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Chapter 893
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They found the Bone Gate down another short hallway. Like the Flesh Gate, it stretched across the entirety of the tunnel, made of numerous bones that looked like the shoulder blades of enormous beasts. Spines, five feet wide, extended from the floor to the ceiling. Each vertebra was thick and blunt, wrapped around their middles by interlocking rib bones. It looked sturdy, far more so than the Flesh Gate did, which made Felix trust it far less.
"This one's mine." Pit ran forward, shedding his Mask as he transformed into the Primordial Storm Tyrant. Skyslaine's Riposte extended in his beak, growing at the same rate as his Body, the blade now wreathed in blue, green, and golden light.
"Executioner's Storm Blade!"
He slammed into the Bone Gate, blade first, and the tunnel shuddered beneath the impact. Cracks spread outward from the blow, crazing the bone in a thousand different ways. Yet even as he pulled back to strike again, the cracks began to heal.
"Oh no you don't!" Sword still wreathed with his Skill, Pit struck again, flipping the blade in his beak as he sliced horizontally and vertically.
"Pit! Watch out!" Felix warned, just as a grip of sharpened ribs struck from the sides, snapping closed on him like the jaws of the Flesh Gate. Pit grunted, blood pouring from where they pierced him.
"Stormlord's Mantle!" Electric Mana flowed across Pit's form, sheathing him in the power of the storm. It burnt at the ribs, charring their lengths before they crumbled as he shifted his body.
Felix, whose heart had jumped into his throat just a bit, breathed a sigh of relief. For just a second, he’d forgotten that Pit benefited from their high Health regen. His Companion would be fine.
With a final leap, Pit thrust his riposte through the center of the spine, twisting as he did. The Executioner's Stormblade sliced through, igniting the cracks that had yet to heal before shattering the Bone Gate entirely.
Executioner's Stormblade is level 65!
“Finally! That Skill's been lagging behind the others." Skyslaine's Riposte shrunk, and Pit sheathed it into his barding. "I have a feeling it's going to get worse in there," Pit warbled, bouncing back and forth on his paws. "I got first dibs."
“Have at it, young Chimera,” Yin gestured with a five fingered paw. The lot of them followed behind the enormous tenku as he strut down the rest of the short tunnel.
Just beyond the former Bone Gate, stone ground on stone. Ahead, yet another star-shaped chamber was deformed as a Seal ignited and a set of stairs sank into the floor. The flow of motes spread onward, rising almost to Felix's waist now, though the level dropped fast as they rushed audibly into the cavity.
"Dang." Pit shrank down again as his Mask slid home and the others started to walk down the steps. He shook his floppy hound ears. "I was just getting used to being big again."
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The staircase leading downward was taking a long time. They had been cautious at first, just as they'd been every step of the way, but after twenty minutes of staying on guard, Felix was annoyed.
"I don't sense any traps. I don't sense anything, in fact,” he grunted. “I'm going to run now."
"Agreed. This is tedious." Vess tucked her glaive beneath her arm. "Lead the way."
Felix flared his Agility, tearing down the steps fast enough that the walls blurred into blue-lit smears. It took less than a minute to reach the bottom at that speed, and he came to a sudden stop, skidding against a rough, rocky floor. A wave of blue motes preceded him, lifting up thirty feet to crash across a chamber that was easily twice as wide as the last. Moreover, that wave cleared the motes from the ground for a moment, and Felix saw where the floor dropped away only a foot or two from the archway. The chamber was as tall as the last one, but it was clearly similarly deep, a depth that was now filled to the brim with blue motes. It was so thick and bright that it was as opaque as any dark ocean, and it rolled with waves that spat sparks into the air with every peak.
“This can’t be good.”
Pit grew again the moment he stepped forward, the archway large enough to accommodate creatures far larger than the four of them. "These rooms are boring. Why is this fortress so ugly?"
