Unbound

His Hunger began to feed.

The discarded ash that had fallen from the Creature’s damaged limbs was pulled in first. It had collected within the spinning halo of his Hunger, and for the first time Felix felt a thrill of power as it was consumed. There was no number—no counter within his notifications—but each morsel of Essence-flesh seemed to bolster something deep and primal within his cores.

FINALLY! his abyss thundered. It roared, matching the pitch and timbre of the Creature’s own savage howls. FEAST!

The Creature rebelled with all of its available might. Essence-flesh lashed outward, flensing edges meant for Skills and cores, yet missed. Each attack met the unyielding bulwark of Felix’s Will, and though it cost huge measures of Mana and Stamina, he remained standing. Unbowed.

“You’re mine,” he hissed.

Fool!

Shouting its defiance, the Creature’s skull opened like a blossom, its collapsed face a sudden quivering tunnel into someplace else. Noise ripped free of it, knocking Felix back a step and setting his Divine Tree to ringing. His Mind, Body, and Spirit shook as if each were under the sway of a hurricane’s wrath.

It was a blast of sound snatched from the tapestry of Creation itself, torn and flipped upside down until its atonal burr rasped against the fabric of all things. Dissonance, captured and weaponized in a way he hadn’t felt since the Maw. It surrounded him, tearing at Felix’s form like hungry wolves and he the vulnerable lamb. Yet their snapping jaws brought forth nothing but dazzling pain and sizzling discordance, a shower of red-gold flame and blue-white lightning. His vision was white with the agony of it all.

“Is that it?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain level despite the pain.

“What? No.” Felix ignored the pains in his everything and forced himself to take two more steps upon the main branch of his Divine Tree. Each footfall rang with a deep, soulful knell. The Creature’s attack was still caught up around him, swirling and clawing at Felix. It hadn’t drawn blood, but instead pieces of his own Essence. They flared around him, the colors of his cores, arcing between his limbs and the array at his feet. “At best, the Primordial of Withering Dust gave me a power boost. Compared to that, thisis nothing.”

Inch by inch, the Creature sank further, hauled down by Seal and Sovereign of Flesh, until its very edges hit the widening, glowing halo around his cores and Hunger. It screeched, its voice splintering into a thousand echoes that overlapped one another.

You Are Nothing! Release Me Or Suffer The Wrath Of All The Gods! You Are Crossing A Threshold That Cannot Be Returned From, Nym! War Or No, The Elysian Halls Would Never Condone Such A Foolish, Childish Attempt!

“You’re behind the times,” Felix said, voice thick. “War’s been over for Ages.”

The Creature flinched. What?

Fiendforge!

Felix ignored the sliver’s confusion, and instead marshaled his Unique Skill, grasping at the Dissonance the Creature had hurled his way. He gathered it up around him, pressing the vicious attack between the vice grip of his ability and the anvil of his Will until it shone with a red-gold radiance—yet he didn’t stop there. He also pulled at the refined vibrations that haunted his dual cores.

At the junction of his [Thunderflame Core] and [Cardinal Beast Core] the liquid-seeming flame of both rings ground into one another like flint and steel, producing sparks of Harmony and Dissonance. Those sparks had filled him for months, a constant flaring of cacophony that had baked into every inch of Felix’s core space. He’d felt it before, when he’d sunk deep into his Hunger and visualized his evolving inner world, but he’d never known just what to do with it. Now it came to him, an idea born of the Creature’s ruthless attack and his own desperate invention.

Felix forged a weapon.

A fist, clawed and scaled, formed among the branches of his crystalline perch. It sizzled with red-gold flame and sparked with blue-white lightning, yet its form was dominated by a vivid purple glow that seemed to be pulled from the edges of his Hunger itself.

Fiendforge is level 43!

…

Fiendforge is level 54!

Journeyman Tier!

You Gain:

+Decrease Significance Consumed In Forging!

+5% WIL

+10% INE

Waves of power flowed from the fist like a tsunami, yet it did not move. It was all Felix could do to hold it there, manifested within his core space by the sheer, unlikely combination of Unique Skill and a Willpower that exceeded a sliver of Divinity. The Creature recoiled from it, its Essence-flesh jumping and scattering like oil from soap, or like sand atop a vibrating metal sheet.

You Wield Dissonance And Harmony…Together? How?No Mortal Can Shape Dissonance! None!

“Yeah, didn’t I tell you?” His Hunger roared and its pull grew into a vast, inescapable tide. Felix flashed his brilliant fangs. “I’m real special.”

The immense, conjured fist opened, revealing a massive, burning blue eye in the center of its palm. A sapphire radiance filled Felix’s core space as a swell of magnificent music filled every inch of him. He lifted off the ground, held in place by vibrations so refined that he no longer knew where he ended and the world began.

Holy shit! Felix was drowning in the sensations, his Perception and Affinity so filled that he could barely tell up from down. What is this?

There was no new Skill notification, only the reality quaking presence of his bonkers new ability. Dimly through the rising swell of a glorious, sublime concerto, he heard the Creature’s fury.

Yyero! Siva! The Twins! Even Dark Eyed Avet Would Come For You If You Dare To Consume Divinity!

