right now, Shiv was stronger than he was fast, and he managed to wrench the vector of his movement aside until he was pointed in the desired direction.

Shiv considered the details of this partial evolution further.

Right, so I can build up more force, spend it to fly around or exert my strength on something pretty good. The penalties are a feeling of fatigue when it ends, it seems to last around five seconds or so. It might be longer if I focus on drawing in more force across an extended period of time. That, and if I get too strong, the space around me effectively becomes dangerous for everyone else.

He descended on the elemental golem with caution and precision. The golem turned its flaming sphere of a head and unleashed a stream of pyromancy. The stream splashed harmlessly around his pillar of oraculcum, and the deathless came to a sudden halt directly over the golem. He focused on gathering more strength. Waves of force crested against his body with increased frequency, and Shiv felt himself tremble with might. 

He spent a fourth of that might and pointed his waves downward. The bottom of his pillar greeted the golem's body as if a steel tower being dropped on an insect. There came a loud crack as the golem all but dissolved beneath Shiv's feet. A blast of dust spread out underneath the deathlet, and the golem's lightning-infused limbs of lashing water burst apart into parting puddles. 

A final flicker of electricity danced across the spreading waters, and the golem was no more.

Encounter Complete (1/5)

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

"All right," Shiv breathed, "and that was something else." His Heroic-Tier Physicality Evolution was worth more than mithril on its own, and it was only a partial Skill Evolution granted to him after his failure with 811.

Despite everything, despite the direness of his circumstances, the flames of anticipation were kindled inside Shiv as he yearned to see what form his legendary skill would finally take. He thought about Marikos swinging his Pillar of Orichalcum like it weighed nothing, and he recalled Hawgrave, how she could grow to colossal and titanic sizes, or shrink down to the dimensions of an insect.

I also have Magical Resistance, Shiv remembered. That's the skill I chose to make Legendary, but how the hell is that going to come together with physicality? What does that even look like? 

He didn't know, but he would soon. Maybe after he crushed 811 properly.

When the orc spawned, Shiv was ready for him. He didn't go after the orc directly, not like last time. Instead, he triggered his temporal shell right as the notification appeared. The world was still when 811 was loaded in. Shiv plucked the orc off the ground before he had a chance to do anything, and launched them both high, high up into the sky. For a beat, he considered crushing the orc using his collapsing waves of kinetic energy. But he wanted to see 811's face before the orc finally expired.

Shiv let time resume. 811 shuddered in his grasp. And then his features were drawn back in a surprise growl. "Well, that's just impolite."

Whatever else he had to say came out as a croak of pain. Shiv tightened his muscles. A wave of crushing power slammed into him, and by extension, 811. The orc's body began to fold and deform in several places. His bones shattered first, turning to shrapnel, then powder within his own flattening flesh. 811's organs squeezed out from his prolapsed anus, from the lacerations and ruptures lining his torso. They were gagged, and Shiv simply glared his hate at the dying creature. 

Another wave swept toward Shiv. He pulled the orc hard against the pillar, and a series of satisfying cracks were accompanied by delightful puffs of blood.

"This is what I'm going to do to you, when we actually meet each other again," Shiv promised, and he ground 811’s skull to a mangled mess against his pillar. The orc gave a final gurgle. Shiv squeezed. His kinetic waves imploded around the orc’s head, and his skull imploded into a dense sphere of red. Instead of smearing Shiv with gore, the blood, giblets, and other fluids spilled down the face of Shiv's pillar before spilling like foul rain onto the grass below.

The Deathless let out a satisfied breath as he tossed 811 aside. The orc's corpse resembled a pancaked piece of bloodied meat, and Shiv spat after it, intending every bit of disrespect. He wasn't lying. When he met Hawgrave again, he would take her blade from her, and then he would go inside to visit the actual 812. After that, well, Shiv didn't feel like having an orc nemesis anymore, so he would just solve that problem. Besides, he had bigger prey to contend with.

He wasn’t interested in fighting individual orcs for the rest of time. No. In the end, his target was and would always be the Challenger. He wasn’t going to do any of this halfway.

811's body struck the ground and came apart like soup. Nearby, Feather and the automaton that protected George's before looked up, before loudly proclaiming their thanks to Shiv. They said the exact same words Leu spoke to him earlier. That confirmed something for Shiv. This was merely simulation, simulation that used the image of those that were lost, but didn't truly capture their spirit, their mind.

