Tier X Link Already Established.
Greater Essence Redirection Allowed.
The weight shifted yet again, and this time the chaos quietened. Felix did not stop, either. He snagged the Links that shone brightest from his Bastion, the threads of connection that had only grown larger with his months upon the Continent. And one that was still quite new. Vess. Evie. Harn. Beef. He held them up in the palm of his Will, and he asked a single question.
Do you accept this power?
The whisper of it sped down their Links like ghosts of his voice, moving faster than lightning...and returned to him just as quickly. The answer, unanimous.
Yes!
Felix gathered himself and reached, clutching all that purified power to himself, and hurled it into their vivid Links.
Attempting To Establish Sympathetic Links...
Tier III Links Already Established.
Essence Redirection Allowed.
Tier III Link Advanced To Tier IV!
Four cords, each a brilliant silver, were remade. The concentrated power of a Primordial thundered through them, racing toward his friends and transmuting their Links to a myriad of colors. He felt them all stiffen and scream, their own trials seizing their cores, but it was only a small portion of the Primordial's might. Still, it quieted the writhing maelstrom around him, though it left so much more for Felix to deal with himself. But that was finehe had plans for the rest.
Fiendforge!
Once more, Felix split his attention. He held Pit's cracking core in one hand, and the wild energies of the disassembling Primordial in the other. With a third, shaking grip, Felix took hold of his own cores.
Here goes nothing. With the cleaver of his Intent, he split the conflicting, intermingling Essence and significance in half, diverting one portion to Pit...and the other to himself. His Companion's screams intensified, and Felix hesitated.
No! I can do this! Pit insisted. I can protect you!
Felix was forced to accept that, because the rest of the Primordial's potency slammed through his Divine Tree and into his dual cores directly. Pressure and pain assaulted him, unlike anything he had felt since the Ravager King...and so much worse. Essence roared as it burnt away, absorbed by the churning spin of his dual cores.
It would have been so much easier if he'd been able to feed some of it to his Hunger, but it was an impenetrable door. Instead, he forced it all into his cores, all the gargantuan flows of the Primordial. And just like with the Ravager King, Felix rotated his cores, spinning the rings of gel-like fire in opposing directions. The Essence and significance slammed down, growing his cores at a visible rate while Felix gritted his teeth so hard he felt a tooth crack. Spinning them was hard before, but now with his Mind and Spirit split in so many directions, it was torture to maintain it all. But Felix had no choice; it was this or be consumed by the sheer ferocity of it all.
Almost...there! The moment arcing prominences started flaring off of his two cores, Felix split his Will again. He felt all the balls he had in the air quiver and and almost topple, Fiendforge and Sovereign of Flesh and Relentless Resolution all burning bright, a hairsbreadth from failing. He screamed, grappling with the flaring tendrils of power from his corestwo from eachand hurled them out into the black of his core space.
Directly into two Skills. Sovereign of Flesh and Relentless Resolution.
They were both on the cusp, driven there by revelations and a sudden understanding...he could feel them about to advance, and with the right juice
Sovereign of Flesh is level 75!
...
Sovereign of Flesh is level 78!
Adept Tier!
Relentless Resolution is level 75!
...
Relentless Resolution is level 77!
Adept Tier!
You Gain
You Gain
YES! he cried, just as Pit mimicked his triumph with a screech of righteous joy. Felix's overheating Mind sensed the tenku's power pulled inward, the opposite of Felix's process, until it condensed into a bright ball of victorious, furious melody.
Congratulations!
You Have Accessed Your FirstERRORSecond/////
ERROR
Recalculating...
First Evolution Accessed!
Path Detected!
You Walk The Path Of The Guardian Beast!
Primordial Influence Detected!
Adjusting Evolution Choices...
Felix's dual cores erupted in energy, burning up into his core space like a revivifying torch. Red-gold flame and blue-white lightning chewed up the Primordial's stolen flesh and spat it out as power, rotating it and pulling it inward to strengthen him. Claimed, it flared up once, twice, and then exploded outward in a shockwave of wild force.
Rahven Haim climbed to his feet and pressed an ungauntleted hand against his side. His armor had been ruined by the horrendous power of the dust storm, ground down to almost nothing in places and his cloak hung in tatters from his shoulders. The faintest of glows still clung to him, proof of his God's continual blessing...but the ritual had failed. He had failed.
Haim stared around him, uncomprehending. No one moved at all upon the battlefield, for the storm had done its work too well. He had failed, and his elite cadre of Paladins were dead to a man. None could have survived the onslaught of undead and insane heretics, and then the sheer insanity of the dead Primordial striking out against them all.
The indignity of it was almost too much to bear.
Someone moved in the distance and Haim narrowed his yellow eyes. His Perception was excellent, even for a Master Tier, and he picked out a familiar, long-limbed shape among the swirling dust and dispersing clouds of crackling Mana. Felix Nevarre.
His god had spoken to him. To him! For the first time in his long career, he had heard the direct voice of the Pathless and it had been as glorious as he had been promised. A voice like summer sun had caressed his Mind and Spirit as He had imparted a great duty upon Haim's shoulders: Felix Nevarre, this Unbound, must die.
Rahven Haim, High Justiciar of the Paladins of the Pathless was not a man who took oaths lightly. Yet he swore an Oath to kill the bastard Autarch without a single regret. I will do as you Will, Pathless. I will not fail you.
"Diurnal Lance!" he called out, and a spear of pure light Mana screamed across the intervening distance. It struck like lightning, faster than even his eyes could track, and hit the Autarch square in his chest.
Felix Nevarre gasped and took a single step back, his clothing consumed in a ball of lightborn flame...yet he stood, hand to now-bare chest. Unharmed.
What? That Skill has taken down other Masters! What did he do?
The man noticed Haim, finally, and stepped forward through the burning clouds of dissipating Mana. His legs trembled and blood dripped from his nose and hands. "I'm really getting sick of you," he muttered.
"Diurnal Lance!" Haim hurled a second spear of light at the man, this one packed with as much extra Mana as he could manage.
Felix batted it out of the air, still walking forward. "Stop that."
To his shame, Haim took a single, fearful step backward. "Monster. You're...you're a calamity. Unbound. We were told to bring your kind in, that to do so was the will of the Divine. But I will tell you this: the Pathless hates you. He has called for your destruction, Beast. Crucible of the Just!"
This time Haim pulsed one of his greatest Skills. A column of solid light manifested above their heads, a gallows axe shaped like the armored gauntlet of his order. Looping, Divine script covered it, imbuing it with a holy power that nothing short of a Grandmaster could survive. Its radius was such that Haim was going to be caught in it, but he no longer cared.
A breathless laugh bubbled up from the Unbound, and Haim curled his lip in disbelief and disgust. He's gone mad from fear. "We die together, then Beast."
"Beast? Nah," Felix panted. His legs had stopped trembling. "I'm just...some guy."
Haim threw his hand down, letting the Crucible drop. At the same time, a chaotic burst of swirling lights erupted from the Unbound's form, and a horror ripped free of its embrace. Directly into Haim's chest.
"That's the Beast."
Claws savaged him, tearing through his weakened armor and withered defenses. Haim tried to rally, to throw the huge beast off of him, but a spike of vicious pain stabbed through his Mind, staggering him. Dust and flame and lightning descended onto the Justiciar, and he felt a final, scorching tear...
And then darkness.