84 (II) Fall [III]

84 (II)

Fall [III]

Shiv watched her expression and tasted a melancholy inside her. She enjoyed taking the gate with Shiv and Adam. But it came as a trade. Being System-favored wasn’t just a blessing—it almost meant that those who fought alongside you were in danger. Always in danger. There were risks to being a Sister of the Arachnae Order. But those risks paled before the System actively trying to murder you—and rewarding you, should you survive.

“Alright,” Adam said. His eyes flashed with mana one final time, and he clenched his jaw as he looked toward the archway. “No one left here. Aside from the poor bastards Uva left mind-broken, that is.” His stellarite saber and rapier drifted alongside him, held by Hydrokinetic hands. Adam drew a steadying breath as he strode toward their final battle.

"Uva," Adam said, "how long do you estimate it will take for the Guardshead to fully Synchronise with the mana core?"

"I cannot give you an exact time," Uva replied. "Perhaps an hour, perhaps more. A lot of people share that belief. It was a thorough conversion, and in times like these, people want someone to hope for. People want someone to believe in." A grimace crossed her features. "The mass casualties helped. There aren't nearly as many people in Gate Theborn who need to be convinced anymore."

"I'm surprised the Quest is still going," Shiv said.

"That's because some of the Master-Tiers are still alive," Uva explained, her brow furrowing. Some of her mana strands remained within the gate.

"And Confriga?"

"Well, he doesn't look good," Uva grunted. "But right now, I'd actually give him even odds of killing the last one before he collapses."

"Adam, get ready to grab Valor," Shiv ordered. "He'll want in on this. There might not be many pieces of the Lesser Marshal left by the time we're done."

"Right," Adam agreed. "But still, keep your distance and batter him down. His Magical Resistance should be on the verge of breaking. Don't risk yourself. You have two people with you right now."

"I am prepared," Can Hu said. "You cannot break what is already broken."

"Yes, but with enough strikes, he might just get to the rest of you," Adam remarked. "So, no risks. We win. We win cleanly, and we win completely. No trading blood for blood. Not now.”

"Fine," Shiv grunted. It didn't feel entirely satisfying, but sometimes the best way to win was to win without even really fighting. Overall, aside from the sudden and unexpected encounter with the Educator, their rampage through Gate Theborn was a major success in Shiv's book.

Adam watched Shiv a little while longer, then turned to Uva. "Uva, while I get Valor, keep an eye on him."

"Of course," Uva said.

"What?" Shiv muttered. "Are you two teaming up on me now?"

Uva briefly patted him on the back. "We're just looking out for you, dear. Both of us."

"I'm not stupidly reckless," Shiv insisted.

Adam and Uva shared a look. The Young Lord threw his head back and laughed. Uva simply snorted.

"I'm not," Shiv repeated.

"I fear you have been outvoted," Can Hu replied.

With a final note of lightness, they entered the gateway, preparing to bring the whole affair to an end.

Just as they crossed over, a shape zipped toward them. Shiv immediately shot in front of Adam and swatted the projectile aside, only for it to splatter against him. The gore-laden remnants of the high vampire splashed down from Shiv’s body, and in the sky above, Shiv saw the lingering remnants of the First Blood army locked against Confriga in a bitter struggle.

The Lesser Marshal looked wretched. Blood poured from the edges of his onyx eye. His skin was partially flayed, his armor cracked in multiple places, and all of his wing petals were consumed by teratoma. More importantly, his Magical Resistance was on the verge of shattering. Once, he was iron in a world of wood, but even iron had a breaking point, and Confriga was near his.

But the Master-Tier vampires looked no better. There were only five of them left. Two were no longer in fighting condition, rendered down to sacks of blood and mangled tissue. They lay upon the ruins of the customs and processing building. Uva casually reached out and broke their minds.

In the same instant, Confriga swept his blade through one of the three final surviving vampires with a shout of effort, and the vampire dissolved into nothing but ambient mana before they could as much as scream.

Shiv did a double-take at that, and Uva hissed telepathically, "I told you, that sword is dangerous.”

"Bloody hell," Adam said. "Shiv, stay far away from that thing. When we get the Quest rewards, select a ranged skill for your Master-Tier Evolution.”

Uva’s expression turned severe. “This is why the System gave us Master-Tier Evolutions so freely. It has to do with the sword.”

“I’m going to get Valor,” Adam declared. “This will only be a few seconds. Do not engage without me, Shiv.”

