Unbound

"Come now, Nym. There is no reason for hostility. Not yet." That smile stretched ever wider, the golden metal deforming. How was he doing that? "You have thrived, ever moreso since last we spoke. Far more than when we met. You were but a mewling worm, come to rob my Domain. Now here you stand, ready to stop me, the mighty Nymean hero." The smile dropped. "How predictable."

Adamant Discord spun through Felix's core space, a bright star begging to shine, but Felix held it back. The Archon wasn't moving nor was he sounding a spell. He needed time to think. "Been a while, Archie. Last time I saw you, you were beaten bloody and run outta town." He smiled. "Figuratively speaking. Literally too, I guess."

Where before Felix hadn't even felt the Archon's presence, he briefly caught a hint of murderous rage in the air. The mere thread of it worried Felix, as it hadn't come from the Archon directly, but the entire Temple. As if Felix were submerged within a pool of his Spirit.

You aren't wrong, Felix, Karys whispered. This one is strong. Stronger even than the Memory suggested.

Pit just snarled through their bond, still hidden.

Voracious Eye!

Voracious Eye Failed.

The Archon tilted his head, flanged helmet tapping gently against his raised pauldrons. "Haarwatch has been a jewel I could not claim, thanks to you. I found myself angry for that at the start. Furious, one could say." His eye-fires, bright red, creased as if with pleasure. "Yet your obstinance has proven to be my boon. I must confess, I am grateful to you, Felix Nevarre. Had you not repulsed my forces, you would not have had the strength to claim that bauble." He gestured at the sword Felix still held between them. "Crescian Bronze will not calmly go to forge, Nymean. It must be convinced. That willfullness does not degrade after it's worked, whether that is a weapon or not."

Felix narrowed his eyes, but let the creature talk.

"Had you not claimed it, this Door would still lie untouched. My Profane Sigaldry could not even mar the stones around the threshold! And those wards were not gentle to any who approached." For the first time, Felix realized that the Archon's left hand was marred with blackened patterns. Scorch marks, where lightning had danced across his metal body. The Archon noticed his glance and held out the arm. "Powerful wards. It makes me wonder what the Nym were so keen on keeping from me. Me, who has more claim on their secrets than any other." His eyes burned, hot and fierce and more than a little mad. "Even you, boy."

Felix didn't reply. He was feeling at the Archon's Spirit with his Affinity, slowly, carefully. His slow steps brought him before before the Door again, and the Archon frowned.

"Power has been handed to you, Nym. I have...I have seen it before. Where I—" The Archon slammed at its own head, denting the metal. "I can't remember. The Voice...I woke in the dark, Nym, in the dark where you all put me. Everything was taken from me. I remember that. I clawed it back, much as I could, but it's not enough. It will never be enough to repay what was taken," the Archon glared, and its helmet snapped back into shape. "Taken by you."

"I'm not Nym," Felix said. "I'm—"

"You're close enough!" The shout rattled the stones at their feet. "I know you've been infected, been turned somehow, into a Primordial. It's impossible that you survived, yet here you are." The Archon sneered. "Yet still, you are no match for me. No. Never that."

The thread!Felix!

Pit's cry was ice water in Felix's veins. His Affinity snagged upon a thread of connection floating before him, one that was snagged securely around himself. It shot off, straight as an arrow, right into the Archon. The creature's Spirit was disguising it, but the moment it had their attention it billowed, expanded until it dominated his vision. Yet still, he could see the Archon just as clearly, a snake coiled to strike.

"I see you can feel it now." The Archon laughed again, and it was too high, too ragged. "I've known you were on the way from the very start. I could feel you approach. How could I not? We are linked, boy. You, a Nym, and I...someone the Nym sought to control. A threat too great for their vaunted compassion!"

The thread shook, quivered with violence, and that was all Felix needed.

Unfettered Volition!

A beam of white-hot flame speared through the space his head had just been, missing him by only inches and haring off into the thick darkness behind the Door. Felix tumbled, fetched up on his feet in less than an instant, already hurling his spell.

Adamant Discord!

The connections between him and the air outside the Temple firmed up into steel-hard cables, and that very action sent lightning bursting down their length. Thunder cracked, like an explosion in the sky, loud enough to wake the dead. He hoped.

