“So.” Violet addressed the gathered audience before her. “How exactly do you manipulate Infinity?”
Two dozen chained Unbounded all hissed in their confines.
Tough crowd. She thought, eying up every one of her prisoners. It sometimes marvelled even her how varying the servants of Infinity could be.
Some of them, as was the most common type, were vaguely reminiscent of certain animals. A discoloured toad, tongue longer than the chains that confined them, looked dumbly with large, googly eyes. That was probably the weakest of the bunch here, their vocabulary encompassing all of one word.
“Food.” It muttered for the fifty-third time. Violet had been keeping count.
“I know buddy.” Violet sighed sympathetically. “I’m hungry too. But we’ve gotta hold out a little longer. In the meantime—” she turned to face a horse with three heads, the same number of eyeballs implanted solely on the central face “—how do you guys manipulate Infinity?”
This was her twentieth time repeating the question, and she wasn’t making any progress. The horse-like Unbounded was eerie beyond compare, skin covering the adjacent two faces without so much as an indent.
“Blood thirst! Thirst for Blood. Ichor!” It said the last word like it was some grand revelation.
A vaguely humanoid bulk of slime was next. “Infinity friend! Infinity friend cruel! Freedom chains! Freedom from chains!
That amount of words was troubling. Mid-to-high Splintered Rank at least.
Amassing this party had been about as fun as watching paint dry. Once Remus had recovered, he had helped Violet beat each of these Unbounded into submission one by one. She would plunge deep into the Silver Cavities herself, send off great blasts of Infinity like she had a death wish, and wait for the magic to happen.
All for her own research, her own examination of Unbounded, and how they interacted with Infinity. Perhaps this was the insight she needed. The thing to accelerate her progress in becoming adept in making use of her own abundant Infinity.
Of course, Veida’s journals included virtually every intricacy of Unbounded she could possibly think of. From their sleeping habits, what environments were most ideal for them to form in, and a myriad of other rather pointless details. And, yes, how they manipulated Infinity. But Violet wanted answers from the source.
She repeated the enquiry, this time to an Unbounded of gory crimson. Like a human body inside-out, in some perverse inversion.
So far, she could divine nothing other than a plea for safety from the amassed Unbounded. It was getting increasingly frustrating, and Violet had been rather patient interviewing them one-by-one for the last hour.
“You . . .” a River-King breed croaked, the same variety Brison had killed in his run-through of the Earnest Trials. “You like us.”
Violet did her best not to look exasperated when she turned to the being. The image of a human-like, overgrown anglerfish speaking to her didn’t help matters.
“Yes, I know, but how do you . . .” she trailed off.
Violet slapped herself, which caused several Unbounded to look at her peculiarly. How had she not seen it before? The answer to all her woes lay deep inside her, the most obvious conclusion so apparent she had been blind to it.
Slowly, in a great transformation, she sported her Unbounded form. Pearly white skin overlaid hers, her nails replaced by throat-slitting talons. She bore into the eyes of the River King yet again, speaking this time through foreign lips. “Yes. Yes I am.”
Memories stirred in Violet’s mind. She recalled understanding the Unbounded tongue for brief moments. Tiny seconds of expanded awareness spinning out through her mind like an unveiling nexus. Like remembering a language she had forgotten.
She tried to tap into that now. Unbounded were able to speak their own tongue, virtually fluently, as early as Foot-Soldier . If she could step over that language barrier, the possibilities . . .
Remus spoke without thinking. That seemed to be the trick to it. Using her active mind, where the human tongue was hardwired into her brain, would cause nothing but those words to flow out of her. She abandoned her human counterpart for now, the monstrous side dominating for just this moment. This brief stretch of time where it was most needed.
A string of sounds, sounds she didn’t know how her tongue produced, exited her mouth like a series of scratches. The noise lingered on her vocal cords strangely, longer than normal words would, like her throat was savouring the foreignness of it.
The Unbounded stirred at this, interest piqued, and Violet did her best not to let it distract her.
“How do you manipulate Infinity?” She asked them, her voice that of the Unbounded’s now.
They all flickered heads to one another, tugged against their chains, and all together caused a ruckus. Finally, the unsightly one, looking like a murder scene with all the gore, focused their gaze on her.
