Unbound

The chains tightened, congealing into heavy shackles that hung like anchors across their necks, arms, and legs. Yyero dropped to the ground, splitting the earth into yawning chasms that swallowed the dusty remains of the jungle. Vellus clawed at her shackles before she, too, fell back into her own tidal wave, blood transforming Yyero’s crevasses into muddy falls. The Twins staggered, their claim on the Bonds of Fellowship flickering out.

Felix's breath hitched. The gods weren't chained—not as they had been—but clearly their power had been restricted. Weaker by far than the chains of the Compact, they gleamed as bright as anything he'd witnessed in Amaranth.

Somehow, the Chanters had modified the Banishment Array. The tablets they’d found in the Vault of Nine Kings, built by masters long Lost, had forged tethers of power just as primal as the Divine themselves.

Felix! Mauvim spoke directly to his Mind, her voice strained. I can only hold them for so long. Do what you must!

He needed no more encouragement than that. He pulled at his Half-Core Manifestation, and Pit joined him. It sounded as one, the strains rattling across his channels.

NEED.

Felix staggered. It was a call that chilled his blood, even as it made his heart speed up.

Reunion, the Beast growled. It Is At Hand.

He shared a glance with Pit. How close?

The Beast growled. It Is All But Upon Us.

Felix spun. "Ondine!"

In the distance, the furious gods tried to throw off the array's effects. Inside the Authority’s Consequence, the thick, inscribed tablets sparked with an inferno. Mauvim shouted, her body quaking at the array's center, supported by only a few surviving Chanters.

Felix raised his voice, trying to be heard over the Divine shouts. "Ondine, quick!”

Nevarre! Do something! Mauvim cried.

The array exploded.

The gods climbed to their feet, rivers of their molten power turning inward. Their flesh glowed like forge fire, and the shackles binding them heated to cherry red. Sizzle and smoke drew enraged screams from the Divine, and they scrabbled at their manacles. Pieces of the weights chipped and fell.

“Pit!” Felix landed on Pit’s back.

“We’ll stop them!” The tenku shot forward, weaving through flailing god-limbs. The pressure from the rift had faded with the Twin's lack of attention, and Felix Sonata of Dominance surged in the unclaimed space. Air Mana wove through Pit's wings, boosting the slipstream that fed into Ouranic Dominion. They hurtled forward on Pit’s four wings, faster than even Felix’s own lightning.

Ramming speed! Pit shrieked.

Lowering his head, Pit barreled into Yyero's face, and Felix leapt, driving his fist into the bastard's chin. The god's head snapped back, his rotten body careening through the clouds and into the half-obliterated mountain range. He wasn't dead, not even close, but the shock that stretched across the god's Spirit almost made up for that.

Impossible! he blubbered.

“You say that a lot.” Felix burned, his Body streaming with blue-white and red-gold. "Let me expand your horizons."

The Twins lunged for Felix, but he fell back onto Pit’s back and they zipped away, skimming the ungainly edge of the dual god’s grasp. They fled back toward his Authority's Consequence. The tree shielding was powerful, and the song it raised was strong enough to sting Felix's eyes and scorch his Affinity.

The enemy's attacks followed him, crashing against the shields. Pillars of force, scouring explosions of rot, and the skittering crawl of bloodied lightning crashed against the trees and their canopy. A deep ache developed in Felix’s chest, distant and separate from him, yet a very real link to the Consequence’s structure. It couldn’t handle much more direct attention—but he had no choice but to risk it.

It was where the Need was strongest.

"Felix!" Ondine was there, just below the canopy, her wings gleaming with Crescian Bronze armor. She gaped at the gods on his heels. "You’re bringing them back?!”

"I need you to rip open the world!" He glanced over his shoulder. The Twins were barreling toward them. They had no more than five seconds. "Now!"

"There's too much interference! The array—the gods—!"

Felix blasted a Vessel out of the sky as it came for him, tearing apart its body with its own flesh and blood. "You gotta try!”

“Where?"

"Fifty feet above you!"

Another pillar dropped straight toward him. He dodged away, Pit squawking as he flew. The column of devastating blue smashed into the canopy and sheared in two, its structure unable to break through.

