Unbound

Authority Recognized!

Inheritor, Autarch Of Nagast, King Of Ahkestria, Lord Of The Leviathan Depths, Be Welcome!

Unsealing The Northeast Root Tunnel.

Warning!

Northeast Root Tunnel Is Compromised.

Threats Detected.

Threat Designation: Moontouched Wickerjak

Threat Designation: Moontouched Thornvald

Threat Designation: Green Wild Distortion

Thornvald? Green Wild Distortion? Felix squared his shoulders. "Yeah. Open up."

The massive golden doors split, releasing a rush of thick air that smelled of wet rot and slime. It blasted their hair back, rippling Felix's jacket and leaving the Nymean spirit at his side completely unaffected. As the gap between the golden doors expanded, he could make out a wide space lined by rugged roots, hanging vines, and muddy floors that were pocked by pools of dark water. A song like bubbling sludge percolated through the air, and lurching among it all were hundreds of Moontouched Wickerjaks.

Felix motioned to Pit. "I'm gonna need the Fang, bud."

Pit shifted to his tenku form, silver barding appearing from nothing to reveal the massive sword strapped just under a wing. Yet before Felix could grasp the hilt, Paxus held up a hand. "Please, Lord Unbound. Allow me."

Felix blinked. "Uh, sure. Go ahead."

With a snap of white cloth, the Nymean phantom stepped forward just as the golden doors boomed into the open position. Wickerjaks shrieked, a reedy scream that echoed through the tunnels like an amphitheater, before they bounded forward. A rolling sea of twig and violet light.

"Are we...ugh...are we just standing here?" Beef asked, leaning heavily against his chitin maul. Vess and the War Nagas were beside him, tridents and spears held at the ready. "I hate the pressure down here. I feel like my head is going to pop. Can we get moving?"

"I will only be a moment," the spirit said.

The Wickerjaks were only feet away from them when Paxus lifted a single finger. That sour, slow-bubbling song was immediately overcome by the dulcet strains of woodwinds and the rolling thunder of deep drums. The tunnel itself shook, trembling and shifting just as the nearest Wickerjak came within clawing distance...and was promptly snatched back by a vibrant blue-green vine. The entire tunnel swelled, blue-green overwhelming the withered, sickly purple and grey that predominated, until the entire space was twenty feet smaller in all directions as whipcord vines and car-sized thorns ripped through everything.

"Oh shit." Felix scratched his head. "You weren't kidding."

Paxus turned back to them, his form silhouetted by the spray of ooze-infected Wickerjaks as they were crushed and diced into mulch. Righteous victory roared across his Spirit, still utterly bare to Felix's senses. "I retain some control, this close to my restored Companion. While it continues, please allow me to clear the path."

Felix grinned and unsheathed an eight-foot length of carved bone—a tooth from the mouth of a baby Primordial. "Sounds good to me. Move out, people. Those than can't keep up, mount up!"

Paxus proved his worth a hundred times over. The scope of his influence crushed the life out of every Wickerjak they encountered for the next hour, even at the pace at which their team moved.

After that first hour, Paxus relented, his power waning as they sped further from the Abundance Anima's sphere of influence. Still, his manipulation of the very tunnel itself was able to slow the flood of monstrosities that dwelled within, including Thornvalds, creatures with enormous thorns sprouting like swords from the ends of their arms. The Wickerjaks grew more dangerous as well, changing from diminutive humanoids to four or six legged variants. These were far faster than the previous incarnations, though they appeared to share similar stats.

As the phantom's dominance over the battlefield receded, Felix and his team picked up the slack. Without Elder Wickerjaks to threaten them, even the Thornvalds and speedy animal variants were deftly handled. Felix exercised his muscles, wielding his Blade of the Fang with sweeping abandon. Monsters fell before him, split like logs beneath the whirling blade until they were little more than splinters. Pit flew above, the tunnels wide enough that his aerial maneuvers could be managed, hurling frozen lightning bolts and shimmering crescents of cutting light by the dozen.

Beef and Hallow charged forward, Homunculus atop Minotaur, and bovine warrior atop a charging Multipede. He claimed to be tired and a bit woozy from the pressure in the tunnels, though that didn't stop him from swinging his maul at anything that came within arm's reach. Every monster they felled was soon surrounded by the blackened green glimmer of necromantic Mana, becoming Risen that fought against their purple-hued brethren. Most of the Risen died soon after, their Bodies too brittle or broken, but Beef was nothing if not tenacious. He kept at it despite the constant groans of pain the kid let out. From Hallow, crystalline darts flew with unerring accuracy, shattering joints and pinning stumps to the earth, allowing the calamitous cavalcade of insectoid legs to trample those that remained.

