Unbound

The blade bent and groaned as it impacted his Adept Tier Body, but his scales were seconds too late to appear. It sank into his chest, and blood gouted from between his fingers. Felix’s Health dropped by a whopping sixty percent.

Armored Skin is level 89!

…

Armored Skin is level 92!

The Song of Absolution is level 95!

“Felix!” Vess screamed.

Felix! Pit leaped forward, shoving his horse-sized body against the wounded man. Felix gripped hard onto Pit’s barding, feeling the metal warp slightly in his unsteady hands. You’re bleeding!

Armored Skin is level 93!

The Song of Absolution is level 96!

Vess moved toward his side too, but more blades swung at them from the Dwarven traps. Thankfully none were as heavy as the one that still stuck into Felix, and she mustered her Spears to deflect them away. The warding around them had vanished, rent asunder as the powerful trap closed around them, and the cataclysmic tumult of the Starfield Steps inundated them all. The Hoarhounds yelped, feet floundering amid the slashing blades, while giants and Claw alike fell back into their seats.

“We need those wards!” she shouted over the din.

Laur had fallen to the ground, but was already chugging down a brilliant purple Mana Potion. “Gimme a moment!”

Felix stood, Pit at his back, silver-green metal bent and twisted around his bloody torso, and screamed. “Chthonic Tribute!”

The blade burst into streams of light before vanishing into Felix’s open mouth just as the last sled made it across the final chasm. Felix bent over, weathering the agony with the sheer force of his Will, as Sovereign of Flesh patched up his wounds.

Mm. Give.

No. I need it to heal. For armor, Felix said.

Give More.

“The Kingsrock! It is ahead!” Kimaris shouted in joy.

Felix lifted his head, he could just see it over the shifting walls of ice and stone. The tumult of the Starfield Steps made judging distances hard, but they’d be there soon. The path was narrowing again as more glaciers shifted rapidly inward, and the sound beat at them all like a mace to their eardrums. “Laur!”

“Working! On! It!” the Chanter howled, his Mana fleeing from his grasp like a storm of liquid light. A chorus overlaid it, baritone and sonorous, and it rippled as it crossed over Felix’s body. The cataclysmic sounds dulled once again. “There! It won’t last long!”

Manasight is level 86!

“Sigaldry,” he hissed. It gleamed further ahead, the same shape as the Dwarven traps, but it was layered over elegant Nymean script. Felix pushed his Perception outward, but was unsurprised by what he found. The path was too tight. They couldn’t maneuver around it, likely as intended. He was too far away to know what they do—they were too complicated, and the layering made them look a jumbled mess. “Another trap ahead!” he announced, and his voice boomed over their convoy. “Brace!”

The wards won’t hold!

I know, Pit. He took a breath, banishing the lingering agony from his Mind. Keep me standing, please. “Open the front of the ward!”

“I can’t! The whole thing would collapse!” Laur protested.

“Then just exclude me! Just my face! Can you do that?”

The Chanter gritted his teeth, his sharp features gaunt. “Yes, but you’ll—”

“Just do it!”

Pit rumbled against his back. What’re you doing?

Keeping a promise.

The wards wobbled, a bubble bent inward from the top third of the front, until it passed its ephemeral plane across Felix’s head and neck. The brutal noise of the Step assaulted him immediately, bursting blood vessels in his ears and nose that his Sovereign of Flesh raced to repair over and over again. The sleds sped onward, hounds flickering with purple vapor as they activated another speed boost. The shifting glaciers flashed by, a blur of blues, purples, and greens. Felix raised his hands, spreading them as far as he could as if he were gripping the world.

“Chthonic Tribute!”

The air howled, pulled into Felix's maw along with ice and Stone and the remnant fire of fleeing elementals. The path ahead withered, crumbling at the edges as pieces of it were yanked into his Tribute, but the glaciers still closed in as solid blocks that would not budge. They persisted, fighting against his Will and Intent with a mulish obstinance, as if the landscape itself fought back. Power gathered just beyond his senses, rising in answer to his own, maybe. Was that why the Witches couldn’t help him? He cast that thought aside. There was no room for it.

He focused, narrowing his attention until all of his concentration was laid upon Chthonic Tribute. The Skill whirred with greater ferocity, the pattern in his core trembling with the music of its activation. More was torn away, wind and ice consumed, but not enough.

Felix gritted his teeth, scales crawling up and over his ears to shield them from the savage noise. A second set of fangs grew over his lower face, bright white and razor sharp, but he paid none of it any mind.

He cast himself into his core space.

