131 (II) Ritual [I]

131 (II)

Ritual [I]

Shiv immediately ripped the archer off the ground, spinning his body and spiking both himself and his Vitae downward. She tore hard into the sky. To her credit, she managed to fire three shots from her bow. He swatted the first one aside. Two others, however, overlapped each other perfectly. And they flashed bright, briefly blinding him. By the time he realized where they were, it was too late. They were just centimeters away from his eyes.

Pure instinct saved Shiv. He formed a swirling mass of Vitae in front of his face. Chunks of his life force broke away as the arrow bit into it. Shiv felt colder, weaker, but he didn't die. And that's when he realized there was a second function for his Vitae. When desperation called for it, he could use it as an additional barrier. And it might be better than dying now, since his Vitae was solidmana. Something his enemy could physically break.

Vitaemancy 61 > 62

Shiv's Vitae settled back within his field. And two golden arrows fell away as the red and white mana they shattered, evaporating like strings of rising smoke. The elven archer slammed down upon a jutting slab of concrete. She gave an agonized shout of pain, and the shroud of Divination and Chronomancy mana that protected her cracked open as well. Shiv felt her biology for the first time. Her lower body was broken, and her eyes rolled.

Shiv tore her from the ground as he reeled his Vitae back in. But rather than draw the Vitae back into his own body, within the stability of his Vitaemancy field, he wrapped his Skysplitter in the red and white, and he thrust out. The archer refocused just in time for Shiv to drive his blade up through her chin.

Just then, his temporal shell shattered. Time resumed.

Two hundred meters away, the Jealousy plowed into the ground, displacing tides of uprooted rubble. In the skies above, a massive explosion spread, fire chased by a wave of force. The archer gagged and choked as the violet and gold protecting her faded. She dropped her bow. Shiv caught it and threw it in his cape. This is how to make Adam smile, he thought to himself. Her left eye twitched. Shiv scowled. He crushed the elven archer's head for good measure before casting her corpse aside. No half measures.

As he shot toward the Jealousy, he found the greater demon groaning, still trying to get up from the crater it was blasted into. Shiv activated his Outside Context Problem. The world went dull and grey, and exhaustion swept through him, rushing deep into his core.

Shiv bit back a groan and immediately deactivated the skill before he spent himself completely. He burst out in a splash of red and white. His vision spun. There was a cost to using that much Vitae; the physical weakness and the risk of certain death if his body was destroyed. The Jealousy turned, swinging its nunchucks wide, but missing Shiv. The Greater Demon was as disoriented as he was, maybe more. He crashed into it, spearing his Skysplitter against its eye as he magnified his blade again. The dagger expanded to a hundred meters as Shiv drove it in. The Jealousy let out a cry as black, boiling blood erupted from the back of its skull. He extended a tendril of Vitae into the Jealousy and began to drain it. His weakness started fading, but the Jealousy wrapped a clawed tentacle around the length of his blade.

Shiv snarled as he lifted the Greater Demon into the air. He spiked himself high, dragging the Jealousy with him. It swung its nunchucks, but its hits passed through open air and struck nothing. With every following second, Shiv felt strength flooding his bones, rushing through his veins. His vision cleared, the fog choking up his mind dissolved, and he remembered what he wanted to do.

He accelerated toward the spreading gateway and found a flood of new enemies pouring free. More importantly, there was another Jealousy there, and it shaped a pillar of fire atop its head, using it to slice through some of Can Hu’s barricades. Shiv gritted his teeth. He could see burning corpses atop some of the battlements. The bodies of Weaveresses and Umbrals who died trying to protect the gate.

Godsdammit! Anger rushed through him, and he used that to fuel his Gravitic Wrestler. He descended, swinging the Jealousy impaled upon his knife like a meteor hammer. As he shot down, the other Jealousy looked up, and its eye widened. It tried to move away, but just then, a Veilpiercer tore into existence and blew a bloody hole through the center of its iris.

The Pyromaniac Jealousy wailed, and its screams doubled as Shiv brought his Jealousy-knife hybrid down upon the other Greater Demon. Two Jealousies collided. A massive shockwave shook the gate. Vultegs and dimensionals below were flung off their feet, but Shiv kept pushing. The inner ring of battlements shook, and some of them crumbled entirely. Shiv drove the Jealousies down against the ground, and they blocked off the gateway, choking the constant influx of enemy forces. Their large tentacles smashed into the battlements, and Shiv could hear members of the Arachne Order calling for others to fall back.

Gravitic Wrestler 145 > 146

Shiv twisted his Skysplitter inside the nunchuck Jealousy, commanding his blade to grow even larger. As it widened the wound, Shiv seized the impaled Jealousy by its head and began slamming it down on the other invader. Their armored carapaces cracked together over and over. The fire-wielding Jealousy proved inferior in Toughness, and blood sprayed out from its already mutilated eye with every following slam.

Just then, something akin to broken glass slipped through the blinded Jealousy in an instant. Shiv didn’t even know where it came from. His eyes widened as the broken glass glided through the Jealousy's flesh in an instant, splitting it apart from within. The battered Greater Demon came asunder, its gore spilling down in waterfalls. As Shiv brought the Jealousy he impaled down upon its counterpart one final time, a splash of red and grayish ichor filled the air.

