The Chthonic Star flared, the metal blocks of its construction rotating into strange shapes as its caustic power spat all around it. Approaching it was dangerous, even for Felix, as those liquid spark-splashes melted stone and metal all around it—but Felix stepped through the arcs carefully, dodging them as they came, until he fetched up against the artifact’s side.
His Inheritor's Will was gone from its top. At first, he thought it might have fallen and gotten snagged at the base of the Star. But when he leaned down, dodging a spatter of colorless power, Felix found a weapon bent and mostly melted down to the hilt. It wasn't his but he recognized it: a sword given to the Legion captains. Mervin's sword. His throat burned, and Felix tucked it into his belt before refocusing on the Star. He'd worry about his hooked blade in a moment.
"So much pain from you.” He reached out to the spinning artifact, not quite touching it. “It's time you work for me."
His Chalice and Crown resonated with the Crescian Bronze it was made from. It echoed through him, vibrating through his bones as much as his Aspects. Just as he had once before, Felix could feel its Will. It was strange. The Chthonic Star wished to destroy—that was clear through the faint light that formed its being. Glimpses of something flashing within the colorless glimmers at its center sparked across Felix's Mind. It too spoke of obliteration, but it was tinged by something else.
"Isn’t this enough? You've already destroyed so much."
It pulsed, and Felix knew that it wanted more. Just as he knew through some strange sense afforded him by his Crown and Chalice that the key to the artifact's Will was within that colorless light. The knot of its Will emanated from the core of the Crescian Bronze in a way that reminded him of the Eidolon Exalt's somehow.
A burst of colorless energy arced outward from the angles of two metal blocks. It looped up and around, its heat enough to set his Garment ablaze even as Felix ducked away.
"I can give you more to destroy," he half-shouted. "Something you’ve never had. Together we can face the Ruin."
The Star inner light surged at that, its Will gaining a weight that Felix couldn't explain, but he felt nonetheless. He was close.
"No.”
Golden threads slammed between Felix and the star, woven into a wall that cut off his view of the artifact.
“It will not serve you, Fiend.”
Felix stepped back, casting a withering glare over his shoulder. The Hierophant stood, the stone split around her Body, which was far more bulky than he remembered. Golden threads covered her like muscles woven from light, stitched from neck to heels and flexing with unmitigated power. She'd grown twice Felix's size, and her empty hands clenched menacingly.
“Wait your turn, lady.”
“Your insolence is tiresome.” She mashed her fists together. “Face me, Fiend!”
She kicked off a statue, sending it’s multi-ton stone skidding several feet back.
“Cute.” Felix bared his teeth. “Let me show you mine.”
Sovereign of Flesh!
The Hierophant crashed into him, golden hands swinging in a wild haymaker. Felix met it, fist against fist, as he rose to match her height.
Sovereign of Flesh is level 146!
Armored plates formed and burst beneath the Hierophant’s golden might, only to reform in an instant. Ocalla was fast—faster than Felix expected—and her attacks hit like a truck. The air buckled, a boom rocking the tower and sending the Unbound tumbling away with a cry. The Kobolds shouted something and vines grew rapidly across the surface between statues catching themselves, Ondine and the still unconscious Gabby. Felix couldn't focus on them.
He didn’t want to.
"What did you do to Vess?"
Ocalla only grinned.
"Fine. I'll pull it from you, tooth by tooth."
Stride of the King is level 140!
He surged sideways, Stride of the King flaring within him as he dodged around arcing golden threads. They speared through him, cutting burning grooves into his black scales that spattered blood onto the dry stone. His claws extended, slashing through her elbow, splitting threads that spilled gold back onto him.
Those threads gleamed, a golden noon against his dark midnight. They stretched and contracted, acting as layers of new muscle and modifying the woman’s Body with every twist and bend. Her Paragon Temper mixed with the Skill she bore pushed her to a realm Felix couldn't quite reach.
Yet speed wasn't everything. Her strikes slashed into him, but they could do little more than bleed him before his Sovereign of Flesh spent Essence to knit up his wounds. Lightning fast as she was, his Grandmaster Body was on par with hers, a fact that put a dour grimace on the woman’s angular face.
“Unbound scum! You do not deserve your power!”
Realization hit him like cold water. His Body was on par with hers, even at Grandmaster. Her Skill was mighty, her Temper greater, but he wasn’t falling behind.
