Chapter Four Hundred And Sixteen – 416The last Paladin Inscriptionist crashed to the ground, their head nothing more than a mashed mess. A few feet away, the Primordial's nasty bones shook and pulsed, but Beef refused to look at itthe horror made him nauseous. He straightened up and rested his maul against his shoulder with a grunt. The thing was riddled with cracks, each one leaking bright lights of blackened-green light, but he could fix it. He pulled out a Mana Potion and quaffed it in one go.
"Michael! The Golems and Wraiths are coming again," Hallow announced over the increasing din. Only sixteen Risen remained, all of them the stronger Paladins, but they could not hold back all of their enemies. The Nightfall Golems and Dustborn Wraiths weren't working together, but they all wanted to rip Beef and his Risen to pieces and that amounted to the same thing. "I cannot hold them for more than three seconds."
Chitin Construction!
One Mississippi...
His Mana mobilized, surging from his channels to forge a new set of armor around his chest and limbs. It resembled the spiked body of a large beetle, but it was stronger with every level under his belt, and the Skill had gained five in the last fifteen minutes.
Two Mississippi...
He also reforged his maul, lengthening and enlarging the spiked head until it was comically huge. He grunted and took it in two hands, the heavy weapon dropping to his waist in order for Beef to stabilize it. The glimmering, sunset-colored Golems tore through the Risen from one end, while from the other came the steel-clawed and bone-plated Wraiths. There was no screaming or shouting, only silent, eerie death.
"Hallow!" The last of the Risen, struggling to stand, went immediately stiff before collapsing. The light in their eyes snuffed out before being rekindled within Beef's own chest. Blackened-green power surged around his core, igniting the room within his heart and forcing Beef to shield his inner awareness.
The enemies charged at Beef, blades and claws outstretched and he hunched himself, feeling his muscles bulge and tighten like coiled springs.
Three Mississippi...
"Circle of Smash!" he bellowed, and unleashed a cyclonic blow.
Beef's muscles exploded into action, accelerating him from motionless to an insanely fast spin, maul fully extended. The jagged head of the weapon hit a Wraith first, fully and completely tearing them in half before continuing onward. Wraith after Wraith were less impediment than the wind itself, and power gathered behind the attack as it sped alonguntil it struck a Nightfall Golem, caving in its chest and knocking the magic robot onto its glowing ass.
"Hell yeah!" he shouted, before noticing that every Wraith was reassembling themselves. And the Golem simply climbed back to its feet, damaged but undeterred. "Balls."
"RAAAAAAAAAAARH!"
Without warning, every single Wraith convulsed and began to scream. Their long, iron claws tore at their bodies and faces, scoring the bone plates and shredding withered flesh. Beef gawked, unable to figure out what was happening. The Golems, both the one he'd smashed and the two behind it, halted mid-stride as their attention was turned to Beef's right...where the sea of undulating bones had gone utterly still.
"Hallow, what is go"
Michael! Watch out!
The storm above them dropped, far faster than it had moved previously, just as a wave of obliterating force hit them all. Wraiths and Golems were ripped off their feet, and Beef was no better. He tumbled through the air, glass and lightning blasting in all directions, accosting his body with a sudden, scorching heat. Black and brown clouds ripped outward, streaked with brilliant rainbow lights as twenty-foot long bone shards shattered through his armor and shaggy fur. Blood burst from countless wounds, until he smashed back toward the razor sharp protrusions of crystal.
Michael!
A sheath of blackened green energy swept outward from his core and covered his Body for a single, brief momentlong enough to weather an impact that would have snapped his spine. Instead, the crystal cracked and broke, falling with him into the tiled edge of the chamber.
Be safe, Michael. The sheath winked out, and so did the presence in his chest.
"Hallow!" he screamed. Until a Golem smashed right into his face.
Felix stood among nothingness and an all encompassing light.
He blinked in confusion. Music soared around him, filling up every available space like cotton pressed against him. Harmony was a strident, triumphant crescendo that lapped through the thickened air...while Dissonance was an opposing burr, a jagged, atonal scouring that ripped the legs out of any note that tried to rise too high. It was a violent interplay, one that was echoed by the vast emptiness and cloying brilliance that yawned around and through Felix.
Ugh, that's...that feels awful, he muttered. The sound was both heard and swallowed up entirely by the forces around him. It was a confusing experience, but a chord of familiarity stretched taut through it all. It wasn't like the Divine pocket he'd wandered into, nor was it like the Void in any meaningful way; instead, it felt like floating underwater, except he was buoyed by sound instead of liquid. That noise. It's just like my core space.
