Remus crushed the third Projection, every second welcoming a new world of pain.
The manic man in the amethyst armour refused to relent however, and Remus had little more than a second to defend himself against the next blow. Directly beneath where he flew, his own personal inferno raged in spitting sparks.
He’d been forced to scale up the manor’s side in one last desperate ploy. Having his ribcage rearranged by an insane paladin had about as much appeal as sticking his hand into a vat of acid. Yet, the cackling maniac wouldn't let loose. Wherever Remus ran, his shaven face would pop up. Whenever Violet transported him away from the brink of death, the attacker always had a way of locating him.
It was like fighting Styrmir all over again. Though this individual, much to Remus' despair, surpassed even that giant in pure might.
Left with only one Projection, Remus couldn’t afford to rely on Violet. If fighting near the ground only meant exposing himself, the skies it would be.
Flames gushed out of him, propelling Remus directly into the overhanging moonlight. His tiny, raisin-sized Bank could support his flight little, but Remus used every resource at his disposal. And, all the while, the circuit of sapphire clinging onto his Ichor made every action just that much more arduous. Far more effective, true, but strenuous. At this pace, the pain would kick in any second.
Metres overhead, Remus finally had the chance to compose his breath. Perspiration was leaking down him, but satisfaction outlived fear. A wild laugh escaped his split lips.
The manor was a ruin. Smoke obscured his view of the place, but the scent of ash and tar pervaded through the atmosphere, even this high up from the turmoil. Unbounded flooded down below, but not many of them could fly. Those that could weren’t particularly menacing.
Remus skirted past hovering eyes, demonic ravens turned mad, and grotesque distortions of nature he could put no description to. Fireballs flew out of his fingertips, keeping the fire going whilst Violet sank deeper and deeper into the Unbounded’s lair.
Remus made the mistake of smiling, and everything crumbled.
The advancing being from earlier, armoured and oncoming, launched onto the raven-looking Unbounded. It squawked, as a gauntleted hand squeezed with all its might. Remus would have cursed, if it wasn't for how rigid he body had gone. He retained all the sense needed to stay airborne, and that was the extent of it.
“Oh, come on Remus!” The Unbounded snarled. “Don’t tell me — is it Violet who’s behind your sudden disappearances?”
Remus gripped onto the remaining pod, gritting his teeth. Did he risk it? If Violet failed to transport him in the time frame she had to sense the Projection’s death at his location, he would be stuck here. Helplessly stuck with no way to get away from what was clearly a Splintered Rank Equivalent. And that was likely a generous underestimation.
It may have been futile, but he burst off in a stream of fire. After a few seconds, Remus risked a glance behind. He wished he hadn’t.
The Unbounded clung on to the miserable bird, controlling it with clunky motions and tugs of the wrist. Suddenly, in a scene that was eerily familiar to days past, a plus symbol appeared on his forehead. The shade of freshly drawn animal blood.
Their eyes rolled back with tangible force, and with an absurd smile, they spoke. “Fourth Divine Right: Fusion.”
Each word struck like thunderclaps, and Remus stopped moving completely as . . . as they bonded with the bird.
An oval enveloped the two of them, forged completely out of Infinity. Remus sent bullet after flaming bullet made of pure azure light. Cracks appeared upon the construct, but it was no use. One Unbounded arose out of the structure like a chick breaking out of their egg.
It was the same being as before, only this time, with wings. An eccentric series of giggles escaped out of their rasping beak, and Remus realised with growing terror that his initial assessment had been wrong. As talons pierced into his back, the true, avian modifications of his adversary became painfully apparent.
Remus was dragged across the night sky, the speeding breeze irritating his freshly opened wounds. Flaming Gold failed him, the combined pain threatening to make Remus faint. It was like invisible fingers were poking away at the lacerations. It was amongst this assault that their decision to come here truly struck Remus as ludicrous; whatever had been going through his and Violet’s mind when they came here could not have been logical. Remus’ hand scrambled into his cloak, latching onto his last pod in desperation, but a series of pecks from the Unbounded, and it was forced out of his grip. He yelped, a litany of holes transforming the appendage into a mangled lump.
Inexorably, the Projection descended metres below.
