Unbound

It was one of his better plans, Felix had to admit. The Kaltraps didn't respond to sound, and only acted defensively when approached with magic attacks. They would only properly attack when they sensed something living cross them. So what to do?

Send someone with excellent footwork.

Vess darted across their grey-blonde carapace, each footstep a deception that the monsters fell for hook, line, and sinker. The Kaltraps burst from the earth behind her, popping into the air like kafkaesque landmines. They were thick as barrels and possessed of many segmented legs ending in grasping claws, half of which propelled it up into the air and the other half attempted to grappled with the heiress. Yet her Dragoon's Footwork meant she had already moved on before they felt the impression of her step, leaving them exposed for a few seconds.

Exactly as planned.

"Bindings of the White Waste!"

Chains of ice stabbed through their hard exoskeletons, entangling the living landmines. Their forms lit up as orange Mana vapor surged through their chunky abdomens, but the purple-white haze fought back the rising temperature. They wouldn't hold long, especially with so many secured at once, but they didn't need to be.

"Pillars of the Domineering Sentinel!"

"Imbued Sparkbolt!"

Beams of blue kinetic Mana slammed down from above, crushing the Kaltraps onto their sides. While they wriggled in crushing pain, red bolts of searing fire slammed into them, one after another. It all happened so fast the creatures barely had time to react, but they were Tier II beasts. As the Imbued Sparkbolts hit them, each and everyone retaliated by releasing an explosive cloud of orange fire Mana. Grass charred and dirt was thrown as the detonation tore everything around themselves, including the icy chains that held them. The discharge ripped into the earth, creating dark, loamy pits that the monsters immediately began to burrow back into.

Adamant Discord!

Lightning exploded from his hands as he gripped the ineffable lines that connected him to each and every one of the Kaltraps. A piece of him recognized it as a connection of bestial animosity, of conflict, and his power surged down those lines. The eight Kaltraps that had been pulled free immediately seized, their bodily control wrested from them as electricity singed their nerves, and Felix hauled back. His Aspects, all of them, twinged in pain as he leveraged their collective bulk from the earth. They fought back, keeping their lower ends still in the earth, but unable to stop him completely. His Skill was fueled by his stats. Unable to hide in the dirt, the monsters stood no chance.

Adamant Discord is level 58!

"Pit! Now!"

Pit screeched and thrust his wings forward. Green-white Mana flowed out of his pinions like a dense liquid, changing into near-invisible crescents of hardened air as it cleared his wings. Faster than bullets, they keened as the crescent blades hit the Kaltraps. A hurricane of deadly edges.

Kaltraps shrieked in high pitched, alien voices as their visible legs were severed. Yet Pit did not relent, and blade after blade hit the insectoids. The creatures were strong, but even its Tier II exoskeleton couldn't keep it safe from the tenku. Their armor buckled and sundered, each pieces bursting with green ichor.

Felix flared his Skill, letting the electricity flow through him. Through those that dared to cross him; to make him waste so much time in this meaningless place. The air shuddered and snapped, and burning ozone assaulted his nose, but Felix didn't relent. The Kaltraps began to smoke and curl, their bodies pulling completely free of the earth as he lifted them higher and higher, until they were more than ten feet from the cleaved grasslands.

Suddenly, the closest creature exploded into an inferno. A storm of fire Mana and impotent earth Mana swept outward from it, as it became a living pyre. As the inferno hit the others they too burst, until the field went up in a billowing cloud of furious flame.

"Noctis' tits!" Evie said as she stumbled back, just moving clear of the firestorm. She poked at Atar. "A little warning next time, huh?"

"That wasn't me," he said with a significant look at Felix. "I think you hit a Mana bladder on the bug, Felix."

"Most likely on the tail end," Alister said. He pointed at a charred and blackened form inside the fire. It was still alive and twitching, but not for long. "They kept their rears planted in the earth the whole time. Likely to prevent something like this."

