161 (I) Overwhelmed

Poor, poor Sullain.

Every time I look upon the fool, I am reaffirmed in my belief that his life is destined for eternal tragedy. It’s not that he never got the affirmation he needed as a child from that pathetic degenerate he has for a father or the literal monster that became his mother. No. He could have almost survived that. He did muster his extraordinary understanding of magic and become a near-unmatched scholar, after all.

But then he found himself performing too well. Advancing too fast. And after the first war of the Five Faiths, the System sneered upon him as he found himself the sole survivor of cohort after cohort before they could fully fill that hole inside him. And so, Sullain, deprived of the loving family he always desired, set about making one for himself. And because he was broken and childish about what “love” is to begin with, his mistakes simply compounded from there on.

Make no mistake—it is an easy thing to learn the wrong lessons from lived experiences. Especially when you have been mistreated so. After all, just because you are capable of great intelligence does not mean you are a creature ruled by and suited for logic. So often, people mistake one’s capacity for something to mean the certainty that they will actually achieve it.

And most often, people do not achieve. They do not rise to the heights of their potential; rather, they plunge to the depths of their inner sorrows.

Hence, when Sullain obtained Submission, he used the city to fill that gap inside himself, and the people became as if his children. He welcomed people from all Faiths to his city. But while it pleased him to be so popular, Submission suffered as a comingling of incompatible and untempered cultures cracked it from within.

As such, the city was most unprepared for the System’s cruel hand and the arrival of the illustrious Roland Arrow. Ah. Arrow. Another tragedy in the making—but one that will be sculpted by my hand…

But this entry will be on Sullain. For he has called out to me recently, casting his missives across dimensions and worlds, telling me of developments I find ever-so-enticing.

It seems my investment in the fetuses carried by “Vera Lowe” and Rose Van Erren has borne fruit after all.

It is time to revisit my notes regarding “Project Deathless,” and perhaps even return home for a jaunt…

-Excerpt from Udraal Thann’s Journal

161 (I)

Overwhelmed

Is it weird that I kind of enjoy being used as a club?

Glistening tissue fissured and released waterfalls of black blood as the bulk of the Tarrasque’s body jerked back and forth. Deafening shrieks of animalistic fury come from the depths of the titanic monster’s throat. Yet, Marikos continued twirling Shiv about, turning the insides of the Tarrasque into a blender of gore and viscera.

Pillar of Orichalcum 215 > 216

It was a testament to Marikos’s impossible strength that he could wield Shiv this way. Where even the Tarrasque was pinned still by the Pillar of Orichalcum, Shiv felt light as a feather in Marikos’s hands. To the Deathless’s fascination, he never got any harder for Marikos to wield, either, remaining weightless throughout. If that was because of Marikos’s immense might or a more esoteric factor allowed by his skill, Shiv didn’t know, but it sure as hell felt like it was turning the entire fight around.

The Tarrasque had gone from a near-unstoppable foe to one that was getting shredded apart from within. So long as Shiv continued to focus on his Toughness that was. A few hits left his body bruised and bloodied, cracking his limbs and caving in part of his skull. Marikos had nearly stopped in concern, but Shiv shouted for him to continue on; that he could outlast the Tarrasque.

And Shiv really, really believed that.

Up until the point he recoiled off the roof of the Tarrasque’s mouth.

Cracks formed along the outside of Shiv’s pillar. A rattle of pain passed through his body as he jerked to a violent halt. Twin snaps sounded from his shoulders as they were dislocated, but the Deathless dealt with the pain in stride. Despite this, his veins filled with the cold waters of disbelief as he noticed the mended inner flesh of the Tarrasque had been replaced by a layer of hardened crystal—the same kind fused over its external shell.

“Damnable beast!” Marikos shouted as he adapted. He started jabbing Shiv at a single spot over and over, cracking the shell and using Shiv’s manifested pillar to spear through the Tarrasque’s parting flesh. Shiv felt his pillar strike something dense. It burst against his Orichalcum projection as the Tarrasque shuddered.

For a moment, he thought they had struck something fatal. Then, the Vitae suffusing the beast flared, and it let out a bellow of fury as it resurrected immediately.

“G-g-godsdammit,” Shiv snarled as he tried not to vomit from sheer dizziness. “M-m-marikos! I n-n-need to drain its v-vitality. It’ll just keep resurrecting if—” His last words came out as a cry of discomfort as he felt himself get lodged tight within the wound Marikos was making. The Tarrasque’s crystalline protection had fused around Shiv’s Pillar of Orichalcum, and now, not even the Dragon-Knight could wrench him free.