Vess fought alongside the War Naga, weaving deceptively through the lightning thrown from stolen tridents and clearing the field in forty foot bursts as her Spears detonated. She still refused to use her other Skills, but there was little need; she was a force of nature, a whirling hurricane that left only devastation in her wake.

The Naga relied mostly on their brawn, the lightning only half as effective compared to conventional foes, but their claws did serious damage. Ten enormous half-snake warriors were not a force to be underestimated.

Isla wove faint illusions, workings of the Chant that enhanced their defenses enough that, had the enemy been less numerous, would have proven incredibly effective. As it was, the sheer mass of the Wickerjaks and Thornvalds had nowhere to go except right into Felix's team.

They were cut into kindling.

Miles vanished beneath their feet, blurring the dripping tunnel walls into a procession of swift violence and experience points. There were so many monsters that the War Naga, Beef, Hallow, and Vess all leveled at least twice during the fighting. Pit and Felix, of course, were far from such gains sadly. Isla didn't share.

Another hour passed, their steps slowed by the advent of an even greater number of plant monstrosities. Their levels and strength did not increase, however, and Felix's team advanced without a hitch. The one thing that did change though, was the slow bubbling riot that was the Green Wild Distortion. It took him a second to figure out what the System had meant by it, but after Paxus used his influence to replace it with a cleaner, more vibrant melody Felix had pieced it together. The Green Wild—the aspect of the Grand Harmony that seemed dedicated to life and growing things—was being bent out of true by the Wickerjaks and their ilk. More specifically, it was the blue and purple ooze that created that distortion.

No. Not distortion, he thought. Dissonance.

Buried under it all was the same buzzing, atonal noise that Felix had been hearing since his arrival. Dissonance, he was coming to realize, wasn't only within things like the corrupting ooze or a Primordial's being...but within everything. The Green Wild Distortion grew like white noise in his head, a wall that tried to blot out all other things, but Felix's Affinity had grown too much for that. Steeped in the confluence of Dissonance and Harmony for months, it was all too easy to pick out where the two grew into one another, like weeds between slabs of concrete. Dissonance was hidden in the spaces between notes and chords, a jarring cacophony to the heroic accord of Harmony.

Two sides of the same coin.

The realization wasn't a thunderbolt to his Mind, or a shock to his Spirit, merely an understanding that had been accumulating for almost a year. It blossomed inside of him, resonating with the grinding of his dual cores until every inch of Felix felt baptized in sound and light.

Above, Pit jerked in mid-air, wings hitching strangely before dropping thirty feet with a dull crash.

Pit! What's happening? Felix sent, a seed of panic germinating in his heart. Pit landed amid several Thornvalds. The Mantle of Tumult around his Body was more than enough to drive the creatures back, which was relieving for Felix, as Pit remained crouched. The tenku shook his head, as if dizzy, and Felix heard noise rolling from deep within his Companion. Pit, what am I hearing?

New...Skill, Pit sent, before he threw his head back and shrieked.

Thornvald (x9) Are Stunned!

Mana Digestion Complete!

Your Companion Pit Has Learned A New Skill!

Breath of the Wild (Legendary), Level 1!

With a mighty exhale you create a zone of air, life, and light Mana that infuses all within it with might and durability. It travels with you, lasting as long as you can continue to exhale, boosting the Health regeneration of those within its bounds and increasing their Strength and Vitality scores by a fix amount for so long as they remain within it. Zone increases slightly in size per Skill level. Bonuses to regeneration, Strength, and Vitality increase slightly per Skill level.

Adamant Discord!

Felix rushed forward, blasting outward like a semi shearing through Sunday traffic. Cords of connection turned to steel bars, slamming into Wickerjaks and Thornvalds, smearing them into paste as he ran to Pit's side. His Companion was on his belly, panting into the mud, as sparks of effervescent azure-gold energy spat out of his wings and paws. "Bud!"

I'm okay, Pit sent, his beak clamped shut against a spasm of pain. Does it hurt this much when you learn new Skills?

"Only sometimes," Felix said, pressing a hand against Pit's neck despite the flare of Essence and Mana that singed his sleeve.

"Michael!" Isla screamed.

Felix's head whipped back up at the same time a massive surge of malevolence rolled across his Affinity. Back at the line, right where Felix left, a thick, spike-riddled pseudopod of blue-purple ooze lifted from a crevice and slammed downward into Beef. It moved too fast, giving the kid zero time to react before he was launched from his seat atop the Multipede. The muddy stone floor cratered as he hit.

"Ten Tribulations!"

"Levin Bolt!"

Silver Spears hit and burst at the same time six separate lightning bolts cracked into the oozing appendage, obliterating it entirely.

It was too little too late.

Beef went into sudden convulsions, his mighty limbs smashing deeper divots into the stone as every single one of Hallow's forms—Homunculus, Multipede, and various Risen Wickerjaks—fell limp to the earth.

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