Unbound

Chapter Seventy Three - 073

The air quaked and the stone beneath his feet shook as Felix regarded his Bastion of Will. His visualization of it was breaking apart, piece by piece, while the howling in his guts reached a fever pitch.

Crimson wind caressed his skin, pulling Felix from his mental construct back to physical reality, the Maw's face only inches from his own. It purred at him.

"A fine hunger, sharp and fierce. You do me proud, child."

His hunger rioted as it touched him, the volume within his mental space and pain within his body reaching all new heights. It felt like he was being torn apart from the inside.

"And your Body, what marvels you have wrought. You've put your Skills to such good use. This...Moving Mountain Body is stalwart and resilient." A sharp claw ran along his left shoulder, tearing a painful line across his upper back as it circled him. "And you've passed the First Threshold. Remarkable. Mouthwatering."

The Maw's body crossed back into Felix's peripheral vision and he could see that it was an unholy mix of woman and beast, changing between each step as it kept a humanoid hand against his bloody skin. Its talons were like fire as they scratched out fluid lines in his flesh. "You Mind is...simple. Barely Tempered at all, hmm? Wonderful. That will make this so much easier."

It stopped, clawed feet suddenly clicking against the icy floor. Then a growl, low and buzzing and terrible, shook Felix to his core. "Your Spirit, however is still too strong. My Mark is not enough." It spat out the last words, then its voice grew softer. "Strange. You should be in agony, right now. Barely able to stand, let alone resist." Then there was a gasp and Felix could hear a smile in its voice. "Ah, perfect."

Hands grabbed at Felix's belt, ripping free the hardened potions case he had resting against his hip and tearing his belt off in the process. A metallic clatter rang throughout the room as his hooked sword fell to the ground, and his thin leather belt was tossed somewhere in the distance. The Maw wandered back into Felix's vision, this time almost entirely in the guise of Lhel, for that is what it was: a fleshy mask the creature used to lure people in. The creature fiddled with Vessilia's potions case, and for an unreasonable moment he dared hope she couldn't get it open. Felix knew it was beaten and battered, but it had proven to be extremely durable during his misadventures.

With a slight flex in her forearms, the case was torn in two.

Felix saw it almost in slow motion. Vials went flying, mostly empty, while two were filled with brilliant multicolored light. The Maw plucked one of the two out of the air, letting the rest fall to the ground. A succession of shattering noises filled the room, and the Maw held up a vial filled with a greenish-white liquid that sparkled in the sunlight.

No...

The vials had fallen out of his line of vision, and locked up as he was, Felix couldn't quite see if any had made it.

"A beautiful concoction," it said, holding up the Essence Draught of Sky's Light. "Such strange delights these Humans are capable of now. Distilling Essences was once a high art, you know."

Unable to respond, Felix also couldn't scream when the Maw appeared inches away from his face again. His breathing sped up, that was it. It gripped Felix's jaw with a sharp fingered claw, tipping his head back as it ripped the cork from the vial with its teeth. The Maw forced the vial into Felix's mouth.

"Take your medicine, dear."

He felt the draught burn a trail of fire down his esophagus, and yet the concentrated Mana was like rain on parched earth. It soaked into his tissues before it ever reached his stomach, moving directly to his core and flaring with a bright white light.

"And now, to make use of it, hmm?"

It placed a dainty claw upon his chest, moving it slightly until it was right above his navel. Then, without warning, its talons dug into his gut like five thrusting daggers.

Streamers of red corruption pulsed through his viscera. Though Felix couldn't look down, he could feel a feverish sickness sweep outward from the Maw's talons. With Fire Within however, he could visualize exactly what it was doing. The veins of crimson effluvia spread into him, invading his core like a bloody flood. Felix flared his blue-white fire, but it still dimmed and spat, flaring brighter for only a few seconds before fading again. The vile power twisted and congealed, roaming his core as if...looking for something. Then it paused, and in a flash pressed itself neatly against one of his Skills; it was only one of two that were burning brilliantly in the darkness of his mind.

