III-67 Weakness

Legends die, Legends die same as Pathless, same as Initiates, Adepts or Masters or Heroes. Legends die, just the same as the insects crawlin

Legends die, Legends die same as Pathless, same as Initiates, Adepts or Masters or Heroes. Legends die, just the same as the insects crawling at our feet, like the birds in the sky caught in a storm. Legends die. Some die quietly, some die brutally, some die with dignity, and some shatter worlds in their death throes, desperate to cling to life.

Becoming a legend grants you incredible power. It grants you absolute power, as some might understand it. It is elevation of your skills. It makes you greater on a level that few beneath you can understand. When you delve into your own soul, you emerge changed, you emerge higher than ever before.

But that does not promise you life. That does not protect you from the cruelties of the system. Your power is merely a single facet, a variable to your existence. Remember this. Heed my words. Legends die. You are not immortal just because you are Legendary. You are powerful, but there are many others who are powerful as well.

The first legend I killed was named Ozgen of Cimera, but his people called him the Warden of Flame. They called him this because his Legendary Skill allowed him to manifest a literal plane of fire—of heat so intense that all would simply turn to dust around him. With this Legendary Skill, he incinerated armies, he terrorized kingdoms around him, and for a moment in time, he imagined himself the single most significant man in all the Abyss.

I found him when I was still a Hero, but my Heroic-Tier Skill was in Stealth. And unlike Ozgen, I was prepared. I used my skills wisely. I crippled his spymasters and murdered his Investigators. And Ozgen was a Legend indeed. A Legend with a slew of Master-tier and Heroic-Tier Skills to supplement him. But he was a man with many vices as well. And after too many drinks, too much pleasure of the flesh, he slumbered. And while he slumbered, I came for him in the dark. And what matter was his plane of fire then?

Legends die. Sometimes they die gurgling—on their own blood, same as any slave. When vice exceeds virtue, even the strongest skill will be betrayed by personal weakness.

-Valor Thann

III-67

Weakness

A corrosive dawn flared, the world around Shiv withered. The air itself was stained with Necromantic mana. The Deathless anticipated both pain and destruction, for his soul to burn, and for everything around him to be destroyed. 

Yet that wasn't what happened, instead a chain of spells wrapped around him, their interconnected shapes glowing light with the same corrosion that powered Sullain's sun. The Deathless’s breath stilled as Necromantic wards formed around him, parrying sun’s glare was parried from his flesh and soul.

Shiv focused on weakening his Pillar of Orichalcum to start moving again, but his Heroic-Tier Toughness Skill needed time to adjust.

Sullain did not share that weakness.

As the Vicar descended, his long, sinuous body was bathed in Necromantic flares. Thousands of spells erupted from all corners of the world, from over the horizon, from bursts of dimensionality that opened up across the flesh of existence in bursting pockets. These spells shot up to greet the Vicar, and Sullain let out a savage cry as counter-spells manifested in each of his hands. A hailstorm of magic descended from the sky. They tore through the parted sky above, bouncing off the great rupture Shiv left in existence, and they crashed against the magical onslaught unleashed by the orcs.

And despite the orcs being an army, Sullain showed himself a Legend beyond them. His spells shattered that which cast by the gray-skins. More, Sullain’s mana could shift, changing from one type to another. The shape of his spell patterns went from talons to spreading nets and darting missiles. Shiv looked around as he watched orcs disintegrate within columns of fire, orcs come apart in small cuts as grids of friction passed through them, orcs screaming as they tumbled out of their dimensional pockets, clawing at their skulls.

The world devolved into chaos and fire. The orcs cast a flood of spells—but somehow, Sullain was overwhelming them by himself. It wasn’t just his magic that was staggering—it was the speed he could shape his spells; could cast hundreds of spells at the same time and within scant seconds.

Sullain was a bastard, but there was nothing Shiv could say about the Vicar’s quality as a mage.

How in all the hells did Roland hold you off by himself for so long…

“FIENDS! BEASTS! CREATURES OF RANK BRUTALITY AND DEBASED CRUELTY! I CAST THEE AWAY! YOU ARE UNDESERVED OF THE GREAT ONE’S GLORY! OF THE PROMISE OF ETERNITY! LET THE GREAT ENEMY TAKE YOU!”

The Necromantic dawn flashed behind Sullain. Shiv spiked himself hard—but his pillar barely budged. Godsdammit, now I get why this skill’s Heroic.

“AND YOU!” Sullain pointed a metallic digit at Shiv. The air twisted and shook around the Vicar. His eyes burned with Necromantic energy. “VILE MISTAKE! ABOMINATION OF UDRAAL! BE UNMADE!”

The world turned sickly and green as the corrosive dawn itself poured a massive stream of Necromantic fire at Shiv.

The orcs might have infused him with Necromantic wards, but they wouldn’t be enough to help him survive this. Not nearly—

The dense stream of Necromancy tore across existence. Shiv flinched back. His pillar moved by a meter—his mind reeled.

Another layer of spellcraft manifested in the air. It resembled a large bunker, curved and domed, yet it was partially transparent, lit with the colors of Dynamancy, Dimensionality and Psychomancy, while its outsides were line with Necromancy. Its edges materialized through the air, revealing a structure a kilometer wide and across. It swept just over Shiv as the Vicar’s massive spell impacted. It slammed into the bunker and parts of the enormous warding deformed.

But it did not break, not immediately.

And just then, several teleporting orcs materialized beside Shiv. They hovered in the air, and they formed new spells around him. The corrosive patterns fused around his body expanded, becoming a true layer of Necromantic armor. It never touched him, however. It was always separated by a distance of five centimeters.

