So, here's the thing about killing Heroes. It's hard, but it can be done. It can be done if you get about a hundred Masters together on average. A hundred Masters with a hundred varied skills, and that's usually the lower estimate.
And it's the "varied skills" part that matters the most, for you see, if you're gonna be fighting a Hero, you don't want to be slamming into them where they're at their most powerful. If a Hero is fast, you're gonna want to ambush them using a variety of thods and bury them under different layers of attacks, all crossing over each other at once. Different kinds of magic, different kinds of physical attacks, different ranges, everything. And then you want to have Jump Mages move your people around. Or, potentially, you want to have soone skirmish with the target.
Whatever the case, every Hero is a different puzzle. You solve and kill them all in different ways.
But that also has separations. So Heroes are True Heroes; those hard bastards are rare. You don't run into a True Hero very often because of how hard it is to obtain one Heroic-Tier Skill, let alone two, let alone three, and don't get started with four. True Heroes are monsters, but they can still be brought down. You just need to bring your army to bear and drown them. You just need to find one angle and lever it hard.
The first Hero I helped kill had insane Reflexes. Couldn’t even see them. Killed three thousand people in under five minutes. Didn't even use ranged attacks. Collapsed part of our vanguard. Then, he ended up running into a patch of quicksand I set up and suffocated after I turned the sand into cent. Heroes are monsters—powerful, nightmarish—but they can be killed. With a lot of blood, understanding, and planning, they can be brought down.
Especially if they’re operating alone.
-moirs of a Master-Tier War Mage
99 (I)
Plaguefueled
Shiv resurrected, resud ti, and all the diseases, viruses, and infections he'd suffered just a few seconds before seeped into his flesh once more. It hit him in a wave of boils. His eyes began to dim, pulse, and sear inside his sockets. His skin turned against his very muscles, sinews, and bones, and every part of him filled with a raw and gnawing ache.
"This," Shiv grunted, biting back a growl of discomfort, "is going to be annoying." Annoying, but ultimately rather beneficial. His Disease Resistance had languished for quite so ti. Between that and Practical tabiology, he might get so useful gains here, but it was going to take a few deaths.
At least I got rid of the Psychomancers, he thought. The First Blood mind mages were little more than sars now. He made sure to destroy their bodies after taking their cores from them. And when he turned, he saw sothing peculiar. He stared at a mass of glistening, furrowed at that served as “wall” for the crystalline chamber, and, using his magic, Shiv recognized the flesh to be part of the creature's brain. Using his Biomancy, he mapped out two hundred ters of biological architecture and let out a breath of astonishnt. This room had no entrances or exits. It was sothing embedded into the brain—and was currently being shuttled around by the shifting flesh cupping it from the outside.
The internal layout of the Court Leviathan can change, Shiv understood. The entire thing is a big damn shapeshifter. That’s pretty felling neat. Right then, the Psychomancy center was rapidly being moved down toward the leviathan’s lower abdon. There, Shiv sensed the first hints of bubbling acid awaiting him. I can see why this thing might be a nightmare for even a group of Master-Tiers to board and take. Probably need to use automata against them. But even that might not stand up against this acid…
Shiv coughed. A spray of flaking lung tissue sprayed out with his phlegm. Dying again. No ti to waste. He fused his armor back around himself and cast a laceration into the leviathan’s brain. The wrinkled surface split open. Searing juices erupted out like a geyser, flinging bits of brain matter at him in clumps. Shiv shot through the wound made, but it imdiately sealed behind him the mont he was through. As he continued ripping and pushing his way further, trying to cripple this thing’s mind or find a command center of so kind, the entire brain kept regenerating around him.
Its healing was simply absurd. But that might be a good thing. He wasn't sure if the people back at the gate could eat this, but considering how quickly it regenerated and how his The Chef Unwavering Skill might interact, it could be a major boon to the people of Gate Theborn. There were many wounded and sick. With potential bonuses to healing and resistance to diseases, the Court Leviathan might just be the solution to their problems.
Again, he didn’t know if he could cook this, but he was looking forward to finding out.