"It is clear that they valued function over form,” Yin said, arriving just after Vess. “It is another clear indication that the Nym did not make this place. Their kind loved their decorations."
Felix agreed. He'd been to enough Nymean ruins to recognize this as the handiwork of someone else.
"The chamber is not as plain as the rest," Vess pointed her glaive at the nearest walls. There, hexagonal holes honeycombed them, each twenty feet wide and spaced randomly. "I hear something from within."
"Of course you do," Felix groaned.
Over the slosh of the blue mote sea, a click-clack-slide scratched at his hearing. At first, it sounded like there was an echo, so much did it repeat across the chamber. Yet as the noise increased in volume, it was very much clear that Felix would not be so lucky.
Thirty monstrous creatures crawled out of the holes. They appeared stitched from several other species, as their long forms were elastic yet covered in chitinous legs. Armored humanoid torsos sprouted from the rubbery flesh, their proportions sagging until they fell into the sea of motes. There, in the light that was almost liquid, they regained shape, their limbs buoyed. Only then did their heads appear, twisted cages of silver metal now filled with a brilliant burning blue.
"Manawarped Mollusca Gladius. Low Grandmaster Tier," Felix growled. "Every last one.”
“Damnation,” Yin cursed.
Pit trumpeted a bright note before unsheathing his sword. "They're mine then!"
The tenku’s fur and feathers ignited with his Stormlord's Mantle, and he dove into the blue mote sea, sword gripped tight in his mouth. For a moment, Felix lost track of his Companion, but only for a moment. The motes exploded upward as Pit forced one of the Gladiuses up into the air, Ouranic Dominion surging from his four wings. The horrible creature clung to him, its tentacles and chitinous legs gripping and stabbing in turn as its armored torso beat at Pit's face, holding back the blade clenched between his beak. It was not, however, strong enough to keep Pit from slamming it into the ridged walls. Its form tore into the stone, but the stone was strong enough to contain it for all this time.
It tore right back.
Bright green ichor splattered against the wall, dropping back into the sea of motes like rain, as rubbery flesh shredded against stone and chitin cracked. It did, however, manage to knock the Riposte from Pit's mouth. Executioner's Stormblade guttered out, and the Gladius gave a high-pitched shriek of victory. It was premature, for without a sword, Pit still had a beak.
“Maelstrom Maw!”
Pit tore into the creature right where its neck would have been. His beak clanged against the silver metal and he heaved upward. The Gladius panicked, its limbs scrabbling against Pit, burning against his Mantle. Pit tore free the silver cage from its neck, and the flame of it guttered out.
Pit Has Killed A Manawarped Mollusca Gladius.
Exp Earned!
“Destroy the cage!" he shouted as he cast the body of the creature back down into the churning sea. "It's their weakness."
"Easier said than done!" Yin was already swimming through the air, narrowly avoiding the writhing tentacles of other Gladiuses from the surface of the molten sea. He slashed through a limb, but its rubbery flesh wasn't marred in the slightest. "They're sturdy beasts."
"Yin, follow Pit's lead!" Vess's wings cut out, letting her drop fast beneath a hundred arcing tentacles, only to reignite and boost her forward. “Rip them out of their element!”
“I suppose the boy had a point!” Yin laughed, his mane swirling. "Prismatic Cyclone!"
Sunset winds tore into the motes, ripping two Gladiuses up into the air before Vess sent her Spears to stab into their terrible flesh. They pierced only a few inches before she let them burst. The creatures tore apart, ichor raining back down as it screeched in pain. In the chaos of swirling winds, the two of them, Dragoon and Dragon, landed atop the creature's armored shoulders. Yin gripped a silver cage between his jaws as Vess stabbed her glaive through the other before stomping on the shaft.
Both cages tore free with a wet, sucking noise, audible even over Yintarion's mighty gale.
Another Gladius shot upward, clinging onto Yin before stabbing at his sunset scales with its sword-like legs. The dragon twisted, fighting back as Vess dove back down, her spears ablaze.
