(II) Fugitive

39 (II)Fugitive

Foreshadowing > 18

Shiv screamed. He flung 811’s head against the ground so hard it caked against the surface. He raised his foot and brought it down on the maimed skull with all his strength. Over and over, he stomped it, until he was just pounding a bare foot into a puddle of gore. “Shit! Godsdammit! Godsdamn you!”

He scratched at his face and shouted at the sky, at the System in particular. Heavy breaths of billowing anger rushed free from Shiv’s nostrils. Looking around, he noticed a small army of Pathbearers boxing him in from all sides, yet none of them dared to approach.

He saw it in their eyes, read it in their postures. Fear. They were terrified of him. Even the dimensionals—the dimensionals.

Intimidation > 28

A heavy rush of power surged through his soul, but Shiv grimaced and swallowed sour spit as he took in his surroundings. Destruction was all around him. Massive exit wounds lined nearby buildings. Wails of terror and pain sounded all across the expanse of the gate realm, and Shiv noticed a small, severed hand not too far away.

The sickness returned, and he brought a hand to his mouth. “Oh, Broken Moon. Oh, gods…” Shiv clenched his jaw and refused to vomit. Quickly, he reached into his cloak and pulled out his mask—slamming it back on his face. The inside of the mask still reeked of blood. His blood. The Perfect Semblance of the high vampire fused over him again, but it was pointless. Everyone had seen him. But he still needed the Mind Shield.

He was still furious, his blood was still coursing hot through his body, and his hands were shaking. He couldn’t stop the shaking.

This shouldn’t have…

Shiv’s thoughts went quiet. An uncomfortable realization passed through him. There was no real way he could have saved the boy, the one he bought from the automaton. A lot of other people were just doomed during the fight too. But the way he used his Momentum Core, the way he smashed into places blindly and savagely… A lot of lives could have been spared.

And that was his fault.

A faint pressure jolted Shiv out of his thoughts. His mask rattled as tendrils of Psychomancy failed to push through. He whipped around and glared at the offending Psychomancer. He found him immediately in the crowd, and as Shiv glared, the armored man immediately stopped his spells and raised his hands while backing away. “Sorry! Shit! Sorry! Don’t—I’m just doing my job!”

Shiv blinked. He needed to go. He needed to run before—

“What is this?” a deep, smooth voice boomed from above. Then came a blinding flare of light, followed by a crushing, oppressive heat. All of a sudden, the coldness of this realm’s gray sun vanished. Shiv felt his skin singe, but the temperature quickly became little more than a discomfort.

As the Deathless looked up, he clenched his jaw instinctively. A figure hovered above. A tall, humanoid figure sprouting countless petal-like wings from their back. As the new adversary loomed closer, they did so with the ill-gray sun over their shoulder, and it curved around their skull like a halo.

“What mannerof degenerate do I look upon? What sort of mongrel savage are you? Some kind of rat? Some kind of creature? Have you no shame? Who told you that you may drench yourself in the blood of another within this gate—within my vaunted domain? Answer me, deceiver wearing the illusory shell of another. Speak.”

“Your domain?” Shiv said, his voice hoarse. He looked down at the mangled bits of 811 he was standing on. “So. You’re the boss of this slave-running shithole? I’d tell you I’m sorry about the mess. But I’ll be honest and say I’m only sorry about all the slaves and innocents that ended up dead just now.”

“Indeed. I am the Acting Gate Lord of this place: Lesser Marshal Confriga. And I do demand an apology. I will accept many criticisms of this place. is not among them.” The shrouded adversary drew closer. And Shiv saw they weren’t human after all. The demon's body was a slick, shiny dark-grey, skin more akin to an eel’s than a human’s. A single, pitch-black eye horizontally split the Gate Lord’s forehead. Below the eye was no nose, only a vertical slit with many rows of small, pointed teeth that went down the rest of his face. From the sides of the Gate Lord’s skull flowed octopus-like tentacles. A few held focus crystals. The rest clutched gems or small skulls of various types.

A twitch of movement made Shiv look upon the Gate Lord’s armor. The Deathless tightened his fists again as he took in what he saw. A series of radiant plates shielded Confriga’s body. He gave off the light of a setting sun, and Shiv thought he saw strange flickers of movement reflected upon the armor. Movement that didn’t correspond to anything in the real world. Yet, it was the children that sickened Shiv the most. Strapped tight around the Gate Lord’s chest piece were three impaled children. One was an Umbral. One was a human. One was a goblin. Each had a spike jutting out from their chest, binding them to the Gate Lord’s chestpiece. They shook and writhed as the Gate Lord descended gracefully, floral wings closing behind akin to a peacock's tail feathers.

In the right of Confriga’s three-fingered hands was a curved blade three meters long, and it seemed to drink in the light of the world itself.

The Gate Lord stood taller than Shiv by a full head. But he was thinner. Far too thin. He studied Shiv with his eye, darker than night and harder than flint. “Take off the mask,” Confriga demanded, his voice sharp, his pronunciation quick. “Show me your true guise again. Your bloodstained self. Show me your true Path.”

