II-34Veilpiercer

I tell you this, as a Master Tier War Mage: I’ve fought and killed just about everything—every kind of enemy, from primal dragons to ogres, orcs, dimensionals, undead… you name it.

But there is one type of enemy I want nothing to do with, and that’s a Psychomancer.

I don’t care what your personality is like as a Psychomancer. I don’t care if you’re a good person, a bad person, or anything. I don’t care what you want to do with your power—if you even use your power. I don’t care. You stay away from me. You stay far away from me. Don’t even look at me.

The first time I fought a Psychomancer, they turned my best friend at the time on me. They breached into his mind and he drove the dagger I borrowed him into my back… Barely missed my spine. I killed him. I still remember his blood on my hands, and the Psychomancer… they planted that memory deep into me, hammered it in like a pike piercing the soil when they tried to break me for good.

 It’s still there. More vivid than any other memory I have. I can relive it if I just close my eyes.

The second time—well, I told you guys about fighting with the Jealousy, but I didn’t tell you about the massacre: how it got into our camp, how my wife… she screamed as it reached into her mind. I never heard her scream like that. I never want to hear her scream like that again. It made me feel every bit of pain, every trauma she went through, and it poured me into her as well. It was only because we had a Psycho of our own that we managed to recover.

I don’t want anything to do with Psychomancers. It’s not you—it’s that power. There should be limits to the magics people can use. You can break someone, you can kill someone—but reaching into them, twisting them, changing them… how can that be right? 

How can the system let that happen? Right… The system doesn’t care…

-Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage

II-34
Veilpiercer

5 Minutes Prior…

Adam jumped with Uva in tow, using his arrow as a teleportation anchor. He wouldn’t even call himself a partial Jump Mage, but if he infused a spell into his arrows and focused on that, he could serve at least in a limited capacity.

Unfortunately, the dragons pursuing him were actual Jump Mages, and they caught on before Uva or Adam arrived at their destination.

Getting intercepted by enemy Jump Mages was an ugly experience. Adam suffered it a few times in the academy before in several of his courses. It was like having a larger pressure bubble crash into yours, and then, depending on whom the stronger Jump Mage was, a bubble would burst, and the losing party would end up within the winner’s teleportation route. 

And so, that was how he and Uva found themselves facing a single dragon in close-quarters combat. Their spatial tunnel collapsed as they were wrenched out of their teleportation pathway and into the route charted by one of the dragons.

“Not good!” Adam cursed as he flared his burning wings while clinging hard to Uva. “Not good at all!”

“Adam!” Uva cried. “Buy me some time! I’ll try to break its mi—”

They plunged through dragon’s spatial tunnel, and Adam cried out as a massive, flaming blade crashed into him. His unbreakable armor kept him alive, but the blow stick cracked several of his ribs. It also launched him into Uva, driving the air from her lungs. Thankfully, with all the additional adaptive adamantine plates Shiv applied to her already impressive armor, she remained unharmed.

The dragon-knight came, lashing out with a sweeping blow. A blow barely missed as Adam created a clone that promptly shot a mind-arrow into the dragon’s face. A surge of fire swelled over the dragon as the heat within the spatial tunnel became nigh unbearable. Adam responded by dousing himself and Uva in water before creating a dozen more hydro-limbs and unleashing a constant barrage of shots at the dragon. The water magic bolts peppered and broke against the fire dragon’s body and splashed apart around its eyes. The shape of a Pyromancy spell formed in the beast’s right hand—only for the spell to break as Uva harpooned the dragon’s mind with a psionic chain.

Uva hid behind Adam, her form only slightly smaller than his. The dragon was a beast of considerable size, which made it hard to avoid in the narrow space of the distorted tunnel, but worse than that was growing heat. The dragon’s Pyromancy was further amplified by the great blade it wielded. It brought the weapon down against Adam faster than he could react, and he cried out as the blow rattled his entire body. Several of his bones fractured; his armor was legendary and unbreakable, but he was far from invulnerable. At that moment, he envied Shiv more than ever.

The Umbral was launched off his body, but she twisted her spell and the dragon howled. The flames briefly died as Adam recovered.

