Unbound

Following the map provided by Uvan, Felix and Pit had mowed through twenty Princes and their swarms, clearing out their Nests one by one at breakneck speed despite the sheer numbers arrayed against them. In fact, the monsters came in such heavy numbers that Pit was sick of their cores by the end of their tour, resorting to passing up on food for the first time in Felix's memory.

“Eurgh. You eat it,” was all he said.

Felix obliged.

The peaks were odd. A pall hung over them, swirling with frozen storms. The further inward they traveled, the more occluded the distance became, until they could barely make out fifty feet in any direction. The storms were unnatural, that much was clear to Felix—they tasted of monster, likely a Skill of some sort exuded by the Kings or even their Queen. It more than messed with their hunt, obscuring any real trace of a giant walking city, hard as that was to believe. Worse still, the Crucible around his waist blunted his Perception.

Senses stymied, Felix was forced to rely on Pit’s navigational prowess. The tenku still had trouble with the storms, and the pair made a zigzagging line through the Sunsend Peaks, hunting down any trace of their quarry. The map was a great deal of help, but even that led them astray a few times as the storm intensified.

Still, he did his duty. The area around Korsk was cleared out, just as he’d promised.

Eventually, they traced down two Domains located at the base of Mount Dhavik and Mount Kho, where the two peaks met. Separated by a high ridge, two shallow crevasses were cut into the mountains, filled with a liquid potency that was Essence and Mana both and exuded an unmistakable aura of power. Unlike the Nests of the Princes, these were more than just holes in the ground. They were portals to liminal spaces beyond the Corporeal.

“The Domains of Kings,” Felix said above the gale. “We found them.”

Pit quirked his head, wings beating hard to hold them aloft. “Weren’t there three Kings?”

As if on cue, a screeching roar announced a vast presence. It was a shadow in the storm, but it burned as bright as a fallen star as wings the width of a passenger jet beat back the tempest. A massive bird covered in quills instead of feathers rose from below, and a visible aura of fire and acid Mana clung to its head and wings and tail, all but dripping into the frigid winds. It screamed again, wrath in its dark eyes as it hurled its wings forward.

“Incoming!” Pit pulled back, Mana gushing through his pinions as he dodged the first handful of sword-sized quills. They fell harmlessly to the forest below—there they sparked and burst, acid and fire melting through ancient pines as dark smoke rose into the whipping winds.

“Split up.” Felix leapt from the saddle, lightning dancing between his fingers—but the Crucible dragged at him as if he were hauling himself through thick pudding.

Several quills struck true. They shattered against his scales but the bloom of fire and acid ate through his Garment, and sent him careening into a wild loop.

Fuck me, that hurt! Each impact had felt like a punch in the gut, and the heat of the secondary effects actually scalded him. It seemed the Crucible also lowered his resistances.

Great.

“Nimbus of the Moon!”

Pit’s Skill slashed into Dhavik’s form, eliciting a strangled screech from its sharp beak before the tenku barreled into the Mountain King like a runaway freight train. The two went down, crashing into the side of the mountain in a tangle of frenzied wings.

Felix twisted, marshaling his Will, ready to haul on his Bonds to—-

His Perception screamed at him.

Adamant Discord!

Stride of the King!

Lightning surged, yanking Felix aside just as a massive, ice-clad tail slashed through his position. Its passage cracked the air like cannon fire, and Felix whirled around just in time to see the tail’s owner land on a nearby cliff.

“Mountain King Kho,” he muttered. “Looks like we got two for one.”

The King was shaped like a blue tiger of ridiculous proportions. Beneath its striped fur it bore more muscles than Felix knew existed, making it wider than Pit and with its thick tail it was twice as long as well. That appendage curled behind it as it stalked along the cliff’s edge, burning purple-white eyes boring into Felix’s own. Ice covered its fur, sheathing its back and limbs with thick sheets of it like armor, all the way down its tail.

Kho roared at him, and Dhavik answered with another screech. "Oh, this’ll be fun," Felix said. "Pit, I got the big cat."

"Good! This chicken is putting up a real fight!” Pit screeched and a rain of frozen lightning stabbed through Dhavik, hurling it off of the mountainside. Quills burst, cutting through Tempest Fugit, but it didn’t prepare for Pit’s tackle.

Kho blurred.

Felix shot into the sky, narrowly evading another whip crack—the huge tiger seemed to attack with whirling somersaults, its tail leading the way.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The tiger is fast, but it should be able to redirect itself. Felix hauled on his Bonds, juking around the bulky predator, only to have it immediately follow. I stand corrected.

Kho kicked off of chunks of ice that it manifested in mid-air, keeping up with acrobatic ease. Worse, the creature sent the chunk of ice flying at Felix’s back.

He twisted, punching straight through the car-sized block and shattering it.

Kho burst through, just behind, yowling fangs spread wide.

Adamant Discord!

Felix dropped down, falling out of the tiger’s range as it snapped its jaws. He spun himself, pulling at an acute angle toward the mountains below—right into the quills of Dhavik.

Sovereign of Flesh!

