III-41 Ritual (I)

Every form of attuned magic gives off its own frequency. Every spell is an adjustment, a manipulation of that frequency, but also the structure of the field itself. To understand it simply, it is like a reshaping of personal reality, a manipulation of the rules that govern the broader aspects of existence restructured into something you could wield within the confines of your influence.

However, when someone has a similar kind of magic, they can view what you are doing because they too occupy the same magical lore. They have their own field of “parareality” to wield.

And none understand this better than Dimensionalists. For Dimensionality reaches further than any other form of magic. The most important thing about dimensionality isn't mana fields, however. Rather, Dimensionality more than even Necromancy and Animancy taps into the ambient mana of worlds. For it connects gains of ambient mana together to bridge different dimensions and worlds.

In other worlds, Dimensionality is more akin to shaping the “borders” of worlds rather than moving space itself.

This, however, also means that different dimensional gates can be hijacked. Borders can be redefined. If you know its exact frequency, its exact oscillating shape and movement, you can access it. You can connect another gate to it, or potentially you can even change its location.

However, this will come at a cost. A Dimensionalist needs to be strong enough to nudge these changes. And the grander the gateway—the greater the dimension they're trying to connect to, the more effort it will require. There is a limit to even the power of Legendary Dimensionalists, and thus a god’s power might be required—and a ritual may need to be invoked if one wishes to replace one location with another…

-On Gates and Gateways

III-41

Ritual (I)

Shiv flicked his massive blade through the barricades erected by the Vultegs. Layers of stone turned to dust and rubble. Blockades of steel were sheared clean through. The people behind were rendered into puffs of misting blood. Halfway through his cut, he readjusted his strike. He pulled in another direction using his gravitic field and launched his 200-meter-long Skysplitter toward the Jealousy. 

The blade was still growing as it sailed into the air.

The massive demon flinched back, its single eye widening in surprise. Yet it swung a tentacled limb, slamming it into the flat surface of the Skysplitter. As it did, however, Shiv teleported to his blade. He emerged like a missile and slammed elbow first into the Jealousy's eye. 

A colossal impact shook the sky. Shiv and the Greater Demon wrestled for dominance. The Deathless noticed they were twisting through the air at a downward angle, certain to impact the battlements surrounding the dimensional breach—battlements currently being manned by the Arachnae Order and the orcs. Shiv couldn't accept their deaths being on his hands. He let out a roar as he pulled the Jealousy upward. To his surprise, the titanic demon was easier to move than he remembered. 

And just then he realized three things. The first was that he gained a great many levels since the last time he fought a Jealousy. The second was that he had Plaguefueled active. And he was a colossal version of himself as well. The third was that the Jealousy moved with him. It didn't want to crash into the ground, either.

And so, the two monsters struggled in the air above the gate. Shiv slammed his head into the Jealousy. The world shook. The huge demon rocked back, launched by the blow. Shiv capitalized on the opportunity to bring his Skysplitter down. But the Jealousy swatted the blade aside once again and used counterforce to flip its body over Shiv’s, shifting behind him in an instant. Shiv blinked in surprise, as the Jealousy repositioned itself in a stunning display of agility.

It flicked something at him. The Deathless turned, only to catch a bolt of lightning to the chest. It exploded against him. Some of his armor cracked, but nothing inside of him broke. However, the world vanished into a flash of brilliant light. And when it finally faded, Shiv blinked away flashing images. Before him, high up in the air, the Jealousy loomed, and within each of its tentacles were whips of lightning. No, Shiv realized, those weren't whips. Those were, they looked like dangling sticks that swung in each of the Jealousy's limbs. The Jealousy swung the sticks fast and whipped them from tentacle to tentacle. The sticks crashed with thunder, shaking the gate with each flourish. 

And thus the Jealousy laughed. "Foolish little morsel, think you can match me? Have been to the far eastern reaches of your world! Have studied your ways! Jealousy knows your martial arts. Jealousy is an outer disciple of the Shandong Thunder Thief Sect."

