Path of the Deathless

362 Split [III]

—The Challenger and Udraal Thann362

Split [III]

The Challenger let Adam thrash and scream in his hand, and Shiv saw upon the orc god's face a look of feral satisfaction. Though the Challenger played at being affable, he was at his root a creature that indulged in violent delights. To inflict pain upon Adam pleased him, and the emotions that swelled inside the Challenger were so much that Shiv almost drowned in their proximity.

Roland's arrows came at a greater intensity, but there was just nothing the Town Lord could do. What hope had he when his only means of fighting off someone was violence? How did you protect your child from the literal incarnation of your own strength and brutality?

These questions tortured Shiv's mind. He didn't know. He didn't have an answer. He couldn't imagine a solution. But even if things were hopeless, he wasn't the kind to give up. He started draining from the Challenger, sucking away the orc god's vitality. But there was an entire dimension's worth of lifeforce he had to leech before the Challenger suffered the slightest bit of enervation.

As Shiv drank away, Adam screamed on, and the Challenger let this be the way of things for a few seconds longer, at least until he grew bored. Then, tapping a single finger to Adam's head, he silenced the tortures that came from an overwhelming Awareness skill evolution. At once, Adam stopped crying out. Adam went silent, and the Challenger clenched the Haunting Omniscience that burdened the Paragon so.

Adam shook and coughed as he regained his bearings. When his eyes settled and his focus took hold, he found himself staring up at the Challenger's gleeful face. Adam's own expression folded the other way. He went pale, and pure terror bled out from his every pore. But being terrified was nothing new for Adam. Every time he went into battle, there was always the stench of fear that spilled from him. And that was part of his strength. He was courage: the will to face dread, rather than be consumed by it.

And though he knew how precarious his situation was, he faced the Challenger rather than succumb to silence. “You could have done that from the start, you massive, massive asshole.”

Adam's vitriol made the Challenger throw his head back and guffaw. At the same time, Roland cried out, "Adam! Adam! Are you all right? What has he done to you?”

The Challenger winked at the eldritch egg leftover from Longinus.

Through it all, Roland never stopped firing his arrows. The blasts kept coming and—Shiv saw past the Challenger and noticed how Roland's insides were inflamed. Shiv could still sense the Town Lord's core, his and everyone else's, and they were all festering with unbridled rage. It was like he was raw with blind anger—and Shiv felt the same. Uva too.

The Challenger wasn’t just war incarnate; he was also a magnet for violence and aggression. the Harbinger whispered weakly,

And Shiv was infinitely thankful for that.

A buzzing crown formed around Adam's head, diluting the natural light that emerged from his nascent Divinity—a circlet bestowed by the Challenger, empowered with Psychomancy, but sculpted from a string of maggots and dead flies melted together through flame and infectious rot. Adam twisted and turned, tried to dislodge the wretched icon forming around his forehead, but though his Divinity burned true, it was but a dim ember before the Challenger.

Just like with the Composer, as such with the Starhawk, there was no question who was the greater god.

The Challenger cocked his head, and it felt like the entirety of the Tutorial bent to fulfill his design. Courtney squealed as a portion of her was folded and broken. The Starhawk and everyone on the other side of the obliterated quarters were flung in the direction of the Challenger and further stained by his presence. It wasn’t just Adam who suffered the indignity of being wreathed in maggots and flies. The same circlet formed over Uva, and Shiv, and everyone who dared attempt violence.

the Harbinger wheezed, comprehending what Shiv almost missed.

A chorus of screams rose; each took on a feral quality. Uva’s howls were unlike her: uncontrolled, animalistic, with no hint of intellect behind her colorful eyes. Jessica, Valor, and Can Hu all came back to life as a twisted weave of decay spilled over them. The maggots bit them, injecting power into their bodies and souls. Each of them combusted with the flame of divine mana—a befouled flame that reeked of war and death.

Worst of all was the Starhawk—for few others could express the calamity that was the Challenger’s power. Instead of seeing his brow seized by a single concentric thread, an entire crown was forged for the only other true god present. Perhaps not an equal god, but a god nonetheless. It weighed upon the Starhawk as if he was carrying the burden of a mountain upon his neck, and Roland fared no better. He was driven down to both knees, blood in his body spilling out in tumbling tides. He should have bled out in a moment, but he didn't—he just kept bleeding, kept firing, his power flared brighter, arrows came faster, becoming a constant stream.

