5 Path

It is said that the first Pathbearers after the integration earned their Paths by entering and closing dimensional gates.

The world’s mana density was far lower then, and as such, there were many places in the world that remained devoid of magic and Paths, leaving the ones who lived there to struggle with the old world’s demise.

Now, mana—and the system’s influence, by extension, has consumed the entirety of post-integration Earth, and one might earn a Path through deed, gift, or fortune.

Prove yourself. Live to embody an ideal. And you can step beyond your mortality.

The new world is hard. But we can be harder yet.

-Encyclopedia Apocalyptia

5

Path

Name: Tanner “Shiv” Lowe

Age: 18

Race: Human

Path: 

Deathless

Feats [1/1]:

He Who Rises From Ash Eternal

Skills:

Physicality 20 (Common) 

Cooking 18 (Common)

Toughness 17 (Common)

Knife Proficiency 17 (Common)

Grappling Proficiency 17 (Common)

Reflexes 17 (Common)

Stealth 16 (Common) 

Marksmanship 11 (Common)

Baking 9 (Common)

Intimidation (Common)

Striking Proficiency 9 (Common)

Barter 8 (Common)

Alchemy 2 (Common)

Engineering 1 (Common)

Vitality Drain (Legendary) > 1

Revenant (Unique) > 1

Blessings: 

None

Curses:

None

For a good few moments, Shiv just stared at the notification screen. He wasn’t sure how he managed to stare exactly considering most of his body was little more than crimson soup covering Adam’s armor, but stare he did, gawk he did, and feel he did.

After so long, after trying so many things, risking his life on so many hunts and facing so many threats, Shiv finally had a Path.

And all he had to do was die, apparently.

He noticed his curse was gone too, and it didn’t take much effort for him to put things together. It seemed his curse was stopping him from obtaining a Path—or that a Path was contained in the Curse. How and why, he didn’t know, but he had a Path now and… Well, this opened all sorts of other questions like if his parents’ ritual was actually a failure, how Roland Arrow was going to react, and most importantly, how could he still be here, considering he was dead?

He was dead. Shiv knew he was dead. He felt himself die. His body was gone. He tried to move and—well, with each passing second he felt himself growing fainter and lighter. The world was slowly going gray around him, and he felt his own presence lessen. Shiv heard Georges screaming his name, saw the shell-shocked Adam catch a brutal kick to the chest that sent him sprawling past the rear garden and across the cobblestones leading to his family castle.

More than that, he could sense certain things around him. They had a warmth. A warmth he lacked. He was getting colder at an alarming speed, and it was a kind of cold that he couldn’t describe. It was like the dying of an inner flame, and a reactive dread clenched his heart.

Still, without a body—

Shiv moved a hand. A hand? He “looked” at his “arm” and found himself staring through an almost entirely translucent outline of himself. Broken Moon… He tried to mutter. Yet, no words came. No sounds traveled. He could move, but he couldn’t speak. This was just… strange.

“Pay attention, Young Lord,” the raven-helmed stranger tutted. Adam rose from the cobblestones with a look of absolute fury on his face. A line of red marks marred the Young Lord’s right cheek, and his forehead was beginning to swell. Part of his sky-blue armor was cracked along the chest, but Adam took the hit far better than Shiv did. “Oh. There it is. Anger. Rage. Was he someone to you?”

“No,” Adam snarled. “I hated him. But he deserved better than this. He deserved better than you.”

“Deserve?” the raven-helmed stranger laughed. “The only thing we deserve are the things we can keep. Your father has kept you in his nest too long. But then again, you’re the last thing he really has to lose.” 

The sounds of battle echoed off from the side, and a feminine cry of pain broke Adam’s focus again. “Isabella!” he cried. That proved to be a mistake.

