III-2 Radiant

I suspect that the system is an intelligent entity, extremely intelligent, capable of weaving and connecting patterns so fine and so great that most of us can't even see it coming. Indeed, divination might be just the art of interpreting these patterns, and so that is why even esteemed diviners get things wrong or find it hard to parse things. 

After all, we are not designed to see the grand scope. Even the most powerful path bearer lives on this world, and despite how much capacity towards change and destruction they can unleash, they do not see beyond the world and the system spends worlds like someone might spend mithril.

But despite it being intelligent, I don't think it's conscious. I think it has a set design, a desire to force more evolutions. To make everything keep growing stronger and stronger. But it does not recognize itself or us. It does not truly interact with us or have a specific character or personality. It simply wishes to connect different events to different people or to ensure the most severe, most strife-inducing outcome proves possible. This does not mean that the outcome will always occur. That is also partially dependent on the individual. Many system-favorites end up dead. I suspect that is the natural state of things.

After all, to become system-favored, you have to experience high-intensity and high-frequency encounters with extreme violence. More than this, you must prevail, survive, and adapt over and over again. 

Once this becomes a common pattern in your life, the system might seek to expand it, and it might seek to connect your common patterns and propensity towards conflict with something else, with another entity's decision, with something else they might do to you, to the world, or to someone you care about.

Strife, strife shapes the soul. Events, events more than strife even, shape the world. After all, our power originates within our deeds, our legends, the defeats we perform, and this world and the mana cores grow because of the things that happen on it. Our conflict is nutrition for the system. We feed it, and it shapes us so that we can feed it more, so that we can indulge its palate.

I have been rambling. My mind is drifting again. There's so much I try to keep track of, so much. Even after all I've achieved, all I've become, I still can't grasp the fullness of the system's design. And if I can't grasp it, then how can I ever usurp it?

-Udraal Thann’s Animancy Notes

III-2

Radiant

Adam howled. Foul colors exploded out from inside him. Black sludge poured out from his vectors-wings and seized him tight. Eyes opened in the tightening darkness—eyes that fed from misery. The Dreamtaker coiled in tight, crashing against the darkness, but the Stranger had Adam in a brutal grip. The Gate Lord screamed as his body began to snap and shift. It was changing him, reshaping him from the inside.

The Dreamtaker cried out. He glimpsed Uva shuddering beside him, and Adam tried to free himself—but everything was coming apart. His mind was rebelling against him.

Bowslinger > MINE NOW! MINE TOMORROW! MINE BEFORE! MINE AFTER!

Tears trailed down Adam’s face. He was weeping in despair, in frustration, in rage at the unfairness of it all. He won. He and the others prevailed against the enemy. So why were they being punished so brutally? Were they just supposed to die? Were they just supposed to succumb to an impossible fight? Did the system just want them to be broken and used as flesh-coats for monsters that belong in the deepest recesses of his nightmares?

Mark of the Seeking Clairvoyant > WILL SUFFER FOR RUINING MY PLAN-SCHEME-BIRTHING-IMPREGANTION

The Dreamtaker—or something related to it—crashed harder against the Stranger. “AWAY! Away, Stranger! You are blind-deaf-foolish. Something is coming! You will suffer for this! Release him! Depart!

The Stranger just laughed.

Seer of Horizons > WILL SUFFER FOR TAKING MY OFFSPRING. BREAK-BURN-ETERNAL-TORTURE. SEARED HIM INTO MANA. FLAYED HIM INTO THE SYSTEM. NEVER DIE. ALWAYS SUFFER. HE IS SUFFERING. ALWAYS. FOREVER. FUTURE AND PAST.

Gate Lord Arrow gasped. The Recollector wasn’t dead? That’s why it was still screaming earlier? Always screaming. Gods… What the hells even is Animancy…

Veilpiercer > WILL BREAK YOU SLOWLY. WILL WEAR YOU. WILL WEAR THE UNBREAKING ONE. WILL WEAR THE SEEKER BESIDE YOU.

And that was Adam’s limit. He could barely take the hopelessness of losing himself and his soul to this wretched thing. But Shiv and Uva—his mind was breaking, but he wouldn’t fail them. He wouldn’t.