“Watch me.” Their own responding scratches hit Violet's ears, and she did everything in her power not to think; not to focus too much on anything at all. Their means of communication really was quite strange. “Observe how my Infinity passes through the body. But you’ll let me free, correct? Friend Unbounded will let me free? If you watch?”
Violet nodded. If she would have allowed thoughts to pass through her mind at that moment, she may have considered how grievous a lie that was. How disgustingly false. She wouldn’t let any of these fiends free once they were within her reach. Not that she was reflecting on anything along those lines, right at that moment.
All her attention was on the motion of Infinity, circulating through the Unbounded’s strange, strange body. The vets in the Vitality Sect never had as much bother dealing with all the animals of the world. Trying to understand the anatomy of every Unbounded that roamed the earth was a hapless task.
But, thank the heavens, Violet only had to try and understand one. A slightly more challenging task was seeing how it related to her own biology — her own relatively human body.
At first, the inverted creature merely reinforced a part of their body. A rather pointless show, for this was the simplest action anyone could do with Infinity. They didn’t seem to do anything that Violet herself wouldn’t do when channelling.
“Something else,” she said, eliminating thought for all the time it took. “Or no freedom.”
Again, with vague desperation this time, the Unbounded began forging Supreme Steel. This at first irritated her too, but Violet took a few tiny tips to improve her own making of the impenetrable resource.
“Again. Something else.”
This time, with the threat of never seeing sunshine hit their back — flesh? — again, they came up with one last desperate manoeuvre. At first, Violet had no clue idea what they were doing. The Infinity was moving out of their body again, but not to create Supreme Steel, or so much as a Projection.
Instead, Violet realised, they were releasing their Infinity in a faintly detectable gas. This entire inspection process had been alarmingly difficult due to the other mountain of Infinity; that which suffused the cavern because of the entourage of twisted beings she had gathered. Plus, the mere presence of the Silver Cavities didn’t help.
Even so, she tried to focus on the gas as best she could. What were they doing? What was it she was failing to grasp?
The creature continued to spread the mist, though there was a method behind the madness. She just knew it. The subtle dust trailed across the floor, reached her, and Violet suddenly felt . . . Watched. In a way that spread further, was more personal, than simply staring someone in the eye. This, instead, felt rather intrusive.
“Keep doing that until I say so.”
She focused on what the Unbounded was doing, that pushing out of Infinity, and copied it. Almost at once, she discovered the key difference from creating Supreme Steel. When doing that, you pushed the Infinity out of your body at one centralised point. Rather, this time she let it emanate from the entire surface of her skin.
The gas emerged from her, and she felt her senses be overwhelmed. The faint, natural cool of the cavern, the heat of the hoarded Unbounded, the crystal clear pattern of every pebble her mist trailed across. It was like waking up from a coma, or opening some sort of hidden sixth, seventh, or even eighth sense.
Now Violet understood. If she mastered this strain of Infinity usage, it would give her unbelievable awareness in battle. No enemies would be able to sneak up on her; no projectiles could fly their trajectory towards Violet without her prior knowledge. She would be able to understand what her allies were doing in team fights, giving her a foresight and capacity to move in an optimised chemistry.
“Thank you,” Violet uttered to the creature, raising a hand. It occurred to her that probably wasn’t a very popular word in the Unbounded vocabulary. It came out of her like a pathetic scraw, like a dying bird who couldn’t make much noise. For a species that devoted themself to be holy saviours, they didn’t encourage their manners much.
“Freedom?” The walking corpse asked, a freakish rictus spreading across their meaty cheeks. Fibres of muscle stretched with their every movement, trickles of blood, for once actually red, trailing down. It was like they were designed to be as horrifying as possible.
In the end, a sense of guilt made the food in Violet’s stomach squirm. She couldn’t bear to deny her promise to this creature, however pitiful they were.
So she would hold up her side of the deal. Give the freedom they wanted: but a different kind of freedom.
Violet put a hand out, and the Unbounded immediately screeched in protest. Even before Violet forced it to morph into her, it knew what she was doing.
As the power coursed through her, satisfaction unlike anything else in the human experience sent shivers through her skin.
A minute passed, and Violet turned to face the other Unbounded. “So. Who's next?”
None of them looked eager.
