II-85 Firewalker

Soldiers, above all others, pray for peace. Because they bear the brunt of violence. They bear the scars of war.

That’s how I knew the boy wasn’t a soldier when I saw. Him. He was scarred. Violence marked him. Marked him deep. But he wanted more. He wanted to cut and bleed the world back. And he couldn’t get enough. I saw it in his eyes, his actions. The killing fed him like nothing else.

It was the most goddamn beautiful thing I’ve ever seen

-Douglas MacArthur, Circle of Wrath

II-85

Firewalker

Aspect Advancements Available [0]

System Updating…

Refining Source

>>>Source Refined: [700/700] Lumens

Source Core Ascended > Lv. 32

>[18/100] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension
>>[1/30] Core Ascensions to [Gate] 3 System Ascension

>>>Source: [800/800] Lumens

Authority Advanced > 105

Relativity Advanced > 127

Enlightenment > 57

Omniscience > 60

Fortification > 71

New Selectable Masteries

Ambushing Spearstriders (Rare) > Intercepting Spearstriders (Rare) = Grants the Shell to perform [Echo Dashes] based on their (Relativity). Allows the Shell to [Echo Dash] through enemy attacks with perfect timing. Causes targets dashed through to sustain an impact based on the Shell’s (Authority) as well.

>>Generate Upgrade in Core

>>Mastery Node 

>>Corresponding Experiences (100%)

Class Level > Lv. 90

Wei steeled himself as he beheld the wasteland that awaited him. The trenches ran long—longer than even his Omniscience could reach. For though his perception crawled for kilometers, the deep recesses carved into the land turned wide and extended far—far beyond even the protections provided by the fluid force field above.

Past the barrier that guarded him from the falling shards of flame, of lightning, of countless other destructive expressions, a dense swamp of bodies lay entangled in the no man’s land. Wei could feel the unnaturalness in the no man’s land. A Skill was active there as well. A Skill that wouldn’t allow one to die so easily. Screams rose beyond the falling blasts. Flashes of light lit a forest of enshadowed limbs and twisting bodies fused together, forming a nightmarish jungle beneath the light.

Trepidation filled Wei’s heart. Firestorm after firestorm erupted, crashing against the thin barrier that prevented him from facing destruction head-on. But face it, he must, for if he waited, his fate would be decided by the Duke, and this entire ruse would be all for naught.

“Are we going out there?” the boy asked him. Wei turned and gazed upon the slave—the first he had freed. His eyes were blue, wide. Two trails of tears ran down his grind-caked face, yet there was a new resolve in the way he held himself, in the clenching of his jaw, and in how tightly he clutched that demon’s axe.

“Yes,” Wei said, trying to keep his own nerves steady. “It will be unpleasant.” 

The boy blinked. “How will we even survive? I can barely see. I can barely see the ground. It’s all just fire and death. And are those… are those bodies?” 

Wei, however, could see clearer than the boy. His Omniscience was beyond sight—a sense upon senses, a modeling of the world. And there, he felt what awaited him. More than the falling skills that pounded and smote the land, there were screaming bodies, demons and sinners: too high of constitution to die, yet too wounded and brutalized of flesh to function. Amid them wailed pleas—begs asking for death—yet no one could reach out to silence the cries. They healed faster than the flames could wound them, yet the flames wounded them enough to leave them lying there.

Somewhere between that mess—between the jumbled limbs and the incinerated bodies—gore, grime, and mud melded together, creating a sort of soup, a swamp of death that Wei had to walk across. A swamp bundled and bound by a dense foliage made from barbed wire and dormant Skills, waiting for someone to approach. The young master found this most disquieting of all. The falling skills were one thing; to fail there would simply mean sudden destruction. Treading upon those who were already savaged seemed an unsightly thing to do. For a moment, he imagined himself among them, pulled down into the muck among the dead forever. And was that fate any different than what awaited most in the hound’s embrace? 

That was when his Shell manifested beside him, staring off into the no-man’s land beyond the blinding fires.

“No more hesitating. No more waiting. Face the future. Seal your own fate. Do not leave such a thing to any other.” The young master exhaled a final time and then began striding forward. Murmurs broke out among the slaves, but the boy—the first slave he had saved—ran after him without any hesitation. He seemed more faithful in a way than the young master was himself. It was an uncomfortable feeling, though there was also a sense of flattery that came with it.