"Hm," Felix said through his teeth. Holding his Skill so long made him feel like things were tearing inside him. "Then...let's try something...else."

Adamant Discord is level 59!

Adamant Discord is level 60!

Felix sent his senses along more lines, following the still quivering connections between his Kaltraps to those that hid nearby. The threads were shaky, tentative, bonds of Type and shared drives. But it was enough.

Adamant Discord!

Felix screamed, but the air cracked as blinding bolts of electricity erupted from him. One, three, five, eight more Kaltraps were hauled wholesale from the earth.

"Felix, you're bleeding!"

"Twin's teeth," someone whispered. Kikri, he thought.

Felix thrust both of his hands forward, his Body quivering and his Mind and Spirit screaming. The incandescent blaze in his Skill's grip launched into the seizing Kaltraps.

*KATHOOOOM!*

Wind and sound flattened the grassland for dozens of feet as they erupted into a pillar of fire and fountaining earth. His friends leaned into it but several were knocked on their asses by the force of it, and Evie clearly had to increase her mass just to keep her feet.

You Have Killed A Kaltraps (x16)!

XP Earned!

Adamant Discord is level 61!

Felix stumbled forward as his chest and arms and legs all felt as if they'd been shredded. He slammed his hands and knees into the ground, breaking it open with his sheer weight as his Body trembled. Sound was a keening wail in his ears, and his Spirit reverberated with the strain. A string quartet surged across his senses, but it was distorted and burred with atonal riot.

Something wet dripped onto his hands.

Felix lifted an arm and wiped away blood. From his nose, and his eyes.

"Blind gods, Felix. What did you do?" Vess leaned down next to him. She reached out to touch him but stopped inches away, as if unsure. "You're bleeding. Where did you hurt yourself?"

"I'm fine," Felix gasped. He muscled down a scream as he straightened up. His muscles felt knotted tight, and it was like bending steel as he stood. "I'm—it's just some internal bleeding."

"Oh is that all?" Evie said. "You had me scared for a moment there."

"Felix take my potion. Stablize yourself," Vess said. She pressed a teardrop shaped vial into his hands and closed his fingers over it. "You—"

"Incoming," Felix rasped. His Spirit might have been quaking, but his eyes still worked. The grasslands around them was waving as if it were in a storm, but the wind wasn't blowing. "I think...we might have disturbed some new friends."

The surrounding grasslands came alive with the skittering voices of hundreds of beasts, all driven to terror or anger by their sudden attacks. A medley of creatures rushed at them, a flood of horns, too many legs, too many eyes, long ears, and sharp fangs.

Harn recovered first. "Tier I! Haarguard! Front and center!"

"Taunt!" Vyne shouted, and Felix saw purple Mana stream from the man's feet. It snagged well over half of the monsters' attention, diverting them away from Felix and toward his massive shield.

"Ice Wall!" Nevia intoned, her voice dropping an octave as purple-white vapor sprayed the ground, leaving jagged barriers of ice behind. She formed a tight funnel, catching those monsters Vyne's Taunt missed, and forcing them toward the shield warrior. "Kylar! Davum! You're up!"

The thin swordsman and hulking warrior took place beside Vyne, and they met the monsters with measured violence. Kylar's twin swords flickered and slashed, dispatching the Tier I creatures with carefully placed strikes, while Davum's greataxe reaped them in swaths of bloody mayhem. With Kikri firing her arrows like an Elven gatling gun, it was like watching a blender in action.

"Damn," Felix said. Something seized in his thigh, but he braced himself with a sudden conjuration of a stone column at his side. "They're...better than I thought."

"I told you," Harn said. The onrush of Tier I monsters had slackened considerably. "We'll move ahead once we've all had a chance to rest," he added with a significant look at Felix.

Felix nodded and raised a hand to forestall the man. "I needed to see my limits," he said and checked his status. His Health was still above 60% and both his Stamina and Mana were recovering extremely quickly. "I'm fine."

"Hrm."