With a rush of clarity, the fighting of Harmony and Dissonance took on the patterns and cadences of his dual cores, the ones that constantly ground against one another to produce a strange, chimeric child of the Grand Harmony. A tapestry of sound that was neither the System nor the harshness that Primordial's exuded from their very pores. It's all meshed, badly, but still. Pieces of pieces, fragments of a great wholeThe Primordial! The curse!
Sovereign of Flesh!
The Skill was already active, was in fact overclocked to the point that his core space screamed with the effort of maintaining it. Felix hovered among the warring pieces of the Primordial as he tore it apart, a bubble of power that fought against his control. With that realization came the knowledge that his Body, only dimly felt, was failing dramatically. His Health fell like a rock, his Stamina was barely kept afloat by his regeneration, and his store of Essence was a fingernail away from obliteration. The vast sea of power was eating away at him as it disassembled and shoved through his core space, a torrent of potency that ran through him like a filter. Clouds of Essence and Mana were pulled into his channels and back out again, not a piece of them remaining behind, and he focused. If he could harvest even a piece, it would go a long way toward healing himself.
Chthonic Tribu!
The activation twisted, halting mid-word like his airway had been constricted. The Hunger within him could not be overcome or gainsaid. It would take no more.
Why? he railed against the dark abyss. I need it! We're going to die!
From within him, Felix heard a guttural, almost unintelligible snarl. Too weak. Body flawed. No. More.
Then obstinate silence within the chaos all around him. The cacophony of light and Essence buffeted him, a storm that spread through him, pressed and strained against the resonating branches of his Divine Tree. The Primordial's Essence entered Felix, stained by the Divine, and when it emerged from his beleaguered channels, it was rendered pure. The curse itself was catching among the branches of his Tree, skimmed from the Essence like dead bugs from the top of a swimming pool.
His Fiendforge trembled, his grip on the Primordial's heart and Pit's cracking core tenuous at best. He still held tight to the flesh curse, which he dimly realized was why the Primordial's Essence was being shoved through Felix's core space at all. Sovereign of Flesh commanded with all the force of his Willpower, and its curse obeyed.
How long have I been doing this?
Time felt immaterial within the hovering, chaotic space. Was he frozen or was his Mind whirling so fast that a single moment stretched into a thousand? The Primordial's potency raged through him faster and faster, but it felt endless. Eternal. Like a trap he'd sprung on himself. Deep inside, a piece of his core space shook, and Felix gasped.
My Bastion...?
The cords of light, of connection, that gathered in his Bastion were thrumming and twitching wildly. One in particular sang out, a shearing sound of distress as it snapped taut, like a cable nearing its breaking point.
Atar. He knew it without conscious thought or reason. He's in trouble. Hurt. Felix couldn't tell which, only that their connection was pulling so hard that threads of luminous light snapped and frayed. A tiny echo of Atar was feeding back into Felix, enough that he felt the mage was grasping for something. Anything. He was falling apart...and it took very little guesswork to know why that might be. The Urge is...dying? Or is that Atar?
Felix did the only thing he could in that moment. He grasped the echo of Atar's need, his plea for help, and shifted his Will to seize a portion of the howling, useless Essence thundering through him. Then he shoved it into their connection.
Attempting To Establish Sympathetic Link...
Tier III Link Already Established.
Essence Redirection Allowed.
The weight all around Felix shifted, and it was like a mountain lifting off his shoulders by the barest of margins. Essence and moresignificancebegan to flow from Felix's stolen store into the connection with Atar. Pit groan in clear relief, the weight of it all lightening on him as well. The cord swelled, changing slowly from silver to a bright, almost blinding white edged in bloody crimson, and Felix grinned.
Tier III Link Advanced To Tier IV!
The connection, the Link, was remade. That white-crimson light raced down its entire length, up and out of his core space, to the mage himself. Yet around him, the chaos still raged. Pit?
Yes. Give it to me, the tenku agreed. I can handle it.
The brilliant, blue-gold and black-crimson Link between them slipped into the foreground and Felix repeated the process. Essence and significance was pulled just as it left the purifying branches of his Divine Tree, and filtered down into their bond. Into Pit directly.
A shriek of pain and fury tore from his Companion's throat, but Felix couldn't let up even if he tried. The process all but tore from his control the moment Pit accepted it.
Attempting To Establish Sympathetic Link...