"Don't pop just yet, Insul." One of the orcs laughed. "We can still keep this fight going for a while more, at the least.”

Shiv offered the orc a feral grin. “Let’s find what out it takes to break a Legend.”

A cheer went up among the orcs, and then they were gone, teleported by collapsing waves of dimensionality. The Necromantic beam above vanished right as well. It was extinguished as Shiv found Sullain summoning his own wards, parrying tidal waves of magic crashing into him from all sides. The Deathless could barely make out what was happening between the blinding blasts, but he could see Sullian obliterating entire sections of the landscape with crushing gestures.

Once more, he was overwhelming the orcs. But this time, he was overpowering them as well. A wall of fireballs came at Sullain—large enough to cover an entire section of the horizon. Sullain held out a hand and pulled. Every bit of fire was torn free from the air. Every bit of force wrenched away from their sources. They were gathered thereafter between the vicar's massive claws, condensing into twin spheres of shuddering destruction.

"You seek to abuse my spirit?" Sullain wailed. "Well, I will show you what it means to be unraveled at the soul."

He unleashed his power, but he did not fling the spheres down. Instead, he channeled both globes of mana outward, splashing over the bunker protecting Shiv while pieces of his magic broke off, blowing chunks out of distant mountains and holes through the earth. 

There were too many things happening at once, too many shapes moving around, spells were being exchanged, and Shiv was still pinned in place. 

His Orichalcum pillar wasn't something he could casually just dispel. It took time to weaken, time he didn't have. His reflexes could do nothing against it, and his strength wasn't enough to move it. He needed it to adapt.

Gravitic Wrestler 169 > 170

Time for a new strategy, Shiv thought. I’m not going to be able to push through this with raw strength. So what do I have?

He went through his active skills, and his eyes widened, Chronomancy. His solution lay within Chronomancy. He didn't need to waste time weakening himself. What he needed was a fast way to reset, and then re-engage thereafter.

Shiv went outside of context, and froze time in the same instant. As he did, he saw something that gave him pause. The Vicar's body was frozen, but there was an ethereal twin to the great serpent, an ethereal twin that was still casting spells, that was flinging blasts of power, hammering wounds deep into the land. A golden orc swept through the sky. Sullain's spirit manifestation made an off-handed gesture, a blade of air lined with Chronomancy ripped clean through the orc. 

The gray brute bounced off Sullain in two halves.

Despite this, the spirit twin couldn't perceive Shiv, and he cast himself a full twelve seconds back in time. 

Wait, twelve? Then Shiv realized the orc's fear chains were still empowering him. Them being here made him stronger than he was before. The Deathless grinned as he cast himself across time. 

When he blinked into existence in the same space, he found his Pillar of Orichalcum to be far weaker, not quite so immovable. Immediately, he stopped concentrating on his toughness and focused on weakening it. The reddish gold glow faded, and Shiv moved through the air. As he spiked himself, he bit back a cry of pain as fractures spread across his bones, and tears lined his muscles. 

It seemed that he couldn't avoid that brief period of weakness every time he left the pillar state. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the first cycle he went through.

It seemed his brief period of weakness in the aftermath corresponded to how much Toughness he cultivated before.

I can skip this entirely if I plant a temporal anchor before I begin using the Pillar of Orichalcum. That’ll let me avoid the whole cycle altogether.

And he did that immediately. He left, a temporal echo of himself infused in the air as he rose up to meet the vicar. A faint echo of gold lingered behind Shiv as he climbed skyward, seeking to make a victim of his great enemy.

He accelerated fast, caring nothing for his body, ignoring the coldness that was beginning to bleed into him. He wouldn't be able to maintain outside context for long, but he didn't need long, and he just to land a hit on the Vicar and get their measure.

Sullain was focused on the orcs. He swept the hand out wide, and a wave of Hydromancy hammered down from the sky and exploded into droplets of corrosion. Shiv could see the attacks from the orcs waning dramatically—where there were thousands of spells crashing against Sullain before, there seemed to be only a hundred now.

Legends were godsdamned nightmares. Even ones as emotionally compromised as Sullain.

Too bad Shiv was unique. Shiv passed through Sullain’s Necromantic rain without any issue. It couldn't touch him, not during his self-referential state.

Outside Context Problem 71 > 72

And just then, as he got within 500 meters of the vicar, instinct took hold of him. There was a reason why the Vicar had a spiritual twin, why he could channel magic free from his body. But something told Shiv that he could hit it, that he could deal damage to the Vicar deeper than the physical. 

He began coating himself in Vitae, wrapping it around his arms, even as his vitality fell to precipitously low levels. It was a dangerous risk, but he cared not, but he didn't care. Not after what he suffered, and not, and also because he had no time. He needed to catch up to the Tarrasque to save his companions, but he wasn't going to be able to go anywhere with Sullain still here.

And besides—it would be best for him to face a Legendary enemy as a Legend himself.

Shiv impacted the Vicar's spiritual twin in a cataclysmic clash. To his delight, he felt part of the Vicar's body buckle inward. The substance that comprised Sullain’s spiritual self felt brittle before his Vitae, and it shattered like lengths of glass impacted by a metallic projectile.

At once, all the spells Sullain was casting shattered. The rainfall of Necromancy vanished. The wards protecting Sullain died. The corrosive dawn fizzled out of existence.

When Sullain’s spiritual manifestation broke, it didn’t just break like a material, it broke like a skill.

And Shiv had more than a bit of practice breaking skills in his orcs.

