Unbound

The world unfolded again, glitching across Felix’s senses with a greater urgency before it locked into place. The sound of it shivered through him, shaking at his ligaments and bones like he stood atop a building-sized subwoofer. Then it was gone—and he was left with a new vista.

I know this place.

A dark expanse stretched out in all directions around him, punctured by beams that could only be described as moonlight. It was like a deep and endless ocean, yet Felix took an easy breath. No liquid moved across his lips or rippled against his skin—but there was a pressure against his limbs. It pushed at him from all sides, restricting his movement but allowing him to float in place. Not water, but Spirit. An Authority so overwhelming that it filled up the endless horizon.

And he wasn't alone.

A slithering monstrosity undulated through the deep dark. It moved in the distance, with only the intermittent shafts of light to give Felix some sense of scale. It swam toward his position, growing larger with every movement until it was more than simply large. Its long shape was stark against the dark blue vastness, many-jointed appendages clutched together into paddling limbs that swam with an increasing urgency.

Siva.

She dove, writhing between jaws that snapped in her wake. Flesh unspooled, trailing behind her like a banner only to be devoured by the toothy maw that hurtled after her. Vast and even more monstrous than the goddess, it hid in the dark, emerging like a terror from the deep, all eyes and tooth and maw.

A bellow rent the vastness, and Felix recoiled. The pressure increased, clutching at him like a vise. Yet it was nothing compared to what happened to Siva herself.

Strands of blue burst from hidden limbs, snagging Siva in a web of steel lines and forcing the goddess to a standstill. Pale hands clutched, pulled at them until they bled. Mana poured outward from her, forging itself into serrated beams that fell from on high. Vivid blue lines burnt beneath it, but more replaced them almost instantly, growing thicker by the second.

Flicker…

Felix was closer.

Or perhaps the goddess and the creature were—it didn’t matter.

The balance had changed.

Gone were most of the steel lines Felix knew so well, caged in criss-crossing beams of pale moonlight. The blue lines that remained were tangled around her like a noose, snagging against every bit of pale flesh that it could grab. Siva and her twisted flesh undulated over a piece of the behemoth, still tiny compared to its incredible breadth. Claws slashed and scales glinted as muscles beneath them twitched and flexed. The beast roared, and a deep vibration welled up from the bowels of Hell itself, but the goddess was unmoved.

You Do Not Deserve It!

Siva reached down, bypassing flesh and scale with an unspooling tail. Hands emerged, fingers clawed and gripping as they drilled into the Primordial’s flesh…and tore free a gleaming piece.

It Is Mine, Siva crooned.

The moment the chunk of flesh was in her many hands, the blue lines around her throat shimmered—as did the vastness around them, until the shadowed horizon was stained with argent.

The Primordial roared, its mouths too wide and gnashing to form words.

Quiet.

Silver threads snapped across the Primordial, arresting the fall of tooth and claw. Siva clutched at the stolen piece, her pale hands pulling it close to her long, narrow chest. Competing Spirits washed over Felix, obscuring his vision with static-laden sparks of power—but through it all, he saw the piece. It was an orb the color of the deepest ocean depth. ṛàNôBЁŝ

Siva brought it to her chest and pale hands grasped it tight. Power leached the blue away, replacing it with a new, burnished hue. The orb settled into Siva’s chest, now a blinding gold amid twisted white hands that shuddered. Waves rolled through the goddess, folding her flesh into itself as she abandoned her monstrous form and became something akin to what Felix was used to: a winged horror in the shape of a woman.

The creature that it was torn from, however, mutated even further. It became a mess of teeth that surged upward, aiming for Siva's throat just above the orb, only to be slashed open and forced back by a web of silver that split the creature into a hundred lesser pieces. The silver dark rippled, and a rift opened up behind the Primordial.

A gateway through liminal space…to where?

What was left of the Primordial fled into the rift, shedding further pieces of its twisted flesh into the silver dark as it forced its Body into the rift. It grew smaller even as its mouths multiplied and its eyes blinked open like wet bulbs. It ran, fleeing into the verdant forest beyond the rift just as the thing slammed shut.

Siva purred in contentment.

Concomitance - Two As One, the voice whispered, just as the silver dark gathered close.

Felix was plunged into it.

Just as swiftly, he was flung back out.

Felix emerged, splashing out of a stormy sea. Whitecaps fell, crashing over him with a relentless violence only nature could enact.

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Adamant Discord!

Felix flew upward, one bolt among many that lashed the sea around him. As he rose, he saw molten lava pouring over the water, boiling the edges of the sea. The steam of it was indistinguishable from the thunderous clouds above. Despite that, the land was aglow with the earth's heat, and it provided a murky definition to the night-drenched world around him.

Where am I?

The storm dumped rain upon him as he rose further, banishing the steam-cooled lava into jagged stone, but not before more erupted violently from a dozen nearby peaks. Thunder crashed almost as loud as the erupting earth, but it was the shapes that drew his attention upward.

