II-22Escape

It is not overly sophisticated to break or harm a mind using Psychomancy. Ultimately, the effect can be achieved by wrenching memories out of place, crashing them into others, or blending everything you can see into one another. This is called scrambling. It is among the most basic and earliest attacks a Psychomancer learns, and it easily inflicts schizophrenia. Such is why Psychomancers are regarded with suspicion, fear, and active deterrence.

When facing a Psychomancer, it is important to either have a Psychomancer of your own, magical resistance in your armor, or, ultimately, stealth. If the Psychomancer does not know you are there, you may have the advantage, and you may be able to eliminate them before something happens. However, should you be caught off guard by a Psychomancer, or should they break your defenses, then there are a few steps you can take—not to avoid harm—it is too late for that—but to preserve your mind.

Focus. Focus on a specific subset of memories, actively switching your thoughts. Think about things you are willing to lose. This will take great discipline, but it will require the Psychomancer to use effort to sift through your mind. An adept can likely break your mind in a few seconds, but every second more you buy is a second for someone to assist you, someone to save you, and a second where you reduce the damage you suffer. This could be the difference between a mind healer managing to put your mind back together in a relatively intact condition, or absolute madness for the rest of your days.

That is another reason why Psychomancers are so feared—for they can inflict fates worse than death. To have your mind broken, to be inflicted with fast-acting dementia, or to suffer hallucinations every time you have a specific thought results in debilitating life conditions. No matter how strong you are, if your mind is broken, then you will be effectively trapped inside your flesh. For the pilot is dead, and though the vehicle may endure, but there is nothing to guide it. It remains an empty shell.

The greatest tragedy in Psychomancy was cemented in the Legend of Cassayla. Cassayla, the impossibly powerful Hydromancy. Cassayla, the Siren that Turns the Seas. Cassayla, defender of the Enchained Peoples. Cassayla the Broken. Broken in battle against the great Jealousy. Broken, forevermore, with her people desperately trying to put her back together, even after five hundred years. And still she languishes. And still she wanders in her madness. Cassayla, the lost.

Cassayla was a Legendary Pathbearer, and the odds are that you, dear reader, aren’t. Mind yourself. And mind your mind. It is a terrible thing to lose.

-Fortress of Thought, Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy for the Course PSYDEF-101

II-22
Escape

“And thus are the fruits of my interrogation. I expect to gain more information soon, but I think we must beware. Our paranoia is insufficient. Whatever game is being played, the Republic is lying to its own people, even its inquisitors. I suspect that the Aviary spy is here for more than just the Animacy Core. His targets have been too varied. Too chaotic.”

As Leu finished her false report, she watched as Gate Lord Confriga’s expression turned into one of barely suppressed rage in the reflection of the glass. She was in his personal quarters. Well, one of his personal quarters. This was a place where one was punished for failure, or rewarded, the rare case of success. The ground had grates in it for all the blood that had been spilled here. Those who often ventured forth to this place were like Leu—very good at their duties—or those who understood that they were likely heading to an execution.

Leu studied the Gate Lord for a few moments longer. The Lesser Marshal was glaring out over the many rivers. He was staring down at the only gateway left open beneath them, the length of this building crossing over back to their home dimension, their homeworld. Confriga’s personal tower was the only one in the entire gate that was built downward, rather than upward, pointed towards the bedrock and at rivers of molten metal rather than the mana core in the sky. 

It was a sign, a sign of Confriga’s yearning to return to his home, but also a sign and a tantalizing taunt against him inflicted during his exile. To cross back over without incurring the favors of the Lords of Law and earning a writ of redemption from one of them would see him spurned still by Lord Scorn, their capricious and uncaring god. And that brought Leu no end of pleasure, to see the Gate Lord so troubled, so tormented by his failures, so lost as to what was actually happening.

I wish and I yearn to see that final expression on your face when you die, when I split you slowly, she thought internally, but she mastered her hate. She made it cold instead of hot, and she bid her time.