Two thoughts passed through Shiv just then. The first was about Marikos’s Physicality Skill. The Deathless suspected that Marikos might be able to wield any weapon with contemptuous ease. But that didn’t mean he had infinite strength. That might be why Marikos could swing Shiv’s ever-implacable pillar-form about like it was a twig while still struggling to dislodge the Deathless from within the Tarrasque.

The second was a sobering suspicion that the Tarrasque’s Toughness was outpacing his own by far. Soon, they weren’t going to be able to kill it with brute force.

We’re going to need a new plan.

Pathbearers and debris still swirling about the Tarrasque’s insides crashed, splattered, and broke against Shiv’s pillar. Marikos flapped his wings hard—even channeled fire through them—trying to dislodge the Deathless. As he wrestled with the pillar, Shiv felt a surge of Biomancy pass through the insides of the titanic monster, and tensed for what was to come.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Massive tentacles burst out from the creature’s crystallized insides, unleashing torrents of mana at Shiv from all directions. The Tarrasque’s flesh ignited in a plethora of colors as a flood of spells accelerated to crash against the Orichalcum column lodged in its depths. Shiv’s eyes widened as he saw beams of Psychomancy and Dimensionality rush toward him. His pillar might protect him from some of the more direct damage spells, but even then, he wouldn’t survive having all the water ripped out from inside him or having his synapses fried.

“Marikos!” Shiv cried out.

But his terror was unnecessary, for the Fortress that Soars released Shiv and shot into the air. He circled the space around Shiv with his obsidian shield held high, and the flood of raw magic unleashed by the Tarrasque shattered against the blurring dragon. Shiv felt his breath catch in his throat as he watched the dragon crash through the dense concentrations of mana. It was like watching someone break a series of flowing rivers in half. Curving furls of mana folded over the Dragon-Knight’s shield, but Marikos emerged unscratched.

As he performed another revolution around Shiv, his shield began to shudder as a variety of colors erupted out from it. A wave of mixed mana hammered the insides of the Tarrasque and boiled through the crystal shell. The Tarrasque’s Magical Resistance flashed and cracked, overwhelmed by its own power.

Shiv saw muted daylight seep through the Tarrasque’s parting flesh for a flash. For a beat, he thought the beast was going to come apart.

But then its Magical Resistance hardened as well. Veins of mana thickened beneath the regenerating crystalline shell lining the creature’s insides. Streams of mana crashed against its body, and streams of mana were reabsorbed. The crystalline structure layered over the Tarrasque’s flesh brightened, but Marikos was finished with channeling the magic back at the world-ending monster.

When he returned to Shiv and started pulling at the Orichalcum tower again, the Deathless noticed he wasn’t even breathing heavily, despite the chaos that had just unfolded.

“Just a moment, dear friend!” Marikos shouted aloud, drowning out the surrounding carnage with his voice. “I will see you liberated in—” The Dragon-Knight’s voice broke off with a shout of pain as something burst through his upper chest. Thin tendrils of black lightning wriggled through Marikos’s armor like it wasn’t there, and Shiv responded instinctively. He tried to freeze time—considered going out of context. It didn’t work. His temporal shell was broken, and his body was still near empty of vitality. If he tried to sink into his Vitae right now, he might fizzle out of existence.

Shiv found himself weakening his Toughness, trying to get free, desperate to aid the Dragon-Knight—

Something impacted his Pillar of Orichalcum so hard that it shattered altogether. Shiv groaned as the column of reddish-gold protecting him burst into dissolving motes. His sternum broke and folded inward. A few of his ribs were driven through his flank. A searing line of pain opened along Shiv’s insides. The many brutal beatings he’d taken over the past month or so told him that he had a ruptured liver. More spikes of pain passed through his flesh as what felt like vibrating hooks burrowed into him.

Fury exploded inside Shiv. He poured it into his Inertial Overdrive as he tried to get his bearings, increasing his Reflexes to figure out where that bastard Stormhalt was. The Deathless’s focus promptly shattered as a savage yank tore all the vibrating hooks out of his body thereafter. A howl of suffering escaped him as he felt wounds open across his flesh and within his soul.

