Unbound

Congratulations!

You Have Tempered Your Mind!

You Have Formed: Adamantine Tide Mind!

+2000 INT

+1950 WIL

+1900 PER

+1850 ALA

+1800 INE

Felix gasped awake, head reeling and without a single clue what had happened. It only coalesced a moment later.

Ruin…had hit them.

Felix only remembered that moments after his Tempered Mind flushed through his Aspects. He awoke to the rush of wind and the sensation of freefall.

Desolation hurtled past him, pieces of fractal energy and collapsing physical mass spiraled across his path. More than once, things bashed into him, skidding off of his heavy armor but not without effect. His Health dropped bit by bit, and the white mists of dissolution clawed at his edges.

Felix hissed. His Tempering into a Paragon Mind had shielded his significance for a time, but it wasn’t a total defense. So how had he survived the Ruin’s bolt?

His gaze caught on his Companion, who fell beside him. Pit tumbled the same as Felix, and the moment he saw the tenku, Felix recalled the last seconds before their fall.

Pit had curled around him, shielding Felix with his wings.

Congratulations!

You Have Tempered Your Body!

You Have Formed: Transcendent Exult Body

+2000 STR

+1950 END

+1900 AGL

+1850 VIT

+1800 MIG

Felix choked on bile that tried to force its way up as System energy thundered into his center. The stat boost was insane, and his bones creaked as muscle thickened and tendons flexed.

Pit, though, was still unconscious. The bolt of Ruin had hit him head-on…and he’d lost an entire wing.

“Pit! Wake up!”

A heavy object whiffed past them—the prow of an ancient ship, half dissolved—and it was followed by others. A fleet that had vanished into the Ethereal somehow, now crashing into them piece by piece.

Felix reached out and pushed his friend, shoving him free of the tumbling mizzenmast. It howled past them, far too close for comfort.

Congratulations!

You Have Tempered Your Spirit!

You Have Formed: Everlasting Chord Spirit!

+2000 WIL

+1950 INT

+1900 RES

+1850 INE

+1800 ALA

“GAH!” His Aspects screamed at him as they stretched and swelled. It was too much power too fast. He couldn’t handle it all.

Desolation ate at him, even as they fell, the mist stealing pieces of him by slow inches. Each Tempered Aspect seemed to slow it, but that benefit was ending rapidly…and Felix was a better meal by the second.

At least until the notifications started flying.

Your Legacy Calls Out, Felix Nevarre!

The white mist skittered away, driven from him by the System’s clarion call.

Four Are One!

All that walk the world are a product of primal forces. Those forces are not gone. They are only changed.

The Four Call Out!

The One Answers!

Synergy Detected!

The Call Of Confluence Rings Beyond Strength!

Its Song Threads Through Many Of Your Skills!

Sonata Of Dominance (T) Resonates With Wild Threnody (E), Manifestation of the Coronach (E), Quiet Cacophony (E), Multi-Cast (E), Last Cry of the Chthonic Host (M), Abyssal Skein (R),

Illusory Double (R), Shadow Whip (R), Arrow of Perdition (L), and Rain of Cataclysm (L)!

Sovereign of Flesh (T) Resonates With Lay Of The Unfallen (D), Stride of the King (T), Heavy Armor Mastery (C), Manaship Pilot (R), Unite The Lost (T), Fiendforge (Un)!

Empyrean Embrace (T) Resonates With Deception (C), Meditation (U), Negotiation (U), Deep Mind (E), Void Sanctuary (D), And Unseen Beholder (D)!

Adamant Discord (T) Resonates With Exalted Conjunction (T), Skein of Fate (L), Void Nexus (M), Astrum Ascendance (T), And Magus of the Grand Design (T)!

Do You Wish To Combine These Skills And Evolve?

Warning! Evolution May Result In Death And Cannot Be Stopped Once Begun.

All Choices Have Consequences.

Yes!

Evolution In Progress…

The Ruin careened towards the Trees.