The Gate Lord reached inside him with his Hydromancy. It was a skill the Stranger hadn’t infested yet. He tore at the very water in his body, preparing to kill himself. Adam was terrified. A sob escaped him. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to perish like this. Blackedge needed him. His father needed him. Isabella—there was so much left to do. So much, yet the system was forcing his hand. And Shiv and Uva…

If they survived, they would…

He wanted to hope they would continue without him, that they would be fine without him. But a selfish portion of Adam Arrow didn’t want them to be. He wanted them to mourn him. He wanted them to weep for him. He wanted to be loved and cherished and honored.

And here he was, hesitating. 

Adam Arrow was a selfish coward.

No, a warm voice whispered beside him. You are, however, too savage to your own heart. Open your eyes, Archer. Open your eyes, and see the coming of the light!

And then, as the Outside threatened to consume Gate Theborn entirely, a dawn descended.

The Dreamtaker’s body dissolved into splotches of wild color with a melodic noise. “System… Planned this. Stranger. Fool-blind-suffer.” Light continued pouring out from Uva. Light that formed a pillar. But from within, a gap opened where Adam was, exposing him to the roiling madness that threatened to consume the gate—his gate. But in that chaos, a radiant presence approached. A radiant presence tore through the swirling tides of chaos and discord.

Attention: The Starhawk has entered the dimension of Gate Theborn.

The Outside burned. The voice of the Starhawk shook existence itself.  "Outsiders, begone. You have intruded where you do not belong. You have reached beyond your veil, and you have touched someone you have no claim to! Begone or face the trueness of my path. Begone. I give you now the mercy you show no others. Take it.”

The Stranger froze within Adam. It spat a single word as it resumed its twisting and tearing within his soul. "Starhawk. False-god. False-Ascension. Thief of dead stories. Alone against those you chose, against your kin-blood-fellows. And you are hunted. Come here now? You are foolish. Should save power for what is to come.”

“Such is what I am doing,” the Starhawk declared. “Such is why Adam Arrow is to live. The system weakened the boundaries to your domain as a lure. And the Pathbearer you seek to bend to your will is but a poison pill you have swallowed.”

“Will still be my pill. Mine. FOREVER! ALWAYS!”

The Starhawk laughed. The coming radiance faded slightly. Adam caught sight of a thousand celestial wings, all of them glistening as if impossibly sharp geometric fractals. And then at the center of those wings was the shape of a man who bore armor shaped from a star. He had  four arms and two heads: one of a hawk's, the other helmed, bearing the visage of a warrior. His upper two arms drew back a colossal greatbow, and an arrow forged from the cosmic power of the constellations itself began to shine. Below, his other hands clutched a massive halberd, something dense, something pitch black, darker than the void itself.

"I will not repeat myself, Stranger. You are not meant to be here. Cease, retreat to where you belong.”

"Mine now, mine!" the Stranger yelled. It yelled from the rupture from where it bled over into reality. It yelled out from inside Adam. It yelled out using Adam.

"Blind to the end," the Starhawk said. "You have breached the world so cruelly and casually when the system gave you a chance. But you have forgotten something in your anger. We are Outside. In the twilight of the system’s reach. And as such, the Mana Stability Threshold no longer applies. And even if it did, I care little what happens to your realm.”

The Stranger went still.

"Ah, you didn’t think that far. For all your strangeness, you have the temper and foresight of a child." There was a hint of humor at the end of the Starhawk's voice, and then it fired its arrow. But the arrow didn't strike the Stranger. No, it tore across existence and slammed into Adam instead. The Gate Lord felt himself detonate, felt his soul come aflame. Adam choked as the divine arrow of a god pierced him, struck into him, struck at the very contamination bleeding over his soul.

The Stranger shrieked. The arrow split ever deeper, descending into the depths of Adam's being. A new color exploded out from the young lord. It was a color he knew; it was the color of the sun, of twilight, of azure blue, and of midnight black. It was all these colors at the same time, and it was none of them. It was the Starhawk unleashing its power against something that never belonged in this dimension at all.

"Mine!" the Stranger screamed.

"Leave!" the Starhawk replied, calm but powerful.

Between them, Adam shuddered. He thought he would break. Then he saw Uva falling through the air as the Dreamtaker fully retracted its colors into her; he remembered Shiv laying there, bleeding. If Adam fell, who was going to look after them? Who was going to protect his team? 

“No,” Adam growled. It didn't matter if he was mad. It didn't matter if gods were fighting over his soul. He was a Pathbearer. He had a town to save, and he had companions to protect, to spare from the black hand of death. 

