Chapter Three Hundred And Six – 306
"No!" the Archon screamed, raw and high. Sigils burned on its chest, within it, a fountain of liquid light. Felix was pushed back, but not for long. He strained, forcing through the deluge of sludge-like Mana. "I AM GREATER THAN YOU!"
Felix talons scratched at the center of the Archon, just barely, when the Mana around him solidified into a crystalline cage. He was suddenly rooted to the spot, while screaming Dissonance shook his Spirit. The yellow-red wrongness of it scraped at Felix, but he'd come to know it well. It was the same Dissonance that had fueled the Maw's madness, the opposite of Harmony, existing in the space between notes.
Ravenous Tithe!
His channels pulled at the crystalline lattice around him, but it didn't so much as budge. Felix bared his teeth at the Archon, who had stumbled back. The creature's huge body was twice Felix's own size, and it loomed over him as sparks and clouds of Mana vapor poured from its wounds.
"You-you see? You see?!" The Archon slammed its foot down on the tiles, shattering them, cratering the ground for twenty feet or more around them. Felix didn't budge, held in place by the solid bars of the Archon's Mana. "My power is such that I have crystallized my Mana. You, who have just barely condensed to a liquid!" That unyielding crystal flowed down and over Felix's limbs as the Archon shoved his hand forward, grasping Felix by the neck. He lifted him as easily as a man lifted a pillow. "You are nothing compared to me, Nym."
"Iugk." Felix tried to speak, but madness was in the Archon's eyes and howled through his Spirit. He would not listen, Felix knew. "am not" The Archon squeezed, his massive hands splintering his scales with excruciating slowness. "notNym. I am" Then Felix could feel it, something rising nearby, something big. It was all he could do to draw breath. "IamUnbound."
The Archon's eyes went wide just as the entire Temple was shaken to its core.
Screams came from outside, bestial ones but also the distinct hollering of Humans. My friends. The Archon twisted, looking through the exit, and the shell around him slackened. Felix took his opportunity.
Mantle of the Infinite Revolution!
A spume of cold Mana surged from his channels, blurring the world around him with icy mist for a half-second before Felix pulled it close and spun it all. It rotated at speed around his body, faster and faster, until the ice and water Mana flipped to fire and heat, and the Mantle ignited. To the Archon, he became a pillar of fire, superheating his metal body and sending a spike of surprising pain into him. The Archon howled in alarm.
Thanks, Atar. Using the Skill like that had been his idea, after all.
Ravenous Tithe!
This time, the Mana around him buckled and was half torn into Felix's channels before the Archon solidified his hold. It burned as it entered him, tearing his already worn channels into bloody shreds, but Felix didn't stop. Not until he slipped completely from the Archon's grasp, and kicked back.
Felix fetched up against a shattered wall, hard enough to break off a few tiles, and let his Mantle die away. His neck and shoulders were bruised and he had two deep gashes across his chest. Felix focused on his Sovereign of Flesh, feeding it the abundance of Essence he'd just torn from the Archon. With unsteady movement, he rose from the ground, never once looking away from the Archon's own recovering form. The golden giant stepped from the remains of his crystalline cage, pulling the majority of it back into his own core.
"Tricks," he muttered. "It's all tricks. It has to be. No more," the Archon jabbed a finger at Felix from across the chamber. "No more tricks! You cannot be Unbound! You cannot! They're forbidden to summon more!" He was panting now, and the darkness around his fiery eyes grew wider in obvious panic. "Forbidden. Becausebecause of me. Because I was..."
The Archon stopped moving. It was so complete that Felix could have mistaken him for a statue, were the creature's Spirit not gone absolutely wild. Discordant song and skewered melodies shook the Temple, until dust rained from the ceiling.
"...because I was the last. I was Unbound. Am. Am Unbound." The Archon looked at his hands in wonder, then at the Temple around them. "I remember. Pieces and shreds, but its there! The Voice!"
Some of that made sense to Felix, but he didn't care if the Archon was having a breakthrough. He dashed for the Door, hand to his Crescian Blade as he went.
Unfettered Volition!
Red lightning met his charge, but Felix countered with his own Adamant Discord. The two Skills caught up in one another, and Felix felt himself catapulted forward and into the doorjamb. He ricocheted from it, feeling a jagged snap at his collar, before he born down to the ground.
"I remember, Felix!" The Archon landed on him, a tractor trailer in the form of a giant golden golem. It leered down at him, it's chest still rent and burning with an incandescent furnace of yellow-red light. "The fog is clearing at last! I can see it, the connection we share isn't just the Nym. Isn't just the Race we'd taken. It is our very nature!" A golden gauntlet shoved at Felix's spine, pressing his broken clavicle into the unforgiving stone. The Archon laughed, and it was so unhinged it made Felix's skin crawl.
"Master! Master! We are under attack!"
The shout came from outside of Felix's vision, but it was a strong, metallic voice. More Arcids.
"Under attack?" the Archon rumbled.
"An array! They used the very force of the river to kill our beasts! To sunder the reservoirs! The pits are broken! Number 55778 is dead!"
