Unbound

For the second time in his life, Felix was bulldozed underwater by the force of a waterfall. Except this time he was conscious, whether he liked it or not. A golden arrow jutted from his abdomen, a painful point of savage pain that burned like fire; a perfect, awful counterpoint to the icy water.

He was forced down. Into the cold. Into the dark. His head spun, rattled by the dual impact of stone and water. Instinctively, he tried to flare his Manasight. But for the first time ever it wouldn't come. He flipped over, shoved by the strong currents of water and sent spinning dizzyingly until he couldn't tell which way was up. He tried again, and this time, not only did it not work, but a rush of golden light snuffed out the Mana that lingered in his channels.

The golden arrow was messing with his core.

Before Felix could process that, something brushed against him. It was hard and rough, disappearing almost as soon as he felt it against his back. His heart hammered, fear surging though his veins like molten iron; he tried to activate Abyssal Skein, to hide, but that Skill couldn't bypass the deleterious arrow either.

Something hit him again, this time with the force of a truck. It bowled him over, flipping him ass over teakettle in the pitch black water. Ironically, the golden arrow preventing his sight did give off some light, just enough to illuminate a small area in front of him. As Felix spun, pushing his arms and legs outward to slow his nauseating tumble, the light was plenty to see the horror that faced him.

A massive eel creature, its head easily the size of his entire body, was winding toward him. Its body was covered in sharp, dagger like scales colored some murky green, and it's pale, milky eyes were filled with hunger as it bore down on him. Felix kicked away, propelling himself through the water slower than he would expect without the aid of Unfettered Volition, and the eel caught up to him almost instantly. It twined through the murk, spinning around his form before tightening its coils around Felix with a sudden and inescapable rush.

The golden arrow was shoved deeper into his gut.

Bubble streamed from Felix's mouth before he could bite off the scream, saving what remained of his precious oxygen. Black splotches started to creep into the corners of his vision. He knew he had maybe a minute or two before he'd start sucking down water. Pain lanced from his middle, lightning that pulsed through every one of his limbs; limbs that were growing more numb by the second.

The eel squeezed.

The creature was strong. Felix felt his ribs creak and the skin along his arms tear as the razor-sharp scales sliced into him. He feels his breath trying to escape, his chest compressing. Felix strained with every ounce of Strength he had, but the cold had seeped into his flesh, the creature was stronger, and he had no Skill to fight back. He felt...disconnected from his core in a way that was utterly terrifying.

Armored Skin is level 44!

Armored Skin is level 45!

A voice, faint but filled with an alien and all-encompassing wrath bellowed at him. Fight, you fool!

FIGHT!

Something stirred within him, a connection that strung between the dark, empty space where he once felt his core. It began to hum, then it began to scream. Felix's eyes blazed a brilliant cyan, lighting up the dark water around him. He opened his mouth wide and small white teeth floated away in a puff of blood, instantly replaced by inch long fangs.

Felix bit the damn thing.

His teeth sheared into the creature's skin easily, sinking through the scales and into the meat of the monstrosity's body. Dark ichor poured into the water, clouding all around him, but also streaming down into his throat. His insatiable maw.

Strength filled him, as did his Hunger.

His transformation Skill had nothing to do with his Mana, and everything to do with his connection to the remnant Maw still trapped within his Spirit. A connection that he could yet feel, for good or ill.

What Dwells Beneath is level 10!

...

What Dwells Beneath is level 15!

Felix felt his body shift and change, morphing into that monstrous half-form he had adopted in his Bastion. His Strength and Endurance jumped, new power coursing through his veins like lightning, and with a furious shoving Felix heaved the eel creature away from his body just enough to slip free.

Orienting on the path of the air bubbles his escaped breath left, Felix swam up. Yet he knew he couldn't make it, not without dealing with the beast first. His Perception could just barely pick it out, swirling in the depths just below him, preparing to strike. The golden arrow still stuck from his gut, that and his blazing eyes were better than a spotlight, screaming out his position.

The arrow...

With a malformed claw, Felix reached down and tried to pull it out. Incredible pain seared through him, burning something vital inside of him. He couldn't pull it out, even with his crazy Strength.

The water roared around him, and Felix sensed the approach of something huge. The cold pressed in, pushed its numbing chill upon him again, but Felix refused to succumb.

He's been here before. He'd used his Fire Within to burn inside him, to heat up his core. It burned hot, but it was not true fire.It was Mana, the lifeblood of everything. But he doesn't have access to his Fire Within, just his teeth. Furious, he flared What Dwells Beneath, pushing it harder than he'd ever dared before.

