Unbound

Eon's March.

Yyero's rotten power filled the skies with decay, an aura that flashed across the landscape as quick as a blink.

Felix staggered, Adamant Discord sputtering in his grip as his Garment rotted away from him, his jacket and shirt dissolving to expose thick scales. Only the Mana surging through the artifact managed to keep it from breaking away entirely, and it devoured his stores fast. The aura scoured him, digging into his flesh like acid on the wind. His skin shed, his scales splitting before his regeneration repaired them.

“Nimbus of the Moon!” Pit screeched, moonbeams tearing into the god and splashing against bronze flesh. The silver pillars dug charred furrows that forced a snarl from Yyero’s throat and a contemptuous backhand. Air boomed, gales roared in the wake of the god’s angular fist, but Pit maneuvered around it with brilliant grace. Not even his barding was touched—not even by the rotting aura.

Sonata of Dominance!

Felix threw up shields of fast circulating air around himself, mimicking Pit's flight Skill. The rush of it cleared the god's rotting Mana, or at the very least thinned it. His scales held, and even his Garment was restored.

Below was not so fortunate. The forest had been denuded and broken, the fallen tree trunks dissolving into a fetid muck. The surviving Elementals groaned and crumpled, their pieces eroding in instants, and even the godslaves were not exempt. Thousands of their supposed allies died—but his Authority's Consequence held. It was untouched.

Yyero bared his teeth, a hundred feet of off-white slabs arranged in diseased gums. Impressive. You Truly Balance At The Cusp Of The Broken Path.

The god didn't sound pleased. Felix liked that.

"Let me show you where I stand." Felix tore forward on lightning tethers and marshaled wind Mana. Yyero swung for him, but Felix wound around his outstretched limb, an insect to a giant, but one too fast for the angular god to hit.

Carrion Nova! Yyero lashed out with explosions of decay all across his own flesh, bronze surface erupting into clouds of rot that Felix's marshaled winds tossed aside as he rocketed forward.

Come, Growth Of Unlife!

Mushrooms erupted into his path, their bulbous flesh bursting to spray spores into Felix’s face. They burned at his eyes, finding purchase on his skin and tongue—even his lungs, which swelled with a foul, fleshy clot. They wormed into him, sprouting across his shoulders and neck, and a deep heat flared across his chest. He roared, tearing the intrusion away as Sovereign of Flesh ejected it all from his bloodied throat.

“I am in command of my Body!” he spat. “No one else!”

The Divine power of rot sheared away from him. Uprooted.

Yyero snapped at him, biting with his unnaturally shaped face.

“Chew on this!” Shaped Fiendstone erupted between Yyero’s jaws, lodging against his slab-teeth.

GAH! Fiendstone shattered. Impudent Fly!

Felix punched him in the jaw.

The god's head snapped back, cracks riven into his bronzed mandible. Felix hissed in pain, his hand a mess of blood and snapped bones beneath broken scales.

Yyero blinked owlishly, a laugh slithering from his wet throat. Is This Your Vaunted Power? Pathetic!

Carrion Nova! Contagion!

Spheres of rot manifested across the sky, each fifty feet wide and filled with corrosive power. They burst, one after the other, with each explosion seeding another sphere of vile potency. Felix dodged through them, dropping lower and lower in an effort to keep out of its infectious field. Contagion seemed to spread the rot faster than ever, slipping between the winds of Felix’s passage and hounding across his trailing lightning.

Hold Still, Fiend! Yyero scolded as his many hands danced among the clouds, as if he were pulling unseen strings. More explosive spheres formed and burst. Brother! Some Aid!

Only the whistling of a falling object warned Felix. He bolted aside, hauling on a Bond to the jungles as a pillar of brilliant blue force Mana dropped from above. It cut between them, forcing even the rotten god back several long steps and clipping Felix’s shoulder.

