Unbound

“A–affliction of Deprivation!” Tome stuttered.

A flock of purple and green-gold birds flashed toward Felix, but he was faster. His clawed hand found the skinny book-bearer’s head and drove Tome into the dirt.

Hand of Cataclysm!

Acid burst across Tome’s face, and he let loose a harrowing, burbling scream, his silver-chased book falling to the side.

“Rancor’s Blade!”

Dodge is level 78!

Felix leaped aside, narrowing avoiding the descent of Sword’s fiery blade. Tome had not died, and regret boiled inside of him even as his vision was still stained with the light of his fury. He rounded on the presumptive leader of the High Guard, closing the distance without a thought.

Stone Shaping!

Green Shaping!

Huge, blunt rods of stone smashed into Sword from below, taking him hard in the midsection while flowering vines erupted to tangle his feet and ankles as Felix slipped inside his guard. The man did not stop his swing, however, and it came down atop Felix faster than he could move—which was when Felix seized the fire Mana that coated his sword.

Cardinal Flame!

Flame bent to Felix’s Will and sprayed Sword in the face.

“Gah!” The High Guard shouted in alarm more than pain, before tripping backward over the thick vines. His exposed face was beet red, but seemed unharmed. “You’re dishonorable as well as a thief. I should have known.”

Felix looked beyond the man to where his friend was bleeding into the muddy water. A large, golden eye caught his, and shame vibrated across their bond.

Status Condition: Berserk (Major)

Berserk - Increase Damage Output By 40%, Increase Damage Taken By 40%, Willpower Reduced By 10%.

Status Condition: Spirit Damage 30%

Convergence!

Close enough now, Pit vanished in a flash of light. Sword frowned, eyes flicking between the two of them. “And full of dirty tricks as well.”

Relentless Resolution!

Felix closed the distance with Sword again, meeting orichalcum blade with his Inheritor’s Will. Sparks flew, showering the landscape as their arms blurred through too many sword forms to count. The High Guard was strong, but enhanced by his rage, Felix was stronger—yet he couldn’t manage to land a solid hit on the bastard.

“You,” Sword panted. “You’re a brute without an ounce of technique. A monster.”

“And you don’t shut up!” Felix growled. Stone tore from the ground, ice crackling atop it in jagged spikes, but the High Guard flowed around it all. His footwork was sure and incredibly adept, moving with far more precision and grace than Felix. It was infuriating.

“Behemoth’s Collapse!”

“Searing Attrition!”

The water folded beneath Felix’s feet, metal and earth Mana surging in a wide expanse as the ground opened up like a trap door. A massive slab of rock swung upward and arced down atop him like a closing lid, sprouting with purple and green-gold flames along its falling face. Felix did nothing but lift his scaled arms and let loose an unhinged cry.

Wild Threnody!

Stone Shaping!

Green Shaping!

Dusty brown and green gold surged into his hooked sword, a colorful counterpoint to the brilliant glyph that showed near the hilt. A vibrant, liquid light ignited along its length as he slashed four times in quick succession. Channeled through his Wild Threnody, through his weapon, his two shaping Skills caught and seized the Mana that was descending upon him. It burst, splitting over his head as it was reduced to shapeless vapor.

Wild Threnody is level 82!

Stone Shaping is level 86!

Green Shaping is level 73!

“That…was remarkable,” Tome said. His face was melted and bloody, his breathing ragged, but his one remaining eye was fixed on Felix as if he were a particularly interesting bug. “Was that…the weapon or him?”

“Doesn’t matter!” Mace shouted, her weapon held out accusingly in her remaining hand. It gleamed with red-gold light. “This heretic owes me an arm!”

“Then come and get it!” Felix bellowed and rushed toward the woman.

Bird constructs flashed by him again, a far larger flock than previous, forcing Felix to pull ice from the water into an arcing shield. It lasted all of a half-second, but he was moving much faster than they expected. Mace’s eyes widened as his clawed hand reached out—and was stopped by the flat of an orichalcum blade.