Down, past his Divine Tree, through the center of the lattice-work funnel and his roaring Skills. Into the darkness that sat at the root of his core space, just above the pillars that were his foundation. His Hunger bellowed, Mana and Essence ripping into its ever spinning accretion disc, and Felix advanced closer until he felt his senses strip away as well. Sight and hearing went first, then touch and balance. Taste was last, oddly enough, but then curiosity was gone too. Anything that wasn’t his need to consume was fed into the black hole.

Somehow he stopped, balancing atop the event horizon where his Hunger was so incredibly powerful that he was certain a single wobble would send him plummeting into an endless abyss. Never to return. But all of that was subconscious, a fleeting impression from someone else. For Felix, everything extraneous was stripped away. Absorbed.

Thought of himself vanished, of his people, of the strange golden sky and the Risi tribes that raced against them.

MORE.

The world beyond shook, a quake he felt even in his numbed state, and swaths of Mana and Essence poured into his core space like rivers of molten light. Purple and white and green and orange, all of it congealing into a brilliant torrent of power—all of it fed into his center.

YES.

There was no finesse, no technique. There was only Hunger.

“What the hell is he doing?” Beef asked. “What is—this is insane!”

Vess agreed. Ahead of them, the terrain itself actively dissolved into streamers of vapor and viscous liquid, all of them pouring directly into their front. Into Felix. It was too bright to look at, and her Elemental Eye had gained four levels just trying to glimpse into the chaos. Felix himself shone like the sun, and their only saving grace was Pit’s bulk that shielded them from the worst of his blaze.

Beside her, Naberius’ lavender skin was almost a match for the vanishing snow. “How—this is impossible. I thought we had his measure, I thought—What is he?”

“You’ll get used to it,” Evie said, just as a glacier exploded into the sky. “Look out!”

The mass of rock and ice tumbled toward them, inexorable in speed and cataclysmic in scale. Despite their wards, their struggles through the Starfield Step, she knew there was no fighting such a thing. It would crush them all. Vess flexed her legs, shoving herself forward toward Pit, intent to grab the both of them—

And faltered. The glacier hadn’t fallen onto them…it had been pulled.

Into Felix’s open maw.

What is—She felt sympathy for the Witches. Felix had never used his power in such a way before. The glacier was ripped asunder, rendered down into Mana and Essence…and consumed completely.

“Imagine!” Evie shouted, a laugh of relief on her lips. “You kissed that mouth!”

Before Vess could even manage a blushing retort, their sleds burst through a sudden hole in the convulsing terrain. Their target shone ahead of them, caught up in a field of golden light that put Felix’s display to shame. “Kingsrock! Dead ahead!”

It was half a league away, if that, and the landscape had flattened out into another snow-filled field. Spikes of stone and ice erupted at irregular, surprise intervals but they could not withstand Felix’s Skill. The path was clear. We will make it!

“Giants!” Hallow warned them, pointing a stubby stone digit toward another path that emptied out onto the field. A huge worm-like creature—easily matching the Depthwurms they had once faced—raced across the snow, its hide plated with thick armor and coated in jagged, icy spines that stuck up from its sides and back. A contingent of giants rode its back, perhaps fifty all told, each armed with incredibly long black spears.

“Petram Coven! They’ve tamed a Razorspine?” Kimaris watched the oncoming giants with fear and awe etched across her Spirit.

“We must move faster!” Naberius hissed.

“Maybe some help?” Vess asked, her Spears manifesting at her side again. “I can carry your Witches onto its back. We can—”

“No!” Mother Vepar shouted, her voice shrill with panic. “We cannot fight a Razorspine like this! We must make it to the Kingsrock first, or all is lost!”

The Razorspine roared, displaying snapping mandibles the size of one of their sleds, and its many eyes gleamed with crimson light. It surged toward them, closing the distance as the trapped spikes shattered harmlessly against it. Black iron spears flung at them, rebounding off of Laur’s wards, but they shivered with prismatic distortions.

“I cannot hold this much longer,” he said.

“Looks like they’re not interested in attacking,” Beef said. “Look, they’re moving ahead.”

“Meaning they’ll get to the glowy rock first, dummy,” Evie said. “That’s not good.”

“Oh. Right.” Beef swallowed. “Shit.”

“We must take that creature down.” Tzfell said, casting a look at the Witches. A sneer chased itself across her face. “With or without their help.”

Vess looked to Felix, but he was still there, locked in place and absorbing every trap that tried to activate around them. Snow and stone was pulled into him like a strange cyclone…and an idea flashed into her Mind. “Evie! Beef! Go and board that Razorspine! Slow it down and watch for my signal!”

