Unbound

A raging ring of carmine and sapphire light erupted in all directions, nine alternating pillars of flame and lightning speared up into the endless sea of smoke. The Urges were atop him, even as the array seared their approaching jaws, not slowing no matter the fact that they would all collide. Tendrils of flame stabbed through the Feather in his hands, lifting it up. It burst alight.

"Raven! Do your thing!" Felix bellowed.

The Feather bloomed into a blinding light, and the array caught it all, hurling a wall of power out into the Mana well. Light and something more hit the Urges, fueled by the Endless Raven's gift. The Urge of secrets, of bringing light into darkened places, the Raven's power was multiplied by the carmine and sapphire light of his sigils.

Every single Urge was caught, and sent reeling.

"What is this!"

"It cannot be! He is a mortal!"

"No! That light!"

"That upstart bird!"

Above his array, congealing from the blinding light of the Feather, came a vast shape. A hundred thousand wings rustling together shook the Mana around them, and a scream pierced the ears of all who listened. The Urges roared in rage and no little fear; if nothing else, the light itself seemed to scald their ancient forms. These were monsters used to the dark, and the pressure of their Spirits threatened to lay Felix flat. He held on, barely keeping his legs under him while he used his Affinity to sound the Skill required next.

Felix cast as many tendrils into the array as he could, hurling eight from each hand and splitting each of those into four. As each hit the radiant glyphs they burst forth in all directions, multiplying until they were legion, until the smoke-sea around him became a writhing darkness that he could control. Barely. With his Willpower and Intelligence he held on with the tiniest of fingerholds, but he held. The whips tangled against the careening Urges, latching onto scaled flesh and hardened bone, knotting among flailing fins, spines, and slimy claws.

Felix's spell was little more than an annoyance to them, however, as each Urge was instead hunched against the deadly attacks of different foe. Claws of light were attacking them all, slashing at them with talons the size of skyscrapers and leaving behind bloody gashes that clouded the already disgusting liquid Mana.

A screaming cry came from within Felix as well as without. Above. He could not look, but he knew.

CAWW!

The Raven manifested, its shape now clear, and its Intent heavy upon the well. The Urges redoubled their fury and violence, breaking apart Felix's Shadow Whips by the hundreds. The Raven breathed inward, and the smoke-sea drove into its shape, absorbed, condensed until the great avian looked fit to burst.

And then it did.

The detonation hit the well like a bomb, a blooming rose of purest light and ephemeral force. Ephemeral, that is, to Felix and Pit within him. To the Urges it was a blastwave, hurling every single one of them back into the dwindled smoke-sea. Fissures of radiant shadow rent their wounds even further, until the leviathans that threatened them were banked and convulsed like mammoth fish. Noxious fluids and cloying miasma spilled out into the well.

In that moment of pain and confusion, Felix engaged the full power of his array. Unable to choose them or else lose his Magician Omen, Felix made better use of their latent potential. They were paths not taken, possibilities unrealized and packed with power as a result. The Feather and Omens were a focus, a lens for his Will and Intent to become amplified among the searing glyphs if his own creation. And all of it, the damage and weakness instilled by the Raven's explosion, his connection to the murderous Urges, his own titanic Willpower: it was too much, even for demigods.

He was no longer the man he had been. The Path had changed him, but not as he had expected. By dint of his incredible Willpower and stubborn desire to live, to be, without the chains the Divinities offered; he had remade himself. Himself and more. He summoned all that he had forged from the chaos of Harmony and Dissonance by Will alone. The Mana around him quaked with his fury. With his power.

The power of the Cardinal Fiend.

Ravenous Tithe!

The Skill hit the Devour array, and each of the pillars surged with a rapid glissando. Swelling, melodic chords met jarring atonal notes that burst along the length of his thousands of Shadow Whips. Ravenous Tithe screamed forward, amplified by his Path bonuses and the array itself until it was an omnipresent maw, chasing down the tumbled forms of six, stunned and wounded Urges. Their Spirits flared—Minds and Bodies too battered by the Raven's onslaught—but the weight of Omens pressed against them. Choices ripped from the Path, consequences of his past, present, and future. Felix couldn't say he understood what the Omens may have presaged, but he understood power. And if Felix couldn't have them, they'd work just as well as a weapon.