But while Roland’s wrathful onslaught became unending, though he seemed barred from the embrace of death, his eyes turned that horrid orcish yellow, and his words no longer held any coherent sense. The only things Shiv could make out anymore were him crying for Adam to be released. And the Starhawk couldn’t save him, for the same elemental fervor had him.

the Ascendant snarled. Growths erupted out from the Starhawk’s missing arms, but they were lengths of rippling muscle, gangrenous tissue festooned with shrapnel and weaponry. A new halberd was born of his infectious flesh—a massive polearm shaped from war itself. It was not of material make, but rather a collection of dying worlds fused along a narrow length and contained of all the devastation they suffered. Looking upon it threatened to unravel what remained of Shiv’s regained sanity, and with a desperate flex of his will, he tore himself away.

But that left him with another torment: Uva howled and bit at the Challenger in the throes of madness. There was little left of her personality. Her flesh became one with her feral mind, and both shifted into a mess of twisting fractals. Before, when she indulged in her Eldritch Physiology, she became an amalgam of the Hatchling and a Fingerling. Now, the spider she always yearned to be took hold—and no semblance of the Umbral she was remained. Her limbs lashed out and tore at the fabric between worlds. Not deep enough to rupture the vitality, but gaps were made between the Outside and the world that was to cause another flood of madness to spill in.

The spill barely lasted a trickle as the Challenger’s command compelled the System to close itself. Only a single feathered tongue slipped through before the wounds Uva made were clamped shut. She lashed at the Challenger in a frenzy, her threads whipping her corruptive mana into his divinity. Such bade the Challenger to smirk. He caught one such thread of corruption with his mouth and slurped it up entirely before smacking his lips. He turned and regarded one of the few who weren’t affected by his rageful aura.

“Right, yes,” Hymn called out from behind his eldritch barricade. “I do beg for your mercy, Challenger, so is there any chance you might be able to spare that one? I have need of her for the future. I promise a great deal more bloodshed will come with her continued survival—but if you make her into an orc, all that potential could be lost—”

The Challenger looked down at the spider-shaped Uva, who hissed and lashed at him, much like Roland. Much like everyone else who was tearing into the Challenger in a brutal attempt to cut him down. And he was only growing brighter. All attempts to strike him down were tantamount to worship.

Unlawfully taken from NovelFire, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

His voice turned positively grandfatherly, and his eyes twinkled like distant fires flickering out as he regarded Shiv.

Shiv caught the hidden threat in the Challenger’s voice. “If you do anything to her—”

The Challenger let out a euphoric sigh.

Shiv refused to answer that question—but it was the potential truth he refused to acknowl—

A scream tore out from him and the Harbinger. Both of them broke in ways they couldn’t afford. They would have unraveled and faded from existence altogether in that very instant if a higher power wasn't keeping them together for his amusement.

the Harbinger screamed in delirium.

Shiv remained incapable of forming words. His mind was hollow for a second—and then everything that constituted his personality was slammed back together as the Challenger reforged him. A second shout of pain left Shiv, but the orc god kept working.

And then the Challenger started piecing Shiv back together. He felt the god’s aura seize him—and slowly slide each broken skill back together, fragment by fragment, heedless of pain. The process was as much a mending as if was excruciating torture. He would have regenerated after a time, but forcing all his inner wounds back together was like turning him into a vessel of pure agony.

And, just as fast as the Challenger restored Shiv’s mind, he broke it at a whim. Shiv didn’t even manage to scream before he was drowned in a sea of his own torment.

Then, one after another, his skills started coming back, and his skill levels came crashing in.

Harbinger of Tripartite Ruin 255 > 281

***

“Shiv!” Adam cried out, but his friend was completely slack. He'd heard Shiv scream many times before. But never did he see him crumble like a puppet. It was like the life inside him went out. And Uva was in no better condition. Her personhood seemed gone—she was but an animal now. Mad, like a weaver afflicted with the First Blood’s plague.

The others fared no better. Jessica was a blur of ever-moving slashes. Valor struck and stabbed—appearing and vanishing randomly—in a visual smear of spell and steel. Can Hu was firing constantly, its body changing into a substance Adam couldn’t recognize, but at its feet were mounds of brass from all the ammunition being expended. Worst of all was Adam’s father. The man was consumed. Roland was a warrior, but he was always a master of himself. He felt strongly for his town and people, but he never betrayed himself.

Not like this.

While trapped in the depths of his Haunting Omniscience, Adam was distant but present at the same time; he was still battered by sensations that never stopped coming. It was like he was pinned beneath a collapsed building, but the weight just kept building, and rather than rubble, it was just more information he had to process—more and more and more…

Then, he was pulled out of his unconsciousness. There, he had at least a slight measure of peace. The quiet was his shield, and thoughtlessness spared him the extremes of mental damage. When the Challenger ripped him out from that protective suffocation, it all slammed down on him. The rubble that buried him became a flood that poured into him. His consciousness threatened to tear. For a moment, it did, but the Challenger forced him back together—and even healed him.

