Unbound

Gabby lunged wordlessly for Marzul, her Brightblade carving a line through the night.

She missed.

The woman grinned, saying nothing as she was yanked by bright electric tethers up into the sky and into the twisted hands of the metallic blue Twins. Gabby cursed, but a wave of noise drowned out her voice and everything else. Nothing she'd ever heard could have prepared her for the cacophony of it. It crashed into her, driving her vision into a pinprick tunnel of black, her Mind nearly shutting down beneath its onslaught.

She staggered, surrounded by Legionnaires that collapsed to the ground. Passed out or dead, she wasn't sure. Their eyes and ears were bleeding.

Gabby forced herself through it, by sheer dint of Will. She stared upward into the rift. Above it, the skies burned and boiled black as things stepped into the horizon, arcing out of the rift, but still somehow contained within it.

They filled up the skyline with their monstrous forms, too large to be allowed. One was a bent, tall creature, sickly frail and covered in blooming mushrooms and weeping sores. Forged entirely of angles, it was clad in flesh that resembled nothing so much as stained and pitted bronze. A face beyond human proportions sneered at them all, and eyes of vile yellow gleamed beneath the bronze moon. Yyero, the god of Rot and Decay.

Astrid the whipping winds was a burning woman. Double hundred arms stretched from her shoulders and sides, each fading in and out of reality by unpredictable turns, and all of them bent in ways no normal joints should allow. Her face was a mask of blood, cowled by storm clouds wreathed in lightning that poured down her shoulders like a cloak. Vellus, goddess of the Bloodstorm.

The last figure was two creatures bound into one flesh, their skin a metallic hue, and their eyes blazing like dual suns. The Twins leaned free of the rift, far larger than the other gods, their chest alight with not one, but many points of radiance.

“B-bastards,” Gabby hissed.

The Twins gestured, and a wave of force hurled Gabby back to the earth, along with Vess and Yin and all the others that had managed to keep their feet.

Marzul sat in their palm, whole and unharmed. She cackled as she peered at Gabby far below. Brothers, Sisters, My Thanks! You Have Chosen Well.

Be Silent, Yyero hissed. You Do Not Have The Right To Speak.

Gabby was in pain, but that didn’t stop her from appreciating the look of fury on Marzul's bloodied face. Wait. Chains…

Faint manacles coated the limbs of the gods, along with long links that stretched into the sky. They were cracked, but still fully there.

They’re not yet free?

Did they have a chance?

You Have Stolen From Us, the mask of blood said. It shifted, revealing a form beneath its cloak of lightning. It was nightmarish, and Gabby choked on the blood that crawled its way up her throat.

Stolen From Me! Lightning tore at Marzul without warning. The woman screamed as pieces of the night were torn free of her flesh.

Killer Of Noctis! She Was Mine!

Vellus’ voice was deeper than thunder. The timbre of guttural pain and horror it held outmatched the agony she pulled from Marzul's lips. A fistful of blood tore into the would-be goddess and yanked out the dark core from her chest.

Marzul screamed, but her voice had gone beyond hearing. It was a silence that stretched endlessly as shadow and frost burned beneath Vellus’ blood. All at once, the conjoined hands of the Twins flipped, dumping Marzul from its embrace.

She crashed with a dull, distant thud into the earth far below.

Gabby craned her neck, trying to see if the fall killed the monster, but she couldn’t tell. The earth was frozen and mounded in heaps, blocking her view. Above, Vellus keened, her fading hands cradling the small core of shadow like a baby.

Give It Here, Sister, the Twins urged.

It Is Mine. She clung to it, her veil of blood bathing across its deep umbra.

It Belongs To None But Divinity Itself.

Vellus pulled away from their siblings, but the metallic limbs of the Twins were too fast. With a wrench that sizzled and cracked like metal and hammers, they snatched the core free from the blood god. Vellus wailed, and rain fell upon them all.

Gabby jolted, unmasked disgust across her Spirit. The rain was hot and tasted of copper. Blood.