A great and compounding dissonance shook him, inside and out. It was as if the song he'd been hearing in the back of his mind was suddenly interrupted, sheared into by atonal beats, snapped strings, and the rattled buzzing of discord.

*&(@ERR0#%$R

#*(XpiERR--anges to System! Be Aware! Rogue Alterations Are Proscribed.

All Actions Have Consequences.

((%$Companion Pact is level 25!

Felix gasped as the notification ripped through his consciousness, unable to be repressed as the Maw's strange power forced his body into Spirit Formation. Then the pain came.

His body was locked but within his Bastion Felix screamed into the heavens as his soul burned. Those flaring tears at his ankle and wrist were scalding brands upon his flesh, torments that spread across his body like a virulent rash, leaving char and ash in their wake. Distantly, Felix could hear something laughing, a cruel and callous sound, one that reveled in his agony. But it was subsumed by the inferno that raged across his Spirit.

@#!$Congratulations! You Have Reached Apprentice Tier In Companion Pact!

You Gain:

+5 AGL

+5 DEX

+...

The anguish of his soul redoubled, and Felix felt as if he were splitting in two. A deep and ruinous fissure ripped through him, sundering his Spirit in a way that he feared could never be fixed. That manic, cruel laughter grew louder, thick tongue lashing in anticipation.

A piercing cry echoed across his mind, a sharp implement cutting through the noise. Both the buzzing discordance and the cruel laughter cut off. Everything stopped...and Felix felt the resurgence of his pact bond. A golden thread of light thrummed across his mindscape, flickering with streaks of deep black and vibrant red, leading off into a far distance that rumbled with thunder. Fury surged and sang across the breadth of imaginary space, and Felix could see the fan of massive red and black wings spreading just beyond the horizon.

A glissando swept across Felix's mind, a dazzling shift from low to high notes that soared into the deepest reaches of his soul.

Rarity of the Skill has upgraded!

Companion Pact (Rare) becomes Etheric Concordance (Legendary)!

Etheric Concordance (Legendary), Level 25!

You have deepened the connection between you and your Companion, forming a concordance that will have echoing consequences for you both. The grandest heights and crushing depths lie in store, though what shape the future holds is up to you both. All previous abilities of Companion Pact are retained.

Upon reaching level 25, you have gained the ability Convergence - Merge with your Companion for 1 minute x Skill level, gaining additive bonus to Harmonic Stats. Companion is released at end of effect.

Without warning the pain returned, crashing into Felix like a tidal wave. Green waters overwhelmed his Bastion's walls, flooding through the crenelations and sizzling against the courtyard. Acrid smoke and fumes began to fill the air while crimson fire roared in Felix's soul. He fell to his knees, dark stone shattering beneath him as the tower listed further to the side.

Rare Essence Draught Detected During Formation!

[Essence Draught of Sky's Light]

Choose a Feature:

Horizon

Vaulted

Beacon

Barely cognizant, Felix couldn't muster the energy to choose. He felt the world sliding away from him, tilting toward collapse. Mental construction or not, his Bastion of Will was failing him. He tried again, but his thoughts unraveled as fast as he could muster them.

I can't...

Another shriek cut through his mindscape, and Felix turned away from his Bastion and core, refocusing on the real world. He still stood, locked in place. The Maw still laughed, though it had wandered away, toward the fallen giant...the one who was sitting up shakily. A soft scraping noise caught his attention and out of his lower peripherals Felix could see a dark shape was dragging itself closer, claw by claw.

It was Pit, and he was in bad shape. Feathers had been torn out in several spots and a few wounds oozed thin blood from the tenku's back and shoulders. A trail of smeared red extended behind him, and he was shaking. Whether from cold or blood loss or exertion, Felix didn't know.

He didn't know.

Felix groped for the assuring presence of the pact, but it was gone, as was Pit's warmth. With a soft, yet insistent chirrup, Pit lifted his head and fixed him with a golden stare. Felix read grit and fury and something boundlessly other in the tenku's gaze, something he had never seen before.