You Cannot Run From Us, Nevarre! The Twins snarled around the weight on their neck.

"I wasn’t planning on it!" He steadied himself, marshalling his power. Mana and Stamina were plentiful in him, and his Health was near full.

Yet You Scurried Away The Moment You Could! The Twins slowed their approach, Yyero and Vellus flanking them until they dominated the eastern sky. You Shield Your Followers From The Reaping They Sowed. What Is This But The Flawed Leadership Of A Fool?

Felix gritted his teeth. The god was huge, a target he couldn't miss, but even restricted by the modified array, he didn't think he could kill them.

Let Us See How Much More Your Shield Will Take.

Pillars dropped from above, each one crashing from a new angle, faster than a fleet of bullet trains, all of them aimed for him and his people. The canopy shook, flaring with molten light with every strike.

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Felix moved as fast as he could as the pillars sought him out. Pit fled in opposite directions, splitting the attention of the Divine, but the dual god had enough for the both of them.

Keep them away from Ondine!

Trying! Pit squawked.

Felix hadn’t time to breathe or think, let alone stop the pillars on their relentless descent. The trees below quivered. His Authority was reaching its limit.

Yyero cackled. Mortals Die, Fiend.

No Matter How High You Reach, Vellus agreed with a liquid nod. It Is Your Fate.

A pillar winged him, spinning Felix around, crushing all the bones in his left arm and parts of his ribs. Lay of the Unfallen surged, and the pain faded fast as Sovereign of Flesh repaired it. His Essence dwindled to near nothing.

"Ondine!” he gasped.

“Corporeal Breach!"

Fifty feet above the canopy, the sky loosened. The Divine blinked, their gleaming eyes as wide as their moons, as reality stretched into strands of taffy.

With a mighty swell of trumpet and string, it burst apart. Within was not the Void, but a flat, deadened landscape.

The Deadlands? The Twins backpedaled, and for the first time, Felix saw fear in their stupid faces. No!

Felix reached up, the Exalted Bell manifesting in his grip as he rang it. A dirge of Dissonance cracked across the sky. "Dinner time!"

The rift burst, split farther by a vast, monstrous torrent of flesh. Wriggling crimson tentacles, slickened hide, eyes of putrid purple, and fields of unending teeth.

The Whalemaw had arrived.

Vess couldn’t help the well of terror as the Whalemaw tore into their world.

Reality itself was distended by its presence, and the charred skies buckled beneath its hungry, unending gaze. The creature was massive, beyond even the gods. It was leagues wide and far too long to clear the rift that Ondine still held open. The Unbound woman shook, her wings quivering as power flickered around her in unsteady currents.

"It's impossible," Vess whispered, her voice barely audible over the chaos. The Whalemaw's impossible length dominated the heavens, blocking even the blighted Ruin from her eyes as it surged toward the Twins. At the last moment, a pillar of force drove upward, slamming into the creature’s body.

The Whalemaw crashed straight through it as if it weren't there.

Far behind it, the thing’s tail cleared the rift, and Ondine gasped, her Corporeal Breach faltering. She fell. Gabby leapt upward. She caught the fallen Sylphaen with a vast, golden hand and fell, cradling the woman as her armor was banished, and Gabby shrank back down.

An explosion of power pulled Vess' attention back beyond the canopy. They could barely see through its golden glow, but she could just make out bits as a wave of rot enveloped the Whalemaw. Its wake seared across the canopy.

For a moment, Vess could see nothing else, only hear the roar and wrath of screams of beings too mighty for her to comprehend. Yyero slammed into the jungle, a league or more away, and the quake of his impact threw the entire Legion into the air. Yyero howled in indignation and fury, shaking the world even through the shield. The Whalemaw's maw fell across the sky and slammed into the god.

Fury faltered, Yyero’s heavy, unveiled Spirit full of panic and terror. Brother! Sister! Help Me!

You Need No Help. tThe Twins waved him off, their faces obscured by too many distant leaves for Vess to read. Keep The Creature Busy For But A Moment Longer.

It Is Eating Me!