And just then, a quill of lightning sailed through the air. It was a small pin-prick of electricity compared to the storms that the Jealousy wielded. It struck the massive behemoth on the side of its head, and the Greater Demon didn't even react at first. But slowly, it turned to stare at Null Mont. She was barely a dot in the distance, as slowly, she sank down into her stormclouds, fleeing from the Jealousy’s gaze.

"That's probably better that way," Shiv muttered. Still, he blinked at the Jealousy. "Also, the hells are you using?”

“Nunchucks,” Jealousy laughed. "We will see who is the greater Pathbearer, and who is merely a toad dreaming of swan flesh."

"Wrong metaphor," Shiv spat back. "I'm the cook. You're just the octopus that threw yourself on my skillet."

Shiv blasted toward the Jealousy. A pocket of air opened around him. He spiked his inertial overdrive. Time and time again, his speed built, his reflexes grew. But the Jealousy didn't move, instead it spun its ten thunderous nunchucks in front of its body, and its eyes glistened with an unnatural focus. Suddenly, Shiv had a very bad feeling.

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't go straight at it. Maybe… maybe let's screw with it a little. He triggered Chameleon and minor illusion at the same time. He also flung one of his corpses at the Jealousy. As his corpse sailed through the air, the Jealousy didn't react. Neither did it look at his minor illusion. Through it all, the Jealousy's eye never lost track of Shiv.

How in the hells... And suddenly the Jealousy moved. Its body wasn't that fast, not compared to Shiv's accelerated reflexes. However, it flowed, and its nunchucks swung in odd ways. Shiv couldn't predict where they were coming from. He dodged backward at the last minute, or at least he tried to. The problem with Inertial Overdrive was that once he started moving in one direction, he couldn't easily switch to another. The first nunchuck slammed into him, and it felt like a condensed storm coming down on his back. Shiv grunted as he felt his back turn to a large bruise.

But he kept going. He accelerated toward the Jealousy—just as a second nunchuck came within a centimeter of his head.

Shiv halted time.

The Jealousy went still. The Deathless crashed into its body, he tried to get his blade aligned with its flesh—

A golden arrow punched through his shoulder, tearing him off course. Shiv let out a snarl of pain as he gripped the Chronomancy-infused shaft. As his hands wrapped around object, he realized it was made of adamantine as well. A second later, two more arrows slammed into him. The first skipped off his chest plate, tumbling into the air. However, it blinked back in time and slammed into him again, this time embedding itself in his chest piece. The third punched through his left Achilles, and Shiv sputtered with indignation.

The felling fuck is this?

He accelerated faster, trying to find where the Chronomantic archer was firing from. Three more arrows struck him. Two skipped off of his body. Two rematerialized to impact where they once missed. The last one shot past him entirely, and it didn't get a chance to try over. I go back in time on impact, Shiv realized, but still, where the hell is the archer? And just then, something flashed in the corner of his vision.

Shiv cast himself back in time. Sixty percent of his time armor shattered apart. He realized that the Chronomantic arrows had done damage to his temporal shell as well. As he blinked back in front of the Jealousy, he realized his wounds were gone. At least there's that, Shiv thought to himself. But still, immediately another arrow came for him. He swatted this one aside and anticipated its reappearance. He parried it again, and this time it stayed gone. But as he did, an arrow sailed out from behind him, slamming into his tailbone. It didn't penetrate his armor, but it still fractured some of his temporal shell. 

Ten percent left. Shiv gritted his teeth. Not good. He began to pump out Creeping Void for the first time. He didn't want to risk confusing his allies, but he was dealing with a hidden Chronomantic archer. Not a bad counter against someone like me, Shiv thought. As soon as The Creeping Void swallowed both him and the Jealousy, he halted the skill. Just then, two more arrows tore past him. One struck the Jealousy, embedding itself in its flesh, while another sailed high and wide, striking nothing at all.

