II-19 Jealousy (III)

Gravitic Dominion

Noun

A powerful Master-Tier Physicality Skill Evolution that allows the Pathbearer to project and control fields of intensified gravity through touch or physical contract. This Skill Evolution usually results from individuals and monsters that have achieved Might of Mass, Kinetic Overlord, and Vector Nexus.

With Gravitic Dominion, the user becomes their leverage, can alter their own mass or the mass of anything they are in contact with, allowing them to crush everything around them, and sail through the air as a few examples.

The most well-known monster that possess Gravitic Dominion is the Voidwelling Titan, which can usually be found in the depths of space surrounded by a dense field of asteroids and other debris. 

Special Note: It is recommended that Pathbearers who lack Physicality and Toughness take special precautions when facing an adversary capable of manipulating the very nature of gravity. Their ability to manipulate their own weight means they aren’t just extremely strong in close quarters, but when paired with high enough Reflexes, they can be incredibly fast as well.

-Encyclopedia Apocalyptia

II-19

Jealousy (III)

Shiv’s bone drills blasted through the air. The backblast of their acceleration sent a good few hundred slaves sprawling onto their backs and chests. Even more were launched off their feet as Shiv himself leaped off the ground, applying both his near-Master-Tier Physicality and Biomancy in tandem to launch himself at the Jealousy.

True to Leu’s assumptions, the titanic demon’s speed was inferior to Shiv’s—but that didn’t make it slow at all. Its eye ignited with a blinding surge of power as its mana rippled, sending multiple psionic tsunamis to crash against Shiv. It also curved a massive armored limb to shield its eye—but was too slow. Both bone drills speared past the Jealousy’s tentacle before it was in position to do anything. The adamantine bone-drills struck the Greater Demon’s eye at immense speed, grinding deep into the flesh of its eye like burrowing needles.

Yet, even as the Greater Demon wailed with pain, its focus endured, and its Toughness proved to be enough. Though the drills bit deep, they ran out of energy long before they could push through the outer flesh of the eye, remaining in place like jutting arrows. That put the big bastard at Master-Tier Toughness at the least.

This is going to be a rough godsdamned fight, Shiv said as he saw the psionic waves close in. Controlling his exoskeleton using a rippling spell in his right hand, Shiv clenched his left fist and prepared to meet the first of the encroaching waves. Considering the Jealousy’s Heroic-Tier of power, Shiv expected this to leave his gauntlet ringing like a bell, but it was either that or take it with his mask. 

A wall of screaming, magical thought reared back to crash down on him. Shiv flung himself gauntlet-first against its tides. An enormous impact swept through him, rattling his bones and shaking his organs. Shiv cursed and grit his teeth as he struggled to parry the magical wave aside. It felt like he was trying to grapple with a falling mountain. Even with all his strength, it was a hell of a fight, and other waves were closing in. With a roar of effort and a tug of his Biomancy, he managed to parry the angle of the psionic tide into the wall behind him. His gauntlet was shaking hard, trembling jarringly against the rest of his armor as it released a shrieking note at the frequency of the vibrations.

Might of Mass > 95

Parry > 42

Shiv didn’t know how many more hits like that his gauntlet could take, so he pushed harder with his Biomancy to get in closer. His mana field was on the verge of reaching the monster’s body. Soon, it would be his turn to use a little magic of his own.

“How?” the Jealousy screamed. Shiv felt its eyes flash with mana—it just Analyzed him. Another scream of confusion and outrage sounded from the creature, and Shiv couldn’t help but laugh. Perfect Semblance was confusing this big bastard too. His amusement was short-lived as he saw the Jealousy shaping new spells with its ten limbs. The pursuing waves of Psychomancy pooled together and turned into a nightmare of jagged teeth that sang telepathic notes so dreadful that his mask started quivering on his face as well.

But before it could fully bring its power to bear against him, Shiv felt his Biomancy field crossover with one of the beast’s enormous tentacles. To his dread, he discovered that it also had a thick layer of Magical Resistance. This thing was a juggernaut of meat and spirit, but Shiv had a Master-Tier magical skill of his own that he wanted to test against a powerful foe: his raw but devastating Biomancy.

Biomancy he promptly used to rip into the Greater Demon with unmatched brutality. With a thought, Shiv inflicted absolute ruin on his own body, bursting organs, shattering bones, gouging his eyes, and bursting his ears. But before an explosion of pain could rush through him, his wyrm did. He fed the mana formed serpent with all the damage he did to himself, and by the time it burst free from his body, the wyrm was bursting with concentrated mana and crystallized wounds. With a channeling of intent, the spell patterns dancing across Shiv’s right arm transformed. The wyrm blasted forward, just as the Jealousy started swinging its arm down.

The wyrm struck the Jealousy’s tentacle, coiling around the limb and biting deep. Shiv felt the crystallized wounds crash against the monster’s Magical Resistance—and then a crimson explosion engulfed the space in front of him.

In a mirror of what happened with Shiv mere moments ago, the beast’s arm reeled back as well, and its entire body jolted as if it had been physically struck by a heavy blow. “Mage! Master! Biomancer! Need distance! Keep at bay and break with Psychomancy!”

The monster’s thoughts were choppy but intelligent. What surprised Shiv even more was how there was actually a thought process to what it wanted to do that went beyond the instinctive—and that it would rather avoid him rather than extracting attacks up close, despite its huge size advantage.