He focused his water arrows on the beast’s eyes, trying to distract it. He plucked Spellstring, launching wave after wave of mind arrows, each crashing into its skull. The dragon shuddered and unleashed a wild blast of fire from its wings—but Adam countered by firing as many water arrows as he could. His own Hydromancy was no match for the beast’s fire, but Adam compensated with quantity and the magic infused within Spellstring. His constant stream of attacks made the oncoming wave of fire mana curve inward, sparing his and Uva’s life just long enough for them to reach their final destination.

Deadeye > 93

Bowslinger > 90

Wings of the Starhawk > 94

Repulsion Shroud > 54

Portomancy > 39

The spatial bubble burst. They materialized in a ruined wasteland. Adam and Uva crashed against the earth, the ground fracturing beneath them. They struck and rolled across glass instead of soil or mud or water. A hundred meters away, the dragon shook off Uva’s mind magic ascended, with trails of fire streaking from six flaming wings; it no longer wanted anything to do with close-quarters engagement. Instead, it rose into the air and held its blade high.

A channel of flame shot high from the dragon’s broadsword, and the weapon turned into a colossal conflagration. The heat grew unbearable, and just then the other dragon Jump Mage emerged as well. This one bore twin axes, and it had fluid fins that also doubled as wings. The water dragon glided before the fire dragon, and they began to circle each other, their power magnifying. Their cycling bodies formed a strange symbol of harmony and cooperation.

“I am Sir Galrah,” the dragon of flame declared.

“I am Sir Merriman,” the water dragon said.

“I am Pyromancer, first and foremost,” the fire dragon proclaimed.

“I am Axedancer, first and foremost,” the water dragon added.

“Master-Tier,” they said in unison.

Adam and Uva blinked and stared at each other in a moment of surreal disbelief. “I didn’t realize we were going to get a show before we died,” Uva muttered.

Adam gawked. “Did they just do a felling dance for us?”

But just then, before either dragon could finish the two off, a third materialized—dropping from the sky, its body shrouded in darkness and twisted energies. The two dragons stared in shock.

Adam just sighed. “Why bloody not. Another dragon. Sorry, Uva.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, strangely calm. “But I think we can kill at least one.”

Adam laughed. “What Shiv thing to say. Well. Let’s try to slay all three, then.”

“Is that Galron?” the water dragon exclaimed, her voice rising with joy. “We thought he was dead!”

Fire dragon cried: “The Weaveress—you said she slit his throat.”

“I did,” the water dragon agreed. “But it must not have been fatal, Sir Galron! Come let us—”

But Adam noticed something bizarre. Sir Galron was still accelerating, going faster and faster. And he was screaming. He cried out, wailing with a voice beyond pain, beyond misery. “No! Run! Run, my sister! Run, my brother! Save yourself! Save—”

Before he could finish, he slammed into the other dragons. Adam, using his Seer of Horizons, realized what he was dealing with: the energies crackling around Sir Galron were not normal magical energies. They were corrosive. Viridescent. 

Necromancy.

“Shit!” He flung himself over Uva before he could explain anything. She cried out as he bowled her down to the ground and hunching into a ball to shield them with his armor.

A blast followed, casting a wave of corrosive mana so intense that both the fire dragon and the water dragon cried out in absolute misery. They collapsed but remained alive, though burned and withered. Adam’s armor endured the hit without difficulty, and he wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time in his life, where his father had found such a fine piece—through what gate, and how he succeeded.

He pushed those thoughts aside and fired arrows at the downed dragons. They tried to respond, as they tried to get up, their flesh spilled off their bones as their bodies suffered rapid and corrosive decay. They were slower, weaker, more fragile. The fight went from a desperate battle with Adam and Uva as underdogs to being an execution of two crippled dragon-knights.

Adam struck both of their minds with Psychomancy arrows, but it was Uva who finished the job. She unleashed a cone of mind magic—a roiling wave of howling trauma infused with pain and misery. It crashed over them, and both dragons howled as they dropped their weapons. One clawed out its eyes; the other bit off its tongue. They collapsed in the dirt, twitching and howling as Uva poured more of her psionic might into them—until she cried out herself, collapsing to her knees and clutching her skull.

In the aftermath, the dragons made hoarse, wailing noises that made Adam shudder. But they were broken. He and Uva were still alive. Somehow.