Grandmaster monsters, but with an obvious weakness. They can take care of themselves. He stepped to the edge. I’ll handle the rest.
He dove into the blue. The motes parted like liquid, their light so strong now that it splashed against him without getting him wet at all. It was a curious sensation, but one he could not pay much attention to, for the depths below were filled with monsters.
With their humanoid torso on top, swords for legs, and long, undulating bodies, they reminded Felix uncomfortably of the Janus Hydras. Yet, where the Janus Hydra was a terror of thundering proportions, all these were giants of the deep and moved with an agility there that the Hydra had never managed on land. They swirled around Felix, stabbing at him, lashing with their tentacles as they tried to grab him. He swam through, too fast for them to catch. For all that they contained the power of a Grandmaster monster, they were not a Grandmaster's equal, and certainly not his.
The Gladiuses chased him, fleeing the surface as Felix dove deeper. He could see very little with his eyes, but his Perception pinged the bottom and sides of the large chamber, noting several hexagonal holes in the walls as there were above.
A Gladius swam from one of those holes, far bigger than the rest. The silver bars of its cage were twisted, bent in confusing patterns that didn't seem to make physical sense, and constrained a brighter piece of the blue that was all around them. It reached for him, its armored hands grasping just as swiftly as its tentacles. Felix slammed into its armored chest, claws digging deep, even as his other hand reached for the cage.
The Gladius burned, the light it shone intensifying.
You Have Been Afflicted With A Status Condition!
Status Condition: Starlight’s Consequence
Reduces Agility And Strength By 20%
Status Condition: Blue Mote Curse
All Negative Status Conditions Are Increased By 200%
Suddenly his claws failed to pierce their hides, and as the Gladius swiped at him, it hit like a truck, throwing Felix into the blue like a torpedo. He shook his head, the blow more disorienting than painful. His Vitality and Endurance were unaffected by the Status Condition. Unless something changed, the creature's attacks could do nothing more than knock him around.
Felix floated as the Gladiuses marshalled around him, at least twenty of them closing in to take him down. Blue Mote Curse, huh? We'll see about that. Sonata of Domination!
He reached out, attempting to seize the motes all around him, but they slipped through his grasp like smoke. While he could dominate the elements, whatever the motes were composed of was not light, lightning, nor fire, and certainly not water. They defied him, and in a moment of enlightenment, he realized that they weren't even Mana.
What the hell are they?
Sonata of Domination shifted, turned away from a fruitless task. As the creatures sped closer, Felix twisted it toward a more familiar output. Lightning burst from his hands, shaped down the creature's throats in all directions, striking at their bodies in a deadly arcing barrage.
The Gladiuses jerked and spasmed, their Health dropping but not nearly as much as Felix hoped. His shaping was blunted by their stitched hides. He reached for one as it drifted close, temporarily stunned, and yanked at their cage, but he couldn't pull it free. His Strength was reduced by 60 percent, and the blue motes crowded him, burning not at him, but something in his center, something that had never been attacked before.
He dodged away from writhing tentacles, still holding on to that cage, as the creature slowly came back to awareness. That larger Gladius reached out its clawed hands, and that burning intensified, hurting him on a level that he hadn't expected. It felt like the attacks against his significance that the gods had done, but targeting something that lay at right angles to the rest of his power. There, but not, like—
Felix's eyes widened. Adamant Discord!
New lightning bloomed from him and skittered away harmlessly. Far more important were the lines of connection that formed around him like a web. They went everywhere, each one as thick as his wrist and connected not to creatures, but the blue motes themselves. The light in the monster cages, however, was the thickest of all.
Felix released the cage from his hands and seized the connection instead.
He pulled.
This was not an action of Strength, nor of the Body at all. This was Willpower, and there was nothing within this fortress that could compete with his Will.
The cage ripped free, the Gladius beneath him jerking once before erupting into a conflagration of bright green ichor in the blue. The others backpedaled, suddenly fleeing toward their hexagonal holes.
