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Chapter 503
🕑 Added 2022-09-22 04:57:18 +0000 UTCNew schedule at home has thrown me off my game a bit, but we're rallying. Enjoy the chapter and see you again on Friday! (Update schedule is still MWF)
* * *
Fiendforge is level 34!
Fiendforge is level 35!
Felix felt it when the storm rolled in. Primordial Essence—previously all but frozen just outside the bounds of Beef’s core space—now raged with all the pressure of once-dammed river.
He floated outside the space, viewing it from above like a diorama spread out on a table…all while he dodged the relentless appendages of the ooze beast. It was amorphous and grabby, a puddle made of pseudopods that were both sticky and incredibly dense. A single hit was enough to lower his Health by a whole percentage, and the thing struck a dozen times a second. It screamed constantly, a single atonal note that hissed and buzzed at the edges, meant to tear him down. But Felix had heard far worse from inside his own core space.
Hand of Calamity!
Hand of Calamity is level 2!
…
Hand of Calamity is level 15!
Slipping through its whirling attacks, Felix ripped through the ooze with an acid punch, liquid against liquid in a sizzling explosion of blue-purple gore. The creature’s screams increased in volume, if not pitch, but it didn’t retreat. It was just as tireless as Felix.
He never realized how annoying that could be.
Felix could have eaten the ooze—had even tried at first—but the tangle of connections he had perceived within Beef’s core space had halted that thought at conception. The ooze, whatever it was, had knotted itself so deeply with Beef, the Mana of his core, and even the echo of the Regalia that Felix wasn’t sure what he could just tear out. More worrisome were the threads that spread outward, beyond the core space to somewhere very close by—and when he brushed against them, Felix was afforded a grim look at the outside situation.
Everyone was in trouble.
So now he was fighting a multi-pronged battle against the ooze, engaging it away from Beef…and elsewhere. If nothing else, he could strengthen his friends, giving them all the space to save themselves.
And if Beef can work through this, he’ll be strong enough to clear this up on his own.
Smart!
Thanks, Pit. Just keep us flying as best you can. We need to keep this blob’s attention for as long as possible.
Easy! Pit dropped them, fully in control of their shared wings while Converged. They swooped low before twisting into a cyclonic corkscrew. An expulsion of ice Mana manifested blades on both hands, turning themselves into a living blender for a few moments. Oh, that was effective!
Pieces of the ooze were flung in all directions, but the majority were quickly reabsorbed into the main mass. Their attacks hurt it, Felix could tell that much, but it barely slowed the thing down. The best they could hope for was to occupy its attention until Beef was finished.
The storm flashed, lightning chased by a hot, dry wind that tore apart trees and buildings. A hurricane condensed into a city block, filled with rain and debris that burned as it hit. It sizzled over the sound of his fight, a rising sputtering hiss that almost drowned out Beef’s panicked shouts.
“Felix!” the Minotaur cried. “What do I do?”
They dove, Pit tucking their wings tight to their Body as Felix seized upon the myriad connections around him, juking in a dizzying flow around the ooze’s tendrils. Felix could see Beef, standing stock still at his window, hoof still upraised from when he’d booted it open. His hands trembled on the frame while Hallow—still at his side—stood stock still and clenched harder than a fist. They both sang with dread, a bellowing crescendo that was far louder than Beef’s words.
Thundering toward them, the storm did not stop. Flows of wild, desiccating dust, and violent heat advanced, changing in the flashing lightning from a deluge to a sandstorm and back again. Lights flickered among the core space, the pieces of it loosening even further than before. The entire thing was collapsing under the incredible pressure. Beef had to take action immediately, or else he wouldn’t survive.
“Beef! You—” Unbidden, a flurry of lights ripped from below, splashing into Felix as if they were a flock of suicidal birds. His words choked off as a Memory flitted across his Mind, a half glimpse gleaned from the casual contact: a bed, machines, and a woman with red hair holding a small boy’s hand in his childhood room.
The Memory vanished, fled into the dark, and Felix floundered. The woman had looked the same as Hallow.
Helen, Pit said.