She forced herself to her knees, leveraging her Brightblade against the earth as she tried and failed to find her feet. The pressure from the three gods, even still chained, was too much.

The Twins held up the shadowy core of Noctis along with two others. Cores of silver and gold.

Siva and the Pathless, Gabby realized.

The Twins rose, lifting a hand into the air, and all three cores gathered close, setting the world ablaze. Night and day spun wildly in the air, while shimmering threads flexed like striking serpents. A cresting wave of silver impacted and exploded against the distant earth. The Corrupted and Ironclads alike were bound and lifted, rolled amid the flurries of noon’s nadir.

Rise, Ye Faithful! Rise To Serve Your True Masters. Let The Content Of Your Souls Sing To Our Threnodies. The Song Of Might Seeks New Vessels! Stand!

The Dwarves, dead or alive, gave ear-rending screams, the triple swirl of Mana clinging to their flesh until they stood once more on the ground. Thousands of ranks, swollen in size and mutated in appearance, stood at rigid attention. They were commanded by nothing more than the silver threads of tarnished Oaths and the potent command of the Twins' voice. Even the Ironclads gave no hint of a fight.

Dear god. Gabby fought all the harder to stand. Get up. Get up!

As one, three Dwarves called out a wordless affirmation, as their Wills were subsumed, and three different powers flooded the field.

Metallic blue, sickly bronze, and burning crimson hit like ribbons of noxious gas. Dwarves choked and shook, their changed flesh transforming yet again. Three specific Bodies malformed and twisted, doubling in size as blue force armor sheathed the first, a bloody cloak clad the second, and a dire cloud surrounded the last.

Before they finished, however, the rank and file buckled and howled. Godslaves rose among them, twisted hulks clad in armor of force Mana, rot and plague-drenched rats and corpses lifted amongst fields of fungus. Others, the spilled blood itself, rose up into twisted impressions of mortal flesh, lightning curdled through their limbs.

“Ride forth, denizens of split Divinity!” one of the Dwarven Vessels shouted, its voice thick as clotted blood. “Ride forth and—!”

Its head exploded, split by a heavy silver axe. Its voice screeched away along with its power as it crawled back up into the rift. At the same time, a wave of relief hit them all, as if a knife cut through the thick tension of Divine Spirit. It fell from their backs, somehow, and Gabby pulled in her first easy breath in minutes.

"Don't just stand there," Harn shouted, hefting his second axe. His voice trembled with more than sound. "Fight back!"

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Chaos broke free. Legionnaires launched their Skills as Harn charged into the line of the changed Dwarves and godslaves. Frost Giants cut through their ranks just as before, though their blows met the strength and hide of new, mightier foes. But few things could withstand a rampaging horde of icy goliaths. Godslaves were flung back, perhaps not dead, but the line broke…opening up room for others.

Evie ran out, slashing through the godslaves before her, killing them with her chains as they tried to crowd around her. “Core Manifestation: Devils of the White Waste!”

Frost exploded from around her, forming up into jagged creatures made of ice that sprawled through the battle. At least thirty of them leapt upon the Dwarves, driving their dagger-like fingers into eyes and necks. Empowered enemies died by the dozen, and all the while Evie advanced, her chains whirling in a deadly dance.

Others were close behind, with chitinous Risen backed by a sword-wielding Lizard and two flying women. Godslaves broke apart and died faster and faster as the Unbound opened up their ranks and exposed them to the rank and file Legion.

Explosions shook the jungle as Gabby finally started moving.

Her Brightblade cut through the advancing horde, slashing apart the bloody homunculi into boiling smears and sending the Plaguerats scattering. Her slash was far less effective against the heavy force Mana armor of the Ettins—two-headed godslaves bearing their own brutal hammers and clubs. They swung at Gabby, forcing her to weave between their strikes. The other Legionnaires were not so lucky. At least three splatted against the ground, and four others were snatched up into the Ettin’s enormous hand, held aloft over one of their yawning maws.

