Path of the Deathless

99 (I) Plaguefueled

-99 (I)

Plaguefueled

Shiv resurrected, resumed time, and all the diseases, viruses, and infections he'd suffered just a few seconds before seeped into his flesh once more. It hit him in a wave of boils. His eyes began to dim, pulse, and sear inside his sockets. His skin turned against his very muscles, sinews, and bones, and every part of him filled with a raw and gnawing ache. Updates are released by N0veI.Fiɾe.net

"This," Shiv grunted, biting back a growl of discomfort, "is going to be annoying." Annoying, but ultimately rather beneficial. His Disease Resistance had languished for quite some time. Between that and Practical Metabiology, he might get some useful gains here, but it was going to take a few deaths.

he thought. The First Blood mind mages were little more than smears now. He made sure to destroy their bodies after taking their cores from them. And when he turned, he saw something peculiar. He stared at a mass of glistening, furrowed meat that served as “wall” for the crystalline chamber, and, using his magic, Shiv recognized the flesh to be part of the creature's brain. Using his Biomancy, he mapped out two hundred meters of biological architecture and let out a breath of astonishment. This room had no entrances or exits. It was something embedded into the brain—and was currently being shuttled around by the shifting flesh cupping it from the outside.

Shiv understood. Right then, the Psychomancy center was rapidly being moved down toward the leviathan’s lower abdomen. There, Shiv sensed the first hints of bubbling acid awaiting him.

Shiv coughed. A spray of flaking lung tissue sprayed out with his phlegm. .He fused his armor back around himself and cast a laceration into the leviathan’s brain. The wrinkled surface split open. Searing juices erupted out like a geyser, flinging bits of brain matter at him in clumps. Shiv shot through the wound made, but it immediately sealed behind him the moment he was through. As he continued ripping and pushing his way further, trying to cripple this thing’s mind or find a command center of some kind, the entire brain kept regenerating around him.

Its healing was simply absurd. He wasn't sure if the people back at the gate could eat this, but considering how quickly it regenerated and how his The Chef Unwavering Skill might interact, it could be a major boon to the people of Gate Theborn. There were many wounded and sick. With potential bonuses to healing and resistance to diseases, the Court Leviathan might just be the solution to their problems.

Again, he didn’t know if he could cook this, but he was looking forward to finding out.

Another pulse of dense Chronomancy swept through him. It washed over his person, but did little as he didn’t have his temporal shell active. His Chronomancy was a major ace in his hands. He wasn't going to risk it being unavailable if he had to face a sufficiently powerful opponent or a treacherous situation. The temporal warding the Leviathan had seemed to only radiate every other second, so he could trigger his Chronomancy on and off between each wave without suffering undue damage to his time armor.

As he reached out and tried to tear his way through another dense layer of leviathan brain-stuff, Shiv felt his nervous system collapse. A spasm went through him. A flash of color passed behind his eyes as he emptied his bowels violently and died again.

Shiv thought. Then he chuckled silently.

Disease Resistance 14 > 18

This time, he didn’t get anything for his Practical Metabiology or Woundeater. Shiv frowned as he drained vitality again. Sometimes, what skills leveled upon his death confused him. Maybe he needed to more actively resist the plagues the leviathan kept hitting him with for his Biomancy and Metabiology to grow? He also wasn’t any more knowledgeable with his last level gained in Practical Metabiology, so he had more questions there too.

But those questions would have to wait, as the Court Leviathan came aglow with crimson mana. Even with him digging through its brain like a little dagger, it didn’t seem all that affected. Its resilience was fine, but it was its ability to recover that made it a hard target. The monster just wouldn’t stay hurt. Now, new sprays of minute bio-matter were being ejected from within its flesh; viruses and other blood motes carrying new diseases for Shiv to sample.

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And sample them he did as soon as he resurrected.

Instantly, his throat tickled, and then he felt like it was going to unlatch from his body. One of his kidneys pulsed with stabbing pain while the rest of his organs immediately started shutting down. Yellowish mucus burst out from pores and orifices as Shiv felt his heart stop working almost immediately.

“Godsdamned bullshit—” he slurred. He tried tearing open another section of the Court Leviathan’s brain, but his muscles disobeyed him and his skull filled with a feverish haze that—

Shiv found himself as a Revenant again. He looked down at another one of his bodies and winced in disgust as fat, winged maggots burst out from his eyes and ears mere seconds after he perished. A moment later, the brain mater healed over his two dead bodies and began to assimilate them into its structure. In seconds, both of his bodies melted into the leviathan’s brain. Shiv gawked in astonishment.