Encounter Complete (2/5)

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

They were gone. Everything here was an act of psychological warfare conducted on him, on the part of the system.

But something didn't seem entirely right about that. After all, there were people with legendary social skills. You couldn't possibly test a Social Skill against someone that was merely a mannequin, someone who only spat stock phrases. Maybe Social Skills or social functions are withheld inside a delve that stressed my Physicality and Magical Resistance. 

Shiv was just guessing here, but maybe he was right. After all, these evolutions were happening inside him, and different skills contained different snippets of his personal history.

In the brief calm that followed, Shiv experimented with his Maelstrom some more. As the 60th wave rolled in, the area of effect for his kinetic waves extended up to 100 meters. 100 meters of bone-powdering pressure. Shiv guessed that being in his vicinity probably felt like swimming at the bottom of an ocean. Well. Maybe. He wasn't sure how much pressure was at the bottom of an ocean. That sounded like something Adam would learn in one of his classes. At the thought of the Gate-Lord, Shiv bit back a snarl. "Hang on, I'll make it back, just don't be dead, don't be dead godsdammit.”

He tried not to think about the worst possibility, about Adam being slain, but he'd been gone for a while now, and the Tarrasque was still alive before he left. The Ascendants were there, and considering how callously they acted as they casually teleported Shiv away, his hopes weren't high that they would prioritize Adam's safety and safeguard Blackedge. 

Furthermore, the Tarrasque quest hadn't ended, it was still active, and so the apocalyptic beast wasn't dead. There were twelve Ascendants facing it, twelve Ascendants and twelve avatars. Shiv hoped they were enough to contain the Tarrasque—that Adam managed to get away and help the other escape right after.

But something made Shiv suspect that the system wasn’t going to be so kind.

Psycho-Cartography: Push these thoughts out of your mind. Focus on something else. Prepare for your next adversary. We know that the system is drawing on your previous encounters to populate this delve. Then, considering your hardest fights, what's coming next is likely the Jealousy.

Shiv winced. He remembered facing the Jealousy. It killed him more than a few times, and now, with both his Mask of False Paths and his Magebreaker broken, he had no way of countering its magic. 

So far, his Magical Resistance skill was still at level one, even with it being chosen for the Legendary Skill Evolution. He suspected he may need to lose or prevail against the Jealousy before another partial skill evolution was applied to him. Its Psychomancy was one thing, but its ability to regenerate, along with its Hydromancy, was another layer of trouble. Shiv couldn't let it dictate the fight. 

He needed to move in close, tear through its body, discharge his Inertial Overdrive while still inside it. He needed to blow it apart in an instant. That was the easiest way to win. He felt reasonably confident regarding his odds, thanks to all his skills, on top of his Chronomancy. 

And it really was Chronomancy that might turn this into a slaughter. He refused to let down his guard, though. And he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as he did with 811. Shiv intended to drag the Jealousy off away from the Blackedge. He could kill it past the edge of the town. That way, when he blew it apart, none of its corpse debris would slam down on any unfortunate victims, forcing Shiv to restart the Delve Quest.

Initiating Encounter (2/5)

Yet, as the notification blinked into view, the Jealousy itself was nowhere to be seen. The skies were calm, and the streets were placid. Shiv directed his kinetic waves higher, and he exploded skyward, as if a red-gold javelin. Looking down, using his foresight, he scanned all corners of Blackedge, waiting patiently. A creeping thought passed through him, and he realized the Jealousy might have spawned into the scenario in the worst way possible. It was hiding inside someone's mind.

Yeah, that seemed like something the system might do. A felling piece of shit, Shiv cursed the system. "Alright, new plan," Shiv said to himself. He brought himself lower, dangling his pillar-encased form over various crowds. He knew he was faster than the Jealousy by now. Knew that it wasn't very good in close quarters. The moment it unleashed its magic on him, he would stop time or go out of context, and then he would try to counter the creature. But as he considered his plan, a problem came up. 

Previously, he could knock it out using his Magebreaker. The Inertium was invaluable. Now, if the Jealousy was still hiding in someone's mind, how was he going to free them? If he projected his own psychomancy inside while time was frozen, he might be able to do some damage. It might be, but Shiv doubted it. His psychomancy was still lacking. It would be like trying to chisel through a steel wall.