As he came to the borders of the protective boundary, he found circulating ciphers dancing across the surface. It seemed that these shields were modulated, further modified by someone who knew the platonic arts. He followed the essence that flowed through it and found it running along the trench lines, as if the trenches themselves were geographic glyphs—circuits to a greater pattern. They also functioned as if they were rivers, allowing the Essence to flow across and manifest in critical areas. 

Wei cast his focus a kilometer westward, and found patches where the shielding had been broken through. It seemed that panels had been shattered in certain areas, allowing artillery to fall inward to boil and burn the exposed trenches. Even now, he could see the shape of the force field protecting him warp and twist underneath the strain.

He didn’t know how much longer it would last, and as another beam of immense power arced over the land—sounding a good four kilometers behind him and impacting where the Duke might have been—the young master knew that time was no longer on his side, as a column of flame rose high into the air. 

“Stay close to me,” he said, and with that, he immediately slipped beyond the protective field, pushing through its dense layer of essence before unleashing a skill of his own. His Lance of Calamity shot ahead, carving a groove of unraveling destruction into all there was. His celestial fire was more than just a flame, more than just something to break things—it was an unmaking, a deconstruction of all that was.

At once, waves of heat and billowing force ceased to be around Wei as a channel opened up before him, his lance creating an opening, a pathway—a moment to breathe. Then he brought his scythe up and began to swing, carving and cleaving, striking at distance itself. But he wasn’t striking distance for himself; rather, he aimed his cuts above, slicing patches of space between the falling skills. At once, two artillery shells collided, cascading into blossoming waves of fire that swept over the sky. This formed a protective curtain for Wei—a field of destruction that intercepted more falling artillery, more descending skills. 

“Stay close!” Wei cried out again. Yet, it didn’t matter.

Several of the slaves heeded his warning, huddling around him and gathering close to the boy. While some others broke—their morale and spirit shattering—they didn’t make it far. They stumbled away from the young master, into the smoke and haze, tripping over lashing limbs and writhing bodies. They tumbled into the muck, and a few seconds later, were pulled underneath, just as Wei had feared would happen to them. Yet he could spare them no pity. They knew this. They had chosen to follow him. To die now was their own decision. And deep in his heart, he knew it was better to perish as someone striving for freedom than to die beneath the heel of a tyrant as a slave.

He pushed on, striking and breaking things, shattering weaker Skills to obtain shards while devastating space itself to give himself breathing room. Step by step, he began to cross the wasteland until he finally arrived where his lance dissolved—a patch of land that lay empty before finally giving way to his advance. Now, writhing bodies were filling up again, reaching out for him, screaming for him, as ashes swirled about his being and his class’s Essence became completely drained. 

Yet the young master was not done.

“Muster yourselves,” Way called out to his slaves. “I feel you. I feel your Essence. You are all classed. Sinners too. I can’t offer your tears, but use what you have. Clear the bodies. Clear the wires. I shall break the hidden Skills that litter the ground. I will guard against the skies.” His scythe became a blur, his speed driven faster and faster as it merged with his Shell. He burned his paltry source—already taxed by using the anchor—and materialized his Chassis. Time slowed to a trickle. You could see the falling skills in detail now, each pulsing with destruction and that fetid stench of wrath. Black and ashen fire trembled within each of them.

Yet Wei struck, his blades falling faster, his reaping of Source keeping him alive as he barely held off the amounts he burned with every stroke. He broke skills now, shattering them outright rather than distorting their distance. He played a dangerous game, always dancing on the threshold of burnout and triumph, his slashes holding his dissolution at bay. Shards flooded his system, growing by the dozen as he shattered immense skills.

And even so, the slaves heeded his warning. Some channeled beams of fire from their hands; others simply began cutting and cleaving through the bodies in front of them in raw displays of brute force. Through it all, Wei could hear his father telling him to continue onward, giving him directions. Somehow, William could still see. And then there was that purple glow—the pulsating feeling of psionic essence pouring out from him. 

Bishop was here as well. A wave of telekinetic force tore the mangled groves of bodies apart, flinging them aside like invisible machetes hacking down trees.

Step by step, Wei strained himself—his source dipping, his shards growing, his focus narrowing. He could hear people talking to him; he vaguely found himself aware of the direction he needed to go, of his path. But there was only the sky, filled with ruin, and him holding it back, defying the heavens. That, that was all that mattered. One step. One hundred slashes. A broken skill. Another step. Bit by bit, he advanced forward.

