(I) Ritual

-132 (I)

Ritual

Shiv plunged through folds of Dimensionality as he passed from the gate into Vulketh itself. A clench of pressure squeezed his body as he crossed between dimensions, and he found himself far below the surface of a molten ocean. He could see little more than a murky gleam, and the oppressive environment molded around Shiv’s flesh. Yet, despite its immense heat, it failed to affect his Adamantine Adaption. Instead, his Magebreaker rang.

Shiv realized.

He also realized his blade no longer had billowing waves of gravity around it. That made Shiv’s enthusiasm plummet slightly. Seemed like easy Skill Fusions weren’t going to be a thing until he was back beneath the glow of the mana core.

He looked about, trying to get his bearings. There were strange shapes moving in the depths. Then, a mutilated torso fell past him. Shiv looked up. Broken bodies and severed limbs rained down from above, trailing spills of black and misting blood.

Shiv triggered his Creeping Void, Chameleon, and Minor Illusion at once. A billowing miasma of blackness expanded from him, offering him a brief moment of cover. From on high came spells and projectiles. They fell like a chaotic rain, ripping through the molten ocean and leaving pockets of air in their wake.

Shiv froze time to get his bearings and to locate his Vitae Golem. As he squinted through the burning-hot fluid, he noticed that there were hundreds of metal towers hanging in the ocean above. They looked like they were made from reinforced metal of some kind, and along their sides were hundreds of ports. Some were open, and teams of Vultegs were in the process of leaping out from the structure. At the same time, a mere few meters atop Shiv was a patch of faint blue, and from it echoed a ringing scream.

The Recollector's misery graced Shiv's senses, and he saw the faint outline of the eldritch entity writhing in that patch of blue, seared into the flesh of existence, howling in eternal agony.

Shiv spat internally.

As he spiked his field, he moved upward—only to feel something coming for him. Layered cascades of Chronomancy pulsed from each of the metal towers. These temporal wardings arrived as massive tides, greater than any Shiv had faced before. He dashed back as an avalanche of countering time magic surged toward him. He briefly considered parrying them with his Magebreaker, but when even more massive walls of time magic came rushing forth, he winced.

He spiked higher as he deactivated his temporal shell. Around him were broken bodies of Vultegs; a good hint to the location of his Vitae golem. As he searched, even more metal towers plunged deeper down the molten sea. From the open ports on their sides came a flood of reinforcements. Reinforcements bestowed with the task of murdering him and Adam to satisfy Lord Scorn.

Shiv watched as Vultegs used their head-tentacles to push through the waters, going straight for the gateway below without any doubt or hesitation in teams of five. None of them noticed him, so he continued his search. Inside, a building sense of urgency consumed him. They needed to set off his soul bomb—and fast. With all the towers and Vultegs spilling out from them, there was no way they could hold the gate for long.

The answer to that question greeted him suddenly as the Vitae Golem was smashed through his Creeping Void before slamming into the ocean bed. It crashed beside the Vulketh Gateway against a smooth expanse of hardened metal that served as the ocean floorof this place. Against that smooth expanse of metal, the Vitae Golem lay. There was a large obsidian glaive driven through its torso, and the golem worked to pull the weapon free. A Vulteg materialized beside the glaive in a splash of Dimensionality. They wore armor made from glass, glistening with motes of black static. They didn't notice Shiv as they reached out to finish the golem off.

This left them utterly undefended as Shiv spiked himself downward. He was on the Vulteg in a heartbeat, driving his Skysplitter into their spine.

He was utterly unprepared when he was instantaneously teleported somewhere else entirely just as his blade pierced the Vulteg’s armor.

A clench of spatial magic swallowed him, drawing him briefly across the length of existence.

Again, Shiv lost track of where he was. The world around him spun, and when it stabilized, a series of spell patterns lit up along his surroundings. They circled fast, and Shiv narrowed his eyes as he regarded the walls.

The teleportation anchor he found himself inside flared bright. The Pyromancy spells infused upon it triggered the start of the purification process. Unpleasant memories returned to Shiv, and he immediately responded by slashing across the teleportation anchor's surface. It screamed, the metal protesting. Several spells died as they were cleaved in half. The first rush of flame swallowed Shiv, growing hotter and hotter, but it failed to overcome his plague-boosted Adamantine Adaption.

Shiv chuckled to himself. .

He seized the chamber with his gravity field and tore his way out, only to find himself lost, trapped within an even larger structure. Within the teleportation anchor, the spells sputtered and died, the last plumes of fire curling like closing fingers around Shiv as it spilled out into this new expanse.

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The larger space he found himself in resembled that of a narrow tower, and he was near the top. There were various bridges extending above and below him, but the spine of the tower seemed to be made from a chain of interconnected anchors. In a strange way, it was like looking at a rope threaded through a series of fans.

“Scorn’s loathing!” a Vulteg cried out nearby. They looked down from a bridge above.

That was the last thing they did as their cyclopean eye was pierced by a surging river of Vitae. Shiv drew the Vulteg close and drained them of what vitality they had left. At the same time, he continued observing the other teleportation anchors. His was the only one that seemed pitch black while all the others were pure white. More importantly, his seemed to have additional structural reinforcements, while the others looked thinner and less dense by far.

"The hells," Shiv muttered, and then all at once he felt a series of spatial pressures pulsing across all the other anchors in a chain. His own teleportation anchor tried to trigger another spell, but a gushing spray of Dimensionality resulted in nothing but a few flecks of blackness washing over Shiv’s form.

A second thereafter, every single teleportation anchor above and below him opened, and a few hundred Vultegs emerged on the bridges. Shiv’s Biomancy counted four hundred Vultegs in a two-hundred-meter vicinity. Four hundred very confused Vultegs that were bathed in the Creeping Void.

