Aurelian burst into a desperate sprint the moment he laid his eyes on Zylara.
Slay that abomination before it kills her! Bahamut thundered in his mind.
Aurelian barely mustered the focus to do more than send an affirmation, and cycled his mana at its highest capacity.
Zylara was ensnared in a dance with death, and her partner was a grotesquely mutated Corrupted Skarnid; a creature whose malignant appearance and wildly altered form was enough to set Aurelian’s hardened heart to hammering in his chest. The Skarnid's body was a macabre spectacle of corruption, its carapace a writhing mass of pulsating sores and festering blisters. The air around it was thick with the stench of decay, notable even from a hundred metres away, and each of its movements was accompanied by the sickening squelch of its blistered exoskeleton.
Revelate!
Name: Mutant Corrupted Skarnid
Race: Mutant Blight Arachnid
Level: 45
Tier: Adept
Health: 1,560 / 2,300
Description: Skarnids are twisted predators that thrive in the Desolation, and stalk its corrupted lands for prey with which to sate their consuming hunger. This Skarnid has been further corrupted and twisted by the experimentations of Lycinius of Telastra, and managed to escape his lab prior to his demise.
Special Condition(s): Each of the blight pustules on the Mutant Corrupted Skarnid’s exoskeleton which erupt unleash a noxious acid that will corrode steel and burn away flesh. At will, this creature can detonate any such pustules—which will grow back for so long as it has mana.
Atop its skull, a second head, half-formed and twitching, leered with silent malice—its existence an affront to the natural order. From its chitinous stinger a second tail, grotesque and writhing, flailed wildly through the air as if the creature were uncertain of how to control it. Acid sprayed wildly from the stubbier tail’s bulbous sac, and where it splashed the ruins of Albion; stone hissed and melted.
But it was the creature's new legs which instilled the deepest horror. Eight in number, each a ghastly parody of human limbs, complete with feet or hand-like growths on their ends which carried it with terrifying intent across the ground. Their ghastly white flesh, mottled with decay, writhed and grasped at the air when moving to place each step.
Dragon’s Resolve is now Level 18!
Aurelian barely even noticed the level-up notification, which he dismissed instinctively while crossing the distance between the mutant Skarnid and where it had cornered Zylara, who was desperately attempting to half-crawl, and half-limp away on what Aurelian saw was only one working leg.
Her once graceful form was now marred by the grotesque spectacle of her leg, the flesh melted away to reveal the bone, stark and accusing in its pallor. The remnants of her flesh hung like tattered banners, and her tears, mingled with blood and dirt; painted her face with the visage of despair.
She should already be dead. he realised with grim certainty, before looking properly upon the Skarnid once more.
That was when he realised what had kept her alive for so long.
The Skarnid was regarding her with an unsettling, almost contemplative gaze. Its numerous eyes, which had thus far failed to notice Aurelian’s approach, glinted with a malevolent curiosity that inferred a disturbingly higher intellect. It was as if the creature savored her terror, and was relishing in the slow build of its prey's suffering. Aurelian could feel the malign interest of the beast through his Soulforce, a tumult of aberrant and vile emotions which sent goosebumps of horror rippling across his flesh.
Dragon’s Resolve is now Level 19!
Dragon’s Gaze allowed Aurelian to identify the mana-channels connected to the acidic pustules, but he realised that he had no way to destroy them—or killing the Skarnid—without mortally endangering Zylara. She was too close, and if not for the creature’s terrifying interest, would have likely already been dead a dozen times over. Aurelian was less than fifty metres from the creature, and in that brief window of approach, he made the choice to follow his instincts.
Dragon’s Gaze is now Level 22!
“Sorry, Z.” he muttered pre-emptively under his breath.
Force magic roared to life in a tempest of power in his left fist at the same moment as the Skarnid finally noticed his approach, and Aurelian poured his mana into the coalescing power. He had only ever used one form of the magic; Gravitic Crush. It had been his easiest means by which to cause immediate and efficient death since he’d received it.
Nothing compared to the raw might of crushing an enemy’s skull instantly.
