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Chapter 892
🕑 Added 2025-02-14 17:50:46 +0000 UTCBook 11 is wrapped up on the Journeyman Tier! The last chapter posted today.
I'll be taking a small break until 5/26 to collect my thoughts and get book 12 started. Chapter postings will resume then!
Enjoy!
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Empyrean Embrace.
Sovereign of Flesh.
Felix ate the flesh curse out of the air. A heavy portion of the rot scent vanished, but not all. He recognized it as the stench of corrupted Primordials.
"You'll all be safe from the curse for now, but it's better if we get through this as fast as possible."
Vess nodded at the broken wall. "Looks like our next step is through there." Neither she nor Yin were fazed by the fact that they faced Primordial Spawn. Felix wasn't surprised at their courage, but he was proud.
Before he took a step, however, a notification appeared with a trilling sound. In fact, it appeared before all of them.
Outer Gate Reward!
Random Epic 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.
Felix glanced at the others. "That is an easy answer."
"Forego," Vess said. The two companions nodded vigorously.
"Looks like I got a bunch of gamblers with me," Felix said through a smile. "Forego."
Reward Deferred.
Proceed To The Next Gate, Challengers.
Beyond the broken wall was a staging area that looked more like a nesting ground. It was filled with waste and rubble that had been ground into a fine powder. In many places the flooring had been worn apart—not just torn and broken by the Boars, but simply missing in large swaths. Chest-high grasses sprouted everywhere, as did low bushes and stunted treets with gnarled trunks. They were cut back in sections of rubble that looked as if they were frequented often by the bores. Felix could sense small creatures flitting amongst the weeds.
He paused. "Everyone get close.” They did, and Felix let loose his Skill.
Sonata of Domination.
He seized the Mana in the air, shaping its vibrational pattern until it burst alight into brilliant orange fire. It flowed from him, across the wide ring that surrounded the broken chamber, and ignited the grassy fields as if he'd unleashed dual flamethrowers in either direction. Trees burned, ground scorched, and the various creatures fell, dead before they could run.
You Have Killed A Manawarped Dell Vole (x133)!
XP Earned.
You Have Killed A Manawarped Gnarlizard (x245)!
XP Earned.
You Have Killed A Manawarped King Firebug (x3238)!
XP Earned.
Felix kept up the burn until the kill notifications vanished. A trickle of experience fed into him—miniscule compared to his level and Temper. He wasn’t doing this for the experience though. As his friends coughed at the smoke, he flared his Will and ate it all. Fire, smoke, char, and corpse. It swirled into him, leaving the outer ring barren of all life.
The final remnants of flesh curse on the level were gone.
"Blighted Night,” Vess cursed softly. “Did you get everything?"
"I did. At least everything that was here. The Boars had some sort of food source, and all of them were touched by the flesh curse. It must have been how they'd survived down here."
"Do you think they were put down here on purpose?" Pit asked. "Like, did they get infected and they were locked away?"
"On purpose, yes. But I am unsure if they were cursed before or after their placement here," Yin said. "This system of prey and vegetation suggests planning. How much cannot be certain."
"We'll find out more as we go, I hope," Felix jerked his chin toward a dark passage that had been blocked by the largest concentration of creatures and trees. "The last bit of Primordial flesh curse I can feel is through there."
Down the short hallway, through a cloying darkness that the blue motes failed to alleviate, they found the beginning of their Quest.
The Flesh Gate.
"This is disgusting," Pit said. He wasn't wrong. The Fleshgate was exactly as it was described, filling the circular tunnel with strands of tendons and ligaments holding skin and muscle across their path. Tendons pulsed beneath translucent layers, and the whole thing shifted in and out as if it were breathing. Felix would have mistaken it for an actual beast had his Unseen Beholder had not identified it as an enchanted barrier. Mana swirled around it and through it, but it wasn't necromantic. Instead, life and blood Mana surged, filling it in waves much like the breaths it took as if a heart were beating somewhere within its folds.
Felix stepped closer, shoving away his distaste as he inspected a way to pass through the gate. The flesh was slick and upsettingly warm, but that was all he clocked before teeth the size of swords slammed down around his arm.
“Felix!”
The hidden jaws pulled at him, trapping his arm against the side of the gate before trying to yank him off-balance. It failed on both counts. The sharpened teeth cracked against his scales, and its pull didn't budge him in the slightest.
"My turn," he said. Empyrean Embrace.
