Unbound

The corpse met Felix's gaze, its eyes shining through the unnumbered folds of its ragged flesh. The skull beneath it turned slowly, like a solid core beneath translucent jelly. A mindless heat pressed against Felix’s Aspects, as if he stood before a bonfire the size of the sun. There was no burning, no blistering or char, only an intensity that stood somewhere beyond white-hot agony.

The corpse of Veridaan loosed a breath, and like a great deflating balloon, it vanished into a burning river of cloying smoke. It plowed forward, crashing against the Twins—through them—and seared apart its metallic flesh.

No! THIEVES—!

DO NOT SAY SUCH THINGS TO US! the Beast thundered.

The river of liquid smoke broke free.

The once-dual god gagged, its shouts choked off by the burning flow, and its savaged neck split apart beneath the river’s advent. It drove the Twins down into the earth with detonating force.

Then it hit Felix.

The air howled as it funneled into his open maw. It shook his Mind, casting it into disarray and crushing his Spirit aside as if to make room in his stalwart Body. The river, unrelenting, drove into his core space. A riot of power surged through every pathway, all at once, as if he were trying to drink the ocean in a dozen gulps.

Tidal forces locked him in place there in the sky, and as the Twins fell, he was subsumed by the pounding, smoky surf.

The power surged endlessly, a torrent that never stopped, even as it filled his core space. Essence, Mana, and significance streamed across his Divine Tree, its crooked branches filling with captured light—like a thousand nebulae seized between skeletal fingers. Three motes of incandescence dropped among them, each as different as the next, and set his Tree ablaze. Foliage bloomed, ignited with surrendered potency, brilliant enough to rival the wheeling galaxies across countless skies.

The Divine Cores…!

Felix shook, his Body quaking at a fundamental level. Blood poured from somewhere distant, warm and wet upon his flesh—but he couldn’t spare any attention for it. Sovereign of Flesh roused despite it all, kicked into gear by instinct and long use, and pieces of claimed Essence vanished into its pattern. It was only a drop in the ocean that coursed through him, gushing through channel and limb and beyond.

Felix crashed. It knocked his awareness free of his center, bringing him back to his Body so completely his eyes bulged, and his breath scattered to the winds. The jungle floor was around him, cratered now into a deep pit of split roots, scattered loam, and cracked stone. He tried to move, only to discover that his arms had snapped again, and his ankles had burst like grapes beneath his descent. Sovereign of Flesh was already working on them, drinking deep from the well of Essence.

He was alive. That would be enough for now.

Felix gave up his pain and attention on the outer world and turned inward. Pressure increased there beyond his ability to imagine and kept climbing. The deluge of power from the corpse of Veridaan still had not ceased, and it filled him to bursting. His Skills were off-kilter, the orbits of his planets thrown into disarray, several colliding painfully, all of them shaken to their cores. The influx of Primordial power ran riot through them all.

Worst of all, a conflagration had taken hold. Not one, but all three Divine cores sparked a wildfire at the base of his Divine Tree. Roots burned, their opalescent facets melting beneath the force of combined Divinity. His Named Cores ground each other down into an endless shower of sparks that—

An explosion rocked him back, nearly throwing Felix’s Mind clear out of his core space. He held his ground, visualizing himself steady, but it was barely enough. The potency around him was alien, an invisible power that tore at his Will piece by piece. It had teeth sharp enough to rend his Aspects to shreds, and it clashed against the shield of Felix’s Intent. The Beast's amorphous form snatched up what it could, but even the spinning abyss was overwhelmed. The great dark disc shuddered, flooded with potency too great for it to digest.

I'm here!Convergence!

Pit appeared beside him with a triumphant caw. Just had to heal up!

Felix grinned. Good to see you, bud!

Together their Harmonic stats soared, stabilizing them both as his core space devolved into chaos. Fiendforge!

They joined their Wills and Intents, clamping hard against the Primordial potency. Felix’s Unique Skill held them fast…but it could do nothing for the nightmare unfolding within. The power swelled around them, engulfing the abyss’ dark disc and driving even the Beast to loose a harrowing cry. It was frustration incarnate—as the abyss was riven.

Pit squawked. Is that supposed to happen?

Cracks split across the dark. A pale light shone through, a colorless radiance that looked uncomfortably familiar. The ocean of darkness lifted, a wave that crested and kept on going, until the swirling abyss draped around a nameless shape. The cracks spread, and a drum beat sounded in the depths.

A heartbeat.

The abyss shattered, sundered by hands of purple-black, more solid and real than Felix's visualized form. They clawed up out of the ruptured abyss. Talons clutched onto his Divine Tree. They raked at the roots, breaking parts of them as eyes flashed within its palms.

