Unbound

The more Felix experimented, the more he discovered. Before when he would activate one of his shaping Skills, it would set his Shaping Array to rattling. They were so close to harmonizing that they shook, like feedback from a speaker. Dissonance. Now that he was paying attention however, Felix could tell that Astrum Ascendence inundated his core space. It coated his Array, and when Stone Shaping moved, it was a struck tuning fork.

Smooth. Resonant. So much so that it fought against his working, and only Felix’s focused Intent was enough to keep the path from turning to crystal again.

When he paused the wet-to-dry pattern he’d been maintaining, though, it changed entirely. Stone Shaping hummed at a strange new pitch, the little planet inside his core space whirling faster and faster. The vibration of it shifted, until it spooled outward, centrifugal force sending buzzing waveforms out into the black. Rings formed, like Saturn, and the Skill pulsed—a sprinter’s heartbeat.

Now, how will it do at drying out a new trail?

It took no more than a thought before Mana and Essence flowed from him in a flood. The soft, wet earth was seized by his Will and Intent, and before anyone noticed, the mud was gone.

For the next two hundred feet, the ground was as dry as sunbaked clay.

Tzfell jolted. “What—? Lord Autarch did you do this?”

Felix rubbed his left palm, where the spell had ejected from his channels. “I did. Trying out some new combinations.”

“It sounded…odd,” the Dwarven Chanter said.

“Is this the crystal thing again?” Evie asked from above. She was still in the trees, chain around her waist.

“Yeah.”

People nodded, shrugged, and moved on. After a moment, Tzfell did as well. What he’d done was unremarkable, especially with the pattern he’d been holding for the past few hours. To Felix, though, it was far more.

What was that? Pit asked.

Felix lifted his hands, now wreathed in dusty brown flame. A way forward.

The ground grew rockier ahead, which was just as well, as Felix had less and less attention to spare for drying out soggy weeds and muck.

He tested out all the Skills in his Shaping Array. Green Shaping, Storm Shaping, Ferric Shaping, Hand of Calamity, and Sovereign of Flesh. Green Shaping was fairly straightforward and, like its earthen counterpart, it bolstered the speed at which the Skill took root and reached his desired outcome. Winter-dead branches budded and old weeds were uprooted by fistfuls of bright green shoots, all with the subtlest of gestures from his Intent and Will.

Storm Shaping was…odd. Eddies of wind and sudden puffs of fog formed around him, filled with that ineffable charge of a lightning storm on the horizon. That, of all the others, drew the most attention from his friends. Concerned looks twice resulted in Vess coming to check on him, but Felix waved her off each time. In the end, he found the Skill extremely responsive as a shadow of his Intent sent a cushion of air to lift his arms from his sides.

Could…this let me fly? Really fly, without Adamant Discord?

That would require further examination.

Ferric Shaping was improved by leaps and bounds. Before Felix could only form crude iron objects with the Skill, but now Astrum Ascendence pushed the very structure of it to new heights. Rough metal became smoother, polished even, until it resembled high steel. Voracious Eye confirmed it, too. With his enhancement, Felix could now form and control far stronger metal.

Hand of Calamity was far tricker to test. It promised a great deal of destruction from its very nature. Acid did not play well with others, as a general rule. The most he was willing to risk was forging physical objects, as he had with fire, stone, and ice before. Normally that was harder to do with Hand of Calamity thanks to acid’s liquid form. With Astrum Ascendence, it was as easy as picturing the shape in his Mind.

When it came time to test out his Sovereign of Flesh, however, Felix found it a great deal more complicated. Unsettling, even. Upon activation, he became intimately aware of his skin, scales, and muscle. With the faintest brush of his Will, his arms rippled, scales pulling free on spiraling tendons to reveal veins, blood, and a shining light—

Eugh. He cut off both Skills. That’s god awful.

It was so intense, like flaying himself with a knife. Felix couldn’t bear using them together for longer than a few seconds. The others though, he’d actually made significant progress.

Green Shaping is level 95!

Storm Shaping is level 67!

…

Storm Shaping is level 77!

Adept Tier!You Gain:

+35 EVA+35 RES+40 INT

Ferric Shaping is level 72!

…

Ferric Shaping is level 76!

Adept Tier!

You Gain:

+25 WIL+25 INT+25 MIG

Hand of Calamity is level 82!

…

Hand of Calamity is level 88!

I guess I’ll have to practice more with Sovereign of Flesh. He didn’t enjoy the thought of it, but Felix had endured worse things. I just wish it had been as…natural feeling as it had in Pit’s core space.

