Path of the Deathless

Listen to me, son. Before you take on a challenge—and I'm talking about a real bloody challenge—you need to prime yourself. Now, what I mean by priming yourself is getting yourself in the right mindset. If you just throw yourself at something, you're going to fail, because you're not ready. Even before you pick up your knife, you're not ready. You're going to grind yourself down; it's going to wear you the fuck out; you're going to be stressed. That stress can't be stress; it needs to be excitement. You got to ride that excitement all the way through.

It's going to be exhausting, so you can't start tired. Otherwise, you'll end with nothing left. Remember this: when you do something, you gotta get in the fightin' mood. You got to get ready to ball your fists and face it down. How do you prepare to do something that demands all of your attention, that you can't fuck up, not even once? It's simple: you do a lot of smaller things, and you build and you build and you build until you finally hit the point where you're ready to take on the actual challenge. Before then, you walk the stairs; you climb all the little steps; the appetizers become your training ground.

So, guess what you're doing today, Shiv? That's right. All the fucking appetizers. Get started, get it done, good luck, don't fuck it up.

Do all of that right, and maybe I'll let you take a swing at one of the main courses.

—Georges Archambault to Shiv

VII-63

Balance (I)

There was a sublime pleasure that came with cooking things using magic. The way Pyromancy worked was like an extension of yourself. You felt the flame; you could control the flame; you could compel the flame to burn harder or weaker. The flame was an expression of yourself, shaped by lore, extended forth from your person. And that flame was better than any mechanical apparatus, any mana-derived mechanism that worked on enchantments and imbuements harvested from another.

Nothing was better than the feeling of making something with your own hands. Commanding someone else, trying to operate using a second-hand entity—none of that could compare, even when one was cooking something as simple as a spread of eggs.

Sunny-side up, hard-boiled, deep-fried, filled with cheese, or simply dosed with the hottest of sauces—there were so many ways to prepare something so simple, and Shiv was doing all of them. The kitchen aboard the Sky-Swallowing Carp was drenched in heat and flavor, but it was more than the flavor of fried eggs. It was the flavor of relief, the flavor of euphoria, the flavor of someone who was no longer Cursed, free to cook again at his own volition, free to pursue art using a single body while the rest of him continued down the path of necessary violence. It was the flavor of harmony and balance.

And all that flavor was being distilled into his eggs.

He didn't work alone. The kitchen was filled with flailing toads, each of them clumsy and incompetent, tumbling over each other, smashing and crashing against every surface in exaggerated, comical moments of stupidity. But they were getting better. Shiv's new armor was gaining levels, and at some point, these toads—created to mimic the name of his establishment—would prove themselves as competent commis, or so he hoped.

For now, he was more than happy to let them bumble away, to let them serve their own purpose as they learned, suffered, and gained knowledge through said suffering.

A bolt of golden lightning cleaved into the room and split his scintillating flames. The Nihilist called out first, notifying Shiv of a new presence, a new philosophy to kindle, but the Deathless sensed her coming long before her arrival.

Gone deposited a stack of clean plates, layering them high one after another until she was constructing porcelain towers. At present, she was the only attendant aboard the Sky-Swallowing Carp, but she was also all the Carp needed. The insides of the restaurant were filled by patrons of all races, from all factions. Most of them had boarded out of a sense of novelty and curiosity, not holding high expectations for the cooking. However, that changed quickly when the first dishes arrived. Shiv couldn't claim that they truly enjoyed his meals yet, but they had tasted nothing like his philosophy-smoked eggs and sausages; his nihilistic flame provided an easy means of Pyromancy, but also demanded an adaptation on his part.

The flames he kindled used his worldview and the perspectives of those around him as fuel, so he needed to be careful and distill the healthiest mindsets to be used for his kitchen. And that meant ensuring his clientele were treated properly and motivated to think highly of his establishment as much as it meant associating himself with Pathbearers who had higher forms of thought and well-developed philosophies when it came to viewing themselves and the world.

But Shiv considered this to be more of a boon and a means of practice rather than a detriment. After all, conscientiousness was something he had been sorely lacking before, and developing it further would serve him beyond the kitchen and see his personal character enhanced.

“We're out of seats again,” Gone said, speaking so quickly Shiv almost had trouble following despite all his Skills. “Lot of lines forming outside. Might be a little worse than that, though. Some of the camps are getting up into each other's faces. We got small battle lines forming.”

“Battle lines?” Shiv frowned. “So, the different nations and factions are squaring up with each other, fighting over who gets to come to my kitchen next?” There was a point in his life where he would have been flattered. Now he was just disappointed. What was the point of having all that power, to be blessed with all that skill, if you couldn't manage a bit of self-control? How pathetic, how sad, how deprived of virtue.

“Alright.” Shiv sighed as he directed a spare body to go speak with them. “I'll get them to calm down and shape up. But if they can't, I'll just settle things here. You gotta behave yourself to be let into Gate Piety.”

