Felix crashed into solid rock, and it didn’t give at all. He groaned, pain shooting up his shoulder before fading. His flesh healed, even the deep muscles he barely realized were hurting. Inside bits, along his spine, and where he was pretty sure his kidneys were, all stopped hurting as Sovereign of Flesh pulled his pieces back together. Tentatively, Felix prodded himself and was relieved to feel unbroken skin and firm muscle, yet when he withdrew them, he found blood. A lot of it.

"Oh, God. Felix, are you good?" Pit appeared in a flash of light.

"Yeah,” he grunted, sitting up. “I'm good."

"You're bleeding."

"I'm fine. I think the Whalemaw got a nip of me."

"That's not good."

"No. No, it's not, but it doesn't feel like I lost anything. Probably has to take a bigger chunk for that to matter."

"I hope so.” Pit paused. “Felix?"

"Yeah, dude?" He leveraged himself onto his knees.

"Why are you glowing?"

"What?" Sure enough, he was. A faint, pale light rose up from his…everything. It was almost invisible, but in the dark place they were in, it was unmistakable. Felix pressed a hand to his chest. He could feel movement through his core space, movement that he normally felt when he... Felix's eyes widened.

"The arm."

He cast himself inward, appearing in his core space just below his Divine Tree. Power swirled there, gathering just below his grinding cores. His cores ground against each other, dual rings of near-solid flame, spitting refrains of Dissonance and Harmony in all directions as usual—what wasn’t usual was the increase in speed. His Named cores spun faster than ever, and sparks of red gold and blue-white power shot like arcing explosions off the sun's surface. Below them, the abyss heaved like an ancient, inky sea.

"Beast, what the hell is going on?" Felix’s words died on his lips, for tangled within the Divine roots, right beside the Skull Fragment of Veridaan, was an addition.

Absorbing The Skull Fragment Of Veridaan!

Progress 72% > 92%

Felix's eyes widened. He’d nearly absorbed the whole of the skull fragment, but he could barely see the chunk of bone. Curled around it like an eighty-foot serpent around a pebble was a massive, near-skeletal arm. It was equally tangled in the opalescent roots, and large chunks of its translucent flesh were already gone.

Absorbing The Arm Of Veridaan!

Progress 10%

"The arm…” Felix tore himself away from the limb and cast his gaze into the dark abyss. Two eyes watched him, bright blue and unblinking. “This is what you meant by Reunion?”

To Become One With Ourself, the Beast confirmed. It Is Our Purpose.

“The Twins were excavating a piece of Veridaan’s corpse.”

Yes. Our Corpse.

“Ours.” Felix bared his teeth. "How is there a corpse? I thought it became the Maw. I saw it run away from Siva when its core was taken."

Veridaan Shed Power To Escape The Divine. She Left It Behind, Trapped In Her Corpse That She Scattered Across The Deadlands. A Place The Gods Fear To Tread, For They Cannot Abide Their Own Weakness.

“Why leave power behind? The Maw I knew was obsessed with strength.”

A Distraction. Chum In The Waters For The Predators. She Burrowed Into The Earth, Seeking Out The Deepest Dark. Only When Sleep Claimed Her Did The Madness Begin Its Slow Crawl Through Her Mind. That Abatement Allowed Her To Remain Steady Until You Found Her.

"Steady?" Felix gritted his teeth. The power inside him was swirling and sinking like an uneasy meal. The feel of the Arm of Veridaan at his center made him feel full in a way that was entirely uncomfortable. "She was insane."

The Beast only hummed in response.

"Scattered,” Felix repeated. “Are you saying there's more of this corpse?"

Yes.

"Where?"

Somewhere Within The Deadlands.

"Why would the Twins be excavating it?"

For The Same Reason You Ate It. Power.

"I didn't choose to eat this thing. You did that."

The Beast hummed again, a basso thrum that shook Felix's bones. You’re Welcome.

"I didn't say thank you. You seized one of my Skills and forced me to use it.” Felix gathered his Will behind him, layering it over his shoulders like a mantle. “Do not ever do that again."

Hmm. The Beast didn't reply. It merely sank further into the abyss, its presence all but vanishing from Felix's awareness. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Don't think you can escape the consequences, beast."

I Do Not Run From Them.

Do You?

"Felix? Felix!" The word lashed his ears, and Felix opened his eyes. The sword at his hip sparked with staticky green-gold vapor.

"Felix, can you hear me?"

"Karys. Yes, I can hear you."

"You seem..." The words were broken up, but they still came through. "Your voice... Where are you? My sense of your presence in the Empire, it's gone."

