Unbound

Congratulations!

You Have Absorbed The Essence Of [Maelstrom]!

The dark imploded, rushing inward in a storm of teeth and flesh as it was absorbed into his chest. Felix couldn’t move or draw a single breath; it felt like his lungs were swelling and shrinking by turns. His bones creaked and his muscles stretched to bursting as unparalleled heat streamed from the surface of his skin.

The green-gray world boiled.

Flesh, tooth, and claw rampaged through him as blood and waves condensed into a single eye made from red-gold threads and electric blue-white light. Through the heat and the pain, Felix could only stare back into the rippled texture of that immense, unblinking orb. There was no mouth, features to read—just its gaze.

SCION.

Felix’s jerked back, the force of the voice beyond physical. It seared into his Spirit.

YOU CLAIM DOMINION OVER FLESH?

YOU CLAIM DOMINION OVER MANA ITSELF?

Amid the boiling riot, there was no room in Felix to respond. His Mind whirled, his Body tremored, and his Spirit flinched back from the creature.

SHOW ME.

The eye erupted into streamers of ardent blue and scintillating blood-gold, igniting the boiling dark into a sparking vortex that spun inward—all of it poured directly into Felix’s chest.

His skin rippled, scales forming in a rippling wave across his arms and shoulders. They climbed his neck and up his chin and cheeks as his lips split open with sharpened fangs. Spikes studded his forearms and burst from his elbows as midnight scales rose up and over his nose and eyes. Felix bellowed, but pain swiftly turned to sudden relief, and he was left in the featureless dark, hunched over and breathing hard.

You…Are Distracting…

Felix glanced up, but saw nothing but streamers of smoke falling from above. The voice was nothing like the one before. “Hunger?”

You Are Using Too Much.

“Too much what?”

Potency. You Strive Too Far.

…We Require…More…

The Beast Is—

Cardinal—

“Talk to me!”

Hunger’s voice lowered, her syllables rolling together into a rumbling growl. I Am Losing Control.

The growl faded into a distant thunder, until it vanished entirely.

“Hunger!”

There was no answer.

3 of 3 Spirit Essences Formed!

Tempering Has Begun!

The heat in his chest marshalled once again, coiling around his heart like a cage of scalding iron. Felix grabbed at his shirt, reflexively tearing it away and revealing the heavy, dark scales covering his skin. A red-gold brilliance glowed from between the thick plates, pulsating in time with his frantic heartbeat.

A window appeared before his eyes, flickering around the edges with static. It was colored differently than usual though—this one was edged with red-gold and filled with a hectic, electrical light.

One Aspect Remains.

Do You Wish To Continue?

Wait—what? His Temper had never allowed him to abort the process before. As far as he knew, the relentless inevitability of Tempering grew with each Tier. “How can I stop now?”

Choice Is Paramount.

The Beast Rises From Your Blood.

You May Cut It Out.

“Cut it out?” Felix licked his lips. “Would that kill me?”

Felix Nevarre Will Not Survive.

“That’s…expected.” Felix groaned as light burgeoned from his chest in great bursts. It felt like forge hammers were striking at his heart. “What will happen if the beast is released?”

Felix Nevarre Will Not Survive.

And Neither Will Levantier.

“Levantier…My friends—what’s happening out there?”

Choose, Inheritor.

“My only options are to die or let my friends die too?” He bared his teeth. “Fuck you.”

All Choices Have Consequences.

“Eat me, System.” Felix hurled his Will and Intent at the empty dark and flared a Skill. Void Sanctuary!

The smoky dark froze, hardening into an opalescent sheen. A massive planet within his core space spun up, its pattern igniting into ribbons of multi-hued light. Hunger, the System, and whatever that thing had been that had his own eyes—they were testing him. He was trapped, while who knows what happened outside in the city.

He was done asking for permission.

“Let me out of here!”

Walls of opalescent Fiendstone rose around a patch of the dark, clamping tight across its smoky expanse even as the stone sealed itself shut. The shadows bucked against him, fighting his Authority—but he held. They folded away, seized by his Void Sanctuary for the briefest of moments. Felix clenched his Will and shaped his Intent into the only thing that made sense.

