Chapter Four Hundred And Eight – 408Entering the huge palace atop the hill was like walking into a graveyard. Utter silence enveloped them, and every scrape of boot or jangle of harness felt like an explosion of sound. Very soon after entering, Felix had all of them stop and wait while he mustered up his concentration.
Abyssal Skein!
Felix made sure to extend it over all of them, Hallow's Risen included. There were far more of those than previously, the various Paladins from the city as well as those they just defeated having joined Beef's horde. But as the gelid, oily sensation spread across their growing connections, Felix caught the edge of something. The way the Void Skill moved and flowed from his channels was very different from Skills like Adamant Discord. The latter had so much of its meaning baked into the idea of 'force,' of applying leverage through connections. But Abyssal Skein was about removing, subsuming and hiding. So why would he force the power outward?
Why did he have to oppose the forces around him? The Skill called out to him to slip, to slide out of view and into obscurity, through the cracks in all things. To let yourself be swallowed by the Void. That's what the Void was, after all: a hungry, endless abyss where even System energy went to die.
Abyssal Skein is level 58!
...
Abyssal Skein is level 70!
With a roar that made his ears pop, Felix felt his Abyssal Skein slip into place across his allies. It was twisted and almost invisible even to him, but if he looked at it from the right angle Felix could see that it hung about their shoulders like a vast cloak. At the same time, the Skill level notifications pinged across his vision, rapid-fire until the surge of growth settled in at level 70. Felix staggered, slightly unbalanced by the burst of System energy that flooded his core space.
Twelve levels all at once, he thought, a little dazed. All because I figured out a better way to use my Skill.
He'd once been told "greater understanding" was required to advance Skills past a certain level, but Felix had always been in such mortal danger that stress, use, and his existence as an Unbound negated those necessities. Or so he had thought. The more he thought about it, in fact, Felix realized his biggest jumps in Skill level happened when he was pressed and tried something new with his Skills. Or simply overcame bonkers odds. For him that was sadly a regular occurrence.
"Something wrong?" Beef asked him.
Felix opened his mouth just as a tremor rippled the ground beneath their feet. That deep buzzing inhalation began again, pulling in great swathes of Mana from the air. Except this time, the tremors rumbled onward, outward, into the city. A great, stentorian crack resounded from above, and one of the gold crystalline stalactites dropped like a meteor.
"Down!" Felix shouted, grabbing Beef and throwing him to the floor just as the massive stalactite impacted the city. A blastwaves of concussive heat and light and sound ripped apart buildings and narrow streets, setting off a chain reaction of other Mana crystals that burst under the pressure. Burning, freezing, cloying Mana surged everywhere, even up into the palace. The earth heaved and shook, until Felix could barely tell which way was up anymore.
Chthonic Tribute!
After several minutes, the rumbling aftershocks settled, and the tide of violent Mana receded. Felix felt full almost to bursting, and his Tribute had been only able to blunt the edge of the cataclysmic tsunami of power; the rest had been turned by the palace'sthe prison'sown hidden wards.
"Whoa," Beef said. His voice was strangely muted, until with a painful pop Felix felt his eardrums heal. "I'm really glad I didn't stay behind now."
Felix leveraged himself to his feet, feeling oddly bloated and weathered, as if he'd spent days drinking while out in the harshest of weather. "We have to keep moving. Something new is happening, and I don't like it."
Pit squawked in agreement and gathered up a number of the Risen onto his back. There was no way for the tenku to carry everyone, not even he was that big, but it helped. They moved faster than before, prodded onward by the gnawing anxiety in Felix's gut.
They encountered more traps, but every single one was violently deactivated. The hallways were by turns narrow and broad, but almost every one was partially melted. Stone and metal pooled in cooling lumps on the floor, making the walking faintly treacherous, not to mention a number of dead Paladins. These too joined Beef's army, and Felix didn't protest extending his Abyssal Skein. He had a feeling they would need all the help they could get, and soon.
After crossing a wide chasm that was somehow contained in the prison palace, and past Golem defenders that had been shattered or burned straight through, they came upon a break in the path. Steps led upward in a spiraling staircase, and straight ahead was a darkened passage that showed faint signs of light at the end. Felix tried to listen for sounds, but his Perception was still oddly deadened. He looked to Beef and Pit and Hallow. "Any ideas? Up or straight?"
Up, Pit sent immediately.
"You would," Felix replied. "Beef? Hallow?"
"I will follow the choices made," Hallow said quietly.
