183 (II)

Dark [II]

Outside Context Problem began changing inside of him, and Shiv's vitality grew fainter and fainter. Yet, it didn't feel weaker. His lifeforce didn't fade from his being. Rather, it simply felt like it was stretched, spread apart, and made more flexible. He couldn't fully describe it, but a metamorphosis was taking place at the core of his soul.

Shiv emerged from his Vitae once more, but rather than seeming like a dense fluid, it became as if a curtain of mist. He passed through a haze, and the Outside Context Problem Skill felt like it was turning into something sublime.

Shiv looked down at his hands as he felt an odd sensation pass through him. His fingers, bones, even his very blood vessels felt disconnected from his body, and as he waved his limbs around, trying to reorient himself, he saw something. He saw his vitality rip free from his flesh, saw that white and red matter that comprised his existence slip out from the confines of his material form.

More importantly, as it slipped free, it barely cost any vitality at all.

Adam blinked at Shiv.

A sounding crash echoed from all around, and Shiv noticed the darkness was slamming into the golden shadows over and over. Kura directed her temporal clones to strike back; their bladed limbs cleaved gaps into the darkness, displacing the black using waves of Chronomancy. At the same time, their shields unleashed pulses of counterforce that sent the darkness reeling back.

Even so, the struggle came at a cost. The elven Chronomancer began shaking, her legs were quivering, and Shiv could see how much strain she was under, trying to contend with the might of a god.

"Alright, skill," Shiv said, mostly to himself. "Please don't be shit."

He triggered his new skill for the first time and suddenly felt himself unlatch from his body entirely. It was a disturbing sensation, a bit like birthing his bones out from his parting skin. As he emerged, he looked behind. There, he still stood, his gaze vacant, his body frozen. Everyone else could still see him as well.

Worse, Shiv felt himself lose a fourth of his vitality doing all that. The damned skill was expensive to maintain.

So far, it seemed like a downgrade. He wasn't out of context. Everyone else knew where he was. And right now, he was simply a mass of Vitae that faintly resembled his humanoid form. He could move freely, yes, but even so, he didn't know why that was better. Maybe it reduced the vitality he spent, but all the advantages he had before were gone.

"Shiv," Adam said. He reached out and prodded the Deathless's left arm. But Shiv couldn't feel it. In fact, he couldn't feel anything at all.

"Hey, Adam, I'm over here," Shiv called out. Yet, even as he waved in the Gate Lord's face, Adam didn't look away from Shiv's material body. He couldn't notice his Vitae form. Neither could anyone else, for that matter.

And suddenly Shiv changed his mind. Maybe this wasn't a downgrade. Maybe his material body was something like a decoy. Still, no one could notice his Vitae form. What if they destroyed my material body? Shiv wondered. Would I just die?

But something told him otherwise. He consisted of Vitae. It would only kill him for good if all his Vitae were destroyed. And right now, it seemed like breaking his living body would do little more than cost him some already expended vitality.

Tentatively, Shiv moved away. He strode past Kura, who was also looking at the unmoving Shiv, past the golden shadows keeping the dark at bay, and once more walked into the black. Apprehension rose within Shiv as he reached out to grasp the lashing darkness. Yet, as soon as he touched the black, a rush of determination rushed through the Deathless. It wouldn't be like before. He would make the Ascendant pay for everything he suffered.

Shiv prepared to surface into existence once more. He expected something to happen, for his material body to snap into place where he currently was upon making contact with the darkness, or something along those lines. Instead, Shiv managed to touch the blackness and still remained submerged in his vitality regardless. His eyes widened. His breath caught. He gripped the darkness tighter, and the surrounding shadows were clenched so tight they went still.

"What is this?" the Ascendant's voice rumbled in confusion and worry.

Shiv pushed his luck further. He tore into the black, striding deeper as he circulated his tides through his body. Pushing through the shadows was a rough process, especially with most of his skills still compromised. Every few moments, his vectors would flicker out, and he would be caught as if a fly trapped in a web. But without any hint, it would return to its stable state, and Shiv would be Legendary-Tier again, allowing him to rip his way through the shadows, progressing like a machete hacking through dense foliage.

Alright, so I can interact with the darkness without surfacing for myself, Shiv thought. Useful. But what else can I do?

