IV-3 Overwhelmed

Poor, poor Sullain. 

Every time I look upon the fool, I am reaffirmed that his life is destined for eternal tragedy. It’s not that he never got the affirmation he needed as a child from that pathetic degenerate he has for a father or the literal monster that became his mother. No. He could have almost survived that. He did muster his extraordinary understanding of magic and become a near-unmatched scholar, after all.

But then he found himself performing too well. Advancing too fast. And after the first war of the Five Faiths, the system sneered upon him as he found himself the sole survivor of cohort after cohort before they could fully fill that hole inside him. And so, Sullain, deprived of the loving family he always desired, set about making one for himself. And because he was broken and childish about what “love” is to begin with, his mistakes simply compounded from there on.

Make no mistake—it is an easy thing to learn the wrong lesson from life. Especially when you have been mistreated so. After all, just because you are capable of great intelligence does not mean you are a creature ruled and suited for logic. So often, people mistake one’s capacity for something to mean the certainty they will actually achieve it.

And most often, people do not achieve. They do not rise to the heights of their potential, rather they plunge to the depths of their inner sorrows.

Hence, when Sullain obtained Submission, he used the city to fill that gap inside himself, and the people became as if his children. He welcomed people from all faiths to his city. But while it pleased him to be so popular, Submission suffered as a comingling of incompatible and untempered cultures shattered it from within.

As such, the city was most unprepared for the system’s cruel hand, and the arrival of the illustrious Roland Arrow. Ah. Arrow. Another tragedy in the making—but one that will be sculpted by my hand… 

But this entry will be on Sullain. For he has called out to me recently, casting his missives across dimensions and worlds, telling me of developments I find ever-so-enticing.

It seems my investment in the fetuses carried by Vera Lowe and Rose Van Erren has borne fruit after all.

It is time to revisit my notes regarding “Project Deathless,” and perhaps even return home for a jaunt…

-Excerpt from Udraal Thann’s Journal

IV-3

Overwhelmed

Is it weird that I kind of enjoy being used as a club? Shiv wondered to himself as Marikos used him to brutalize the insides of the Tarrasque. The Pillar of Orichalcum was more than just a blunt weapon, however. Lodged within the Tarrasque’s skull, it functioned as an anchor, and as the behemoth struggled to move, Marikos swept Shiv’s pillar from side to side, twisting the inner flesh Tarrasque apart.

Glistening tissue fissured and released waterfalls of blood as the bulk of the Tarrasque’s body jerked back and forth. Deafening shrieks of animalistic fury come from the depths of the titanic monster’s throat. Yet, Marikos continued twirling Shiv about, turning the insides of the Tarrasque into a blender of gore and viscera.

Pillar of Orichalcum 215 > 216

It was a testament to Marikos’s impossible strength that he could wield Shiv this way. Where even the Tarrasque was pinned still by the Pillar of Orichalcum, Shiv felt light as a feather in Marikos’s hands. To the Deathless’s fascination, he never got any harder for Marikos to wield, either, remaining weightless through. If that was because of Marikos’s immense might or a more esoteric factor allowed by his skill, Shiv didn’t know, but it sure as hell felt like it was turning the entire fight around.

The Tarrasque had gone from a near-unstoppable foe to one that was getting shredded apart from within. So long as Shiv continued to focus on his Toughness that was. A few hits let his body bruised and bloodied, cracking his limbs and caving in part of his skull. Marikos had nearly stopped in concern, but Shiv shouted for him to continue on, that he could outlast the Tarrasque.

And Shiv really, really believed that.

Up until the point he recoiled off the roof of the Tarrasque’s mouth.

Cracks formed along the outside of Shiv’s pillar. A rattle of pain passed through his body as he jerked to a violent halt. Twin snaps sounded from his shoulders as they were dislocated, but the Deathless dealt with the pain in stride. But his veins filled with the cold waters of disbelief as he noticed the mended inner flesh of the Tarrasque had been replaced by a layer of hardened crystal—the same kind fused over its external shell.

“Damnable beast!” Marikos shouted as he adapted. He started jabbing Shiv at a single spot over and over, cracking the shell and using Shiv’s manifested pillar to spear through the Tarrasque’s parting flesh. Shiv felt his pillar strike something dense. It burst against his Orichalcum projection as the Tarrasque shuddered.

For a moment, he thought they had struck something fatal. Then, the Vitae suffusing the beast flared, and it let out a bellow of fury as it resurrected immediately.

“G-g-godsdammit,” Shiv snarled as he tried not to vomit from sheer dizziness. “M-M-Marikos! I n-n-need to drain its vitality. It’ll just keep resurrecting if—” His last words came out as a cry of discomfort as he felt himself get lodged tight within the wound Marikos was making. The Tarrasque’s crystalline protection had fused around Shiv’s Pillar of Orichalcum, and now, not even the dragon-knight could wrench him free.

Two thoughts passed through Shiv just then. The first was about Marikos’s Physicality Skill. The Deathless suspected that Marikos might be able to wield any weapon with contemptuous ease. But that didn’t mean he had infinite strength. That might be why Marikos could swing Shiv’s ever-implacable pillar-form about like it was a twig while still struggling to dislodge the Deathless from within the Tarrasque.

The second was a sobering suspicion that the Tarrasque’s Toughness was outpacing his by far. Soon, they weren’t going to be able to kill it with brute force.

We’re going to need a new plan.

Pathbearers and debris crashed, splattered, and broke against Shiv’s pillar. Marikos flapped his wings hard—even channeled fire through them—trying to dislodge the Deathless. As he wrestled with the pillar, Shiv felt a surge of Biomancy pass through the insides of the titanic monster, and tensed for what was to come.

Massive tentacles burst out from the creature’s crystallized insides. They unleashed torrents of mana at Shiv from all directions. The insides of the Tarrasque’s body ignited in a plethora of colors as a flood of spells accelerated to crash against the Orichalcum column lodged in its depths. Shiv’s eyes widened as he saw beams of Psychomancy and Dimensional rush toward him. His pillar might protect him from some of the more direct damage spells, but even then, he wouldn’t survive having all the water ripped out from inside him or having his synapses fired.

“Marikos!” Shiv cried out.

