necariin
patreon
Chapter 919
🕑 Added 2025-04-23 12:00:16 +0000 UTCEnjoy.
*
*
*
*
Thoughts spun wildly through Felix’s Mind, plans and tactics that never got any further than two steps from conception. His Body was stuck, and he couldn't even marshal his Skills. The pressure of keeping the crimson Bonds from his core space kept everything locked down as securely as his limbs against the stone floor. He could risk it—but even if he attempted Empyrean Embrace to chew at the Bonds themselves, Felix would be sacrificing defense for a slim chance. The Divine would break through, and who knew what the gods would do if they gained access to his cores.
He wasn’t willing to find out.
Felix cast about, searching for anything that could help him, but the sigaldry squirmed away from him, moving every time his eyes rested on a symbol. Magus of the Grand Design floundered against its weird construction, unable to scrap even the tiniest understandings from it.
Bonds I can’t break, sigaldry I can’t understand…they weren’t lying. This trap was made for me. And her.
He could see his sister nearby, held to the ground like him by gleaming threads. The major difference was that Gabby could easily escape her bindings with a mere flex of her arms, if she hadn’t been held by far more than a single spell. Her bargain, whatever it entailed, clearly affected her ability to fight the Hierophant and the gods alike.
Ocalla hummed, her robes swishing in a sudden breeze, carrying her melodic Chant higher. As it swirled around her, it thickened the power that she sent above, a golden glow that settled upon the platform that hung above, hanging between the statues. There, the Chthonic Star glowed brighter, its pieces beginning to slowly spin.
"It is almost time," she said, nodding to herself. "Be proud, Nevarre. You'll be part of history. The return of the Divine to the Continent." She grinned down at him. "How exciting."
Around him, the three rifts grew bigger, their edges breaking the air like fractured glass. Heat poured off of them, hot as any furnace, but their centers were frigid. A miasma spilled outward from them like fog, rolling across where Felix was bound to the center of the tower. It clung to him, deadening his senses and setting a tremor through his struggling arms and legs, a bone-deep weariness he couldn't shake.
My stats are being reduced…same as when I snuck in there before—hey!
The Hierophant gestured and golden threads lifted a blade into the air next to Felix. Too far for him to reach, no matter how much he struggled. The threads gleamed as they wound around the hooked length of his Inheritor’s Will. She smiled at Felix. “System, show us the Ouranic Bindings."
Pain spiked through Felix, a piece of the shifting array tearing at him. He could feel it leech something through the crimson Bonds, pulling a piece away from his Aspects, tapping into a piece of his Aspects he could not defend.
Authority Acknowledge, Inheritor.
Ouranic Bindings Localized.
Warning!
To Tamper With The Ouranic Bindings Is To Invoke The Consequences Of Ouranic Law.
Felix jerked against his restraints. “You ass! That’s not your sword!”
Ocalla smirked but said nothing as the air distorted around them.
A few dozen feet above their heads, five thick golden chains shimmered into visibility. They were massive, stretching off toward the rising moons as if binding the celestial bodies to the world itself. Each link was absolutely huge, and made of more than just metal—they were composed of power itself. The Deadlands pressed too close to sense more than that, but Felix was certain that the chains were on a level he couldn’t comprehend.
The Chthonic Star began to hum.
An impotent rage prickled his skin, until it seemed like heat rolled off of him in waves to combat the chill miasma. He stared at Ocalla's armored back, hate spiking in his chest—only to be yanked further to the ground. Every flux of his emotions bound him tighter, the crimson Bonds seeking out the cracks in his defenses. Worse, his people were drawing on his power in greater numbers than ever before. What was different now? What exactly were the Bonds of Fellowship? Were those just the connections he formed with his people? The ones that were widening with every passing breath, deepening their draw as if he were establishing Links with thousands. How? What had changed?
"You smell like an Urge,” a Primordial in the depths of Gharion had told him, and the gods had called him “not quite Divine.”
What does it all mean?
Ocalla gestured and a thousand golden threads revealed themselves, each bound to a separate piece of the island floating above Felix’s head. The whole thing altered its trajectory, rotating the Chthonic Star upon it—before it rocked, and the whirling buzz of the Star stuttered. The Hierophant hissed in pain as the threads were snatched from her grasp.
No.
The Twins had stretched their free hand out toward the island, the golden threads turned a bright, metallic blue. As the rifts grew ever bigger, the splintered fabric of the Corporeal Realm dissolved, the rifts bleeding into one another as the presence of the Divine grew stronger with every passing second.
We Shall Guide This Moment.