The orc god’s influence was like a dam crashing down in place of the oncoming tsunamis. The Haunting Omniscience wasn’t halted, but diverted and held at bay. Where the Culturist struggled to bear the skill for over-long, the Challenger took on Adam’s burdens like it was a pebble. Perhaps even less.

And now the Challenger was looking upon him with intense focus, as everyone else was consumed by savagery. Adam had seen something like that in Isabella’s eyes, but now that it was the Challenger who was studying him with that expression, Adam felt a wild desire to be anywhere else in existence but here. Well, almost anywhere else.

The Challenger’s lips curved up so deliberately that Adam was sure the orc had practiced the expression untold thousands of times. At least. The Challenger turned to glare at the Starhawk, who was currently trying to jam his war-shaped halberd through the back of the Challenger’s head while his upper arms were firing arrows that burst like dying stars. But every attack splashed into the Challenger, merging with him as if it had always been a part of him.

“I would say I’m sorry that I’m not psychotic enough for you, but…” Adam shrugged, trying to keep his nerve intact. “I’m not quite sure I want to be half as ugly as you. Inside or out.”

The Challenger nodded. He angled his face and showed the spreading blisters lining his flesh. Where Adam’s glow graced the Challenger, a searing ensued.

Adam grimaced. “Clearly doesn’t burn you enough if you’re still holding me like I’m a kitten.”

Adam looked at the Challenger—and gazed deep. Beyond the Avatar, there was so much else about the orc that made Adam recoil. The armor he wore, the stenches he reeked of, and the very way he twisted people—the world around him—to feed that eternal apocalypse he represented.

But there was one thing the Challenger was without. “You say you’re all aspects of war, but where is the Heroism?”

The Challenger looked imbibed Adam’s words and hummed.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Adam spat.

“Well, this impotent fool is giving you a sunburn right now,” Adam sneered. “And frankly, between us, I suspect you would be the greater fool.”

“I said 'greater fool,' not 'bigger idiot.'”

The Challenger inclined his head.

Adam sucked in a desperate breath and tried to keep the thing hammering within his chest from bursting. “Before something happens, before a thing can become true, there has to be a will, there has to be a want. Even if something seems hopeless, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Most often, things are hopeless because too many people are weak. Weak in virtue. You claim to be war, but there is humanity in war. There are those who die selflessly in war. You are not war, Challenger. You are bloodshed and cruelty and destruction, but there is more to war than you have exhibited.” Adam's lips pulled back in an expression of pure disdain. “I think you are a , Challenger. I think you are a deceiver, not only of me, but of yourself. You clearly have some virtue, some honor, if you haven't crushed us immediately for offending you. So I can't call you a coward, but I do think that you despise weakness—and you think heroism to be a vulnerability, don't you? Is that why you never claimed my Domain?”

“You used me as a shield!” Adam cried aloud. “If you didn't use me to block that shot—”

Even if Adam had an answer, he wouldn't give it to the Challenger. But then he saw the dark, glowy building on the orc’s face, and his pulse sped up even more.

“What do you want?” Adam failed to keep a quaver out of his voice. “And why don't you just take? You said we were all at your mercy. If that's so, then why don't you just take from us?”

The Challenger's voice dropped lower, but the cruelty in his eyes shone bright.

“None,” Adam seethed through clenched teeth. “I choose no one.” His divine aura burned brighter, and for a moment, he pushed back against the Challenger—even managed to drown the room in his glory. For a moment—a hopeful moment—the fighting stopped. Valor halted mid-stab. Jessica did the same. A series of clinks sounded from Can Hu as the Penitent found itself firing toward no effect. Even the Starhawk and Roland sobered.

“A-Adam,” Uva called out, sounding more drunk and wild. “What—”

But then the Challenger crushed hope. He exerted his will once more, and Adam felt his power driven back—felt the orc god clamp his Divinity around Adam. His bones fractured under the strain, and a choked cry was squeezed out from him. But the Challenger clenched no tighter. He wanted Adam to know his strength and taste the hopeless struggle, but he didn’t want him to die.

“I refuse!” Adam cried out. “You can’t make—”

The Challenger sighed, sounding disappointed.

A pit of absolute horror opened up inside Adam. “I—no, please—”

And the Challenger lifted Adam high so he could better see his father’s face, twisted by bloodlust. The man was all but unrecognizable.