He made a window.

Light spilled onto him, brighter by far than the nebulous Void around him, but clouded by a veil of purple-black. He blinked, only belatedly recognizing where he stood.

I’m at the bottom of the caldera. Near the Vent. Where— He spun, and the earth shook. Where’s the fortress that was here?

The heavily manned fortress at the center of Levantier, where Siva and Felix had landed during their battle, was gone. Not just destroyed, but obliterated entirely. No stone remained of its imposing structure, only a flat, blasted plain of cracked earth that extended for a half mile in every direction. He looked up, and saw where the fortress no doubt had gone.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I did this?

A towering cyclone of luminescent smoke rose up above him. It spun lethargically, flashing like a storm cloud pregnant with lightning—save this was rife with Essence, Mana, and the heavy weight of significance.

The Violet Tower! Felix cast about for it, chest tight, until he spotted it settled at a precarious angle some distance away. It’s broken but I still—

A deep, percussive roar tore from his chest. It was an aching fury but also more; it sounded through him and the darkness within like a bass drum, echoing within an unassailable emptiness. Thoughts without words fumbled through his burning Spirit, transformed into halting words by his Mind that was already too strained.

I RISE.

The smoke thundered down from on high, pouring into Felix’s open maw. The veil of purple-black shadow parted as red-gold teeth the size of stalactites spread wide, and power flooded into his core space.

“Where…are…my friends?”

Emperor’s Vigilance!

Felix’s gaze penetrated the shell of strange murk around him and immediately zoned in on the broken remnants of the Tower. People fled from its many outbuildings, dozens if not hundreds of them scattering across the rubble and toward the rest of the city around them.

Emperor’s Vigilance is level 120!

Emperor’s Vigilance is level 121!

There!

Zara, Atar, and all the rest were racing through the ruins, a crowd of people following in their wake. Tern, that old Elf, was holding up some sort of stone wand. It gleamed with cascading waves of liquid purple Mana that radiated outward toward the floating shape of a familiar skiff.

They’re getting away… Thank god.

The roar stopped, cut off abruptly as the purple-black flesh around him thickened. The cloud of potency was filtering out into it, shrouding Felix from the world again.

“No! Get off of me!”

PROVE THYSELF.

Its voice was a bolt of lightning and it hurtled Felix back, shattering his tenuous hold over the dark. Opalescent Fiendstone collapsed into smoking pieces, and Felix lost sight of the city and his friends.

The window vanished.

“Fine then,” he growled. “I’ll play your game, asshole.”

Atar froze. “Did that monster just speak?”

Around him, twenty or so people crowded onto the deck of the skiff, each elbowing for space among the small craft. They’d rescued a number of mages from the fallen Tower, but not nearly as many as he’d expected. Alister was further astern, no doubt helping Tern get the Manaship moving, so it was Elowen that actually heard his words.

“I heard it too.” She frowned into the cyclone that had taken up residence in her city. “Something about proving ourselves.”

Atar bit his lip. What are you playing at, Felix? Kick that thing’s ass.

The monstrosity was still eating. Its huge arms reached out through its cyclone of dust and pulled everything closer, like a predator consuming its kill.

“Look! The alchemical lab!” someone shouted.

Atar leaned over the railing, Elowen at his side, just in time to see the roof of a lower building tear from its walls. Shingles flew in all directions, and thick rafter beams followed, becoming nothing more than smoke after only a few moments. The walls did not last much longer.

“We need to leave! Now!” Atar bellowed toward the stern.

The only answer he got was a high-pitched chime as Mana thrummed through the planks below his feet. The sails billowed, filled with conjured wind as the skiff lifted off. The thing was slow, at least at first, but for once there was no air traffic in Levantier.

“Hold onto something!” Tern warned, just as massive blocks of stone tore upward past their starboard side. Curved shields of force flickered around the skiff, conjured moments before impact, and they lurched into the air.

Atar snagged his hand in the back of a young mage’s robes, keeping them from going overboard as they pitched to the left. He shoved their hands onto the railing next to him. “You heard the man!”

“Th-thank you!”

