Unbound

Power rolled into Felix, the pillars of smoke around him joining at his chest before sinking straight through his skin. They didn’t bother with his Mana Gates or channels at all.

Because this isn’t my Body. Felix blinked rapidly, his eyes still overflowing with blues and reds. This is just my Mind.

Empyrean Embrace is level 125!

Grandmaster Tier!

You Gain:

+400 AGL

+350 VIT

+...

One last time. Felix bared his teeth. Let’s go.

[Essence of Crystalline Facets]!

What? No. The Essence flickered and faded as Felix stared at the notification. What the heck is this? What happened to the power from Siva?

Flawed, the Beast intoned. New Options Are Provided.

Choose.

Where’d this even come from? The words barely formed in his Mind before images unspooled behind his eyes. Mages of Levantier. You killed them? Ate them?

I Provided You With A New Path.

You Must Only Walk Upon It.

Epic Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence of Umbral Cleave]!

Another Essence rose through Felix’s core space, and this time the Beast grasped it and held on, setting it at the crown of his opalescent Tree. The Essence gleamed, alluring and potent, stolen from some Grandmaster mage.

No. Felix rejected the Essence Draughts and reached back out for the one he knew was hidden within the branches of his Divine Tree.

Divine Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Skittering Grasp]

ERROR!

Essence Has Been Altered!

Do You Wish To Restore Its True Nature?

Y/N

Do it!

This Is Folly, roared the Beast. The Weaver’s Stolen Power Was Not Enough For Her.What Makes You Think It Will Be Enough For You?

Felix ignored the beast's growl, focusing instead on the divine essence that formed in his mind's eye. It clung to the top branches of his divine tree, coalescing into a bundle of slick, almost sickly-looking legs, segmented like chitinous insects. They wrapped around the essence in the crudest of spheres, intertwining like the gnarled hands of a thousand ancient men, clutching it, claiming it. The essence had a lingering sense of deep, possessive covetousness. Felix somehow knew that Siva didn't want to lose this one. Scratch that. Even though she was dead, Felix somehow knew that Siva didn't want to lose this one.

It Is Not Worth It, Scion!

Felix ignored the Beast.

This was important.

Significance burned away from him as Unite the Lost scoured at the legs. Each joint burst beneath its power, only to reveal another segmented appendage wrapped beneath. Layers upon layers, all of them desperately clutching at whatever lay beneath. None of them enough to best his Skill.

One by one, legs curled up and died, falling free of the Essence. When finally the last leg crumbled apart, light and sound blossomed from within like a secret flower. A series of arcs burst forth, curving across Felix’s vision like lensflares from a clutch of distant stars. Each arc was woven together into a pattern that vibrated against itself, spreading itself in one moment before joining together the next.

Divinity Has Been Shed!

True Nature Restored!

Primordial Essence Detected During Formation!

[Essence Of Primal Conjunction]

Broken Path and Fatebreaker Titles Found!

Grandmaster Tier Bonus Added!

Primordial Nature Resonates With [Essence Of Primal Conjunction]!

Unbound Nature Resonates With [Essence Of Primal Conjunction]!

Calculating Effects…

Choose A Feature:

Legion - Below Lurk The Many

Concomitance - Two As One

Paramount - One Above Alln/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Notifications rolled past him like trilling bells and the Beast growled at him like furious thunder. Yet it did nothing to stop the first Feature vision from sweeping him up.

Smoky shadow was replaced seamlessly by cool blue skies that spread out in all directions around him. A cold gale pushed past him, not nearly enough to bypass his resistances but far colder than he expected. Felix blinked. He stood upon an elegantly constructed platform, suspended thousands of feet in the air, on a day that looked much like any other. The sun was high in the sky and the landscape spread out so far beneath him that he could see the curvature of the world. Instinctively, he took a step back, boots drawing a dull thud from the platform at his feet. It was beautifully constructed, but its details flickered in his eyes, glitching as if he were staring through a veil of static.

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Flicker…

The vision shifted, and Felix was suddenly at the edge. He jolted, knees almost giving out to the glitching forces pressing against him, and he couldn’t help but stare into the empty sky. Below him, miles of thin air stretched between the platform and the surface of the Continent. There, something moved. Something vast and primal, as if a whole section of countryside shifted to the east.

Unseen Beholder!

The truth was laid bare to his eyes. A Superior Earth Elemental strode the land, crashing across unfamiliar terrain as it was accosted by creatures on the scale of cities. The Elemental was so big that those monsters shouldn’t have affected it at all, but Felix could all but taste the Elemental’s panic. Stone twisted and crushed at the creatures, but they dove through its rocky hide like burrowing worms only to reappear miles distant. Wherever they submerged, the rock and soil bleached, as if something essential was being drained from the earth.

Driven by desperation, the Superior Elemental struck again, and again, managing at last to slice the monstrosities into multiple pieces. Yet as Felix watched, the pieces healed, forming into new, separate horrors that resumed their relentless attack.

"The fleshcurse is effective.”

Felix clenched his jaw and turned slowly.

Flicker…

The vision shifted, folding at the edges as static pushed across his sight, just as it had when he tried to examine the floor.

No.

