necariin
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Chapter 652
🕑 Added 2023-10-02 12:00:03 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
ToC
* * *
“Get off of him!” Felix growled, and the sound was like thunder. He hurtled straight for Avet’s multi-jointed fingers, his strange, nightmare form sprouting teeth and claws by the hundreds. The ease at which he’d been able to change his shape had come as a surprise to Felix, as it wasn’t a Skill…just an application of his Mind.
And it was damn effective.
He’d become something like the Ravager King, huge and draconic, but a great deal more…eldritch. Limbs and tails erupted from any direction Felix required as he fought off the ever strengthening grip of the god in the sky.
Fiendforge is level 73!
Felix met Avet’s hand, each finger the size of Felix’s entire monstrous arm, and was thrown back by a burst of wild energies. The Mote of Frenzy spat at him, still too potent to take on directly, especially while in the grip of the god of chaos. Avet’s hand defended, the joints twisting to deflect Felix’s monstrous maw.
My, What Big Teeth You Have!
“What?” Felix hesitated, before cursing as another blast of power caught him in the chest. Armor plating chased after it, protecting himself from the Mote’s fury. “Where did you learn that phrase?”
You Remind Me Of An Old Foe. Haven’t Seen Her In A While Though. Not Since She Slipped Her Chain.
Felix bared his many, many teeth. “Yeah? Want to see what happened to her?”
Avet merely laughed, and curled two of his fingers.
A tidal wave of raw, elemental power shot forth…aimed directly at Pit’s core.
Felix flared his Will and Alacrity to move faster than ever before. In core spaces, reality was simply what you Willed it to be—and Felix had quite the imagination. Forged through long practice in his own core space, he brought all that training to the fore as he redefined himself to catch and capture the assault. It hissed and burned, froze and tore into him with sharp edged blades. The frenzied power was utterly insane to take head on, but he owed his Companion.
More, Felix!
He twisted, allowing another torrent to pour downward onto Pit’s core. Felix was holding his friend’s core space together with his Skill, allowing Pit the space to figure things out—but that was all he could do. In the end, it was all up to Pit. He had to do the work—make the choice only he could make.
Etheric Concordance is level 94!
Move out of the way.
Another blast from the Mote hit Felix, but he twisted around to stare at his friend. “What?”
I’m so close. But I need more. Please. Distance meant nothing in that space, and Felix could clearly make out his wounded friend’s bright, golden eyes. Trust me.
Yes! Do As He Says, Navarre! Let Me Bless The Boy!
The entire core space groaned as Avet’s gleeful laughter shook everything. Felix clamped down harder with Fiendforge, pressing the edges of the core space together by what felt like the very tips of his fingernails.
Fiendforge is level 74!
He shifted back into his normal form, no longer blocking anything.
It was all up to Pit, now.
* * *
The moment Felix drew aside, it was as if a shroud had been drawn over the light, for all that the Mote of Frenzy’s illumination was nothing short of blinding.
Let Loose The Hands Of War.
The vast, unnatural appendage tensed as if gripping the riotous chaos of the Mote before it plunged toward the surface. Clouds boiled and the skies turned black, while the energies spun out from behind it like a mantle. A mass of shadow wreathed in a hurricane of pulsating elemental chaos.
Navarre Is Wasting His Time. I Am A God. It Does Not Matter If He Is A Cardinal Reborn. Do You Think I Can Be Stopped By One Mortal?
Pit stood his ground as the heavens dropped down atop of him. “Yes.”
Faint as the wind, words echoed across his bond. Kick his ass, lil pig.
Teeth in the dark, spread wide in a sightless smile. Show Me.
“I watch,” Pit declared, as the cataclysm above drowned out his words. “I listen.”
Avet swooped down, unstoppable. In response, Pit sang out. A single, buzzing note. It cut through the noise, leaving behind it nothing but a resounding quiet…and three similar notes.
Two to Pit’s side, where the earth split apart to reveal a hint of growing green. And one above, descending rapidly. Carried at the very heart of the falling maelstrom.
Divinity.
“Like calls to like!” Pit shouted. “As above, so below!”
Just outside his Woven Tree, the two notes gained such an intensity that to hear it was to hear everything. A grand plan, woven in song, played out in the growth of two immense shoots. They rose up, saplings to titans in an eyeblink, as leafy fronds made of bloody crimson and purest black spread like a thousand house-sized shields—and questing tendrils stabbed upward, seeking the third.
Avet pulled back, or tried to; his fall was too swift, the Mote upon his back too furious to change course.
What Is—Divinity. You’ve Divinity Unspent On Foundation Or Skill!
“Seeds taken from Vellus and Noctis! I kept them safe!” Pit crowed. “I’ve got plenty of Primordial to keep me growing, but these were for a special day. A day when I could actually handle more power.”
The Seeds of Divinity, now proper trees in their own right, stabbed upward into Avet’s hand. Wood and vine pierced godflesh and Mote alike, until they wrapped around the third and final note that resonated within Avet’s palm.
Tch!
“Thanks to you, I think I’m finally ready!”
The Seeds bound and trapped the godflesh hand. Avet’s influence was arrested by shoots of shadow and blood…but the Mote was not. It flowed from the back of Avet’s hand like volatile water and surged toward Pit—and was met by the grasping ends of his Woven Tree.
The final might of the Mote of Frenzy hit Pit like an avalanche. More than ever before.
Evolution Progress: 95%
Pit hadn’t lied. His [Four Pointed Star Core] hadn’t been strong enough to truly make use of what he’d visualized as Seeds of Divinity. That had changed. Now it was packed to the brim with power from the Mote, a Transcendent treasure of elemental healing.
If not now, when?
Pit grasped at it all, willing his Woven Tree to absorb every last bit, and compressing the Mana and Essence into the thrumming shape of his core.