“Lord’s Ire!” Sword cried out, and a concussive, golden blast took Felix full on in the chest.

“Oof!”

Lifted straight off his feet, the condensed explosion of light threw him backward more than thirty feet—right into Tome’s flock of birds. A dozen tore through him, shredding his Garment and bursting against his midnight scales before Felix landed with a splash.

Chthonic Tribute!

The birds flickered, and some vanished, but his Willpower, normally so dominant, felt wan and thin as it ran against the High Guard’s. Felix was afforded a moment of pure, unadulterated shock before purple and green-gold flames erupted all around him.

Status Condition: Searing Attrition

Searing Attrition - Reduces your Health and Stamina at a rate of 50/sec for 300 seconds. You are more vulnerable to heat and fire Mana for the duration.

What? Felix stood, glyph burning atop his Inheritor’s Will as it sliced the birds around him into Mana vapor. How is my Willpower so weak? Ah, shit. Rage burned in him, so bright that it made darkness pulse at the edges of his vision. His heart was racing in his chest, and his skin felt scorching beneath his hand. Berserk Status. Fuck!

He had no more time. Sword, Tome, and Mace rushed him, their Skills and spells and techniques hammered at him from every angle. All he could do was move. Fight.

Stone and metal came at him, ripping apart the sodden ground with each attempt, while curses in the shape of birds and locusts swarmed him. Through it all, Sword was there, his long blade shining in the gaps between his allies’ attacks—and each time the man landed a hit, Felix’s fury grew.

Status Condition: Berserk (Severe)

Berserk - Increase Damage Output By 50%, Increase Damage Taken By 50%, Willpower Reduced By 20%.

He met them. Blow for blow.

Dodge is level 79!

Armored Skin is level 85!

Relentless Resolution is level 87!

Stone Shaping is level 87!

Rime Shaping is level 74!

Green Shaping is level 74!

Wild Threnody is level 84!

The High Guard was gaining ground. Felix’s Health dropped point-by-point with every strike that bypassed his defenses. Berserk gave his fist and swords greater power, but increased his injuries by substantial amounts. Searing Affliction, meanwhile, turned Sword’s fire attacks from annoyances to agonizing threats, worse each time Tome managed to hit him with another stack of the Skill. And for the first time in—months?—his Stamina recovery was slow enough that he had to be cautious about his movements.

For all his stats and Skill levels, Felix could not fight them off.

Inside his chest, his final two Pillars called to him. They were an open wound that he’d managed to ignore, clamping down on them with Fiendforge while he fought. But as his Willpower fell before his increasing unthinking rage, the interminable ache of his unfinished efforts further blunted his edge in combat. His strikes were off, his Mind dulled, and his Spirit heavy with the whimpering sounds of his injured Companion.

I need…to calm…down!

“Plague of Multitudes!” the gangly Tome shouted, just before shoving a gauntleted hand over his silver-chased book. Another flock of green-gold locusts shot into the air, all of them swirling around the other High Guards before swooping directly at Felix.

Chthonic Tribute!

Compromised Willpower or not, Felix pitted it against the bastard’s spell. He wasn’t the only one suffering, and the High Guard mage flinched as their Minds clashed against one another. Barely, just barely, Felix won. He opened his maw and pulled, until every single mote of Mana was consumed.

“He ate it, too?” Mace shouted, her voice on the ragged edge of panic. The bleeding had stopped, but she was very pale.

“Focus!” Sword commanded. “He is only an Adept!”

“It should not be possible—” The words barely left Tome’s lips when another white-armored figure crashed into his legs, followed by a deluge of blasting water shaped like—

“Dragons?” Felix’s confusion turned to joy as Vess dropped from the sky, her spear stabbing at Tome and the newcomer with thunderous intensity. “Vess!”