And that was the single and most fundamental rule that all guests had to abide by. Gate Piety didn't have a Charter of Laws or any constitution set in stone or agreement. What it did have were Legendary Pathbearers, and Unique ones at that. Shiv had placed his Sky-Swallowing Carp down in front of the now-replaced Immigration Building, repurposed into an Orientation Center. The restaurant aboard the Court Leviathan now served as the first point of contact between the incoming guests from the surface and the denizens of Gate Piety.

More importantly, though, it exposed them to the Deathless—the one that a great many of them sought. There had been a few attempts on Shiv's life already, all of which had proven disappointing and feeble. Someone tried to set off a mana bomb in his kitchen—a bomb that was promptly spotted by Roland, who fired a single arrow and nothing more. Then came a few monsters who wished to take a more direct approach. They were Skyfolk, with bodies clad in crystalline armor shaped from hardened lightning, bearing weapons that leaked the substance of clouds.

They tried to strike Shiv down using brute force alone, but did nothing aside from smudge his Scarforged Shell. He didn't strike them down with violence in turn, for they were too weak to offer any levels for his physical attributes or Combat Proficiency Skills. Instead, he exercised his power as a Harbinger and dug into their emotional and psychological weaknesses, of which there were many.

The greatest fault line in most pure Martial Pathbearers was that they were defined by the violence they committed, shaped only by their use on the battlefield. And since they couldn't do anything to the Deathless—falling short in weapon, enchantment, skill, and preparation—they were functionally pointless in this life, for he didn't even deign them worthy of striking down in return.

The words he used on them were simple: it was a question of their purpose, a question of their utility, a question of what else they had to offer, and why they presented themselves at all if they were going to try and fulfill the hidden World Quest to slay the Deathless with such meager means. Ashamed more in themselves than the fact that they behaved amorally against the rules of hospitality, the Skyfolk’s morale shattered. And Shiv let them crumble in his kitchen, ignoring them as they wept, as they raged, as they eventually fled in shame.

Uva offered to strike them down using her Dreaming Storm to rip potentially useful knowledge from their minds, but he implored her to stay her hand. They were more useful as carriers of shame. Their humiliation would spread. Their defeat would prove contagious, and from that knowledge, the others would learn the risks of facing the Deathless.

In many ways, a physical death was far more merciful than spiritual ruin. When one was mutilated of their self-perception, then they had to live with that mutilation and the crippling of oneself. The ruin of how you imagined yourself to be would often leave you a prisoner inside your own flesh, unable to be spared, trapped by behavior. Trapped by the fact that someone else, who could peer so deeply into you, could flay your latent wounds open while you did nothing to defend yourself.

It was a special kind of hell, being taught to view yourself as a mortal enemy.

Harbinger of the Tripartite Ruin 360 > 366

Nihilism Be My Hearth, My Banquet 135 > 137

Legion of Self 181 > 185

While and after he prepared breakfast, he took in the orders and gained a measure of insight into his guests. Their dietary habits betrayed more than their nutritional needs. It told him of commonly shared tastes among cultures, and irreconcilable points of axiomatic opposition between different civilizations. The Skyfolk and those of the Republics or other pure surface nations would never be able to coexist in full. This wasn't so much a cultural problem as it was an inevitable outcome where a nation of awakened monsters was forced to share space with natural-born individuals.

Even granted substantial intellect, monsters didn't abide by the rule of law and human agreements. They weren't driven by the same tribalistic impulses. No, most monsters fought based on the first law: the strongest should reign, the fittest should decide. Their intelligence only allowed them to exemplify and exploit that law to the fullest. Such was why the ruling monsters were always the oldest, the biggest, the strongest, and the wisest.

But such was also why monsters proved prey for humanity for so long—because that viciousness was not unknown to man and machine. That viciousness was exploitable, and the strongest, the fittest for a specific situation in a specific environment, would merely be victims in another.

The smartest of the monsters knew of this fact and learned to adapt. The ones who were too stubborn, who refused to change, found themselves filtered, ironically, under the basis of their first law, as they wasted themselves trying to face empires risen from individuals, the same way they would attempt to dominate their own kindred beasts.

But it went further than that. The Skyfolk and those of the Pacific and Atlantic were at odds as well. Their opposition was not quite the same as the difference between a monster and a man. No, they were simply unknowns to each other, with their environments so vastly different and their natures so divergent, they couldn't help but see each other as alien and had to fight to settle natural understandings of who they needed to avoid and who they could consume.

“Uva,” Shiv called aloud, knowing that she could hear him. “I don't think we're going to be able to stop them from fighting each other all the time. I suggest bumping up that mental arena you're going to make—it'll give them some place to blow off steam and settle things the simple way instead of having them rip through my restaurant over and over again.”