The raven appeared before Adam and drove a shortsword at the Young Lord’s leg. To Shiv’s surprise, the blade snapped with a deafening crack, and Adam responded by headbutting his enemy. The raven-helmed stranger let out a hiss of pain, and Adam released two arrows right into his chest. Before they could impact, however, the raven burst into a spray of black feathers. The arrows struck open air, and mocking applause sounded as the feathers converged back together a few steps away from Adam, the stranger sounded amused. “That hurt. Quite the armor you have. Your father must’ve closed a Legendary Gate to obtain something like that for you. Why, the blade I broke on you was Master-Tier, after all. With enough effort, it should punch through even Heroic armor.”

“Shut up!” Adam roared. He unleashed a salvo of arrows and kept firing. His hand turned to a blur as a stream of cerulean projectiles erupted from his bow. At the same time, two of his three magical hands shot forward to cut the raven down, while the shield hovered in place. Adam moved as he fought, accelerating faster than he ever did before as fiery wings of a hawk materialized behind him.

The stranger, meanwhile, began deflecting Adam’s attacks with his broken blade. He casually stood in place as the Young Lord attacked him from all sides, unleashing larger arrows, teleporting arrows, multiplying arrows, explosive arrows. The two hands bearing weapons barely got within arms reach of the raven before the arms the weapons they held shattered.

Shiv couldn’t even see the blow that did that. By this point, though, he was dealing with his own problem: His near-invisible translucent was rapidly becoming nonexistent. The tips of his fingers were vanishing, and Shiv knew that if he didn’t do something soon, he might somehow die a second time—and not remain thereafter.

Okay, okay, so… He shook himself free from his stunned disbelief and tried to “walk” toward the raven-helmed stranger. To his surprise, he moved through the world as if he was gliding through everything.

Shiv shuddered as one of his newest skills gained a level. Revenant? Unique? He never heard of a Unique Tier Skill before. Then again, he also didn’t think someone could linger after death. Still, it wasn’t hard to guess that Revenant was the reason why he was still here, and pairing that with the other skill…

Vitality Drain… Legendary… Shiv couldn’t process any of this. Years of being condemned to Pathlessness, and suddenly he had a unique and Legendary Skill. It was like a debt owed to him by life was finally coming due.

Now if there was only a way he could get a detailed description for what these skills did. Well, he could guess so far. Revenant likely meant not dying or staying after death somehow. Vitality Drain had something to do with drawing lifeforce away? Shiv remembered Tran chewing out one of his older teammates about letting the rest of them get hit with a Vitality Erosion curse. Something to do with their life force.

A coldness was working its way to Shiv’s core. He didn’t have long before it got to be too much. He was fading as fast as he could move. But what was he supposed to do when he reached the raven-helmed stranger? He could barely put pressure on the floor—he was weightless. Shiv felt at his own body for his daggers, but he was little more than a faint silhouette drifting through the world.

Then, he felt it again. The warmth. As he got closer to vanishing entirely, fires began to appear around him. Fires stored within the cores of every living person around Shiv. They were all of different levels of brightness or intensity, with some being faint flickers while others crackled like bonfires. Adam Arrow’s fire was quite bright—like a building inferno, but next to the raven he was nothing. Shiv’s killer was hotter than a burning building—and Shiv had been trapped in more than one of those during his time hunting lesser vampires.

And Shiv wanted that fire—he needed that fire. He couldn’t survive the cold without it. With a silent cry, he reached into the raven-helmed stranger’s flame with his now entirely absent hand—and he felt something. A flash passed between them. A surge of heat coursed from the raven into the Shiv, and immediately, he felt heavier, like part of his body were returning. The faintness of his silhouette shifted until he was slowly becoming like a shadow imprinted on the world.

Vitality Drain > 2

Shiv could see his limbs again. He was still featureless, like a black mass, but he had a general shape of a person. The feeling of the fires grew duller, but this close to the raven-helmed stranger, he could still sense the heat, still pull it into himself. Shiv was like a leech. Just touching the flame sent it surging into himself.

Better yet, it had an effect on the raven as well.

“What—” The raven shivered as if he had just been shocked. His momentary lapse in focus caused him to fail a parry, and a series of arrows slammed and shattered against his chest, sending him sprawling across the ground. Shiv, meanwhile, was left in place, and he found himself rapidly fading again without the raven-helmed stranger’s warmth.

