Unbound

A potent choice. Between the three Cardinal Beasts, the options of the Living Spark spoke to Felix’s use of lightning, and Renewal’s Rise was all about growth and life, ideal for his continued survival.

Yet there was only one choice that mattered.

“I choose the Unseen Tides!”

Desolation twisted, light bending around him and assaulting his fortified position, as if the barrier of his Regalia was not even there. Tendrils of Desolation washed over him, but they weren't ones of unmaking. They seized him, and the moment before their descent, lucid realization crystalized in his Mind.

This must be how the Ethereal touches on the rest of the Realms…!

In the next instant, Felix vanished.

No longer in the endless Ethreal, he stood somewhere far darker. It wasn’t the Void, for the darkness wasn’t something as tangible as illumination. He blinked—but couldn’t. There was no movement, no breathing, no him. Yet he could sense them: the three Realms.

The Void stretched below all the others, while the Corporeal stacked atop of it, sandwiched beneath the wild expanse of the Ethereal. There weren't edges to them, not in any real sense of the word. They extended infinitely, possibly, filled with more variety than Felix could encompass. Felix felt the distinction, like running his fingers across the edge of a table, but at the same time, there was no delineation between any of it.

He was part of all three and separate from them. Here was a place beyond all things, in a location that had no physical aspects to it at all. It wasn't dark nor light, nor was there an up, down, or any direction that could give the space meaning. It was empty and so full he could barely stand it. He—

Something moved.

Felix spun around, but there was nothing to see. Even without eyes, he could tell that—yet something moved again. A shape, too vast to be a god, too alien to be anything mortal. Flesh that wasn't flesh rippled through crests and waves, its texture changing by the moment. His Perception tried and failed to encompass even a small portion of it, but it was like trying to swallow the earth in a single mouthful. Reality itself folded toward him, bearing upon his form in impossible angles while fractal patterns burst in all directions, all at once, and still… There was nothing there at all.

Veridaan, he suddenly knew without knowing. As she once was.

Scion.

Significance poured into him, a deluge that weighed him into the nonfloor like shackles. It was too much to bear—too much to stop—and it was only the effect of her gaze. Felix tried to speak, but he choked on it, like opening his mouth into a gale.

ERORR!

YOU REACH TOO FAR!

The Memory scattered to pieces, and a familiar, envious rage snatched at them. The flood of potency vanished, and the Memory was wiped clean.

Felix hit the Ethereal once more, as if he were launched from a speeding car, rolling across the expanse of chaos as fractal starbursts tore into one another. He narrowly avoided their mindless violence, fetching back up onto his feet with a growl.

“Bastard!” His head rang like a bell, one that his Crown was trying hard to quiet. He could feel himself in both places once again, Ethereal and Corporeal, and both existences throbbed in dual agony.

There, the cold flames of Ruin closed in—Felix didn’t know what to do. Everything he’d tried had yet to be enough.

Felix bared his fangs. Rage he’d been holding back roared forth, his Intent laden with his deep desperation. Surprisingly, his Exalted Bell answered.

The Call Of The Emperor Is Active!

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.

Power swirled around Felix, emanating from head, chest, and palm in a golden radiance that momentarily cast back the touch of Desolation. In the Corporeal, his unresponsive Body tossed back the touch of Ruin, scattering its effects backward to sink into the Whalemaw’s sizzling flesh.

Bearer Of The Regalia, a voice intoned. You Called Upon The Wisdom Contained Within The Empyrean Regalia, And The Exults Answer. Once.

Speak.

“Empyreans,” Felix growled from behind his teeth. His Mind whirled through possibilities, but he didn’t have the right information. "I need to speak to the Empyreans."

Wise, Bearer. In This Place, Such A Thing Can Be Done.

A bridge formed, spanning through the openings of infinity that collapsed all around him. The Regalia, or whatever force was within it, burned a line of gold into the distance that punched through the clouds of dissolving white mist.

The Empyreans were dead, having sacrificed themselves to the Compact, but here—so close to the confluence of all things—Felix had hope.

Flickering figures rode that golden line toward him, half-seen and tattered, as if they were ghosts of ghosts. They were stretched and angular, their bodies contorted by either Desolation or their ancient demise. Sharp, hollowed-out cheeks stood beneath eyes that blazed without frailty.

“The Bearer sits in Ruin,” one said.

“The Bearer sits within the beast,” said another.