“Hey, ugly!” Gabby shifted her Brightblade, turning it into a mace. “Eat this.”

She swung. The flanged edge of golden light crashed into the Ettin’s gut. The force armor didn’t break—but that wasn’t the point. Gabby heaved with all her Strength and lifted the twelve-foot-tall Ettin straight up into the air. It roared in surprise, its grip slackening around the Legionnaires, and Gabby moved.

Brightblade sharpened. Lengthened. A razor-edged halberd flicked outward, lopping the godslave’s hand at the wrist. The Legionnaires fell, fingers chopped free by their Skills.

“Go!” she said, Brightblade already changing. The soldiers ran back to their company. “Now for you.”

She pivoted toward the Ettin. Both of their heads were maddened, their fanged jaws slavering and eyes all but vibrating. It charged her, and Gabby met it with a planted pike. It slammed itself straight into it, trusting its Divine armor. The fool.

Her pike struck the plate she’d cracked and shattered it.

The Ettin screamed as it impaled itself, refusing to stop reaching for Gabby. Until it did, going limp and bloody.

You Have Killed An Ettin, Godslave Of The Twins!

XP Earned!

“I get it now.” She flared her Will, and the weapon shifted into a heavy mace again. This time, it was five feet long and studded with heavy spikes. The Ettins were close, and they were the biggest threat to the Legion. "You all trust your armor too much. Let me teach you why!”

She swung her mace, shattering force Mana with every blow. Ettins, blood clones, and Plaguerats tried and failed to stymie her momentum, but her attacks looped into a continuous pattern that crested like a gathering wave. The Legionnaires followed, their Skills breaking the monstrosities that tried to get around the Titan’s mighty reach.

Gabby lost time. The godslaves rose in waves, summoned by the ceaseless power of the gods that hung out of the rift. No matter how many died, more rose up from the morass of sickly, bloody force that clung to the earth like an oil spill. Other powers supported the Legion, though. Time and again, where it seemed the fighting was most insane, crimson and gold flashed among the soldiers. It coated them in a brief shielding, or perhaps enhanced a single strike—enough to flip a losing fight to a winning one. Gabby hadn’t a clue where it was coming from, but she didn’t care—she’d accept the help from anyone, if it meant taking down the gods.

The task was insurmountable.

While it was clear that the chains still held the Divine, and they couldn’t exert their direct Will on the world, that seemed to matter less and less as the fight went on. The power they poured into the enemy was beyond anything she’d seen before. For every one she killed, five more rose up, their corpses puppeted by rot or their blood turned into a new, unpredictable foe.

Ondine soared around the battlefield, her Chimera at her side, unleashing her potent Core Manifestation. Godslaves, Dwarves, Elementals, and Vessels alike fell into the abyss as she banished them in great swaths.

Beef and his Risen had run to the foreground. Every single one of his necromantic creatures engaged with the enemy. They, at least, were impervious to the touch of rot, and they bore no blood. Chitin burst from the ground, forming walls and fortifications to protect the Legion’s flanks that he then populated with his undying army. The earth exploded and fell away as Wendell broke open the ground in eerily precise bursts. Between one blast and the next, Gabby found herself standing at the edge of an impromptu fortress. The Chimera and Dragoons dominated the sky, their Spears and Skills raining down upon the enemy like deadly hail.

The enemy was undaunted. Gabby was uncertain they felt anything anymore. They beat at the walls until their limbs turned bloody and piled atop one another to clamber over the chitin fortifications. Gabby met all she could, her weapon an unceasing blur as it obliterated anything that dared stick its claws over the edge.

Soon she fell into the rhythm of it—the death of godslaves and constructs alike pinged her notifications, even as the crunch of bone shook through wrist and elbow. Her feet slammed the earth, her mace crushing plates of force and splattering blood and rot across the sky. It was a sick counterpart to the System’s distant music, but she’d never been good at listening to that—which was why she questioned her sanity when the chanting started.