Ocalla clenched her jaw but she stepped back, folding her hands over her alabaster staff. Felix couldn’t even enjoy her obvious frustration, because the Twins were joined by Noctis, and Yyero, and Vellus, each of them putting a hand forward to guide the Chthonic Star.
The device’s hum thickened, gaining a dimensionality that spread through a dozen octaves at once. A point of light gathered at the Star’s leading edge, brightening until it rivaled the sun and moons combined, before it speared outward into an unquenchable beam.
Directly toward the first chain.
The beam’s radiance dimmed the earth around it, burning at Felix as if he stood next to an open furnace on the surface of the sun. It tore into the titanic chains, searing into the metal, and slowly the golden chains began to char.
The sky’s darkened, the Bloodstorm intensifying until it rippled with crimson lightning. Thunder crashed, followed swiftly by the unhinged bellows of nightmarish horrors, and the fleshy stretch of the Divine’s Vessels.
Can You Feel It? Yyero asked, his angular face lifted into the air. We Stand Upon A Precipice!
Noctis laughed and Vellus crackled as if in echo. Soon We’ll Breathe Free Again!
Felix couldn’t let that happen.
The Chthonic Star was taking its time in severing the chains—Ouranic Bindings, or whatever the System called them. That was a blessing. It gave him time to think.
C’mon!
What did he have? He couldn’t move, he couldn’t attack; all he had were his voice, his thoughts, and—
His connections.
Felix could feel his people all around him, spread wide across the city. They drew on his power through their Bond, but a few more than most. His friends were struggling against their enemies, fighting with a fury that Felix could respect. Could he find his answer with them?
He focused. Flicker.
Alistair and Atar were fighting in the skies, both of them bloody and burning. A shell of red-gold scales covered Alistair from wrist to shoulder as he thrust his Masterwork rapier through the hide of a dozen godslaves. They burst, their bodies cored out by a pillar of blue force, before he whirled on, his blue robes swirling amid the white flames that bloomed around the ship. Atar burst from them, soaring atop a comet trail of incandescence. His skeleton, black as night among the white clouds of flame, slashed a bare hand before the onrushing tide of Sporeflies and Fleshclouds.
listen to our flames, empty slaves! the sky is ours!
A wave of incineration spread from Atar and Flame, gathering steam with every godslave it consumed.
Flicker.
Elowen was on another ship. She had taken to piloting one of the Sunaran crafts and was maneuvering through the chaos while her Tome flipped through luminous pages above her head. Cannons fired, each shot blasting through a godslave's skull or chest as she brought the ship around in elaborate, and frankly, impossible maneuvers.
Flicker.
Harn was slaughtering his way across an enemy ship, Claw members and Legionnaires at his side as their eyes all glowed blue-white.
Flicker.
Evie and a sweating Loquis fought off monsters in the mansion district with giants and Nagafolk. The spades were at the forefront with Chanters manning them, protecting their back.
Flicker.
Not far off from Evie, Vess stood her ground with Yin and Mervin for some reason. The lot of them were hurling their Skills and spells—not at the enemy, but at the barrier itself. It shook beneath their onslaught, as ballistas and concerted Legionnaire strikes crashed against its impervious surface.
Pit?
Felix saw him, settled into a protected hollow and guarded by a dozen Legionnaires. Bandaged but unconscious, the tenku’s back was stained red where his wound still bled through.
PIT!
His focus ratcheted further, drawing now on his Exalted Conjunction Skill. Felix could tell that his friend was still breathing, even that his Health was slowly rising, but white scars zigzagged across the unbandaged portions of his back, spreading out onto one of his right-side wings. Vellus’ lightning had scourged him.
“Loose!” someone cried.
More Skills were fired off at the barrier, Legionnaires working in tandem as their power smashed into the invisible ward. It shook, but not because of them.
Flicker.
Felix found Archie leaning heavily against the barrier, his eyes bleeding and his fingers torn raw. Claw members tried to pull him back, but he shoved them away.
“Primeval Drift!”
Archie shook, his body vibrating, and the barrier quaked before it flashed, hurling him back several feet. He rolled slowly to his feet, elbows digging into the rubble, and put out his bloody fingers.
“Primeval Drift!”
Flicker.
Felix pulled away. He couldn’t watch his friend hurting himself. He landed on Beef—and the Lizard.
His friend was wearing Hallow as armor and the Sharpwing Matriarch was latched onto his back, almost melding into the crystalline breastplate. The Lizard was absolutely massive and wore relatively little save for a pair of glowing swords at his waist. His orange and blue scales gleamed in the dim cavern they dwelled within, and he was entirely focused on some sort of Skill.
