Unbound

Congratulations!

You Have Leveled Up 25 Times!

You Are Now Level 182!

+500 to STR! +550 to PER! +550 to VIT! +650 to END! +600 to INT! +700 to WIL! +650 to AGL! +725 to DEX!

+500 All Harmonic Stats!

You Have 375 Unused Stat Points!

Adamant Discord is level 172!

Sovereign of Flesh is level 156!

Unseen Beholder is level 151!

Stride of the King is level 155!

Empyrean Embrace is level 159!

Congratulations!

You Have Reached Paragon Tier In Multiple Skills!

You Gain—

The rush of power was undeniable, yet Felix clamped his Will against its onslaught, nonetheless. The Whalemaw chewed through the Twins a thousand feet below…and it was far too close for comfort.

He tried to pull back, to shift across the winds with his Sonata, but more notifications came through, each of them pummeling him like a jab in the jaw.

Vellus, Goddess Of The Bloodstorm Is Dead!

XP Earned!

Yyero, God Of Rot Is Dead!

XP Earned!

The Twins, Gods Of Justice And Mercy Are Dead!

XP Earned!

New Title!

To Trick The Divine (Legendary)!

You brought a whale to a god fight.

+500 WIL

+500 INT

+Increased Respect Of The Endless Raven

Slayer Of Divinities (Divine)!

You have killed not one, but four gods—and have earned the respect of the fallen across the echoing Ages. Your might is recognized, as is your fate.

+Increased Synergy With Primordial Skills

+Increased Synergy With Primordial Cores

+Increased Authority Over The Four

The Divine Have Fallen!

Let All Upon The Continent Hear This Cry!

Felix Nevarre, Emperor of the North, Has Killed The Gods!

Fear Him.

Felix eyed the last message. He wasn’t opposed to it—

A paroxysm of burning pressure redoubled inside of him. Holding himself from Tempering was difficult, but he managed to maintain his bloody grip on the edge.

Still…

All of my Tempered Skills haven’t reached Paragon yet? What’s it gonna take?

As much as he couldn’t afford the distraction of jumping through to Paragon—not in front of the Whalemaw—a part of him groaned at the sheer difficulty in reaching the next Tier.

One thing he could do, though, was assign his free points. He swiftly dumped them into Willpower, just as new notifications rolled across his vision.

Congratulations!

Your Companion Pit Has Leveled Up 50 Times!

Pit Is Now Level 192!

He Gains:

+500 STR, +450 PER, +200 VIT, +550 END, +350 INT, +500 WIL,

+1000 AGL, +1000 DEX!

+500 AFI, RES, and REI!

He Has 2500 Unused Stat Points!

Pit cheered from within his Spirit, gleefully shoving his new stat points around. Faster! I can be faster!

Executioner’s Stormblade is level 138!

Gloaming Shroud is level 134!

Let Roar the Beast is level 144!

Mercy of the Thorn is level 137!

Nimbus of the Moon is level 149!

Maelstrom’s Maw is level 150!

Mantle of the Stormlord is level 162!

Talon of Tumult is level 151!

Tempest Fugit is level 164!

Ouranic Dominion is level 157!

Congratulations!

Your Companion Has Reached Paragon Tier In Multiple Skills!

Gains Collapsed For Easy Viewing:

+732 AGL

+684 DEX

+550 WIL

+550 STR

+430 INT

+400 INE

+385 PER

+385 END

+350 AFI

Felix took a breath, his raised Willpower holding his Temper at bay more easily now. His fingertip hold had become a full grip, strong enough for him to take pause.

There was more than just the danger of the Whalemaw to keep him from Paragon—he’d been warned by Zara and many others not to push to the next Tier without his Core Manifestation. Felix touched delicately at the Skill that hung like a sun between their core spaces. The best we’d managed is a Half-Core.

Paragon Tier. Core Manifestation. Felix looked up. None of it would be enough.

The night sky had been reclaimed, the clouds banished, and even the eternal twilight had faded. Now stars flooded from horizon to horizon, but the space between them wasn't the dark of night. It was a purple-black that boiled the heavens, extending from the comet that hung so close that Felix was half certain he could reach up and touch it.

Those stars… They weren’t any constellations he’d grown used to on the Continent. They clustered now in strange formations, moving the moment Felix’s eyes no longer fixed upon them. They trailed off the back of the Ruin like debris flung from an open flatbed truck. Already, he could see the stars streak down, headed to distant destinations for unknown purposes.