White and red mana exploded out from Shiv, and then it was immediately followed by a brutal discharge. The Vicar's spiritual manifestation plunged back to his physical form. It stopped being able to cast spells when time was frozen, and just then more orc Chronomancers joined the battle. Their magics splashed against the Vicar, speared through Sullain’s immense body. Beams of fire, whips of lightning, claws shaped from wind and water lashed at him all at once.

Shiv felt himself come apart in broken tatters of flesh, death came close to claiming him. He just scoffed. Shiv reverted himself back across time. He blinked into perfect shape where his temporal echo was. His Chronomancy field began to splinter, but that didn't matter. He had wounded the Vicar. He had sent them into retreat. And he knew this was an enemy he could kill.

This was a fight he could win.

Strider of the Unbending Path 151 > 152

Damaging Sullain’s spiritual skill had put him on the defensive, and now his enemy was vulnerable to an entire domain of magic: the Vicar no longer had a stranglehold over time.

Shiv dismissed his temporal shell as he shot through the air once more. The Vicar reeled, screaming in pain as he clutched at himself. Parts of his physical body fell away, but Shiv knew that wasn't where he was wounded.

"NO!" The Vicar shrieked. "How… How could you damage my skill?"

The Vicar’s wails that brought a swell of warmth into Shiv in Shiv’s heart. Sullain’s head snapped toward Shiv—ignore the deluge of magic hammering into him. Part of his body twisted and cracked, but a great deal of the magic simply flowed through Sullain. Shiv narrowed his eyes. He saw that effect when facing a dragon. Sullain’s body was made of magically conductive materials.

Best way to finish you is brute force, then.

Awareness 46 > 47

Sullain held up a hand, gathering the forces of Necromantically-charged gravity, and the same hand was knocked aside as Bonk suddenly appeared once more, bursting out from a rift of Dimensionality. A wave of cascading mana was unleashed, but not towards Shiv. Rather, it tumbled across the sky, ripping a path through distant clouds reaching across the horizon.

The Vicar's body shook. He let out a screech as he ignited himself, but the flames that spilled out from him were black and lined with static. As attacks splashed against the Vicar, they faded out of existence. They were displaced entirely, emerging behind Sullain or not at all. Bonk vanished from sight. 

At the same time, Sullain’s other hands began to perform a series of rapid and intricate gestures, but it wasn't the emotions that caught Shiv's attention. It was the swelling of power.

A chain of Biomancy formed along his hands. A chain that glistened with so much mana, Shiv felt his mouth run dry. The Vicar was outputting so much power that it made even the Composer’s magical workings seem pathetic. The Biomancy rushing out from Sullain rivaled the light of the corrosive sun, and there were so many microspells lining the complex biomanic construct that Shiv couldn't even begin to fathom what it was. 

Then Sullain grasped the construct and he twisted it. 

A pulse of crimson mana washed through the world. A crack sounded in the air, and then the construct shattered in Sullain's hand, and a detonation of Biomancy—enough Biomancy to drown the world—slammed hard against Shiv and the other orcs.

He tried to block it with his Magebreaker, but his gauntlet screamed for a moment before it cracked in half. Yet, the gauntlet served its purpose. It twisted a good portion of Sullain’s Biomancy magic aside…

Frictionless Vector 76 > 80

…But the rest hammered still hammered into Shiv. He clenched his still wounded Biomancy field around himself, and pain flooded his spirit. Yet his field held. Even as its outer sections were pulled away, were ripped asunder, it held. And Shiv realized something. The Biomancy flowing into him materialized his spells as well. Spells that weighed down on his focus, that filled him with strain. But he could move spells in and out of his field. He could project them back into existence—offset the strain.

He began to cycle Sullain's magic out from his Aegis of Assimilation. Shiv worked as fast as he could, but he was nowhere near the spellcaster that Sullain was. A trickle of microspells became a contagion, and Shiv groaned, even as he pushed more and more out from himself.

Aegis of Assimilation 109 > 111

Multi-Task 21 > 24

This was a losing battle, but the Deathless snarled as he realized he could still win the war. He strained his multitasking to the limit, as he materialized his Chronomancy once more. He left an echo of himself right there, his temporal shell destabilized, reaching precipice of destruction, and then he dismissed it.

He held against the biomatic onslaught as long as he could. In the meantime, he materialized his Pillar of Orichalcum again, and just in time. The first of the Vicar's magics hit him. It was a mixed spill of Pyromancy and Necromancy. A beam searing heat that licked a piece of his flesh away and tore a gap in his Necromantic wards. 

If Shiv hadn't started increasing his Toughness, it would have likely cleaved clean through him. Bolts of lightning, infused with Psychomancy, crashed into Shiv's mind. Pockets were blown into his consciousness. His memories came asunder. His sense of self-realized but pure instinct made him hold to a simple fact, a simple desire to be stronger, to be more durable, to survive the worst the Vicar could deal.

But where he held on to his Toughness, he lost concentration in regard to his magic altogether. A spread of tumors exploded through his body and began to eat through him, flooding his very cells, compromising him from bone to sinew to skin. His flesh began to attack itself. Jagged teeth erupted from the biomass lining his ribs, and they bit down, chewing on his inner organs. 

But though Shiv groaned at the betrayal inflicted upon him by his body, the creatures hatching free from his flesh failed to inflict harm, for they couldn't pierce his flesh. For as soon as they separated, they lost the radiance of Orichalcum and found themselves mere creatures of bone and enamel trying to besiege something that even a Tarrasque couldn't break. Worse, every blow they inflicted was reflected at them.