Shiv charged a Jealousy, dismissing his temporal armor before it broke. The large demon gave a gasp of confusion as Shiv came at it. But rather than charging it head on, Shiv activated his Outside Context Problem. He sank into his Vitae, and then a coldness bit into him. It didn't last long. He crashed hard against the Jealousy, spiking himself fifty times in quick succession. His inertial sheath roared and rumbled with excess force. Shiv could feel the heat building underneath his skin. He dragged the Jealousy across the airspace. And as soon as they blasted through his Creeping Void, he reactivated his creeping void again, spreading another patch of darkness in the sky.

More golden arrows slashed around Shiv. Some of them struck the Jealousy. Most of them missed. The Jealousy cried. Its body pulsed with Psychomantic energy. But Shiv countered that by punching it in the face as hard as he could using his left hand. The Magebreaker rang, the vibrations upon it shuddering violently. 

That's a lot of magic, Shiv realized. Still, it made the Jealousy's head snap back. A trail of blood flowed through the air. But it recovered quickly. One of its nunchucks came slamming down from above. A building shockwave of thunder and lightning flashed as it impacted Shiv. But he countered by discharging his Inertial Overdrive. Twin blasts contrasted each other, one born of a roaring storm, the other of overflowing kinetic energy.

Inertial Overdrive 115 > 116

The Jealousy was flung back. Shiv spiked his field and kept pushing forward. As he did, spears of Vitaemancy blasted out from his body. They speared against the Jealousy's form, some of them chipping through the Greater Demon's armored hide. This Jealousy felt heartier than the last one. Shiv pierced its shell, but it didn't go very deep. He still drained its vitality, and that made the Jealousy shudder. There was a day and night difference between fifty-five levels of Vitality Drained and what came before. The Greater Demon shuddered with discomfort. Shiv used the opportunity to slash out with his Skysplitter.

Just then, a golden arrow hit him along the back of the elbow. His cut went wide, and he took off a piece of the Jealousy’s tentacle instead of hitting its head. Shiv cursed as he tried to recover, but the Jealousy beat him to it. It came aglow with psionic energy and shot toward him in a narrow stream of magical power. Shiv's eyes widened. He shifted right while swinging his mage breaker up to cover his head.

A massive tide of Psychomancy smashed into him, but his Frictionless Vector triggered. The Jealousy slipped off at an angle. His gauntlet made a rattling noise. Another hit like that within the next few seconds, and it's gonna break, Shiv realized. He found himself tumbling through the air and stabilized himself with a pull on his gravitic field. As he did, he found the Jealousy rematerializing in the flesh a good three hundred meters away.

Frictionless Vector 64 > 65

In the distance, another tentacle shot out from the spreading dimensional wound that led to Vulketh. 

Shit, Shiv snarled to himself, the damn Jealousy was distracting him from his actual job, and he was supposed to kill fifty thousand of these bastards. In the distance, Shiv could see a fire rising from the surface district. Several buildings were aflame, but a stream of water splashed over them. High above, Adam rose. He hovered over the surface gateway, and his vector-wings glistened bright like six inverted diamonds. More than anything, however, his azure sun burned radiant, and somehow Shiv knew Adam was done on his end.

Help’s coming soon. But let’s make them come back to a stable situation.

"Alright," Shiv breathed. He shrank his Skysplitter. He heard something in the air and instinctively twisted his head slightly to the left. A golden arrow slipped past him. Two more came, and two more missed as Shiv flung himself a second back in time. As he jolted across space, he kept his eye on the Jealousy, and activated his creeping void again. A patch of blackness spilled around him. But despite that, the Jealousy had its gaze locked to his actual body. It was like it always knew where he was. Always. 

