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Virgil 'Wraith' Boone
The Goregiant's monstrous palm surges towards me, an open, all-consuming maw that threatens to crush anything in its path. The air crackles with its sheer force, the sand upon it sizzling from the heat it transfers from simply moving. The sound alone is deafening, breaking any barriers that are held within the air.
I summon all Ether within my core, coursing it in the skill I've grown most familiar with, Flicker. It has been the thing that has kept me alive throughout the worst of the past year.
And I only have it thanks to an abnormality of life, as a God would call him.
Flickering through the palm, I phase through the colossal appendage, expecting to emerge unscathed on the other side. Cloudy vistas of the Otherworld glaze my mind as I re-tether myself immediately to this world, finding a foothold to return.
Yet, unlike the seamless transitions of my previous Flickers, this one is different. Agonizing pain courses through me, searing and burning, digging into the deepest recesses of my flesh.
An involuntary groan escapes my lips, a rare expression of pain. Usually, I can keep my body under wraps, but not this time. My Ether, usually a source of strength, now feels like a double-edged sword, cutting through me as I bear the brunt of the skill. Yet, despite the pain, I cling to my Power, unwilling to relinquish the safety it provides even with the torture.
I reappear on the other side of the palm an instant later, daggers in hand as before, and latch onto it once more. The act reopens the blazing heat within me, but I force my muscles to contract, lifting me higher.
The agony only increases as I continue. Still, I refuse to yield, even as little bloody fires emerge within the depths of my veins. This being... and all the others... the plane they come from is unlike any other. It is brutal, it is terrifying, it is absolutely inhospitable to life, yet it still breeds it in its own way.
Peering upward as the Goregiant returns its arm to its side, I find the monster to have forgotten about me. Perfect. Still, I grip on with all the strength I can possibly muster as wind cracks and slices open my skin like dozens of lashing whips from the pace the Goregiant settles with.
My hands tighten on my daggers as my teeth clench against each other. Nevertheless, I keep quiet, not a peep leaving my mouth.
The slip-up from before was against everything I've ever learned. Never again.
The ascent continues from an even higher location, the Goregiant's pulsating form now beneath me. Every single reach of my arm feels like a promise to the limits I'm willing to push, the pain a reminder that strength comes at a cost.
I've watched Wyatt break himself a thousand times to grow stronger. I've always thought it was naive and that true power is found within mastering techniques, skills, and strategies.
He hasn't proven me wrong, but I neglected a whole avenue of strength I could have searched for. For a long, long time, I have been more capable than him, but not anymore. Right now, he'd win in a frontal battle. Sure, I might... might succeed in an assassination against him, but that's a hard maybe. He's so tough; I wouldn't doubt him surviving a decapitation if Blodwyn was fast enough. I need to do something more, something drastic, to keep up in any meaningful amount. No one else has pushed themself like he does, other than Lennon Hull. And that drive is what explains the difference he exudes.
There is power to be found in spontaneous, forced need. The vast majority of my breakthroughs in strength and power come from training or preparation. I am not at all like Wyatt, who can force himself to do something incredible at the drop of a hat.
But I need to be. I need to do it at least once. Or, even with this God's gift, I won't see myself as worthy. And not seeing myself as such a thing is far more dangerous than any enemy. The self is the greatest foe.
Slow and steady. That's been the tale of my growth. A continuous climb with many dips and dives and just as many rises and plateaus. It's about time I find that spike.
With each upward leap or stretch of my arms, I ignore the searing pain, my focus unwavering. The Goregiant still doesn't seem to have noticed me, however, leaving my climb untested now.
My daggers must be nothing more than the sensation of sand grinding along a human's face in the desert. Hardly noticeable, not worth any mention or attention.
And I have set myself to kill this thing?
Even the gap between me and...
A shiver runs through my body while I recall that mission. Even that gap was far less substantial.
Have my skills risen that much, to the point I could take down a giant such as this? No.
But they must.
I have my own pride.
I can be unseen.
I can be ignored.
I can be alone.
I can be looked over.
But I cannot be useless.
Many years ago, I resigned myself to be nothing more than a shadow of those who were greater. A weapon for them to wield, a shield to defend them, and a cloak to surround them.
I feel my muscles relax, my tendons unwind, and my mind loosens further with each and every morsel of pain that assaults me during my ascent. I commit every possible portion of my mind to the arduous task of climbing the monstrous Goregiant. Gradually, the biting winds and sands in the air fall to the wayside as time fades, my focus turning it all null.
The pain in my innards intensifies, a warning sign of the toll this relentless ascent exacts on my body, but I ignore it. Sometimes...
