(I) Anticipate

-Valor Thann on Entropic Revisionism189 (I)

Anticipate

"Now, before I begin my demonstration of this Entropic Revision spell, let us give thanks to Vicar Sullain for being our most stalwart volunteer." Udraal clapped the badly mutilated Sullain on his shoulders, and the Vicar let out a piercing screech of pain.

The orcs around Shiv laughed at Sullain's misery, but the Deathless just frowned. He cared little for Sullain as a person. Indeed, Sullain had a great many things coming to him for what he did to Blackedge, for what he tried to do to the people Shiv cared for. But ever since Shiv emerged from his Legendary Skill Evolution, something in him had changed.

The weight of his actions felt heavier, especially after facing everyone who'd died because of his carelessness. Sullain wasn't exactly the same as the slave boy someone killed or Guardshead Leu, but something within Shiv's awakening ethics told him that this was wrong, that this was pointless torture.

Worse, usually Adam would be the one outraged. Right now, the Gate Lord glared at the badly burned Vicar, his eyes filled with venom and hate. Shiv couldn't blame Adam. Sullain had done catastrophic damage to Blackedge and killed countless people there, all for the sake of murdering Roland Arrow. More than that, he'd unleashed an Undying Tarrasque that now threatened all of Integrated Earth. But it wasn't a matter of death or being slain, but of living with torment. And it just seemed like such an orc thing to do. A vile thing to do.

Something tightened inside Shiv.

Psycho-Cartography:

That thought made Shiv cringe. For all the orcs were capable of, for all the benefits and advantages that came from being their leader, Shiv didn't want to be anything like them. Existentially, enjoying struggles and challenges was one thing, but becoming addicted to pain and suffering seemed like a poor drug to choose.

"Let’s begin," Udraal began, waving his hand. A burst of Animancy came free, and from the vagueness of faint blue mana came shapes of all complexities and sizes. They coiled around the mutilated Vicar like chains, and then a few of the larger shapes spread out, becoming as if planetary bodies orbiting a star.

With every passing second, more of these shapes sprang free, and Udraal continued gesturing at Sullain, even as the vicar struggled and cried out to the Great One for deliverance. “Great One! Please! Deliver me from this misery! Deliver me!”

Udraal mouthed Sullain’s words as he wailed them and giggled. "This, as I mentioned before, is an Entropic Revisionism spell. It is meant to do one thing: collapse the soul into a state of instability and cause the death of a Pathbearer or a mana core it is connected to." For the first time, Adam flinched. For all the hate he had in his heart regarding Sullain, the concept of collapsing a soul was still a staggering thing to face. "How it works is quite simple, but it's best for you to do rather than to observe. Now, please, Deathless, join in. Use your Vitaemancy. Press yourself upon his soul and follow my spellcraft. Your unique magical lore has its own eccentricities, but it's close enough to Animancy that I can control it to some extent, and that means that you can mimic some of what I can do as well."

Shiv hesitated for a moment. His Psycho-Cartography warned him that participating in this act of torture would cleave both ways, yet the eyes of his orcs were upon him. Surprisingly, it was Adam that broke his stalemate.

"Do it," Adam said. There was a hint of venom in his voice as he glared at Sullain. "Do it. We'll need to bring down the mana core and leave this place. And he deserves worse." As Adam fell silent, he frowned. "Wait, why can't we just strike the mana core using Necromancy? If I can recover my equipment?"

"The mana core here is closer to a Category 20 core than a Category 1," Udraal replied. "You know what that means, Young Lord Arrow. It means that even if you spend all day firing arrow after arrow into it, the damage you deal will be paltry at best. And mana cores are well guarded, well defended, and are overwhelming compared to a singular Pathbearer. For the same reason why I cannot just assail it with my Animancy; yes, it will suffer some extreme damage, damage that will be near impossible to fix for someone who does not wield Animancy, but it will not be enough to break the prison immediately. No, to do that, you need to induce a structural vulnerability, and that is what I am teaching you right now. So, Deathless, if you would, please."

Tentatively, Shiv hooked a few tendrils within Sullain, who flinched and wailed. Udraal's grasp held the Vicar still. He shuddered and fought with all his might as he saw the white and red of Shiv's mana slowly encroaching. A fear chain, harder than anything Shiv had felt before, solidified between him and Sullain.

"No, no, Deathless, no, please! I was wrong! I was wrong, Shiv!" Sullain's shrieks were near hysterical now, and it was bad enough that Shiv stopped.

Udraal noticed his hesitation and narrowed his eyes. Then, with his other hand, he channeled a burst of translucent mana into Sullain. At once, the tears and screams came to a halt, and a smile pulled at Sullain's nightmarish features. His melted flesh swung from the barred bones of his skull, and the joy he offered Shiv was a hollow thing; his grin the kind found on a lifeless doll. "Please, reach into my soul. Twist me to your heart's content. There is nothing I would enjoy more." He grinned at Shiv. His few remaining teeth felt glistening, like pearls upon a patch of melted flesh and ruined soul-stuff.