“Uva?” Adam said.

“Just strain,” she managed. “Just strain.” She tried to get up, but momentarily blacked out as Adam caught her. 

“It’s a lot more than just strain, Uva.”

“Just strain,” she repeated, making it back to her feet with a hiss of effort. “How did we—”

“I had it work better than I expected,” Valor said, slowly descending from above. A streak of fire trailed out from his eyes, and there was an uneasy shiver to his flight pattern.

“Valor!” Adam cried, letting out a relieved laugh as he sagged and clutched his ribs. “I’m glad to see you.” Valor descended, and let out a yelp as the Young Lord hugged him.

“Yes, Adam, but please focus,” Valor urged. “I might have only bought us some time. There are other dragons, and I do not think I can muster that spell again…” Valor bit back a graon. “My Necromancy is spent.” Something about the Legendary Pathbearer seemed oddly vulnerable just then. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this impotent—spent after a single effigy. I am barely myself.””

“That’s fine,” Adam laughed. “Even if you’re just a fraction of who you were, you still saved our bloody lives.”

A loud moan came from the fire dragon. It twitched, and Adam flinched backwards, pulling his Spellstring taut. When it did nothing more than moan and weep, Adam shuddered.

“Uva, what did you do to this thing?” he whispered, voice cracking.

“I found its innermost painful memory,” Uva said, chest heaving. “And then I replaced all its other memories with it.”

Adam’s jaw dropped in absolute terror. “I—sister, you—Is that what all Psychomancers do?” he managed.

“Some,” Uva replied, out of breath. “But I find it to be a reliable strategy—especially if you can focus, especially if you can get past their defenses. Now, quick, we need to get back to Shiv.”

Adam blinked. “Right. Shiv… Shit, I hope he’s still bloody alive.”

A massive series of explosions echoed over the horizon.

“He is,” Uva said. “But he won’t last forever. We must move. I hope he managed to—we need to kill their Psychomancer. You need to find… find the rapier. And I need to—I need to—”

“You need to rest,” Adam said. “There’s blood coming out from your—”

“No,” Uva cried, defiance in her bleeding eyes. “No rest. We’re going back. I need to get to the Jealousy. And I need to… I need to…” Uva stammered. Just then, a shape stepped out from seemingly nowhere. Several shapes followed thereafter. Adam nearly shot them, then lowered his bow with an exhausted breath.

“Give me a warning next time!” he snapped.

“If we gave you a warning,” Liquid Serpent replied as she and Spark Ripper—the automaton that didn’t like social contact—stepped into view, “we wouldn’t be Trapdoor, would we?” The Weaveresses was missing two limbs, but constantly twirled her revolving crossbows with the others regardless. Still Water appeared a few meters away, and one of her arms was covered in dragon blood. Twenty other Weaverses emerged thereafter… more than Adam expected.

“Our retreat,” Still Water declared, “resulted in quite a lot of injuries. We managed to keep the deaths to a minimum, though. The dragons learned to use their mobility against us. Burned most of the forests. We had to reposition.” She gave a grunt of disgust. “Not my kind of operation anymore. I think I’ll stick to sneaking.”

“What are you talking about, Still Water?” Liquid Serpent demanded. “You slit a dragon-knight’s throat.”

“Yeah. But how many others died for me to get there?”

“Good, you’re all still…” Uva said, staggered over to Adam. “We need to get back. Adam, here’s the plan: Psychomancer dragon—if it’s not dead, you help kill it. But you get me back to the Jealousy first. Then, You get the rapier, and I will break the rest using the Greater Demon.”

Adam hesitated. “Uva, you’re not Shiv—if you break yourself—”

“I will not break,” she interrupted. “I will not. Not until the job is done.”

Adam placed a hand on her shoulder and sighed as he created a new spatial arrow. “Fine. Be stubborn. Just don’t be a fool and break yourself.”

Uva nodded. “And get the arm back. Valor Thann needs his arm back.”

