Unbound

Blood flung into his eyes, boiling hot and thick. As lightning coursed across his forearms with every pull of his Bonds, the crimson liquid followed in waves. Curtains of it crashed into him from the moment he’d exited the Shadowgate in Jaast, as hard as concrete walls at the speeds he was hurtling across the twilit sky. The jungle sped below him in a gray-green blur, distorted by bloodrain and searing lightning, but it was easy to tell when they’d arrived. Felix slowed, spitting coppery fluid from his mouth, and Pit appeared beside him in a flash of light and flapping wings.

Chaos reigned. Neither Felix's lightning nor Pit's appearance was enough to draw attention. He doubted they would have noticed had he arrived amidst a titanic explosion. Their allies had greater things to worry about.

Armies of Dwarves, Elementals, Golems, and godslaves littered the jungle by the thousands. The land had been trampled for miles. Hills flattened. Trees felled. Entire swaths burned or melted. Situated against a high outcropping of stone was a fortress of chitin and flickering shields. The Legion was there, and above them flew their Manaships and Chimera. They were besieged on all sides.

Vess. Gabby. Felix immediately found them and the others, his Links pointing directly to all those closest to him. Here, within eyesight, he could feel them all the stronger, and their distress was palpable. Not a single one was without injury, and many danced along the edge of exhaustion. For good reason.

The godslaves weren’t their greatest threats.

Beyond, the rain of blood lessened, and with it, Felix's Perception spread farther.

The Realm was split.

A rift hung amid the clouds. It opened into a scattered place, one Felix knew well, though the location was not familiar to him at all. The Deadlands in all their muted glory gave way to the shattered edge of reality, and through it all, the gods walked. They lifted themselves up until they filled the horizon, becoming all but impossible to encompass with a single glance. Not discrete beings, but a direction, their existences filling beyond the bounds of flesh.

Most importantly, the gods were not concerned with the battle or the besieging of his allies. Instead, they were reaching up into the charred sky, their fingers breaking through pieces of it like bread baked too long. The moons hung there, dotting the dark, and their chains were gone.

"They're free," Felix muttered, the horror in him unable to be suppressed. Power was being pulled down from those moons, twining around the gods' uplifted hands as the celestial bodies themselves dissolved.

"They're getting stronger," Pit spun looking around. "I have to warn them. Scylla! I need to—!”

“Go, bud." Felix cracked his knuckles. "I'll handle up here."

The godslaves did not stop.

Beef tore through them, crushing their bodies with Bedlam even as his Risen ran amok, obliterating the rest beneath stone feet and chitin blades. The problem wasn't the godslaves. Instead, it was the remaining Elementals still arrayed against them, the rare Orichalcum Golems, but most of all, it was the Vessels.

They rose above the rest, Dwarves now twisted beyond recognition as they were filled with Divine power. Beef found them disgusting and ugly as hell, but they were tough. Their powers ripped into the Legion without mercy or let up, even as that very same Divine might was killing the Vessels themselves. More than once, Beef had witnessed one of the Dwarves channel some godly might before their body split apart at the seams. Yet, for every one that died, another rose up, a Dwarf from the distance convulsing as Divine power speared from the heavens. Then they were back in the fight.

“Heretic!” the Vessel of Vellus burbled at him as it landed atop the battlements. The creature was more blood than Dwarf, and its voice was thick as a gargled milkshake. “Foul bull!”

Beef curled his lip and gripped Bedlam tighter. Necromantic Mana burned across its icy length. “Get better lines.”

The Vessel yowled. Its bloody flesh spiked up into wild peaks—and it ran away.

“Hey!”

It flowed across the chitin battlements, its body boiling hot with lightning between its joints, catching the Legionnaires by surprise. Stunted limbs of crimson sliced easily through the Blade Legion, breaking wards and lopping through gorgets with equal ease.

Beef ran to intercept, but the Vessel was so damn fast. “Hallow!”