The Deathless glowered, but he adapted once more. He wasn't thinking hard enough. His Psycho-Cartography had shown him the way earlier. Spend more time thinking. There would always be setbacks, but there was a solution somewhere. At least, that's what he thought. He immediately began pumping out his creeping void. The world was encased by a sweeping tide of blackness, and Shiv glided over to the people. 

He observed the slaves and common Pathbearers he encountered, studying their vitality for any fluctuations. If the Jealousy was inside them, he suspected that there would be a dense knot of red in someone's skull. He kept an eye open for that, but remained alert in the meantime. He used waves of force to pull himself across the land. His Orichalcum pillar wasn't nearly as solid as it could be, but he valued speed over Toughness right now. 

When the Jealousy struck, he would show it true speed.

So Shiv waited. Shiv stalked the streets and skies through a dense cloud of darkness. 

And the Jealousy simply didn't appear. 

Seconds ticked to minutes. Shiv felt his patience begin to fray. He decided to get a little bit more reckless. He stopped using his Creeping Void, and exposed himself entirely. No attacks came. By this point, Shiv's paranoia was in full swing. 

Maybe he wasn't facing the Jealousy, maybe he was facing an unseen foe. Whisper, perhaps, but that didn't make any sense. He never had a physical confrontation with Whisper. He wouldn't consider the orc an essential foe at all. 

No, everything that happened inside this delve seemed to be sourced from a formative moment for Shiv. The Jealousy was when he got his Gravitic Wrestler skill. That mattered more for his Physicality than Might of Mass. If this delve was following his personal development at all, it needed to be the Jealousy.

So then where is it? Shiv decided to get more altitude. Something told him it wasn’t hiding the clouds, but maybe he could get a better lay of the land and see if something was unusual. Rolling waves of force flung his pillar upward. The winds screamed around him, and his inertial sheath thundered in delight. Shiv swept his gaze across Blackedge—and immediately noticed something wrong atop the apex of Starhawk’s Perch.

A faint stretch of soft blue stained the world there. That was the color of Animancy, and Shiv used his Farsight Skill to study the Animancy mana, his earlier rage returned to him. He saw the Jealousy frozen within that patch of Animancy. Four hundred meters of Greater Demon was coiled in on itself and held in stasis.

Shiv had a pretty good guess as to why.

He remembered Cripple calling out for an Animancy to suppress Shiv. This was probably their doing. They were scheming to keep him trapped in his own delve, unable to evolve. Red began to spread in from the corners of Shiv’s vision. A near primal rage took hold of him as Berserk almost triggered. The kinetic tides being drawn into Shiv grew evermore turbulent. Faint cracks spread along his pillar and lacerations opened across his skin.

Not yet, the Deathless thought to himself. He halted time and left context. At once, everything went dark. The delve vanished, and Shiv found himself trapped in a cold abyss. But the patch of blue was gone too, and when Shiv surfaced, he found the Jealousy swimming through the air—liberated from its entrapment.

***

“I… I don’t know what just happened,” the Animancer said, as he looked up from the cell. The elven Pathbearer was kneeling beside Priority Zenith. His eyes were wide with shock as he regarded the enchained Deahthless. Beside him, six other Animancers were still lost within the Deathless’s soul. Most of them looked withered and spent. A few had perished earlier when they accidentally reached into the wrong place and found their lifeforce ripped out of their bodies.

The guards had stripped the Deathless of all equipment, left him bare and bound to dense bands of Orichalcum. The restraints would use the Deathless’s own willpower to fuel the chains. Hence, when he struggled, it would harden accordingly, leaving him unable to break free. Additionally, the walls of the Zenith Anchor were choked with spellwork—most of them inscribed through a joint effort by the Ascendants. There was a ceiling to just how much mana they could channel on Earth, but it was still enough to cage anyone. Even a Legend, in theory.

Yet, as Cripple stared down through the porthole at the Animancer, it felt a sense of wrongness. Though the Deathless was in a technical coma right now, he somehow triggered a skill that made even Cripple forget his existence briefly. Cripple had never faced such a skill before. Not even when battling against a rival god. The Deathless was an anomaly, an enigma, and worst of all, a product of Udraal Thann.

But he was also a boy. A boy that had been fighting for Blackedge supposedly. One that warred on behalf of the citizens.

What they were doing to him was—

It’s for his own good as well, Cripple told himself. If we did not cage him, someone would slay him for the quest rewards. This is best for him and us.