Holy crap!

Forms moved among the clouds, backlit by lightning that outlined only the vaguest hints of the truth. He suspected they were Primordials, but what Felix beheld was beyond his conception of the ancient beasts. They were enormous, and each twist and strike was accompanied by explosions that ripped the clouds to shreds, unveiling claws and tails and twisted abdomens that were too big to be acceptable. Felix’s Mind reeled from what he saw, unable to comprehend their sheer size and power.

Yet among the warring creatures were glowing shadows no bigger than ants. They swung and the Primordials fell back.

Paramount - One Above All, the voice hissed, and this time it sounded terrified.

Flicker…

Land and sea combined, steam and cloud and lava cut through by blows that could end continents. Felix stood among them, buffeted by mighty winds as he witnessed the memory of something beyond time. The shadowed blurs stood atop a mountain peak. Just off to his side, they overlooked a devastation beyond anything Felix had ever witnessed. It was a world ended by cataclysm. The land and sea were so obliterated that they hung in the air, the laws of physics overturned by sheer strangeness and a power he couldn't grasp.

Flicker…

The shadows spoke.

Felix stood further on the mountain, near the flows of lava as they burst in red-gold rivers from the deepest of stone.

The shadows spoke again, but the words danced away from Felix's Mind.

Void Sanctuary!

Deep Mind!

Unseen Beholder!

Power spooled up within him, hardening his Mind and stretching it outward, only to hit a wall. Unfortunately, that had never stopped him before.

Felix mustered his Will, shaping his Intent into a spike before driving it forward. Hammer met spike—and was broken. Blood burst from his ears, eyes, and mouth as the power fed back into himself, tearing at muscle and bone with a terrible vengeance. His vision sparked as if he’d jammed fingers against his closed eyes, yet they cleared swiftly enough to show Felix that the wall before him was unmarred.

The shadows moved. They reached for something.

Eyeless faces and too many limbs, each ending in claws. The shadows had become grasping talons and wide, eager smiles. Pieces of light broke, and the world sundered. Felix was cast back out into the dark where the world had ended.

Flicker…

The storm lashed at him.

A line between the sky and Felix was drawn in lightning. It struck at him so fast and so repeatedly that Felix appeared to be suspended by a blinding root of galvanic terror, freezing him in place like iron caught between two magnets. Fire and pain followed. It screamed through him, trying to scramble his Mind, but he focused.

I need to—

Binding silver struck at him, aimed at his Body.

Skein of Fate!

The silver lines severed before they could touch him, unable to bypass his Skill. They, of all things, were nothing to him.

FOCUS. Legion was, what?

His Mind raced.

Fleshcurse. Primordials versus Elementals, with the gods pulling the strings.Below Lurk The Many, it said. Felix wasn’t a fan, no matter what it meant for his Skill. But this was his Empyrean Embrace.

It’s whole thing is devouring the many.

Another attack joined the first, but this one rose up from the sea. It speared into him, a pillar of swirling water and slurried earth that hauled back on his limbs like manacles.

Concomitance. Two As One.What—he grimaced, fighting back awareness of the pain—what does that even mean? He’d seen Siva fighting another Primordial. An incomplete Siva, that is…and when she’d torn free that blue orb it had turned golden…and the area had turned silver. The Pool of the Halcyon Oath. That’s what it was. And that meant—Veridaan. The blue lines of connection had given it away. The Primordial of Oaths. That was Siva stealing its power.

Two As One.

A third force struck him as he pondered in the sky, and it burned at his flesh like nothing else. Lava erupted across the heavens, a wave of fire and earth that he couldn’t avoid if he tried. It clung to him, burning through flesh and scale with a rapidity that spiked terror through his heart.

P–Paramount, he thought, forcing his thoughts into order. One Above All. That one I think I get. I saw…

I saw…

A tempest howled around Felix, tearing pieces of his immobilized form away. His Mind rebelled, despite his Born Trait, refusing to show him what he’d just witnessed. All he could recall were shadows boiling against a blinding light.

Even Dead, She Denies You.

The Weaver.

The Liar.

The Thief.

The tempest raged, lifting Felix higher into its elemental grip. Sea water and lightning flowed through it, pummeling him with char and slicing him with frozen hail. Lava too rode those winds, jagged half-cooled stone slashing at his back and chest, while molten metal burned away his limbs.

Empyrean Embr—!

The Skill skittered from his Mind, its patterned dulled by the storm. Sovereign of Flesh fought valiantly, healing his muscle and bone—but not fast enough.

It Is Not Enough.

You Must—

Without quite knowing how, Felix hurled the Beast’s words away. He seized the Feature before him, letting it burn against the cage of his Intent.

“You’re dead. You don’t get a say anymore.”

Primordials Do Not Die, Scion.

Felix plunged the Feature into his chest and howled into the dark. “I choose Paramount!”

We Merely Change.

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