Aurelian’s focus narrowed in to a needlepoint, and in the same moment as he poured every ounce of his Willpower into his Intent—much as he had all those days ago when first unlocking a door—to shape his desire, so too did he do the unthinkable: he redeemed his Skill Evolution and Skill Upgrade points.
Skill Evolution Point consumed!
Skill Evolution request identified!
Processing . . .
Zodiac Detected: Dragon!
Soulbond Detected: Dragon King!
Skill Detected: Calamity’s Blade!
Title Detected: Aether Sage!
Title Detected: Dragon Rider!
Title Detected: Primogenitor!
Title Detected: Mantle Bearer!
Trait Detected: Sanguinated!
Trait Detected: Godsbane!
Zodiac, Soulbond, Titles, and Traits have found Synergy!
Recalibrating Skill Evolution . . .
Recalibration Complete!
Gravitic Crush (R) is now Evolving!
Aurelian felt something inside of his spirit snap.
Dragon’s Resolve roared to life as if it were a true and living thing, and he felt as if he were two of himself within one body: the half focused on what he desired, and the half suffering through a fundamental shearing of his very essence and a reconstitution of the foundation of his spiritual self. Bahamut’s power roared across their link, and Aurelian felt as much as saw the Dragon King funneling an incandescent tether of raw mana into him in a tsunami of power.
His Calamity Core ‘spun’ so fast within him that he could almost physically hear its whine of motion, despite the impossibility, and he felt something bend within his existence. Meanwhile his left hand tightened into a fist, Zylara screamed as something audibly snapped; and with herculean effort that he loosely thought broke something in his arm, he tore the elf away from the mutated Skarnid horror with a snare of spatial control and a physical wrenching motion.
The action pulled his female companion back toward and past him like she were drawn by a bungee cord, and with a scream of terror and agony both she was sent bouncing like a ragdoll along the earth; her bones cracking audibly from the impossible force of Aurelian’s action. All of his mana had been focused into the act, and he wondered how much of what he had done had been necessary—and how much had been overkill. In the end, it didn’t matter.
She would be wounded, but more importantly, she would be alive.
Aurelian’s vision turned double abruptly, and he felt both of his eyes’ blood vessels pop.
Power seared him a heartbeat later.
Energy coruscated across his body with such ferocity that he froze mid-sprint, and was turned into a morbid tableau of agony and erupting magical force. A rictus of pain was his only expression, the familiar feeling of System-enforced unmaking his only sensation; and yet Dragon’s Resolve only worked harder to make up for the loss of autonomy—and in the act, allowed him to retain full awareness of everything.
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Dragon’s Resolve is now Level 20!
. . .
Dragon’s Resolve is now Level 23!
Pain Tolerance is now Level 33!
. . .
Pain Tolerance is now Level 38!
Aurelian felt something within his spirit unlock, like a dam of potential unleashing from a stoppered bottle, and he felt the world tilt in a way he would never be able to explain. His naval seemed to rise into his skull, and his eyes demented until the very essence of reality appeared as broken and fractured as the most bewildering of picaso’s works.
Time stood still around him, and even the aetheric lightning lashing at the air like the vines of an awoken god rippled past his gaze as if someone had reduced reality to single freeze frames, and individual moments.
A pair of sun-bright white eyes regarded him from beyond the veil of the world, and Aurelian saw within their depths a mix of curiosity, hatred, and beneath both; the echo of fear.
He thought he heard the disapproving sigh of a serene woman’s voice, and the brush of lips on his, and then reality abruptly and brutally reasserted itself. In the same instant, a chime that almost seemed angry erupted within his mind—and a gong reverberated throughout his soul. Its sound seemed to halt everything once more, call all to heel, and make even Bahamut freeze in time mid-beat of his mighty wings.
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
Hidden Conditions Met!
You have managed to sunder the very fabric of space itself, and achieve a Dominion through the combination of hitherto impossible amounts of unique skills and titles! Through your madcap acts of innovation, daring, and utter disregard for all the rules, laws, and parameters of the System you have somehow managed to attain a power that beggars common belief. Well done, Reclaimer. You have managed to draw the active attention of the System itself. Beware that your actions do not in turn incite its ire.
Achievement: In the Myth, a God is Force!
