(I) Distraction

-Gate Lord Confriga69 (I)

Distraction

“Shiv, Shiv, where are you?”

Adam came out from the gateway with four sets of arms, four bows, and four Veilpiercer arrows nocked. He was still connected to the Deathless bastard’s mind, but Shiv didn’t respond, at least not immediately. Naturally, the Young Lord assumed the worst.

As he arrived before the gateway, he found himself in a place enshrouded by darkness; blood splashed down around him. Adam looked up, blinking in surprise, as he found himself in what seemed to be a cave. No, this wasn’t a cave—there were ruptured organs and broken bones hanging over him. He was surrounded by the of a cave biter. Something had flung the massive creature against the archway and split it open before covering the entire gateway with its flesh.

Adam’s jaw dropped in disgust and astonishment.

In his brief moment of surprise, he didn’t notice the Vulteg reaching behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. Adam jumped, turned, and prepared to release a Veilpiercer arrow into the still-living Vulteg, but then he hesitated as he noticed the Vulteg was already dead. In fact, the Vulteg was only held in place by straps made from adamantine-textured skin, and it was dangling off an unseen body—a body that only had a silhouette.

Adam growled as he lowered his bow, “Shiv, why are you wearing a dead Vulteg?”

“Because in the time it took you guys to cross over, more reinforcements came out, and I decided to buy myself a few more seconds of surprise. Can Hu gave me the recommendation. It worked out pretty good. It had the cave biter idea too.”

Can Hu chimed in agreement. “There is up to a 20% increase in delay in response time when one is faced with their own ally, even when said ally is pointing a weapon at them..”

“He also served as a pretty good shield—I think his Toughness was Master-Tier while he was still alive.” Shiv chuckled. “Too bad about his Magical Resistance. Had none of that when I ripped the armor off of him.”

For a beat, Adam just stared at Shiv, and then the Graven Cage slipped through the dimensional pathway, escorted by Valor. On top of the Graven Cage was Siggy, who looked about and immediately began to gag, struggling not to throw up as she discovered where she was. Valor regarded the insides of the cave biter as well and briefly chuckled before using his Necromancy to pull the cage along. A leash composed of corrosive energy bound him to the colossal construct, and the many limbs and skulls that made up the Graven Cage’s mass glowed with a sickly color in the darkness.

“I’m incoming,” Uva declared. “Adam, is the gateway secured?”

“Will be,” Shiv said. “Once the Young Lord gets to opening it up.”

Adam shook free from his stupor and immediately strode toward the gateway. Instead of using a Veilpiercer, he began to draw directly on his dimensionality. He was still new to the art, but he studied it plenty while he was at the Academy—the theory, he knew. He just needed to follow exactly what Heather said. “The spatial frequency was supposed to be just at .22 then .35…” The entire operation felt alien to him. He reached across dimensions, places in existence all connected and layered over each other. The study of Dimensionality was a complex one, and to travel the Integrated Multiverse was a prospect that enticed many. Adam wasn’t even truly a Jump Mage, but now, here he was, trying to open a gate.

As he reached deeper with his power, he felt the Dimensionality mana washing out from him, creating a specific bridge through . Faintly, he felt his power shudder, and then reactively tuned his Dimensionality closer and—

The gateway shuddered in response. A second later, it pulsed to full activation, and it opened up.

Adam laughed. What Shiv told him before was right. They were too distracted by the Jealousy breaking through and didn’t imagine that someone had also escaped through the gateway. Thus, the frequencies weren’t even changed. “It’s open!”

The gateway before them came alight with color. A bridge extended outward toward a place lit by a cold, gray sun, where mana chains were connected to towering structures of stone, and the ground below was riven by rivers of molten metal. Uva unwove herself from Adam’s mind as the party regarded the insides of Gate Theborn for a moment. There was an onrush of guards incoming—a few hundred Pathbearers rushing along the bridge some four hundred meters away, quickly approaching the gateway.

They briefly paused as they saw Adam and the others.

Shiv regarded his companion with a chuckle. “Right. See you at Guardshead Leu’s place. I’m going to go and start causing a distraction now.”

“Remember, don’t enter their dimension under any circumstances, even if you do want to try dying at the hands of a bloody demon god for a few more levels,” Adam said, scowling at Shiv. “We won’t be able to get you back.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Shiv said, clapping Adam on the shoulder reassuringly, and then he blasted forward.

As Shiv surged toward the enemy, the Young Lord added something telepathically.

Shiv replied. He was probably going to have to struggle against that urge a bit—him and Confriga had some unfinished business.

The Deathless accelerated. He was more missile than ever before. And between his almost-filled Momentum Core and the speed-boosting Enchantment offered by the Rememberer, he impacted the few hundred Pathbearers traveling across the bridge before they were ever ready to respond.