"Out," Adam shouted. He directed his strained Dimensionality inward, trying to reach at the very plague consuming him, contaminating his skills, and affecting him. "Leave!" His Dimensionality couldn't sustain anymore. A surge of pain washed through him, so he switched to something else. 

He prepared to use Necromancy on himself. He would break his own soul before he let the Stranger have it.

And that was just what the Starhawk had been waiting for. The celestial arrow detonated. The skills the Stranger infested were knocked loose. They rippled as strange, incomprehensible pattens, trembling free from Adam’s body. He struck them with his Necromancy—with his vambrace, willing to destroy himself if it meant spiting the Stranger. But as his corrosive power struck, the world around him flashed with the withering brightness of Necromancy.

And that was how Adam Arrow discovered that the Stranger was more dimension than entity.

It howled. It screamed. Its soul was immense, and the damage he inflicted was feeble. Only the slightest corrosive marks spread through the world, but it was enough to stun the eldritch dimension that was burrowing Gate Theborn.

Stun it long enough for the Starhawk to casually fire another arrow.

A radiant wound sheared through the Stranger’s expanse. The realm bled. Everything the Starhawk’s arrow touch burned and blistered. The arrow traveled so fast it winked out of existence. Then came a glittered, and then a constellation that spread. Spread with more flames. As stars and fire formed a cracking outline within the Stranger.

“TAKE HIM BACK! ENOUGH! STOP! BURN-PAIN-BREAK! ENNOOUGHH!”

And then came a third arrow. And it carried with it a chain of nascent stars, mere seconds before a supernova. The Stranger fled, and the colors from the Outside fled with the entity. It was like watching an archer beat an ocean. It was like watching a man push back the horizon. But parts of the Stranger broke off and passed over into Adam just before it retracted its essence from his soul. He felt two fragments slip into him. Both filled his soul with ponderous weight.

As the Outside receded back into the crack from which the Stranger spawned, Gate Theborn itself returned before Adam’s eyes. 

"Never forgive you! We'll always, always remember this! Never! Never! Never! WILL COME FOR YOU AGAIN, ARCHER ADAM! TASTED YOUR PATH! KNOW YOUR FATE! KNOW THE PATHS WHERE CAUSALITY MIGHT LEAD! WILL FIND YOU! WILL CLAIM YOU AND ALL!” And with a final howl of outrage, the Stranger slipped back through the cracks, and the system sealed the Outside away again.

The boundaries to the semi-integrated dimensions have been reinforced.

Adam fell. But before he could strike the ground, he triggered his wings again. Six inverted pyramids flared into existence beside Adam. He stilled in the air without any drop. There, he remained as if standing on wind, gawking at his Ascendant, his father’s patron god.

“I… Starhawk," Adam wheezed. “But…”

“I am not the Starhawk,” the divine being declared with a chuckle. “I am merely…” And the “Starhawk” dissolved into a series of constellations. “...an arrow fired at an opportune moment. My attention is consumed. I am assailed from all sides—hunted by my own. All this is true. And I cannot unleash my power upon Integrated Earth without grave consequences. Much of what you might have discovered about me is true. I will not lie. But there are pieces you are missing. Pieces of the story that have been misrepresented.”

Adam’s mouth opened and close. His mind was reeling. He didn’t know how to react.

“But I can still fire into the Outside without cost. For the system cares little about that which its mana has not yet infected.”

Infected? Adam thought.

Then, two pulses of power stirred inside him. A heat began to swell.

The Starhawk continued. “Your father struggles hard, Young Arrow. He needs your aid, and he will need your aid soon. Even with my blessing, even his immense and miraculous power, the divinity vested through my Starhawk's perch, the encirclement of Blackedge strains him. Vicar Sullain is a terrible adversary to have—great enough even to harm something like me, if I am careless. And worse than that, the Sullain is set to receive major reinforcement from the Republic itself, though the Inquisition operates against Blackedge for entirely different reasons."

A sigh came from the Starhawk’s fired arrow. “Grave times are upon us. Multiple wars and grand struggles loom on the horizon. But I spent now. Reach Blackedge. Find your father. Ascend Starhawk’s Perch with whatever force you can muster, with whatever allies you can bring. I see the great flame around you. System favored. You have my sympathy, Adam Arrow. And my pride. Defy. Fight. Continue.” The Constellations began to dim. "The system has allowed me my presence only so long. Even this fragment, even this diminutive part of me, cannot linger here lest I cause a mana storm." 