The raven drove both his broken shortsword and his intact longsword into the soil, dragging himself to a halt. Parts of his coat were burning and the corner of his helmet was dented, but aside from that, the raven-helmed stranger seemed more annoyed than hurt.

This is bullshit, Shiv thought to himself as he rushed to catch the raven. Any of those arrows would have obliterated Shiv a hundred times over. Damned Pathbearer. The former Pathless paused. He remembered he was a Pathbearer now. Great. Now I’m insulting myself too.

As he drew close to the raven-helmed stranger, the enemy’s head snapped to attention as he noticed Shiv. The former Omenborn’s nonexistent heart skipped a beat: The enemy could see him… “What is this? A specter? Are you dabbling in Necromancy now, Young Lord? Where did you learn this? What would your father think?”

His words went unheard by Adam, as the Young Lord fired a continuous tide of arrows at the crow-helmed strangers attacking the other survivors. Shiv remembered Georges being among them just then and found himself glad to see each of the crow-helmed strangers behind held back by the other martial Pathbearers and Adam’s to-be-wife—Isabella, Shiv thought her name was.

“No matter,” the raven muttered. He rose from his downed state and the next thing Shiv knew, he had a blade thrust through him. “Begone, spirit. Into the soul cage you go.” Shiv looked down and saw a crystalline dagger passing through his chest. He felt a tickling sensation as something pulled at him. Some of the shadows that composed Shiv curved toward the blade, but that was about all it did. The raven cocked his head and waved his dagger as if it was supposed to do something. “What?”

Shiv responded by reaching into the raven-helmed stranger again and sapping their life force.

A cry of discomfort sounded from the mysterious killer, and they stabbed at Shiv using an assortment of other daggers—throwing strange glowing cubes and other baubles at him as well. “What even are you? You should be trapped by now? How are you… how are you sapping my vitality?” Shiv didn’t know, couldn’t reply, and even if he could, he wouldn’t. He just kept draining more of that wonderful warmth, and the heat entered Shiv like water flowed into a cup. The shadows were peeling off of his body. It was like Shiv was breaking out from a cocoon. He could feel the freshness of the air again, and the weight of having a body was beginning to return to him. At the same time, the raven’s eyes flashed. “Deathless? What in the Broken Moon is a Deathless? There’s no such Path?”

Vitality Drain > 3

Then, with a final rush of fire, something inside Shiv was fully satisfied. A point of stability was reached. The remaining shadows melted off Shiv’s body like crust, and suddenly, he was in the world again, dressed in his chef’s attire, with both hands pressed against the raven-helmed stranger’s chest. 

“What?” The raven-helmed stranger gasped. Their voice was high, and the low, mocking tone they took before turned into something weighed with genuine confusion. “I… how are you… I just killed you…”

“Shiv?” Shiv turned to see Adam staring at him, new arrows half-nocked, his jaw hanging open.

Shiv didn’t know what to say. He was also too full, and couldn’t drain any more life force from the raven. Ultimately, he just shrugged—and then backhanded the raven-helmed stranger before spitting on them. “That’s for killing me, asshole.”

A full three seconds passed as the raven just stared at Shiv, unable to process what just happened. Shiv, meanwhile, did his best not to scream, because he most definitely broke his forearm slapping the raven.

The pain didn’t last long though, because the raven-helmed stranger decided to slap Shiv back, and the boy’s head turned into a puff of red mist. Again, Shiv felt himself die. Again, he remained in place after death, a faint silhouette of the person he was—almost invisible. Again, he could feel the warm inside himself die, feel the cold rushing in.

Revenant > 2

Toughness > 19

Physicality > 21

Reflexes > 18

Shiv jolted as what felt a series of combustions went off inside him. It was like the manner of his death was imprinted itself onto his very soul. As the raven-helmed stranger, punted Shiv’s body away. Shiv immediately reached into the raven again and drew as much warmth as he could.

