Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty One – 221Vellus gripped him, body and soul. The goddess had engulfed Felix's vision in all directions, and the mountain the size of a planet dragged at him. An endless storm within her thundered closer and closer, its lightning shattering stones the size of continents. Those clouds churned with magenta, disgorging torrents of sanguine rain in razor sheets of driving rain. Lightning and blood channeled through Felix, and he sensed them bypassing his core. They soaked his Aspects directly.
"The Maw has left it's hungry Mark on you. As Unbound you are receptive to all Mana, no matter its place on the spectrum, but you seem intrinsically tied to my own. You could say you ate your way into my influence." Vellus' voice was all encompassing, more than sound. It shook his soul. "The Unbound are beyond our reach, unless they give us permission. Unless they Choose us. The others have taken their bounties, other ascendants have taken their Boons. The world races toward its doom, and none of them can save it. I can, however. I will."
Familiar lightning and sanguine tides swept through Felix, soaking him in their energies as the crimson mountain became his entire world.
"That wasn't a choice, Vellus," Felix gasped. The pressure redoubledas if he were getting sucked into the mountain's gravityand the charged Mana surged through him. "It was...coercion! You're...no better than the Maw!" he shouted. He threw his Will against Vellus' in an attempt to push her back, but it was like trying to whistle into a hurricane. All he did was run out of breath. "At least it...was honest...about being a monster!"
"I am trying to save this world, Felix! Just as before! Just as always!" Vellus snarled, and Felix was hit by bloody storms and jagged blue lightning. A creature was lashed to the mountain's peaka speck in his vision but growingbound by chains bigger than entire cities. It thrashed, strangely jointed limbs twitching every which way. "The Primordial was driven far from its true purpose by dark isolation! But it was always a monster!"
The creature howled, and his strained Affinity could hear it. The strident thrum of fear. "Do not fight against it, Unbound. It will do you no good. Despite my limitations, not even you can win against the divine."
She's afraid, but not of me. Of the Primordials. Felix flinched back, much as he could. How can I?
"You've no clue, Felix Nevarre. The Primordials would have ended us all. You cannotcannot imagine the devastation..." The null space quivered around him, briefly disrupting the goddess' presence. She flickered, like a ghost, before solidifying again. That distant creature spasmed, and the chains rattled like thunder. "We would have done anythinghave done anything to survive. And now...and now it is no longer enough."
The closer Felix drew to that wretched mountain, the more convinced he was that he'd not the same, at any rate. Whatever was strapped to that peakand Felix was almost completely certain it was Vellus herselfhe would be changed. He needed to delay, to do something, anything. His Mind scrambled while his Body and Spirit fought to resist her awful kinetic pull.
"What" he gasped. "What was your greatest mistake?"
Yet she did not answer. Instead, Vellus' madness turned palpable, though it was likely only a taste of what her choristers and sages went through. It burned and swirled, the edges of it falling to pieces only to be reconstructed into shapes that defied description. The crimson world loomed closer.
"Without me, you will die," Vellus rumbled, and her voice had become thunder and the rattle of chains. "I have Seen it. Not even the Primordial could save you."
Save me? Felix gritted his teeth against the currents of the goddess' insanity. Are we...talking about the same Maw?
The power increased, the flow of the goddess power increasing the closer that mountain cameVellus' moon, he realized. It felt different than what the Maw attempted, time and again, but no less a violation. He hadn't allowed this, he wouldn't allow it.
Yet he couldn't do anything. He couldn't even shift from his relentless descent.
Desperate, Felix grabbed at his invisible core. His Skills, his stats, anything that he could reach. He knew it was all there, just out of sight, but where? His stats were the first he tried, but his Strength, Vitality, and Endurance were useless, as were his Dexterity and Agility when he couldn't even move. His Intelligence and Perception weren't bringing him anything, and his Willpower had already failed against the goddess' own.
What did I expect...from a deity? Felix panted his breaths, his body still feeling oh so physical here in this place. It was like the Void, but not. The darkness wasn't black, just nothing, an absence of anything except him and the chaos shadow of Vellus. But if...they don't work, then what about...the Harmonics?
Resonance and Resilience were there, toiling away in the background as he focused on them. They fought against the destruction of his flesh from the firestorm that still raged, and from the crushing depths they had fallen into only moments before. Moments? Time had stopped even making sense within the influence of Vellus' being. He could have been there for minutes or days, it all felt the same.
Evasion and Might both felt slippery, unable to gain traction; feats of the Body and physical defense both seemed moot at that point. Intent was...nothing. Felix's focus was scrambled each time he gathered it, cast aside by the storm winds that buffeted him. He had a feeling it would remain nothing until he could break through, back to his core space.