"Get back! Everyone, get back!" Vess warned.

Crowds of thousands were pressed against the barrier’s edge, but now they scrambled back. Dark flame tore through the Trees, splintering the Authority's Consequence like kindling. Frozen, purple-black fire consumed it all, ripping up leaf, root, and earth in equal measure.

This time, Vess did not have to tell people to run.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

People fled to the far ends where the Trees still stood. Before, that was a comfort. Now, they blocked their escape. Yin tore against them, spending every Skill he had to break open even a piece of their trunk—if only to give Vess time to flee.

There is no use, Yin.

Vess turned as people streamed past her to hammer at the barrier. Ruin bore down on them, alreadying having consumed the far end of the field, it gathered into itself like a living creature. A serpent perhaps, coiling before the strike.

Gabby strode out before it.

No!

A halo of gold surmounted the Titan, bright as the sun, until it filtered down into the handle of her Brightblade. She lifted the weapon into a guard stance and waited before the tide of oblivion.

She was the first.

Atar came next, with his staff held out before him and a veil of white flame engulfing his skeletal Body. Alister followed, a series of force Mana shields manifested before the line, and then others. Harn and Evie, Kevin and Shadow, Elowen and Wendell and Beef. Even Ondine and all of her Chimera took to the skies, lining themselves before the Legion and citizens of Jaast.

Come, Yin. Vess joined them.

Her Companion landed beside her, claws bloodied, but chin lifted and proud. Yes. I suppose this is a fitting end.

Thunder roared, as if the growl of a vast beast, and the Ruin swept forward.

The fortress dissolved, bursting into smoke as easily as the riven earth. A river stretched across its path, but it froze and shattered in the same breath, before it, too, was devoured.

The gelid flame narrowed, as if leaning in toward their defensive line. It came for them, and there was nowhere to run.

Felix. Yin drew her close, and her father put his hand on her shoulder. I hope you survive.

The wave crashed down. She tried to keep her eyes open, but at the last moment, Vess squeezed them shut. She did not wish to see the end of all she loved.

She waited.

And waited.

But there was only silence.

Perhaps…death is quiet? Vess opened her eyes and started back. “Noctis’ tits!”

The Ruin was frozen mere spans above their heads. It burned still, and the unnatural cold of it radiated powerfully enough to spread frost across her armor…but it didn’t move at all.

The field of blackened clouds and burning flame was…hesitating.

Without warning or reason, it pulled inward, back toward itself. A vast, unexplainable anger swept through their Spirits, as brutal as it was blunt. It drove Vess to a knee, the force of it blistering her skin and bursting her eardrums. Sound vanished, but the scream she heard was outside of Perception.

The Ruin bent itself further inward, where a point of blue-white and red-gold gleamed at its center.

Felix!

Desolation scoured at Felix and Pit alike, pouncing as if it could sense his moment of weakness. Power roiled through him, spent in waves to feed the multiple Evolutions that kept him breathless and weak. Too weak to even arrest their endless fall or to wake Pit up.

The white mist poured into him, prying apart his black armor. Pieces of it unraveled, torn away into the fleeing distance. Had he the strength, he couldn’t focus on any of it.

His Skills had shattered.

His core space was in ruins, each planet colliding into another as the latticework bounds crumbled against themselves. The Divine Tree, already split down the middle, now stretched like taffy, its branches and roots pulled by some cruel force. They became lines of infinite blue, and they plunged out into the dark, lost amid the vast distance. The Bonds crossed again and again, never once touching, yet moving in a myriad of directions to form countless labyrinthine shapes.

His planets—his Skills—flare and burst, their patterns merged completely with handfuls of others. Explosions of cacophonous sound filled Felix, pressing him to bursting as their pressure built without release.

His Core Manifestation collapsed, the energy smashing through him and funneling toward his center. In an instant, almost two dozen Skills vanished…and were replaced by four.

Evolution is Complete!

Sonata of Dominance (T) Has Evolved Into Genesis Cascade (P)!