Shiv snorted. “Maybe if you kill me politely, I’ll let you take the mask.”

The Gate Lord went still. And then, he tilted his long blade, and the air around it grew . “It is not the sign of a proper guest to taunt the master of a house.”

“That’s fine. Any house with slaves in it is one I want to burn.”

“Burn,” Confriga echoed, chuckling. “Do you even know the meaning?”

“I suppose you’re about to show me with that long metal prick of yours,” Shiv taunted.

“No. I will not sully length with your blood.” Confriga released the blade and let it hover in the air. “I will settle for tearing you apart. And dragging your broken carcass across this place. Across every chamber, every building, every surface you defaced. And then I will raise what remains of you. I will bind the echo of your soul to my service for the inconvenience you have caused me. And then I will forgive you. But never release you.”

Shiv snorted. And then he laughed. “You guys… All of you slaving bastards and murderers just have to have these personalities, don’t you? Can’t a bastard just be an honest piece of shit anymore?”

“I will make you apologize to me for saying these words,” Confriga muttered. “Such language does not fit my presence.”

“Really. You got dead kids run through on your armor, but you don’t like cursing?” The Deathless was surprised to notice something—the Gate Lord seemed absolutely devoid of any kind of mana. At least any kind of mana Shiv was familiar with.

Confriga strode toward Shiv. “Language. It is the function that makes us who we are. That lets us express ourselves. It is the great separation of all the races from the mere beasts that tap into the blessed System’s gifts by instinct. Such is a matter of propriety to me. And these children… are but a message to the to . And they are assuredly not dead. For I do not allow their passing.”

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The Gate Lord brought up a clawed hand and made a gesture. An eerie, green set of interlocking symbols flashed. A surge of similarly colored mana erupted from the orifices of the children, and Confriga shaped a whip that . Shiv blinked as he saw what looked like the ghostly spirits of all three children squeezed into the thinness of a whip and coiled around each other.

A burst of anger went through Shiv again. “And you call me the degenerate,” he snarled. He launched a jet from 811’s blood at Confriga using his Biomancy—ignoring the agony passing through his soul. Shiv didn’t expect the blood to hit. He just wanted to see how the Gate Lord might react, and how fast Confriga was.

The answer to the second question was fasterthan Shiv at baseline—but not faster than he could track with his eyes, and definitely not when his Momentum Core was filled. More importantly, he was slower than Harkness by more than a little. And that made Shiv like his odds. Especially after his literal death match with 811.

So Shiv launched the first spell. A burst of flame spread around Confriga’s face—hopefully blinding the Gate Lord. He felt his magic splash apart against an incredibly dense layer of Magical Resistance instead. Shiv stomped forward—and then immediately launched himself aside as the dead-child Necromancy whip snaked out to spear him of its own volition. He rolled under the screaming length and closed on Confriga, and when he got a step away, he did the unexpected—he threw one of his old corpses at the Gate Lord.

Confriga let out an indignant scoff and swatted the corpse with his hand. Shiv watched as his corpse was nearly split in half. Not good. Confriga made another gesture, and Shiv’s corpse flashed with a green glow—and then exploded. The resulting blast didn’t so much hit Shiv physically as it crashed against him .

The Deathless released a shout of surprise as something inside him—well, it didn’t so much as it made his very being feel like a rubber band. But though he stumbled—he didn’t stop. He lashed out with his fist. Confriga reeled back as if surprised—and then teleported. Shiv’s hands seized empty air. And then he felt it—the pressure. Confriga was behind him. Shiv twisted and punched, only to see that screaming whip strike his left arm.

Shiv expected some kind of pain. Some strange magical effect or another. He didn’t expect absolute agony to tear through him as his entire arm detonated in what seemed like an incomprehensible blast of chaotic, swirling mana. Light consumed Shiv, expanding out from the point of impact. The world was a blinding cauldron of heat, sound, and force. For a second, all three felt like they were too much for Shiv to endure—his skin and flesh fried. His ears bled. His bones fractured and muscles tore. Then, . The heat lessened. The sounds were merely deafening. The pain faded entirely.

Adamantine Adaption > 105

Then, as the light faded, as Shiv cursed and clutched his smoking stump of an arm, he heard Confriga… ? Not only Confriga, but all the other Pathbearers and dimensionals present. They were all too, consumed by a white-green fire as a mushroom cloud of clashing mana swelled to encompass a full kilometer of space. Shiv’s mind reeled. And suddenly, a series of unexpected level advancements passed through him. Google seaʀᴄh N0veI.Fiɾe.net

Vitality Drain > 18

Revenant > 10

“Broken Moon,” Shiv hissed. He saw flickers of brilliant white consume the foul green Necromantic mana highlighting where his missing arm used to be. Then it was gone. But those around him were still burning. Confriga’s flesh began to melt from his body. The Pathbearers and dimensionals dispatched to capture Shiv began toppling over one after another, their melting bodies now lit as if torches bearing a greenish blaze. Most peculiar of all were the three children pinned to the Gate Lord’s armor. They burned brightest of all—but they burned with the color of glorious white, and their bodies writhed a final time as they faded into motes of nothing.

