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Chapter 611
🕑 Added 2023-07-03 12:00:03 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
ToC
* * *
Imara screamed.
There was a savage pain in the noise. A rage. The Fang had bit deep enough that her spine should have been severed—but instead of blood and viscera there was a corruscation of golden radiance. Sparks spat from the wound, and Felix had only a moment to marvel at it before Pit and the Fang were blasted away by an eruption of light.
Pit!
Still clutching Felix tightly, the Titan spun toward the Chimera but was immediately bombarded by brutal projectiles. Spears and discs and arrows honed in on her injury, most unable to breach the searing light or her incomparable armor.
All of it a distraction.
“Light’s out!” Felix growled.
Wild Threnody!
Shadow Whip!
He grabbed her head. His hands crackled, black scales turned to pure midnight as suffocating shadow inundated them, snuffing out a portion of her power. Imara howled, that empty Spirit filled with pain for the very first time, and she tried to throw Felix away.
“No you don’t!” Beef cried from far away.
Chitinous legs seized her arms, stopping her for a brief moment before a savage twist splintered them. Snapped them. Beef screamed in pain.
Imara flared her power, and light burst through Felix’s shroud of darkness. A beam of incandescent fury shrieked from her eyes, blasting Felix full in the chest and face from inches away.
Auroral Forge!
Face burned and hair aflame, Felix seized the Titan’s attack with his Skill and Willpower. It split, curving around his head to drill into the street twenty feet away.
Auroral Forge is level 85!
…
Auroral Forge is level 90!
Holding onto the Skill was difficult, though not due to pain. Agony was an old friend. Instead it was the sheer volume of Imara’s power. Handling it was like grasping a wet bar of soap—slick and unsteady. The light fought against him as if alive.
Felix held on, skin flaking off his grimacing cheeks as they slowly healed. “Stop! You’re fighting for the wrong side!”
“No!” The word arrived like a gunshot. Her Spirit was unsteady, still filled with a chorus of rage and pain. “There is only the Light!”
A third beam shot out of Imara’s mouth. Felix frantically bent it away, shaping it into the sky. Clouds of steam pooled around them, heat against winter’s chill, until it was like they were struggling within a dream.
Felix!
Pit careened into the steam clouds, a storm wreathing his ice-armored form. His huge, dark ice jaws came for the Titan, but Imara kicked out and shattered his armor with a single blow. Pit yelped and spun off into the mist.
“Pit!” Felix shoved his claws against Imara’s chest and felt her arms slip…but his attention split from Auroral Forge. Light hit him, cutting burning swaths through his chest and shoulder.
Damn it! He refocused on the Skill, diverting it again.
Imara only crushed him harder. Her immense Strength was only held back by Felix’s incredible Endurance and Vitality.
“Imara! You have to let go!”
“You will die here, Fiend,” she said.
“No I won’t,” he said. “Now, wake up!”
Felix hurled all of his Affinity and Intent at the swirling pattern within him, urging it to blaze. “Unite the Lo—!”
The light he’d held at bay rippled and Something Else pushed through the Titan. Felix’s tentative control over her eyebeams was cast aside by a vast, casual backhand as a towering voice shook through him.
BEGONE FIEND!
Unite the Lost was snuffed out, his store of significance unspent. Deep within, Felix’s Hunger snarled in hatred and recognition.
Anathema, the familiar voice continued. You Are Unwelcome!
Felix refused to bow before the golden power that assaulted him. It shoved at him, burning at his chest and face and—he was lifted from Imara’s arms by a cage of blazing light. His connections to the ground—to gravity—were severed. Burnt away in an instant.
BEGONE!
“I…refuse,” he growled. “Coward in White!”
The Call of Defiance is active!
+25% Willpower When Contested By A Foe Of Divine Or Greater Advancement!
The force multiplied, but it could not touch the core of him. His foundation, made of opalescent crystal and the threads of Divinity and Primordials alike, was too strong. His Will before Imara was strong, but before a fragment of the gods it was indomitable. Dissonance and Harmony roared from his heart, and a deep, unconquered darkness quenched the light.
Consumed it.
Imara stumbled back, holding her head. Around her, that aura of twisted golden light flared and popped, like static.
I Remain! Hunger cheered. Felix fell to the ground, his knees weak. We Remain!
It’s not over yet.
The Titan reached for Felix, grabbing blindly with her shattered gauntlet. Instead of dodging, Felix darted inward, well within her enormous reach.
“Back off!” Felix punched upward, caving in Imara’s breastplate and throwing her into an ungainly backward leap.
She touched her bent armor, and a glimmer of emotion threaded through her Spirit. Confusion, worry, and fear. “You…ate His light. How?”