Ethereal jaws smashed down over the Flesh Gate, ripping it to pieces in an instant as it was rendered into luminescent smoke. In less than a second, it vanished into his core space, taking the heat of its flesh curse with it. The layer of ankle-deep blue motes that had been dammed up against it suddenly flowed freely, spilling down the tunnel and into another chamber only a hundred feet away.
"That was easy," Pit said brightly.
"Your arm—”
Felix waved Vess’ concern away. "I'm fine. It didn’t even crack my scales, see?"
Vess still took the time to run her hands over his forearm, and wasn’t satisfied until she found no evidence of wound or breakage. Only then did she let him proceed.
The next chamber was again star-shaped, and featured yet another Seal. This, however, lit up as they entered, without need for them to add any sort of power to it.
Stone shifted against stone until, once more, stairs spiraled down into the dark. The blue motes that had been stomped up at the last chamber flowed through and down like fog pouring into a crevasse.
Felix and his team followed the light.
It was a long way down. Even at a brisk walk, it was nearly thirty minutes until they reached the bottom. There were no traps or features of any note, simply smooth stone and damp steps. Through the archway at the base of the stairs was another chamber, this one hundreds of feet wide and ten times that in height, as if it were an enormous mine shaft. It wasn't circular. Like the previous chambers, it did have its points shaped like a star, but this was so large that it had too many points to count. It was wedged like the teeth of gears around the room as it formed fluted lines straight up toward a ceiling where they all met before dropping a long set of hexagonal pillars topped by glowing Mana crystals.
There, hanging among the pillars, were monsters.
They roused the moment Felix and his team walked into the room, their crocodile-like heads loosing a hissing sort of roar as they dropped from the ceiling, spreading wings made of the same blue-white starlight as the motes.
Unseen Beholder!
Name: Manawarped Starfall Caiman
Type: Primordial Spawn
…
Lore: Once they were mighty, and the glow of their wings was the brightest in the Soaring Night, but the Caiman here have fallen with their Lord. They have been twisted by the flesh curse that fills this fortress, but only by choice. They hold back their Lord…or they once did. The long Ages have broken their Minds, but not their Bodies. Beware.
"They’re Tier IV monsters,” he told everyone. That was roughly equal to Adept Tier in mortal terms. Felix frowned as they circled above, drawing closer to their group. "They look fast. Twenty-five of them are going to be annoying to handle."
All at once, the Starfall Caiman increased in speed, swooping down past them like the wind before firing what looked like bolts of blue starlight. All four of them scattered, Vess tackling Pit's small form out of the way of a particularly concentrated burst. The explosion hit, bright as flame and cold as ice, close enough that it blew the helmet off her head. She hit the ground and rolled back to her feet, still holding the Dire Hound.
Pit growled from between her hands. "Let Cry The Beast!"
The power echoed throughout the vast room. Felix immediately noticed that the creatures were unaffected by the fear effect.
Target Is Immune To Fear.
“Prismatic Cyclone!" Yin shouted. Waves of radiance surged upward through the shaft, tearing at the Caiman until they formed a tornado of light. However, their gleaming wings remained unruffled, and just like the fear, the Status Conditions slid off them harmlessly.
"They absorbed your light!" Vess cried.
True enough, the Caiman's wings shone brighter than ever before, now interspersed with a sunset-hued blush at the edges of their bright blue feathers. The Caiman twisted and turned before diving down into them, flying through their groupings, forcing them to scatter once more. Felix dodged aside, avoiding them easily, almost as easily as they avoided a swipe of his claws.
They’re getting faster. Something about those wings and the light—!
Sonata of Dominance!
Felix threw a frantic shield of air between his people and the monsters, just in time to oppose a mighty barrage of blue bolts. This time, he spotted their shape: feathers, each one tufted with down and shaped like an arrowhead. They burned cold and moved fast—and weren’t slowed down by his shield at all.
“Shit!” Felix zipped forward, tanking each of the hits before they could reach his friends. He was a lot sturdier than them, but even so, they hurt like hell. He growled. "Oh, you bastards suck.”
"I'm gonna blow them up!" Pit promised. “Nimbus of the Moon!”
Beams of moonlight hit the Caiman, and this time there was damage. Their scaly bodies sizzled as they were burnt by the light, but it wasn’t enough to kill them. In fact, the silvery moonlight flowed into their wings and the creatures began to move even faster.
“Uh, whoops.”
"Let me," Vess said, setting Pit down. He sneezed at the blue motes that crowded his face.
Vess leaped into the air, her own ghostly wings unfurling. The monsters swarmed her instantly, fast enough that Felix reflexively seized his Sonata—but she soared through them, her Skill and small size giving her an incredible maneuverability amongst the shining monsters. They banked, flying between one another in a tight, almost too-perfect formation, belaying the rabid look in their crocodilian eyes and the foam that flecked their long jaws.