Power flared, a pressure that more than matched the Primordial potency that hammered at Felix's every angle. Flame extinguished, and opalescent roots shattered as a head and shoulders emerged from the abyss. Each one was finely detailed with heavy muscles, midnight scales, and eyes that burned electric blue.

Felix’s eyes.

The Beast roared, and with a thunderous snap, the Divine Tree split in half.

Felix's Mind blanked out. Pit screamed something, but it was lost amid a tinny Dissonance. A high tone stretched ever higher as a pale radiance overcame his vision.

FELIX!

He returned to himself, held now by the furred arms of his Companion. The Tree still screeched a horrible, terrible Dissonance that reverberated through the root boundaries, his Skills, and down through the empty air that once was the abyss. Below, the sound of stone, crystal, and deep roots shearing in twain echoed through his Pillars, and Felix felt it as a pang in the deepest parts of his Aspects.

The Beast climbed up the remains of the Divine Tree, talons digging furrows into its faceted bark as he ascended toward the three glittering fruit that had settled in its branches.

The cores!

All but wordless and witless, only Pit's presence kept Felix from flinging in all directions. Their Convergence gave them an edge to hold on to, even if it was only by their fingertips.

Together! Pit cried. Half-Core Manifestation!

Felix finished it. S-stormwrought Strings!

Bonds flared, searing the Beast and hurling it off the Divine Tree. It roared, a wordless affront, but it lost its grip and crashed into the curved lattice roots, deforming their opalescent net and setting a deeper pang of damage through Felix’s Aspects.

He gritted his teeth. His Manifestation was not done.

Blue-white cables struck the trunk, wrapping it close below and above Felix's Named cores. It strained against him, but Felix and Pit, together, held on. The song of it went wild, a death knell that couldn't reach its climax. It prolonged, chords straining against credulity.

Felix seized it. Pit's four wings emerged from his shoulders, thrusting forward in tandem with his fingers. Bonds unfurled from all of them, lashing across root, the Divine Cores, and the fallen Beast itself.

The song spread like wildfire. Dissonance. Harmony. All of it formed into an incomprehensible mess that bashed at their consciousness in relentless tides. A nonsense melody plucked relentlessly at his thoughts, as if eager to whisper secrets.

Joined together, Felix and Pit’s Affinity leaned close and listened.

There was chaos belayed in the hidden, a pattern emerging amid the cacophony. There, Felix tracked the strings of his Half-Core Manifestation. They spread everywhere now, threading through his Skills and through every branch, root, and lattice of the Divine Tree. It rippled against the song, the Bonds between him and the mad melodies growing thicker by the second.

New Title!

Conductor Of The Incomplete Heart (Legendary)!

You have leashed the mad half-patterns of an ancient tune, one sung before the world was spun out of the primal forces. Dissonance and Harmony are only a part of its wild strains. It is not tamed. Such a thing could never by broken by rule and law. But it sits beside you.

Hungry.

Waiting.

His core space calmed, though the raging tide of Primordial and Divine potency did not. It filled him, pushing beyond the edges of his core space and stretching into the endless dark.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

As if beckoned.

A faint, nearly imperceptible music, so different from the wild refrains, drifted out of the endless black. It was strong and steady, almost rigid in its rhythms, as if a pointed counter to the madness of power in Felix. It was familiar. Drums, cymbals, a swell of strings and brass all accompanied by an ancient sigaldry the likes of which Felix had only seen once.

The Compact. It was trying to steal the overflow.

No. Felix stretched his Will outward. That is not for you!

Beside him, a Skill glowed brighter than before. Working all this time, its pattern had started to carve strange shapes into the air around it, like light trails filled with multi-hued liquid. Now those trails intensified, filling with blue-white lightning and red-gold flame.

Fiendforge ignited.

Fiendforge is level 144!

…

Fiendforge is level 148!

His Will clamped against the escaping potency, his core space clutching the latticework roots close. Lightning burning from the strings still tangled among their limbs, Felix and Pit held the Skill together, pulling inward until their ears popped. His Stormwrought Strings flickered, the Bonds he held growing stronger all at once as they lashed outward into the potency. Fiendforge pressed inward, intensifying the stew of Primordial and Divine by sheer compression—and the continuous addition that still poured into Felix’s maw.

Felix, we can’t hold it like this forever. Pit writhed, his wings trembling with the effort of holding the Strings and Fiendforge together. What do we do?

I don’t—Felix licked his lips. Look!