But his terror was unnecessary, for the Soaring Fortress released Shiv and shot into the air. He circled the space around Shiv with his obsidian shield held high, and the flood of raw magic unleashed by the Tarrasque shattered against the blurring dragon. Shiv felt his breath catch in his throat as he watched the dragon crashed through the dense concentrations of mana. It was like watching someone break a series of flowing rivers in half. Curving furls of mana folded over the dragon-knight’s shield, but Marikos emerged unscratched.

As he performed another revolution around Shiv, his shield began to shudder as a variety of colors erupted out from it. A wave of mixed mana hammered the insides of the Tarrasque and boiled through the crystal shell. The Tarrasque’s Magical Resistance flashed and cracked, overwhelmed by its own power.

Shiv saw muted daylight seep through the Tarrasque’s parting flesh for a flash. For a beat, he thought the beast was going to come apart.

But then its Magical Resistance hardened as well. Veins of mana thickened beneath the regenerating crystalline shell lining the creature’s insides. Streams of mana crashed against its body, and streams of mana were reabsorbed. The crystalline structure layered over the Tarrasque’s flesh brightened, but Marikos was finished with channeling the magic back at the world-ending monster.

When he returned to Shiv and started pulling at the Orichalcum tower again, the Deathless noticed he wasn’t even breathing heavy, despite the chaos that just unfolded.

“Just a moment, dear friend,” Marikos shouted aloud, drowning out the surrounding carnage with his voice. “I will see you liberated in—” The dragon-knight’s voice broke off with a shout of pain as something burst through his upper chest. Thin tendrils of black lightning wriggled through Marikos’s armor like it wasn’t there, and Shiv responded instinctively. He tried to freeze time—considered going out of context. It didn’t work. His temporal shell was broken, and his body was still near empty of vitality. If he tried to sink into his Vitae, he might fizzle out of existence. 

Shiv found himself weakening his Toughness, trying to get free, desperate to aid the dragon-knight—

Something impacted his Pillar of Orichalcum so hard it shattered altogether. Shiv groaned as the column of reddish-gold protecting him burst into dissolving motes. His sternum broke and folded inward. A few of his ribs were driven through his flank. A searing line of pain opened along Shiv’s insides. The many brutal beatings he’d taken over the past month or so told him that he had a ruptured liver. More spikes of pain passed through his flesh as what felt like vibrating hooks burrowed into him.

Fury exploded inside Shiv. He poured it into his Inertial Overdrive as he tried to get his bearings, increasing his Reflexes to figure out where that bastard Stormhalt was. The Deathless’s focus promptly shattered as a savage yank tore all the vibrating hooks out of his body thereafter. A howl of suffering escaped him as he felt wounds open across his flesh and within his soul.

“Godsdamned Ascendants Animancy—” Shiv’s rage-infused gibberish died on his lips as Stormhalt passed over him, screaming at the top of his lungs. Instead of being some kind of scheming backstabber, the City-Lord sounded utterly terrified. The Deathless began to fall from the air, and he noticed that the Tarrasque’s crystal-flesh had fused shut around Stormhalt’s tree of midnight-black lightning.

Where Master-Avatar Havel Stormhalt hovered high in the Tarrasque’s jaws and was actively shredding the inner flesh of the beast apart, now he dangled like a marionette from the tree of lightning, swinging from place to place as the Tarrasque battered him with its tentacles.

Forking bolts of dark energy lashed out from Stormhalt as he pulled at everything around him, trying to avoid the Tarrasque’s whipping tentacles. “Ascendantssss! Aid meee! AIIIIDDD MMEEEEE!”

But Shiv could see the Ascendants were doing their best. The ethereal form of a large storm-made man hovered over Stormhalt’s shoulders, warding off the Tarrasque’s brutal onslaught with a shield that pulsed with blasts of thunder. Without him, Stormhalt would have been diced down to mincemeat. Meanwhile, the City-Lord was trying to pull himself away using cords of lightning spilling forth from his fingers. Lightning that was unfortunately connected to Marikos.

Shiv fought through his feeling of weakness and flung himself at Marikos. He slammed against the backside of the dragon. This caused his legs and hips to fracture as his post-pillar fragility came into effect.

“Motherfuc—” Shiv tried to reach out and grab a crack in Marikos’s armor but remembered his arms were dislocated. So, with little choice, he bit down around the crack and held on with his jaws instead. 

It was around this point that Shiv also realized he had no felling idea about how he was going to deal with the Tarrasque. He didn’t even know how he was going to help Marikos right now. Without the Pillar of Orichalcum stilling the Tarrasque, it was starting to thrash about again, and the mouth-walls slammed against the dragon-knight, Shiv, and Stormhalt over and over.

Stars exploded behind Shiv’s eyes with each blow. His teeth broke apart, forcing him to bite down with his gums. He tried focusing his Biomancy to assimilate his wounds, but the many wounds marring his soul nearly made him vomit from the sheer pain radiating through him.

Gods, everything has gone to shit.

Pillar of Orichalcum 216 > 217

The Challenger is watching with undivided attention.

The Deathless rolled his eyes. Yeah. Great. That’s just what I need. A giant orc asshole’s emotional support.

Just then, Stormhalt slammed down beside Shiv. The City-Lord's armor was battered and dented. His nose was broken, his helmet was missing, and his gaze was unfocused—like he had a concussion. Drifting close behind him in the air was the frowning storm-giant Ascendant and Kathereine, who winced every time everyone inside the Tarrasque impacted one of the walls.

“So,” Kathereine said, smacking her lips together as she stared at Shiv. “Was getting battered to death inside a Tarrasque part of your plan while you distracted us? Because as far as plans go, this was kind of suicidal.”

“It was you or it, lady,” Shiv tried to say with his broken mouth still wrapped around Marikos’s armor. The sounds he made were far less intelligible.

Despite this, Kathereine understood him. She frowned slightly. “Really? You picked the Tarrasque over me.”

“It’s just trying to kill me. You were talking about slavery. Of course, I picked the felling Tarrasque.” Shiv slammed back-first against a crystalline wall, and Marikos slammed against him. Pieces of the Deathless’s ribs were launched out from his body. He ignored the pain and continued making angry mouth-noises at Kathereine. “I’ll still pick this thing, even it felling kills me.”

Kathereine pressed her lips together, amused. “But you don’t even know what it’s like to serve me. How do you know you won’t like it?”

“I’m already seeing someone,” Shiv hissed.

“Oh. Already? Isn’t young love delicious. Don’t worry, your sweetheart can come with you. But I fear after a conversation…” Kathereine licked her lips and her gaze took on a predatory quality. “...They’ll be my sweetheart instead.”

