Unbound

Felix’s stomach dropped. The Ruin would touch down in a day.

Twenty-four hours until the end of the world.

"You're sure?" Karys demanded, his voice as quiet as it could come from the sword.

Knowledge was impassive, though a shiver glitched through his illusory form. "There is no doubt. I would gladly welcome being wrong. But I am not."

Felix ran a hand through his hair, pacing around the golden Seal where it was etched on the floor beneath the Root brain. It flared with every beat of his agitation, silver motes cascading through the gold in pulses.

"What can we do?" Pit asked with a tense warble.

Karys and Paxus were silent, but Felix refused to let this break him. Arms akimbo, he didn’t stop moving. "Whatever we have to. We find the Bell. We advance.”

Paxus shook his head. “Paragon Tier isn’t going to stop the Ruin."

Felix slowed and chewed at his lip. “Knowledge. Did you find evidence of the Exalted Bell here?”

“No. There is not a single indicator that the last of the Empyrean Regalia is here. However,” the Geist lifted a finger, “several signs point to it being stored elsewhere.”

Pit squawked. “Stored elsewhere? We came all this way!”

Felix silenced his Companion with a gesture. “Where?”

Knowledge pointed up, into the Desolation gate.

“So, we need to walk into Desolation in order to face down the Ruin?” Felix started pacing again. “Is it so much to ask for one impossible task at a time?”

“What else could stop the Ruin?” Pit asked, more than a little frantically. “The Herald had all three of the Regalia when the thing struck before. It didn’t save the Nym.”

Paxus folded his hands, clearly uncomfortable. "A Divinity could, perhaps, stop it. But even then, we aren’t—”

“What makes a god Divine?" Felix cut the man off, stopping his pacing as he ran his gaze across Knowledge, the spirit, and his sword. "Is it just power?"

"We are unsure. Beyond Paragon, there are steps to take, further Tiers to straddle, but—" Paxus flinched. "The memory of them is gone from me."

"Me as well," Karys confirmed.

"The rise of the gods and their cruelty were catalysts for the entire history of the Continent," Paxus continued. "But little is known of how they ascended."

Pit hummed in thought. "The Broken Path, right?"

"Not always broken," Karys confirmed. “The gods shattered it after themselves, presumably to keep all mortals in line.”

"So you just reached the end of the Unbroken Path, and boom, you're a god?” Pit scoffed. “That seems unlikely."

Paxus cleared his throat. "My studies were not in this area, but the Spirit Trees have long memories, ancestral ones that dig deep as their roots. Abundance can remember a time before the gods. Little remains of those memories—nothing more than faint impressions—but she tells me that the world was split amongst Harmony and Dissonance. There were mortals and monsters alike, but they stood alone.”

"Alone. For how long?" Felix asked.

"The First Age lasted far longer than any can measure. It was the interminable time before mortals ever began to keep records. We cannot know how long it was before the gods rose, but we know that the Second Age began with the Divine Ascendancy.”

"Let me get this straight,” Felix said. “For uncounted centuries or millennia, people just didn’t become gods. For no reason. If it's a matter of power, then that seems impossible. Surely someone could have gathered enough power to leapfrog upward in so much time."

"What is your point, Felix?" Karys asked, and a note of weariness had crept into the ancient Nymean’s tone.

"My point is that there's another way. Maybe only ever has been one way."

"One way?"

Felix nodded to himself. "The cores of the Cardinal Beasts. They were stolen."

Paxus frowned. “The Supreme Primordials. They died too long ago for that to be true.”

“When?"

"The First Age—"

Felix gave him a flat look. “When we have no records?”

Storm clouds of uncertainty passed Paxus’ expression. "I see. How could you know this?"

"My Tempering to Grandmaster was...weird. I saw visions. I mentioned this.”

"You did?" Karys asked.

"But not the details. I wasn’t fully sure how it all worked, but it seems like the only real method.”

“You saw this theft?"

"Not exactly. I saw shadowy figures congratulating one another that resolved into Siva, Noctis, and Vellus all speaking of inflicting the flesh curse on the Primordials. A ritual of some sort.” Felix grimaced. Siva’s Memories were as volatile as toxic waste, but he’d spent too much time in bad Minds. “I saw Siva taking part of Veridaan. I saw her become the Maw.”

Stunned silence came from the two Nym.

"It happened. Had to. It's the only thing that lines up. The gods stole from the Cardinals to become Divine.”

Knowledge tilted his head. "Temper visions of true events?"

Felix hesitated. "That doesn't happen?”

“No. Grandmaster does amplify the effect of the Tempering process, often resulting in System revelations built around the Essence Draughts used. To access a historical record is impossible. No such record exists.”

"Does it matter that I had just eaten most of Siva?"

"I see." Knowledge's smile returned, creepy as ever. "True Memories.”

“Exactly."