He swept his surroundings using his mana hydra, trying to find where the Avatar was. Luck was on Shiv's side, as he felt one of his hydras impact something hard, something impossibly dense. A loud gasp sounded from the shadows, and Shiv flung himself in that direction. He arrived a moment too late as he caught sight of Anthony's right leg sinking into the deeper darkness beyond. Shiv cleaved out with his Biomancy again, stretching his mana-hydra as far as it could go—but the Avatar was gone, without a hint of where he went.

Shiv didn't continue any deeper; he had already pushed his luck far enough as it was. But since he could use both his attuned and unattuned skills, there was something else he wanted to try.

Let's see if I can top myself off while being out of context. Shiv reached out and drew in the vitality empowering the Ascendant. That caused him to surface. A burst of white and red expanded from Shiv's body, but it rose free from his back like curling fingers of mist rather than spraying fragments.

He was a softer, subtler, and freer presence now compared to before. At the same time, his original body turned into a puff of vitality as well. Shiv guessed that was technically an upgrade. Part of him was still out of context, but part of him remained in.

But it wasn't a perfect upgrade, for there were times Shiv didn't want to be noticed at all. Like right now, as the darkness collapsed around him like the maw of a great beast.

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Shiv used his Shapeless Tides to hold back a few slashing tentacles and triggered Non-Sequitur once more as he made his escape. The moment he did, the darkness overwhelmed his abandoned body, and it burst apart in a spray of vitality.

Suddenly, Shiv felt his life force drop precipitously. He was growing cold and at an alarming rate. And that's when he understood that the bodies he left behind weren't just for show. They were stability anchors for his vitality.

As soon as the body was destroyed, however, the surrounding darkness went still, as if it couldn't remember what it was doing. And Shiv couldn't help but laugh as he fled behind the golden shadows holding the clearing's perimeter. It was Outside Context Problem and then some.

As Shiv stumbled back into place beside Adam, he surfaced once more, and a sheen of white and red lifted free from his body. The world around him spun as a bout of lightheadedness took him, but Shiv managed to stop himself from falling over. "Okay, the skill is kind of bullshit, but I'm not sure how we're going to be able to use it to escape," Shiv managed to say. He was shivering from how cold his insides felt. He needed to drain from someone again, and soon.

Adam stared at him with eyes glowing violet and shook his head. "Took a while for me to figure out what you just did, but did you just unlatch your literal soul from your body and go on a jaunt?"

"Yeah," Shiv said. "Something like that."

"And after that, when your body gets destroyed, are you still moving around? I can't seem to remember who you are when your body is lost."

"Yeah, the body lets me do things without surfacing into reality. It's like a stabilizer or something."

Adam shook his head and let out a sigh. "It's confusing as hells when you get new skills."

"Yeah, it's pretty weird for me too, but something like that."

"Alright, good, good. I have an idea. It might be enough to repel the Ascendant for a while, but you might not like it."

"I don't know, Adam. You said repel the Ascendant. It's got to be pretty shitty of a plan for me to hate it."

"It's going to involve me hitting you with the Necromancy arrow."

Shiv should have seen this coming. "Yeah, okay. It's shit, but what did I expect? To hells with it. How are we doing this?"

"I want you to run back into the blackness again," Adam said. "But not too far. Maybe just a meter. As soon as you do, leave part of yourself exposed. The Ascendant will wrap his tendrils around you, so you might be able to blunt some of the blast."

"Should be?" Shiv asked.

"It's my best guess. If it goes sideways…" Adam winced. "It'll hurt, but I think most of us will survive. I'll just use a smidgen."

"Alright. How are you going to track me?" Adam's eyes flared with Divination mana. Shiv nodded. "Got it."

"Elf!" Adam hissed. Kura turned and narrowed her eyes at the Gate Lord. "When I draw my arrow, I need you to pull your Chronomantic clones back from the space ahead of us."

She stared at Adam as if he were insane, but Shiv gave her a nod. "Just do it." To the elven prisoner's credit, she simply swallowed and didn't complain any further.

"Candles! Gone! Get the others together and set up a perimeter of fire again. We need a final point of retreat if everything goes to hell. Which it probably will." Adam sighed. "Shiv, whenever you're ready."

"Yep." The Deathless coughed. "Just give me a second." He placed a hand upon the thin sheen of vitality infusing existence and began to refill himself as well. Slowly, a rupture opened above them, and Adam looked up nervously.

"Shiv…"

"I know. I'm not going to tear it open all the way. I just need a bit of energy right now."

"How about—"

"No," Shiv said, rejecting Adam's offer. "I need you as healthy and capable as you can be. Besides, the rupture might serve a purpose in a few moments. If everything does go to hell, and without any other options, I'm going to tear it wide open and let chaos do its thing." Adam stared at Shiv with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. "It's that or getting eaten by the depression shadows."

