Path of the Deathless

132 (II) Ritual [II]

132 (II) Ritual [II]

Shiv said, composing a new Vitae Golem.

Adam replied. He was navigating the depths through Shiv’s eyes and his Divination. Pairing that with Adam’s Heroic-Tier Awareness, he navigated the depths with borderline prescience.

Shiv explained.

A column of flame splashed down at them from above. Shiv widened his Skysplitter into a shield and parried the blast. Adam loosed a Hydromantically-charged Veilpiercer in the same moment. More spells came. More projectiles slashed through the depths. Most of the others missed.

The Creeping Void 112 > 113

Adam’s wings flared brighter. They shot past a dozen of falling troop-towers—and came to a rough stop as Shiv saw a few thousand Vultegs blocking off the gateway. They were pouring through the other side like a swarm of insects performing a raid on a rival hive.

To Shiv and Adam’s benefit, the Vultegs' rear was left wide open. They weren’t expecting Shiv or Adam to be coming back.

Shiv finished his last infusion and commanded his golem to move fifty meters away.

A blur of movement passed across the corner of his eye. Shiv shoved Adam aside as a glaive passed through the space between them. An glaive Shiv remembered seeing in the chest of his last Vitae Golem.

And just as he thought of his previous golem, its severed head tumbled past him. It dissolved in the molten depths, coming apart as motes of red and white. Shiv and Adam regarded the fading golem, and slowly they looked up. Hovering above them was that glass-armored Vulteg again, and behind them descended ten towers and four more Jealousies. More shadows emerged even higher up in the ocean, and that made Shiv all the more certain that this wasn’t a fight he was supposed to win directly.

Adam formed another arrow as his Necromantic vambrace crackled with energy.

Shiv looked back and frowned as he noticed the obsidian glaive shooting through the gateway. But he didn’t have time to warn Adam that the glass-armored Vulteg could teleport to his glaive. The Gate Lord fired his dimensional arrow. It ripped across reality. Shiv stopped time at the same instant and ordered his golem to move.

Waves of Chronomancy crashed down—and they were more layered than ever before. There was scarcely a gap between them now, and Shiv understood why Adam was in such a hurry. When enough of those towers landed, they wouldn’t be able to use their Chronomancy or Dimensionality at all.

The Vitae Golem spiked itself into position, but the descending wardings immediately shredded its temporal shell. Shiv grabbed Adam by his waist and spiked both of them as fast as he could. This would injure Adam, but staying meant death. Shiv held the Gate Lord close to his body and kept Adam protected from all surrounding harm. Such a feat was easy to accomplish when he was three times Adam’s size. He crashed into the Vultegs rushing through the gateway just as the first of the wards brushed against his back.

Part of his temporal shell peeled away. The Vultegs choking the gateway before Shiv burst apart were knocked aside as he accelerated himself once more. He ripped through them just as a chain of other wards smashed into him. His temporal shell burst apart. Time resumed. A searing heat kissed Shiv’s back as the world behind him vanished into an expanse of all-consuming soul-fire. Vultegs around him ignited and screamed. Shiv gritted his teeth and pressed on as he heard Adam cry out. The Gate Lord’s limbs were folded the wrong way from the brutality of inertia.

Adam’s Heroic-Tier Reflexes were gentle. Shiv’s was anything but. The difference between them made itself known time and time again in the most brutal of ways.

A squeezing pressure clamped down around Shiv as he crossed through the gateway. He shot back up into the air, ripping a bloody path through the tightly packed Vultegs trying to pass through. At the same time, a rush of flame splashed against Shiv’s back, melting through his bone armor and burning soul-wounds into his flesh.

Shiv let out a hiss as he pulled his gravitic field at an angle. He and Adam crashed against a building and then through a dense layer of stone. As the battlements collapsed behind them, Shiv felt a series of spells sting and break against his body in quick succession until he called for someone to cease fire.

Pain consumed him. But Shiv was used to the hurt by now—didn’t let it distract him. He triggered his Song of the Vigilant as he cast a Woundeater into Adam. The Gate Lord’s arms snapped back in place as he gave a groan of relief. Shiv pulled him back to his feet and turned to face the scattered and broken Vultegs.

Spells rained down on the invaders from all directions. Mortar’s shots splashed down, consuming parts of the gateway in molten slag. But a beam of blinding fire continued climbing higher into the air. It burned bright and hot, and it As Shiv cast his Vitae into downed Vultegs and began transferring his soul-wounds onto them, his breath caught as a notification appeared before his eyes.

Ritual Conditions: Slay [2,871,446/50,000 Vultegs] to align the Dimensional frequency of the Vulketh Gateway to the Tutorial.

“Holy felling shit,” Shiv exhaled. His mind went blank. He expected Adam setting off his soul to do . Some damage. Some harm. But this was something else entirely. This was another level of destruction and death. Shiv knew what it was like to kill an army of enemies. Everything below High-Adept felt like an insect to him now. They died when he moved—though some with esoteric skills still posed strange threats, especially if they engaged him together. Masters and Heroes were harder to kill, but almost people dead in an instant. Shiv gawked at the beam of soul-flame erupting from the gate, cleaving a brilliant wound high up through the sky. His mind was numb. His body was still partially charred. Shiv couldn’t fathom any more than a few thousand dead. Millions were ridiculous.

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He crossed some threshold today. Something was going to come from this. Something severe.

Shiv thought.

Vitaemancy 62 > 67

Vitality Drain 55 > 59

Ritual Commenced!

Lord Scorn wants you to know that he is pissing himself in anger!

Lord Scorn has been prevented from reaching across realms and crushing the gate!

Lord Scorn has designated Adam Arrow as a new slur for the Vultegs!

Lord Scorn has sworn his eternal, undying hatred for Adam Arrow and the Corpse Shedder.

Lord Scorn is going to torture Adam Arrow and the Corpse Shedder for eternity once he captures them.

Lord Scorn has promised aid and divine blessings to anyone that stands against Adam Arrow.

Adam staggered beside Shiv. Both stared into the rising pillar of soul-fire. The Deathless looked at the Gate Lord. Adam’s expression was blank. “How many people did we just kill?”

“Around three million,” Shiv breathed. A chuckle of disbelief escaped him. “Sullain wasn’t shitting about me potentially lighting up the continent.” And that just made the idea of facing the Vicar even more daunting. “He managed to capture and reshape my soul-detonation, too. So. I have no idea how we’re going to kill him, Adam.”his without him noticing. Band waved at him from atop the walls, his face wild with glee. He clapped for Shiv, and the Deathless let out a breath.

“Did the Challenger tell you to do it?”

the Challenger’s voice rumbled from the shifting gateway.

Shiv very calmly punched Whisper in the face before the orc god could say anything else.