There is a reliable way to counter the Dying Queen.
First, you pull out your knife. Then, you shove it through your neck. Finally, overload your Class too so you can die completely and not end up getting resurrected by one of her sick fucks for “post-mortal” family time. You better die clean, because once she makes a connection with you are fucked. Capital F fucked. Fucked like a guy who just got bit in one of those zombie flicks. Because that’s pretty much what this is—a super infection of the soul.
Only way out of that is to pledge yourself to another great power. Mepheleon maybe. Or the Crossroads. Aside from that…
Well. Her System is Chesed. Based in connections between people and things. Powered by affection and emotion. All the world is just a set of strings she call pull on and manipulate. And after enough of her blood flows into you, all you’ll know is love and obedience. Turns you into a good little puppet. But some of you will still be there, screaming on the inside.
The worst thing about her is that she can infect practically anything if it gets intelligent enough to feel or love. A person. An awakened rock. A weaker System-host. Anything. And with each connection she makes, the stronger she grows…
And that’s what makes her a nightmare. She knows. Everything about you. From those she has claimed. And will claim. Until there is only love for her. Until you only love her totally, unconditionally.
Ignore her bullshit about family. When she claims you, you’ll just be a toy in a dollhouse. The Dying Queen has a dream, and it ain’t one of family. It’s of being the only real girl left in all existence.
Perfect. Harmonious. Because she decides. And then we feel. And no one will ever tell her no again.
-The Trespassers’ Compendium
88
These Wounds Unchained
Trauma sustained
Error
Wei was not traumtized.
Of all the times his System could glitch, this was not one of them.
We apologize, host.
It was not accepted. Even being near-mad with pain couldn’t stop the young master’s anger from rising. He had been sullied enough. The Dying Queen was using his mother’s corpse to defile his spirit. This insult will not go unpunished, and so offended was he at her transgression that he gained clarity from pure hatred.
Pain was just a background feeling now. She could tear into his thoughts and try to twist his mind, but she will not decide his response, how he felt, who he was. It was his birthright to break, and never be broken.
And it was her misfortune that he finally found something capable of countering her assault.
Wei had swapped Inventory Skills with Agnesia before crossing over. She currently had his “advanced” version that allowed for the containment of living individuals. An upgrade indeed, if you were a practicing slaver like the Knight of Lust. Meanwhile, her “basic” Inventory, though capable of containing fewer items within its dimensions, still had the capability of carrying certain things for him.
Things like a Contract of Spatial Relocation.
A burst of spatial Essence materialized next to Wei’s head, clipping through where the Dying Queen’s fingers. She froze, though her blood continued warring against his Source. “What is this?” the Dying Queen inquired, pulling her fingers free from the pages and looking over the contract.
The pressure she exuded lessened. Wei gasped a sharp breath and chuckled. “A gift… something took… from a most educational… enemy. Read the fine print.”
The Queen went still and swept her gaze across the page. “The bearer of the contract… Wei An Wei… failure to respect the sanctity of the bearer’s bodily autonomy or should harm be inflicted in any way by another party… the other party will be noted as… in breach of contract and penalized by… transposition…”
Folds of space began collapsing around the Dying Queen. She looked away from the contract and merely stared back at Wei. “This will only delay me briefly.”
“Maybe,” the young master swallowed. “Or maybe you’ll find Starmater more charming than I did and choose to stay. Either way, you’ll be gone long enough for me to sever our connection. Enjoy the Hearted Realm of Lust.”
“I—”
The contract ignited as the bargain contained within its contents were upheld. And in the next instant, the Dying Queen vanished as a rift opened around her person and stole her across the Claimed Hells.
Then, without her holding him up, Wei’s eyes promptly rolled to the back of his head as he collapsed forward, darkness taking him.
