Chapter 720 (Patreon)

Enjoy!

ToC

* * *


Hands of molten gold closed around Felix’s throat, and no amount of stat flaring could deny the Hierei’s impossible Strength. Scales rose up beneath the priest’s touch, but it could not stop the incredible heat from searing into him. His Health plummeted by thousands in seconds.

For a brief moment, a man with the face and body of the shining sun appeared behind the Hierei, and he swiped his gleaming hand in Felix’s direction.

ERROR!
Due To Outside Interference, Evolution Is Halted!
System Energy Denied!
Skill Evolution Cannot Be Continued!

Felix’s eyes bulged. Fucking Pathless!

The shining man vanished, leaving only the alabaster hulk in priestly vestments still squeezing him by the throat. “You have caused too many problems, Nevarre. The Hierophant should have disposed of you when she had the chance…but I will rectify that.”

Fiendforge is level 75!
…
Fiendforge is level 85!
Adept Tier!
You Gain:
+Decrease Significance Consumed In Forging!
+500 WIL
+500 INE

Continue Skill evolution! he demanded, forcing his Will against the System as he once had. Felix found no purchase with it, save for a single fluttering notification.

Skill Evolution Denied!
Stores Of Essence And Significance Insufficient!

He’d burned up too much in the combining of his Skills, then again by helping out Vess…Felix’s neck started to blister and smoke, while the peaceful smile of the Hierei never changed.

“Yes, I do enjoy that look,” he said, softer than a whisper. “You have realized how hopeless your situation is…and yet I have not yet begun to punish you.” He squeezed even harder, and Felix felt something creak and hoped it wasn’t his spine. “The Pathless wants you dead, and I am his servant in all things.”

I can’t eat the Hierei for more Essence or Significance, and I’ve already eaten the High Guard. Ideas slipped across his Mind, aching now as the lack of oxygen started to send dark sparks across his thoughts. I could—I—

Felix!

The voice sounded like Pit, but also Vess, and he wasn’t sure if he was remembering the sound or hearing it for real. He—

Felix blinked.

“I will end your threat, Nevarre, and then I will eradicate those that follow in your shadow.

You will die here, Unbound, choked by a simple priest of the god you cannot comprehend. Pathetically alone and powerless.”

“Idiot,” he rasped. “I’m…never…alone.”

“What?”

Felix hurled the rest of his reinforced Will and Intent against his chest, blaring the unified song of Harmony and Dissonance. A whirlwind kicked up around him and the Hierei, threaded with motes of multicolored Mana.

Mivun whipped his head around, his white stone brow furrowed. “What is this? What are you doing?”

Felix grabbed the man’s wrists, his black scales sizzling against the molten gold, and his eyes burned. “Let’s find out together.”

The united song rose to a crescendo, and the whirlwind became a hurricane of furious light.


* * *


Beef grunted as the message rolled across his vision just as the Oathbound Dragoons lifted their spears to attack. “Now?” He blocked a hurled Spear with his hammer, bashing it back into misty Mana. “Of all times?”

“You’re kidding me,” Archie said at his side. “How’s he do stuff like this?”

“Just hit yes!” Beef bellowed, before stomping on the earth and sending a ripple of Mana to explode against their foes.

“Ugh, fine!”


* * *


“Noctis’ tits!” Evie’s chain wrapped around a Paladin’s helmet and spun, pulping the lot. “Harn are you seein’ this?”

“I’ve already accepted it,” Harn grunted, before kicking a Priest through a neary column. “Hurry up. You’re missin’ the fight.”

“Tch.” Evie jabbed the notification.


* * *


“Again with—?” Atar scowled, closing himself into his office.

accept. do not tarry!

“Really? You of all—Whatever. Of course I’ll help him.” Atar confirmed the notification.

You owe me though.


* * *


“Hah!” Pit laughed, standing atop the bloody remains of an army. “Of course!”


* * *


Bloody and bruised, surrounded by enemies, Vess didn’t hesitate for a moment.

