Unbound

Chapter Four Hundred And Eleven – 411

Chapter Four Hundred And Eleven – 411

With an earth-shattering crash, the Nightfall Golems landed. Their vaguely humanoid, twenty-foot tall forms were stocky and squared, and as they spread their limbs they revealed bright, glimmering blades at the ends of their stout arms.

"Do I throw them at the bone-monster too?" Beef shouted at Felix. Then yelped as the nearest Golem slammed a blade into the ground, exploding tiles in all directions. "AH!"

Felix shifted, intending to go help the kid, but Haim positioned himself between them. The High Justiciar grinned. "Have you perhaps considered not announcing your intentions?" Behind him, two more Nightfall Golems advanced, their precise, implacable movements enough to mow down handfuls of Risen at a time. Beef danced back, deflecting a blow with his hammer, but kept getting hemmed in by the other Paladins. "Do not kill the Unbound! We need him!"

Move, Felix!

Felix darted backward as a trio of thickened acid spikes dropped onto Haim's head and shoulders. They shattered, driving the impressive High Justiciar to stumble, before coating him in a gooey layer of sizzling acid. Yet the man stood swiftly and released a barrage of blinding bolts after the swooping Chimera. "Kill that monster, however! Now!"

Pit! Felix sent back, but his Companion was too busy dodging salvo after salvo of golden beams, spears, and bolts. He was far more agile than any of the Paladins, but Felix had no idea how long he could keep it up. There were so many Paladins still.

"Foul Chimera. I should not be surprised to see such a degenerate beast in your employ, Veil. Your profane Territory will be high on the list of problems the Triumvirate wishes eradicated." Haim burned with more of that golden light, and in Felix's dimmed senses the threads of connection thickened substantially as he drew on the array's power. The acid vanished, even the Mana of its making was snuffed out. "Do you know how rare it is, to have the Priests, Inquisitors, and Paladins agree on a course of action? I expect them to be marching on your wretched barrier even now."

Felix didn't believe that; there was no way he could know all that, not with him out on a mission for months. "Get a lot of communications in the middle of the desert? Last I knew, we killed all of your messenger birds in the Caleph Pass."

Haim sighed, his tone that of an aggrieved, disappointed patriarch. "Not all. How else would we know to expect your party? I said it before, but I understand that you're a simple man Mr. Veil, so I shall repeat myself. It was unwise to leave living enemies at your back."

Mana surged around Felix, and he flared Relentless Resolution, ducking below the swipe of a Nightfall Golem that had somehow snuck up on him. He did not, however, dodge the second, off-hand strike. The shimmering blade cut into and through his chest and gut, burning viciously with blinding pain.

Sovereign of Flesh!

The Skill activated, barely, stitching the worst of his wound closed at the cost of a great deal of Felix's gathered Essence. Blood slicked the ground, too much, and Felix slid across it as the Golem's hand-blade chased after him. Haim's bolt of burning light hit to his right, forcing Felix around it and into the range of a second Golem. He raised both swords, his Fang and Inheritor's Will, and directly blocked the Golem's falling chopthe Crescian Bronze and Primordial tooth held, but the ground beneath Felix's feet cratered underneath the impact.

"Impressive!" Haim shouted, before sending another flurry of radiant spears at his back.

Felix slipped free of the Golem's blade, letting it crash fully to the earth and block the bulk of Haim's attack. Then Felix spun back and around, avoiding the second Golem's follow up blow. Thankfully, the magical constructs were slower than Haim and Felix outclassed them all. However, whereas before fighting Haim had simply been a matter of avoiding the man's attacks, now he fought for survival. I can't summon my scales. If another of those swords hits me, it could kill me.

Wild Threnody!

Corrosive Strike!

Felix's shorter, hooked blade came up, deflecting the stocky arm of a Golem. The pillar of acidic Mana that imbued his weapon, however, did nothing more than splash harmlessly against its golden-limned appendage. Yet the shock of impact sent a cold flash of fire along Felix's arm and spine, splintering into a thousand fissures that drove deep into his Body. The strain he'd never healed was getting worse, and each close call and failed attack was exacerbating the problem.

Everything hurt, and his Body felt stretched thin over his bones, barely able to keep up with his stats and movements. Still, he has little choice. Felix skipped backward, an errant slash of his Fang clearing space by sending three lesser Paladins flying through the crowd. Haim walked forward calmly, still glowing, still smiling while the Nightfall Golems flanked him.

"I admit to being surprised you have not yet perished," Haim admitted. "Perhaps I should not be. You survived Kel'lyv's assault, after all. A Grandmaster. To what do you owe such remarkable fortitude?"