***
The avatar of the Dying Queen blinked. She had been close to breaking the boy. So close. But it seemed he was a bit more cunning than her many kindred recalled. Voices whispered in the back of her mind as she pulled on her many strings. She was still connected to Reunion. With a simple—
“You look lonely,” a voice, impossible loud, distracted the Dying Queen. It exuded enough Essence to almost rival her own—though the Queen was only here as a partial avatar, the full power of her true self too much to be contained in a paltry vessel like Reunion, and too loud to be hidden in the Fathoms. Turning, she found herself looking up at an enormous hermaphrodite. Truly enormous. Planetary in size, with both sets of exposed genitals bearing the mass of a boom.
So. This was the Starmater that the boy spoke of.
How aptly named.
Starmater knelt, the atmosphere began to twist above her, while the Demons of Lust nearby gathered in riotous anticipation. “I can fix that,” Starmater said, their eyes that glow of supernovae, her body glistening with lustful, celestial sweat.
The Dying Queen cocked her head.
***
Wei woke again with a shuddering breath. The young master found himself lying upon an ocean of blood. Every blink of his eyes sent a spike of pain down the base of his skull, and looking across from rippling waters that bore his weight, he saw Reunion surfaced once more, kicking and screaming, begging for the Queen to return.
There were also others standing near Wei. His mother’s beheaded form. Mouze. Senior Disciples. More. Wei groaned and summoned his Broken Crescent. The Queen’s torture had left him brutalized and raw. It was hard to focus; his thoughts were like mist and his body felt internally flayed. Spots developed in Wei’s vision as he forced himself back to his feet using the aid of his Eidolon.
The dead members of fallen sect merely looked on in silence.
Source: [82/200]
Hacking hissing Source into the air, Wei stumbled toward the downed vampire on shaking legs as his strength slowly returned. The world spun and at several points, Wei had to stop as spots of darkness formed in his vision. Every step took a bit more out of him, but he mustered. He managed. And through it all, his mother followed close behind him.
“Enough,” Wei whispered. He didn’t have the strength to be horrified or furious anymore. He was just spent. Hurt. “Stop. You’re gone. I know. I know I won’t see you again. Leave me be. I have a task.”
But she didn’t respect his wishes. The headless corpse of what was his mother walked through his body and arrived before him, occupying the last bit of space between him and the downed Reunion.
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“My Queen!” Reunion cried. “My mother! I beseech you. Return! The boy… he comes! He comes! He remains unclaimed! Mother!”
Mother. Everyone cried for their mother in the end. But not Wei. Not Wei. Something inside him ached. And though his rational mind knew that he was running out of time—that the Dying Queen might return at any moment if he dawdled, he couldn’t help himself. “I wish… I could have made you proud. In life. I wish I could have… you could have seen me… for what I became. I wish I could have… I wish you were still here. There is so much left… there was so much time… I wasn’t… am not ready.”
His mother said nothing. But headless people rarely did. The thought was so intrusively dark that Wei couldn’t help but chuckle. “Would it matter to you if I killed my father? Would it matter if I rebuilt my sect? Are you here in spirit? Is that anything after? Anything but this life for us?”
Nothing. The other members of his sect stood beside her, creating a wall forged from his past torment, preventing him from completing his present task. Wei closed his eyes and sighed. He was tired. But he was not dead. And not done. “If there is another life. If there is something in the hereafter. I would like to be your son again. I would like to… I wish father was who he said. I wish… I wish…” Wei’s features broke into a snarl. “What worth are wishes.” He felt the weight of his Broken Crescent—this spear, the only real thing to him right now with its weight; his System, calling for him to sever Reunion’s link to the Queen. “What worth. I will take what I can from this world. I… am sorry. I love you, mother. Farewell.”
Form of the Martial Harvester flared out from the young master, and the scythe increasingly defined who he drowned away the red and consumed the world with light and shadow. A ripple spread out from Wei as currents folded in arcs around his person. He stood at the center of a false samara. He, the executioner, the Reunion, his target, and his fallen kin, the demons of his heart.
Pain was a lie. And Wei was more than his heart. He was the choices he made, those he pledged to defend, and vengeance unfulfilled.
He was his ambition. Above all, ambition.
“No!” the vampire cried. “No, wait please!”
Wei cut. Through his mother. Through his sect. Down his Eidolon felt. Down the scythe followed. And final severance was made; a new ascension followed thereafter.