Above, still cradled in the branches of his Divine Tree, the stolen fruit of the gods unfurled. Sun, shadow, and silver stripped, layer by layer, until something else emerged. Hands, wide and bearing too many fingers, climbed outward. They spread, expanding outward at rapid speed to drive through the thick boughs of his Tree and outward, into the borders of his core space. The force of their blows drove breath from Felix’s lungs and a burning ache through his visualized muscles.

Fiendforge is level 149!

Those hands stopped there, rigid as steel beams and composed of something equally metallic. His compressed latticework roots clung to them, condensing at their limits inch by inch until, by slow increments, potency ceased moving away from the core space. It shifted between him and Pit, folding back on itself as the pressure within redoubled, layering deeper upon his center until both of them ground their teeth simply to endure.

Scion! The Beast’s laugh echoed off his Skills. The creature clung near the tops of his ten Pillars, a scaled monstrosity of lithe limb and heavy shoulders. Its face was a mixture of a hound and a lizard, its mouth split open with fangs and an unmistakable grin. Bright blue eyes pierced him, clear now of any spot of madness. Finally, You Are Ready!

Unbidden, Felix's true eyes opened, and he found himself staring upward through toppled trees. Beyond, a purple-black sky bent the geometries of distance, and a flaming comet hurtled toward them all.

Between him and it, however, was a metallic blue nightmare. Their body was twisted with rot as the flesh of their dead sibling decayed rapidly, but the lone Twin was fixed on him. Grief and rage rioted from its unveiled Spirit.

FIEND! You Will Not Escape This Time!

The pressure of it eradicated…everything. Felix fell, but not for long. From every conceivable angle, pillars rose beneath him, hurling him into the dark sky—directly into the path of a dozen others. Silent flashes of azure careened in concert, hungry for his blood.

Death Descends!

Felix threw himself aside, only to be hemmed in by translucent force. His fists cracked into impenetrable power, splintering their faces—but not enough.

Yes. It Is Time. The Beast’s voice crooned through him, and time slowed to a sudden crawl.

Felix blinked. Beast?

The creature, fully hatched from the abyss, lowered its proud head. Farewell, Felix Navarre.

What the hell are you talking abou—?

The Beast exploded.

Nine arms unfurled from a confusing mass of scales and electric flame—arms suspiciously similar to the limbs that stretched out of the Divine cores. One by one, talons seized a Tempered Skill, and the abilities gave plaintive cries as their patterns forcefully activated.

Felix gagged and spasmed, unable to react between the frozen breaths the Beast had locked him within, yet able to feel all of it.

Midnight plates folded across the length of those arms, clamping onto his Skills one by one as blue-white lightning and red-gold flame filled the spaces between all the rest. His damaged Tree, Named cores, and Pillars all glowed with it, soaking within it. There was no pain, no pressure, just power.

I Yield Myself To Thee, Scion.

Empyrean Embrace!

Jaws snapped shut within Felix’s heart…and the Beast vanished.

His power did not. It folded inward, layering over the almost jellied power of the Primordial and Divine. Empyrean Embrace pulled the Beast apart…and deposited it back within Felix, a strange layering that he couldn’t begin to trace, but one which clung to his Divine Tree like a shroud.

Beneath it, the Tree changed, its luster somehow pushed beyond the supernatural. Branches twisted and grasped, stretching outward into blue-white filament so fine they vanished. His Skills revolved faster, the armor plating that once clung to their planetoid shapes now joining with them, adding to their speed until they blurred around his Named cores. Those spun as well, grinding against one another so ferociously that they blurred into one shape. Red-gold and blue-white shimmered toward a deep purple.

Through the clutches of his Fiendforge, Felix felt a shift. The planetoid between the Companions’ core spaces sang as it grew, its pattern expanding until it stretched the full distance between them. Scintillating energy skittered across and through his latticework roots and Fiendforge’s clutches, overlapping into Felix’s Skills by no more than a foot, and instantly he felt his Bond with Pit swell.

Exalted Conjunction is level 142!

…

Exalted Conjunction is level 149!

Thoughts flitted into his Mind, twinned with Pit’s own. He blinked, and so did Pit. They lifted their hand and paw, stretched their shoulders together, and the spark of ideas tumbled across one another like flint and steel. Fire bloomed. An idea—an understanding—and their tongues shaped noise from their throats as Wills in perfect sync shouted out. “Half-Core Manifestation: Stormwrought Strings!”

They swam within a sea of power, but Core Manifestations did not depend solely on Mana or Essence or even significance, and the pair had used this too much to have more than one shot. None of this was said or even thought—it passed through them, as innate as knowing how to breathe or pumping your own heart. The Bonds gathered to hand and paw, knotting in a sphere of compressed lightning that strived and failed to escape their Will.