The Archon easily dodged the sizzling bolts, laughing as he did. "Pathetic! All that time to line up a shot, and still you fail!" More fire kindled along his right arm, spiraling up from the Profane Sigaldry carved in his golden limb. "Face me, then! Finally!"

Felix only snarled wordlessly, grabbing at the fire that slashed at him like an enormous claw.

Ravenous Tithe!

The claw quivered before it burst apart, a field of flames that he pulled down into his channels with some effort. It resisted his Skill, pushing back just enough to notice. It slowed him enough that the metal hammer hit him square in the shoulder. Felix all but teleported from the ground to the far wall, his dense Body smashing a whole foot into the Temple's wall.

Felix gagged in pain. So many things broke that he couldn't keep track of it all.

Sovereign of Flesh!

That same broken flesh rippled and stretched, bursting apart as scales as black as night formed across his Body. spikes of ivory bone thrust out of his knees and elbows, lining the tops of his forearms and shins, and shredding the hell out of his clothing. Felix burst from the wall, breaking much more of it as he did. His skin and muscles and bones screamed at him—he hadn't used this Skill in weeks. He hadn't needed it.

Sovereign of Flesh is level 56!

Pit fought to emerge, but Felix shoved back, hard. It's too dangerous! He'll kill you!

He'll kill you! Pit fired back.

He stood, watching the Archon warily as his arm and shoulder began to visibly repair itself.

"Powerful stats, Nym. Too powerful." The Archon paced, the both of them now circling each other. "How? A Skill such as that, Vitality such as that, does not come for free. What bargains have you struck?"

"No bargains," Felix said, and spat out a tooth as it was replaced by sharp fangs. His mouth cracked, reshaping itself slightly, becoming wider, more feral. A predator. "Only consequences."

Unfettered Volition!

Adamant Discord!

Felix flared his Skills in addition to his Affinity, and with all the Willpower he could muster, seized the connection between him and the Archon. Lightning streamed between them, searing into his golden armor and Felix pushed.

"WHAT!?" The Archon was thrown entirely from his feet, hurtling twenty feet into the opposite wall. A blinding crack of blue-white lightning hit a second later, once, twice, three times as Felix bellowed in sympathetic pain. His Aspects, not quite recovered from before, shook with the strain. But he couldn't stop.

Wrack and Ruin!

Wrack and Ruin!

Dual-casted orbs of dark acid shot at the Archon, but the creature batted them away with contemptuous ease. The wall fell apart beneath the creature's limbs, still crackling with electricity, and the Archon took to his feet. Felix didn't let up.

Influence of the Wisp!

Stone Shaping!

Shadow Whip!

Enthrall Failed.

Blue wispfire surged up the Archon's form before dissipating, but that didn't stop bands of stone from criss-crossing the creature's chest, stymieing his forward advance. A black whip snapped out, lashing him across the head and shoulders and driving him back into the wall with a resounding crunch.

Arrow of Perdi—

A beam of white-hot flame shot at him, spoiling his spell and sending Felix pivoting to the side. Another and another fired at him but Felix dodged back, Unfettered Volition and his own Agility proving too much for the Archon's aim.

Yet in that time, the armored creature had broken free of his stone bindings and stepped forward. "I've no clue how you've done that. I should be impervious to spells of force. Impervious to anything you try, Nym." The Archon's Spirit flared, pressing down upon everything around it. "How?"

Felix gritted his teeth, but remained standing. "Like this."

Adamant Discord!

Lightning flashed, grappled, and the Archon twisted to try and avoid his hold. But he could not escape. Felix bore down and slammed the creature along the alcoves, shattering column after column with the Archon's face until—

He stopped. The damn Archon stopped himself as if he'd run into a wall too thick to shatter. Red lightning crackled about the Archon, and Felix felt a pulse of foreign shrieking joy through the air around him.

Felix! Karys warned.

Felix's eyes widened, but it was too late. As fast as his own Skill, yellow-red lightning struck back at him, traveling along the same connection, and Felix was sent flying. He rebounded hard off the open metal Door, but instead of the door breaking, Felix did. His leg, his femur had snapped clean in half.

But that was a paltry pain, not nearly enough to cut through his Song of Absolution. He flared his Sovereign of Flesh, feeding it more Essence as it ran hot; his leg felt like it was being filled with molten lead and it was a wonder it didn't melt through his thigh entirely. The Archon laughed as he climbed to his feet, having to use the Door as leverage.

Sovereign of Flesh is level 57!