Shiv clenched his teeth. Ah, the felling Greater Demon can probably see my psionic signature, or something like that. It's got a counter to my stealth. A chain of golden arrows zipped past Shiv. They were well over twenty meters wide. But the archer doesn't. They can’t see me. Still. The shots are getting closer each time…

The Creeping Void 111 > 112

The Jealousy began to swing its nunchucks again. "Come out, little Corpse-Shedder. Come face your end."

Shiv didn't reply. Instead, he considered his options. 

He considered and immediately decided to make a new Vitae Golem. At once, he infused the Golem with Gravitic Wrestler, Inertial Overdrive, Strider of the Unbending Path, and Vitality Drain. He groaned as he deposited a significant amount of vitality within the Golem, but Shiv endured his growing weakness. It's gonna be worth it, he thought to himself. A flash of gold came at time. Shiv cursed and spiked himself and his golem downward. A chain of golden arrows cut by, a little too close for comfort. And the archer is getting more accurate by the second. The hell’s up with that? They better not be a Diviner too…

Shiv stared at his golem, and it looked back at him without any reaction. "Go for the Jealousy. Freeze time, go back in time, do whatever it takes, but slam against it and try to dig into its flesh before discharging yourself. Make sure you start breaking before you discharge yourself," Shiv hastily added at the end.

The golem immediately moved. It shot out from his Creeping Void, a projectile of red, white, and gold leaping out a sea of shadow. The Jealousy responded immediately. It swung one of its nunchucks and a cascading bolt rushed towards the golem. 

Fooled you now, Shiv chuckled under his breath. To his delight, he also saw where the Chronomantic archer was firing from. The golden arrow blasted up from a section of the city still swallowed in rubble. Shiv wasn't sure how that enemy slipped past his notice, and then he considered maybe they had already snuck in far earlier. We still don't know how they got inside the gate first. The golden arrow smashed into the Golem, breaking off fragments of red, gold, and white.

Shiv froze time as well. A Chronomantic field fused over his body, and he blasted toward the archer's last known location. He spiked himself fast, climbing to his top speed. He didn't need to know where the archer exactly was. No, Shiv had over 200 meters of Biomancy to work with. The moment he felt someone with Magical Resistance or the organic architecture of a Vulteg, he would cast himself back in time and slam right into them. As Shiv went for the archer, he saw his golem grind hard against the Jealousy's eye. The massive demon was pushed through the air, but the Golem didn't make any headway ripping through its flesh. This Jealousy's a lot tougher than the last one. Shit. Maybe I should have given it Deepest Edge as well. Next time.

Just then, his Biomancy field brushed against something, high Magical Resistance. There you are. He followed the pull of his Biomancy and found himself glaring into a partially crushed teleportation anchor sticking out from a landslide of rubble. No longer, no wonder he missed the archer earlier. They picked a pretty good hiding spot.

Shiv projected his Chronomancy back in time. He jolted two seconds into the past so he could make the necessary adjustments. He allowed out a groan of effort as he started spiking himself at an angle. Adjusting his trajectory was still a struggle, even with forewarning and a massively boosted Physicality. 

A fifth of his temporal shell broke off then, and Shiv smashed into the damaged teleportation anchor. He crumpled some more, and he spiked himself even harder. The reinforced titanium tore. He caught sight of his enemy and found himself staring at an elf. Not a Vulteg, an elf. She wore an armor of pearlescent scales, and her bow burned bright with Chronomancy. Her eyes, however, were pulsating with violet energy. She was a Diviner—much to Shiv’s displeasure. Her bow was the Chronomancer in the equation, which was unfortunate for her, because now that Shiv found her, there wasn't much she could do to save—

An arrow burst through the back of Shiv’s neck and emerged out the front just as he slammed into the elf's body. Her form disintegrated. Shiv gagged as blood flooded his trachea. Confusion overtook him. He smashed deeper, he smashed through the collapsing teleportation anchor, and found himself clawing into a landslide of trash and detritus. 