“I'm already working on it,” she replied. “And it's not just your kitchen. If you think what's happening on the surface is messy, you won't believe the amount of Psychomantic attacks I've had to break up. I swear, it's like we're herding a group of violent children.”

“Yeah, I found so too, but—” Shiv flipped an egg and shouldered one of his toads aside before the incompetent fairy could slam face-first down onto the frying pan. “I think they're trying to test us too.”

“Test us?”

“Yeah, because outside, the Prismatic Guard are watching. If they start an actual fight, Veronica and the Republic will clamp down, and no one's gonna be able to walk away from that. Here, though? They don't know how strong Gate Piety is, so they're going to continue—”

Shiv cringed as someone dove across time to ram an adamantine spear straight into his back. Again, he couldn't muster up any anger. Adamantium was a Master-Tier problem. The paltry enchantments that spilled forth from the spear-tip, blasting Shiv with a dense beam of Pyromancy and Dimensionality, broke apart against his shapeless tides—barely forcing him to spend a single vector.

A surprised gasp broke out from Shiv's supposed assassin, and he looked over his shoulder to gauge the opposition. This one looked to be something of a male version of Kura, who should be returning from her Chronomantic exile with Merrielmel’s friend Concelhaunt any moment these days, now that he thought about it. The ritualistic scars lining the elf’s face painted trails down his eyes, connected to the edges of his cheeks, and looped around his neck. Rather than being purely aesthetic, they were further inlaid with veins of mithril to serve as mana conduits.

The armor the assassin bore was strange and obscene, looking as if a collection of hardened scabs that still allowed blood to flow free. It reminded Shiv of armor worn by certain vampires, yet the assassin lacked a Biomancy field of any kind.

“Are you literate?” Shiv asked, offering the elf a raised eyebrow.

The assassin blinked and stabbed three more times in rapid succession—each thrust stronger than the one before, a chain of magical enchantments lighting up the shaft of the spear. None of it did anything. Gone was on the assassin the next moment, depriving him of legs and arms in a blur of golden violence. As he collapsed on the ground, screaming and wailing as blood poured out of the stumps of his severed limbs, Shiv rolled his eyes. “Toads! Mop. Another one.”

“We're on it, boss-man!” the toads cried, but several of them went for the same mop, and one of them slipped on the growing pool of blood before gliding across the room and slamming hard into the far wall.

Shiv ignored their antics and frowned over the downed assassin. “Listen, if this is about your order, you need to send a proper complaint up the line. You talk to my server, and then they'll come and talk to me. If you try to cut the line, my server will cut you. Capiche? You should know the rules by now. This has happened... How many times has this happened, Gone?”

“Two hundred and forty-five,” she answered immediately.

“Oh, Wolf of No Suns, please! Please return my flesh to wholeness! Please shield my lifeblood! Please come and save me from the Deathless, I beg of you!” The assassin was sobbing; it was hard not to hate him for that. If you were going to kill someone and then they struck you down in return, it was best to hold a measure of quiet dignity if you could.

As such, Shiv kept his flames away from the downed assassin, for this one was drenched deep in the philosophy of hypocrisy, and the flavors of hypocrisy tasted like vomit and slime.

“Look, if you're not here for food, if you're just here to assassinate me, I got something else to tell you, right? Why are you using an adamantium spear?” Shiv put his frying pan down and picked up the discarded weapon in turn. With a casual twist of his wrist, the spear groaned, bent, and then burst apart. A blast of mana escaped it, but Shiv burned it away with his scintillating fires, frying the magic until it became edible slices that he then threw upon his egg as further flavoring and an apology for the meal being delayed. “It's hard to take you guys seriously when you keep coming in with adamantium weapons. Like, seriously, Master-Tier? A little Chronomancy's not enough to make up for a two-Tier difference, my guy, even if I didn't have that at Legendary-Tier myself. Not that that toothpick would've been enough to kill me when I was a Master anyway.”

A scoff of derision escaped Shiv, and he swiped his mana whips through the downed assassin, not to shred his flesh apart, but to see him healed. He returned the assassin's severed limbs and then literally booted him out of the kitchen with a final warning: “If you come back again, I'm going to crush your heart. Like, metaphysically. Do you understand? I'm not gonna kill you. I'm gonna hold you in place, I'm gonna talk to you until I figure out everything that bothers you emotionally, and then I'm going to bury all that in your skull. You're going to want to kill yourself after that, but I'm not gonna let you. I'm going to tie you up on a pole and put you on top of Courtney while you're screaming for everyone to end your misery, like the other three guys outside. You don't want this. Trust me, you don't want this. Now, get back out there, tell everyone you're sorry, and remind them that the kitchen is off-limits to guests. Toad. Door.”

And as two toads fought with each other, driving the mop across the ground to swipe away the pool of leftover blood, another slammed into the door, driving it shut and giving Shiv a final glimpse of the assassin—his face alight with shock and surprise as he sat frozen on his ass in the hallway.