Shiv's stomach churned. The disgust in him only grew.

"Does that make it easier?" Udraal asked, seeming oblivious to Shiv's true discomfort. “Or is it the deed itself?”

By now, Adam was shaken as well. He still hated Sullain, but to watch Udraal just casually twist someone's thoughts, someone's mind into yearning for torture...

Psycho-Cartography

Shiv nearly shuddered at his skill's declaration. A feeling of offense followed.

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Psycho-Cartography

The sourness inside Shiv became near-unbearable.

"Can you do it now?" Udraal asked, sounding impatient.

The feeling of disgust lingered in the back of his throat, but he accepted that he needed to understand the spell Udraal was casting. He didn't have to like it.

"No, no. Halt," Udraal said, interrupting Shiv. The Deathless looked to his maker, and Udraal shook his head. "Before we begin, explain to me why you are so uncomfortable."

"Aside from the fact that you just twisted someone's mind and soul without any care whatsoever?" Shiv replied.

A contemplative look filled Udraal's gaze, and then he nodded. "I see. You value personal agency. That makes sense, especially after a lifetime of being treated like something less than human."

Psycho-Cartography:

The Deathless flinched as he realized that, but Udraal moved on without a care in the world. "I do find it odd that you are so shaken by such a trivial matter. You are a lion of the flesh, fearless when it comes to pain or risking your own life, and yet this..." Udraal frowned as he hummed. "It's best that you be fearless, Deathless. There will be many uncomfortable choices you have to make, so be the lion of your heart as well as of your flesh. I will not judge you if you think poorly of my methods and means, but I need you to be committed. These spells cannot be learned halfway. Information in science is not something you can master while holding yourself in reserve. Commit, always commit fully, or back away. Are you committed?"

Shiv met Udraal's gaze without flinching. "Just show me the godsdamn spell."

The Abyssal Lord nodded as a faint smile flickered across his features.

For the next hour, Udraal instructed Shiv on the finer aspects of entropic revisionism. The process of learning the spell, however, was far harder than Shiv expected. Shiv and Udraal's understanding of magical theory was light-years apart. The Abyssal Lord had mastered practically every magical lore in existence, on top of pre-Integration science, and was possibly the foremost genius of integrated Earth when it came to Animancy.

Shiv, meanwhile, didn't even have the Magical Theory Skill yet.

Adding to this the fact that an Animancer required in-depth knowledge of both Necromancy and Divination for them to fully begin their journey of weaving another's soul, Shiv found himself asking for clarification regarding every other word Udraal uttered. His explanations then begat more explanations, as Shiv found himself faced with a deluge of magical theories he had never heard of. He simply lacked the context to fully understand. Even Adam looked overwhelmed. He knew a few things Udraal was talking about, but only at a surface level, not truly deep enough to contribute or aid Shiv in his endeavor.

To Udraal's credit, he was a most patient and superb teacher. He adapted halfway through teaching Shiv to utilize the Deathless's intuition. Ultimately, it was about teaching Shiv the process he needed to engender and the intent he needed to hold in his mind for his spell to truly take shape. Shiv saw echoes of Valor in Udraal. He did things strategically, with oversight, and had personalized plans for everyone he spoke to when it came to training them.

The difference, however, was the feeling of detachment. Valor still prodded and mocked, albeit in a warm way, when Shiv disappointed him or said something stupid. Udraal, though? There was a sense of alienation there, that he had divorced himself from his own humanity at some point, and was now going through the motions of social interaction when dealing with Shiv, or anyone else, for that matter.

Even so, Shiv's understanding gradually built. An Entropic Revisionism spell was a horrible thing to comprehend. Effectively, you were breaking someone's skills apart from the inside out, changing small pieces of them, and then shuffling them until they became a mess. Thanks to Shiv's Vitaemancy, he could do this directly. His skill infusions allowed him to infuse pieces of his own skills inside Sullain.

Udraal had to use Animancy like a surgical tool. He cut away at himself and moved it into Sullain. The process for the Abyssal Lord was far more complicated. Every cast of Animancy mana would use the user's own soul as a foundation. There was far more danger involved for Udraal. One mistake, one miscast or drastic incongruence created while rewriting a skill's legend would see him suffer soul damage—or worse. And unlike Shiv, he couldn’t fix himself so easily either—or so it seemed.

But Udraal never made a mistake. And as he showed him just how much of a skill needed to be broken and reshuffled until the collapse began, Sullain never stopped smiling throughout the process. He cheered Shiv on and whispered about how he deserved this. It unnerved Shiv the most about the entire process.