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The girl in the mantle sat patiently in the waiting room. The leather cloak, two times her size, draped her from head to toe. It was almost comical, like they had emptied the first potato sack on some faraway farm, and had made a run for it. Nevertheless, it did its purpose of veiling her quite successfully, be it overkill or not. Besides, if stooping so low as stealing ever did become necessary, it was a petty price to pay. It wasn’t like robbing a little thread would stir national outcry amongst the farmhands scattered across Descent. All that aside, there were no ends she wouldn't endure to enact her revenge.
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A few sneers from the other contestants didn’t go over her head. Neither did she let it get to her, however. They would see, soon enough.
The minutes trickled by, like an icicle melting in the wake of a roaring flame. Only, when it came to time, it never was that fast. She was left waiting, incompetent fighter after incompetent fighter all throwing their hat in the ring.
Even with the little attention she paid to the others, it was shockingly easy to tell who had won. The victorious would saunter on in with high shoulders, a vicious grin, and a smug air that was almost suffocating.
As for the losers . . . they either held the worst posture she had ever seen, with drooping heads, or were doing their absolute best to act casual. To the extent she could register their loss with a glance.
Inwardly, she preoccupied herself by observing her Vault. As a Foot-Soldier, the woman had no need to be here at all. At least not for the usual reasons. She could join the front lines any time, if she wished, and would have been obligated to if not for her current job as a guard. The prospect of earning a profit as a gladiator didn’t particularly interest her either. The individual bouts may have paid well, but if she were ever so inclined as to pick either pit-fighter or soldier, and drop their current, much higher paying occupation, the steady, reliable contract of working on the front lines would be much more lucrative in the long run.
Her mind was doing nothing but rambling now, and she knew it full well. Like a heavenly messenger intervening for her sake, a man finally called out her name to fight.
Many men were startled by her female name. The women, a tad fewer in number, glanced at her disguise, and struck by the comfort of that faintest relation, gave her a few supportive gestures.
She returned them a desultory wave. Then, her heart practically aflame with passion, the woman stepped through.
This was going to be her first fight here, and, despite what she had promised the organisers of this fight club, her last. All it took were a few lies, a weaved dream of having desired nothing more than to fight in the pits since being a little girl, and voila, instant entry.
A little nagging and careful timing, had told her exactly when he would be fighting: her target. Well, there was also beating up that poor, defenceless fighter she had spotted bumbling out of an inn after a string of losses. But all in all, the process had been rather simple. It seemed he was beginning to make a name for himself.
The wind stirred through her hair, locks whooshing with each advancing stride. At last, a cloudy sky set above her, she threw off her cloak.
It seemed to pause in the air for a second, the hubbub of an excitable crowd, and the roaring voice of a charismatic announcer all exaggerated. So was the grimace of the man awaiting her on the other side.
Remus shuffled backwards, his back hitting the wall as the woman beamed.
This was it. Her fellow clansmen had all been too slow to take up their leader’s offer, and she would be the one to do it. It was like killing two birds with one stone. Resolving her vendetta, and securing her future.
When her cloak’s shadow left, finally putting her fully in view, the cheers turned to gasps of horror.
Lumi’s left arm was fully charred off. Burnt away, down to very nerves after Remus had sunk the Frost Clan’s primary glacier back into the sea, from whence it came.
In the same fashion, she would stamp out the embers of his Ambition. They would trade ash for ash.
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Remus halted.
No . . . no. It was all his mind could repeat, as a layer of rime streaked across the entirety of the arena. A layer of flames formed beneath the soles of his shoes. In a defiant walk, he advanced towards her, throat constricting, and footprints forming in his wake.
All he could look at was her destroyed limb. All he could reflect upon was that it was him who had done it. Remus hadn’t known he was capable of such permanent damage, especially to someone an entire Rank above him. Maybe theoretically, but what he considered able to do in his mind was always faintly separated from reality. There was a tangible barrier there.
That vacant space where Lumi’s elbow ended was more than enough to fracture that delusion.
Somehow, that wasn’t nearly the worst part. The worst part was that Lumi being here, a revenge-hungry, goal-driven ghost from his past, could potentially screw up everything.
Nishad had posed enough of a challenge for Remus as it was, and he had only been Emblazed. What were his chances against a Foot-Soldier, who had legitimate reason to despise his guts?
He didn’t want to know — didn’t want to be here for that matter. Gods above, who had he done that to her?
