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Chapter 837
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 20:41:39 +0000 UTCEnjoy! Bit of a longer chapter today! Took a while to edit this to where I was happy with it.
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Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!
Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!
Primordial Nature Resonates With [Essence Of Maestro’s Movement]!
Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence Of Maestro’s Movement]!
Calculating Effects…
Choose A Feature:
Tonic - Journey's Beginning
Semitone - Journey's Span
Transpose - Journey's Transformation
The Essence Mote unveiled itself as Felix fell, but he couldn’t pay attention to it. As the Features listed out, he dropped, fist-first atop the Primordial. The thing was broader than the Ravager King and as slick as any shadowbeast conjured by Noctis; Felix’s claws sank deep into its flesh, tearing away a chunk of its hide and exposing a velvet green ichor within.
The wound healed before his second strike landed.
Visions kindled within him, sparked off by his Tempering, but Felix shook them off. His Crown hummed, playing interference between his Mind and the convoluted, symbolic images. No matter how much they helped him, Felix couldn’t afford to lose concentration in this fight.
I need to aim for its other wounds. Nearby, gashes split the Primordial for dozens of feet, exposing ichor-slick muscle and fat before closing themselves up. They flexed on rhythm, like gruesome gills. Unseen Beholder!
He dove closer, trying to peer past the power that shrouded the monstrosity. Unlike any of the others, its attunement was almost beyond him—but Felix grasped a thrumming of blood, rot, and shadow.
Sonata of Dominance!
Title: Born of Will Is Active!
What Is Beyond You, If You Have The Will?
Timbre shifted and pitch held close, Felix seized upon the least of its power. Shadow unfurled before him, held within his Skill’s domain, and he imposed himself upon it.
NO.
Tenebrous Aeon roared, and the scream blasted him straight off of its back. Lightning flared and Felix stopped his wild trajectory with lines of connection, but it snapped the joints across his elbows and shoulders. They healed as he settled into place…and the Primordial twisted beneath him. A river of flesh and stunted grasping arms rotated, its blubber turned upon itself as wounds of rot opened like putrid eyes.
Shit. The thing was too powerful. I need to finish this Temper.
He dropped the barrier in his Mind, and the visions rushed toward him.
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Tonic, whispered the voice. Journey’s Beginning.
Winds whipped around Felix, tearing at his usual black jacket and faded green trousers. His feet were bare in the wet leaves, and a chill settled into him like knives of ice through his soles. A lake stood not far away, still as a mirror.
A tingling at the back of his Mind compelled him to turn and kick away the leaves…revealing a pathway of translucent green stones. His toes touched the first and it released a single, glowing note.
“That’s…interesting.” Felix glanced down the path. It wound through the trees along the edge of the lake, mostly covered in leaves and moss. None of it shone with light, however—none but the one he touched.
He took another step.
The next stone glowed green-gold and a crystalline as the note that pierced the autumnal air. It joined the first, making something that wasn’t quite a song…not until he stepped on the third. A chord formed, unfurling into the air and blasting away the leaves from a dozen feet in all directions.
Felix grinned, he stepped again—
The earth sundered. A legion of grasping appendages tore tree and dirt and stone apart, wrenching open the chill night with gruesome strength. Power flared and broke, split before a tide of flesh that interposed itself across the forest.
NO.
The roar split the vision apart, and Felix was flung free—back into his Body, which cratered the chasm’s wall once more.
What the hell?
The vision was gone.
No. No, I still feel it. The Temper is still happening, I just can’t see it anymore.
The Primordial undulated, its clawed arms casually tearing at the mountain around it like a hamster chewing through a paper tube. Somehow the thing had put itself between Felix and his Tempering Skill—like a wall of dire flesh.
He’d have to choose blindly this time.
Tonic, Semitone, or Transpose. Which one is right?
Before he could make a decision, however, the Primordial folded over itself with the speed of a building collapsing. Felix kicked off the wall, flaring his Agility, but even so it was impossible to dodge in the confines of the chasm.
He was smashed back into the walls, smeared across the dark stone and crystalline remnants like a bug on a windshield.
WARNING!
Your Health Is Below 75%!
Felix flared his Strength, pushing at the titanic appendage with all his Might, but the mountain failed first. It crumbled beneath their weight, sinking him further as shards of stone tore at his scales until they bled—and until he shot out of the other side of a crag, pressed through the rock entirely.