When he was facing down Avet, he’d forced his shape into all sorts of terrifying forms without hesitation. In the core space, Felix had acted without thinking. It was easy. He wondered, then, why Sovereign of Flesh unnerved him so much now. Deep down, he knew that Avet hadn’t come at them with his full might. Sovereign of Flesh had been truly useful to limit Avet’s reach, and if he were to attempt such a thing again he’d need far more levels beneath his belt.

He had a god to kill, and no time to waste.

Which brought him to the next point on his list. Having explored some of Astrum Ascendence’s capabilities and taken steps toward his Tenth Pillar, Felix focused on what Avet had said during their short interactions. Namely, that Felix could become a god, himself.

There was a Title he had earned, a long time ago, called The Broken Path. According to its description, it was a treacherous path toward power, and Cal had called it part of the “old ways” under the gods. As it had upgraded along the way, the description had evolved, calling the Broken Path a trail meant for Divinities, Primordials, and the mad. It led, presumably, toward godhood.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

How, was anyone’s guess, but it gave him a thread to tug.

Best of all, the gods were clearly fighting among themselves, and they all hated the Pathless. That hopefully meant the Coward in White couldn’t rely on the others to come to his aid, even if they weren’t all still trapped. That had been another thing Avet had confirmed. Barring Avet and the Pathless, the other gods were still trapped on their moons.

Still, that left him with a slew of problems he still had no answer to; the largest of which was how exactly he was planning to kill a god and save his sister. He had three whole Territories at his beck and call, but none of them would be any real help against the Divine.

He needed the Unbound.

Right. He clapped his hands. Establish my Tenth Pillar. Reach full Master Tier. And find the rest of the Unbound. Easy peasy.

He had a strong lead on two of them, as well as tentative ones on the rest, but that would have to wait until they could make it back to Nagast and his Shadowgates. For now, he had to secure his own rise…and if Felix’s recent growth assured him of anything, it was that he wasn’t alone. There were others who could rise with him.

“Destroy the golden fools!”

The words ripped across the valley, blasting aside snow and setting half a forest to swaying. High Master Tier lungs weren’t to be underestimated, even if they belonged to a Dwarf.

Imara watched as thousands of the stocky warriors raced across the snowfields, each one armored in silver-green mithril and bearing weapons that sparked with innumerable Skills. Each one was strong, at least newly Adept if not near-Master—and that wasn’t counting the generals that led them from the front.

“Green, metal shells,” she murmured, and a bubble of unreasonable laughter rose up from the depths of her chest. The Light in her flickered. “Turtles of war.”

Bolts of shadow and stone crashed all around her, throwing the Inquisitors off their feet. Imara buckled in half, not injured, but breathless regardless. Tears squeezed from the corner of her eyes, radiant gold that sizzled as it hit the snow.

—zzk—you—Are Sick, Chosen.

Between one breath and the next, the rampant laughter died, leaving a gaping hole just below her ribs.

Be Healed.

Golden Light flowed into the breach. Heat tightened across her chest, a tourniquet staunching a gaping wound, until the emptiness was gone.

Imara blinked. Straightened herself, as the Skills of her enemies fell across the Hierocratic forces. What—? Pathless, what is happening to me?

There was no answer.

“Chosen!” Bellar’s handsome face hove into view, the light around his white-enameled armor melting a path through the snow. “Imara! The Hinterlord’s army is upon us! I need you!”

She whipped her head up. The three high Master Tier generals of Red Shield were a hundred yards out, and the skies were darkening around their shoulders, as if they carried a piece of the night with them. Seconds remained before they and their thousandfold army reached her redcloak army.

“I am here,” she reassured the small man. She lifted a single hand, and a blade wrought of perfect light settled into her palm. “Reign of the Remnant—!”

The Light within her rebelled, skittering from her grasp.

The blade broke.

Thunder and fury fell upon her, shredding the terrain into clods of molten earth. A second and third shot hit right after, shells of screaming lava shot from that bank of shadow—their passage finally revealing a heavy, octagonal barrel atop the generals’ shoulders. Their faces were twisted masks of eager rage.

“Fire!”

Thousands of Dwarven soldiers unleashed new, Adept Tier Skills. Bellar screamed, and radiance bloomed from the Inquisition…before being smothered by the descent of thick, cloying dark, and the cacophony of riotous impact. Chaos crushed them into the molten earth, and a foul dirge erupted across her lines.

Death.

Followed by buzzing silence.

Yet from the depths of the night, the dawn returned.