“So many rude assholes,” Shiv mused, before going back to his cooking as if nothing happened. “Also, I really expected more Heroes. So far I just got a stream of Masters wasting themselves. This would have felt insulting a few weeks ago; now, it's just disappointing.”

“Makes sense,” Gone said, sniffling disdainfully at the blood on the floor with her nose slits. “Masters think they're powerful, are more powerful than most people. They usually don't get to learn the lesson until it's too late.”

“The lesson?”

“Lesson of averages and medians,” the goblin explained. “Just because you're stronger than most doesn't mean that you're stronger than all. It's a mistake most people learn one time, but don’t survive learning it.”

“Yeah, can’t say I’m not guilty of making that mistake myself.” Shiv chuckled as fond memories came to him. “But things worked a bit different for me.”

“Other things different too,” Gone muttered quietly. “Not much choice with us.” He noted her use of the word us as she continued speaking. “World’s always going to keep coming for us. They made a mistake. We have to survive. There was never a choice on our end. Not until we survived long enough.”

“The lessons were flipped,” Shiv answered.

“Yes.”

It was then that the profound sadness within Gone began spilling over into the Nihilist’s flames once more.

“That man, the Realmrunner, hurt this one deep,” the Nihilist said. “But she ended up hurt in the right way; her experiences have rooted her internal locus of control so deep that she only views the world in relation to what she can do to it or how she can survive against it. An ideal development.”

But the Harbinger disagreed. “There is no ideal way to be hurt. Trauma shapes you, but it also narrows you. Your scars tighten your skin; they guide you down set patterns and reactions. The paradoxical predictability and erratic emotions resulting from surviving devastation come with their own crippling, the kind that might be circumstantially advantageous at processing and avoiding the wounds of the past, but leaves you less malleable and adaptive when it comes to novel threats. The grief and quiet depression she suffers is no true power—at least, not one we should mimic. At most, it is a second-order means of reactionary processing, and not the truest pursuit of virtuous self-determination.”

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For the first time, the Nihilist crackled with anger toward the Harbinger. “Your virtues are more privileges than promises at times,” the Unique Skill spat. “You know this. We weren’t virtuous at first. We had to be vulgar. We had to survive. We fought and bled and defied. You evolved from trauma out of necessity—as prideful and useful as it was, we stumbled into our inverted resentment because what should have victimized us simply didn’t. You of all Skills should understand that about us.”

“You are right,” the Harbinger agreed without hesitation. “But I speak toward the use and mastery of our burgeoning virtue. Even if it is fortune that placed us on this path, we must take full advantage of where this road leads. There are far too many Pathbearers who are powerful externally, but worthless internally. We should always keep the memory of Sullain close to heart for where trauma leads. In that, he is not so different from Havel Van Stormhalt.”

And he really wasn't. Back in the capital, Stormhalt had been bent to Shiv’s will. Beyond the scorn for all the wrongs and misery the City Lord had caused, Shiv felt a vague pity for the man as well. He had such high opinions of himself, such an urge to present himself as a proper Martial Pathbearer. Honor, pride, loyalty, or at least his own warped view of it, all those concepts were near and dear to his heart. The thing was, he was so devoted to the aesthetic that he didn't have the capacity to muster up substance. Originally devoid of allies and without strength of his own, the Deathless—supposedly a great enemy of his Republic—had secured more political power in what might as well be a blink of an eye than Stormhalt could build up over a near century of preparation.

But the most disturbing thing about Havel was his misunderstanding of the situation: He wasn't pathetic because he was weaker than Shiv, unable to defend himself before the Deathless. He was pathetic because all the powers he was supposed to have beyond the personal, the community that was meant to protect him, the resources he was supposed to wield, the gods whom he served with all his heart... all amounted to nothing.

The idealized form of the Republic he believed in didn't exist. The Ascendants didn't intercede on his behalf. Not the Songbringer. Not the Genius. Not even the Endbreaker.

In the end, Stormhalt was offered to Shiv on a whim by Veronica. Because of course he was; because of course she would. The Councilwoman had done the same thing before when Jessica went on her nobility-cleansing rampage. There wasn't even any deliberation about the matter—the political, material, and martial worth of an entire house of nobles or ten was nothing before a promising Legend. Veronica regarded Shiv the same way, and thus his worth outweighed Stormhalt.

The poor fool thought his loyalty and the worth of his blood were currencies in his favor. What a terrible mistake to make in a reality defined by domination and blood.

There might’ve been a world where Havel Van Stormhalt could have thrived, one where justice would have been given unto Sullain for all he'd suffered for no fault of his own, but that world didn’t exist under the System.

And so, the worst sin made itself known time and again.