Destroy Her, Scion!
Ocalla rushed him, legs pumping and long arms spread wide for a tackle. Sonata of Dominance sang, and a spear of stone leaped to hand. With a heave he planted it into the ground, forcing the woman to manuever around it—directly into a club made of hardened air.
The Hierophant wasn’t a fighter. She was a priest. Powerful, yes. But she didn’t know how to fight.
His near-invisible club slammed into her ankles, fouling her steps into a stumble. In the split seconds between trip and recovery, Felix struck at her knees with a spinning backhand. His fist bent the golden threads, souring the weave with a splash of golden light.
“Nothing you try will work, Nevarre.” The Hierophant caught his wrist, her frown twisting into a sneer. “The Sunlord’s Raiment will not be broken so easily.”
Wild Threnody!
Astrum Ascendence!
Multi-Cast!
Sonata of Dominance!
Elemental Mana surged across his other hand, focused entirely on the tips of his four talons as he drove them up into her shoulder. Fire, ice, shadow, and stone surged from him, slicing between the gaps of her threads and jerking upward. A piece of her shoulder split, the cords deformed, spraying blood as his hand sank home.
The Hierophant hissed in pain.
Empyrean Embrace!
The golden light dissolved, pieces of it at least, funneling into Felix's core. Mana, Essence, and something else flowed along with it. He recognized the taste.
Kohsara!
The Beast reared up within him with unfamiliar words on its tongue. It slathered for more of the Hierophant’s power, surging against Felix’s control—but he held it back. Barely.
Ocalla fell back, throwing off Felix’s grip with an outflung fist. Felix hissed in pain, his forearm snapping under the pressure, but he didn’t miss the fear that slackened the woman’s jaw. With a grunt the golden threads repaired themselves, sealing off her wound as her expression settled back into condescension.
"You aren’t releasing your Beast.”
“I don't need it.”
She sneered. “You truly do!”
Threads speared toward him again, but Felix deflected them and closed the distance once more. The Hierophant met him, fist to fist, until crimson sprayed in rampant arcs.
“There’s Divinity in you.” Felix panted, catching the woman’s jab between his arms. “How?”
"The Pathless sought Vessels, Fiend. Don't you think we try the obvious option first?” She pulled him close, tangling threads across his legs.
Felix shaped shells of Fiendstone between limb and light—he kicked free, flipping up onto the woman’s shoulders. He drove his talons into her neck, only to be thrown before connecting.
“Yourself?” He breathed heavy, the bones in his leg reassembling. She’d crushed it with her casual throw. “You were primed as a Vessel?”
“Primed and rejected."
Ocalla prowled in a circle, her feet leaving the tower as she flowed through the air, unsupported, her golden bulk shining brighter than the distant sun. “The Pathless deemed me unable to handle the might of Divinity.”
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“You disagree.”
“And you ask too many questions!"
Constructs of golden thread slashed at him from his blind spots.
Stride of the King is level 141!
His Agility flared to the limit, Stride of the King only barely keeping him ahead of blades woven from the edge of gold.
Lay of the Unfallen is level 145!
Scale and skin parted beneath their unrelenting edges, but Sonata of Dominance sang within Felix. He moved faster, kicking off shaped panels of air and earth to redirect himself in unpredictable angles—he shut off his brain, letting only his Stride of the King speak through his limbs as she chased the woman’s golden shadow. With every step and leap he drew closer, but his Stamina flagged, wearing down faster than he could regenerate it.
Stride of the King is level 142!
Lay of the Unfallen is level 146!
Sovereign of Flesh is level 147!
His scales peeled from him, slashed by gold, mere paper cuts in the scheme of things, but there were thousands of them every moment as her woven edges split into tiny lashing blades. It didn’t stop him.
The Hierophant dodged his claws, leaping over one of the fallen statues. Felix chased after and the Beast growled within, equally eager for another taste. He vaulted the robed Nymean, only to find the Hierophant’s woven edges ready for him. They sliced forward, cutting clean through the Nymean statue and Felix’s left leg. He fell as the stone burst apart, liquid gold arcing across its surfaces, a concussive slice that scoured a deep trench into the tower's stone.
Sovereign of Flesh is level 148!
