196 (II)

Morsel [I]

Shiv shook off the rush of adrenaline and returned to freeing Mortar. With every stroke of his blade, he chipped more of the orc's body free. As he did, he winced as he saw just how badly wounded his orc was.

Mortar had high Toughness, but high Toughness didn't do much when most of your inner organs were compressed in a space too small for you. Shiv's mana-hydra swelled around the badly mangled orc, and it took a while for him to crystallize all the injuries. At present, his ribs were residing where his kidney should be, and his heart was among the few biological processes within his body that still functioned. That was the entire reason why Mortar was still alive. His lungs had popped, his stomach was leaking acid over into his intestines. It was a general nightmare, but Shiv managed to heal the orc.

As he did, though, Mortar's body came alight with that glistening glow as well. He, too, was considered an ingredient, and just then a blackened grid slid over him as Shiv's focus lingered on the orc for too long.

"Why are you looking at me like that, Insul?" Mortar gasped. "You seem hungry. And what's that you're holding?" Mortar squinted. His piss-yellow eyes turned to glinting beads, and then they suddenly widened as the orc choked. "Are you seriously holding some kind of bladed frying pan? You used that to cut me out of the wall?"

"Yeah, I'm having a hard time accepting it myself," Shiv said. "Listen, did you see the others?"

"What do you mean, did I see the others? You popped the core. I was busy getting my guts kicked out by some bastard I couldn't even react to. Half the other orcs died immediately without getting to enjoy the fight. And now I'm here. I woke up halfway embedded in the walls."

"Alright, I guess that was too much to hope for," Shiv said. He reached down and pulled Mortar to his feet, who wobbled a bit, seeming unused to standing on legs of flesh and blood. Shiv had restored him to his normal bodily composition, not including the robotic legs. The orc grunted and, thanks to Shiv's healing, found himself still among the living. Mortar sniffled, and he regarded Shiv's armor. "Is that thing still alive?"

"What, my Voidmantid?" Shiv examined the conditions of his armor and scowled. It was badly wounded, but still functional.

"I think you should be able to track the others using their pheromones, Insul."

"You sure they're going to be nearby?" Shiv asked.

"Probably. It makes sense, right? We've been displaced into the same area. I would say it'd just be luck, but considering how messy that blast was, and those waves of pressure, I think most of us got carried an equivalent distance. Which probably includes the Avatars."

And that made Shiv's insides tighten. He clenched his new weapon tighter. And snorted. The idea of smashing a frying pan over Daughter's head was ridiculous—but he loved it.

Shiv nodded and focused on Adam's scent. He hadn't used his armor's Awareness enchantments nearly enough, but right now was as good of a time as any. The Gate Lord had a faint taste of spring about him, and right now, in this place, spring was easy to trace. Shiv closed his eyes and gave the entirety of his concentration over to his awareness. "Come on," he muttered to himself. "Come on, be somewhere nearby."

Once more, the System answered his prayers.

A crisp, minty flavor glided up into his nose, and at the same time, he felt a tremoring vibration rush through the ground. It repeated too often to be a one-off. It felt like someone was running somewhere or pounding against the floor, and Shiv followed the taste. It was a good thing his armor allowed him to sense pheromones; otherwise, he would have found himself lost in the strange tangle of winding hallways.

He used the smell as a compass, and after turning left, right, and dropping through a vertically placed hallway, he found himself squeezing out from a narrow crevice that used to be the top side of a door that was now sunken into the ground.

Once he was through to the other side, he looked around to take in a new chamber. This one was far smaller than the one he'd regained coherence in. It was an office, from the looks of things. However, a fourth of it had been compressed by a mess of staircases. They jutted from the walls like ribs sticking out of skin, and hanging from them were a few other orcs. Shiv winced.

These orcs weren't so lucky. Some of the steps had been driven through their skulls. For a while, Shiv wondered if Dimensionality did that to them, but then he noticed how the blood spray was splattered only on one side of the wall. Someone had impaled them upon the stairs from the left side

There were still enemies about. Ascendants. Avatars. "Mortar," Shiv muttered under his breath. "Keep your eyes wide."

He looked around, trying to find a doorway, and that minty taste bade him to look up. Shiv blinked and found another room conjoined to this one. And as he spent a moment longer observing it, he realized he was staring up into a massive prison cube, intersected with another. It seemed to be a cross shape, and inside Shiv saw hundreds of small shadows falling from on high.