Even with Might of Mass, Shiv didn’t think he was anywhere near as strong or as heavy as the Jealousy. The damn thing had a limb-span of practically two hundred meters, and its body was literally a small mountain with a gleaming eye at its core. A gleaming eye that was beginning to glow again. Shiv frowned as he prepared to cast another salvo of wounds. Why was it analyzing him a—

A shockwave curved around the Jealousy’s body as it projected a jet of hypersonic water into Shiv. He was fast enough to see what as coming, but not nearly quick enough to dodge without a filled Momentum Core. Shiv cursed and blocked as he crashed against the jet. He was blasted backward. His stomach lurched. What felt like a wall broke against his back as he passed through the sound barrier. Micro-fractures spread across the arms of his exoskeleton. Then, the bones adapted. Shiv got harder. He drained a massive rush of momentum into his body, and he got faster as well. His Momentum Core surged. Time practically stopped.

Shiv prepared to discharge his core and launch himself into the Jealousy like a bullet.

The monster’s psionic attack bit down on him first.

Equipment:  [Mask of False Paths]

Condition: Damaged

A loud crack sounded around his head. Shiv felt a piece of something fall against his cheek. Not good. 

“Mind-Shield?” The Jealousy cried out. “No wonder! Hold in place! Concentrate magic! Break shield!”

Not good at all, Shiv thought. He discharged his Momentum Core—but did it at an angle to avoid contending with the monster’s immense Hydromancy. For the second time, Shiv exploded through the sound barrier. A pocket formed in the crushing jet of water the Jealousy was channeling. The horizon jolted toward Shiv in an instant as he crashed into one of the Jealousy’s tentacles. Its armored carapace shattered against Shiv’s body. He took no damage at all, his Adamantine Adaption already hardened.

“Pain!” the Jealousy cried. The declaration reinvigorated Shiv like a gulp of cold water on a hot day. 

Shiv tore his body apart and unleashed another spell shaped from crystallized wounds into the monster. A wave of crimson mana exploded around its body and cracked the focus crystal grip the Jealousy was holding onto. Before it could react, he pulled a new bone drill out of his cloak and reshaped it and extended a ring of blades around its core and along its length. He then drove his weapon through the monster’s compromised shell and commanded the newly modified blade-drill to turn as he pushed it as well. Blood geysered all over Shiv was he cut and cut deep. With the monster’s outer armor cracked open, its supple flesh parted before adamantine blades as Shiv stroked a bloody furrow across its entire body.

“Pain! Hurt! Get away! Get off!” It shook the limb, trying to fling him off, but he just used its immense strength as fuel for his Momentum Core. A huge benefit of fighting a monster of this size and strength was how fast it helped fill his core. Though it felt like he was running across an earthquake and had to hook his drill in several times to avoid getting thrown off, his core was flooded again—faster than the next Psychomancy spell could reach him. Everything came to a halt, and this time, he took his time aiming for the Jealousy’s eye.

Let’s see you glare at me now, asshole.

The sheer force of his departure split the entire limb open. It was only because of the Jealousy’s Toughness that it received a laceration instead of a dismemberment, but more of its carapace came asunder, and Shiv speared across an entire length of space like a missile. The Jealousy anticipated his arrival—it tried to move. 

It might as well have been a slug crawling through mud when his Momentum Core was discharging.

Shiv struck the eye of the Jealousy like a meteorite would plunge deep into the soft and fertile earth. Blood and viscera erupted, spraying like specks of soil cast in all directions.

Immediately, Shiv felt himself enveloped by the soft tissue of the Jealousy’s inner eye. His exoskeleton boosted by Might of Mass, Biomancy, and Adamantine Adaption—worked in tandem, making him an arrowhead like no other.

“Hurt! Injured!” The Greater Demon cried. Comparatively, Shiv only felt a jolt of discomfort rush through his body. Whatever Master-Tier Skill Evolution it had for Toughness, it was nothing compared to him. Frankly, the entire fight had been going better than he thought. Perhaps, after he broke its Magical Resistance, things would come to a quick end.

Shiv tore himself open, disemboweling his very body, flaying his skin, carving cores of agony through his flesh, before he fed it into a new wyrm and slammed it against the Jealousy’s already compromised insides with a punch. A blast of crimson mana mingled with the rushing ocean of blood and gore pouring out from its wounded eye. A surge of adrenaline flooded Shiv’s very being. 

Woundeater > 55

Momentum Core > 75

He was going to rip and tear his way through the insides of this creature, mangling it with his bare hands, with his Woundeaters, with his bone dill, with his knives, with everything he had, and then he was going to feast on its flesh like it had planned to—

Something reached inside Shiv. Something pulled at the very essence of his body, wrenching something essential out of his flesh. For a moment he thought he was being attacked via Biomancy and was confused as to why he didn’t feel it—and couldn’t stop his abrupt death.

But it was his Biomancy that ultimately revealed the truth to him, and he realized his folly a second later—just as he died.

The human body is approximately 60 percent water for a baseline mortal. At Master-Tier, Shiv had gone through more than a few evolutions, changing both biologically and spiritually to an extreme extent. But his body still needed water. It still functioned off of water. And when every droplet of water inside him was ripped out all at once, he immediately convulsed—his organs ceasing to function, his mind stopping, no longer working, his limbs twitching as his skin dried and shriveled. 