ERROR—Gate Three Ascension has not yet—
Restrictions overridden by (Intent)
Aspect of (Intent) > Aspect of (Ambition)
At once, Wei’s desire gained a material quality within him.
***
“Insolent vermin!” Athlon roared.
Even as the Unfallen’s midsection turned to powder, Agnesia saw the ghosts within stitch his body together.
Even with all the rage flowing from her, even as her flames grew hotter, they failed to consume the undead warrior in time. His hand shot out through the conflagration, seizing her by the arm and clamping down hard.
At level 89, Athlon was still within the Knight Tier, but the sixty-level difference made itself known. Her right arm, empowered by wrath, broke as if it was nothing more than brittle glass between his closing fingers. Agnesia screamed, but the pain only fed into her anger, infusing her flames with more potency and power. Instead of flinching away, she pushed into him, ignoring the jagged shards of bone bursting free from the mangled stump that was now her right hand. Releasing her blade, she summoned her avatar, the black dragon, which slammed its fist down, cracking hard against the Unfallen’s face.
But her foe barely staggered. “Pathetic.” An eruption of ghosts blossomed out from him.The world went bright, and Agnesia found herself careening through the air. She flared her wings, but it was far too late. A crushing force slammed into her midsection, and her vision went white to the rhythm of her crunching ribs.
For a few moments, she flew free, perfectly numb, dead to the world. Agnesia felt comfortable—she could stay in this place forever. Three more punches followed. The first was a dull thud, barely rousing her attention. The second came with the first hint of pain. The third woke her from unconsciousness, her sternum breaking into three parts.
Agnesia returned to the Hearted Realm with a choking groan. Still, she did not bend to the agony. She tunneled her focus—all that existed was her and the one trying to kill her.
Athlon stood over her body, his mutilated body weeping ethereal specters upward, their featureless faces screaming endlessly, lost to torment. Would such be her fate if she lost? No. She projected a blast of fire straight into his chest, and for all Athlon’s supposed invincibility, he still cried out, revealing his own pain.
But that didn’t stop him. He thrust one of his scythe-like wings down, puncturing through Agnesia’s cauldron and lifting her high as if she were nothing more than a piece of fruit skewered on a toothpick. She howled with pain, but her flames kept coming as she fought. Her rage regenerated with each wound, her body barely keeping her alive as Athlon slammed her down against the ground again and again.
The moonlit circus parted around her, slick like the insides of one's mouth. Every time she crashed down, something inside her broke. The ground beneath them turned to puddles of gore, drenching her clothes and painting her hair. Her wings flared, and her draconic form gripped Athlon, trying to push him away, but he only pulled her in closer and slammed his fist into her pelvis. The force sent shockwaves through her, one leg twisting out of place as bones slid out of their sockets.
Agnesia blacked out again, only to wake with an anguished scream as she bounced three more times. She slid to a stop and struggled to rise. Parts of her were broken. Parts that held her body together. Everything hurt. Blinking through her swollen eyees, she saw Athlon striding toward her, his ghosts flaring, spreading wider. But behind him, columns of fire rose in the distance—something was happening over the horizon. Perhaps Wei’s allies in the Circle of Pride were finally attacking, striking the Inheritor’s base.
At least some parts of the plan were going right.
"I’m going to peel your soul free from that worthless husk of a body," Athlon rumbled as he drew his lamented blade. “And then, I will present you—”
Before he could finish his threat, a burst of steam washed over him. The Unfallen shifted—too late to stop a fast-moving shape from slamming into him. Agnesia guessed the object to be a fast-moving vehicle. Athlon slid against the ground, legs sending geysers of blood into the air as he pushed against the Oathbearer forged construct. His ghost speared down, piercing into the vehicle and tearing it in half down the middle.
“Lass! You alive?” Agnesia heard Agate’s call, and found himself stumbling through the fog, limping on one leg. His hammer gleamed bright and she offered him a pained grin.
