(I) Jealousy
Chapter 96 of "Path of the Deathless" begins with suspenseful moments: Gravitic Dominion-Encyclopedia Apocalyptia49 (I)JealousyShivâs bone drills blasted through the air. The backblast of their acceleration... Donât miss it!
Gravitic Dominion-Encyclopedia Apocalyptia
49 (I)
Jealousy
Shivâs bone drills blasted through the air. The backblast of their acceleration sent a good few hundred slaves sprawling onto their backs and chests. Even more were launched off their feet as Shiv himself leaped off the ground, applying both his near-Master-Tier Physicality and Biomancy in tandem to launch himself up at the Jealousy like a ballista bolt.
True to Leuâs assumptions, the titanic demonâs speed was inferior to Shivâsâbut that didnât make it slow at all. Its eye ignited with a blinding surge of power as its mana rippled, sending multiple psionic tsunamis to crash against Shiv. It also curved a massive, armored limb to shield its eyeâbut was too slow. Both bone drills speared past the Jealousyâs tentacle before it was in position to do anything. The adamantine bone drills struck the Greater Demonâs eye at immense speed, grinding deep into the flesh of its eye like burrowing needles.
Yet, even as the Greater Demon wailed with pain, its focus endured, and its Toughness proved to be enough. Though the drills bit deep, they ran out of energy long before they could push through the outer flesh of the eye, remaining in place like jutting arrows. That put the big bastard at Master-Tier Toughness at the least.
Shiv snarled internally as he saw the psionic waves close in. Controlling his exoskeleton using a rippling spell in his right hand, Shiv clenched his left fist and prepared to meet the first of the encroaching waves. Considering the Jealousyâs Heroic-Tier power, Shiv expected this to leave his gauntlet ringing like a bell, but it was either that or take it with his mask.
A wall of screaming, magical thought reared back to crash down on him. Shiv flung himself gauntlet-first against its tides. An enormous impact swept through him, rattling his bones and shaking his organs. Shiv cursed and grit his teeth as he struggled to parry the magical wave aside. It felt like he was trying to grapple with a falling mountain. Even with all his strength, it was a hell of a fight, and other waves were closing in. With a roar of effort and a tug of his Biomancy, he managed to the angle of the psionic tide into the wall behind him. His gauntlet was shaking hard, trembling jarringly against the rest of his armor as it released a shrieking note at the frequency of the vibrations.
Might of Mass > 95
Parry > 42
Shiv didnât know how many more hits like that his gauntlet could take, so he pushed harder with his Biomancy to get in closer. His mana field was on the verge of reaching the monsterâs body. Soon, it would be his turn to use a little magic of his own.
the Jealousy screamed. Shiv felt its eyes flash with manaâit just Analyzed him. Another scream of confusion and outrage sounded from the creature, and Shiv couldnât help but laugh. Perfect Semblance was confusing this big bastard too. His amusement was short-lived, as he saw the Jealousy shaping new spells with its ten limbs. The pursuing waves of Psychomancy pooled together and turned into a nightmare of jagged teeth that sang telepathic notes so dreadful that his mask started quivering on his face.
But before it could fully bring its power to bear against him, Shiv felt his Biomancy field pass over one of the beastâs enormous tentacles. To his dread, he discovered that it also had layerof Magical Resistance. This thing was a juggernaut of meat and spirit, but Shiv had a Master-Tier magical skill of his own that he wanted to test against a powerful foe.
Bringing the power of his Woundeater to bear, Shiv inflicted on his own body; bursting his organs, shattering bones, gouging out his eyes, and bursting his ears. But before an explosion of pain could even rush through him, his wyrm swept through his body. He fed the mana-formed serpent with all the damage he inflicted on himself, and by the time it burst free from his body, the wyrm was pulsating with concentrated mana and crystallized wounds. With a channeling of intent, the spell patterns dancing across Shivâs right arm transformed. Just as the Jealousy swung its titanic arm down at Shiv, the wyrm blasted forward, its maw wide-open.
The crimson mana construct struck the Jealousyâs tentacle, coiling around the limb and biting deep. Shiv felt the crystallized wounds crash against the monsterâs Magical Resistanceâand then an explosion of crimson engulfed the space in front of him.
In a mirror of what happened with Shiv mere moments ago, the beastâs arm reeled back as well, and its entire body jolted as if it had been physically struck by a heavy blow.
The monsterâs thoughts were choppy but intelligent. What surprised Shiv even more was how there was actually a thought process to what it wanted to do that went beyond the instinctiveâand that it would rather avoid him rather than attacking up close, despite its huge size advantage.
Even with Might of Mass, Shiv didnât think he was anywhere near as strong or heavy as the monster. The damn thing had a limb-span of practically two hundred meters, and its body was literally a small mountain with a gleaming eye at its core. A gleaming eye that was beginning to glow again. Shiv frowned as he prepared to cast another salvo of wounds. Why was it analyzing him aâ
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A shockwave exploded from the Jealousyâs body as it projected a jet of hypersonic water into Shiv. He was fast enough to see what was coming, but not nearly quick enough to dodge without a filled Momentum Core. Shiv cursed and brought his arms in front of himself as he crashed against the jet. He was blasted backward. His stomach lurched. What felt like a wall broke against his back as he passed through the sound barrier. Micro-fractures spread across the arms of his exoskeleton. Then, the bones adapted. Shiv got . He drained a massive rush of momentum into his body, and he got faster as well. His Momentum Core surged. Time practically stopped.
Shiv prepared to discharge his core and launch himself into the Jealousy like a bullet.
The monsterâs psionic attack bit down on him first.