Not unknown, Pit chirruped from within. We know exactly why it’s here.

Felix grunted. There was no time left.

The Ruin was descending far faster than it had before. Earlier, the Divine had filled the horizon with their incomprehensible forms, but now they were replaced by the bruised shadow of an eradicating fire.

A deep thrum hit Felix, souring across his Affinity as an explosion tore across the Ruin’s edge. It had just hit the upper atmosphere. It gave off no heat. Miles away, beyond the jungles, Felix could make out the Rimefang mountains standing tall—and they began to freeze over. Felix's breath misted, and a rain of white fell across the jungle.

Pit gasped. Snow?

No. Ash. It fell in great torrents as something above them was consumed and burnt away. They weren't lying.The Twins must have been slowing it down.

Pit snorted. Not for our benefit.

Felix grunted. The Ruin was a bargaining chip—alwasy had been—one that even the gods didn't know how to handle.

Felix tried to control his breathing, but his pulse hammered at his throat, and sweat sprang across the back of his neck. Panic sat snug beneath his ribcage. He had no clue what was coming. No idea what the Ruin was or how to fight it. The gods feared it, that much was clear, and that meant it was stronger than them.

Simply put, he was screwed.

The sharp wrench of metal tore Felix’s gaze from the sky and their approaching doom. Below, the writhing flesh of the whalemaw wriggled, back contracting and expanding as stone, soil, and great mouthfuls of metallic godflesh were swallowed up. The Twin’s corpse had no head—no torso, for that matter—and the Whalemaw was making quick work of the rest. Thousands of teeth crawled across blue metal, tearing sparking furrows as the monumental godcorpse was consumed inch by inch. A python devouring an elephant.

The Divine Cores throbbed, their extended limbs pushing back against Felix’s core space like stretching girders. Felix clutched at his chest, his Skills sparking in unpredictable waves. Skein of Fate and Adamant Discord flared up at the same time, their patterns meshing for a brief moment. Connections spun away from him, thick and undeniable. The three thickest in his chest spun into one only feet from his center then plunged downward—into the Whalemaw. There, they were eclipsed entirely by the Bond between Felix and the creature itself.

Right. He may have held onto the cores of the Pathless, Noctis, and Siva, but there were three others down there.

Waiting in the Whalemaw’s gullet.

Even if he had them, though, what could he do? It had taken the Hierophant days to even get a grip on a piece of Noctis' single core. What could he do with the three of them, let alone six?

It didn’t matter. The Whalemaw was here. Even if the Ruin were somehow stopped, that thing couldn’t be left behind to roam. It was enough of the Unending Maw that it would want the same thing she had: to devour the world. Already it was tearing into the earth with its secondary mouths, gorging itself on stone and trees.

"What can I do?"

A voice, unbidden, rolled through his mind. A Memory of Lascalium.

Do Not Give Into Despair, Scion. All Is Not Lost.

“Shit.” As before, a grin stretched Felix’s mouth. His teeth were sharp. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Felix glanced back at the shield of his Authority's Consequence. It still held strong, though several branches wilted, and the leaves looked blackened along their edges. The people inside were safe.

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I suppose I won't get to pay for all those strikes against it. Silver lining, I guess. He cleared his throat, lightning and Pit’s single wing righting himself. "Vess, Gabby—everyone. Stay safe."

He took a steadying breath. "Pit?"

Yeah?

"I've got a plan."

I figured. Is it stupid?

"The worst yet."

Pit barked a laugh. Good. Then maybe it'll work.

Felix pulled himself closer, forcing every ounce of his Strength through his chest. "HEY UGLY!”

His near-Paragon Tier voice was louder than avalanching stone or the crunch of Divine flesh. The Whalemaw perked up, ten thousand eyes emerging from its back in a wave of gooey purple.

"I'm still here.” Felix curled his fingers. “Come and get dessert."

NEED!

The Whalemaw reversed itself. Flesh buckled, tail swallowed by crimson tendrils and eyes replaced by a thousand tooth-lined mouths. The Whalemaw charged through the sky, its miles-long Body uncoiling from the devoured godcorpse like unspooling rope. It howled out a wave of fetid breath that hit Felix like a foul mattress. It was accompanied by that unconquerable Need, and it enveloped his Mind as surely as a tar pit.

It dragged him forward, toward its maw.