She had a powerful ally now. A disciple of the Great Valor Thann, this Master Shiv was a strange Pathbearer, unlike any she’d met before. Considering the nature of his most powerful skills, the way he operated, he was more like a monster wrapped in the mind and flesh of a human. Despite this, she felt that she could trust him. She felt that she had to trust him, that this was a sign of the system’s favor, that her revenge was finally going to reach its climax. At this moment, the Jealousy was likely dead and Shiv was like in the process of escaping with the others.

Soon, he would return with the Legendary Pathbearer. And they would bring an end to Confriga’s life. 

What happened after that didn’t matter to Leu. Her final obsession, her only obsession, would be resolved.

“Do you miss home, Guardshead?” Confriga asked. Leu was momentarily caught off guard by this question. Confriga was not one for sentimentality, but she could hear the weariness in his voice.

“Sometimes,” she replied, “but I think mainly of my duties and of the processes of this gate.” 

Confriga grunted. “I have always envied you, Leu. You know this, yes?” He turned to regard her, and once more she found herself surprised.

“You do, Lesser Marshal?”

“Indeed, you might not possess the virtuous urges to inflict pain, to dominate, to break. Lamentable. But your focus, your dedication to your cause, your dedication to your role and your duties, you are—” he laughed, “almost too good for me, Guardshead. Almost. I wish I had more like you.” Little did he know the irony in this statement. If there were more of her, he would have been long dead.

He was about to say something else when somebody burst through the door. A human mercenary, looking haggard and terrified, rushed in. She realized he was a Dimensionalist, the badge on his armor indicating that he was Gateway Engineering. Leu tensed. Had something gone wrong? Had—

“The Jealousy has been kidnapped! He stole the Jealousy!” That was what came out of the man’s mouth. His eyes were wide with terror, and his mouth was open. Spittle was flying all over the Lesser Marshal’s table.

The Gate Lord simply regarded the man for a moment, looked to Confriga, and then, with an infuriated snort, he strode forth backhanded the Dimensionalist. The man didn’t fly off in a certain direction. He wasn’t splattered or crushed. He simply vanished into a puff of bloody mist, his armor disintegrating into shrapnel. A few shards crashed into Leu, but they bounced off her body too, bruising and nothing more. Still, it was a staggering reminder of how much stronger the Lesser Marshal was compared to her. She couldn’t do that at all, not even close. She was a blade in the dark, but she was trying to find a way to slit the throat of a titan.

“You believe this?” Confriga said, his voice bearing a growl of primal rage. “These—these—these deceptions, these jokes that the mercenaries come up with. You remember them planting a bucket above my room and splashing it down on me,” Confriga snarled. 

Leu almost laughed. She remembered how many mercenaries were flayed after that little prank. There were no more pranks in Gate Theborn after that.

But just then, another person rushed into the room, this one a Vulteg, one of their species. They bore the same agitation as the mercenary, the same terror in their posture. Suddenly, Leu thought something was very, very wrong, but she couldn’t tell what. The Vulteg messager repeated the same thing the recently slain mercenary did: “Lesser Marshal! Lesser Marshal! He—they—they’ve stolen the Jealousy! They’ve kidnapped the Greater Demon!” 

And this time, both Confriga and Leu looked on, truly stunned.

“What?” both of them spat at oncec.

As they tried to decipher what was going on, Leu was so lost in her own mind that she promptly forgot something important. A series of bombs went off above them. Mana bombs she planted all over the gate’s many districts. From above, tremors ran down and the building shook. It took Leu a moment to remember that she was the perpetrator of this act and that she had a role to play right now.

“Uh, oh no,” she said, a little too late. “I think we are under attack. The spy has struck again, and, and I think he… he is also the one that kidnapped the Jealousy.” Her reactions were messy, but it was excusable considering how caught off guard she was. 

“Find him,” the Gate Lord snapped. His eye were wide with rage. His body tremored with power, with twisting Necromantic mana that bled from the three skulls locked to his chest. “Find!” His roar echoed out from the mana core, out over the entire gate, and his rage was palpable. “HIMMMMM!”

Leu just remained confused. Kidnapping the Jealousy, she thought. How does one kidnap a Greater Demon?

***

Kidnapping a Greater Demon the size of a small mountain required someone to be incredibly awesome or insanely mad. Shiv, at that moment, was literally both on account of his brain damage. 

