II-39 Distraction

“Master-Captain Vomir, respond! What is happening beyond the abyssal gateway?

Master Captain Vormir! Vomir! Respond!

Respond, or I will have you flayed and made into an effigy.

Vormir!”

-Gate Lord Confriga

II-39

Distraction

“Shiv, Shiv, where are you?”

Adam came out from the gateway with four sets of arms, four bows, and four Veilpiercer arrows drawn. He was still connected to the Deathless bastard’s mind, but Shiv didn’t respond, at least not immediately. Naturally, the young lord assumed the worst.

As he arrived before the gateway, he found himself in a place enshrouded by darkness; blood splashed down from him. Adam looked up, blinking in surprise, as he found himself in what seemed to be a cave. No, this wasn’t a cave—there were ruptured organs and broken bones hanging over him. He was shrouded by the insides of a cave biter. Something had flung the massive creature against the archway and split it open before covering the entire gateway with its flesh.

Adam’s jaw dropped in disgust and astonishment.

In his brief moment of surprise, he didn’t notice the Vulteg reaching behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. Adam jumped, turned, and prepared to release a Veilpiercer arrow into the still-living Vulteg, but then he hesitated as he noticed the Vulteg was already dead. In fact, the Vulteg was only held in place by straps made from adamantine-textured skin, and it was dangling off an unseen body—a body that only had a silhouette.

Adam growled as he lowered his bow, “Shiv, why are you wearing a dead Vulteg?”

“Because in the time it took you guys to cross over, more reinforcements came out, and I decided to buy myself a few more seconds of surprise. Can Hu gave me the recommendation. It worked out pretty good. It had the cave biter idea too.”

Can Hu chimed in agreement. “There is up to a 20% increase in delay in response time when one is faced with their own ally, even when said ally is pointing a weapon at them..” 

“He also served as a pretty good shield—I think his Toughness was Master-Tier while he was still alive.” Shiv chuckled. “Too bad about his Magical Resistance. Had none of that when I ripped the armor off of him.”

For a beat, Adam just stared at Shiv, and then the Graven Cage slipped through the dimensional pathway, escorted by Valor. On top of the Graven Cage was Siggy, who looked about and immediately began to gag, struggling not to throw up as she discovered where she was. Valor regarded the insides of the cave biter as well and briefly chuckled before using his Necromancy to pull the cage along. A leash composed of corrosive energy bound him to the colossal construct, and the many limbs and skulls that made up the Graven Cage’s mass glowed with a sickly color in the darkness.

“I’m incoming,” Uva declared. “Adam, is the gateway secured?”

“Will be,” Shiv said. “Once the Young Lord gets to opening it up.”

Adam shook free from his stupor and immediately approached the gateway. Instead of using a Veilpiercer, he began to draw directly on his dimensionality. He was still new to the art, but he studied it plenty while he was at the Academy—the theory, he knew. He just needed to follow exactly what Heather said. “The spatial frequency was supposed to be just at .22 then .35…” The entire operation felt alien to him, he reached across dimensions, places in existence all connected and layered over each other. The study of Dimensionality was a complex one, and to travel the Integrated Multiverse was something that enticed many. Adam wasn’t even truly a Jump Mage before, but now, here he was trying to open a gate. 

As he reached deeper with his power, he felt the Dimensionality mana washing out from him, creating a specific bridge through Dimensional Frequencies. Faintly, he felt his power shudder, and then reactively tuned his Dimensionality closer and—

The gateway shuddered in response. A second later, it pulsed to full activation, and opened up.

Adam laughed. What Shiv told him before was right. They were too distracted by the Jealousy breaking through and didn’t imagine that someone had also escaped through the gateway. Thus, the frequencies weren’t even changed. “It’s open!”

The gateway before them came alight with color. A bridge extended outward to toward a place lit by a black and gray sun, where mana chains were connected to tall structures, and the ground below was riven by rivers of molten metal. Uva unwove herself from Adam’s mind as the party regarded the insides of Gate Theborn for a moment. There was an onrush of guards incoming—a few hundred Pathbearers rushing along the bridge some four hundred meters way, quickly approaching the gateway.