What Dwells Beneath is level 16!

His Hunger roared through him, cracking like thunder through his channels. The water around him began to ripple, then shudder. The eel was within sight, undulating toward him with the speed of a freight train.

Felix reached for the arrow, still shining with pure golden light. He devoured it.

Ravenous Tithe!

The golden Mana was pulled into his body completely, consumed entirely and leaving not a scratch on his flesh. The power rushed through him, a deluge from that small projectile, packing his core full even as his inner fire once more ignited. The eel was closing in fast, and Felix hurriedly fed the golden Mana into his core flame.

The water around him erupted into furious bubbles as everything around him began to boil. The eel flinched as it charged, but it's jaws had already opened wide to swallow him whole.

Felix grinned with a mouth made for slaughter. And he dove into its gullet.

The eel swept past, coming to a halt only thirty feet away. It's pale eyes bulged and it writhed as boiling water poured from it.

REIGN OF VELLUS!

The entire creature exploded in a shower of lightning.

You Have Defeated An Unknown Monster!

You Have Gained XP!

A dark form was hurled downwards from the explosion, deeper into the water. Felix hit the bottom of the cistern with a muted crack, kicking up a massive plume of silt.

For a moment, everything was still. Then Felix stood up, his body still malformed with dark, thickened skin and bone-white spines. Blood clouded the water around him, and he saw his Health had dropped 30% already. Still, Felix could feel his core again. He could sense all of his Skills, and it was a joyous reunion.

But his Perception snagged on something out there in the cloudy dark waters. He flared his Manasight, and immediately wished he hadn't.

The floor of the cistern was crawling with eels.

Vess had watched, helplessly as Felix plunged off the side of the bridge. And then she had fought, trying to convince herself that he would come back up at any second. Now she stood, panting and bloody as she dodged yet another blast of intensely concentrated light from the Initiate before them.

"Sure wish our boy would hurry up!" Evie hollered as she flipped over another beam of light. Even so, a scorched line marked the back of her leather armor. Evie hissed in pain, but recovered her footing just in time to evade another blast.

"Oh, almost got you there!" laughed the Initiate, who still had not moved from his original position. "Please! Keep it up! Let's see who fails first, my Mana pool or your bodies!"

"Get stuffed, prick," Evie shouted, simultaneously hurling her impossibly long chain at him. The links stretched beyond their appearance, rattling toward him like a spiky serpent.

The Initiate lazily blocked the strike with a glowing sheet of light. "Come, now, heretics. You can't expec--!"

A silver spear thrust at his throat, stopped only barely by another panel of golden light. Vess clucked her tongue before blurring away.

Dragoon's Footwork!

Where she once stood, the stone tiles burst into red-hot slag beneath the Initiate's furious counterattack. Vess landed fifteen feet away and kept backing up, but her left thigh was painfully scorched along the outside. The Initiate's eyebrows drew downward and he adjusted his stance, squaring himself toward the spearwoman. He held up his hands and summoned golden radiance into both that pulsed with a clear threat.

He is taking us seriously, now.

Vess whirled her conjured Spear of Tribulations, a Skill she still hadn't gotten a handle on, but it was her only option for a weapon. Her usual spear was back in the Eyrie, too big to sneak out with she had thought, though she had been cautious enough to wear her armor. The Initiate's Journeyman abilities had torn the both of them up, leaving them with a collection of burns and bleeding wounds that were slowing them down.

Vess signaled to Evie, who nodded and replied back with another quick flash of handsign.

Training in the Foglands had done a lot for Vess. She had gained Skill levels, her Omen, and even friends. Most importantly, however, was teamwork. Coordination.

They moved as one.

Evie dashed low, pushing her body forward until it was almost parallel with the ground, squeezing every ounce of power from her Agility. Her chain whipped back and to the side, trailing behind her like a tail of deadly barbs. She lashed out with it, the preternaturally light chain flicking forward with unerring precision and deceptive strength. It flashed, bashing into panels of golden light with enough force to elicit a grunt from the Initiate.

At the same time, Vess went high, utilizing her Born Trait to soar into the air. She easily cleared Evie, her powerful jump sending her arcing above.

Dragon's Descent!

Air Mana gathered around her, faintly visible to her evolved Elemental Eye, boosting her speed as Vess rocketed downward. The wind screamed at her passage, and the Initiate had no time to dodge away.