Pillar of Orichalcum 212 > 213

They came asunder, splitting apart in puffs of red—

Then, something much larger hit Shiv. Vicar teleported next to him. A clawed hand channeling a full blast of corrosive mana splashed over his body. This was something his pillar couldn't resist, but the Necromantic shroud the orcs infused within him endured for a second longer before its spellwork began to break apart, snapping like fraying ropes. At the same time, Sullain ripped Shiv’s vitality out of him. The Vicar made a ripping motion, and Shiv watched as streams of vitality burst free from him. The Deathless let out a shuddering cry of weakness as he desperately matched his Drain Vitality Skill against Sullain’s.

How the hells is he doing that? Why is my Vitality Drain so felling weak in comparison? Is it just the level? No. It can’t be…

“There is no hope of you prevailing against me,” Sullain seethed. “Your damnation is sealed. I have foreseen it.”

Shiv Shivered from the coldness of oblivion, but he laughed through chittering teeth. “S-sure. Sounds like your D-divination is great. So why didn’t you use that to save Submission? Didn’t feel like it?”

Psychology 48 > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Sullain stopped draining him out of sheer outrage, flinching as if struck. Shiv’s grin grew wider. The orcs had tested his patience, had left him anxious and weary with paranoia—but they did teach him one thing: how to piss people off.

Sometimes, pissing people off is enough to spare your life.

“DAMN YOU!” Sullain shook and twitched like someone having a breaking. More spells crashed against his body as he threw his tantrum. Only after a second of suffering his meltdown did Sullain finally compose himself and respond. He forged a colossal blade of gleaming Dynamancy, and it clashed against Shiv, but the blade shattered instead of him, and a blast enveloped the world, a blast that collapsed inward on itself, becoming a singularity. Orcs were drawn in. Cycling streams of rubble spun around the blade. A body impacted Shiv's pillar and splattered apart into a smear of fetid gore. 

But the Dathless held. He shifted a centimeter toward this new singularity, but no more.

Sullain, the Legendary Pathbearer, a master of all magical skills known to integrated earth. But he was no Tarrasque in terms of might.

Not nearly.

"Break! Die!" Sullain cried out. He channeled another spell of Psychomancy toward Shiv. But an orc got in the way, and their body came alight with flashing Magical Resistance. The same orc projected something from their mind. A translucent shape snapped free from their being, crashing against Sullain like a missile. But the Vicar simply waved the spell aside like it was a gust of air. 

The Vicar pointed a finger at the orc. And the gray-skinned Behit warrior burst apart into a cloud of blood.

Anger washed through Shiv. He knew what these orcs were. He knew their cruelty, their psychopathy. But despite this, he couldn't help but care for them in that moment, because they were his psychopaths. They were his orcs. And if someone was going to kill them, break them, butcher them, and mutilate their souls, it was going to be him. He was the Insul, not Sullain.

Shiv drained vitality from everything around him. But even as he fed anger into the skill, he found it barely empowered.

The hells am I doing wrong?

Then, Sullain tore the vitality Shiv just siphoned away from him while forming a hundred-layered ward of prismatic brightness. Each section parried and shattered a spell the orcs threw of him. Sullain ignored the rest of the army for now, focusing solely on Shiv. The Deathless groaned as he felt himself veer toward nonexistence. Thinking itself became a struggle as weakness and Psychomantic damage left their toll on his body.

"You!" Sullain's words died as Bonk smashed them in the back of the head. Part of their armored form was dented inward, one of their arms snapped free, crashing against the ground. Bonk laughed, hitting Sullain twice more. He drove the Vicar against Shiv, and the colossal serpent bent around that Orichalcum pillar, shaped around the Deathless's body.

Though Sullain had magical solutions aplenty, it was clear he lacked answers for both the deeply emotion and extremely physical.

The Deathless growled as he fought past his malaise. He spiked his gravitic field faster and faster. His Toughness and his Reflexes warred against each other. Cracks formed along his flesh, and then the damage slowed as his Toughness exceeded his inertial sheath once more. He kept going until he hit the point of discomfort, of minor injury, before he shifted his attention to his Toughness instead. 

He was well over six hundred spikes now. When he unleashed his discharge, the world would pay for it. 

And so would Sullain.

"Keep him pinned!" Shiv shouted. He didn't know if the orcs could hear him, but he suspected that it didn't matter. Orcs were warriors of experience and instinct. They knew what he could do, and they adapted faster than even he could. They would exploit his skills any way they could, and he would deliver upon Sullain suffering like the Legendary Pathbearer would never comprehend.

He was going to reach into Sullain with his Vitae, and break their Omnimancy.

At the same time, Shiv drained from existence. A new rupture formed, a new rupture that clashed against Sullain. And as part of existence unzipped, it tore away a few of the colossal serpent's fingers. It rained down, splashing against the land. Dust and debris filled the air. Flames swirled. A mana storm spilled out and smashed into the Vicar.

Over a kilometer of metallic serpent was torn away from Shiv like a ragdoll. Thunder sounded, and a blast of Psychomancy made the Deathless flinch as he felt something inside his mind fracture.

Sullain cried out as Bonk hit him over and over. Shiv couldn't tell if this was the fifth or sixth time the orc had impacted the Legendary Pathbearer. But the serpent's body was rattling. More pieces were breaking off. And maybe, just maybe, Bonk would have gotten his wish alone. He would have been able to break Sullain. 

But suddenly, as Bonk prepared to hit Sullain again, something struck him. Something Shiv couldn't see. A blast of shadowy static consumed the orc, and he vanished before his broken club could fall once more. And Shiv realized that Sullain's spiritual manifestation was likely in play once more.

