Legends die the same as Pathless, the same as Initiates, the same as Adepts, Masters, and Heroes.

Legends die just the same as the insects crawling at our feet, like birds caught in a storm.

Legends die. Some die quietly, some die brutally, some die with dignity, and some shatter worlds in their death throes, desperate to cling to life.

Becoming a Legend grants you incredible power. It grants you absolute power, as some might understand it. It is an elevation of your skills. It makes you greater on a level that few beneath you can understand.

When you delve into your own soul, you emerge changed. You emerge greater.

But that does not promise you life. That does not protect you from the cruelties of the System. Your power is merely a single facet, a variable to your existence.

The first Legend I killed was named Ozgen of Cimera, but his people called him the Warden of Flame. He held this title because his Legendary Skill allowed him to manifest a literal plane of fire—of heat so intense that all would simply turn to dust around him. With this Legendary Skill, he incinerated armies, he terrorized kingdoms around him, and for a moment in time, he imagined himself the single most significant man in all the Abyss.

I found him when I was still a Hero, with my singular Heroic-Tier Skill being in Stealth, while Ozgen was a Legend with a slew of Master-Tier and Heroic-Tier Skills to supplement him.

From a purely numerical point of view, there should have been no contest between us.

But unlike Ozgen, I was prepared. I used my skills wisely. I crippled his spymasters and murdered his Investigators. And though Ozgen was a warrior with few peers, he was a man with many vices as well. And after too many drinks, too much pleasure of the flesh, he slumbered. And while he slumbered, I came for him in the dark. And what matter was his plane of fire then?

Legends die. Sometimes, they die gurgling on their own blood, same as any slave. When vice exceeds virtue, even the strongest skill will be betrayed by personal weakness.

-Valor Thann

157 (I)

Weakness

A corrosive dawn flared; the world around Shiv withered. The air itself was stained with Necromantic mana. The Deathless anticipated both pain and destruction, for his soul to burn, and for everything around him to be destroyed.

Yet that wasn't what happened. Instead, a chain of spells wrapped around him, their interconnected shapes glowing bright with the same corrosion that powered Sullain's sun. Shiv's breath stilled as Necromantic wards formed around him, parrying the sun's glare away from his flesh and soul.

Shiv focused on weakening his Pillar of Orichalcum to start moving again, but his Heroic-Tier Toughness Skill needed time to adjust.

Sullain did not share that weakness.

As the Vicar descended, his long, sinuous body was bathed in Necromantic flares. Thousands of spells erupted from all corners of the world, from over the horizon, from bursts of Dimensionality that opened up across the flesh of existence in bursting pockets. These spells shot up to greet the Vicar, and Sullain let out a savage cry as counter-spells manifested in each of his countless hands. A hailstorm of magic descended from the sky. They tore through the parted sky above, glanced off the great rupture Shiv left in existence, and they met the magical onslaught unleashed by the orcs.

A supreme display of magical prowess lit the Yellowstone Republic, and if Shiv hadn't witnessed the brutal power of the Tarrasque firsthand, he would have believed that the world was ending then and there.

Despite the orcs being an army, the Legendary Pathbearer proved himself beyond them.

His spells shattered those that were cast by the gray-skins with barely any resistance. More, Sullain's mana could shift. His spell patterns changed from one shape to another faster than Shiv could follow, from grasping talons to spreading nets and darting missiles.

He looked around to see orcs disintegrating within columns of fire, orcs coming apart in hair-thin slices as grids of friction passed through them, orcs screaming as they tumbled out of their dimensional pockets, clawing at their skulls.

The world devolved into chaos and fire. The orcs cast a flood of spells—but somehow, Sullain was overwhelming them by himself. It wasn't just his magic that was staggering—it was the speed he could shape his spells, how he cast hundreds of spells at the same time and within scant seconds.

Sullain was a bastard and a coward, but there was nothing Shiv could say against the Vicar's quality as a mage.

How in all the hells did Roland hold you off by himself for so long?

"FIENDS! BEASTS! CREATURES OF RANK BRUTALITY AND DEBASED CRUELTY! I CAST THEE AWAY! YOU ARE UNMERITORY OF THE GREAT ONE'S GLORY! OF THE PROMISE OF ETERNITY! LET THE GREAT ENEMY TAKE YOU!"

The Necromantic dawn flashed behind Sullain. Shiv spiked himself hard—but his pillar barely budged. Godsdammit, now I get why this skill's Heroic.

"AND YOU!" Sullain pointed a metallic digit at Shiv. The air twisted and shook around the Vicar. His eyes burned with Necromantic energy. "VILE MISTAKE! ABOMINATION OF UDRAAL! BE UNMADE!"

The world turned sickly and green as the Vicar's sun wept a river of Necromantic fire down at Shiv.