A loud cry rattled out from the raven’s throat just as an arrow crashed into his face. The stranger’s head snapped back as he cursed. Shiv managed to drain his vitality for a moment longer before the raven burst into feathers and started rushing toward Adam. Shiv chased after him, gliding far behind as the raven reformed next to the Young Lord.

“Enough with the Necromancy,” the raven snarled at Adam. He brought two daggers down, but Adam somehow caught the descending blow. The resulting clash of strength caused the ground to crater between the two Pathbearers and tides of earth and rubble blasted outward. Sharp rocks and dirt speared through Shiv, and he found himself genuinely happy that he was just a Revenant right now. That would have cut him in half normally.

“What… are you even… talking about…” Adam snarled through gritted teeth. He was down on one knee, straining to hold the raven’s blades from getting any closer. Just then, two arms flashed out from his torso and his bow reformed. He shot the raven right between the legs with a heavy arrow, and the raven-helmed stranger let out a cry of indignation. “Gah! Little bastar—” His voice turned into a genuine cry of pain as Shiv sank his hands into his back. This was then compounded when Adam launched arrow after arrow into the raven’s groin.

As Shiv drained, Adam struck, the raven twitched between them, his previous arrogance degenerating into genuine outrage. “Enough!” He ragdolled the Young Lord aside with a burst of strength. At the same time, Shiv materialized behind him, bursting out of a cocoon of shadows.

Slowly, the raven turned. He stared at Shiv. Shiv responded by slamming his foot into the man’s groin. The former Omenborn felt a few of his bones crack. The raven didn’t even budge. “What are you? Some kind of summonable spiritual guardian? Wait… weren’t you Pathless a few minutes ago—”

Shiv kicked the man in the groin with his other foot. Still nothing. “Dammit,” Shiv muttered.

The raven reached out and took him by the shoulder with a gentle hand. “Ah. You kick this way, boy. Let me show you—”

Shiv tried to get away. “No, no, no, wait, wait—”

The raven-helmed bastard drove his foot up and through Shiv’s privates, splitting him clean in half.

Shiv cursed as unbearable pain appeared and ceased before he could scream. Bastard.

Toughness > 22

Physicality > 22

At least dying constantly was advancing his skills pretty quickly. Unnaturally quickly. It took Shiv months of brutal training and effort to advance his Physicality. Even longer for some of his other skills. Death seemed to sear something into his soul—spurred him to evolve and adapt for his inevitable return.

Comparatively, his Revenant and Vitality Drain skills grew far slower…

As Shiv pulled what heat he could from the raven, he studied his new Feat as well.

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

A Unique Feat as well. And it seemed to apply to whatever skill he was lacking—the ones that might have helped him avoid his most recent death. That was his working theory, at least.

But while he was learning, the raven-helmed stranger did the same. Instead, of rushing off to finish Adam, they lingered, they studied Shiv’s bifurcated body and then examined the shadowy entity draining them with only a faint hint of discomfort. As Shiv finished draining the vitality he needed to resurrect, he stood before the raven again, and the killer just regarded him quietly for a moment.

Then a flare of blue came from behind the raven-helmed stranger, and they took Shiv by the neck. Suddenly, the world became a mess of shifting darkness. Shiv tried to move but found himself fixed in place and unable to respond. “Let… go…” Then, he was out, and he found himself trapped in the raven’s grasp while both of them were right behind Adam. “Adam! Look—” His warning wasn’t needed.

The Young Lord rolled away from a sweeping strike delivered by the raven. Shiv noticed how the mysterious adversary targeted the Young Lord’s ankles rather than his head.

“Let him go!” Adam cried. He briefly stared at one of Shiv’s corpses some hundred meters away. The Young Lord was still covered in Shiv’s blood, and his eyes went to the currently struggling Shiv for an answer.

“Yeah, I don’t know myself,” Shiv croaked, kicking the raven in the chest.