Felix opened his eyes.

The Twins and the falling pillars moved as if they were underwater, far too slow. Felix reached out, and with his naked Intent, he seized a wide handful of Bonds that gathered around the god.

Not joints or nerves, this time Felix and Pit seized something deeper. A fundamental might that coursed through the center of the enraged Divinity. He pulled…and something more than lightning surged across their connection.

New potency riddled through the Bonds, flushing his Affinity with emotions more intense than anything Felix had ever experienced. Wrath and bloodlust, hunger and resentment, all of them scorched his channels as they flowed outward from the Twins. The Bonds stabbed at Felix, made weapons by foul Spirit, as time flung back into full speed.

DIE!

Pit screeched defiance, and a wing flung from Felix’s true back—Stormwrought Strings thrusting up to join the rest. “BREAK!”

The Bonds snapped, all at once.

The pillars vanished, lost amid the Twin’s broken bellow, and Pit’s single wing hurled Felix clear of what remained. Wind buffeted them, strong as a hurricane, and clouds split across the purple-black sky.

Adamant Discord blazed in Felix’s grip, even as the Half-Core Manifestation faded away entirely. He stopped, one wing extended in balance atop a wide Bond. The Companions watched the lone Twin fall backward, reeling as their power turned inward, ripping at their own flesh—their own soul.

“C’mon,” Felix whispered. The core in the Twin’s chest fluttered and burst into arcs of dissonant power. Metallic flesh bubbled and charred, the core shifting in their ribcage. “Adamant Discord!”

The god clutched at its chest, its eyes wide. Felix stomped, the Bond he stood upon connected directly to the Divine’s core—but it remained fixed. Stormwrought String’s strength was spent, and Felix hadn’t the power to focus Adamant Discord.

It was all he could do to keep it from Tempering.

Adamant Discord is level 150!

…

Adamant Discord is level 163!

Congratulations!

Paragon Tier!

Power rocked through Felix, pushing him toward a precipice…but Felix ground his fingers into the edge and held on. If he Tempered now, and it went the way of his Grandmaster Temper, he’d die. Everyone would die. Other notices flickered through him, each one a blade in his back, a weight dragging him off the cliff—but he refused to fall.

Not…now! Bloody and broken, the Temper halted.

Do Not Celebrate Yet! The Twin swung for him.

Adamant Discord is level 164!

…

Adamant Discord is level 170!

Adamant Discord pulled him aside, lightning escaping the titanic press of the lone god's fist to the earth. He saw them, the Bonds that had been hidden from him before. Concealed beneath metallic flesh, they burned like lines of ceaseless lightning. "God or not, you're no different than me.”

I Am More Than You Will Ever Be. More Than You Could Know Or Bear! The Twin’s body crackled, its hidden lightning filling Felix’s vision. You Will Never Understand What It Takes To Claim It. To Keep It.

“You’re right. We’re different.”

How? The Twin sneered with its last remaining mouth. Tell Me.

“You’re gonna die.”

The Grand Harmony bent as the Twin loosed a calamitous howl, half-dead hand closed instantly around Felix’s legs. The Fiend gave a startled shout of his own before he was hurled—not away, but toward the god. Their second fist rose up, a cliff falling toward him at breakneck speed.

Adamant Discord!

Felix poured all of his will into the Skill, his Intent shaped beyond the air. Through flesh and bone, to where the lightning coursed inside the god themself. His Will found purchase, and his Authority gleamed as he seized the Bonds wrapped tight around the nerves and joints.

Just like me!

He punched.

A tiny, scaled fist met knuckles the size of a city. Bonds flared, lightning crashed, and the Twin's dual arm snapped.

The impact rippled through the god's body, tearing up shoulder, spine, and hip as seized Bonds were yanked askew on tethers of lightning. A shudder shook through the earth. The force of the strike reverberated, through the Twin’s feet and crashing into the nearby mountains in an avalanche of stone.

The lone god fell back, grip lost on Felix. Ichor poured downward in rivers enough to choke a lake, and mighty lungs fought to fill.

You Cannot Kill Me, Nevarre, the lone god spat. I Am All That Holds The Ruin Back. Even Now.

A deep light limned the god’s head. Purple-black, it stretched upward into the sky.

Felix stood thousands of feet above, barely holding onto lightning as blood dripped from just about every part of himself. The mountain blurred in the distance. Undulating flesh, moving toward the god. Felix bared his teeth.

"I'll manage.”

You Impossible Child—!

From behind, the Whalemaw’s jaws snapped shut.