They briefly paused as they saw Adam and the others.

Shiv regarded his companion with a chuckle. “Right. See you at Guardshead Leu’s place. I’m going to go and start causing a distraction now. 

“Remember, don’t go into their dimension, even if you do want to die at the hands of a bloody god for a few more levels,” Adam cried. “We won’t be able to get you back.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, Adam.” Shiv said, and blasted forward.

Then the Young Lord added something telepathically. “And don’t fight the Gate Lord. Not alone, dammit.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shiv replied. He was probably going to have to struggle against that urge a bit—him and Confriga had some unfinished business.

The Deathless surged. He was more missile than ever before. And between his almost-filled Momentum Core and the speed boosting enchantment offered by the Rememberer, he impacted the few hundred Pathbearers traveling across the gate before they were ever ready to respond. 

Once more, anything below High Adept basically turned to paste against him. But Shiv didn’t discharge just then; he wanted to keep his speed high and only use his Momentum Core when he needed to rapidly move away—to avoid someone like Gate Lord Confriga or some other Master or Hero that could force a pitched battle. 

The goal was distraction, not a brawl, as fun as the latter might be.

Shiv crashed hard against someone that didn’t immediately break. He drove his blade into the throat of a Master. His Deepest Edge sent the strike all the way through. Their Toughness proved substantial, however, and like the last Vulteg Master, they didn’t die immediately. But he solved that problem the same way: By slicing through the strips and straps of their armor, discovering they lacked any magical resistance, and then ripping them apart using his Biomancy.

 A puff of bloody mist enshrouded Shiv’s approach. The fact that he resembled nothing more than a transparent Silhouette with a dead Vulteg strapped around his chest made things even more confusing for the responders. Spells began to crash down everywhere, as dimensions and aerial Pathbearers bombed him from above, uncaring about the lives of their allies. Soon, he found himself moments away from smashing into the processing block that he, 811, and the mercenary transport group passed through the first time.

Shiv gritted his teeth and clenched his blade. He hated that building. He was going to smash up some bureaucratic offices. And with a final charge, he blasted into the base of the customs and processing tower, intent on causing a little administrative mayhem.

***

Guardshead Leu felt the building around her shake as what sounded like a massive mana bomb exploded within the gate. The world trembled.

Her slugs let out groans of surprise and terror, but the vengeful Vulteg only smiled.

“Finally, you return, Master Shiv, and with the Great Valor Thann…” Her heart began to melt, and what emerged from a block of ice formed over countless centuries in anticipation of long-denied revenge was hatred—utter, unfettered hatred.

“Soon,” she said to herself, “soon.” She stared at the bodies that her slugs were eating, at the filth and waste, and imagined Confriga there. “Soon, I will have you, Gate Lord.”

***

Shiv was a simple man with simple pleasures, and few things were more pleasurable than destroying an office dedicated to bureaucracy. He crashed through the interview rooms where, about a week prior, he and 811 were forced to undergo exit interview after exit interview. The walls came asunder before his might, and within, mercenaries and bureaucrats screamed in terror alike.

His Dread Aura was fully activated. His Silhouette remained little more than a vague outline. A mercenary shot a beam that went wide by far. Shiv slashed her. She came apart. A bureaucrat screamed. Shiv kicked a table into them, breaking their legs, but ultimately leaving them alive.

Dread Aura > 72

"More dimensionals incoming." Can Hu, marking new targets that blasted through a wall, but remained unaware of where Shiv was.

"What have we got, Can Hu?" Shiv said. 

"Fire dimensionals. Two of them. No, five. Likely more incoming."

Shiv had half a mind to stay and fight, but his goal was to cause a rampage, not be pinned in place. And so, he smashed through another wall, yanking himself along using his gravitic field. He moved with the grace of a hurricane and the weight of a wrecking ball. 