No more time to wait, Shiv grimaced. He discharged. But as he did, he went outside of context and froze time. Sullain swiped up his hands as if praying to the sky. But along his limbs emerged a chain of dimensionality spells, each flashing static and coated in the pitch black membrane. But he never quite managed to finish that spell. Not with his physical body, at least. His spiritual manifestation tried. But Shiv's concluding discharge caught it by surprise.

A chasm of destruction expanded out of the Deathless. It was like an entire stretch of existence had been ripped asunder. And Sullain fared no better. Its body shuddered, Vicar's body shuddered, and then deformed, pieces cracked away. Metal screamed as it was ripped in half. Sullain was a Legendary spellcaster, a masterful mage. 

But he was no warrior, and it showed. It showed in his inexperience, in his determination to engage Shiv up close, to punish him for the emotional slights Shiv inflicted on his feelings. And now the Vicar paid for it as parts of his body were crumpled inward as he was cleaved in twain.

"No!" Sullain's spiritual manifestation cried. He held out a hand. He poured Chronomancy mana into his physical vessel, trying to keep it together. But despite time shifting backward, Sullain’s physical shell remained as damaged as before, even after the golden mana faded. “H-how?”

“A little Unique Feat called Causal Scargiver, asshole,” Shiv chuckled

In that instant, the battle went silent. The Vicar's hands stilled as he looked toward the Deathless encased in a tower of Orichalcum. No orc Chronomancers remained. The spiritual manifestation must have torn through them—through so many.

But Sullain was wounded. He tried using his Chronomancy on his spiritual manifestation, and it remained damaged as well. “How…” He whimpered. Both his spiritual manifestation and his physical vessel were scarred beyond restoration by time or acausality.

“Because I got tired dealing of eldritch bullshit,” Shiv said with a glare. Then, he sneered. He wanted Sullain to be more unbalanced—and more than that, he had a feeling another Skill Evolution was waiting. "You should have kept the Tarrasque around. It was much tougher than you were. Much better than you were in general. Frankly, if that Tarrasque was the City Lord of Submission, maybe your people would still be there. First time I saw you, I wanted to be you. I was jealous of your magic, but now I'd kill myself for good if I ever became you. Because you're a child, Sullain. I didn't realize that you could reach Legendary-Tier and still be just a bitch."

This spiritual manifestation's hands began to shake. Its Chronomancy mana faded. Sullain came at Shiv, it came at him with claws outstretched, with its entire being aglow with necromancy. There was no coherence left to the Vicar. A tormented screech filled with sobs and anguish was all he unleashed as he flung himself against Shiv's Orichalcum pillar. 

In the same instant, Shiv felt his Psychology hit its first Skill Evolution.

Silver Tongue 29 > 31

Skill Evolution: Psychology (Common) > Psycho-Cartography (Master)

Psycho-Cartography 50 > 51

He didn't wait to read the notification, however. He cast himself back to his temporal anchor and went out of context once more. Sullain's claws gripped nothing. Shiv felt his temporal shell fracture, but he didn't mind. He lashed out after coating himself in Vitae once more, and impacted the midsection of Sullain's spiritual body. It shattered like crystalline glass. 

Sullain howled. 

He clutched at himself, and the magics he wielded immediately got weaker. Shiv tore and ripped and broke more things than Sullain, and before he could get to its head it immediately vanished in motes of glittering mana.

It returned to its physical body, and Shiv just sneered. He cast himself ten seconds back in time, just as he began spiking himself with more and more momentum. His temporal shell shattered. Sullain let out a brutal gasp. He held up a hand, and golden mana swept across his body. Pieces that were damaged remained damaged even in Sullain’s desperation. “WHY… GREAT ONE! HELP ME! AID YOUR CHILD!”

he orcs, what was left of them, began to besiege the legendary path bearer from all directions. TMassive hands of dimensionality pinned him in place as he tried to teleport. Fists formed from dynamancy crashed down, crushing more of Sullain. Winds of Psychomancy splashed against the Vicar's mind as it tried to fight off the orcs with a single hand. Spells from all directions bombarded the legend, and even now, even in this pathetic state, Shiv found something in Sullain to admire. 

The vicar wasn't fighting one Hero or even a few. It was fighting Shiv along with an army of a few thousand at the least. The Deathless had no doubt that if Sullain wasn't a fool, if he simply engaged Shiv alone, he would have won. If he applied any true strategy, he would have won. But his heart was too broken, and though his magic was strong, his spirit was frail. And he was short-sighted, too short-sighted to realize that Shiv had thought ahead.

Here was a Legend who betrayed his skill because a lingering weakness in his will.

The Deathless discharged his built up Inertial Overdrive once more, and the blast, even stronger than before, tore through Sullain's physical body. A second chasm followed the first, and this time, Sullain's physical body began to crumple and dissolve into particles of physics. Shiv could hear Sullain screaming over the immense detonation. 

He watched as the Vicar's massive steel form began to shrink, began to fade, as if a shadow cast beneath a lantern. He tried to cast his spells, but they fizzled and sparked—something was broken about his magic. Shiv’s eyes narrowed. Was the spiritual manifestation an externalized projection of his Omnimancy?

In a weird way, it made sense. It was unburdened by time, it could cast spells and affect Shiv’s soul. It was effectively a second Sullain hidden within the first—only invisible and intangible when time flowed normally.

An ocean of ionized plasma chewed at Sullain, and Shiv watched as a new color burst into existence. It was the broken, fractured form of Sullain's spiritual manifestation. It only had ten arms left. Most of its body had been broken away. Only a jagged tail remained of it. Its head was fractured as well. 

