Pit crowed in his Spirit, pleased as peach with himself. Sense memories flitted between them at lightning speed, and Felix suddenly understood. They could share features now, due to their high Concordance and his new Skill, Sovereign of Flesh. And now he had wings. They were a twisted mix of bat and bird; dark membranes studded with inconsistent black plumage, each feather highlighted by a vibrant cyan edge.
Pit screeched in warning, and without thinking Felix dove.
Just barely avoiding the twisting barbed tentacles of the Ravager King, but not fast enough to avoid the massive windstream it produced. Felix was thrown about, sucked into the Primordial's wake.
"Thief! Thief of Mothers, of Fate itself!" The Ravager King twisted its hind legs independently of its top half and lashed out. "Thief of Blood!"
Unfettered Volition!
It felt like what he imagined getting hit by a bullet train was like; blinding impact, then he was sent flying. Felix careened through the sky, his Skill allowing him to only take the barest hint of the Primordial's force. Still, his Health had dropped a whole 30%, and despite his enhanced regeneration he couldn't take many more hits like that.
Shell Integrity is at 9.5%!
Failure Imminent!
Seek Shelter Immediately.
Damn it, Felix cursed. The thing is still standing...I don't know if I can do this.
His Perception snagged on something far below them, a glimmer in the rocks. Without hesitation, Felix tucked his wings, leaning heavily on Pit's instincts, and dropped from the sky.
The Ravager King recovered, twisted about, and was in hot pursuit. It's gargantuan wings beat at the air with such ferocity that space itself began to break apart.
Shell Integrity is at 8.4%!
Failure Imminent!
Seek Shelter Immediately.
Felix flew down, down closer to the earth than ever before. The abomination was extremely agile, but it was huge; he'd like to see it maneuver properly, this close to the rocky center of the island.
True to form, the Ravager King gave chase, shouting obscenities at Felix as he evaded its jaws again and again. That was no mean feat, as Felix was drawing heavily on his bond to keep his head on right and fly true. Unfettered Volition helped after that point, translating Pit's instincts into Felix's motion without a hitch or seam.
It was the only reason he was still alive.
Yet as Felix banked near a half-melted promontory, the Primordial cut his lead to nothing. Felix strained to put on more speed, but his remarkable stats were paltry compared to the Ravager King. Hooked tendrils lifted from the beast's snout, whiskers of nightmare, and swiped at Felix's legs, each strike getting closer and closer.
"Pierce the Skies!"
A powerful shout filled the air with a burst of incandescent magic, and a blurring form hurtled up and past both Felix and the King. A flash of silver and the figure disappeared. The Primordial squealed and reared back in rage and surprised pain. A silver spear jutted from one of its many blue-green eyes.
Grinning, Felix spun about and looked up, just in time to see Vess approach the apex of her superhuman leap. A glance downward showed him a panting Evie who stood on the higher part of the melted cliff, arm outstretched. Vess brandished her silver and gold spear, and five more appeared in the air around her as she slowed to a stop.
"Wyrmling's Call!" A spectral dragon's head appeared over her own, and a challenging bugle sounded. The Ravager's many eyes suddenly oriented on Vess with a powerful intensity. She had taunted it.
Vess, Felix gasped. No!
"Dragon's Descent!" She shouted the same moment Evie below snapped her fingers. Like a stone, she dropped from the sky, spear outstretched along with the five others.
Felix beat his wings and flew toward the King.
"This world ends! We are beckoned to a new land, and none of you shall stop Us!" The Ravager King hollered in its too deep voice. A virulent green flame flooded from the abomination's mouth, so hot the air itself began to scream.
Reign of Vellus!
Sovereign of Flesh!
A cloud of lighting burst before him, a blue-white canopy of energy that blew aside a portion of the fire. Then he burned more of the essence within him and let his new Skill take over. For the briefest of moments, his hands stretched and expanded, becoming massive paddles of flesh and bone and claw. Savagely, he tore through the flames, dispersing them even as they coated his appendages, burning him terribly.
"What?" The Ravager King screamed, startled.
A second later, Vessilia Dayne hit along with five of her best friends.
THUNK! THUNK! SQUELCH! THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
Every single spear found a hideous eye, and before she dismounted, Vess twisted her spear with a vicious fervor.
"Die, dragon!" She leaped away, her Born Trait and Skills carrying her at speed back to the earth. "Seven Tribulations!"
Her spears exploded.
A storm of air Mana filled Felix's vision, obscuring the damage, but when it cleared he could see car-sized divots in the Ravager King's face. The dragon roared in shock, pained but very clearly still alive.
"Vess! Run!"
What's it gonna take to end this? Felix conjured two orbs of Wrack and Ruin, and to his surprise they were twice a big now. He flung them at the Ravager, and they zipped through the air so fast he couldn't track them. Felix had cast them as a distraction, but when they hit the Ravager's snout the force of the orbs knocked its whole head back.
Felix stared at his hands in shock, then at his core. The ring of light blazed within him with an incredible density that he felt strangely renewed. It had something to do with his spells beings more powerful, and---
What the hell? His Mana pool total had been cut in half. What the hell!?
"We seek the Mother, Vessel. We will have Her, one way or another." A fitful glow stuttered to life around the Ravager King, and with a disgusting undulation, the creature burst into light.
Or so it had appeared.
Pit screeched in warning and Felix flapped his wings, hurling himself forward through the air. All that meant was that he was smashed against the flat edges of the Ravager's teeth, rather than chomped within them as the Ravager appeared beneath him and launched all of them high into the sky. Felix gasped in blind agony, his vision taken over by a series of jagged afterimages.
As one, they plummeted toward the wasteland of drained ash far below.
Status Condition: Dazed
Dazed, Felix couldn't even put up a fight against tentacles that emerged from the King's snout, barbed things that tried to slice and dice him. Several plunged through him, piercing his arms and legs, and one stabbed through his upper chest, close to his heart.
Felix and Pit screamed together.
All three of them hit the ground.
And exploded through it.
Shell Integrity is at 0%!
Domain Shell Failure.