For successfully defying all the understood laws of Cultivation, you have received the following:
1 x Title: Lord of Force (U)
1 x Trait: Force Nullification (U)
1 x Skill Evolution Point
Skill Evolution complete!
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
Your Gravitic Crush (R) skill has evolved to Force Dominion (T)!
A Dominion is exclusively the realm of the Divine, and achieved upon the attainment of Ascended-level Tempering and the transition of the Core to Divinity. This has been the Law of the Realms since the birth of the System, and yet by your actions—and by the nature of Calamity’s Blade—you have shattered these eonic foundations. In the act, you have attained what no one in the history of all the infinite Realms has attained: a Dominion while mortal.
You now tread on the path of godhood, Reclaimer!
Force Dominion has been reset to Level 1!
TOLERANCE FOR YOUR ANOMALIES HAS ENDED, RECLAIMER
CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE ACTIONS WISELY
EACH SUBSEQUENT ARBITRATION OF YOUR VIOLATIONS WILL ESCALATE IN SEVERITY
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Force Dominion is now Level 2!
Reality reasserted itself, and Aurelian’s body ached with remnant agony and he felt himself swaying on his feet. The torrent of mana being fed to him by Bahamut screamed for release, and Aurelian thought he might detonate were he to fail to guide it from his channels and meridians. His eyes, one bloodied and out of focus, honed in on the mutant Corrupted Skarnid—and as much by instinct as by idle interest, he activated his newest skill.
Force Magic pooled in a convalescence that warped the fabric of reality around the mutated abomination, and the river of mana Bahamut had gifted him evaporated from his channels with terrifying abruptness—followed by all of his mana as well. A pain like the simultaneous cramp of every muscle and tendon in his body seized him, originating from his Core; and Aurelian smashed into the groan with a pathetic wheeze of agony.
Pain Tolerance is now level 39!
With consciousness afforded only by Pain Tolerance and Dragon’s Resolve, Aurelian had time to watch as his magical invocation actualised around the mutant Corrupted Skarnid… and it simply ceased. One moment it stood there, proud and upright upon its eight legs and focused on him to the exclusion of all else—and the next the area was a sudden, saturating storm of guts, sand, dust, metallic flakes, and chitinous exoskeleton.
Everything one hundred metres from the mutant in every direction except the ones that led to him, Zylara, Bahamut, or Karsys had simply been torn apart. It was not an active thing, as much as it was an instantaneous and immediate shift of the scope of reality’s matrix. One moment the world had been as it was, and the next there was a storm of diffusion as if gravity itself had gone mad within an area exactly one hundred metres in scope.
A crater one hundred metres deep at its lowest point had formed as well, and Aurelian found himself swallowing when he looked at the impacted site. It appeared as if an orb of pure force had simply dismantled everything around it with the Skarnid at its centre. Somehow Aurelian understood exactly what had happened, but couldn’t quite put it into words.
He had sheared the world with his new power.
Tidal forces of gravity had acted into near-infinite variation to create a kind of singularity of pure force, and everything within its scope and at its edges—which were exact down to the picometre—had been diffused into the smallest possible form of itself. Had he been stronger, he instinctively knew he might have created a true singularity—and simply atomised everything within its scope.
Still wracked by violent convulsions, Aurelian checked his HUD.
Health: 210/950 | Mana: 0/465 | Stamina: 27/275 | Anima: 35
Well, that explained it.
Aurelian had not simply channeled all of Bahamut’s mana, he had used all of his own to the point of going into his health pool to make up for the lack of power to fuel his impulsive casting. Foolish. Impetuous. Stupid.
The System itself had warned him about his repeated follies.
Zylara cried out abruptly, and his self-recrimination vanished.
Aurelian, his body still assailed by spasms of unyielding pain, forced every fiber of his being to move and to turn towards Zylara. He saw her perhaps fifteen metres beyond him, sprawled on the ground, and her body broken but clinging to life. The sight struck a chord deep within him, a mixture of relief and a slow growth of gut-wrenching guilt.
He had saved her, yes, but at what cost?