Remus had never intended to hurt anyone, he was just carrying out Maris’ orders. He stiffened, each step like pushing through pure basalt. He hated-
A line of crystal lances flew towards him. Remus casted his sphere of flame he had used against Nishad, hoping to put a quick end to this bout before the guilt made him vomit. They struck his flames, persisted longer than he was comfortable with, before finally dissolving to their water.
“If it means anything, I’m sorry.” It sounded lame on his lips, but Remus truly was remorseful.
Lumi didn’t reply, now adorned in a layer of icy armour that adapted itself to her every movement. Flying icicles and other projectiles all fired into Remus’ blazing protection, but all it took was a little Infinity to ensure they all faced the same fate as their predecessors.
He drew chains in both hands, preparing for the worst. If possible, he wanted to end this without either of them irreversibly injured.
If only she had been Splintered Rank, or Warlord when I maimed her. Then she would have been able to heal. That thought was moronic, of course. He knew so half-way through thinking about it. If Lumi had been either of those upper Ranks, Remus never would have been able to deal such a grievous wound. Not in his wildest dreams. At the time, Remus had been nearing peak Enkindled, barely a step up the ladder of the Divine Ranks. But still, an Enkindled being capable of inflicting so much damage was both awe-inspiring, and made Remus’ insides churn.
This wasn’t why he had sought after power in the first place.
He couldn’t will himself to fight back offensively. The desire to swiftly subdue Lumi in a great fire had all but expired within Remus. He simply defended himself, as Lumi weaved the arena to fit her image.
Everything was being covered with rime faster than he could fathom. Only now did Remus notice the semi-invisible barrier between him and the rows of onlookers. Likely an invention of the Matter Clan. Even those barely distinguishable walls acquired the frosty layer. Consequently, he was forced to fly up above, as the ground extended upwards. The ice was rising, killer-cold with visible steam arising off them.
He poured as much Infinity and Ambition as he dared into his flaming oval. It was going against the natural course of his Bank, which had reached a third of its completion after endless hours labouring away in the Silver Cavities.
The hairs on his nape stuck up as Lumi came on the offensive, her armour so highly concentrated, she had no qualms with rushing into his fiery abode. One Remus had hesitated even to make.
Just as everywhere else, steam arose off her entire body. Yet the armour, in the little he could see of it through the mist, was repairing itself faster than damage could be dealt.
Remus sidestepped their every blow, which was relatively easy here. He could manipulate which parts of the fire his Ambition was most strongly concentrated in. Which was kind of the equivalent of pressurising wherever she moved, slowing Lumi down.
When she did manage a hit on Remus, it was so sudden, he’d hardly processed what happened. His fires were dragged down with him, as his Mark currently served as its central axis. Falling, accelerated by a brutal kick, he didn’t have time to change that.
His chains flew upwards, like a desperate arm reaching for a cliff-edge. It found no hold.
So he hit the ice, a crack splintering the slab-like glacier below. His flames acted quickly, and Remus got the distinct impression Lumi was letting the load around him melt easily.
Water immersed Remus. For a split-second, the piercing cool paralysed him. He saw Lumi up ahead, her visage of pure hatred painted upon his very soul, as he realised the fluid was already re-solidifying. He commanded the flames above to blast down, now separated from him so as not to fall victim to the overwhelming cool.. It wormed through the frost, turquoise-on-turquoise, digging down like worms, intent on their master’s escape.
Within seconds, and another dangerous waste of his already low Infinity stores, his freedom was near guaranteed. Remus slipped his freed fingers around his chains, and yanked as hard as he could. It barely moved more than an inch. Again and again, he tried to tug his weapon free, and again and again, he failed miserably. Lumi clearly did not want him to have it. The ice anchoring it would not relent.
Time was running out, so in a split-second decision, Remus prioritised himself. I promise to come back for you, he vowed, in a tone that was a little too romantic for an inanimate object.
He flew up, high in the air, brushing dissolving ice off one shoulder; finally free from the frosty depths. Now he was starting to get annoyed. No doubt empathetic, but annoyed.
If Lumi lost this, she would have countless other opportunities to behead him later. Remus only had this one shot to enter the front lines in a timely fashion, and as much as he hated to admit it, Andreas could die in however long another string of bouts would take. That wasn't a risk he could afford.