The storm of the Primordial’s had been held back by fear. He heard it in both Beef and Hallow, a bitter, tentative song that wore long notes into their collective Spirit. Felix didn’t know why, not fully, but it didn’t matter. He knew what Beef needed to hear; what Felix had needed to hear, during all of his worst moments on the Continent.
“Embrace the fear, Beef!”
Felix didn’t shout it, but he didn’t have to. His Intent was transmitted to everyone within and it reverberated with Beef’s core space. Things shook, rocked by it, softening ever so lightly around the edges as it all destabilized.
“Use it!”
Rime Shaping!
Stone Shaping!
Illusory Double!
“Fight!”
* * *
Isla could not believe her eyes.
“That…that is impossible,” she managed through a gasping breath. “To cast while fully unconscious? While actively delving into another's core space?”
Mere strides from their faces, the monstrous ooze pulsated and writhed, held back by a legion of stone and icy spires. More arose as they watched, bludgeoning and slashing into the tacky mass with brutal abandon.
“He is Felix,” Lady Dayne said, shrugging her shoulders as if that was all the explanation needed. Her knuckles were white against her partisan’s haft—a sign of the rage and aggression that thundered in her core—-but her expression appeared utterly self-possessed. “The true question is: do we take advantage of this to flee or to fight back against this…Ooze Leviathan?”
“Fight,” Toa’ut and Lavix said, almost in unison. Their dwindling compatriots agreed unanimously.
“We cannot risk it. We must flee,” Isla insisted.
“I find myself emboldened,” Paxus said, almost cutting her off. She sniffed, but eyed the spirit. Indeed, he seemed to look more solid than before, the pattern of his phantasmal existence somehow more vibrant to her senses. “But I am concerned. What is that, precisely?”
Isla wasn’t sure why she kept being surprised by the utter strangeness of Felix’s company, but her eyes widened nevertheless as she perceived a single, strange, featureless shadow dancing among the erupting elemental blades. It flitted around the Behemoth, moving faster than she could properly track.
An illusion!
It was a suggestion of a person, a silhouette framed only by the flickering of blue and red near its chest. Yet as it continued to move, deftly avoiding the heavy impact of the Ooze Behomoth’s slamming tendrils, its shape clarified. Until its tall frame, scaled profile, and blazing blue eyes were unmistakable.
“That’s…that’s the God of Thunder and Flame!” Rou’d said.
“Has he claimed Shadow for his demesne as well?” another War Naga rumbled in awe.
The boy fights even while delving. That is truly unfair. Isla shielded her people from a stray burst of goo, but the Behemoth was well and truly distracted by Felix’s display of power. The Broodvipers and Drakin behind the ooze were another thing entirely. They flowed forward and through the Behemoth’s limbs, intent on fighting them all.
“We fight!” Lady Dayne howled, and blurred forward along with ten shining Spears. The Naga were at her heels, crashing into the line of Fathom spawn like a slithering cavalry.
“Ruinous fools! We should flee!” Isla shouted after them, but it all fell on deaf ears.
A few still got through despite it all, and Isla played defense around the still-unmoving forms of the Unbound. Vines whipped nearby, plants swelling with a sudden influx of life Mana before bursting in all directions in ropey tangles. Nets to disrupt and delay, and the Nymean phantom stood behind each burst, dark hand outstretched.
Despite it all, Isla feared that they would not last. Even if Felix continued to fight, the rest of the team was on borrowed time; they each were scraping the very bottom of their Stamina and Mana in this fight, pushed to their limits by the endless waves of monstrosities. She even resorted to hurling vials of bubbling green and electric yellow liquid from her bandolier, spreading swathes of crackling light and burning flame across the horde.
I cannot believe I must waste these here! Isla fumed. Her plans were collapsing with every grain of sand that fell. We cannot fight this longer!
Abruptly, the boy’s illusory double was there, standing next to the Nymean spirit. During the fight, the boy’s control of the Skill had grown. In the low light, it was almost like Felix was standing beside them. The double nodded and pantomimed something to Paxus, who laughed.
“Aye, I see what you intend, Lord Unbound. Let us try,” Paxus lifted his arms, his wide, white sleeves falling back to reveal dark forearms. “Or perish in the attempt!”
The illusory double lifted a single finger as if in protest, but then shrugged and lifted his own hands.
