Unbound

Felix marveled as he flexed his hand. The hole that the priest had shot through it had healed completely. All it had cost him was stolen essence. The other slices and bruises on his body healed just as fast, fading to simple scratches in minutes, though it depleted him just as quick. The Revenants were more than happy to keep him topped off, however.

"SCREAAAAARGH!"

Felix leaned back from the Revenant's wild swipe, before closing the distance and tearing out its throat. Black ichor sizzled against the stones, a stain that spread with every strike. After some difficulty, he'd manage to keep his transformation localized to his hands and forearms, which gave him claws and a hefty bonus to his defenses there. A final blow to the thing's skull and it fell. Felix stood over it, his Body buzzing with stolen energy and craving more.

A gleeful cry came from one street over.

Felix looked to Zara, who stood some distance away with her arms folded into her black chorister robes. "I've got them," he told her, a touch of challenge in his voice.

Zara raised her eyebrow but didn't argue, instead watching him with her bright, curious eyes.

Ravenous Tithe!

A jagged spear of pain lanced through his gut as his Mana burst from his channels, but it soon dwindled as the four Revenants at his feet turned into dark smoke. Pain for strength.

Without another word, Felix took off, speeding down the nearby alley moments before the toothy beasts appeared.

Nine, he counted. They let out snarls of surprise as he bowled directly through them, tackling one musclebound abomination into the wall opposite. They hit hard enough to crack the stone edifice, and his heavy Body was more than enough to turn one into a meaty paste. They Revenants rallied and spun on him, but Felix was already up and hurling himself back at them.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Dark scales burst along his arm and his upper body swelled, his full transformation activating. He hit them like a truck filled with knives, and in moments two more were twitching meatsacks on the cobbles. Still, the rest piled onto him, their slavering hunger hitting him almost as hard as their bodies did. It didn't take his Affinity to read exactly what they wanted.

"Come and...take it!"

Barbed wings burst through the pile, neatly severing two more Revenants into four. The edges of his new appendages were as sharp as his talons, their mixture of bone and rigid feathers a unique, and once in a lifetime experience for the Revenants. Three stumbled back, the sudden transformation startling even to their tiny Minds. One, however, was not so smart and went in for the kill.

Felix drove his jaws into it's descending neck, savaging it across its collarbone and trapezius muscle, before his left hand ripped it's damn head off.

He stood up, and ichor pour from him like a waterfall, soaking his clothes and filling his nose with a nauseating, delectable bouquet.

Ravenous Tithe!

Forcibly turning to Essence was an explosive event, Felix had found. So when the Revenants flinched as the corpses of their fellows sublimated, Felix had all the time in the world to rip them apart. The last Revenant died while screaming, and another flare of his Mana and Will turned all evidence of them into dust.

"That was...enlightening, Felix," Zara said. "I didn't expect wings."

"They were a surprise to me too," Felix said. Feeling suddenly guilty, he wasn't sure what to do with his hands. With a gasp of pain, he reverted them back to human-seeming.

Zara tilted her head. "It hurts?"

"Not as bad as it used to," Felix said with a shrug. He eyed her a moment longer. "You don't seem particularly weirded out by my...Skills."

It was Zara's turn to shrug. "I've seen far stranger sights than a Body alteration Skill and a consumption Skill. Both courtesy of the Maw?"

Felix nodded, and almost by silent agreement, both of them started walking down the street again. "It's had a...formative effect on my development."

Zara laughed. "Remarkable."

It felt good, Felix realized, being open about everything. Zara was a Chanter, a Sorcerer, and who knew what else; she'd seen so much that even his strange and terrifying beginnings were old hat.

Still, he reminded himself. Don't get too comfortable. She doesn't know that I'm an Unbound, yet. He eyed her in his peripherals. How'll you feel about that, Zara Cyrene?

He planned to tell her, just...not yet. Soon.

The journey through the city had so far been a smorgasborg of battle, with the center city being heavily overrun. The cathedral of the Pathless had been up on the hill itself, so they'd had to wade through bodies to get back out. Had Felix not been imbibing straight monster Essence every other breath he would have fallen with exhaustion by the tenth block. As it was he felt jittery and strong, as if he'd been mainlining the blackest of coffee mixed with industrial grade steroids.

And his appetite only seemed to be growing. The rush of Essence was unlike anything he'd experienced before, even considering the feel of a level up and System-tuned stat upgrades. His capacity had been stretched and tempered by the influx from the Ravager Queen and King, and now the space around his core felt cavernous. The thick, textured darkness had become a seemingly endless realm of shadow where his Skills revolved in a dance of vibrating light. And his core...

His core had been fundamentally changed.