Most of its jaw was missing, and Sullain was trembling its flagging magic into its physical self, trying to maintain its existence, trying to preserve its actual body from full annihilation.

And though this moment was urgent, Shiv took a second to study Sullain. And then he noticed it: a thin strand of vitality connecting Sullain to the physical body. Shiv didn't know over much about the ritual of the dichotomous soul, but it was a dichotomous soul for a reason. Some split parts of themselves into different bodies at the same time. 

Perhaps the spiritual and physical bodies were both halves of Sullain instead of being an embodied skill. And right now, both were extremely damaged. Yet Shiv would bet everything he had, would bet everything he would ever have, that Sullain had another vessel somewhere. So why was he fighting so hard to preserve this? Why was he fighting? 

And that’s how Shiv found something else. A strand. Just a single thin line of Psychomancy extending far across the battlefield through the dense plasma choking the air. And it went in the direction of the Tarrasque.

Awareness 47 > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Oh, Shiv laughed, "it's not for him, at least not now. It's for his pet. Vicar Sullain was full of shit. He might have released most of his grasp on the Tarasque, but part of him still held it still. He had to give the creature commands, after all. Hey, Sullain," Shiv called out. He projected his words using his Psychomancy, and the Sullain's spiritual manifestation froze. H

He looked at Shiv, and despite his posture radiating with anger, something else extended from Sullain and anchored itself within Shiv. It was a chain made out of that same crystalline mana that comprised the spiritual manifestations being. It was a chain of fear, and that chain fed into Shiv's social skills as well. Sullain's great weakness wasn't his physicality or his toughness. His great weakness was quite simply that he was too easy to abuse. He had no self-control, and Shiv exploited that to the utmost of his capacity.

Shape of Monstrosity 108 > 112

"I think you should run," Shiv began. As soon as he started speaking, he gained a piercing insight into how the subject of his focus was going to react. 

Psycho-Cartography: Mock failure; insinuate he was the one that failed Submission; and that Roland Arrow could have protected his city.—high chance of spiking rage to new heights.

"I think you should run and save yourself. You got another body somewhere. I know that. I'm sure of that. So you won't be dying here, not after this embarrassment. I hate Roland, but he would have never allowed things to this point. He would have killed me already.”

“SILLENNNNNCCCEEE” Sullain shot toward him. He clawed Shiv with a splash of Necromancy, and Shiv felt the final bits of his protection start to fray away. At the same time, he felt his vitality get ripped free from him once more—and he countered that by draining from reality. A rupture formed between him and the Vicar. That interrupted their Drain Vitality Skill. And at the same time, Shiv saw a certain orc leaping over the far horizon. 

A large orc holding a broken club.

"I was going to keep you alive," Sullain said, choking on his own words. "I was going to deliver you back to Udral. But now, but now—"

Psycho-Cartography: Sullain probably can unleash a great deal of power against you right now, but he has a borderline psycho-sexual need to feel something of a victory against you, no matter how minor. You have broken his faith in himself. You have tapped into his despair. Hurt him more—but do not go too far to keep him hesitant and frustrated without sending him into a blind rage.

Use near-sympathy as a weapon. Hurt him, then confuse him. Delay until Bonk arrives.

"Nothing," Shiv spat at Sullain. The Vicar’s body trembled as more pieces broke free from him. Bonk’s resonant strikes were still active… "You've done nothing. You failed your people, you got your army killed, and Roland Arrow is still alive. Hells, my Vitae did more to break Blackedge and you and your army. No wonder, Valor didn't think anything of you.” Sullain let out a piercing wail. Shiv felt his vitality plunge dangerously. This time, however, he paid attention to what Sullain was doing—the Vicar wasn’t draining Shiv’s vitality into him, he was channeling Shiv’s vitality into that thin membrane protecting existence.

How the hells does that work?

The Deathless blinked as he fought the darkness seeping into his vision. He needed a moment—an opening. “Why did… why did you hurt yourself so much, Sullain? Why? I almost wish you could have won. That you could have killed Roland. But why did you have to fail?”

Shiv forced as much genuine feeling into his voice as possible.

Sullain stopped draining him for a moment. The Vicar choked. “I… I…”

Bonk descended—the orc was only a few hundred meters away. And Sullain seemed utterly ignorant…

Psycho-Cartography 51 > 52

Acting 15 > 16

Silver Tongue 31 > 33

Psycho-Cartography: Now, go gentle. Give him hope. Give him the validation he wants. But remind him that his self-loathing and sorrow are failing him. Give him something true to think about.

“Come on, godsdammit,” Shiv breathed. “You’re a Legend. Why did you do this to yourself?”

“I didn’t!” Sullain cried at Shiv, trying to justify his failures. “You—”

“I’m nothing to you,” Shiv hissed. “So what I can’t die? So what that my soul is different? You’re the one who’s a Legend. You were the one with a mission. Why do you punish yourself with bad decisions?”

“BECAUSE I SHOULD HAVE DIED!” Sullain screamed. He wrapped his hands around Shiv’s Pillar of Orichalcum and shuddered. “BECAUSE I FLED WHEN ARROW RAZED MY CITY AND SLAUGHTERED MY PEOPLE! AND I RAN! I COULDN’T BEST HIM! I LET THEM TO DIE! MY FAITHFUL… MY FLOCK… MY CHILDREN!”

And the rawness of Sullain’s pain gave Shiv pause. He wasn’t even faking sympathy for the Vicar anymore—he just felt bad. To some extent. He never thought a Legend could be undone like this.