Shiv’s jaw nearly fell open. There was something surreal about an enemy Ascendant threatening to attack his love-life while he was getting battered to death inside a Tarrasque, but here he was.

System, for fuck’s sake, just let me suffer strife. Not whatever the hell this is.

As if to grant his wish, the Tarrasque’s insides rumbled and a hissing sound followed. Shiv looked past Marikos’s body—and saw a tidal wave of corrosive bile coming for them. A corrosive tidal wave that still had the half-melted bodies of Marikos’s fellow dragon-knights poking out from its surface.

Godsdammit system, I felling hate you so much.

“Brace!” Marikos cried out, holding his shield up. By this point, Stormhalt twirled around, and his body went stiff. And unfortunate Pathbearer fell past them and splashed into the tsunami of oncoming stomach-acid. Her scream was cut off as she dissolved in an instant. “Brace!”

The City-Lord began loudly praying to the Ascendants. The huge storm-powered Ascendant slammed his shield over Stormhalt. Kathereine just shook her head at the City-Lord and chuckled. “Not quite so easy as you expected, eh, Havel?”

Shiv just sighed. He had a feeling this was probably going to kill him one way or another. As far as deaths went, he wasn’t looking forward to this one. But he decided to perform a final struggle for the hell of it.

Once more, his Pillar of Orichalcum formed, and Shiv dedicated everything to his Toughness. The wall of acid impacted Marikos and broke around him. It then crashed against Stormhalt and rebounded from his body in a blast of concussive force. 

A waterfall of bile impacted Shiv next. It wasn't just the acid that assailed his barrier of Orichalcum, it was also the sheer surging force of the fetid fluid. Shiv gritted his teeth and willed himself to become even tougher. The red gold aura around him solidified, and the pillar fully formed once more. Just then he heard Stormhalt cry out as the sickening sound of breaking flesh followed.

Then there was light, the light of day, the canvas of a war-battered sky, devoid of clouds and choked with rising columns of smoke. A dense jelly-like substance poured out from various wounds lining the atmosphere. The beginnings of mana-storms were spilling out, condensing high above. Pathbearers, debris, and the partially dissolved corpses of fallen dragon knights left the Tarrasque in a cataclysmic blast of vomit.

Just then a huge shape fell from the air, crashing down beside Shiv. As his eyes descended, he found he was merely a hundred meters above the ground, above a massive sprawl of rubble that stretched from horizon to horizon. He realized this used to be Lost Angeles. The ancient ruins were no more. Now all was dust and detritus, dust, detritus, and corpses. 

Laying atop that carpet of devastation was the groaning body of Legend Jessica Hawgrave. Blood seeped out from the many rents lining her Inertium armor, and she wasn't the only one wounded. Her sword, Rusty, spilled Dimensionality mana out from the chips lining its edges. They both looked like they had been put through hell on the outside while Shiv and the others were getting smashed apart within.

And right then, a crash of thunder drew Shiv's attention upward. He saw City-Lord Stormhalt rise higher into the air, the black tree of lightning sprouting from his body was larger and more expansive than ever.

"Contemptible creature!" The City-Lord choked out, trying not to gag. The insides of the Tarrasque reeked of something worse than death. "I will make you, make you…”

He couldn't quite finish his words as the Tarrasque began to chuckle. And once more, Shiv grimaced as he realized just how uncannily it sounded like him. Godsdamn it, Sullain, why did you have to give it my face too?

Rather than attacking, the Tarrasque simply opened and closed its fists, looking at the survivors, what few of them there were left. There came a flap of wings behind Shiv, and he suddenly felt himself get wrenched free from the air. Sir Marikos had him once more.

"Legend Hawgrave, Legend Hawgrave, get up!" the dragon-knight shouted, "Now is no time for slumber, the enemy still stands."

Hawgrave let out a girlish squeak of pain. "I'm not sleeping," she shot back with a groan, "I'm just trying to put all the broken pieces of my ass together." And a loud click, sounding from her pelvic region, told Shiv she might not be lying at all. Hawgrave moaned as she muttered something to her sword.

Rusty gave a low droning sound, and she pulled out a large bottle filled with fluid fire—the same potion she used on Shiv earlier.

A loud crackle echoed nearby. A few stray spells impacted the Tarrasque, but rather than breaking against its crystalline shell, they slid off. It was like the Tarrasque now had a frictionless vector that worked specifically against mana.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Shiv breathed. Not only was this thing getting resistant to physical attacks, it was getting resistant to magical attacks as well. What did they have left? Shiv reached for his Psycho-Cartography in desperation, but the skill responded with almost conscious levels of exasperation.

Psycho-Cartography: what do you want from me? That isn't a person, that's a misplaced force of nature, given four legs, two hands and your face by an emotionally broken legend. This thing is an ontological asshole, and it desires to shit on you. Trying to talk at it will just end with your mouth metaphorically filled with shit.

As Shiv took in the skill’s narration, another sigh escaped him. "What the hells is my life," he muttered to himself, but then there came a flicker of excitement, and almost unwillingly a smile pulled his lips apart. This was his life, the life of a Pathbearer. It was unreasonable, sometimes it was downright stupid, but he was here, and he was living it, right down to the bone.

Slowly, Hawgrave rose once again with a stifled whimper. She angled her sword high, but he had caught sight of her face as cracked pieces of her helmet fell away. Her features were ashen and grim. She was no longer a relaxed, carefree woman, casually beating Shiv with casual flicks of her hand. Now she was a Legend in a fight for her life, a fight against an overwhelming foe.

And overwhelming force that seemed content to let them gather themselves and get up.

The Tarrasque, strangely, was chivalrous enough to let everyone recover, or maybe it was simply cruelty. Yes, that was it, cruelty. Shiv read the savage emotion in the creature's eyes, eyes like his. It licked its lips, and its broken teeth fell away as new hulking wedges of jagged enamel replaced them.

A few more stray spells skipped off the Tarrasque's hide. Its tentacles burst out from inside its body, and they began firing in different directions at once. Plumes of flame erupted in the distance, pounding spherical pockets into the already devastated cityscape. And soon there were no more magi, casting feeble spells at the Tarrasque. There was no one but Shiv, Marikos, Hawgrave, and Stormhalt in this section of the city.