“The Bearer is doomed.”

If Felix's gut could have fallen any further, it would have blasted through his knees. He held tight to his Regalia, the only firm ground within the storm of power that surrounded him. "I need your help.”

“Help? We no longer live. There is little we can do, Bearer.”

Felix gritted his teeth, hand clutched tight to the Chalice beneath his chest. Already, his hand had begun to unravel. The Regalia's power would only last so long. Even the golden glow of his three-piece set was fading fast. "How do I stop the Ruin? Lascallium said I had just needed to choose. I did, and now I’m here and—"

“Lascallium was an optimist and more doomed than even you.”

Felix’s rage returned. He didn’t have time for this crap. “So you can’t help? Or you won’t?”

“Did you not see the Memory?”

Felix blinked. “The creation of the Ruin? You showed that to me? Why?"

"Think, Bearer.” Felix wasn't sure who was speaking. The faces were all the same, and their shapes had begun to mush together. "You forget your greatest asset."

"My greatest asset is to devour, and that barely helps here."

"Fool." The sound was filled with deep anger, and a touch of resentment. That shocked him more than anything. "Is that everything Veridaan left to you? All the Compact has to offer? Since your arrival here, you have been walking towards this moment. Choice by choice has led you here. It is by your choices that you'll find your answer and nothing else."

Felix recoiled, gaze turning inward. He searched his Mind for everything he could, any plan or trick, but through his bevy of Skills and Titles, there was nothing he hadn’t yet tried. “I don’t—”

The Empyreans had vanished.

“God damn it!”

A spike of pain shocked his chest. His Mind wheeled, the Crown focusing him, even as his emotions threatened to upend reason. Felix’s gaze fluttered away from the chaos of true Desolation, back to the Corporeal.

The Whalemaw had collapsed on the side of the mountain. It was in pieces, exposed bone and organs spilled across the landscape, many of which still burned with Ruinous flame. It was a twitching corpse the size of a city, and yet its teeth gnashed, snapping at the gelid flames.

Alive, but dying fast.

Felix twisted himself. He sat on the ground, his Body folded uncomfortably against an outcropping where the Ruin had swept close. Comets fell from the dark sky, and where they landed were released massive creatures forged of dark flame and brilliant starlight. They rampaged across the once-jungle, headed toward a series of enormous Trees soaked in golden shielding.

Pit was beside him, a heavy pile of feathers and fur. His breath was ragged, drawn in like a rattling bellows. His paw twitched, touching Felix.

The Ruin was closing in, fast. “We have to move, bud.”

But Pit didn’t move. He just breathed, slow and steady.

“C’mon bud,” Felix tried to get up, but his own legs refused to work. They burned with pins and needles, and he noticed that pieces of him had vanished. Devoured by flame.

Pit met his gaze. There were no words that passed between them. Only stubborn loyalty and love.

Then the Ruin took them both.

“PIT!”

Felix screamed, but he was already gone. Cast away from the Corporeal and into the Ethereal by some dark trick, he hit nothing, and it broke him. An emptiness cracked his chest, and out of it spilled everything he’d kept inside. Warmth, humor, and a dire optimism he’d never once relinquished.

It vanished into white mist.

Felix couldn’t breathe. His face was wet, but his hands were dry. Why couldn’t they be bloodied? Give him an enemy. A head to break or a heart to crush. Anything was better than this feeling.

His friend had fallen. There was no recourse, no healing that could save him…not even another chance to say goodbye.

Felix wanted to rip himself apart, but he didn’t have to—his left leg had already begun to vanish. Half of his calf had unraveled into strands of white. Even the gold of the Empyrean Regalia was fading far faster than before.

He had no more tricks.

No friends. No Pit.

Numb, Felix reached for the Half-Core Manifestation that hung in the empty space between him and his Companion. It wasn’t there…and neither were any of his other Skills. His core space was gone. There was only emptiness—and a faint light.

Felix disregarded his unmaking, shoved aside his panic with sheer Will, and took in the glimmering line of light. It was a Bond. THE Bond, the one between him and Pit.

It was dissolving fast.

Without time for more than a wordless cry, Felix reached out. He grasped onto the Bond. He held it tight. This, at least, he would not let go.

The Bond shimmered.

As dissolution sought its end, he held on. Felix's chest crushed, his lungs refusing to pull in breath. Mind aflame, Spirit in disarray, and his Body unraveling faster than he could stop it—he held on.

