64 (II)
Veilpiercer
Repulsion Shroud > 55
Shiv wasn’t the only one that the axe-bearer’s blow knocked out.
The feeling of cool wind rushing past Adam’s face made him blink and groan. His ears were bleeding, his skull was throbbing with pain, and he was—
“SHIT!” Adam flared his wings. He pulled up hard before he struck the—
“Broken Moon…” It was more crater than ground now. A crater filled with other groaning dragons, and a single, felling enormous Dragon-Knight who screamed as it kept smashing its fists into Shiv’s unmoving form. Adam winced for the Omenborn.
He winced as he flew through the air. His body felt like someone had launched him through a mountain. Considering how massive that hit had been, it might as well. But the other dragons on the ground were getting up now, and the damned Dynamancer and its two friends were descending from the sky. He needed to do this quickly.
“Thank the Ascendants you killed the bloody Psychomancer, Shiv,” Adam muttered. He nocked a spatial arrow and aimed at the axe-bearing dragon. The Young Lord winced as a particularly sickening crunch sounded from Shiv’s body, but he did his best to ignore it as he targeted the only item still dangling from the axe-bearer’s belt.
The Right Hand of Valor Thann.
The Young Lord focused his senses and timed his shot. He knew shockwaves from the dragon’s blows would knock his arrow off course. There was no bloody way Adam could get anywhere close to the dragon with those hits. Not even with his Repulsion Shroud. The only thing that did was blunt a hit with a pulse of counterforce, and with how hard that big damn dragon was smashing Shiv, just being near the blow might turn Adam into paste inside his armor.
But just as he prepared to loose his arrow, he felt a pulse of teleportation beside him. Adam cursed. He tried to—
A huge kukri crashed into his chest. Adam howled in pain as he was swatted across the sky. But the dragon was fast. Much, much faster than him. She hit him again within the span of a second—hit him so hard Adam coughed up blood from the blunt force impact alone. His armor kept him alive, but inside, he was breaking apart.
He cried out in pain as her blade crashed into him like raindrops during a thunderstorm, and then she spiked him down. Adam struck the crater at a bad angle—both of his legs snapped. The Young Lord screamed, but he was too battered to even push the air out of his lungs. He lay there, wheezing and whimpering. He reached out with his right arm and pulled himself forward. His left arm wouldn’t listen to him. His Spellstring was still fused to his hand. He needed to line a shot. He needed—
A heavy weight slammed down on his back. Adam cried out in agony as Tarlow tried to drive her kukri through his armor. “What… is this even made of?” she hissed. She stabbed down three more times, practically turning Adam’s mangled legs into clumps of bone and tissue within the armor. Adam briefly lost consciousness, then another blow woke him. He bounced across the ground. Every hit made him thankful for his father’s armor—and every hit made him wish to die.
The Young Lord was about to start screaming for the Ascendants to take him when Tarlow suddenly gurgled. Blood splashed over Adam like a waterfall as he somehow managed to turn and saw Still Water flicking a long wire through the dragon’s throat. But Tarlow managed to get her blade against the right side of her neck, preventing a full slice.
She struck at the bandana-wearing Weaveress, but cut only air as Still Water dove under her invisibility cloak and vanished.
Tarlow frantically slashed three times more before she staggered, clutching her throat. A river’s worth of blood spilled out, and she teleported away to… somewhere.
Gasping, Adam tried to rise, battered beyond belief. He crashed against the ground and almost passed out. How the hells does… Shiv fight through this… pain… Fuck… Ascendants…
Distant explosions sounded. Uva? Shiv? The Weaveresses? Someone was still fighting the dragons. Not him, though. He was completely ruined. It all hurt too much. All he had left was an arm. All he had left—
“Get up, Adam.” The voice of his father pierced into his mind, as clear as if he were right beside him. Adam gasped as he looked up. There was a light, and there was a shining tower, and there was his father, his jaw set, drawing his bow back, fighting for Blackedge. For weeks. Without rest. Firing constantly at endless waves of enemies, blinding spheres of radiance blooming amidst their uncountable numbers like rising suns.
The vision disappeared. But he remembered a moment—a moment when he was a child. The first time he flew, he’d fallen—and it hurt, and he was scared. He didn’t want to fly again. So his father carried him. Roland Arrow carried his son until the boy learned to yearn for the sky again. His father was a good man, a strong man.