"Did someone do something to the ambient light, huh?" one of the Vultegs called out.

Just then, the walls along the tower opened. A veil of mana shimmered over the new exits, preventing the molten metal outside from leaking in. Yet, it did little to prevent Shiv’s Creeping Void from leaking out. The Deathless saw the bridges connected the anchors to the openings leading outside. That’s how he discovered where he was: In one of those strange metallic towers descending into the depths.

Shiv stared out into the molten ocean that surrounded the Vulketh Gateway. A veil of mana was layered over the insides of the tower. This was how the Vultegs were delivered en masse to attack the gate. They were first teleported to these towers, and then they would simply exit them physically.

He pushed that thought out of his head. There was no time to figure out why this attack felt so sloppy. He needed to find his golem again—or make a new one. And it needed to be ready by the time Adam got through.

Shiv immediately lashed out with two streams of forking Vitae. It shot up and down, ripping through the weaker Vultegs while pinning the stronger ones against the bridge and draining them. At the same time, he froze time. His temporal shell formed over him—just as a ripping wall of Chronomancy crashed down from above. Shiv reacted. He slammed the back of his left hand into the collapsing wave. His Magebreaker shrieked as its frequency spiked. It was like trying to shoulder through a literal flood, even with his boosted physique. Shiv hissed and pushed harder. With a final bit of effort, the warding bent off at an angle.

His Magebreaker rattled violently, but it held. And it gave him enough time to proceed. Shiv spiked his gravitic field sixty times in quick succession. His Inertial Overdrive hit a point where his skin was beginning to tear, where his muscles were ripping free. He discharged, then. The world around him burst. His inner flesh expanded in a rupturing pop. A corona of fire and force spread out—but froze in the stilled grip of time.

Shiv winced.

Adamantine Adaption 166 > 167

Then he cast himself back in time and shot out from the open port before the next wave of Chronomancy hit. As he went out, however, he flinched as another rush of Chronomancy—one he hadn't anticipated—slammed into him. Nearly all of Shiv’s Chronomancy field peeled free from his body. Thereafter, he noticed another tower frozen nearby, just a hundred meters away. At the top of the tower was a gleaming spike, a Chronomantically enchanted construct that constantly radiated broadcasts of counter-mana.

Shiv grimaced as he dismissed his Chronomancy once more, preserving it just before it broke. The insides of the tower he departed from exploded. Shiv was blasted outward, and he clenched his teeth as he felt something inside him twist to the wrong side. A pocket of air formed a three-hundred-meter radius around him. Then, Shiv found himself briefly falling through open air.

The molten ocean had an open patch in its depths. He used that opportunity to accelerate ahead, trying to figure out where he was, to reach the gateway again, and secure his Vitae Golem so that Adam could shoot it and be done with this mess.

That being said, his act within the tower did more than a little damage. Just not nearly enough to see this done fast.

Ritual Conditions: Slay to align the Dimensional frequency of the Vulketh Gateway to the Tutorial.

Shiv flung himself through the air. As the molten ocean came rushing back, he saw the form of a Jealousy splashing down, displacing massive waves of liquid. As a wall of fluid came crashing toward him, the Deathless spiked himself forward and magnified his Skysplitter. He slashed vertically using his titanic blade and shot into the cleft he made in the water. Bifurcated waves slammed into him. He parried both halves and let his Frictionless Vector do its job.

Frictionless Vector 65 > 66

The Deathless passed into the water as an injection and slipped past the Jealousy. He shrank his blade again just as the Greater Demon looked up. Yet, it failed to follow the exact position of his body as his Creeping Void drenched it in a miasma of black.

”the Jealousy cried.

The Jealousy fired a beam of Psychomancy through the black field, but Shiv was already circling behind it, following the falling towers on the way down. The teleportation left him confused, but since all the Vultegs were heading to the gate, he let the falling towers be his guide.

But some of the enemy grew aware of his presence. Spells slashed through the air, and glistening fragments of steel detonated around Shiv, bursting into showers of screaming shrapnel. They bounced off his bone armor, and one even skipped away from his eye. Shiv didn't stay and fight. He just left a body behind just to confuse the Vultegs and kept spiking himself downward.

Deception 12 > 14

He followed a descending tower as it unleashed another ripple of counter-magic. More waves pulsed from the surrounding darkness. There were more towers sinking to the depths. And even if he couldn’t see any of them, he could count the Chronomantic ripples and knew they probably had spatial wards as well.

Shiv cut off his own complaining. The System didn’t care. So he wouldn’t either. Shiv would figure something out. He always did.

Just then, a dead Vulteg tumbled through the ocean across from him. He noticed a very familiar arrow lodged in their singular eye. A dimensional rupture tore open. An arrow pierced the dead Vulteg. Adam blasted out from the pathway in an instant—barely in time as the dimensional pathway was squeezed shut behind him.

Shiv accelerated and gripped Adam by the shoulder. The Gate Lord’s armor was glowing bright, straining against the molten waters on his behalf. At the same time, his eyes were glowing with Divination mana, which explained how Adam found him so fast. Rather than Shiv dragging Adam along, however, it was the Gate Lord that accelerated them both through the water, navigating the molten expanse with ease. His vector-wings moved as fast in the ocean’s depths as they did through the open skies.

Shiv reached out using his Psychomancy and connected his mind to Adam’s. At the same time, he began creating a new Vitae Golem—accepting the last for lost.

Adam hissed as he pulled both of them down. They slipped by an accelerating tower and barely kept ahead of the molten waves it displaced.

Shiv focused on infusing his Animated Skills into his new golem. With all that was happening around him, that was practically a feat unto itself.

And the System seemed to agree with Shiv.

Skill Gained: Multi-Tasking 1 (Common)