They could not last against his Ravenous Tithe, not with the force of the Raven and nine Omens behind it, let alone his Path's compatibility with tearing free the Essence of his enemies. Screams of unwilling horror and mindless gibbering hate flowed around him as the six Urges were torn asunder by Felix's power. Hideous forms of black smoke were pulled back along his shadow tendrils, their true purpose realized, each filled with a core of dazzling light that flared into gleaming brilliance as they hit his array. Felix screamed himself, barely able to hold it together with his dwindling Mana and split faculties. He held Tiering Skills at bay, the array together, and his Skills blazing to keep it all alight. His Will was split in so many directions, like a man juggling chainsaws, it was all he could do to keep the blades from ripping him apart.

The clouds of darkness and light spun among the array, sending out cascading sparks whenever they struck a pillar of red-gold flame or blue-white lightning. It became a whirlwind, a tornado that tore up the tiles at the bottom of the well, creating such a suction that even the remains of the smoke-sea came roaring in.

Hold! Pit cried, his own Will long joined to Felix's struggle. They would either succeed at this, or die together. There was no middle ground, and could be no stopping. It hurts! It hurts but hold!

It felt like wrestling with the sun, or a glacier in the depths of space. A comet, yet ice and fire and darkness and reprehensible filth. The Urges were vile, each of them a collection of the basest of desires and fears. Betrayal, murder, famine and isolation. The touch of rot, the bile of spite, and the frenzied upheaval of mayhem. All of it howled in the storm, dark winds and vivid, too-bright lights. It was free, shorn of its semi-corporeal shape, and now it sought him. Wanted him with a visceral, palpable need. Felix fought them off, kept them to the array, too taxed to consider his plan. Too pressed for regret.

The Omens shattered, their power swirling into the mix, and the weight upon Felix's Aspects was a mountain that sought to crush him utterly.

Felix! Karys screamed. Now! Raise me aloft!

With an almighty lurch, Felix gripped the sword's hilt and swung it into the sky. The tempest howled, spinning ever faster, while fire and lightning shot through it all, bending it's tumult inward. The array touched the very tip of the Inheritor's Will, a cage of spinning Harmonies and buzzing Dissonance, condensing into an orb the size of his head. It balanced atop his blade, infinitely dense and light as a feather, such power that it bent light. Without warning, it slammed down upon him, its weight yanking Felix up to meet it. The sword pierced it, hilt deep, and a torrent of liquid power poured over him.

Sigils flared along his sword, but Felix wrestled with the tidal wave of Essence, Mana, and more that flooded every single one of his Mana Gates. Potency screamed along his newly remade channels, tearing them raw as the power hit his core space like a bomb. A storm of convulsing liquid slammed into Felix's dual cores, ignoring the pull of the hungry abyss and instead soaking directly into both his [Cardinal Beast Core] and [Thunderflame Core].

The ribbons of light spun, Skills sent hurtling through his core space at a speed they'd never before attained. Felix burned the power, pulling it into himself as fast as he possibly could, seizing it with Cardinal Flame and all the strength of his ridiculous stats. Beneath his spinning cores and hungry abyss, another pillar formed. Again, Pit and Karys threw their aid into weaving it, braiding thickening cables of buzzing Dissonance and trilling Harmony; all of it fueled by the unstoppable tsunami of Urge Essence.

Cardinal Flame bloomed, red-gold fire chased by Adamant Discord blue-white lightning, the both of them guiding his weaving as much as Karys or Pit. They bucked in his grip, his Bastion audibly cracking as level notifications piled on, fighting against his Will.

Almost! he cried, hoping to hold on. Almost there!

Cables twisted, braided, woven under and through, spiraled around a dark red vein that guided the way. The Vein of Divinity aided him, and he was too pressed to be surprised. Felix gripped it all tightly, moving with a deftness that combined his Dexterity, Cardinal Flame, and Adamant Discord into an almost seamless whole.

The second pillar completed, his cores resounding as it snapped into place with a shuddering boom, before it tried to start a third. Felix could sense power enough to weave all nine of his pillars right then, such was the immensity of the Urges' bounty that there might have even been some left over. Karys recoiled, pulling ineffectually at the cables as they spun.

Felix! You must stop! You cannot weave so many so soon! Journeyman cables will not hold alone!

Karys' voice came as if from far off, almost drowned in the cacophony, but Felix heard him. His Mind was assaulted by visions of woven Pillars, all of them Journeyman, and a core that collapsed under the weight of its own significance. Pit pulled back, as if struggling with a hose that was spraying both of his cores with unending vigor. Felix joined them both, hauling on the thread that was hundreds of feet tall, cutting at it with his Intent and what Willpower he could spare. It severed, releasing a roar of Essence into his core space.