But Remus didn’t let his hope die. The Projection was sure to be crushed when it reached the ground. It would be difficult for Violet to pinpoint his location from there, likely fated to be incinerated down below, but it would attract her attention. He wasn’t sure how Violet could help him out of this, but-
The Unbounded spotted the Projection from yards above. It nipped down, grabbing it by a talon carefully, so as not to break it. Of course, an eagle’s vision had come with the fusion.
Now he truly was hopeless.
“So Remus,” it was uncanny to hear mortal words out of the beak, “how would you like to die? You don’t have much Infinity on you, so I couldn’t care less myself how the process goes. How about a swift slash of my talons against your throat? But that’s so terribly anticlimactic!”
Remus set his entire form ablaze, cupping his palms at the sides of the great bird. Fires engulfed the pair of them immediately, blue like artistic lightning, but the Unbounded simply continued to speak.
“Long and painful then!” This was followed up by a much more natural caw. “Really, these fires are impressive. You might even hurt me given enough time. I'm terribly sorry to have to flay your tissue off, but we can test how long those fires can really go on for!”
Remus put his index finger and thumb together, concentrated his Ambition, and snapped his fingers before the Unbounded’s face.
A hole was torn through one of its wings, and immediately, they began to fall. The Unbounded let out a great roar, hate as explosive as dynamite reducing the two of them into a fitful tangle. Remus half-recognised the sensation of Chaos energy fluttering past him as Violet’s Projection finally died. His fingers hung limply, his fists did more damage to the armour than to the Unbounded himself, but every scrap of amethyst metal flying past did much to appease him.
Imagine his despair when he noticed it visibly regrowing. Scraps elongating themselves as a thin layer returned. Disgust at their rapid fall aside, he suspected the material was a weak variety of Supreme Steel. If left long enough to flourish with rampant levels of Infinity, it would be damn near impenetrable.
Very fortunate then, that they were crashing backs-first into the manor’s roof.
Splinters of wood flew to their sides, shrapnel implanting itself into Remus’ skin. A hellhole of fire enveloped everything in sight, the sapphire eruption blinding them both. The Unbounded made to speak, only the top and bottom of his body visible through the unmoving patches of white light, staining his vision. They managed so much as a venomous splutter, before Remus shoved a hand over the being’s mouth. No need to keep his body enveloped by flame when it was swirling around them. He instead poured all of that energy into making his palm as hot as possible. White fire contrasted the azure all around, and, to this, not even the Unbounded could disguise his pain.
Remus was not in the mood to hear him jabber on.
The roof groaned beneath them, caving inwards. Pits were scorched open, revealing an attic used as a standard storage room, before Remus was forced to blink. It had changed to a lab filled with miscellaneous equipment, then morphed into a prison stuffed with rows of cells. The sight put his stomach into knots, so Remus looked away, back to the Unbounded at hand.
Who had finally had enough. The strength of a Splintered-Rank equivalent pressed down into Remus, as he was rolled beneath the bird of prey. They flared their talons like ten-inch long daggers, hissing. The ends of their feathers were burnt, the area of the armour he had chipped off previously at melting point. Remus had just enough time to cross both his forearms in a pitiful guard.
Nails slit the skin in an outpour of Ichor. He had been lucky to catch the Unbounded off guard; there was nothing he could do now to save his own skin.
Again and again the grotesque fusion of bird and holy knight pounced on Remus like he was a cutting board. They fell onto the rafters below as he flared the surrounding flames to their limit, screeching as gratifying visages of burning the fiend alive played out in his mind.
The room below reached a state of equilibrium, at last remaining unchanged. One swift headbutt, and Remus’s neck made a popping sound as he was sent barreling down. A standard living area, the kind you would find at a fancy hotel, expanded around him.
Onto an old mat he collided, the fire clinging to his back spreading across its new prey. Up above, like he had awoken on the crest of a hill under the sun's glare, the raging cyclone of his own making was a mystical sight. Even more perturbing was the claws heading straight for his face.
He rolled aside, jolted to his feet, and sent a score of heated shots directly into the Unbounded. Most perished upon his armour, and the few that got through did little more than burn him.
He walked through purposefully slow, one wing gummy with dried blood and the rest of his body patched by burn marks. Now that he could take a close look, Remus was impressed by the harm he’d caused. At least he wouldn’t die without putting up a good fight. It would be a valiant death.
