Unbound

“INVADERS!”

Felix stood beneath the bloody sky, feeling the weight of the Crown against his brow and the Chalice in his chest. His voice shook the earth louder than anything, sweeping away the bloodstorm.

His Authority resounded. This was Felix's empire.

This was home.

"This Empire Is Mine! Empyrean Embrace!"

His hunger reached across the battlefield, seizing all that was his. The charred air, torn earth, and the fallen trees—all fell under his purview, but he had no interest in them. Instead, he claimed those who dared to tread upon his soil. Dwarves and constructs. Corrupted and godslaves. Vessels that crackled with blood, force, and rot.

He seized them all.

Ephemeral teeth slammed shut across the jungles, and in an instant, tens of thousands were rendered into towers of fading smoke. The Beast roared in triumph. Power poured through Felix, obscuring even the gods from his sight as his radiance and greasy smoke poured into his unhinged maw.

The Boy Has Come, Yyero spat from the east. A globule of acid hit the earth, flooding the jungle where his Plaguerats once stood. An entire hill dissolved. And He Has Brought Toys.

Toys? The Twins jerked their heads up, pulling their hands back from the moons they had been dissolving. Their lips curled back as one. He Bears The Regalia! Kill Him!

With a growl of thunder, Vellus rushed forward, hands extended into claws, and Yyero was close behind. Despite their vast size, they cut across the distance as if it never existed. They were Divine, and they were free.

Felix wasn't done.

Within the maelstrom of potency he’d stolen from the enemy, he shaped its direction. It funneled through his Divine Tree, past his cores and Skills—directly into the Exalted Bell.

Cooldown Bypassed!

Significance Metric Exceeded!

The Exalted Bell Is Ready To Bind.

The Crescian Bronze and obsidian materials ignited in his left hand, filled to the brim with tens of thousands of lives. It vibrated between his fingers, drawing blood from his scales and nearly leaping from his grip as a shrill note turned the air brittle.

Do You Wish To Bind The Exalted Bell To Your Spirit?

Y/N

"Yes!"

Felix and the bell burst with light as the brittle note turned into something far warmer. A cascade of Harmony rang out from him in three separate tones—alien noises, too loud to make sense, yet ones Felix knew intimately. The tones were layered with half-heard melodies, each one intermingling with the others. They shook at him, thrumming through Felix’s Aspects as if he’d been struck on the chin.

Mind, Body, and Spirit.

Crown, Chalice, and Bell.

A concussive blast peeled away from Felix, spreading outward in a corona of indelible harmony.

Nevarre! Vellus bellowed as the Bell rang out, its bond finalized. That corona hurled her and Yyero back into the distance.

The Empyrean Regalia Is Complete!

You Have Bonded All Three Pieces Of The Empyrean Regalia!

Name: Exalted Bell

Type: Empyrean Regalia (Enchanted)

Lore: Carried from a distant Realm, the Exalted Bell is older than the Continent it stands upon. Carved from the willing gift of two denizens of crushing depths, it carries within it the power they bore through their Spirits. Creation and Destruction, the Bell rings for both.

Etrionn’s Grace XX – Harmony thunders within you, its strains are clearer to you than ever before. All Harmonic Stats are boosted by 100%

Obsidian Tumult’s Enmity XX – Dissonance scratches through

Confluence Of Fated Kin XX – Harmony and Dissonance have found root at your core. The Bell rings with it, singing of what lies within you. Let all hear it and remember.

The Call Of The Emperor - In times of desperate need, the Bearer can access the wisdom of the ancients imbued in the Regalia to answer a single query. Warning, their wisdom is great, but their aid is limited. Cooldown: 10 Years.

Empyrean Regalia Set Piece – 3 of 3 – Effects will accrue when two and three set pieces are bound to your Aspects.

Set Effect 1 – Vital Aegis

Set Effect 2 – Authority’s Consequence

Felix blinked back the notification and the blinding radiance that accompanied it. The gods had been cast back, and the enemy was devoured, but the threat was not even close to being ended.