One could lie as much as they wanted, deceive their lessers and superiors alike, perform acts of supreme debauchery, and inflict every vile and violent deed upon their victims of choice without remorse or repentance—if they but understood a simple fact: You couldn't lie to yourself. You needed to know your true worth at all times.

“But how many people consumed by monstrous desires find themselves spared the flaw of hypocrisy?” the Harbinger asked.

Too few. All too few.

“Shiv? Are you okay?” Gone’s question cut through the Deathless’s contemplative silence, and he grunted in accord.

”Yeah. More than okay, actually. I’m just enjoying the peace and getting some cooking done; got me thinking about stuff at length too. Having a bunch of different bodies at the same time’s pretty good. You really should try getting a skill that lets you do this.”

“Keep that in mind,” Gone said, shooting another withering look at the puddle of blood, which might take a few lifetimes to be cleaned up at the rate the toads were working. “Still think you should’ve killed some of them.”

“I’m waiting,” Shiv said, flipping the eggs a final time—and striking them with a final, refined burst of flame-derived nihilism to give it a crispy finish along the edges. “Waiting for someone who’s actually a threat to come find me. I’m not going to take a life and feed the System for nothing. Besides, it's not like I’m sparing them willy-nilly.” Shiv tilted the frying pan and let the finished edge slide off—it was caked in a layer of gold as a sprinkle of Chronomancy, and raw mana had been cooked into it via the broken spear. “The ones I broke will help the others sober up about what they’re dealing with—especially after a few of the poor shits kill themselves.” He adjusted the egg so that it perfectly occupied the central position on the plate. “And most of them are going to do that.”

“Why?” Gone asked. “How are you sure?”

“Because pure, dumb warriors got brittle identities, Gone,” Shiv answered, holding up a finger. “No art. No use. Nothing beyond the fight. And if you make them face that for a little, it hurts them too bad. No one wants to be nothing; no one wants to face the fact that the story they told themselves about themselves is false. And when they send someone who’s actually a threat—who’s actually got a measure of virtue inside them—we’ll give them our compliments by killing them properly. Anyway. Hands. To table A25; give them my apologies too.”

“Got it, Head Chef,” Gone said. And then she was gone in a flash—taking with her not only the plate he'd just filled, but all the other ones he'd finished prepping moments before. He didn’t know if she understood all his rambling just now—or if he fully got the words his Harbinger inspired himself—but Gone was an ideal Pathbearer in some ways.

She didn’t think so much about philosophy or complicated things. But that also meant that she didn’t give too much identity to her own trauma either. Her memories hurt her; she reacted and dealt with it.

Gone kept moving. And so she lived up to the legend that had shaped her skills.

Funny how things worked.

Match philosophy to behavior, Shiv mused to himself, nodding as he kept cooking—and kept struggling elsewhere. This body was his sanctuary of peace; this body would cook and cook and cook some more without stopping to make up for all the time he should have spent in the kitchen while his other vessels stayed buried in blood and strife.

Both aspects of his nature could be real at the same time. He could have his art, he could be at peace, and he could also be a monster against other monsters, and bring his calamity to break rival disasters waiting to happen.

Balance, or at least as close to it as he could get. For now.

***

Magical Theory 12 > 13

Atlas of the Flesh Scryer 160 > 161

Memorization 37 > 39

Inertial Overdrive 375 > 381

Return to Sender 165 > 166

Continuity Error 234 > 237

Back at Phoenix Academy, Shiv found himself learning a lesson beyond the texts he devoured with ravenous determination. This lesson didn't come with a flood of levels or grand epiphanies. It was a slow lesson, burying seeds inside Shiv's mind as he struggled and strained, but didn't explode in terms of progress or power. No, this was a lesson that brought him closer to other people of his age, his supposed peers if his parents and Udraal had chosen differently.

It was a lesson of steady advancement—the understanding that he couldn't rush the accumulation of knowledge and enlightenment like he did with raw power.

Though Shiv was absolutely driven, spending all his time at the library, reading through book after book, trying to build up his understanding of magic, biology, and more, a few days of absolute concentration didn't make up for a lifetime of ignorance. The same lesson applied when he reported in as an assistant healer at the Academy Hospital. His medic course remained the only one still active on his syllabus due to the constant infighting still ongoing between the noble houses and the numerous crises suffered by the Republic, even with Hymn’s general suspension of classes lifted.

The Deathless found himself more competent at hands-on tasks. He learned fast when he had something to test and experiment on; tactile situations for him to gauge successes and failures. But despite being competent, he couldn’t call himself gifted either. Not as a healer, a Biomancer, or a mage.

His weaknesses here went beyond missing information—he was too rigid and blunt in the way he applied his thoughts. There was a level of creative thinking and pattern-comprehension needed to be a proper intellectual, but Shiv was conditioned by simple, brutal grinds. He didn’t lack cunning, but his methods were too crude and direct. And how could they not be? He was rewarded by the System for throwing himself head-first at a problem until it broke, or he did. Then, if the obstacle was still there, he would do it again.