The pair of them drew him in, a surge of unexpected emotions through the Link. A lot of fear, panic, but most of all love. Felix jerked in surprise, his awareness nearly pulling away from Beef as he looked to the looming Lizard.
What’s going on here?
Before them was a vast cylinder, easily as big around as a dozen buildings, and inscribed heavily in golden sigaldry. The Lizard’s left hand filled with orange Mana, coating it like a thick liquid, and it spread open a portion of the construct clinging to the golden sigaldry. With his other claw, the Lizard pulled out a piece of leather from the pouch at his side. It gleamed, brighter by far than anything else in that cavern.
“Wow, that's bright,” Beef said.
Felix winced against the leather’s golden power. He'd seen its like before in a scrap of cloth that had once belonged to the Pathless. A piece of the Divine’s mortal regalia, imbued with a measure of the dead god’s former significance.
“Hold this open,” the Lizard said, nodding at the yellow and white-green construct. “I need to be very careful here.”
“I—I won’t mess this up?” Beef asked, sounding weirdly hesitant.
The Lizard smiled. “I trust you.”
Together, the two of them placed the Regalia in the center of the complicated construct. Bits of particulate matter hung suspended throughout it, and strange things that looked like veins extended up that massive stone pillar, weaving through the golden sigils and sunbursts inlaid in the foundation.
They're below me, he realized. Below the palace itself. Which meant they were trapped. The same as the others were held outside. What are they doing?
The strange construct hummed as the Regalia settled into place. Its tone turned into a high-pitched whine as power fed into those veins, absorbing the scrap of leather and folding it into itself. The leather sank into the pillar.
"When I activate this, we have to run as fast as we can." The Lizard ran his claws over a portion of his construct, tweaking pieces of it that shifted like the legs of an insect drawing inward. "We'll have about thirty seconds after I hit this. That's as long as I can delay. If we push toward the far tunnels, we might be safe. That structure I mentioned—"
"I know. You explained it already.”
“Can we make it?” he asked. “Are you fast enough?”
“The Multipede is.” Beef swallowed, fear thrumming through him, but there was an iron bar of strength there too. He put a hand out on the Lizard’s arm. “We need to do it. You can feel it, too. Everyone's in trouble."
The Lizard closed his eyes. “I can.”
“Then get on.” Beef clambered onto the giant Risen’s back, and the Lizard followed. He was so big it was like an adult sitting on a children’s toy. The Multipede shifted, sidling up to the pulsing construct. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The Lizard swallowed. "Precision Mines.”
The construct burst alight, and those veins clenched so hard the stone cracked.
“Hang on tight, dad! Hallow! Run!”
Dad?
Felix jolted, brought back to himself by the sheer surprise of that word as it echoed across his link. He blinked his true eyes, looking up at the monsters that surrounded him.
The Lizard is Beef’s dad?
The world rocked and the tower bucked upward. An explosion echoed up from below them like a thousand thunderbolts striking all at once. The force of it concussed the air and the tower dropped dozens of feet, slamming Felix's chin into the hard stone and jolting the gods.
What Is This? Noctis demanded.
En’Cridhe groaned, smoke pouring up from the base far, far below as it listed slowly to the side. For a brief moment, Felix thought the entire thing would collapse, but its fall was halted by the clustering of outbuildings that supported its thick base.
Hierophant! the Twins thundered. Explain This!
Sigaldry all around Felix flickered and failed as Ocalla ran about, her Will thrusting into pieces of the array, trying to reestablish them. The Hierophant spat out a curse and Felix grinned. "I don't know. Something happened!”
Clearly. Yyero peered off the side of the tower, now tilted at an angle so sharp that Felix might have slid off if he weren’t bound. Blessed Blight. Do The Sewers Pass Beneath This Damnable Tower?
A second explosion sounded, and En’cridhe dropped again, but the angle didn’t change.
The rifts flickered.
What was once a large singular portal now split back into three as the fractured edges began to heal slightly. Their empowered vessels, so large and packed with potency, thinned out like glass. The gods’ shouts overlapped one another as Ocalla wove her golden threads.
Unseen and untended, Felix flexed his arms.
There was slack in his Bonds.
Comments
Mike
I never looked at it like that but it makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the comment! I was thinking the same thing about him having a deeper understanding and was let down a little but your understanding changed my mind
David
Damn. All their eyes glowing. Great imagery.
John
OOoo good ending lines there. It's funny I thought Felix was going to unlock some deeper understanding of his Bonds of Fellowship to save himself, and while they did save him, it was less the Bonds part and more the Fellowship part.
Deonte
It's about to go down!
kinglemur
I really want Felix to punch through ocalla’s back and finish her