The Dwarves were dead, but Godslaves still swarmed, populated by the ceaseless flow of Divine power—likewise, Vessels sprouted up from among them, three of the chosen beasts given even greater potency.

Worst of all, powerful Elementals strode toward his allies and hurled their varied powers against the creaking fortress. They were all the stronger now that they didn’t have to fight for space among the horde, and they sped through the godslaves to assault the sparking wards and chitin walls. No matter what gifts he’d had Pit drop off, the Legion wouldn’t be able to stop them all.

Already the barriers started to shred apart, and though the Skills of the Legion and Unbound alike fell on the enemy, they were being overwhelmed.

The wards broke. The walls fell.

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

"No.”

Set Effect 1 – Vital Aegis – Activated!

Vital Aegis - Empower the Bonds of flesh. You have become a living conduit of protection for all who follow under your banner. For a limited time, you may choose to take on the wounds of those within the same Territory as yourself, suffering the consequences that directly impact their Bodies in their place.

The monsters hit the first line of defense upon those chitinous ramparts, tearing into the Legionnaires—and were driven back. Sword, club, fist, and magic tore into their underbellies, and his soldiers held fast. Power poured from Felix, a Bond that thickened by the moment, as deadly wounds transferred from Legionnaires to his own durable flesh. Downed soldiers climbed back to their feet, their wounds healing almost before they were made.

“We’re immortal…?” The sourceless words caught fire among the Legion, a hearty cheer that rippled through their Spirits. “Press them back!”

The godslaves were burned and broken, hurled backward, but they were not ended. The Elementals were coming, and the Vessels were at their backs.

Harn stepped forward, his voice unmistakable even from this distance. "Ain’t immortal, just hard to kill!”

“Hail the Fiend!" The cry was taken up by thousands of mouths, louder than thunder.

"Yeah, yeah," Harn bellowed over them. "Just kill the bastards quicker than they can get up!”

The Legion charged forward, flush with newfound power, and Felix watched them all from the sky, his might draining away in a thousand streams.

Yet hope was undeniable.

Every time he caught the bright eyes of his people glowing blue-white in the distance, he felt a surge of power. The streams may have fled from him, but they always returned, tiny pieces of themselves flowing back to him. Power he could use.

Godslayer! Vellus screeched. Fiend!

She had gotten back up. Her face was a mask of blood that gave no hint to her expression, but Felix could easily imagine it. Her Spirit was twisted with wrath, despair, and a caustic madness that ate away at his attention. Blood and lightning followed in her wake as her countless arms reached for him, each hand the size of a town.

Sonata of Dominance!

Astrum Ascendance!

Sovereign of Flesh!

He seized her elemental Mana, laying claim to the blood around her—but it was like trying to wrestle the ocean. Her Authority rebuffed his own, and the burning blood seared toward his flesh like blades of boiling crimson. Felix fled on streamers of wind, and lightning chased after him, hurled from the mantle Vellus wore.

Sonata of Dominance!

The lightning did not listen. His Authority bounced off of it, and twice the forked tongue of its blue-white fury scorched him. His Sonata could not touch it, and realization hit him harder than the bolts. Much like Siva's silver threads, the lightning that Vellus employed was not true electricity. They were Bonds—and Bonds were his.

Adamant Discord!

Vellus' cloak turned against her, a blue-white garment that skewered through the goddess. She fell back again, injured as blood boiled and burnt beneath the Bonds and their lightning. Vellus tumbled from the sky, cast into a mountainside with a mighty crash that sundered Felix’s eardrums. He watched, silently, as pieces of her wept across the landscape in bloody rivers.

"Felix!" A winged figure down below darted amongst new flying foes, a woman he would recognize anywhere. Vess darted about, her new sinuous spear stabbing through enemy after enemy, and his heart swelled. "They have the Divine cores! Noctis, Siva, and the Pathlesses!"