The Deathless looked around, but he couldn't find the chasm. He couldn't make head or tails of where he was exactly, but he did know one thing. His objective was close at hand.

"Hawgrave," he hissed, "Hawgrave."

She looked at him. Shiv decided to press his luck. "Look, I have a quest, and that quest will let me pick a Legendary Skill if you release Blackedge."

Hawgrave immediately snorted as a disbelieving laugh escaped from her. “Yeah. Cute. But piss off, kid.”

"I'm serious," Shiv said.

"Really?" Shiv said, through a faint tremor of giggles, "Really, you're going to try this with me now?"

"For fuck's sake, Hawgrave," Shiv said, his anger and frustration reaching a boiling point. "I'm trying to make myself more useful here. Just release the town. Move it somewhere safe. Or something."

"Somewhere safe?" she shot back.

A low rumble of delight escaped from the Tarrasque, and it was more than happy to watch them argue, at least for a while. It noticed something else in its eyes, however, a growing hint of intelligence. Its white and red orbs flicked between everyone present, and it eventually settled on Stormhalt. The City-Lord flinched back, but his hands clenched tighter around the pitch-black mace he wielded. 

Strings of lightning impacted the Tarrasque's body, yet unlike with Shiv or Marikos, it cracked through its shell but got stuck there. A thundering blast detonated along the Tarrasque's exterior, but it lazily stomped forth, utterly indifferent to the Ascendant's powers.

"By the power of the Endbreaker, I strike you down!" An ethereal silhouette of a large, storm-made figure thrust his spear high behind Stormhalt, and the lightning surging out from the city lord's fingers grew ever darker. Yet, as they carved bloody grooves through the Tarrasque, it gave a very Shiv-like scoff and rolled its eyes. "One… out of ten."

"Oh shit," Shiv said. It didn't just look like him, it was starting to act like him, too.

Slowly, Marikos leaned toward Shiv. "Friend Shiv, I mean no offense when I ask this, but have you, perchance, had relations with a Tarrasque any time in your past?"

Shiv opened his mouth, but only a choked sound came out. Of all the things he expected Marikos to ask him, that was not one of them. "No," he managed. He saw that Jessica was looking at him from the corner of her eyes, too. "No, I don't even think that works. I mean, I don't know anything about Tarrasques. No, Sullen grew that thing, as apparently he was preparing a Tarrasque specifically so it could fight you."

Marikos paused and considered that. Then he nodded like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Yes, that makes sense. I, too, would prepare a Tarrasque to ward off someone as capable as I. It is simply the wisest strategy." For anyone else, that statement might have been arrogant. For Sir Legend Marikos, the Fortress that Soars, it was kind of like saying the sky was vast.

"Hawgrave," Shiv tried, calling out again. "I'm not bullshitting you. If you let the city go…"

"And where am I supposed to let that go?" Hawgrave snapped back, her own patience fraying. "Look, even if I do believe you, what am I supposed to do right now, kid? There is no safe place. That's a Tarrasque, and it won't die. I could drop the town anywhere, and the Tarrasque would rip it apart in a second. We need to put it down. That’s our only option.”

"Death—is nutrition," the Tarrasque said, picking what looked to be a still-living orc stuck between its teeth. The small gray body launched a final bolt of Dynamancy into the Tarrasque’s left eye, and the monster grumbled as it crushed him between its fingers.

"Hey, Marikos," Hawgrave managed. "Are, uh, are any of the other Faiths following you guys?"

"Following us?" Marikos asked, slightly confused.

"You know, coming up through the chasm, preparing to ambush us? Other Legends from other faiths.”

"Ah, yes, that." The dragon-knight gave a venomous snort. "The feeble milk sops representing us at the assembly failed to reach a conclusion regarding how severe our response should be, or whether there should be a response at all."

"What?" Shiv gawked. "Sullain's out here trying to start a war, and you guys couldn't come to a conclusion?"

"That was my response too," Marikos barked with dismay. "Now you understand my disgust for the bureaucrats, lawyers, and…" The dragon-knight gave a growl. "Politicians that plague the Abyss. A pox upon them, for they are a pox upon us."

"But Sullain was about to start a war," Shiv repeated, incredulous.

"Indeed," Marikos replied with a weary sigh. "But the First Blood was intent on demanding restitutions from the Composer and her representatives before the Elders would ever intervene. Likewise, the Necrotech curs refused to recognize our holdings at Vivenyard. And Compact was serving everyone these long papers we all refused to read. Sir Alyssea nearly got into a fight with one of the Lords of Law, which caused further delays for us as well. In the end, I grew so disgusted that I gathered a few worthy lances and left of my own accord.”

Shiv blinked, but Hawgrave just nodded off by the side. Her colossal head bobbed as a tired expression was etched on her face. "Yeah, sounds like politics is the same just about anywhere it happens." She hesitated for a moment, and let out a quiet breath. "So yeah, there's probably no one coming after us, either. We're, uh, on our own." She shot the dragon-knight a look. "Well, we were on our own. Now… I guess we can face this bastard down together.”

"Oh, now we're together," Shiv growled out. "I'm sorry, but weren't we together before you flicked me at the Tarrasque earlier?"

Hawgrave winced with shame. "Yeah, look, listen, sometimes as a Legend, since you live long enough, you miscalculate."

"Miscalculate," Shiv seethed. "That wasn't a miscalculation. That was you being a—being a bastard woman. You're a bastard woman, Hawgrave. An utter bastard woman who does bastard things.”

"Bastard woman," the Tarrasque said, running a long tongue across its teeth.

"Look, we can't really change any of that, so I say we stick together and-"

"Face me, vermin!" Stormhalt snarled. He shot through the air, and the lightning connecting him to the sky boomed with power.

"City-Lord!" Hawgrave choked out. "God damn it, shit, he just went right in!"

A sphere of lightning erupted from Stormhalt's hand, and it lashed across the distance. The Tarrasque responded by placing its two hands against the ground, and it wiggled slightly, resembling a large dog for a moment. Then it vanished. Shiv couldn't keep track of its movements. His gut plunged as the Tarrasque rematerialized right next to Stormhalt.

"Flick," it said, remembering what Shiv heard earlier. And then it did, just that. It swung the flat of its hand against Storm Halt's body. The world shook and shuddered. The surface of reality resembled a pool struck by a falling boulder. 