Felix’s eye’s burned. “Yeah. I think it’s time we settle this.”

Adamant Discord!

Ouranic Dominion!

The storm descended with Felix at its head, and he met its tooth with claw.

Jaws snapped shut, but Felix didn’t stop—he drove through the Whalemaw's innards. Massive tendrils of flesh and blood Mana clung to him, slashing his Garment to shreds and brutalizing the heavy scales across his back and belly. They latched, or tried to, lamprey-like mouths scrabbling at hard scales.

It’s trying to leech off of you! Pit flexed, and their Bond flared. Three other wings emerged from Felix’s back to join the first, and all four beat with ferocious might against the Whalemaw’s vile goo. Mantle of the Stormlord!

Lightning sheathed their joined flesh, and the lamprey-tendrils recoiled. Those that didn’t were severed by dark talons. “None of this is yours,” Felix told the blurred tunnel of wet flesh. “You’re mine!”

Empyrean Embrace!

His hunger lashed out, echoed forth with the power of the Beast inside of him and Pit's unflagging cry. The Skill flared, pulling great swirling gobbets of the Whalemaw into Felix's mouth—but the Whalemaw was not so easily taken.

The monster’s Need flared brighter than the light of the vanished sun. Raw, mindless Need met honed Intent and a titanic Will, clashing as Felix dove deeper into the unkempt flesh of the creature. Despite his stats, the Whalemaw was almost a force of nature. Empyrean Embrace flickered, dragged toward the creature, despite Felix’s firm grip upon the Skill.

The pattern popped and sang, its edges pulled inexorably toward the dark beyond Felix’s core space. Felix gritted his teeth and hung on, Pit squawking furiously at his side.

The Whalemaw was power incarnate. It contained not only the majority of Veridaan’s power—the very same might that allowed Felix to ascend so rapidly—but the might of every creature it had ever devoured, including three entire gods.

Yet Felix wasn't alone, and he hadn't come unprepared.

Title: By Crown And Sword Is Active!

+Emperor’s Aura - Increases allies' damage output and defensive capabilities by 20% when within the boundaries of the Empire of the Fiend. Adds a chance of inflicting an instance of Regal Dominance, reducing their Will and Perception.

+Conqueror's Dominance - All enemies in your empire suffer a 20% reduction in primary stats until they are no longer designated as enemies by you or your empowered representative.

+True Lord’s Authority - All beneficial aspects of a Territory’s true Seat and Seal are amplified by 30%. The cost of all Territorial Songs are reduced by 50%.

“You’re in my house now, asshole!”

The Whalemaw’s strikes floundered against Felix, doing far less damage immediately. The thing’s Need trembled, a deep, ragged despair rippling through its Spirit as its stats were reduced by the force of empire.

Felix wasn’t done.

Title: Born of Will Is Active!

What Is Beyond You, If You Have The Will?

Title: Tyros Of The Unseen Tide Is Active!

You Have Begun To Sense The Totality Of That Which Binds All.

Title: The Call of Defiance Is Active!

+25% Willpower When Contested By A Foe Of Divine Or Greater Advancement!

Title: Tyrant of Choice Is Active!

Sever The Line Of Causality! You Cannot Be Bound By Oaths!

Title: Thief of Fate Is Active!

You Hold The Song Of Divinity!

Title: Indomitable Is Active!

You Stand Alone Against The Tide.

Title: Against Catastrophe Is Active!

You Escape Death Again And Again!

Title: Titanslayer Is Active!

The Mighty Fear Your Approach!

A deluge of Titles activated all at once—each one earned through bloody toil and savaged lives. They were appellations mighty enough to hold against even the Whalemaw’s monstrous Need. His Will increased, and the effect of the Whalemaw’s Need rolled off his shoulders, unsticking him from the bog of its mindless attention.

Pit’s shrill cry was a wordless affirmation that nonetheless sent a shiver of reinforcement through Felix’s Spirit. His Crown gleamed heavily on his brow—the Chalice blazed in his chest—and his left palm rang out with a sonorous spike. All three pieces of the Empyrean Regalia sang in concert against the Whalemaw’s quailing Will.

Felix seized his sword.

The Whalemaw was mindless. It wanted to consume, to take power no matter the cost. Its Need was instinctual and base.

It was a Primordial without its Mind.