With every meter traveled, he spited the hound, he spited death, he spited the fates. And he lived. In the place that no demon nor sinner should have walked, Wei lived. He knew not how long he spent in that place or how far he traveled. The presence of the Duke weighed upon him like an ever-oppressive pressure, but with every step, it lessened. With every step, he grew more accustomed to the falling skills, to dancing on the borderline between burning his own heart-blood and draining power from what he reaped from his foes.

Young Master simply stopped being himself and entered a trance where he was the scythe and the scythe was him. And so, for a few minutes, a few hours, or an eternity, he cut and struck. He performed this dance as if stuck in limbo forever. And in that moment, Wei found himself happy, content—until a voice jolted him from his reverie.

“Wei! Wei!” Bishop shouted in his mind. “You’re coming up on the trenches. Wrath is waiting for you. I sent word ahead. Do not kill them. I repeat, do not kill the first person you see. There should be a series of projectiles going up into the air. Tell me if you see the tracers.”

Wei was about to ask what a tracer was when he heard a horrible symphony of rattling pops. It sounded like an explosion. Distantly, he smelled a strange smoke that stung his nose and his very senses. Then he saw what seemed to be a stream of zipping rounds shooting high into the air. Using his omniscience, he sorted them from the falling fireballs and descending columns of metal. “I think I see them,” Wei said. “They were about a kilometer away.”

With that, Wei called out to his slaves. He found them forming a perimeter, cutting a semicircular line as they cleared out the surrounding bodies. It was remarkable that he didn’t need to order them until he saw that the boy was organizing the ranks. Interesting. Useful. It seemed the sect was bound to grow larger. He would need to learn the child’s name if they survived this.

“Push!” He called, pointing his glaive ahead, even as he shattering the air above him. A beam of acid zipped a good hundred meters to his left, splashing down and burning a wound deep into the ground. Only half the slaves were with Wei now. The others… he thought nothing of the others. The heavens were blind, and they were in the embrace of hell. Not all who walk the path will reach its end. “Push! We are almost there.”

His fingers tightened around Eidolon and scythe. He felt his own body growing faint, the Source holding his being together dimming rapidly. Just a few more minutes and he would be free. But just a few more might see him unmade outright.

“You are not done,” his Shell declared. “Keep moving. Do not stop. Never stop.”

Wei stepped. And he stepped again. Ahead, the slaves carved and burned, cleaning the field as he slashed through slumbering mines and other hidden Skills. Source flooded him and was spent by his chassis. Essence was used and used again as he healed the slaves of their wounds, as he added his celestial flame to their effort.

Where this began a solitary walk on his part, they were now together a building whole. The ones that remained knew their role, fought for their lives, and Wei’s life as well at that. And the young master heard something resounding from deep inside him. It was the scream of a woman on the cusp of offering new life. It was the voice of a promise he was set to fulfill—and of the Collectress’s fate being sealed.

Just then, the path ahead broke into a clearing, and Wei found himself arriving just behind the slaves, starring at a rounded wall of risen battlements. They were molded with obsidian and magma.Volcanic veins crept along the pitch black structure, and massive fangs and blinking eyes lined the surface in patches of horrific biomass. Yet, it was the people within the structures that We noticed first. He saw them pointing their strange cannons at him, the barrels hot and infused with strange hellish energy. Towers above pulsated with oscillating Essence, channeling a rippling aura that washed over Wei, that fed his rage and amplified every ache he felt.

And then came a crackling broadcast. A call from afar. “Hold your scythe high if you’re with the Trespassers. You have twelve seconds to perform this action before we cut you and yours in half with the combined firepower of a thousand gun emplacements!”

The voice was deep and resonant, and several hundred more slots opened along the walls, revealing more of those strange cannons.

“Do it!” Bishop said, sounding distracted and strained.

Slowly, Wei held up his scythe. And then, suddenly, a new force field extended over Wei, pushing the bodies behind him back just in time. Another wave of falling Skills slammed down against the veiling. The world around him was embraced by flame. But it was flame that no longer touched Wei, that was beyond him.

And at that, the young master released his chassis. And nearly collapsed. But he caught himself. On shaking legs and a planted glaive he caught himself. And he began to stride. Step by step toward the lines of Wrath, toward the completion of his task. “Open your gates!” Wei called. “Open your gates and let us through. I demand to see your master!”

Again, the voice replied, offering a low chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry. We’re going to be talking in person soon enough, son.”

Achievement Earned

>Firewalker: Increases resistance to area of effect Skills by 20%.