Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Twenty One – 821

Atar tumbled across the deck as the skiff banked hard to port, smashing his leg hard against one of those rope spool things. He fetched up hard against the far side, gut pressed into the half-wall.

keep holding on, fool!

“I’m…trying!” Atar dug his gray fingers into the wood. It caved slightly beneath his Strength. He wasn’t a frontline fighter by any means, but enough Tempers would make anyone hardy enough. “Stop giving me orders!”

then let me loose!

Atar didn’t even bother responding to that. “Elowen! Keep this wreck still!”

“Impossible!” The Theron was a glowing beacon in the storm of dark Essence that roiled across the decks. Her gleaming purple and gold Core Manifestation flipped through its pages every time she adjusted the helm. “Your friend is shifting his Intent every few seconds! It’s all I can do to avoid it!”

They had descended into the cyclone of power that Felix had summoned around himself, until his scaled back was less than two hundred strides below. Clouds of smoke swirled inward, pulled unceasingly toward its open maw, and avoiding its incredible pull was pulling their ship apart the closer they drew to its midnight bulk. Here and there, crumbling structures tumbled across the sky with a deceptive weightlessness. Cut stone, twisted metal, and broken wood careened past them, each pass nearly tearing through their sails or hull itself. Only Elowen’s preternatural skill kept them aloft, as each turn of the helm’s wheel set them on an unerring course through the chaos.

Her Tome of the Witness pulsed like a sprinter’s heartbeat.

Atar stumbled across the deck as the skiff leveled out once again and gasped as a chunk of Tower grazed the forward sail before collapsing into smoke. “How in damnation did you lose to Felix before?”

“The prow!” Alister shouted from up ahead. His blue Mana flashed among their passengers, protecting them from a shower of splintered stone that hit the deck like hail. “Elowen!”

The long bowsprit sizzled away, its wooden turning to smoke before igniting with streaks of bright Mana. Elowen adjusted the wheel once more, and the dissolution stopped—but not before a full stride of it was pulled apart.

“We must get closer,” Zara said. She stood next to the Theron, her sea green hair a pop of color atop her stolen white robes. “I cannot reach his Mind from here!”

“I am trying,” Elowen shouted. “Grandmaster Tern! Can you steady us?”

The old Elf didn’t answer, and Atar lurched toward the starboard rail where the man had strapped himself tight. “We have new concerns!” Tern said, pointing below. “It seems we are not the only ones that wish to reach Mister Nevarre!”

Spread out a hundred strides below, just at the edges of the storm of Mana and Essence, were nearly a hundred flying ships. Sails of crimson, yellow, blue, and brown clustered together in a motley rainbow, filled to the brim with figures in corresponding battlerobes.

Atar cursed. “The Towers are uniting against him!”

Mana surged, gathering upon those decks in great swathes…before firing at the beast.

Spells thundered into Felix’s strange flesh, exploding and freezing and slicing. Air burst, scattering the clouds as rain condensed into slashing razors. Power released on a scale Atar hadn’t seen before, as Journeymen, Adepts, and Masters unleashed their Skills against the beast devouring their city.

we must leave, atar! let the mages deal with the Cardinal!

You’ve said that before. What is that?

something that shouldn’t exist.

Stop being cryptic! What is happening to Felix?

i don’t know. But that thing he’s become? It is primal and untamed! can’t you feel it?

Atar shuddered. That naked Intent rode the air, invisible save for where it broke apart the world around it. The sensation was like the hot breath of a monster on his neck, and he had to fight down the panic that welled up from the Urge inside him.

The beast roared, and the magic vanished, pulled into its wide, toothy maw with a single breath. It lifted a huge claw, purple-black scales shining in the sun, and swung a single time.

Shields flared, force and earth and ice forming all at once, but they did nothing to stop the devastation. The beast’s claws tore through shield and ship with equal ease, splintering enchantments by the hundreds before plowing ranks of vulnerable mages.

Hundreds died in an instant.

“Now, while he’s distracted!” Zara thrust her hand forward, her magic blasting away an entire roof from their path. “Atar! Tern! Provide support! Elowen—Dive!”

i refuse! flee, you fools!

Spells from the Tower mages blasted outward, falling upon the beast like stars, and Elowen wove between them with an agility Atar couldn’t believe. They shot downward, wind howling in his ears, until Atar could count the individual scales upon Felix’s malformed back.