Repulsion Shroud > 57
But his father wasn’t here.
His father needed Adam.
Shiv needed Adam.
Uva needed Adam.
Valor…
So many people helped him throughout his life. He couldn’t let the sweet bliss of oblivion take him. He couldn’t.
That wasn't what a Pathbearer would do.
“Both wings…” Adam muttered, recalling what his father said to him. “Use both wings at once. Come on, Adam. Get up
.”Somehow, he manifested his wings through the pain and flapped, lifting his broken body. The shaking inflamed his wounds, and he shouted in exquisite agony. Adam didn’t know how he kept his focus or how he kept flying—but he did it, even with broken legs and one arm dangling. He flew up. He constructed an arm made from water to use his Spellstring. And he aimed—at the axe-wielding dragon who, with another roar, dropped a fist on Shiv. The dragon’s hands were coated in blood, and his scales were broken too.
And in the gloom of the Abyss, Adam’s eyes began to burn bright as he squinted at the hand of Valor Thann. Wait, Adam reminded himself. Another blow. Adam exhaled. Another shockwave. Opportunity. He fired. His spatial arrow zipped for a kilometer before it struck the hand dead on.
Deadeye > 95
Portomancy > 40
Adam then pulled back with his spatial magic. A tunnel of pressure yanked hard but couldn’t dislodge the arm. The Young Lord’s mind wailed—so he created two water bows and fired. A stream of arrows smashed into the clip holding the arm in place. The axe-bearing dragon lifted its arm again.
Bowslinger > 94
Please, Ascendants! Adam cursed. He could feel himself losing consciousness, he could—
The limb broke free. It tore across the spatial tunnel and crashed into Adam’s chest, knocking him back out of the air. Adam seized the limb with an arm of flesh and three arms of water as he crashed down on the ground—leg-first.
His resulting scream echoed across the land. And darkness almost took him. Should have taken him.
If not for the notification filling his closed eyes.
Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Dragon-Knights of the Descenders Union and their new Aviary allies before they can sell the Right Hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.
Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels
Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier
Adam laughed. It came out as a sob. He fed ten levels into his Deadeye and felt it shoot past the level threshold. In the same instant, he selected his Portomancy as his Adept-Tier Skill option, and something wonderful happened.
Skill Evolution: Deadeye (Adept) > Horizon Splitter (Master)
Skill Evolution: Portomancy (Initiate) > Dimensionality (Adept)
Skill Fusion: Horizon Splitter Arrow (Master) - Dimensionality (Adept) > Veilpiercer (Master)
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Veilpiercer > 105
Suddenly, a rush of strength flooded into Adam. He still hurt badly, but he didn’t feel on the brink of death anymore. His eyes snapped open. His jaw clenched. He formed a hydrokinetic hand and flared his wings once more. He rose up like a man possessed and directed his gaze at the axe-bearing dragon punching Shiv over and over.
A surge of outrage and anger rushed through the Young Lord. He moved further and further away, but he formed a new arrow. Instead of shaping it from water, though, he reached for a more natural-feeling substance—a stronger skill. An arrow shaped like a pitch-black spatial rupture materialized as he drew his Spellstring back. He aimed it at the head of the massive dragon.
This arrow was unlike all the other arrows he'd ever shaped in his life. He could feel a small dimension residing inside it. A small, unstable dimension that only his power was keeping together. Moreover, he felt like he could infuse the magic of his bow into his newly empowered Veilpiecer arrow, and suddenly, the insides were not only unstable, but filled with a surge of lightning.
“Let go… of my bastard,” Adam breathed. He released the arrow, and as the string straightened, a pulse of spatial distortions exploded out from around Adam as his arrow tore through the fabric of space rather than traveling to its target the traditional way. The Young Lord blinked as the rupture remained in place even after he fired the arrow. It was unlike his standard teleportation arrow, which served as an anchor he could eventually teleport to, or pull someone else back from the point he struck.