The orcs might have infused him with Necromantic wards, but they wouldn't be enough to help him survive this. Not nearly—

The dense stream of Necromancy tore across existence. Shiv flinched back. His pillar moved by a meter—his mind reeled.

Another layer of spellcraft manifested in the air.

It resembled a large bunker, curved and domed, yet it was partially transparent, lit with the colors of Dynamancy, Dimensionality, and Psychomancy, while its outsides were lined with Necromancy. Its edges materialized through the air, revealing a structure a kilometer wide and across. It swept just over Shiv as the Vicar's massive spell impacted, and as it slammed into the bunker, parts of the enormous warding deformed.

But it did not break. Not immediately.

And just then, several teleporting orcs materialized beside Shiv. They hovered in the air, and they formed new spells around him. The corrosive patterns fused around his body expanded, becoming a true layer of Necromantic armor. It never touched him, however. It was always separated by a distance of five centimeters.

"Don't pop just yet, Insul." One of the orcs laughed. "We can still keep this fight going for a while more, at the very least."

Shiv offered the orc a feral grin. "Let's find out what it takes to break a Legend."

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A cheer went up among the orcs, and then they were gone, teleported by collapsing waves of Dimensionality. The Necromantic beam above was extinguished as Shiv found Sullain summoning his own wards, parrying tidal waves of magic crashing into him from all sides. The Deathless could barely make out what was happening between the blinding blasts, but he could see Sullain obliterating entire sections of the landscape with simple gestures.

The orcs had shifted the momentum of combat for barely a moment before Sullain overpowered them once again. A wall of fireballs came at Sullain—large enough to cover an entire section of the sky. Sullain held out a hand and pulled.

The mountain-leveling blasts of fire winked out like candles as every bit of fire and force was torn away from the world, gathering thereafter between the vicar's massive claws, condensing into twin spheres of shuddering destruction.

"You seek to abuse my spirit?" Sullain asked. "I will show you what it means to be unraveled at the soul."

The Legend stretched out his arms, but he did not simply fling the spheres down. Instead, he channeled both globes of mana outward, letting the condensed mana splash over the bunker protecting Shiv while pieces of the spell broke off, blowing chunks out of distant mountains and holes through the earth, where orcs were annihilated in their hundreds.

There were too many things happening at once, too many shapes moving around, too many spells being exchanged, and Shiv was still pinned in place.

His Orichalcum pillar wasn't something he could casually just dispel. Though it made him invulnerable to the blows of even a Legend, it took time to weaken, time he didn't have. His Reflexes could do nothing against it, and his Physicality wasn't great enough to move it.

Gravitic Wrestler 169 > 170

Time for a new strategy, Shiv thought. I'm not going to be able to push through this with raw strength. So what do I have?

He went through his active skills, and his eyes widened. Chronomancy. His solution lay within Chronomancy. He didn't need to waste time weakening himself. What he needed was a fast way to reset and then re-engage thereafter.

Shiv went outside context, and froze time in the same instant. As he did, he saw something that gave him pause. The Vicar's body was frozen, but there was an ethereal twin to the great serpent, an ethereal twin that was still casting spells, that was flinging blasts of power, hammering wounds deep into the land. A golden orc swept through the sky. Sullain's spirit manifestation made an off-handed gesture, and a blade of air lined with Chronomancy ripped clean through the orc.

The gray brute bounced off Sullain in two halves.

Despite this, the spirit twin couldn't perceive Shiv, and he cast himself a full twelve seconds back in time.

Wait, twelve? Then Shiv realized the orc's fear chains were still empowering him. Them being here made him stronger than he was before. The Deathless grinned as he cast himself across time.

When he blinked into existence in the same space, he found his Pillar of Orichalcum to be far weaker, not quite so immovable. Immediately, he stopped concentrating on his Toughness and focused on weakening it. The reddish-gold glow faded, and Shiv moved through the air. As he spiked himself, he bit back a cry of pain as fractures spread across his bones and tears lined his muscles.

It seemed that he couldn't avoid that brief period of weakness every time he left the pillar state. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the first cycle he went through.

It seemed his brief period of weakness in the aftermath corresponded to how much Toughness he cultivated before.

I should be able to skip this entirely if I plant a temporal anchor before I begin using the Pillar of Orichalcum. That'll let me avoid the whole cycle altogether.

And he did that immediately. He left a temporal echo of himself infused in the air as he rose up to meet the Vicar. A faint echo of gold lingered behind Shiv as he climbed skyward, seeking to make a victim of his great enemy.

He accelerated fast, caring nothing for his body, ignoring the coldness that was beginning to bleed into him. He wouldn't be able to maintain outside context for long, but he didn't need long; he just needed to land a hit on the Vicar and get his measure.