The Starhawk’s arrow pointed up, staring at the mana core of Gate Theborn. "Ah, and the system’s hand... subtle and vulgar at the same time. I realized the other things it desired to bear fruit, but not this.”

Slowly, Adam's gaze turned as he regarded the core. And the Young Lord was surprised. The core's color had changed entirely. It was a shifting aurora. Mana spilled out from it, dissolving into the gate. Yet, it was of a strange color, a color that Adam couldn't ever recall seeing. It resembled a particularly dark shade of purple. But then, as it changed once more, something happened. The purple began to crack. The mana core reconnected with Adam, and slowly, it started taking inspiration from his being. Because, as the gate had once been pierced by the stranger, he could feel its influence bleeding over into him, and his history bleeding over into it.

It began to shine, and it began to shine with a blinding radiance unlike anything Adam had ever seen in a mana core. It was azure blue mixed with a corona of a rising dawn. It was the color of Adam’s eyes.

"What? What is happening?" Adam said.

"The core will undergo decay due to the damage suffered by this gate," the Starhawk explained. "However, its nature has been changed. It has undergone a unique incident: something that has never before happened in its known history or yours. This core is now a Unique Core.”

Adam stared on in awe. "Cores can be Unique?"

And the Starhawk looked down upon Adam. He had a feeling that he was smiling upon him. "Indeed. Just like you can gain a Unique Skill if you survive an impossible experience, perform a truly novel feat, or perhaps get nudged in. Find yourself shaped by the system's hand."

"The system," Adam wheezed. He didn't fully understand.

"Indeed. The system made sure that the Stranger could evade. It deliberately weakened the boundaries between dimensions.”

"Why?" Adam whispered. “All for strife?”

“Because there was an opportunity toward evolution. Because it desires constant, eternal evolution, and nothing inspires change more than desperate conflict. Usually, the system can casually hold the great eldritch entities at bay. The greater the Outsider, the stronger their allergy to mana. But it allowed its resistance here to thin just long enough for it to breach the core, for it to affect you. And then it called to me. It sent me and several other gods a quest to save you. I responded. And the Stranger was the one that paid.”

And then, a list of notifications loaded before Adam as he doubled over. Something was igniting inside him. The fragments left in him by the Stranger were merging with his soul, becoming skills, mixing with his mana. He could feel the change, and it hurt.

Adam’s jaw clenched as he bit back the pain. "Godsdamn the system," he muttered under his breath. "There’s no time to rest. Not even a single moment of mercy…" His voice trailed off to an exhausted whimper, and the Starhawk let out a sigh of pity.

"I fear I understand you more than most, more than you can possibly think. But take heart and stand now. Ascend! Soar! Defy! Righteous blood flows in your veins, young arrow. And a noble architecture has become your character. This world will seek to break you down. The system cares nothing for goodness, for the righteousness that men do. But I do. But we do. Because even should strife fall, even should the heavens be unkind, we do not need to be. Strength is beyond cruelty. Strength is above it. Strive for strength. Strive. Be yourself in defiance of the world. It seeks to lay you low. Prevail regardless. My true self awaits you… at Blackedge.”

Adam's insides felt like they were on fire, but rather than burning, he felt parts of his soul get reforged. He felt a new power flood out from his being. Suddenly, a brilliant azure sun pulsed out behind Adam, flaring over his head like a crown and brightening the world around him. He felt the sun. It was bound to him. It was a part of him, an extension of his very soul, forged from a broken piece of the Stranger that had been purified by the Starhawk’s arrow. A fragment of eldritch power blunted by divinity melded with Adam, and it changed him just as it changed within him, acclimating itself to his legend, his very soul.

Skill Gained: The Righteous Dawn Prevails 1 (Unique)

The other fragment continued to merge.

The azure sun’s light wasn't just a thing of heat and brightness. There was a power to it, a power that extended beyond a mere lore of magic. There was something divine ingrained in it still, and that divinity allowed him to spot Uva laying somewhere just below him. 

The light glinted against her shield, and it hovered over her, expanded wide into a dense layer of floating fragments. Adam could see the Dynamancy Core showing, and underneath it, Uva was utterly flat. Her body extended across ten full meters of space. More than flat, she was practically like a rope in some ways. Her fingers extended like cords, and they were still spooling outward. And she was writhing, whimpering. He never heard that from her before. Well, aside from when she overstrained her mana.

