Chapter One Thousand And Thirty Five – 1035 |
The Paragon Tier guards moved fast. Those crazy swords were lifted, and they blurred in place, covering thirty feet in a blink. Skills swelled, already half completed as their weapons slashed forward with an undisguised Intent to kill.
Felix and Pit hit them first.
Scaled fist and lightning-coated paw struck orichalcum, and the guards were hurled back. One smashed into the far wall while the other tucked and rolled. Either way, both rejoined the battle near-instantly.
Swords flickered for their necks, one guard for each of them, and their weapons were even faster than their orichalcum boots. Felix ducked beneath the blow, darting close and thrusting his palm. Black scales met red-gold gauntlet—the metal held, but the bones beneath snapped like gunshots. The guard screamed and dropped his sword.
Felix had only a moment of confusion before the Paragon swung again, this time in a whistling haymaker—but Felix danced away, his Mind whirling. The guard panted, right arm dangling at his side as he advanced, just as fast as before. This time, a lightning-quick jab shot outward, sheathed in a blade of white-green Mana.
Felix batted it upward, and a bolt of wind tore into the distant ceiling. "What is this?"
Pit slammed his opponent into the ground, too, cratering the floor. “They’re weak.”
His friend was just as confused as he was—Felix glared at the guards. "I thought you were Paragons."
The one with the shattered wrist was crouched low, sword already in his left hand, and the eyes behind his visor didn’t leave Felix for a moment. "We are.”
"You're the Threat!” The guard perked up, as if the knowledge had given him newfound energy. “The amount of Contribution I can achieve by stopping you here—” He laughed, and a surge of green-gold enveloped his hand. Bones grated against one another as they set into place. “You will die here by my hand.”
"You haven't even been able to touch me yet."
The two guards lifted their weapons as green-gold Mana stitched back together in swirls of light. Enchantments on their armor, no doubt.
"How have you gotten this far?” one demanded.
“The Emperor knows you're here,” the other claimed, facing down Pit. “He will be coming—"
“Core Manifestation: Rippling Scream!”
The guard split into multiple copies, each a shaking echo that filled Felix’s vision as he tore forward. The ground shattered beneath his heel, and his swords lifted in dozens of strikes, each one targeting a different part of Felix’s body. Far faster than before, he could only take in the attacks in a fraction of a second, but it was enough to tell that the guard was going for the kill.
Felix cut off his head.
You Have Killed A Soaring Guard Captain!
XP Earned!
It happened so quickly that Felix didn’t even brace for the man’s armored body to crash into him. He grunted, not from pain, but surprise as the bloody corpse collapsed onto the floor.
But…he was a Paragon…?
“Foul, nasty creature—gah!”
Pit Has Killed A Soaring Guard!
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
XP Earned!
Pit's foe died just as fast, though Felix noticed that they hadn’t been able to get off a Core Manifestation. Pit pulled his talons free of the man’s neck and looked at Felix in confusion.
He could only shrug before a torrent of XP rolled through both of them. Yet again it was far less than Felix expected.
Paragons should have had them flush with power. What was going on?
Pit chirruped. “Felix…”
He felt it, too. A shift in the air. Nothing definite enough to register on his Perception, but it lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. “The Emperor, I’m guessing.”
"Move quickly!" Karys said from his hip. "They will find you soon."
Felix stepped to the door, and his Authority shuddered through him as the stars gleamed. Metal lit with Mana and Essence, flowing with power in response to Felix’s presence.
The Herald Is Detected.
Authority Recognized.
Do You Seek The Root Of Tumult?
In answer, Felix lifted the Eye. It burst into strident light, spilling outward in a deluge of multi-colored sparks that sank into the obsidian gate. Where they touched, a deep seal revealed itself, as if carved into the doors by invisible hands.
Yes.
The doors unlocked with a muffled boom and swung inward on silent hinges.
Warning!
Access To This Chamber Has Been Reported.
Felix clucked his tongue. "Well, if they didn’t know before, they do now."
They pushed into the chamber.
Inside, they found a vast room filled with a convoluted mess of Root and branch forming what could only be the brain of the Tumult. Unlike Etrionn’s, this one also contained black stone tendrils cut in along the thorned Roots of the Abyssal Soil. Pieces of the Obsidian Tumult's flesh, no doubt. There was no gate to Desolation in the ceiling, nor any murals etched into the walls. In fact, compared to Etrionn’s skull, the place felt empty.
Except for one detail.
Grown from the bone floor was an angular control panel made entirely of Belais crystal. The purple stone was shiny and untouched, as if the Ages hadn’t happened, but its details were less immune. Sigaldry marked multiple sockets carved perfectly into the panel, and where they were once doubtlessly smooth, they were now chipped and cracked along their edges. The spheres set into them were likewise weathered, though they were not made of crystal. Instead, they were dark obsidian, same as the Tumult itself—all but one. The last filled socket was set with a Crescian Bronze sphere, and at its side was an empty slot.
“A control node of some sort?” Pit guessed.
Felix lifted the Eye. It quivered in his palm, and the golden thread led right to the empty socket. It was easy enough to see what to do from there. He put the Eye down, and the socket made a deep, resounding click.
The room shook, dust falling from the ceiling as something deep within the Tumult shifted itself. Felix’s Perception tingled at him, and he crouched, Skills singing in his chest. The empty feeling was gone.
Someone was watching them.
“Uh, what’s that?” Pit asked.
Directly in front of the Root brain, the world had gone dark. Like someone had drawn a black curtain across reality, it clung close enough that Felix almost felt he could touch it. The dark moved.
It blinked.
An eye of shadow peered at them, shiny and black on black. Its pupil was nearly indistinguishable from its iris, but Felix had seen its like before.
“Hello there,” he said against the onset of a deep, insidious pressure. “You look just like Etrionn.”
It watched them silently for a moment longer—time enough that the pressure had creeped into Felix’s Spirit and was busily dragging him downward. He firmed his knees, but it took serious effort. Pit whimpered but also held still.
It blinked and was gone.
Shouts rang out, and behind them, the obsidian doors were blasted inward. Felix ducked, the chunks nearly taking off his head, and the Tumult's rumbling ceased. A doorway split the world before the Root brain, and an endless blue-white expanse spread out to fill it.
Convergence!
Pit vanished in a flash of light as a man at least twelve feet tall stormed in, wind swirling about him in a fury. Felix caught his eye and very nearly got bowled over by his Spirit. Again. Hunched, he forced himself to stand. This was a proper Paragon.
"Threat! How dare you invade my lands!"
"Sorry about that." Felix was seized by crackling lines of power, Bonds that wrapped around his shoulder and waist. "I'll get out of your hair now."
The Paragon attacked, swinging something at him too fast to track, but Felix was hauled backward on tendrils of crackling light.
The Paragon missed, and Felix vanished into the blue expanse as the doors slammed shut.