A solidity weighted him down, as from the Urges' Essence came a dozen Motes of light. Felix arrested in their place, letting the liquid clouds fill his core space with their chaotic fury. All of it was soaked up by the clarified darkness and spinning Skills, the lot of them becoming abruptly more than they were. As if the light and vibrations that made up his Skills had gained heft and mass; celestial bodies in truth.

All thrummed with a glorious Harmony.

All ached with a gut-wrenching Dissonance.

Felix's Perception and Affinity spiraled inward and outward at the same time, submerged in his core space while at the same time pushing the edges of his crackling array, watching himself as if he were another person entirely. He stood, sword upraised, magic and music and light and shadows blasting in all directions. It sank into him, into his Spirit and Mind and Body. Skin bubbled and regrew, scales emerging and vanishing almost at random, though his eyes blazed a sapphire that never wavered.

And deep within him—from far outside—a golden-blue light flashed.

Bloodlines Detected!

Urge of Fratricide, of Dealings in Blood

Urge of Rot, the Vile Touch of the Darkened Earth

Urge of Hollow Bellies, of Famine in Cold and Heat

Urge of Isolation, of Forgotten Letters and Unspoken Truths

Urge of Mayhem, the Madness of Turmoil

Urge of Spite, the Ill Will of Malice

Processing Bloodlines—!

ERROR!

Primordial Bloodline Devours All Contenders!

New Bloodline 1%

Scales emerged again across his chest and shoulders, heavy plates turning to the smallest of diamond shaped studs. Traveled down his back and along his legs and arms, accompanied by heavy, brutal spikes at his joints and along the tops of his forearms and shins. Dark, organic armor accented with brilliant cyan and red-gold light, edging his scales in patterns that resembled nothing so much as the glowing magma beneath ocean-cooled stone.

New Bloodline 57%

Talons ripped out of him, and massive, feathered wings burst from his back. Felix screamed as his flat teeth were replaced by long, sharpened fangs. All was pain.

The golden-blue light welled again.

New Bloodline 100%!

Primordial of the Unseen Tide (Lesser) has become Primordial of the Unseen Tide (Greater)!

Primordial of the Unseen Tide (Greater)

The Weight Only Grows, The Mountain Cannot Be Set Down

+6 To WIL, INT, DEX, END, +15 Bonus Stats Per Level!

Within his core space, Adamant Discord blazed the same as Cardinal Flame. The patterns of both curved inward, yet grew and grew, threads of it reaching out to all of his other Skills. Lines of gossamer light and hardened steel, of crimson fire and golden chains. In a flash of deep, primal understanding, Felix knew. Both Skills were intrinsic to who he was becoming, and Adamant Discord was linked profoundly to his Race. Connected in a way that shook him, just as it shook the Mana well all around him.

Felix could see so much. Connections that had been invisible were there, so physical he could touch them. The well crumbling around him, devoid now of all Mana and threat. His friends and allies, close but too far, trembling with fear, pain, and exhaustion. They still fought, but hadn't for too long, as if no time had passed since his capture. His enemies were there too. The Archon was above, he—

Felix surged upward, and he hadn't a clue whether it was his physique or his Skill that did the greater share of work. Lightning shattered the empty darkness of the well, falling with thunderous detonations as hexagonal stone met the far away floor. Felix wove through the debris, lightning and lines of adamant connection sending him flying around crumbling pillars. He shot to the opening, to the falling forms of three Henaari that had somehow tumbled within.

Shadow Whip!

One split into three, each tendril snaring a body, and Felix kept rising. The well was falling completely apart now, but the bright circle of the exit was shrinking. It was being eclipsed by a dark shape, as if—

It's closing! he realized.

Cardinal Flame!

Right palm crackling with lightning and the left with a Shadow Whip, red-gold flame kindled at the Mana Gate at the base of his Skull, surging forth in a roar. Cardinal Flame streamed upward, a dragon's breath, and carved the closing cover in twain.

Adamant Discord!

Flaring his Skill for all he was worth, thunder exploded around him as his Body shot through the demolished opening. The well shattered beneath, behind, all around him, but Felix didn't care. Couldn't.

The Archon stood, staring aghast at Felix's rising form. His Spirit, powerful enough to fill even that chamber, shook.

In fear.

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