Adam landed beside her, and just then she drew a sharp intake of breath. She blinked, and she looked up. She then took on a nature of awe and wonder as Adam Arrow descended. "Uva," he said, "are you all right?" He examined her and tried to find any wounds on her body. Parts of her shield were badly dented, but aside from that... 

"My mind is wounded." She tried to reach up to clutch at her head, but parts of her shoulder wiggled like someone swinging a rope. More of her unspooled. "I think I would like to lie here for a while," Uva whimpered. “I think something tore parts of my…” She stopped talking and grimaced. The remaining pieces of her shattered armor barely clung to her. She was going to need a replacement.

Adam gathered her into his arms, and she still drooped around him, but slowly she began to tighten, turning like a cord. He didn't feel her presence like a snake coiling around himself, around his body, but rather like she was just leaning against him. She still weighed the same. It was just that, as he examined her, it was like she was moving oddly, moving in directions and across spaces he couldn't... 

He shook his head. This fight had changed all of them brutally. Both Uva and Shiv came out of Gate Theborn's capture utterly transformed and deeply broken. He was the only one still standing, and even then he took a direct intervention on the part of his patron god to do so. A situation engineered by the system to enhance his power as well.

It is empowering me for Blackedge. It wants me to fight. It wants more strife. If I died just now, then the Stranger gains something, and Uva and Shiv… If they managed to escape, they would never let it go. But then if it gained all of us, we would be used against the world anyway. There is no way the system can lose. But it can win greater victories in one circumstance over another. There can be greater moments of struggle and strife.

"Adam," Uva muttered.

"Yes?" Adam said.

"Why are you... why are you glowing?" She opened her eyes and noticed the sun hovering behind him. "Why do you have an azure sun drifting behind you?"

"The system," Adam sneered.

"The system?" Uva said.

"I got claimed by the Stranger," Adam explained. “But it was a trap by the system. An opening for the Starhawk. And now I have a Unique Skill.”

And just then, his other skill loaded.

Well, not exactly a skill.

Feat Gained: Smite the Wicked (Unique) - Allows the Pathbearer to infuse one of their attacks with absolute lethality after they slay a hundred beings who have committed the vilest of deeds.

“And a Unique Feat,” he muttered.

She laughed. “I think I… there are notifications… Hm.” Uva swallowed. "The light of your sun… It is making my skills… It makes me feel better…”

Adam blinked. "What?"

Suddenly, Uva sobered. Her eldritch eyes glowed brighter. "Yes, my skills are growing. The levels are increasing… Your sun is making me stronger." Adam paused, and then he felt at the dawn following him, at the triumph of righteous light. Adam tried directing his sun’s brightness and managed to channel a beam directly into Uva. He focused its brilliance, straining his very soul to guide the star's glare. 

Uva gasped. She gasped as her Psychomancy mana threads exploded, more threads shearing out from her. She went from being a spiderweb to a literal jungle of Psychomancy, and then more threads sheared back inside of her. She began to pull at the parts of her own mind, sliding pieces back together, fixing things, stitching things.

"Keep, keep going," she breathed. She immediately reformed back to her three-dimensional self, and a look of utter exhilaration washed through her. It was more open emotion than they had seen in Uva's face than ever before. "Keep going," she laughed. "It feels... it feels incredible."

Adam tried to pour more, but he groaned. The sun strained him immensely. It was a stressful power to wield when he focused it, when he made it flare, but it was a power that enhanced everyone around him. What happens if I run into an enemy? Adam thought. Would it enhance them, too? 

Intutition told him otherwise.

Thanks to his vector-wings, he arrived back at the surface gate in little more than a few seconds. His acceleration was weightless—reactionless. Through it all, neither him nor Uva even felt the slightest hint of turbulence. 

As they landed at the middle of the plaza, he found two mercenaries tending to Shiv. The deathless hadn't died, but his condition looked worse than before. He was pale. He was spent. His eyes were blinking. Adam could tell he was on the verge of unconsciousness. He was on the verge until Adam's light fell upon him as well. Shiv gasped. His Biomancy exploded out from him. 

Several nearby Pathbearers also had an obvious response. Some of them grew larger, their muscles swelling. Others became faster. More felt their magic explode out from their body, growing potent in a matter of moments. People stared at Adam. So many people. And their eyes were locked on dawn hovering just over his head.