Felix jolted. "Where?"

"The rift!"

He whirled toward the gods. Vellus was fallen and slowly recuperating, and Yyero was nowhere to be seen, but the Twins had not moved. They clung to the rift, hands lifted into the sky as their two moons dissolved into their grasp. They blocked the rift with their wide, conjoined body—enough that Felix couldn’t make out any trace of Divine cores.

You Leave My Sister Alone To Rise Again? gurgled a slick voice in his ear. It drove gooseflesh across his neck and back, and Felix curled his lip. How Arrogant.

Yyero appeared before Felix, a vast being of angles and pustules that fixed him with a bright, gimlet eye. Do You Think Yourself Our Match?

With a gesture, godslaves appeared around him, flying monstrosities woven out of corrupted flesh and overripe fungus. They soared into Felix, hundreds of tentacles and claws reaching for his scales. He rebuffed them all, igniting the air around him into a tornado of red-gold flame. Their forms desiccated, limbs charred and severed by fire and his own talons—but they were only a distraction.

A screech and roar were the only warnings as his flames were snuffed out. An elephantine rat covered in tangled tails, pustule-laden skulls, and fetid wings slashed at him. Felix twisted, Adamant Discord hauling him through the creature’s first attack and directly into the path of the other foe.

A winged lion riddled with rotted fungus crashed into him, teeth wrapping around Felix’s entire torso.

Felix drove his talons between the lion’s jaws and wrenched. Teeth broke against his scales, and bone snapped as he tore its jaw clean off—before he used it to drive through the lion’s throat.

You Have Killed An Elevated Echo Of Yyero!

XP Earned!

The lion fell, wings limp, and the massive rat took its place. Its tail spun, all but invisible as it whipped toward his face.

Felix caught it. Adamant Discord!

He hauled it in, driving his left fist through the rat’s bloated chest. It exploded.

You Have Killed An Elevated Echo Of Yyero!

XP Earned!

Godslaves filled the void, but Felix refused to be stopped. He drilled a beeline through them all, breaking their corrupted flesh with startling ease. Beyond them, Yyero waited, his severe face bent into something resembling alarm.

Felix threw a powerful jab, limb ballooning with Sovereign of Flesh. Yyero blocked it, his bronze arm twisting aside as pustules burst against Felix's midnight scales, pattering against him, sizzling away most of his Garment all at once.

The god of rot slipped back, out of range.

Quite Strong, Yyero said with an annoyed grunt. But Not Enough. You Are Too Late!

Yyero reached up, and the dissolution of his moon sped up. In moments, little more than a ragged crescent remained in the sky.

WARNING!

Ouranic Law Is Flouted!

Restrictions Engaging!

Silence, You Impotent Tool, the Twins howled, eyes still fixed on Ruin above. We Will Not Be Bound By You Any Longer. The Compact Is Void!

The Twins gestured, and Yyero and Vellus’ inchoate remains copied the movement. A spike of Divine power cut through the eternal twilight…and the sky burned. Purple-black flame spread across the vault of the heavens, rolling back as clouds were bisected in a rapidly spreading ripple. Ruin’s comet cut through the charred sky, and it spread outward into a nightmarish halo, engulfing the four moons that hung far too close.

ERROR!

Ouranic Law Is Breaking!

The Ruin Sunders All.

Felix blurred backward, barely avoiding Yyero's savage strike. He was fast. Bolstered by the Regalia, he felt almost too powerful. But the God of Rot was right. He couldn't stop the Divine. Not like this.

He looked up and couldn't help the wave of despair as the Ruin drew closer.

You have Taken A Half-Step Into Our Realm, Yyero hissed through a curled lip.His head was crowned by the thin remains of his moon, now little more than a sliver. Close To Us, But Still So Far Away.

The moon dissolved entirely, and the bronze god thrummed with sudden might.

In a blur, Yyero was on him.