They rested for an hour after the battle, despite Felix's protests. He was eager to continue, but he couldn't deny that the others needed at least a little rest to recover some of their Mana and Stamina. Vyne had suffered close to a hundred points of damage as well, though the lesser salves and poultices they'd secured from Aenea were swiftly patching him up.

"Tiny little teeth," Vyne grimaced as another poultice was laid atop his shoulder. The lacerations weren't particularly deep, but the risk of a Status Condition were high. "Rather face an axe to the face any day."

"So you say now," Davum laughed as he ran a whetstone along his weapon's edge. "When you've recovered from your scratches, we can test that."

"Why wait? I'm feeling stronger already thanks to that level up." The shield warrior flexed his hands, obviously relishing his increase in stats.

"Dumped it all in Strength again, huh?" Nevia asked. "Why not more in Willpower?"

"Endurance and Strength are my mains, you know that. Willpower is a close fourth behind Vitality." Vyne hissed as a new poultice was slapped on by his cousin. "Careful, Ky!"

"Don't get bit up then, Vy," the swordsman muttered. He smoothed down his thin moustache in irritation. "You shouldn't have kept Taunting them. Between the four of us, we had em fine."

"That's the job," Vyne shrugged before wincing in pain. "Lord—uhm, Felix, sir?"

"Hm?" All this time, Felix had been sitting atop a small stone he'd shaped out of the bedrock. It was considerably higher here than in the city, though he had other stone sources to work with back there. His senses were extended out into the wilderness, watching for enemies as the sun stretched toward midday. "What's up?"

Vyne flinched as he met his gaze, and Felix guessed his eyes were glowing again. He wasn't entirely sure why that kept happening. It took the shield warrior a second to recover and speak up.

"How did you decide to allocate your stats?"

Felix could feel the Spirits of the guard increasing into the tight, rapid tempo of guarded curiosity. Even his own friends were drawn by the question. Harn just smirked, his helmet off as he shoved a quick meal into his gullet.

"I mean, did you focus on Strength? Or Endurance? Or Intelligence? You've got that lightning spell that...lifts things, somehow. I'm just—" Vyne looked at his friends, who were chuckling. "What? I'm curious!"

"My method...is not really that useful," Felix started before he sensed the shield warrior's sudden dejection. He cursed. Felix was really starting to dislike his Affinity. "Why?"

"Well, you're strong, too strong really, and I can't imagine what your Vitality is at to put up with as much punishment as I've heard—and you didn't stop, haven't stopped, to rest. I can speak for all of us when I ask: how can we get to where you are?"

"Kill a couple Tier III and Tier IV monstrosities and live through it," Evie suggested through a mouthful of trail rations. She swallowed and coughed, banging on her chest. "Eugh. That kinda abuse does wonders for stats and Titles, eh?"

Vyne traded looks with Kylar and Davum, but Nevia shot them down. "Don't be planning anything idiotic, you three."

"If they want to charge off and fight some Tier III, they're more than welcome," Kikri said with a wave of her hand. "More XP on this Quest for me that way."

Atar laughed and nudged Alister. "I like her."

The noble patted the fire mage on his knee and rose to his feet. "As fun as this conversation is, we should move. I'm back at full, and I imagine the rest of you aren't far off."

A chorus of agreement met his words—begrudging in some cases—and Felix was happy to be back on the move. He was more happy to be away from that conversation.

Suppose I should come up with better answers for stuff like that, he thought. His capabilities were becoming more and more common knowledge, and the source of his power would likely come to light eventually. Sooner rather than later if he kept his answers so sloppy. Hopefully that'll stop the questions for a little bit, though.

The chain reaction of explosions Felix had caused had cleared the area for nearly a half mile, but beyond that the Kaltraps thickened throughout the plains. On top of that, there were some flying buzzard-like creatures that kept swooping at them, and a number of antelope adjacent beasts that kept standing menacingly in the distance.

This is gonna take longer than six hours.