***

Present

Siv smashed into the Biomancer with his elbow, snapping the dragon’s head back. Its oppressive banner still made it hard for him to focus to cast spells—or focus at all—so he concentrated on taking that from them first. He ripped the piece of equipment out from their hand. Yet, despite forcing the dragon’s grip open, he encountered another problem: the damned item was bound to the dragon in the same way Shiv’s Magebreaker was bound to him. He needed to kill them if he wanted to take.

So Shiv switched to another idea. He bent the banner. With a flex of effort and shout, the entire thing snapped in half. A blast of mana detonated from it, and a rush of Psychomancy washed over both him and the Biomancer. The dragon staggered briefly, but it recovered quicker than Shiv—and swatted him out of the air with its tower shield. Shiv bounced off the ground and barely dodged out of the way of a descending shield slam.

Dodge > 11

But the dragon’s following Biomancy spell nearly made him black out from the pain: his field frayed apart as he stopped the dragon from stopping his heart.

“What are you?” the dragon-knight Biomancer cried. “What are you?” The dragon yelled incoherent threats, and in the middle of the melee, the kukri dragon, Sir Tarlow, materialized out of nowhere and slashed Shiv across the chest. His armor screamed as a small gap opened along its side. Shiv went sliding across the ground, stopping himself with a few more bursts of his gravitic field. He rose with a groan, rubbing his chest in relief that he’d put on a new set of armor. But as he came to a stop, he heard sobbing. Slowly, Shiv turned, and the massive, axe-wielding dragon clutched the remains of the Psychomancer dragon close to its chest.

Shiv froze.

Slowly, the axe-wielding dragon turned. It saw him—his blood-drenched form—and its eyes widened. Its rage literally boiled over its body. It ignited, but it wasn’t flames that consumed the dragon’s form; something more—an aura of pure fury.

Where the axe-wielder was a purely a beast of Physicality before, Shiv now failed to track its movements at all. It slammed into him, its axe cracking and smashing into his body over and over again. The Deathless drained momentum; time slowed slightly, and he began to perceive the coming blows—only for Sir Tarlow to hit him in the back, launching him into the air, where the axe-bearer grabbed him with its massive fist and smashed him down against the air.

Shiv growled and tried to break free, but the Dynamancer struck him across the head. The axe-wielding dragon swiped its blade upward, catching him under the armpit, and Shiv shouted in pain as his left shoulder dislocated. Then another few hundred Psychomancy arrows crashed down, briefly stunning the dragons. Shiv barely reacted in time; he parried with the Magebreaker, driving the attack into the axe-bearer’s face—but it did nothing. There was no mind left to break. 

Nothing, nothing but rage.

Shiv sighed. “Shit.”

The axe-dragon picked him up and smashed him against the earth again, then started driving its head into his body—headbutting him over and over. Shiv snarled and headbutted it back. The dragon staggered but didn’t stop. Sir Tarlow tried to help by teleporting, but the axe-bearer swatted her aside as well.

Shiv managed to squeeze out of its grasp, striking it twice and sweeping its legs out from under it with his field. It crashed down on all fours and Shiv lifted the dragon up into the air, burning rage to feed his gravitic field, and power bombed the dragon a good hundred meters deeper into the soil. The world vanished into spraying dirt and rolling shockwaves.

Gravitic Wrestler > 116

He popped his shoulder back in and dropped another elbow on the dragon’s face—but he felt his blow bounce off. Shiv cursed. His arm actually hurt. He ignored it, tried to hit the dragon again, but was promptly seized by a grip of adamantine. That’s when Shiv realized he was dealing with someone that had the same Toughness Skill Evolution as he did.

“Sh—”

The axe-bearer punched him.

This time, he went shooting across the landscape. Stars spun in Shiv’s vision. Most of his bones were fractured. Then, Sir Tarlow, being the bastard that she was, slashed her blade across the opening she left earlier. Shiv howled as a beam of heat split his chest open, and she caught him with her tail before her slammed him over and over and triggered her Momentum Core. She shot back—back toward the axe-bearer, whose rage was burning even hotter, spreading along his colossal great axe. Tarlow flicked Shiv out of her tail at the axe-bearer, and the massive adamantine dragon hit the Deathless so hard that everything for twenty kilometers was simply pulverized by into dust and rubble.

Incredible pain tore through Shiv’s skull. It was like the entire world just smashed down into and through his skull.

