(I) Radiant
Chapter 191 of "Path of the Deathless" begins the action: -Udraal Thannâs Animancy Notes92 (I)RadiantAdam howled. Foul colors exploded out from inside him. Black sludge... Discover the next part!
-Udraal Thannâs Animancy Notes92 (I)
Radiant
Adam howled. Foul colors exploded out from inside him. Black sludge poured out from his vector wings and seized him tight. Eyes opened in the tightening darknessâeyes that fed from misery. The Dreamtaker coiled in tight, crashing against the darkness, but the Stranger had Adam in a brutal grip. The Gate Lord screamed as his body began to snap and shift. It was changing him, reshaping him from the inside.
The Dreamtaker cried out. He glimpsed Uva shuddering beside him, and Adam tried to free himselfâbut everything was coming apart. His mind was rebelling against him.
Bowslinger > MINE NOW! MINE TOMORROW! MINE BEFORE! MINE AFTER!
Tears trailed down Adamâs face. He was weeping in despair, in frustration, in rage at the unfairness of it all. He won. He and the others prevailed against the enemy. So why were they being punished so brutally? Were they just supposed to die? Were they just supposed to succumb to an impossible fight? Did the System just want them to be broken and used as flesh-coats for monsters that belong in the deepest recesses of his nightmares?
Mark of the Seeking Clairvoyant > WILL SUFFER FOR RUINING MY PLAN-BIRTHING-IMPREGNATION
The Dreamtakerâor something related to itâcrashed harder against the Stranger.
The Stranger just laughed.
Seer of Horizons > WILL SUFFER FOR TAKING MY OFFSPRING. BREAK-BURN-ETERNAL-TORTURE. SEARED INTO MANA. FLAYED INTO THE SYSTEM. NEVER DIE. ALWAYS SUFFER. IS SUFFERING. ALWAYS. FOREVER. FUTURE AND PAST.
Gate Lord Arrow gasped. The Recollector wasnât dead? Thatâs why it was still screaming earlier? Always screaming.
Veilpiercer > WILL BREAK YOU SLOWLY. WILL WEAR YOU. WILL WEAR THE UNBREAKING ONE. WILL WEAR THE SEEKER BESIDE YOU.
And that was Adamâs limit. He could barely take the hopelessness of losing himself and his soul to this wretched thing. But Shiv and Uvaâhis mind was breaking, but he wouldnât fail them. He .
The Gate Lord reached inside him with his Hydromancy. It was a skill the Stranger hadnât infested yet. He tore at the very water in his body, preparing to kill himself. Adam was terrified. A sob escaped him. He didnât want to die. He didnât want to perish like this. Blackedge needed him. His father needed him. Isabellaâthere was so much left to do. So much, yet the System was forcing his hand. And Shiv and UvaâŚ
If they survived, they wouldâŚ
He wanted to hope they would continue without him, that they would be fine without him. But a selfish portion of Adam Arrow didnât want them to be. He wanted them to mourn him. He wanted them to weep for him. He wanted them to depend on him.
And here he was, hesitating.
Adam Arrow was a selfish coward.
a warm voice whispered just beside him, interrupting his thoughts.
And then, as the Outside threatened to consume Gate Theborn entirely, a descended.
The Dreamtakerâs body dissolved into splotches of wild color with a melodic noise.
A pillar of light continued pouring out from Uva. But from within, a gap opened where Adam was, exposing him to the roiling madness that threatened to consume the gateâ. But within that chaos, a radiant presence tore through the swirling tides of discord, exploding into existence with an incomparable glare.
Attention: The Starhawk has entered the dimension of Gate Theborn.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The Outside The voice of a raging star shook existence itself. "Outsiders, begone. You have intruded where you do not belong. You have reached beyond your veil, and you have touched one you hold no claim to! Begone, or face the trueness of my Path. I grant you now a mercy you show no others. Take it. Or suffer the consequences.â
The Stranger froze within Adam. It spat a single word before it resumed its twisting and tearing within his soul.
âSuch is what I am doing,â the Starhawk declared. âIt is why Adam Arrow is to live. The System weakened the boundaries to your domain as a lure. And the Pathbearer you seek to bend to your will is but a poison pill you have swallowed.â
The Starhawk laughed, a melodious but noise that tugged at Adam's heart. The coming radiance faded slightly. Adam caught sight of a thousand celestial wings, all of them glistening as if impossibly sharp geometric fractals. And then at the center of those wings was the shape of a man who bore armor shaped from starlight. He had four arms and two heads: one of a hawk's, the other helmed, bearing the visage of a warrior. His upper two arms drew back a colossal greatbow, and an arrow forged from the cosmic power of the constellations began to shine. Below, his other hands clutched a massive halberd, something dense, something pitch black, darker than the void itself.
"I will not repeat myself, Stranger. You are not meant to be here. Cease, retreat to where you belong.â
the Stranger screamed. It yelled from the rupture from where it bled over into reality. It yelled out from inside Adam. It yelled out using Adam. Ná´w novel chapters are publÉŞshed on NoveI-Fire.É´et
"Blind to the end," the Starhawk said. "You have breached the world so cruelly and casually when the System gave you a chance. But you have forgotten something in your anger. We are Outside. In the twilight of the Systemâs reach. And as such, the Mana Stability Threshold no longer applies. And even if it did, I care little what happens to your realm.â
The Stranger went still.