"Haha! I've figured out your trick! The connection! How clever, how vile. You use what the Nym of old would consider sacred, defiling it to impress your Will on me?" The fire in his eyes danced, whille delight and disgust spun end over end through his titanic Spirit. "Well two can play at that, can't we?"

Adamant Discord!

Felix's blue-white force flared just as the yellow-red bolt seared across his vision. The both of them were sent blasted backward; the Archon into a shattered alcove and Felix into the opening of the Door.

He rolled across the star-pressed tiles until his clawed feet slid into the thickened darkness. A jolt of sensation hit him, a chill that near enough froze his feet solid. Gasping in pain and fright, Felix scrambled out of the dark, and his hand secured once again upon the hilt of his Crescian Blade. The cold vanished completely, as did the dark itself, revealing a steep set of stairs and walls carved into lace. Stars and other incomprehensible shapes marched down the length of the stairs, vanished only as the steep steps curved around a sharp bend.

The Song of Absolution is level 73!

Something is down there, Felix. Something horrid, Karys said in a strangled tone.

Whispers tugged at him, and a soft, wet breeze caressed the skin of his throat. Felix flinched and climbed to his feet, warily eyeing the stairwell.

"I'm not done with you, boy!"

Yellow-red lightning snatched Felix from the edge of the dark and yanked him back out into the buttery Temple light. The lightning bit at him, charring the clothes on his body and chewing through the strap of his satchel. Frantically, he kicked at the ground, rotating his body even as he was pulled toward the grinning Archon. In one smooth motion, he sheathed his blade and grasped his satchel, refusing to let it fall, and engaged his own Will.

Adamant Discord!

Adamant Discord is level 66!

Adamant Discord is level 67!

Adamant Discord is level 68!

He halted, a mere twenty feet from the Archon, still hovering in mid-air. The Archon's grin creaked and broke, before it twisted completely out of true. Blue-white lightning surged across his chest and arms, fighting back against the Archon's hold, until Felix floated by his Will alone.

"You're problem, Archie, is that you think this is about force," Felix said between panting breaths.

The Archon himself was quivering, his pauldrons trembling with the strain. "Force is but a means! I will destroy you by whatever method I deem fit," the words were a mad growl, torn between a shriek and the basso rumble of metallic thunder. "You're but a man, Felix Nevarre. A powerful one, but mortal just the same!" The yellow-red lightning crept further between them, almost reaching Felix's face and chest. "I am as old as the civilization you trod upon! The weight of my existence is the crushing behemoth to your paltry chimera!"

It was true, Felix realized. The Archon's accumulation of power, time, and significance within his golden shell was immense; it easily outmatched Felix's own. Yet, his blue-white lightning fought back the red with everything it had, matching it, destroying it. Devouring it.

Ravenous Tithe!

Ravenous Tithe is level 71!

His own Skill cut short, the yellow-red lightning hit Felix almost too fast to activate his Tithe. Almost. His channels screamed as they imbibed the noxious power of the Archon, shredding even as the power dissolved to Mana and was swallowed whole by his abyss. Felix dropped to his feet, satchel spilling, and the Archon stumbled, the force against which they both struggled suddenly gone.

Unfettered Volition!

Wild Threnody!

Green acid Mana bloomed out of Felix's fists as he rushed the Archon, who was so surprised he barely defended himself. Both fists hit, staggering the giant proportioned suit of armor, and setting him up for a flipping kick to the head. Felix's scaled and clawed foot hit, deforming the Archon's faceplate before rotating back onto his feet. He hit again. And again, each time harder and faster than the last. Each time the metal dented, until it began to tear, until Felix's claws slashed through the metal entirely.

Unfettered Volition is level 58!

Wild Threnody is level 54!

Felix was consumed. Each strike was a strike against the terror the Archon represented, each punch or kick or rending claw was another piece of vengeance. He didn't stop. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

Wild Threnody!

He drew more power, and this time his fists shone with blue-gold light. Wild Threnody sang through him, and the Arrow of Perdition blazed at its core, fueling the Threnody and captured within his jabbing fists. He struck, once, twice, and the Archon's chest plate sundered.

Wild Threnody!

Blue-gold radiance suffused Felix, driving him forward, as if the light was drawn to the Archon's bloated core. He thrust the flattened edge of his hand out, stabbing like a knife.

He couldn't stop. He wouldn't!

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