Path of the Deathless

26 (I) Victory

-26 (I)

Victory

Harkness’s Psychomancy spell was a shapeless, colorless thing. It looked like a shifting, translucent net manifesting around her hand, and Shiv felt his dread spike. But then another spell smashed into Harkness’s first. The owl’s spell shattered into fragments, and she glanced upward for a beat, smirking at the culprit.

Uva launched spell after spell of her own, even as her face turned into a mask of blood. Shiv’s stomach twisted. His shadows were forming, but it wouldn’t be fast enough. Harkness casually traced a few quick spells before launching them at Uva. The Umbral cried out with effort and strain, but Shiv felt something somewhere, like a tremor of a fallen vase rushing past his feet without the accompanying noise.

The other magi tried to support her, unleashing all they had on Harkness. But the owl continued as she did before with Shiv, focused on a singular individual, her face awash with shifting expressions. “Hm. Good, good. Very thorough. How extremely skilled for an Adept—detail-oriented.” She created a large spell that expanded around her head like a crown. She slammed it down on the world—and for a moment Shiv felt the urge to and

Then, with a defiant cry that built and built, a counterforce impacted the crown like a falling axe. The oppressive urge to submit vanished as the crown shattered. Uva snarled as she burst another of the owl’s spells. But the way she blinked the blood out of her eyes, the way she swayed, told Shiv she was long past spent. Even he hadn’t strained his mana field to this extreme before, and if she kept going—

Shiv called out to her mentally.

she replied without hesitation. There was a resolve in her akin to cold steel.

Then a memory from her brushed his mind. It was a memory of terrifying pain and bitter-sweet wonder. It was of him as he endured the cleansing flames within the teleportation anchor, sacrificing himself to keep her and the other Umbrals protected from the purification process. Before that moment, she was fascinated by him, attracted to him, amused by him. But with that sacrifice, a part of her was in awe of him. Was enamored and wounded by him.

Now she wanted to see if she held the same strength inside her. Because what Pathbearer didn’t?

“And yet you stand,” Harkness said, chuckling. She gave a slight bow at her Adept rival, indifferent to the other mages. “You trace a pretty little weave of thoughts, girl. You’re a seamstress as well, aren’t you? I recognize that thought process—that thought pattern. That, and I also took a peek at your surface thoughts while you were struggling to undo my workings. So much frustration. So much pain. So much yearning to find out if your mother was slain by someone like me.”

The owl smirked. “I might know, but I’ll keep you in suspense. Maybe I’ll inform you after I finish shackling your mind.” She looked at Shiv’s breaking shell of shadows. “Not truly what I hoped for after sensing your skills, boy, but it's fitting. Two promising soldiers for the price of all my current forces. The System gives. The System takes. But am always generous.”

Revenant > 4

Shiv burst out from his shadow cocoon, preparing to strike his enemy from as many directions and through as many methods as he could. She could be distracted and overwhelmed. She could be bled. He kill her—as long as he was willing to die over and over again. But before the broken remains of his skeleton armor could reach him, she cut into him using her true blade: her Psychomancy.

Shiv heard Uva scream his name as she was forced out of his consciousness. His protective shroud cracked. Lady Harkness It felt like someone was ripping his brain open down the middle. The pain nearly drove him insane. It wasn’t anything like physical pain—it didn’t last nearly as long, but the hurt ran so deep that it was beyond words to describe. Shiv still managed another step before he felt her full presence bear down on him. In that moment, as she tried to pluck through his personal history, he wanted to Psychomancy. But he failed. What he actually hated was the fact that she had this power while he didn’t.

Magic was bullshit. And Shiv wanted more of that bullshit for himself. Even now.

“Get… out…” Shiv gasped, clutching his skull.

“Hm. Resilient. Unnaturally resilient. I've only seen something like this a few times. You seem to be absolutely devoid of trauma. How curious. You have the mind of someone that had a charmed life—yet that is most assuredly not who you are. And what’s this in the shallows? A building affection for… ” And she looked up at Uva—the Adept Psychomancer pulling at her Master-Tier adversary to no avail, like a mouse trying to move a mountain. “Oh, how sweet. The seed of unblossomed want and affection.”

There was nothing mocking in Harkness’s tone. She genuinely sounded happy to discover this. “You might not believe me, but I’m really quite the romantic. But alas, this life of mine doesn’t allow anything beyond impersonal moments of the flesh, so we make do sometime, vicariously. Perhaps you two can start something terribly taboo and forbidden when I leave you at Aviary. The instructors will hate it too.”

She suddenly lifted a finger and made a gesture. Four Weaveresses promptly collapsed behind her, their invisibility cloaks flapping as they started writhing and clawing at their skulls. She pointed again, and other members of the order cried out as well, wailing as she took their minds. And then, she looked at Uva. Uva, the Adept Pathbearer, still struggling against her, practically the last woman standing. The Umbral looked on the verge of unconsciousness, her eyes rolling while her body shook. But then she bit down and let loose two final spells before collapsing.