Sigils flickered across the construct's flat silver eyes. "Noted. If it is Divinity you seek, then this may be an easier challenge. I have information for you, Emperor."

"About the Desolation Gate?"

"After a fashion. It is not straightforward, but all I have gleaned from this place has not yielded much in the way of indisputable facts. At best I have suppositions wrapped in myth, enshrouded by enigmas.” Knowledge inclined his head. “But I have enough to give you a hint.”

"A hint? What is this, a game to you?”

"All of the world is a game, Emperor. We wage a war of attrition with information itself. A puzzle burned into the remnants of the Continent, waiting for us to decode it.”

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Felix waved his hand. As interesting as it was to hear the passionless construct wax poetic, his patience was thinner than ever. "What have you found, then?"

"It is more than armor holding this corpse together.”

Felix waited a beat, but Knowledge simply stared at him, satisfaction writ across his blank eyes. "What does that mean?”

“I do not know. I know only that it is important enough to be hidden amongst murals, Skills, and sculptures across Etrionn. The accumulation of information here is not yet complete. Perhaps when it is, I might ascertain more with certainty.”

"How much time until that happens?"

"Four hours, fifty-six minutes at the minimum. If the answer is hidden somewhere deeper, or if perhaps there is no answer at all, then—"

Felix nodded. "Keep investigating. Find what you can.”

“As you wish."

The Memory construct vanished, and Felix was left staring up at the whirling disk of Desolation.

"Not armor," he muttered. "What does that mean? Anyone have a clue?"

Pit poked at the Seal, and Karys hummed contemplatively, but Paxus watched the Root brain. “What of these?”

Felix frowned. The Roots of the Aberrant Soil were everywhere they’d gone. “How does that help us?”

“Why do they not dissolve?” Karys asked.

“What?”

The vapor from his sword puffed upward, dragging Felix’s attention to the gate. There, at the edges, the Roots clung to the hole in the world…and were not unmade. “Can the Roots survive the Desolation?”

In two seconds, Felix had sliced free a section of it from the wall and held it up. “Let’s see.”

He tossed it. The Root hit the Desolation…and bounced right off.

It landed by Pit’s feet. He nudged it with his beak, but the thing wasn’t so much as scorched. “What’re we supposed to take away from that?”

Felix picked it up. His Mind whirled, flitting through ideas. Not for the first time, he desperately wished his Intelligence made him smarter instead of quicker at thinking. He could’ve used some super smarts right about then.

“If the Roots can even touch the gate, they’re not useful. Not unless we can find a way to move the Desolation, but then what would be the point?” He tossed the Root to the ground in frustration and returned to pacing.

"What else could be holding it together?” Felix muttered. The obvious answer was its armor; the Crescian Bronze and sheer significance of Etrionn had likely insulated the entire place from the Ruin, if not from the gods and their minions. Otherwise, the Skill Library and Record Room would not still exist.

“Felix.” Karys cleared his throat. "What holds anything together?"

He froze, mid-step. It was so painfully obvious. "Adamant Discord."

Blue lines sprang up all around him. As always, they connected him to all sorts of directions—up, down, to the Seal, even to his friends. More importantly however, they connected the walls to each other. The Root brain itself was a tangled bramble of a million faint lines, sprouting outward in every conceivable direction. Faint and weak, the Bonds were there.

Skein of Fate.

The Skill spun up, almost rusty with disuse, and Felix was surprised to see woven threads of silver appear there, deep within Etrionn. With Siva’s death, Oaths had been rendered meaningless, yet faint as they were, the threads still held fast. Ancient Oaths that had never been given up, even to the end. Stronger than death itself.

"There's something here," Felix said, staring between the blue lines of Bonds and the faint remnants of Oaths. Bonds and the beasts and the Nym and the Herald; they were all pieces of a bigger picture Felix couldn't get the distance to see correctly. He looked up at the Desolation gate. The golden threads still stood there, fainter, snapping into focus the moment he glanced its way. He moved closer, striding atop his shaped earthen rampart until he was nearly on top of the spinning white disc.

His Skills thrummed, their patterns tangling together into a counterpoint rhythm that danced across his vision. For a moment, at the center of the Desolation, Felix saw a glimmer of color. Not gold, but blue and silver. Bonds and Oaths.

Felix grinned and shoved his hand into the gap of golden thread, where the three all met.

An explosion of impressions assaulted him. Visions burst through his Mind, vistas that were far from Etrionn and the Sunsend Peaks. Places of dying vegetation. Of thriving bogs. Of burning rivers and frozen caverns. Of ancient tombs buried beneath dark earth and floating islands amid black clouds. They whirled by him, the same pattern and locations again and again, presented to him in a loop as blue Bonds seared through him.

It stopped.

A vast shape loomed before him, cut from glistening stone and set atop a mountain like a sacrifice.