She appreciated how neither of them questioned her, but simply leaped to action. Evie threw her chain, increasing its weight and decreasing her own at the same time; it dragged her aloft at incredible speeds. Beef followed after, hanging from the hindquarters of his Sharpwing Matriarch.

“What do we do?” Kimaris asked, and Hallow’s other two forms looked on.

Is this how Felix feels before one of his wild gambits? she wondered. It was exhilarating and terrifying. “We need to change direction.”

Evie hadn’t a clue what Vess planned, but she trusted her more than most. She landed atop the craggy hide of the Razorspine, her chain-throw leap proving only effective enough to catch the tail end of the armored bug. She swung her weapon down at the thing, but it only drew sparks off its hide.

Course it couldn’t be that easy.

A field of undulating ice spines rose before her, but she kicked off the thing’s rough segments with enough force that the wind whistled in her ears. Each time she landed on another ice spine, leap-frogging across the huge creature’s back, looking for giants. She was glad the Step’s concussive noises had died down, but it was still plenty loud—loud enough that her approach was well covered.

Ten giants were nestled well at the top of the Razorspine’s back, settled atop a strange platform made of—you guessed it—ice. They each bore spears of black iron, and a ice-shaped crate held several more in reserve. Evie crept forward, tracking their gazes back to her convoy. The Razorspine had left it behind, but the Hoarhounds had sped up again. Now they were slowly gaining on the worm, and the giants looked unnerved.

She had to slow the thing down, somehow. That meant getting to whoever was controlling this thing; and that wasn’t the Warriors ahead of her. Most of them didn’t even have beards, just a few wisps and a dream.

“Kas nu tuanta. What is that?” one asked.

“Looks like a glow shard, but shaped like a…child?”

“Tu ralla. Then what’s it doing? The traps aren’t working against it, and those are just Hoarhounds!”

“I don’t know, ask the Witches!”

Aha. They’re the ones pullin’ the reins. She crept ahead, looking to bypass them entirely. Unfortunately, one of them was actually paying attention.

“Atan! A Human!”

“What? Kill it!”

Spears were flung at Evie but she was already moving. They didn’t even come close. She spun, unfurling her chain again, and caught two more spears in midair, deflecting them off the Razorspine entirely. “I don’t wanna fight you!”

“Too bad!” one roared, before lunging at her with another long spear. She twisted away, leaping twenty paces all at once. More giants followed, weapons thrusting after her, but the Warriors weren't skilled enough. “You’re fast for a Human, but they’re all weak! You’ll slow down eventually!”

“You’d think that,” she said. “But you’ve already made a huge mistake, kids.”

“Distractions!” Another crowed, and pulled a triangular-shaped club out of another ice-shaped barrel.

Evie shrugged. “Maybe. But really…you should look up.”

They did. Evie wasn’t really sure what the Frost Giants expected, but it certainly wasn’t a half ton of Minotaur dropped onto their heads. He landed among them, maul slamming into a Warriors shoulders with stone breaking force. The Risi collapsed with a scream, and Beef straightened. “Dang, that was a good line, Evie!”

“Where’ve you been? Takin’ in the sights?”

“This thing is fast! Hallow had to compensate for how heavy I am!” He caught a triangular club with a single, hamhock fist. “Ooh, cool weapon!”

“Ugh!” Evie slipped through a fifteen-foot giant’s guard, leaving the bull to his work. The Risi Warrior grabbed at her, intending to crush, but she caught him in the throat with a spiked ice gauntlet that manifested around her fist.

Rimefang’s Wrath is level 69!

She followed up with a lashing chain, slicing a deep wound across another giant’s exposed thigh. They both collapsed, still breathing but hurt deeply.

“Hey! Leave some for me!” Beef shouted, and swung his stupidly huge maul. The giant weapon caught Risi Warriors in the gut, sending them flying off the platform. “Whoops! Keratin Conception!”

Jointed, insectoid limbs snagged the giants from the air, wrapping tight around them before binding to the ice platform itself. Beef let out a sigh of relief.

“What’re you doin’?” Evie asked.

“I’m capturing them,” the big idiot said. He gestured and more conjured limbs wrapped around the two she’d just downed. “It’s what Felix would want.”

Evie groaned. Stupid— then she groaned again. Because he was right. “Alright fine! Lock ‘em down! I’m going for the Witches!”

“Aye aye!” he said with a cheerful salute.