"Damn it!” Sovereign of Flesh reversed his wounds, pulling the blood back and healing his bones, only for another pillar to catch his legs and send him spinning wildly through the sky.

Adamant Discord!

More pillars fell. He threaded through them, a forest of force-wrought columns hunting for him from above.

Pit flew at opposite ends of the battle, separate now, but hunted still by the Twins and Yyero's explosions of rot. Each pillar was a hundred feet in diameter, perfectly circular and utterly destructive. The ground below was shattered, the earth heaving in every direction, disrupting every fight that still went on and killing thousands in the settling crush of stone and tumbled jungle.

The pair of them weren’t caught by the deluge of collapsing sky, not enough to kill them, but more than a few pillars crushed into his Authority's Consequence.

We’re too close! Move back!

Felix pulled back, away from his people. He could feel every impact on the barrier, and though it didn't pain him now, he knew it was a debt he’d have to pay eventually. Worse and far more immediately pressing was that Felix was unsure if his Authority could withstand the full might of the gods. Certainly not for long.

He needed to go on the offensive.

Half-Core Manifestation: Stormwrought Strings!

More than lightning surged across the connections between himself and the Divine. It seared them, charring all three of their immutable bodies and exploding just beneath the skin. Blood fountained, bronze shattered with a fetid rot spraying into the air, and metallic blue flesh was rent like struck steel. The Skill tore through Felix, stealing Essence and Mana and stored significance as it poured out of his channels and into his enemies.

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GAH! The Twins fell back, shields of blue force Mana erected before themselves and Felix’s might. Somehow, they intercepted the Bonds, diverting Felix's power. Yyero was less lucky. The god of rot convulsed, his new-formed teeth now stained with a flow of ichor that dribbled down his jaw. Vellus flinched, the blood tide falling back.

Yet none of them were hurt nearly enough, and they were healing, fast. He couldn’t break them where it mattered.

The Divine cores, I need to target them. Felix flared his Manifestation again. Pull them out!

He had to hit them as many times as he could before he ran out of significance, before they healed, before—

NEED.

Felix started, and his gaze swept the sky. He could feel it, like a phantom limb, pain and elation separated by an impossible distance. It pulsated, and the familiar Need drove into his bones.

It faded.

No! Stay! Felix called into the empty air, hoping it would hear him. I’m here!

WARNING!

Ouranic Law Has Shattered.

The Compact Cannot Contain Them.

Flee.

The moons above vanished. Galaxies of power flowed through the sky, a river of blood red, sickly bronze, and metallic blue so bright against the darkness of the approaching Ruin. All at once, those rivers thinned, finally finished, as they flowed into the Twins and Yyero, and, rising on the far side of his shield, Vellus as well.

Finally! Yyero groaned, an eager note to his voice. We Can Stop Holding Back! The Last Of Our Wretched Bindings Are Gone!

The Twins flexed their jaws, and the rift behind it stilled, as if something smoothed over the jagged edges of reality.

Nevarre! Behold The End!

With a single, conjoined arm, the Twins made a complicated gesture toward the rift, and it split wider, smooth as silk, revealing a section of the Deadlands Felix had never seen before.

Power rolled outward, unnerving and laced with a stark Dissonance that put Felix's teeth on edge, even as the pressure hurled him and Pit back. They recovered, Felix holding onto Pit's saddle as his Companion flew against the unrelenting Divine Will.

A dark and jagged terrain was revealed, far more busy than any section of the Deadlands Felix had seen in the past. This place was dominated by the vaulted arches of what could only be a crystalline palace. Built on a scale of monumental beings, it soared too high to quantify, the peaks of spiked crystal bent inward as it stretched beyond itself. A blue-white radiance tinged it all, flowing through the translucent rock and providing the only light in the shadowed land.

Was it even the Deadlands at all? It reminded him of the Tumult, of the System itself.

A beam of power speared out of the dual god, cutting through the crystal and shattering its nearest towers.

WARNING!

The Compact Is Inviolate!