"Glorybound Gale!” Twenty-five Spears spun into being, rotating around Vess like silver-red quills before flying off in all directions. The Caiman dodged them, spinning their wide wings through the manifested weapons paths, and every single one missed.
The monsters made a mad gurgling noise, their claws reaching outward for the kill as they rushed for Vess just as she reached the far wall. They barely touched her ghostly wings before she flipped and kicked off the wall in a rapid change of direction. She shot backward, her Dragon-faced glaive leading the way. The Caiman scattered, dodging her obvious charge before firing after her with their burning, cold feathers.
Vess took the hits. It was worth it.
Twenty-five Spears shot out from their positions around the chamber, piercing every single monster through their narrow backs. They screeched, but Vess’ voice was louder.
"Final Glory!"
Her Spears exploded into storms of wind and metal, shredding the Caimans from within.
Vessilia Dayne Has Killed A Manawarped Starfall Caiman (x25)!
XP Earned!
"Hot damn," Felix said through a grin.
"A risky maneuver," Yin grumbled, "but worth it in the end. Good job, little Dragoon."
Vess landed among them, her spectral wings fading into nothing. She was bleeding from several points on her face and scalp, but her body was unharmed.
"Thank you, Yin. I should have worn my helmet, though." She knocked against her arcanite breastplate. "The Caiman's feathers couldn't pierce Harn’s craftsmanship."
Felix scooped the helmet off the ground where it had fallen and pulled a Health Potion from his waist. "Take both of these. You handled them perfectly."
"Perfect is not possible." Vess chugged the potion. "But thank you. These were far stronger than the Boars."
"They're approaching Master Tier," Pit said, "and immune to Status Conditions. That was annoying."
Yin backed away from the corpse debris now falling and burning scraps around them. "Emperor, do you not feel hungry?"
"Ah, right.”
Empyrean Embrace. Sovereign of Flesh.
The Caiman corpses vanished, along with the remnants of the flesh curse once again. What didn't disappear, though, were the blue lights from their wings, which bled into the motes that filled the chamber. Those brightened, growing larger and crowding up to their knees.
Pit wrinkled his doggy nose. "The curse felt stronger than before. Like a hot, warm breath.”
“It grows with every step we take,” Yin rumbled. "What is below us?"
"A Primordial. That much I can be sure of," Felix said. He sent them all the notification he'd pulled off the Caimans.
"Then we are to face this Lord of theirs?" Vess asked. "How strong is he, if these are his minions?"
"I suppose we'll find out.”
Flesh Gate Reward!
Random Legendary 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.
“It's a Legendary rarity item now," Felix told the others. "Do we still want to roll the dice?"
Pit shrugged. He had little use for most items. “If it were a delectable steak dinner, on the other hand…”
"System seems fresh out.”
“Then roll away.”
Yin tilted his head at the notification. "I am curious where this might lead. Rewards for defeating these creatures. That is passing strange for a prisoner.”
“I imagine the original wardens could not defeat them.” Vess fitted her helmet back over her head. “Likely due to the Primordial flesh curse."
Felix glanced up in the general direction they had come. "Makes sense. Your vote?"
She shrugged. "Do as you will. I have my glaive, and as it was with my mother and her mother before her, it is all I need."
"Well said," Yin laughed.
Reward Deferred.
Proceed To The Next Gate, Challengers.
Comments
Blue Talon
I thought it was the Crown, the Chalice, and the scepter or something
John
I believe Felix already has all three Nymean regalia. The Inheritors Sword, the Crown, and the Bell which he’s currently waiting to officially claim. Best guess is Felix might get a fragment of Verridan? I don’t know what else is important enough to get seemingly sidetracked at a place we weren’t even really aware of on the way to the big battle
Decibel790
Ooh, the plot thickens.
zukerburg
What is the last piece of the regalia I thought that it was whatever nym artifact the hierophant was wearing but I could definitely be wrong
Mike
Maybe it's a setup to her ascending further? She gets infected and than Felix cures the curse
Jro
Anyone worried about the fact that Vess got cut (and possibly infected). The scene in which she “loses” her helmet seems specifically plotted. (Pet peeve in movies/tv — no one EVER secures their helmet/headgear/facemask properly).
Mike
An omen key for vess would be awesome!
Blue Talon
Noice, what will the reward be? The last piece of regalia? Hmm
Deonte
"If you ain't first you're last" Ricky Bobby😂