Status Reduced!

Status Condition: Berserk (Severe) > Berserk (Major)

Huh.

The newcomer High Guard, still prone, swept an orichalcum spear at Vess’ legs and unleashed a wave of cutting wind at them both. Vess leaped backward, and Felix stomped his left foot, summoning a wall of stone and ice from the ground that shoved all of the High Guards away from him and his friend. Still, the Skill hit his barrier with the sound of screeching metal, but it didn’t penetrate.

Vess landed beside him, hair fluttering around her as if in a constant breeze. She smiled, and her cheek dimpled beneath a streak of blood. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Felix blinked, Voracious Eye flaring as he spotted something on her shoulder. “Is that—”

“I am Yintarion of the Cerulean Sky,” the little golden Wyrmling rumbled, voice almost as deep as it had been before. He lifted his cat-sized head, and his tiny mane rippled in the breeze. “We have formed a bond, the Dragoon and I. Little else needs to be said.”

Felix closed his mouth, not only at the reduction of his Berserk Status, but the sheer surprise of it all stymied the heat that had built up in his chest. “Right. Help me kill these idiots?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Vess said.

“Beware,” the Wyrmling murmured. “They have…changed.”

Felix whipped his head around, Perception tagging on the High Guards that had retreated. A short distance away, blocked from his direct vision by the walls of stone and ice, they had begun to glow.

“That cannot be good,” Vess murmured.

Felix sank his barrier back into the shallow water and saw the armored warriors had gathered close together. Sigils flashed across their armor in a complex display that Felix couldn’t comprehend.

“They are joining their strength!” Yintarion warned.

Felix charged.

Hand of Calamity!

Rain of Cataclysm!

Arrow of Perdition!

Wild Threnody!

A torrent of acid and gold-azure radiance gathered up into his sword and dagger as he tore forward, water and mud spraying behind him in his wake. None of the High Guard moved, but the sigaldry around them flared until it was blinding.

Chthonic Tribute!

Maw open, Felix tried to snatch the power away from the bastards as it crackled about their armor, but it was like trying to drink an entire ocean. His Willpower failed, the Skill screeching in recoil—but he wasn’t done. He struck twin slashes with Inheritor’s Will and Skyslain’s Riposte.

Hand of Calamity is level 20!

Rain of Cataclysm is level 74!

Wild Threnody is level 85!

Arrow of Perdition is level 50!

Journeyman Tier!

You Gain:

+50 STR

+40 VIT

+30 DEX

The flood of violence threw every single one of them from their feet, though Felix couldn’t tell who—the light was so bright, it was all he could perceive. That is, until it cut off abruptly, and Felix watched them stand, one after the other, as acid Mana evaporated from their forms. The cracks in their milky white armor were patched with lines of golden light, and a complex, multi-layered array had formed across their chests and limbs…and trailed from their backs like cloaks of gold.

“We are your judgment, Felix Nevarre,” Sword said, his voice deeper and far more resonant.

For all his anger, Felix wasn’t so far gone he’d forget his Voracious Eye. Aside from their Health and Mana, it caught little else but the impression of their Tier…and that was rising rapidly. Felix blinked, looking between the High Guard, but it was the same for all four of them. Whereas before his Eye acknowledged the threat they posed…now it all but screamed at him.

“Grandmaster,” he whispered. “All of you together—”

“Smart, boy,” Spear growled. For the first time, Felix noticed she was missing an eye. She had looked haggard before…but now a flaxen radiance poured from her wounds, just as it did her armor. “Too smart.”

“Perhaps I should have taken your tongue instead of your eye,” Vess said from behind her leveled spear.

“Deceiving wench—”

“End this. Now,” Sword ordered. His impassive face had returned, but Felix could feel a trace of the man’s Spirit; he burned that Felix had seen his fear. “Kill him.”