"Ah.” Felix frowned, taking in the dark, cavernous chamber they found themselves in. The gold of the gate flickered, illuminating what had to be a man-made structure. “I'm not sure where I went, but it had to have been far to not show up on your maps anymore. Are you certain?”

“I am. Even when I couldn’t speak to you in Etrionn, there was at least a sensation of your presence, but now it's gone entirely."

While it was clear that Karys could still talk to him, there was more static on the line than normal, very similar to how it was at the very start when Felix would cross Territories to try and speak with him. They would have to be very far away from where Etrionn's corpse was to have such an effect.

"Paxus?”

“I am here. This place is different than your empire. There is more ambient Mana and an interfering Authority." Paxus floated out from Pit's saddlebags. His form was steadier than the staticky messages of Karys, but somehow he seemed squashed, as if he were being pressed in on all sides.

"You, too, huh? I guess we really traveled out of the empire.” Felix looked around. “If we can get out of this strange chamber, then perhaps we can figure out how far.”

“I looked. There wasn’t a door anywhere,” Pit said.

“Then we’ll make one.” Felix rolled up his sleeves, but the gate spat sudden sparks and streamers of glitching Mana. “Shit.”

White began to encroach on the gold.

Sonata of Dominance!

Magus of the Grand Design!

He seized control of the Mana around him, though as usual, the gate bucked away from his hold. He let it go—it wasn’t what he needed anyway. The stone of the wall resisted him for a moment, but it was nothing his flared Will could not overcome, and soon the familiar patterns of an array were inscribed around the gate’s circumference.

The process was far faster, nearly instantaneous through shaping, now that Felix had the pattern of the array in his Mind. Immediately, it filled with blazing gold, and the white was pushed back. The gate stabilized.

"That was skillfully done, my Lord. It seems to be paired now to the one in Etrionn.” Karys buzzed at Felix’s hip, the vapor swirling near the gate. “It will likely…yes, I can see the deterioration happening already.”

“A half day or less," Paxus agreed.

Felix grunted. "No time to waste. Pit."

The Mantle of the Stormlord swarmed across the tenku’s feathers, casting a fitful light across the chamber. As Felix surmised, the place was entirely enclosed by what looked like a rockslide. Pieces of masonry were tumbled along with dirt and unshaped boulders in a pile that looked older than most nations.

Sonata of Dominance.

Felix seized it all. Dirt, stone, and metal loosened and liquified, turning to putty in his Will as he cut open a roughly arched doorway. Air whooshed outward as soon as he did, along with likely a dozen other unhealthy gases, as a corridor was revealed. He released his Skill, and waited, but the construction held firm.

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Pit stuck his head out into the hallway and chirruped. “Empty.”

They got moving.

Unlike the Shadowgates, which were always constructed with a specialized room of their own, their chamber was just as roughshod as the gate itself. Felix was fairly certain they’d arrived in the ancient equivalent of a broom closet.

Outside of it was far more impressive, if destroyed. Collapsed pillars and broken walls proliferated, many of which were carved with confusing shapes that had been tumbled apart, as if by a great fall. The ceiling slanted and cracked, intersecting with heavy, uncut rock at unexpected angles.

“Nymean star,” Pit pointed out, some way down the hall. It had been carved into the floor of the next wide-open room they encountered. Felix was surprised to see it, if only because of how dilapidated everything else appeared. Few Nymean ruins had ever been so damaged.

“So it is a temple,” Paxus said with some relief. “That reduces the list of threats you might face. Few things are fool enough to enter into a Nymean temple.”

“Except us,” Pit added. Paxus only smiled.

From that point on, slices started to appear in the temple walls. Smooth-edged cuts, where ten-foot-wide expanses had been deleted from the masonry, left ceilings and pillars standing precariously alone. There were sockets where crystals once stood, empty or cracked entirely, and there were no traps at all, neither triggered nor untriggered.

Statues persisted, leaning drunkenly from the walls or crashed into broken piles on the floor. All of them were pitted and aged by weather and time. Their faces were gone, chipped away, same as their hands. The largest of the statues was broken entirely at the waist, and it was only the shape of a curved sword held low against their legs that identified it as a depiction of the Herald.

“Looks like the Ruin hit this place before the locals did,” Felix muttered. “Looted everything. And not recently, either.”

It did not take them long to exit the broken temple, mostly due to the collapsed hallways that led upward toward a dim light. Once outside, Felix realized they had longer to go to find where they’d landed. They were in a cave.