When he first came to this gate, he wouldn't have been able to do any of this. Not reliably, anyhow. Momentum Core was his only means of major damage, and even with Might of Mass, it just made him hard to move, and immensely strong for his size. Gravitic Wrestler, thereafter, made him a colossal monster housed in the shape of a human.

He blew through the insides of the building just as a Jump Mage teleported an entire team in. It proved to be a mistake, as Shiv continued charging. He splattered two of them before he impacted the third. The last one was a large and muscular elf, and to his credit, he briefly stopped Shiv with a thrust of his palm. The strike rattled Shiv in place, thundered within his body. It seemed to be some kind of Martial Arts Skill Evolution that struck at the heart specifically. But Shiv’s insides were as hard as his outsides, and he just shrugged it off.

"Ah," Shiv grunted, "not your day." 

And then he hit the elf with his gravity-empowered palm. His hand went clean through the elf, and he pulled his bloodied limb back and let the Pathbearer collapse before moving on.

Two more teams appeared. These were the Pyromancer automatons that accompanied Guardshead Leu when they went hunting for Shiv in the long-term storage. He smashed into them and tore them apart. His knife flicked and cut. He swiped wide, channeling a beam of light through another group of arriving Pyromancers. Walls and machines were hewed apart. And Shiv pointed his field downward and blasted through the floors beneath him. His Reflexes were fast enough to stop him from splattering anyone he didn't want to. Thankfully, most people inside this building were either bureaucrats, who Shiv frankly despised, as they were running an operation that included human trafficking, or mercenaries whom Shiv killed at will.

"Behind you," Can Hu warned. Shiv reacted to the automaton without any hesitation. He flung a bone drill  behind him. It impacted something hard, and he heard a grunt, but it didn't kill the ambusher. Shiv dodged to the left, parrying by instinct alone as his Frictionless Vector triggered. An enormous war spear went sailing through the air as it crashed against the ground. Shiv slashed up, only to have his hand caught and halted dead.

Master-Tier Physicality, Shiv realized. At least as strong as me.

He found himself facing a massive automaton with six different limbs. It used its other limbs to lash at Shiv, but he responded by launching two more bone drills into its chest, both sank deep and spun. Can Hu also directed several metallic screws into the automaton’s eyes—and then attacked the enemy with a spike of binaric lighting as well. The automaton cried out in mechanical pain, but it didn’t let go—and it wasn’t dying fast enough.

The enemy automaton struck at Shiv with a beam of intense heat. It punched a good two centimeters into his armor before he adapted. Shiv adjust his strategy, and he caught another of the machine’s limbs before he tumbled backwards, jerking his field in the opposite direction. He didn't waste time fighting the machine strength for strength. He performed a reverse hip toss and launched them both through a wall. They tumbled, and Shiv scrambled behind his enemy—drinking in a final bit of momentum.

The world stilled. He discharged—right into the automaton’s back.

To the bot’s credit, it still didn't break. However, he felt its interior shatter, and he heard it cry out in misery. Shiv jammed his blade through, borrowing the power of his Momentum Core to sink the kukri deep. The machine spasmed. Shiv channeled a beam of light. It blasted through the front of the machine, and he swiped up. 

As he finally crashed down on the ground, sliding across a bridge, and sending tiles and broken pieces of flooring flying everywhere, the machine Pathbearer split apart before him, both pieces tumbling over separate edges down to where the molten rivers ran.

Deepest Edge > 57

The sirens were wailing loud now. He could feel teleportation distortions pulling at him from all directions. Multiple response teams were being transported in, and thanks to his Silhouette, no one noticed him immediately.

Silhouette > 54

"Dimensional to our left,” Can Hu called. Shiv launched a bone drill in that direction, and a beast cried out. Shiv cursed as he realized he didn't exactly hit the right mark, and the monster was still alive. He charged into it, and it burst apart against him. The monster was no longer alive.