"Ah, you didnât think that far. For all your strangeness, you have the temper and foresight of a " the Starhawk said, a hint of humor at the end of his words. And then he fired his arrow. But the arrow didn't strike the Stranger. No, it tore across existence and slammed into Adam instead. The Gate Lord felt himself detonate, felt his soul come aflame. Adam choked as the divine arrow of a god pierced him, struck into him, struck at the very contamination bleeding over his soul.
The Stranger shrieked. The arrow split ever deeper, descending into the depths of Adam's being. And new, colors exploded out from the Young Lord and replaced the eldritch maelstrom of the Outside. They were colors he knew; the pure white of the sunâs stark glow, the rosy-orange tint of dawn and dusk, the azure blue of a clear sky, and the black of deepest midnight. It was all these colors at the same time, and it was none of them.
the Stranger screamed.
"Leave!" the Starhawk intoned, calm but powerful.
Between them, Adam shuddered. He thought he would break. Then he saw Uva falling through the air as the Dreamtaker fully retracted its colors into her, and he remembered Shiv lying there, bleeding. If Adam fell, who was going to look after them? Who was going to protect his team?
âNo,â Adam growled. It didn't matter if he was mad. It didn't matter if gods were fighting over his soul. He was a Pathbearer. He had a town to save, and he had companions to protect, to spare from the black hand of death.
"Out!" Adam shouted. He directed his strained Dimensionality inward, trying to reach the very plague consuming him, contaminating his skills, and affecting him. "Leave!" His Dimensionality couldn't sustain anymore. A surge of pain washed through him, so he switched to something else.
He prepared to use Necromancy on himself. He would break his own soul before he let the Stranger have it.
And that was just what the Starhawk had been waiting for. The celestial arrow detonated. The skills the Stranger infested were knocked loose. They rippled as strange, patterns, trembling free from Adamâs body. He struck them with his Necromancyâwith his vambrace, willing to destroy himself if it meant spiting the Stranger. But as his corrosive power struck, the world around him flashed with the withering brightness of Necromancy.
And that was how Adam Arrow discovered that the Stranger was more than entity.
It howled. It screamed. Its soul was immense, and the damage he inflicted was feeble. Only the slightest corrosive marks spread through the world, but it was enough to stun the eldritch dimension that was burrowing through Gate Theborn.
And it was long enough for the Starhawk to casually fire another arrow.
A radiant wound sheared through the Strangerâs expanse. The realm bled. Everything the Starhawkâs arrow touched burned and blistered. The arrow winked out of sight, and then came a glittering flash, and a constellation Adam had never seen before bloomed into existence. Stars and raging fire formed a cracking outline within the Stranger.
Instead, the Starhawk fired his third arrow. Instead of a shaft, it was shaped from a chain of blinding stars, mere seconds before a supernova. The Stranger fled in naked panic, and the colors from the Outside fled with the entity. It was like watching an archer beat an ocean. It was like watching a man push back the horizon. As the arrows seared the Stranger, parts of it broke off and passed over into Adam just before it retracted its essence from his soul. He felt two fragments slip into him. Both filled his soul with ponderous weight.
As the Outside receded back into the crack from which the Stranger spawned, Gate Theborn returned before Adamâs eyes.
And with a final howl of outrage, the Stranger slipped back through the cracks, and the System sealed the Outside away again.
The boundaries to the semi-Integrated dimensions have been reinforced.
Adam fell. But before he could strike the ground, he triggered his wings again. Six inverted pyramids flared into existence beside Adam. He stilled in the air without any drop. There, he remained as if standing on solid ground, gawking at his Ascendant, his fatherâs patron god.
âI⌠Starhawk," Adam wheezed. âButâŚâ
âI am not the Starhawk,â the divine being declared with a chuckle. âI am merelyâŚâ And then the âStarhawkâ dissolved into a series of constellations, drifting through the air like fireflies. â...an arrow fired at an opportune moment. My attention is consumed. I am assailed from all sidesâhunted by my own. All this is true, as the intruder said. And I cannot unleash my power upon Integrated Earth without grave consequences. Much of what you might have discovered about me is true. I will not lie. But there are pieces you are missing. Pieces of the story that have been misrepresented.â
Adamâs mouth opened and closed. His mind was reeling. He didnât know how to react.
âThankfully, I can still fire into the Outside without cost. For the System cares little about that which its mana has not yet infected.â
Adam thought.
Then, two pulses of power stirred inside him. A heat began to swell.
The Starhawk continued. âYour father struggles hard, Young Arrow. He needs your aid, and soon. Even with my Blessing, even his immense and miraculous power, the divinity vested through my perch, the encirclement of Blackedge strains him. Vicar Sullain is a terrible adversary to haveâgreat enough even to harm something like me, if I am careless. And worse than that, he is set to receive major reinforcement from the Republic itself, though the Inquisition operates against Blackedge for entirely different reasons."
A sigh came from the Starhawkâs fired arrow. âGrave times are upon us. Multiple wars and grand struggles loom on the horizon. But I am spent as I am. Reach Blackedge. Find your father. Ascend Starhawkâs Perch with whatever force you can muster, with whatever allies you can bring. I see the great flame around you, favored of the System. You have my sympathy, Adam. And my pride. Defy. Fight. Continue.â The Constellations began to dim. "The System has allowed me my presence for only so long. Even this fragment, even this diminutive part of me, cannot linger here, lest I cause a mana storm of horrific proportions."
The Starhawkâs arrow pointed up, staring at the mana core of Gate Theborn. "Ah, and the Systemâs hand... subtle and vulgar at the same time. I realized the other things it desired to bear fruit, but not this.â