Huge swathes of the Creature fell into the halo of his Hunger, disassembled by its titanic forces to join the river of sparks, Essence, and Mana that flowed around it. Nevertheless, it fought, skull and the majority of its bulk straining above its inevitable fall. Felix strained too, sweat pouring off his false brow as readily as his cores shed their flickering song—he leveraged everything that he was into the effort, pitting Mind, Body, and Spirit against the Creature’s own. For all his confidence and the potency of his Willpower, even within the cocoon of his own raucous symphony, he was only barely holding his own.

Stupid. Damn. Divinity! Each thought punched through his Mind like a hammer blow, driving the Creature ever lower. Just! Die!

More Than Nym. Primordial…No. You Cannot Be. They Are Not Allowed!

Of all things, that pierced the transcendent song Felix was wrapped within. “Wh—what? What isn't allowed?”

But the Creature was beyond words now, its bored-through skull collapsing in truth as the intense dual pressures of his Hunger and Sovereign of Flesh pressed and pulled at it. The thing could only howl, wordless and primal. Sounds sharper than any blade, as Harmony and Dissonance were woven together so quickly Felix could barely register it, let alone stop it.

Anathema! The words burst from the crumbling skull, born on the notes between his rising song. A Sliver Or The Whole, All Of It Is Divine! I Am Noctis! I Am Queen Of The Night!

The Creature’s last words escaped the crushing grip of his Hunger. A gasp that nevertheless hit Felix like a bucket of ice water down his back.

I Rule The Space Between The Light…

Its Essence-flesh vanished.

…And The Dark—

Then it was gone. Consumed.

New Title!

Devourer In Darkness (Unique)

You have descended into the depths and returned with another foe vanquished. Your Hunger grows ever stronger. Loose your maw, Primordial Ascendent! Fiendforge can now directly access the resources your Hunger has consumed but not digested!

As if a cord had been cut, the massive hand above him failed. The song it carried faded so abruptly it was like a physical pain to no longer hear it, while the entire construct dissolved into streamers of incandescent light. Felix was left kneeling atop his Divine Tree, grasping at the opalescent crystal of its branches to steady his trembling.

“What the hell was that?” he asked—and, because the Continent had a sick sense of humor, Felix felt a new, deeply upsetting note rip through his senses. “Oh come on.”

The world outside rippled, a sensation Felix—soaked in the innumerable vibrations of his recent battle—could detect even from within his core space.

Felix! Something bad is happening! His sense of Pit returned, full bore now that the Creature was gone.

“Yeah.” Though his Affinity was almost deafened by the profusion of recent events, he could feel Vess’ sharp spike of awe and fear. “Of course it is.”

Felix! Wha—something is---damn my head! Something is attacking us!

Beef. If he was awake again, then his core needed to be checked on, not to mention whatever was out there. Felix cast about, trying to take in everything in his core space that had changed; to see if there was even a trace of the Creature remaining. He sensed nothing, but his ears were still ringing. He hadn’t gotten a kill notification, but his Hunger had consumed the Creature. Right? Damn it!

He took a gamble. Felix hurled himself out of his core space and into his physical Body, finding himself surrounded by a complicated array carved from solid roots and glimmering golden-silver light. His friends were nearby, gathered at the edge of the array and staring with pale faces off into the distance.

Pit flashed out of his Spirit, landing next to him in the still waters. >

> Felix peered through the blazing lights of the Abundance Anima’s roots, Seal of the Breach fully active again for the first time in Ages. But…the Spirit Tree had sacrificed some of its potency to Felix in order to trap the Creature, and the Seal wasn’t perfect. Out there, between the gleaming sigils and glyphs, perhaps a hundred yards away, the shadows roiled. Bulged.

Split.

Darkness poured from those rents, a substance that far surpassed the gelid shadow of the deeps, as shapes slithered from it. Deep within, Felix felt the familiar reverberating ache of a silver cord, now severed. The figures were limned with a terrible purple-blue light, filling their eyes and outlining their forms so effectively that Felix didn’t have to use his Voracious Eye to identify them all.

>The broken Oath. Shit. He looked back, to where the War Naga were staring in confusion at the army of serpentine folk that emerged. >

Lavix’s blunt face was a mask of horror. >

It was a portal through the shadowed liminal spaces, and was the Creature’s final act of rebellion. So when an absolutely massive serpent emerged, eyes burning like purple fire, he wasn’t surprised. Instead, the sight of his frenzied animation, so like the Fathom itself, drove a spike of deep, terrible guilt into his chest. How did this happen?

> the Deepking roared, his Sunken Ward connecting with Felix’s. An aura of writhing tendrils surmounted the Abyssal Serpent’s head, a halo of vile ooze that was the Creature’s calling card. >

All at once, the literal army of Nagafolk scattered, heading for every glowing root they could find. Scimitars and tridents slashed and stabbed, drawing sparks from the powerful roots that nevertheless hurt the Spirit Tree. He could almost feel it.

> Isla hissed. >

> Vess said, flexing her legs as if to kick off after them…when the War Naga next to her convulsed.

> Lavix said just as she let out a surprised gasp of pain. Every single one of the War Naga doubled over, their humanoid portions gone suddenly, vividly purple. When they rose, their eyes burned with a mad purple flame.

> Vess asked, knuckles white around her spear.

> They spoke and moved as one, flashing toward Vess with nothing but murder in their Spirits.

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