The raven looked between them once, and settled on Shiv. “This… this isn’t possible.” Shiv tried to jab a thumb into the raven’s eye, poking his finger into the dark slots of their helmet. The raven barely reacted. Then, an arrow struck Shiv’s shoulder, and he felt a pocket of space collapse around him.

The clenching pressure of a spatial transition gripped Shiv as he toppled next to Adam. He collapsed, cursing the world, clutching his shoulder. “No. You shot me in the felling shoulder.”

Adam snorted. “I was aiming at your head.”

“I wish you were—I’d be dead now, and it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

With a hiss of pain, Shiv ripped the arrow out of his shoulder and found himself glad his Toughness wasn’t capped anymore. His body felt sturdier than before. Harder. He came to stand behind Adam, as the raven began to circle them.

“So, what’s the plan,” Shiv asked.

The Young Lord formed a massive ballista-sized arrow and drew back on his bow using the help of a few magical hands. “We kill this tainted bastard.”

“I asked for a plan, not your general hopes and feelings?”

Adam clenched his jaw. “Why don’t you come up with a plan, Tanner? Hm? Why don’t you?”

“I wasn’t the one that went to a fancy academy,” Shiv growled.

“Yeah, but you are the one that just came back from the dead twice.”

The raven stopped strolling, glaring at both of them. Off by the side, a stone golem erupted from the earth, stomping down on one of the crow-helmed strangers. Isabella and the others were putting up quite the fight, but… the crow-helmed strangers also didn’t seem to be attacking with nearly the intensity Shiv expecting. It was like they were waiting for something, going in turn…

Shiv sighed as he picked a jagged rock off the ground. He wasn’t going to like this, but he couldn’t really deal any damage to the raven any other way. Being alive was a liability. “Alright. Here’s a plan: You shoot your arrows and keep him busy. I’m going to kill myself.”

Adam snorted. “Fine—wait, what?”

Before anyone could stop him—before his own fear could take hold, Shiv found his carotid artery and drove the pointed rock in with all of his might. Blood immediately filled his throat. Shiv gurgled. Adam’s jaw dropped. “What the felling moon…”

The raven-helmed stranger blasted forward. He turned into feathers and passed through Adam as the Young Lord fired an arrow. Still, by the time he reached Shiv, it was too late. Shiv’s body dropped, gurgling a final breath while the raven cursed and punted Shiv’s body over the ledge.

Toughness > 23

Only Toughness this time. Interesting. And slightly disturbing. This death was because Shiv’s flesh couldn’t stop a rock being thrust through it. Strength and speed had nothing to do with it.

Shiv immediately reached into the raven’s body and drained their vitality. The raven staggered and let out a hoarse growl. They were slowing; their body was shaking. An excitement kindled inside Shiv. He wasn’t helpless. He was a Pathbearer; this was a fight he could help win.

But then the raven adapted as well. He vanished and reappeared a few hundred meters away, striding toward the other survivors.

“No! Isabella!” Adam cried.

Shiv’s insides dropped. Georges.

Both the Deathless and the Young Lord rushed after the raven. The former shot over the raven’s head with a flourish of his burning wings and fired a rain of arrows. Raven vanished before they could hit—and reappeared in the air beside Adam.

Again, they attacked the Young Lord non-lethally. They threw an arcing kick that spiked him into the ground beside his beloved, smashing a few of her barricades apart.

Shiv frowned internally, and adjusted his strategy as well. The raven suspected something about him. The flash of their eyes earlier might have been an Analyze Skill. Had to be considering how they could tell Shiv had the Path of the Deathless. They kept moving, blasting down and stomping on Adam’s chest while swatting his lover and the others aside. The Young Lord proved resilient, and rose from the ground firing more arrows.

The raven vanished again, appearing at random places in the world as if they were blinking in and out of existence.

He knew about the Shiv’s capabilities, but the crows that came with them didn’t. And Shiv needed to resurrect again.

He got to his first crow, who—oddly, was just watching Isabella crawl back to her feet rather than attacking her. The Technomage’s armor was busted and smoking, while her hammer looked mangled. She was vulnerable. Nothing about how the crows acted in this fight made sense.