Adamant Discord!
Lightning-chased bonds steadied him, holding him aloft for a brief instant—bracing him.
Felix kicked off.
He flared his Agility, his movements immediately shrouded in cones of fog as he trailed thunder. Felix rebounded off the far wall, ricocheting around the Primordial's bulk before he tore loose his Inheritor's Will and flared Adamant Discord. In a flash of lightning and thunder, he stabbed downward into one of the creature's open wounds.
Wild Threnody!
Wild Threnody is level 100!
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Wild Threnody is level 115!
Master Tier!
You Gain:
+50 WIL
+50 INT
+50 END
Fire and light seared through his blade, cutting into the Primordial's obdurate hide. Shadow Mana boiled in fire and fled from the light as a thunder of drums roused in Felix's core space.
Cold rot retaliated.
Gelid putrescence burst from the split hide of the Primordial. Great green gouts stripped stone before freezing into pillars of fetid pus. Felix dodged away, slicing deeper and opening the wound into a gaping hole that exposed layer after layer of blubbery fat. He twisted his blade, flaring Wild Threnody all the more as Sonata of Dominance marshalled the Mana around him to dive deep into the creature.
As the flesh split deeper, however, he did not expect to see a face. An enormous and mostly rotted skull leered at Felix from within the blubber before skeletal hands burst from the wound to grab at his wrists.
"Holy—!"
His words were cut off as he was pulled into the depths of the monstrosity. Arms the size of a Frost Giant wrapped around him, the bones hard against his scales as they were joined by other pairs, each hauling back with considerable Strength to pull him deeper into the Tenebrous Aeon.
Felix shoved at them, easily shattering their brittle bones, but more rose from the cloying folds like parasites. He tore into them, kicking away as lightning flared around him and drew him up out of the Primordial's flesh. He gasped as his head broke the surface of the wound, green ichor pouring down his face.
Skeletal claws and grinning skulls followed him out, but talon and lightning blasted them apart. Unfortunately, Felix couldn’t bombard all of the pulsating tears in the Primordial's flesh, and those immediately began to disgorge more undead. Covered in bits of rotting flesh, they looked half digested even as they trailed a blackened umbilical that connected them back to the wounds they'd escaped.
They piled on, attacking Felix in an unrelenting tide. Corpses piled atop Felix and no matter how much he swung, more were always there to replace the old.
Sonata of Dominance!
He grappled with the necromantic Mana that animated them all and, after a short struggle, severed it with his mighty Will. They scattered in all directions, their corpses falling apart as the umbilicals whipped back into the Primordial's body.
Felix stood, hunched over and panting. Fighting against even a sliver of the Tenebrous Aeon’s Will had been like wrestling a mountain into submission. A moment of sweet relief gusted across him, and he straightened.
Somehow, he’d lost track of the Primordial’s claws.
Claws the size of shortswords stabbed into his shoulders and back, slicing through scale and muscle before lodging against his bones. Thin and deformed as they were, the Primordial’s appendages were strong beyond measure.
The claws raked at him, tearing through his armored scales as if they were paper.
WARNING!
Your Health Is Below 25%!
A scream tried to rip from Felix’s throat, but all he could manage was a strained gurgle. Rot sank into him, putrefying his scales and muscle. It flowed through him in a wave, and his Body began to shut down.
WARNING!
Your Health Is Below 10%!
Felix gagged, bile choking him as he struggled against the thing. But as he turned, skeletal hands reached from opened wounds to snag his feet, tripping him up and driving him to his knees as the Primordial's claws slammed him into its own broken belly.
WARNING!
Your Health Is Below 5%!
With a desperate gasp, Felix brought his Inheritor's Will down upon the Primordial's blubbery hide, tearing open a wound beneath his knees.
Adamant Discord!
The connection between him and the Primordial was strong, and he hauled on it like a lifeline—except this time, he rocketed downward, slipping free into the gelid ichor even as he slipped free of the claws in his back. Green bile surrounded him, cold meat clutched at his sides, and bony hands scrabbled for his ankles.
WARNING!
Your Health Is Below 3%!
Last Cry of the Chthonic Host!
