(III) Fall

84 (III) Fall

For the first time, she truly snarled, and it sounded like something was trying to claw its way out of her. But impossibly, Guardshead Leu wrestled herself back under control. "I... I have dreamed of this moment for so long. For so long, I have plotted and schemed and prayed. And I have done everything I could, everything to prepare myself. But there was no preparing myself," Leu began to laugh, "for how sweet this is. For how miserable you look. For how broken you are."

Gate Lord Confriga stared at Leu as understanding dawned in his expression. "You… How long? All this for revenge? Centuries of your life... Your service, your exemplary behavior... All just to take revenge on me?" He sounded like he couldn't understand the concept, couldn't understand giving so much of oneself just to hurt him.

"Yes!" Leu said, a hint of madness entering her voice. "And it was worth it. Every second. Every moment dedicated to hating you was worth it. And now: scream." The mana core flared, bringing down a concentrated beam of cold upon Confriga. As he tried to stop the surging mana, Valor cut his other leg, severing the limb with a single blow and cracking parts of the Lesser Marshal’s soul. Confriga roared in absolute agony. He crashed down, landing in a puddle of his own blood. Shiv felt his Magical Resistance come asunder, and several other things broke inside him as well.

But just then, a shudder ran through Shiv.

"Rose? Rose, what's wrong?" Shiv said aloud.

Adam looked at him. "What do you mean? Rose? What's happening to my mother?"

"I don't know," Shiv replied, tension spiking inside him.

Through it all, the beam of pure frost continued to build, continued to torture the howling Confriga. Valor looked down with disdain as Leu cackled with mad laughter.

Outside Context Problem: The Lesser Marshal’s end draws near. And the shackles on Absence break at last.

Today will be a feast to remember. Today, living history and animated legends will wet the Recollector’s eyes…

Shiv made his decision immediately. Whatever Rose was terrified about, it had to do with Confriga and the sword. No more risks, just like Adam said. He fired multiple bone drills into Confriga, punching through his skull, hammering length after length into the Lesser Marshal’s open wounds. Even so, Confriga tried to act.

He seized his blade with both hands and let out a cry that turned into a shriek of pain as Shiv reached out with his Biomancy and Confriga. The Vulteg turned to blood—but the gore that sprayed free from Confriga in place.

And then Absence rose into the air.

Shiv felt something coming. Uva felt it too. She saw in the sword, something that made her gasp.

Shiv did. He swung his corpse flail out, launching it against the edge of Absence as hard as he could. He impacted the blade, and—

And the mirage that shrouded the blade this entire time faded. Its edge glowed, and it became a crescent-shaped iris, as the true shape hidden by the blade and Confriga’s existence emerged.

Suddenly, a tide of gold smashed into everyone. Shiv parried the spell with his Magebreaker, and, with an extreme effort, forced the spell aside. Uva was saved due to being inside his mind, and Adam, thanks to his rapier's Temporal Warding Enchantment, endured as well. But Valor found himself frozen in place. As did everyone else—everything else within sight. The ones affected were coated in motes of gold, falling like grains of sand from their body.

Then, there was a colossal shape looming over the splatter where Confriga was. It just appeared. No movement. No magic. One second it wasn’t. And then it was. It dwarfed the Jealousy by perhaps five times over, and looking at it hurt Shiv’s eyes. It had so many limbs, lined with so many eyes. The best he could describe its general form was a carpet of black, oily limbs and tentacles clustered together. But where its head was supposed to be was a massive, ten-fingered hand lined with blinking eyes that twisted downwards in a spiral. The eyes kept going across the entire hand until they finally vanished into a maw that descended into the depths of the palm, and the eyes were constantly moving, like they were small buoys on an ocean.

Shiv's mind recoiled as he struggled to process the true shape of what he was viewing. Nausea swept through him and a deep ache gripped his mind, but with a snarl of rage, he fought through the discomfort.

Adam failed to.

