(I) Vicar

116 (I) Vicar

Shiv took a final look at the pooling remains of the orc before he speared through the ground. The brute’s body was a misshapen thing as blood and melting armor mingled into a viscous puddle. Shiv would have taken the orc’s warding horn if it hadn’t been destroyed, but with how all the orc’s weapons—and even the dome—were actively turning to slag, that was pointless.

The second Shiv blasted through the earth, the dome above came apart into a downpour. Dense adamantine turned fluid and splashed over the gap he left, coating everything in a metallic sheen. Behind, the only thing that truly remained aside from all the liquefied matter was one of Shiv’s corpses.

Deception 9 > 11

The Challenger is chuckling at your triumph.

Shiv scoffed as he gouged his way through the earth. Then, he stopped ripping and started cutting with his Skysplitter. Deepest Edge proved much more efficient as his cuts traveled ahead and split through before him. This allowed Shiv to accelerate without using his fists like piledrivers.

Deepest Edge 63 > 64

He spent a moment reflecting on the fight. It had been more annoying than anything. The orc had demanded he prove himself, but Shiv suspected the cruel monster just wanted to have a bit of a fight. The orc’s ability to shift between his armor and the surrounding metal and turn to wind would have been problematic long-term, but 811 had prepared Shiv well.

Hyper-intelligent or not, all orcs were pointlessly cruel and personally vicious. This one couldn’t resist the allure of butchering his bested prey up close. It was practically a compulsion for them. One that could always be exploited.

Shiv realized. His Deepest Edge finally died, but he performed another slash and extended his travel distance a bit more.

But that wasn’t entirely correct. His Common-Tier Deception and Psychology Skills had mattered more near the end than all his other skills. Without them, could he have lured the orc out and ended him early? Shiv had the might, but without the strategy at the end, he didn’t have the means to unleash it. But that wouldn't have been possible if he hadn’t understood the orc.

Shiv thought. He recalled how he approached his other fights, just going after his enemies over and over again. Part of it was raw instinct and rage, but another part was how he simply enjoyed the feeling of beating someone down. Of hammering them with his fists, of tearing their limbs from their body, of misshaping them.

It wasn’t about inflicting pain with him. It was the dominance. It made him feel powerful after a lifetime of struggle and weakness. He could admit that much to himself, though it wasn't a great feeling. The orc had noticed that in him. And Shiv finally turned and faced it in himself now. It had propelled him during his early journey as Pathbearer. It was the source of his boundless drive to grow. But it was rough and raw and brutal.

A bit like he was right now.

And he could be .

Raw ingredients rarely tasted good, after all. With the orc, he touched upon being something more. Something deeper. And for all he despised in the orcs, they were clever and skilled; they were cultured and insightful. He didn’t need their cruelty, but he wasn’t going to accept their intellectual superiority either.

A satisfied smile crawled over Shiv’s face.

Psychology 5 > 6

Philosophy 5 > 6

At that self-declaration, he halted time and slashed upward. He emerged through a cleft lining the earth and shot up into the open air. He was in the middle of the Lost-Angeles ruins once more. About eight kilometers to his right and partially blocked by a wave of bifurcated buildings, he saw the orc’s disintegrating adamantine dome.

And the hundreds upon hundreds of Necrotechs that surrounded it. There were dragons in the air—though only a few of them were of the golden variety. Said golden dragons were frozen in temporal stasis as well. Shiv didn’t feel the mana resonance of their Chronomancy. He guessed they didn’t notice him and failed to activate their temporal shells.

That was something to remember: Stealth was a skeleton key to many different tactics and strategies.

He launched himself higher into the air to gather his bearings, and Shiv’s pulse quickened as he felt just how many Necrotech Deathstalkers there were all around him. Most were hiding inside buildings, positioned alongside the windows. There were teams on the rooftops as well, setting up what looked to be massive artillery emplacements with long tubes at the front and corrosive crystals on the back.

Shiv felt his insides tighten at the sight of the crystals. Necromancy. The only skill he truly hated right now. But it was an envious hate, a fearful hate. Shiv would have loved to understand how Necromancy worked if he could only interface with it without exploding like a mana bomb. Instead, he was forced to avoid it. And now he was dealing with a rogue splinter faction that specialized in it.

Shiv thought. Then, he extended his Skysplitter to three hundred meters.

A crack formed on his temporal shell. Shiv didn’t so much slash with his size-magnified blade as he did hold it out to one side and accelerate. He blasted through ruined buildings, splitting dozens across their middle. Then, as he got to the densest concentration, he discharged his Inertial Sheath. Just as he took on injuries, he cast himself back in time before he'd amplified his Skysplitter and sailed off in another direction.

He also flung one of his corpses in the direction of the soon-to-collapsed buildings, just for good measure.

There probably was. Anything someone could struggle with could become a skill. He threw his blade into the air and teleported to it. He let time resume for a beat as he stared into the distance. Beyond his sight, a skull-shaking blast shook the Lost Angeles sprawl as a dozen buildings collapsed thereafter. Normally, he would have taken a second look to bask in the glory of the destruction he inflicted, but something else consumed his attention.

else.

Blackedge was utterly consumed by swarming eldritch entities. Hundreds of worm-like creatures with stacked jaws crowded around the outer layer of the town, gnawing at its defenses. Through the gaps between the Outsiders, Shiv could see flashes of spell patterns. The town’s wards were still active, but they were pressed right up against the town. Every passing second, a dense tide of arrows would pass around the like a whirlwind and obliterate them, but it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t enough because high up in the air, a massive serpent of metallic bone had Dimensional rifts opened atop each of his outstretched hands. And the felling bastard had hundreds of hands. From the rifts poured unceasing streams of nightmares and horrors, and even more portals opened behind the vicar thereafter, blocking even the broken moon from sight.