A Risen leapt into the fray, throwing its body into the path of the Vessel. The heavy Exult didn’t stand a chance, its body sundered into base components as blood and lightning drove it apart.

“You cannot stop the Will of the Divine!” it gurgled.

“I just needed you slowed down,” Beef hissed from behind it, just as he drove his orichalcum-clad horns into the Vessel’s back.

It screeched, arms rotating in impossible directions to seize on Beef’s face. He shouted, and blood got into his mouth. The deluge of crimson scoured his gums and tongue, while the rest drilled through his chitin armor.

“Entropic Paradigm!”

Chitin walls surrounded him and the Vessel, cutting it off from reaching anyone else, and he drove his armored fingers into its pliant flesh. Ropey sinew gave way beneath his Strength, though the liquid of its Body flowed around him like a river. With a flex of Will, spikes filled the inside of the chitinous tomb, spearing through everything but Beef himself.

The Vessel writhed, clearly in pain, but its unique Body was already getting free. It sank back, away from Beef’s grip and into the shell around them—there, it crackled with focused lightning and broke open the smallest of crevices.

It slipped free.

“Shit!” Beef banished his construction just in time to see the Vessel lope off toward the Legionnaires again. “Crushwave—!”

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“Nimbus of the Moon!”

A beam of silver light skewered the Vessel, catching it fully within its radiance. It writhed for only half a second before it disintegrated entirely.

Beef goggled, staring upward as a massive creature descended from above, its four wings spread wide. "Special delivery, straight from Etrionn!" Pit crowed.

A gleaming object crashed into the ground, and Beef gasped. "Pit, you're here! Then—”

“He's above. Brace yourselves, and get ready to fight."

"What do you think we've been doing?" Archie slid gracefully across root and loam before he fetched up against the object Pit had dropped. "That's a Platinum Chest!"

Archie kicked it, and the lid popped open. A storm of Mana filled the area immediately, blocking the sight lines of everyone in the premises. The Vessels nearby screeched, their power sizzling against their faces.

"You're shitting me," Archie said with a wide grin.

"Kick some butt!" Pit cried before he vanished in a rush of wind.

Beef hustled forward, reaching into the chest even as he took in its bounty. "Dad!"

His father was a short stone's throw away, and Beef hurled two objects through the air. The big Lizard caught them in his massive, scaled hands, dropping his weapons in the process. He wouldn't need them anymore. Two Crescian Bronze short swords, twins of one another, sizzled as sigaldry crawled from the hilts down his father's hands and forearms.

“My word!” Wendell gasped as power flexed across his biceps. “This is incredible!”

Godslaves rushed up the wall, a wave of Plaguerats that clung to the chitin as easily as flat earth. Wendell slashed forward, and the swords cut through the nearest like a whisper of wind. Plaguerats fell to pieces…and beyond them, the world was enveloped by fire. An explosion rocked the advance of godslaves, and none were left standing.

Wendell marveled at the swords. “A blade of wind and of heat, but they’re packed with enchantments!” He adjusted his grip, and the sigaldry flexed into his scales and muscles, empowering him. “Legion! On me!”

Blades and Bones followed him as he cut off another horde of godslaves, his new weapons leading the way.

“Kevin! Shadow!" Archie cried. The twin Kobolds rushed through, enemies on their trail.

Beef marshalled his Risen nearby, and they trampled the nearest godslaves after the Twins. Archie hurled two more objects into the twins’ path. Kevin leapt, catching a bronze crescent with a single hand at the same time his brother snagged a bow of identical material.

They’re all made of Crescian Bronze. Beef’s Risen pivoted, but they weren’t fast enough as the godslaves overtook their pummeling blows. “Behind you!”

The brothers turned, hands already moving as godslaves closed in. The sickle in Kevin's hands shuddered, expanding in a whip-like motion to become a massive, sweeping scythe. It tore through the nearest godslave, breaking force armor from shoulder to hip.

