117 (II)
Vitaemancer
Before Shiv could consider the implications, he felt himself dim even further. He felt the cold wash over him—reach his very core. He was out of time. He needed to drain vitality. He needed to live.
Shiv speared into Adam like a leech seeking a vein. The Gate Lord shuddered as ethereal streams of red and white were pulled out from his body as if blood drawn into a syringe. Then, even more of Shiv’s streams splashed against Adam’s body and started draining him at the same time.
The Deathless didn't just have one strand of Vitae. No, every part of him consisted of the swirling flow. It wasn't even a part of him; it was him. This was the shape of his existence now. As it moved, he could see that sections of it were corroded and withered, barely hanging on. The Necromantic damage still scarred him. But he could feel the scars, and he could move the streams around himself.
It didn’t heal the hurt, but it did make him feel better.
“Alright,” Adam wheezed. His features paled fast as Shiv drew in massive surges of vitality. The Vitality Drain Skill had also been dramatically leveled from the blast he experienced earlier. Shiv could feel himself drawing considerably more vitality from the Gate Lord than he was capable of usually. But Shiv still needed more. It was like part of his Skill Evolution was incomplete. He needed to finish his metamorphosis, and he needed more—more—MORE!
Instinct took hold. Shiv directed his other streams across the land, seeking the grass. As they moved, a thundering sheath formed over his Vitae. His Inertial Overdrive activated. Shiv felt his gravitic field as well. Shiv blinked. His strands had actual weight. One of them crashed into the ground and tore out a chunk of soil. He also saw his Skysplitter dragged along by one of his Vitae currents. What the hells is happening to me?
His tendrils speared into the grass. He drank away the vitality of the surrounding vegetation in large gulps. They didn't wither or decay. They melted into him. Fused with him. And when he was done, there was nothing left behind. And suddenly, Shiv looked at the world around him. There was a thin film of red and white everywhere.
There was vitalityeverywhere.
Vitae everywhere.
Existence everywhere.
Shiv drove himself into that existence, and he drained. He drained as much as he could, and parts of the world tore open. Wounds developed. Wounds lined the flesh of existence. If reality were a fabric, then Shiv was sinking his teeth into it, leaving bite marks all over.
WARNING: MANA INSTABILITY DETECTED
Just then, a pressure built in the air. Shiv looked up, where one of the rifts had torn open.
And lightning struck him from a cloudless sky.
A bolt of volatile energy speared down from the heavens, impacting Shiv like the fist of a giant.
A spear of coldness sank into him as some of his Vitae burst apart. They sprayed out like broken pieces of glass, and the red glow of his vitality faded thereafter. Before Shiv could react, a blast of flame spewed free from another of the wounds he had left in reality.
He stopped time before the flame could hit him and halted his draining from the thin, fragile threshold that was the world. Instead, he focused on the grass and Adam. But as Shiv moved away from the flame and resumed time, the Young Lord crashed down on his knees and dry-heaved.
Shit—I’m draining too much. I need to… Gods, I need more vitality…
Vitality Drain 51 > 52
"It's okay," Adam said, spittle falling from his mouth. "I have—I have a lot more—as much as you need."
But Shiv could feel Adam emptying. And it still wasn’t enough to complete the metamorphosis. There was also no way Shiv was going to let himself kill Adam. He stopped draining the Gate Lord and almost immediately felt the cold rush back into him. Immediately, Shiv could feel vitality evaporate from his new form at a staggering rate. Heat bled out of his body as if blood from a slit throat.
But he could move fast. He could cast himself in many different directions.
And so he flung his countless strands of Vitae at the grass around him, at everything that lived, at everything that glowed brightest.
Everything except that thin film lining the world itself.
He consumed the grass. He found bushes and drank them out of existence too.
In seconds, he slashed across the land, his body now a mess of red and white strings. They flowed like lashing whips, sucking up every droplet of vitality he could find. In under a minute, an entire kilometer of greenery vanished. There wasn't any decay. They simply ceased to be.
But Shiv still needed more. To his surprise, his Vitae reached far, reeling out at the speeds allowed by the interplay between his Inertial Overdrive and his gravitic field.