Then Pit's paw touched him.

Convergence.

There was a blinding light, turning Felix's vision entirely white as Pit disappeared.

A great swell of melody as a dozen notes resounded within Felix. Power thundered through him, similar to a System level up but so much greater. The dissonant pain was driven away, drowned beneath the frenzy of harmony, too much for the Maw's power to dilute and break apart.

Felix brought up his Harmonic Stats with a thought. Then he felt them shift and expand, becoming something more.

Harmonic Stats

RES:

125 (+28)

INE:

78 (+14)

AFI:

74 (+15)

REI:

71 (+15)

ALA:

119 (+27)

Felix and Pit cut out a moment, a sliver of space where thought and action could exist within the maelstrom of the Maw's awful power.

A birdlike voice cried at him, the hint of a growl in the sound. The meaning was instantly clear.

Choose!

Felix chose.

Congratulations!

You have absorbed the Essence of Beacon!

3 of 3 Spirit Essences Formed!

Tempering Has Begun!

Then the pain came back.

Grimmar choked back a cry as he sat up. He had to leverage himself entirely with his arms, as the giant's legs below the knees were a ruin. His miraculously accelerated healing was repairing the damage, but whatever that Nym had used was slowing it down.

That bastard boy!I'll rip this throat out, no matter what the Mother says!

So caught up in his own rage, Grimmar didn't notice his goddess' presence until he felt claws dig into his wounds.

"AHH!" Grimmar let loose an animalistic, basso scream.

"You live, yet you lie here," came the Mother's sweet voice, a balm to Grimmar's ears. Then her voice turned sharp. "While I had to finish the job!"

Though she regained the Nymean shape of Lhel, claws the size and weight of greatswords stabbed further into Grimmar's legs, tearing into his flesh with ease. Grimmar screamed again, panic flushing his voice.

"You are a disappointment, Grimmar. All of your advantages, and still you're failing." She shook her head, and Grimmar felt his world begin to crumble. "But I will give you one last chance to become my true Champion, my Vessel."

The Mother produced a bloody red stone the size of her head and held it aloft in dainty hands. The giant took it gingerly from her, the stone barely bigger than his massive thumb.

"Prove yourself. Survive."

Without thought or question, Grimmar threw the red stone back, swallowing it down instantly.

There was a long moment where the Risi Chieftain thought his goddess had made a mistake. Surely not. I must be...

Then he felt a crawling sensation, deep in the flesh of his wounds. It tingled, a shifting wave against his leg meat that pressed blue ichor out of him like a spilled tankard. Behind it Grimmar's muscle and skin began to stitch back together. He was healing, rapidly, even the acid-touched injuries inflicted by that damnable child. He watched his Health rise steadily, then faster and faster as the healing gained steam. Grimmar grinned widely, even as a powerful heat built up within his legs and chest.

With this power I will conquer the entire Continent, let alone that pathetic Nymean. Grimmar went to stand but found his legs, now fully healed, strangely too weak. What is this?

The wounds that had so recently closed up began to bulge, his calf muscles and thighs ballooning rapidly. His skin began to pop and burst, tearing in great stretches along his legs as the heat became an inferno.

Grimmar howled, the pain nearly too much.

"Wh-what is--?" He could barely get the sentence out as his abdomen began to cave, his muscles and fat and guts squeezing and ripping away from themselves. The muscles beneath his legs twisted and shivered, growing ever larger and slamming to the ground with a quaking thud. He couldn't breath, couldn't scream, but he could feel blazing flames engulf his chest and creep toward his arms and head. His skin shriveled and tore, muscles beneath them wasting away as black, rotting flesh chased after healthy blue. The nutrients of his body were being siphoned away, pulled in by the monstrous growth on his legs.

Grimmar stared in paralyzed horror, his body abruptly too weak to lift his head, as hundreds of teeth emerged in razor sharp rows upon the agonizing growth. Mouths appeared, flexing and screaming without sound or reason. The giant's blood boiled, turning to thick, torpid sludge in his veins and pooling in his withered chest.