The hell's was that? Shiv thought to himself. He cast himself back in time. Another section of his armor broke away. He only had 20% of his temporal shell left. His wound vanished. As he rematerialized, he saw the elf standing high atop a nearby mountain of ruin. And she grinned at him. There was something odd about her form. It shimmered with divination and Chronomantic mana. As Shiv's Biomancy swept over her, he didn't feel any kind of organic architecture whatsoever.

The hell am I dealing with? An illusion? Shiv glared at the enemy as he launched a bone drill at—and then through her. The elf held out her hand, turned it over, and stuck two fingers out at him, taunting him. Shiv responded by blasting a stream of Vitae into her. The arrogant smirk on her face vanished as soon as the Vitae splashed around her form. 

Now, Shiv smirked.

The elf made a mistake taunting him. Though Shiv couldn't feel her biology, she still glowed with vitality. And vitality was something Shiv could drain. He began to siphon from her, even as the final bits of his temporal shell started peeling away. She wrestled against his Vitae, but he used it to hold her still. It wrapped around her like a chain of fluid adamantine. And that's when Shiv realized his Vitae was a direct upgrade for his cancer flail.

Whip Proficiency 8 > 9

He immediately ripped the archer off the ground, spinning his body and spiking both himself and his Vitae downward. She tore hard into the sky. To her credit, she managed to fire three shots from her bow. They came at Shiv. He swatted the first one aside. Two others, however, overlapped each other perfectly. And they flashed bright, briefly blinding him. By the time he realized where they were, it was too late. They were just centimeters away from his eyes. 

Pure instinct saved Shiv. He formed a swirling mass of Vitae in front of his face. Chunks of his life force broke away as the arrow bit into it. Shiv felt colder, weaker, but he didn't die. And that's when he realized there was a second function for his Vitae. When desperation called for it, he could use it as an additional barrier. And it might be better than dying now, since his Vitae was solid mana. Something his enemy could physically break.

Vitaemancy 61 > 62

Shiv's Vitae settled back within his field. And two golden arrows fell away as the red and white mana they shattered, evaporated like strings of rising smoke. The elven archer slammed down upon a jutting slab of concrete. She gave an agonized wail of pain, and the shroud of Divination and Chronomancy mana that protected her cracked open as well. Shiv felt her biology for the first time. Her lower body was broken, eyes rolled. 

Shiv tore her from the ground as he reeled his Vitae back in. But rather than draw the Vitae back into his own body, within the stability of his Vitaemancy field, he wrapped his Skysplitter in the red and white, and he thrust out. The elven archer refocused just in time for Shiv to drive his blade up through her chin. 

Just then, his temporal shell shattered. Time resumed.

Two hundred meters away, the Jealousy plowed into the ground, displacing tides of uprooted rubble. In the skies above, a massive explosion spread, fire chased by a wave of force. The archer gagged and choked, the violet and gold protecting her faded. She dropped her bow. Shiv caught it and threw it in his cape. This is how to make Adam smile, he commented to himself. Her left eye twitched. Shiv scowled. He crushed the elven archer's head for good measure before casting her corpse aside. No half measures.

As he shot toward the Jealousy, he found the greater demon groaning, still trying to get up from the crater it was blasted into. Hurts bad. Shiv activated his Outside Context Problem. The world went dull and grey, exhaustion swept through him, rushing deep into his core. 

Shiv bit back a groan and immediately deactivated the skill before he spent himself completely. He burst out in a splash of red and white. His vision spun. There was a cost to using that much Vitae, the cost he paid, the physical weakness and the risk of certain death if his body was destroyed. The Jealousy turned, it swung its nunchucks wide, it missed Shiv. The Greater Demon was as disoriented as he was, maybe more. He crashed into it, spearing his Skysplitter against its eye as he magnified his blade again. The dagger expanded to a hundred meters as Shiv drove it in. The Jealousy let out a cry, black, boiling blood erupted from the back of its skull. He extended a tendril of Vitae into the Jealousy and began to drain it. His weakness started fading, but the Jealousy wrapped a hand around the length of his blade.