Through it all, his durability remained immense—bones near unbreakable, skeletal armor barely cracked. But Shiv died all the same, because he couldn’t sense the Hydromancy mana seeping into him, coalescing in his very person, before the Jealousy tore him asunder using a magical skill he had no counter for.

Might of Mass > 100 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Woundeater > 57

Momentum Core > 76

Adamantine Adaption > 107

Parry > 44

As Shiv returned as a Revenant. His first thoughts were, Shit, I’m going to need Hydromancy Skill too. Without that I’m not going to be able to see where the mana is coming from. 

He started draining the Jealousy immediately, drawing its vitality into him. But there was something else as well: a surge of strength rushing through his being. His Skill Evolution for Might of Mass was so close at hand. 

Rather than being disheartened by this death, Shiv felt almost excited. With perhaps another death or two more, he might gain Hydromancy as well, which would allow him to defend against the oncoming matter he currently couldn’t see. And, after his Might of Mass evolved, he might just be this thing’s physical equal—or at least strong enough to hurt it better.

The Jealousy’s telepathic thoughts came in bursts of exclamation and intense rage: “Killed! Dead! Pain! Still pain! Weakening! Something inside! Enemy still alive? No! Felt enemy die! Pulled water out of them!” This was a psionic rage that boiled and simmered. It even crashed against Shiv’s mask like an actual attack. He used this moment of confusion to keep draining its vitality. His shadowy cocoon came back together, and he prepared for the next bout.

But the Jealousy surprised him once more. The creature might be a Greater Demon and a monster that fed on human minds like a base predator, but it was no simple fool. It knew something was wrong, and it adapted. It directed its Psychomancy inside a moment thereafter, and Shiv immediately felt a spike of mind mana lash out at him. He struck the oncoming field using his Magebreaker. 

As the Magebreaker crashed against the mana, a detonation of translucent, white force burst out from the creature’s mangled wound, and it let out a cry. Thank the system that you’re bound to me, Shiv thought. 

The Jealousy snarled. “There, still alive! Hidden! Inside me! Tricked me! Won’t trick me again!”

Suddenly, she felt the flesh around the creature bubble and come back together. He blinked in disbelief as its flesh rapidly knit itself closed—what was ruined and carved was slowly enclosed, healing perfectly. 

This isn’t Biomancy, Shiv realized, as he failed to detect any attuned mana guiding the process. Is this part of its Master-Tier toughness? Some kind of advanced healing skill? Or just the creature’s natural biology? 

Whatever it was, it presented a new problem for Shiv. He was now enshrouded in a mass of recently healed flesh, lodged next to his old body. His cocoon accelerated toward that moment where he would attain resurrection—but once he did, he would be pinned in place and immediately killed. Between the creature’s Psychomancy and Hydromancy, he didn’t like his odds of surviving for very long while trapped here, and of keeping his mind unbroken thereafter.

Earlier, Shiv had wanted Tran to add a final binding enchantment to his mask. But the Slayer didn’t have the right skill to invest, and the mask didn’t have capacity for any more enchantments after Self-Mending. Right now, if Shiv resurrected, he would likely be immediately killed again. His Magebreaker was in a pretty precarious state as well—it was shaking violently on his hand, tremoring as if on the verge of a volcanic eruption. He guessed it had one to two blocks more left in it before it actually started taking damage.

To counter the Jealousy’s Heroic-Tier Psychomancy, he needed to go on the offensive. He needed to keep it off balance. So he slammed his Woundeater field against the monster as hard as he could. A lashing wyrm exploded out from his field, coiling and snapping like a mystical serpent. It rammed headfirst against the Jealousy’s Magical Resistance. The Greater Demon flinched while its physical body mended itself.

Shiv felt a slight fracture form in its magical defenses. But only a slight one.

This entire fight, they were mirrors to each other—one, a monster of the mind and a beast of titanic proportions; the other, a man beyond death and monster-like in his own skill composition. As the beginnings of mana strain affected Shiv’s Biomancy, he struck once more, ignoring the discomfort. He needed it off-balance as he resurrected, and he needed as much time as he could to get to his mask and escape from inside the creature.

His new plan was simple: hit-and-run, focusing mainly on wearing down the monster’s Magical Resistance. After that broke, he would flood it with his words and bring it down, using his own wounds as the catalyst of its destruction.

And when resurrected, he needed to keep a distance from the monster’s immediate vicinity. He couldn’t risk facing the Hydromancy until he had the skill himself.

Shiv’s resurrective cocoon hatched. He felt the hard but slick inner flesh of the Jealousy’s eye clamp down around his person. He sensed another rushing wave of Psychomancy coming at him. And then, with a rush of violence, of effort, of tearing hands aided by a slicing bone dagger, he pushed his way through to his original body and commanded the skull helmet on his old corpse to part. He didn’t bother with the rest of the exoskeleton—he wouldn’t have time to perform the meticulous action of assembling it back around his current self. He just pulled the mask off and braced for the next onrush of Psychomancy.

With how violently his Magebreaker Gauntlet was still vibrating, though, he decided to do something risky. He decided to take this blow using his mask. It’s the only instrument I have protecting my mind from complete annihilation, he thought. But if the gauntlet broke, he wouldn’t have anything to actively protect himself with either. 