Sullain was focused on the orcs. He swept his hands out wide, and a wave of Hydromancy hammered down from the sky, exploding into droplets of corrosion. Shiv could see the attacks from the orcs waning dramatically—where there were thousands of spells crashing against Sullain before, there seemed to be only a hundred left, and more yet were struck down by the Necromantic rain.

Legends were godsdamned nightmares. Even ones as emotionally compromised as Sullain.

Too bad Shiv was Unique. He passed through Sullain's Necromantic rain without any issue. It couldn't touch him, not during his self-referential state.

Outside Context Problem 71 > 72

And just then, as he got within 500 meters of the Vicar, instinct took hold of him. There was a reason why the Vicar had a spiritual twin, why he could channel magic free from his body. But something told Shiv that he could hit it, that he could deal damage to the Vicar on a level deeper than the physical.

He began coating himself in Vitae, wrapping it around his arms, even as his vitality fell to precipitously low levels. It was a great risk, but he didn't care. Not after what he'd suffered, and because he had no time. He needed to catch up to the Tarrasque to save his companions, but he wasn't going to be able to go anywhere with Sullain still here.

And besides, it would be best for him to face a Legendary enemy as a Legend himself.

Quest: Break Vicar Sullain's siege of Blackedge and stop another war between the surface and the Abyss before it can begin.

Success: Evolve an [Existing Skill] to Legendary Tier.

Failure: The Abyss rises, consuming all surface territory of Lost Angeles.

Shiv impacted the Vicar's spiritual twin in a cataclysmic clash. To his delight, he felt part of the Vicar's body buckle inward. The substance that comprised Sullain's spiritual self felt brittle before his Vitae, and it shattered like lengths of glass impacted by a metallic projectile.

At once, all the spells Sullain was casting shattered. The rainfall of Necromancy sputtered out. The wards protecting Sullain died. The corrosive dawn fizzled out of existence.

When Sullain's spiritual manifestation broke, it didn't just break like a material; it broke like a skill.

And Shiv had gotten more than a bit of practice in breaking skills from his orcs.

White and red mana exploded out from Shiv, and it was immediately followed by a brutal discharge. The Vicar's spiritual manifestation plunged back to his physical form. It stopped being able to cast spells when time was frozen, and just then, more orc Chronomancers joined the battle. Their magics splashed against the Vicar, spearing through Sullain's immense body. Beams of fire, whips of lightning, claws shaped from wind, and jetstreams of water lashed at him all at once.

Shiv felt himself come apart in broken tatters of flesh. Death came close to claiming him. He just scoffed.

Shiv reverted himself back across time, blinking into perfect shape where his temporal echo was. His Chronomancy field began to splinter, but that didn't matter. He had wounded the Vicar. And he knew this was an enemy he could kill.

This was a fight he could win.

Strider of the Unbending Path 151 > 152

Damaging Sullain's spiritual skill had put him on the defensive, and now Shiv's enemy was vulnerable to an entire domain of magic: the Vicar no longer had a stranglehold over time.

Shiv dismissed his temporal shell as he shot through the air once more. The Vicar reeled, screaming in pain as he clutched at himself. Parts of his physical body fell away, but Shiv knew that wasn't where he was wounded.

"NO!" the Vicar shrieked. "How… how could you damage my skill?!"

The Vicar's wails brought a swell of warmth into Shiv in Shiv's heart. Sullain's head snapped toward Shiv—ignoring the deluge of magic hammering into him. Part of his body twisted and cracked, but a great deal of the magic simply flowed through Sullain. Shiv narrowed his eyes. He'd seen that effect when facing a dragon. Sullain's body was made of magically conductive materials.

Best way to finish you is brute force, then.

Awareness 46 > 47

Sullain held up a hand, gathering the forces of Necromantically-charged gravity, and the same hand was knocked aside as Bonk suddenly appeared once more, bursting out from a rift of Dimensionality. A wave of cascading mana was unleashed, but not towards Shiv. Rather, it tumbled across the sky, ripping a path through distant clouds and reaching across the horizon.

The Vicar's body shook. He let out a screech as he ignited himself, but the flames that spilled out from him were black and lined with static. As attacks splashed against the Vicar, they faded out of existence. They were displaced entirely, emerging behind Sullain or not at all. Bonk vanished from sight.

At the same time, Sullain's other hands began to perform a series of rapid and intricate gestures, but it wasn't the motions that caught Shiv's attention. It was the swelling of power.

A chain of Biomancy formed along his skeletal hands. A chain that glistened with so much mana, Shiv felt his mouth run dry. The Vicar was outputting so much power that it somehow made even the Composer's magical workings seem pathetic.

The Biomancy rushing out from Sullain rivaled the light of his corrosive sun, and there were so many microspells lining the Biomantic construct that Shiv couldn't even begin to fathom what it was.

Then Sullain grasped the construct and twisted.

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