(I) Ritual

131 (I)

Ritual

Shiv flicked his massive blade through the barricades erected by the Vultegs. Layers of stone turned to dust and rubble. Blockades of steel were sheared clean through. The people behind were rendered into puffs of misting blood. Halfway through his cut, he readjusted his strike. He pulled in another direction using his gravitic field and launched his 150-meter-long Skysplitter toward the Jealousy.

The blade was still growing as it sailed into the air.

The massive demon flinched back, its single eye widening in surprise. Despite this, it swung a tentacled limb, slamming it into the flat surface of the Skysplitter. As it did, however, Shiv teleported to his blade. He emerged like a missile and slammed elbow-first into the Jealousy's eye.

A colossal impact shook the gate. Shiv and the Greater Demon wrestled for dominance. The Deathless noticed they were twisting through the air at a downward angle, certain to impact the battlements surrounding the dimensional breach—battlements currently being manned by the Arachnae Order and the orcs. Shiv couldn't accept the deaths of the former. He let out a roar as he pulled the Jealousy upward. To his surprise, the titanic demon was easier to move than he remembered.

And just then he realized three things. The first was that he'd gained a great many levels since the last time he fought a Jealousy. The second was that he had Plaguefueled active. The third was that the Jealousy moved with him. It didn't want to crash into the ground, either.

And so, the two monsters struggled in the air above the gate. Shiv slammed his head into the Jealousy. The world shook. The huge demon rocked back, launched by the blow. Shiv capitalized on the opportunity to bring his Skysplitter down. But the Jealousy swatted the blade aside once again and used counterforce to flip its body over Shiv’s, shifting behind him in an instant. Shiv blinked in surprise as the Jealousy repositioned itself in a stunning display of agility.

It flicked something at him. The Deathless turned, only to catch a bolt of lightning to the chest. It exploded against him. Some of his armor cracked, but nothing inside of him broke. However, the world vanished into a flash of brilliant light. And when it finally faded, Shiv blinked away flashing images. Before him, high up in the air, the Jealousy loomed, and within each of its tentacles were whips of lightning. Shiv realized, They looked like dangling sticks that swung in each of the Jealousy's limbs. The Jealousy swung the sticks fast and whipped them from tentacle to tentacle. The sticks crashed with thunder, shaking the gate with each flourish.

And thus the Jealousy laughed.

And just then, a quill of lightning sailed through the air. It was a small pin-prick of electricity compared to the storms that the Jealousy wielded. It struck the massive behemoth on the side of its head, and the Greater Demon didn't even react at first. But slowly, it turned to stare at Null Mont. She was barely a dot in the distance, and she quickly sank back down into her storm clouds, fleeing from the Jealousy’s gaze.

"Probably better that way," Shiv muttered. Still, he blinked at the Jealousy. "Also, the hells are you using?”

The Jealousy cackled.

"Wrong metaphor," Shiv spat back. "I'm the cook. You're just the octopus that threw itself on my skillet."

Shiv blasted toward the Jealousy. A pocket of air opened around him. He spiked his Inertial Overdrive. Time and time again, his speed built. But the Jealousy didn't move. Instead, it spun its ten thunderous nunchucks in front of its body, and its eyes glistened with an unnatural focus. Suddenly, Shiv had a very bad feeling.

He triggered Chameleon and Minor Illusion at the same time. He also flung one of his corpses at the Jealousy. As his corpse sailed through the air, the Jealousy didn't react. Neither did it look at his minor illusion. Through it all, the Jealousy's eye never lost track of Shiv.

And suddenly, the Jealousy moved. Its body wasn't that fast, not compared to Shiv's accelerated reflexes. However, its movements flowed, and its nunchucks swung in odd ways. Shiv couldn't predict where they were coming from. He dodged backward at the last moment, or at least he tried to. The problem with Inertial Overdrive was that once he started moving in one direction, he couldn't easily switch to another. The first nunchuck slammed into him, and it felt like a condensed storm coming down on his back. Shiv grunted as he felt his entire back sustain a bruise.

But he kept going. He accelerated toward the Jealousy—just as a second nunchuck came within a centimeter of his head.

Shiv halted time.

The Jealousy went still. The Deathless crashed into its body, and he tried to get his blade aligned with its flesh—

A golden arrow punched through his shoulder, tearing him off course. Shiv let out a snarl of pain as he gripped the Chronomancy-infused shaft. As his hands wrapped around the object, he realized it was made of adamantine as well. A second later, two more arrows slammed into him. The first skipped off his chest plate, tumbling into the air. However, it blinked back in time and slammed into him again, this time embedding itself in his armor. The third punched through his left Achilles, and Shiv sputtered with indignation.