He choked, unable to clear his throat.

"Unsuitable," the Mother declared, staring him in the face with no more concern than a bug. She scoffed. "Too rigid. Too weak."

His last thought was a plaintive wail for his goddess to save him. And then her immense teeth flashed in the sunlight, and Grimmar knew no more.

Congratulations!

You Have Tempered Your Spirit!

You Have Formed: the Dawnwalker Spirit

+10 WIL

+10 INT

+10 RES

+15 INE

+5 ALA

A storm of energy poured through Felix's form, once again changing him on a fundamental level that he still did not comprehend. Felix felt Pit thrum with the power of it too, somehow gaining from his consolidated Spirit.

Dawnwalker? What does that mean? It wasn't as straightforward as "Moving Mountain" but then again, the concept of Spirit was beyond Felix's normal experiences. Suddenly, without any warning, Felix's body completely relaxed. He fell to the ground with a muffled thump.

"Uuhh," he groaned. Everything was burning, every muscle, tendon, and joint screaming with the agony of released tension. It released me?

The crimson flood in his core had gone.

His Spirit, maybe even his soul, felt ripped apart and beaten bloody. Whatever the Maw had done, his Spirit felt raw, like an open wound. Dimly, Felix realized that it was only the combined effect of their Harmonic Stats that his regeneration was able to keep up with the damage the Tempering did. Even then, Felix wasn't sure that everything went the way it should have. He felt...weighted down, as if his Spirit was incomplete or malformed.

Magda...was right. Shit. And it did...all this so I couldn't resist...what? What is...the creature...planning?

Whatever it was, Felix wanted none of it. He cast about, unable to really move. His body was numb and unresponsive, but his eyes weren't.

There...has to be...something. Even thinking was starting to hurt, echoes of the Maw's terrible dissonance like a thousand knives in his thoughts. Something...

A thought surfaced, from Pit no less, a focused beam of intent. Felix was able to turn his head, reveling in the sensation as he did so. Glass covered the ground before him, but beyond that laid a blood red stone and a vial filled with liquid light.

The Essence Stone! The last draught!

With excruciating slowness, Felix pulled his numb, tingling body over the broken shards of glass. He felt a few of them bite into his shirtless chest and belly, but his skin was too tough for them and he didn't stop. He was so close. Pit screeched in his mind, closer than he'd ever been before, and they pushed together. The vial was within reach, but his numb arms wouldn't cooperate with delicate movements. So Felix scooped it and the Essence Stone toward him with a single flailing arm. Trapping the vial against his chest, along with a bunch of glass and ice, he fumbled it up to his mouth. It was still corked and sealed.

To hell with it, Felix groused. He bit right into the vial, shattering the seal and top and driving a shard directly into his tongue. He ignored it, the pain nothing before the Maw's power, and swallowed down the draught.

It burned fiercely, tasting like musk, and wind, and far off grasses beneath a summer sky. It sunk into his core, boiling away around his reignited fire, ready to be used.

Felix spat out the glass shard and shuffled around, looking for the Essence Stone. Grimmar started screaming across the chamber, and Felix rushed as much as he could. He panted, short panicked gasps as he searched. Feeling was returning to his hands now, and when he found it he snatched it out of the pile. The stone gleamed red, nearly an inch long and a half inch in diameter: it was a damn horse pill.

This grants the Consumption Essence...no options like a draught. It came from a Bloodstone that came from blood beasts created by the Maw. That can't be good, can it?Can it?

Pit warbled within his mind, the Convergence still in effect. A series of thoughts raced through their collective mind; Felix couldn't get over how weird it all was.

Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger? That seemed to be the direct translation of what Pit was implying. Felix looked down at the glittering stone. An image of the poison fang he'd crafted drifted through his mind, of someone viewing him at a low angle as he pressed the fang closer and closer to his arm. All for a few levels in Poison Resistance.

Ok...got me there. But this, he held out the stone. It's different.