Equipment:
Condition: Damaged
A loud crack sounded around his head. Shiv felt a piece of something fall against his cheek. .
the Jealousy cried out.
Shiv thought. He discharged his Momentum Coreâbut did it at an angle to avoid contending with the monsterâs immense Hydromancy. For the second time, Shiv exploded through the sound barrier. A pocket formed in the crushing jet of water the Jealousy was channeling. The horizon jolted toward Shiv in an instant as he crashed into one of the Jealousyâs tentacles. Its armored carapace shattered against Shivâs body. He took no damage at all, his Adamantine Adaption already hardened.
the Jealousy cried. The shrill declaration reinvigorated Shiv like a gulp of cold water on a hot day.
Shiv tore his body apart and unleashed another spell shaped from crystallized wounds into the monster. A wave of crimson mana exploded around its body and cracked a focus crystal grip the Jealousy was holding onto. Before it could react, he pulled a new bone drill out of his cloak and reshaped it, extending a ring of blades around its core and along its length. He then drove his weapon through the monsterâs compromised shell and commanded the newly modified blade-drill to as he pushed it as well. Blood geysered all over Shiv as he cut and cut . With the monsterâs outer armor cracked open, its supple flesh parted before adamantine blades as Shiv stroked a bloody furrow across its entire body.
It shook the limb, trying to fling him off, but he just used its immense strength as fuel for his Momentum Core. A huge benefit of fighting a monster of this size and strength was how fast it helped fill his core. Though it felt like he was running across an earthquake and had to hook his drill in several times to avoid getting thrown off, his core was flooded againâfaster than the next Psychomancy spell could reach him. Everything came to a halt, and this time, he took his time aiming for the Jealousyâs eye.
The sheer force of his departure split the entire limb open. It was only because of the Jealousyâs Toughness that it received a laceration instead of a dismemberment, but more of its carapace came asunder, and Shiv speared across the entire length of space between the limb and its eye like a bolt of lightning. The Jealousy anticipated his arrivalâattempted to angle its face away from him.
It might as well have been a slug crawling through mud when his Momentum Core was discharging.
Shiv struck the vast eye of the Jealousy akin to how a meteorite would plunge deep into the soft and fertile earth. Blood and viscera erupted, spraying like specks of soil cast in all directions.
Immediately, Shiv felt himself enveloped by the soft tissue of the Jealousyâs inner eye. His exoskeletonâboosted by Might of Mass, Biomancy, and Adamantine Adaptionâworked in tandem, making him an arrowhead like no other.
the Greater Demon screamed. Comparatively, Shiv only felt a jolt of discomfort rush through his body. Whatever Master-Tier Skill Evolution it had for Toughness, it was nothing compared to him. Frankly, the entire fight had been going better than he thought. Perhaps, after he broke its Magical Resistance, things would come to a quick end.
Shiv tore himself open, disemboweling his very body, flaying his skin, carving cores of agony through his flesh, before he fed it all into a new wyrm and slammed it against the Jealousyâs already compromised insides with a punch. A blast of crimson mana mingled with the rushing ocean of blood and gore pouring out from its wounded eye. A surge of adrenaline flooded Shivâs being.
Woundeater > 55
Momentum Core > 75
He was going to rip and tear his way through the insides of this creature, mangling it with his bare hands, with his , with his bone drill, with his knives, with everything he had, and then he was going to feast on its flesh like it had planned toâ
Something reached inside Shiv. Something pulled at the very essence of his body, wrenching something essential out of his flesh. For a moment, he thought he was being attacked via Biomancy and was confused as to why he didnât feel itâand couldnât stop his abrupt and instantaneous death.
But it was his Biomancy that ultimately revealed the truth to him, and he realized his folly a second laterâjust as he died.
More than half of the human body was made of water for a baseline mortal. At Master-Tier, Shiv had gone through more than a few evolutions, changing both biologically and spiritually to an extreme extent. But his body still needed water. It still functioned off of water. And when every droplet of water inside him was ripped out all at once, he immediately convulsedâhis organs ceasing to function, his mind stopping, his limbs twitching as his skin dried and shriveled.
Through it all, his durability remained immenseâbones near unbreakable, skeletal armor barely cracked. But Shiv died all the same, because he couldnât sense the Hydromancy mana seeping into him, coalescing in his very person before the Jealousy tore him asunder using a magical skill he had no counter for.
Might of Mass > 100 (Skill Evolution Imminent)
Woundeater > 57
Momentum Core > 76
Adamantine Adaption > 107
Parry > 44
As Shiv returned as a Revenant. His first thoughts were,
He started draining the Jealousy immediately, drawing its vitality into him. But there was something else as well: a surge of strength rushing through his being. His Skill Evolution for Might of Mass was close at hand.
Rather than being disheartened by this death, Shiv felt almost excited. With perhaps another death or two more, he might gain Hydromancy as well, which would allow him to defend against the oncoming matter he currently couldnât see. And, after his Might of Mass evolved, he might just be this thingâs physical equalâor at least strong enough to hurt it better.
The Jealousyâs telepathic thoughts came in bursts of exclamation and intense rage: This was a psionic rage that boiled and simmered. It even crashed against Shivâs mind like an actual attack, though not as hard as a focused one. He used this moment of confusion to keep draining its vitality. His shadowy cocoon came back together, and he prepared for the next bout.
But the Jealousy surprised him once more. The creature might be a Greater Demon and a monster that fed on human minds like a base predator, but it was no simple fool. It knew something was wrong, and it adapted. It directed its Psychomancy inside a moment thereafter, and Shiv immediately felt a spike of mind mana lash out at him. He struck the oncoming field using his Magebreaker.