Curing specific diseases and shaping complicated spells required a higher order of thinking than he was used to, and there was something humbling in assuming the life of someone who was less than special to experience these struggles.

“You can’t just ‘go for it,’ Marcus,” Maxime Van Stormhalt chided after stopping Shiv from pushing a dislodged spinal column back in place for a patient in the emergency ward. “It’s not just the surface-level damage you have to think about. Maybe you can slide the C6 back in place, but we don’t know the exact condition of his column or if there is leftover shrapnel in place.”

The wounded engineer let out a desperate wheeze as he whimpered that he felt cold. His pleas went ignored as Maxime studied and listed his many wounds instead of rushing to close them. The poor guy was a bag of rattling, battered meat. He didn’t even get injured in a fight; he was just working near an unstable mana construct that overloaded, and ended up in a storm of metal. The only reason he was alive at all was thanks to his Adept-Tier Stoneskin Toughness.

A shame his brother wasn’t so durable. Instead of being filled with shrapnel, he was just pulped into a mess of disfigured flesh.

Being able to keep cooking in another body while surrounded by scenes of carnage and suffering as Marcus was at once uncanny but also peaceful. The balance felt right, and it lent itself toward his development. It also let him focus and listen, finally giving him a chance to slow down and learn.

Yes, his Aegis of Assimilation could rip away most of these injuries in a blink—but that was just relying on brute force again, an ability handed to him by the System with little to no effort on his part. But brute force wasn’t going to be his advantage against the Tarrasque. Not even remotely. He needed to be technical, he needed to be clever, and he needed to be creative against the Endhound, even if he had a lot of the same skills.

Just because he could throw himself at a problem over and over didn’t mean it was wise or effective. And choosing to commit to bad habits just because he didn’t suffer the consequences went against the Harbinger’s need for virtue.

And so Shiv took his time when it came to his education. He learned not only from books, but other people. While he prepared to select new courses to replace his now-cancelled Scouting-Stealth class, he attended open lectures and listened to arguments between rival theorists on campus; enjoyed demonstrations of new prototypical spells for student magi seeking to procure apprenticeships or make their own fortunes in battle or business. More than that, though, Shiv found himself drawn to philosophical and political debates in the academy’s many forums.

If Magical Theory and general education were pursued out of necessity, then displays of rhetoric and argumentative artistry appealed to Shiv in the same way cooking did. There was something uniquely human about those endeavors—the formulations and clashes between structured ideas. The disagreements, treatises, and proposals put forth by clashing sides. The way people perceived the world and how one person’s vision of utopia could seem like a literal hellscape to another was intellectually satiating.

From that came a dull pang of older hatred.

This was who he was as well. And he could have discovered this version of himself from a young age, if only Roland had allowed him to be a person. If only he'd been allowed to learn and flourish like everyone else at Blackedge. Like Adam was. If he had been allowed to get to this point sooner, who might he be by now? How much had he missed out on? How much could he have achieved if only—

“It’s not real,” both the Nihilist and the Harbinger said as one, before the former continued. “There is no parallel life. This is the only truth. And if you didn’t live this one, then you would have been someone else entirely. These understandings might have eluded you entirely. Maybe you would have been consumed by a vice or some other trauma. Never withhold credit from yourself for all you have achieved, but never forget that luck has been a big reason for our continued survival and evolution as well. Don’t be trapped by resentment—that identity of eternal trauma. You can feel your feelings without gifting it your thoughts or beliefs.”

This was another measure of balance. Old wounds didn’t need to be anything more than that. Roland’s misdeeds could just be history. Everything before could remain prologue, and from now unto eternity, Shiv would think, consider, and then commit to a desired trajectory of growth. Mistakes might follow still, but they needn’t be reactionary acts driven by an obsession with an original pain.

The present was the result of the past, but it was to be spent in service of a desired future.

A future that Shiv was headed for, that he enjoyed and looked forward to despite all the trials and tribulations surrounding him.

Beyond the campus but in the same city, another version of Shiv found himself rooted in place as his Scarforged Shell grew dense beyond his expended strength’s ability to contend. His body was awash in deep cuts. Each platinum-hued scar weighed upon his Onus and lit his body brightly, and beneath that indestructible exoskeleton, Shiv let out a slight hiss of annoyance. In his right hand, a dagger was clutched tight—so tight the hilt was now less than dust from the pressure of Shiv’s grip; he couldn’t let go even if he wanted to. “Yeah,” he grumbled using a Psychomancy link, unable to even lift his lips. “Out of tides. Can’t move. You win. Again.”

“Because you keep making the same mistake,” Jessica replied, running a slim finger up and down the side of her practice axe.