Felix flared his Will, shaping his Intent into pillars that supported the collapsing reality around him. The folding facets of the vision groaned and Dissonance speared across him, embodied in that wave of static—but they held. Felix turned at a glacial pace, each milimeter of movement accompanied by his immense Will. It was all he could do not to dislodge the precariously balanced pillars he had formed, but by the time he pivoted enough all he could see were silhouettes. Disjointed things loomed behind him, obscured by shadow and light in equal measure, as if whatever stood near him were too much to capture.

Understanding welled up as his Mind caught up to his predicament. Someone didn't want him to peer too closely into this Feature vision.

Which means there’s something to hide.

Fiendforge!

Void Sanctuary!

Unseen Beholder!

His Skills burned within him, fighting back against the crumbling fabric all around. Felix wasn't sure if he was facing down a piece of the vision itself, or if it was simply the Beast once again messing with his perceptions. It didn't matter either way, though—Felix refused to be kept in the dark any longer.

Fiendforge is level 122!

Unseen Beholder is level 126!

Felix pressed his Intent anew. Backed by the fortress of his Void Sanctuary and the clamping press of Fiendforge, he hammered back a piece of folded reality. It was just enough to hold it in place as his Unseen Beholder pierced through the veil.

Shadow and light split, resolving into the shape of a familiar Sylphaen. Siva’s Vessel. Felix leaned forward, ready to fight, but the first thing he noticed was that the Vessel didn’t react to him at all. The second thing was that they appeared to be far younger than before. Their face and body looked the same, but they possessed an ineffable sense about them, as if the Vessel were lighter.

Their significance. The Vessel has so much less than before.

Beside the Sylphaen’s pale flesh of woven hands was a female Dwarf without a face, wrapped in dark green and silver armor that seemed almost alien in construction. At the Dwarf’s side, close enough that she could touch her, was a sharp-toothed naiad that looked as if she could be a cousin to Zara. Instead of ocher, however, her skin was a saturated pink and her hair was a dark river of blood that swirled atop her shoulders. Hands marked with blue-white scars all the way to the elbow clutched at a railing of some sort.

Noctis and Vellus. Can they not see me?

Just like Siva’s Vessel, neither of the two reacted to his presence as they had in previous visions. Felix held still as he could, not willing to test the theory. With the amount of effort it took to hold the vision open before him, he doubted he could put up much of a fight.

“—working, but it will take an Age to come to fruition.” Noctis spoke as if Felix had interrupted her in mid-sentence.

“We have the time, and the power is ours.” The Sylphaen spread their hands, and a dozen others detached from their slick forearms to copy the gesture. “There is little else these primitive creatures can do to stop us now, so why not take the long view?”

“They are as immortal as we are,” Noctis pointed out. “What we’ve done has hurt them, but it cannot change that.”

The Sylphaen leaned over the edge of the platform, their wings blocking Felix’s view of whatever craft they were suspended from—

Flicker…

As if it sensed his wandering focus, the vision folded further. Felix gritted his teeth and shored up his grip as the world shuddered through glitching static. Each flicker changed his position, moving him closer and closer to the Vessels, as if their presence possessed a certain gravity. Closer and he could smell them—a primal sense of wrongness that made his skin crawl. Felix opened his mouth, unable to suppress the scream that crawled up from within his lungs.

“AAA—”

Flicker…

“—AAAH!”

His chest ached and lungs burned, as if he’d been screaming for far longer than a mere second. A wetness dripped from his eyes. It splattered crimson on the ground.

Flicker…

Something exploded far below, and waves of magic spewed so far and fast that pieces of them nearly touched their elevated platform. Felix glanced over a specially wrought railing, where the walls of the platform turned to transparent crystal.

Below, the landscape was crawling with corrupted flesh.

Legion, whispered that voice. Below Lurk The Many.

What Unseen Beholder identified as Primordials tore apart entire armies of Elementals, clashing with nature itself as mountains rose up and waves dropped down upon them.

The Frostfather said the Elementals were allies with the Primordials during the War of Creation. When the gods fought against everyone. He licked his lips but his tongue was dry leather in his mouth. That’s what I’m seeing here. The end of the War of Creation, when the gods infected the Primordials with the fleshcurse.

“—Yyero. Does he still stand?”

“His Vessel is gone, but he remains whole. Our brother has retreated to lick his wounds.”

“He always was dramatic. Still, losing a Vessel is serious. Was the ritual flawed?”

“No, but—”

A dull tone overlaid their words, drowning them out even as Felix fought to shake it off. He failed. His Will and Intent were too strained by holding the vision together at all.

“—accomplished the impossible,” Siva was saying. The golden orb in their chest gleamed, rotating to view the other two Vessels. “Together.”

Vellus flexed her hands and those blue-white scars pulsated. “It was not without cost.”

“Nothing is. You will outgrow the scars, my love.” The Dwarf ran her hands across the Naiad’s arms, but pulled her hands away when they sparked with bright lightning.

“Careful. The new power revolts in us.”

“It will learn,” Siva assured them. The pale hands that comprised their flesh parted, and from the gaps between them silver light welled up like a dawning sun. “We must make it learn.”

New power?

A terrible, buzzing Dissonance overwhelmed them all, and Felix flinched. His Intent wobbled, just for a moment, but it was enough.

The world collapsed.

Flicker…