Shadow rolled, fetching up onto a single knee as he fired arrows from his newfound bow—arrows that manifested directly from the gleam of sigaldry on the artifact. They shimmered and burst, multiplying as the Kobolds' Skill sang through the weapon.

"Oh, these are nice!" Shadow cheered, before leaping back to his feet. In a moment, the twins bolted back into the fray.

"I hear there are gifts!"

The voice came from above as Ondine carried down a somewhat battered-looking Atar. They landed on the rounded chitin battlements beside the Chest. While the winged princess looked regal and eager, the gray-skinned mage was a bit worse for wear from his battle against Marzul.

"How’d you even know?" Beef asked.

"A little birdie told us," Ondine said, reaching into the Chest. She pulled free a series of Crescain Bronze plates, each one decorated with discrete feathers that had been threaded through one another with some dark chain. "Armor? For my wings?”

“And a new staff!"

Atar lifted it up, displaying the four-pointed star worked into the top of the bronze staff. His white flame flickered across it, pouring from his palm as it filled in the grooves across its entire surface. "Oh, this will do!"

He thrust it forward. Stars of the Sovereign whirled outward from the tip of the staff and into the enemy more than two hundred yards away. They were melted in place, the heat too terrible for Beef to imagine.

yes. Flame all but purred. it is acceptable.

"Here!" Atar picked up two more items and hurled them off the walls, inward toward the impromptu inner bailey. They were caught by a nimble glove and a fist the size of Beef's head.

Vess and Gabby looked at each other and then the weapons. "A spear!" The general moved with it, and the bronze flexed almost fluidly. "Yet something else, too. A curious gift.”

“A hilt?" Gabby held up a handle and wide, intricately carved hilt, confusion writ large across her features.

The wall exploded.

Beef nearly fell from the battlements, and dozens of Legionnaires did as the chitin wrenched inward. Wards failed, breaking into shards of incandescent Mana as godslaves rushed through the breach. Vessels led them, clad in blood and force armor.

Beef sent his Will streaming through his Risen, but Gabby was faster. She blurred, her hands thrumming with gathered gold. “Brightblade Crescendo!”

The hilt ignited, pushing golden Mana through it and into a blade of blinding brilliance. The godslaves fell back from the light alone, leaving only the Vessels to leap into battle. Gabby cut the bloody one in half, her blade boiling it into screams and steam. It died instantly.

Vess' new spear, meanwhile, punched into the other Vessel. Its force armor shattered, followed swiftly by its mutated chest. The weapon’s head was a Dragon’s maw, and its teeth chewed through the Vessel’s Body like a silent chainsaw, leaving little behind to keep the creature standing. With a flick of her wrist, the spear retracted across more than a dozen feet in an instant, slithering back into Vess’ grip as fluidly as a serpent.

Vess and Gabby shared a single look before they bound forward, cutting through the godslaves and pushing them all back toward the breach.

“Entropic Paradigm!” Beef’s Skill shaped over the hole the moment Vess’ heel left the area. It thickened, all the death in the area fueling the Skill, and Beef added a few deadly spikes for good measure. “Laur!”

“It is in progress!” The Elf Chanter wasn’t lying. Already, he and the other mages were slipping prismatic facets over the edge of their fortifications.

Archie glanced into the Chest and made a disappointed sound. “Looks like there’s nothing for us.”

Beef hefted Bedlam. "Not that we need it."

"Wouldn't mind it." Archie flung his Echoblade, and the weapon sent copies of itself shearing through an enemy's neck.

“INVADERS!”

Beef staggered beneath the force of Felix’s shout. He couldn’t see the man at present, but the visceral texture of his voice was almost physical. For a moment, the blood rain stopped entirely, blasted away by the sheer force of his indignation.

"Felix sounds pissed,” Archie grinned.

"Let's go get some kills in before the Emperor takes them all." The Minotaur charged, Bedlam in hand. "I've got Points to earn."