She had been training Shiv in anticipation of their mission to intercept and secure the Tarrasque. Her training, however, more closely resembled beatings at times, made less so only by Shiv’s Legendary-Unique Toughness. Even so, he remained trapped within a husk of damage while her skin remained unblemished by even a single bead of sweat. She'd forgone armor entirely for this match, likely intending to get back at Shiv's jab at her Toughness by wearing a white tank top and shorts, and simply not getting hit.

Attending Inquisitors looking on by the wayside gawked with open jaws and horrified eyes. Jessica’s skill with the blade made her a nightmare of steel and skill, but Shiv proved to be a horror in his own right as not a single one of her strikes scored blood.

In contrast, the adamantine arena they were fighting in was so shredded by her cuts that the ground at their feet resembled mangled petals of furled metal. That wasn’t even getting to the chasm-sized gashes she left in the orichalcum walls surrounding the training facility.

Normally, her cuts would have carried on for a few dozen kilometers further, shredding through anything in their path and causing mass devastation from the sheer seriousness behind her hits. But this facility was also veiled within a semi-dimensional boundary, and so the rest of Yellowstone was spared a catastrophic event at the hands of Jessica Hawgrave.

But there was a reason why the specially selected Inquisitors Veronica had assigned as supporting operatives to the Tarrasque mission were huddled tight together behind the last orichalcum barricade still standing. The other training grounds were all but obliterated as well from secondhand pressure damage alone—a fact that Shiv just noticed as he assuaged his wounded pride as a duelist with the pleasure of possessing such a potent Toughness Evolution.

“Hey, Integrated Earth to Shiv.” Jessica snapped her fingers repeatedly to get his attention. “This is what I’m talking about. Too much breaks in your concentration. You need to bring more of your mind here. Right now. For this duel.” Jessica flicked her wrist and planted her curved axe tip-first against Shiv’s right eye. A resounding note of ringing steel filled the kilometer-wide chamber, and Shiv knew that even his Pillar of Orichalcum would have failed to save him from being blinded.

But Onus of the Scarforged Unbreakable was beyond the reach of physical harm. At least while the shell was still active. Since Shiv was unable to move though, he decided to shed his current Onus to grant himself a measure of motion again—but he didn’t just discharge his damage-debt directly. What he lacked as a duelist, he made up for in the sheer number of esoteric and powerful skills he had.

And as he was coming to learn, the Harbinger of the Tripartite Ruin was a skill with a great many synergies indeed.

As Shiv released his Onus, all the devastating slashes, stabs, bashes, and breaks he'd endured burst free of his body—and promptly anchored to his Harbinger’s Chronomancy field. The damage was caught in the orbit of the Harbinger. The burden placed upon his time magic spiked dramatically, bringing a cost of dramatically increased mana strain that Shiv paid for in doses of frustration and rage.

But he wasn’t done with the Harbinger yet. Instead, he flung that body ten seconds into the future, vanishing across time as he used time as a secondary barrier to protect his now exposed flesh as his Scarforged Shell slowly came back together. Ultimately, the greater the damage debt he accrued, the longer it took for him to regenerate his Toughness. Such was another penalty—that, and he had to discharge the wounds he suffered onto a material object or person to fully offset what he suffered.

The beautiful thing about that cost, though, was he could treat his damage like ammunition. Nothing stopped him from flinging present wounds into the future by anchoring them to his bound field like he just did. When the next bout started, he would try unleashing them on Veronica. She was a bit too good at parrying, but maybe he could force her into a grapple next time and hit her with his overdue wound-tax then.

Won’t know till I try.

He reappeared in place ten seconds later as his Harbinger vanished—taking the anchored damages with it. Shiv’s Scarforged Shell was pristine and unharmed again as well, signaling to Jessica that she could give this another go. “Okay, let’s—”

“Break,” she called, a water bottle appearing in her hand with a flash of static.

“What?” Shiv groaned. “Why? It’s barely been a day of this! You’re not tired.”

“Yeah, but you’re not picking things up as fast anymore,” she shot back. “Your focus is spent. Cool off and think about how to stop yourself from flailing and stumbling into my attacks. You can’t be taking those hits from me when I’m pulling my swings by that much. Too much offense, dogshit defense. I don’t care that you’re indestructible physically; if you’re pinned in place, you’re mission-killed. And you won’t always be able to pull that Chronomancy trick every time.” She paused. “Even if it’s a good trick.”

“I’ll get you with my debt next time,” Shiv threatened.

She snorted. “No, you’ll probably blast too early, miss me, and almost get it all over our unfortunate friends back there.”

One of the Inquisitors poked her head out behind the orichalcum barrier separating the twelve sparring arenas within the space.

“We’ll see,” Shiv said.

“Only after you get the basics down,” Jessica chided. “Look, you gotta bury this deep into your instincts, alright? You do good at the start when you’re still thinking, but when you let your intuition take you… turn to shit. You go from being an incompetent warrior to just a monster.”