A little bit of madness is needed. Too much rationality will leave me restrained, unable to advance further.
There are many mysteries swirling around my close friend, but there is one thing I know for sure. His struggles, the constant limit testing, and the never-ending battles they have all bestowed on him a strength beyond any others within his age. It is beyond the vast majority of all of mankind.
Pressure creates diamonds; that is a common fact. Still, the compacted trash must be capable of withstanding that pressure.
So, I continue, even when I sense nothing above my hand to grab onto, I leap upward, landing dextrously on the top of a sweeping platform made of flesh. Scanning the area with my eyes, I quickly realize that I am on the Goregiant's shoulder.
But the Goregiant, like a colossal sentinel, senses my intrusion once again. Its head turns slowly, grotesque pupils fixing on me as I take a moment to convalesce at the top of its shoulder. The air thickens with a profound presence that bears down on me, and my legs buckle beneath the weight of its gaze.
A crippling pressure crushes me from above, and I don't possess the strength to refute it. Falling to my hands and knees, I feel the fleshy limbs reaching out from the creature's surface, seeking to pull me into its grotesque form.
I close my eyes for a moment, falling into the darkness I enjoy so much as the world seems to collapse around me. Madness.
Wyatt has spoken of it much.
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But what is it?
His madness is the lack of fear he holds, facing any obstacle head-on as if death doesn't even faze him.
But what could my madness be? Am I even mad? No. I don't believe I am. Not yet. I've always kept myself sane, rational, and reasonable.
Yet, when I think of all the figures who stand at the top, not a single damned one fits those affixes.
If I have to lose one...
Rationality.
Despite the pain and the fact my legs are sinking into the flesh below, I reopen my eyes, their shaking stilled by an inexplicable sense of peace that washes over me. I cannot fail; there are people who depend on me. This peace is not born of resignation but of unwavering confidence that overflows through my limbs.
It is not that I cannot afford to die.
I cannot die.
The Goregiant's neck looms above me, and I realize something profound in this moment of clarity as I allow my sense of pride to bloat. The strength of Ether comes from belief and practice. I cannot practice anymore.
I was not born to fight but to kill. By any means necessary, I must achieve my goals. I have never been a good guardian, a sensible protector.
I can kill this thing.
Only I can kill this thing.
The idea sets in and infects every aspect of myself in but a singular moment. I ignore every portion of my mind that tells me it is impossible, that it cannot be done, that I am simply committing suicide. Those parts will only make me fail.
For my Ether or skills to grow further, I must be whole of mind.
With newfound resolve, I act swiftly. My daggers strike with precision, severing the grotesque limbs that seek to ensnare me, but they are not alone.
Nightwhips lash out from all over me, yet unlike usual, they hold tinges of my belief. Each of the whips ends with tiny edges, slicing as they move with the sharpness of the most well-kept knife. I rise from my hands and knees, standing tall on the Goregiant's shoulder as I cut the invisible threads of flesh that I find connecting me to the giant's pupils.
I have called them whips for too long.
Striding forward, my first footfall denoted by a stagger, I settle upon a name. Sanedges. Three dozen of the blades of pure darkness cloak me, acting where my two arms cannot reach.
These blades go far beyond where I can with my human limbs. Willful Strand allows them to go a hundred feet from where I stand, and I rapidly pick up the pace toward the Goregiant's face with this advancement.
I was not wrong. This is the way. It is risky. It is stupid by nearly every metric, yet there is no time. The man I seek to chase breaks all notions of what it means to be powerful, to be talented, to be chosen.
I am none of those things, yet I must become them all by the virtue of effort.
The Goregiant's maw opens toward me, revealing an endless cavern of twisting and gnashing flesh as a calamitous roar leaves its throat. The sound is so loud that it no longer can be heard. The mere vibration appears in my sight, forcing me to squint to hold any vision at all. Noises cease to exist as I am sent hurtling backward, only to catch myself with my Sanedges into the monster's flesh. I glide, nevertheless, opening a ravine of blood to wash down the giant before the scream even begins to falter.
Welts, bruises, and open cuts appear on my flesh as I try to defend myself, yet it is pointless. I can only wait.
It is something I am well accustomed to—no matter how uncomfortable the position is.
I let my blades of night plunge further into the tough bastard, giving me more leverage to work with instead of being sent tumbling over the edge. Still, as I feel the pressure wash over me, I wait, observing.
And the moment I see its mouth begin to close, I rush forward, pushing with everything I have. Each and every Sanedge grapples onto a piece of flesh, ripping me onward alongside my own steps.