Shiv snarled as he lifted the greater demon into the air. He spiked himself high, dragging the Jealousy with him. It swung its nunchucks, but its hits went wide, passing through open air and striking nothing. With every following second, Shiv felt strength flooding his bones, rushing through his veins. His vision cleared, the fog choking up his mind dissolved, remembered what he wanted to do, what he was instinctively doing. 

He accelerated toward the spreading gateway and found a flood of new enemies pouring free. More importantly, there was another Jealousy there, and it shaped a pillar of fire atop its head. It was using the pillar to slice through some of Can Hu’s barricades. Shiv gritted his teeth. He could see burning corpses atop some of the battlements. The bodies of Weaveresses and Umbral who died trying to protect the gate.

Godsdammit! Anger rushed through him, and he used that to fuel his Gravitic Wrestler. He descended, swinging the Jealousy impaled upon his knife like a meteor hammer. As he shot down, the other Jealousy looked up and its eyes widened. It tried to move away, but just then a Veilpiercer tore into existence and blew a bloody hole through the center of its iris. 

The Pyromanic Jealousy wailed, and its screams doubled as Shiv brought his Jealousy-knife hybrid down upon the other greater demon. Two Jealousyies collided. A massive shockwave shook the gate. Vultegs and dimensionals below were flung off their feet, and Shiv kept pushing. The inner ring of battlements shook and some of them crumbled. Shiv drove the Jealousyies down against the ground, and they blocked up the gateway, choking the constant influx of enemy forces. Their large tentacles smashed into the battlements, and Shiv could hear members of the arachne order calling for others to fall back.

Gravitic Wrestler 145 > 146

Shiv twisted his Skysplitter inside the nunchuck Jealousy, commanding his blade to grow even larger. As it made the wound larger, Shiv seized the impaled Jealousy by its head and began slamming it down on the other Jealousy. Their armored carapaces cracked together over and over. The fire-wielding Jealousy proved inferior in toughness, and blood began to spray out from its already mutilated eye with every following slam.

Just then, something akin to broken glass slipped through the blinded Jealousy in an instant. Shiv didn’t even know where it came from. His eyes widened as the broken glass glided through the Jealousy's flesh in an instant, splitting it apart from within. The battered Greater Demon came asunder, its gore spilling down in waterfalls. As Shiv brought the Jealousy he impaled down upon the dead one, a splash of red and grayish ichor filled the air. 

It was at that point he saw the strange entity emerge from the dead Jealousy. It was painful to look at. Its geometries twisted and danced, and its edges were sharp. Shiv realized what it was, Uva's Aberrant Fractal had entered the fray. 

Then, the world grew brighter. A flood of might filled Shiv—might beyond anything he ever knew, beyond what he could achieve alone. A blue sun rose over him, and Shiv looked up to see Adam Arrow hovering overhead.

"Defenders, rally!" Adam called out. "Defenders, rally! The first wave is broken! We stand! They dashed themselves against us! We still stand!"

Strands of mana slipped through Shiv's mind, and at once he felt Uva, Adam, the orcs, and Valor synchronize with his thoughts.

"I started the ritual," Shiv said awkwardly. "But there’s a… slight requirement."

"What kind of requirement?" Adam asked. He looked at his mana core, hovering in the distance, and he made a gesture. It flared. Shiv felt something within his soul shudder. Just then, the impaled Jealousy flared with Psychomantic energy. Shiv snarled. “Hey? Toad? This swan says stay down.”

As he picked the nunchuck using Jealousy up, slammed it down one more time. He felt his Gravitic Wrestler fuse with his Deepest Edge. A wave of gravity exploded out from his knife. It stretched wide, becoming a singularity which he could shape and wield to his own volition. Shiv's blade brought his blow down upon the Jealousy, and it didn't just split in half. It was crushed into paste.

