Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Two - 162The Queens were just beyond the cliff, coming in fast. Felix could feel them like burning stars in his senses, descending on their position. The Envoy cackled, and Felix saw Harn heft his axes, his intent clear. The insane construct had no purpose, not anymore. But Felix had questions that needed answers. Quickly, he stepped in front of him and Harn recoiled. From the look in his eyes, he hadn't expected Felix to appear quite so monstrous.
"Envoy! Is the Archon your master?" Felix asked, trying to ignore the warrior's regard.
"Oh," it gasped, something like lucidity returning to its eye-fires. "Ohh. You're him. It is making more sense now." It sneered. "You are supposed to be dead, Nym!"
Harn gave him a new, different look, but Felix ignored that too. "You said the Archon is planning to attack? When? Quickly!"
Another mad giggle. The Envoy tried to stand, but it's legs cracked further, the metal stressed beyond it's temper. "When you least expect it."
"Felix!"
Unfettered Volition!
Felix caught the Envoy's conjured blade in his clawed grip and felt it bite into his palm, though the pain was negligible. Felix bared his fangs and grabbed the bastard's opalescent core with his other hand. Its eye-fires flared in panic.
Ravenous Tithe!
Bloodline Progression is 88%
If nothing else, he could take its memories.
A shimmering stream of essence poured between Felix's fingers, sucked neatly into his chest. The fires in the Envoy's helm were finally snuffed out, and it collapsed bonelessly on the ground.
"Twin's breath, Felix," Harn murmured. "Is that your...?"
"Primordial Skill, yeah," Felix nodded. "We need to-"
He stopped and clutched at his chest.
"What is it?" Vess asked. "Felix?"
My core. It feels-- The essence roiled in his core, a sleek, shimmering collection of hues quite different from the yellow-red storm brewing within him. It stood apart, like a spot of oil in water. It feels--
Deep Mind is level 44!
Deep Mind is level 45!
Something scraped at him. The essence. It...something was inside it. Something important, he felt.
"Everyone, get to high ground and," Felix swallowed, careful not to cut his tongue on his sharpened teeth. "Carry me with you."
"What? Why?" Harn asked, but Felix didn't answer. He dove into his core, passing through the clouds of essence that boiled above it and lassoed the shimmering lights of the Envoy with his Will. Without hesitation, he thrust the lot of it deep into his core fire.
In his dual perception, both within and without, the world slowed until it stopped. Color leeched from reality as a wave of multi-hued Mana exploded outward.
He was in the Void again.
Pure darkness in all directions, one that reminded him forcefully of his own core. Felix stood on nothing, fully lit by an unseen light. It had been some time, but he knew what came next. Felix flexed his Will.
And the Void shattered.
Black gave way to unremitting white as millions of Envoys populated the space around him. The tall, thin construct extended in all directions, an unending centipede made up of millions, billions of Envoys. Each of them were in discrete positions and looked slightly different. It had thrown Felix for a loop the first time this had happened with the assassin, but he had come to realize what it all meant.
Iterations through time. They were memories in time. Pieces of the Envoy throughout its life, folded on itself and repeated into infinity.
It was beautiful. And nauseating.
Felix found he could intuit some of the details of the memories as he glanced at them, the smallest of pieces at least. He needed the right one. So he looked around, which was difficult, as the memories crowded his vision in increasingly complex ways. He saw Arcid after Arcid, some small, some large, but still the same one. It...
Among the twisting lines of memories past, Felix saw a selection that weren't constructs at all. Instead he saw a tall, slender creature with blue skin and a wispy, white beard.
The Envoy was a Frost Giant?
Felix reeled. He'd thought...the Arcids were constructs right? His Eye told him so...constructs are just magic robots...right?
He'd been assuming. After so much time on the Continent, Felix had still barely scratched the surface of what was out there. He'd been wrong. He saw it clearly now, as iterations of the Envoy replaced the slender Risi with a half-plated monstrosity, writhing in pain. He glimpsed snippets of those memories, snatches of fire and torment that put his own experiences to shame.
He would only have one chance at this. He had to pick the right one. Felix honed his Intent, an aspect of himself he still didn't quite understand, and focused on his need. He knew the Archon had something to do with the twisted sigils, that it had sent the Envoy on its way. An answer had to be here. He felt it in his soul.
I need to break the array.
Following the echoes of his Intent, Felix latched onto one that was near the cusp, where the Giant was not quite an Arcid yet.
The expanse dissolved into shades of darkness and fire.
And Felix found himself standing alongside a massive stone table, upon which the Risi was held down with bands of dark steel. Pieces of its legs and arm were being laboriously replaced by dark metal in a shower of sparks. Another, far smaller Arcid stood beside it, marking off items on a scroll.
The memory shuddered.
"We found him along the city limits, Master," said the Arcid. Its voice was far higher pitched than the Envoy's own. "He proved easy to lure into our tunnels."
"Good."
The second voice that spoke shivered through Felix like a cold wind. A figure stood, wreathed in darkness, near the far end of the room.
"It is working, Master. Your vision is infallible," the short Arcid said in excitement. A low chuckle came from the shadows, and the gleam of golden metal caught Felix's eye.
"Infallible. If only," the Archon mused, stepping into the light. "Merely old and patient, Number 54228."
Existing within a memory, Felix knew he was in no danger, but it was hard to convince his heart of that. The damn thing nearly leaped out of his chest as he saw the Archon, up close after so many weeks. He moved closer to the table and tried to see exactly what was being done to the former Frost Giant. A collection of obtuse Mana constructs whirled above, each one a dense construct of sigils. Not just any sigils, either. They shone with a yellow-red light and twisted upon themselves, inversions of what he knew as standard sigaldry.
The memory shuddered again, more ripples across the world. In his bones, he knew he was running out of time.
"Spend the time here, Number 54228. Get this right and we will be set to reforge the rest of them," the Archon had stepped closer at some point, and Felix started. He looked up at the golden giant's helmet and the red fires that burned in its visor. The thing held a massive fist up and clenched it to the sound of creaking metal. "All of them."
"Yes, Master. Your Will be done."
Convoluted constructs spun and descended, piercing through the barely conscious Risi's shoulders, chest, abdomen and thighs. The Frost Giant woke screaming and the Arcid did nothing to stop it. Felix watched the sigils flow and shift, mesmerized by their complexity, but conscious of the ticking clock he was on.