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It was at that point he saw the strange entity emerge from the dead Jealousy. It was painful to look at. Its geometries twisted and danced, and its edges were impossibly sharp. Shiv realized that Uva's Aberrant Fractal had entered the fray.

Then, the world grew brighter. A flood of might filled Shiv—might beyond anything he ever knew, beyond what he could achieve alone. A blue sun rose above, and Shiv looked up to see Adam Arrow hovering overhead.

"Defenders, rally!" Adam called out. "Defenders, rally! The first wave is broken! We stand! They dashed themselves against us! We still stand!"

Strands of mana slipped through Shiv's mind, and at once he felt Uva, Adam, the orcs, and Valor synchronize with his thoughts.

"I started the ritual," Shiv said awkwardly. "But there’s a… slight requirement."

"What kind of requirement?" Adam asked. He looked at his mana core hovering in the distance, and he made a gesture. It flared. Shiv felt something within his soul shudder. Just then, the impaled Jealousy flared with Psychomantic energy. Shiv snarled. “Hey? Toad? This swan says stay down.”

He picked the nunchuck-using Jealousy up, and he slammed it down one more time. He felt his Gravitic Wrestler fuse with his Deepest Edge. A wave of gravity exploded out from his knife. It stretched wide, becoming a singularity which he could shape and wield to his own volition. Shiv's blade brought his blow down upon the Jealousy, and it didn't just split in half. It was crushed into paste.

Skill Fusion: Gravitic Wrestler (Master) + Deepest Edge (Adept) > Singularity Blade (Heroic)

Shiv blinked as blood and debris began to circle both him and his blade. He felt like a titan of unfettered might—like his cuts could reshape gravity itself… "Right. So, I was saying, we have a slight requirement. We kind of need to kill 50,000 of the Vultegs."

"Fifty what?" Adam called out.

"Fifty what?" Uva repeated. "I must have misheard."

"No, you didn’t," Shiv replied. "Fifty thousand Vultegs. We're going to need to kill them."

"Fifty? How are we supposed to kill 50,000 felling Vultegs?"

Something slipped through the exposed gateway, emerging through the spraying molten fluid, rising from the flood of Jealousy blood. Shiv smashed the Vulteg into paste with his Singularity Blade.

“Insul! What in the hells is that?” Mortar called from a distance.

“Skill Fusion,” Shiv said. “Thank Adam. And give me a second... You know what? I’ll just take the second myself.” He froze time. His temporal shell fused over him, and he immediately began shaping a new golem. He gave it its standard four-set animated skill combo, briefly considered giving it the Creeping Void as well, but then shook his head and decided this was good. Too much vitality cost.

Time resumed. "Alright, done."

Adam did a double-take. “Good." Immediately, the Gate Lord’s vambrace flared. Shiv could see the corrosive energy even from so far away. And then Shiv realized what Adam was planning to do.

"Uh, Adam, sure this is a good idea? You plan to shoot my golem with Necromancy? Won’t that…” He pasted another idiot trying to pass through.

Gravitic Wrestler 146 > 147

Deepest Edge 64 > 65

"No, absolutely not," Adam replied with a humorless chuckle. "But it is a very you idea."

Shiv paused. "You know what? You're right. It is kind of a me idea.”

"The only good thing," Adam continued, "is that I don't think we need to risk you directly anymore. Or so I hope. Alright, here's the plan." A screaming Vulteg shot out from the gateway. His body gleamed as he hardened, sharpening himself into an adamantine blade.

"We send your golem through first, and then I have to follow him over briefly to make the shot.”

Shiv frowned. "What do you mean you have to follow him over briefly?"

"I can't shoot a Veilpiercer through a gateway."

"Why the hell not?" Shiv asked.

"Complex Dimensionality reasons," Adam said. "Now, the moment I do that, I want you to freeze time and drag me back across."

And suddenly Shiv was doubly unsure about this plan. "Do you have to be on the other side? Maybe you could just give me the vambrace."

"No," Adam said. "It's the most secure way. We need to kill fifty thousand of the bastards? Fine. Let's do it in an instant. Let’s bomb them so hard that we vaporize most of their army. We can't fight them indefinitely."

Shiv let out a breath, and he shrugged. "Alright. Okay. Golem. Cross the rift. Smash into anyone you see. Keep your Inertial Overdrive high. But don't discharge unless you're about to evaporate—actually, don't discharge under any circumstances."

The golem responded immediately. It shot across through the open rift with a blast of acceleration. Shiv looked up at Adam. "Alright. I'm going in next.”

The Gate Lord held up a fist. “I'll follow thereafter. Uva, coordinate defenses, have them lock this place down by the time we get back."

"Understood," Uva replied. "Don't die, boys."

"If I do, it's Shiv's fault."

The Deathless grunted uncomfortably as he spiked himself through the open gateway. "Thanks for the added pressure, asshole."

Ritual Conditions: Slay [199/50,000 Vultegs] to align the Dimensional frequency of the Vulketh Gateway to the Tutorial.