Felix fell, clutching at the stump of his leg. His flesh crawled, his Health jumping up by thousands of points as bone, muscle, and skin regrew in seconds.
Time enough for the Hierophant to act.
She closed the distance, bringing her wide fist down upon him and forcing Felix to scrabble backward. A blade chunked into the riven stone, missing him by the narrowest of margins.
His eyes widened. “That’s mine!”
The Hierophant yanked the weapon back, admiring the Inheritor’s Will. The hooked blade was tangled by golden threads, secured to her huge hand as if tied down. “Is it?”
Felix bared his teeth.
Ocalla smirked and curled a single finger at him. “Come and take it.”
Stride of the King!
He moved just as the Hierophant thrust through his position. Felix anticipated her, dipping backwards before leaping above a low slash and using platforms of hardened air to redirect himself to her left, well within her guard, before raking her side with his dark talons. She hissed and fell back, slashing at his newly healed leg. She missed but drove him back.
"The Dragon tried to save her, you know.” She smiled through clear pain. “He was too slow. A second failure for the foolish beast."
She struck again, but this time Felix tanked the blow, scales ripping open as his significance quaked. Much like the Divine's attacks previously, but this was weaker, less targeted. He seized Ocalla's arm, pulling at her wrist to rip the Inheritor's Will away.
"She died, screaming your name," the Hierophant whispered.
"Shut up!”
Shaping magic burst around him, air turned to stone, trapping her head and shoulders. She shattered it with a shrug, well before he could free his weapon from her grasp. Felix dove free, turning the falling stone into water before sending it to congeal around her entire body. She spoke a glimmering word and it burned away in a conflagration of golden radiance.
"Your sister will not rise again. She tried to use the Light against me," Ocalla laughed. "I stripped it away from her. Her foundations are shattered."
Felix snarled, shaping her own light against her—he drove blades of it back toward her head and neck.
Ocalla dissolved them all with a flick of her wrist. "It seems idiocy is a familiar trait.”
Felix licked his lips. It was pointless to fight her with light, at least directly.
Sonata of Dominance!
He stomped, breaking the stone beneath his feet before sweeping his leg, sending it hurtling through the air. Ocalla swiped her arm through the debris, crushing it all, but Felix shaped it again, transforming stone to water. It splashed across her threaded muscles.
Astrum Ascendence is level 117
…
Astrum Ascendence is level 122!
The song of distant stars poured through him, driving a deep frost into the Skill even as it burned. The water froze, spiking across the Hierophant’s Body in a way that didn’t pierce or slice as much as spread and twisted. The golden threads at her wrist and hand slackened.
Adamant Discord!
The Inheritor's Will tore from the Hierophant's grasp. She tried to hold onto it, and for a moment she did, fighting his Bond with the blade, but she had no connection to it. Lightning surged between them, frying her hands before she fell back.
The handle of the Inheritor's Will slapped into his palm, and Felix set it between them. “Mine.”
The Hierophant shouted something in a language Felix did not understand. Her golden form thrummed, and her Spirit swelled. Sigils formed around her in a halo of radiance as bands snapped across Felix, trying to weigh his legs and arms down once more.
The Beast resurfaced, purple-black surging around Felix's shoulders, a mantle that was not quite its Body. She Is Attempting To Leverage The Bond Of Enmity, Scion.
I know. He refused the hate, not denying it, but directing it toward a better, more worthy target.
The Hierophant fell back as if she were hauling back on a line that had simply been sliced free. "I killed your lover! I mortally wounded your sister! And I plan to end your empire. How can you not hate me?"
"I never said I didn't.” Felix flexed and the golden bands shattered from him. “I simply hate myself more.”
Adamant Discord!
He could see his other Bonds, the things he'd been forced to bear witness to by the gods. Bonds of Fellowship and Kinship. Weaknesses—according to the Divine.
Bonds Give You Strength!
He could feel them. Power would filter through those Bonds from him to his people, enough to light up the sky, to support their battles against insurmountable odds.
The Boon of Bonds goes both ways. Power filtered through him from his people. It wasn't a lot. Each person, each connection was only a speck of significance—a drop in an ocean—but it came to him from tens of thousands.