A rush of power filled him, emerging from the dark of the System before sinking into his Body like a lightning bolt of rejuvenation. In less than a breath, his Health and Stamina rocketed back up to 100%. The power pulled him back together, his blood replenishing, his flesh knitting closed, and even the bones in his shoulders and spine reassembling from the crushing grasp of the Primordial.
Last Cry of the Chthonic Host is level 6!
Shit! He'd been saving that skill for his fight with the Hierophant, and now it was out of commission for the next month due to its cooldown. Now I’m pissed!
Adamant Discord!
Felix blasted back out, through the legion of undead that assembled beside him, and out of the Aeon's open wounds. Lightning coursed in his wake, frying flesh and bones alike—but Felix knew now that it made little difference. He was facing a challenge that was well beyond him. At least with the Divine, he got a boost to his Willpower thanks to his Title. The Primordial he faced now was both too strong and too weak at the same time. So he did the one thing he could.
Felix ran.
Distance yawned between them as he rose on a bolt of lightning, hoping for time to think, but the Primordial bellowed a staccato roar before it began to twist its lumbering bulk. It was following, but at least it wasn’t fast enough to catch him—-
Sharp, wet explosions sounded from below, followed by the distinct sound of bones clattering against the chasm’s walls.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Undead corpses shot out from the Primordial’s back and sides, each connected by one of those gross umbilicals. They scrabbled after Felix, racing up the chasm walls.
Come on! You've got a weakness somewhere. Unseen Beholder!
Title: Tyros Of The Unseen Tide Is Active!
You Have Begun To Sense The Totality Of That Which Binds All.
Adamant Discord is level 139!
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Adamant Discord is level 142!
A flurry of pale blue lines erupted around Felix. He sorted through them quickly, discarding some as useless, until he found something odd. A bond of strange strength. The pale blue beam led his senses downward to a piece of the Primordial deep within its chest, where a vile object filled its ribcage beneath an ocean of virulent green blood.
A core.
It was easily bigger than a house, but something about it seemed larger still. The core was drawn into itself as if a world had laid within its chest. Felix's senses touched against it, and it was like touching a red-hot poker: his Mind was immediately filled with visions of decaying flesh, putrefying earth, and a rot that sought out to destroy all things.
Felix screamed, but there was no sound. The core ate away at it until it was reduced to meaningless noise. Rot infested the creature's core, and the spaces between were packed full of darkness and necromancy.
Death and more death. He jerked back, the Crown of Elysium flaring as it protected his Mind from the corruption that he had just witnessed.
What about the core connected them? He had nothing like that inside of him, except that he could control pieces of that Mana. There was nothing between them other than the fact that they were both Primordials. Was that enough?
Still rising through the dark chasm, now devoid of crystalline prisons, Felix was the only light. Blue-white shone upon thousands of undead that streamed up the sides of the chasm. His Temper hounded at his thoughts, still proceeding at the back of his Mind, even as the echoes of that nightmarish core unfolded against him. They were rebuffed, but the assault was harrowing and left a piece of him shaking under the strain.
He needed an edge.
He needed to finish Tempering.
Think! The forest. The lake. The pathway…
It was there, at the edge of his sight, but it failed to assemble in his Mind. The visions were still blocked by the Primordial's influence. Without them, though, his understanding was stifled. He could only rely now on his gut.
So he listened.
The forest didn't matter. Neither did the lake, or the cold breeze, or the leaves on the ground. What did? What was the important takeaway?
Memory stirred, recalled so perfectly he could recreate everything…yet he focused on the sounds. The notes he'd roused with each step before being taken from the vision. The pathway.
It was music. His eyes widened. A pattern.
Tonic was the start. It was the first note after bows were rosined and reeds adjusted when the melody truly began. “Journey's Beginning," he said softly as the song continued at the edges of his Mind.
Semitone. He could hear the notes shifting further, the song lingering before it rushed forward. The interval didn't matter, and yet it did. Felix bit at his lip, his Mind whirling, picking at the edges of what he could hear. Time was nothing to the song. He glanced down as the undead climbed after him. Distance mattered.
"Journey's Span.”
The song lifted, going higher and then lower by turns. It reminded Felix of Semitone, but the melody didn't change so much as shift. It was being transformed into something else.
"Transpose. Journey's Transformation," he said.