System Parameters Breached!

You—!

The Compact No Longer Holds Us, the Twins said with grave finality. Silence, Before I Shatter It Completely.

The System notification vanished. Beyond the rift, the shattered towers released three motes of power. Shadow. Sunlight. Silver. They hurled into the distance until they joined with the central crystal, a vast, faceted shape that stretched high enough to bend into that endless blue sky. Something shifted inside. A shadow silhouetted by motes of power.

I don't know what's happening, Pit shot into their Bond. But it doesn't look good.

Can you get closer? I need a boost!

Felix pulled on his core, and Sonata of Dominion and Astrum Ascendance flared in answer. New air Mana surged beneath Pit's wings, sending the tenku forward by slow inches. Felix pushed out more power, diverting as much Mana as he could manage. Even as he tightened the control of his Sonata, he wove the air through his companion's wings, mimicking as best he could the shape of his Ouranic Dominion. They moved faster, advancing against the vast pressure, but it was nothing compared to their normal speed.

They wouldn't reach the rift in time.

"Blind Gods! Lost to Ages of slaughter, given over to unclean vices! Lords of Dissonance!" Mauvim's voice was unmistakable, and her cadence held a power that grabbed all their attention.

What Trickery Is This? Yyero sneered. They crowded over Felix's shield, peering down like parents peering down at an infant. Mauvim was located dead center atop a scrawled circle of sigaldry, and around her were hundreds of Chanters in precise positions.

Is that the Banishment Array?

Mauvim threw her hands up as power gathered around her in silver and gold flares. "Repent your abdicated service of the Grand Harmony! I give you this one chance to address your betrayal."

Yyero laughed. Even Vellus gave a mad titter.

We Were Never Its Servants, Child, the Twins said. We Are Its Masters.

"Then you will fall." Around her, the banishment array activated. Gold and silver speared upward, harmonic strains filling the air with a soothing and mighty power. It expanded beyond his Authority's Consequence, rolling outward without halting as the canopy itself seemed to amplify its light.

Synergy Detected!

Modified Banishment Array Dubbed ‘Chains Of The Faithful’ Has Found Synergy With Authority’s Consequence.

Power Is Enhanced.

Like a lens focusing sunlight, the array bent toward the gods. It crashed into them, weaving itself at right angles as it sprayed over their vast forms. New chains clanged against themselves, dragging against Divine limbs and drawing surprised curses from Yyero. His words were rot in the air, and Vellus screamed as lightning boomed across the sky. They each tore at their necks, ripping at the swelling light, but it was the Twins who steadied them.

Fools! You Are No Empyreans. The Twins lifted both of their twisted arms, fingers trailing lines of light that flickered between hot pink and searing orange before settling on a familiar blue. And Your Loyalties Lie Bare.

Hundreds of Bonds flared in Felix’s sight, each one so thin that they were almost invisible. They tangled with the Twins' fingers, and with a grunt, the dual god twisted their hands, and every one of those Bonds surged with lightning.

Bonds of Fellowship! Felix started. "No!"

Divine power flooded through them, arcing toward his Authority’s Consequence—and passed straight through it. The Chanters screamed. Nearly all of them were folded over by the Bonds that tied to their Aspects. Divine power seared through them, killing many outright. Others were suddenly clad in bright blue armor.

They turned on Mauvim,

"I denounce you!" the old woman said as her Chanters turned on her, cheeks quivering beneath her rage.

You Cannot Escape Your Faith. Neither Can They.

The Chanters around her stepped off the array, their hands lifting as force Mana gathered. Aimed at the array—and Mauvim.

"So be it." The woman pulled her hands inward, and for a moment, she gleamed. Her flesh rippled, Mana rising off of her in a stream so thick it was almost solid as every ounce of her Will and Intent bore downward into the array.

It caught fire, incandescent as the rising sun itself.

Modified Array Engaged!

Targets Accepted.

Chains Of The Faithful Is Active!