Where before it had been a blue-white bonfire crackling with lightning (strange enough as that was), now as a consequence of surviving the devouring of the Maw and the Ravager King, it had become a tight ring of flame. Still blue-white in color and still coursing with electrical discharge, the fire had become less of a plasma and more of a liquid. It had condensed, and at the same time expanded. Now in the center of the ring was a dark space, an abyss that seemed darker than the night of his core space.

It was this abyss that ate his essence.

A continuous stream was taken from the nebula of power that hovered above his core flame, a steady depletion of the power that kept his Sovereign of Flesh Skill active, and which, currently, kept his core balanced between Tiering up and maintaining consciousness. The pain of that balance still jabbed at him. The golden-blue radiance below rose and swirled against the blooming essence nebula above, each clash marked by fissures of light and strokes of incandescent pain.

Each fight lost him more essence than he gained, and his hungry core kept eating even when he left Sovereign of Flesh off. He hadn't a clue as to what it was doing with all of that potency, but he felt stronger than he ever had before. Devouring the Ravager King and absorbing his blood, muscle, and bones had somehow reinforced his own Body. Without System notifications, however, he could only guess as to what changes had been made.

A quiet coo thrummed across his bond, and Felix put a gentle hand to his chest. Keep resting, lil man. I've got this.

Pit was clearly exhausted, likely from his own experiences with the Ravager King. After all, the chimera had taken on his share of the beast's vigor, but he wasn't able to prop himself up with stolen Essence. Not yet, at least. They shared so much between each other, Felix couldn't imagine Pit would be unable to replicate the effect at some point. As their bond and the Etheric Concordance Skill grew, it was clear that their link would only deepen.

Felix shook himself as he navigated the rubble strewn street. He was getting distracted. He'd peered into his core for another reason.

Atop the ring of liquid flame, a collection of ruby motes gathered. Echoes of the Maw, he called them, and he was growing a substantial collection of nearly thirty. Each devoured Revenant garnered him a new one, the spark detaching from the clouds of essence all on its own. Drawn to orbit the event horizon of his abyssal hunger, dancing along the edge without ever falling in; they ran counter to the spin of the flames themselves.

He no longer worried the Maw was still around, somehow plotting against him like a mastermind. He felt a strange sort of dominion over the ruby motes, as if they were his, completely and utterly. Were the Maw still alive, a voice told him, he would never feel so certain. So in control, for the first time since arriving on the Continent.

Felix banished his Fire Within and focused on their walk. He had heard movement ahead, mingling with the rush of water. Consulting the mental map of the city he'd built up over the past few weeks (an easy task with his Keen Mind Trait), he realized he knew exactly where they were. The River Ianus was just up ahead.

And someone was fighting.

"Form up! Form up!"

A bald man with a small, neat mustache was twirling two shortswords as Felix and Zara rounded the corner. Each twirl deflected a powerful strike from a Revenant, drawing three of them into battle with himself as a small squad behind him struggled against another. There, a large woman with dark, green-purple skin let out a roar of challenge. The lone Revenant pivoted immediately toward her, clearly Taunted.

"Shields!" The bald man ordered, still parrying like a whirling dervish.

I know that guy. That's Yan! The man was part of Cal's crew and one of those they had rescued from the Foglands. What was he doing out here?

A small Goblin woman hauled forward a thick wooden buckler, though it appeared huge in her arms. It was nearly as big as she was and it thunked solidly as she planted it between herself and the Taunted Revenant. The tall Hobgoblin woman next to her had an easier time, but the Human lady beside her fumbled with her own heater-style shield. The Revenant hit the Orc hard like they usually did, all furious claws and snapping, toothy jaws, but she held up remarkably well and deflected them to the sides.

"Heva! Fire please!" The Orc lady growled through her clenched tusks. She was wearing armor, that mix of leather and steel most Guilders seemed to favor, but one good hit from the monsters would tear right through such protection. As it was, her shield was quickly shredding under its onslaught.

"Smoldering Lash!" The crimson-skinned woman announced, and awkwardly thrust her hand forward. A line of molten orange light formed in her grip, a whip that snapped out and across the Revenant's disgusting snout. "Haha! I got it!"

"My turn!" The Goblin squeaked, waving a sharpened iron rod. She scratched markings into the air before her, leaving trails of green-gold light that formed a series of sloppy sigils. The moment she finished, they wafted toward the Revenant almost glacially slow, no matter how much she prodded it. "Ugh, faster! Dumb magic!"

The Human woman, finally hefting her heater shield on her arm, stepped forward to help defend. Unfortunately, she immediately walked into the floating sigils and her body seized up and fell over like a statue.

"Ahh! Dumb Human!"

The Revenant had nearly overwhelmed the Orc's guard, and now that it saw a juicy prize lying motionless on the ground it went into a frenzy. It gripped the Hobgoblin's fiery whip and yanked on it, pulling her off balance and into the Orc defender. The Hobgoblin sent her stumbling, and the Revenant pounced.