Felix licked his lips, his ascent slowing as he reached the top of the Wellspring. He needed to expand his influence over his Sonata. To grasp more than the basic elements of the Green Wilds.
"I need that transformation," Felix spread his hands and lightning leaped between them. "I need them all."
His gut tugged at him, twisting in fear, but Felix couldn't afford doubt.
"I choose Transpose!"
Congratulations!
You Have Absorbed The Essence of [Transpose]!
A sudden strangeness fell over him. A song that wasn't the same as it was, but shifted into something higher…and lower. A deep bass rocked through his bones just as a sharp tone hove across his blood. It sank into him, deeper than flesh. His core space rang out, and Sonata of Dominance was changed.
Congratulations!
You Have Tempered Your Tenth Skill!
Your Foundations Have Been Strengthened!
The Echo Of Your Foundations Rises Through Your Divine Tree!
New Title!
To Walk Upon The Precipice (Mythic)!
You have proven yourself willing to shape the very songs of Creation, Ascendant! It is a dangerous path you now follow, one that opens before you into a vast chasm with no way across. Will you take the leap?
+5% Leveling Speed Of All Shaping Skills
The song all around him sharpened, revealing strange new sounds to Felix's heightened senses. The harsh noise of undead claws against stone. The clicking rumble of the Primordial shifting beneath. The rush of the wind as it rose, and the faint crinkling noise of crystals falling into a deep darkness.
Wait. What is that?
A fell distortion buzzed through the nightmarish echoes that still assaulted his Mind. Like a toothache, the distortion bored through his nerves until it was a blinding pulse that opposed his own heartbeat.
Heart. Blood. Words and images rippled through Felix as the song around him led him deeper. Flesh.
The nightmares parted. His Crown gleaming golden, Felix perceived the whole of the vast core that rose up beneath him. It truly was massive, but more than that, it was deformed. Flesh marred it, piled atop its smooth surface, and threw it in places, holding it tight like a tumor meant to choke out its lifeblood.
Curse.
Felix cut off Adamant Discord, and he dropped. The undead screeched in rage as they too leapt from the chasms, falling after him in a wave of undead flesh and bone. But Felix fell faster.
Sonata of Dominance!
Fire burst from his hands and feet, flaring out of his Mana Gates and rocketing him downward toward the approaching bulk of the Primordial of Tenebrous Aeon. It roared, and stone exploded from the chasm walls.
Sovereign Flesh!
Empyrean Embrace!
Felix knew this ailment. He'd cured it before, and he could do it again. Deep within his chest, the darkness shifted as his Empyrean Embrace roused, reaching out toward the Primordial and ripping free the curse from its flesh. He shaped away the tumor, ripping it free in ethereal jaws before swallowing it down into his own core.
It was too much.
Never before had he faced a Primordial so strong nor tried to devour it entirely, and his core space rioted. His channels tore and burned even as his chest felt like it was going to rip open and the Divine Tree within creaked with its impossible weight.
Felix refused to stop.
He fell through the darkness and the undead followed, leaping into the air as he passed. Felix reached out his claws, flaring Sonata of Dominance as he split the dark with light and split open flesh to dive within. The Primordial did not flinch but rose to meet him, its unsettlingly long neck whipping forward toward him even as Felix’s power tore open its hide.
I can free you!
The claws of the Primordial seized him. One, then two more, binding his arms and legs between fingers with entirely too many joints. Sovereign of Flesh raged in him, Sonata right behind, but no matter the powers he brought to bear the Primordial clung tight. He was shaken or perhaps that was the Wellspring itself as the ancient horror wedged its bulk once more into the mountain’s chasm.
He was lifted up, held before eyes like pools of endless darkness. Three of them. They blinked with an alien regard.
Scion of the Unseen Tide.
A thrill of silver fear jolted through Felix. The Primordial had him fixed upon the tines of its gargantuan Spirit like a pig set to roast over flame…and it knew him. Those dark eyes blinked at him, slowly, the liquid within them shifting as things swam in its depths.
Cardinal.
You Have Changed.
Comments
Decibel790
This is a nice break from the usual pattern.
Aaron Schwartz
I knew it would come to this. This is the first primordial that he’s met since the Maw that wasn’t already dead. Stands to reason he could cure it without eating it.
Rajeev Roy
Ooh this is cooking good