The Young Lord bent over and emptied the contents of his stomach. His eyes rolled, and he clutched his head. Shiv caught Adam. He called out the Young Lord's name, but Adam was unresponsive, babbling incoherently, just like Rose and even Uva.

Once more, Shiv turned his head and stared at the horrid creature. It was now staring down at him with all its eyes. Shiv launched his cancer flail immediately. It impacted the large palm the creature had for a head, and—

Shiv’s flail faded to nothing.

One second it was there. The next it was gone. Shiv couldn’t remember—it did something, but—

The being’s voice was beautiful, even mesmerizing. Adam began to weep violently beside him, and Uva and Rose did the same within. Shiv felt sick, and it felt like… something terrible was constantly happening—something was constantly being done to him and the others, but he couldn’t remember what.

Shiv let out a cry of effort as he shifted out of context.

Uva fell out of him. The world went gray. He charged the monster and drove his kukri into one of its—

Shiv’s senses returned to him as he vomited blood all over himself. It… it was like he suddenly lost track of . There was something that just happened, but he couldn’t remember what. He just—there were pieces missing from his memory. It was then that he noticed that Uva, Adam, and Valor were leaning over him, trying to drag him away. Every last one of his ribs were broken. He was bleeding internally. Shiv growled and used a Woundeater on himself. His wounds filled the wyrm, and he let Uva and Adam pull him up.

Before him, the nightmarish entity cupped the gore-splatter that had been Confriga with its tentacles, and it formed a Chronomancy spell around it. Slowly, it turned the spell in place, and a small shroud appeared. Within, time turnedbackward, and in an instant, Confriga reformed to the state just before his death.

“What—” Adam gasped. “What in the Broken Moon… Shiv. I can’t—I can’t remember what just happened.”

“Yeah,” Shiv breathed as he clenched his kukri tight and prepared to fight. “Me neither. But this thing needs to die.”

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Just as he prepared to charge the monster again, it extended a limb, and a wave of Chronomancy crashed into him and all the others. This time, Shiv froze in place—just like when he was falling from Blackedge and encountered Sullain. He tried to move, did everything he could to resist, but he was pinned.

Adam’s rapier flared white-hot as it tried to resist the spell with its Temporal Warding. The weapon shatteredinto pieces as the monster’s magic overcame it after a second. Adam froze too, just as he manifested an Arrow.

The entity blinked right in front of Shiv, taking up his entire field of view. One of its many limbs pointed at him, and he felt something inside his body quiver.

The creature was suddenly beside Confriga again.

Confriga pulled away from the verge of death, moaning. "I... I will give you... . All I have left. I give you this body. I give you my life. I give you…" Confriga drew in a harsh breath and sobbed. "I give you my history. All that I have been, all that I could be. Just… kill them. Avenge me. Avenge me, and you will have your true existence in the material world, beyond the periphery. A body in this place, one that will not dissolve with the passage of time. Is that not what you wanted? Is that—"

All of a sudden, the massive creature blurred forward. It didn't travel through space; it simply existed in one place, and then it started existing in another, its original form fading. It seized Confriga, and it poured its immense mass into him.

Suddenly, the time spell broke. Everyone could move again. They all responded immediately, launching spells of Necromancy, Biomancy, Psychomancy, arrows, bone drills, and icicles. But every attack simply just as it got close to hitting Confriga. Like there were never any attacks to begin with.

Then, Confriga suddenly burst apart into a splatter of gore again. Shiv's eyes widened as he saw what remained in his place. It was a large, golden egg, and oily shadows were slowly creeping across its surface.

Rose howled inside Shiv.

He didn’t. He shifted out of context and shot toward the egg with his kukri. Shiv drove his weapon into the egg as he emerged, and—

Time shifted.caught Shiv’s kukri by the edge with an open hand. But it wasn’t Confriga anymore. Those black-crescent eyes lined every inch of his body. Black oil seeped out from his very being like an aura, and reaching hands and festering tentacles replaced the wings he'd lost. And where his onyx eye once gazed, now the hand of the strange monster that had emerged from Absence took its place.

the transformed Confriga sighed.