“I won’t,” Shiv said, slightly annoyed. “Don’t worry. I’m not an idiot.”

“I know, but you are bloody reckless, and I don’t want you to end up dead for good because I wasn’t there to watch over you,” Adam spat out in a hurry as he finished his Dimensionality spell linking him to their hidden anchor.

Adam snorted. "I'm going to teleport now. You two stay here and just wait."

Adam vanished into his spell. Uva and Shiv remained in place, and she wove herself into his mind to remain hidden using his Silhouette. Confriga hadn't noticed them yet, so consumed with battle lust against the vampires that they were all he knew, all he hated. His swings were rough and erratic, the messy speed of a super-sonic drunkard rather than a seasoned warrior. His first two cuts were easily parried. And when he tried to unleash some of his winged petals' radiant flame, all he managed was a brief flicker before one of the extending petals burst apart into sprays of viscera. Confriga howled as the wing distended and splattered onto the bridge, painting the thousands of dead clustered far below.

The final two surviving vampires were the shapeshifter Shiv had seen earlier and one more, some kind of dedicated spellcaster that specialized in blood-related magics. It hammered Confriga, shaping attacks from its very being, creating blades, arrows, anvils, and more from blood. She struck the former Gate Lord over and over as he tried to attack her, but he was always intercepted by the shapeshifter.

The shapeshifter was the true challenge for Confriga. He adapted to everything Confriga did, flowing around the Lesser Marshal’s body, fast enough to keep up with his strikes. The vampire’s form constantly shifted, becoming flat, hard, morphing unceasingly, forcing Confriga to always react, to always be burdened with some kind of defense. Paired with how exhausted Confriga was, this fight truly came down to the wire.

A flash of corrosive energy pulsed from the single remaining skull on Confriga's chest. He tried to channel it into a blast, but was interrupted once more by a pendulum of blood crashing into him. The solidified blood magic exploded, and the swell of crimson consumed the area. The Lesser Marshal was launched from his feet. He soared through the air and crashed into a distant plaza, sending smoke and debris high into the air.

Uva and Shiv followed immediately, but remained at a distance so they wouldn’t be spotted.

The moment was so enticing for Shiv. He could cut the vampires down from behind and just obliterate Confriga with his flail or magic. Uva was there. Both of them—

“Shiv,” she said, her voice severe. “Adam is right. Do not risk it. We crush him together.”

“He's just godsdamned right there,” Shiv growled, frustrated.

“So is his sword.” A heavy feeling came over her. “I—my Eldritch Insight reacts inside me when I look upon that sword.”

Shiv heeded her words and stayed concealed. As he bobbed through the air, he stared down at the battlefield from above and grimaced. There was nothing but smoke and rubble where Confriga impacted. Both of the vampires limped toward his position, casting spells into the haze—

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But with a ragged cry, Confriga soared once more, his cancerous body rupturing as he forced himself to speed toward his enemy. His one eye, an onyx orb of absolute hate, wept rivers of blood as he greeted his enemies once more with a roar. "I am Lesser Marshall Confriga! I am a campaigner of a thousand dimensions, a butcher of ten thousand worlds! I will not fail here! I will regain my name! I will regain my honor! And I will regain Lord Scorn's favor!"

The shapeshifter prepared to intercept, expecting Confriga to strike the spellcaster. Yet Confriga did something strange. He cut across his own body with the sword, splitting open a gulf of space. Through the gap came a massive, lashing tentacle of oil-like shadow that sought to claim the shapeshifter. The shifter reacted, coiling around the tentacle, but rather than going after the spellcaster while she was open, Confriga cast his sword out at the shifter after ripping it out from his chest.

For the first time, Absence struck the shapeshifter's body dead on.

A cry sounded. The vampire returned to its original state, a man in fluid, blood-made armor. As he tumbled, the spellcaster cried out for her ally. But Confriga smashed into her with a final, desperate burst of speed and punched her with his three-fingered fist. A hole exploded through her chest—but Confriga kept hitting her until there was nothing left. Meanwhile, the shapeshifter howled as he began to dissolve, and the massive oily tentacle gripped him, pulling his fading form into the gulf of nothingness

And with that, there were no more Master-Tier vampires remaining. No more invaders. No more anything but Confriga and the people who had sought him dead long before the First Blood did. The once-powerful Gate Lord, a True Hero among Pathbearers, groaned from his many wounds and could barely hold himself up. Absence was the only reason he was still standing. Slowly, he fought himself back to his feet, his legs shivering, his winged petals withered and ruined. "I proclaimed, and I manifested my destiny!” He glared at the mana core. “I AM GATE LORD CONFRIGA! AND THEBORN HAS NOT… not…”

But Confriga couldn't quite finish, as he noticed Shiv, Uva, Adam, and Valor descending to finish him. A second before, a rift had opened, and from it came the Archer and the Legend. They came to a collective halt two hundred meters above and away from Confriga, and the Deathless deactivated his Silhouette.