He accelerated faster, trying to find where the Chronomantic archer was firing from. Three more arrows struck him. Two skipped off his body. Two rematerialized to impact where they once missed. The last one shot past him entirely, and it didn't get a chance to try over. , Shiv realized, And just then, something flashed in the corner of his vision.

Shiv cast himself back in time. Sixty percent of his time armor shattered apart. He realized that the Chronomantic arrows had done damage to his temporal shell as well. As he blinked back in front of the Jealousy, he realized his wounds were gone. , Shiv thought to himself. But still, immediately another arrow came for him. He swatted this one aside and anticipated its reappearance. He parried it again, and this time it stayed gone. But as he did, an arrow sailed out from behind him, slamming into his tailbone. It didn't penetrate his armor, but it still fractured some of his temporal shell.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Shiv gritted his teeth. He began to pump out Creeping Void for the first time. He didn't want to risk confusing his allies, but he was dealing with a hidden Chronomantic archer. , Shiv thought. As soon as The Creeping Void swallowed both him and the Jealousy, he halted the skill. Just then, two more arrows tore past him. One struck the Jealousy, embedding itself in its flesh, while another sailed high and wide, striking nothing at all.

Shiv charged a Jealousy, dismissing his temporal armor before it broke. The large demon gave a gasp of confusion as Shiv came at it. But rather than charging it head-on, Shiv activated his Outside Context Problem. He sank into his Vitae, and then a coldness bit into him. It didn't last long. He crashed hard against the Jealousy, spiking himself fifty times in quick succession. His inertial sheath roared and rumbled with excess force. Shiv could feel the heat building underneath his skin. He dragged the Jealousy across the airspace. And as soon as they blasted through his Creeping Void, he reactivated the skill, spreading another patch of darkness in the sky.

More golden arrows slashed around Shiv. Most of them missed. Some of them struck the Jealousy, and the Greater Demon cried out. Its body pulsed with Psychomantic energy. But Shiv countered that by punching it in the face as hard as he could using his left hand. The Magebreaker rang, the vibrations upon it shuddering violently.

, Shiv realized. Still, it made the Jealousy's head snap back, a trail of blood flowing through the air. But it recovered quickly. One of its nunchucks came slamming down from above. A building shockwave of thunder and lightning flashed as it impacted Shiv. But he countered by discharging his Inertial Overdrive. Twin blasts contrasted each other, one born of a roaring storm, the other of overflowing kinetic energy.

Inertial Overdrive 115 > 116

The Jealousy was flung back. Shiv spiked his field and kept pushing forward. As he did, spears of Vitaemancy blasted out from his body. They speared against the Jealousy's form, some of them chipping through the Greater Demon's armored hide. This Jealousy felt heartier than the last one. Shiv pierced its shell, but it didn't go very deep. He still drained its vitality, and that made the Jealousy tremble. There was a day and night difference between fifty-five levels of Vitality Drain and what came before. The Greater Demon shuddered with discomfort. Shiv used the opportunity to slash out with his Skysplitter.

Just then, a golden arrow hit him along the back of the elbow. His cut went wide, and he took off a piece of the Jealousy’s tentacle instead of hitting its head. Shiv cursed as he tried to recover, but the Jealousy beat him to it. It came aglow with psionic energy and shot toward him in a narrow stream of magical power. Shiv's eyes widened. He shifted right while swinging his Magebreaker up to cover his head.

A massive tide of Psychomancy smashed into him, but his Frictionless Vector triggered. The Jealousy slipped off at an angle. His gauntlet made a rattling noise. , Shiv realized. He found himself tumbling through the air and stabilized himself with a pull on his gravitic field. As he did, he found the Jealousy rematerializing in the flesh a good three hundred meters away.

Frictionless Vector 64 > 65

In the distance, another tentacle shot out from the spreading dimensional wound that led to Vulketh.

, Shiv snarled to himself, the damn Jealousy was distracting him from his actual job, and he was supposed to kill fifty thousand of these bastards. In the distance, Shiv could see a fire rising from the surface district. Several buildings were aflame, but a stream of water splashed over them. High above, Adam rose. He hovered over the Surface Gateway, and his vector-wings glistened bright like six inverted diamonds. More than anything, however, his azure sun burned with radiance, and somehow Shiv knew Adam was done on his end.

"Alright," Shiv breathed. He shrank his Skysplitter. He heard something in the air and instinctively twisted his head slightly to the left. A golden arrow slipped past him. Two more came, and two more missed as Shiv flung himself a second back in time. As he jolted across space, he kept his eye on the Jealousy and activated his Creeping Void again. A patch of blackness spilled around him. But despite that, the Jealousy had its gaze locked on his actual body. It was like it always knew where he was. Always.