Spells and skills of all type were bombarding the topside of the Jealousy, crashing against its Master-Tier Carapace, splashing against Shiv’s Master-Tier Adamantium Adaption. But while wings and squadrons of enemy aerial Pathbearers hounded him, they were struck from the sky by arrows of lightning, of mind, of frost and fire. Absolute chaos raged all around them, and Shiv loved it.

Atop the body of the Greater Demon, a new theater of war was taking place. A theater of war that was going to escalate soon, as they drew closer to an approaching cliffside overlooking a ravine. With a final burst of his Gravitic Wrestler, Shiv shouted and flung the Jealousy over the edge. He cried out for those helping him to hold on, and most of them did, each one clutching a crevice or a jutting portion of the Jealousy’s broken shell.

Uva didn’t need to hold on to anything, because he was holding on to her. She, meanwhile, launched Psychomancy spells in one hand and massive stabs of frost with the other. Her twin magics blasted in the air, and Shiv heard several Pathbearers cry out, heard their Magical Resistance crackle and burst behind them. 

A rush of force pulling against his insides as they fell, and he reduced the feeling by tugging upward with his gravity field. He couldn’t quite fly with the Jealousy. Well, he couldn’t truly fly normally. He was mostly just pulling and flinging himself with his gravity field. Still, he could slow the Greater Demon’s descent, make it so that it wasn’t a violent impact, but rather a controlled landing.

A particularly youthful, girlish voice screamed out from beside him. “I think I’m gonna be really sick,” an Umbral said, clutching a broken cavity in the Jealousy’s shell, her other hand clinging tight to a glass halberd.

Shiv’s feeling towards the group that came to save him was pretty positive. Broken memories inside his wounded minds were beginning to itch as they fused back together. He experienced something like this with them before. They fought together. They knew each other. He trusted them, and they more than trusted him. I think I even died for them… more than once…

As they fell, as more spells crashed against the Jealousy, Shiv tilted the Greater Demon’s body and swung its ten limbs upward. The massive tentacles of the Jealousy parried and blunted some Master-Tier attacks. Colossal explosions unleashed by Master-Tier enemies shook the Greater Demon and launched Shiv a bit off course, but with a snarl of effort, Shiv wrestled the massive beast back to a point of stability.

Parry > 49

Just then, from the side of the ravine, he saw a series of shapes blast out through a forest of bloodstained trees. At first, he thought he was looking at a swarm of bats, but then, as they came closer, approaching at terrifying speeds, Shiv realized they weren’t bats at all, but looked humanoid as well. Constellations of crimson spells danced around their body as their forms shifted. Some sprouted bladed digits. Others grew more lashing limbs lined with jagged teeth. These were Biomancers. These were….

Something clicked together in Shiv’s mind. These were high vampires. These were warriors of the First Blood coming to defend their territory. And this was their territory. This was the border between the Compact and the Court of the First Blood. He quickly realized what the voice speaking from Uva’s brooch was planning. He was going to trigger a border skirmish to cover Shiv’s escape. 

Asshole or not, the guy in the brooch was pretty clever.

The high vampires came, numbering well around a few hundred. Shiv couldn’t tell how many, but most of them had mana fields that were probably in the Adept-Tier. There were, however, four that were Master, and two of those Masters were superior to his Biomancy in both field size and strength.

As they clashed their mana fields against his, Shiv gritted back a roar of pain as he felt his still-wounded mana struggle to stay intact. But they didn’t launch their spells at him first. Rather, he felt them fling their magic against the wyvern riders and other Compact guards that were attacking him while also flinging their magic against the Jealousy, which they assumed to still be alive.

“Vampires incoming!” Uva cried. Her cry was transmitted telepathically to the rest of the group, and Shiv felt them respond immediately, sensed their alertness. He was bound to them, connected to their minds as well. He caught flashes of what they were doing, who they were fighting off, how strained or how chaotic their minds seemed. It was like he was synchronized with them, each of their minds stacked on top of each other. And it was all thanks to Uva.

“Brace!” Shiv cried mentally.

Just then, they crashed down on the floor of the ravine, the colossal weight of the Jealousy blunted by Shiv’s impressive strength. He pulled upward while it slammed downward. It cracked the floor, it sundered the very river it landed upon, splitting and fissuring the ground and causing the rushing stream to waterfall into the cracks. 

