(I) Tome
Chapter 153 of "Path of the Deathless" opens introducing characters: 76 (I) TomeShiv sealed away the left side of his body in a thin layer... Find out more!
76 (I) Tome
Shiv sealed away the left side of his body in a thin layer of bone. He coated his arm and leg, poured the malleable adamantine down along the hand he used to hold the Magebreaker, and finally made a mask to shield the left side of his face. By this point, it looked and felt like someone had spent the better part of a yearcooking on one side of his body.
Uva gave him a brief glance at what he looked like from her perspective, and it was bad enough to nauseate Shiv himself.
He did his best to hide how much pain he was in with the joke, but Uva bit her lip as she looked at him. He could feel how miserable she was at not being able to do enough. She blamed herself on some level for not being there at the end, for not being strong enough to spare him from performing that act of Necromantic self-mutilation. Shiv, comparatively, was pretty glad she and Adam werenât there at all.
Shiv said, biting back a mental groan. He also gently prodded her with his weak Psychomancy, keeping her away from the deeper sections of his mind. He could feel her strands reaching for his pain. He didnât want her to suffer any more of that.
she said. She briefly reached out and squeezed his right hand.
Shiv spoke into her mind with a shrug. Because that was the truth of it. Pain was just a feeling, but hurting a godâeven a forgotten oneâwas the And keeping Adam, Uva, and everyone else safe was his responsibility. He was Deathless. He could and would take the hits. He would bleed with the enemy so they didnât have to.
That thought turned Uvaâs insides to jelly. As she looked at him with an intense expression on her face, she let out a shuddering breath. Something smouldered inside her, then. It yearned to burn more and lose control, but she contained it for now. She briefly eyed Adam as Valor pointed out a page in the tome to the Young Lord.
Shiv muttered. He turned his attention inward, but felt Rose just sigh. Despair emanated from her every fiber.
Rose said.
True to Roseâs words, Uva didnât even notice the womanâs presence. But she did notice Shiv was thinking about her. Uvaâs eyes flashed with a spark of mana, and her frown deepened.
Shiv grunted. A sudden jolt of searing pain nearly made him double over again. Uva caught him by the arm, and her presence was motivation enough for Shiv to stay upright. He noticed the rest of the group staring at him. Adamâs expression was positively wretched. âIâm okay. Just⌠keep talking, Valor.â
The Young Lord licked his lips. âShiv, maybe you shouldââ
âThe Woundeaters donât work. Not on these wounds. Nothing works on these wounds. Theyâll get better. I just need to face it right now. But Iâll be fine. In time.â He reached out and slightly punched Adam in the shoulder with his left hand. Pain exploded through his body, but Shiv just gritted his teeth. He knew that was coming. He did it anyway. Shiv wasnât going to change how he acted just because of a little pain. âAnd wipe that sad puppy look off your face. Itâs not your fault.â
âI should have done better,â Adam muttered. âI should have kept my hand on the rapier. I should haveââ
âAdam,â Shiv said, gripping the man by his neck and shaking him playfully. âShut up. No self-pity. And donât pity me, either. Way I see it, I just lit a god on fire thanks to you.â
Adam just stared at Shiv for a long moment. His eyes were wide, and his hairâdammit, he looked so much like Rose from this angle. There wasnât a single doubt about her being his mother.
Rose said, her voice hoarse with sorrow.
Shiv thought. He eyed Valor, who was now looking back at him with curiosity as well. The flames within the Pathbearerâs sockets were glowing intensely.
âAre you well enough to listen?â Valor asked.
âYeah,â Shiv said. âKeep going.â
Valor nodded. And that was all that needed to be exchanged between them. Something told Shiv that Valor had done more than just burn his own soul to attain victory in the past. You didnât become a Legendary Pathbearer by fleeing from discomfort or pain.
âVery well,â Valor said. He held the book high and gestured to the illustrated page he had shown them earlier. The edges were badly burned, and there were traces of corrosion at certain places, but Shiv found himself looking at a life-like recreation of twenty people standing before the Abyssal chasm, with one among the twenty being the Educator. Or at least someone dressed just like her.
Then Shiv noticed another thing about the twenty: they were all chained to each other. The material of the bindings appeared to be mithril, and the surrounding ruins of Lost Angeles looked different. In fact, while the city was clearly an old ruin at its core, parts of it looked⌠. Shiv had delved into the remains of the old city, and he knew a good part of it by heart. It was a broken and dead place like no other. A place of echoes and old historyâthe ghost of what mankind was before the Systemâs arrival.
And this wasnât that Lost Angeles. Not even close. What the illustration showed was a place slowly coming back to life.