"I eat all my vegetables," Felix said. Sovereign of Flesh was painfully chugging away, but the Skill was less than optimal at the moment, and Felix was feeling a little lightheaded from bloodloss. "A sailor once told me spinach was vital."

"Hm, a rare herb? Worth looking into," Haim said, so completely serious that Felix couldn't believe it. "When we have finished here, perhaps your little Territory will amuse me for a while."

Felix felt a hot rage wash through his Spirit, part him and part Pit. The tenku wasn't even visible in the battle, hiding still in the thinning acid cloud cover, but he heard every word. "Finished...? Do you even know what you're doing? This thing shouldn't be set free!"

"Such a small mind, Veil. We are setting nothing free nothing but a corpse. This creature has been dead for Ages, fuel for the abominations in Ahkestria to dominate this entire Territory. Who else is responsible for the scourge of undead in the Scorched Expanse? The Holy Chosen of the Pathless has decreed that we take this fuel for ourselves, for the dark days to come."

"The Ruin," Felix said, dodging another blurring attack and another, before taking a light slash against his upper arm. He skipped back, again, keeping just ahead of the Golems. "You want a Primordial's might to fight against the Ruin!"

Haim looked at him thoughtfully. "You know entirely too much, boy. Who told you of this?"

"Oh you know," Felix gasped, rolling backward as Haim's blade of light and heat shattered tiles in a ten foot radius. He came back smoothly to his feet, Inheritor's Will up to parry. "Here and there. So you get a weapon, and remove the defenses of Ahkestria all at once."

"Not as stupid as you look," Haim said with a wide smile. The man didn't even seem winded. Divine boon or not, that light was cheating. "Drop the wall and cut the Masters and Matrons off from their power source. Easy prey. Once they're gone there is nothing between us and total control of the city, and all of its valuable resources." He tossed up a hand, signalling the advancing Golems. They stopped and soon reversed their momentum, heading back toward the golden array.

Toward Beef.

"And now you bring us the Unbound we've searched so long for, Mr. Veil." Haim's ever-present smile grew until Felix could count every tooth in his dumb face. "Truly, the Autarch is quite generous."

There was a flare of magic from the other side of the battle, where the Inscriptionists had resumed work. The cage weakened even further as gold crept along its spinning facets, thickening and multiplying like a rabid virus, cannibalizing the elegant forces of the cage for its own design. The glow around all of them brightened until it was almost blinding, and Paladin's rushed Felix from behind Haim, screaming in defiance with swords upraised.

FELIX.

Everything stopped.

Felix froze, his arm lifted in a straight jab meant for the first approaching Paladin. The Paladins themselves were locked into running positions, their bodies leaning dramatically toward his own. Mana vapor had solidified in the air, but Felix could barely see it at all; he couldn't move, not even his eyes. More terrifying than that however, was the vast...force that pressed against him. It was haggard and ancient, bloated with the passage of Ages and smelling of burning dust. It did not so much speak as it commanded the universe to stop and listen.

FELIX.

SCION OF THE UNSEEN TIDE.

SCION OF HARMONY.

Primordial? Felix asked. You're...alive?

The presence ignored his words but kept speaking, each word a punch to his psyche. Shapes danced in Felix's arrested vision, bright and writhing.

THE MADNESS MUST END.

I CANNOT CONTROL THE CURSE, BUT YOU CAN TERMINATE IT.

I AM DEAD.

LET ME REMAIN SO.

END IT ALL.

Space rippled, distorting and tearing viciously at the muscles in Felix's shoulders and back. Time resumed its march with a roar of sound and Felix's frozen fist shot forward and rapped into a Paladin's skull, hurling the man back into the distance. Others moved forward as if they hadn't noticed a single hitch, but Felix turned wide eyes onto the Primordial and its cage.

It was unraveling, supplanted by more and more of the golden array. And in the center, the Primordial itself was an undulating sea of bone, ligaments, and dusty scales. It pulsed.

Above, Pit shrieked and flung one last burst of icy magic down upon the enemy. Spikes hit and exploded, throwing back the Paladins all around Felix, but before Pit could pull back up, Haim lifted a hand.

"Pit! Run!" Felix cried, but light blossomed too fast to counter.

A barrage of light-forged lances ripped through Pit's wings, tearing them to shreds and scattering dark blood into the sky like rain. Pit bellowed in pain and fell to the earth, hitting hard enough that he took down five Paladins under his bulk.

"PIT!"

Adamant Discord!