Her shield shattered.

"SCREEEAACCGGH--!"

A clawed fist burst from the Revenant's open maw, and the thing paused for a startled, agonizing second. The Hobgoblin and Orc stared upward in confused panic, which dissolved into relief as the monster was hauled away from them. Yanked backward and tossed unceremoniously on the ground. Shaking his bloody hand, Felix stood tall behind it. He glanced at the four of them, checking for any obvious injuries.

"You're all good?"

The Hobgoblin's eyes had turned huge and she struggled to say anything, but the Orc just grunted. "Nothin' a good ale won't fix."

Felix grinned and helped them both to their feet. "Good. See to your friend."

Beside them, the Goblin was shaking the paralyzed woman frantically. "Get up get up get up!" By the time they looked back, Felix had already moved onto Yan's battle.

"On your right, Yan!" Felix shouted, before plowing into two of the Revenants. He took them down to the ground, letting gravity and his own weight force his claws deep into their chests. The creatures let out piteous shrieks and thrashed wildly at him, slicing up his shirt and trousers, but they weren't getting up.

He wasn't gonna let them.

"Mine."

Quailing before his grip, Felix ripped into the Revenant's scaly chests and gripped what amounted to their hearts. He tore them out.

Ravenous Tithe.

Both bodies turned to smoke, and the essence spun around him as he stood and turned to face the group again. He breathed in the last of it as Yan finished off the final Revenant, easily decapitating the creature now that the odds were a little more even. Behind them, the others slowly brought the shaking Human to her feet. He almost smacked himself for using the Skill near so many others though. Zara was one thing, but he'd rather keep his abilities underwraps from folks on the street. Luckily, everyone was entirely too preoccupied until it was all over.

"Felix?" Yan asked, blinking in surprise. He sheathed one of his swords to wipe a layer of blood from his face, staring incredulously. "We thought you were dead!"

"Alive and...well enough," Felix said with a smile. "What're you doing out here?"

"Patrols," Yan nodded at the four behind him. "We've had an excess of...volunteers. Cal's been tryin' to train them up."

Felix assessed the four women, wishing he could have used his Voracious Eye. He didn't want to risk the pain though. "Untempered?"

"Mostly. The Orc, Cade, she was a caravan guard. She hit Apprentice yesterday." Yan finished cleaning his other sword and sheathed it. "C'mon, I'll introduce ya."

Keeping his frown to himself, Felix followed. Surreptitiously he released his shifted form and let his hands go back to normal. As they approached, the Goblin and Hobgoblin were checking on the Human woman, while Cade inspected the tattered remnants of her buckler. She looked up at them and hurriedly straightened.

"Cade, everyone, this is Felix. Felix, this is Cade Ovanna," Yan said. "The little one is Merk Twinhandle, the Human is Stellis Jor, and the firebrand over here is Heva Keldatter."

"Nice to meet you all," Felix said.

"Ah, the same," she said, and her voice was deeper than he expected. Felix hadn't much interaction with Orcs though, it was probably normal. "You saved my life. My heartfelt thanks." She bowed.

"Oh uh, you're welcome. I'm sure you'd have done the same for me," Felix said hurriedly, hoping she'd stand up again, but the Orc remained in the bow for a full five seconds. Only then did she straighten. Felix turned to Yan. "I need to get to the warehouse. Are you headed back?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, we were on the return trip when these nasties ambushed us," Yan kicked a severed arm away from himself. "We shouldn't have come this far with so few of us, but the Revenants haven't been crossing the river in hours."

"They are congregating near the city center, but they are multiplying somehow," Zara said, sending a surprised jolt through everyone except Felix.

"GAHH! Where'd you come from!?" The little Goblin screeched.

"Chorister?" The Hobgoblin asked, her eyes flickering between Felix and Zara. She seemed almost...in awe of him. He felt uncomfortable about that.

"You're...Zara?" Yan asked and gave her a level look. "Cal talked about you. She's been waitin'."

"Let's not keep her any longer then, yes?" The Chanter swept forward, and in the wake of her swirling black robes they all followed. "We have much to discuss."

"Hmph," Yan grunted and Felix offered him a half shrug. "Glad your alive, kid. Can't wait to tell Kelgan. He owes me two solid crowns."

Felix laughed, but his eyes tracked the remaining corpses. One by one they had started to break down into greasy black smoke and drift away. He felt a pang in his core as he witnessed several ruby-red sparks flit off into the sky. He restrained himself. There'll be more where those came from. We've got time.

Except they didn't, he reminded himself. The true threat behind the Domain's collapse and their new monster infestation had been revealed to Felix and his friends, and it still loomed large in his mind. The Archon.

Felix quickened his steps.

The warehouse, and his friends, were close.