Skin bolstered, he bodied the attack, each sword-length quill crashing into him with punishing force. Felix barreled through them all, Sovereign of Flesh knitting him up as fast as he was hurt—and it did hurt. Each quill dropped his Health by a noticeable degree.

Dhavik and Kho moved as one, the two Kings flying and striding across summoned ice floats with all the deadly inevitability of a stormfront.

A few more hits like that and I’ll hit half Health. That was more than a little surprising. These monsters were high Tier, but they were at best an equivalent to a low Grandmaster. Felix had dealt with plenty others at their level before, but never while handicapped. The Crucible’s restrictions were a benefit, but with enemies as clever as the Kings, he’d be insane to keep wearing it.

Felix grinned. Time to get crazy, then. Pit! Convergence!

Light flashed, and Felix vanished from the world.

Moonbeams seared through the sky, cutting at Dhavik and Kho and sending them both fleeing. Few hit, the two Kings entirely too mobile, but it kept them apart.

“Tempest Fugit!” Frozen spears flew from Pit’s wings as he closed the distance with Dhavik. The bird spat out fire, a stream that melted his spears and splashed against the tenku. Pit pulled up his fore-wings, spreading them before his face. Dhavik thundered forward, still pouring out his breath. The fire roared.

The bird lunged, flames cutting out as its deadly beak stabbed downward.

Convergence!

Pit vanished in a flash of light just as Dhavik speared him, and the King jerked in surprise—but it couldn’t pull free of the black claws that held its beak.

“Got you,” Felix growled.

He punched it in the face.

Dhavik fell back, crashing into Kho as Pit reappeared in his own flash of light. The tiger was caught along the back, Pit’s crystalline talons ripping through his ice armor like paper. It forged ice around them, leaping in wild directions clearly meant to disorient, while Dhavik merely screeched and attacked again.

Convergence!

Felix vanished, light rippling as he was replaced by Pit…and his Mantle of the Stormlord.

Dhavik convulsed, hit by the lightning surging through his Companion, and entirely unable to defend against the Talons of Tumult and Maelstrom Maw that tore into its quill-lined hide. Ichor rained down and fire bloomed.

Convergence!

Sovereign of Flesh!

Felix reappeared, just as Kho leapt for Pit’s throat. His arm and talons grew, big enough that he palmed the raging tiger’s head, stopping it dead. Pain lanced up his shoulder, but he held on—just long enough to kick the icy-cat in the chin.

Kho flipped backward, head over tail, vanishing into the storm.

Pit, meanwhile, clung to Dhavik like a bad smell. The bird squawked in indignant alarm as Felix joined him, seizing its chest in his oversized, Sovereign of Flesh-ed claws. His talons shoved deep, piercing through the layer of burning quills, and forcing the Mountain King to fly frantically up, into the raging winds.

“You’re not getting away! Executioner’s Stormblade!” Pit brandished the Skyslain’s Riposte as whirling Mana coated its blade, and slammed it into Dhavik’s chest. The Mountain King squawked, but the flames and acid of its quills only flared higher, surging across both Pit and Felix as they clung tight.

Pit shoved Essence into the blade, expanding it until it was nearly five feet wide…and twenty feet long.

A pillar of ancient sword stabbed through the monster’s back, narrowly missing Felix and showering him with gore. “Eugh!”

Blade fixed in his beak, Pit dropped his entire weight—pulling the Riposte straight down, through the Mountain King’s bowels.

Pit fell, wings spread wide, as Dhavik faltered. Yet it did not die. Felix gawked as the thing started healing itself, organs slowly pulling back inward. Its wings beat, slower now, but still driving them higher as Felix clung tight to its back. His muscles burned, the Crucible scouring through him as his claws fought to keep their grip. He reached up, securing a second claw into it as Dhavik twisted its long neck around and parted its jagged beak. Fire built there, sparking between its jaws into a condensed beam of flame.

Felix dropped away, kicking off the beast and only narrowly avoiding the ravaging heat of its attack.

Lightning caught him, Bonds that surged beneath his foot and hand, sending him spinning up and around, whipping through the air in a way that clenched Felix's gut. Dhavik was equally nonplussed, his head craning around just in time to catch Felix as he landed atop its crest. Quills burst, firing outward into him.

Warning!

Your Health Has Dropped To 50%!

Felix held tight, his hands seizing the giant bird's face. "No! Fire bad!"

He hauled back, his muscles straining, as Dhavik careened backwards, crashing into the jagged peak behind it. Trapped between monster and mountain, Felix didn’t bother to let go—he only pulled harder, until resistance gave way to a screeching cry, and then nothing at all.

You Have Killed Mountain King Dhavik!

XP Earned!

Dhavik’s head was ripped in two, and it went mercifully silent. The creature fell, collapsing down the mountainside like an avalanche and nearly taking Felix along with it, but he clung to the stone. It dropped away, out of sight, leaving Felix panting in the broken crater they’d made of the peak.

Pit screeched. "Watch out!"

From above, Mountain King Kho descended, madness and wrath incarnate.