He would not abandon his friend.

Within him, that space at his center where his core space should be—shuddered. It trembled as the awareness of what was fluttered across the span of Realms. Corporeal, Ethereal, Cognitive. The three sank through him, as a part of Felix as his own Aspects and just as empty. The trembling intensified. He was linked to them all, same as to Pit’s fading line.

Not even Desolation could change that.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Yes. The Empyreans’ voice rattled through his Crown, Chalice, and Bell. It struck him, a hammer atop an egg. You Remember.

A voice rattled through him. It was bigger than the world. A Memory speaking across the Ages.

Veridaan.

SCION.

The world shattered.

The Realms fled away from him—leaves scattering before the wind. Felix returned to the place outside of space, where everything meant so much and so little.

There, in the notdark, he sobbed.

SCION.

“What the hell do you want?” he snapped.

The Cardinal Beast was there, as unmistakable as it was invisible to his mortal senses. Felix breath caught in his throat.

You Grieve.

The thing prowled, as much as a creature the size and shape of reality could manage. There was a piece that Felix recognized, a hint of a shadow of the Beast. Yet it was far calmer, baked in the strange regard of its eldritch Mind.

Felix tried and failed to comprehend it, even a piece of the thing all around him—he failed. Yet in moments, the Cardinal huffed a soft breath.

You Have Been Through Much, Scion.

Maw. Divine. The Beast Itself.

Yet There Is Much More To Go.

“Is that a threat?”

The Cardinal didn’t laugh, but something rippled. It roared beyond sound, joining the unspoken words Felix could almost perceive. The Cardinal was saying more than it spoke, his Affinity screamed at him that it was so. Unspoken questions lilted in the silence between breaths.

“I…I’ll go where I need to,” Felix swallowed. “I can’t leave them behind.”

He didn’t have to explain what he meant.

The world overturned. Directionless as things were, suddenly everything became the Cardinal. Air, light, darkness, him. All things converged for brief, horrible moment.

Then ceased.

A Will Unshaken By Sacrifice.

We Hope It Will Serve.

“What does that mean—” The words no sooner left his nonexistent lips than something pressed against his…everything.

Felix fell, but he was held, suspended by the Will of the Unseen Tides as a thunderous barrage of potency scoured across his Mind, Body, and Spirit. Some might have called it a blessing.

Felix could only scream.

ERROR!

Power Beyond Acceptable Limits Cannot—!

Sparks burst and burned. Whether it was Felix’s eyes frying in his head or from the System breaking, he had no way of knowing. There was only the torrent, as mighty as the sea, it filled every open corner of him until he was ready to burst.

Congratulations, Scion!

You Have Been Anointed As The New Cardinal Of The Unseen Tides!

+5000 To All Stats!

+Increased Authority Over The Unseen Tides

+Increased Authority Over The Living Spark

+Increased Authority Over Renewal’s Rise

+Increased Authority Over Inevitable Decay

ERROR!

YOU CANNOT—

Silence, Worm.

The Memory of Veridaan flexed the smallest portion of her being, and the voice—Myrrd’s voice—was shorn free.

As was Felix. He fell back into himself, and his impact rattled all three Realms at once. He felt it, as clearly as three notes from a piano—then he collapsed, his existence folding back into the singular. Whatever was left of him in the Corporeal congealed with the Ethereal with a silent exhalation.

“I’m…alive.” Felix swallowed as the mists of Desolation lunged in his direction. “For now.”

The unraveling white surged to his position, eager to unmake all that stood within its domain.

Felix threw his head back, a soundless shout driving out of his lungs, even as potency riled deep within his center. The empty dark that hung in his chest quaked beneath the onslaught of that single touch.

It cracked.

Shattered.

Exploding through the shards were millions of branches, each of them a vibrant blue-white thread that streaked in every conceivable direction. The darkness outside of his core space filled with them as the shell collapsed completely, revealing Felix’s core space to his surprised gaze. His Skills remained, dimmed but unbroken, the planets still spinning around the dual cores and roots of his Divine Tree.

Except, they were speeding up. The Tree itself had fully transformed into a translucent blue-white crystal, and both root and branch were spreading farther with every revolution of his Skills and cores.

What is happening? Felix cast around, staring at the Desolation that shied away from the Authority that shunted off of him. “Veridaan?”

