Unbound

Influence of Primordial and Divine Essence Nodes Detected!

Calculating...

First Threshold Exceeded!

Calculating...

Second Threshold Exceeded!

Calculating...

Harmonic Threshold Exceeded!

Calculating...

Felix shook and fell to a knee. His Blade and Femur fell from his hip and back, almost forgotten in his spate of violence and new, System induced evolution. He let them be, his muscles spasming too hard to even make the attempt to pick them up. He gritted his teeth against a rising pain and pleasure that reminded him of the internal war when he'd Tiered up. An all encompassing pressure impelled parts of himself—parts he couldn't identify—to move and shift, and suddenly they did. Without warning, the composition of Felix Nevarre changed, irrevocably.

Primordial of the Unseen Tide (Lesser)*: The Union deepened and strengthened, the cadence has burst into wild melody. Will Unyielding, Soul of Fire turned to Unending Song. +4 to WIL, INT, DEX, and END per level. +10 Bonus Stats per level. -25% XP Gain.

Energy pulsed through his core and channels, a spreading warmth that soothed as much as it agitated. As if adrenaline were being pumped into his heart, he felt charged with a manic vigor that threatened to send him sprinting into the distance. Yet part of him was also sinking deep into a smooth and soft lethargy from which he feared he'd never wake.

Primordial? Felix's thoughts raced in lazy circles. What happened to being divine, Felix half-laughed to himself. He felt giddy and content, as if all of the "good" hormones in his brain got dumped at the same time as the manic and depressive ones. He fought off the confusing euphoria with a flex of his Will, Alacrity, and finally his Felicity, determined to keep his head. What does the asterisk mean?

*Base Race: Nym.

Ah. So he was still a Nym, technically. Did that mean the Maw was once another Race as well? Or had it simply jumped from body to body in the ancient past? He shook himself and got back to his feet. Not worth thinking about.

Having mastered himself, Felix reached for his weapons and strapped them down. He tried to not let his Race change shake him, no matter that it literally did just that. It was just Another Thing. He was still Felix. Still himself, such as that was. He—

He could feel threads.

They were fuzzy and unclear, but his Affinity twinged at their presence. Distant swirls that were maddeningly close; thousands, upon thousands of connections wrapping around his Spirit. They were dimmer there in the real world than in that null space beyond his core, but they were most definitely present.

Felix licked his lips, his eyes fixed on the middle distance as the rain soaked him to the bone. Those connections trembled, all of them at once as something shivered toward him. He could hear it, a series of rising chords that crescendoed just as a blue box appeared.

New Title!

Tyros of the Unseen Tide (Primordial)

You have begun to sense the totality of That Which Binds All.

+25% To Perceiving The Unseen Tide

Prerequisites: Cardinal (Major) Title, Race: Primordial

Those connections tugged at Felix with an increased fervor. It was coming from all directions, as before, but stronger than ever. Nearly as powerful as he had felt in the null space. It felt like a natural force, like the world itself was anchored to him, or that he was a keystone in an archway that held up all things. It was vast and incomprehensible, and now he had a name for it.

The Unseen Tide, huh? Felix felt at the threads with his Affinity, his only stat that could sound their ephemeral shape. That's the same as the Essence Mote I took to Temper Reign of Vellus. He flexed his hands while that invisible weight dragged at him, his brain caught up trying to make sense of the juxtaposition. I Tempered with the Essence of Gravity.

He looked at his Skill, still shining brighter than all the others, tethered to his blue-white core with a ribbon of multicolored light. The Essence of Gravity had enlarged the Skill, enhancing it in ways that had been superior to his other Tempered Skills. What was once a weak push had, through evolution, training, and Tempering become a mighty bolt of lightning capable of breaking buildings and Journeyman bones. It was one of his favorites, and now it would no longer respond.

Reign of Vellus!

The Mana gathered and circulated, but the Skill did not hum or change in the slightest. Even marshalling his Intent and working it manually did little more than make the Skill brighten in his core space. It was as if he'd been locked out.