But Cripple only believed that in part. He knew why Veronica wanted to keep the boy alive. She had something of a history with his father. Harlon Lowe wasn’t a weak Pathbearer, but he was nowhere near a Legend either. Yet, Veronica had always inquired after him. Cripple suspected there might be familial relations there. Maybe Harlon was an illegitimate child. But unlikely. 

Veronica wasn’t the type to indulge in her baser instincts. She was near celibate compared to Katherine, her grandmother—and Cripple’s fellow Ascendant. But there was definitely a connection. Cripple just didn’t know what. And neither did anyone else on the council for that matter.

So, the Deathless was to be held here at her orders. Held until they resolved the matter of the Tarrasque through containment or displacement into some other nation’s territory. After that was dealt with, she wanted to conduct a personal interview with the boy.

But it just feels like a mistake. Cripple looked down at the boy again. His fists were clenched tight. Though his eyes were closed, his expression was locked in a bestial snarl. Rage practically radiated from his every pore, and again, Cripple didn’t blame him. Cripple remembered his own fury during his days as a slave. He remembered his life on the service—forced into the Dust King’s service as a common gladiatorial bot. And then suffering the same degradation down in the Abyss for the Lords of Law and their people.

And here I am, scarring my own spirit. But more than shame, there was worry. The boy had a Drain Vitality Skill. Cripple’s avatar nearly perished during the encounter. The Deathless knew the world-mending technique. And now he achieved a Magical Resistance and Physicality Skill Fusion. It was madness. It was too much power too fast. Cripple hadn't known many with Magical Resistance and Physicality fusions. A few Farwalkers, perhaps, and they kept their Skill Evolutions well hidden.

Thus, Cripple didn’t know what kind of skill the boy was about to evolve. And that made him something closer to an unstable mana bomb than a prisoner in a cage.

I cannot take my eyes off him, Cripple decided. Everything he does, I will watch. I will make sure he never breaks free. Until we decide he is no longer a threat. Or we… offer him a final mercy.

Cripple didn’t care that much about the reward. He was already a god—-a god of terrible power. His avatars were also martyrs. None could bear his might without suffering grievous wounds. What use did they have for Legendary Skill if channeling Cripple was more terminal illness than blessing?

But one of the other Ascendants might wish to empower their avatar. Halsur. Kathereine. Blind. Maiden. Youthful. All of them would find great benefit in an unmatched avatar. And then there was Veronica herself. She was virtuous in most regard, but one didn’t become a member of the council if they did not crave power.

He wouldn’t put it past her to take the boy’s life herself if she couldn’t control him.

It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before.

It wasn’t anything anyone on the council or the among the Ascendants hadn’t done before.

The truth was that someone with ten Legendary Skills was worth more than twelve armies combined—was worth more than most of the Republic. The moment someone reached that level of power, even gods would find them a difficult cockroach to stomp.

And if said cockroach was a conduit for gods? Then Integrated Earth might as well belong to the Yellowstone Republic.

“Reach into the skill again,” Cripple commanded. “Do what you can to keep him from evolving.”

“As you command, my Ascendant,” the Head Animancer replied. But thought the elf’s voice was high with determination, he couldn’t hide his fear either. Cripple heard just how terrified he was of this endeavor. How weird he found the Deathless.

“If you find something going awry, release your magic and call out to me,” Cripple added. “Do not waste your life.”

“Your wisdom and mercy is grand, Ascendant Cripple,” the Head Animancer replied. He regarded the Deathless once more and held out a shaking hand. Again, the color of a bruise seeped out from the Head Animancer as it mingled with the mana of his companions. His Animancy field shifted through the cell and washed into the Deathless once more.

The Head Animancer let out a breath as he entered a focus trance—-

Only to shriek in absolute agony as a bramble of white-red tendril tore out from his insides. He burst apart into bloody pieces, and the other Animancers shared the same fate before Cripple even realized what was happening.

The Ascendant took a single step and manifested within the prison. Distance was no limit for Cripple. Neither was matter or magic. Yet, Cripple’s avatar paid the price for this great power. Its legs turned to scrap, and it collapsed at the Deathless’s feet. Cripple found himself commanding his avatar to rise as it lifted its head from a pool of blood.

And as it gazed upon the Deathless’s face, it realized he was no longer snarling, but grinning viciously.

Somehow, he had killed the Ascendants. And he did it without Cripple’s comprehension.