“Sounds better to be a monster if that’s what I am,” Shiv replied dryly.

“No. Because even an incompetent warrior can plan, think, and adapt. He can get better. It’s like being an incompetent chef at first. You know all about that, right?” Shiv nodded. He got the analogy. “Good. So, basics in mind, always remember: Striking is simple. It’s distance and timing with everything else stripped out. How close you need to be to hit me against how close I need to get to hit you, and when we expose ourselves. That’s the foundation of everything. You have to get my rhythm down if you want to press; it can’t just be attack, attack, attack for nothing when there’s no opening. If my guard’s ready and I know you’re coming, I’ll cut you down eleven times out of ten.”

“So, patience?” Shiv guessed.

“Yeah. But not hesitation. Patience isn’t dodging around while staring at me like a hamster whose brain fell out. There’s gotta be a way to stop me from just overwhelming your block-with-your-head-and-neck fighting style and ‘killing’ you in minutes. You’re a Legend now, even if you’re untrained, so use those attributes. Be smart. Let the incompetent warrior ride the monster. Okay?”

“Okay,” Shiv muttered, nodding repeatedly. Aggravating as suffering repeated defeats were, it was part of his enlightenment as well. He didn’t know if he would ever be as good with a sword or any kind of Combat Proficiency Skill as Jessica, but he could be a hells of a lot better than he was right now.

Again, processing that was made infinitely easier by one of his bodies constantly cooking.

Balance. Peace. Ahhh.

“Ten minutes,” Jessica said. “Spend that time moving in stance and blocking.”

“Got it, Giantsbane—oh, shit.” Shiv couldn't help but laugh as the door to the room opened, and someone who seemed very out of place came forth. Havel Van Stormhalt still had that bleak expression on his bearded face, with bloodshot eyes and a despairing heart to complete the look. But there was something else compelling him forward now: capitulation. His will had been bent; he was at the Deathless’s mercy and abandoned by the Republic. But his heart was not yet dust. Even if he was a pawn again, he was back in the game, and he wanted to know what kind.

And so, after spending some time sulking alone before finally signing the writ, he became the first of the expendable Avatars to join in on Shiv's and Jessica's one-on-one training.

Well, there was also Valor, who was present somewhere as well—unknown to anyone but Shiv, Jessica, and maybe Veronica.

“Holy shit,” Jessica muttered with disbelief. “I can’t believe it. You called it. How the hells did you know he was going to fold and join in?”

“Because even though Havel’s a sack of shit, he’s not a sack of shit that rolls over and dies. He’ll die hopeless, but he’ll do it with weapon in hand and honor in his heart.” Shiv smirked as he walked past Jessica to greet the incoming Master Pathbearer.

“You could tell all that just by looking at his heart a few times?” Jessica asked, incredulous.

“Yep. That, and from how he acts.”

“What the fuck is up with you Chandlers…”

Stormhalt tensed as Shiv approached, but the latter kept a leisurely pace as he ignored the worried stares of the present Inquisitors and the wilting glare of the City Lord himself. “Hey, Havel,” Shiv said, keeping his tone light and friendly. “Took you a bit. How you feeling?”

The older man didn’t reply to that. He looked up at Shiv with unbridled hatred, but wrestled his ill feelings under control. “I have come… to understand your ways.”

Shiv paused. “My ways?”

“If we are to fight as one against an apocalyptic enemy, it is best that we understand each other's skills and experiences—as well as develop a measure of cohesion—is it not?” Stormhalt’s loathing was true, but so too was his professionalism and dedication as a Martial Pathbearer.

If nothing else, Isabelle’s father wasn’t entirely devoid of virtue. Which irked Shiv just a bit.

“It is,” Shiv agreed. “It is. And you know what? Since you’re my senior when it comes to matters of actual warfare and time spent in combat, I’ll let you lead on this. Tell me what you want to learn and how you want to do this, and I’ll see if I can satisfy. But if it’s power you’re trying to match...”

“It is not,” Stormhalt said, his voice hard. “I know my limitations and weaknesses. The Endbreaker has always been my bridge to greater worth. Legend Hawgrave is the one that might test you directly, but I want to see who you are under fire. I want to know if you are the kind to stand and fight, or break and run; if you will heed and cooperate or ignore and act of your own volition.”

“And how should we go about that?” Shiv wondered.

“By facing a hopelessly greater foe together,” Stormhalt ground out—almost gagging at the end.

Shiv grasped what he meant, and turned to grin at Jessica. “You hear that, Jess? Havel here wants to be my buddy after all. Two on one. Bad odds, Giantsbane.”

“Yeah. For the both of you.” Jessica gulped down the rest of her drink and rolled her bare shoulders. “Alright. Someone bring me my extra gentle practice sword. Let’s not put City Lord Stormhalt on the casualties list before we even fi