Felix breathed hard, Mana and Essence surging through his channels fast enough to make the cyan markings on his scales glow bright. “Imara…you need to listen to me. You are being controlled—”
Leave The Fiend! Find The Gnome!
Felix growled. The voice rang through her Spirit like a shout down an emptied hallway, echoing and distorted, but powerfully loud. It cut through the fire of her burgeoning emotions, battering them into smoldering embers.
Imara hesitated, that confused jumble trying to catch flame once more…before a burst of Light within her forced her to a single knee. She was shrouded in it, all but obscuring her form.
Felix rushed ahead, Unite the Lost singing in his chest once more. She’s fighting the Pathless and whatever was done to her. It was his chance. He just had to touch her again and—
“Mr. Veil!”
Doric leaped in front of him, heavy shield outstretched, as a smaller blade stabbed forward from the haze of golden light. Metal shrieked and popped as the shield was cut through and Felix too late, pulling back only as the Dwarven captain was hit with a second glowing weapon that sent him rocketing across the square. Doric didn’t stop until he bashed into and through a solid stone storefront, which collapsed in his wake.
“Doric!” Felix whipped his attention back to Imara, who was standing again. The haze had faded along with her previous Spiritual pressure, folded somehow into the woman—contained until it pulsed like a miniature sun around her shoulders. She bore a glowing longsword in one hand and a flanged mace in the other, both of which sizzled with the last traces of crimson blood.
“You—”
Her voice was cold and dead once more. “You are all meaningless. Step aside or die.”
Lightning burst alight in Felix’s hands. “No.”
“Then die.”
Relentless Resolution is level 98!
Without the weight of her Spirit pressing down on him, Felix moved like the wind. Imara brought her weapons down with titanic Strength, uncaring that he was already before her; he’d only managed to push her back, before.
“See you soon, asshole,” he growled.
Setting himself, Felix punched upward with both fists. Adamant Discord surged through him, settling upon connections so complicated and vast that they were less like metal cables and more like steel hawsers—a dozen feet thick and woven with a depth that he could barely parse. Their Unbound connection screamed, ignited into sudden, electric fury.
Imara didn’t even have time to scream.
She shot into the sky, hurtled along the path of a bolt of lightning the width of Birchstone itself. Golden radiance flared, spilling light into the sky like the sun, but she had no purchase. She was in Felix’s domain. She flew up and up, arcing into the distance before vanishing behind the peak of another mountain.
Adamant Discord is level 92!
…
Adamant Discord is level 96!
The Song of Absolution is level 97!
You Have Defeated Imara, The Chosen Of The Pathless!
XP Earned!
Felix dropped to his knees, both arms broken and crawling with residual electricity. His Body burned, strained in a way he hadn’t felt in months. Felix held back a pained gasp, forcing it down and into his Hunger. It faded immediately.
Doric. He stood up, and staggered into the nearest collapsed building. Within the broken masonry and shattered walls, was a pile of debris that half-buried the man. He was bloodied and beaten, and Felix’s Voracious Eye told him more than he wanted to know.
The man was dying.
Pit! I need you! He sent, before awkwardly kneeling beside the Ironclad captain. “Hold on, man, hold on!”
Doric blinked up at him, his dark eyes focusing on Felix. “Veil…? Then…is she—?”
“She’s gone,” Felix said. “For now. Knocked her into the mountains.”
Wheezing breath, gurgling blood. “You—you’re not really a merchant, are you?”
Felix clenched his jaw. “No.”
“Kn-knew it. T-too nice for tho-those vipers.” Doric closed his eyes in a slow blink. “Damnable Night. I had hoped she would die—My men, are they—?”
“They’re fine,” Felix said. Most of them. “Focus on yourself. We have to get you back up and moving.”
Pit scurried into the room, scratches and wounds across his chest and rump, but he didn’t hesitate to unleash his Breath of the Wild. A wave of shimmering life Mana pulsed, sinking into all three of them. For a second, Doric breathed easier…but his Health didn’t budge.
“Ain’t gonna work. Can’t save me.” He coughed. “My Body…I can feel it. Somethin’ she did broke me. It’s all just…drainin’ away. Water—water from a shattered jar.”
Pit whimpered, and Felix clutched his blackened hands together. He reached into Pit’s saddlebags and withdrew some Health Potions anyway.
“Drink this. You saved me,” Felix said. “I gotta return the favor.”
“Useless.” Still, the man did as he was told. “Focus…focus on the Titan. Kill her.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Find a way.”
“She’s strong. Stronger than me and now she knows what I can do.” Felix shook his head. “Best option I have is running. Leading her away.”
