38 (II)
Brawl
Shiv launched himself at the beast with a snarl—masking just how much pain he was in. He needed to grab onto 811. If he could just get his hands around the orc and discharge Momentum Core while holding onto 811’s neck at the right angle…
811 ducked and vanished. Shiv lurched back on a guess and watched the orc’s fist blast through where he just was.
Got yo— was Shiv’s incomplete thought as 811 twisted on his heel and slammed an elbow into Shiv’s temple. Unconsciousness took him again. Only for the next five punches to hammer him back to life. Shiv felt his cheek shatter as 811 loomed over him, driving fists down like falling hammers. The Deathless snarled. Damn the pain and damn this life. He was going to take this orc with him no matter what.
As 811 hit him again, Shiv stole a technique and spat blood at the orc’s eyes. And Shiv couldn’t miss with his Biomancy guiding the splatter. A final blow landed against Shiv’s chin, but instead of getting knocked out again, his Momentum Core boomed as it hit capacity. Through the agony, Shiv grinned. “My turn.”
He discharged his core as he hit 811 with a monstrous uppercut of his own.
Might of Mass > 78
Striking Proficiency > 23
The plaza came asunder from the sheer force of the blow. The monument nearby turned to rubble. Even people fleeing across the bridge in the distance were flung off their feet as Shiv launched himself and the orc into the air. 811’s head snapped back, and this time, the orc’s eyes rolled—but he blinked and gritted his teeth as he barely avoided passing out. Until the back of his head smashed through a nearby building. Then 811’s body went limp. Shiv and 811 exploded out through meters of dense stone again, emerging into what seemed like a loud, densely packed bar filled with heavily-armed customers and practically naked servers.
“That’s right, you tainted bastard!” Shiv hissed his triumph through a haze of pain. He slammed himself against the orc using his Biomancy, bashing 811’s body as the final rush of momentum died. They smashed hard against a countertop as Shiv continued smashing his head against the orc’s face. A faint, undamaged part of his brain was surprised about how well the countertop was holding up. The rest was being used to reshape 811’s face.
By this point, Shiv heard cheering. Rather than running, the customers in the bar looked on, treating the fight as in-house entertainment. Out of the corner of his eye, Shiv spotted the heavily armored Umbral from earlier. Her helmet was off, she looked extremely drunk, and she had two scantily clad men laying on her lap, but it was definitely her. She blinked as Shiv bashed himself against 811, and started cheering hardest of them all.
“Kill the bastard!” she yelled, holding up a massive jug of liquor.
Shiv endeavored to do his best. With each hit, Shiv recharged some of his Momentum Core—but it also cracked open his own face, and the tumors were spreading fast…
Not going to be long now, Shiv realized. As he reared his head back once more, 811’s eyes snapped open—and lightning exploded out from him. Stone rose from the ground. The people in the room were knocked back—but unlike many of the slaves or the non-martial Pathbearers down below, they survived with varying degrees of injuries.
Shiv didn’t get to check how injured they were, because a column of stone blasted up under 811, and they were speared through the ceiling once again. Shiv howled with agony as his lower spine broke entirely. He stopped being able to move his upper body much at all either. So he just bit down on the orc’s neck. 811 reciprocated, biting—and ripping off one of Shiv’s ears. They emerged out from under a bed as a man and a woman cried out together. 811 swung Shiv around like a sack, slamming him into a wall and punching him.
Shiv pushed back with his Biomancy—the only actual working muscle he had left, but the bastard orc held him in place with both hands.
Biomancy > 48
“Hey, you two get your own room,” a vampiric Pathbearer complained as he used a bedsheet to shield his modesty, leaving his automaton companion exposed.
“Sorry,” 811 said politely. “We will be heading next door now.”
And then he hit Shiv with the hardest straight so far.
The room blew apart. The walls blew apart. The only thing that didn’t blow apart were 811, Shiv, and the sex-interrupted Pathbearers. Shiv did however tumble through three more rooms before he bounced on a bed. And found himself staring at an Umbral male and female engaged in activities.
Shiv gurgled and wheezed. They locked eyes with him, and then looked at each other.
“Did you hire someone to watch?” the female Umbral said, breathing heavily.
The man swallowed. “No,” he said, but kept going anyways. “Not me.”
811 casually walked into the room, giving the active couple a “sorry,” and a grin. Shiv snorted and tried to pull himself back up. The orc’s eyes widened in surprise before he broke from his astonishment and swung a hook into Shiv’s now mostly tumorous liver again. Getting blasted out from their own room and getting cut up by shrapnel did nothing to halt the lovers’ continued intimacy.