A screen of displaced force swept over Shiv, Hawgrave, and Marikos. The dragon-knight held up his shield and Hawgrave was driven back, only to twirl on her feet and angle her torso behind the dragon. She briefly shrank, becoming the size of an insect as she vanished between the cracks lining Marikos's armor.

Just then, Shiv also noticed how Marikos wasn't bleeding anymore. There was a large hole where Stormholt's lightning ran him through, but now it was missing. There was not even a trace of blood left over. The Deathless blinked. What kind of Toughness skill is that?

His momentary distraction broke as Stormhalt was launched across the horizon. A burst of force cracked the ground and the City-Lord revealed he was still alive, as a pulsing wave of thunder kept him from the worst of the harm. Even so, he couldn't countermand the Tarrasque's overwhelming might. The lightning tree he was connected to snapped as well, breaking at the base. 

As it shattered, the ethereal form of one of the Ascendants vanished altogether. Katherine lingered for a moment longer, glaring down at the Tarrasque. It turned its red and white eyes on Marikos and Shiv. But just then, the Songbringer let out a pitched shriek. It was a piercing shriek, a melodic shriek. It was a shriek Shiv would give anything to hear. And it was a shriek that briefly left the Tarrasque stunned. Its eyes rolled, its tongue lolled out. It resembled a large hound now more than ever. And slowly, Katherine began to fade. She turned and gave Shiv a final wink.

"See you soon, precious."

And as she vanished, a shudder of cold terror passed through him. I must never, never let that woman get her hands on me, Shiv resolved mentally.

"Have at you!" Marikos cried out. His wings came ablaze with pyromancy, and he tore across the air. He dragged Shiv's pillar of Orichalcum across the ground. And the already devastated landscape parted in twain. Two streams of rubble exploded in opposite directions as Shiv found himself swung upward. 

The top of the pillar connected with the Tarrasque's skull. A resounding crash echoed from the huge beast's head. It reared back slightly, but its crystalline shell suffered no damage at all. Marikos pivoted. He twisted his body the other way, using the recoil to his advantage. He didn't lose any momentum at all as he brought Shiv down atop the Tarrasque's head. The beast tilted and still failed to respond. Whatever Kathereine did to it, it had it stunned for an extended duration.

Holy hells, Shiv thought to himself. I really do need to increase my social skills. What did she do to this poor, broken thing.

And suddenly, Hawgrave reappeared, her body swelling to the size of a small mountain, and then even larger as she dropped down from the skies above. Shiv didn't even know when she left them. The last time he saw her, she was hiding in a crack along Marikos's armor. Now, she brought Rusty down against the top side of the Tarrasque. 

Her blade glittered, but not with dimensionality. Instead, it simply shone with a pale light that became a perfect reflection of the world around it. Shiv caught sight of himself, of his body encased in the red-gold amber of his pillar. He also saw Marikos, his face bared back in a snarl. His wings ablaze, his armor flaking away from his draconic form. Hawgrave thrust down. Marikos swung Shiv upward.

The resulting collision had three parts. Marikos and Shiv were the hammer. The Tarrasque was the victim, and Hawgrave became the nail. The top side of the Tarrasque's body burst asunder. Black blood erupted from its back, raining down like a volcanic eruption. Only then did the Tarrasque react, its eyes blinking. It drew in a long, shuddering gasp, but went still as Hawgrave slammed her elbow down upon the hilt of her blade. 

Rusty gave a bellow of his own as he surged, and with a final flash, he punched clean through the Tarrasque, ripping its body asunder. It dropped lifelessly from the air, and Shiv let out a laugh of wonderment. 

They managed to disable it! Now all he needed to do was get against the Tarrasque and—

The Tarrasque let out a loud laugh as its eyes swiveled back in place. It opened its mouth, and it showed Shiv something. A large pulsating organ was fused to its tongue. The Deathless was flabbergasted. Did the Tarrasque just pull a vampire heart-moving trick on them?

“Bastard—woman!”

It reached up and seized Hawgrave by the leg. She let out a yelp, and the flaming wheels manifested beneath her feet. But as she tried to fly upward, the Tarrasque held her tight. Beams of magic impacted her armor and bounced off, but they still managed to stun her briefly. Briefly enough for the Tarrasque to get another hand around her other leg, and it swung her at the same time Sir Marikos swept Shiv forth. 

The Deathless cried out, trying to get Marikos to pull away, but the Tarrasque was faster than them, and it used Hawgrave as a club of its own. She collided against Shiv's pillar, and it was then that Shiv discovered he wasn't quite tough enough to contend with both a Tarrasque's overwhelming might and the body of a True Legend. 

Shiv's pillar snapped. His spine followed suit.

Pillar of Orichalcum 217 > 218

A chortle of pain came from the Deathless as the back of his head slammed against the top of his asscrack. To the merit of Shiv's Heroic-Tier Toughness Skill, however, Hawgrave let out a cry as well, and he was pretty sure her collarbone broke from the impact. Shiv, Marikos was called out, but he was promptly interrupted as he was swatted through the air by Hawgrave's enormous body. 

But that blow woke the surfacer Legend from her stupor, and she gave a vicious howl. She shrank, becoming impossibly small. In an instant, both she and her blade vanished, and the Tarrasque stumbled forward, off balance. A moment later, Hawgrave reappeared right behind him, and she hooked her hand along his hind legs as she tucked herself into a roll. The Tarrasque was wrenched off its feet and slammed down on its back. Hawgrave crashed hard atop its body, maintaining side control as Shiv caught sight of a flashing piece of metal in her hands. Rusty had shrunk to the size of a knife, and she was currently using her blade to gouge the Tarrasque's body apart.

"It's in his mouth!" Shiv choked as he fell from the air. A tentacle extended out from the side of the Tarrasque, and a beam struck Shiv dead on the head. Death came to him instantly, but more pain soon followed. A lance of spearing Psychomancy carved a screaming absence into his mind, and it only stopped when Marikos returned, holding his shield to bear. The Dragon Knight's voice droned on, sounding like a muffled cry underwater as he called for Shiv to get up.

Godsdamned magical bullshit—

Pillar of Orichalcum 218 > 220

Gravitic Wrestler 171 > 172

Vitaemancy 84 > 86

Vitality Drain 70 > 74

Outside Context Problem 71 > 76

Then there came a crushing pressure. Shiv found himself pried free from where he existed. There was but a sliver of him left, a single string of vitae, and a few meters above them, the Tarrasque re-materialized from a pocket of spilling static black. It descended with its fists reared back, and it brought them down to deliver a final blow upon both the dragon-knight and Shiv. 