It came down to three, then: Alacrity, Felicity, and Affinity. Feats of the Mind, mental defense, and connection to the Harmonies.
"HUUUAAAGH!" Felix seized as bolts as thick as his waist flashed across his Body. So bright they left afterimages even in his strengthened eyes. The electricity, charged with a kinetic kick, wormed into him like a serpent. A serpent covered in jagged thorns. "AAAAGGGH!"
"You mustn't struggle, Felix Nevarre. You mustn't!" Vellus' voice thundered, more chains and lightning. The blood storm swirled. "This is the only way!"
Felix's fall accelerated, and he began to feel heat against his face and limbs. Like a meteor entering the atmosphere. Felix struggled, focusing on his Harmonic stats. This wasn't really happening, at least not on the physical level. So...so it was mental.
Focus! Push past it! He had to reach his core again. A feat of the Mind. He flared his Alacrity, one of his highest stats, and the null space quivered. His Bastion cut off all sensation and he'd Tempered it into his Mind Aspect; could his Mind overcome his Mind? FOCUS!
Screaming in pain and straining against the invisible bonds that held him, Felix hurled his Mind against his own barriers. And, for the briefest of instants, the null space opened.
Light, blue and red and yellow, shone upon him like a break in the clouds. Felix shoved his Mind through the breach, relying on his Felicity to gird himself. The stat was low, not even 80 points, and the meager protection it offered was a paper wall before a wildfire. It would have to be enough.
Searing pain assaulted him, Mind and soul as he squeezed his consciousness back up into his core space. His Felicity shunted a portion of the pain, the damage, but not nearly all of it. But the tiniest piece of him pushed through, and his Affinity let him connect to his core, to the gathering of connections inherent in his core space. To Pit.
Pit!
Pit screeched in fear and fury, their bond shining momentarily in the dark. A blazing connection, thick with black, blue, crimson and gold light flickered to life. A thread that was a steel i-beam of light emerging from Felix's chest, up and out of the null space around him.
He could feel the tenku move, as if falling from a great height.
What're you? But Felix didn't have time to ask questions, the sensation was gone just as he felt Pit dive into the maelstrom of power above his core.
+10 FEL!
+5 AFI!
+9 ALA!
Etheric Concordance is level 64!
He felt his soul tear, wrenched nearly free of its moorings...dragged toward that nightmare vista. He had opened up the smallest points of access to his core space, and the tumult of energies flooded his consciousness again. The pain redoubled, quintupled, a blinding agony that threatened his tenuous grip. Felix gripped at his Skill, the only one he could think to help.
Reign of Vellus!
The null space stripped the Skill, and no lightning nor kinetic blast answered his call. He couldn't use his Skills! HeFelix focused. He had trained this. He could feel it, his core, so he could connect to it. His Affinity thrummed, reaching, seeking...and he felt it. The shining etching within his core space. He gripped it and turned his Intent inward, all of his concentration on the idea of it, the process. Something answered his Will, but it wasn't a surge of lightning. Instead, he felt a welling of a dense force pulse through him. Words rode along his Affinity, coming unbidden to his mind.
The Pull of Significance.
Felix slowed, the fire against his flesh dimming. He still fell, the crimson moon below him still swelled, but it was less. The storm, however, only raged all the more. The opening to his core space had...widened.
"What are you doing!" Vellus thundered. "You dare use my own Skill against me?"
Felix felt the grip on his soul shift, as if the goddess were reaching for something else, before it tightened on another portion of him. He braced for another painful wrenching sensation, but it never came. His soul slipped from her grip, and the titanic fumbling he felt was accompanied by a pained hiss.
"What foul work is this? You've Tempered...with a Primordial Essence Mote?"
Essence of the Unseen Tide. The Maw's Essence Mote.
Choices have consequences! That's what the System says. I may not have made this Choice, but I did choose my Tempered Essences. Felix bared his teeth as lightning made his muscles seize. His stomach boiled. He was terrified, but more than that: he was furious. Vellus has no clue what she's up against.
He wasn't Felix the Nym, or even just Felix the Unbound. He was a Primordial.
I...I just gotta finish the job.
Through the gap to his core space, Felix flexed two other Skills. Ravenous Tithe and Fire Within rang out in the solar array around his core, and that maelstrom of devoured energy intensified. It thickened, the clouds turning to a dense swirling liquid that flashed red and blue and yellow. The Skills were stripped as they neared his null space, their effect not quite reaching him.
A State of Accumulation!
The Way Forward!