*BOOOOM*

The tip of Vess' conjured Spear and the Initiate's golden shield met. The bridge beneath them depressed, dropping the Initiate a whole foot as the stonework cracked explosively. Stone dust and debris shot outward, flung by the force of the impact.

"Ugh--You'll have to do better than--that!" the Initiate panted, his carefully styled hair disarrayed. Vess, still balanced above him upon the haft of her Spear, grinned downward.

"I plan to," she said, and twisted her Spear.

Pierce the Sky!

Vess' body was sent hurtling up, sending an opposing force powerfully into the shield beneath her. A network of bright cracks skittered across the surface of his shield, and the Initiate's eyes widened in fury. "You absolute bit--!"

A spiked chain took his legs out from under him.

"Oouf!"

Vess landed twenty feet away after canceling her Skill mid-leap. Evie yanked her chain back and began spinning it. Brows down, they advanced on him together.

Crell was pissed.

His Acolytes were down. One from that idiot brute that fell off the bridge, and another from two women, of all things. One of which was barely into their Apprentice Tier! Crell growled as he stood back up, drinking a Healing Potion to repair the lacerations that one had done to his leg. His injuries were minor, bare scratches, but the pain would be a distraction in battle. Moreover, she had torn right through his greaves to do it.

Apprentice Tier or not, that one was dangerous.

"Vile, corrupted rabble," he snarled. He didn't often snarl, but these wretches had brought him to this point. Crell would much rather have crooned for the ladies of the capital or laughed with the Inquisitor on his rounds, but he'd been sent here. To the sewers. To collect the rats. "You dare lay a hand upon me? Upon my Acolytes?"

Crell cared little for his underlings, despite one surely being dead and another close to it. They had been trained with the greatest force in the Hierocracy, and still they fell? To these rubes? The Acolytes deserved what they had received, if not more.

"Don't like it when your victims fight back, huh?" The one with a mouth somersaulted over his Diurnal Reach, the bright bolt of hardened light flashing past. The damnable girl was too fast to catch, even with his control of light Mana.

"Silence!"

The two women were fighting better than he expected, going so far as to be able to land a solid blow on him. However! They weren't a match for his superior stats and Skill levels. For his divine purpose. He was Journeyman Tier, for Trackless' sake! Crell stood back, blocking their strikes and assessed his options. He had but a few, though all of them were satisfyingly violent.

If only I hadn't wasted my Empyrean Arrow, he groused, blocking another swipe of a chain. The spearwoman leaped forward again, riddled his golden panels with strikes before disengaging. Clearly I should have used it on them!

The Fiend, he scoffed. To think he'd been almost convinced when he'd seen the idiot child's blue eyes. It was why he'd wasted his second most powerful Skill, a strike he could only employ once a day, but the perfect counter to any foe who's advancement was lower than his own. It disrupted the connection between a person and their core, disabling the flow of Mana as long as it remained lodged within them. Perhaps it's good they died. Next time I'll ask for smarter subordinates.

The golden arrow may have been spent, but he was an Initiate of the Inviolate Inquisition! Nothing could stop him or his order! He would simply have to apologize to his superiors; they had wanted as many of the heretics alive as possible.

Crell smiled, and light began to pour from his eyes and mouth.

Echoes of the Divine Shell!

A construct of hardened, golden light shimmered into place all around him, lifting him up until he was nearly ten feet tall. The construct formed around his limbs and body, extensions of Divine Will, while Crell was held secure within its transparent chest. To others, he knew, it appeared as a mighty, armored warrior complete with a flowing cape and greatsword as large as a Human. A thrill raced through his veins, a familiar giddy certainty that danced across his Mind whenever he activated this Skill.

I am light made flesh. The perfect being.

It was Crell's greatest Skill, one he'd Tempered at Journeyman and leveled extensively. Unlike Aenda's rudimentary grasp of it, he had begun to unlock it's great power. He only wished he had been able to Temper it for his Apprentice Formation, for he would be an unstoppable force upon the field. And no heretic would ever know peace again.

"Bow before the Light of Truth," Crell intoned, his voice sounding deep and hollow from within the translucent gold shell. "Or you shall be broken upon its altar."

He blurred forward, digging furrows into the stone beneath him. The Shell greatly increased his Strength, Endurance, and Vitality, closely mimicking the power of someone that had crossed the First Threshold. Nothing at or below his advancement could stand against his might, and Crell let that indisputable fact bathe his mind in grandeur as he attacked. The darker one summoned multiple silver spears that hovered around her, each striking at slightly different angles; were he outside of his Shell, the Initiate might have even taken the girl seriously. As it was, each stab was inconsequential, no more worrisome than a toothpick thrusting at steel plate.