Shiv didn’t have time to think on that much longer, he started draining the vitality of the crow.

This one let out a ragged cry, interrupting the two others as they paused what they were doing. One was ripping their blade out of a surviving Arrow Family Guard’s neck while the other was busy battering a large automaton Pathbearer into scrap.

The crow that Shiv was draining let out a shout and swatted at the space he occupied. That didn’t do anything as the strikes just passed through him. The other two stared at him as if he was insane. Then there was a sudden flash, and one of their heads peeled apart in neat slices. Their life force promptly started fading fast.

Behind the body stood Georges with two bloody kitchen knives. Shiv gawked as his victim fell to one knee. This one had substantially less warmth compared to the raven-helmed stranger. Maybe they were only an Advanced-Tier Pathbearer at most. The only other survivor was brighter as well, and they went after Georges immediately.

Shiv cursed and tried to drain his victim faster, but his skill limited his speed. Still, his shadow began to form, and Georges was no fool—the chef retreated down the mess of rubble and bodies again as the crow went after him.

Four second later, Shiv hatched out from his cocoon, standing over a downed crow. “Wait…” she wheezed. Shiv didn’t listen. He stomped down as hard as he could on her neck. It took him three tries to finally break it.

After that, he picked up the obsidian shortsword she was using and crawled over the detritus as sounds of battle were rejoined around him.

Shiv crawled over the hill just in time to see Georges and three other survivors trying to fend off the final crow. Isabella lay somewhere by the side, clutching her arm. Behind them were bulk of the other survivors. Non combat Pathbearers, children, families…

The already damaged automaton Pathbearer  died valiantly—throwing themselves in the way of a mortal thrust meant for Georges. Sparks burst out from the mechanical lifeform’s chest as their core was extinguished. Shiv cursed as he jumped. He drove his blade into the back of the crow. It was like trying to stab through a mountain. The obsidian blade bit through some armor but stopped dead and slipped from Shiv’s fingers—he didn’t have the Physicality to pierce someone beyond Advanced Tier.

He did, however, distract them. Just long enough for the final guard and Georges to stab him. Not enough for them to kill the felling bastard, though. Or stop them from cutting Shiv in half as a counterattack.

In Shiv’s defense he tried reacting—shifting his guard to block the cut. He was just far too slow. By the time he realized what happened, he was looking at his lower body next to his head, and realized he was half the man he used to be.

“Broken Felling Moon,” Shiv grumbled. He glared up at the crow who was now back to fighting the others. Shiv spat blood and proceeded to use the blade on someone he could reliably murder with it—himself.

As drove the tip through his skull, Shiv perished immediately and reached out to drain the last crow.

Toughness > 24

Physicality > 23

Reflexes > 19

Skill Gained: Parry (Advanced) > 1

Shiv felt a thrill go through him as his skills surged in growth. He never managed to advance the same skill more than once over a single day, let alone several. But here he was doing it in the span of minutes. All he had to do was die. Which… was admittedly unpleasant. Still, he didn’t stay dead, and he even got a new skill out of all that.

Parry. That was going to be useful.

Shiv’s shadow began to reform as the last crow spawned and shook while fighting the two survivors. This one held almost three times the life force compared to the last crow Shiv drained. He guessed they still might be a high Advanced or something. Seeing how he could barely perceive some of their attacks, he guessed he was right.

It also meant he couldn’t drain the crow as fast—but he was still draining them of their vitality, and that affected them badly. Their body shook with every strike, and it seemed like they were in extreme pain with how they twitched and jerked. They didn’t cry out, though, which creeped Shiv out. The last Arrow Family Guard drove his greatsword into the crow’s chest as their twitching arm failed a parry. The blow went deep–but failed to penetrate. The crow seized the blade and channeled a jet of acid out from their palm.

The guard screamed as the corrosive fluid burned a hole through their skull, and they went toppling back, wailing and choking all the while.