Shiv clenched his teeth. A chain of golden arrows zipped past Shiv.

The Creeping Void 111 > 112

The Jealousy began to swing its nunchucks again.

Shiv didn't reply. Instead, he considered his options.

He immediately decided to make a new Vitae golem. At once, he infused the golem with Gravitic Wrestler, Inertial Overdrive, Strider of the Unbending Path, and Vitality Drain. He groaned as he deposited a significant amount of vitality within the golem, but Shiv endured his growing weakness. , he thought to himself. A flash of gold came from behind him. Shiv cursed and spiked himself and his golem downward. A chain of golden arrows cut by, a little too close for comfort.

Shiv stared at his golem, and it looked back at him without any reaction. "Go for the Jealousy. Freeze time, go back in time, do whatever it takes, but slam against it and try to dig into its flesh before discharging yourself—Make sure you start breaking before you discharge," Shiv hastily added at the end.

The golem immediately moved. It shot out from his Creeping Void, a projectile of red, white, and gold leaping out of a sea of shadow. The Jealousy responded immediately. It swung one of its nunchucks, and a cascading bolt rushed towards the golem.

. Shiv chuckled under his breath. To his delight, he also saw where the Chronomantic archer was firing from. The golden arrow blasted up from a section of the city still swallowed in rubble. Shiv wasn't sure how that enemy slipped past his notice, and then he considered maybe they had already snuck in far earlier. The golden arrow smashed into the Golem, breaking off fragments of red, gold, and white.

Shiv froze time as well. A Chronomantic field fused over his body, and he blasted toward the archer's last known location. He spiked himself fast, climbing to his top speed. He didn't need to know where the archer exactly was. No, Shiv had over 200 meters of Biomancy to work with. The moment he felt someone with Magical Resistance or the organic architecture of a Vulteg, he would cast himself back in time and slam right into them. As Shiv went for the archer, he saw his golem grind hard against the Jealousy's eye. The massive demon was being pushed through the air, but the Golem didn't make any headway in ripping through its flesh.

Just then, his Biomancy field brushed against something, something with high Magical Resistance. He followed the pull of his Biomancy and found himself glaring into a partially crushed teleportation anchor sticking out from a landslide of rubble.

Shiv projected his Chronomancy back in time. He jolted two seconds into the past so he could make the necessary adjustments, letting out a groan of effort as he started spiking himself at an angle. Adjusting his trajectory was still a struggle, even with forewarning and a massively boosted Physicality.

A fifth of his temporal shell broke off then, and Shiv smashed into the damaged teleportation anchor. He crumpled some more, and he spiked himself even harder. The reinforced titanium tore. He caught sight of his enemy and found himself staring at an elf. Not a Vulteg, an . She wore an armor of pearlescent scales, and her bow burned bright with Chronomancy. Her eyes, however, were pulsating with violet energy. She was a Diviner—much to Shiv’s displeasure. Her bow was the Chronomancer in the equation, which was unfortunate for her, because now that Shiv found her, there wasn't much she could do to save—

An arrow burst through the back of Shiv’s neck and emerged out the front just as he slammed into the elf's body. Her form disintegrated. Shiv gagged as blood flooded his trachea. Confusion overtook him. He smashed deeper, tearing through the collapsing teleportation anchor, and found himself clawing into a landslide of trash and detritus.

Shiv thought to himself. He cast himself back in time. Another section of his armor broke away. He only had 20% of his temporal shell left. His wound vanished. As he rematerialized, he saw the elf standing high atop a nearby mountain of ruin. And she grinned at him. There was something odd about her form. It shimmered with Divination and Chronomancy mana. As Shiv's Biomancy swept over her, he didn't feel any kind of organic architecture whatsoever.

Shiv glared at the enemy as he launched a bone drill at—and then through—her. The elf held out her hand, turned it over, and stuck two fingers out at him, taunting him. Shiv responded by blasting a stream of Vitae into her. The arrogant smirk on her face vanished as soon as the Vitae splashed around her form.

Now, Shiv smirked.

The elf made a mistake in taunting him. Though Shiv couldn't feel her biology, she still glowed with vitality. And vitality was something Shiv could drain. He began to siphon from her, even as the final bits of his temporal shell started peeling away. She wrestled against his Vitae, but he used it to hold her still. It wrapped around her like a chain of fluid adamantine. And that's when Shiv realized his Vitae was a direct upgrade for his cancer flail.

Whip Proficiency 8 > 9