The Ascendant’s battle-honed instincts screamed for him to do one of two things. The first was to kill the boy and be done with it. It was pragmatic, but it would cause problems. More importantly, Cripple didn’t want to do it. The moral choice was to release the Deathless, but that came with its own host of risks as well.

And Cripple still belonged to Kathereine by right of oath and soul-contract. She didn’t use Cripple as a weapon or a slave usually. Not when she had Halsur willing to do all her bloody work for her, but she would debase Cripple if it offended her. It knew because she had.

Of all the Ascendants, she was the only one it truly feared.

Even so, Cripple let out a reverberating sigh and looked upon Shiv. “Something tells me keeping you here will become a mistake either way. Maybe the mistake has already been made. Maybe capturing you was the mistake.” The Deathless didn’t reply. The Animancers were dead. Above, sirens began to wail, the prison’s dimensional monitors and other elite wardens noticing the massacre within Anchor-Cell Zenith far too late. 

“What are you?” Crippled asked the Deathless. The boy was silent. His eyes were moving beneath closed lids. “Do you even know?”

***

Encounter Complete (3/5)

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

Applying Partial Skill Evolution: Magical Resistance 100 (Master)

Vitaemancy 93 > 95

Outside Context Problem 87 > 88

Killing a surprised and confused Jealousy was far easier than facing down a hidden one. When the Animancy field vanished, Shiv slammed his pillar against the Jealousy’s body and tore it wide open. An application of Chronomancy followed by an inertial discharge later, the Greater Demon was carried away from the limits of Blackedge as bloody mist and falling chunks of tissue.

As soon as he finished killing the creature, he felt a dense field of multi-hued mana combust into existence just under his skin. 

Magical Resistance was a strange skill. It didn’t seem to evolve in most cases—aside from becoming dischargeable at some point, considering the Tarrasque and Hawgrave. It felt more like a layer of bone rather than a limb. It was a weight fused inside Shiv, but a supportive weight. One that made him feel stronger. More durable than ever before. But even if it hadn’t evolved into a more sophisticated skill, it was fusing with his Physicality, and so it was going to change eventually.

Before he had a chance to ponder that question further, another flash of Animancy flared in the corner of his eye. It originated at the apex of the perch again, and Shiv was on it in a second. Instead of using Outside Context Problem, he approached the Animancy mana in a rush of kinetic energy and extended a mess of Vitae toward it. He wasn’t sure how his Vitaemancy and Animancy would interact, but by this point, Shiv would have flung himself into a pool of Necromancy if it meant setting his entire prison ablaze.

To his surprise, he found his Vitaemancy utterly unaffected by the Animancy. More, it felt like a shallow pool to him. Waters he could navigate. He took a chance and let his Vitaemancy dig deeper through the faint blue mana, and he felt several Animated Skill Infusions pass through him at once. His breath hitched as he realized he was rooting around the inside of several Animancers.

The ones that were trying to stop him from evolving.

Shiv’s rage exploded. He infused that anger into his Vitaemancy Skill and shredded his foes apart from within. They died one after another, none knowing how they went or why. By the end, the blue mana winked out, and Shiv found himself blissfully alone again. Alone in his delve with another notification as a reward.

Initiating Encounter (4/5)

“Let’s see you assholes reach into me now—” A portion of Blackedge disappeared. A colossal entity shaped like a massive palm and dotted with countless eyes tore down Minhall Avenue leading from edge of the city to Starhawk’s Perch itself. “Motherfucker, not of you again.”

But of course it was the damned Recollector again. It hadn’t even shown up in its initial form—the shape it took possessing Confriga. Instead, it came forth like a natural disaster, and before Shiv could respond, its past selves scattered in different directions, ripping the town asunder.

Buildings were obliterated. People were vaporized. Shiv let out a cry of frustration as he spent half the force condensed by Maelstrom to accelerate himself.

This proved to be a mistake as the uncontrolled blast that exploded out from him obliterated the middle of the town and turned Starhawk’s Perch into a spray of smoke and rubble. To make matters worse and final, one of the Recollectors plunged downward and shattered the very foundations of the town.

Blackedge cracked in three parts and began to fall from the sky. Shiv’s stomach went with the collapsing town.

Encounter Failed

Resetting Delve

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

Shiv found himself falling again, and let out a growl of frustration. “Felling eldritch bullshit.”