It was too late.
Adamant Discord!
He ripped them apart.
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Bone Gate Reward!
Random Mythic Item (x1)
You May Claim Your Reward Now, Or Else Defer This Gate Reward In Exchange For A Chance At A Greater Reward At The Next Gate.
Choose.
They chose to defer once again, though this time Yin and Pit both paused considerably over the idea of a Mythic rarity item. In the end, however, they let Felix choose. The items kept getting more powerful.
To him, it was an easy choice.
Reward Deferred.
Proceed To The Next Gate, Challengers.
Deep beneath the surface of the mote sea, they found the next gate.
This was easier than they had anticipated. Felix had been too busy fighting to pay attention, but the sea did not drown them. Air passed among the motes as easily as it did above, which made a certain kind of sense. The motes weren’t Mana, and they certainly weren’t water.
Down at the bottom, there was a tunnel filled completely with motes. At the end of it, they found it. The Blood Gate.
It was a liquid red barrier that sat smoothly across the tunnel. Whereas the Flesh and Bone Gates contained facets, ridges, and layers to their composition, the Blood Gate was a single plane of crimson. As they drew close, the length of it bubbled as if it were boiling.
“Careful, Felix,” Vess warned.
He tried to protest that he was being careful—before it exploded. Blood rushed outward toward them, a wave of liquid that punched into Felix harder than the Gladiuses had managed.
Empyrean Embrace!
Felix consumed it all. The power of it burnt through him, feeding into his core space more Essence and significance than he'd ever expected. The blood simply kept coming. The Gate proved to be far thicker than any of the others before, and when it was over, Felix was left panting for breath, his center full as if he'd just drank the contents of an entire swimming pool.
"That was no simple warding," Yin’s scales were marked with several wounds from the Gladiuses’ sharpened limbs, but he stood tall as he considered the tunnel ahead. "Someone died to make that Blood Gate."
"More than just one person," Felix agreed. He flexed his hand. "And they gave up all their significance, too. There was a lot in there.”
Vess walked closer, glaive forward. “So whatever has been sealed here was truly a danger. I've not seen protections like this anywhere.”
“The closest I've come has been the Wellspring. But that was way different.” Felix took a breath, trying to find room in his full chest. “What are they hiding in here?"
The motes, for once, did not rush forward. In fact, as Felix and the others stepped forward to where the Blood Gate once stood, the motes simply stopped, as if encountering an invisible wall. Pit poked a paw at the surface of it, and it trembled, retreating from his paw as if it were repelled.
"What does this mean?" he asked.
"Nothing good," Yin said.
Beyond the Blood Gate was another set of stairs. These did not lead into a long, winding stairwell, but simply forward, down into a depressed area that had been carved into the floor of a much wider chamber, forming an eight-pointed star. Yet another Seal was here. But again, unlike previously, this did not light up at their approach, but was always ignited. It cast a deep red light into the room, as if the chamber had been bathed in the blood of the Gate.
At the center of the Seal was a lanky figure. Chains extended from four directions, attached to the figure's wrists and ankles by thick, crimson manacles.
"Challengers," the creature said, its face veiled in shadow. "After all this time. How intriguing."
Unseen Beholder.
Heavy resistance met his Skill, more than Felix had seen in a while. The System trilled, only providing him with a single line.
Name: Castarius, The Primordial Urge of Starlight's Fall
Comments
MarineMojo
He is similar to an urge or was called something along those lines. I'm honestly confused on what an urge is at this point.
Deonte
Felix too was called an urge before correct?
John
When has an Urge ever had a name before? Not a title like Urge of the Undying Flame, but an actual name like Castarius?
Decibel790
Primordial, and Urge? Interesting.
kinglemur
Ooh? This is going to be interesting
John
Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe we are now at Deathcon 1, anything could happen at this point. Strap in
Blue Talon
Oh, is this where the flesh curse came from?
Andrei
First?