Disease Resistance 18 > 22

Once more, he drained vitality from the entity, and it let out a deep, bellowing groan. It satisfied Shiv to know that he had some means of hurting the creature by striking its life force directly, but he was still astonished by how fast it was healing. Its regeneration was so quick and perfect that his Biomancy could barely keep up.

Vitality Drain 46 > 47

As he resurrected for a third time, he waited for the latest time ward to pass as he activated his Strider of the Unbending Path and placed a temporal anchor. One of his temporal echoes was imprinted on the leviathan’s mind, and Shiv let the present resume just as another golden wave came for him. Again, the diseases smashed into him. This time, Shiv resisted the sicknesses that ate through his body for around five seconds before he lost control over his muscles and nervous system. Death came for him again as his metabolism went haywire and caused a cascading series of organ failures thereafter.

Disease Resistance 22 > 29

If that was really the case, Shiv had no idea how Cradle handled any of the First Blood’s plagues at all. He hated the vampires, but their mastery over flesh and biology was quite impressive. For now.

Shiv intended to pay this lesson back and then some when he became a real Legend in Biomancy and Practical Metabiology. For now, though, he likely needed to offer the Court Leviathan a few more deaths.

And to think he faced down the overwhelming power of the Recollector just hours ago. But that was a problem of force and time. This was all about the nature of his body. And he didn’t have the skill to fight it. So, Heroic-Tier Pathbearer in Reflexes or not, Shiv died.

But that wasn’t a bad thing. A little humbling was a good appetizer before the main dish of triumph. These deaths tempered his focus and drew him back from being too enamored with his own power.

It was good to be powerful. It wasn’t good to assume that brute force was the only kind of power. Just like how different chefs could approach the same dish in different ways, for the different tastes, with different accompaniments and libations.

Something for Shiv, then. When he cooked, he was focused, disciplined, enduring, and flexible. He could do anything. He could support anyone. He was the pillar. But so far, the way he fought was overwhelmingly brutal, with a bit of surprise and cunning mixed in. He could do better. There was no reason why he should be a lesser warrior when he aspired to be an artful chef.

Philosophy 2 > 4

As Shiv resurrected once more, he thought about all the skills he had and the options available to him. Immediately, he felt the urge to shake himself. So far, all he had been doing was slamming himself into things. He was treating every fight like a brawl, and that mode of thinking always had a cost.

If he had bothered slowing down and thinking, he probably would have remembered how effective Deepest Edge was against massive entities or people in thick armor. He probably could have cut most of the brain. Also, the Psychomancers were dead, and so Shiv froze time and pulled off his Mask of False Paths. He cast his feeble Psychomancy into the mind of the Court Leviathan—

And immediately broke the connection as the chaotic vortex of its mental state overwhelmed him. The Court Leviathan was a mess of impulses, pain, confusion, and clashing instincts. It wasn’t just a large monster—it was an monster. Shiv wheezed as the sickness got to him again, but he pulled a bone dagger out from his cloak and pushed back against its crushing Biomancy as it tried to absorb him.

It took him shattering his own ego to render the Jealousy mind-dead, but this thing was already messed up. Moreover, he didn’t know where to begin or what memory or thought he needed to affect. Uva flicked through minds like she was a psionic whirlwind and made it look easy. Probably because she had a lifetime of experience and study in adjacent fields.

His immune system lasted longer this time. His throat filled with thick lumps of pain. Inside, a patch of nodules bulged out from his organs, and they hatched a larger, more carapaced version of the winged maggots he suffered earlier. They promptly exploded in his body but failed to do anything as everything inside him was adamantine as well. They did manage to crawl out from his flesh, but that was more from them fusing and commanding the biomatter to part. Shiv grabbed one of the maggots as it at him. He crushed it nonchalantly and then died again as more of the maggots filled the valves of his heart.

Disease Resistance 29 > 40

As Shiv returned as a Revenant, a loud rumble shook the insides of the great beast. Mouths formed along the glistening furrows of the Court Leviathan’s inner brain matter, and for once, Shiv was truly weirded out.

"This is Master Malteek Sulmanthrap-Ophereus, Tenth Generation Elder of the Ophereus Bloodline." The voice that suddenly echoed forth from every part of the Court Leviathan’s interior was rough and raspy. "All Biomancers, we are facing a Heroic-Tier intruder at the very least. A Chronomancer and Biomancer with advanced Stealth abilities. Remove the subversive organic matter they left behind. They are not dead. They are hidden right above the Prefrontal Cortex—They are just over the bridge. We cannot risk the leviathan being poisoned. Remove the matter and prepare to induce evolving viral strains and nerve agents. Dump the reserve prions and fungal spores as well. Flood the Leviathan immediately. Counter-Boarding teams on standby!”

Shiv thought to himself.