Suddenly, the Unbounded rose to his tiptoes. Like he was a marionette compelled upwards by the tug of a string. Their eyes rolled back in a fashion Remus was getting far too used to — the addition symbol on their brow blazing in a carbon copy of a Mark. Unlike last time, there was no grand oyster to surround the fiend.
The carcass of the bird from before simply splattered across the floor next to him.
Its wings were crooked; legs sprawled unnaturally at odd angles; beak crushed and talons chipped. All in its own personal sea of multicoloured blood.
Remus’ head turned to the other Unbounded, who, apart from some damage to his armour, was completely unscathed. Heat from within him, the spawn of frustration instead of his Mark, made Remus want to scream. There wasn’t the need for an explanation. When the Unbounded used his Divine Right — the same source of power the Pet-Keeper had tapped into — and fused, all the harm went to the being he bonded to.
Remus had never held sympathy for the Unbounded. He despised the lot of them, in fact. LOathed all divine fiends with every fraction of his heart, with indiscriminate disdain. Yet, whilst all that was true, such a grim demise, the final moments the creature had to endure before dispersing back into Infinity, were simply cruel. It had done nothing to merit such a gruesome death.
Stolen novel; please report.
Pity, that was the word for it. Pity.
“Aha, that was fun!” The creature boomed. “It’s been so long since I last bonded with an Unbounded that could fly. Oh, being stuck in the base all Rebirth long with—” he let out a crackling sound in his native tongue “—can get oh-so tiring.”
Even through Remus’ expression of pure hatred, the armoured Unbounded must have identified a tinge of confusion.
“Oh, my apologies. That’s the Pet-Keeper’s Unbounded name.” He repeated the unpleasant noise. “Quite awful, isn’t it? Not nearly as good as . . .”
They proceeded to repeat their own name. Laughing maniacally, and obviously enjoying every second of Remus’ extended torture. Gradually, they approached. Step by step, ramble by ramble.
Remus stopped listening, flipping upwards, hand on the ground, in a learning crouch. Flaming Gold flooded across his Ichor, his blue eyes glowing strong enough to rival a torch’s light. He wasn’t going to stand here and simply give himself up to the Unbounded, just because they had a few tricks up their sleeve.
They both screeched simultaneously, cannoning straight towards one another. Remus suited his own armour of fire, crossed his wrists, prepared to set off two clicking eruptions at once, when–
Violet light consumed him. Remus both felt the need to crumple to his feet in sheer relief, and pull at his hair. It was like drowning in the ocean, only to miraculously gain the ability to swim. Yet still, the coast guard was inclined to rush you out of the water.
Nonetheless, largely, Remus was thankful. Whilst he was pumped-up to cause as much destruction as possible, before the Unbounded would inevitably kill him, it was far wiser to not die at all.
“Thank you,” he said, the light vanishing, “a few more minutes there and-”
He shut himself up. Back to Violet, he found himself in the centre of a field of dead Unbounded, Infinity flooding through the atmosphere like a cyclone. She was huffing, each breath a great labour, purple light exuding off her Mark and her form slowly down-sizing to mortal form. Sporting her gangly Unbounded side must have taken a toll on her.
Ahead of them, the only other being left alive in the room, stood Daisy. Or, seeing as the Unbounded didn’t actually use its array of legs for walking, crawled. Either way, it didn’t make much of a difference; with the Pet-Keeper nowhere to be found, nothing could stop Remus from finishing what he and Aziel had started.
Revenge would finally be his.
Still, he reigned in his ire. First of all, he would have to play catch up. “How deep into the manor are we?”
“Not deep enough.” Violet clenched her teeth. “I was almost to Akuji, I’m sure of it, when these Unbounded dragged me back up. Obviously, they’re dead.”
Remus' eyes panned over the tide of dissolving bodies. “Obviously.”
It occurred to Remus, like a hideous beast sticking its tongue out at him, that the mass of dead around him were all Chaos clansmen. They must have been, in order to distort reality; to rearrange the manor. He gave a tentative, sidelong glance at Violet. How was she coping? Her blank expression revealed nothing, and she continued.
“I’m done with hip-hopping from room to room. I’m sending us straight down from here. How long do you think you can fare against Daisy?” She scoffed. “What an unfitting name.”
Remus flooded his hands with fire, diving forwards. “If I could hold my weight as an Enkindled, I’m sure I’ll survive now.”
She nodded, and that was the end of it. It was time to get to work.