“Gird your loins, Flame.” Atar put a foot up onto the railing, letting white fire spill across his hands as the skiff tipped forward into the cyclonic swirl. “It is time to pay our debts.”

Pyreform Undying!

fine! we shall burn it all!

Ephemeral Evocation is level 50!

…

Ephemeral Evocation is level 85!

Journeyman Tier!

You Gain:

+20 AFI

+30 FEL

+30 RES

Adept Tier!

You Gain:

+55 AFI

+75 FEL

+75 RES

Power rippled through Felix as the Beast’s maw resolved into a smokier shadow. The restraints against him failed and he nearly collapsed, but strengthened his spine just in time.

He refused to fall.

Congratulations!

You Have Absorbed The Essence Of [Scale]!

Essence, Mana, and significance poured into him from the dark. It howled against his channels, an acrid potency that tore him apart even as it stitched him back together. Power flowed into his Void Sanctuary, turning it faster by the moment even as it expanded with newfound music. A sensation of growth and destruction echoed across the Skill, crashing like walls of Fiendstone against the earth. An overwhelming desire to check it rose within him, but he didn’t have the time now.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

With some effort, Felix focused beyond the sensation, fixing his gaze upon the Beast’s own as it watched him from the deeper dark.

“I see you,” he growled.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

The Feature settled into him with a final chime, like an iron file against crystal, and he saw more than the Beast.

He saw beyond the veil.

As his makeshift window had done before, his gaze alone parted the black around him, and Felix was suddenly plunged into a war. Magic hurtled from the sky, exploding against a vast, sweeping Intent that ate each projectile. Ships manuevered, desperately evading the lightning-fast claws of the Beast.

Many were not fast enough.

Mages of the Towers are attacking me. Idiots! They were going to die, unless they had something far stronger than Felix up their sleeves.

“Get away!” he tried yelling, but he knew his voice could not penetrate the midnight hide he was locked within. “Beast! Let me go!”

You Are Not Complete.

A flash of movement caught Felix’s attention. A skiff shot overhead, and a figure made of charred bones leaped from its deck, their limbs trailing streamers of white fire. A woman with sea green hair followed, lifted atop a conjured wave.

I Will Remove Your Distractions.

“No!” Felix bellowed, but it was too late. Titanic claws swung at the skiff and his friends…just as his vision failed him.

Emperor’s Vigilance is level 125!

…

Emperor’s Vigilance is level 132!

Grandmaster Tier!

You Gain:

+400 PER

+300 AFI

+...

No matter his rage, the black consumed him.

Divine Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Compounded Fear]

ERROR!

Essence Has Been Altered!

Do You Wish To Restore Its True Nature?

Y/N

Fuck you!

Unite the Lost burned, and Felix stuffed all the significance he could into the Skill. Rotted layers of stained enamel fell from the Essence, until it gleamed with new facets. A gemstone the size of his head, it flared with unalloyed radiance.

Divinity Has Been Shed!

True Nature Restored!

Primordial Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Undaunted Sight]

Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!

Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!

Primordial Nature Resonates With [Essence of Undaunted Sight]!

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence of Undaunted Sight]!

Calculating Effects…

Choose A Feature:

Vision - Perceive The Truth

Verdict - Speak The Truth

Valor - Fight For Truth

By the time he swiped away the System notifications, Felix already stood in another place.

Clouds swirled past him deceptively slow, and the sky was lit up by a wash of reds, oranges, and pinks as the sun set over a distant horizon. He was on the deck of a Manaship, though it wasn’t like any he’d seen before. Smooth, almost organic looking structures surrounded him, forming railings and masts and sloping walls set with inscribed doors. Sigaldry was everywhere, though little of it was on the surface. Aside from the floating lanterns that were only just turning on, there was a hum of power that threaded through the seamless deck in patterns that Felix found familiar.

Vision - Perceive The Truth, something said, and this time it brought a flash of pain. Felix jerked forward and spun.

There was nothing there, yet when he put his hand to the back of his neck he found blood.

Great, it’s getting creepier. He shook himself. Focus. You need to finish Tempering and then you can get out of here.

Around him was an entire fleet of Manaships, perhaps five hundred or more, each packed with magi. Theron, Geists, Sylphaen, Naiads and even Nixies filled the decks, their robes snapping in the rising breeze. Nym too, of course. There were more of them than any other, and they glowed with mantles of power that were steps beyond what the others possessed.