Vitaemancy was unlike anything else. It wasn't like a field he could wield. Rather, it was like moving his own spirit along, reshaping himself, touching things using his altered existence. With every bit of vitality he drained, more strings extended from him. His colors grew more vibrant, his terror fading before a growing focus. But even so, every movement performed by his Vitae, every second he existed in this state, vitality flooded out of him as well.
Everything he did cost vitality, and everything he drained became an influx.
From above came a chirp. A small bird was sailing just overhead, flapping its wings desperately as a hawk burst free from the clouds.
Shiv cast his Vitae through the bird first. In seconds, its existence vanished into his. The same strands blasted out from where the bird was and struck the hawk as well. It struggled a bit longer, shuddering and flapping its wings twice more, before it too faded into his Vitae.
And then, as he reached a hazy threshold, something flooded out from each of his streams. A membrane pooled around him. It extended beyond his Inertial Sheath and solidified into a field of circulating white and red. And then it hardened. It condensed. And Shiv stopped losing vitality as his being stabilized.
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A mana field formed around him. A mana field that he could move his Vitae in, where his streams were pooling together and reforming into his living body.
This was his new resurrectivehusk. But instead of shadow, it was colorful. It was vibrant. And it was stable. But his Vitae was entirely solid now. A new form of mana so dense it was matter—but also an extension of himself. Tentatively, Shiv extended a trickle of Vitae beyond his protective field, and it immediately began to evaporate once more. He drew it back in, and it stopped evaporating. He cast a jet of Vitae at the tree in the distance, and it crackled through the air. He lost vitality along the way, but the moment it touched the tree, he began to drain it back in.
Did I… just become my own kind of magic? Shiv thought. He prodded at himself even as more of his body continued to reform. There was a strange twitching sensation inside him, but he ignored that as he found himself examining the other things. His Vitaemancy mana field was about as large as his body—and everything within was stable. He could reach beyond it, but it immediately started costing him his existence. What… What else can I do with this? I don’t understand…
But then the twitching inside him became a violent struggle. From within his Vitae, something else burst free. He could hear screaming. He could hear her.
He could feel her struggling as she tried to tear her way out from inside him. Her body was trapped inside his, lost from the world for so long, but she was surfacing.
The long-dead Diviner stretched out from his red and white field with a hand outstretched. She resembled a person trying to claw their way free from a thick, translucent cocoon. But her struggles were insufficient, and she wasn’t strong enough to break free from his Vitae.
Each of his currents was like adamantine, and her body felt fragile. But as she unlatched from him bit by bit, he felt his pain fading, and he brushed her flesh—and felt his corrosion imprinted on her body.
Rose wasn’t just trying to break free because she wanted to escape. No, she was in agony. She had inherited his soul-wounds.
How the fuck did that happen? Shiv thought.
Rose clawed out again, and this time, Adam noticed her, and his eyes went wide. Shiv was reforming behind her, but his own shape couldn’t solidify automatically until she was pulled back in or removed. That was what his gut told him.
And though Rose wanted to split from him, she ultimately didn’t have the strength—or the skill—to do so.
But he did. And he was more than fine with letting her go. Shiv reached out and took hold of the Diviner. His streams clenched tight around her like solid bands. She cried out in pain, and he winced. Then, slowly, he began pushing her out through the field.
Rose shuddered. She turned. Shiv shook, but then his currents stabilized as he felt his flesh surface from over his Vitaemancy field. Rivers of red and white connected him to her. Just as they wove him back into existence, they wove her as well. Then, with a final ripple, he emerged fully back into existence, covered in burned rags, while she collapsed against the soil.
Shiv looked down upon her and swallowed. A few currents of Vitaemancy continued to weave around her, to coil and tighten. But she was coming into shape, and she was surfacing from the white and red colors of his unique mana.
Vitaemancy was a skill unlike all other magical skills. It was the substance that comprised Shiv's being, and it was something that was a mystery to him. Its capabilities, its uses, its very nature. Even if it made up who he was, he didn't know how it worked, and he certainly didn't know why or how it had restored Rose.
But that didn't matter. He'd promised that he would get her out at some point, promised and expected to find an Animancer, likely a restored Valor, to serve as her liberator. But he had an opportunity now. He had a means now. So he was going to try now to save her right now.