Of all the enemies he faced, the Recollector stood among the worst. Sullain was far more powerful, but Shiv didn’t fight the Vicar alone. He had thousands of orcs helping him, and the Legendary Mage was an emotional and psychological ruin that practically helped Shiv win out of sheer foolishness.

Even now, Shiv didn’t know if he could give himself great odds against the Recollector in a direct fight. It took him, Adam, Uva, and a desperate plan with an Animancy bomb for them to win. But Shiv did have far more speed, durability, and strength than before. That, and the Recollector was connected to its past selves by a singular source of vitality as well.

“I changed my mind,” Shiv said as the first challenge triggered once more. “I think my odds are pretty good after all.”

He tore through the golem, the orc, and the Jealousy in quick succession right after. Then, before the Recollector arrived, he positioned himself in its path and spent time building up his speed, strength, but most of all his durability.

When the Recollector spawned, it noticed him immediately. A high and discordant cry lashed Shiv’s sanity as the Recollector slammed against him. The Deathless gritted his teeth as he felt the staggering might of the eldritch nightmare. His pillar groaned—it even bent a little. But it didn’t break. And soon it stopped curving as Shiv gathered even more Toughness within himself.

“How? Why not-break?” the Recollector screamed in confusion. Its scream grew higher when Shiv spent most of his condensed might and launched his pillar forward into the Recollector’s face. A kinetic tsunami drove Shiv deep into the Recollector’s flesh. As it was a kilometer large, he found himself embedded deep in its eldritch tissue. It tried to scream, but was interrupted by Shiv detonating himself inside it.

A pocket of absence expanded within the Recollector. Every last self it had lurched back in agony, and Shiv drew upon more force with his Maelstrom. Wave crashed into Shiv and peeled the inner flesh of the eldritch behemoth from its frame. With the Pillar of Orichalcum stuck inside its body, the Recollector’s couldn’t move either.

“Well,” Shiv chuckled, licking his lips as a feeling of primal triumph took hold. “Somehow, I remembered you to be a lot stronger.”

“Let go!” It screamed. It lashed against him with its power, but rather than its Chronomancy damaging his temporal shell direct, he grunted in discomfort as he felt himself take the blow with his Magical Resistance for the first time. It didn’t feel good; a bit like letting someone swing a hammer against his body. His soul felt bruised, but Recollector’s Chronomancy didn’t take hold. Not immediately.

This was how Shiv realized why most people with Magical Resistance flinched so much. It still sucked all kinds of shit to take a magical attack. It was just much more survivable, like finally wearing a layer of plate armor while someone swung a warhammer at your skull.

Before another explosion of golden mana could impact him, Shiv touched the Recollector and ripped the vitality out from its body. Lifeforce hissed out of the eldritch entity like screaming steam. One after another, its past selves flickered out of existence. It tried doing that mind-rending scream a few more times, but Shiv slammed his Maelstrom down on its head. Bits of its body were pulped as it was driven against Shiv’s pillar.

“Please… Don’t want to stop being… don’t want to…”

“No one does,” Shiv replied, wondering why the delve rendered the Recollector’s personality so well while screwing up with most of the slaves and normal people. Probably a skill and memory thing. “But you didn’t care about the little people. And I don’t much care about you. I just wish I could have ripped you apart this easily when we first faced each other. More people could have lived.”

And that was the main reason why this Delve Quest took the shape that it did. Everywhere Shiv went, people died. It wasn’t always his fault. But he was never fully enough. And someone else always paid for that.

I want that to change, Shiv thought as the Recollector faded from existence and flowed into Shiv like a fading stream. I want to be more than just a brute. A brute that can’t deal with magic easily. Who can’t control the amount of force he uses. I want power and control. And I want to bend magic as easily as I can bend bodies.

Encounter Complete (4/5)

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

Shiv felt his Magical Resistance rattle inside him. He let out a grunt of pain as it slowly began pushing its way out from his insides. “What the hells are you doing now, skill?”

He didn’t get the answer to that question as a notification appeared.

Final Encounter Initiated (5/5)

Shiv cast himself back in time as he felt his insides continue to change. He looked around, searching for his foe, but a shadow drew his attention skyward.

And there, up in the air was someone he didn’t expect to see at all.

Himself.

Hover just above the central spire of Starhawk’s Perch, Shiv saw his own clone glaring down at him. The mutilated remains of his clone’s Voidmantid armor hung from his body just like Shiv’s, barely protecting his modesty. The Deathless scoffed. “Really, system? We’re doing this shit—”

The clone spread his arms wide, and a wave of raw force exploded out from him. The top of the perch was ripped apart. The rest of structure was crushed down to the foundations.