Will Unyielding. Soul of Fire, he thought. Born to be magi.

Between the ships, serpentine Dragons and varied Chimera flew. Each of them bore a rider, a lance or incredibly long spear braced against their saddles, and the banners of long dead Houses streamed from poles at their backs.

The ships were flying over some nameless stretch of land he didn’t recognize from any of his journeys. He looked up, studying the stars. He’d learned a bit of navigating during his time on the Continent, but nothing above him looked familiar.

Am I in a different hemisphere? Or have the stars changed? Felix took a calming breath. How many thousands of years have passed since this happened?

A shout went up among the fleet, and suddenly the magi were pointing toward the setting sun. There, hidden among the blinding light, three moons rose.

From them, a black cloud emerged.

Those are monsters, he realized. They galloped across the sky as if it were a flat plain, their malformed Bodies covered in pale strips of flesh, silver cords, and gleaming metallic blue armor. Hundreds of thousands of monsters.

Spells unfurled across his ship, as each magus readied their power. Felix shifted from foot to foot, unsure if he should join in—when he spotted the three figures at the head of the horde.

Two Minotaurs, their heavily muscled Bodies gleaming with metallic blue armor…and a Sylphaen forged from pale flesh and grasping claws.

Vessels of Siva…and the Twins.

Felix wasn’t sure how he knew the latter, but it was as certain in his Mind as the former. He flexed his claws, eager to face them both again. Siva was a ghost of her former self, likely due to him having defeated her so many times, but the Twin Minotaurs were solid and formidable.

A great barrage erupted from the fleet, all at once, and Felix threw his hands up over his face. The kickback nearly sent him to his knees as the Manaships unloaded a salvo of firepower, and the sheer heat from it bit at his skin. Thousands of monstrosities fell from the sky, melted and sliced apart, turning to black smoke before they ever hit the distant earth—yet it was less than a dent in the horde’s strength.

They charged onward, and the magi rose to meet them.

Spells flung, as varied as they were spectacular to witness. Cages of living earth ensnared hundreds, while black tar boiled flesh from bone, and chains of ice punched through hearts and skulls with unerring accuracy. Dragons and Chimera fell among them in waves, trampling the beasts with magic and pure brawn.

Disgusting Creatures, one of the Minotaurs said, before slashing out with a metallic blue hand.

A wave of force rippled across the magi’s line, and in its wake the Nym and their allies were sliced apart. Blood burst from perfectly sharp wounds as pieces of Chimera and their riders fell out of the sky, dead before they knew what hit them.

Felix flexed his legs, eager to join the fray. The urge to save people, even Memories, was so strong that he shook as he stopped himself. You’re not here for that. Vision. The Feature is Vision, so look!

The Vessels mowed down the magi, cutting through Dragons and Chimera with every gesture of their vile limbs. Felix grimaced, forcing himself to watch it all. The battle was gruesome beyond belief, but his only way out was to finish Tempering. He needed to—

Felix spotted something. It was ghostly and pale, but it shifted among the horde like a serpent. For a brief, terrifying moment he thought it was the Beast again…but this was too light. Too blue. It almost looked like—

“A connection,” he said, eyes widening.

A pale blue line the size of a dozen football fields shifted in the air, stretching off the backs of the Vessels and the monster horde itself…and connecting to the three, distant moons.

Not chains. They aren’t imprisoned on their moons yet…right? Felix’s Mind whirled. So if they aren’t imprisoned, why are they so deeply connected to the moons?

Words from another Memory filtered back to him like he was hearing them for the first time. Lohar had said Vellus had died and her moon had vanished with her.

She didn’t die. She’d been imprisoned well ahead of her siblings for some reason. Felix knew that much. He licked his lips. When I killed Siva…her moon imploded. The gods and the moons are tied together.

Destroy One And You Destroy The Other.

Felix jerked back, but he couldn’t evade the dark claws that slammed him to the deck. A weight beyond mountains crushed him to the sleek boards until they buckled, the bone-white stone powdering beneath him.

A Feature Of Knowledge…At The Cost Of Awareness. White teeth bared themselves from the dark, and Felix could just make it out from his peripheral vision. Useful…But Flawed.

The claw closed around his throat, and Felix strained. Yet he couldn’t breathe, let alone move.

Try Again, Scion.

The Beast snapped his neck.