The Veilpiercer arrow wasn’t the same. It basically left a large, gaping chasm in reality and created a temporary, unstable dimension that ran from where Adam first released his shot all the way to the target itself. And the arrow still wasn’t done surprising him. With every second it spent in flight, it grew faster by multiple times. Between the Veilpiercer arrow’s ability to avoid air friction and its constant acceleration, the shot struck the axe-bearing dragon nigh-instantly.
It also crashed against the massive beast’s head hard enough to knock it off of Shiv. Lightning exploded everywhere. The dragon’s head crashed against the earth as it staggered. Then, it snapped into motion again, and a fiery aura flared around its body. But blood poured down from a dent in its skull. A large and visible dent.
Adam fired two more Veilpiercer arrows. But the dragon exploded off the ground. Adam moved on instinct and dove into the dimensional pathway he just created. He passed through the rupture just as the massive dragon appeared where he was. The sheer force and speed displayed by the dragon terrified Adam. It searched for him briefly until it turned and saw the rupture. It tried to reach in, but its size worked against it—the bastard was too big. It could only stick two fingers through.
Adam laughed and accelerated along his arrow-made dimension. Portomancy was just the manipulation of spaces. Dimensionality was different. Dimensionality was the manifestation of another place entirely. You couldn’t intercept a Dimensionalist the same way you did a Jump Mage. You needed to pierce through their dimensional barriers first, and even then, the dimension didn’t collapse—not until you disrupted the magical boundaries holding it together.
Adam’s dimension, however, was an unstable one, and shivering walls of quivering darkness slowly closed in from all sides.
I wonder if I can keep it stable, Adam thought as he blasted out from the exit in seconds. The distance within was also much shorter than taking the direct route. He emerged where the arrow hit the dragon, and he found Shiv immediately. Up in the sky, the massive dragon roared in fury as it continued clawing at the other end of the rupture.
Adam scoffed. The Berserk Skill was a double-edged sword. It gave a massive boost to your physical attributes, but you lost the ability to think altogether. Not a great trade most times.
Looking down into a deep, shattered pit in the ground, Adam gawked as he found Shiv. The Deathless’s armor was cracked and bent almost everywhere. His helmet had been split in two, and his face was a bloody, swollen mess.
But the bastard was still breathing. He was practically less injured than Adam was.
“You… you cockroach,” Adam laughed. Another roar sounded from the axe-bearing dragon, and Adam dove, calling for Shiv to wake up.
***
The War Priest lifted a leg, and Shiv stared at the bone jutting out from his arm. He knew pain, he knew hurt, but this was on another level. This was…
Shiv didn’t cry. He stared up at the War Priest and spat on the man’s boot again.
Something shone behind the man’s eyes. Before he could bring down his boot once more, an arrow struck true—right into his knee. It punched through, and the War Priest crashed to the ground with a guttural howl of pain.
Shiv watched in awe as three more arrows impacted that same knee—one after another—each one ruining the limb more. Until a final bolt struck hard enough to sever the limb entirely.
As the priest howled in agony, a voice came from Starhawk’s Perch. A voice that shook the air. “Any man who strikes a child, Omenborn or not, is no man of the Republic.” Roland Arrow’s tone rang with righteous fury, as if the very sky itself raged on his behalf. “War Priest. You will mend his arm. You will cease what you have done. And you will report for active duty in the Militia within two days. You wish to serve the Republic. You wish to honor the Ascendants. Then descend and investigate the old ruins. Clear out the vampire nests. Help the needy. Today, you have shamed us all, and you have disobeyed a direct order from your Town Lord in the process.”
But Shiv blinked. Something was wrong about this memory.
This never happened.
Roland didn’t shoot the man’s leg off. The guards stopped him—detained him for a day, and let him off. They took Shiv to a Biomancer afterward, but everyone pretended that nothing happened. Why was he remembering different now, why—
And from the skies above, a man descended, burning wings at his back. Shiv gritted his teeth and tried to rise. But his entire body hurt and—
“Shiv! Get up, you big, unkillable bastard!”
Shiv blinked as he saw… Adam Arrow descend. The Young Lord’s legs were pointing in several wrong directions, and his left arm was also barely hanging on. Behind the Young Lord was a massive, quivering black gap. Shiv blinked, but the black didn’t go away. Guess that wasn’t a part of his concussion.
The Deathless spat a globule of blood as he noticed something else.
Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Dragon-Knights of the Descenders Union and their new Aviary allies before they can sell the Right Hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.
Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels
Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier
“Adam,” Shiv grunted as he ripped himself out of the rubble. “Did you just complete the Quest while I was distracted?”
“Well, someone had to get things done while you were napping on the job,” Adam sneered.
Shiv scoffed. “Yeah, well, you look like shit.”
“So, hurry up and heal me, you bastard. You have any idea what pain I’m in?”
Shiv laughed as he accepted Adam’s hand, but mostly pulled himself up using his gravitic field.
Adamantine Adaption > 121
He spat a mouthful of blood and eight of his teeth out. “I’m going to kill Sir Tarlow,” he grumbled. “Slowly.”
“Who the hells is Sir Tarlow?” Adam asked.
“The dragon with the kukri.”
Adam’s nostril flared. “Ah. Yes. Her. I’ll help you.”
Shiv snarled as he forced himself to manifest a Woundeater despite his mana strain. He cast into Adam, and the Young Lord gasped as his body was restored. The crystallized serpent danced atop Shiv’s hands as he cracked his neck.
Just then, the black rupture behind Adam closed, and the axe-bearing dragon slammed down, finally noticing them. Then, a pulse of teleportation followed, and Sir Tarlow and the Biomancer reappeared, flanking them from the other side.
“Great,” Shiv growled. “I was just about to go looking for them.”
Adam, however, simply drew his strings back. “I assume you want me to kill the Biomancer first.”
Shiv was about to ask Young Lord how he was going to do that when he noticed the shivering, pitch-black arrow that Adam had manifested. “What’s that?”
“My first Master-Tier Skill Fusion,” Adam said. “You’ll see how it works in a minute.”
The axe-bearing dragon hammered its fists into the ground, causing a small earthquake.
“Congratulations,” Shiv said.
“Thank you. I’m rather proud of it myself.”
“Got any recommendations for what I should move to Adept? Because I’m going to put ten points into Knife Proficiency. And then I’m going to take Tarlow’s knife and skin her with it.”
“About time you got an actual Weapon Skill. And pick Stealth.”
“Stealth?”
“Again. Only thing worse than the monster you can see is the monster you can’t. See if those skills fuse.”
Shiv did as the Young Lord recommended.
Skill Evolution: Knife Proficiency (Initiate) > Deepest Edge (Adept)
Deepest Edge > 53
Skill Evolution: Stealth (Initiate) > Silhouette (Adept)
To Shiv’s slight disappointment, the skills didn’t fuse, but as he focused on trying to remain unnoticed, his mood turned to elation. His Mask of False Paths offered him the Umbral Shadowalker Skill. It wasn’t a bad skill, but it was still something that was entirely focused on hiding, and stopped being useful when there were no more shadows. Shiv yearned for something that made him hard to notice even while engaged in active combat.
And the System obliged. The bulk of his body went entirely transparent, the only trace left of him a thin outline mapping out his silhouette.
“Bloody hells.” Adam chuckled as he regarded Shiv. “I’m going to regret this the next time we spar.”
Shiv pulled two bone drills out of his cloak and wrapped a hand around a dagger. Immediately, he felt a deep, fluid energy trembling inside the edged weapon, but he wasn’t sure what that might allow him to do.
Suppose I’ll find out soon. Just like with Adam’s new arrow.
“You ready?” Shiv said, looking between the axe-bearer and Tarlow.
His question was interrupted as a dragon screamed from above—Shiv cursed as he saw the wind-dragon accelerate and—
It promptly crashed into the ground, kicking up dirt and rubbing through the crater. It came to a rest near Shiv and Adam as both men blinked. Then, with a sudden swell of Psychomancy, the dragon’s skull burst apart as Uva hatched out from the now headless dragon, sporting a limp.
“Apologies,” the Umbral growled. Shiv saw that her mana field was entirely different from before. Instead of a solid field, it was now a dense weave of thin strings that spread far across the land—over the very horizon, while remaining rooted to her mind. The Biomancer and Tarlow tried to charge then, but a dozen of the strings pierced through them, and both dragons collapsed into the dirt, screaming as Uva’s physical body briefly transformed into a dense net of mind magic. “Couldn’t quite reach the Jealousy. I had to findanother body to wear.”