Marikos swept his shield up, and though the Tarrasque was overwhelmingly powerful, though it was many times the Dragon Knight's size, when its fists met Marikos's shield, the Dragon Knight barely even budged. Every bit of force Marikos suffered was absorbed into the shield and was promptly unleashed back at the Tarrasque in an explosive cone. The titanic beast let out a desperate cry as it was flung through the air.

Shiv failed to keep track of it, but it jerked to a violent halt as Hawgrave swung her blade downward, trying to split it in half. She managed to embed the edge of Rusty against the backside of the Tarrasque, but a fourth of its body. Her titanic blade got stuck and the Tarrasque slammed both its hands together. 

Waves of cascading gravitational force ripped everyone away from where they stood. Hawgrave shrank once more, but the Tarrasque ripped itself free from her blade with a little bit of help from one of its Biomancy-infused tentacles. It swung its hand out wide, and the pocket of force burst against its arm. 

Shiv triggered his Farsight skill, and he saw Hawgrave sail further and further into the horizon. Much like Stormhalt earlier, she was in her human form now, a bit smaller than Shiv at baseline. And considering how limp she was, Shiv suspected she was unconscious. 

Less than a few hours ago, she utterly demolished Shiv using only her fingers. But before the Tarrasque, even a Legend was helpless.

“Fuck,” Shiv whispered to himself.

The Tarrasque eyed Marikos briefly, but then it growled something that made Shiv's heart stop. "Destroy Blackedge. Kill Roland Arrow."

The final orders delivered to the Tarrasque by Sullain were still in play, and its body was drenched in Dimensionality mana as it tore free and began pouring itself into Hawgrave's blade. 

Rusty gave out a metallic cry, and Shiv began draining vitality from the world in response. Just then, he thought to practice what he saw Sullain do earlier. How was he doing that? How did he draw so much vitality away from me? He was using the world somehow. So how does it work? Godsdammit, system, you never give me enough time to—

The Tarrasque's form shrank as it cast itself into the blade in an injection of mana. Shiv halted time, only for his temporal shell to shatter as a wave of golden mana tore through him. A radiating gasp of disbelief escaped Shiv. Through the chaos, he failed to notice Marikos's temporal wardings, and what incredible wardings they were. 

Of course, he had to find out the worst way possible at the worst time possible. He didn't have time to emulate whatever Sullain was doing earlier. They needed to get in, to rip the Tarrasque out of that sword before it got to Blackedge. Without any better options, Shiv wrapped himself around the dragon-knight’s arm.

"Marikos!" Shiv cried out with a burst of Psychomancy. Using the badly frayed Magical Skill had been a mistake. The projection of mind mana barely left him before it burst apart into a spray of nothingness. Shiv's Vitae form curled in on itself as he doubled over in pain.

"Where now?" Marikos cried, briefly eyeing Shiv with a look of surprise. "I am. I will hunt and seek our adversary. Uh, Hero Shiv? Or… string-things that resided inside you? Are—are you the actual Hero Shiv? Never mind. Our quarry is away, and we must follow."

And then Marikos questioned no more as he dove through the air, reaching for the Tarrasque's hind legs. But the behemoth was impossibly fast, and with a final burst of static it vanished. Marikos clawed nothing but open air, and a feeling of near despair spread through Shiv. Then Hawgrave's blade flared with its own Dimensionality mana, and it cast out a stream of magic, swallowing both Shiv and the Legendary Knight. 

A moment later, they were falling, dragged through a tight tunnel that pulled them into a pocket dimension.

As they re-emerged, Shiv resurrected, having sapped a bit of vitality from Marikos. He intended to apologize as soon as he came back from the dead, but if the Legend noticed, he didn't show it. A new dimension came into form around them, but it was ultimately little more than space comprised of black static. 

Shiv immediately activated his Pillar of Orichalcum, and Marikos let out a cough of surprise as he noticed Shiv's restored form clinging to his shoulder. He reached up and grabbed Shiv’s Pillar of Orichalcum as they sped through the black expanse. Shiv tried to look around, but soon his Toughness exceeded his strength, and he found himself only capable of staring on forward. He didn't know where the Tarrasque was—

“Above!” Came a deafening bellow. Rusty's voice barely saved him and Marikos. The Dragon Knight swung his shield upward, stopping the Tarrasque dead. The world-ending monster reached over Marikos's shield, but the Dragon Knight struck at the Tarrasque's wrist using Shiv. The pillar rattled the Tarrasque's joints, and though it didn't sustain any visible damage, the force of the blow still knocked its grasping hands aside. 

Just then, the pressure vanished, and Shiv realized they were still in transit a few moments ago, not fully in the dimension itself.

Marikos swung Shiv left to right, slamming him into the Tarrasque's head, face, body, and legs. "By my honor as a Pathbearer!" Marikos cried out, "By my deeds as a knight, I will send you back to the pit that spawned you. I will break you here with fire in heart and friend-club in hand."

A surge of Pyromancy flowed over Shiv, and now Marikos began to beat on the Tarrasque, using both might and magic at once. This proved to be a winning combination. As Shiv impacted the Tarrasque now, he started cracking its body. Something about Marikos' flames, impossibly hot that they were, weakened the Tarrasque's external shell, shattered its Magical Resistance, and did something to its crystalline exterior. 

It did something bad enough that Shiv cracked the Tarrasque more with every subsequent hit. Marikos was swinging harder now, faster. Shiv closed his eyes and swallowed back mouthfuls of vomit. It took a lot to make him nauseous, but the dragon-knight achieved it with little effort. Shiv activated the Song of the Vigilant, maintaining his focus not for spellcasting, but to keep getting tougher.

Even so, the arms race between the Tarrasque's body and Shiv's Heroic Tier skill was a hopeless one. As the Tarrasque cracked, it healed, and as Marikos swung Shiv harder and harder, the Pillar of Orichalcum began to sustain damage, and Shiv himself thereafter. The soul-wounds inflicted earlier by Stormhalt's lightning burst wept with free-flowing blood. 

