Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Nine - 159Voracious Eye.
Name: Ravager Queen
Type: Primordial-Spawn
Level: 75
HP: ?????/?????
SP: ?????/?????
MP: ????/????
Lore: Born of the Maw's blood and a Sub-Core, this abomination has fed upon one of the four corners of the Domain. It gains great power from its consumption.
Strength: Extremely resilient to physical and magical damage. Contains a powerful ecosystem of predators within its own flesh.
Weakness: Internal Attack
Three of them...all are Tier Two. He could sense it, just as he could sense the advancement of others through his Voracious Eye. As Felix fought for breath, the three of them all began to rampage among the gathered Primordial-Spawn, slamming their massive circular mouths down into the horde. Hundreds disappeared in seconds, and the hundred foot long tentacles along it's face grabbed more still. The worst of it all, however, was that the horde didn't flee in terror; they stood, stock still, and died.
Just as his friends still laid out on the ground, each of them unmoving. Even Harn, armor finally cooling, was sprawled out, limp with unconsciousness. Felix felt dizzy. All of them were going to die.
"They are almost ready, little wolf. Once this rabble is gone, it will be time. Time for your city to burn." The Envoy laughed hysterically. It wheezed for breath, a strange sound, stranger still for all that it was a construct. Did it breath? Had the Archon built lungs for it? Why?
The Envoy peered at Felix. "I hear your fear. Your desperation. It is...unseemly for one such as us."
Us? Thoughts like confused fireworks went off in Felix's mind as he struggled for breath, and rage suffused him. He leveraged his Strength against the constructs metal hand, but only managed the smallest of gasps. Then even that was gone. The Arcid's grip tightened, holding him solidly around the throat and shoulders. It pinched off his air supply completely, and likely bruising his spine. Felix's Endurance and Vitality were both remarkably high, but still the Envoy's hand was choking him.
Status Condition: Asphyxiation
"Such rage! You've the teeth of prey, but I sense in you a similar Spirit; a predator, stalking in the darkness. A Hoarhound hiding in the snow." The Envoy smiled, it's visor stretching with an unnatural creak. It had no mouth but its amusement was clear. "Our kind can smell one another, haah! And you stink with death and the claimed potential of hundreds. Exquisite!"
The construct looked back out among its creations. Its eye-fires compressed in obvious pleasure. Felix's chest burned. It felt like fire crawling up his skin. "The expended breath of prey curls amid your shadow. Glorious. And you brought it here, for us. All for us."
From the corner of his darkening vision, Felix saw a flash of yellow-red light. Though they appeared carved into it, the array lines and sigils on the Envoy's arm had flared and moved, somehow. It now radiated from his chest, and crawled up onto his neck with all the fury of a house fire. It hurt. The damn thing was branding him.
A squawk of fear shot through his heart, but Felix's dizzying thoughts hurled a warning at Pit. Stay back!
It's only pain. This is nothing. Nothing!
Felix clamped his Will down upon his Mind and pushed down the agony. It was less than nothing.
It was training.
The Song of Absolution is level 48!
Stretching his thoughts out, he tried to understand the array that coiled around his chest and neck. It defied his knowledge, its twisted form a perversion of the script he had come to know. But he knew it well enough. The tunnel had been an adequate teacher while his Mind picked up the slack.
Siphon was there, but that was only part of it. An intrinsic part, but not the focus of the array. No, it was a sigil that looked vaguely similar to the one for seal. It was modified by a few others he could parse, such as body, air, and anger for some reason. The last pulsed with a steady, uncompromising heat. It was the intensity of a volcano, moments before eruption, an ignition of dark passions that stirred his chest just by looking at them.
That anger seemed to be foundational. He spotted it throughout the array, all secondary or even tertiary sigils. Felix knew that he were to check the platform below them he'd find even more of its insidious heat.
Why? What's the point?
Vertigo assaulted him as his Vitality began to fail. Felix nearly buckled under a rush of new-birthed pain and pressure.
"You are like the other," the Envoy rattled, it's voice curious. "Resilient. Much too much. What are you, little wolf?"
The sigils twined around Felix's neck, a noose of liquid light. He felt it drawing tighter than before and the air trapped in his lungs felt suddenly compressed. A balloon ready to burst. A fine net of energies wrapped themselves around his flesh, and Felix could vividly see their insane designs.
The lines are...what? Lines of power? Like a circuit? They fluxuated at he watched them, surging and flaring in irregular intervals. Almost at random. No...not a circuit...it's alive. Writhing...around something...
"You are doing it wrong," the Envoy said, an angry rattle in their manufactured throat. "Now is the time for screaming. For begging. Break yourself to pieces against my hide, let loose your bowels, SOMETHING!"
The boy only stared back, his blue eyes distant.
"No, no! Look at me!" The construct shook the little Human, dragging him closer to their metal encased face. "Stare into these forged eyes! Who are you?"
Fires of the Golden Lord.
A rising song smashed against the Envoy's Skill, shoving it back. The construct blinked in astonishment. A Skill gifted by the Archon himself, rebuffed by a...a Human?
Furious, the Envoy tried again, but this time it engaged the force of the Profane Sigaldry upon its skin. A shearing dissonance cut through the melody that surrounded the boy, and their Skill followed easily in its wake.
The Envoy grinned beneath their metal face.
Name: Felix Nevarre
Race: Unknown
Level: 33
HP: 843/1316
SP: 988/1313
MP: 3843/3843
Lore: Unknown
Strength: Willpower
Weakness: Agility
"What is this? What IS THIS?" The Arcid seethed. "Unknown?"
It was impossible. The Fires of the Golden Lord could not be evaded, and the power of the Profane could not be denied. It was impossible.