It did, however, make Shiv fold over and let out a string of curses. “Agh! Bastard! Godsdamned bastard piece of tainted shit!” He wanted to black out. He wanted to kill this orc. He wanted a lot of things. The System gave him another two levels in Diamond Shell instead. If nothing else, he was getting a lot of what he wanted: More Toughness.
Diamond Shell > 91
Once more, Shiv pulled himself up with his Biomancy—only for 811 to grab him by his waist. Shiv howled in pain, and decided to express that by headbutting the orc again. 811 grunted in discomfort. His own face was practically a bloodied crater too. But rather than hitting Shiv again, he just chuckled. “Do you know how many levels you have given me over the course of this fight? Because I have gotten more Toughness from this little bout than I have in the past twenty years.”
“Come closer,” Shiv spat. “Let me give you one more.”
He smashed his head into the orc again, but his Biomancy was beyond strained. Shiv waspain. And he was dying. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. He groaned as he had his forehead pressed against the orc’s, and 811 just smiled back at him. “You want to hear something funny? Even if your answer is no, I am telling you anyway. Guess where we are?”
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Shiv tried to move. It was all he could do to avoid screaming as his body descended into a paroxysm of pain.
“We are at Little Gomorrah! You found it!”
And something about that revelation was so absurd, Shiv laughed. Even if it hurt. Even if he hated the damn orc. “I’m going to kill you,” Shiv slurred in response. “For what you… did. I’m gonna…”
811 brought another hand up and clutched Shiv’s face gently, almost intimately. Shiv noticed the damned orc was crying. Weeping, even. “I am afraid not, sweet enemy. You have given me a taste of a lifetime. Memories eternal. But you are done. You are broken. And I cannot ask anything more of you. You were… perfect. I… lov—”
Shiv was done with this intellectually cruel orc horseshit. He used the last of his strength to spite 811 by biting down on the bastard’s tongue.
For the first time, Shiv heard 811 yelp in genuine pain. The orc struggled. The orc pulled. Shiv bit harder, tasting the sludge-thick blood of the orc in his own mouth. 811 let out a bellow as he turned Shiv’s neck one way and his body the other. But unlike with the slaves, he couldn’t just crush Shiv. Even finishing the Deathless off required a final exertion of force. An effort that was interrupted as Shiv finally remembered something: His mask was off. Psychomancy was back on the table.
He did the same trick he pulled with the high vampire. He tried to reach into the orc’s mind. Only for his mana to bounce off.
Ah, great, forgot he had Magical Resistance. Good thing brain damage doesn’t carry over when I—
811 roared and snapped Shiv’s neck. It still took the Deathless a moment longer to let go of the orc’s bleeding tongue. Long enough for Shiv to drain the orc’s vitality and make the bastard bite his own tongue in surprise.
“Gah!” 811 roared as he collapsed to one knee.
Vitality Drain > 10
Revenant > 6
Might of Mass > 84
Momentum Core > 69
Diamond Shell > 100 (Skill Evolution Imminent)
Striking Proficiency > 28
Grappling Proficiency > 45
Knife Proficiency > 37
Pyromancy > 9
Biomancy > 49
Parry > 41
Alright. Let’s do this again. Shiv drank in the orc’s heat—and was surprised to feel plenty of heat left in the bastard. Broken Moon. Just how high is his Toughness? He bleeds easily, but it’s like trying to hammer apart a mountain. I did manage to knock him out earlier, though… That, paired with Shiv’s imminent Skill Evolution for Diamond Shell, gave him a surge of excitement.
Despite all the death the orc inflicted, all the pain Shiv endured, he wanted part of this. A hard death. A major jump to his Diamond Shell. He got just that. If there was only a way he could have achieved it while keeping those people from dying…
The way is getting stronger. Becoming a greater Pathbearer. The System wants strife, so I have to be good enough to win every time. So I need to die more. I need more of this. But I also need to finish this and vanish before a Psychomancer finds me. Master-Tier Pathbearers aren’t too common, but there has to be more than a few in this place, and if the Jealousy can fit through the gate and crawls in here when I’m not wearing my mask, my Toughness isn’t going to matter. But before that, there’s an orc I need to butcher first…
Darkness congealed around Shiv. 811 writhed and turned, his eyes widening as he finally noticed the human figure hatching from a shroud of blackness behind him. “How… unexpected…”
Shiv didn’t even bother with his Biomancy field—using it made his very soul feel shredded. His other magical skills didn’t matter either. Not when the orc’s Magical Resistance was as strong as it was. So. Down to the bloodstained, tattered rags he had for clothes and bereft of all weapons, Shiv set about killing a mountain of power and muscle with his bare felling hands.