Shiv was glad he was in his Revenant state during that moment, because if he was still alive, he would have likely thrown up.

As the crow turned on Georges, Shiv hatched out from his shadowy cocoon and did what he planned to do against the raven earlier: He ducked down and ripped the legs out from under the crow. To his rising hopes, the crow fell over on their chest, and Georges dove on them, stabbing and dicing like the assassin was some kind of vegetable. The kitchen knives chipped and shattered, but the assassin’s garb split apart as blood flowed and the white of bones shone in the twilight of the eclipse.

In the aftermath, as the crow stopped twitching, both Georges and Shiv worked to catch their breath. “Well. That was some nice cutting, chef.” Shiv chuckled. “You got him between the spinal column pretty good.”

“Yes, well.” Georges paused, looked up at Shiv, looked nearby where “another” Shiv lay there, cut in half. The Deathless smirked weakly.

“Yeah, the curse is gone too,” Shiv said.

It took Georges a moment to process what Shiv said, then he narrowed his eyes at Shiv. A spark seemed to go off inside the older man’s eyes. “Deathless?”

“I—” Shiv started, but found Georges gripping him by the arms, looking him up and down.

“And it’s really you? Still you?”

“Seems so,” Shiv said. “There’s no interruption between me being alive and dead. It feels continuous.”

“Bloody, hell, Shiv. What the hell did they do to you?”

Shiv knew who Georges was talking about. His parents. The ritual. This must have been part of it. And at that, he realized that Roland Arrow probably wasn’t going to take this very well.

A thunderous impact shook the world, and Adam cried out with effort and pain. Both Shiv and Georges looked over the mound of rubble they were hiding behind. There were bodies everywhere. A good few of them Shiv’s. The only ones still alive were the non-combatants, Georges, and Isabella. And they needed to get away now.

“Georges, you need to get out of here,” Shiv said. “Get the others and go. Run as fast as you can. Adam and I will deal with the last one. Stall him until the Town Lord returns, at least.” At the mention of Adam’s name, a crack sounded, and the Young Lord started screaming. Shiv’s lip twitched. “I really should get back to him.” But he could wait a moment. Adam had the Toughness.

And Shiv still didn’t like him that much.

Just then, the Deathless paused and regarded Isabella. She lay there, clutching her wounded arm but… She looked decidedly uninjured otherwise. Sure, her armor was badly dented, and her hammer was smoking, but she could still stand. Pathbearers had far more pain tolerance than a mere mortal. She also didn’t seem to be that worried about her love, either.

Or maybe it was an arranged marriage. Shiv didn’t know or care. But it was strange that she was so hurt that she didn’t notice Adam fighting for his life. Especially when she called out for him earlier.

Another heavy impact, followed by relative silence. Not good. They didn’t have any more time. “Georges. Go.”

“Lad,” Georges said, his expression twisting into a look of discomfort.

“The non-combatants need someone to get them out. This might clear your indenturement. Go. Please. I can’t die, don’t worry about me.”

Georges pointed at Shiv’s corpse. “You’re laying felling dead right there in two parts.”

“I can’t stay dead—it doesn’t matter, just go! Now!”

The head chef struggled for a moment, swallowed, and held out his only intact kitchen knife to Shiv. “Georges… I don’t have the Physicality.”

“It’ll cut. Trust me.”

Shiv accepted the weapon, and immediately, he felt a weight settle into his hand and being. A weight that felt like the curiass he wore earlier.

The knife looked plain at a glance, but it felt light in his hand, and its edge held an unnatural gleam that was almost pale—like a fragment of the broken moon. The chipped parts were also slowly filling in, to Shiv’s surprise. Was the weapon fixing itself?

Equipment Obtained: [Halspur’s Perfect-Edged Chef’s Knife]

Tier: Adept

Condition: Severely Damaged

Composition: Moonsteel

Enchantments > Binding; Self-Sharpening; Self-Mending

Equip item to right hand?