Shiv shot upward into the air. He briefly hovered there for a second via his gravitic field, as he felt like a puppet dangling from a string. He observed the many slaves and weaker Pathbearers fleeing. He stayed high to avoid repeating his mistake with 811. One instance of uncontrolled mass death was enough. For now, it was time to move to another area and break something else if they didn’t notice where he—

Uva cast a thought into his mind. "Shiv, the gate lord is approaching your position. He just teleported." 

"You could feel him?" Shiv replied. 

"Yes. His Magical Resistance is monstrously strong." 

Shiv grunted. "Well, looks like it's time for me to keep moving. I kind of want to fight the bastard, but..." 

Adam entered the conversation. "Yes, but be rational and be effective. Don't get yourself blown up by Necromancy. Remember, we're here inside the gate with you. No foolishness." 

"Whatever you say, Young Lord."

Shiv pulled his gravitic field hard as he blasted across the air. He crashed through multiple dimensionals; fire broke against him, lightning splashed uselessly apart upon him, flesh and blood dissolved as he moved faster and faster. He crashed his hands together over and over again, building up momentum again, just as he felt the Gate Lord arrive. 

The Lesser Marshal materialized in the sky above just like last time, their massive wings expanded, spreading even grand petals of burning color. But he didn't notice Shiv, not immediately. Not before Shiv discharged again, launching himself toward the horizon across the gate's many districts.

Confriga tried to follow him a moment later, and Shiv realized the Gate Lord’s Awareness was likely abysmal, as he quickly got lost, surging ahead while Shiv descended below most of the bridges and platforms.

As he went low, and he went for his next target: the massive tower that descended from below “ground level” and passed through the Vulteg home dimension’s gateway.

“Shiv,” Can Hu said. “Now would be a good time to deploy the infiltration drones.”

“Got it.”

As he came close, Shiv chucked out all of Can Hu’s recently built infiltration drones. They sailed out in a small swarm, their wings moving quietly as they clung against the sides of a few buildings. Eventually, they clamped along the sides and began to crawl up and around. Soon, they were out of sight for him, but not Can Hu. Surveillance feeds opened in his mind, and Can Hu’s connection to them felt stronger than ever.

“They will begin their own infiltration. We need not concern ourselves with them anymore. I will interface with them later.”

Shiv grunted and pulled hard on his field as he exploded ahead toward the descending obsidian tower that also housed Confriga’s personal abode. As he crashed against the tower, it didn't shatter immediately. It felt like Shiv was shouldering into a heavily reinforced wooden doorframe. Tragically for the doorframe, Shiv was Shiv, and he was going to smash his way through no matter what. He slashed out with his kukri, and Deepest Edge proved even more effective against the building than it did people. 

The interior of the structure was far weaker than the reinforced obsidian on the outside; where the obsidian was barely scratched, the matter inside the building snapped and split. Shiv cut something of a square large enough for himself to pass through—but not any more than that. After all, he wanted to keep them confused about where he was and continue his rampage. And so, rather than kicking the door down as a brute, Shiv chose to be a careful, cunning brute. It increased the longevity of the chaos he was about to cause.

With a pull of his gravitic field, Shiv growled as he ripped out the square he carved into the building. The square grid came free easily, as dust and broken bits of matter shot outward in a gust of small shards. As he pulled the plot out, he found someone blinking at him in surprise on the other side, sitting on—Shiv frowned at the stunned Volteg. There was a tube connected to their lower body, and they were… and was it some kind of toilet? Shiv shook his head. The Vulteg squinted its single eye as it tried to figure out what just happened. Slowly, they noticed Shiv’s outline and their vertical jaw opened wide. “What—”

Shiv slammed into them, utterly dissolving into bloody paste. A moment later, Shiv pulled the square grid he cut into the building back in place, and then welded it shut using his blade's Conduit of Dawn enchantment.

Shiv laughed in impish delight, and Can Hu chuckled alongside him.

“I suspect this will buy us a few moments,” Can Hu said.

“Just a few,” Shiv asked.