"What? Fix them, you fools! We cannot lose them! Where is 55811?" the Archon asked, but didn't wait for a reply. "Find him and set him to course! Eradicate these pests, or I'll tear all of you back to scrap!"
"Y-yes, Master. As you say!"
Heavy clunking followed the voice, mingling with the screams and howls from down below. Where his friends were fighting for their lives. Against how many monsters? How many Arcids? He had to get free. Felix strained against the Archon's pressure, and even managed to rise a few inches before the Archon slammed him back down.
"No no, Unbound. You'll be going nowhere." Delighted, manic satisfaction was tumbling through his Spirit. "We have a Door to explore, you and I." That same crystalline Mana spread down and over him, encasing him entirely in a form-fitting cage of power. He was lifted from the ground, still utterly immobile, until he floated at the Archon's side. "Come now. Let us walk in the darkness."
Together, they stepped into bitter shadow.
All was chaos in the moonlit night. Vess flickered among the lesser beasts, slaying them en masse as they attempted to defend their master's camp. Her spear held no mercy, skewering Simians, Wretches, and even Reforged with an efficiency that she almost wished Darius could have seen. She flowed through the Seven Steps of the Dragoon, her kata executed with a grace she had once found impossible to achieve. A dance of death.
Grace is level 62!
Dragoon's Footwork is level 68!
Spear of Tribulations is level 71!
Of a sudden, the sky lit up. The sound of rushing water once again ceased, and in its place a column of blue light speared from the heavens. It was forty paces in diameter, and where it landed it crushed the land itself...and any creatures unfortunate enough to be atop it. Dozens of lesser beasts expired instantly, ground to foul muck in the wet mud and exposed bedrock. Those Reforged caught in its blow were staggered, their armor shattered, exposing cold blue skin and metal hides. But of the Arcid that dogged her, she could see no sign.
"Blighted Night," she cursed. "Not one Arcid taken down."
"That's it! The river needs time to build up momentum again!" Atar gasped from the side. Allister was panting just as hard, the both of them wrung out like dishrags. Still, dozens of monsters laid around them, dead as doornails. "Even then, it will be a paltry thing!"
The reservoirs were all sundered, at least those on this side of the river, the earth split and crushed enough to spill the muck they contained. It was flowing across her boots, even now, but Vess forced herself not to think what was in the foul water. The sigils that had ran around the reservoirs were also ruined, cracked or simply guttered out. It was a victory.
"The spearwoman! Kill her! Kill her at any cost!" a voice snarled, thick and bubbling. Similar to the last Arcid she'd faced. And it was an Arcid, of that there was little doubt. She could feel it in the air, a rotten, twisted sense of hate and fear and bloodlust co-mingled with the acrid tang of bile.
AFI +1
Elemental Eye is level 51!
There you are. She grimaced. Poison Mana. An entire Body of it. And beside it...Beside the virulently green blob advancing on her was a taller form, more graceful but equally deadly. Its Body consisted of hundreds of sharpened points, needles and long blades all angled away from its vitals. Where the Reforged and lesser beasts stalked or stomped, these two flowed at them with a deadly competency. Vess could feel it in the wind.
Evie landed beside her, a whisper even in the knee-high muck. She offered a grim smile. "Which one do you want? Goopy or the blade?"
"I shall handle the poison one," Vess said. Her silver Spears levitated back to her, torn free from the smoking corpse of a Ghostfire Simian. "Air should be...sufficient to suppress its noxious abilities. Are you fine with the other?"
"Pfah, you kiddin'? It's got blades on chains! It's practically mockin' me!" Evie's grin grew wider, more manic.
"Be careful Evie. I would not lose you."
"Right back atcha, your Grace." Evie's hand found Vess' and gave it a squeeze. "See you on the other side."
"I will head" The words turned to ash in Vess' mouth as a shape burst from the mire they had created. Vess let out a cry and sent all seven of her silver Spears streaked forward, but four were deflected by unnaturally fast limbs, and the others slipped off its muck-slickened body. It was a horrifying combination of Frost Giant and Hoarhound, an enormous, piecemeal wolf-man covered in ice and jagged metal plates. It landed among them, but Vess and Evie were already shooting in opposite directions.
"Another Archid?!" Evie shouted. "This is startin' to feel unfair!"
"Atar!" Vess yelled, ducking under the lunging swipes of the bestial Arcid. "Atar, we need your array again! Fast!" Her only response was a pained groan. "Evie!"
"On it!" The woman was already flipping through the air, slinging her chain forward at the last second to dart away from the beast's leaping slash. The heavy chain yanked her to the side, only slowed when she shifted her mass back from the chain, and threw it again. From the outside it looked strange and impossible, but Evie pulled it off with a Dexterity that made her seem a bird on the wing.
"Breaking Wheel!"
The chain dropped, spun into a tight circle, now so heavy it ripped at the air as it fell. It hit the bestial Arcid with the sound of a hundred year oak falling to the earth, and a wave of refuse liquid shot outward in a sharp spray.