As one, the High Guard advanced.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Consuming the dregs of his Essence stores, Felix’s Body swelled with muscle, scales, and claws as he met the warriors’ attacks. His eyes blazed and crackled, lightning trailing from them as he blurred forward.

Relentless Resolution is level 88!

Felix danced at the edge of their attacks, though it cost him several wounds. Spear, Mace, and Sword struck again and again, each aiming for a different part of his body; he couldn’t avoid them all, so long as he was attacking. Felix screamed, a horrendous noise that blasted water from their feet from the sheer volume, and put everything he had into attacking. Inheritor’s Will was a cudgel in his fist, while the Skyslain Riposte had become a heavy machete. Rock and water scattered around them, shattered beneath their collective tread or evaporated by bursts of their power.

Yet the High Guard were too fast. They hit Felix twice for every blow he landed, penetrating his Armored Skin and midnight scales with an ease that staggered his Health and depleted his Stamina at a rapid pace. In the short seconds after their collective Tier advancement, Felix was sliced and burned and bashed until he trailed blood like crimson streamers.

“Wending River!” a deep voice shouted, and Vess was suddenly there. Felix gaped, the blaze of his eyes flickering out as he witnessed a millisecond of her speed and grace while Yintarion stood ramrod straight on her pauldron. “Binding Light!”

Water Mana glittering with golden light Mana flowed around them both, deceptively slow in that split-second viewing, but it punched into Mace with the force of a monstrous waterfall. Grandmaster array or not, the one-armed warrior was hurled back and away.

A tendril of the same magic also hit Felix, though far more gently, and he was hauled back nearly forty feet before he cut free of it. “What the hell!”

“You are not thinking, fool king!” Yintarion shouted back. They dove between the High Guard’s attacks, spectral wings flaring atop Vess’ back—she was moving very fast. “Your rage! Eliminate it!”

Felix gritted his teeth, more than ready to show the Wyrmling what he could do—when he felt a frisson of utter agony tear through his core. He gasped, clutching at his wounded chest, but it did nothing to dilute the torment that twisted inside of him. His Pillars were demanding their release, the power contained inside of them pulsing as if eager to escape, to soak into Felix like a balm…yet he couldn’t touch any of it. Not until all nine were formed, and he had nothing left to spend on them—not without sacrificing what little combat potency he had left.

Fiendforge is level 72!

It was taking all he could just to keep the process halted, and even that felt like a gaping wound in his chest. The pull of his Skills and cores as they tried to spin was incredible, enough that he was only holding on by his fingernails. One wrong move, one slip, and his Pillars would start up again—only this time, Felix wouldn’t be there to guide them.

B-be calm, Felix. I—I can do it.

Pit! When had he roused? Are you—your wings were—Don’t waste your energy!

Be calm! A wave of images flashed across their bond, Memories the two of them had shared in the rare quiet times between conflicts. As if they were a key turning in a lock, Felix felt his rage abate, soothed.

Status Reduced!

Status Condition: Berserk (Major) > Berserk

I can do it! Don’t stop me!

Fuck. He was still so angry, but the feeling of his friend descending into his core space made the fury falter. He had no other real options. His final two Pillars had to form—quickly. Pit could more actively direct the situation, but without Felix there…

HELP.

What? Felix’s eyes finally left the dizzying battle between Vess and the High Guard, one that he feared was going to end badly. How?

UN-FEED.

Un—what the hell are you talking about—!

“Focus on me, would-be king!” Sword said, brandishing his blade at Felix’s head. Somehow he’d escaped Vess’ distracting onslaught, and Felix kicked backward, out of range entirely. “You’re too weak to ignore us!”

Fine! Whatever it is, do it!Pit! Keep the other guy in check!

Felix set himself, letting his oversized, scaled form deplete. Unused Essence swirled back into his core space before getting sucked up by his Pillars. He spat out blood before baring his flat, Human teeth. “Fine. You and me, Sword. Let’s dance.”

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