Adamantine Adaption > 119

Then. Darkness.

Peace. Serenity.

And once more, Shiv found himself in his unfinished dream…

***

Repulsion Shroud > 55

Shiv wasn’t the only one that the axe-bearer’s blow knocked out.

The feeling of cool wind rushing past Adam’s face made him blink and groan. His ears were bleeding, his skull was throbbing with pain, and he was—

“SHIT!” Adam flared his wings. He pulled up hard before struck the— “Broken Moon…” It was more crater than ground now. A crater filled with other groaning dragons, and a single felling enormous dragon-knight who screamed as it kept smashing its fists into Shiv’s unmoving form. Adam winced for the Omenborn. I hope that killed you, Shiv, because it was strong enough to knock me out secondhand!

He flew through the air and groaned. His body felt like someone launched him through a mountain. Considering how massive that hit had been, it might as well. But the other dragons on the ground were getting up now, and the damned Dynamancer and its two friends were descending from the sky to finish skinning Adam for good. He needed to do this quickly.

“Thank the Ascendants you killed the bloody Psychomancer, Shiv,” Adam muttered. He nocked a spatial arrow and aimed at the axe-bearing dragon. The Young Lord winced as a particularly sickening crunch sounded from Shiv’s body, but he did his best to ignore it as he targeted the only item still dangling from the axe-bearer’s belt.

The right hand of Valor Thann.

The Young Lord focused his senses and timed his shot. He knew shockwaves from the dragon’s blows would knock his arrow off course. There was no bloody way Adam could get anywhere close to the dragon with those hits. Not even with his Repulsion Shroud. The only thing that did was blunt a hit with a pulse of counterforce and with how hard that big damn dragon was smashing Shiv, just being near the blow might turn Adam into paste inside his armor.

But just as he prepared to loose his arrow, he felt a pulse of teleportation beside him. Adam cursed. He tried to—

A huge kukri crashed into his chest. Adam howled in pain as he swatted across the sky. But Sir Tarlow was faster. Much, much faster. She hit him again within the span of a second—hit him so hard Adam coughed up blood from the blunt force impact alone. His armor kept him alive, but inside he was breaking apart.

He bounced and cried out with pain. Her blades crashed into him like raindrops during a thunderstorm, and then she spiked him down. Adam struck the crater at a bad angle—both of his legs snapped. The Young Lord screamed, but he was too battered to even push the air out of his lungs. He lay there, wheezing and whimpering. He reached out with his right arm and pulled himself. His left arm wouldn’t listen to him. His Spellstring was still fused to his hand. He needed to line a shot. He needed—

A heavy weight slammed down on his back. Adam cried out in agony as Tarlow hissed and tried to drive her kukri through his armor. “What… is this even made of?” She stabbed down three more times, practically turning Adam’s mangled legs into clumps of bone and tissue within the armor. Adam briefly lost consciousness, then another blow woke him. He bounced across the ground. Every hit made him thankful for his father’s armor—and every hit made him wish to die.

The Young Lord was about to start screaming for the Ascendants to take him when Tarlow suddenly gurgled. Blood splashed over Adam like a waterfall as he somehow managed to turn and saw Still Water flicking a long wire through the dragon’s throat. But Tarlow managed to get her blade against the right side of her neck, preventing a full slice.

She struck at the bandana-wearing Weaveress, but cut only air as Still Water dove under her invisibility cloak and vanished.

Tarlow slashed three times more before she staggered, clutching her throat. A river’s worth of blood spilled out, and she teleported away to… somewhere.

Gasping, Adam tried to rise, battered beyond belief. He crashed against the ground and almost passed out. How the hells does… Shiv fight through this… Pain… Hurt… Ascendants… 

Distant explosions sounded. Uva? Shiv? The Weaveresses? Someone was still fighting the dragons. Not him, though. He was completely ruined. It all hurt too much. All he had left was an arm. All he had left—

“Get up, Adam.” The voice of his father pierced into his mind. Adam shook as he looked up. There was a light, and there was a tower, and there was his father drawing his bow back, fighting for Blackedge. For weeks. Without rest. Firing constantly at an endless wave of enemies.