Not later, not tomorrow, not next year, now.
She surfaced from the lingering remnants of his Vitaemancy, much like he did. But a pulse and coldness radiated inside of him after he let her go. It was like he'd given part of himself away, sacrificed some of his vitality. Shiv felt weary again.
But he reached out. He searched the land with his Vitaemancy streams, and as he found more grass, he drained that as well. He didn't use his hands to direct his Vitae streams. They moved of their own accord, and when they splashed out from him, his body quivered as if it was the surface of a pond of red that oscillated with colors of white.
Every time he used his Vitaemancy, he lost something once it went beyond his field. But what was lost could be drained from the world, and now he could interact with the physical world using the shape of his solidified soul.
But the world can also interact with me in return, Shiv realized.
Before him, Rose Van Erren lay. He thought her hair had retained some of his vitality, but he realized that was just her natural color—blood red. But there were horrific scars lining her body, patches of corrosive burns that left her disfigured and twitching on the ground. Her body was horrifically melted, her skin like a dense hive mottled by acid.
Shiv looked down at himself, patted his own body, and felt only a few lingering injuries retained. She had taken on the bulk of the wounds he sustained. He was barely burned now. Was this… Did his Vitaemancy allow him to pass soul wounds on to other people? He certainly hadn't done this on purpose.
Adam was staring at his mother as well, his eyes wide, his jaw open and closing. The Gate Lord looked exhausted, spent, and now he was mentally reeling as well. Slowly, he turned to Shiv.
Shiv tried to say something, but he didn't have the words. He didn't know what to say, so he just shrugged.
"She wanted out, man… So I… let her out." Shiv muttered. It sounded stupid, but it was an honest statement.
Adam tried to say something, but then his eyes rolled, and he promptly pitched over. Exhaustion induced by the vitality drain claimed him.
"Shit," Shiv muttered. He probably drained Adam too much.
A whimper came from Rose as she stared at Adam. She lay there in the opposite direction he did, and mother and son were pointed away from each other. Even so, she reached out with a shaking hand, and she placed it upon his back.
"My boy," she whispered. She breathed in, and she remained in existence. She didn't fade out. Her chest was rising and falling. For all intents and purposes, she was well and truly alive.
Shiv stared. Did I just... Did I just bring a woman back to life? His mind spun at the implications, but he couldn't deal with this. Not yet. Not out here either.
He looked around, and he scowled. This place was a wasteland. Roland’s bombardment had left everything a kilometer away glassed, but there were still probably Diviners—or Necrotechs with Master-Tier Awareness—lurking in the clouds or in the distance beyond. He didn't need them to know what he could do, and he certainly didn't need them to have any more information about him hatching a woman from his vitality. However that worked.
Immediately, Shiv reached down and gently picked up both Rose and Adam as he marched back toward the gate. The surface was still shimmering with waves of Dimensionality. Adam had kept the pathway active.
"Thank the gods," Shiv growled. “And fuck Sullain.”
He passed through the dimensional rift, and as soon as he crossed over, heads turned to stare at him. Heads of mercenaries, of Umbrals on guard, of a Weaveress that stumbled back in surprise as Shiv blasted past her. He shot up into the air as she called out to him.
“Exalted Guest Shiv!” she shouted. “What are—”
"Call Uva!" Shiv shouted back in return as he soared through the air, toward the obsidian tower. "And get me Valor! We're gonna need him. I need him. I need everyone. I… I…” How the hells was he supposed to explain any of this?
As soon as he pondered that question, a Psychomantic thread passed through his mind as the familiar presence of Uva settled into his consciousness.
"Shiv, what's wrong? What happened?"
"I, uh..." Shiv looked down at Adam's mother, and then he looked down at Adam.
Uva hesitated. "Shiv. What happened to Adam. And that woman… Who is she? And why is she undressed?"
He opened and closed his mouth several times before he settled on the truth. "So, uh, I think my Unique Skill underwent a Skill Evolution, and then I died, and I gave magic rebirth to Adam's mom somehow. And now I need Valor to help me figure things out."
A long pause followed. For the first time, Uva was genuinely speechless and thoughtless. She let out a soft sigh. "Never a dull moment with you.”