“Wake the Green Wild!” Paxus shouted into the Ooze Behemoth’s shrieking maw.
All around them, the root tunnel walls burst into vibrant, deadly life.
* * *
Illusory Double is level 4!
…
Illusory Double is level 19!
Maintaining concentration on both fights at once, Felix was all but rooted to the spot. While with Evie and others he had chosen to remain passive as they solved their own problems, now Felix found himself with little left to give.
Fiendforge is level 36!
…
Fiendforge is level 42!
He held on tight, clasping the trembling bits of Beef’s core space together as the teen embraced the chaos. Tides of power surged below, tearing at his control and Willpower even as the ooze tried to rip his projected Body into pieces. Pit defended up, decoupled from their shared transformation, now strafing across the vast expanse of the nasty goo. Frozen lightning and crescents of golden light hit its jiggling mass like bombs, tearing holes that healed over only seconds later.
It was enough.
Hold on, Beef! Hold on!
* * *
Beef fell.
It was only two stories, but it felt like an eternity as the stormwall raged. A hot swelling was taking place, somewhere deep in his chest where his heart and lungs all tangled about; it hurt but it felt like it was supposed to hurt. The heat of the oncoming tidal wave was immense, baking him with its proximity as it swept down his street. That was a different sort of hurt, but one he was forcing himself to accept.
He screamed, terror and jittery enthusiasm all bound into a knot. “You with me Hallow?”
“Always.”
He landed moments ahead of the wave of dust and water and lightning. A handle materialized over his shoulder, a post as thick as a telephone pole, but he knew what it was without conscious thought. He hefted it, lifting a maul so heavy his knees buckled and the asphalt splintered in concentric circles all around him.
“Hey! Primordial jerkass!” The maul was the size of a damn house. His entire core space—his small, cramped room on the upper floor of a suburban home. All of it ound to the end of his maul. “This is my house!”
Beef brought it down hard.
The tidal wave split and crashed, and Beef laughed as it swallowed him up. Burning assaulted his limbs, soaking into his fur and ripping into his mouth just as it pervaded the end of his impromptu weapon. Images flashed across his vision, things he’d seen and things that no one should ever see. Airplanes flying low over his house. A Sandwolf hunting him in the dark. Lightning storms above the Gulf. Cursewinds filled with undead intent on eating his skin.
A face of bones.
It spoke.
BEEFHAMMER. UNBOUND. CHILD OF HEALERS.
“Get outta my head!” Beef swung his maul again, but it had become unmoored in the swirling storm. The telephone pole dissolved in his hands. “What? My room!”
YOU RUN. YOU HIDE. WHY?
“Because you’re a creepy bastard!” Beef scrubbed at his eyes, but the bone face never vanished. It was there, before him in the storm, too large to be real and too visceral to be fake. Sand tore around them, turning to water that faded into desolate dust once again. “What do you even want?”
I WANT TO ILLUMINATE THE TRUTH, AS I HAVE FOR THE OTHER ALLIES OF FELIX NEVARRE.
“That tells me exactly jack-shit, dude!”
I WAS THE PRIMORDIAL OF THE WITHERING DUST. MY ROLE WAS TO BREAK APART, TO WEAR AWAY. I AM THE CHILD OF A CARDINAL BEAST, ONE OF THE LAST. TRUTH IS NOT MY ROLE BUT IT IS WHAT MUST BE. The bone face split, its too-large features becoming more and more inhuman as it spoke, until it bore several sets of jaws and far too many eye sockets. BEAR WITNESS.
Impossibly, the tempest around them grew more frenetic. From the whirling dust came motes of light that screamed in Beef’s limited senses. He wasn’t so great at the Harmonics stuff, but even he could hear that they were filled with a nasty noise.
AND BE CHANGED.
The lights hurtled at him, but Beef lifted his arms and caught two of them in his massive, bare hands. Hallow caught the last, though it very nearly buckled her thinner frame. “I’m not letting you hit me with some crazy magic lights, man! Ugh, what are they?”
A LIE, A TRUTH, AND A WAY FORWARD. IF YOU ARE STRONG ENOUGH.
“Fuck you, I’m plenty strong!”
“Beef! No!” Hallow screamed, as the Minotaur teen took both howling lights and slammed them into his own chest.