Shiv kept moving. He launched the Jealousy forward again, sending it rushing down along the ravine, down in an instinctive direction.

In the air above, the high vampires met the gateway guardians in a brutal clash of might and magic. Explosions and shockwaves swelled through the air, hammering against the Jealousy from above. A few of the Master-Tier Pathbearers between both groups met each other, intercepting their equals to protect the lessers members in their forces. 

His enemies were going to be occupied with each other. Shiv laughed. He might just be able to finish this whole Greater Demon theft thing after all.

But just as he was getting optimistic, one of the Master-Tier Pathbearers slammed into the other, knocking their enemy off their mount and tumbling towards the Jealousy. They crashed down beside Shiv, crashed down hard enough to launch one of the Umbrals into the air. It was that girlish one—Ikki! Shiv could tell by her shriek, could tell by her mind. He responded by lifting Uva high up into the air, and she reached up, caught the girl by her ankle, and pulled her back down. It was like reeling in a kite.

“Easy!” Shiv cried.

However, Shiv felt a click pass through the girl’s ankle. He pulled a little too hard.

“Ah!” Ikki’s scream passed it through Shiv’s mind. He winced. “Sorry!” 

And then somebody kicked him in the jaw. It was a hard kick. It was a savage kick, capable of turning an Adept’s face into nothing but blood and dust, or turning a hill into a plain. The kick slightly bruised Shiv. The shockwave, however, made Uva flinch back—she nearly let go of Ikki. 

A high vampire had torn the throat out of his Compact adversary, and was now trying to beat Shiv to death.

Shiv decided he was offended by this, and clawed out blindly. He caught something, plump and soft, and he squeezed. He felt two sensitive organs pop in the palm of his closing right hand, and that’s when Shiv realized he had crushed the high vampire's groin. The high vampire wailed. Shiv didn’t let go. The vampire clawed Shiv’s face and broke his fingers against Shiv’s hardened Adamantine Adaption. This offended Shiv more, and so he started dashing the high vampire over and over again against the surface of the Jealousy. 

The vampire likely had something near High Adept in terms of Toughness. High Adept was not a very good matchup against Gravitic Wrestler. Shiv slammed the vampire back and forth, the bloodspawn’s body practically disintegrating with every blow, blood spraying everywhere, his organs dislodging from shattering bones. But the Lesser Vampire shaped spells, rapidly healed himself, and Shiv found himself even more infuriated by this—even enraged. 

He remembered healing himself and that just giving him cancer. Before he had the Woundeater, Shiv suffered, Shiv died, that was how he recovered. And these high vampires managed to circumvent that because their hearts were special. And that made Shiv infuriated. He started slamming the vampire even harder.

As another wyvern landed, Shiv swung the vampire out like a club. The wyvern’s head simply ceased to be, and its rider tumbled off, only to crash into Uva’s extended hand, a hand that flung the spell into his face. The man’s Magical Resistance shattered first from her Psychomancy spell, and then she drove a long blade of ice through his screaming mouth. As he tumbled off, she flung that same shard of ice and impaled another rider through their armpit.

“Nice work,” Shiv thought. She gave him a smirk, a smirk that turned into a wide-eyed gasp, as suddenly, before Shiv could even react, a spray of blood erupted from her neck.

Just then, the air crackled, and a new figure emerged, a new figure bearing a strange curved knife with a vibrating edge. She turned to glare at Shiv. Her armor was barely existent. Her arms were exposed, carved with whirling runes that glowed in the dark, and her face showed she was a ritualistically scarred human. She licked her lips. “Good prey,” she hissed.

Uva collapsed, almost falling from the Jealousy’s back, but Shiv caught her. Ikki screamed her name. The synchronized link between the group broke as Uva’s focus collapsed.

Shiv snarled as he flung the high vampires in his other hand at this adversary. She sidestepped—her speed more than equal to his. And then she was upon him, slashing her curved knife across his eyes. The slash didn’t go very deep. But it was deep enough. Both of Shiv’s eyes vanished, turned into pits of severed flesh. The bridge of his nose was split. His Adamantine Adaption caused her shaking blade to chip and break, earning a grunt from her. 