From the Chasm came other enemies too, dragons that lashed at the city with elemental beams and strange magic. These dragons weren’t the same as the ones Shiv had fought earlier—these ones were properly armored and bore actual weapons. Probably rogue ones, since they were with Sullain.

At least a few of them were golden as well.

Shiv thought as he tapped his index finger against his knife.

Then, from all across the city—except for the buildings Shiv just knocked down—missiles of corrosive energy arched through the air as Necromantic artillery was fired at Blackedge.

They didn’t get far.

Arrows zipped down from the world above. Arrows that blasted through hundreds of buildings, detonating against protective barriers of Blackedge to fry the eldritch monsters; arrows that bounced off Sullain’s unseen wards and splattered Dragon-Knights on impact; arrows that kept falling and falling like a meteor shower.

Roland Arrow delivered a statement, then: the sky belonged to him.

But Vicar Sullain hovered above Blackedge still, and he wove spell after spell with ease, challenging the Starhawk’s champion without fear.

And just as fast as buildings collapsed and crumbled, new structures rose from the ruins. They pushed through the glassed ground surrounding Blackedge like teeth would emerge from gums. New reinforcements joined the battlefield. Shiv realized then that Lost Angeles wasn’t just getting destroyed, but also rebuilt, and exactly the same way it had been before, at that. The Necrotechs seemed to care much about preserving the shape of old things, and the vicar’s deafening proclamation thereafter cemented Shiv’s suspicions.

Arrows flashed around Sullain. The burning trails they left in the sky told Shiv they actually traveled down from the void, but his Reflexes just weren’t fast enough to perceive them. Hundreds of the searing projectiles detonated one after another then, each blast building on another, every detonation sending a radiant pillar rising high into the sky. Everything vanished into a swelling rush of purest white. Shiv could see nothing, hear nothing, and do nothing as a mountain of force slammed into him.

He spiked against it using his gravitic field. He drove himself against the crushing tide with his Inertial Overdrive. But it was far too much. A few of those arrows had disintegrated Shiv. Now, he was caught within the vicinity of hundreds going off. This had to be beyond even a Hero’s power. Even as Shiv was smashed into the ground, his chest shattering through glass and his skin simmering from the spiking heat, he wondered how much of Roland's power was his own.

The Deathless fought the explosion. He forced himself onto one knee and tried to rise. It was like he was carrying the weight of the falling sky. But then, suddenly, all the weight pressing against him . Shiv blasted into the air as the whiteness faded as well. All of a sudden, the world cleared, and he could hear again as the roaring sound was muted as well.

And his mind went blank at what was revealed in the aftermath.

The scene that played before him was a mirror of his first encounter with the vicar. Then, Blackedge’s magi formations had unleashed their collective mana upon the Abyssal Lord. Sullain had stopped time for everyone but himself, then siphoned the fireballs cast at him before shaping the mana into a Biomancy and then a Pyromancy spell.

Right now, strands of a blinding inferno swirled between Sullain’s many hands, coalescing into a minor dawn that churned at the massive lich-serpent’s mid-section. The Dimensional rifts were closed, but Sullain merely sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of exertion, either. He just sounded .

And by the end, Sullain’s voice was thick with emotion. Shiv could even feel himself tearing—

And just then, Shiv realized he couldn’t see Sullain’s mana fields. It was like they didn’t exist, but with how much fire and destruction Sullain was manipulating right now, his Pyromancy must’ve extended across the horizon. At least. But there was nothing. There was nothing of Biomancy, Chronomancy, Pyromancy, or Hydromancy. There was nothing at all.

That was an awesome thought.

A massive arrow exploded, splitting clouds across the horizon. It glowed a bright gold and was infused with so much Pyromancy that—

The arrow vanished into a shroud of gold-lined Dimensionality that formed over Sullain. A veil of blackness hovered behind the colossal serpent. It swayed like a shawl, but then faded from sight.

More arrows fell. Arrows of all colors, of all mana types. But Sullain cast out the small sun he was forging from Roland’s prior barrage, and he channeled a stream of into it. The brilliant star turned corrosive.

Shiv's mind went blank.

A Necromantic dawn bathed everything in green.

The falling arrows withered and broke apart.

The land rusted and decayed.

Shiv combusted. His vitality . A blast of purest white left him with a roar of absolute agony.

Revenant 42 > 50

Vitality Drain 47 > 51

Everything kissed by the withered sun’s brightness suffered its decaying glare.

Inhuman shrieks escaped Shiv’s lungs. The pain was unbearable. The world around him shattered—but the surging blast flowing out from him halted. As did the Necromantic glow. A resonant crashed against Shiv, and even in his incoherent state, he felt his Chronomancy pulse. He manifested his time-armor on instinct as he fell from the air, and he crashed into the ground.

It felt like someone was flaying his soul, like the fire was crawling into his bones and organs. His eyes rolled. But unconsciousness didn’t come. The pain kept growing and growing.

Shiv screamed. He screamed like he did when the Recollector tortured him. He tried to fight through the pain, but soul wounds were on another threshold of suffering.

He clenched his jaw, and his scream turned to a ragged growl, and then into a whimper. This was completely outside his expectations. He needed to get out of here, he needed to—