Wish upon the Stars chapter 542

I'd like to claim that I immediately went through my DS Mastery to  see what I got. This rank wouldn't have been a death blow since I'd  gotten Marked for Death last time, but I still had to check what new  subskills popped up, not to mention see if the ones I had upgraded. My  Path wasn't something that could be found in the game anymore, it was  unique because of the additions I'd made.

That's what I  SHOULD have done. But...I was just so giddy. Being suppressed by the  world around us was so tiring. I'd been clocking MAYBE a pound per point  of Might in terms of raw strength. Still freakishly powerful for a  normal human, but nothing like what I'd had even as an H ranker back on  Callus. As a planet of not even D-rank, my old home put almost no  pressure on Ascendants, though at the cost of limiting their  advancement.

Stratholme, meanwhile, turned F-rankers into  veritable mortals. Even at E-rank, I was at maybe a tenth of the  strength as I'd be were I completely unencumbered. That said, a tenth of  the full output of my body was a hundred pounds of lifting strength per  point of Might, of which I had nearly THREE THOUSAND. the lessening of  the pressure putting me FIRMLY back into the realm of the superhuman.

I  crowed in joy as I hit the street outside the inn at a dead sprint,  Callie speeding along at my side. The feeling of freedom, of sheer  unrestrained POWER, was intoxicating, and as we approached the walls, we  bent our knees and hurled ourselves into the air, slipping the bonds of  gravity through main force.

Of course, I wasn't a moron.  State of Grace triggered as I soared up, if only to lighten the impact  of my eventual landing, and it was the easiest thing in the world to  reach through the new and improved bond, allowing it to extend to Callie  as she joined me in the sky.

The guards below watched us  with bored expressions, and in a shocking twist, I heard Callie's voice  in my head. "I'm surprised they don't try to stop us."

My  eyes snapped to hers, and she looked surprised. I reached out  experimentally, pushing a thought through the bond with the strength of  my Sapphire soul. "Can we...talk telepathically now?" I said cautiously.  "Wait, is this a deliberate thing or are we reading each other's minds.  Because I'm definitely NOT ok with that."

As we reached  the apex of our parabolic arc out over the forest outside town, I kicked  off the air with Ripple Running, changing direction to send me drifting  down toward the trees in a spot where I could see an opening. Callie  tapped into the skill effortlessly, doing the same, and we sailed down  among the trees like leaves on the wind. "I don't think so." Her voice  rang in my mind. "I don't think this is a brain thing. I think we're  sending messages with our souls."

We hit the trees,  separating as we kicked off a branch each, shooting forward as we sped  from branch to branch, weaving through the forest in a blur, losing each  other behind the giant boughs of blue leafed giants, but never worrying  about not finding each other again.

She was right. I  could feel it. These weren't words exactly. They were a sharpening of  the empathic impressions we'd had before. A more controlled form of  communication through our souls. Whether we gained that control from our  massively improved soul power or the new rank of the Skill was anyone's  guess. As holders of souls of a Master level, we were bound to be  discovering new tricks. Whatever it was, I didn't dislike it.

I  could still feel a constant trickle of Callie's emotions across the  bond, a comforting low hum in the background of my mind like white noise  to fall asleep too. I got clearer impressions along with the words when  she spoke, though I knew from my own responses she could have shut that  off. She didn't though. Our bond was stronger than ever, and with it  came a sense of absolute trust built on living in a world where we were  each other's guiding light even in the deepest dark.

The  thought and the emotion that went with it clearly carried across,  because I felt a tide of adoration and love roll over, me, turning to  panic and shock as I missed the branch and went pinwheeling into the  brush.

I was so shocked by her fear that I didn't even  bother to kick off a Ripple Running platform, just smashed into the  leafy expanse of bushes with a crash. Callie was at my side in an  instant, worry writ large on her face, but I just brust out laughing as I  pulled myself out of the branches, picking leaves from my hair as I  straightened my jacket.

"Well." I said breathlessly.  "We're going to have to get used to that again. Bit more intense than  before. With our current soul power I doubt we'll have trouble  controlling it. We'll just need to be a bit more mindful to use a  lighter touch."

She wrapped her arms around me, resting  her head on my chest as she laughed along with me. "Yeah. Intense. Good  word for it. That was...wow.  When I focused I got your emotions way  more clearly than before. I felt you thinking about me and wanted to  know what was going on and...I think I created a feedback loop for a  second. You feeling me feeling you feeling me." She giggled almost  drunkenly. "There was so much love. It was nice."

"It was." I agreed, a stupid grin on my face. "But maybe not the safest thing to have going on around enemies."