The Chanters stepped out of the inner parts of the army, robes glowing as Skills chained together through their palms, elbows, and throats. Skills merged and spun, burning the air as they launched out into the enemy, lifted by their strident voices. And not just attacks, either. Buffs rippled out of them like pebbles in a still pond.

The Legionnaires grew more fierce, encouraged by the ineffable Chant until their standard Skills tore into the enemy with alarming strength. Gabby felt the music surge inside of her, too, echoing off of a piece she'd felt before but could only describe as a strand of non-physical thread, thick as a building. It extended off into the distance toward her brother. Bonds of Fellowship, he'd called them. The song rattled through her, widening it by the smallest amounts as she felt new strength filter through her limbs.

For the Legionnaires, however, it was far more dramatic. The army pressed against the battlements, their eyes burning blue as they fought back the Vessels and godslaves of the enemy. Many among them wore armor, but the limbs that Gabby could see had crackled, covered now in midnight scales. Their fingers were tipped by claws, and some even burned with red-gold fire as their Skills burst with newfound power.

It felt eerily similar to the power from before, when the Legion had cast off the Divine’s Spiritual pressure. Different, but fundamentally the same.

Shields slipped across the battlements, led by Laur, the Elven Chanter, who wove impressive wards around their army. Alister and a dozen other mages backed the Elf, expanding the effort until they were vast enough to guard every side of the battlefield at once. Gabby could almost see the song enter that as well, a piece of the chant and, somehow, a portion of Felix's strength.

What is this?

She didn't have time for questions, but it nagged at her Mind as she tore into the godslaves and those Vessels that drew too close to her wrath. They died harder than the others, but they perished just the same. Not for long, however. More were constantly chosen from among the Dwarves, selected by sinister waves of Divine power that elevated and mutated whatever it touched.

The godslaves gorged themselves on the dead on both sides, swelling with Essence as they raged, driven by unmistakable bloodlust. All the while, above them, the gods watched. Gabby saw them, the Twins tweaking those cores of the other gods that gleamed at their side. In their light, they highlighted the chains that still held them.

Yet even as she watched, the Twins lifted the cores and pushed outward. Their dual voice shook as they spoke, as if this were a great effort, even for the Divine.

Instead of words, however, thunder rolled, and clouds misted into existence around the rift. The Twins’ two mouths moved, but the sound was too much to hear. She felt it as an ache in her bones and a skip in her heartbeat, but there was no meaning she could apply.

They gestured. All three cores slipped free of metallic blue flesh and floated away. The pieces of Divinity were sent spiraling through the rift toward the strange, empty landscape that stretched behind them.

The ground shook as a figure moved, barely seen behind the shapes of the massive gods. Gabby caught a glimpse of something as vast as the divinities themselves. It was a nightmarish form that stabbed at her mind, refusing to make sense. The cores vanished.

Error!

The Compact Cannot Hold.

Error!

Primordial Cores Returned.

Error!

Significance Is Not Recognized!

Brother! the Twins cried out, a voice of male and female wound together. Aid Us One More Time! Break The Hold Of The Empyreans! Complete Your Quest!

The skies boiled, and through the charred blackness, the Ruin comet throbbed, releasing an endless starlit purple from above. It seared into the rift, striking directly at the moons and the chains that held them.

With a stentorian crash, the chains finally snapped.

A wave of pressure ripped outward from the rift, shattering the chitinous walls and the wards that held it up. Gabby was hurled backward, along with thousands of others.

The rift widened.

The sky boiled overhead as the Ruin lowered enough to cast purple-black flame across half the sky. Then, the gods stepped through.

Chains crashed to the earth, each link as big as a skyscraper that sank into the soft jungle loam. The gods spread, now truly dominating the horizon. They filled the sky as if each one were a piece of the heavens themselves.

Free! the Twins intoned, and the sound was like a struck bell.

Yyero laughed, and the sky wept blood.