Part of Shiv's shoulder cracked, and then he felt one of his lungs deflate after a particularly heavy impact. Marikos let out a deafening bellow as he dropped Shiv down, intending to drive the Deathless through the Tarrasque's eye. But massive hands clamped around Shiv, hands infused with the power of gravity. Shiv stopped dead. Marikos gave a cry of exertion, but his might was nothing before the Tarrasque's. Still, Shiv saw a beam of fire pressing against the Tarrasque's eye, blasting into it. But when the haze cleared and the smoke parted, the Tarrasque was glaring at them with a large toothy smile on its face. It let out a chuckle, and it twisted its hands in opposite directions. Shiv's skill cracked, and part of Shiv's skull shattered as a wave of gravitational force flowed through his Orichalcum, slamming into his body. He let out an agonized shout, and he heard Marikos call his name.

The dragon-knight released Shiv then, and he held up both hands. A ball of spreading fire materialized then. It was an overwhelmingly powerful sphere of Pyromancy, bright enough that its very presence consumed the world in light, and hot enough that Shiv felt his flesh char even within the pillar.

The Tarrasque prepared to unleash its Magical Resistance once more as it discharged, but Marikos still had one more trick up his sleeve. He slammed his foot against Shiv's pillar, and he drove Shiv into the Tarrasque's eye as soon as it released the Deathless. The behemoth let out a cry of surprised pain, and Marikos flung, channeled a beam of magic directly into the Tarrasque's body.

"Burn now, creature of day!" Marikos cried, his voice resounding with power. "Burn and learn to fear the light as we do!"

And the Tarrasque's magical resistance detonated, but it failed to get through Marikos's stream of power. The Dragonite let out a cry of pain, and Shiv realized he was shredding his own magical field to sustain this effort. One glorious spell from a legendary tier pyromancer. Then, as the last trickles of flame left Marikos's hand, he clasped his claws together and he wrenched his arms apart. 

Shiv caught sight of the Tarrasque. It was burning. Its outer shell was melting away. And then there came a detonation of fire. A blast that was brighter than anything Shiv had ever experienced before. But as the blast centered on the Tarrasque, it collapsed around the massive creature, consuming it entirely. Parts of its body dissolved, becoming faint particulates in the dark. Yet even through all that blinding carnage, Shiv could still see the Tarrasque's eyes run red, one white, affixed on him. No, not on him. They were looking past him for some reason.

Looking, the Tarrasque unleashed a pulse of gravity, trying to move forward. Marikos shuddered in disbelief. He tried to cast another spell, but curled in on himself in pain as the full tax of mana strain finally hit him. The magical fire burst away from the Tarrasque, along with chunks of its body. Shiv felt his Pillar of Orichalcum hold, but only briefly. 

Finally, it was too much for him as well. He shattered, and the only reason he survived was because of his escalating Toughness. He was launched like a pebble across the horizon now—he and Marikos both. Shiv twisted through the air several times, and things whirled around him.

Pillar of Orichalcum 220 > 221

All was black and static, the color of Dimensionality mana, and he couldn't differentiate up from down until he finally caught sight of something. It looked like a brief flash of color. Shiv tumbled several more times, and there came a flash of blue in his vision. Was he accelerating toward a lake of some kind?

His question was answered a moment later as he impacted a dense shroud of water. He plunged through, his speed going fast enough that the surrounding liquid turned to steam. As he shot out the other side, he struck a second layer of water, but then he inhaled, finding himself breathing in oxygen. 

Shiv was confused. For a moment, he thought he was concussed and suffering from brain damage right now. That might be the case. But just then, he noticed a few hovering wings curl around him. Vector-wings. Shiv wanted to say, but only a pained wheeze escaped from him. Something was wrong with his left eye, and his right was nearly swollen shut as well. He struggled to hold himself up, but ended up collapsing backward. 

More hands caught him. Uva's face came into his field of view. Shiv tried to grin, but his face refused to comply. He let out another slight wheeze as she took stock of his injuries. A brief expression of horror escaped her, and Shiv knew he must have been broken something bad. She didn't usually give things away like that in the heat of battle.

As Shiv lay on the ground, he was faintly aware of several other people around him. One of whom was a particular orc sprouting a pair of spectacles.

"Your armor's destroyed, I see," Helix said with a sneer.

"Fuck the armor," Shiv croaked out. "I'm destroyed." He took in everyone's faces, read their concern, and strangely, he felt like a very lucky man. "I came to save you guys, by the way."

Adam offered him a look of utter astonishment. And then came a roar. The roar of a creature that just wouldn't felling die. Shiv gagged as a flood of Biomancy flowed through his flesh. His bones began to reconnect. His torn sinews reknit. Shiv’s ripped skin came back together, and his organs felt reinflated. Slowly, Shiv felt his left eye get dragged into place, and a blurred splotch occupied part of his vision for a time.

"Help me up," Shiv managed. "Felling thing won't stay dead."

Shiv extended a hand, and Adam let out a grunt, pulling Shiv up. Uva hooked her arm under Shiv's body, and she heaved upward as well, her form turning into the shape of a lever to help him stand up quicker.

"What in the bloody hells?" another voice commented off to the side. Shiv blinked. He slowly turned and noticed Georges was there.

"Georges?" Shiv said. The chef stared at him and offered him a tired expression as he drew in another lungful of his cigarette. "So, how's it looking out there?"

Shiv knew Georges well enough to know when the man was nervous, and right now Georges was as terrified as Shiv had ever seen him. Even so, that didn't stop the head chef of the swan-eating toad from making light of things.

"Not too good, chef," Shiv replied, clutching his ribs. "It's a bit worse than the seafood night with the allergic town guard from four years back."

Georges did a double take at that. He shook his head and violently coughed. "Good felling fuck. We're probably buggered then."

"Maybe," Shiv replied. Another bit of his skull snapped back into place. "But I intend to make a bloody fight of this." Shiv and the closest thing he ever had to a proper father shared a look. Terror, pride, hope, and more were exchanged between them. No words needed to be spoken.

"Well, off you go then," Georges said, trying to keep himself sounding nonchalant. "Just try not to fuck it up."

"Yes, chef," Shiv said.

Another roar came from the distance, and just then Starhawk's perch began to shiver and groan. Shiv felt faint waves of gravity pry at the structure, and he activated his Farsight just as both of his eyes were healed.

In the vast distance, the Tarrasque clawed its way toward them. It was slightly dimmer than before. Had it died earlier? Had Marikos's magic killed it? At present, it only had one arm, a fourth of its torso, and its head, but it was quickly regenerating, and it was launching itself at Blackedge. 