“What? What have you done!” Confriga screamed, clutching at the absent children once pinned to his chest. The Gate Lord was still burning, the green fire born of Necromancy devouring patches of his flesh. “My conduits! My !”

Shiv didn’t know either. So he answered by punching the Gate Lord in the eye as hard as he could. His blow cracked the heat-glassed ground around them. It didn’t even drive Confriga back a single inch. The Gate Lord snarled and seized Shiv’s neck with a crushing grip. The Deathless punched the Gate Lord’s elbow—drained as much momentum he could—but there was no breaking free. The Gate Lord casually lifted Shiv off his feet, even with Might of Mass.

811 had the strength of a small child compared to Confriga. If there was any doubt that the Gate Lord was a Heroic Pathbearer, that doubt was dead now.

“Alright, you bastard,” Shiv spat, clenching his teeth. “Make it count.”

Confriga did. The burning Gate Lord released Shiv and thrust a three-fingered fist into his chest. Shiv watched and timed the blow—and then noticed something: A rush of force speared out from the Gate Lord’s fist a moment before the impact and extended through Shiv like a needle. When Confriga hit Shiv, a channel of ever-growing force crashed through him. The Deathless felt his sternum shatter and one of his lungs burst—but that was when his body started adapting to the blow.

Adamantine Adaption > 106

Within a half second, Shiv was launched almost three hundred meters into the air. In that same half second, Shiv’s Momentum Core was . He discharged it immediately and shot back against Confriga’s channel of ever-growing force. His body snapped and jerked—his stump of an arm became a nub of purest pain—but his Adamantine Adaption entered the arms race against the Gate Lord’s ever-escalating blow.

Confriga stared on in disbelief. The Gate Lord was still burning, his once dark-gray skin turning a sickly shade of mottled black. Shiv felt some of his own skin rip and fray—but even that slowed as the adamantine plates lining his every cell grew tighter and tighter. Confriga might be able to split a mountain in half with a single blow, but Shiv’s was an ever-rebuilding fortress lined in layers and layers.

Adamantine Adaption > 107

Might of Mass > 93

Confriga whispered, the sound somehow reaching Shiv's ears. Then the Gate Lord jolted out from his astonishment. He drove a palm down, and another channel of force speared through Shiv’s back. As the blow struck Shiv this time, he anticipated—and drank in more momentum before it could fully crash through him. As a result, only a small series of fractures lined his pelvis. It was then that the Gate Lord winced, the greenish fire singeing his eye. The intersecting channels of force and Shiv’s second discharge clashed at an angle, and he found himself launched off sideways, twisting and turning through the air at impossible speeds. Rivers of molten metal zipped by below him, and Shiv cursed as he lost track of where he was going—only to punch through the walls of another building.

Momentum Core > 73

“Really racking up the collateral damage today,” Shiv hissed to himself. Thankfully, he didn’t tear through any people this time. In fact, what he mostly crashed through was crates, cargo, and bits of machinery. He ended up pretty deep in the bowels of the building before he finally came to a stop. As he looked up, the way he entered collapsed—along with more of the buildings outside. But this was—Shiv blinked as he found himself in what felt like some kind of maintenance hall.

“Shit,” Shiv growled, clutching his missing arm. His other wounds didn’t feel that great either, but Adamantine Adaption made him a veritable cockroach to kill—even for a Heroic Pathbearer. He remembered 811 saying something about how the skill was only meant for monsters. Well. Considering he got Foreshadowing as well, it seemed like being Deathless gave him a wide range of options, so long as he died enough.

Considering how much his Vitality Drain and Revenant Skills spiked afterward, it didn’t take much of a guess to suspect it had something to do with his Unique Path.

Shiv started staggering down the hallway. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he had no intentions of staying in place. He really wasn’t cut out for being an infiltrator. Barely a few hours here, and his cover was already ruined, a bunch of people were dead, and he just went a round with this place’s Gate Lord.

“Yeah,” Shiv said to himself. “Let’s call that a draw for now.”

Intimidation > 34

A rush of levels passed through him. Shiv blinked. That was a big jump for Intimidation? He wondered what—

The broadcast was so loud it shook the entire dimension. Shiv chuckled to himself, enjoying how pissed off the Gate Lord was, and relieved that he had seemingly lost track of Shiv's trajectory after that final clash of force as well. “Yeah. Good luck with that, asshole. Don’t worry, though. I’ll be seeing you soon. Right after I get a new face and maybe die a few times. I need to restock on new bodies.”

And as the Gate Lord continued raving, Shiv activated his stolen Umbral Shadowalker Skill and melted into the darkness. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he did have a general plan. He needed a new Perfect Semblance, to die and resurrect to handle these wounds, and then he would pay a visit to the Yellowstone Republic’s consulate.

There was an automaton he needed to speak with. And then kill.