But the work was done. Shiv was blind. Shiv was hurt. And Shiv was pissed.

Pissed enough to fuel his Woundeater. He didn’t target himself first. He released Uva for a second. And then—in the moment it took for the enemy Pathbearer to cut him three more times, splitting open his neck, taking a chunk out of his left ear and leaving her blade partially embedded into his chest—he sent out a wyrm, consumed Uva’s throat wound cast the Woundeater into the enemy Pathbearer.

Magic moved faster than most physical attacks did. When the spell crashed against the knife-wielder, Shiv found her Magical Resistance to be respectable. Respectable was only enough to keep her alive briefly. She was nothing compared to the Jealousy. Even so, her resistance was only cracked, and she would have continued attacking him, if not for Uva striking her directly afterward, launching a Psychomancy spell into the knife-wielders mind. 

Shiv felt the enemy Pathbearer come asunder mentally. A psychic scream of misery and pain erupted, blasting over him, and she shuddered. He remembered screaming like that himself when facing the Jealousy, and shuddered.

A second later, he fed his new wounds into another wyrm, and he flung that into the enemy Pathbearer, who was still clutching her head. His sight returned. His missing ear was hole. The wound in his chest vanished. Her eyes erupted. Her ear flew off. Her chest blew open in a chasm of blood. She gurgled and slumped off of the Jealousy, but not before Uva hit her again, shattering her mind for good. 

There were now two mind-dead entities on this battlefield.

“Are you all right?” Shiv called out Uva. Shiv felt her terror, felt her shock, but felt also her discipline, her focus. Her magic seeped back into his mind and reconnected him with all the others.

“I’m fine,” she said, rubbing her throat. She blinked at him. “How did you…was that your Biomancy?”

He summoned a Woundeater and made it dance around his hands. “Uh, yeah, that’s Master-Tier now, too. Uh, I’ll tell you about it later.”

She blinked. From her brooch, Shiv could hear a that asshole let out a string of violent curses.

Just then, a massive shadow swept over them—a huge, wedge-shaped sword. Frankly, it was too large of a sword. It was like a growing chunk of raw iron that just kept swelling larger and larger until it was the size of a tower. The Pathbearer holding it leapt off from their wyvern and roared as they prepared to bring it down to cleave the entire ravine in half.

Shiv cursed, he flung the Jealousy’s limbs, and they impacted the edge of the blade. Sloppily, but it was enough. He pulled off one of the strangest parries he had in his entire life, using a comatose Greater Demon as a blocking tool to knock the massive blade off course. The blade bit into one of the mountains, cleaving an entire surface off from its side, and that caused a massive rockslide to rain down on Shiv and the Umbrals.

Parry > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Shiv cursed, opened his own chest, crushed his heart, and flung a spell at the Master-Tier adversary. The man tried to dodge, but the spell impacted against his chest, and Shiv heard his foe cry out. However, they didn’t die, so their Magical Resistance must have held.

This time, Uva blinked at Shiv again. “Did you just tear yourself open and throw your wound at that man?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it later,” Shiv repeated.

She shook out from her stupor and launched her own spells at more enemies. Just then, the voice in her brooch cried out:

“Wait, Shiv, turn into the landslide. If you’re strong enough, ram through it.”

“What?” Shiv said. 

“Into the landslide—trust me. And use your bloody Momentum Core!”

“Momentum Core?” Shiv blinked, and another piece of his mind slid back into place.

Yes, that was his first Master-Tier Skill. That was the only reason he survived against Harkness. His mind was rapidly starting to come back together—the most essential parts of his mind, anyway. He was a fool. This entire escape could have been made easier if he’d just used Momentum Core at several points. It wasn’t even charged. He didn’t even drain any momentum. He should have immediately turned, crashed into the falling rock slide, and he called out to all the other Umbrals, mentally: “Everyone, grab onto me! I’m gonna try something! Don’t get thrown off!”

They responded immediately, without hesitation.