Waves crashed out from behind the Tarrasque's body, as if folds of water grinding over the surface of the beach. A cone of flame was beginning to curve around the top of its form, and Shiv realized what it was trying to do. It never did get to finish its meteor bombardment earlier. He thought grimly. 

This time, Blackedge had no remaining wards. It had practically nothing left, and Shiv was out of ideas. He couldn't get close enough to siphon vitality from the Tarrasque at all. And before its overwhelming power, its ever-growing power, he had no idea how he was going to last.

"I accept." A loud voice sounded from behind Shiv, and the Deathless suddenly turned, only to see that there were even more people in the room. Valor was there, along with a small group of humans Shiv didn't recognize. 

They all wore the Arrow family armor, however, so it didn't take much for him to deduce that they were friendlies. Whisper, Mortar, and Tequila were there as well, and there were a few other orcs Shiv couldn't recall the names of. But nearby was Rose Van Aran, and an extremely sickly-looking Roland Arrow.

He met Shiv's gaze, and Shiv glared right back at him. But not far away from the Town-Lord was a massive ethereal silhouette. An ethereal silhouette that looked fainter than the previous two Ascendants, Shiv encountered, but its presence was unmistakable. 

This was the Starhawk himself, and he was the one that just spoke.

“I accept your offering, Sister Uva.”

"You do?" Uva replied. She sounded surprised.

“He does!” the Dreamtaker cheered. “Joyous union!”

Shiv looked between her and the Starhawk, utterly lost as to what they were talking about.

"My lord!" Roland choked out. He looked like he was on the verge of doing something drastic. His eyes were wild, desperate. Shiv had a feeling that he was missing a great deal of context.

"Peace, my champion," the Starhawk said to Roland. "This is no slight against you. You have served better than I have any right to demand. But right now, in this moment, we face dire circumstances. And I have asked enough of you. It is time for me to offer something of myself. Trust and faith."

"Legend Valor," the Starhawk reached out for the ancient Pathbearer. "You know the requirements for the ritual."

"I will see it performed," Valor replied. And immediately, spell patterns began to form out from him. Spell patterns that circled around Uva.

"Wait," Shiv said. “What the hells is happening here? What are you guys doing?” He was confused, and he wanted a few answers. But before he could get any, a loud voice came from outside.

"Friend Shiv, are you well? Are you alive?"

Everyone looked over the edge, just in time for Marikos to rise back up into the air. And where Shiv had been near death after the explosion, Marikos looked utterly unblemished of the flesh while his armor was absolutely shredded. Glistening pieces of dark red scale glowed from beneath the crack of his obsidian plates. 

As he ascended, the dragon-knight stared through the shattered window of Starhawk's Perch, and he flinched back in surprise. Shiv took a step to his right, blocking Marikos' view of Valor just so that they wouldn't have any issues. 

The Deathless's reaction was instinctive, and he pointed at the oncoming Tarrasque. "I think the bastard wants another taste of my stick and your flame."

Marikos gave a jubilant laugh as he realized the enemy was still alive, and then he groaned slightly. Though he sported no physical wounds, his spirit must have been raw. "I feel we will have to make do with your stick," Marikos mumbled, "my flames will take a while to recuperate."

But there came a flash of light beside Shiv, and Adam spoke thereafter. "That's fine. I have plenty of light to provide." Shiv looked down and saw that Adam's azure sun was infusing his newest veil piercer with a glow of gleaming blue and incandescent dawn.

"When did you get enough deaths for another special arrow?" Shiv asked, pleased but curious.

"When you were off getting your head kicked in by the Tarrasque," Adam replied. "Someone had to cleanse the town of Necrotechs." Adam paused. "Well, I helped. Valor did most of the cleansing. But I still got my hundred." And he drew his arrow back. "And if you can give me an opening, I might be able to kill it again. At least for a few seconds. Maybe. After that…” Adam frowned. “We need to find a way out of this place.”

Shiv looked past Adam's arrow, and he saw Roland's face. His eyes were wide with surprise. "Adam, what is that?"

"A lot has happened, father," Adam said. "A lot, and too much to explain right now." He briefly offered the town lord a worried glance. "You should find someplace safe. You are in no condition for this fight. Mother, you should go with him."

And both Roland and Rose snorted. But their reactions weren't mocking. They simply found Adam very dear, judging from their expressions.

“There’s nowhere to go, Adam,” Rose said. “It’s here or nowhere. When that thing comes for us—”

And just then, a massive arm that plunged into the pocket dimension. A massive arm that was encased in shuddering Inertium. It seized the half-regrown Tarrasque and ripped it out from the insides of the blade. 

And everyone went silent. Shiv blinked. And then he flinched as Rose screamed next to him.

"Jessica! Jessica! You short, size-challenged, left tit smaller than the right, harlot, let us out of your fucking sword!"

Shiv's mouth fell open at the stream of profanity leaving Rose's lips. And Adam shook with every cry and every syllable she spat. But the Deathless chuckled. He leaned in close to Adam. "Yeah. Don’t they grow up fast?”

“Shut up,” Adam breathed.

“What?” Roland muttered, utterly lost.

“Just being proud of the woman I push out of my soul,” Shiv muttered.

Roland blinked harder. Rose rubbed at her face but didn’t elaborate.

A pained noise escaped from the Gate Lord. "Why couldn't the Tarrasque have killed you?"

And just then, the pocket dimension began to shift as a crushing pressure passed over Blackedge.

“Yes!” Rose pumped her fists high. “Finally, she fucking responded. Jessica! I didn’t mean the tit stuff!” As a tide of blackness crashed over Blackedge, everyone braced for the dimensional transition as they were ejected from the insides of the sword.

A moment later, there was light. Light, and screaming wind, and a brief fall as Blackedge struck the ground. A resounding boom shook the world, and a deafening roar came thereafter.

Shiv’s eyes widened as he stared outside the shattered windows of Starhawk’s Perch. “Oh… oh, shit.”

And there in the distance was Stormhalt again, pouring an ocean of crawling lightning over a struggling Tarrasque as Hawgrave dropped elbow after elbow on its partially healed shell. But he wasn’t alone, for behind him hovered twelve more figures in the air, and up in the sky loomed twelve shapes that covered the horizon from end to end. 

Twelve shapes.

Twelve avatars.

Twelve Ascendants.

Quest: Break Vicar Sullain’s siege of Blackedge and stop a war between the surface and the Abyss before it can begin.