White chains burst from the ground, wrapping around his gleaming limbs. They exuded a powerful chill, so cold that they steamed in the moist air. For the briefest of moments, Crell feared he'd been restrained, and frost began to crawl along his radiant armor. He looked at the chain wielder and screamed in refutation.

"BEGONE!"

A mighty surge of his arms and the chains strained and snapped, dissolving into purple-white Mana before disappearing entirely. The chain wielder's head snapped back, as if he'd hit her directly and Crell noticed her nose was bleeding. She snarled in surprise and no little fear.

Yesssss. Fear the Truth. Fear me.

Shoving against the ground, the Initiate launched forward at the same time he swung his left fist up into the chain wielder's chest. The damn slip of a girl very nearly evaded the strike, as impossible as that was, but she caught a glancing blow to her leather chest plate. The boiled armor caved in, and the girl was sent flying. She landed nearly forty feet away, her body tumbling widly along the very edge of the bridge.

Crell laughed.

A dark, powerful roar filled the chamber, and Crell felt something take hold of his attention. Like a lodestone to steel, the Initiate spun in place and beheld the head of a spectral dragon. It's jaws were wide open and it's terrifying roar dominated the space between them. A notification blinked into his vision before disappearing.

Status Condition: Frightened

Crell's heart hammered in his chest and his adrenaline surged, but moments later the Status Condition flickered and faded away. Then it was replaced by another.

You Have Resisted Fear!

You Are Taunted for 5 Seconds!

Status Condition: Taunted

The Initiate's gaze tunneled, until all he could see was the damned spear wielder. The spectral dragon that had formed over her face had dissipated, leaving only a set of dark, infuriating eyes. She was everything he hated, everything he wanted to see crushed from this world. Someone with access to a Skill such as that, yet aiding the heretics' fool cause? It was a breach of the most fundamental of laws; such power was not meant to serve, but to rule. Anything else is weakness masquerading as strength.

A terrifying conviction shuddered through his Spirit, one that he had held close to his heart for decades: The strong must excise weakness wherever it is found.

With an unthinking bellow, the Initiate charged, his ten foot tall body eating up the distance between them with massive strides. The girl's spears zipped forward, determined to meet his charge. Crell bared his teeth and pushed harder. He would shatter the spears from the air itself before ripping the pathetic heretic apart. Her blood would burn!

Moments before impact, the spears disappeared.

Crell hit something, so hard that his gargantuan body was sent spinning to the side before slamming down into the ground. More rock broke beneath him, his powerful Shell tearing a ditch into the solid stone. A notification flickered past his eyes, barely registering as the Taunted Condition expired.

Five seconds later, the Initiate was able to stand up. He shook his head and realized what had happened, against all odds. He'd been Taunted, and not just by anyone. By a Dragoon.

"Who are you?" He growled, noticing the right upper cannon of his Divine Shell had been completely shattered. It was a gaping hole in his otherwise perfect defense. "How do you know that Skill?"

The woman, busy getting her chain wielding co-conspirator back to her feet, turned toward him and flourished a spear she pulled from the air. She didn't speak and neither did the other one, both of them raising their weapons.

"If you won't answer me," he shouted, letting his aura ignite with a sudden radiance. "Then I'll just ask your corpses!"

Crell flared all of the potency of his Body of the Incandescent Rise, channeling his Mana into the purest element: light. It spread around him like the noonday sun in the dark confines of the sewer, displacing the natural shadow and water Mana found in that wretched place. He poured himself into the effort, calling upon his Incandescent Core to bless him with a final Skill.

One that would wipe their heretical stain from the Continent!

Demesne of--!

A geyser of water jetted upward, showering the bridge and filled with crackling blue lightning. Crell flinched back from it, the water sizzling into steam as it hit his aura. That boy with eyes glowing like cold fire, fell from it. He landed so heavily that the stone splintered with a sharp retort.

A dark black tendril was in his hand, one that trailed over the edge. "Eels," the boy rasped, his eyes blazing brighter.

Crell felt his power twisting in his grip, the light Mana nearly grown out of his control. It ripped at his Mind, his channels barely enough to handle it. He didn't understand. The boy had been thrown..he had...what was wrong with his body...?

"What?" the Initiate asked, despite himself.

"EELS!"

Then the boy hauled on his dark tendril with both hands, yanking free a massive, writhing monstrosity...

...and hurled it directly into him.

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