Shiv felt her body with his Biomancy, and her skull felt like it was on fire—and so much blood was rushing out from her. He wanted to try and heal her, but he knew that his touch would only ensure that she died. She felt alive but—

But his thoughts were his own again. Shiv realized that after a beat. A gap had formed in Harkness’s attention. It was like she was momentarily blind to him. Shiv snarled as he rose. He drew on his Biomancy and Might of Mass once more as he slammed into the owl. To their shared surprise, he managed to pick her off the ground in a brutal takedown. To his continued surprise, he found himself on top of her, slamming elbow after elbow into her face as she blinked, frowning at the impacts.

Whatever Uva did, it somehow made the Master-Tier Pathbearer to his presence. She carved out wildly—her glowing blade ripping whips of blood out from Shiv’s now bare torso from the quantity of her strikes alone. Shiv snarled and continued raining blows down on her while using his Biomancy to bludgeon her Magical Resistance. Right then, Shiv was willing to die for good if it meant taking his enemy with him, and with each of his punches, his Momentum Core climbed.

Soon, he was dodging and parrying some blind strikes—at least angling his body and inner organs to avoid taking a fatal wound. Harkness summoned more clones, their blades flashing out. Shiv felt several strikes punch clean through him, parting essential veins and arteries. He was a dead man again, but he was going to make this death matter.

Just as she started shaping a new Psychomancy spell, Shiv roared as his Momentum Core hit capacity. He wrapped his Biomancy around his body, straining his field so hard blood erupted from all his orifices—uncaring if it killed him. He used that to accelerate every part of himself in tandem with Might of Mass as he emptied his Momentum Core via a descending elbow that he landed against the owl’s jaw.

Momentum Core > 61

Might of Mass > 68

Striking Proficiency > 23

Grappling Proficiency > 39

Diamond Shell > 76

This time, her head snapped back, and he heard it—a distinct gasp of discomfort from her even as both his spirit and body practically came apart with the blow. He used he had, and death claimed him instantly. His reward was a front-row seat to the absolute destruction that followed.

His corpse deformed and warped into a horrific shape as his elbow impacted Harkness’s jaw. The air completely ignited this time—not just a brief combustion. A wall of force and flame swept out—and it was only thanks to the Umbral magi that most of the order wasn’t killed as well. Adam was flung off his feet and sent flying against the mana bomb—the mana bomb he still hadn’t shot yet.

And then there was Harkness. The webs beneath her tore as the spatial stability of the entire cavern It felt like the entire chamber was tilting at an angle.

But despite getting hit with a blow hard enough to snap even the hyper-dense webs serving as the foundations for an entire cave’s worth of spatial magic, all Harkness sported was a split lip and a scowl.

Yet, Shiv didn’t walk away empty-handed.

Biomancy > 44

Might of Mass > 69

Diamond Shell > 79

Momentum Core > 63

Skill Gained: Psychomancy 1 (Initiate)

Shiv felt a third mana field expand around him—this one mainly encompassing his mind. He also had the displeasure of sensing how Harkness’s field was compared to his. If he was a flea, then she was the entire sky. Her mana stretched beyond the point he could see—and Shiv wondered how Uva could contend with this monster at all.

But then he sensed another thing: there was a dense layer of magic coloring his mind, and he realized he was camouflaged within Harkness’s own field. Shiv’s astonishment at Uva’s feat grew as he turned to regard the Umbral. Her field was huge too, encompassing a large part of the cavern they were fighting in, but he could still see the edges. She was ridiculously dwarfed by the owl as well.

Shaking off his admiration, Shiv reached down and started draining his enemy again. He tried to use his Biomancy field as a weapon again, but it felt raw, like a flayed limb. Every time he moved it, he writhed in spiritual agony. Shiv thought, and he focused on draining his adversary’s vitality.

By this point, Harkness knew something was wrong, and she adapted with rapid efficiency. Once more, she formed a Psychomancy spell—this one larger and more complex than the others. It shaped, twisted, and writhed, creating a rounded pattern that circled itself faster and faster, until it seemed to move like a solid sphere. Then it slammed down on his field, rippling across it.

Shiv felt it hit his mind like a colossal wave flinging a small boat into the air. Suddenly, the coloring that hid him within her own mind was broken. He emerged, a small dot in the domain of her Psychomancy, and as she pressed in on him, he struggled back. It was feeble, it was hopeless, but he still struggled—because that’s who he was; a pillar. Even if that pillar was going to break.

Once more, though, Harkness stopped. She observed him, blinking as she licked the blood from her lips. “You. I… forgot.” Her mouth fell open once more as an expression of sublime delight spread over her features. “Well, well.” She smirked in the direction where Uva once stood. He saw other Umbrals dragging her away to safety, and his gut tightened even more. “I must have that one. As I must have you.”

The owl let out a breath as his resurrective husk began to solidify. “In the beginning, I thought you were just a reckless—albeit fearless—child, willing to die for whatever lies or glory Valor filled your mind with. Then I understood you have something special: something to do with your soul. Maybe you were an Animancy experiment. Now, I don’t knowyou are at all, Deathless—but I am so very keen to find out.”

His small field of Psychomancy mana flexed outward for but a flickering heartbeat—before she overwhelmed him, like a hurricane dragging away a singular raindrop. Shiv prepared himself to experience the inevitable pain of a mental attack.

Yet, before Harkness could do anything further, a notification appeared in his mind, just as he resurrected for a second time.

Quest Complete: Stop New Albion's Aviary from bombing Passage and crippling Weave’s critical teleportation anchors.