Unbound

The quiet crystallized, and the night froze. Vess was unsure of what had happened, but then again, she was unsure of everything. Her Mind was muddled, her Spirit pressed close, but her Body fought, running confused limbs over crushed earth.

How had she fallen?

Vess’ lifted her gaze, and in the sky hung a moon. It swirled above them, too close to be real—too tangible to be an illusion. It rose above Marzul like a halo, outlining her head and shoulders with pale yellow striations and distant asteroid scars. The night clung to it, anchored it, drenching them all in a liquid black that pressed Vess further into the earth.

The Manaships had fallen. She couldn’t tell if they’d crashed or not, but they were no longer above, and the ground shook with distant tremors. Everyone was stretched out, even her foes.

All save Atar.

The mage was a streak of white in the air—frozen no less than fifty paces from Marzul’s chest. His face was locked in a snarl, and despite the heaviness that weighed them all down, his outstretched hand twitched.

Pathetic. Marzul’s arm blurred, dropping onto the mage’s back like a thunderbolt. The white flame crashed into the earth, exploding in a plume of light that snuffed out almost immediately.

He didn’t get back up.

Vess fought with everything she had to move as Marzul breathed deeply, the night itself expanding with her inhale. Your Consequences Are Due, Little Children.

Perish.

Marzul lifted higher into the sky, that inhale becoming something more than breath. She expanded, stretching into the dark as the moon congealed into something more real. Her Body split, the flesh that held her together dissolving almost entirely until there was only her neck and face. All else was starlit shadow, backlit by an ominous purple-pink.

The moon kept growing, drawing in the night around them.

She’s…ascending? Vess searched the sky. The moon’s power joined with her, knotted strings dangling from above and around, bright yellow and vibrant pink. They sank into her, and Marzul grew deeper than ever as she rose higher and higher, her empty eye sockets burgeoning with new light.

Where are the chains?

Vess clenched her fist hard, her arcanite gauntlet scratching against itself. The moon kept solidifying…and those knotted strings thickened into the chains she’d hoped to see. They snaked around Marzul’s limbs, limp as rags, but unmistakable. The Empire's restrictions were still holding onto her, and the System was just behind.

Did she know? Vess was uncertain, but they had only moments before she advanced beyond their reach.

The darkness lightened, pulled into Marzul at a greater pace. The weight against Vess’ Spirit lessened, enough for her to sense something other than vast ennui. Her eyes flicked up to Marzul, where the woman stared into her new moon with a rapturous expression cut into her empty face.

She was distracted.

The rate of absorption sped up, and Vess feared there wouldn’t be much time left before Marzul was unassailable as a true god.

"Soulflight Union!" she spat from between her teeth.

From across the battlefield, Yin vanished in a dim blur at the same time a familiar heaviness settled onto her Spirit. Converged, their regeneration ticked upward, and their Harmonic stats soared.

Status Condition: Dire Ennervation Has Expired!

The Thrill of Defeat broke apart, and Vess cast it off from herself. She pushed on her glaive, leveraging herself to her feet.

I cannot muster enough power for flight, little Dragoon. We cannot reach her.

And yet we must.

Your wings alone will not suffice.

No. Vess’ knees buckled, but she adjusted her grip on her glaive and kept standing. Barely. Thankfully, we are not alone.

“Voice of the Vaunted.”

Her Skill sounded, resonating through her throat with a bevy of riotous emotion. She spoke sounds rather than words, but joy and determination rolled through the syllables, flooding the woman at her side.

Gabby gasped, blinking away the terror that had scrawled across her Spirit. The weakened Thrill fell away, and she shuddered on her hands and knees.

“Can you stand, Gabby?” Vess asked.

The giant woman did just that, merely wincing at her mangled leg. "What's the plan?"

"Throw me."

Gabby laughed. "Stupid plan."

Gabby seized Vess by the back of her armor, her enormous hand more than enough to grasp the entirety of her cuirass.

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Vess leaned back into it. “Aim true.”

Gabby smirked. “Go kill that asshole.”

Her muscles bulged, armor creaking as Gabby wound back and flared her Strength. She gave a cry of pain as her leg twisted further, but her arm did not falter. Gabby hurled Vess into the sky, glaive leading the way.

Yin!Together!

“Draconic Legacy!”

The Wyrm leapt from Vess’ Spirit at the same time her own Body blurred away. Power swirled, congealing with wind and steel as a spectral Dragon appeared in their place, replete with bat wings and a crown of horns.

They roared, and Marzul’s attention snapped down at them.

Vess marshaled the power that had been building at her center, Yin’s Spirit joining in. “Core Manifestation: The Matriarch Returns!"

The spectral Dragon turned to flesh mid-flight. A true Dragon, ancient and terrible. It manifested in the sky, only paces away from Marzul.

Impossible!

Teeth the size of spears tore into her expanding flesh, ripping through the night. Marzul cried out. Pain, true pain, assailed the near-god’s senses.

The Matriarch’s Bond Is A Boon To All Kindred! the System trolled, just as light burgeoned from Vess’ conjoined flesh. It spread outward, rippling across the battlefield and sinking into the downed Legion…but most of all, it joined with the Grove Wardens.