The first of them landed with a brutal thud, and Shiv realized what was causing the vibrations earlier. Some of the wardens had been displaced poorly, and now they were bouncing off the Orichalcum walls, slamming down from heights that weren't there before. With how tough most wardens were, Shiv suspected they'd survive, but from all the groaning he could hear, a few of them were definitely injured.

"Uh, Insul. Got a bit of a problem." Mortar's voice came from under the crevice. Shiv paused, and then he grunted in understanding. He might have been able to squeeze underneath the frame, but Mortar was the size of a small shed, even without his mechanical parts. Shiv was prepared to use his Legendary strength, but then paused. Once more, he focused on the doorframe, and a black grid appeared. "Alright, Morsel, let's see you do your thing." He slashed. The wall came apart in a burst of diced bits. It rained down, and Shiv caught it in the center of his pan. But that wasn't enough to start the cooking. It needed a fire. It always needed a fire. He summoned a burst of Pyromancy atop his palm, and he grinned as it glistened like an ingredient and then was lined with a cutting grid right after.

Shiv left the orichalcum inside the base of the pan for now. Mortar staggered on through, and he regarded Shiv's new weapon with less humor and a great deal more apprehension. "That thing looks like a child threw it together, but by the Challenger, does it cut deep."

"It cooks as well," Shiv said. "Managed to make something edible out of the orichalcum and a piece of magma I diced up earlier." The Orc just stared. "I'm not joking, that actually happened. Turned my flesh into orichalcum and made me able to drain all the fire from the air. I think it just… feeds me the properties of whatever I eat for a while."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The orc hummed. "You know what? I think I wanna try a bite later."

"Yeah, later." Shiv pointed up. "I think I got a guess where some of our friends could be, but they might not be alone."

"Oh, we got another fight on our hands, do we?" Mortar chuckled. "Well, after you, Insul."

Shiv seized the orc with his left hand and launched both of them up through the entrance leading into the prison cubes.

As they climbed, Shiv saw a small mess of wardens strewn across the ground. Many of them were clutching their limbs; a few were tending to others. Theirs was a mixed lot. Some of them were armored in adamantine plate, while others were logistical Pathbearers, dressed only in uniforms, and some weren't even properly dressed at all, only clad in undergarments. Some of them pointed at him as he went up, and Shiv paused briefly in the air.

He looked at the wardens around him, and he saw several lift their weapons.

"I can just blast them right now," Mortar said. "Just say so. Please say so."

Shiv didn't see a need. "Listen!" the Deathless called out. "I broke the mana core to this prison. Right now, magma's flowing in. You can stay here and wait for the Ascendants to recover you. I'm leaving. If you take a shot at me or throw a spell at me, I'll come down, rip your arms off, and then I'll feed them to you. You don't do that, I'll be on my way, and that'll be that."

Crushing silence followed, and Shiv watched the wardens closely. A few of them twitched, uncertain what to do, while others looked to specific members among their party. A well-built elven woman bearing a pointed spear glared up at Shiv. "You've made a terrible mistake, prisoner. You—"

And then Shiv's World Quest triggered. Whatever she had to say next died in her throat as a choked gasp, and a series of fear chains flowed out from them, fueling Shiv with new power.

"Yeah," Shiv deadpanned. "Look, I'm gonna ignore the whole 'you can't escape, the Ascendants will hunt you down' speech. I don't give a shit what they're going to do. I'm leaving. Now, you stay here, you mend your wounded, and you keep your heads down. It's your best shot at living, so please don't make me take your lives from you. I'm tired. I just wanna get out. Also, I don't want your blood on my new pan." Shiv spun his weapon and glared.

When the elven woman reluctantly pressed her lips together and the other wardens did nothing, Shiv looked down at the orc and nodded. "Alright, up some more."

Mortar let out a deep sigh. "But I wanted to obliterate a few of them."

"And I appreciate your sacrifice, Mortar."

As Shiv said that, he felt Sticks and Stones Skill trigger as the orc's body briefly turned transparent like glass. Huh. Wonder why that happened.

He flew another four hundred meters higher into the air and made for the edge where another valley intersected this one. The taste of Adam grew ever more intense, and just as he rounded the corner, he almost slammed headfirst into the Gate Lord.