“Just about.” She pulled out a Potion of Regeneration from her Inventory and hastily downed. A series of cracks sounded across her body as her healing necessitated the re-breaking of several bones. If there was a Skill to dull pain, Agnesia was going to find it. At the same time, she proceeded to the next part of her planning: releasing several others from her Inventory.
The first was Roggi, the second her mother, the third Rafael, and finally Angeleous—or more accurately, Bishop. Frankly, she should have done this earlier. Much earlier. But when one walked the Path of Wrath, rage tended to cloud the mind, even in the best of situations.
As Roggi materialized, he responded without hesitation, creating bulbous worms from the rot coating his body and firing them at the approaching Unfallen. Agnesia’s mother, meanwhile, possessed no such warriors instinct. “Agnesia,” she cried, eyes wide with horror and growing fury at seeing her daughter brutalized form.
"I’m fine, mother," Agnesia said, though it was a lie. She didn’t feel particularly fine. Focusing on the fight, it took Ellena a few seconds more to respond. By then, Rafael had already unleashed a hail of mystical missiles from above. A swirl of sigils flared around Agnesia and Ellena as well. Shielding spells of some kind.
Roggi’s circled above the Unfallen, and from between his wings descended winds of decay that splashed against the rising ghosts trying to cut him down from the sky.
"Mother!" Agnesia cried, jolting Ellena free from her stupor.
With a shake of her head, Ellena summoned her Demons of Pride—twelve heavily armored warriors plated in gold, bearing various armaments. They charged forth, ready to engage the Unfallen at the behest of their master.
The Unfallen fought valiantly, his power immense. Slashing back with his shadow-made axe, he lashed at the fabric of existence itself, severing one of Roggi’s wings as he tumbled into a controlled roll. Before he could finish the oath-bearer, a series of concussive blasts knocked him backward, and Rafael stepped forward.
A torrent of ghosts burst down from Athlon’s wings, swallowing the space where Rafel once stood, but struck nothing—for what Athlon saw was an illusion. A spiraling sigil shot down from the skies above, hammering the Unfallen like a falling anvil.
"Vermin!" Athlon cried out, more in frustration than pain.
Then, the first of the demons reached him, their blades flashing with radiant energy as they struck. Their blows chipped away at his armor, making the Unfallen stumble—but their weapons were too feeble. They fell apart as Athlon’s weapon blurred through the air, cutting them down effortlessly.
"Feeble. Hopeless," he snarled. And for the third time, he was interrupted before he could continue.
This time, a blast of psionic force carved a gorge through the battlefield and crashed into the Unfallen with a resounding impact. Athlon let out a genuine cry of pain. One of his wings was ripped clean from his body, and his left arm snapped backward, unable to bear the brunt of the force.
At the same time, cracks spread along Angeleous’s face, the power Bishop challening too much for the old man’s paltry vessel.
Athlon buried his blade into the ground, using every ounce of strength to hold still and not be blown back. But this ultimately was for not, for few hundred meters away, an eruption of blood rematerialized in the Hearted Realm.
At first, Agnesia was clueless to why that was. Then suddenly, Wei appeared beside the struggling Unfallen, his spear vibrating with energy, sores pouring from every orifice. Agnesia grinned vicious at his return, but something about him was different—he felt more real, more imposing.
"No matter what you try..." Athlon muttered. Like always, he was interrupted. This time by Wei’s spear bursting through him from behind. The Unfallen jolted, hanging in the air a writhing insect on the tip of the Broken Crescent.
“How is this thing not dead,” Wei grunted, staring disappointed at Agnesia. “And what’s with your eyes. Did you let this fool punch you in the face?”
And suddenly, she wasn’t so pleased he had returned. “I was fighting for my life!”
“The Court of Ruin—” Athlon cried out. Then, a torrent of wind, stone, water, and lightning exploded out from him. As it turned out, undead warriors could reach high octaves when properly wounded. Even higher with their Aspects were destroyed.
“Not particularly well,” Wei taunted, smirking.
The Princess of Dawnrest’s expression turned several shades of scarlet that day. This… this bastard… this annoying… “Arsehole!”