Unintelligible screeches spluttered out of Daisy, spittle flinging towards Remus. He channelled the Infinity around within him, the sensation still new and familiar as it filled his fledgling Bank full to brimming. Already, in amounts so small, no metrics could but put to it, the construct was expanding. He attempted to direct the resource to his injuries, but with no tubes, such proved a struggle. It was expended after doing little more than spreading behind his naval.
Daisy approached in slow, inexorable movements strangely reminiscent of something slimy. It gave Remus all the time in the world to pinpoint his Ambition on the end of each finger. He held the bundles of power, allowing the tiny missiles to grow more and more potent.
Only when the grotesque bundle was within reaching distance did he free the Ambition.
The Unbounded was swept back, their frontal limbs splitting open, and great cries resounded through the chamber. Whips of blood, greyish and vomit inducing, stained the floor in dark patches. Remus flew past them, gushing fire all over the gelatinous fiend until all you could see of it was a dark shadow, through a veil of spectacular azure.
Thanks, Enrique, he thought, the explosive ability the man had taught him, Eruptive Will, as useful as ever.
That was when the beast barged into him. His personal flames didn’t harm Remus, of course, but the sheer force of Daisy pushed him back a step. The being turned, limbs with a mind of their own whacking him with the force of a tossed brick. He drowned out the pain, Ambitious adrenaline a constant saviour.
In unison, all legs and arms abandoned their reckless scrambling. They slapped the floor in booming connections, the sound deafening. Only after amply stunning Remus, did the limbs throw the main bulk of the body upwards.
For the space of one second, Remus allowed Flaming Gold to rejuvenate him. Time became a freeze frame, and he bolted past the crashing impact of fat and muscle.
A crack expanded across the floor, and Remus was actually thrusted into the air. Using Flaming Gold so haphazardly merited a stab of pain, but endorphins shoved it down.
Daisy was carried by the myriad of hands and feet, his main mass still hovering as all the Infinity in the room was suddenly consumed. Now dents in the ground appeared wherever the flaming beast wandered.
You don’t have to kill it, Remus did his best to not let his emotions get the better of him. Stall. Do whatever it takes to stall and stay alive.
Once more, the Unbounded vaulted into the air, flying down straight overhead Remus. He dodged in the same manner as last time, but the immediate pain was far fiercer. Again, and again, as if Remus’ flames were mere decoration, the beast interjected itself before him.
Remus yelped in frustration. This wasn’t working. Daisy wasn’t as immobile as Remus had first-
What felt like five hundred kilos pressed down into Remus' back. One second, and bones were already on the brink of breaking; a few probably had. He felt the urge to squirm, to yelp and spasm, but his compressed chest wouldn’t release so much as a noise.
In a moment of panic, he fell back onto his training. He embraced the stillness of his body, tissue stiffening like the entire layer had been calloused a dozen times over. The pain became muted — a distant annoyance instead of an urgent danger. Still, he couldn’t breathe. Taking a nap down here was not only impractical, but deadly. He had to escape. Issue was, Daisy wasn’t going to budge on their own accord any time soon.
Remus focused in on his Mark, not moving a muscle. Every measle of Ambition, everything his Mark could tug off the divine might of Tanish, it all went towards setting himself aflame. The dark expanse suddenly acquired light, the squirming mass above him fidgeting. But it wasn’t enough.
More! He thought, not daring to do so much as move his lips.
The fire deepened to a ghastly orange, and the creature visibly shifted.
Is that all? Is that really everything?
A dizzying magenta filled his vision, flames surpassing even the heat of Brison’s white for one terrific moment.
One final pulse, and a fire so bright Remus couldn’t even identify their shade sent Daisy howling.
It jolted away from Remus, who, promptly, vomited all over the floor. His breaths came hurriedly, his overworked Mark demanding the encompassing fire to return to its typical shade.
And Violet was still not finished transporting them. Remus let himself rest for a moment, only expending the energy needed to maintain the heat burning away at Daisy. This, at least, appeared to harm the specimen.
But, given a second of breathing room, Remus’ mind scrambled. If Daisy was here, didn’t that mean Violet’s schemes had been, well, incorrect? The Clan of Two Doors, that fifty-fifty gamble, couldn’t possibly have paid off. That explained the other Unbounded’s presence — the Fusion Right man with a tendency for wildlife abuse. But Daisy . . . Daisy was never alone.