He remembered a moment—a moment when he was a child.  The first time he flew, he’d fallen—and it hurt, and he was scared. He didn’t want to fly again. So his father carried him. Roland Arrow carried his son until the boy learned to yearn for the sky again. His father was a good man, a strong man. 

Repulsion Shroud > 57

But his father wasn’t here. 

His father needed Adam.

Shiv needed Adam.

Uva needed Adam.

Valor…

So many people helped him across his life. He couldn’t let the sweet bliss of oblivion take him. He couldn’t.

That’s not what a Pathbearer would do.

“Both wings…” Adam muttered, recalling what his father said to him. “Use both wings at once. Come on, Adam. Get up.”

Somehow, he manifested his wing through the pain, and flapped, lifting his broken body. The shaking inflamed his wounds and shout in exquisite agony. Adam didn’t know how he kept his focus or how he kept flying—but he did it, even with broken legs and one arm dangling. He flew up. He constructed an arm made from water to use his Spellstring. And he aimed—at the axe-wheeling dragon who, with another roar, dropped a fist on Shiv. The dragon’s hands were coated in blood, and his scales were broken too.

And in the gloom of the Abyss, Adam’s eyes began to burn bright as he squinted at the hand of Valor Thann. Wait, Adam reminded himself. Another blow. Adam exhaled. Another shockwave. Opportunity. He fired. His spatial arrow zipped for a near kilometer before it struck the hand dead on.

Deadeye > 95

Portomancy > 40

Adam then pulled back with his spatial magic. A tunnel of pressure yanked hard but couldn’t dislodge the arm. The Young Lord’s mind wailed—so he created two water bows and fired. A stream of arrows smashed into the clip holding the arm in place. The axe-bearing dragon lifted its arm again.

Bowslinger > 94

Please, Ascendants! Adam cursed. He could feel himself losing consciousness, he could—

The limb broke free. It tore across the spatial tunnel and crashed into Adam’s chest, knocking him back out of the air. Adam seized the limb with both arms as he crashed down on the ground—leg first.

His resulting scream echoed across the land. And darkness almost took him. Should have took him.

If not for the notification filling his closed eyes.

Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Descender Dragon-Knights and their new Aviary allies before they can sell off the right hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.

Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels

Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier

Adam laughed. It came out as a sob. He fed ten levels into his Deadeye and felt it shoot past another Skill Evolution. In the same instant, he selected his Portomancy as his Adept-Tier Skill option, and something wonderful happened.

Skill Evolution: Deadeye (Adept) > Horizon Splitter (Master)

Skill Evolution: Portomancy (Advanced) > Dimensionality (Adept)

Skill Fusion: Horizon Splitter Arrow (Master) - Dimensionality (Adept) > Veilpiercer (Master)

Veilpiercer > 105

Suddenly, a rush of strength flooded into Adam. He still hurt bad, but he didn’t feel on the brink of death anymore. His eyes snapped open. His jaw clenched. Formed a hydrokinetic hand and flared his wings once more. He rose up like a man possessed, and directed his gaze at the axe-bearing dragon punching Shiv over and over.

A surge of outrage and anger rushed through the Young Lord. As he moved further and further away, but formed a new arrow. Instead of shaping it from water, though, he reached for a more natural feeling substance—a stronger magic skill. An arrow shaped like a pitch-black spatial rupture materialized as he drew his Spellstring back. He aimed it at the head of the massive dragon.

This arrow was unlike all the other arrows he ever shaped in his life. He could feel a small dimension residing inside it. A small, unstable dimension that only his power was keeping together. More, he felt like he could infuse the magic of his bow into his newly empowered Veilpiecer arrow, and suddenly, the insides were no only unstable but filled with a surge of lightning.

“Let go… of my bastard,” Adam breathed. He released the arrow, and as the string straightened, a pulse of spatial distortions exploded out from around Adam as his arrow tore through the fabric of space rather than traveling to its target the traditional way. The Young Lord blinked as the rupture remained in place even after he fired the arrow. Unlike his standard teleportation arrow, which served as an anchor, he could eventually teleport to or someone else back from the point he struck. 