Sovereign of Flesh (T) Has Evolved Into Authority Of Renewal (P)!

Empyrean Embrace (T) Has Evolved Into Claim The Cosmos (P)!

Adamant Discord (T) Has Evolved Into Sovereign Of Tides (P)Levels Have Been Maintained!

Five if you count our Core Manifestation!

Pit! Felix blinked away from his riotous core space to find his Companion wide awake. We’re falling!

On it!

His Companion swooped beneath him and spread his wings. Even with just three, they slowed with a mighty jerk, the air resistance more than enough to send them soaring across the insane heights.

Felix hugged his friend, wrapping his arms as best he could around his massive neck. “Never go away again, bud.”

Pit chirruped. “I don’t plan on it.”

New Skills… Felix flicked through them. His Body was broken, his arms and legs already unraveled, but he couldn’t help but be excited by the Evolved forms of his abilities. Sovereign of Tides.

The Skill activated, and it was as if he possessed a third eye once again. Around him stretched the millions of Bonds that made up all the Realms, and each of them split open the veil that hid away the rest of the Ethereal’s secrets.

Suddenly, Felix could see the detritus of a thousand different worlds colliding among the white mists, a churning maelstrom of chaotic debris that ground itself down just in time for more items to spin into view. Through his Skill, he was witness to an expanse that made no sense to him, but with every passing moment, that changed. Information and ideas not his own trickled through his Mind too fast and too complicated for him to absorb, and yet they were there, a Bond away.

“Pit, it’s beautiful.”

His friend chirruped. “It is.”

A dark purple cloud of cold flame billowed through the Ethereal, a spear aimed for his heart. It cut through Desolation without care for how the white mist broke parts of it up, and it should have to—the touch of Ruin meant death.

Authority of Renewal!

Genesis Cascade!

His scales swelled, cladding his Body with thick slabs of midnight at the same time a ten-foot thick wall of iridescent blue-green Fiendstone manifested out of thin air.

The spear of Ruin crashed into it, and the Fiendstone buckled like paper to a bullet. The Ruin hit Felix with near-full force…or it would have, had he not dove out of the way.

“Ugh.” It was hard maneuvering as little better than a torso, but he’d managed. His limbs had started to restore themselves as his stats skyrocketed, but they were far from being useful. “I caught the edge of that.”

He wasn’t dead, which was a relief, but his scales had been scorched…and a large chunk of his significance had burnt away.

Now that’s a problem.

“It’s here.”

Felix grunted. “I noticed, bud.”

The cloud stopped a hundred feet away, close enough that Felix could make out every ripple and fold of the burning haze of oblivion. Pit tilted his head. “Why’d it stop?”

As if in answer, the Ruin collapsed, folding itself down into the rough shape of a massive, heavy-set man. He was big, but in the sense that mountains are big, and his form was strapped with equal parts fat and muscle. He bore hair of purple-black flame and a body made of starlight and smoke, but it was one of impossible dimensions. A face of squirming lines scowled at Felix.

“Myrrd,” Felix growled.

Stain. The once-god raised an arm made of starlight, and its indomitable Will and impenetrable Intent pierced Felix straight through. BEGONE!

Authority of Renewal!

Sovereign of Tides!

The Will of Ruin crashed into him—and it met a Will to match.

No. The once-god’s eyes burned in the depth of his craggy face. His back came undone, billowing into caustic clouds that withered pieces of the Ethereal. You Cannot Resist Ruin!

Felix bared his teeth as Authority of Renewal reformed his Body with sudden, if painful, fidelity. He flexed his newformed claws, and Sovereign of Tides did two things: for one, it sent Pit vanishing into his Spirit, and secondly, it thrummed the Bonds around him.

Specifically, the ones between him and that place, way over there.

Myrrd moved, blurring into a wave of obliteration, and Felix pulled. He careened bodily through the tumbling remains of a dissolving building, evading the Ruin at speed.

Myrrd screamed, and annihilation followed.