Was the Pet-Keeper here? The thought made him glance to and fro.
He had to get his mind off the matter. “Violet! How much longer?”
“Almost there!” She shouted back, through gritted teeth. “The manor, I don’t remember it ever being this large. I’m trying to keep other Unbounded away, blocking them from entering and manoeuvring around them, but there’s so many.”
“Keep at it.” Remus urged, Daisy finally rounding on him. “I can hold on a little-”
The wall to the side barreled open, and a shard of rock struck Remus on the face. Dust was all he could eye, the world becoming one of fog and darkness. The ground burst up before him as he crashed against it, his Mark finally guttering out fully. It happened so quickly. Soot was drooping from the roof, and Daisy’s fires had been extinguished from the sheer force it must have taken to punch through the entire right wall.
“Violet!” He boomed through the ash. “Violet, are you okay!”
There was no sound for the most stressful moment of Remus’ life, before finally, he could relax.
“I’m here!” She shouted, voice strained. “Nearly there, I promise! Just hold on for a second, I’ll teleport us out of-”
“You bastards won’t be teleporting anyone.”
Every hair on Remus' back went up, his worst nightmares mingling with reality. Please no, please-
But the voice was undeniable. He recognised it immediately: the Pet-Keeper.
His footsteps were such that Remus was half-expecting an earthquake to break out any minute.
“Once I sensed that Daisy was in danger,” Remus shot to attention, “I knew it was you vermin. Nova foresaw your arrival Passings ago. I’m going to do everything you inflicted upon my darling, only ten times worse. A hundreds times, a thousand, a-”
He continued in higher and higher metrics. What to do? Remus was exhausted after his first two encounters; a Warlord and Splintered Rank equivalent were sure to kill him. Hide. He had to hide.
They grew closer. Each advancing stride sounded to Remus like the final beats of a heart, before destiny snuffled it out.
“I heard from Milap about your little scrap Remus. He was just wearing you down. Don’t be so tempted as to think you really did something there. And Violet, you really aren’t as discreet as you think you are. Straining your Mark with such reckless abandon was sure to grab my attention. And I thank you for it. Shame I had to bulldoze through all those rooms to arise here though.”
All at once, the dust cleared. A gaping hole revealed the inside of another nondescript chamber that quickly flickered past. But Remus’ attention was drawn to Daisy, sooty and burnt all over the place, and the Pet-Keeper. As standard looking as ever.
He and Violet were out in the open, the shattered windows around them still showing walls zooming past. Violet was frantically sending them down, but it was no use. The Ambition still lingering in Remus’ system spat at that thought, crushing it into a paste, but not everything could be confronted with boundless optimism.
Sometimes, all you could do was lose.
So he would do so with grace. In a fierce grunt that seemed to push his vocal cords to the limit, Remus unleashed all the fire his fatigued body could muster.
A bruise maybe. Some scorch marks. He would even take a cut. Something. He just wanted something to make this final stand worth-
A dozen branches cleaved through Daisy. Like the roots of an ancient tree, they pierced into the Unbounded’s gelatine flesh. Blood spurted, recoating the fissured floor, but the onslaught was hardly finished there. In what would be no exaggeration to say, a hundred blades of pure, unfiltered jet black, manifested out of nowhere. The sound of metal swinging through ice resounded across the chamber. The Pet-Keeper screamed, raising a hand towards his forever companion in what felt like shockingly slow motions. A humanoid mass with the same hazy quality as the floating array of daggers raised two clenched fists over the exposed Unbounded.
Several of their mouths were already choking on their own greyish blood. The effect only compounded as the equivalent of a porcupine’s spikes pricked deep into their tissue.
The hovering shadow may as well have relaxed by the fireplace, a job well done, but instead, he decided to do something very different indeed. A dozen times over, then thirty, then fifty, then until nothing remained of Daisy but a dark pulp, he threw down his fists.
All at once, as the Pet-Keeper remained stupefied by his own horror, four figures appeared atop the deceased mound. Remus recognised the three familiar, emerald-clad clansmen, but the fourth — his striking black robes indicating that he must have been behind the shadow attacks — failed to ring any bells.
“Remus.” Elmore struck him with a blank expression. He crowned Daisy’s mutilated corpse like it was the finest platform in the world. “Long time no see.”