Vellus. It was clear the goddess had a hand in it. After all, the Skill bore her name for some reason. Felix glanced at his cores again, and the convoluted shape emerging from between them. Like a set of roots growing the wrong way. Did that have anything to do with it?

Those dark red veins pulsed, and Felix felt a brief and staggering pressure mount between his eyes.

Cores Have Integrated Primordial And Divine Qualities!

Around his lower core, blue-white fire and lightning burst outward in expanding corona of light. Felix threw up an arm in vain protection, but the light slipped past his defenses in spreading ring of blue-white flame. Crackling thunder followed its path, the sound just as powerful as the fire itself as they both seemed to scour him from head to toe.

That same melodic dissonance that had been dominating his core space flared in strength. Above, the ruby red core finished absorbing the Divine Essence Node and shifted its coloration closer to a burnished gold, albeit on chased by a glimmer of crimson. It too let out a peal of noise, though to Felix's ringing ears it sounded like the primal roar of some mighty beast with lungs the size of a mountain.

Essence Nodes Absorbed!

Due To Accumulated Significance, You Have Developed (2) Named Cores!

+ [Cardinal Beast Core]!

+ [Thunderflame Core]!

The two cores spun counter to one another, blue-white and burnished gold lightning arcing between them as that dark shape grew every higher through their centers. Essence and Mana screamed above, pulled into the vacuum created by his core's rotations, all of it fed into that thickening, bloody pattern.

What—Felix braced himself against the rising light of his Named Cores, fighting to remain close to them. What is happening?

Spinning faster and faster, the crimson-gold of his Cardinal Beast Core spun out ribbons of its own light. Each flew unerring into the darkness of his core space, and each latched onto one of his Skills. The exact same Skills he had Tempered for Journeyman.

Felix felt a brief surge of strength as each of his Skills took in whatever that power was; each Skill felt...more, somehow. Even Reign of Vellus, though it remained distant. Yet they didn't gain a level, there was no bright flare up of gold and blue or expansion. Instead it was as if they had gained...weight. Depth. Their rotations and elliptical revolutions around his cores slowed to a glacial pace.

Beneath the two cores, a small length of woven ribbons snapped together, joining both sets of nine into a tiny column. The nine ribbons twisted around while the cores spun and the Skills themselves revolved. Movement did not stop, and in Somehow each revolution packed more and more tighter together, but barely extended the length. It was like ribbons around a Maypole, but each spin drew the ribbons so close they seemed to mesh into one another.

Is this the next core stage? Felix wondered. Zara had told him of the others, and informed him of what he should expect after the Ring Stage. Weaving Stage, when my Tempered Skills join in on the fun.

Zara neglected to mention what exactly it did...and he doubted even she would expect him to suddenly have two cores.

Thoughts of Zara led him to consider the rain once again. He was absolutely soaked, and Felix realized he was feeling something like cold. Not a chill from the weather, but a lack of heat against his skin and eyes. Something he'd been unconsciously feeling all this time. He looked down at the withered corpses, have buried beneath the smoking remnants of the monkeys.

The Maws influence was gone. Utterly, from within and without. There was just him and the power he had claimed and turned to his advantage. The chill in the air felt...good.

Yet in that gap in his Perception, where once he could feel Revenants and Ghouls running amok, now Felix could sense something else far less intimately. Sounds in the rain, breathing and the padding of paws against wood and stone. More monsters were coming.

I don't have time for this!

The beasts emerged, but Felix and Pit had already rejoined and wings sprouted from his broad back. They were huge and majestic, fully covered in black, cyan, and red feathers. A single pump of them sent Felix rocketing into the storm-laden sky and sent the racing Simians sprawling from the sheer wind pressure. Ghostly white balls of flame were lobbed in his direction, but they didn't make it halfway to him before they were doused by the torrential downpour.

Wrack and Ruin!

Wrack and Ruin!

Dual casted orbs of acid dropped from his accelerating form. They were pumped full of so much Mana they were easily both the size of wagons, and they wobbled as they fell, barely holding together. The Ghostfire Simians barely had a chance to scream before each one splashed down among them. Intensely effective acid exploded in all directions, hitting nearly the entire mob of beasts. Those near the center of the impact were melted completely, while the others lost muscle, skin, bones, even entire limbs to the hungry acid.