She  sized me up. "Or shrubbery, apparently." We both burst into giggles  again at that, and I had to even out my breathing as I clamped down with  my soul. I'd been wrong about the difference not being noticeable, it  had just taken a bit to him me.

"Ok." I said, exhaling slowly. "We'll need to work on that. Good thing we have the day off. Is it me or does it feel like..."

She  nodded. "Our souls are way too strong. We should do some kind of big  Skill or something, tire them out a bit so we can feel this out  gradually. Anything come to mind?"

"Yeah, I need to check  out the details of my Path of the Doom Sovereign." I said with a shrug.  "Might as well try some of the new tricks out. What about you? Do you  have anything that'll strain your soul? Most of your tricks are part of  your ability and that doesn't carry much soul weight. Normally I'd say  do something complicated, but your shadow manipulation makes that and  active part of your ability itself, which prevents too much soul  strain."

She winked at me, and then she...SHIFTED. Dark  jagged stone coated her body, green magma striations spitting with toxic  flame covering her. I felt her tapping into my strength through the  bond, not just my Skills, but into my Path itself, through its solid  connection to my nature. She was using Belial.

For about a  second. Then it blinked out, crumbling off her as she staggered,  catching herself on the tree. "Wow." She groaned. "That was rough. I  don't think Path stuff is meant to be used through the bond. That felt  like deadlifting a small moon. My soul didn't crack or anything though,  just got really strained really fast." She blinked a few times like she  was clearing spots from her eyes. "We were right though. This feels much  less...extreme."

The soul was the basis of the self, and  while after the rank up we hadn't really felt too different, it had  quickly become clear that even the slightest flex of our soul strength  MASSIVELY overshot the mark. The bond was the most obvious place to see  it, but far from the only one. With Callie having confirmed the guess,  my next move was checking out my Doom Sovereign abilities. Holding up a  hand I let the familiar purple flames roll across my vision, this time  finally focusing on the part of my status I'd been ignoring.

DS  Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame,  Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of  Despair, Mountain Stance.

Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death, False Fatality

Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind



Goetia Staff Art: First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames
                  Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.

First  were the obvious additions. Piece of Mind and False Fatality. Both far  more useful than they sounded. Piece of Mind allowed me to fragment part  of my consciousness and create a second self basically. It allowed for  divination on the fly, but combined with the shadow clones I had stored  would essentially allow me to be do two things at once in a way that  even high Focus couldn't. Normally impossible tasks would be achievable  once I got the hang of it.

The  second, my new rogue ability, was even better. Rather than a fake death  skill, False Fatality allowed you to offload a powerful attack onto a  specified target. Specifically it worked in synergy with Marked for  Death, taking a strong hit directed at me and redirecting it to someone  with the Mark. It was a huge lifesaving trump card, even if it required  special conditions to set up.

I  excitedly explained the new abilities to Callie, possibly geeking out  slightly at seeing some of my more powerful DS skills finally starting  to come through. I didn't have a monk skill this time, but Mountain  Stance was still incredibly powerful so that was fine.

Then  I paid more attention to my unique DS abilities and how they had  changed. The ones I used most often seemed to have been altered at some  level, though some less obviously than others. State of Grace now  actively enhanced my speed when in use, Moonlit Night allowed me to  apply the stealth damage bonus to others, as well as more easily allow  them to see in the fog, and Heavy Hands went from ten percent armor  penetration passively to fifteen.

All  in all, the utility of each one had increased. It also showed that  combining my subskills allowed them to evolve along with my rank ups,  though for some reason only the ones I used often seemed to have changed  measurably. I was sure that would mean something to me later, but for  now I just wanted to try something out.

I  used Piece of Mind. In a blink, my consciousness split in two. It was a  strange sensation, I was looking at everything twice through the same  set of eyes. A sort of constant deja vu assaulted my senses, but I  ignored it. Dedication one parallel of my thoughts entirely to using  Song of the Soil, I triggered Rhythm of the Wild and staggered at the  information overload as I sensed everything within range both on and  beneath the ground.

Herbs,  plants, stones, I gained a nearly perfect understanding of the  environment around us, able to percieve both of them in a way that  shouldn't be possible without rendering me completely immobile from  information overload. Turning to Callie, I grinned. "Ok, this is  actually a strain, but you were right, that helps. I wonder though, can  you use this one?"

My  girlfriend closed her eyes, reaching through the bond to try to tap  into the new skill, and beamed at me as she was able to split her mind  like I did. "I can." She said in wonder. "It can only be used for a  single instance, but...with my shadow clones, this could let me de in  two places at once, or I could devote it to my shadow infiltration so I  can use it without having to be immobilized." She cracked her neck,  limbering up to try the new trick. "Use those senses to find us  something to fight. I want to try this out." So I did. I had to admit I was just as excited.