"You," Confriga growled, rage surging through him, his one eye widening. Suddenly, he didn't seem so weak anymore. He planted his feet and grasped Absence with both hands. "Vile vermin! Was this your doing? Was this your plan? I am not beaten yet! I am not nearly finished! Come! Even broken, I am more than enough to claim your head. Face me. Alone or with your coward companions.”

Shiv scoffed. He pulled off his helmet and then lifted Can Hu’s half-skull. He regarded Confriga with a sneer—the kind that Adam would do every now and again. "Well, I can't take all the credit. Frankly, most of it goes to you."

“What?” Confriga exclaimed, surprised.

"Yeah, you might be the biggest asshole I've ever met," Shiv continued. "Murdering all your own people, not bothering to listen to a second opinion, not solving any of the actual problems in the gate, taking slaves, running a weaver breeding operation. Frankly, we couldn’t have done half this shit without you. Except for the Bowel-Breaker. That was mostly me.”

"Silence!" Confriga shouted. "I will not let you insult me!"

He staggered forward, but even with his incredible Physicality, he was beyond spent. A near hundred Master-Tiers fighting a single Hero, while supported by multiple magi formations, golems, and more, had driven Confriga to the brink. He tried launching himself at them but could barely manage a stagger, struggling to stay upright.

Then a loud, long sigh came from Valor. "Really, Adam? You brought me here to show me… this thing?"

"You," Confriga growled and gasped. "Silence. You…" Then he recognized Valor. "T–your right arm… You… You are he…”

"Yes, yes," Valor said. "And you are a third-rate practitioner of a very esteemed art." He regarded the skull on Confriga's chest and made a noise of absolute disgust. "Come then. Show me your Necromancy." Valor looked at the others. "Do not intervene. I have been humiliated and stagnant long enough. I have felt unlike myself for too long. Let me indulge my curiosity. Even as a meager Adept, I can instruct our friend here on a lesson.”

Shiv wasn't sure, but Adam just shrugged. "I'll make sure to shoot Confriga in the head if he ever gets close to stabbing Valor," the Young Lord said telepathically.

"What happened to honor and decency and all that?" Shiv muttered.

"Honor and decency end at the point your mentor is about to be killed by some bastard slaver," Adam said.

Valor drifted forward, and Confriga regarded him with as much curiosity as nervousness. "What? What are you doing? You are a Necromancer, The Great Valor Thann. So where are your effigies?"

“You foolish child. The entire world has died so many times over. Why would I need a skull when all of existence is a tomb? Why would I need a skull now, when I am surrounded by death, you rank amateur?”

Valor raised a hand, and Necromantic mana swirled around him, crackling, withering the world as if it were burning the pages of a book. The corrosion of loss warped the space around the ancient. For a moment, Shiv saw who he was again, the man he had once been, and a shiver ran through him, the same shiver countless vampires must have felt when they were fighting him—that he was an insect looking at something beyond even a man.

But then the moment was gone, and Valor was what he was again: a shattered Pathbearer slowly piecing himself back together with the help of his new disciples and allies.

Confriga clenched his teeth, his vertical jaw slamming together, and he drew forth green Necromantic energy from his sole remaining effigy. He launched it forward; a swelling tide of Corrosion that came at Valor—only for it to be seized by the Legendary Pathbearer with a simple gesture.

"What?" Confriga yelled.

Then Valor shaped the Necromantic energy, swirling it about his hand and slowly condensing it into the shape of a short sword. All that loss, all the corrosion, tempered and mastered by someone bearing only Adept-Tier potential, by someone who was only a shadow of who they were.

Shiv let out a laugh. It was frightening in a sense. He was powerful, but there was a lot he didn't know, and Valor demonstrated that without power, knowledge and expertise could still take one a long, long way.

"You wield the art clumsily and painfully," Valor said, gesturing for Confriga to come at him.

The Lesser Marshal stumbled forward on weak legs. He still slashed down so fast that Shiv could barely follow.

