Rage poured into him, his armor bulking up around the wound, and Harn swung a backhanded blow at the Arcid. The metal construct took it to the chest but skipped back, blunting a lot of the force. Harn didn't care. He advanced, axes blazing.
"You think you know violence?" Harn growled. "I'll show you violence."
Armored Skin is level 69!
...
Armored Skin is level 75!
Adept Tier!
You Gain:
+15 END
+15 VIT
+200 Health
Strength against Strength, Felix broke the Archon with every blow. And with each breath, the Archon repaired himself, those flowing yellow-red sigils burning with power. Adamant Discord smashed him into walls, shattering the murals of the Urges' capture, burying the bastard in tons of rock. But the golden giant would emerge, again and again, ready to fight.
Felix obliged.
Claws slashed. Mana burst and ignited. Everything they had was brought to bear against one another, filling the huge chamber with sound and fury, and leaving almost none of it untouched. At some point Felix spared a thought for the Henaari he'd saved, but he couldn't find them. Then thought of them was driven from his Mind, as the Archon came at him once again.
"Enough!"
Felix skidded to a stop, his claws dripping with the red-gold fire of his Cardinal Flame. He regarded the Archon, beaten and battered, hunched over another wound in his metal gut.
"You've grown powerful. Too powerful. Why are we fighting, when we could work together?" The Archon glared at him, his eye-fires bright. "The gods have wronged you, just as the Nym have abandoned you, yes? We are Unbound. Together we would be unstoppable."
"Wow," Felix said through his gathering breath. "You think I'd believe that?"
The Archon's helmet deformed into a grin, and a spray of crystallized power shot forth from the Archon's feet. Felix stepped back but it had already formed a cage around him, a lattice-work of solidifed power that began to squeeze.
"I said 'enough,' and I meant it," the Archon hissed. "Goodbye, Felix Nevarre."
A spear of crystalline Mana shot forward, so fast that had he still been Human, Felix wouldn't have even seen it move. As it stood, Felix wasn't Human. Not by a longshot.
Felix seized the spear in mid-air, stopping it an inch before it hit his chest. With a flex of his enormous Strength, he shattered it and the cage around him.
Ravenous Tithe!
And then he ate it all.
"Im-Impossible," the Archon stammered, backing away. "You cannot breakyou cannot absorb solidified Mana!"
"Can and did, Archie," Felix said. He walked forward, flaring his Sovereign of Flesh as his minor wounds began to rapidly repair. "I walk a new Path now."
"A Path?" The Archon's eye-fires blazed brighter, but the Spirit Felix could feel everywhere trembled in fear. "No. No, you can't. I saw no Omen Key!"
Felix didn't care what the bastard believed. They were too evenly matched, even after all the bullshit he had just gone through, the bastard was augmenting himself too powerfully to overwhelm. Not as he was. Felix grabbed the swirling mass of Essence within his core space, that thickened potency from the Urges, and fed it into his cores. His Intent shaped its direction with relative ease, his Will reinforcing it.
Sovereign of Flesh is level 68!
...
Sovereign of Flesh is level 72!
His muscle and scales pulsed, expanding, growing with every step he took. Felix felt the power within him as the significance he'd stolen from the Urge of Mayhem blossomed within his Skill; a revelation of turmoil and struggle. To be Sovereign, one must know turmoil, must be tested by it. Conquer it.
Sovereign of Flesh is level 73!
Sovereign of Flesh is level 74!
Blue lightning and red-gold fire scintillated across his shoulders and chest, down his limbs and across his neck and face. Felix grew, until his Body was the equal of the golden giant himself. His eyes, he knew, were bonfires of sapphire flame.
Unfettered Volition!
"RUUAAAAGH!" The Archon roared as he burst alight with his own strange abilities, flames and sour fumes coiled within his already-repaired armor. He charged at Felix, meeting him halfway with claws of flame.
They met, tooth and claw against profane sigaldry. Golden armor against midnight scale.
The Archon was blasted back, chest torn apart by Felix's upward swinging talons. A conjured Shadow Whip snagged him, however, yanked him back to be met by Felix's thunderous blow. The Archon's right arm was torn completely off, golden metal and strange forged pieces shearing and pinging off the walls. The golden giant screamed, engulfing his entire body in a sheath of white hot flame. Felix jerked back, scorched by it.
The Archon...ran.
He was so surprised by it that the Archon was able to make it all the way to the stairs before Felix acted. Felix blurred after him, his speed so much greater than it used to be, reaching the stairs only a half-second after his foe. Still, that meant the Archon had already disappeared up the curve of the stairwell, forcing Felix to reach ahead with his senses as he ran, lest the bastard ambush him or
Felix almost stumbled before he grinned. He reached out, sending his bountiful Mana ahead of him in a dozen tendrils of Intent. The Archon was just up ahead, running like mad, right before a series of rocks on the steps.
Grenades.
Felix detonated them and the stairwell filled with light and thunder, followed by a crash of metal on stone. Felix rounded the corner and wasted no time. He leaped atop the staggered construct, leading with and overhand blow. It hit him, driving the Archon to his knees.
You vile boy! He twisted to face Felix, his single remaining arm blazing with Profane Sigaldry in an array more complex than anything hed ever seen. The force of it sent Felix back down a couple steps. You are facing someone who has spent Ages plotting his revenge! My Mind may have been broken, but Im remembering! You! You have helped me remember!
The fire intensified, until the heat was too much to bear. Felix snarled and backed up more steps.
I was a living god to the Nym! A being capable of wonders they could not believe nor understand! They trembled before my might, my unrivaled intellect!"
Felix! He draws on unstable power! His core quivers with it! Karys buzzed at his waist. He cannot hold that much Mana!
Now that the Paragon mentioned it, Felix could feel it too. A wobbly buzzing within his Affinity, scratching frantically around the connection Felix could still feel between the two of them. Flashes of what he'd seen in the Memory of the Archon came back to him, of the strange rod Merodach had displayed, and of the awful pulses of power he'd used. He could feel something at the Archon's center shudder with every uptempo of dissonant magic, the Mana he gathered opposing directly against the Harmony of the world.
Felix tried Stone Shaping but the stairwell refused to bend to his Skill, and Shadow Whips melted in the intense heat. He cast about with his senses, looking for something, anything that he could use.
Then he saw it, sitting between the Archon's feet.