156 (II)

Orichalcum

"Ah. The great Georges," Mortar breathed. He was eyeing the chef like a piece of livestock waiting to be butchered. "Band spoke highly of you. Sadly, I don't think you'll ever be talking with him again. Tragic how life can turn out." The large orc grinned at Shiv.

"Shiv, what the fuc—"

Shiv interrupted Georges before a flurry of questions could follow. "Helix. Take Georges and get out of here. Yeah, I care about him. Yes, I will follow through on my threats and then some if anything happens to him. The rest of you—" Shiv sighed as he realized it was hopeless to ask the orcs to try and evacuate the residents of Blackedge. They were here to fight, and they weren't made for emergency extractions. At the same time, Shiv didn't know how much of Blackedge was even still alive. Part of him didn't want to know, but he was pretty sure the town was effectively done after this.

Georges looked between Shiv and Helix. "What? You're trusting my life to a felling orc?"

"Yeah," Shiv grunted wearily. "Because I'm going after the Tarrasque, and so I'm going with the shit choice instead of the hopeless one."

"You're—you're bloody what?" Georgres sputtered. He swept the town of Blackedge with his eyes, and desperate cries of agony and despair came from everywhere. A dark look passed over his features. "No. This… this place is done, Shiv. We need to go."

"Can't," Shiv replied. "Not when there are people still alive here. Not with the Perch still at risk."

Helix squinted at Shiv. "Is my expertise but a joke to you, Insul? Did you not hear my words? Your presence in this fight is absolutely irrelevant."

"Well, someone has to drain its vitality," Shiv sneered. "And someone has to get a Toughness Evolution soon too." He regarded the two Legends on the verge of violence beside them. "And maybe I can get the actual heavyweights to focus on the apocalyptic problem first…"

"Oh, this will be good," Tequila said, giggling.

He stepped out from Whisper's Dimensional shroud and let out a breath. "Alright. Here goes. Hey! Guys. Not to interrupt your blood feud, but the Tarrasque is coming back."

Neither Hawgrave nor Marikos looked away from each other. They glared at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Even with the Dragon-Knight's soul burning, there was a sense of apprehension to Hawgrave's posture, like she was reluctant to deliver the first blow.

There was history between them. Shiv had a feeling it didn't go so well for Hawgrave last time.

Awareness 43 > 44

"And when it hits us," Shiv continued, casting a brief look at the Tarrasque and wincing, "there's not going to be a Blackedge left. Or a Starhawk's Perch. That'll make things pretty pointless, won't it?"

It was like an entire section of the sky itself was falling behind the Tarrasque. A massive plate of flame crossed over the sun's face once more, and Marikos stopped burning as well.

"Well, Fortress," Hawgrave said, cocking her head at the approaching Tarrasque. "Looks like your friend is back. Go stop 'em."

"Put the town down first," Marikos replied, not budging. "And join me in the defense. One Legend is not enough to slay a Tarrasque with ruthless efficiency."

Hawgrave laughed humorlessly. "Well. Good thing I'm not by myself." Over her shoulder, something else pushed down through the clouds a few kilometers away. It resembled a massive, flying cathedral of metal. Plumes of fire erupted from its back, and magical sails jutted out from its sides, but at its front was the vagueness of a face: two bright-blue orbs for eyes, and a closed gate that resembled a mouth. Also sticking out from it were a few hundred cannons. "I came with an army. Isn't that right, Hero-Inquisitor Talsand?"

The cathedral ship droned in the distance, and more shapes emerged behind it. Automata evolved into forms suited for flight. Riders atop massive griffons. Hundreds of magi formations packed tight around the cathedral-shaped automaton.

The Inquisitorial army had arrived.

Shiv blinked. "Wait. I was inside that?"

His sudden admission made Hawgrave guffaw. "Oh, hells, kid, you didn't know? Man, you just bumbled aboard and had us fooled for a while too. Without the orc in my sword, you might just've held out for a while longer. Eh. Maybe an hour. You weren't a very good spy, to be honest."

The Deathless's eye twitched at the approaching Inquisitorial army. "I just… didn't realize automata could get that big. Or people, for that matter."

"Ah." Hawgrave sighed. "Blissful small-town ignorance is the best. I was there too. And—"

And just then, a bolt blasted high up into the air, cleaving past Blackedge. It struck the sky and detonated into a massive storm cloud that began to pour down across the world with lightning and rain. Everything grew dark—but the clouds were lined with more than just stormstuff, they were also coated with a veil of Dimensionality. And then more than rain and lightning spilled out of the clouds. Dragons joined them. Dragons clad in resplendent armor and bearing weapons of awesome power.