Just beyond the ice platform was another long section of monster and spines. Evie zipped through that, flaring her Agility for all it was worth. Vess had asked her to slow the Razorspine down, and she had wasted too much time already.

She found the Coven of Witches hunkered down just behind the flared ridges around the Razorspine’s head. Flashy magic writing was hovering in the air between them, and several of the Witches were chanting something. All around them, however, were gleaming, purple wards and the moment Evie appeared they started lobbing projectiles and curses at her. Evie dodged them all, the projectiles clanging off the worm’s hide and the curses sizzling into nothing just over her shoulders.

“Hey! Slow this thing down!” she demanded.

Another spell hurtled for her, and Evie had to chain-leap to get out of the way in time. The thing skipped off the worm’s back before exploding in a shower of radiant sparks.

“I’ll take that as a no, then!” Evie flung dagger after dagger at the wards, but each was turned aside, and even her chain couldn’t penetrate their defenses. Still, each Witch she distracted seemed to slow down the big bug. Evie risked a glance at the convoy. They were gaining now, but—What is she doing?

Down below, she saw Vess standing near the brilliant shape of Felix. She pointed, and the convoy of sleds cut across the slowing Razorspine’s path…and that vortex of craziness that Felix was emitting ripped into the glacial walls.

The stone and ice groaned, huge cracks ripping apart sections of its face. The Razorspine let out a wail, and the Witches stopped attacking Evie, focusing on their glowy magic.

Oh! She realized, before whipping her chain forward. She shot over the hunkered down Witches and landed on the nasty bug’s blunt head. The thing was awful and damn slick, but she wedged her feet in between two ridged scales before looping her spiked chain around its twitching mandibles. It was just long enough to return to her hand.

“Ugh! Hey ugly!” she called out. “Slow down!”

She hauled back with all of her Strength. The Razorspine screamed, its mouth pieces flexing about and almost ripped the chain out of her hands.

“Yyero’s rotten ass!” she cursed. “Beef! Help me!”

The Minotaur landed beside her only heartbeats later, his expression confused. “The Witches didn’t even notice me.”

“They’re too busy–unf! Keeping this thing under control!” Evie jerked her chin toward the ends of her chain. “Help me out, here! Grab these ends and pull to the side!”

“Got it!” he said, putting his furry mitts over the bladed links. “Gah, they’re sharp.”

“Don’t touch that part!” Evie looked down and her eyes widened. “Pull right! Now!”

Beef did so, his pile of muscles proving useful for once. His biceps and deltoids flexed, veins popping beneath his thin fur coat, and he shouted. “C’mon!”

The Razorspine twisted, something bursting behind them in a conflagration of purple light, and it’s face sheared into the glacial cliff…just as the whole thing vanished.

“Jump!” Evie screamed, and tackled Beef off of the side…just as the Razorspine twisted and smashed into the sudden crevasse at cataclysmic speeds.

The thing’s head turned to instant, gooey paste.

You Have Killed A Razorspine!

XP Earned!

Burning ash, she marveled as they fell. That alone almost put me up another level.

The ground rose up and she lightened herself just as the Sharpwing Matriarch caught them both. Beef made a guttural hnggh noise, his shoulders wrenched backward in Hallow’s claws, but it was only for a second before all of them collapsed back into the foremost sled.

Evie landed with an easy grace, and Beef…well, he hit the ice like a wet slab of leather.

“Hot damn, we’re good!” Beef roared, his voice muffled against the sled’s floor.

Evie laughed through big, ragged breaths. “When you’re right, you’re right!”

Ahead of them, the path opened onto a gleaming, polished platform made of what looked like a huge, monolithic slab of metal. Their skis hit it and slid across it like water, the sound of the Step utterly silenced. A huge tower—or mountain, maybe—loomed ahead, normal rock topped by soaring towers and a corona of gleaming lights. Kimaris and that fancy one started cheering, soon followed by the other giants and their wrinkly leader.

“Kingsrock!”

“We’ve done it!”

We? she thought, more than a little punch drunk from the fall. Didn’t see them on that bug.

The sled though…it didn’t stop. Theirs at least—the others began to slow, hounds panting, but theirs seemed to be gaining speed. She blinked, looking at Vess, but she was staring at Felix. Evie winced and shielded her eyes, unable to see their illustrious leader through the gleam of his Skill. It was consuming the air so fast that they were being hauled along behind it, like some sorta Mana engine.

“Hey. Why aren’t we slowing down?” she asked. “Felix! Stop doing…whatever that is!”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t stop.

And the Kingsrock was coming up fast.

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