Once more, anything below High Adept basically turned to paste against him. But Shiv didn’t discharge just then; he wanted to keep his speed high and only use his Momentum Core when he needed to rapidly move away—to avoid someone like Gate Lord Confriga or some other Hero or High Master that could force a pitched battle.

The goal was distraction, not a brawl, as fun as the latter might be.

Shiv crashed hard against someone that didn’t immediately break. He drove his blade into the throat of the Master. His Deepest Edge sent the strike all the way through. Their Toughness proved substantial, however, and like the last Vulteg Master, they didn’t die immediately. But he solved that problem the same way: By slicing through the strips and straps of their armor, discovering they lacked any innate Magical Resistance, and then ripping them apart using his Biomancy.

A cloud of bloody mist enshrouded Shiv’s approach. The fact that he resembled nothing more than a transparent Silhouette with a dead Vulteg strapped around his chest made things even more confusing for the responders. Spells began to crash down everywhere, as dimensionals and aerial Pathbearers bombed him from above, uncaring about the lives of their allies. Soon, he found himself moments away from smashing into the processing block that he, 811, and the mercenary transport group had passed through the first time he'd come here, disguised as Isaiah.

Shiv gritted his teeth and clenched his blade. He hated that building. He was going to smash up some bureaucratic offices. And with a final charge, he blasted into the base of the customs and processing tower, intent on causing a little .

Guardshead Leu felt the building around her shake as what sounded like a massive mana bomb exploded within the gate. The world trembled.

Her slugs let out groans of surprise and terror, but the Vulteg only smiled.

“Finally, you return, Master Shiv. And with the Great Valor Thann, no less…” Her heart began to melt, and what emerged from a block of ice formed over centuries in anticipation of long-denied revenge was hatred—utter, unfettered .

“Soon,” she said to herself, breathing in deeply. She stared at the bodies that her slugs were eating, at the filth and waste, and imagined Confriga there. “Soon, I will have you, Lesser Marshal.”

Shiv considered himself a simple man with simple pleasures, and few things were more pleasurable than destroying an office dedicated to bureaucracy. He crashed through the interview rooms where, about a week prior, he and 811 were forced to undergo exit interview after exit interview. The walls came asunder before his might, and within, mercenaries and bureaucrats screamed in terror alike.

His Dread Aura was fully activated. His Silhouette remained little more than a vague outline. A mercenary shot a beam that went wide and melted through the wall behind him. Shiv slashed her. She came apart. A bureaucrat screamed. Shiv kicked a table into them, breaking their legs, but ultimately leaving them alive.

Dread Aura > 72

"More dimensionals incoming," Can Hu said, marking new targets that blasted through a wall, but remained unaware of where Shiv was.

"What have we got, Can Hu?" Shiv said.

"Fire dimensionals. Two of them. No, five. Likely more incoming."

Shiv had half a mind to stay and fight, but his goal was to cause a rampage, not be pinned in place. And so, he smashed through another wall, yanking himself along using his gravitic field. He moved with the grace of a hurricane and the weight of a wrecking ball.

When he first came to this gate, he wouldn't have been able to do any of this. Not reliably, anyhow. Momentum Core was his only means of major damage, and even with Might of Mass, it just made him hard to move and immensely strong for his size. Gravitic Wrestler, thereafter, made him a colossal monster housed in the shape of a human.

He blew through the insides of the building just as a Jump Mage teleported an entire team in. It proved to be a mistake, as Shiv continued charging. He splattered two of them before he impacted the third. The last one was a large and muscular elf, and to his credit, he briefly stopped Shiv with a thrust of his palm. The strike rattled Shiv in place—thundered within his body, and Shiv actually reeled slightly from the blow. It seemed to be some kind of Martial Arts Skill Evolution that struck at the heart specifically. But Shiv’s insides were as hard as his outsides, and he shrugged it off a moment later.

"Ah," Shiv grunted, "not your day."

And then he hit the elf with his gravity-empowered palm. His hand went clean through the elf’s torso, and he pulled his bloodied limb back and let the Pathbearer collapse before moving on.

Two more teams appeared. These were the Pyromancer automata that had accompanied Guardshead Leu when they went hunting for Shiv in the long-term storage. He smashed into them and tore them apart. His knife flicked and cut. He swiped wide, channeling a beam of light through another group of arriving Pyromancers. Walls and machines were hewn apart. Shiv pointed his field downward and blasted through the floors beneath him. His Reflexes were fast enough to stop him from splattering anyone he didn't want to. Thankfully, most people inside this building were either bureaucrats, who Shiv frankly despised, as they were running an operation that included human trafficking, or mercenaries whom Shiv killed at will.

"Behind you," Can Hu warned. Shiv reacted to the automaton without any hesitation. He flung a bone drill behind him. It impacted something hard, and he heard a grunt, but it didn't kill the ambusher. Shiv dodged to the left, parrying by instinct alone as his Frictionless Vector triggered. An enormous war spear went sailing through the air, tearing through the wall beside Shiv. He slashed up, only to have his hand caught and halted dead.