Felix honed his Will with the whetstone of his Intent and held it against the edge of his Inheritor’s Will. The weapon shivered in his grip, not fighting him—quite the opposite—it bucked in his hand, eager to slice into its foe.

Sonata of Dominance!

He cut forth, slicing through Whalemaw's flesh in a wave of obliteration. Ichor-filled meat split apart, veins bursting as pale purple muscle was cleaved through as easily as butchered beef. Lashing tendrils reached for him, lamprey teeth clenching wildly, but Felix cut through them as well. Down, through its massive form and into its deep belly—through fields of undigested metallic flesh and rotting hide.

And beyond them, clutched within ten thousand woven tendrils, were three bundles of ardent brilliance. A bloody hand, clutched amidst the claws of a rotten paw, all tumbled together along with an armorclad gauntlet.

Divine cores—they’re split open!

Power pulled upward into those thousands of tendrils, each one drinking deep of the potency. Felix rushed forward, sword lifted high to strike.

Sonata of Dominance!

“Silly child.”

A new hand rose up, forged of blood, rot, force, and a tangle of purple flesh. It caught Felix’s blade and stopped it cold.

“What?” Felix blinked rapidly, attempting to clear the ichor from his eyes. “You’re—”

“Dead?” the Maw asked, her cadaverous face split into a wide grin. “Hello, Felix.”

A palm, clawed and twice as large as it should be, slammed into his chest. Felix flew back, splashing into the wet organs with a muted thud. He found his feet easily, his attention never once leaving the rail-thin form of the Unending Maw.

She floated there in the center of the Whalemaw, looking exactly as he’d left her so long ago. Inky black hair floated around her gaunt features, and her spindly limbs arced gracefully amid the ruffles of a dingy, once-beautiful gown.

What was different, however, was the congealed powers of the Divine cores that already coursed through her very physical Body.

“Ahh,” she sighed, her eyes flickering through a hundred different shades. “I have missed this. I owe you my thanks.”

Felix adjusted his grip and lifted his Inheritor’s Will. “Why?”

The world flickered, and the Maw was there, inches from his face. “For awakening me.”

Claws tore across his abdomen, splitting apart what remained of his Garment—but Felix caught the Maw’s wrist. Her mad eyes widened. “So strong! How long has it been, child, for you to have gained such might?”

The second strike came from below. A spiked tail whipped around her hips, plunging for his kidneys. Felix kicked it away, his boot obliterating upon impact but driving the appendage into the slick flesh beneath them.

“I killed you.” Felix twisted his grip, and bones crunched. “Seems I have to do it again.”

“Impossible!” The Maw cackled, and Divine potency rushed up her left arm, coating it like armor. “I cannot die!”

She gestured, and the interior of the Whalemaw heaved as if they stood at the center of a tidal swell. Organs bulged and burst, releasing flows of ichor and bile that lifted up onto limbs of their own. Six hulking creatures emerged from the muck and flesh, each more than twenty feet high and shaped with an uncanny Will and clear malice.

“Eradicate the Nym. And pluck the Chimera from his soul.”

The creatures closed in a single leap, burrs and claws extending toward Felix’s throat.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Every one of them stopped, mid-flight. Their flesh quivered, and their empty eyes bulged as veins stood stark like cables across their necks and shoulders. The Maw stared, disbelief cutting through her insanity as Felix bared his teeth.

“I’ve changed since the last time you saw me.” He flexed his Will, and the creatures exploded. Their meat and bones crushed against one another as he pressed them all into a single, grisly lump. “Just a little.”

The Maw leaned forward. “Astounding. If I didn’t know any better, that is my Skill.”

Felix didn’t answer, only brandished his sword. The Maw growled, a sharp sound that was almost…eager.

She bound toward him, on all fours, her Body morphing into something nightmarish. Bone and skin, scale and horn all expended, wrapping her Nymean form into something other. A panther-like creature closed the distance between them, heavily built as a rhino and covered in a mane of toothy spikes.

Felix frowned. Adamant Discord!

He seized Bonds, but they didn’t touch the Maw at all. Instead, his Will clung to the three powers that swirled still along her left forepaw. Blood, rot, and force all gleamed, their Bonds thick as towing cables with a weave that was twice as complicated. Felix hauled back, funneling all his might into them…and shattered their connection.

The Maw staggered, her potency halved all at once, while behind her, the Divine cores blazed.

Sovereign of Flesh!