A chorus of howls joined Vess and Yin as a field of crystalline stars flew from the ground. Dawnfire pierced the black, arcing across the night to strike into Marzul. The Wardens’ flames intensified, scouring through starlit flesh.

"Matriarch's Threnody!" Vess roared, and the Queen of Dragons roared with her—wings snapped like thunder, and that dawn’s light blossomed across her crown of horns.

Ocalla Marzul, Half-Divine Of Shadow, Is Afflicted With An Instance Of Ennervation!

Duration: Three Heartbeats.

“Eyes of the Basilisk!”

Ocalla Marzul, Half-Divine Of Shadow, Is Afflicted With An Instance Of Dragonfear!

Duration: One Heartbeat.

“This is for my mother!” Vess roared. “Horizon Breaker!”

The Matriarch reached for the sky and sundered it. The shadow was ice beneath a bonfire. It cracked, and Marzul's ascending flesh broke along with it. Wordless rage tolled from her unnatural throat, thrashing the air as the moon above her flickered.

Yet the chains of its power snagged her tight, even as she lashed against the Matriarch's jaws. You Will Not Kill Me! I Am Eternal!

"Brightblade Crescendo!"

A javelin of golden light cut through the dark, sinking into Marzul's exposed chest. Her mouth stretched into a silent scream.

From the ground, Gabby crowed, "And that's for me, bitch!"

The night burst, shattered glass that crumbled into drifting midnight snow. Marzul convulsed, her face spread wide into a bright grin, as her eyes flickered with the faintest of gold. I Will Not—She stretched, her claws raking at Vess’ snout. Release!

Vess’ jaws met with a meaty clack, and the Half-Divine’s fight vanished.

You Have Killed Ocalla Marzul, Half-Divine Of Shadow!

XP Earned!

The corpse fell from their mouth—ejected by a dissolving spume of black fog. Vess and Yin followed, flying to the earth before separating as their Core Manifestation ran its course. Glaive in hand, Vess leveled it on the smoking corpse, ignoring her exhaustion or the bloody wounds that stretched down her face and legs.

Atar scrambled back, coughing and returned to his gray-skinned self. He stood. “You—you did it?”

The mage sagged, and his white hair fell limp around his shoulders. “Blood and ash.” He looked up, eyeing Vess. “You’re a Dragon now?”

"Sometimes," Vess allowed.

"Always," Yin corrected.

Gabby limped closer to Marzul’s Body. "Are you sure she's dead?"

"The System said she was."

"You think I trust the System?"

Marzul's corpse lurched. Atar ran back, white flames guttering around himself in an aborted ward. Vess simply hurled a Spear into it, pinning it to the ground as Yin bathed it in Dawnfire and Gabby chopped into it with an axe made of solid light.

A tense moment passed before the corpse lurched again, bucking against their weapons. Her chest split with a sigh of fetid air, and a core of purple, black, and vibrant pink slithered out. It pulsed, a presence that drew Vess toward it, even as it repulsed her Affinity. The shattered darkness drew toward it fitfully, a lodestone to iron filings, as the sky returned to its eternal twilight.

The Thrill Of Defeat Has Expired!

Core Manifestation: Siren Of The Night Has Expired!

Vess dragged in a breath. The earth unfroze all around them, the Half-Divine’s Skills fully cancelled out. Still, right there around the smoking corpse of Marzul, the dirt and stone froze in unsettled patches.

Congratulations!

You Have Earned A New Title!

Godslayer—

ERROR!

"No," Vess whispered.

A wave of power erupted from the core, throwing Vess and Gabby back onto their backs. A beam of pinkish light skewered the sky, straight into the purple-black comet that had descended far closer than Vess realized. It burned like a second sun, and the pink arced across the dome of the heavens.

Oh, Brother… A whisper rose from Marzul's empty corpse, and it did not sound like the Hierophant at all. Wreak Your Vengeance.

Break Them All.

The Ruin flashed, and power ripped downward. Vess fled, pulled back by Yin. The Wyrm howled, and everything became tumbling purple chaos.

Others were not so lucky. The earth cratered, and that chaos expanded, bursting the ground in jagged streaks in every direction. Legionnaires died, Chimera collapsed, all of them turned into a screaming haze. Bodies charred and dusted in the hot wind, and Yin rolled over Vess, panting heavily.

Through his tangled limbs, she saw the heavens. They had split apart, revealing three moons high in the sky beneath the Ruin’s comet. Far closer than any moon had been before.

A fissure split between them, and fingers split its purple-pink edges. Three sets, each more horrific than the last, crawled through.

The sight shook her, and a pulse of pressure laid out the moaning survivors.

No.

A metallic blue hand that looked like two had been half-melted together thrust fully from the rift. This Death Is Not Your End, Little Sister.

Marzul gasped, and the core of Noctis sucked back into her Body.

A Reward For Opening The Way, Marzul.

“Blind grace,” Vess cursed.

WARNING!

Ouranic Bindings Are Failing!

WARNING!

The Divine Descend.