Space disappears beneath my speed as I reach even more profoundly into my flesh. This is not enough. I can see a distant shadow through the sand. Its other hand is coming—fast.
In the very depths of my core, a feeble light resides. It is always frail, a poor little thing that possesses little radiance. Yet, I rely on it at this very moment.
I reach for something, a piece of the world I never imagined I would even grasp the edge of. Living Strand. It affects objects, both those made of Ether and those not, allowing the effects of Ether to last nearly indefinitely for most. A piece of my brain lunges for that, to make a certain skill last longer, to make it more potent.
Time feels to pause as the light within my core resonates with my call, my plea. It bulges out, coursing through my veins with a force unlike any other. I very rarely use this since there are so many restrictions.
Yet, it is time I remove those restrictions.
My confidence holds no bounds as I set my eyes on the impossible—a Dzil.
I have always been careful, cautious, and conscientious with my every action in a fight or leading up to one. Everything is calculated, a ballet of death. Not anymore.
It is time I leap into the water and learn how to swim. The looming shadow above grows larger as my Sanedges slice more and more of the hands and tendrils, reaching to rip me into the abyss of the Goregiant's innards.
This skill I am to transform came from my 5th Sigil, the homage to Vernon. Yet, I use it so scarcely because of the situation it leaves me in afterward, crippled and powerless. Illuminate leaves my core, entering my flesh, yet I don't let it simply leave my body. I force it to stay within me, swirling like a tempest. I bear my will upon it, hoping it will do as I want.
Yet, it does not. The light that originates from nowhere but the dark moves on its own, seeking the outside, wanting to spread. Sighing, I release my grasp on the skill but do not raise my hand toward the Goregiant. If I can't use it as a weapon... I will use it in other ways. Ether is based upon belief, upon creativity, and upon practice.
It will obey me.
Instead, my palm rests over my very own heart.
Living Strand is about faith, about confidence, about all the darkness and light within the depths of a soul. It is the soul. It is the beginning of the most incredible techniques, the things that cannot possibly be imagined, only done.
The shadow changes from a looming threat to a falling, visible one. The air above me shudders under its weight, and I meet the Goregiant's gaze as the light crashes into my heart.
Illuminate falls into the beating organ, and it gains its own will. The light disseminates through my veins, filling each and every capillary.
It becomes alive, even if only barely.
A blinding light bursts from my veins, making my skin seem see-through, but the effect is not simply visual. With one step, I vanish, reappearing at the base of the Goregiant's neck.
Yet, all my shadows are gone. From Necrosis to my new Sanedges, they're all gone, banished by the light. I lament their loss for only a moment as I dive toward the Goregiant's neck with my daggers.
A storm of steel is unleashed as I strike with reckless abandon, accelerating so fast that I work better with two knives than dozens of shadowy blades. Flesh falls to the wayside as the Goregiant strikes toward me again with a howl. With every few strikes, a dagger shatters from the raw force applied to it. And with each broken knife, I draw another one to replace it.
The sound assails me, reverberating both from the air and the neck I'm cutting. It shakes even the light crashing within me, growing brighter with every passing moment. The bits of Illuminate only seem to strengthen as they impact each other within me every time I attack or am hit.
A veritable dawn emerges on this giant's shoulder as its hand falls toward me once more. Yet, just like last time, I cannot be caught, only in a different way.
A Flicker sends me through the monster's hand unscathed as my light returns the previous favor, scorching its flesh in turn. The clouds of the Otherworld appear, but the usual visions and spirits do not appear. They hide from me and my light. Those spirits are scared, terrified even.
This time, however, I don't grasp onto its hand. Instead, I kick the air behind me. With a twist of my boot, a platform appears beneath me, only it is made of light, not night. I quickly gain familiarity with this new change and double down on it.
Tendrils of solidified light emerge from my back, born in the exact same way I would with my Sanedges. The only difference is that instead of pulling Ether from my core, I shape the light left behind my Illuminate as it becomes moldable. The instantaneous skill becomes something that lasts for over half a minute, a metric based upon the fading luminance within.
I land beside the Goregiant's ear and quickly climb inside, finding it spacious enough for me to walk with a crouch. But as I move inside, I am assailed in every direction by countless limbs cutting, scratching, stabbing, and grasping for my life.
My tendrils of light slice the abominations of flesh, but I notice the light within starting to die out. The collisions aren't enough to keep the light going.
I push harder, swing faster, and kick with more effort, but that only buys me a few more seconds. The light dwindles. This Dzil isn't something that can last forever. Stumbling forward in the ear canal, I cut past a wall of flesh and bony sand to realize that despite my light, the things I touch or cut lose their shadows entirely.