Each of the group slammed themselves against him, clinging with desperate limbs—several even casting their weapons aside. Shiv could touch them. Shiv could feel them. And whatever he touched, his gravitic field could protect, could seize. They were enveloped by his strength, and Shiv clenched his jaw as he let the rock slide hit him. His Adamantine Adaption helped him endure, but several of the Umbrals cried out—their armor deforming, their bones cracking.

Shiv ignored the extreme agony as he taxed his mana field to shape a few more wyrms, swept it through the others, and assumed their wounds himself. Meanwhile, his momentum filled.

Beneath the entire rushing landslide, the time slowed—his core reached maximum—and he clutched the Umbrals and the Jealousy to him as tightly as he could before he discharged. A massive blast of kinetic energy rippled off of him, displaced by his gravitic field with a surge of effort for Shiv. That blast wave then launched behind him, knocking several of his pursuers off—swatting vampires and riders alike out of the sky.

Then Shiv was smashing through the mountain, drilling deep into stone and splitting ore, like a colossal hammer made to split the very earth in half. The world turned into a chaotic mass of falling stone and debris and deafening noise. By the end, he was ragged, broken in so many places, but he still had his field, and he still had his Adamantine Adaptation. He was a Master Pathbearer. They weren’t. This was what he was for. This was what being a Pathbearer meant.

When his Momentum Core finally ran out, he found himself dropping—as if falling down a large hole. Several Umbrals shaped spells so he could see in the dark, and he realized he was descending into the center of the mountain. It looked hollowed by something, with metal supports holding the structure up, but it was destabilized by Shiv’s sudden intrusion.

He plunged—the Umbrals and everyone within the Jealousy plunged with him, going deeper into the dark. Small hollows and caverns lined the sides of the inner cave. He saw serpents he’d fought before in a hole in the ground after he was burned, and then other strange creatures—large snake-shaped humanoids even—mining war veins in the mountain. They turned to regard him with surprise, but he was past them in an instant. The Jealousy’s immense bulk crashed against the inner mountain’s sides. Its tentacles tore chasms into the wall, compromsing the mountain even more.

Finally, Shiv braced and pulled up, trying to slow its descent. But the moment he did, it crashed hard—and he felt the Umbrals around him shatter in places. He assumed those wounds, too, and almost slumped over from the pain.

“Shiv, stop! Stop taking wounds into yourself! Stop it!” Uva cried.

Shiv blinked. “That’s fine. I’m just gonna…” He pulled out one of his old bodies, chucked it before her, fed his current wounds into a wyrm—nearly blacking out from the pain of renewed mana strain—but managed to finish the spell and transfer it to his old corpse.

Ulva blinked. The other Umbrals gasped. Ikki laughed. “Composer! That does it. Shiv, you’re coming with me anywhere I go. I’m not going to the Biomancers at Cradle anymore. You’re the only doctor I need.”

Just then, a massive rumbling of stone descended, and Shiv cursed. He released the other Umbrals and held his hand up, bracing against the mass of falling stone with gravity-ruling strength. At first, it felt light—his might was immense. And then the rest of the inner mountain began to collapse, pounding down on him. What was a feather became a massive slab of metal, became a falling wall, became an entire building.

This… this was a real mountain. Not a small one. Not a Greater Demon shaped like a mountain. An entire literal mountain falling on him. And Shiv… Shiv was strong. But he wasn’t strong enough to hold up an entire collapsing mountain for very long. He cried out, straining himself. His Adamantine Adaption was his saving grace—it endured, forcing his bones to harden before they could shatter, forcing his ligaments to turn denser, stronger in the face of immense strain.

Shiv began to bend, and that made him look at the others.

“Okay,” he growled. “Okay, someone start hitting me.” They blinked. Uva didn’t hesitate—she understood what he wanted. She struck him in the face with a short sword. It wasn’t much, but his Momentum Core needed a lot more. “Come on, everyone join in. I don’t know how long I can hold this.”

All the Umbrals started whacking him, and while they did, Uva’s brooch sounded once more:

“Shiv! Shiv! Ah, there you are, I found you. How the hell did you—Okay, never mind. Listen to me. When you discharge again this time, aim down at a 45-degree angle exactly.”

Shiv blinked. More stones piled on him. He couldn’t think clearly anymore. “I don’t think I can get a 45-degree angle exactly right when I’m not mindbroken and holding up a mountain.”