He needed to use them in tandem to prolong his combat longevity.

A spearing glance of mind magic crashed against his Mask of False Paths. Shiv felt another crack run through the item, and a splash of vicious, hateful thought leaked into his mind. He caught glimpses of the world through the Jealousy’s perspective: everything in vibrant color, hyper-detail, vivid wavelengths of thought. This was a creature designed to hunt those who could think, designed to feed off mind and memory. 

But that wasn’t how it thought about Shiv, who was lodged inside it. Shiv, it considered another monster—something it needed to destroy, to mutilate and obliterate beyond form or function. It didn’t want to eat Shiv’s mind. It just wanted him gone.

Equipment: [Mask of False Paths]

Condition: Moderately Damaged

And that made Shiv realize something else: the creature’s courage was fraying. His Dread Aura was pushing up against the breaches in the creature’s bravery, briefly affecting its concentration. But the focus crystals proved greater, and so he was forced to endure the mind magic attack in its entirety, as he punched, sliced, and burst out of the Jealousy’s eye. 

It let out a shriek just as he felt a strange presence seize his body once more—but he was free. He had cut his way back out of the inner eye. Even as it ripped out all the water in him, he was free.

He plunged lifelessly from the Jealousy, and his Revenant form separated from his second corpse in midair.

Skill Gained: Hydromancy 1 (Advanced)

That was another quick death. Shiv winced at this performance, but at least he got Hydromancy from the ordeal. Hydromancy and practically nothing else. It was the only reason he was dead, after all. Now, he could see the Jealousy’s Hydromancy field, and it was practically only a bit larger than it’s body. Consider it’s entire width was more than two hundred meters, it was still pretty wide. He was dealing with High Adept-Tier Hydromancy. At least.

As he fell, he looked up at the Jealousy, eyeing the body briefly before its baleful glare turned on his barely visible Revenant. “How…” the Jealousy asked, its mind tinged with outrage and genuine confusion. “How is this possible? Dead, but spirit still here.” 

It gathered all the mana it had, drawing in a building singularity of Psychomancy. 

Shiv frowned. He didn’t like the look of that. At least his gauntlet wasn’t vibrating so fast anymore. Tremors and quivers still ran through its structure, but it was returning to baseline. The gauntlet recovered fast—but with how powerful this coming attack would be, Shiv found himself worried. The gauntlet might break, and that would leave him with only his mask.

Worse than that were all the slaves below. If he didn’t block that, he was sure a good portion of them would be mentally torn asunder. 

And I’m probably going to need to drain some of their vitality as well. It was an ugly thought, but he had no choice. The Jealousy was far away, and he needed to get back into the fight, no matter what.

As soon as Shiv landed among the slaves, he winced as he saw more than a few people cursed under his old corpse. He launched a wyrm at the wounded, eating their injuries before he cast the wound into his old corpse. At once, the body’s leg, back, and arms folded in different directions. All the ribs inside the corpse broke as well. 

Woundeater was a golden skill to have, offensively and defensively.

Most of the other slaves were injured too, most of them lying on the ground, a great number clutching their ears, nursing wounds. Shrapnel falling from above and the deafening noise of the clash between Master Pathbearer and Greater Demon had inflicted significant harm. Once again, people were suffering. Collateral damage came with every clash—but this time, there was nothing he could have done. This enemy was trapped with him and trapped with them as well. The only way he could save most of them was by killing it—killing it before it could truly do all the harm it wanted.

He reached out, tapping his hand against random slave in brief moments. It was still enough to make them cry out in immense pain. His stomach twisted in regret, but he forced the discomfort down. If he didn’t come back, they were as good as dead anyway. He could only reduce the harm being caused. 

His shadow congealed around him.

Above, the Jealousy screamed,

“Break. Break. Nightmare, find you. Nightmare, rip into your soul. Pull your mind apart. Break, undying creature. Break.”

It spat every word with human intensity, human vitriol, human fear.

Shiv stopped halfway through draining another slave, planted his feet, and looked up. A needle-thin spell was taking shape right at the center of the Jealousy’s great eye. What once was a colossal gathering of chaotic mind mana had now been disciplined and shaped into a small, gleaming shard—a concentration not of a savage, incoherent beast, but something beyond even a Master of Psychomancy.

Shit! Shiv cursed.

He immediately reached out again, seizing the last bits of vitality he needed to return. And just as he hatched from his third cocoon, the Jealousy unleashed its great attack. A thin needle connected to a string of psionic thread shot out, twisting through the air to strike Shiv. He anticipated it—his Momentum Core allowing him to easily keep up with its movements. But before it came for him, it suddenly arced at an awkward angle, something impossible for anything that possessed mass to do.

It curved around him, threading through each of the slaves in his vicinity. Their minds popped and expanded blasts of mind mana. Psionic echoes wailed from each ruined slave, their cognitions used as fuel for this coming attack. 

Shiv twisted his Magebreaker, striking the needle that threaded through so many minds as it came for him.

His gauntlet rattled and practically broke off his arm. For a second, he thought it shattered entirely—but it held together, if only just barely. Even so, so much force rushed through that his left arm was dislocated. 

Shiv cried out, but the surrounding blasts born of the slaves were not unmoving either. They slammed inward, crashing where Shiv was, collapsing to that point where the needle had been. And though he parried one magical attack at the cost of a limb, the others slammed all around him, drowning him under a magical assault.

His mask nearly fractured in half. This time, shrapnel composed of mind mana speared into his consciousness.

Shiv sank backward, letting out a shout of absolute agony as his thoughts felt shredded. For a brief moment, he couldn’t remember who he was—but his instincts to fight, to move, to survive, kept him going. His thoughts jumped from item to item as he pulled things out of his cloak, as he launched himself into the air. A new pre-made exoskeleton collapsed into place around him. He examined both his essential items.

Equipment: [Gauntlet of the Magebreaker]

Condition: Severely Damaged

Equipment: [Mask of False Paths]

Condition: Extremely Damaged

Well, this is going south fast. Another hit like any of that and I’ll be a gibbering wreck, Deathless or not…

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of a massive shadow rising up to strike him. To Shiv’s disbelief, the Jealous had twisted a limb around the walls and intended to crush him with it from behind. He sensed it entering his Woundeater field before it ever grew close. But this was a mistake on the part of the Greater Demon. He was going to rip this limb apart and drink all its momentum in the process.

Then, instead of plunging back into the beast’s eye, he was going to strafe it, just dart along its vicinity beyond the reach of its Hydromancy, and casthis wounds against its Magical Resistance until he could harm it directly. 

But then, the Jealousy reminded him that it was no simple creature of brutality, that it was a complicated creature of brutality, and it did so by unleashing another attack at the same time.

It channeled a massive stream of hyper-accelerated Hydromancy at him again. The water slashed out through the air and Shiv found himself cursing. The cursing intensified because it also flung two smaller needles shaped from Psychomancy down at the slaves. It came at him from three different angles of attack—the Psychomancy he could barely defend against at the cost of losing his gauntlet or mask, the jet he needed to drink the momentum from for speed, and the tentacle he had to counter in case it pinned him against the wall and let the other attacks finish him.

The Deathless’s mind was an overwhelmed whirlwind, trapped by indecision—confused as to what the right action was. He was still thinking, still lost, as the Hydrokinetic jet crashed into him, blasting him backward. He absorbed its momentum; it filled his core rapidly. But then came its arm, and he stuck out his other limb, preparing to intercept the blow. It was the size of a falling tower, and it enshadowed him immediately, like a tree falling on an ant. Shiv didn’t even have time to shape a Biomancy spell before it hit.

His Adamantine Adaption kept him from physical harm, but the Psychomancy needles were already plunging through the slaves and building up homing mind mana explosions. He was being blasted off course, swatted aside like the flea he was, because he didn’t have the strength to push back against his enemy—until finally his Momentum Core filled.

In that moment, he conceived a desperate, instinctive plan. The Jealousy was being empowered by the focus crystals it clutched. That’s what kept its spells going, even through all the pain… He needed those broken, and he needed the monster off-balance so it couldn’t use its Psychomancy against him. He couldn’t take another hit from that—and more slaves would die every second he hesitated. 

Shiv aimed his Momentum Core discharge at the massive limb crashing against him. He aimed it so that he would pull the entire tentacle at a sharp angle, wrenching it out of place. There was a point where this limb couldn’t curve anymore and would end up smashing into another—and that was his mad plan: to use one of the monster’s limbs to knock another one loose.

He triggered his Song of the Vigilant. At the same time, he activated his discharge. He attacked the monster both magically and physically. His Momentum Core made up for where his strength failed, and his wounds fed his Biomancy, making his wyrm seem like a mana bomb as the Woundeater detonated against the Jealousy’s Magical Resistance.

His magical attack momentarily stunned the Jealousy, offering him a few seconds of uncontested resistance. He slammed hard into the limb, shooting past the hydrokinetic surge. The jet of water crashed against the wall behind him, curving and splitting down at all angles from how fast it was going. The metal began to deform, but the interior of the teleportation held—held unlike many of the slaves below, shredded into pieces by the speeding streams of Hydromancy.

Frustration exploded through Shiv, but he couldn’t think about them right now. He had to keep attacking and force the monster on the defensive to win.

The carapace of the tentacle he was pushing against cracked, broke, and he sank into the flesh, but as he sank, he could feel it healing around him again, fusing over his body, clenching him in place—and soon the Jealousy was pushing back. His Momentum Core was still driving him forward, but with a creature this big, and his mass and force concentrated in such a small area, he couldn’t wrestle it. He was like an arrow or a dagger passing through its body. He needed to be the opposite. He needed to be something like a massive telekinetic hand that could seize the beast by its enormous tentacles.

Shiv dug his fingers deeper into the creature’s flesh as he strained, armored skeletal digits slicing and ripping, but never allowing him the purchase he needed, never giving him the overwhelming force he desired. Then, his Momentem Core began to die, and Shiv pushed with his Biomancy, but it wouldn’t be enough. He knew that. He pushed anyway, because he would die and break entirely before he surrendered.

Even if he wasn’t enough. Especially because he wasn’t enough.

But then, at the moment he sensed something with his Biomancy field—another limb intersecting the one he was pushing. They were on a collision trajectory and the other limb was currently gripping a focus crystal. His momentum died, but it was enough. The arm he was stuck in crashed into the other, and caused it to rip free from the handle, tearing the focus crystal out from where it was bolted in the wall. After that, the limbs tangled. The Jealousy slipped—Shiv felt his guts plunge, and just as it did, just as the focus crystal grip broke free, something detonated inside Shiv as well. 

It was like twin suns going into supernova inside him. Two skills shattering and reforging in the same instant, merging together as Shiv achieved something few humans ever would: Successfully inventing a weird wrestling technique to sweep the limbs of a Heroic-Tier monster well over ten thousand times his natural weight.

The Challenger is watching excitedly!

Skill Evolution: Might of Mass (Adept) > Gravitic Dominion (Master)

Skill Evolution: Grappling Proficiency (Common) > Takedown Artist (Adept)

Skill Fusion: Gravitic Dominion (Master) – Takedown Artist (Adept) > Gravitic Wrestler (Master)

Gravitic Wrestler > 102

Inside the Jealousy’s twisted, mutilated limb, Shiv underwent twin metamorphoses while engulfed by black, bitter blood. His Might of Mass, once a thing that made him harder to move, made him stronger, heavier, against even the likes of an elemental golem broke and transformed. 

The new Gravitic Dominion SKill swept through him, it infused his flesh and layered itself over his skin, becoming a tactile field that was close to magic, but not quite. 

His very strength went beyond his muscles now, beyond his Physicality. 

At the same time, a rush of intuitive knowledge flashed through his mind. Instinctual understanding of leverage, of where joints were, and where an enemy’s center of balance could be discovered, settled into Shiv, like sand gathering at the bottom of a lake.

But then, these twin skills collided in a marriage of power, the lesser merging into the former, as Gravitic Dominion became even greater than what it was. Rather than a static field that shrouded him, that let him channel his strength beyond the limits of natural physics, his Gravitic Dominion became an animated, reactive thing that was made to bend, grip, and throw anything he could touch.

And right then, he could touch a lot. 

His fingers were digging into the rapidly healing flesh of the Jealousy. All around him was meat and broken bone and limb and carapace. And Shiv could feel all of it. And what he could feel, he could seize. His field expanded, flowing out from him, gripping the entire limb in the span of a second. Shiv felt his now immense strength bring the tentacle to a halt with considerable effort. 

Damn… heavy… but I got it… His wish from earlier came true. He could grasp the entirety of the jealousy’s tentacle now. And more than that, he could squeeze and he could twist. And so he did.

He squeezed so tight that even its internal layer of loose protective fat parted. And he squeezed even tighter until he felt the jealousy’s bone start to creak. And then he directed a portion of his gravitic field inward, right along the length of a solid bone. Along the length of bone and not flexible cartilage. Along the length of bone that was snapping and breaking.

“Stop! Out! Release!” These words screamed out from the Jealousy’s mind, but he paid it no heed. The bone snapped. He felt it. He felt it snap like he was just gripping and breaking the arm of someone his own size via a joint lock. It was natural. It felt intuitive. Instinctive. Perfect.

And Shiv kept going, twisting the bone outward, using the compound fracture to slice through the inner flesh of his enemy. The Jealousy wailed. It tried to pull its limb back, but Shiv held on tight. A brief tug of war raged between them. And Shiv reared back hard, willing himself backward. His field dragged on him—a spike of gravity pointing in the direction he desired. 

And to his delight, his field was a reactive and adaptable force, just like using his own hands. It was like a sort of tactile telekinesis, but more than that. It was tactile gravity manipulation, further bolstered by a deeper understanding of how to pick someone up and slam them down, how to bend a limb out of place and keep it broken for good. 

The Jealousy pulled, and Shiv pulled right back. The limb they fought over tore, bled, and as Shiv used his gravitic field, he went from being a bullet passing through the monster again to being a rival titan in this struggle. And he was still weaker. Despite everything, despite his new evolutions, his Skill Fusion, he was still weaker than his adversary. 

But was already. He was weaker than the lesser vampires, but they didn’t know how to fight that well. And neither did the Jealousy when it came to a proper melee.

He didn’t need to overpower the Greater Demon entirely. He just needed to break them where they were at their weakest. And so he twisted the limb with his gravity field. The sinews inside snapped and came apart. The bone began to coil nerve clusters around itself until they too parted with a sickening crackle—and from the Jealousy itself. 

The tentacle came apart in two pieces down the middle, not even the carapace allowing it to hold on.

The Jealousy screamed. It was a wail of pure pain. It was a wail of absolute misery. And it was a wail that signified the breaking of its focus, despite how tightly it clutched the other crystals. The two needles of Psychomancy dissipated just before they could strike Shiv. Every mind that was destroyed below left a trail of blossoming explosions, mental tides of devastation that were meant to follow the needles. They too faded.

Shiv glared. Shiv raged. And Shiv felt the final piece of his newest advancements slide into place. A new feat was available to him. And just then, after all the people this monster killed, he had plenty of anger to spend.

Feats [2/2]:

He Who Rises From Ash Eternal (Unique) - Allows the Pathbearer to quickly learn new Skills and advance existing Skills through repeated deaths.

Master of Rage (Master) - Allows the Pathbearer to infuse a skill with rage to increase its effectiveness. Consumes the Pathbearer’s anger.

Shiv burst out from the Jealousy’s severed arm and clutched it in a single hand as he fed rage into his Gravitic Wreslter Skill. His arm practically was a blade of grass, clutching and bearing an entire tree when it came to the limb. His muscles tensed and screamed with strain, swelling as his gravity field used them as anchors of strength and to guide its movements. Whatever he touched, he coated with his gravitic field, so this severed limb was his, and unless his was strong enough to take it back from him right now, or to break his grip somehow, the limb would remain his.

But Shiv decided to be nice, he gave the limb back to the Jealousy, mainly by throwing it as hard as he could at the next nearest crystal he saw. The limb twisted through the air, snapping and turning, Shiv drank some momentum rushing through him from how much force he was getting.

Gravitic Wrestler > 104

Momentum Core > 77

As he finished flinging the limb, he also realized something else as his field launched him through the air—he could use it to fling himself as well. Or just lighten his weight until he was hovering. Whatever I can touch. Including me.

Shiv released his exoskeleton from the clutches of his Biomancy. For a beat, he just drifted through the air as he wrestled gravity to be a bit past his head. The field bulged and he swayed as if hanging from a string. He was weightless. Despite everything, Shiv laughed.

Flying. I’m finally actually flying. Sort of. Feels more like I’m just constantly throwing myself. If I live through this, I might actually be able to carry Uva across Weave…

The Jealous screamed as it flinched away from him. “No! Hurt me! Stronger! Much stronger! Skill Evolution! Has to be! Multiple Master! At least. Need to stay away! Too much risk up close! No more limb!”

He decided to exploit this new skill for all it was worth. He directed his gravitic field against a nearby wall and crashed into it hard. The metal dented inward as if it had been struck by the fist of a giant rather than a man. Shiv’s Momentum Core filled at the same time. The world slowed. He targeted another one of the Jealousy’s limbs—one still clutching a focus crystal—and discharged.

Shiv exploded across the chamber. As he accelerated, he also amplified his gravity field as much as he could. He impacted the limb and the crystalline handhold at the same time. The focus crystal shattered in all directions, bursting into slicing debris as the limb the Jealousy used to hold onto was smeared to bloody paste before Shiv’s crushing strength.

The greater demon screamed again, but Shiv didn’t care, he reached into the wounded mangled limb, and then he broke it. He broke every bone he could feel, twisting, wrenching, and jerking them until everything was out of place, every tendon shuddered and snapped, every nerve was coiled tight on the verge of ripping, every bone was a drifting shard.

Gravitic Wrestler > 105

“Stop,” the jealousy howled, its courage was quivering, where once it stood a mountain of implacability, now cracks lined every section of its bravery—cracks made worse by Shiv’s building Dread Aura. With an animalistic roar, he tore this limb in half before launching the tip of this one at the Jealousy, burning away the remainder of his rage. The limb became an artillery piece, an artillery piece to end artillery pieces.

It slammed into the creature’s eye, and knocked it back. The Jealousy flinched hard, howling as its remaining arms bunched closer and tighter behind it. It was afraid, it was afraid to spread out. It was afraid that he was going to touch it, that he was going to dismember it again and again. 

It was afraid of Shiv.

“Come back and fight me!” Shiv roared. His anger was building again, slowly, but there was another benefit to his Feat. It burned his rage clean, it helped him think. And as he found himself capable of thought again, he realized that its Magical Resistance was also damaged from earlier. In fact, he should have been attacking it from multiple vectors, just like it tried to overwhelm him.

“All right, you big, ugly bastard,” Shiv snarled, a feral grin painting his features beneath his mask as he flung himself in charging bursts after the Greater Demon. “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna pull your arms off, I’m going to mutilate you and break you over and over again until there is nothing left but your ugly head, and then I’m going to line it with injuries and wounds so much that you will beg me to kill you.”

The Chef Unwavering told him there were 948 slaves still alive. 948. In the brief clash between them, well over a few hundred people had died. Shiv’s anger climbed again. It was going to follow through on that threat. It was going to be more than a threat. It was going to be made truth.

“No,” the Jealousy hissed, clambering upward, its body pulsed with a shroud of darkness. This was a new skill. It started floating upward as well, releasing its handholds as it retreated. Darkness expanded out from its body, rushing down to greet Shiv. “No. Stay away. Stay back. Stay back. Monster. Monster predator. Not food. Monster.”

Dread Aura > 65

The greater demon’s collapsing courage was like blood in the water, and Shiv, in that moment, was closer to shark than man. Shiv blasted towards the retreating jealousy. Again, it wasn’t quite flight; it was more like flinging himself or falling along an accelerated vector of gravity he designated for himself. Every few moments, he would run out of momentum, and then he would need to effectively touch himself with his field and fling himself forward again, like a wrestler would launch an opponent off their feet with a takedown.

Along the way, he tore himself open. He mangled his body, broke his own bones, and fed a growing Woundeater Wyrm at his side. He was going to smash into this thing, and he was going to break it down to its bedrock, flesh and soul.

“I’m coming for you,” Shiv growled. “You better stop running. There’s not much room left! Stand! Fight! Die!” He chuckled. “Wonder how your meat tastes, too!”

“Stay away, miserable creature! Stay away! Monster! Vile monster!”