A tide of darkness scattered from his Skills, pieces of the Beast that had once coated everything inside his core space. Now the excess ran off, launching into the shadow just outside his bounds, where it clung to a new pattern. It was built upon the ruins of the old, a scaffolding forged by two friends across countless adventures. They intersected with the Bonds cast out from his Divine Tree, rotating around them in labyrinthine designs that Felix couldn’t follow, until a new planet formed there in the dark.

A planet sang of Dissonance and Harmony both, spun Bonds through its center, and soaked in both the might of the Divine Tree and Primordial shadow in equal measure.

It rose. Complete.

This Is All I May Do. The voice that was the world shook him, threatening to upend what she had saved. Make Your Choice, Scion.

Let It Be Glorious.

Words leapt to his lips, unknown before that very moment. They had changed from what they once were—now, like the planet that hung before him, they were complete.

“Core Manifestation: That Which Binds All.”

Felix's body unfurled and was immediately enveloped in a dark power that crashed around him like smoke. Smoke congealed, blasting away the Desolation by its sheer presence, hardening until he was covered in midnight purple scales and red-gold radiance. They clung to him like a second skin, resembling nothing so much as the armored plating of a sleek predator. His breath steamed, the interior of his mouth filled with red-gold and his teeth stretched wide in a fanged grin.

Felix opened his eyes—all three of them—and the world was awash in Bonds.

He’d been wrong.

The Desolation wasn’t chaos, and it wasn’t an empty white either. It was the deepest of blues. He could see them. All of them. Every Bond in the world. Everything that held the smallest connection to another. It was as if his Skill had broken open, exposing him to that infinite cleft in Desolation.

The Confluence Of All Things.

He saw it with sight beyond sight. There was immense power in those Bonds, even the smallest of them. With a nudge of his Will, thousands flitted into his range—information filtered through them, straight to his Mind. Sensation. Awareness. Promises whispered in the night. Mana lingered at the end of all of them, tingling against the Bonds he touched.

Yet there was more than that. Significance sat within every Bond, within the world itself, and with it the world was held firm. Felix knew without knowing that all things would fall into bottomless chaos, were the Bonds to be ever truly severed.

For all of that glorious detail, however, Felix didn’t give a single shit. He turned, hunting until—there! His Bond with Pit remained, as did his Links to all his friends. He could seize them all, power them until—

Power. The potency of the Cardinal was already gone, devoured by his Aspects. It made him stronger, incredibly so, but he had nothing left for this.

Between his fingers, the Companion Bond withered. Felix gripped it harder, but that did nothing. He needed the Whalemaw.

Felix found its Bond instantly and seized it.

Immediately, he was brought face to face with the creature, their senses meshing through the thick cords of blue-white. The monster still lived, clinging to its Need as the edges of the Ruin dissolved it from the inside out. It recognized his touch immediately—it snapped at him, an attack that echoed even across their connection. Felix slapped it back, and perhaps the pain and confusion of it all drove some reason into its maddened hide. It quieted.

"Listen to me!" He shouted, and his voice reverberated like thunder. "Your Need will remain unfulfilled unless you listen. Our Need is the same. We are one."

Words gurgled from a Mind not capable of them, yet syllables rattled through Felix like a sword in his belly.

REUNION.

It cried out an alien, savage glee. A world away, its flesh burst into gobbets of flesh and ribbons of blood. Power crashed into Felix like a tidal wave, congealing into his core space. His Empyrean Embrace was no longer needed, as the unmaking slowed, but did not stop or remake. Felix was suddenly so much more.

Enough to do one thing he’d never been able to attempt.

UNITE THE LOST!

There was no such thing as a resurrection Skill, and he’d tried and failed at this before. But now it was different. Now he was different.

Scion of the Unseen Tides.

Bearer of the Empyrean Regalia.

He was the next best thing to a Cardinal Beast, the primal powers of the world.

Felix bared his teeth.

And it had better fucking listen.

The Bond fought back as he fed power into it, bucking hard enough that it should have ripped free of his grip—but he was the anointed Scion of the Unseen Tides.

His Authority was not to be questioned.

UNITE THE LOST!

Significance drained out of the Whalemaw’s carcass, absorbed and redirected instantly. Mana and Essence joined with it, but most of all, it was Memory. Echoes shook loose from Felix and cascaded into the Bond. Shared senses and experiences. Moments between battles, meals they’d shared, flights they’d taken, all of the small things that made up a life. That made up love.

