Unbound

“He bluffs.” Still unmoving from his throne, the Hierei smiled. "Waste no time! Kill the Unbound!"

Wind and flame ignited beneath the High Guard, launching all eight of them forward, their respective weapons blazing with crystalline Mana.

“Kill me?” Felix said, sounding the Skills within his chest. “It’s been tried.”

He’d fought a team of High Guard that utilized a Grandmaster Array. His victory had been hard won, but it had taught him much.

Astrum Ascendence!Stone Shaping!

Green Shaping!

Ferric Shaping!

Opalescent Fiendstone rose from the earth like the jaws of submerged leviathans and snapped down upon each of the High Guard. Eight powerful warriors jerked to a violent halt, their arms pinwheeling…before Felix moved.

Stride of the King.

He blurred among them, his hooked sword slicing faster than the wind itself, until thunder crashed in his wake. Three High Guard weapons clattered to the ground, hands still clutching to hilt and haft.

You Have Killed A High Guard Of The Pathless (x3)!

XP Earned!

The others broke free, shattering his Fiendstone with a concentrated burst of power. Their eyes were wild beneath their broken helms, their armor beaten and scraped raw.

Mivun’s smile faltered. “Cease your foolishness! Kill him now!”

Yet the High Guard stumbled, their eyes wide as they realized the glow of their armor had grown faint.

“His attack pierced the Grandmaster Array!” one said in horror.

“That isn’t enough to sunder it,” another protested, but he was staring at his own arms as the glow of their false Temper faded completely. “It’s impossible.”

Ferric Shaping is level 77!

…

Ferric Shaping is level 81!

Magus of the Grand Design is level 107!

“Everything has weak points,” he growled, eyes burning in the dark. “And now you’re just Master Tier trash.”

Adamant Discord!

He seized the remaining five High Guard and yanked them inward upon lightning leashes. They shouted in defiance, firing off potent Skills at him in mid-air…but it wasn’t enough.

Second Sword Form. Falcon.

Felix swung his hooked sword, spinning in a perfect circle as lightning flared, and decapitated all of them at once.

You Have Killed A High Guard Of The Pathless (x5)!XP Earned!

Your Companion Pit Has Gained 2 Levels!

Pit Is Now Level 76!

He Gains:

+20 STR, +18 PER, +8 VIT, +22 END, +14 INT, +20 WIL, +40 AGL, +40 DEX! +20 AFI, RES, and REI!

He Has 100 Unused Stat Points!

You Have Gained A Level!

You Are Now Level 69!

+20 to STR! +22 to PER! +22 to VIT! +26 to END! +24 to INT! +28 to WIL! +26 to AGL! +29 to DEX! +20 All Harmonic Stats!

You Have 15 Unused Stat Points!

Empyrean Embrace.

The dead bursted into luminous smoke and were consumed before the Hierei managed to step from his dais.

"You impudent monstrosity," the man said, his voice gaining dimensions beyond sound. It hung in the air like a physical force, bashing into Felix like a collapsing mountain. "Your reign of terror ends here!”

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Halt.

That single word resounded throughout the throne room, Felix froze mere feet from the dais. He glared at Mivum, but it was all he could do to keep breathing.

"You seem confused, Unbound." The man walked down the dias and he seemed like a giant made of light. It wasn't the golden radiance of the Pathless, however, but a multi-hued illumination that seemed to pour into the man from the land itself. It pulsed, like an artery attached to a distant heart.

"I hold you with the Authority not of one or two Territories, but by the collective Will of millions of faithful abiding by the Tenets of the Pathless.” Mivun stepped closer, and Felix’s eyes watered at the intensity of his light. “With Purity and Strength, the Hierophant carved out her kingdom, creating Order by force of her Will. Upon founding the Hierocracy, she overwrote the flawed Seals of the empires of Ages past. Every Territory she conquered was placed under a Subordinate Seal, from Bos’Vaan to Andiva. Each Subordinate Seal was beholden to the power of Amaranth and she who controlled it, funneling their power to the High Seat within the Shining Palace.

“As Hierei of the Pathless, I can call upon that strength.”

The Hierei seemed to expand, though he didn’t move at all. Felix’s senses spun as Mivun gained dimensions that went beyond the norm, as if he were spreading across the sky and deep into the earth itself.

Kneel.

Felix slammed to his knees, the stone floor cratering beneath him for a dozen feet.

“I am a conduit for all that have come before me, and all that bend the knee to the true god.”