Shiv cursed. A disgusted snort came from the brooch.

“Just aim slightly downward, then, you damned fool!”

“Gods. Sure thing, asshole,” Shiv muttered.

His Momentum Core filled—but not fast enough. It felt like an eternity of strain, and it took everything his Gravitic Wrestler had to keep from breaking. He started pawing, moving bits of stone to the side—letting it crash against the Jealousy’s tentacles.

Shiv began to curve, began to bend. His strength was running out. He could feel his spine popping, and the Umbrals could feel it too. Their attacks intensified. He drank momentum. His core filled. Time slowed, and Uva struck him one final time—her jaw clenched in desperation, terror, and a slight regret. She didn’t want to be hitting him.

Oh, that’s sweet of her, Shiv thought, exhaustion making him delirious.

Shiv reached out for them, called for them to hold onto him, and once more, as soon as they touched him—his field seized them—he discharged. His progress was messier, slower this time. He exploded down—the Jealousy’s immense bulk dragged forward, clenched by his gravitic strength—and Shiv nearly blacked out from sheer exertion. They burst through another section of the mountain, tumbling—the monster’s limbs mangled from the immense weight. He did black out in the darkness momentarily, but just then, the final threshold of the mountain burst open. 

Light splashed over him, and they were once more in the air—sailing over a wide open ground. Before them was a long black expanse, glittering as if there were stars hidden in the rich soil.

Shiv blinked, thinking he was hallucinating, but after a while he realized he wasn’t. He was shooting over a land of glistening silt, a land riven by small lanes of irrigation, far from the conflict. On the other side of the collapsing mountain, flashes and blossoming tides of fire and magic continued to swell. The Gatekeepers and the First Blood were at war, and they had lost him in the carnage and chaos. Somehow, they had gotten away—for now. Shiv felt a rush of triumph.

But then he was descending, preparing to crash into the silt fields, and he tried to pull back—tried to pull the Jealousy—but he could only manage to arc its head. His strength finally gave. Shiv dry-heaved, spent beyond stamina and energy. They struck. The Umbrals were flung off. Uva tried to cling on, but she was launched off as well.

Shiv felt something inside tweak. A muscle pulled, several muscles in fact, and they kept going until, finally—with a massive furrow dug into the ground—the Jealousy stopped. The Umbrals groaned. Shiv groaned. Everyone lay there, deep in pain, suffering their wounds.

The Umbrals were badly wounded as they landed—their armor crushed, their bones broken.

Shiv tried to shape a spell, but he failed—his mana strain was too much. He hoped they would last. He hoped they would all last long enough to find proper help.

Shiv spent, unable to keep himself upright. And just then, an arrow crashed beside him—an arrow shaped from spatial magic. Shiv managed a heroic effort, pushing himself upright, clenching his fist, only to see a new figure clad in sky-blue armor, bearing a bow with far too many silken strings, scowling at him through an open helmet.

For a few moments the man said nothing, and another piece of Shiv clicked back into place. He remembered who this was now—and why he thought he was an asshole—and how the guy always knew where to go.

“Adam,” Shiv coughed, “well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kind of glad to see you. Hey, did you do something to your eyes? Why are they…why are they so bright and blue?”

Adam stared at Shiv. He stared at the Jealousy. He stared at the moaning Umbrals. And the Young Lord sighed. “Shiv, why are you even bigger than before?”

Shiv looked down at himself. He stared at his muscles, then flexed slightly. “Oh yeah, I am. I think I got a Master-Tier physicality thing now. Oh, and I fused that with my Grappling Proficiency. But how did you know exactly where we were? And how did you know where to go while we were in that mountain?”

Adam just stared at him.

“Because I’m a Heroic Pathbearer now,” Adam said, his voice thin. “A Heroic Pathbearer in Awareness.”

“Oh. That’s nice. How high’s your Physicality, though?” Shiv taunted.

Adam clenched his jaw. “You monster. You absolute monster. How many Master-Tier Skills do you even have now?”

Several Umbrals moaned. Uva just growled. “Adam,” Uva said, “You two can measure your cocks later… get the regeneration potions first… before we all die from internal bleeding.”