The Twins gestured, and silence descended around the conflict as the god of rot and decay was sealed off from the world.

Vess blinked, hope kindling in her chest. She leapt over the heads of recovering Legionnaires, bringing herself to the edge of the trees in a heartbeat, and thrust out her spear. The serpentine weapon was strong, its enchantments mightier than any other weapon she’d ever wielded—but the attack didn’t so much as ripple the barrier.

Yin landed beside her, alongside dozens of Chimera and Dragoons. His mouth was agape, and Dawnfire rolled outward, but the flames wouldn't even catch.

"I might as well have thrown a pebble," he muttered.

Above, the silhouette of Felix and Pit stood against the gleaming forms of two gods. They were specks against an unending vastness.

Scylla cursed. “They're protecting us for no reason! We should be fighting with them! Everyone, get together! If we want to ascend to the canopy, I'm sure we can make it through—!"

The pale tenku screeched in pain as a longsword sheared through a wing. Before Vess could turn, a foot booted the Chimera to the ground and slashed the blade again. A dozen Dragoons fell, their heads tumbling to the wet earth.

Vess spun around, her eyes wide, as bloodied and sparking with strange energies, Ocalla Marzul stood.

Alive.

The Twins strode toward the rift, each footfall a tremor. Their Body buckled against the sky, the pressure from the Ruin seeming to pressed even on them, but they seemed unconcerned. The dual god reached out—only to find lightning in their path.

"Where are you going?" Felix stood on the back of Pit, hovering on claimed winds before the entrance to the rift.

The Twins drew up short. I Do Hope That Is Not Your Only Trick, Nevarre. That Thing Cannot Best Us. We Have Already Killed It Before.

Felix bared his teeth. “Then why are you running?”

I Tire Of You. Sundering Heaven!

Six pillars of force dropped from six different directions, all of them aimed at Felix and Pit.

"Go!" Lightning and wind roared, the pair moving in opposite directions—but the pillars followed.

Felix and Pit careened into them, thrashed by colliding surfaces harder than Fiendstone. Bone pulped and feathers burst, but they survived. Barely. Health flashing red, the pair of them pushed back from the first pillars, surging in new directions. Or tried. The pillars morphed, their surfaces erupting with thorny spikes in unpredictable waves. More hurtled inward, three for each of them, faster than Felix had anticipated.

WARNING!

Your Health Has Dropped To 15%!

Hip, leg, and back cracked beneath their might. Felix coughed up blood, regenerating as fast as Sovereign of Flesh could allow. The Twins weren't done, but Felix didn’t flee. Tethered by lightning, he hovered before the rift. “You’re not getting in here.”

Brave Fool. Frustrated, the dual god clapped its misshapen hands together. The Mercy Of Restraint.

Plates of force snapped around Pit's wings and Felix's legs before chains hurled them both sideways across the sky. The Twins grinned with both of their mouths. Their power arced outward, unimpeded, blazing once more through the rift.

The crystals within shattered.

WARNING!

Your Health Has Dropped To 5%!

Sonata of Dominance!

With the gods’ Will and Intent distracted, Felix shaped the force Mana apart. It scattered into pieces of vibrant, translucent blue mere feet before they crashed into the broken earth. Pit’s wings flared, beating hard against the wind to reverse direction, and Felix barely caught onto the straps of his barding.

Pull up!

I’m trying! You’re heavy as heck!

Adamant Discord!

The pair recovered, lightning and wind hauling them back into the sky just in time to see a figure climb through the rift.

It was massive and ill-shaped, rotting in places and yet horribly full of life. Gossamer flesh sheathed its withered muscles and bones, revealing half-dead organs and twitching arteries. Its skull was broken, a piece of it missing from the very center of its forehead, even as the rest of it was lost amid the folds of near-translucent flesh. It hunched as it climbed, its movements almost robotic, its limbs heavy and thorned, covered with strange appendages and half-formed spines. Strangest of all, it was missing a single arm.

Cold shock crawled through Felix’s gut, even as the Beast vomited up a bilious wrath. They knew her.

“That's Veridaan!”

That's OURS!