Like the rising sun itself, a gleaming shape stood amid the gathered shadow. Imara stood beneath the confusing onslaught of blistering cold and molten shrapnel, her armor red-hot and smoking. Her eyes snapped open, releasing twin beams of brilliant sunlight.

Imara’s Spirit unfurled.

Dwarves screamed, choking beneath the weight of her unveiled Spirit. They fell to their faces as the shroud of Night around them thinned. The generals dropped their spent cannons, arms uplifted to combat her pressure. Mantles of shadow unfurled, shoving back at Imara’s presence.

She straightened her knees and unbent her back. The light unfolded. Her Spirit crashed against the entire army and, for a moment, held all of them back.

Imara gritted her teeth and tasted blood. “You will not find victory here, Nightsworn.”

One of the generals screamed at her, neck bulging with veins. “Noctis curse you, Titan!”

“Your Queen is gone, general.” A blade of light formed once more in her hands, and this time it grew until it was thirty feet long. “Bow to the Reign of the Remnant King!”

She swung.

Shadow was banished as the left flank of the Dwarves were utterly annihilated. Curses and whispered prayers were cut short, the very air in their lungs boiled away before their flesh was burnt into ash and greasy smoke.

You Have Killed An Elite Ironclad (x1338)!

XP Earned!

You Have Killed A Forge Knight (x129)!

XP Earned!

You Have Killed A Nightsworn General (x2)!

XP Earned!

“Titan!”

As her Skill burst apart, the last Nightsworn General blasted across the devastated terrain, shield and axe in hand. Imara met him, her bare hands catching the heater’s spiked surface and the axe’s edge.

“You cannot win, Dwarf,” she growled.

“I can still bloody you!”

A mantle of shadow burst from the general’s shoulders at the same time his mithril armor was surrounded by a spiraling shield of jagged stone. Frost snapped across Imara’s hands, freezing them to his metal shield and axe, before stone ripped up across her breastplate. Imara hissed as sharp rocks cut lines across her cheek.

Instinctively, she reached for the Light within her breast…and found it greatly diminished.

“Breath of the Molten Servant!”

From the general’s bearded mouth, a stream of lava splashed up onto Imara’s chest. She screamed, torn between external and internal agony. The emptiness at her center rang out, a twinkling star too far to bestow any true light.

Imara, however, had more than the Light to rely upon. Hands still frozen fast, she wretched both her arms wide while at the same time lashing outward with a single, powerful kick.

The general’s eyes went wide and his arms ripped entirely from their sockets. He managed a single, outraged shriek before the melon of his torso was caught between her foot and the unrelenting ground.

You Have Killed A Nightsworn General!

XP Earned!

Imara tore her hands from the shield and axe, leaving skin and blood behind. She looked around. Her Inquisitors had rallied and were in the middle of routing the remains of the Dwarven army. Two hundred feet distant, blades of flame left behind smoldering beards and charred necks.

Imara stared at her bare hands, where her armor’s gauntlets still refused to grow back despite the holy enchantments inscribed upon the set. She had checked the sigils before; they were still intact, but they had nothing to draw upon. The emptiness had returned. A void where the Light once was.

Pathless? What is happening to me?

Yet her god did not answer.

Ever since that man had dared to attack her, her Light had been…flickering. To make matters worse, instead of dying as all others had, her foe had escaped.

She had mustered her surviving army to chase him down. The monstrous man and the Gnome—

A surge of emotion welled up, rattling through the pit in her chest—a desperate rage and trembling need that she found dizzying. Foreign. She fought it down, sacrificing blood from a tooth-split lip as her beleaguered Will pressed back. A buzzing filled her Mind, before all of it faded away.

“Chosen.” Bellar stepped up to her again. His armor was charred across the breastplate and the cooled remnants of stone clung to his greaves. “The Red Shield’s army is broken. We are free to expand to the west and connect with our promised reinforcements. From there, we can head east toward the Hinterlord of—”

NO.

Imara’s head jerked back, the stentorian voice drowning out Bellar’s words. Pathless? What is your Will?

—h–ead South. Seek The Dragon.

“Chosen?” Bellar leaned toward her, his face angled upward to peer beneath the curtain of her fallen hair. “Was—is our god speaking to you?”

“He is.” Imara’s voice was raw, as if she had been screaming. “We are to go south.”

“South? But the bulk of the Dwarven resistance lies there. We’d be trapped against the assembled might of at least three Hinterlords, and Red Shield’s forces were nearly too much for us!”

“We will collect your reinforcements first,” Imara said, her Mind branching down a dozen strategic pathways. “Then we go south. The Pathless Wills it.”

Bellar swallowed hard, but nodded.

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