Felix fell back, Adamant Discord spiraling out of his grip. Lightning surged, scouring the chamber with reckless abandon before he could rein it in. Felix barely recognized that he’d landed on his back until he blinked blurry eyes. His cheeks were wet. He wiped them to find blood, much of it having poured down his face. Sovereign of Flesh coursed through him, fixing the damage to his eyes, but it did little for the ache in his core. freewebnøvel.coɱ

The wall…

He blinked. His newly healed eyes had fallen on the etched designs on the bone wall. Upon the charred creature—a blackened twin to Etrionn itself. The Memory returned. The gleaming stone shape atop a mountain. It was the same.

"The Obsidian Tumult," he murmured. A being like Etrionn from outside of these Realms. The two were somehow linked. Felix looked up at the gate—it was made with Bonds and Oaths. And what were Oaths but compacts that established Bonds, tying it into place with Authority. Bonds and Authority. Two pillars of power, wielded with Intent. They were enough to move mountains… or leap through them.

Felix stood back up.

"Careful,” Pit said. “What did you do? You were bleeding all over.”

“Nearly killed me of fright,” Karys complained. "My Lord, touching the Desolation is a death sentence. Now is not the time to be desperate."

"I’m not desperate," Felix said, his eyes never leaving the etched wall. "I’m inspired."

He flared Adamant Discord and Skein of Fate again, this time securing the Eye of Tumult to his belt. The golden thread seared into his vision anew, and Felix reached out, seizing silver in one hand and blue in the other.

He pulled.

Lightning coursed across his left arm, sparking up to his shoulder before discharging into the dirt. As the silver was cold, it seared at him like ancient ice, numbing his flesh instantly. The visions returned, flickering by in exactly the same pattern as before. His eyes started to prickle, but Sovereign of Flesh healed the damage before they could fall apart.

Sonata of Dominance.

The ceiling was made of bone, and flesh was just another element to manipulate. He scrawled out sigils, ones he’d seen on his Shadowgates through countless investigations and travels. Felix could have inscribed them with his eyes closed, and he did, letting his perfect recall guide his hand as he shaped the array that set out a Shadowgate’s function. They were all the same, much like the Seals, but they required coordinates, pieces of power that guided the liminal space through the edge of the Corporeal. He needed a guide.

It’s all here. Staring at me in the face. The visions were the answer. Burning Fire. River. Water. Death. Rot. Life. On and on. Elements hidden in plain sight between sigils modified by secondary and tertiary rings. It was a trail.

One that detailed where the Tumult had fled.

The Desolation wasn't the gate, it was a symptom of long Ages left alone. The gate was so unmoored that the Ethereal had spread through its destabilized boundaries, nearly cutting out the connection. It was Etrionn itself that held on, a Will that still bound the corpse together. A Will that could test Felix's worthiness from beyond the grave.

Even dead, it clutched tight to this Tumult.

Magus of the Grand Design is level 141!

…

Magus of the Grand Design is level 144!

Sigaldry seared into the roof, inscribed in sure lines and arcane movements. Adamant Discord and Skein of Fate flared in his grip, sparking at his center as the Skills themselves quaked, their vibrations changing pitch, an engine nearing its end. Strain pressed against Felix's chest, quaking through his Spirit and his Body in unholy tandem.

The gate burst.

Pressure shifted, tearing at his head and eyes as skittering afterimages seared into his vision. The ceiling tore apart, Roots burning in golden flame. The patterns of his Skills unravelled, nearly tearing from his control, but Felix clamped his Will tight.

Fiendforge is level 137!

…

Fiendforge is level 143!

Secured by the twin prongs of his iron Will and his unique Skill, his core space held fast. Tremors shook him, creaking the very branches of his Divine Tree, but it held as the world tried to rattle him apart.

Sigils flared as he finished, the implosion stopped in its tracks. For the first time in Ages, the Desolation retreated from the gate, leaving in its wake a sheen of liquid gold.

Felix fell back, gasping for breath. "I did it.”

“Will it hold?” Pit asked.

"Not for long," Paxus glared upward at it, face creased with concern. "The degradation is already happening. You have half a day at most."

“Hurray Felix. Such a great job! You’re the best,” Felix cheered, his voice flat. He sat up. “Can’t give a guy a little credit for doing the impossible?”

Karys cleared his throat. “A superb job, my Lord. Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, but even with the Desolation shunted away, we do not know where this goes. You could be walking into the jaws of death."

Felix stood back up, dusting off his rear. "That's a chance I gotta take."

"If Paxus is right, twelve glasses is not much time to return to us.”

“If the Ruin is nearly here," Felix said, staring at the gold, "it’ll have to be.”

“Just gotta be fast, then,” Pit said, flexing his wings. “Ready?”

"You know it, bud."

A flash of light Converged the two, leaving Felix standing alone. He held the hilt of his sword, sheathed again at his belt, tensed his legs, and leapt.