“Alright, let’s do this,”  Shiv spat. Froze time and launched himself skywawrd—

Only to be tackled by a Vitae golem that started draining his vitality. Shiv cried out as a sudden weakness took hold of him. He grappled with the golem and tried to fling it off of him. As he pulled, a kinetic tide slammed into the back of the golem—and was countered by a kinetic tide of its own.

It has my skills too. Even the partial—

Encounter Failed

Resetting Delve

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

Shiv found himself falling again. He narrowed his eyes. “System. You’re kind of a cheap, cheating shit, you know that?”

It didn’t give him a reply.

Shiv ripped through the four challenges again and blasted up into the air to intercept his clone. This time, he had his own golem prepared beforehand and used it to intercept his clone’s Vitae Golem. As the constructs battled, Shiv eyed his other self with a slight sneer. “So. How does it feel to be a clone?”

“How does it feel to have the smaller cock?” his clone asked.

Shiv blinked. “It’s the same—” the clone vanished a burst of Chronomancy. “--size. Godsdammit.” Then, he saw a blanket of pitch, black miasma. This fucking asshole had all his skills. “Double godsdamm—”

Shiv felt his Chronomancy shudder, and he manifested his temporal shell. Time stopped, but he was still too slow to react. A jetstream of flames was left in his clone’s wake as he impacted Blackedge and unleashed all the force built up within his Maelstrom and his sheath.

A good fourth of the town was reduced to nothing but a crater. The clone launched himself back a second and repeated the act three more times. Shiv almost intercepted him by the end, but was stunned as the clone struck him with his Biomancy.

With a final resounding crack, the town shattered into piece, and the delve shuddered.

Encounter Failed

Resetting Delve

Adjusting Legendary Skill…

Shiv was falling. For a few seconds, he just let himself fall. And then, he decided to voice his frustration. “MOTHERFUC—”

Five tries followed. He tore through everyone up till his clone over and over again. Every time Shiv floated across from his evil twin, he made adjustments. He tried being aggressive—but that was useless on its own as he had no good counter from Creeping Void. The moment he lost track of his clone was when he lost.

He adjusted by focusing on tracking his clone’s lifeforce. That helped—but then the clone began jumping to different points across his past and he got to the town first again.

Shiv tried running an offense. He laid down his own Creeping Void and attempted to kill his cloned self in a split second. He adjusted to Shiv by shifting across time and destroying random parts of the town.

Defeat after defeat followed. Not once did the clone directly engage Shiv. No. He did things Shiv might while running an offense. He chucked decoy corpses. He moved in one direction, shifted across time, and then moved in another. And then there was the problem of his Maelstrom.

Shiv didn’t have a counter for that. Not enough of a counter to protect all the people in the town, or even the town itself. For too long, he had been focused on directness and brutality. But that came at a cost. What he needed to deal with someone like him was overwhelming control. Or ridiculous precision.

I’d have better odds of beating me if I was Adam instead of myself, Shiv thought.

He had good odds against Adam if he got close, but that was just the thing—Adam wouldn’t let him get close. Adam would hit him with a flood of Divination-guided Necromancy arrow from well over the horizon and that would be that unless Shiv spent the whole time fleeing.

But he’s on the offense. And I don’t have any easy way to keep him off balance. Not when I’m the one who needs to defend the town and all these lives. For once, Shiv wished he would have gotten less destructive skills. That would’ve made this destruction easier to manage.

Ten more attempts followed. Each one ended in abject failure. He just couldn’t keep himself pinned long enough. Turn eleven followed, and he didn’t even see himself. Enemy-him just smashed into Blackedge from below and blew the town apart while one of his golems lured Shiv off.

If I could just control his force too. Or grab his magic and hold him in place by having my Magical Resistance be expressed through my Maelstrom somehow.

And that thought triggered another change. Shiv let out a ragged cry as he fell from the sky. His Magical Resistance was ripped free of his insides, and it began to turn fluid. It sank into Shiv’s muscles, his bones, his skin, and even into the kinetic energy around him. At the same time, his force waves collapsed into him—and stayed there. Instead of drawing force inside him, Shiv felt a building pressure thunder deep inside.

Initializing Unconfirmed Legendary Skill Evolution: Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides