II-14 Struggle

A Skill Fusion is born of existential and experiential alchemy. There is no universal law to how it is achieved, or techniques to ensure the process, but what is needed is struggle.

Extreme struggle across two skills, at the very least—and with both of them pushed to the breaking point. The fusion will not come with a spike in levels for one skill and the slow progression of another. It cannot be one skill taking the lead while the other languishes. It cannot even be the incremental development of both skills—one after another.

No. There must be a moment where both are driven to the very edge together. At once. Utterly. Completely. Absolutely.

Consider our heroes. Consider one such as Michelle “Skysplitter” Katagiri, who melded Aeromancy, Reflexes, and her Sword Proficiency to achieve the Heroic-Tier Sky Splitting Blade Skill. Such a thing only became possible during the Battle of the Broken Shores as she dueled and repelled Lie Tian Hu, the Storm Titan who reigns over the Vast Atlantic. Or our martyred champion, Jackie Hawgrave—better known as Mad Atlas. Who fused his Physicality with his Geomancy, and carried the city of Delphia away from certain destruction when the Great Midwestern Gate manifested.

The truth is that only skills driven to a breaking point can be merged— as their fragments in your soul coalesce, and are finally seared together through a surge of levels… or better yet, with an ascension of Tiers…

-The Paths of Ascension, Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy of The Twilight Republic

II-14

Struggle

Shiv wondered if it might have been wiser to execute the Inquisitors himself. He knew he had an Orcish Skill dwelling inside him—one that was growing stronger with every act of bloodshed and sought to contaminate all his other skills as well before making him a violent psychopath. But with all the screaming and struggling coming from the Inquisitors after Tran and Heather went in, it really seemed like they were more affected by bloodlust than he was.

“I guess I need something to set me off,” Shiv muttered. He spent a few moments thinking back to how fast his rage spiked earlier, how thoughtless some of his actions were. The Orcish Skill didn’t drastically alter his mind that much, it just amplified his aggression and anger to the extremes and made committing acts of violence on people feel even more rewarding. Shiv sighed and took a sip of tea. “You know something, Siggy? About a few days ago, I was telling my… Well, I can’t call him friend.... My responsibility and mentor, Adam, about how I was harvesting my own bodies. I used them to experiment overall because I didn’t like torturing animals or captives that much.”

Shiv stared at the spot just beyond his table. There was a spread of plastic across the ground, and it was stained deep with blood. So much blood. And more than a few severed fingers. He ate and then implanted wounds between himself and the Inquisitors over and over again. It didn’t even seem that bad to him at the time, even with Tran and Heather growing more terrified by the second. Shiv was pretty casual about testing his Biomancy on himself, but that was just a pragmatic option. The learning was the pleasurable part.

The blood on the plastic wasn’t learning. He didn’t need to learn this way. It was like the beginnings of a terrible habit; a foul addiction to violence. Shiv wasn’t against fighting. Hells, he kind of loved the adrenaline and the chaotic struggle that came with pitting his skills against a rival Pathbearer. But afterward… Usually he just wanted to cook. That was a place of peace and restoration. A place where he could gain tranquility and find his center.

Be a pillar, like Georges called him.

And now the damned Orcish Skill was twisting his sanctuary of peace into a nest of rage and bloodlust. He went into the kitchen twice while Heather and Tran “finished things out” with the Inquisitors. The first time, Shiv saw the cutting board and almost charged back out to rip Siggy’s head off just to soothe the building earthquake of rage trembling through his muscles. The second time, he made it all the way to the pantry before Culinary Berserker flared up again. He ended up preparing thirteen different styles and flavors of noodles over four hours. By the time he returned, both of his skills had climbed again, but his anger got worse. Worse because he tasted every dish he made, and they were all shit.

There wasn’t any defending it. There was no avoiding the truth. Every single noodle dish he made over those four hours was absolute trash on a plate. A chef that made that was no chef at all, and deserved to be torn in half. “I’d rip myself in half right now,” Shiv muttered, staring morosely into his tea, studying his own miserable reflection in the water, “but that would just end with me draining your vitality. And I don’t think you’d like that. It would also probably make everything worse because only hurting people feels good anymore. Hurting people, breaking things, and making shitty food!”

Shiv snarled as he flung his tea cup against the wall. The cup shattered. The wall cracked from the sheer force of the impact. Both Siggy and Oldsmith flinched nearby, unable to look at him.

What the hells am I becoming, Shiv thought, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Cooking > 35

Culinary Berserker > 6

Dread Aura > 60

A sheen of sweat was building on his forehead. Every few seconds, his thoughts drifted toward experimentation. An unscratchable itch was growing somewhere inside him, and the only way he could calm it was by applying a series of brutal and painful wounds to a certain goblin. Because she had it coming, right? She was a slaver. She was a drug dealer. She was the enemy.

But Shiv restrained himself. He even restrained himself from breaking Oldsmith—was waiting for Tran or Heather to do that.

Shiv didn’t have a problem with killing, but it was usually a matter of necessity or pragmatism. It wasn’t something he enjoyed. Hurting people wasn’t something he constantly obsessed over—even when he was studying Biomancy. Likewise, the pain and torment he got from the Odes wasn’t the thing he enjoyed or fixated on. Rather, it was a price he had to pay to receive the best education, and he paid it without regret or misery.

Now Shiv was pretty miserable. And he was increasingly not himself.

Godsdamned orc, he cursed mentally. When I run into you again, I’m going to… is there any way to kill the thing for good? Doesn’t he just reincarnate? Dammit. Am I going to deal with this asshole forever?

“B-brave Pathbearer,” Oldsmith whimpered. “Great, powerful Master Pathbearer. I can see you are a man—no, champion—of immense internal fortitude. I also understand that what you did earlier wasn’t something you desired. That—that despite your grievances a-and the misunderstanding between you and my City-Lord, you are a good person. Who resists the darkest impulse. Dark impulses unrighteously foisted upon you by the foul hand of the orcish r-race…”

Oldsmith trailed off at this point and broke down into incoherent sputters as Shiv unleashed the full strength of his Dread Aura on it. There wasn’t even a conversation, just a cold, hard glare. That was one thing Shiv enjoyed about Dread Aura. It let people understand him pretty well, even when he didn’t say anything.

Too bad he couldn’t use the aura on himself. That would have been convenient. If Shiv could have scared himself using the Dread Aura or even done something to his mind with Psychomancy… Could I? I think Uva said something about a Psychomancer learning to control their own minds first. I have a bit of Psychomancy. Maybe I should…

That consideration died as he considered his initial misadventures with Biomancy—how quickly he gave himself cancer and ended up dead thereafter. That wasn’t too big of a deal for the Deathless, but if he broke his mind somehow, or gave himself a thought-cancer he didn’t know about, that wouldn’t be good. He didn’t want to be some undying vegetable or insane person.

Broken Moon, I miss Uva, Shiv said. And he realized the aggression was spiking another urge in him to the extreme as well. At the same time, I’m glad she’s not here. I don’t think she would like to see me. Adam definitely wouldn’t. What would Valor say? What would Georges do?

Wait, I know what Georges would do.

It had been a hard day. Lots of customers. Lots of rushed orders, mistakes, and accidents. Shiv listened to Georges raging behind him, spitting so many curses while rushing from station to station, stopping things from falling apart. Several people hit their breaking point. They just dropped their aprons and left. Shiv thought Georges was going to completely lose it by that point, except the head chef just shrugged.

“The world isn’t going to be sunshine and happiness all the time,“ Georges said, hacking at the lettuces like they murdered his family in front of him. “Terrible felling shit happens all the terrible felling time, the customers are pricks, the people you work with COOK LIKE DICKHEADS, and you're an asshole.” Georges snorted and then his expression flattened. “You’re an asshole. Because you don’t know what it means to walk out.” He looked at the door where the chefs who quit left through. “You can’t quit. Because you know you’ll destroy yourself some stupid way if you don’t have this. So what’s left? What’s left is this!” 

He buried his knife in the cutting board. “Decide. Decide what you shits want to be first, yeah? Decide if you’re chefs first, if you like this job, if you want to cook and make something good for every miserable, inconsiderate, mentally-ruined, mouth-breaking idiot we call our customers because you are the chef. Because that’s who you want to be first and above everything else. Or, you can be your feelings first. You can be every bad day you had. You be that passing mood that makes you felling quit, knocks you down, keeps you there, and that’s your life. It’s up to you. World doesn’t care, the customers don’t care, and I don’t care. Better get used to the struggle. Better felling make friends with it. Because the only one that really cares all the time is the system, and it cares about you suffering until you win. And then you suffer some more.”

Georges somehow managed to finish five different dishes over the course of the rant. Shiv could barely follow what the man was doing. “So. If you can’t take it today, run for the door. I won’t dock your pay. Stay, and I’ll treat you like shit until you stop being shit. That’s my only promise. Get burned. Get bled. Get better. Get harder. Deal with the heat.”

Shiv looked down at his shaking hands, at the people he increasingly wanted to kill standing near the front door, and then at Tran and Heather, both looking more haggard and broken than when they went in the room.

The Jump Mage wordlessly dropped the female Inquisitor’s armor and sword on the ground. She held up a glittering necklace threaded through three glowing crystals to Shiv. “I’m keeping this,” Heather said, projecting as much strength as she could. “It’s useful for me. For my Dimensionality. It’s like a small teleportation anchor, and what the bitch used to keep me and Tran from escaping.”

Shiv’s first impulse when it came to Heather was to tell her no and take the item from her. He didn’t like the Jump Mage much, and that dislike was boiling hotter inside him with every passing second. She sneered at him for years when he wanted to learn about being a Pathbearer. She treated him like he was a diseased creature, just like most of the town. Now, he was powerful, and she was far weaker than he was, far slower. He could spite her in any number of ways. Shiv didn’t even need to hurt her to make her give him the necklace. Dread Aura was more than enough.

But he didn’t. Even when it made the growing itch inside him get even worse.

“Yeah, sure,” Shiv grunted, trying to keep an eye on his anger. He walked over and examined the weapon and armor.

Equipment Obtained: [Shroud of the Unyielding Jade]

Tier: Master

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Celestial Jade

Enchantments > Temporal Warding; Spatial Warding; Magical Resistance 110; Self-Mending

Shiv smirked slightly at the armor. His exoskeletons might be able to adapt well to direct physical attacks, but this armor was warded against time, space, and even had Master-Tier Magical Resistance imbued into it. That was probably a lot better for Uva than just his bones. And frankly, I can add some of my bones to this armor as well. It’s self-repairing, and my bones are adaptive.

He examined the saber next. It gleamed bright like a rising dawn on a clear day.

Equipment Obtained: [Shroud of the Unyielding Jade]

Tier: Master

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Stellarite

Enchantments > Self-Mending; Portomancy 55; Binding; Conduit of Dawn

“Conduit of Dawn?” Shiv muttered.

“Yeah,” Tran said, nodding at the sword with undisguised envy. “It basically allows the sword to absorb light—especially sunlight—and then get so hot it practically melts through anything. It also lets the cuts be channeled out as beams.” The Slayer scoffed with disdain. “The equipment these bastards had is insane. You could probably buy a good portion of Blackedge with the armor alone.”

“It’s that good?” Shiv blinked.

Tran gave him a stunned look. “You can’t tell?”

“Not really. My armor’s free because I just die and harvest bones from my corpse.“ Heather and Tran stared at him like he was a freak. Shiv resisted a shuddering desire to shout that he wasn’t. “I basically tough enough that I don’t really need to buy or loot armor from people.” Shiv gave a proud grin as he thought about how durable he was now. “I think it worked out pretty well.”

“So,” Heather breathed. “This entire time you’ve just been…” She gestured at herself and the gleaming skeletal armor Shiv fused around her. “Wearing this?”

“Well, it’s kind of recent. Originally, I just kinda took it, you know?”

“Took it?” Tran blinked.

“The beatings. The deaths. I just dealt with it.” He considered all his encounters and smiled fondly as he thought back to how much difficulty he had against a cave biter or the feral weavers. Let’s see, some of you bastards even tickle me now. Except for the mind mage. I’m going to need the mask for that.

“I…” Tran was speechless. “What about weapons?” Heather nodded next to him, also curious.

“Well, I started out using the kitchen knife Georges gave me,” Shiv said, pulling out the Halspur’s Perfect-Edged Chef’s Knife. “It had self-sharpening and self-mending enchantments, so that was useful. Could be soul-bound, too.”

“And then?” Heather asked.

“Well, I had a spear for a while that let me do Cryomancy, but that broke when I got incinerated with what felt like half the world by a dragon. That was also how I achieved Diamond Shell, actually. And got Foreshadowing.”

“Dragon? You fought a dragon?” Tran breathed, his eyes widening to a ridiculous degree.

“What? No. I just got killed by a dragon. A Dragon-Knight, in fact. A Legendary one. He was burning an entire mountain out of existence—ah, it’s a long story.”

“Wait,” Siggy said, her curiosity briefly allowing her to overcome her mortal terror of Shiv. “Was this Sir Marikos?”

Shiv looked upon the goblin in surprise. “Did you run into him too?”

“No! But you met him? The Fortress Who Soars? And you survived one of his tantrums?”

“Survived isn’t the word I would use,” Shiv said. “It’s more like I didn’t stay dead.”

Siggy’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”

Tran and Heather were flabbergasted. With each exchange, Shiv could feel their courage shrinking and growing more brittle in his presence. Part of him liked it. A large part of him wanted to see if he could do some stuff to them with his Woundeater, while the tiny bit of control he had let him keep himself in check.

“So… what are you using as a weapon right now?” Heather asked.

Shiv called a bone drill out of his cloak, then shaped it into a few daggers, a sword, and then back to a drill. “Frankly, I mostly just try to stab people with a bone knife, launch bone drills or lances at them, and when things get messier, I usually grab, throw, slam, or punch the problem until it stops moving, or I die. Actually, my Grappling Proficiency is about to get to Adept, so I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of that.”

“Adept?” Tran gagged. “Wait, what’s your highest weapon skill?”

“Does Grappling Proficiency count?” Shiv asked.

“S-sure,” Tran said, though it sounded more like an allowance and less like a fact.

“Then, Grappling Proficiency.”

“What the felling hells are your skill levels, Shiv?” Heather choked. She looked ill, stunned, and doubtful at the same time. “You use your own corpse as armor, your Toughness is your highest skill, you don’t have a dedicated weapon or even supporting equipment.”

“I mean, I think I’m doing okay,” Shiv said, clamping one shaking hand over the other as he held back the urge to make Heather and Tran stop questioning his power. “My Biomancy got a lot more powerful when I saved you two, and my Toughness and Reflexes Skill Evolutions are really good, too. I think my Physicality will reach Master soon as well.”

“But you still don’t have any Weapon Skills,” Tran said.

“I thought you said Grappling Proficiency counted?”

“It’s more of a supporting thing,” Tran whispered. He looked absolutely astonished. “Shiv… I… do—do you even have a team with you?”

“Sometimes,” Shiv said. “Started out pretty much alone, but I got some people with me back in the Abyss.” And he suddenly realized something he neglected to tell Heather and Tran. “Including Adam! Adam’s been helping me too.”

“Adam? Adam Arrow?” Heather practically hissed. “He’s here? No—in the Abyss?”

“Yeah, the asshole who threw me off Blackedge took him and then got captured by some Weaveresses. I ended up killing said asshole and then stopped the spiders from killing Adam when he held a hospital hostage.” It was at this point that Shiv realized he sounded completely insane to the two Slayers. “Look, I’m not having a stroke, you’re just missing some context.”

“A lot,” Heather murmured. “A lot of context. But still… Shiv, you… you’re a monster.”

“Heather,” Tran chided.

“No, but he is!” the trans-elf said, gesturing at Shiv. “I’m not insulting him. He’s literally leveling like a monster would! He’s… nothing about his skills makes any sense for a non-monster Pathbearer. We develop our technical skills first. We’re naturally vulnerable, so we wear armor and use enchantments. He’s done almost none of that. Shiv, do you even know what Sigmund’s Law is?”

Shiv shook his head. “No.”

“It’s a law regarding enchantments,” she cried. “Namely, how many can be infused into each Weapon-Tier and the exception. You probably haven’t read any of the essential texts or looked at any of the primers—do you even have Practical Metabiology to go with your Biomancy?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, trying to mask his violent anger as disgruntlement. “I got that.”

“What’s the level,” Heather asked.

“Isn’t it rude to ask another Pathbearer this directly,” Shiv replied defensively?

“Is it even Adept?” the Jump Mage pressed.

“It’s growing fast,” was Shiv’s reply.

Heather threw up her hands. “He’s a monster. He’s even using his magical skills like a monster would. Just ripping people apart and blasting things instead of building up something like Medicine or Applied Physics first.” She caught Shiv’s hardening glare and flinched. Her courage cracked before his slowly building Dread Aura. “I—it’s not an insult. People are afraid of monsters for a reason. You’re just… built like one, now. Dread Aura is even a skill used by monsters.”

Suddenly, Shiv realized why Valor made Adam his teacher—most of the academy education was still recent for Adam. All this stuff would have been covered alongside tactics, strategy, and general education. A searing blast of anger swept through Shiv as he gritted his teeth and began to shake. The world turned red, his Dread Aura spiked. Siggy and Oldsmith cried while Heather and Tran began backing again.

And then, in the middle of that mess, Georges flashed into Shiv’s mind. Get burned. Get bled. Get better. Get harder. Deal with the heat.

Shiv struggled — he endured the heat of violence and rage even as red swelled over his vision, even his blood turned to liquid hate coursing through him. “I am…” he said, through clenched teeth and quick breaths. “We are going to save Blackedge. We are going to save Blackedge from the Vicar and whatever stupid political bullshit is happening. We are going to save Roland Arrow from whoever wants to kill or capture him. And then I am going to beat the godsdamned shit out of the Town-Lord. In front of the town! In front of Adam! For breaking my entire godsdamned life.”

“Shiv! Shiv. It’s happening again.” Tran said, swallowing as he retreated. “The skill is affecting you—”

“I know, asshole! And don’t worry! You finally have something to report to Roland now! Finally, the Omenborn has a Path. But what were you going to do when I got a Path? Were you planning on killing me? Capturing me and holding me down while some bastard applies a curse to me? Maybe on one of the priests? Or maybe you would just sell me to the Inquisition and have them mold my mind into something docile.”

When Shiv next blinked, he found himself clutching Tran by the shoulder with a shaking hand. Heather was pulling at him, trying to get Shiv to let go despite her naked terror. Tran, meanwhile, was absolutely petrified. And he looked ashamed.

Shit! Shit! Shiv realized. The look on Tran’s face cut into him. But Shiv was losing control. He was pretty sour and bitter about what Tran did before, but not to this degree. He certainly didn’t want to rip Tran in half as punishment, then implant the eaten wound onto Siggy. If he did that, he might just lose his damned Biomancy to whatever this orc bullshit was too.

And that was the thing that full tipped the scales for him.

That orc bastard… he’s taking my skills from me! He’s twisting my levels! He’s trying to cage me, to shape me into being him.

Shiv didn’t realize he could get angry at his own anger. He also didn’t realize there was a difference in sensation between his natural anger and the orcish rage. Both spiked his aggression, but one was focused, hard, and pinned to a specific thing. The other was a constant swelling explosion that grew unendingly.

With a staggering effort, Shiv pulled away from Tran and quelled his Dread Aura. His hands shook, and so he needed to fill them with something. He needed to fight something. But there was no one here who could survive him.

“Sorry,” Shiv managed, forcing the words out even if he didn’t mean it. “Tran… Do you need a weapon?”

“What?” Tran blinked, his lip trembling, his heart pumping hard and fast.

“Weapon,” Shiv said, gesturing to the Inquisitor’s saber on the ground. “I changed my mind… you don’t have anything on you. And that’s better than even an adamantine bone weapon. I’ll loan you that for now.” The next words, Shiv spoke out of spite against his orcish rage. “And Heather. You can use the armor. But I’ll need it back once we’re out of this gate. Got it?”

The fake-elf Jump Mage just nodded slowly. “I—I need to… Shiv? Are you okay?”

“No,” Shiv whispered. He was losing this fight. He wanted to cook. He wanted to hurt something. He needed to hurt something while cooking with his Biomancy.

If I do that, I’ll lose another skill! The rage will get worse! I won’t be myself! It’ll be like surrendering my mind and self.

And there was nothing more disgusting than surrender to Shiv at that moment.

“Watch her,” Shiv croaked to the Slayers as he pointed at Siggy. “Don’t do anything until… until I come out.” He matched toward Oldsmith, and the goblin practically launched herself out of his way when he got close. The automaton fell to its knees, but Shiv picked it off the ground before it could start begging. Then, he started walking to the kitchen with a new and determined purpose.

He was going to start cooking again. He was going to make a good, godsdamned dish like he used to. That, or he would die for good in the attempt. But first, he needed means to trap himself. To make it hard for him to break anything or escape from the kitchen.

It was a good thing he was so much tougher than he was strong right now. And that his flesh and bones adapted to escalating magnitudes of damage. He had the perfect cage for himself. He just needed to die a few times to harvest some bodies, and to have someone he could drain from.

“Please, Master Pathbearer,” Oldsmith wailed, pushing at Shiv with its one remaining arm. “Please!” It reached out to the Slayers.

“You’re already dead,” Shiv told the automaton. “You were dead from the moment you beat that kid. I’m just going to make your death serve something more than pointless cruelty.”

Tran followed after Shiv, but Heather held him back. “Shiv,” he called. “What are you—” His words turned into a scream of pure panic as Shiv opened his own throat with a gesture. “Oh, oh, shit, oh felling—fuck!”

Blood splattered down across Shiv’s chest, down his armor, down onto Oldsmith. The automaton was crying. Shiv was on the verge of complete psychosis. But as he crossed into the kitchen, he chucked the Master-Advisor deeper inside. Then, Shiv started pulling himself apart. He layered the walls and utilities with his skin. Armored the way out with his bones. He came apart faster than he bled out, but even as Shiv disassembled himself, he could feel Culinary Berserker thunder inside him, burrow into his every urge.

He needed to cook. He needed to break. He needed to war.

And that was fine with Shiv. But he was going to war against himself. He was going to see where this orc skill began and his own Cooking ended. And in the end, either he would break this rage in the kitchen, or die and let himself fade out of existence out of spite against 811 and whatever twisted god created the orcs.

As Shiv gurgled on his own blood, he could feel Tran and Heather frozen in the living room—Siggy huddled in the corner, holding herself as she shivered in terror. The cage he was building in the kitchen wasn’t complete, but after a death and a resurrection, it would start getting there. Even so, no one was coming in; Shiv wasn’t leaving until he won.

And so there he lay, death fast approaching, Oldsmith as his vitality provider, and a kitchen coming aglow with the colors of his rage.

It was time to get burned. Over and over. It was time to cut himself and die. Over and over. And he would do this as many times it took. Until he made something he could accept. Until the rage no longer stained his food. Until he was his own man again.

Shiv’s pillar was shaking. By the end of this, it would either crumble completely, and prove to be unbreakable.

Attention: You have attracted the Challenger’s attention

***

The pantry was empty. So was the mana freezer. So was every condiment pack, bottle, and drink in the kitchen.

Several appliances had been destroyed. A small heap of ruined cutlery lay piled high, surrounded by broken plates, bowls, and shattered glass. Crude bone-adamantine replacements occupied their places on the tables and shelves. Bloody smears painted certain corners of the room—left by someone slamming their fists and head against a wall. A dense cage of night-unbreakable bone layered the existing architecture, holding any actual devastation at bay.

In the center of the room lay a lifeless automaton. It had been screaming a day ago. It even tried to fight for its life when it felt the last sparks of its vitality slip away. But Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith wasn’t a martial Pathbearer. And so, it died as unceremoniously as the slave-child it brutalized two days prior.

When it died, the worst of Shiv’s rage truly came on, and he experienced a new kind of suffering.

Two days. That’s how long the kitchen had been sealed. Two days of hell. Two days of torment. Two days a chef warring against his own madness twisted and writhed, trying to contain his rage, driving his natural skill against its twisted counterpart again and again in war to make something edible. He didn’t know how many things he cooked in those two days. Everything he could. Hundreds of dishes. Hundreds of meals. He tried all of them—and spat the food back out.

At one point, he nearly broke down crying. Instead, Shiv did the much more rational thing of sculpting a crude flesh replica of Georges from his corpses, and imagined the man yelling insults at him.

“What is this shit? Did you mix shit into these eggs?”

“No, chef!” Shiv said, sweat gushing down his face in a wrathful, feverish delirium. “I’m just incompetent.”

“Wrong!” flesh-replica Georges said. “You did mix felling shit in the eggs, because your hands are shit! Everything you touch turns to shit! Do you like eating shit, Shiv?”

“No, chef.”

“Then make it not shit!”

Shiv’s hands tremored. He dropped the bowl and plates and clutched his head. He reached out to strangle the fake Georges. He ended up hugging the flesh creature instead. “What are you—get off of me, you bloody simple shit. Stop hugging me and get back to cooking!”

“I don’t know…” Shiv breathed. “I don’t know if I can beat it. The rage doesn’t get tired… but I do.”

“And the dumb-twits that eat at our restaurant don’t stop coming either. Day after day, they come in with their bird brains, idiot tongues, and pig stomachs. Oh, it’s too hot. There are no spices you stupid fucking idiot? How’s it hot? But fine. We take it back. Oh, it’s not enough—the dish is too small. That’s because your stomach is the Abyss! All the monsters are hiding there, stealing your food from you because they don’t want you to ever be full! Was that easy?”

“But I could control myself, then,” Shiv almost sobbed. “I could—”

“You could what? When I found you, you were a feral street rat fighting actual rats for scraps. What did you control then? How good were you when you started?”

“I wasn’t…”

“And how many times did I call you a felling idiot? How many times did I tell you to peel the potatoes again and to stop bleeding on the food?”

“Years…”

“Was it easy then? Did you forget? So it’s a little harder now. Aw, an orc gave you a new skill and your cooking is now shit—Wrong! It was always shit! Always! That’s the default state of the world and life, Shiv: Shit! We’re all walking pieces of shit doing stupid shit that barely amounts to shit until finally, the time is right and our preparation comes together, you, for that moment, stop being shit. And it’s enough. Are you telling me you can’t even make a scrambled egg, right?”

Shiv shook. “Just that?”

“You’re clearly not good for anything else. Fuck the sauce. Fuck the tomatoes. Fuck the rest. Plain, scrambled egg. Go. I want to see what kind of a mess you’ll make.”

Shiv stumbled away from Georges and did just that. Eggs. Scrambled eggs. It was barely cooking. But it was also the start. He remembered the first egg Georges had him make. He remembered the chef asking him if he knew what scrambled meant, or he had some kind of personal vendetta against eggs.

The sheer incredulity on Georges’s face made Shiv chuckle, even through the all-consuming rage. “Egg. Scrambled. Plain. Let’s do this. Come on.”

The mana stove was ruined and smashed, so he resorted to using his own Pyromancy to heat one of the few pans he hadn’t ripped in half yet.

“Just eggs,” Shiv said, his focus threatening to snap. He bit down on his lip and invoked the Song of the Vigilant, bestowed upon him by the Composer. It didn’t do anything for the rage, but it helped with his focus. And maybe right now, that would be enough. “Just good enough. I just need you to be good enough.”

But that required perfection when Culinary Berserker was in effect. It amplified everything he did in the kitchen. Everything. From cutting to frying to the taste of the flavoring. Everything. So he countered that by being measured. By making egg after egg until they stopped being charred, then turned acceptable, and then by the end of those two days, he bit down and a memory swept through him with the taste.

It tasted good. 

It was…

“Not shit,” Georges grinned. “Barely. But not shit. Look at that. Only took you two bloody months.”

Two months. Two days. And Shiv finally made something he could tolerate again. And a feeling rose above the constant rage—a dot of light spread through the red.

He could still cook. Maybe not well yet, but he could get there again. Even if he was going to be angry forever. He might not be able to beat it, but he could master it. Learn to use it. Work around it. And that was how he felt as he took another bit.

Then, two things inside his soul shattered. Shiv shivered as he felt a jolt of power rush through him.

Culinary Berserker > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Skill Evolution: Cooking (Common) > Tireless Gourmet (Adept)

Tireless Gourmet > 51

Skill Fusion: Culinary Berserker (Adept) - Tireless Gourmet (Adept) > The Chef Unwavering (Master)

The Chef Unwavering > 51

This time, a single tear did roll down Shiv’s right cheek as he laughed. The rage inside him shattered with the breaking and merging of the Orcish Skill. It blended with his Cooking—the two grinding against each other… But it was his Cooking that evolved first. And that was enough. It wasn’t shit. I was enough.

The pillar endured.

A rush of cool relief and excitement flooded through Shiv. He did it. The damn orc taint was broken before it could twist him further, before it could turn him into a monster. More than that, Shiv had a Master-Tier Cooking Skill. Master-Tier. At the previous rate, it would have taken… months? Years?

He almost wanted to thank 811 for this, except the next time he saw 812, he was going to kill the orc immediately. Shiv could endure a lot of pain, but this torture was beyond the flesh. He’d rather get cooked alive in the teleportation anchor again, and that was saying something.

You better not ever let anyone touch my Cooking Skill again, Shiv mentally threatened the system.

This proved to be a mistake.

The Orcish Skill has been broken and reforged.

Attention: You have earned the Challenger’s curiosity

The Challenger has Cursed you

You have earned a new Feat!

Curse Gained: Favored Archenemy - An orc will always be able to sense your presence, regardless of guise or appearance. An orc will always have a sense for where you are. Regardless of dimension, world, distance, or time, you are marked for an eternal war.

“Oh, felling great,” Shiv sighed. The damned orc god just had to piss on his triumph. “Really?” Shiv looked up at the ceiling, lined in bone with flesh as padding. “Really, system?”

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

Shiv blinked at the Feat—but he couldn’t really feel any changes. That was when he remembered a small problem with feats: there was a capacity.

Feats [1/1]

He Who Rises From Ash Eternal (Unique)

In Reserve

Master of Rage (Master)

“Well, that’s something,” Shiv breathed. It was like the ever-building rage had been harvested from the Culinary Berserker Skill and then shaped into a Feat that Shiv could use. Channeling his anger and the exaggerated effects that he got from Culinary Berserker was much better than just being consumed by it.

“Well,” Shiv said, taking a deep breath and feeling no more particular urge to hurt anyone. He spent a moment thinking about Heather. He still didn’t much like her, but that’s fine. Maybe he might taunt her with his power, but he didn’t want to hurt her. And she wasn’t even wrong earlier—he was kind of leveling like a monster. Even 811 said something like that. Shiv didn’t even mind. “Gods, that’s a weight off of me.” He shuddered as he remembered how casually he hurt the Inquisitors. They deserved death, but with what he did to them with the Biomancy and his kitchen knife. Shiv cringed. “Yeah. I think I hate the damn orcs now. All of them.”

Shiv paused and looked around. The kitchen was pretty much ruined. Oldsmith was dead. But all this adamantine bone, though… “Yeah, maybe I should offer some additional weapons or a shield or something to the Slayers as an apology. And then maybe make myself a few more sets of armor.” Then he paused as he remembered another thing. “Shit, they were in there with the Inquisitors too… I think they tortured the poor bastards out of revenge. And I was too busy having a psychotic break from my Orcish Skill to notice.”

Shiv groaned as he rubbed his eyes. “What a felling mess I made.”

He got up and put on his mask. A moment later, he successfully assumed Oldsmith as his Perfect Semblance. It wouldn’t be perfect. He didn’t really know how to walk like a bot, but with the constant anger, frustration, and urge to do violence receding, he could think again.

And he had an idea. One that didn’t require Tran or Heather to even risk themselves that much. In fact, they were all going to meet the Gate Lord to discuss Shiv’s death soon. Shiv reached into his cloak and pulled out one of his reserve bodies. Confriga didn’t know about how he couldn’t die, and if Oldsmith and two of his personal bodyguard’s slew the “Aviary spy,” that might just allow the Gate Lord to activate the exits again anyway.

It was a pretty obvious plan once he thought about it. The damn rage really made him less of himself. Gathering all the usable biomass and bone with his Biomancy, Shiv staggered out from the kitchen—only to notice Tran tying a tourniquet around Heather’s mangled leg. Both of the Slayers looked pretty beat up—and still wearing the skeletal armor Shiv made for them. 

Heather bit back a scream of pain as Tran called for Siggy. The goblin came running, holding up a half-empty Potion of Regeneration. She promptly dropped as she noticed Shiv wearing the guise of Oldsmith. While holding onto one of his old bodies. The Deathless, meanwhile, cast a wyrm out to consume Heather’s wounds.

“So,” Shiv said, studying the group as he dismissed his Perfect Semblance, revealing his true form. They all flinched before him, fractures spreading through their courage. “I managed to make some scrambled eggs, fused a skill, got cursed, and earned a Feat. What about you guys? You look like you were… busy?”

Siggy held up a shaking hand and pointed at Heather. “T-t-trying to run away was her idea!”

“Oh, you little shit,” Heather hissed.

“Escape?” Shiv said.

“These two had me take them through the smuggling routes to find the surface exit! She tried opening it back up but ended up alerting most of the guards in town instead! We barely got out! I-I didn’t want to leave you here! You got to trust me!”

“Huh,” Shiv said, observing the shameful expression on Tran’s face, and the absolute terror on Heather’s. More than a bit of annoyance and anger swirled in the pit of his stomach. But Shiv remained decidedly composed. “It’s a good thing I managed to fuse that skill, guys. A real good thing.”

“We—we weren’t—” Tran started to explain.

“Tran, you know what? I don’t even care that you were planning on escaping without me.” Shiv looked back into the kitchen. “I was getting a bit volatile. Sorry about the, uh, rage.”

“It—it’s okay?” Tran said, sounding sure. “You’re really fine now?”

“I am mad at you. And disappointed in you for being a bastard-coward who tried to escape without me. But hey, I was already disappointed in you for being a bastard-informant for the Town-Lord.”

“So,” Heather said, her courage slowly hardened. “What now?”

Shiv narrowed his eyes at Heather. And applied just a bit of Dread Aura as he glared. Her fear spiked. Her courage cracked again. She looked away. Shiv chuckled.

Yeah, I was never that forgiving…

“Now, we return to the actual plan of killing the Gate Lord alongside all his forces, freeing the slaves, securing the core, opening the gate back up to the Abyss and the surface, and then getting back to Blackedge.”

Three sets of eyes blinked at him.

“We’re actually going to do that?” Tran breathed in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Shiv said, not sure why the man was confused.

“I thought the ‘kill them all’ thing was just the Orcish Skill affecting you.”

“A bit. But they’re slavers and child-killers, Tran. I wasn’t going to put up with that out of principle. Now.” Shiv chucked one of his old corpses on the ground. “Let’s talk about how you two cowards managed to kill me. Somehow. While protecting your client, Master-Advisor Oldsmith, of course.”

Dread Aura > 61