They lifted off, pulling away from Felix and his nightmare cloud with every passing breath. By the time Atar made it to the helm, they were a mile away; far enough that they could make out the gargantuan form sitting beside the hollow chasm at the city’s center.

“You’re insane, woman!” Tern shouted. He held the helm within his old Elven hands and stared up defiantly at Zara. “I’m not piloting this skiff any closer!”

“We cannot lose him to this,” the Chanter insisted. “He’s too important, Vilas.”

“I don’t care if he’s king of the world! We get closer and we risk everyone on board to that monster.”

“Surely we’re not going to just leave,” Alister said, looking between the two of them. “I owe Felix my life a dozen times over. He may have told us to run, but he wouldn’t want us to abandon the people of Levantier to…this. We must do something!”

“We can’t do anything!” Tern snapped back. “And what’s to stop that thing from devouring us too?”

“Our lives are forfeit either way,” Zara said, her bright eyes boring into the Elf’s own. “Without Felix, the Continent is doomed.”

“Don’t you dare bring the Ruin into this—”

“It is coming for us, that is if the gods don’t kill us first.”

“Damnation, Zara!”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Elowen put a hand on Tern’s shoulder. “I can help.”

“Fine.” Tern gripped the wheel so hard the wood creaked. “But don’t blame me if we’re chomped to pieces!”

The skiff turned, angling back toward the angry whirlwind of power.

we can’t go back there, atar.

Atar clenched his jaw. We have to. Felix would do the same for us.

that thing isn’t felix. that thing shouldn’t even be possible.

What are you talking about?

The Urge didn’t answer.

“You’re flying back?” demanded a Journeyman mage in tattered robes on the deck below them. “We can’t go back there!”

“You hitched a ride with us,” Atar reminded him. “And we’ve got business with that cloud.”

“This is madness!”

Atar’s white hair began to burn, and the mage blanched in fear. “Feel free to jump off then.” He looked around at everyone else on the deck. None of them met his eyes. “No? Then shut up and strap in.”

The mages listened, all of them crouching down and securing themselves. Some cast odd binding spells, while others looped their arms through the baulestraded railing. It was good they did, because the skiff lurched as they climbed up. Closer to Felix’s terrible maelstrom.

Clouds of greasy smoke crackled around them, rushing by at speeds their ship couldn’t match. Flashing lights tore through the clouds, bright as lightning but ranging in hue from yellow and red to green and blue. Mana and Essence…and something else.

significance.

Atar frowned. Flame was right though; now that the Urge had pointed it out, Atar could almost feel the weight of some clouds. Their substance didn’t change, but they pulled at him strangely. Like gravity itself.

They were far above Felix now, looking down on his twisted shape like a child gazing down at an insect. Atar swallowed and Flame quailed within him, though he suspected for entirely different reasons. From this distance, Felix’s monster looked more than half-formed—as if it had grown portions of its torso since they’d been near it.

It bellowed, releasing a shockwave of power that tore dust from the landscape around it. The half-mile of blasted earth rippled, its edge spreading by hundreds of strides in all directions. Houses and factories burst, crashing into pieces that dissolved into bitter, greasy smoke—and poured right back toward Felix.

“His reach is spreading,” Zara warned. “We need to get closer! I must be within two hundred strides to reach him with my Skill!”

Tern adjusted the wheel. “That’s suicide!”

“Not if I pilot the ship,” Elowen said.

“No. You’ve used your power too much today while under Siva’s control. Pressing yourself further could kill you.”

“I screwed up with Siva and the rest. I can do this, Grandmaster. Trust me.” She gently took the helm from the old Elf, and he let her.

“Don’t get yourself killed,” he said quietly.

“Don’t get any of us killed,” Atar suggested, far louder.

“I don’t intend to.” Elowen closed her eyes, and her antlers glowed with a sudden silver radiance. “Core Manifestation: Tome of the Witness!”

A purple book with radiant, golden pages appeared above her head. It snapped open, pages flipping in the breeze, as light and power rolled off of the mage like a physical force. Atar grunted, stepping back into Alister’s arms who was bracing himself against a shield of his own Mana.

Without another word, Elowen pressed forward, and the skiff careened into the storm.