"Uh, well, if we go up, then maybe we can get a drop on them if they're ahead at ground level. Or maybe they're up above, and so we'll run into them if we go up, and down is the better option." The Minotaur chewed at one of his too-short nails. "II uh don't know. In games there'd be a clear path. Like a glowing trail or something. Here it's all just...it's real."
The last bit was said with a soft exhalation. Felix stared at the kid in the burly Minotaur's body, and felt like he really saw him. "It gets easier."
Beef didn't answer, just scratched his cheek and stared at his hooves. The floor was covered with the muck his Risen were slowly leaking, which was another downside of the more freshly dead corpses. Footprints were clear, and Felix was happy they hadn't had to avoid any further patrols or else...he sucked in a sharp breath and smack himself on the forehead. "Of course."
Tracking!
His Perception might have been deadened, but the Skill still functioned. The area around them lit up with dozens of lights, the majority of them glowing a blackened green. A few from him, Pit, and Beef were a shimmering multi-color and all led back the way they had come. However, there were others...and all of them save for one or two, lead straight ahead. Through the tunnel.
Tracking is level 34!
"We go up," Felix said, before explaining what he was seeing. "I'll go first, fast. Beef you'll follow after with the Risen. I'll keep Abyssal Skein on us for as long as I can. I want any Paladins dispatched quickly and quietly, alright?" He looked at them all, and received a bevy of nods and skeletal head-bobbles. "Pit, Converge please."
Under the influence of Abyssal Skein, the flash of light as Pit disappeared was hopefully unnoticed, and after a few agonizing seconds Felix began to move. With all the Agility he possessed, he sped up the spiralling staircase, ascending it faster than the others could manage. He reached the top, the only place the staircase opened onto a landing of any sort, and stared down a short passage into an airy, open space.
Two Paladins, just out of sight. They were close enough that he could feel them at least, but Felix had no way of knowing where the rest might be located, if there were indeed more. Gotta make this fast.
Slowly, flaring his Skein as hard as he could, Felix crept across the ten foot hallway and onto a wide, railing-free balcony. He had been worried about noise for nothing, because the moment he crossed the threshold, he penetrated some sort of sensory warding. The inside of the space was a thundering storm of noise and flashing lights...and the two dozen Paladins weren't even looking at the door. They were too engrossed in the multi-colored lightning playing off an absolutely gargantuan sword that rose up out of the center of the room, extending both a bit above and well below their balcony.
Felix tore his eyes from the giant, bronze blade and did what he had to do.
Rime Shaping!
Cardinal Flame!
Rime Shaping is level 45!
Red-gold flame kindled around every single Paladin all at once, catching fully half of them in its burning grip. They froze, paralyzed while the spells dire flame ate through their skin and muscle with abandon. All of them also felt the chill sting of frostbite as hands froze to hilts and mouths froze shut. Those that could move spun wildly, looking for the sourceyet by the time they had spotted him, Felix was among them all, reaping their lives with his hooked blade.
None lived to even put up a fight.
You Have Killed A Paladin Of The Pathless (x29)!
XP Earned!
Battle done and bright lights pulsing, Pit emerged from Felix's Spirit. The two of them crept toward the edge and cautiously peered down. The sword was easily two hundred feet tall and thirty feet wide, a chipped blade with a cruciform hilt and made entirely of a golden bronze.
Voracious Eye!
Name: Skyslain's Riposte
Type: Weapon (Enchanted)
Lore: Belonging to Tch'lys Skyslain, the last King of Ahkestria, the blade was a gift from the Nymean Empress. Made of Crescian Bronze and enchanted to grow at its bearer's command, it was a symbol as much as a blade. Its last use was as an anchor, a powerful spike to trap the deadliest of foes that had wrought an untenable ruin upon the kingdom.
Its hilt came right up to the ceiling, which were plated with yet more bronze and fitted with a familiar looking crystal. Not Mana, but Belais, which solidified this construction as something the Nym had a hand in fashioning. The purple amethyst was just as wide as the sword beneath it, and it glimmered with a deep well of light. In fact, Felix realized that the Belais Crystal was part of the sword, the pommel at the end of its unnaturally huge grip. Its vast blade, meanwhile, was sunk deep into the floor far, far below. They were around fifty feet from the pommel, and so the floor was over a hundred feet down. Yet nearly half of that sword-length was covered in a bony mass of...something. The Skyslain's Riposte had been driven through a creature that laid down at the base of the huge, circular chamber. The creature was a collection of scales and bonesand not just any bones, but full humanoid skeletons somehow warped and woven into one another until a greater whole had been made. It reminded Felix of the Shambling Horror he'd fought in the Haestus Temple, only far, far larger.
And it was twitching.
Voracious Eye!
ERROR!