A deafening roar shook the air itself as a massive shape exploded out from the wall to their right. The golden shadows shielding a hole left in the shredded tunnel walls were knocked aside as the massive form of Urri barreled through them. However, Uri had changed. Darkness seeped out from his eyes, from his head tentacles, from every single pore of his body.

Gone and Rebis intercepted the massive Vulteg, but though they were fast, their blows bounced off Uri's body as if pebbles skipping off the hide of a charging bull. Darkness followed in Urri's wake, crashing down into the perimeter, just as Shiv prepared to go Non-Sequitur once more. The Deathless strode forth to stop Urri, but just then, his Inertial Overdrive and Shapeless Tides skills broke down. Shiv's Reflexes went back to Pathless levels, and his death came so fast he didn't notice what happened at all.

Inertial Overdrive > [Error]

Pillar of Orichalcum > [Error]

Non-Sequitur 101 > 103

When Shiv emerged as a mess of Vitae, he found Adam barely keeping out of Urri's reach, his azure dawn slowing the huge Vulteg as it sapped Urri's very strength.

"I'll rip you apart. Uri will deliver your skull as a gift for Lord Scorn. There is no escape from..." And then Urri's booming roar changed into the cold, droning tone of the Ascendant. "THE ASCENDANTS!"

A mess of shadowy tentacles exploded out from the Vulteg's massive eyeball and washed over Shiv.

Spearing bursts of despair filled the Deathless again, but he went Non-Sequitur, accepting the sudden loss of his vitality as he seized his only chance to fight on. As Shiv launched himself at the oncoming darkness, Adam twisted through the air, barely avoiding a huge fist. His vector wings were flaring brightly as he fired shot after shot into Urri's chest.

Adam had also transformed. His body went fluid once more, becoming as if a crashing set of tides shaped in the vagueness of a human form. Urri swung another blow at Adam, and though he came short once more, a lashing tendril of darkness swept through the Gate Lord's Hydrokinetic body, and that inflicted a wound.

Adam was cleaved out from the Hydromancy that shrouded him. The waters he once used to form a new titanic body were dissipated into a puff of steam.

Shiv called out to Adam, but no sound came. He was little more than Vite himself in that moment. Adam tumbled to the ground as more darkness slammed into him. As soon as it did, however, the Gate Lord's body flared and shot into the air with a loud cry. It was the shrill cry of some kind of bird. Shiv didn't think it was a hawk, though. It was too high-pitched for that.

And then he recognized the burning avian. He had seen it before, as he was tumbling toward the Rubix Well. That was a phoenix, albeit a small one, and it bounced off the darkness several times before it finally crashed against the ground once more. Adam rolled, trying to recover. The darkness chased him, and Uri reached out to squeeze his head.

Shiv intercepted the attackers, wrapping his Vitae around the darkness, around the Vulteg's outstretched hands. And then he drained. Vitality detonated within his shuddering soul. At the same time, a shape came into existence near where his physical form was discarded.

A humanoid shape that bore a faint blue dagger. Anthony stabbed Shiv's Vitaemancy anchor, but to his delight, the man's dagger did little to nothing. Stabbing Shiv's body was one thing, but trying to carve Vitae itself did nothing more than leave slight gaps in a large, amorphous blob.

Before Anthony could realize what was happening, Shiv resurrected, and he used a brief moment of stability and surprise to counterattack his foes.

Urri was a powerful Pathbearer. His body was immune to both magic and physical attacks. Shiv didn't have time to figure out how to kill him. However, when Urri was unprepared, he could still be overpowered. So Shiv did just that.

A rush of tides exploded out from Shiv's body, enhanced further by Adam's azure dawn. As the tides passed into Urri, Shiv flung the huge Vulteg at Anthony in a blur of motion. Adam fired arrow after arrow into the sailing Vulteg, and Anthony dove backward, vanishing into the darkness before the large Pathbearer could hit him.

However, Urri flexed out his arms and grasped the darkness. Instead of being launched through a wall, he held himself in place and began fighting in tandem with the Ascendant. But before he could turn and launch himself back at Shiv, a ten-meter-wide beam of fire crashed into him and blasted through the wall regardless. "BUUUURRNNN!" Candles roared, shaking with laughter as he drove the Legendary Vulteg back with his Pyromancy. "CALAMARI! BURRNNN!"

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