"You're not supposed to catch it!" Evie shouted. "Bindings of the White Waste!"
Chains of ice froze the muck around them and attached with cruel hooks into the Arcid's legs. The beast howled into the night, a call so savage and ragged it chilled Vess' bones. Evie dropped on it, new Skills already on her lips, but Vess could not afford to join.
She spun, deflecting a hurled blade with her partisan, driving it into the mud. The Archon had thrown one of its blades, but yanked it back with chains gathered at its back. The poisonous Arcid burbled at its side.
"You test me?" Vess asked, and spun shimmering power from her channels. The winds of her mountain Temple raged, and Spear after silver Spear manifested around her. "Very well. Let us dance."
The darkness persisted for several steps before the wards responded to Felix's Inheritor's Will once again. Being at his hip was apparently good enough, if slow, and the Door recognized Felix as welcome. The Archon fiddled with a set of sigils in his metal Body, until he blazed with profane light, and he too stopped shivering from the wards. He stretched the guard along the bottom of his helmet again in a crude approximation of a grin.
Felix could only scowl, barely able to draw the breath needed to whisper.
Down they went, down a tight set of stairs that were designed for a tall man's tread. The Archon took them six at a time, carelessly progressing through the tight descending spiral.
"I must thank you again, Felix Nevarre. Unbound." He laughed, and that same manic energy danced around its edges. "I have not felt so clear in...Ages, I suspect." The Archon toyed with the broken straps of Felix's satchel. A large pair of fingers fished within, pulling out several rounded stones. Each were inscribed with sigils for lightning, force, and fire, among others. Felix let out an involuntary gasp and the Archon's laugh continued. "Baubles. More and more. What is this crude working? Is this the result of an Unbound's Skill growth? Tragic."
The Archon upended the satchel, dumping scribbled papers, bottles of ink, broken packages of rations, and a dozen more of his homemade grenades. The contents tumbled off the steps, down and down along the path, while the Archon giggled at the distraught look on Felix's face.
"You have killed my creations many times, Felix. But you cannot kill me. Not by force of arm or trick of Skill and artifice." The Archon sounded saner than ever, but Felix was certain the creature was no longer addressing him at all. "None will stand in my way, not any longer. Not even the gods."
Further they descended. Wards occasionally flashed and flared, glyphs spinning up from hidden niches and alcoves, but each time Felix's sword buzzed and they dissipated. Minutes passed before the path finally leveled out, and a new archway appeared at the top of the landing. Through it, a circular room was carved from what seemed the bedrock of the earth. The moment they crossed the threshold, magelight appeared around the chamber, illuminating an odd place. A set of stairs led down from the threshold, at least fifty of them, but there was so much to grab Felix's attention.
Above him, the dark cavern ceiling was dotted with stars. Or rather, shimmering blue motes of glowing gemstone, half of which were dun save for the light they reflected from the others. The walls were striated with horizontal strata, while atop those were carved complex figures with bestial faces and nightmare forms. These monsters were fighting against men and women in battlerobes, each wielding stars of light. At the highest spot, opposite the entrance, a wide table was depicted. On top of this table were lined the bodies of a dozen figures in flowing robes and armor. A blade, hooked and deadly, hovered above them, like an executioner's axe. Below the table, smears marred the work, obscuring much of it. Yet visible near the bottom was the carving of a stone pool...an exact replica of what lay at the very center of the chamber.
Pit quailed at the sight of it, and even Felix's waist began to buzz, like Karys was attempting to move as far away from it as he could. The pool was fifteen feet across and laid with hexagonal stones around its edge, leading to a staggered pattern that somehow reminded Felix of teeth. Within it was a thick, dark liquid and sat flat and shiny as a mirror. It looked like mud, were mud a dark green that reflected oily patterns back at them. It puzzled him, until the Archon began to descend.
Manasight is level 61!
Manasight is level 62!
Manasight is level 63!
It wasn't water at all. It was Mana, liquid Mana poured from someone's core and deposited into the pool. It seared against his senses, more powerful than even the Archon's crystallized power in spite of what the golden golem had said before.
Something disrupted the surface, something far, far too vast to be contained by such a small opening.
What the hell is in there?
"I believe this is a gateway. The darkness whispered to me of this, the Voice, it spoke of secrets the Nym hid from even him. It is dangerous, yes, that much I can feel. I can hear it." The Archon laughed, and distantly Felix thought he heard the voice of Merodach, high and haughty. It is distorted by the deep burr of the Archon, a metallic tang. "Too right. Too right," the Archon said to himself. To Felix he giggled. "What do we do with an unknown, hm?"
The Archon squeezed, and Felix felt something wrench in his chest. His collarbone ground against itself as his crystalline prison dissolve once more. Still, he couldn't breath, and something in his core space stabbed him deeper.
"We test it."
The Archon hurled Felix into the pool of dark green fluid, Mana so potent it was a short step away from a true solid, yet it parted before his body like smoke.
He was pulled within, without even a moment to scream.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m