Felix didn't wait to hear their screams or parse the kill notifications he received. He flew on, north, dodging lightning bolts as they crashed laterally across the clouds. Pit, ever watchful, cried out warnings when the lightning came a little too close for comfort, but none hit them.

He flew on, letting his connections draw him onward. Visibility was extremely limited, even from on high, as the rain continues unabated. Gale-force winds pushed at them, but Felix was heavy enough and strong enough to fight back against it, though it ate at his concentration. He could feel his friends somewhere ahead and far below, but not exactly. Evie, Harn, Cal, and Vess...all of them were there. He could also sense a dense collection of threads that were pulsing in an odd pattern. One that was in tune with his new Cardinal Beast Core. He didn't know what to make of that.

As he drew closer, the clarity of his Affinity increased. He could suddenly sense a rapid tattoo vibrating along his Oath threads.

Fear. Anger. Exhaustion.

The sensations floated toward Felix, hitting him as he descended from the storm. His friends were worried, and they were fighting for their lives. He knew it. He dropped lower, and through the rain, he saw the encampment.

The walls were besieged, just as Vellus had shown him...but it wasn't the Inquisition at all.

Monsters.

Felix could see Ghostfire Simians, hundreds of them, assaulting the walls he had made. Guilders were atop the battlements, letting loose with Apprentice Tier bows or brightly glowing Mana Skills. Monkeys died by the dozen, but there always seemed to be more, and behind them were the bus-sized carapaces of a familiar insect.

Wretches! Felix fumed. How'd they all get in the city? What happened to the Wall?!

Then Felix saw him. A massive figure in grey metal, more ball than humanoid, it raised it's stubby fist and gestured imperiously at the struggling defenders. What it said was lost to the storm, but from behind the Arcid came seventeen humanoids, each of them around ten feet tall. They wore mechanized armor made of blue, ice-encrusted plates. Reforged, his Voracious Eye claimed, each of them between level 60 and 65.

The giants! Felix snarled, and Pit joined him. By unspoken agreement, they dove, hurtling toward the earth and the bastard Arcid. So great was his focus that he missed the three Reforged that leaped from nearby rooftops, tackling him and bringing all of them down among the rabble of Wretches and Simians. The monsters erupted in fountains of ichor and blood, the weight of the four of them too much to withstand.

Pit! Go!

A flash of light accompanied Felix's mental shout, and the horse-sized tenku manifested just before the reaching arms of a Reforged. The armored creature flew back with a surprised scream, it's face no more than a sheet of molded ice above a lower jaw filled with flat, even teeth. Felix rolled to his feet, the other two Reforged rounding on him amid the charnel path they had made. Without a word, they charged again, stomping their armored boots and grasping at Felix's limbs.

"You thought to ambush me, Fiend!?" A hollow, rattling voice shouted from nearby. The Sphere laughed. "I'm surprised you survived below, but you'll do no further harm here! We've come for Challengers! So do us a favor, and perish!"

The Reforged reached for Felix, but he threw himself forward with a stomp. Flitting through the grip of one, he landed feet first on the chest of the other. The force of his impact sent the Reforged sprawling, and the two of them tore through another three Simians before they crashed into the cobblestones below.

"RAAA!" the Reforged screamed, reaching for Felix's face.

"No," Felix snapped. He seized the monsters arms at the wrists and held them. No matter how the creature strained, it could barely move them. "I. Will. Not!"

With a roar, Felix hauled back and ripped the abomination's arms off.

"RAAAAAAHH!!"

With two, heavy throws the arms fell to the ground. The ice around them shattered, and Felix turned toward the Arcid, visible above the rush of monsters.

"Oh blessed Father," the Sphere whispered, and even through the rage Felix could hear the terror.

Good. It was time they learned to fear us. Felix reached down and ripped the Reforged's throat out, his own hands unharmed by their brutal cold.

To fear me.

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