“Godsdamned Ascendants’ Animancy bull—” Shiv’s rage-infused gibberish died on his lips as Stormhalt passed over him, screaming at the top of his lungs. Instead of being some kind of scheming backstabber, the City Lord sounded utterly terrified. The Deathless began to fall from the air, and he noticed that the Tarrasque’s crystal-flesh had fused shut around Stormhalt’s tree of midnight-black lightning.

Where Master-Avatar Havel Stormhalt had hovered high in the Tarrasque’s jaws and was actively shredding the inner flesh of the beast apart moments prior, now he dangled like a marionette from the tree of lightning, swinging from place to place as the Tarrasque battered him with its tentacles.

Forking bolts of dark energy lashed out from Stormhalt as he pulled at everything around him, trying to avoid the Tarrasque’s whipping tentacles. “Ascendantssss! Aid me! AIIIID MEEEEE!”

But Shiv could see the Ascendants were doing their best. The ethereal form of the large, storm-made man hovered over Stormhalt’s shoulders, warding off the Tarrasque’s brutal onslaught with a shield that pulsed with blasts of thunder. Without him, Stormhalt would have been diced down to mincemeat. Meanwhile, the City Lord was trying to pull himself away using cords of lightning spilling forth from his fingers. Lightning that was unfortunately connected to Marikos.

Shiv fought through his feeling of weakness and flung himself at Marikos. He slammed against the backside of the dragon. This caused his legs and hips to fracture as his post-pillar fragility came into effect.

“Motherfuc—” Shiv tried to reach out and grab a crack in Marikos’s armor, but remembered his arms were dislocated. So, with little choice, he bit down around the crack and held on with his jaws instead.

It was around this point that Shiv also realized he had no felling idea how he was going to deal with the Tarrasque. He didn’t even know how he was going to help Marikos right now. Without the Pillar of Orichalcum stilling the Tarrasque, it was starting to thrash about again, and the mouth-walls slammed against the Dragon-Knight, Shiv, and Stormhalt over and over.

Stars exploded behind Shiv’s eyes with each blow. His teeth broke apart, forcing him to bite down with his gums. He tried focusing his Biomancy to assimilate his wounds, but the many wounds marring his soul nearly made him vomit from the sheer pain radiating through him.

Gods, everything has gone to shit.

Pillar of Orichalcum 216 > 217

The Challenger is watching with undivided attention.

The Deathless rolled his eyes. Yeah. Great. That’s just what I need. A giant orc asshole’s emotional support.

Just then, Stormhalt slammed down beside Shiv. The City Lord's armor was battered and dented. His nose was broken, his helmet was missing, and his gaze was unfocused—like he had a concussion. Drifting close behind him in the air were the frowning storm-giant and Kathereine, who slightly winced every time everyone inside the Tarrasque impacted one of the walls.

“So,” Kathereine said, smacking her lips together as she stared at Shiv. “Was getting battered to death inside the Tarrasque part of your plan while you distracted us? Because as far as plans go, this was kind of suicidal.”

“It was you or it, lady,” Shiv tried to say, with his broken mouth still wrapped around Marikos’s armor. The sounds he made were far less intelligible.

Despite this, Kathereine understood him. She frowned slightly. “Really? You picked the Tarrasque over me.”

“It’s just trying to kill me. You were talking about slavery. Of course I picked the felling Tarrasque.” Shiv slammed back-first against a crystalline wall, and Marikos slammed against him. Pieces of the Deathless’s ribs were launched out from his body. He ignored the pain and continued making angry mouth noises at Kathereine. “I don't regret picking this thing, even if it felling kills me.”

Kathereine pressed her lips together, clearly amused. “But you don’t even know what it’s like to serve me. How do you know you won’t like it?”

“I’m already seeing someone,” Shiv hissed.

“Oh. Already? Isn’t young love delicious. Don’t worry, your sweetheart can come with you. But I fear after a conversation…” Kathereine licked her lips, and her gaze took on a predatory quality. “...they’ll be my sweetheart instead.”

Shiv’s jaw nearly fell open, which would have been very bad, considering his current predicament. There was something surreal about an enemy Ascendant threatening to cuck him while he was getting battered to death inside a Tarrasque, but here he was.

System, for fuck’s sake, just let me suffer strife. Not whatever the hells this is.

As if to grant his wish, the Tarrasque’s insides rumbled, and a hissing sound followed. Shiv looked past Marikos’s body—and saw a tidal wave of corrosive bile coming for them. A corrosive tidal wave that still had the half-melted bodies of Marikos’s fellow Dragon-Knights poking out from its surface.

Godsdammit System, I hate you so felling much.