But not everyone was so blessed by his presence, for some among the masses burned. They cried out, their bodies coming afire beneath Adam's azure dawn. Their flesh did not melt, their skin did not blacken, but their soul simmered where their material bodies did not. Adam felt them wither, felt their bodies weaken, felt their strength lessen, felt their magic shrink back into them. More than a few were Jump Mages. Their Portomancy shriveled practically back into their bodies. Some gasped and collapsed entirely. Entire groups of mercenaries suffered an adverse reaction just at his very coming. 

And as they burned, Adam felt his Feat trigger for the first time, flashes of their ill deeds blasted into his mind. He gained near premonitions of the vile acts committed by the people around him, premonitions and an urge to strike them down, to feed the wrath lurking inside him—unleash his first smite. 

He clenched his jaw but barely held back. He wouldn't kill them, not yet, not without a tribunal. If he slaughtered them now in front of so many, it would be misconstrued. And he would not lose his newly obtained lordship because he was hasty, because he was hateful and rageful.

But this power, he was starting to understand what this power granted. It let him know who committed an act of evil. It let him know, and it fed him. It fed him with a building power as he struck and burned at the very spirit of the vile.

Suddenly, Shiv shot upright. His wounds were still severe, but the massive gash on his chest was ever so slowly beginning to close. And to Adam's astonishment, some of his Necromancy burns flaked away as well.

The Righteous Dawn Prevails 1 > 2

"What the hell?" Shiv breathed. "What the hell did you just—?" And he noticed. He noticed the burns flaking away from his hand, the first growth of new and healthy skin revealed underneath. His eyes widened.

Adam reduced the flare he was sending at Uva, and she let out a gasp. "More. More—" she grabbed at him, and then she blinked as if just realizing what she said. "Sorry, it was intoxicating."

"I know," Adam said. "I could feel… I could feel how you all flourished in my light… Or burned…” 

And still, some people were writhing, fleeing from his light. Adam clenched his jaw. And then he channeled his azure sunlight directly into Shiv. He focused his power, and the Deathless flinched. An entire section of his soul wounds began to mend at a crawling pace—but still far faster than before.

“What the hells happened while I was down and out,” Shiv laughed. He looked at Adam’s wings and blinked. Before he could speak, he noticed the mana core had changed colors as well. Adam hadn’t even had bloody time to examine the core’s status.

“System,” Uva breathed, staring greedily at Adam’s hovering sun.

“The Stranger tried to eat me. The system allowed the bloody bastard get close. Then the Starhawk fired an arrow across realms, and now you’re looking at a Unique-Tier Pathbearer.”

“You?” Shiv said, narrowing his eyes sarcastically. “I don’t know. You still look frail. Are you sure you evolved?” Adam narrowed his eyes and cut off the sunlight. Shiv doubled-over, clutching his body. “Shit. Fuck. Okay. You’re Unique. Just turn the light back on.”

And Adam did. And it felt good. And he grinned as Shiv let out a sigh.

“That’s… that’s all three of us.” Uva frowned. Just then, she made eye contact with Shiv and his expression hardened.

“Your eyes,” Shiv rasped.

“A gateway to another place now,” Uva replied. “To the Outside. And… when I dove into the Recollector’s mind, I got something else as well. Another skill…”

“You did?” Adam said, surprised. “What is it?”

Uva looked uncomfort. She eyed the man people staring at them. “Not here,” she said, telepathically. “Best that I show the both of you where there are fewer prying eyes. And where it won’t affect anyone else.”

“That bad?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know,” Uva admitted. And a cold anxiety radiated from her. Uva didn’t much get scared, but after all the shit they went through.

“Wait, shit!” Shiv threw the bedsheets off himself. Uva did a double take as she realized he wasn’t wearing anything. Siggy’s eyes bulged as her mouth fell open. “Can Hu. Valor. Adam. We need to go. We need to find them.”

The Young Lord realized why Shiv was so animated, and raw worry exploded inside him as well. “Shit. I think I saw a few teleportation anchors. They were damaged but intact. They should be fine. They should be.” 

Shiv growled. ‘System, you piece of shit, do not fuck us now.”

Adam’s worry worsened. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?”

“It might send another eldritch entity or god after us.”

The Deathless glared. “Good. Let them come. I got plenty of fight left in me.”

The Gate Lord just stared at Shiv and cut off his sunlight again.

Shiv folded over and Uva turned bowl-shaped caught him before he collapsed.

“Right,” Shiv wheezed. “No provoking fate. At least for now.”