Grimmar's screaming increased in intensity before cutting off completely. Softly, but far too close for comfort, Felix heard a voice.

"Oh you naughty boy."

Quick as a flash, Felix threw the Essence Stone in his mouth, but before he could swallow, he locked up again. It sat upon his tongue, only inches from its destination.

"I cannot believe I dropped the Bloodbinding. I'm getting careless in my imprisonment," Felix heard the tap, tap, tap of bare feet upon the hard ice. The Maw drew closer. "Grimmar has failed me, Felix. His flesh was weak, unable to withstand my majesty. But then, he was always a long shot. One of many I've tried over the millennia." Felix heard its sigh of disappointment break into a smile, the sharpness of it hiding in its voice. "You are different, Felix. Your Body is strong, your Mind supple, and your Spirit..."

It ran her clawed hands along his back and sides, pressing and testing his flesh.

"Ah yes. You Spirit is primed. Merely waiting on the final act. The grand finale." The Maw walked until it stood in front of Felix. He realized he was nearly back in the same position as he started, a little outside the central circle, facing the Essence Anchor. Sigils flared and sank upon its surface, far more rapidly now than before, but still not making much sense to him. He didn't know enough.

The Maw cleared its throat, recapturing his attention, and Felix saw that it had become Lhel once more. Her appearance was without flaw, seemingly Nymean in every way that Felix could spot. She smiled, but it wasn't gentle or kind or sweet; it was the bared teeth of a predator, ready for their meal.

"Let us begin, yes?"

She took a pale, dainty hand and thrust it into her mouth, all the way up to her elbow. Blood and spittle poured from her gaping jaw as her left hand rooted around for something. Had Felix been able to speak, he would have been struck dumb by the vision before him; it was gruesome and appalling, even more so because Felix had no clue what the creature was doing. But then the Maw grabbed hold, and with an almighty tug, pulled a smoking, shapeless mass of crimson gunk, and then kept pulling. And pulling. Like a nightmarish stage magician, the Maw removed the shapeless mass of blood-soaked corruption until it filled the air and Felix's eyes felt like they were going to explode. The sight of this...power, was absolutely terrifying on a primal level. The blob hovered above her, the size of an 747 airplane, pulsing with dim flashes of internal lightning and oozing in all directions. Clouds of Mana vapor poured off of it like dry ice.

With a flick of a hand, the entire mass was thrown behind her.

Felix watched as the gargantuan thing spun backward, floating almost casually until it was caught within the swirling whirlpool of the Essence Anchor. The pull of the Anchor yanked it into a huge spiral, threads of the mass spinning off, stretching around the ancient obelisk like blood down a drain.

It's Mana, Felix realized. Liquid Mana.

He sensed such power from the Mana that it had utterly overwhelmed him. Now that it was thinning Felix felt a pang of longing for it, and his mouth began to actually salivate. What horrible things could be done with such corrupt, delicious power? As the liquid Mana was consumed by the Essence Anchor, another thought flickered through his mind.

Why had she given it up?

The Maw sighed, still in the guise of Lhel, and she looked...old. Haggard and drawn, the creature's skin was pulled taut against her bones, as if every ounce of fat had been expended by her actions. Stumbling forward, she coughed several times into her pale hand.

"The chain around my neck tightens the harder I fight against it. The Anchor is attuned to me, to my power, so I can never leave under my own strength. But if I give that up...well, that's entirely different." She gave him a smirk that was more like a corpse's grin. "Oh I know you're dying to ask more questions. Questions, questions! So curious, little Felix." She looked up at the sunlight which had started to angle across the chamber at some point. "But I'm running out of time. And so are you."

Without another word, the Maw melted into a crimson mist and surged toward Felix. Unable to budge an inch, he couldn't stop it as the Maw's vaporous form poured through Felix's gut wounds...and into his channels. Much like before, the creature flooded into his pathways like a virulent pus, oozing at speed toward his center. It left behind only raw and shredded passages and flesh, throbbing with corruption that was like acid on nerve endings. Her coming was presaged by a buzzing dissonance that shook everything and sent his unnatural hunger into overdrive.