Felix tried again to move, to break the Hierei’s hold on him, but he couldn’t. Even his eyelids were frozen open, still staring at the glowing man.

“Fool. This is your place within this world.” Mivun came to a stop right before Felix, towering over his kneeling form. “You cannot deny it anymore than you can break Order itself.”

Felix’s Mind whirled, piecing together what the Hierei had told him with what he could see. The stream of power that manifested itself as light around the man was tangled through the incredible knot of twisted silver threads. Oaths and the power coming off of the Seal of Pax’Vrell. Oaths of the Dragoons…and others? Do the Paladins and Priests and Inquisitors swear Oaths too? If the Hierei were to be believed, he was pulling power from all of them.

Yet he too carried Authority on his shoulders.

Pressing on that odd place inside him where it resided, Felix mustered his own Authority. It sang within him, resonating with his Divine Tree and the Pillars upon which he stood. Felix heaved at the Hierei, Authority versus Authority, while he stared into the man-shaped silhouette of radiance before him. A silent scream tore through him, the song’s melody turning sharp as his Will and Intent firmed beneath his hands.

He blinked.

"I...don’t..."

Legs quivering, Felix pushed himself up. “I don’t kneel…”

He funneled all fifteen free stat points to Willpower and felt the burden lessen by the thinnest hair. "To anyone," he finished, chest heaving.

Mivum stared at him, fear writ large across his huge face. "Impossible."

Within him, Felix felt a deep, unsettling crack. His wobbling legs nearly buckled again. My Pillars—!

"You've enough Authority of your own to stand. That is worthy of your legend, Nevarre…but it will not last.” The Hierei’s form blurred beyond the light, the sound of a high pitched hum overtaking the deep resonance from before. “You will die, and so will your Nagast. All that you hold will fall as Ruin sweeps the world clean.”

How much Authority can he draw on? Felix wondered between bouts of intense agony. His insides felt split open, but he stubbornly kept to his feet. “You sound…like you want the Ruin to come.”

"Who do you think called it back?"

Felix stared in uncomprehending horror, positive he had misheard. “You…summoned the Ruin?”

Mivun smiled beatifically. “This world is chaos, Nevarre. It is rife with war, death, and the senseless posturing of the corrupt. Order must be restored.”

“How…does the Ruin…restore order?”

“It wipes the slate clean. In Ruin’s wake will rise a society pruned of the impurities that befoul its darkened corners, one that the Hierophant will lead to the true glory of the Pathless.”

Felix stifled a scream as his foundation groaned and popped. Within his chest, hair-thin cracks spread across his crystalline Pillars like spiderwebs. “You summoned…us…to fight…”

“The Unbound weren’t summoned to fight the Ruin.” Mivun’s grin widened as Felix’s drifting Mind focused entirely on him. “Ah, that got your attention, didn’t it? No, your aid was never intended to be used against the Ruin, but for a loftier goal. You have seen the results of our true purpose already, have you not?”

Memory crashed through Felix like his own lightning. “Gabby.”

Mivun sighed. “Yes. Quite a specimen, that one. Terrifying in power and countenance both. Yet the rest of you were torn from our grasp by the damnable Sorcerers.”

Felix’s legs shook as if the earth wave heaving beneath him, but for a brief moment he hardly noticed. “You…were to make us all Vessels?”

“Intelligence! I am increasingly certain all I have heard of your exploits is true, Nevarre.” The Hierei patted Felix on the shoulder, and it nearly dropped him. “The Pathless’ power is too great for any one Vessel, and if the Hierophant’s plan is to come to fruition, He will be too much for even two or three. But Nine? Hmm. Nine would do quite well.”

A sword of solid Mana congealed from the raging aura around the Hierei, solidifying in his meaty grip as he placed it against Felix’s neck.

Kneel.

His resolve crumbled, and Felix fell back to his knees. The priest slid the blade against his skin, drawing a burning line of crimson across Felix’s neck. “Then again, the Pathless seeks your death, and you have come right to us, Nevarre.

“I suppose eight Vessels will do just as well as nine.”

“Mivun…” Felix hadn’t the Will or Authority remaining to fight the Hierei. He could tell that if he so much as lifted his arm to shove away the blade, his Pillars would shatter.

Luckily, he didn’t have to move much at all. His fingers curled across the wrapped object Harn had given him.

“You can…tell your god…to kiss my ass.”

He shoved a sloppy torrent of Mana into it, and the device exploded into suffocating darkness.

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