154 (II)

Weapon

"Yeah, well, thank the System for small mercies, because he has a big felling weapon on his side," Shiv replied. Still. Something about Valor's apprehension had Shiv feeling a little paranoid as well. Shiv followed one of the beams back to its firing position nearby.

Less than 500 meters away, Shiv caught sight of a still-standing section of a wide road on top of concrete pillars. On top of it was a Necrotech artillery unit. There were sixty figures standing atop the bridge, and most of them were magi—Necromancers, specifically. They channeled their corrosive mana together, forming massive spikes of Necromancy that they loaded into strange, ringed launchers.

Their artillery platforms resembled four-legged insects with a series of U-shaped arches traveling along their bodies, rather than an actual carapace. Pulsing tunnels of Dimensionality were channeled out from the corrosion screen, and the Necromantic spikes were loaded in. The arches tugged on the corrosive constructs and shaped them into long, narrow beams that surged forward.

Just as Shiv prepared to launch himself at the enemy, something moved in the corner of his eye. His head snapped down at an angle, and he discovered what Adam had been doing earlier with his Hydromancy wand. A few hundred Veilpiercers punctured the flesh of existence and returned to reality from all directions. From the dimensional pathways they left open, followed jets of hyper-pressurized water. They cleaved out as slashing geysers, moving so fast that they split through the bases of already compromised structures. The Necromancer artillerists on the bridge that Shiv was looking at fell along with their crumbling edifice, and all across the city, more jets of water speared out. Buildings were hewed and toppled like a forest of trees greeted with a tide of axes. Fountains of water exploded up into the air, unmaking several buildings from the inside. It was like an ocean was trying to erupt from just beneath Lost Angeles.

And then, the signs of return fire greeted Shiv. A fist of flame exploded a hundred meters away from him. He punched through its unfurling blast and spared himself from the swelling heat. Nearby, Adam's clones bust into existence, firing their Veilpiercers before vanishing again. More of Roland's arrows kissed the ground and shattered the earth. Blinding blasts cleaved the land asunder, but Shiv spiked down to avoid a salvo of corrosive missiles that came seeking his death.

Chaos erupted all around him. Shiv tried to find a trace of the original Adam or one of the orcs—

Inertial Overdrive 118 > 119

Through a dense wall of haze came a flicker of light, and pure instinct spared Shiv from harm. He swung his mage breaker right as a beam crashed toward him. A forking bolt of electricity infused with the foul miasma of Necromancy struck his hand, but his Magebreaker rejected it, and his Frictionless Vector sent it spearing into the earth instead.

Frictionless Vector 69 > 70

He activated Outside Context Problem, froze time, and threw his dagger in the direction of his enemy. He teleported to his blade and tried to track where the attacker was, but he found himself drenched in a veil of smoke. And it was magical smoke at that. It was unnaturally thick and dense, and Shiv couldn't see shit.

Yet, he still felt a feeling of static in the air. More importantly, he had a sense of improved smell. He let his Pheromonic Cipher guide him where his sight failed.

Awareness 42 > 43

He spiked himself 40 times in quick succession, drawing closer and closer to his target. Holes disintegrated before him. He hammered through magical wards as well. Finally, when he could practically taste the Necrotech upon his tongue, he discharged all the inertia he had been building up, and an explosion ripped out from his body. His Voidmantid armor suffered some damage, but then he reverted time back two seconds. Shiv's armor returned to a relatively healthy state.

As Shiv prepared to reorient himself and find Adam or a corrosion screen to attack, a series of clenching pressures gripped his body and stole away his attention. Someone was teleporting near him. Three massive cylinders burst out from billowing clouds of Dimensionality nearby. They rippled with oscillations of golden mana, and their shapes began to fissure apart as the magic contained within began to spear out in curving streams of light.

Shiv's eyes widened as he guessed what they were. Are those Chronomancy bombs?

He got his confirmation when they went off. Three waves of gold came at him. Shiv parried one of the explosions, but his Magebreaker rattled violently from the effort, and there was so much force behind the bomb that Shiv was launched back. The other two blasts ended up smashing into him while he was reeling. The first left a deep slash along his temporal shell. The second broke it open.

Gravitic Wrestler 148 > 149

Strider of the Unbending Path 139 > 140

But even so, his Chronomancy field didn't fully break.

Not until someone struck him in the back of the head.

Shiv's golden mana burst apart across his body, and when coherence returned to him, he realized he was dead.