“How long until your next kill?” Can Hu asked rhetorically.

“Ah, shit, you’re right.”

"'Adam,” Shiv said, speaking across Uva's mind-strands, “you were right. Stealth was a good skill to evolve."

 "Of course I was right,” Adam said. “Glad you're having fun, though."

"How're things on your side?” Shiv asked. He was walking carefully down the hallways now. Shiv decided that he would take a limited and temporary, subtle approach for as long as he could to improve his Silhouette. This Adept-Skill was an incredible force multiplier when used in tandem with his Master-Tier Skills. It took a pretty high level of Awareness to even notice he was there, and with him only being an outline, even perceptive enemies often lost track of him in the chaos of combat.

“I fired another arrow the moment you left. We managed to get across the gate without being noticed at all.” Adam briefly paused, and Shiv felt him fire an arrow at someone. “Your end, however, is swarming with Jump Mages and dimensionals. They’re still at the plaza and trying to control the airspace—they don’t know you’re at the obsidian tower yet. And Confriga. Apparently, he's an Adept-Tier Necromancer at most. Wait, Valor insists on calling the man a barely Adept-Tier.” 

Shiv chuckled. Valor seemed very defensive about the art of necromancy.

Just then, a small group of heavily armed Vultegs rounded the corner. They didn't quite see Shiv due to his Silhouette, and the first of them ran into him. That one got cut in half. Her blood was promptly flung into the other Vultegs’ eyes, who then became doubly unprepared for the ripping and tearing that followed.

Silhouette > 55

Deepest Edge > 58

Two of them were Master-Tier, and one of them had a high Master-Tier Toughness—so hard Shiv’s blade bounced off at an odd angle. Unfortunately for them, Shiv noted they were also likely a Master-Tier Hydromancer, and he did his old trick against mages again: He cut the straps of their armor and then discovered they had no Magical Resistance otherwise. That Master-Tier’s heart stopped, and they died with an intact body, just like the elven brawler Shiv initially fought.

It was good to have multiple angles of attack.

Woundeater > 67

The insides of this descending tower were luxurious; gold layered the walls and red plush carpets extended everywhere, mapping the floor and hiding the pooling blood. Above, gems glittered, glowing bright, a bit too bright for Shiv. His Biomancy spread far, and he could sense a dense concentration of life forms all across the building. He decided to go to the most concentrated area of people just to see what might be there. 

If it was nothing but a legion of Vulteg guards, Shiv would tear them apart and save himself the trouble later.

At this point, he risked his stealth a little as he brought his hands together, crashing his fists hard. The walls cracked, the building shook, and part of the interior crumbled and collapsed from the shockwaves rippling out of the Deathless. Before Shiv could fully fill his core, he stopped, pointed his gravity field downward, crashed through two floors, and broke contact again before another group teleported to where he was. He could feel tugs of pressure coming from all directions. Pathbearers were teleporting into the tower. They were zeroing in on him again, but they still didn’t know where he was.

And then he heard something. "Get him! Find him! Find him! Or I will take your hands! I will use you as effigies! Find him!" Confriga was raging. 

Can Hu laughed. Shiv laughed too. 

"And this is the Geat Lord," the automaton said. It gave a mechanical sigh. "He reminds me of my first pilot, Henry." 

"They were that bad?" Shiv asked. 

"They were worse than you could possibly imagine," Can Hu sighed. "They also were a child sent off to war, a child taught to love war, a child connected to me by tubes, by wires, and by chemicals. Every time I killed, every time they directed me to pull a trigger, they felt good." 

Shiv shuddered at that. "What the hell kind of culture would do that thing to a kid?" 

"One that hates what happened to the world, and one that would do anything to bring things back to a time before the system." 

Shiv gave an indifferent grunt. "Sounds like they need to just deal with what happened. Rest of us are still here, still fighting.”

"If it were only so easy," Can Hu replied.