So he dived at Lumi. Her eyebrows rose at his sudden change of demeanour, before becoming furrowed again. A second before he crashed into her.
They skidded across the ice, Flaming Gold dragging Remus forward. He planted Eruptive Will into both palms, and thrusted. Lumi was shoved back, the icewall behind her becoming a pair of open palms. It was a clumsy last line of defence. Especially clumsy considering they were fully solid. She quickly surged her energies to soften the landing.
The catching hands didn’t dissolve quickly enough to avoid all damage, however, as a nasty nosebleed leaked Ichor down Lumi’s face.
Remus flew up to her, avoided a sweeping kick, and felt his midsection grasped. By a hand that was definitely too big to be human. Twisting against the arm so cold, it burnt worse than fire, Remus set eyes with a golem, an icy construct intent on capturing him. Lumi must have created it in advance, while he was distracted. Ready to throttle him at a moment’s notice.
It hurtled Remus into another of the golems not two metres away. This one caught him too, yet pain spiked through Remus, as if he had cannoned into pure concrete.
The two took turns passing him between them. Ambition stifled the pain like so much adrenaline, though Remus always forced himself to endure a tinge of the real toll. Otherwise, he would never be able to tell how much real damage was being dealt to him. Agony had its uses.
And at this moment, it was more than he was willing to put into words.
Plasma blasted out of him, annihilating both of Lumi’s constructs in the blink of an eye. He flew up, reached the top of the arena, and did his best to compose himself. Looking down at his body, the damage was worse than he’d thought. Ichor stained his clothes in a sticky layer, and the legs of his trousers were torn. It had gotten to the point he may as well have relabeled them shorts.
Lumi was nowhere to be seen. The entire arena was filled with mist, the consequence of two maniacs tossing fire and ice at each other non-stop. It was a world of unknowns, and with this much Ichor leaking out of him, Remus didn’t have time for guessing games.
Where is she? He thought with a huff, blasting streaks of flame like searchlights. He was like a lighthouse beaming off, but instead of guiding castaway boats, he was trying to guide himself through this suffocating hell.
A shard of ice missed his head by a foot.
Remus took a breath, sending as many additional fireballs drifting off as he dared into the cloud. He heard nothing in return. It was oddly silent. As if his ears hadn’t fully recovered, or the crowds had simply vanished.
This swarm of grey was his purgatory. Lumi would be likely to succeed with one of her shots any second now, the flames he needed to stay airborne sticking out like sore thumbs. Remus scurried out of the path of another ice chunk, realising his indefatigable energy wouldn’t last forever.
His damn heart wouldn’t stop hammering. Remus was going to fall into cardiac arrest at this rate.
Two more ice blocks. He evaded the first, and was too slow to dodge its successor. So Remus was forced to release another breath of fire. The whole mass was fractured, half of it instantly vaporising. The rest, like some god had sent a streak of energy to destroy an asteroid, scattered into smaller pieces.
One hit Remus' elbow, and quite frankly, he squealed like a child.
“I’ve got you!” He sensed a presence rush towards him.
Lumi appeared out of nowhere. Remus immediately attempted to flee, flew up higher, and banged his head against the rafters of the arena.
Wait a second, I don’t remember any ceiling-
A creation of the Matter Clan, no doubt. That same transparent material, even less visible than glass, probably placed here to prevent flying clansmen like him from leaving the grounds like a migrating bird.
Well just great. Lovely.
He turned around, rubbed the top of his head, and tried not to look completely stupid.
Lumi, fully armoured, with enough artillery to serve an army, looked the full part of a blood-thirsty revenger, her own lifeforce staining her cheek.
“You want to escape, do you?”
“Well yes.” Remus croaked, not failing to notice how shaky his hands were becoming. Sooner or later, he’d fall. “I don’t suppose you could arrange me one.”
Remus felt the winds around grow more chaotic. He’d passed it off as the energy they’d been dealing throughout the bout, but he was beginning to suspect something else.
Someone was coming. Someone far surpassing the power you’d expect to find at a dingy settlement like this. And Remus couldn’t shake the feeling they were coming after him.
Lumi’s rictus was flat-out disturbing. “Don't worry. We have an escort arranged just for you!”
Remus didn’t hold out hope that anything good could come out of this.