Skill Fusion: Gravitic Wrestler (Master) + Deepest Edge (Adept) > Singularity Blade (Heroic)

Shiv blinked as blood and debris began to circle both him and his blade. He felt like a titan of unfettered might—like his cuts could reshape gravity itself… "Right. So, I was saying, we have a slight requirement. We kind of need to kill 40,000 of the Vultegs."

"Fifty what?" Adam called out.

"Fifty what?" Uva repeated. "I must have misheard."

"No, you didn’t," Shiv replied. "Fifty thousand Vultegs. We're going to need to kill them."

"Fifty? How are we supposed to kill 40,000 felling Vultegs?" Adam snarled with incredulity. "How? Not like we have a mana bomb." The Gate Lord hummed. “Wait… Shiv, make a golem right now!”

Something slipped through the exposed gateway, emerging through the spraying molten fluid, rising from the flood of Jealousy blood. Shiv smashed the Vulteg into paste with his Singularity Blade.

“Insul! What in the hells is that?” Mortar called from a distance.

“Skill Fusion,” Shiv said. “Thank Adam. Give me a second. You know what? I’ll just take the second myself.” He froze time. His temporal shell fused over him and immediately began shaping a new golem. He gave it its standard four set animated skill combo, briefly considered giving it the Creeping Vvoid as well, but then shook his head and decided this was good. Too much vitality cost.

Time resumed. "Alright, done."

Adam did a double take. “Good." Immediately, the Gate Lord’s vambrace flared. Shiv could see the corrosive energy even from so far away. And then Shiv realized what Adam was planning to do.

"Uh, Adam, sure this is a good idea? You plan to shoot my golem with Necromancy? Won’t that…” He pasted another idiot trying to pass through.

Gravitic Wrestler 146 > 147

Deepest Edge 64 > 65

"No, absolutely not," Adam replied with a humorless chuckle. "But it is a you idea."

Shiv paused. "You know what? You're right. It is kind of a me idea.”

"The only good thing," Adam continued, "is that I don't think we need to risk you directly anymore. Or so I hope. Alright, here's the plan." A screaming Vulteg shot out from the gateway. His body gleamed as he hardened, sharpening himself into an adamantine blade. 

Shiv smacked him back through the gateway using his Singularity Blade. "Go on."

"We send your golem through first, and then I have to follow him over briefly to make the shot.”

Shiv frowned. "What do you mean you have to follow him over briefly?"

"I can't shoot a Veilpiercer through a gateway."

"Why the hell not?" Shiv asked.

"Complex dimensionality reasons," Adam said. "Now, the moment I do that, I want you to freeze time and drag me back across."

And suddenly Shiv was doubly unsure about this plan. "Do you have to be on the other side? Maybe you could just give me the vambrace."

"No," Adam said. "It's the most secure way. We need to kill fifty thousand of the bastards? Fine. Let's do it in an instant. Let’s bomb them so hard that we vaporize most of their army. We can't fight them indefinitely."

Shiv let out a breath, and he shrugged. "Alright. Okay. Golem. Cross the rift. Smash into anyone you see. Keep your Inertial Overdrive high. But don't discharge unless you're about to evaporate—actually, don't discharge under any circumstances."

The golem responded immediately. It shot across through the open rift with a blast of acceleration. Shiv looked up at Adam. "Alright. I'm going in next.” 

The Gate Lord held up a fist. “I'll follow thereafter. Uva, coordinate defenses, have them lock this place down by the time we get back."

"Understood," Uva replied. "Don't die, boys."

"If I do, it's Shiv's fault."

The Deathless grunted uncomfortably as he spiked himself through the open gateway. "Thanks for the added pressure, asshole."

Ritual Conditions: Slay [199/50,000 Vultegs] to align the Dimensional frequency of the Vulketh Gateway to the Tutorial.