Shiv realized.

He found himself facing a massive automaton with six different limbs. It used its other limbs to lash at Shiv, but he responded by launching two more bone drills into its chest, both sinking deep and spinning. Can Hu also directed several metallic screws into the automaton’s six eyes—and then attacked the enemy with a spike of binaric lighting as well. The automaton cried out in mechanical pain and irritation, but it didn’t let go—and it wasn’t dying fast enough.

The enemy automaton struck at Shiv with a beam of intense heat. It punched a good two centimeters into his armor before he adapted. Shiv adjusted his strategy, and he caught another of the machine’s limbs before he tumbled backwards, jerking his field in the opposite direction. He didn't waste time putting his raw strength against an opponent who was clearly his equal. He performed a reverse hip toss and launched them both through a wall. They tumbled, and Shiv scrambled behind his enemy—drinking in a final bit of momentum.

The world stilled. He discharged—right into the automaton’s back.

To the bot’s credit, it still didn't break. However, he felt its interior shatter, and he heard it cry out in misery. Shiv jammed his blade through, borrowing the power of his Momentum Core to sink the kukri deep. The machine spasmed. Shiv channeled a beam of light. It blasted through the front of the machine, and he swiped up.

As he finally crashed down on the ground, sliding across a bridge, and sending tiles and broken pieces of flooring flying everywhere, the machine Pathbearer split apart before him, both pieces tumbling over separate edges down to where the molten rivers ran.

Deepest Edge > 57

The sirens were wailing loudly now. He could feel teleportation distortions pulling at him from all directions. Multiple response teams were being transported in, but thanks to his Silhouette, no one noticed him immediately.

Silhouette > 54

"Dimensional to our left,” Can Hu called. Shiv launched a bone drill in that direction, and a beast cried out. Shiv cursed as he realized he didn't exactly hit the right mark, and that the monster was still alive. He charged into it, and it burst apart against him. The monster was no longer alive.

Shiv shot upward into the air. He briefly hovered there for a second via his gravitic field, as he felt like a puppet dangling from a string. He observed the many slaves and weaker Pathbearers fleeing. He stayed high to avoid repeating his mistake with 811. One instance of uncontrolled mass death was enough. For now, it was time to move to another area and break something else if they didn’t notice where he—

Uva cast an urgent thought into his mind.

Shiv replied.

Shiv grunted.

Adam entered the conversation.

Shiv pulled his gravitic field hard as he blasted across the air. He crashed through multiple dimensionals; fire broke against him, lightning splashed uselessly apart upon him, flesh and blood dissolved as he moved faster and faster. He crashed his hands together over and over again, building up momentum again, just as he felt the Gate Lord arrive.

The Lesser Marshal materialized in the sky above just like last time, his massive wings expanding, spreading as grand petals of burning color. But he didn't notice Shiv, not immediately. Not before Shiv discharged again, launching himself toward the horizon, across the gate's many districts.

Confriga tried to follow him a moment later, and Shiv realized the Gate Lord’s Awareness was likely abysmal compared to his Physicality, as he quickly got lost, surging ahead while Shiv descended below most of the bridges and platforms.

As he went low, he went for his next target: the massive tower that descended from the sky and passed through the Vulteg home dimension’s gateway.

“Shiv,” Can Hu said. “Now would be a good time to deploy the infiltration drones.”

“Got it.”

As he came close, Shiv chucked out all of Can Hu’s recently built infiltration drones. They sailed out in a small swarm, their wings moving quietly as they clung to the sides of a few buildings. Eventually, they clamped along the sides and began to crawl up and around. Soon, they were out of sight for him, but not for Can Hu. Surveillance feeds opened in his mind, and Can Hu’s connection to them felt stronger than ever.

“They will begin their own infiltration. We need not concern ourselves with them anymore. I will interface with them later.”

Shiv grunted and pulled hard on his field as he exploded ahead toward the descending obsidian tower that also housed Confriga’s personal abode. As he crashed against the tower, it didn't shatter immediately. It felt like Shiv was shouldering into a heavily reinforced wooden doorframe as a Pathless. Tragically for the doorframe, Shiv was Shiv, and he was going to smash his way through no matter what. He slashed out with his kukri, and Deepest Edge proved even more effective against the building than it did people.

The interior of the structure was far weaker than the reinforced obsidian on the outside; where the obsidian was barely scratched, the matter inside the building snapped and split. Shiv cut something of a square large enough for himself to pass through—but not any more than that. After all, he wanted to keep them confused about where he was and continue his rampage. And so, rather than kicking the door down as a brute, Shiv chose to be a careful, brute. It increased the longevity of the chaos he was about to cause.