And then Shiv noticed his companions were frozen behind him. As was he.

Again, it was like he was missing an entire section of—

The entity made a gesture. Guardshead Leu blinked into its twisted hand. Suddenly, fractals of gold burst around her as she drew breath, her eye widening. “I—”

The entity closed its fingers. Leu’s head came apart.

Shiv tried to scream. He couldn't. Shiv tried to rage. He couldn't. Shiv tried to shift out of context. He just .

Gate Mana Desynchronized: Guardshead Leu no longer recognized as Gate Lord.

Its eyes rolled to face Shiv.

With a casual twist, the monster that wore Confriga shattered Shiv’s kukri into glittering fragments.

Equipment Lost:

Shiv’s heart plunged, and, frozen in time without any chance to resist, the entity turned him around, forcing him to face his companions as it wrapped its fingers around his face. Chronomancy fractals broke off Uva, Valor, and Adam’s heads. Can Hu’s half-skull dangled behind Shiv, removed before the whole nightmare began.

“Shiv!” Uva cried, sounding more terrified than he'd ever heard her. Her eyes were locked on the thing that Confriga became as it laughed.

“Let him go, you godsdamned bastard!” Adam struggled. But he was pinned by time, and there was no hope of escape.

Shiv tried to use his magic. It didn’t work. So he tried Outside Context Problem again. It didn’t work. He couldn’t do anything while frozen in time.

the thing whispered into his ear. It looked at Uva, and Shiv’s heart flared with anger and fear.

Shiv tried to shift again and again. He tried everything. He tried—

The thing that was Confriga slowly drove its fingers into his eyes. It released the magic holding his head still as it blinded him. Shiv guessed it wanted to hear him scream as his sight was taken. He just spat on its hands instead, even as he felt its fingers sink deep into his sockets.

it asked.

“Not a godsdamned one, you ,” Shiv snarled, gritting his teeth against the pain. He tried shifting—and still nothing. He needed his entire body to—

It twisted his neck violently. His head snapped backward, something cracking inside his body. And it twisted his head again for good measure. Uva spat curses of hate and venom at the monster as it took Shiv apart. Adam gagged and called out to Shiv. Through it all, Valor was silent. As was Shiv.

This thing… It was… He thought about what it could do as his life slipped from him—about all the missing moments he experienced just now. What happened was far too jarring for mere amnesia. This was Chronomancy like he'd never experienced before. But how was he going to—

The creature pulled back and tore his head clean off.

A moment later, Shiv respawned as a Revenant beside his body. An emptiness filled his right hand as his Rememberer lay in pieces on the ground.

The entity slowly advanced on Uva, Adam, and Valor.

“Come, then!” Uva called out to it first, taunting it. “Let me show you how a Daughter of the Order dies!”

“No, ignore her!” Adam cried. “I’m Roland Arrow’s son! I planned all this! She—she was just a mercenary hired. Leave her alone!”

“Adam,” Valor said. “It does not understand. Nor does it care. It is not from here.”

“What?” Adam asked, his eyes snapping between Valor and the enemy.

“It is a creature from the Far Periphery,” Valor said. “Are you not?”

The thing wearing Confriga laughed, the sound layered and wrong. It looked between Uva and Adam.

Shiv charged the creature. But every time he got closer to the creature, he would suddenly jolt back to where he started a few seconds ago.

Then, his death notifications loaded, appearing just as the last thought passed through his mind.

Adamantine Adaption > 127

Gravitic Wrestler > 125

Skill Gained: Chronomancy (Adept)

Chronomancy > 1

Quest Complete: Repel the vampiric invasion and eliminate all infiltrating Aviary assets in Gate Theborn before they overcome the defenses and slay Gate Lord Confriga first.

Select a Skill to Evolve to Master-Tier

And suddenly, Shiv’s near-desperate terror hardened into burning rage.