[Halspur’s Perfect-Edged Chef’s Knife bound as chestpiece]

“Georges, this…”

“I was going to give it to you when you got a Path from me. But think the situation is close enough right now.”

Shiv looked at his mentor and smiled. “Yeah. Go. I’ll find you at Swan-Eating Toad after this.”

“You better. You die and I will fire your bloody ass. I’ll take it out on Seymour too.”

And that was all the incentive Shiv needed. As Georges helped Isabella up and started cursing at the cowering non-combatants to start running, Shiv clutched his new knife and climbed above the rubble. As he reached the top, Shiv’s breath caught as he found the environment completely changed. Most of Starhawk’s Perch was little more than ruins now. There were hundreds of craters everywhere, like the place had been bombed by magical artillery. More columns of smoke rose with screams in the distance. And right before Shiv was Adam Arrow, crawling toward the mound with a single functioning arm.

The Young Lord’s armor was still intact, albeit a little cracked in certain places. It seemed more like crystal than metal. It was also slowly mending itself, like Shiv’s knife. This didn’t stop the raven from badly twisting the Young Lord’s joints. The masked assassin stood just a few meters away, and he looked at Shiv with body language that radiated disgust.

The raven ink-black coat was mostly burned away, revealing midnight black leather armor beneath. They held two new blades Shiv didn’t remember seeing before, and one resembled a literal lightning bolt more than a solid blade. There was also the way the raven favored one leg—a slight limp to their gait.

Seemed like Adam did some damage after all. Or Shiv. The Deathless marked this as a collaborative effort.

“You… I’m so tired of butchering you…”

“Well, I’m not tired of dying yet, so get your swords ready because I want some more Toughness.”

The raven-helmed stranger just sighed. “What are you even talking about?”

A cough sounded from below Shiv. The Deathless looked down as the Young Lord looked up.

“You’re alive again,” Adam choked. “Great.”

“You don’t sound so happy.”

“Your plan was… terrible…” Adam managed.

“Well, who’s fault is that? I told you I was going to kill myself—and then did. You were supposed to fight this guy off. I had three people to deal with. Don’t they teach you how to fight at your fancy academy.”

Adam clenched his working fist. “You’re a tainted bastard, Tanner Lowe.”

“It’s Shiv,” the Deathless snorted. “No one calls me Tanner Lowe. No one.” Shiv let out a breath and shook his head. “Well. Suppose I’ll go finish what you couldn’t. With this… chef’s knife.”

Shiv was going to die. This was going to hurt. But he was probably going to get some skill levels from this. He was looking forward to it, all things considered.

“Alright,” the raven muttered. They took a step, and suddenly, they were in front of Shiv—and had him by the neck again. “Time to bag two problems for the price of—”

Shiv wasn’t expecting much when he dragged his new knife down along the raven’s arm. He certainly wasn’t expect the blade to actually slice through the leather and sink into flesh. The raven wasn’t either, for that matter. “Ow! You—”

Blood gushed out. Shiv watched as the raven dropped their blade, clenched their gored arm, and snarled. “Vermin! Tainted little—”

“Come on!” Shiv said, barring his teeth, preparing himself for death. The swords were going to hurt, but he could take it. He could take anything.

But the raven didn’t stab him. Instead, he reared his arm back, still cursing, still outraged, and he threw Shiv. The air around the Deathless rippled as his limbs jerked violently. His arms and legs went the wrong way, and the sheer pain made Shiv black out momentarily. When he returned to himself, he found himself still sailing through the air, well over a few hundred meters away. His arms flopped uselessly, but the kitchen knife tumbled after his ruined right arm—bound as it was.

In the distance, Shiv saw the raven look down at Adam as a spatial distortion expanded from the assassin and spirited both of them away. A second later, a few golden arrows arced over the ruins of the castle as Roland’s presence finally returned.

Too late to do anything.

By this point, Shiv started to fall, and as he looked behind, he briefly forgot he could die, and he panicked, but quickly calmed. Then, he noticed he was heading down toward the abyss, and his panic returned as a weary resignation. “Well. This isn’t good.”