She shouted in surprise as the organs around her flowed into a liquid slurry. It quickly bound each of her legs, tethering her to the ground, even as a second Skill sizzled through Felix. Lightning boomed, cascading from his hands as he seized the last Bond—one he never expected to touch again.

He seized the Maw, and the lightning blasted her apart.

The panther form dissolved, melted away like wax beneath a blowtorch, revealing the startled expression of a too-lean Nymean woman. She gasped, and in that moment, Felix felt something pass between them.

“You—”

It was no more than a flash, but Felix had felt it, too. The Bond he’d seized had sung, reverberating across the Maw’s form…and touched on something primal. A familiar song that echoed with Felix’s core space.

The Maw’s eyes widened. Her arms dropped, and her body slackened like a sail bereft of wind.

“You…a Scion?”

Felix gave a slow nod.

The Maw laughed. It was an unhinged sound, deeply and profoundly off kilter—yet there was unmistakable joy contained in its strains. “I see now. I died.”

“No,” Felix said quietly. “You changed.”

The Maw tilted her head, like a dog hearing a new sound. “All you have done, all you have risked…the tale is in your blood. Your Bonds. I am…impressed, Felix Nevarre. But you are still a fool.”

Felix grimaced. The madness wasn’t gone, only tamed for the moment. “And you’re already gone.”

“Do you think you’ll last much longer?” The Maw’s eyes flickered, changing rapidly once more, and unbidden, images of his friends rolled across Felix’s Mind. Their faces pleaded with him, each locked in mortal struggle against some terrible foe. “Run. Leave this to me, and you might yet live.”

He knew what would happen if the Whalemaw continued. Ruin or not, the world wouldn’t survive. He lifted his sword.

“You are a fool, Felix Nevarre. You will not survive this.”

“Maybe not, but they will.”

She bared her teeth. “I suppose I chose my Vessel well.”

Felix flooded his sword with his Will. Power flared from its three glyphs as his right hand burned with a similar bronze radiance. The Whalemaw's Need was indomitable, and armed with this shadow of the Maw, it was beyond dangerous.

“You’re right about one thing, Maw.” Felix met her changing gaze, his own eyes burning electric blue. “You chose the right guy.”

He lifted his sword. “And this? This is my choice.”

Sovereign of Flesh! His Regalia blazed, tied to the potency of his Inheritor’s Will, as Felix funneled elemental Mana down into its blade—and struck.

Flesh exploded, burning apart beneath fire, wind, light, and blood. The Maw was hurled back, obliterated in the chaos of ruptured flesh, and the Divine cores sparked furiously. Felix’s attack washed against them, doing little to harm where their malformed hands clutched deeply into the Whalemaw’s body. Yet beneath them, the flesh itself rioted and dissolved.

The cores fled, pulled deeper by the lamprey tendrils.

Felix followed, lightning blazing around his form as Bonds pulled him closer to the Need that clutched so desperately at him. He cut a pathway through bone and muscle, his claws sufficing where his sword did not, firming his area of control with every step.

The Whalemaw bellowed, a sound deep enough to draw blood from his ears, and its Need pressed close against Felix once again. Yet he cast it off. Its Need meant nothing—even the cores weren’t his concern. Felix cut his way into the creature’s chest, deeper than ever before, and stopped only when he was confronted by its beating heart.

He stopped, reached out his hand, and seized.

Empyrean Embrace!

Ethereal jaws sank into it, tearing it apart. Almost immediately, sudden awareness flooded Felix's Mind.

Gooey purple eyes spun around slick hide, feeding Felix a thousand images in a mess of confusing directions. He focused as his hunger ate faster and faster from the Whalemaw’s chest—he didn’t care about every direction. Only up. With a mighty yell, Felix twisted around, pairing his Perception with the Whalemaw’s and focusing on the dark sky.

The Ruin was before them.

It would touch down at any moment.

Here’s goes nothing, Pit.

Bring it on!

The Whalemaw bucked against his control, but its Will and Need were fading as fast as its flesh. Felix ignored it and dug everything that was him into the Whalemaw, his power rippling through its core and masticated heart. With a mighty heave of his Will that nearly strained it to breaking, the Whalemaw tilted.

Upward.

“Open up!” Felix shouted from the depths of the creature’s belly. The Whalemaw flew, propelled by Felix’s dominant Will as its half-mile jaws opened up. Teeth gleamed in the dark fire. “Swallow this!”

He drove them straight into the Ruin.