And felt good about his odds.
He burst out from his resurrective cocoon and jabbed a thumb into 811’s left eye. The orc flinched slightly. Ducked. Vanished. Shiv dove to the side just as a massive fist blasted through the place where Shiv’s midsection was. The Deathless scoffed. “Really? There? Always?”
The orc began to circle him. The room they were in trembled and cracked as a cage of stone and crystal came crashing in from all sides. “It is effective,” 811 said with a smirk. “So. Whatare you? How are you still alive?”
“Technically, I’m an assistant chef,” Shiv said, mocking the orc with a partial truth. “Functionally, I’m alive because you’re not dead yet. If you want me to go away, you better kill yourself.”
811’s smirk turned feral. “And lose out on all this fun? No. No, I do not think I will.”
And then lightning exploded out from the orc. Without his bone armor, Shiv tried to dodge—but spasmed as electricity surged through his body. The stones crushing down on the room made everything cave in next, pinning him in place. And finally, as a capstone, 811 hit him again—another uppercut. Enough to blast Shiv back out of the building, and push a certain skill over the edge.
Skill Evolution: Diamond Shell (Adept) > Adamantine Adaption (Master)
Adamantine Adaption > 101
Shiv’s jaw cracked—but didn’t break. The diamond gleam that characterized Shiv’s skin turned a bit more metallic. As he blasted out of the building, the rags that used to be his shirt shredded off of his body. Before he could get his bearings, Shiv found a swarm of dimensionals chasing him on the way down, their bodies armored and blazing, and their heads orbs of brightening flame.
They were promptly flung aside as a massive gust of wind came rushing forth, carrying with it 811. The orc crashed into Shiv like a rising meteor. The impact between them blew out all the glass on the outside of the building. The world tumbled around Shiv as 811 poured lightning into him. Shiv twitched briefly—and then the feeling wore off. He snarled and elbowed 811 in return.
The orc’s lip was cut wide open. 811 held back a hiss of pain. Shiv’s Momentum Core filled.
With an animalistic roar, 811 gripped Shiv and squeezed, the orc’s raging tempest taking them downward. As they plunged, Shiv felt his ribs creak momentarily—and then that pain wore off too as his flesh turned even harder everywhere. 811 strained and shouted, exerting himself. Shiv responded by slamming his own hands on the sides of the orc’s head. 811 snarled as his equilibrium was lost this time, leaving him open to a counter-attack.
Or it would have if they hadn’t struck the ground at that point.
To Shiv’s surprise, the impact did little more than briefly stun him. It was more like smashing through a wooden door. But as he rolled, a fist burst from the ground and clutched him again. The Deathless sighed and watched the orc stagger toward him, stumbling as he struggled to keep his balance. Shiv tried to break free, but it was his Toughness that evolved this time, not his Physicality.
Once more, 811 hardened his fists. This time, lightning crackled from his eyes. “I am not going to stop this time. Not until you are good and ruined.”
Shiv spat. “Then stop moving your mouth and start using those hands. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Dimensionals closed in on them. A blaring declaration sounded somewhere, saying curfew was in effect, calling people to stay out of a certain area.
None of that mattered as 811 ducked and then blasted off the ground, throwing a colossal overhand strike into Shiv’s jaw.
The first hit snapped Shiv’s face to the side and gave him a nosebleed. The second went into his liver—but just made him grunt. The third, fourth, and fifth sounded like the orc was swinging a club against a metal pole. Shiv barely felt any of those. And all the hits after that mattered less and less.
At the start, Shiv was too surprised by how durable he was to drink in any momentum. Every subsequent hit felt weaker than before, be it lightning or fist. And by the twentieth punch, Shiv’s Momentum Core was full, and 811’s wrist made a horrid snapping sound as the punch landed at a poor angle.
“Gah!” 811 cried. “What—how, oh…” He saw Shiv’s grin, how the man only had a thin trickle of blood running down his nose after all those punches, and noticed the rippling distortions building around his supposed punching bag. “Oh, dear.”
“Yeah,” Shiv growled. And then he launched himself and the orc back into the building as he discharged his core.