Then, the Legend was undone physically as Bonk smashed down on him from behind.

"SULLAIN," the orc roared one final time. He struck the remainder of Sullain's physical vessel and this time, every bit of Sullain broke apart into a shower of metallic shrapnel. They opened up cuts all along Bonk’s flesh—but the orc’s blood simply combusted in the air, detonating like a chain of increasingly powerful bombs.

Shiv heard the Vicar let out an agonized cry, and he halted time again. Once more, the spiritual manifestation of Sullain came into view. It swatted Bonk from the air and went after him. Shiv couldn’t allow that.

He wrapped his gravitic field around the fear-chain connecting him with Sullain and pulled. Sullain was stronger than Shiv—but he was also terrified of the Deathless. Simultaneously, Shiv’s Pillar of Orichalcum rooted him in place. As such, the Vicar’s spiritual manifestation jerked to a violent halt in midair. The chain cracked but held. Sullain cried out. “NO!”

“Oh, yeah,” Shiv growled. He cast himself eleven seconds back in time. Evelen? Shit. How many orcs died for my maximum Chronomancy time to be eleven. It was twelve before.

He remanifested with his pillar weaker but still present. He commanded it to soften as he lashed at Sullain with his Vitaemancy. His Vitae—being physical—traveled through the air in awkward bursts of motion as they struggled against Shiv’s overwhelming Toughness. Even so, the managed to touch the Vicar’s spirit—and sink deep into him.

This time, Shiv tore at the Vicar’s insides. Their lack of Magical Resistance was the least surprising thing Shiv discovered about them. With Omnimancy, what other mage could match Sullain?

The answer was a mage unlike any other. A mage who barely knew what he was doing. Shiv poured his skill inside the Vicar and tore at all he could grasp. Sullain briefly drained his vitality—but Shiv triggered his Icon of the Paindrinker. The Vicar curled in on himself thereafter, utterly ruined by the pain he suffered.

Primal triumph exploded inside Shiv. He reached deeper into Sullain, following the ripples inside his enemy’s soul as he slipped into what he assumed to be the Vicar’s Omnimancy Skill.

Animated Skill Infusion Gained: Omnimancy.

And once Shiv had that, he focused entirely on ripping Sullain in half.

“PLEASE!” Sullain begged, managing to force the word out. “PLEASE, I DON’T DESERVE—”

Shiv’s Vitae shattered as brittleness spread through him. He ignored his pain and dragged his Vitae in two directions. But Sullain’s soul was like a dense canvas. Hard. Strong. A slight tear formed, but Shiv couldn’t rip through the Vicar like he could a Master-Tier orc. So, he adapted. He plunged into the Vicar’s Omnimancy Skill again and expanded inside it. Expanded until its shape shattered.

“I DON’T DESERVE—”

The Vicar’s final cry came as a desperate scream before he suddenly winked out of existence. Breaking the skill removed the spiritual manifestation from existence. A dark feeling passed through Shiv as he wondered if Sullain was alive or dead. But something told him it didn’t matter.

Psycho-Cartography: Sullain’s Legendary Magical Skill Evolution was likely one of the few things keeping him protected. Not only from the world, but his own sense of failure. What you just broke is beyond his ability to fix. He will need to find an Animancer. And who will help him on the surface or the Abyss after what he just did? Death is waiting for him. By another’s hands, or his own.

A shaking breath escaped Shiv. His insides felt raw and exhausted. He fell from the air and looked down. As he did, he choked. A massive wound had been blasted all the way through the ground into a fathomless stretch of darkness beneath. Sullain and the orcs had traded so many spells that a new entrance to the Abyss had been formed. 

And speaking of the orcs, Shiv saw that one was still falling—bound for the Abyss. Shiv launched himself through the air just as his temporal shell was about to crack. Bonk dropped. But Shiv caught him and dragged him back up into the sky.

As he rose, he looked down and saw a large gash lining the orc's chest. Shiv brushed the wound away with his Aegis of Assimilation and winced from the torturous sensations of the soul wound pulsing through him.

Bonk blinked and looked up. He saw Shiv holding on to him with a single outstretched hand. “I broke him?”

“You broke his body,” Shiv said. “I had to break the rest.”

Bonk just laughed. “Nine.”

“What?”

“Nine bloody swings,” the orc let out a sigh. And then sniffled. The orc almost sounded sad. “So. Is he dead, then?”

“His soul’s torn up and his Legendary Skill is broken,” Shiv said. “I suspect he won’t about around for much longer. The question is who gets to whatever other body he has first. Or if he wants to finish things out himself.”

“Ah. Sullain was always a bit too emotional.” Bonk shook his head, as if talking about someone with a drinking problem. “I expected more of him.”

Shiv squinted as he tried to locate any signs of survivors. “More? Felling shit, Bonk, he got everyone except you or me.”

“Yes, but that’s only around fifty thousand orcs,” Bonk commented. “He could have done better.”

“Fifty thousand?” Shiv groaned. “He killed fifty thousand Master-Tier orcs?”

“Well, an least fifty of the others were Heroes…” Bonk said.

“Broken felling Moon,” Shiv whispered. “And here he was thinking he managed to humiliate the Vicar. Gods, Legends are horrifying. Even the pathetic ones.

Everything he could see here was utterly destroyed. The landscape was nothing but smoldering craters, reality-lining ruptures still spewing out gelatinous mana storms, or a deep wound that led to the Abyss. Shiv sniffed, but he realized his armor was pretty much destroyed right now. Only a few strips of biomass still clung to his body.