A burst of omnidirectional force shot outward, galvanizing the connections Felix had to the floor below and the air above. Gravity, after all, had affected him his whole life. Felix pulsed his Skill, moving even faster than before as lightning trailed behind him. He raced to Pit's side, reaching him only seconds before another barrage of light lances hit them both.

Convergence!

Pit vanished into his Spirit, and Felix took every single lance instead. The ground exploded, throwing him bodily from the earth, but not before Felix could at least sort of direct his trajectory. He hit fifteen feet away, fetching right up against the Primordial's cage...but dozens of yards away from the center of the Divine array.

Beef was fighting five of the Golems and Paladins, Hallow's Risen at his side, but their numbers were dwindling and the Minotaur was covered in his own blood. Pit was alive, for now, but all of them weren't enough to end the fight. Not as we are.

"What can you hope to accomplish here, Mr. Veil?" Haim shouted over the din of battle. Nightfall Golems stomped up beside him, four of them all for Felix. "You cannot stop the will of the Divine."

Anger welled up in Felix, bright and caustic. "People keep telling me that," he said, before slapping his hand directly onto the Primordial's array.

Chthonic Tribute!

Within his core space, the abyss recoiled in horror. More clearly than ever before the thing within himhis Hungerwailed. Too Much!

No! Felix didn't have time to be surprised. You listen to me! Chthonic Tribute!

Intent and Willpower burning bright, the Skill had no choice but to activate. The Primordial's cage twisted and flexed, bucking as pieces of it stretched violently toward Felix's channels.

Chthonic Tribute!

Haim screamed something, and the earth shook, but Felix couldn't spare the attention. He shoved the blade of his Intent into the array, sawing against the steel-like cables of the array's formation. Sigils flared and flashed, spreading around Felix in fractal ripples, while from across the way threads of gold raced toward him. Oppressive, controlling heat and radiance, a potency that shined like an immutable sun, all of it speared toward Felix.

Chthonic Tribute!

He recognized it, not for its specific flavor, but its origin. It was a personal cataclysm, a judgement driven by the Will of the Divine encased in the array. By the Regalia itself.

Fuck off! Felix snarled, and thrust his Willpower against the descending judgement.

The world bloom into light all around him, and suddenly Felix was in a wild, trackless forest. Trees the size of mountains spread all around him, while leafy fronds hung so thick that the world was entirely shades of green and fecund umber. A hazy figure, bathed in golden radiance, stared at him with infinite kindness and an indomitable condemnation. It lifted a single finger, and a refutation and censure flooded out from them like a physical wall.

The Pathless. Fragment or not, it was the disapproving Will of a god.

I don't give a shit!

Title: Architect of the Rise is active!

25% Bonus To Learning All Sigaldry As Well As Creating And Maintaining Complex Arrays!

Title: Born of Will is active!

You Are Your Own Maker!

Title: Tyrant of Choice is active!

You Choose Your Own Destiny!

Title: The Call Of Defiance is active!

+25% Willpower Against The Divine!

The vague figure gasped, shock and horror tearing through it as their Wills met...and the piece of Divinity was outmatched.

"NO!" Haim howled, a sound like his soul was ripping in half.

CHTHONIC TRIBUTE!

The world pulsed, and beside him the sigaldry of the golden array and the cage holding the Primordial was torn asunder.

And then everything exploded.

The vast chamber was inundated in a roar so loud that it blew Felix's strengthened ear drums out, and he was thrown bodily across the entirety of the room. He hit the tiles hard, shattering them with every bounce and roll, until he slammed up against the crystalline wall. Dark blue fragments burst in all directions as cracks drove up from his impact point, and blood fountained from Felix's mouth. Pieces of him felt liquefied.

That..those're probably...important, he thought groggily. Sov...Sovereign of Flesh.

Precious little of the array's power had flowed into him, instead consuming one another explosively. What little Essence he had left he fed into his Sovereign of Flesh, speeding up his recovery. But it was slower than usual, and as he blinked wearily into the smoke and fire that dominated the battlefield, he could pick out too many Paladins still standing, that golden barrier of theirs only barely diminished. Haim himself was fine, crouched behind two remaining Nightfall Golems.

Hah..! Two...down, Felix thought, a bit woozily as his ears healed with a roaring pop. Seven more to go.

Behind the Justiciar the Primordial was flexing and reaching out, its bones and ligaments twisting in a sickening sort of...rebirth? It roared, making the remaining Paladins flinch backward in fear and horror.

And then its roar was answered by the tinkling shattering of more crystal high above...and the innumerable hissing screeches of hundreds of familiar foes.

"Shit," Felix said heavily. He couldn't even stand. "Fucking Dustborn Wraiths."