âMany of my memories were scattered along with my soul,â Valor began as he traced a crystalline, skeletal finger across the page. But rather than stopping at the Educator, Valor pointed to someone far to her right. Shiv couldnât see any of their faces, as the drawingâs perspective was back-facing, but the one Valor pointed at was clearly a man. A man with a longbow slung around his chest. âBut I recognize this one. I think I fought him at least once. And I believe we had a conversation at some point. The exact details escape me now, but I am sure this is Thaen. The .â
Adamâs jaw tightened. Valor had clearly told him about this earlier in their discussion, but the Young Lord still had an expression of disbelief on his face. âIâthe church said that before his ascension, he had long and flowing hair. Like a curtain of midnight.â He hesitated. âI asked my father about him once, but he never described our patron god in detail. Only his deeds.â
âThat is because he likely never knew the Ascendant as a mortal,â Valor replied. âBut I did. This is him. And this book⌠It is likely something similar to Starhawkâs Perch. A that is meant to serve as a stable outlet for their power and keep them bound to this dimension.â
The Young Lordâs expression only grew more severe. âExplain.â
âThe Ascendants are not true gods. Not in the sense of the Challenger, or even a demigod like the Composer.â Valor deliberately looked at Shiv when he mentioned the former. The Deathless realized the Legendary Pathbearer likely knew about his Blessing. âTheir Ascension came suddenly and with an announcement from the System. And the System rarely declares someone to be a god. The only times I remember this happening were when I was traveling across other worlds. Worlds with far higher mana thresholds than ours, ruled by entities that can impose their power on the System itself to make decrees and changes for entire dimensions or worlds.â
âYou are saying made the Ascendants gods?â Adam asked.
âI outright suspect the Great One your Ascendants with the status and power of divinity,â Valor replied with a dark chuckle.
âBut howâthatâs not what the church said.â Adamâs eyes darted about the room as he struggled to process what the Legendary Pathbearer was saying. âThey said that the thirteen each proved themselves to the System and ascended in a grand Quest to save our world. To save Integrated Earth itself. Even Father has never denied this.â
Valor hummed. âAnd it might be a partial truth. There must be some pattern of consistency to follow for a faith, after all. But look at this page. Look at their number. Twenty. Twenty, rather than thirteen. With one among their number being the god that attacked us. One you and even I have never heard of.â
âYeah,â Shiv grunted, bracing himself to reveal some very uncomfortable details. âAbout that. I tried draining the Educatorâs vitality, and⌠Well, she was hollow. She isnât a real person. Frankly, sheâs more of an animated illustrationthan anything. When I drained her, I just ended up siphoning vitality from that massive, shrouded god. The one we briefly saw in the childrenâs painting.â He drew in a breath. âUva. Can you show everyone my memories from the fight?â
She nodded, but as she delved into him, she paused. âThere are⌠pieces missing here as well. Like stretches where you do not exist.â
âYeah,â Shiv said with a sigh. âI kind of expected that. It has to do with my new skill.â There was nothing for it. Adam needed to know, and Shiv wasnât the kind to keep hiding things from people if he could help it. âAdam. My Foreshadowing Skill came from your mother. I donât know how, but the Educator said it was from her soul and somehow ended up inside me.â
The Young Lord looked like someone had just slapped him across the face, but he nodded. âI heard what the Educator said, but I thought she was just trying to break my focus.â
âShe was probably trying to do that too, but she also wasnât lying. And she kept attacking me with visions.â
âThatâs how she stunned you at the start?â Uva asked. She blinked rapidly. âI thought she was simply using a subtler form of Psychomancy than I could perceive.â
âNo. But she did attack me with a Psychomancer who was of a race I couldnât recognize. It was tall and thin. Maybe Master-Tier. Not nearly as powerful as you or the Jealousy. It was an illustration as well. After you both were painted away, I was attacked by hundreds of illustrations. Most of them were other Educators, but there were dragons and orcs, and they all had their own skills.â
âThat is likely a Legendary Skill. At the least.â Valorâs words came as a whisper. âTo recreate another Pathbearer as a living painting is power beyond what most can fathom.â
âYeah, but there were limits. She needed to finish the painting.â Shiv paused. âShe also could designate boundaries to the world with strokes of a pencil. It was pretty damn strange. And real annoying.â
âHow did you even survive long enough to cast yourself against my rift?â Adam murmured.
âThatâs partially the Educatorâs fault,â Shiv said. âShe tried to make me develop Exposition by hitting me with so many visions at once. Foreshadowing leveled pretty quick, and I killed myself to try and break free. But when I did, and I reached the Skill Evolution, the System gave me an Error notification, and I failed to evolve Foreshadowing into Exposition.â
âWhat? Why?â Uva asked. âYou failed? Iâfailing a Skill Evolution⌠Itâs practically unheard of.â
Valor let out a breath. âIt failed because of Shivâs soul⌠His soul and vitality cannot be separated.â Seeing the confusion on the groupâs faces, Valor continued. âThis is a skill that accesses the collective history of an entire dimension with your own. It feeds you details from the deeds others have performedâand allows you to tap into it at will. But the shape of the skill leaves oneâs soul with a edge, so to speak. An edge that extends beyond their vitality and mana field. It must remain connected to the surrounding dimension to constantly receive more details. But you do not have a pure soul or vitality. Yours is Vitae, one fused to another.â
âYeah, something like that.â Shiv grimaced as he remembered how bad it hurt when the skill hatched inside him. âIt felt like my soul was breakingâŚâ
âLike your insides were being remolded, and your bones were shifting and slicing you from deep within?â Valor asked.
Shiv raised an eyebrow at the aptness of the description. âExactly.â
âThat is the feeling of a skill shattering,â Valor said.
âWell, it didnât stay shattered,â Shiv replied. âIt adjusted itself and ended up becoming