Gritting his teeth against the waves of pain that threatened to submerge him, Aurelian began the arduous journey towards her. Each movement was agony, his body protesting over every inch he partially crawled, and partially dragged himself forward. His resolve, however, was ironclad—and both Pain Tolerance and Dragon’s Resolve itself ensured it remained so. His pain was ephemeral in the face of his responsibility to his newfound ally. He had been the cause of her suffering, and so she was all that mattered.
There was only one way to save her, and though it had not been his intent, the simple truth was that he no longer had a choice.
The reality of their dire situation was grim. In their party, only he and Bahamut possessed the power to heal, and Bahamut's abilities were woefully inadequate for what Zylara needed. Aurelian knew that the burden of saving her rested solely on his shoulders, and yet he had not syphoned nearly enough Anima for what he had originally planned to do for her.
He had no choice. He would need to use the Sanguine Kiss.
The weight of that understanding filled him with a sense of determination, and in the same instant it was underscored by a valley of dread.
What would Zylara think of his actions? Would she see them as a manipulative ploy, a scheme to force her hand? The thought of her looking at him with resentment, with accusations in her eyes, was more painful than he might have suspected it would be. He had come to rely on her and Karsys, but in a way that only a truly lonely man could. He had Bahamut of course, but the Dragon King was as much a brother and soulbonded partner as he was an enigmatic and wholly alien existence.
He was a Dragon King. Aurelian was a man. Nephilim and Calamity perhaps, but a man nonetheless. Bahamut could not fully comprehend his mind, not the way that Karsys and Zylara were naturally able to. The Dragon King did not understand the concept of mortal fragility. It was not his fault—and Bahamut’s strength had never been anything but a boon to Aurelian.
But still, he needed something simpler than the intensity and immensity of the bond he shared with the Dragon he’d bidden to hatch.
In Zylara and Karsys, he had found that. They were his only mortal companions. They were his only friends, inasmuch as he could even call anyone a friend outside of his Dragon. The thought of her rejection, in the lens of that understanding, wounded him and scared him more than he imagined it would. Would she rather embrace death than owe her life to a choice that had been stripped from her?
As he inched closer, his breath stirring the dust and nostrils crinkling at the lingering stench of the slain Skarnid, Aurelian grappled with his thoughts. In the grand scheme of things, her opinion of him seemed trivial compared to the urgency of her survival.
She could hate him, even revile him if she chose to—but he couldn't allow her to die when he held the key to not just her survival, but her evolution into something beyond what she was; something not nearly so easily broken as a mere elf.
“I just want her to live," he whispered to himself. “I want her to be strong.” The words were a bulwark against the storm of emotions raging within him, steadying his focus and calming his raging worries. Dragon’s Resolve helped, but it could not soothe the natural thoughts he possessed—or perhaps he did not allow it to, for he did not believe it should.
The worry, concern, and guilt was deserved after all.
When Aurelian finally reached her side, he paused and looked down at her battered form where it was splayed out upon the ground. Her obsidian hair, matted with blood and ichor, was spread like a halo above her head. A complex tapestry of emotions played across his face—guilt, relief, determination, and an unspoken promise.
He steeled himself for what was to come, preparing to face whatever reaction she might have. The fallout of his actions, the potential fracturing of their bond, and even her overt recrimination; he would face all of it.
So long as she survived.
“Zylara.” he said in a rasping voice while forcing himself to sit up beside her.
She opened her azure eyes, and they drifted over to lock with his. “Aurelian…?”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“You look as terrible as I feel.” she whispered weakly before turning to scan the area around them, only to whimper in pain when attempting to move her head too far. Instead, she settled her eyes back on him and spoke again—while a trickle of blood trailed down her cheek from the corner of her mouth. “What happened?”
Aurelian drew in a breath at her question, posed with such naked trust. His eyes momentarily took her in again, from the ruined and destroyed remnants of her left leg—severed below the knee, in fact—to the bleeding ruin of her remaining leg, and the rib bones sticking out of her mostly destroyed runic armor.
He owed her the truth. All of it. Including what he wanted to do for her.
His eyes drifted back to hers, and she smiled at him—quietly, warmly, as if to reassure him.
Dragon's Resolve is now Level 24!
Aurelian barely managed to smile back, and take a steadying breath.
Then, with lead in his stomach, he told her.
He told her everything.