The Jealousy was borderline screeching now, terrified and furious beyond measure. “Interrupting my feeding! Bad! Terrible!” Its eyes flashed, growing bright, and Shiv sneered as he prepared himself for what was to come. A massive beam of hyper-accelerated water cut out towards him. And this time, he let it crash into him. He let it crash into him, and he touched it with his field. He touched it, and he anchored himself in place with his gravity field. He let the water flood his Momentum Core momentarily before he started pushing against it. It split in half, one jet stream turning into two, crashing against the walls. And then he struck it from the side, parrying it as if it was a straight punch from a foe.

Parry > 46

There was a brief break in the surging stream. It split off at an angle, and then Shiv discharged his Momentum Core. The world around him exploded. He lurched towards his enemy, shooting at the Jealousy. Its eye widened, and it shrank back into the darkness it emanated in fright. 

At once, he vanished into the black after it. His cloak’s Shadowsense allowed him some sight, but not that far. As Biomancy washed over the space, he felt… nothing. Nothing of Magical resistance, nothing of biology, nothing for him to direct his power against.

And then the shadows broke apart like night lifting with the rising of dawn, Shiv heard a noise and looked down. There, to his utter disbelief, he Jealousy far below him, crawling away along the walls.

“How? What?” Shiv gawked. “How the hell did you do that?”

The Jealousy was growing new limbs to replace those it lose, and left smears of red along the walls. As it fled, it turned briefly, eyeing Shiv one last time. “Going to hide now, stay away, hiding, hide now, hide, avoid, be smart.” And then it turned its entire body downward toward its food.

The slaves were screaming. Shiv launched himself down with a spike of his gravitic field. He crashed against the hull of the anchor to fill his Momentum Core and discharged immediately. He blasted down in an instant as the wall beside him folded inward.

He was faster approaching when the Jealousy began to cast a spell. Shiv clenched his Magebreaker. It was still damaged, but he thought he could parry this oncoming attack. Even if it broke, he would be able to get to the Greater Demon and end this.

But instead of casting a spell at him, the Jealousy shaped a long, complicated working, spending meticulous moments to concentrate even as he drew closer, even as he nearly was upon it. And then it was done. A spell unlike any he had felt or seen. A constellation of Psychomancy drifted around it, the mana turning into a complex weaving of shapes that coalesced and outlined the Jealousy’s entire being. It was like it was developing a coat of mana, and then it pointed its eye at a single person among the many, and then to another, and then it darted to another—and suddenly the Jealousy blinked and vanished.

Shiv’s mind reeled in disbelief and confusion. “What the hells?” he gasped.

He stopped accelerating—used his gravitic field to pull back against his momentum before he slammed down and accidentally killed a bunch of slaves. He cut off his constant bursts of speed, and his gravity field shifted upward, allowing him to float. 

He hovered in the air, scanning the many slaves. Most were moaning, some were wounded and scared, but all of them—seemed normal, seemed fine. And the Jealousy—it was gone, nowhere in sight.

“How the hells did…?” Shiv muttered. “How did a creature over 200 meters wide and weighing as much as a small mountain vanish? In fact, how the hells did it snip-flip past me earlier? Did it have master-level stealth as well?” 

That was a horrifying thought. Why the hells would something that big have Master-Tier Stealth?

As Shiv scanned the people below, he heard a woman cry out. He drifted closer, close enough for his field to overlap with her person. She suffered from multiple ruptured organs, severe internal bleeding. She winced. Many of them were in bad shape. The clash had caused debris to rain down—heavy rock, broken pieces of massive crystal. He could see sections of the room where people were crushed and mangled. 

He felt sick. But what the hell was he supposed to do this time? It was like the system was taunting him, making him kill people in every single one of his struggles. If 811 was an act of rage and recklessness, then this was outright torment and insult against him.

He shaped wyrms with his mana and directed them outward. He fed them as many wounds as he could, and then he pulled out some of his old bodies, injecting what injuries he could into them, and taking on some lesser wounds himself. Shiv frowned. There were too many wounded, and somewhere, somewhere in this chamber, the Jealousy still remained. But where was it? Where was it?

And then a spell came from nowhere—a lance of pure Psychokinetic energy crackling through the air, building with a scream of rage and torment. Shiv barely reacted in time, so taken by surprise. But he did. He struck out, angling his Mage breaker to backhand the attack into the wall. His gauntlet rang, but it endured without damage. The spell shattered, leaving the gauntlet shrieking in the aftermath. However, Shiv still didn’t know where it came from. He couldn’t trace it. 

The attack was sudden, was instant. It was a perfect ambush.

Shiv stared down at the many slaves, and a horrifying thought passed through him: the Jealousy… What if it wasn’t just in Stealth right now? What if it wasn’t just hiding in the shadows? What if it had a Skill Fusion between Stealth and Psychomancy—and it was hiding inside the mind of one of the slaves….

He started this fight expecting a brawl against a titan, matching his strength, his magic, his very determination and willingness to die over and over again until he finally chipped down that Greater Demon, that beast the size of a mountain. Now he realized just how much he underestimated his adversary. This wasn’t merely a titan of Psychomancy and Physicality. It was a full-on Pathbearer itself. 

It could learn, it could think, and it had experienced. And of all the skills it had, Stealth was among its best.

Shiv sighed. “Shit. How the hell am I supposed to find this thing now?”