Sullain wanted to live. Sullain deserved to die. And now there was practically nothing left of Sullain, nothing behind those eyes. All it took was a single wave of the hand from Udraal, and Sullain was practically gone before he was truly slain. A mind was a fragile thing, and a Psychomancer was a murderer of the ego before they were a slayer of the flesh. But Udraal, Udraal was an absolute killer. He could take your mind from you, and then he could reach in and mold your body, and finally, he could collapse your soul itself.

An unsettling realization dawned on Shiv. He felt like a frog that had spun out from the bottom of a pond, and as he got to shore, he realized there were still mountains looming in the distance, and still a sky above that mountain. The Legendary Tier seemed like the culmination of many a Pathbearer's journey. Shiv had reached it. Shiv thought he knew power. But when faced with the Ascendants, and now Udraal, he realized it might never be enough.

He had to keep growing, keep learning, across all disciplines, across all fields, if they wished to face the true monsters that lurked across Integration.

After Udraal showed Shiv how to compromise the first skill, he made him do the second alone, correcting him every time he made a mistake. By the time he got to the third, Shiv was mostly moving on instinct and memorization, repeating the actions he performed earlier.

Udraal sighed as he watched Shiv progress. "I must confess a certain envy as to your Vitae," he said. As Udraal spoke, a ghostly effigy that resembled Shiv manifested over him, superimposed upon his body. A swirl of Vitae twisted around that Shiv, and he grinned at the original.

"Cut that shit out," Shiv growled under his breath. He made a mistake then, and part of Sullain's skill collapsed. A section of the vicar's lower back burst apart in a spray of red, but it was immediately remedied as Udraal did something. A sealing symbol of Animancy slammed into the Vicar's wound, and as it ground deeper, burrowing past the point of Sullain's physical body, it reconstructed the damaged skill in an instant, allowing Shiv to try again.

The Deathless blinked at how easily Sullain's skill was reconstructed. Udraal held up a hand. "Don't be disheartened by failure now. Remember, be the lion for your mind as much as you are the lion for your flesh. Failure is just another data point. It is interesting to encounter failure. Fail, review, study, move on. Such is how you should live."

Shiv centered himself and began pulling bits of detail out from the depths of the skill. He still didn't fully understand what he was doing, only that he was drawing away specific legends recorded in Sullain's past. The effect was even greater as there were bits of Sullain inside Shiv’s history as well.

As Shiv worked, Vitae bubbled free from his torso, becoming spell shapes that vaguely resembled a few of the patterns Udraal created with his Animancy earlier. Shiv's spells were quivering, unstable, but ultimately they came together. Despite the awkwardness of his process, Shiv learned to ape Udraal's Animancy. While he failed to grasp the greater nuances of magical theory, he could still follow the basics of analogy, and his Vitae made it easier for him to alter the skills from within.

When he was done, a profound change overcame Sullain. He shuddered, and the burns coating his body briefly faded. He returned to who he was a few moments ago, untainted by Shiv's vitality cycling. His flesh was whole, his beard flowed pale and white, and between blinks, his mind was his once more.

"Udraal, why! How could—" and then Udraal reasserted his Psychomancy over Sullain, and the complaints ceased right then and there. As Sullain seemed healed, Shiv looked at him, expecting the Abyssal Lord to instruct him on what he had done wrong. This was supposed to cause some kind of collapse, but thus far Sullain looked better than he was moments prior.

"Just wait," Udraal said, holding up a single finger.

And so Shiv did. After about five seconds, the first sign that something was wrong arrived. Cracks began to spread across Sullain's being. They weren't cracks that fit on someone's skin, however. Blood didn't spill through. Instead, Sullain was coming apart as if he were wood. Mana began to seep free from his compromised being, unattuned mana that choked the lobby of the cube as a dust cloud of a dull-gray. Shiv took a step back as Sullain started to . Bits of him flaked away, and even the unattuned mana began to die down. The pressure choking the air softened, and Udraal began his explanation.

"His skills are attacking one another, you see. It's a bit like..." Udraal paused. "Do you know much about immunology?"

"Some," Shiv said. "Not fully versed in it, but I got the basics."

"Well, with what you do know, it's a bit like having your immune system attack your eyes. Your immune system usually doesn't notice your eyes. But with what you just put in him, you made his soul notice his so-called eyes. And now it’s tearing itself apart, trying to expel these foreign elements. But since everything has been mixed in, and the changes are only minute, it is effectively collapsing the overarching architecture holding itself up."

And soon, as Udraal got to this point, Sullain's legs crumbled, and he crashed down to the ground. He splattered apart, not as a melting corpse, but as a collapsing marble pillar. More unattuned mana flooded the air. Sullain reached upward, his gaze vacant and blissful. Did he even know that he was dying? Did he even care? Shiv would never know.

Bit by bit, his body came asunder until he was dust dancing through the wind.

Vitaemancy 110 > 112

An orc held out a massive paw, allowing Sullain to trail through his fingers.