The sky around them lit up with blue motes, the eyes of his people flashing between the fading storm and struggling zealots. Felix drew in a breath. His Chalice and Crown gleamed within him and his chest expanded as air rushed through him. It roared, a gale through his center that solidified motes of significance across his Aspects. Bonds changed him, altering the shape of his cores and the Tree that shuddered beneath its heavy boughs.
He grew.
"Please,” Ocalla scoffed, "you are no god."
She threw her hand down and a pillar of golden threads spiraled from the sky. It careened directly into Felix, striking him across his broad back, shattering midnight scales and driving blood from his mouth. He stood beneath it, his head down and shoulders shaking. The spiral pillar pierced him through scale and flesh, but it only ground at his bones, its terrible heat filling his Body. His significance shivered under the assault, split asunder by the Hierophant’s borrowed power.
“Neither are you,” he spat through his teeth. Bonds surged, Felix’s Links with his friends pouring greater power back as he kept his feet.
Warning!
Your Health Has Dropped Beneath 40%!
“Bonds.” The Hierophant spat on the ground. “One such as you should never be able to touch them.”
A song swirled through Felix, the Aria of the Green Wilds and Wild Threnody rousing across his Spirit as the Chalice echoed through his center and scales.
"It’s clear now that I was right, all these many centuries. The Grand Harmony is flawed. You are proof of that.” She twisted her hands, and the spiral of gold drilled through him. Blood poured down the slanted tower top. “It does not encompass all things. It does not account for things like you…but it can be changed.” She prowled forward. "The gods can change it, were they not cowards.”
Felix coughed. “...and you'd do better in their place, I take it?"
"Anyone would. Were the meanest urchin to absorb the power of the gods, they would be better.”
He spared a glance for the Kobolds and the Sylphaen. “So you’d use the Unbound to become Divine in the same way they had, by stealing their power.”
“Is it so different from how you advanced, Fiend?” Ocalla’s expression twisted from anger and derision into something worse. An emotion too complicated to name, but which Felix could only understand as despair. “This is the only way to escape the Ruin. To let it pass us by and cleanse this world.”
He laughed. It hurt. “Fuck that.”
Sonata of Dominance!
Astrum Ascendance!
Wild Threnody!
He shaped Mana all around her, hemming her in with attacks. The woman moved too fluidly to strike, but her concentration lapsed.
Empyrean Embrace!
The spiral spear burst apart, torn by ethereal teeth, just as she fired back with bladed threads and bolts of light. Felix stumble-dodged away, but could not escape them all. It was a hurricane of power, and it burned him, tearing his flesh and boiling his blood. He healed, but his Essence dwindled faster than ever before.
"This is your fault, Fiend! I had a plan! You've taken away my choices! So now all of this to come?” She leaped forward. “It is all on you!”
Threads rose up beneath him like a wave, smashing into the back of his knees before driving him to the ground. Felix rolled free, hurling himself to his feet, but encountered another wall of her power immediately.
“Primordial scum! You’ve destroyed my ritual, but if I cannot have the gods’ power, then neither can you.” The Hierophant threw another sweeping wave of gold at him. He met it with his hunger. Empyrean Embrace bit through it, but only seized a piece of it again before it drilled through him. Blood and shattered scales hit the slanted stone.
"There are more than just chains in the heavens.” The Hierophant advanced on him. She was unhurt, while Felix still healed from a dozen terrible wounds. "Give me a sharp enough sword—”
Threads snapped up around Felix, caging the sword in his hand.
Nymean Authority Recognized.
Target Accepted.
Felix tore the blade from the construct, shattering it with an effort of Will and Strength—only to notice, too late, that the threads had also latched onto the Chthonic Star.
“And I'll extinguish the stars. Or perhaps—” Ocalla smiled. “A moon.”
Felix jolted forward, Wild Threnody rushing through him.
He was too slow.
For a brief, fateful moment, En’cridhe sang its final song.
Golden threads pulsed, injecting a searing slug of Mana and Essence into the Star. The Crescian Bronze artifact fired up, spinning wildly before it spat an explosion of power straight into the sky. The bloodstorm above them broke, punched through by the beams of the Chthonic Star, revealing the deep blue heavens beyond and the dark yellow moon of Noctis. The skies cracked.
Containment Breach!
Ouranic Boundaries Violated!
Satellite Binding Failed!
Liminal Separation Dissolving!
The moon shuddered.
It broke.
Moonfall Imminent.