Yet Adam didn't fire his arrow, for Valor dodged before Confriga ever struck by exploiting the fact he had no true body and recomposing his limbs behind Confriga. Then, Valor jabbed Confriga in the back of his leg. The limb immediately began to burn and rot, and the Lesser Marshal went down with a ragged cry. "Your swordsmanship also needs work. You are quite good, I suspect, when you are hale. But when angry and spent, you fight like a Initiate, over-extending, over-exaggerating, pouring everything into your emotions. This is not a thing of feelings, boy. This is a thing of purpose and effectiveness. Get up. Strike me down. Do it again."

Confriga exploded into action. He roared, swinging his sword as hard as he could, from as many angles as he could, but time and time again, he was sent back to his knees as Valor casually struck the same point over and over. In seconds, Confriga's right leg was little more than a mangled, withered stump. The Lesser Marshal whimpered, but he managed to turn it into a growl of absolute hate. "You... you dare toy with me?"

"Is there anything stopping me?" Valor asked, more than a little condescension in his voice. "You played slaver, master, brute, and tyrant. And now, at your moment of final weakness, when you are spent, you are here, still spitting your spittle like a child. You embarrass me. You embarrass everyone who has ever practiced Necromancy. You embarrass anyone who has ever held a sword. And you embarrass your god in everything that you have ever worked for."

As if the System was waiting to make Confriga's humiliation complete, a notification appeared in everyone's vision.

Gate Mana Synchronization in Progress: Guardshead Leu recognized as new Gate Lord Candidate…

"Leu," Confriga breathed, his eyes widening. "Leu!" he roared to the heavens. "HELP ME! HELP ME, AND I WILL SEE YOU REWARDED!”

“I will do no such thing, Confriga," Leu said through the mana core. Suddenly, there was a pressure, a clench in the air as Guardshead Leu appeared, just a few steps away from the downed Gate Lord. The mana core came alive again, and with it followed a sudden drop in temperature. "Do you remember, Confriga? Do you remember some centuries ago, when you killed a juvenile Volteg? When you butchered him in front of his only remaining sibling?"

Confriga paused, thinking. "You... I… What?”

"You cannot," Leu said, a note of disappointment but also acceptance in her voice. "I know you cannot. Cruelty is in your nature. He is likely not the only juvenile you slew. But he was my clutch-brother. Mine. The only reason I made it to adolescence. The only reason!"

For the first time, she truly snarled, and it sounded like something was trying to claw its way out of her. But impossibly, Guardshead Leu wrestled herself back under control. "I... I have dreamed of this moment for so long. For so long, I have plotted and schemed and prayed. And I have done everything I could, everything to prepare myself. But there was no preparing myself," Leu began to laugh, "for how sweet this is. For how miserable you look. For how broken you are."

Gate Lord Confriga stared at Leu as understanding dawned in his expression. "You… How long? All this for revenge? Centuries of your life... Your service, your exemplary behavior... All just to take revenge on me?" He sounded like he couldn't understand the concept, couldn't understand giving so much of oneself just to hurt him.

"Yes!" Leu said, a hint of madness entering her voice. "And it was worth it. Every second. Every moment dedicated to hating you was worth it. And now: scream." The mana core flared, bringing down a concentrated beam of cold upon Confriga. As he tried to stop the surging mana, Valor cut his other leg, severing the limb with a single blow and cracking parts of the Lesser Marshal’s soul. Confriga roared in absolute agony. He crashed down, landing in a puddle of his own blood. Shiv felt his Magical Resistance come asunder, and several other things broke inside him as well.

But just then, a shudder ran through Shiv. No! Nononono! Desperation! A point of true desperation! The bindings are coming undone! The bargain comes due! It sees us! It sees me!

"Rose? Rose, what's wrong?" Shiv said aloud.

Adam looked at him. "What do you mean? Rose? What's happening to my mother?"

"I don't know," Shiv replied, tension spiking inside him.

Through it all, the beam of pure frost continued to build, continued to torture the howling Confriga. Valor looked down with disdain as Leu cackled with mad laughter.

The Gate Lord is broken! Confriga has given up hope! He's passed that final point of true despair! He's passed it! He's going to make it! His final, absolute offering!

Outside Context Problem: The Lesser Marshal’s end draws near. And the shackles on Absence break at last.

Today will be a feast to remember. Today, living history and animated legends will wet the Recollector’s eyes…