They progressed a half-mile at a time, and soon the process became so routine that they started pressing their Skills harder and harder. Finding the limits of their abilities was the fastest way to progress, after all, and add in the stress of escaping literal explosions meant Vess' Dragoon's Footwork and Evie's Acrobatics and Bindings of the White Waste rose fast. Even Atar and Alister saw several Skills jump two or three levels despite their slower use.

The Haarguard, Iron Ranked as they were, benefited the most from the repeated assault by Tier I monsters after each successful Kaltrap defusing. They each gained three levels by the end of it all, though their Skill levels were where they shined. Even better, the two groups were working a touch better together. At least, Felix now knew what he could expect them to handle in a situation.

Lure out the monsters, explode them, survive the retaliatory wave of Tier I beasts. Rinse and repeat.

Felix was right, though. It took them most of the day and into the early night before they even saw trees on the horizon. Another four hours had them within spitting distance of the dark canopy, and Harn called it for the night. He had Kikri fashion a quick and dirty shelter from the long grasses all around them, and they hunkered down for a night's rest.

It was perhaps two hours before dawn, when Felix woke from a short-lived sleep. Pit was a warm bulk along his one side, but Felix felt uncomfortably cramped. With care he climbed out of the tenku's embrace and out of the grass-shaped hut they all shared. Out in the pre-dawn dark, he breathed a deep breath of cool air.

Damn muscles, Felix complained. His Body was still getting used to the punishment his Adamant Discord put it through. His Mind and Spirit too. He had a splitting headache and a sense of...tedium? Like someone took his drive and motivation and burned it all up. The latter might have been the monotony of getting through the grasslands, but Felix doubted that. It had gotten repetitive sure enough, but there was always a part of him that thrilled whenever he used his magic.

I mean, it's magic.He shook his head. I'm never not gonna get psyched over it.

But all of that wasn't what kept him from sleeping. Instead it was a question, one that plagued his subconscious so much that he woke with it on his lips.

...That lightning spell that...lifts things, somehow...

What exactly was Adamant Discord? Felix pulled up the Skill information.

Adamant Discord (Transcendent), Level 61!

You have reclaimed power once Lost to the turning of Ages. The Pull of Significance accumulates with every step. Greatly increased power, control, and precision with each Skill level.

It made no mention of what it did, other than the hint about the Pull of Significance, nor what it cost to use. He'd learned both quickly enough, but it was one of the strangest Skills he owned. It was tied to another of his mysterious Skills, Unite the Lost, which seemed to restore things in some way. The indication was that Adamant Discord was "reclaimed" by Unite the Lost, which resonated with his Divine and Primordial Spark that were absorbed into his two cores.

While he used it, he felt those steel-hard lines of connection between him and all things, from dirt to people to the clouds above him. He could sense them even now, without activating the Skill, like words in the back of his Mind. The lightning was clearly a carry over from Reign of Vellus, and Felix liked to think it was the result of his Skill manipulating whatever energies it accessed. Because it wasn't Mana; Adamant Discord touched neither his Mana nor his Stamina. It fed directly on his Aspects and that might have been the most confusing bit.

How? And how do I get it to stop hurting so much? He'd figured repetition, like weight lifting, would eventually strengthen him. If it was working, he hadn't seen any results, but it hadn't been very long. His Aspects all felt whole, if strained, so no permanent harm had been done. Yet.

Felix groaned as he stretched, massaging his shoulders and chest as if to work the strain out of them. It would pass, likely soon, but he couldn't take a break. There were challenges ahead that he had to be ready to tackle, and despite Vyne's words, he knew his strength would not be enough.

Felix began a series of katas, Forms dedicated to his various fighting styles, moving through them at a glacial pace. His perfect recall could almost recreate his trainer, Rory, standing at his side and guiding him.

Like this, lad, he had said. Felix adjusted his stance, matching it to the memory. He began again. Slowly. Carefully.

Yes, lad. You'll get it. Eventually.

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