Another pulse of dense Chronomancy swept through him. It washed over his person, but did little as he didn’t have his temporal shell active. His Chronomancy was a major ace in his hands. He wasn't going to risk it being unavailable if he had to face a sufficiently powerful opponent or a treacherous situation. The temporal warding the Leviathan had seed to only radiate every other second, so he could trigger his Chronomancy on and off between each wave without suffering undue damage to his ti armor.
As he reached out and tried to tear his way through another dense layer of leviathan brain-stuff, Shiv felt his nervous system collapse. A spasm went through him. A flash of color passed behind his eyes as he emptied his bowels violently and died again.
Not a very dignified death that ti, Shiv thought. Then he chuckled silently. Still, how many people get to shit themselves to death in a giant monster’s skull?
Disease Resistance 14 > 18
This ti, he didn’t get anything for his Practical tabiology or Woundeater. Shiv frowned as he drained vitality again. Sotis, what skills leveled upon his death confused him. Maybe he needed to more actively resist the plagues the leviathan kept hitting him with for his Biomancy and tabiology to grow? He also wasn’t any more knowledgeable with his last level gained in Practical tabiology, so he had more questions there too.
But those questions would have to wait, as the Court Leviathan ca aglow with crimson mana. Even with him digging through its brain like a little dagger, it didn’t seem all that affected. Its resilience was fine, but it was its ability to recover that made it a hard target. The monster just wouldn’t stay hurt. Now, new sprays of minute bio-matter were being ejected from within its flesh; viruses and other blood motes carrying new diseases for Shiv to sample.
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And sample them he did as soon as he resurrected.
Instantly, his throat tickled, and then he felt like it was going to unlatch from his body. One of his kidneys pulsed with stabbing pain while the rest of his organs imdiately started shutting down. Yellowish mucus burst out from pores and orifices as Shiv felt his heart stop working almost imdiately.
“Godsdamned bullshit—” he slurred. He tried tearing open another section of the Court Leviathan’s brain, but his muscles disobeyed him and his skull filled with a feverish haze that—
Shiv found himself as a Revenant again. He looked down at another one of his bodies and winced in disgust as fat, winged maggots burst out from his eyes and ears re seconds after he perished. A mont later, the brain mater healed over his two dead bodies and began to assimilate them into its structure. In seconds, both of his bodies lted into the leviathan’s brain. Shiv gawked in astonishnt. Did I just get absorbed by the brain?
Disease Resistance 18 > 22
Once more, he drained vitality from the entity, and it let out a deep, bellowing groan. It satisfied Shiv to know that he had so ans of hurting the creature by striking its life force directly, but he was still astonished by how fast it was healing. Its regeneration was so quick and perfect that his Biomancy could barely keep up.
Vitality Drain 46 > 47
As he resurrected for a third ti, he waited for the latest ti ward to pass as he activated his Strider of the Unbending Path and placed a temporal anchor. One of his temporal echoes was imprinted on the leviathan’s mind, and Shiv let the present resu just as another golden wave ca for him. Again, the diseases smashed into him. This ti, Shiv resisted the sicknesses that ate through his body for around five seconds before he lost control over his muscles and nervous system. Death ca for him again as his tabolism went haywire and caused a cascading series of organ failures thereafter.
Disease Resistance 22 > 29
Big jump in Disease Resistance this ti. Maybe because of the frequency of my deaths. That, and the number of diseases I keep getting increases every ti. I tried to follow what they were doing this ti, but… Shit, I really need to review the immunology chapter in the Odes and the other books. I think so of these diseases are also changing inside . Like, they go from doing one thing, and then it seems like they mutate and do another thing.
If that was really the case, Shiv had no idea how Cradle handled any of the First Blood’s plagues at all. He hated the vampires, but their mastery over flesh and biology was quite impressive. For now.
Shiv intended to pay this lesson back and then so when he beca a real Legend in Biomancy and Practical tabiology. For now, though, he likely needed to offer the Court Leviathan a few more deaths.
Yeah, Adam or Uva would have probably had an easier ti with this thing. And to think he faced down the overwhelming power of the Recollector just hours ago. But that was a problem of force and ti. This was all about the nature of his body. And he didn’t have the skill to fight it. So, Heroic-Tier Pathbearer in Reflexes or not, Shiv died.