"Oh," Hawgrave muttered. "Shit. I guess you have an army as well." Just then, the broken corpse of a Necrotech sailed passed her, and she looked afar to see a small army of orcs rampaging across the sky, rising from Blackedge. And over the horizon, Shiv could hear more cheering, more roars proclaiming one word. One title.

"INSUL!"

"INSUL!"

"INSUL!"

"That is… a great many orcs," Hawgrave's sword, Rusty, said, sounding slightly worried.

"And where the hells did they come from?" Hawgrave asked.

"They're with me," Shiv said.

The world around them came aglow with light as the Tarrasque drew close. The world trembled with thundering blasts of force, but even through the cacophony, Sullain's screams could be heard in the far distance. A breath of disbelief escaped Hawgrave, still not looping up at their imminent doom. "You're kidding? You invoked the Ritual of the Vaketh-Insul?"

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"Yeah," Shiv replied. "Didn't really have a good choice there. Besides that, I was kind of hoping to have you and the Inquisition deal with Sullain for me while me and mine evacuated Blackedge."

"Oh, that's just a nasty strategy," Hawgrave breathed.

"But quite good," her sword grunted. "I like it. If it were not being used against us."

The enormous Legend hesitated. "Tell you what, I'll help you, Marikos. I could use a Quest reward. It's been a while. But as for Blackedge. Well… Also, didn't you purposefully piss Sullain off earlier?" She stared at Shiv.

Shiv tensed. "Hawgrave, do not felling—"

She dropped Blackedge, and the town vanished into the flat of her blade beneath his feet as she slashed through it. A splash of Dimensionality later, there was no more Blackedge, only a sword twice as large as the town itself. Only Shiv was left standing on its surface, and he turned his head just in time to see her hook her little finger behind her thumb with her free hand.

She flicked him.

Adamantine Adaption 200 > 201 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Skill Evolution: Adamantine Adaption (Master) > Pillar of Orichalcum (Heroic)

Shiv's armor shattered into pieces, and his body folded in half as he shot up into the sky and toward the horizon in a blur. "Oh, you godsdamned—" Before Shiv could finish his cursing, Marikos blurred through the air. What felt like a mana bomb went off where Blackedge had been as the Legends clashed against each other. Shiv caught only flickering shadows and flashes of the two Legends fighting as he was launched further away. Hawgrave's huge blade flicked and hewed—seemingly from multiple directions at the same time. It turned partially dimensional as it passed through the earth, avoiding any drag.

Every blow that landed on Marikos made the chasm to the Abyss below fracture a little wider.

Yet, not a single strike drove the Dragon-Knight back. Hawgrave was a tidal wave, but Marikos was a tower that wouldn't fall, and with every hit she inflicted, a brutal counter was unleashed right back. Lances of force punched holes through the atmosphere. What little remained of the old city below was split time and again. Explosions of radiant fire licked out and recoiled from Hawgrave's armor.

The other arriving dragons were blasted back, but they pushed forward. Shiv saw a wave of gray dots leap into the fray as well. Meanwhile, he was accelerating toward what could best be described as a rolling apocalypse crashing down from the sky. And it was then that Shiv added Jessica Hawgrave as the second member of his "bullshit powerful Pathbearers I will eventually punch in the face" list.

She couldn't even put this shit aside for a World Quest.

At the same time, Shiv felt something spread through his broken body. An immense weight flowed through his veins, danced across his sinews, flooded his bones, and started ripping through his flesh. Shiv snarled as his current body began to fracture and break. It was like a new version of him was about to hatch out from the inside. His current adamantine-hard flesh felt like a brittle shell for the evolution churning within.

But this metamorphosis felt more extreme than all the others he'd experienced. Even more so than Inertial Overdrive. This didn't feel like a human skill at all. It felt like more power than his body could sustain was bursting out from inside, making him denser because he just wasn't large enough.

Shiv gritted his teeth as he tried to get his bearings. His attempt at focus failed immediately as a ripple of gravitation force tore him across the world, accelerating him toward the above Tarrasque even faster. His limbs were flensed apart. His flesh came aglow with a gold-bronze glow and burst apart. Every fiber of his being felt like hell, but Shiv was more frustrated than angry by this point. Great. Perfect. He has me again. And I have no idea what the hells this Skill Evolution is supposed to do.