The temple must have fallen down here. Far above, there was no opening in the ceiling where it could have broken through. Felix eyed the slouching, half-collapsed temple as he and Pit gained some distance from it—the place had clearly collapsed. The Ruin probably did it.

It was a safe bet.

The cavern was large, featuring a dark pool of still water and several openings into stalactite-draped trails. The passageways led up in several directions, though Pit swiftly found the remnants of a cut stone path—evidence supporting the temple always being in the cave, Felix supposed.

They followed the road up switchback trails built from the cavern’s stone, lined heavily with a wet moss that released a faintly glowing vapor. It wasn’t Mana, but a creature called a phonor that fed on the moss and was easily startled. They were harmless, though Felix made sure not to breathe any of them in—level 2 or not, there was no way fantasy bugs were getting in his lungs. The trails continued for longer than either of them expected, crossing natural caverns and man-made archways alike. They even spanned two separate chasms on whisper-thin bridges that had seen far better days.

The walk was quiet, and no matter their hustle, it left Felix to his thoughts more than he liked. The threats were mounting against him, and his time was horrendously short. He hefted the Eye, and the golden thread wobbled. Everything depended on finding the Tumult, and from there… Felix was uncertain how anything would go.

When the roar of an underground river broke up his thoughts, he emerged with relief.

Slimy frog-things teemed amongst the waters. The System called them Kua-Noa. They were ugly as hell, their broad heads crowned by yellowed horns and bulbous eyes, but they wore sleek clothing, jewelry made of uncut gemstones, and bore spears and tridents as they sought out fish in the river. Not just any fish, either—while the Kua-Noa were approximately person-sized, their prey easily outsized a Great White Shark in mass and teeth.

Pit paused at the edge of the cavern, hunkering behind a field of stalagmites. "Should we go around them?"

"Yeah, I don't see a reason to get involved with them."

A sharp, whistling cry sounded from farther down the river. A Kua-Noa stood on a slick rock, a staff of shells swinging high above their head. The other frogfolk scattered, their nets and fish they’d been struggling with abandoned as they raced for the shoreline. They were too late.

A monster tore up from the river. Thick and eel-like, it bore glowing yellow eyes down its ridged back and at least four sets of wriggly fins that propelled it at blinding speed. It struck the Kua-Noa, snatching up at least ten within its jaws and gulping them down.

"What about that, though?" Pit said a bit too eagerly. "I'm pretty hungry."

Felix nodded. "Yeah, I suppose we could help."

“Tempest Fugit!”

Frozen lightning speared across the chamber, a dozen bolts thunking into the enormous eel.

It reared up, revealing its true body as its long eel-like neck came attached to a four-limbed body like a salamander. It leapt from the water in their direction, forcing Felix and Pit to dodge in opposite paths.

"This is all me," Pit shouted as wet flesh slapped dry stone.

"You take it, bud." Felix’s flared Stride of the King, and though his Crucible dragged at him, he tore across the water, snagging two frogfolk out of the path of the eel’s thrashing tail. “Almost got you there.”

The frogs blinked up at him, and their fellows croaked indignantly. Someone threw a spear.

“Hey!” Felix caught it. “I’m trying to help.”

It was clear that the frogs didn't understand. Several more threw their tridents at him, but they pinged harmlessly off his scales. He sighed. “Just stay outta the water.”

Felix leapt away, landing on a narrow ledge above the battle—well out of spear range. He sat down, dangling his feet over the open air while Pit fought. His companion was the size of a city bus, but compared to the eel creature, he was positively undersized. The thing was at least four times as big, slick with water and what looked like a layer of thick mucus.

Unseen Beholder!

Name: Anguil Snare

Type: Aquatic Lizard

…

Huh. I thought eels were fish. He blinked, taking in the rest of its information. While its details and Lore were boring, the feeling he sensed from the creature was another thing entirely. It feels like a Grandmaster.

The thing was fast for its size, its neck snapping around as quickly as its tail. It kept Pit on his toes, and its attacks were powerful. Several times, that neck and jaws hit the rock walls, and they sheared entire sections free. The Kua-Noa, who ranked little better than Master Tier, were outmatched. Though, to be honest, Felix was surprised at their strength, as well.

"So strong," Felix muttered. "And so many of them, too. This many Masters could wreak havoc on just about anyone in my empire.”

How far had they traveled?

The fight against the Anguil Snare continued, with Pit putting up a heroic effort. He was held back by the Crucible the same as Felix, but their time in the Deadlands hadn’t been for nothing…and they weren’t on double restriction any longer.