Shiv pushed his way through walls and cleaved gaps down the floors. His Silhouette kept anyone from noticing him as he moved quick. His Momentum Core was almost filled, so he was practically just below the sound barrier anyway, even at normal speeds. As he drew close to the dense concentration of people, Shiv crashed through a wall, and what he saw briefly stunned him. Inside a vast chamber, he found not Vulteg guards but a processing plant for humans, elves, Umbrals, and goblins. 

They were hanging upside down from hooks, and none of them wore any clothes. There were surgical scars on their body, and there seemed to be a belt in the air moving them along. Shiv saw something like this once, a picture in a book he got to read about slaughterhouses across the republic, except this wasn't for animals. This was people.

"What the hells are they doing here?" Shiv muttered. 

"I do not know," Can Hu replied. The automaton was even more appalled than he was. “These people, can you help them?" 

Shiv reached into them using his Biomancy, and what he discovered left him even more disgusted. "There's something inside of them. What are they planting inside these people?" Shiv cast a spell and reached in. He pulled slowly, trying to extract the creature without harming the person. It was small enough that he managed to drag it out from someone's mouth. The person groaned as the creature slipped out from them. And as it shot towards Shiv, as he caught it in his hand, he gave a hiss of disbelief. 

"Uva, you are not going to like this." Shiv stared down at a clutch of eggs that were transparent and showed small unhatched spider-wasps on the inside. These were Weaveress eggs. This was a felling Weaver-Weaveress breeding facility.

"By the Composer," Uva cried, "how—how do they have these eggs? And why? Why are they breeding them?" 

Shiv looked at the many bodies and he clenched his jaw. "I've got an idea. They're dealers, dealmakers, and salespeople, right?" 

"Right," Uva replied. 

"Well, since they're willing to sell to anyone, a Weaver or a Weaveress unassociated with the Composer is worth good money, especially for someone like Aviary. If they can sell to New Albion, and since New Albion had such a hard time replacing weavers with agents..." 

Uva's anger burned absolute cold. She shuddered at how low the temperature of her mind got. "We cannot allow this to be, Shiv. This place must be destroyed, and all these eggs, they must be..." She considered what to do with the eggs. "They must be taken and extracted if possible, but disposed of if not." Her culture revered the Composer, but there was another layer to that. The weavers and the Weaverses were the Composer's own molded clay. Her ordained children, the Umbrals, were saved and adopted, and thus third and usually subservient in the great hierarchy. To suggest disposing of the eggs was almost heresy for some, but even they would understand the sheer danger the present situation represented.

"I'll keep this place marked in my mind—best that we try to save everyone here if we can, instead of just butchering them," Shiv said. "Can Hu—”

“I already have it registered. We will be able to find our way back next time. For now, I recommend you best cover your tracks and move somewhere else. More threats are coming. I feel a tremoring two floors above with my Geomancy. Someone is closing rapidly." 

Shiv grunted and then he left the room. Instead of smashing through a wall, he cut another gap through the floor and dropped through. He slipped the slab back into place just as he heard a loud bang from above. 

"Where?" he heard Confriga roar. "Where are you going? Where?" 

He barely held back a bitter laugh. He also barely held back from blasting up into the room and trying to finish things with a Gate Lord right there and then. "Don't risk it Shiv," he said to himself.

He had an itch for violence. It was almost like the itch he felt with the Orcish Skill, but he kept himself composed for now, focused on what he needed to do. Inside his chest, his Momentum Core thundered on the verge of discharge, but he wouldn't use it. Not unless he absolutely had to. He just needed to stay as fast as he could. He shot down the halls, moving as little more than a transparent outline. 

Several more groups sweeping the tower encountered him. Several more groups were then promptly used to redecorate the walls, their body parts rendered into bloody mist by Shiv to cover his tracks. As he cut them, he focused on the wound he inflicted using his Biomancy. He focused and multitasked. He studied biology as he inflicted pain. He was, after all, instructed to learn in the practical by Dven. As such, as he turned down another hall, he briefly managed to compose a crystallization of a deep laceration. But then its structure collapsed and Shiv cried out as he opened the very wound on his body. 