But that wasn’t a bad thing. A little humbling was a good appetizer before the main dish of triumph. These deaths tempered his focus and drew him back from being too enamored with his own power.
It was good to be powerful. It wasn’t good to assu that brute force was the only kind of power. Just like how different chefs could approach the sa dish in different ways, for the different tastes, with different accompanints and libations.
Sothing clicked for Shiv, then. When he cooked, he was focused, disciplined, enduring, and flexible. He could do anything. He could support anyone. He was the pillar. But so far, the way he fought was overwhelmingly brutal, with a bit of surprise and cunning mixed in. He could do better. There was no reason why he should be a lesser warrior when he aspired to be an artful chef.
Philosophy 2 > 4
Huh. Nice. Wait. I think I heard sothing about fire and high temperature killing diseases… I could heat myself up with my Pyromancy and Inertial Overdrive… Nah. A few more deaths would be good for . Let’s see if I can get this thing to stack even more diseases next ti and send my Disease Resistance to Adept… Well, considering how many things I keep getting hit with, I think Master is more likely.
As Shiv resurrected once more, he thought about all the skills he had and the options available to him. Imdiately, he felt the urge to shake himself. So far, all he had been doing was slamming himself into things. He was treating every fight like a brawl, and that mode of thinking always had a cost.
If he had bothered slowing down and thinking, he probably would have rembered how effective Deepest Edge was against massive entities or people in thick armor. He probably could have cut most of the brain. Also, the Psychomancers were dead, and so Shiv froze ti and pulled off his Mask of False Paths. He cast his feeble Psychomancy into the mind of the Court Leviathan—
And imdiately broke the connection as the chaotic vortex of its ntal state overwheld him. The Court Leviathan was a ss of impulses, pain, confusion, and clashing instincts. It wasn’t just a large monster—it was an insane monster. Shiv wheezed as the sickness got to him again, but he pulled a bone dagger out from his cloak and pushed back against its crushing Biomancy as it tried to absorb him.
It took him shattering his own ego to render the Jealousy mind-dead, but this thing was already ssed up. Moreover, he didn’t know where to begin or what mory or thought he needed to affect. Uva flicked through minds like she was a psionic whirlwind and made it look easy. Probably because she had a lifeti of experience and study in adjacent fields.
Yeah, I get it, System. More studying. Now, if you could only give a few days of peace and quiet, I would—well, I would spend at least so of it studying. The rest will go to hanging out with friends, sex, and cooking.
His immune system lasted longer this ti. His throat filled with thick lumps of pain. Inside, a patch of nodules bulged out from his organs, and they hatched a larger, more carapaced version of the winged maggots he suffered earlier. They promptly exploded in his body but failed to do anything as everything inside him was adamantine as well. They did manage to crawl out from his flesh, but that was more from them fusing and commanding the biomatter to part. Shiv grabbed one of the maggots as it scread at him. He crushed it nonchalantly and then died again as more of the maggots filled the valves of his heart.
Huh. Even these things are little Biomancers. Damn vampires are really all in on the twisting of biology.
Disease Resistance 29 > 40
As Shiv returned as a Revenant, a loud rumble shook the insides of the great beast. Mouths ford along the glistening furrows of the Court Leviathan’s inner brain matter, and for once, Shiv was truly weirded out.
Yeah, tongues and teeth don’t belong with brain matter…
"This is Master Malteek Sulmanthrap-Ophereus, Tenth Generation Elder of the Ophereus Bloodline." The voice that suddenly echoed forth from every part of the Court Leviathan’s interior was rough and raspy. "All Biomancers, we are facing a Heroic-Tier intruder at the very least. A Chronomancer and Biomancer with advanced Stealth abilities. Remove the subversive organic matter they left behind. They are not dead. They are hidden right above the Prefrontal Cortex—They are just over the bridge. We cannot risk the leviathan being poisoned. Remove the matter and prepare to induce evolving viral strains and nerve agents. Dump the reserve prions and fungal spores as well. Flood the Leviathan imdiately. Counter-Boarding teams on standby!”
Ah, shit, Shiv thought to himself. This is going to be good. Already, asshole. Show what you got. Feed another Skill Evolution.
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