That would be interesting and something worth studying in any other situation. Instead, I saw my way through the flesh, even as wounds begin to pile up to the point they affect my performance.
I walk slower, strike with less strength, and my light grows so dim that it barely illuminates the path through the ear. Still, I continue onward.
Abruptly, however, I lose my balance and fall down, stumbling my way until I realize where I am—a gargantuan, pulsing glob of meat in before me.
As I flip my daggers into forward grips, though, my light dies out, leaving me in the darkness. A profound weakness suffuses me as I fall to a knee. The light left me dry, and without any physical strength, as for a scarce few moments, I nearly became light.
Shadowless has left me behind, but I am not done yet.
A primal, near-bestial groan comes from my lips as I lift myself once more. It is such a force of effort that I feel teeth creak and crumble. My every muscle, my every bone cries in protest as I refuse to listen to it all.
"I can kill it."
I sputter out my own confidence, reaching a hunched-over height. As I do so, I twist to the side, cutting a hand of flesh sharper than any steel that seeks my throat. Almost there. Just a little further. This creature has a brain, and as such, if I destroy it, it will die. Perhaps it will even have a Sigil for me to devour, or maybe the devastation left in its wake will leave some for me to take.
I shouldn't get ahead of myself, though.
Falling Rain leaves its holster as I stagger, wobbling back and forth. My finger pulls the trigger toward the brain as I crash into the pulpy skull around me. Limbs grasp for me, nails dig into my flesh, and the recoil from the Lumen fractures my wrist. I stumble back, nearly falling over, but my ankle twists, locking me in a debilitating position as it falls into the palm of a tendril.
My heart drops as even the depths of my instincts know how dangerous of a position this is to be in. It is almost certain death, even if I kill this brain. I could Flicker, but that would only make things worse as the light is gone.
Images pass through my eyes, yet they are not of my family. They are of my past. A single face turns to dozen, then to a hundred, then into so many I can't possibly remember them all.
A decade.
A whole decade I spent killing. I was only a 3rd Sigil for most of it, not wanting to go further for what it might mean, but that doesn't mean I wasn't effective. I had to of killed close to a thousand people. Eli Weiss said they were bad people, ones that deserved their sentence. Even if he is right...
I still snuffed out a thousand lights. I killed my best friend. I killed my own brother.
I cannot imagine that any one of those I killed was any worse than I. I am a monster. A creature that is capable of shutting down any emotions, acting akin to an unfeeling machine whenever I need to. I became what they trained me to be—a killer—the best ever seen. Even Eli Weiss admitted in our interaction that I am more dangerous than Clarence Love's Silent Sting. That, if we were to compete, he is confident my trail would possess more corpses even if Clarence would win in a duel.
If I am to be emotionless and focused, perhaps I allow my madness to sink into that instead of rationality.
I twist the Colt in my hand, aiming it toward my leg.
This wound is not likely to be one to regrow with time. I am hundreds of miles away from the nearest human. I will not have any medical aid. I might even be gone for so long that this will stay with me forever. There is a chance I return in time for a doctor to recover it, but that isn't guaranteed. Yet, my heart doesn't waver in the slightest.
I pull the trigger.
An explosion rends half of my leg from my body, a burst of blood filling the entirety of this cavern, but my leg doesn't fall off completely.
I pull the trigger again.
And with that, my leg leaves me at my calf. Staggering forward as tendrils sink into my back, I place the Colt over my head, facing down the length of my back. Again, I squeeze my finger. Blood trails down my back as some of the bullets shred my flesh with a mere scrape, even bolstered by tightened Nightwhips. I dive forward with one leg, leaping ahead and flipping myself over with my hand. Then, I Flicker into the air, placing a platform of darkness to hold me for a moment as I turn my Colt toward the brain. A hundred tendrils, arms, and snapping jaws reach for my life from the ground, like a scene from a painting.
Despite the blood streaming out from me, I keep pulling the trigger, unleashing all the remaining rounds in the chamber. And with each round, the attacks grow more frenzied and frail. By the final round, a hand latches onto my bloodied back. I'm hauled to the floor in but a moment.
Ignoring the nails cutting me, the jaws gnawing through me, and the hands tearing me apart, I reload the Colt. Then, blasting with Falling Rain, I crawl my way out, kicking and thrashing to reload and unleash another volley onto the brain.
By the time the second volley starts, however, weightlessness fills me. With the sinking of my gut, I feel a sense of... accomplishment, a profound, life-altering achievement that spreads from the feather imprinted on my wrist to the totality of my body. That warmth counters the awful cold as my world spins precipitously.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.