The Fiend Calls For Aid.
Will You Offer It?

“Always,” she whispered, and lifted her glaive.


* * *


Across distances both vast and small, power thrummed across Links established between his closest friends and, for the first time, that flow was aimed at Felix.

Essence and significance poured from each of his friends, quenching a deep and unending thirst and igniting the united song to new, incredible heights.

Continue Skill evolution!

Skill Evolution Accepted!
Stores Of Essence And Significance Sufficient!

The vast majority of power that his friends had sacrificed vanished in an instant; gobbled up by the System same with a huge chunk of his towering Mana. All of it was deposited upon the writhing mass of vibrations hanging in the center of his core space.

The Skill burst into brilliance and Felix screamed.

The hurricane of Mana around them buffeted both the Hierei and Felix, but it was the priest that found himself blinded and wincing as its rarified chords struck sparks from his alabaster armor. “No more tricks, Nevarre!”

Yet he lost his hold upon the Unbound’s neck as the hurricane grew to monstrous proportions. He took a single step back and braced his immense bulk against the tempest, and flared his god’s radiance ever brighter. The storm fled from him, just in time to witness as Felix rose up into the air, buoyed by a gale of liquid light.

Felix’s scream became a roar.

Evolution Complete!
ERROR!
Combination Complete!
Due To Extreme Synergy, Green Shaping (R), Stone Shaping (R), Ferric Shaping (E), Storm Shaping (E), and Hand of Calamity (L) have combined into Sonata of Dominance (T)!
Level Is Averaged!

Sonata of Dominance (Transcendent), Level 92!
You have discerned a depth to the elements that few have ever noticed, and you tread closer to Ruin. Stake a claim to the elemental Mana around you, seizing a radius of increased control. All other Mana types are sensed and controlled at half strength. Requires Mana and Essence to use. Sing, Ascendent, sing and let rage the ancient threnodies of war.

The storm died. Felix fell to the ground.

“Whatever you’ve done, it will not be enough!” Mivun reached out a golden hand, finger extended. “You are nothing before the Light!”

Die!

Felix felt the Authority gather around the man before his pronouncement, and after it was like a beam of Intent that sought out his heart. He convulsed beneath the Hierei’s poisoned Will.

Sonata of Dominance is level 93!

He could feel the priest’s twisted Authority with more clarity than ever as it squeezed against him. The united song of Harmony and Dissonance vibrated against its hollow structure, and his new Skill could feel its jagged edges. It was a construct, bent to serve the Will of those that held it, but distorted in a way he couldn’t express. It was vile, two steps from broken, yet it pulsated with immense power, held aloft by cunning lies and the hands of millions of guileless believers. It stabbed at him, attempting to sunder his heart.

It’s fake.

With trembling hands, Felix grasped the false Authority within the radius of his control.

He broke it apart.

Sonata of Dominance is level 94!
…
Sonata of Dominance is level 97!

The dregs of his power fled from him, consumed by the Skill, as the Hierei’s Authority was stripped away along with the riot of light, stone, and metal Mana that surrounded him. A monstrous Will opposed him, but it wasn’t the priest; it was the lingering presence of a startled god.

Title: The Call of Defiance Activated!
+25% Willpower When Contested By A Foe Of Divine Formation Or Greater!

“Get fucked, shiny bastard,” Felix breathed as the Pathless’ remnant Will was blasted apart by his own. He stood up, legs shuddering, and faced the horrified Hierei. “You too.”

He controlled the elemental Mana within his reach, and Mivun’s alabaster armor shed from his skin like peeling paint. Felix gestured, exerting his Will. Empyrean Embrace!

Stone and gold turned to luminous dust and was consumed. Essence and significance filled him again…before pouring into his radius of control.

“Halt! Kneel!” Mivun’s voice shook as his Authority failed him. “How have you done this?”

“You sit on a hollow throne.” Felix stepped forward, burned blood streaked across his chest. Mivun backed up with every advance he took. “Your Authority is stolen, and your god is stupid.”