"You will know suffering like no other, Deathless!" Sullain screamed. Shiv burst through the clouds and found himself staring at the approaching Tarrasque. Folds of incandescence peeled from its body as it accelerated toward him at a terrifying speed. Death was coming in less than a second. "It was your words that delayed my justice!"

Despite the sheer rage radiating from the Tarrasque, the Deathless just sighed. He considered using Outside Context Problem to avoid this death, but decided he wanted to keep the Tarrasque's attention for as long as he could. "Just shut the hells up and hit me," he muttered.

His wish came true. The Tarrasque struck him so hard that he dissolved into particles. It then continued to drive against the Vitae that burst free from his dissolved corpse.

Pillar of Orichalcum 201 > 211

Gravitic Wrestler 165 > 169

Vitality Drain 61 > 70

Vitaemancy 76 > 80

Shiv's Vitae peeled away from his body in fraying strings. He felt true death creep closer to him with every passing instant. Yet, despite this, his evolution continued even in his post-death state. Once more, a flash of reddish gold pulsed out from him. This time, it did not fade thereafter. It lined the exterior of his Vitae, coating it in shimmering power unlike anything Shiv had felt before. He felt a weight there, a density, a pressure that defied existence itself.

As the cold finger of oblivion dipped deep into Shiv's core, as the Tarrasque drove a blade against his sprawling mass of red, Shiv willed himself to harden, willed himself to be unbreakable, and as he focused, the red-gold sheen lining his being grew ever brighter. The massive crystalline dagger the Tarrasque wielded crashed into him.

Shiv prepared for nothingness to take him, or whatever followed after death. Yet, unlike every time before, the Deathless did not shatter. He did not come asunder, even though the world around him turned into a turbulent sea of plasma, even though there were several collapsing mountains' worth of force hammering down upon him.

Parts of his Vitae broke away. He lost more of himself, going from a mass to a series of cords, to a single rope, and finally a sinew. But that sinew grew brighter and brighter still. And as it grew brighter, so too did its weight reach impossible heights.

Yet, it wasn't just a tangible mass, but also a metaphysical one. It stopped moving in midair. The Tarrasque's incredible bulk crashed hard against him, and Shiv felt an overwhelming pressure grind against his very being. As he commanded himself to endure, to harden evermore, his Pillar of Orichalcum skill obeyed. It just kept getting brighter, and he simply got more durable.

The Tarrasque struck him twice more, swinging its massive blades, and slashing at him using its tentacles. Cataclysmic blastwaves spread out over Shiv. Some more of him fractured, and Shiv knew that if he broke right now, there would be nothing left of him to reconstitute.

But he didn't break. The cracks stopped. His brightness outpaced the amount of damage the Tarrasque was inflicting upon him. And through the spreading inferno, his colors of crimson and gold pierced through like a mystical sunrise cleaving across the sky of a broken world. More than that, with every impact the Tarrasque inflicted, a pulse burst out from Shiv at the place of impact. It shared a color with the mystical sheen currently lining his body, and explosions of force were displaced against the Tarrasque, the very force it inflicted upon him.

For the first time, the Tarrasque's body suffered damage as well. True damage. And it did so by attacking Shiv. Sullain compelled the huge beast to lash at him, devoid of technique, fueled by nothing but fury.

But its physical attacks were little more than heavy thuds now. Shiv was consumed by an ocean of destruction. He was barely more than a string of Vitae, coated by the composition of what he assumed was Orichalcum, whatever that was. It certainly proved more than capable of withstanding the Tarrasque's sloppy blows.

"Break!" Sullain raged. "I command you! Break! Break! Break!"

But Shiv did not break. In fact, he didn't even budge. The radiating shroud of Orichalcum spread out from Shiv. It was like a slightly expanding barrier pulsing out from him in oscillations of brilliance. And to the Deathless's disbelief, the Tarrasque was slightly pushed back, even with it constantly accelerating, grinding against him in midair. Where it had effortlessly ripped him apart earlier, now there was a struggle occurring between his Heroic-Tier Toughness skill and its overwhelming physical power.

Now it was cracking its own shell more than it was affecting him. With some of its harder blows, he still budged slightly through the air, but that's all it was, a slight movement, and a moment later, the same blow didn't even have that effect.

A building sense of awe filled the Deathless. What the hells kind of Heroic Skill was this? It felt Legendary. But he didn't read the notification wrong. It was a Heroic-Tier Skill.

And Shiv immediately learned its drawback despite its awesome benefits.

The first issue was movement. Shiv tried to move himself and couldn't. He was frozen stiff as if a statue. Shiv paused and considered that the skill did have Pillar in its name, after all. Pillar. That's fitting.

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