“The—the thief? You—” Understanding dawned on the Dwarf. “No merchant at all. A warrior.”
“More of a meddler,” Felix said, trying to stay calm. Even with the potion, the guy’s Health was less than ten percent now, and his Stamina had just about bottomed out.
“I saw you fight. Yo–you’re a warrior, and you don’t…you don’t seem the type to run,” he wheezed. Another wash of Pit’s Breath hit him, but it did little.
“Yeah. I can be stupid like that.”
“Could be…this town could use a little stupid.” His eyes rolled, unable to focus, but seemingly searching. “Stone. All stone. I–I don’t see the stars, Silas.”
“They’re there, just outside.”
Doric’s breath came faster. “Be well, Silas. Til we meet—”
Without warning, the man’s breathing shuddered to a stop.
“Doric?” Felix flared Unite the Lost. It burned, vibrating the pattern with all the Affinity and Intent he meant for Imara. Significance mobilized within him, enough to restore Primordial-tained abominations or Temples from the brink of collapse…and all of it hit a wall.
Nothing happened.
“Til we meet again beneath star and stone, captain.” With the tips of his dark fingers, Felix closed the Dwarf’s sightless eyes.
* * *
“What’s happening?” Beef asked. “Where’d he go?”
Vess swallowed. She had watched Felix follow after that Dwarven captain, and she didn’t need high Perception or Affinity to know how that was likely to go. “He will be a moment.”
The young Minotaur looked into the sky and licked his lips nervously. “Think she’ll be back? He hit her really hard.”
“Yes.” There was little doubt. If their fight had offered them anything it was a greater understanding of their foe’s capabilities. The Titan was powerful, certainly, but something else too. “She will not stop. She is like Felix.”
Beef swallowed audibly. “Crap.”
Down below, the Ironclads had gathered near the collapsed building, their reduced numbers staring at the darkened interior. Vess could feel their trepidation, their preemptive sorrow…and she felt when it was overwhelmed by fear and awe, as Felix and Pit emerged. They carried a bundle, wrapped in tattered cloth.
Felix said something, handing them the bundle. The body. That sorrow returned, and this time it was as intense as the Titan’s golden light. Vess shied away, squeezing her Affinity shut as best she could.
“Look. Those other guys are coming up,” Beef said. He pointed to the far side of the square, where members of the Birchstone Watch were advancing on Felix with spears and axes. The Watch loudly demanded his identity. “Felix should—”
Autarch and Chimera vanished.
Moments later, they reappeared right next to the Minotaur, making Beef jolt in surprise. “Ah! Don’t do that!”
Felix’s eyes were burning, but he looked tired. “Back to the inn. Now.”
Vess reached out to him, touching his shoulder. “Are you okay? Is she—?”
“Save it for later. We need to run.”
Pit dissolved into white light and Felix all but vanished again, his form blurring into a streak of lightning in the sky.
* * *
Felix landed in the courtyard of the Torrent’s Rest, collapsing part of it with a bad landing. Cracks splintered the yard, spitting dust and stone chips up into the air around him. He silently cursed his Body as his leg twinged painfully, before feeding the ache to his Hunger again.
People of all sorts scattered with his landing, and more ran when they met his burning gaze. The courtyard was lit by flickers of blue-white and red-gold.
He rushed into the inn, through the tavern and up the several flights of stairs. The fourth floor was in chaos as his company were hurriedly strapping their armor back on and readying their weapons.
Harn met him at the door to his suite. “You’re back.” He frowned. “You’re hurt.”
Felix pushed past the man. Inside the suite, everything was a mess. Papers were scattered and furniture was overturned.
“What happened? Were you attacked?” His senses brushed against everything in the room instantly. “Where’s Archie?”
“No attack,” Harn said. “Kid. He ran.”
“Sucker punched us and zipped through the fireplace like a fish in water,” Evie said. She was sporting a black eye and Tzfell was healing her arm. “The little bastard’s probably halfway to the next mountain right now.”
Felix’s hand crushed the doorframe, his Mind whirling through everything the Delven had said. All of his looks and gestures. A picture formed, and it calmed Felix’s speeding heart. “No. No he hasn’t left town. He still has a job to do.” Felix pried his hand from the broken timber frame, pieces raining down onto the floor. “Gather everyone. Now.”
“Aye,” Harn saluted and walked out.
“What is going on?” Laur asked. “You’re wounded. Did you—”
“Set up the table and spread out the maps again,” Felix ordered. “We have plans to make.”
Comments
Kevin McClelland
Thank you for the chapter! Great fight!
Aaron Schwartz
TEAM PATHLESS’ BLASTING OFF AGAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!!!!!!!!