With nothing but his bare stats, Felix rushed forward, and drove a clawed hand directly into the Hierei’s chest. Blood fountained and the man screamed, grabbing at his arm, chest, and neck. The guy was strong, but Felix was stronger. He forced his second hand at the priest, reaching not into his chest, but above his head, where a knot of twisted silver hung like a tarnished halo.

“NO!” Mivun railed. “Exaltation of the Light!”

Golden light Mana poured from the Hierei’s every orifice and turned his skin nearly translucent, as if he were moments away from turning into light himself. A mantle of heat expanded outward, bursting from the man like a cloud of withering force.

Empyrean Embrace!

“I appreciate the meal,” he said, after the light and heat vanished into his channels. Mivun stood dumbstruck, bloody robes disarrayed, before Felix clenched his talons around the silver knot above his head. “Now fuck off.”

He tore through the massive, tarnished bundle of Oaths with a single slash.

Mivun’s scream was deafening, and the System howled with a similar frenzy. A vast bell tolled somewhere both far away and infinitely close. It was omnipresent and deeper than any other time he’d done this, and was accompanied by a familiar voice.

BONDBREAKER!

Claws of silver and white stabbed at him, slashing through the fading remnants of silver lines around him. Felix was forced to fall back, dropping a near-catatonic Mivun to the ground as he fled. The claws didn’t stop, but instead slithered through the writhing threads like furious serpents in the shape of unnatural hands and arms. All of them a ghastly silver-white.

YOU DEFILE MY SACRED CHARGE FOR THE LAST TIME!

The threads stopped drifting, and instead began to reassemble above the Hierei’s convulsing Body.

Skein of Fate!

The Oaths around him snapped into sharp detail, and so did the hulking presence of Siva, Goddess of Fortune. She leaned over the Hierei’s Body like a spider, her many arms gathering up the silver thread and weaving it back together.

“Hey! I broke that!” Felix rushed forward again, dodging a gauntlet of slashing talons.“I intend for it to stay broken!”

The shadowed lump where Siva’s face should have been twisted, and dozens of silver flames flared like eyes. Power assaulted Felix, scalding his senses and tearing at his own Oaths. He grunted, but did not relent. He’d endured an attack like this before.

Title: Bondbreaker Is Active!

Oaths cannot affect you unless you allow it.

The vast majority of Siva’s attack melted away, unable to touch him.

YOU ARE ANATHEMA! BEGONE!

“And you’re weaker,” Felix said through gritted teeth. “Something wrong with your Shrine?”

The goddess’ innumerable hands faltered. What Have You Done?

“Not me,” he said, pointing to the trembling priest below her. “Him.”

Unnatural eyes regarded him, the Oaths, and the priest for several long moments before a cloud seemed to pass over her already hazy existence. Her claws unraveled, becoming ghostly threads before her arms and hulking body followed.

No. What Have You Done?

This time, Felix was certain she wasn’t talking to him.

Siva vanished, and Felix was left with a messy, half-woven ball of Oaths above a bloody Grandmaster. He strode over to it and gripped the tarnished threads with his hands once again.

“Stop,” Mivun begged. His thick hand snatched at Felix’s ankle, but there was no Strength behind it. “You do not know what you are doing…”

“I know exactly what I’m doing, asshole,” Felix said, and ripped the Oaths to shreds.

Another bell tolled, and this one shot out in all directions like a fuse made of tarnished silver light. The Hierei collapsed, eyes rolling back and mouth filling with foam and blood.

You Have Killed Mivun Tal, Hierei of Levantier and the Ghreldan Hills!
XP Earned!

Skein of Fate is level 83!
…
Skein of Fate is level 95!

You Have Gained 5 Levels!
You Are Now Level 74!
+100 to STR! +110 to PER! +110 to VIT! +130 to END! +120 to INT! +140 to WIL! +130 to AGL! +145 to DEX!
+100 All Harmonic Stats!
You Have 75 Unused Stat Points!

Felix fell onto his ass on the dais steps, System energy rioting through him.

It felt good.