Strider of the Unbending Path 140 > 144

Gravitic Wrestler 149 > 152

Inertial Overdrive 119 > 121

Frictionless Vector 70 > 76

The Deathless materialized over his body as a shroud of shifting Vitae. He watched as his corpse dangled in the air, impaled through the back of the head by a crystalline greatsword. Behind him, a Pathbearer clad in golden skeletal armor and sporting twelve mechanical wings from their spine bore the weight of Shiv's body with one hand. The enemy thrust harder, driving their thin greatsword deeper through Shiv's left eye. Coldness washed through Shiv as he sobered.

It had been a while since he experienced such a sudden death.

Just because he was a Hero didn't mean he was invincible. Not even close. A single moment of distraction cost him everything. Can't hesitate anymore. All they need is a single mistake to end me.

And where his failure was being stunned by their fast response, the enemy betrayed themselves with their inattentiveness, failing to notice the sprawling mass of Vitae hovering in the air nearby. Shiv acted, wrapping his Vitae around the enemy, sapping their vitality from them as he used one of his strands to plunge his still-bound Skysplitter into the base against their neck.

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The enemy cried out, but their voice wasn't human at all. Rather, it came with the crackle of mechanical distortion, and sparks filled the air rather than blood. Shiv wasn't just fighting a Necrotech; he was fighting a Necrotech bot. Their armor exploded with golden mana, and suddenly, Shiv lost track of them again. The feeling of losing an entire section of his own history was uncanny and terrifying. He remembered the first time he faced the Recollector. A coldness swelled through Shiv's soul as he realized something had cleaved through half of his Vitae retroactively. Broken parts of his red and white mana were bleeding off into the air, evaporating as they had been severed from his body.

Another hit slammed down upon him. Shiv plunged through the air—barely a sinew left of his sprawling mass of Vitae, and he felt the chill of true death lick at his core. Anger detonated inside him. He tried activating his Strider of the Unbending Path again, but his temporal shell was still broken. There was less than a sliver of his being left. He fed his anger into his Inertial Overdrive.

And it was barely enough to spare his life.

The thin greatsword slashed down a centimeter next to the last string of Shiv's existence. The enemy Pathbearer hadn't realized they missed, and they were unprepared when Shiv speared himself right into their neck. A scream of compromised metal filled the air, and the Deathless began to wriggle his way into the automaton's sparking wound, draining vitality while ripping through wires and critical mechanisms within the bot's neck.

Once more, a golden aura surged out from the enemy's body, and Shiv pushed himself deeper into the enemy in desperation. But suddenly, they were interrupted as Shiv heard a pitched frequency squeal out from somewhere. He remembered hearing that frequency someplace before, and he followed the frequency back to its point of origin. There was a cape attached to the final string of his existence—a cape, a blade, a gauntlet, and the faint shape of his Voidmantid armor. They were all being dragged along by his Vitae, and from within the cape, Can Hu was unleashing its Binaric Sovereign skill against the enemy automaton.

Gods, I love you, Penitent, Shiv thought.

The enemy Chronomancer shrieked as they tried to regain control over themselves, but their body went haywire; they were lost to themselves. Shiv's Vitae swelled as he suckled life force out of the bot like a leech. He felt his enemy writhe, blindly slashing at him with their blade. A few times, they chipped off parts of his reforming personhood. But whatever Can Hu was doing, it was badly affecting their coherence.

Then, both Shiv and the Necrotech automaton crashed down against the ground. The bot went stiff. Shiv shot forward, tearing clean through his enemy's neck. The automaton stilled as its head rolled off to the side. Shiv rose from their corpse, half-filled with Vitae but nowhere near a true resurrection yet. He was a half-formed mess of red and white, shaped only to resemble his original self in terms of outline. Just then, his old corpse struck the ground nearby, and Shiv seized his body before chucking it elsewhere, hoping to confuse his foes.

This proved to be a wise maneuver, as a barrage of corrosive spells turned his corpse into a smoldering patch of nothing a half-second later.

Deception 23 > 24

The dense veil of smoke was only growing thicker. Shiv could hear fighting everywhere, could see faint shapes moving beyond the shroud. He needed to figure out where to go and finish his resurrection.

Good thing I don't constantly lose vitality every passing second anymore, Shiv thought to himself. And then, as he searched for new prey, he noticed that faint sheen of red lining everything. That faint sheen of vitality stabilizing existence as well. He recalled how draining that caused parts of the world to rupture, creating mana instability.