Hm, how fascinating. Fire and lightning. An interesting mix and quite nice too. I can do so much with this space.

But it is entirely too crowded. Time to clean house.

Felix watched with mounting horror as the Maw flashed toward the lights that composed his Skills and began to tear them apart.

#&#D4NGER! YOUR SKILL ACTING HAS BEEN D#5%$mAGeD!

20% O))#_$RATING CApACITY!

The world shattered.

Felix thought he'd known pain before; this entire experience had been a lesson in it. But he'd known nothing. Nothing.

After two strikes, his Acting Skill sundered completely.

@#(U HAVE L0ST THE SKILL ACTING, LEVEL 11!

Lightning arced across his core, sparking in roiling coils that hummed like a generator. His internal fire, more white than blue, spiked in sympathetic rage, coursing through his veins like a molten dirge. Felix couldn't think, couldn't see or speak, couldn't feel anything but the agony of a piece of his core shearing off into the abyss.

Mmm, that was wonderful. Only level 11, was it? I have forgotten how good you Nym taste! It paused, the shapeless mass of bloody Mana clacking a thousand teeth. Don't worry. I won't eat you. Not all of you.

(*$5GER! YOUR SKILL IMPROVISATION HAS BEEN DAMAG($D!

33% OPERATING CAp--

YOU HAVE LOST $38F SKILL IMPROVISATIOn, LEVEL 11!

I need to make it more comfortable for myself, but honestly, I just can't help taking a nibble. Mm!

But Felix couldn't hear. He was overwhelmed by the agony of his soul being scoured and devoured by this abomination. His vision both physical and not, was surmounted by flashes of blue and gold, flares that burst and shuddered with each tearing bite the creature took from him. Each Skill that was devoured was lost knowledge, lost capability, lost pieces of himself. And he knew he'd never get them back.

The Maw cooed at his evolved Skills, at his Epic ranked ones, the deep craving in her voice readily apparent.

No.

Felix pulled away from his inner turmoil, focusing on his physical reality. Pit chirruped, helping him maintain even as his vision nearly blacked out. His mind steadied.

This isn't the end.

He still had the Essence Stone. If he could swallow it....Felix tried to flex, to push, to goddamn vibrate but he was stuck, locked away from his body by the Maw's blood magic. Even with Pit's help, with the advantages of Convergence, his stats were no match for a creature older than anything he'd ever known. A creature that had infected him from the start, the molded and shaped him into a perfect host for its insanity and hunger. A--

The hunger.

Felix focused on the Maw, who was still rampaging within his core, still giving off that scent and taste and feel of rot deep in his veins and channels. But more than that. It was the song, the Mother's Song, the one the giant's raved about. A raucous chorus of saw bands and crashing notes, chords that rattled against one another like a tool chest falling down a set of stairs, opposed, at odds. Not a Grand Harmony, like Vvim called it. This Song wasn't about Harmony at all.

It was about Dominance.

And part of him loved it.

His hunger ate it up, shrieking and vibrating within him, ripping outward with teeth sharp enough to shred, to devour. But it always wanted more. More and more and more. So Felix took that Song and funneled it into his hunger, gave it all it wanted. Fed it until it choked and drooled.

Within his physical body, saliva kept gathering, an involuntary reaction. And the Essence Stone...slipped.

Swallowed whole.

Boring down on his core, Felix focused on his last Skill, the one that started it all. It was a banked blaze, still untouched by the rampaging Maw, and Felix thrust his will within it.

He pushed.

Analyze...

Name: The Unending Maw (Transcendant)

Type: Primordial

Level: ??????????

HP: ????????????/????????????

SP: ????????????/????????????

MP: ????????????/????????????

Lore: The Unending Maw is a cataclysm from a previous Age, a Primordial being of eternal Hunger.

Strength: ???

Weakness: ???

The Skill flared up in a fiery inferno, a lighthouse bonfire that lit up the bloody dark.

What are you doing!

Felix opened his notifications.

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