“Ouranic Dominion! Mantle of the Stormlord!”

Pit took to the air, his Body flashing with an untamed storm. He circled around the Snare’s head, evading its jaws and thrashing tail by scant inches. Each time, the abomination fell back, flesh scorched, and a handful of frozen spears pierced its slick limbs.

They burst, releasing the lightning within, and the Snare howled as its forelimb gave way. Its gleaming yellow eyes blurred as it whipped itself about, far less precise in its brutal rage. The mighty mass of it careened into the cavern walls and river alike, tearing stone and tossing waves with every movement.

The next batch of ice spears took out its eyes. The howl became soundless as it ascended to a pitch even Felix couldn’t hear, and Pit closed in for the kill.

He slammed into its head, dropping it to the riverbank under his considerable bulk. The Snare thrashed, but moonbeams burst from above, searing through the cavernous rock to burn the creature's flesh. It shriveled beneath the light and heat, pieces of its body charring to a flaky black that stank something awful.

Felix covered his nose. The creature was dead, it just hadn’t realized it yet.

Pit tore out its throat.

Your Companion Has Killed An Anguil Snare!

XP Earned!

Felix whistled and clapped from his seat in the nosebleeds. Pit crowed into the cavern before beginning his feast. It was a bit gruesome to watch, but the guy had to eat. Felix settled back, keeping an eye on the Kua-Noa, but they were hesitant to approach the Snare’s corpse, let alone Pit.

Watch out, bud. They might throw spears at you if you’re not careful.

His only reply was the sound of muffled chewing.

Felix smiled. His Companion had gotten a tidy stream of XP from that fight, pushing him very close to another level up. Felix was nearing that point, too. It didn’t much matter for either of them, though. While levels were useful, both of them had too many XP penalties to count on them. What they really needed was to advance, and it was Skills that pushed them there.

With a thought, Felix brought up his Formations.

Cardinal Scion Body

Lay of the Unfallen, level 147

Stride of the King, level 148

Sovereign of Flesh, level 149

Primarch Mind

Void Sanctuary, level 146

Unseen Beholder, level 144

Empyrean Embrace, level 145

Nightfated Spirit

Astrum Ascendance, level 136

Adamant Discord, level 148

Sonata of Dominance, level 147

They were all closing in on Paragon, though a few lagged behind. Astrum Ascendance, as an amplification Skill for his Sonata, made a bit of sense—until he’d donned the Crucible, his Will had been plenty to shape what he required. He planned to change that now. Empyrean Embrace and Unseen Beholder were both a bit behind, though if he had weeks to train, Felix wouldn’t have been worried. As it was, reaching Paragon might have been possible…if he could complete his Core Manifestation.

Felix ran his hand through his hair and blew sharply between his teeth. It was the sort of exhale that came from the soul, and instead of deflating, his insides just went jittery. He had ideas, especially since the record room in Etrionn, but so far they hadn’t congealed into anything useful. His Skills seemed too desperate, too wild.

Pit's recommendation that they remain true to themselves was all well and good, but he couldn't figure out who he was. Felix, for sure, even if it wasn’t his birth name. But he was also known as the Emperor, the Fiend, Autarch, Colossus, King. His list of Titles was longer than a Frost Giant’s arm. Each one described a facet of himself, but who was he really?

Core Manifestations were woven out of the choices one made throughout their advancement. Those included things like Skills and Titles and his woven Pillars, but also his Aspects. His Mind, Body, and Spirit Formations were just as important, if not moreso, and they were the epitome of choice.

What choices did he make? Power. The word came unbidden to Felix's Mind. He'd sought power at every turn, but who on the Continent hadn’t? Everyone wanted the freedom of strength.

Is that why I wanted it? Freedom? The little voice inside of him denied that train of thought. No. Freedom is great, but that’s what I wanted this strength for. I wanted to help. To defend my friends, and, well…

His Sonata flourished from his channels as he took control of the stones near him. Air and earth Mana spiraled around him, lifting the rocks to rotate around his fingers. He sought advancement for its own sake. For this. For wonder.

He let them drop. They hit the ground with a clatter.

If Knowledge was right, they had less than a day now. The pressure of it was a knot in his belly that he couldn't ignore.

Diamonds are formed under pressure. The words came unbidden to his Memory, something his mother once said back when he was struggling in college.

"Diamonds are formed under pressure, Bumble. But bread dough rises when you let it rest. We're all different. You need to find what works for you."

He grunted, holding the Memory close, even as he fled from the feelings it brought forth. He couldn't crumble. Not now.

For him, it was diamond or dust.