The Veilpiercer arrow wasn’t the same. It basically left a large, gaping chasm in reality and created a temporary, unstable dimension that ran from where Adam first released his shot all the way to the target itself. And the arrow still wasn’t done surprising him. With every second it spent in flight, it grew faster by multiple times. Between the Veilpiercer arrow’s ability to avoid air friction and its constant acceleration, the shot struck the axe-bearing dragon nigh-instantly.

It also crashed against the massive beast’s head hard enough to knock it off of Shiv. Lightning exploded everywhere. The dragon’s head crashed against the earth as it staggered. Then, it snapped into motion again, and a fiery aura flared around its body. But blood poured down from a dent in its skull. A large and visible dent.

Adam fired two more Veilpiercer arrows. But the dragon exploded off the ground. Adam moved on instinct and dove into the dimensional pathway he just created. He passed through the rupture just as the massive dragon appeared where he was. The sheer force and speed the dragon was moving terrified Adam. It searched for him briefly until it turned and saw the rupture. It tried to reach in, but its size worked against it—the bastard was too big. It could only stick two fingers through.

Adam laughed and accelerated along his arrow-made dimension. Portomancy was just the manipulation of spaces. Dimensionality was different. Dimensionality was the manifestation of another place entirely. You couldn’t intercept a Dimensionalist the same way you did a Jump Mage. You needed to pierce through their dimensional barriers first and even then, the dimension didn’t collapse—not until you disrupted the magical boundaries holding it together.

Adam’s dimension, however, was an unstable one, and shivering walls of quivering darkness slowly closed in from all sides.

I wonder if I can keep it stable, Adam thought as he blasted out from the exit in seconds. The distance within was also much shorter than taking the direct route. He emerged where the arrow hit the dragon, and he found Shiv immediately. Up in the sky, the massive dragon roared in fury as it continued clawing at the other end of the rupture.

Adam scoffed. The Berserk Skill was a double-edged sword. A massive boost to your physical attributes, but you lost the ability to think altogether. Not a great trade most times.

Looking down into a deep, shattered pit in the ground, Adam gawked as he found Shiv. The Deathless’s armor was cracked and bent almost everywhere. His helmet had been split in two, and his face was a bloody, swallen mess.

But the bastard was still breathing. He was practically less injured than Adam was.

“You… you cockroach,” Adam laughed. Another roar sounded from the axe-bearing dragon, and he dove, calling for Shiv to wake up.

***

The War Priest lifted a leg, and Shiv stared at the bone jutting out from his arm. He knew pain, he knew hurt, but this was on another level. This was…

Shiv didn’t cry. He stared up at the War Priest and spat on the man’s boot again.

Something exploded behind the man’s eyes. Warpriest lifted his leg once more. But before he could strike, an arrow flew true—right into his knee. It punched through, and the War Priest crashed to the ground with a guttural howl of pain.

Shiv watched in awe as three more arrows impacted that same knee—one after another—each one ruining the limb more. Until a final bolt struck hard enough to sever the limb entirely.

As the priest howled in agony, a voice came from Starhawk’s Perch. A voice that shook the air. “Any man who strikes a child, Omenborn or not, is no man of the Republic.” Roland Arrow’s tone rang with righteous fury, as if the very sky itself raged on his behalf. “War Priest. You will mend his arm. You will cease what you have done. And you will all report for active duty in the Militia within two days. You wish to serve the Republic. You wish to honor the Ascendants. Then descend and investigate the old ruins. Clear out the vampire nests. Help the needy. Today, you have shamed us all, and you have disobeyed a direct order from your Town-Lord in the process.”

But Shiv blinked. Something was wrong about this memory. Roland didn’t shoot the man’s leg off. The guards stopped him—detained him for a day and let him off. They took Shiv to a Biomancer afterward, but everyone pretended that nothing happened. Why was he remembering different now, why—

And from the skies above, a man descended, burning wings at his back. Shiv gritted his teeth and tried to rise. But his entire body hurt and—

“Shiv! Get up, you big, unkillable bastard!”

Shiv blinked as he saw Adam Arrow descending. The Young Lord’s legs were pointing in several wrong directions, and his left arm was also barely hanging on. Behind the Young Lord was a massive, quivering black gap. Shiv blinked, but the black didn’t go away. Guess that wasn’t a part of his concussion.

The Deathless spat a globule of blood as he notice something else.

Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Descender Dragon-Knights and their new Aviary allies before they can sell off the right hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.

Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels

Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier

“Adam,” Shiv grunted as he ripped himself out of the rubble. “Did you just complete another quest while I was distracted.”

“Well, someone had to get things done while you were napping on the job,” Adam sneered.

Shiv scoffed. “Yeah, well, you look like shit.”

“So, hurry up and heal me, you bastard. You have any idea the pain I’m in.”

Shiv laughed as he accepted Adam’s hand, but mostly pulled himself up using his gravitic field.

Adamantine Adaption > 121

He spat a mouthful of blood and five of his teeth out. “I’m going to kill Sir Tarlow. Slowly.”

“Who the hells is Sir Tarlow,” Adam asked.

“The dragon with the kukri.”

Adam’s nostril flared. “Ah. Yes. Her. I’ll help you.”

Shiv growled as he forced himself to manifest a Woundeater despite his mana strain. He cast into Adam and the Young Lord gasped as his body was restored in an instant. The crystallized serpent danced atop Shiv’s hands as he cracked his neck.

Just then, the black rupture behind Adam closed, and the axe-bearing dragon slammed down, finally noticing them. Then, a pulse of teleportation followed and Sir Tarlow and the Biomancer reappeared, flanking them from the other side.

“Great,” Shiv growled. “I was just about to go looking for them.”

Adam, however, simply drew his strings back. “I assume you want me to kill the enemy Biomancer first.”

Shiv was about to ask Young Lord how he was going to do that when he noticed the shivering, pitch-black arrow that Adam manifested. “What’s that?”

“My first Master-Tier Skill Fusion,” Adam said. “You’ll see how it works in a minute.”

The axe-bearing dragon hammered its fists into the ground, causing a small earthquake.

“Congratulations,” Shiv said.

“Thank you. I’m rather proud of it myself.”

“Got any recommendations for what I should move to Adept? Because I’m going to put ten points into Knife Proficiency. I’m going to take Tarlow’s knife and skin her with it.”

“About time you got an actual Weapon Skill. And Stealth.”

“Stealth?”

“Again. Only thing worse than then most you can see, is the most you don’t. See if those skills fuse.”

Shiv did as the Young Lord recommended.

Skill Evolution: Knife Proficiency (Common) > Deepest Edge

Deepest Edge > 53

Skill Evolution: Stealth (Common) > Silhouette (Adept)

To Shiv’s slight disappointment, the skills didn’t fuse, but as he focused on trying to remain unnoticed, his mood turned to elation. His Mask of False Paths offered him an Umbral Shadowalker Skill. It wasn’t a bad skill, but it was still something that was entirely focused on hiding, and stopped being useful when there were no more shadows. Shiv yearned for something that made him hard to notice even while engaged in active combat.

And the system obliged. The bulk of his body went entirely transparent, the only trace left of him a thin outline mapping out his silhouette.

“Bloody hells,” Adam chuckled as he regarded Shiv. “I’m going to regret this the next time we spar.”

Shiv pulled two bone drills out of his cloak and wrapped a hand around a dagger. Immediately, he felt a deep fluid energy trembling inside the edged weapon, but he wasn’t sure what that might allow him to do.

Suppose I’ll find out soon. Just like with Adam’s new arrow.

“You ready?” Shiv said, looking between the axe-bearer and Tarlow.

His question was interrupted as a dragon screamed from above—Shiv cursed as he saw the wind-dragon accelerate and—

It promptly crashed into the ground, kicking up dirt and rubbing through the crater. It came to a rest near Shiv and Adam as both men blinked. Then, with a sudden swell of Psychomancy, the dragon’s skull burst apart as Uva hatched out from the now headless dragon, sporting a limp.

“Apologies,” the Umbral growled. Shiv saw that her mana field was entirely different from before. Instead of a solid field, it was now a dense weave of thin strings that spread far across the land—over the very horizon, while remaining rooted to her mind. The Biomancer and Tarlow tried to charge then, but a dozen of the strings pierced through them, and both dragons collapsed into the dirt screaming as Uva’s physical body briefly transformed into a dense net of mind magic. “Couldn’t quite reach the Jealousy. I had to findanother body to wear.”