Husk of the Adamantine Voidmantid
Condition: Dead (Regenerating)

Well. At least it's not broken like my gauntlet and mask are, Shiv thought.

Just then, Shiv noticed a faint flash of gray in his periphery. He turned, expecting to see another orc, but only watched pieces of an orc’s arm rain down.

But his desperate focus was enough to finally push another skill over the edge.

Awareness 50 > 51 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Skill Evolution: Awareness (Initiate) > Farsight (Adept)

Farsight 51 (Adept)

All of a sudden, Shiv found himself able to zoom in on distant objects with his eyes. As he focused at a single spot, he magnified his vision and immediately went from squinting from afar, to seeing particulates in the air.

Shit. This is useful. It’s got nothing on Adam’s Adept Hypersense, but still useful.

“Well,” Bonk sighed, looking around. “At least it was fun. I think I will miss Sullain and his loud, over-emotional wailing when I mocked him. Now, I must find someone new to consider my Nemesis-Beloved.” And that’s when his eyes lingered on Shiv for a while too long.

“Sorry, I already have a favorite asshole,” Shiv grumbled. “His name is Adam.”

“Ah. I thought you were referring to Stormsoil 812.”

“Stormsoil,” Shiv scoffed. “No. The moment I get the chance, I’m killing him for good. Bastard sold me out to Hawgrave.”

Bonk frowned. “Considering he has a quest to kill you, how does that constitute a betrayal.”

Shiv considered the logic—and he decided he didn’t want to be logical.

Psycho-Cartography: Bonk is genuinely confused as to why you’re taking this so personally. It’s not like you didn’t know 812 was coming for you.

“It doesn’t,” Shiv mumbled in admission. “I’m still going to kill him for good because I’m not putting up with fighting him for centuries—or even decades.”

“Ah. That makes more sense. Would you put up with—”

“Bonk. Do you want me to start fighting you right now? Because we still have a Tarrasque.”

And at the mention of that, something flashed in the distance. Shiv blinked as a massive stratosphere-high wall of fire accelerated toward him and Bonk. More blasts rattled the world. A deafening roar shook the skies.

“Ah, yes,” Bonk breathed as he licked his lips. “The Tarrasque. Well. I’m glad to see the others haven’t killed it yet. Looks like we might get to taste the quest rewards after all.”

And that reminded Shiv of something. He checked the original quest that set him on this path—the one pertaining to Blackedge.

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

Reward: Evolve an [Existing Skill] to Legendary Tier.

Failure: The Abyss rises, consuming all of Lost Angeles’s surface territory.

The Deathless frowned. “Why the hells isn’t this quest over?”

“Which one, Insul?” Bonk asked. “The quest that has you save Blackedge? Why would it end with Sullain dead?”

Shiv read the quest requirements again. The siege was—well, Hawgrave had Blackedge now, and the Inquisition was fighting the Descenders Union and the orcs. “Shit. A war might be about to start instead of stop. Godsdammit. Getting the quest reward here would have let me evolve a skill to Legendary.”

Bonk hummed. “It will still be wise for you to resolve that quest first. I suggest murdering all the Inquisitors aside from the Legend first. Do it while she’s occupied with the beast, then make sure she takes the most wounds while fighting the Tarrasque and simply steal the town back from her thereafter.”

“My town’s in her felling sword,” Shiv said. “So are the rest of my friends.”

“And might be the safest place for them right now, wouldn’t you agree?” Bonk grinned.

Shiv just frowned at the orc.

"Bonk, you remember what Tarrasque did to all of us earlier, right?"

"Did to you," Bonk said, "mostly to you."

Shiv closed his eyes and used his Psycho-Cartography skill to convince himself not to punch the orc in the head. 

"To me, yeah. So, with my first-hand experience dying over and over again at the hands of that giant bullshit monster, I think we're going to need everyone to keep its attention and finally kill it. That," Shiv let out a sigh, "and I need to figure out how to deal with all that Vitae keeping it alive. It spends a little bit of vitality every time it resurrects, but a little bit is not going to cut it. I need to do to it what Sullain does to me, did to me just now."

The Deathless thought back to how the Vicar ripped Shiv's vitality out of him by shifting it into that thin membrane, infusing the world. 

How the hell does that work, Shiv thought to himself.

Bonk tutted chidingly, "you must be more ambitious in so, sometimes we can have a pound of flesh and eat it too."

"What do you mean," Shiv asked?

"I mean that it's going to be awfully hard for you to contend with the Tarrasque as barely a true Hero. If you are even a true Hero, that legendary skill will matter a great deal. So…" the orc, as words trail off, "I think that many things can happen at the same time.”

"A heist," Shiv asked.

"Yes," Bonk said. "We should recruit a Dimensionalist. If I can find a living orc Dimensionalist, great. If I can't," he licked his lips. "Well, that's the reason why we should visit the Inquisitor’s flying first. Right. That surfacer Legend won't suspect them. And they are going to be a problem sooner or later. Best we spend them against the Tarrasque.”

Shiv let out a grunt of agreement. "Yeah. Alright. Fine, Bonk. Fine. I'm listening."

"First, you may want to help us survive that massive wave of fire."

And just then, Shiv should have noticed how close the destructive tidal wave of getting. Shiv magnified his vision into the approaching mess and snorted with derision. "Yeah. Alright."

Then Shiv began accelerating toward certain death.

Bong looked at him. "What are you..."

"Relax, Bonk," Shiv said, as he prepared to manifest his pillar. "Just keep talking about your plan to free everyone and get me that Legendary Skill…”