He laughed, though. He laughed as his practical knowledgeof biology climbed up, as did his Woundeater. Shiv discovered something: how to instantly create a laceration without inflicting it on himself first.

Practical Metabiology > 25

Woundeater > 68

Nice, Shiv thought. Ignoring the wound lining his body, he recreated the laceration again with a bit more effort. It crystallized, and this time he directed the spell pattern outward, attuning the shape carefully. Shiv didn't exactly have an academy education when it came to spell shaping, but spells were ultimately directed by intent and created when one’s mana field reshaped itself  a certain way to impose magic on reality. That's why most of Shiv's spells were unleashed in the form of a Woundeater now, and that's why Uva's Psychomancy took the shape of strands. 

"Oh, this is useful," Shiv said, as he focused on the laceration. And then he began to experiment with it. He cut through another group and made the laceration larger, more severe, deeper. He also learned how to focus it on specific body parts, mainly by injuring himself repeatedly, until it clicked.

The beautiful thing about magic was how it interfaced with the world. Everything was connected, and with enough focus and study for his Biomancy, he could get there. He could understand the finest detail of things. Valor told him not to neglect his mind. Well, this was his mind at work. If he treated everything like he treated cooking, attended himself to every detail, zeroed in on every bit of information until it was sealed tight in his mind. Well, who knows what he might become. Another benefit to learning about lacerations? It made his spellcasting even quicker. No need to harvest any wounds meant that he could directly launch a worm instead of having it feed on him first.

As soon as another group came, Shiv launched wyrm after wyrm , expanding every laceration as much as he could. It struck the mercenary Pathbearers, and two of them fell apart in an instant, a third detonated with crimson mana before another wyrm crashed into them and split them from head to groin. As they came apart, three more wyrm crashed into the last member of the group, but their Magical Resistance was tremendous. 

Comparatively, their Toughness had much to be desired. Shiv drove his blade through them, blood exploded out their back, then Shiv crushed their head and folded their neck off to the side just to be sure. He chucked the body behind him, glad about his progress. "Well," Shiv said, "this is enjoyable, it's even meditative.”

“You were casting that spell at an impressively fast rate,” Can Hu said. “Almost quarter second for each spell.”

Practical Metabiology > 26

“No need to feed it anything,” Shiv said. “That makes it faster by a lot. I just know how it’s shaped—and how it relates to the body. It’s getting to be second nature. Just have to treat more of these injuries like they’re recipes. Dven was right—this was a good idea.”

He heard another blast as Confriga descended just around the corner behind him. "Well, time to go again." Shiv cut the ground open and dropped through. He slid the grid back in place at the last moment as he felt the Gate Lord approach. Confriga was a constant presence in the back of his mind—he felt the Lesser Marshal’s Magical Resistance. Confriga was practically a piece of iron in a world made from wood and glass. 

"I can feel you," Confriga said. "I know that you're close."

Shiv considered using his Momentum Core to escape just then. But to his right came a sound, a loud ding. Shiv turned, and he walked over as the door to an elevator slipped open. Inside, a tall Vulteg flanked by two metallic dimensionals froze at the sight of a moving outline approaching them. He swiped his knife through all three of them, and the top halves of their bodies crumpled in half. Shiv got aboard the elevator, and he stared at a button. 

He stared at a particularly large button at the bottom of all the others. Shiv hummed. “Why not— wait.” He stabbed the dead Vulteg again and chucked the corpse out of the elevator, making a new chrono-anchor. Then, he got back in and hit the button just out of plain curiosity As he descended, he listened to a strange set of sounds coming from the elevator that sounded like Vulteg’s singing with their throats. Shiv blinked and decided that it was strange, but he kind of liked it.

As the elevator doors opened again, Shiv found himself standing at a wide open chamber that lacked any furniture or decoration. The surrounding walls were little more than panels of glass overlooking the molten rivers. And he was so close to the bottom of the dimension that he guessed there was less than 20 meters between him and the rushing rivers below right now. At the center of the room was a dense, adamantine pillar that extended beyond the floor. Shiv guessed that was another elevator leading to the Vulteg dimension. 