Adam had to dodge out of the way with his vector wings, and a rasping breath escaped from him before a look of relief washed over his face. "Shiv, good hells. What did you do back there?"

"Collapsed the core," Shiv said as he came to a stop. "Just didn't expect it to shit us out across different places. You got any idea where we are?"

"At the bottom of the supervolcano," Adam replied. His eyes were flashing bright, and Shiv realized he was using a Seer of Horizons to figure out their general location. "The cubes are currently tumbling through the magma, and that's not all. A set of wards has been placed around this area. I can feel them pressing against me. If we try to teleport, we'll be pinpointed immediately. We'll be dragged into specialized anchors. The Ascendants are down here somewhere as well. I managed to avoid Daughter earlier, but not sure where the others ended up."

Shiv looked behind him and saw Can Hu being carried by Kura and Whisper. The Penitent was missing most of its lower body again, and its right arm was gone as well.

"Can Hu, you alright?" Shiv called out.

"Minor damage sustained compared to some of my past missions," Can Hu said. "I will recover. And my Toughness will return to where it once was when I reconstruct myself."

There were about a dozen other orcs with the group, and Tequila had Candles strapped to his back as well. The Pyromancer was unconscious, and Shiv winced as he caught sight of Candles's skin for the first time. His flesh was normally transparent amidst his flaming halo, only becoming translucent enough to make out some outlines in rare instances. Now, with his flame out, he appeared downright ghastly. The pyromaniac was charred. His body looked like raw gristle. Shiv could see blackened tissue and exposed muscle shining free around lengths of pale bone. The Deathless dipped his mana hydra into the disfigured Pathbearer and realized he was still alive. Worse yet, he realized that the state of his body wasn't actually an injury, but probably a natural result of his Skill Evolution, as he couldn't fix it with his Biomancy.

What the hells? Shiv thought.

Then there was the final member of Adam's group.

A few steps behind them was the Educator. Her black robes and the red sash tightening them around her waist fluttered, and that tome rattled behind her, bound to her by a series of chains like a backpack. Shiv was surprised to see it, since she'd left the one he'd set on fire for Valor to take, and it was still in their possession.

She looked at Shiv with a sneer drawn across her features and a mocking glint in her dark eyes. As before, her facial features appeared young and near-immaculate despite her shoulder-length hair graying, making her look like she could be anywhere between her twenties and her forties by Pathless standards.

Just behind her, the prison valley came to an abrupt end as a massive wall of orichalcum cut it off. It seemed like the exterior of another cage had been placed along the path, completely blocking the path.

Adam turned, and he shot her a weary look as he let out a sigh. "She's with Udraal," the Gate Lord said, suspicion lingering clearly in his voice. "Decided to slip in and help us out when the Ascendants jumped. Apparently, she's how Udraal managed to get into the prison in the first place. She knows a back door. A way out."

"Great," Shiv grunted. "But we're not using that. We go with her, and we might all end up stuck between the pages of some book."

Shiv landed on the ground and slowly walked toward the Educator. Adam flanked him, and soon, the orcs parted to give them space in case a new battle was to unfold. And to Shiv's delight, as he focused on her, she glittered with Chef Unwavering, and she was parted into blackened grids as well.

She was of average height for an ordinary woman, so she had to crane her neck when he came to a stop a few steps in front of her. "Deathless," she greeted him, unimpressed. "It's been some time. I see you…" Her voice trailed off as she noticed what he had in his hand. "What is that monstrosity you're holding?"

And just then, Adam noticed it too. "Shiv, where did you find a… Is that a frying pan?"

Shiv held his new weapon high with pride. "Yeah, and it's a bit more than that too. Actually, I think it's our way to slip out directly." Shiv turned his gaze on a nearby shadow, and to his rising glee, it was separated into a grid as well. He could cut shadows! "How do you feel about taking a dip in lava while perfectly hidden from the Ascendants, Adam?"

"Not particularly enthused. Especially because it's not magical lava here. I suspect it won't be good for my skin."

"Well, what if I tell you I got a way to make you immune to the heat? And to wrap you in blackness so no one knows where you are?"

The Gate Lord paused. "How?"

Shiv smirked and leaned down to slice into his own shadow. "With a bite. Let's see if this cut actually gives me anything. And what I can cook up with a slice of darkness."

Adam just stared as the Deathless started chuckling. "Shiv… are you alright? Did you—did you have a stroke?"

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