Evolution Progress: 100%
Congratulations!
Due To Accumulated Significance, Your Named Core Has Evolved!
[Four Pointed Star Core] Has Become A [Six Pointed Star Core]!
The Seeds of Divinity reverberated, resonating with one another at a pitch Pit had never before heard. Harmony and Dissonance both unspooled from them, bouncing between bloody fronds, darkened ebon bark, and mutable, changing flesh. They coiled together, propelled by the geyser of System-borne power that erupted around Pit’s Named core.
They sang.
A story was captured in the interplay of chords, spelled out in the gaps between the notes as the Ages spun out before Pit’s eyes. Stars wheeled by as mountains were born and died, oceans dried up and returned, cycles upon cycles upon cycles. Through the story, other important notes rang out. Some were silenced, while others clung tight even as they faded, resolute in their desire to be heard forevermore. They rose to a crescendo and descended, again and again. Cycles upon cycles.
Blood. Shadow. Chaos.
Three pieces of a song that once was, and could be again.
A shockwave rippled through his core space, kicking up dirt in all directions and sending a beam into the blackened clouds above. The beam cut through them like a laser, burning away the black in a vast circle. Beyond, a galaxy coated the heavens, accompanied by two familiar presences. Twin stars, each as large as the sun erupted into Pit’s sky as if they had always been. Blue-white and red-gold.
The new suns heralded a shift. A familiar potency radiated from above, adding an immense weight of significance to the core space. Godflesh buckled, torn asunder from within, as the dissonant harmony began to shake it apart.
Ah. Avet’s tone was almost…wistful. Well, Isn’t This Interesting?
“Etch this into your soul, Avet,” Felix said, his ghostly form still hovering in the dark sky. “Don’t touch my friends.”
Pit screeched, and all of his core space blasted apart, transforming into a pair of vast, feathered wings. The Seeds of Divinity grew thorns and curled around Avet’s final pieces of power.
“We bite.”
The wings closed, slamming all of his core space together one last time.
* * *
Your Evolution Is Influenced By The Mote Of Frenzy!
Your Evolution Is Influenced By Avet, God Of Change!
Calculating Effects…
WARNING!
The Mote Of Frenzy Is Volatile!
Effects On Evolution Unknown!
Adjusting Evolution Choices…
Choose One Of The Following!
No. Enough of that. I am in control of my own fate!
ERROR!
Second Evolution Rejected!
Influence of Avet, God of Change Rejected!
WARNING!
All Choices Have Consequences.
Yeah, and this is mine!
Title: Born of Will Is Active!
Title: Thief of Fate Is Active!
Title: Tyrant of Choice Is Active!
Title: Bondbreaker Is Active!
His Evolutionary choices splintered, cast about him like rain in a hurricane. They swirled through Pit’s Mind, fleeting as flashes of lightning. Pieces of his power, his Titles, his Skills all swirled together in a soup of potential. Pit was spun around and drowning in them all…but he’d seen this done before.
Felix had grasped his own Path from the hands of the gods, and Pit could do the same.
He wrested himself from the sea of his own potential, Willing himself into shape. Beak and crest emerged followed by talons and paws. Wings. They spread wide, dripping with images and half-remembered patterns, until pieces of the wild dark around him resonated with them.
With a single spearing of his talons, he grabbed them all—and stuffed them down his gullet.
ERROR!
Divine Influence Subverted!
Primordial Nature Detected!
ERROR!
Adjusting Evolution Choices…
Choose One Of The Following!
Pit did not hesitate. He chose.
Evolution Complete!
Congratulations, Guardian Beast!
Second Evolution: Primordial Storm Tyrant
You Gain:
+300 AGL
+300 DEX
+400 END
+300 INT
+500 WIL
Each Level Now Grants An Additional 50 Points To All Stats!
Skills Have Changed!
Do You Wish To Review?
The sheer immensity of sudden growth hit him heavier than any foe. Pit stumbled in the featureless black, Body lost as his Mind and Spirit spread outward to contain the onrush of power. The clarion call of System energy rolled in, drowning him in torrents of joyous, painful potency.
His stats burned through him, changing Pit irrevocably.
New Title!
First Of Your Kind! (Unique)
Of all the beings in all the world, none have forged an Evolution quite like yours. You have mastered the forces of Divinity and a Transcendent treasure with a Will of Crescian Bronze. For that, mortal, you are to be lauded—and rewarded.
+400 STR
+200 MIG
+300 VIT
New Title!
The Audacity of Mortality! (Transcendent)
Wise or unwise, you have defied the Divine directly and lived! No chains to bind, or Vessels to dilute, not even a splinter of their Holy Self—but the naked Will of Avet, God of Change. What’s more, you have claimed the power they would have used against you! A new strain of Divinity sings in your core, and you have earned the right to evolve up to three Skills.
Choose wisely.
Oh. Wow. Pit thought, as the endless black rolled over him. Through him.
That’s…gonna be…cool.
Comments
George R
thanks for the chapter
Darkdragon
I feel the more we go on the more likely that the gods sre some ancient unbound who ascended. There are 8 of them and the unbound are summoned in 9, one could have died or be hidden. Hell the last one maybe even became the ruin but I feel like they are unbound summoned long ago
Kevin McClelland
Thank you for the chapter! Pit rules!
Jason Donovan
Nice work resolving that situation after such a tremendous build-up.
Derrick Blacketter
Why do I feel like this is exactly what Avet wanted to happen? He tells Felix to become a God and then gives Pit the "push" he needs to help him do the same. I feel like Avet is playing at a longer game than we know. I have a feeling that He will continue to nudge Felix in little ways that help Him reach some end goal al while seeming like a "bad guy." Im thinking He may use Felix to help free the other Gods or to get rid of them completely