They fled from Felix in a rush too fast to re-experience them all. He could only feel pain and loss and a deep, burning regret.

He screamed.

Unite The Lost is level 100!

…

Unite The Lost is level 122!

…

Unite The Lost is level 145!

Master Tier!

Grandmaster Tier!

You Gain:

+Reduction Of Significance Consumed Per Use

+5% RES

+5% INE

Exalted Conjunction is level 150!

…

Exalted Conjunction is level 199!

Paragon Tier!

Half-Divine Tier!

Gains Collapsed For Easy Viewing:

+2500 INE

+2000 AFI

+2000 VIT

Felix staggered back, and Desolation fled the strike of his heels. Something sizzled, but he couldn’t tell what, he could only grit his teeth against the ecstatic feeling of leaping stats and agony of spent significance.

He bent over, breathing hard…too afraid to look up.

Two paws padded into view.

Felix lifted his head, just in time to be bowled over by the biggest dog he’d ever known.

“I’m back! I’m back! I’m back!” Ceaseless licks scrubbed his dark plates clean, leaving thick gobs of bird drool in their place.

Felix couldn’t manage words. His throat constricted and dried up.

Pit leaned back and tilted his head. “Why do you have three eyes?”

“Shit,” Felix shoved himself to his feet, his Will questing out toward his Core Manifestation. It still ran through him, but now it had expanded. Continued to expand, in fact. Unite the Lost had ended, but Essence, Mana, and significance poured into the Manifestation until its song was a second heartbeat in his chest. It thundered, the song of it echoing across the infinite span of the Ethereal, like righteous lightning.

Then the Skill crossed over into Pit’s core space.

Pit jolted up and screeched. Power rippled through his restored flesh, growing him yet again. Wings spread wider than a passenger jet, and a massive beak split the empty heavens. “Core Manifestation: That Which Binds All!”

The Manifestation redoubled as Pit’s Will and Mana joined Felix’s. Brilliant plates of black and red armor covered the massive tenku, cladding him as surely as a tank before limning the gaps between with a wild red-gold radiance. Every Bond around them flashed into stark contrast, and the Desolation quaked.

Retreated.

NO! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!

An ancient Will stabbed through the ceaseless chaos, a bolt of flame crossing Corporeal and Ethereal in a single bound—seeking Felix. Annihilation followed as even the fractal chaos around him folded back and withered beneath that gelid flame.

“Get on!” Felix seized ahold of Pit’s fur, just as his Companion tore off into the distance. The bolt of Ruin followed.

They hurtled deeper into Desolation. His grip on Unite the Lost trembled, nearly fallen, as his center threatened to collapse due to pressure inside and without. The unmaking ramped up, bolstered by the pursuing flame. Already, Felix’s legs and arms were completely gone. Pit twisted, grasping Felix between his forepaws, clutching tight as the man’s hips and shoulders unspooled into endless white.

“I’ve got you! Fiendforge!" Pit cried. It clamped their centers in place, maintaining themselves. But only for a second. The branches of his Divine Tree snapped as the latticework barrier shattered like sugar glass.

"It's too weak," Pit cried. "I can't hold it!”

“Son-Sonata of Dominance,” Felix hissed.

The Skill surged within him, keening in a high wail that broke the bounds of Harmony. A scattering of elements launched behind them, stone and vine and chunks of ice all impacting the bolt of Ruin—all of them consumed in an instant. Felix marshalled his Will, honing his disparate Intent for another volley, just as new sounds entered the pattern. They resonated from a loud hum into a stentorian howl that descended octaves into the deepest of rumbles.

Sonata of Dominance is level 155!

Your Tenth Pillar Skill Has Reached Paragon Tier!

You Gain:

+844 INE

+674 WIL

+…

Primordial Core Fragments Detected During Formation!

[Partial Core of Veridaan] [Partial Core of Aatansii] [Partial Core of Kohsara] [Partial Core of Orrinahla]!

The pieces from the Whalemaw…! Felix groaned as the pressure built and the Ruin closed in. It’s–it’s skipping steps again!

Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!

Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!

Primordial Nature Resonates With [Partial Core of Veridaan]!

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Partial Core of Veridaan]!

Calculating Effects…

Feature Already Chosen!

The Unseen Tides Govern Your Fate!

10 Of 10 Skills Have Ascended!

Tempering Has Begun!

The bolt of Ruin struck home.