And suddenly Shiv had a plan. Well, something that was like the concept of a plan. It was more of a vague idea, frankly. But if he could drain enough, if he could cause a mana storm to take shape, could he use that against the Vicar and the Inquisition when they arrived?

Regardless of that, I can do one thing with it: cause some chaos. And Shiv immediately began sapping from the world itself.

Everything went to hell in an instant. The parts he drained were ripped open, like skin licked away to reveal flesh and bone. Chaotic expressions of mana spilled over into the world. A storm splashed across the ground, contained within an oozing membrane and rimmed with clouds. Fire billowed out from other ruptures, and a rain of heavy crystalline stalagmites descended upon the land like falling hail. Screams and cries of terror sounded all around as the ruptures connected to each other and a chaotic vortex poured through, ripping its way across the world.

Shit, I hope this doesn't bite me in the ass in a minute.

Vitaemancy 70 > 71

As soon as he finished that thought, he resurrected and immediately suffered the consequences of his own action. An explosion of Dynamacy ballooned out from behind him. It smashed him through building after building before it dragged him along the ground. His armor screamed in protest. He could feel parts of it breaking, and he bit back a growl of misery as pain filled his body. One downside of being sensory-bonded to your armor through a network of mycelia: everything that broke in it hurt you.

But Shiv was fine with pain. Pain was just a feeling.

He pulled on his gravitic field and shot up into the air once more. He slammed his fist together and discharged his sheath. The fog didn't clear, but he did catch sight of a corrosion screen nearby. It pulsated with an unceasing glow of green, and Shiv activated his Chameleon, Creeping Void, and Minor Illusion abilities in tandem and as he cast himself at the enemy.

They weren't prepared for him. He sent his twelve mana hydras spearing ahead as he tore into the enemy with steel and spell. His Aegis of Assimilation shattered resistances and supped the flesh out of armor. The ones that survived Shiv's Biomancy were then greeted by a magnified Skysplitter. His blade turned the Necrotechs into puffs of red and spraying pieces of sparking metal. He dragged his dagger across the ground and detonated his sheath as he passed over the corrosion screen artillery platform. It broke apart into pieces as Shiv lobbed himself higher into the air.

One down. A shit-ton to go.

He followed his sense of smell again. Spells tore through the air—but they came nowhere near hitting him. His Creeping Void and other stealth supplements were serving their purpose.

The Creeping Void 113 > 114

Just then, he passed through the dense haze of magical smoke and found himself just a kilometer or so away from Blackedge. He realized he could easily reach the town with his Biomancy field now if he so desired. And that made things simple when he saw twenty or so beams of Necromancy shooting up into the air around the town. They were all spread apart, but Shiv didn't need to attack them in person. Instead, he struck out with his biokinetic hydras. He attacked with one hydra after another as they all shared the same field, but it extended from his person with ease.

Blasts of red blossomed across the ruins of Lost Angeles. Shiv assimilated every piece of organic architecture he could. What he couldn't break, he struck and smashed using a newly forged chain of cancer flails. A nightmarish cord of tissue curved and then ripped through buildings and people alike. Entire blocks collapsed as Shiv swung his kilometer long flail left and right, scything across Lost Angeles and silencing Necrotech projection sites one after another.

He spiked the heavy end of his flail down on the ground over and over as it traveled. Shockwaves spread in increments as blocks crumbled into the soil. A beam of Necromancy tore through the air, trying to sever the leash connecting him to his cancer flail. Shiv simply assimilated the biomass in an instant, converting the flail into a spell rendering. The beam missed. He threw his blade and teleported.

After he repositioned himself, he resumed his reign of terror, swinging his flail across the land.

Well, this is pretty fun.

His magic only got stronger when chains of fear speared through his person from all across the world. They knew he was here now, and the survivors were terrified. Good. It was only going to get worse.

Aegis of Assimilation 105 > 106

Shape of Monstrosity 107 > 108

A team of Necrotech Pathbearers dove into Shiv's Creeping Void. They launched a barrage of explosive spells that shook the world, and he passed through the attack with a pulse of Outside Context Problem.

Outside Context Problem 64 > 65

Shiv rematerialized as he swung an extended cord of cancerous flesh against their bodies. Arms and legs snapped. Magical Resistances shattered, exposing vulnerable flesh. And the cancer flail only grew.

Whip Proficiency 10 > 12

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