However, it was locked tight and all he saw was a small slot on its side and no other controls beside. As Shiv looked around, he frowned as his Foreshadowing activated.

Foreshadowing: Gate Lord Confriga was arrogant, but he was no fool. He knew that the Republic wasn't trustworthy and that he needed to make sure their incompetence, especially the incompetence of that Master-Advisor, didn't get in the way of the weapons delivery. As such, he left it planted in his personal elevator, the elevator leading cross to his home dimension. 

Had it crossed over without him, he would have remained unshamed, and he could simply bring it back at any point, averting the danger. What's more, the elevator was made out of adamantine, meaning that nothing short of a true Legend could probably pry it free in an instant and escape with it. And the Gate Lord had his eyes on true legends, was sure they weren't going to come to Theborn and ruin his days.

Foreshadowing > 27

Foreshadowing ended, and Shiv grunted.

Just then, Uva's tendril pulled at his mind. "Shiv," she said, she felt faint, like she was barely holding on to him, "we have reconvened with your contact. Guardshead Leu, is it? I managed to reach her, and she's currently hosting us within her personal quarters." 

"That's good," Shiv replied. "I found the Animancy Core." 

"You did?" Adam said, sounding awed and surprised. "Well, can you extract it?" 

Shiv shook his head. "No, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Confriga is a real bastard, but he's a bastard that took precautions. The core is hidden inside his personal elevator, one leading in to another dimension, his home dimension. If I try to do anything, it'll move it across immediately, and the elevator is made of solid adamantine. I can't really force my way in easily. I don't think anyone can access it unless they're Confriga.” 

Shiv stared at the slot in the elevator. It looked large enough to fit a skull or something of that size.

"You've done enough for now," Uva said. "They are in disarray. The entire gate is on lockdown. Ikki just told me about how things were on the outside through the brooch. They finally managed to calm things down, but not until a good 20% of their group was decimated. A few of their remaining masters have banded together and enforced discipline, but things are as chaotic on the outside as they are on the inside. 

A full curfew has been issued again. The mana core in the sky is unleashing waves of intense cold all throughout the dimension. I suspect anyone beneath Master-Tier Toughness or lacking some kind of Magical Resistance would be instantly frozen." 

Shiv grunted. "Yeah, that sounds pretty draconic, but hey, I guess I'm flattered."

He felt Uva start reaching into him, and just then he heard a crash as something slammed into the elevator he just came from. 

"Uva?" Shiv said. “Think Confriga’s about to have a little face to face with me.”

"I have you," she replied. Shiv trusted her, but he turned, and he gripped his blade, facing the impending threat.

“Vermin!” Confriga shouted as he tore his way down into the elevator. As he rose, he barely noticed Shiv for a moment, and then he snarled—his pitch black eye dilating. Necromancy flared across his chest and his massive, thin blade shot down to hover beside him.

Shiv grinned as he deactivated his Silhouette for a moment. “Hey, asshole. Was wonder when you would catch up.”

“You!” Confriga launched a whip of Necromantic power. Shiv responded by triggering his Chrono-Anchored Strike. The whip slashed against his adamantine elevator just as Shiv blinked across time. He materialized with a stab. The body of the dead Vulteg jerked, and two teams of Pathbearer’s flinched back in surprise as Shiv unleashed wyrm and might upon them. Bodies fell apart. Shiv activated his Silhouette and partially vanished as spells were returned. Then, as he was cutting a short automaton in half, Uva pulled him across the district.

Just in time, too, as for the thousandth time that day, Confriga blasted out from the walls just a second behind Shiv, and the Gate Lord found himself staring at the bodies of his men, but no Aviary agent.

“NOOOOOO!” The Gate Lord roared, and from the mana core, his cry of rage echoed. “COOWWWARRDD!”