Path of the Deathless 362 Split [III]

“What was it that you used on ?”

“Ah. It worked. Surprising.”

“You have wounded . Truly. What was that? Tell . Or I will ask you in a more direct manner, son of Silence.”

“A dead God of Peace.A fragnt of it, anyway. Your antithesis."

“I have eaten and claid Gods of Peace. That felt like no god.”

“Not our kind, anyway. Far, far beyond the reach of the System and Integration, there are wonders aplenty, Rider.”

“So you say. Do that again.”

“No. You’ll end up breaking it this ti. I know how you work. I understand your actual Domains. All of them. You can’t play for a simpleton like the other little mortals. And besides, I have further need of this thing. There is a world I need to pacify—speaking of which, that’s why I’m here. Because I know how you are, and would like to pre-empt my offense with an apology.”

“Oh. Clever little thing. Always so clever. Tell . Try to make this insult up to . And if you can, then I will see you rewarded twice over. Few manage to actually harm , and fewer are capable enough to pre-emptively earn my non-retaliation.”

“Hunura’s Rest. The world of saints, gods, and blessed pilgrims. How would you like them all to fall? How would you like to bestow all those wonderful, noble, pacifistic lives with an orc skill and see your realm expanded?”

“And you have the ability to do this?”

“Oh, yes! And with the sa thing I tested on you, no less.”

“The other gods—”

“Won’t be able to stop this. No more than you can. Not even reality can stop its own substitution, after all…”

—The Challenger and Udraal Thann

362

Split [III]

The Challenger let Adam thrash and scream in his hand, and Shiv saw upon the orc god's face a look of feral satisfaction. Though the Challenger played at being affable, he was at his root a creature that indulged in violent delights. To inflict pain upon Adam pleased him, and the emotions that swelled inside the Challenger were so much that Shiv almost drowned in their proximity.

Roland's arrows ca at a greater intensity, but there was just nothing the Town Lord could do. What hope had he when his only ans of fighting off soone was violence? How did you protect your child from the literal incarnation of your own strength and brutality?

These questions tortured Shiv's mind. He didn't know. He didn't have an answer. He couldn't imagine a solution. But even if things were hopeless, he wasn't the kind to give up. He started draining from the Challenger, sucking away the orc god's vitality. But there was an entire dinsion's worth of lifeforce he had to leech before the Challenger suffered the slightest bit of enervation.

As Shiv drank away, Adam scread on, and the Challenger let this be the way of things for a few seconds longer, at least until he grew bored. Then, tapping a single finger to Adam's head, he silenced the tortures that ca from an overwhelming Awareness skill evolution. At once, Adam stopped crying out. Adam went silent, and the Challenger clenched the Haunting Omniscience that burdened the Paragon so.

“Hush, hush now, little Arrow. No more pain. Let us speak as god and god-to-be, potentially. If you survive long enough, there is much to speak about as well. You have offended . You have struck against . You have taken sothing from , seemingly unwittingly, but still the act remains, justifiable ignorance or not. Though I am a magnanimous and reasonable monster, I am a monster still, and I demand you repay in the worth of what I have given one of mine unto you.”

Adam shook and coughed as he regained his bearings. When his eyes settled and his focus took hold, he found himself staring up at the Challenger's gleeful face. Adam's own expression folded the other way. He went pale, and pure terror bled out from his every pore. But being terrified was nothing new for Adam. Every ti he went into battle, there was always the stench of fear that spilled from him. And that was part of his strength. He was courage: the will to face dread, rather than be consud by it.

And though he knew how precarious his situation was, he faced the Challenger rather than succumb to silence. “You could have done that from the start, you massive, massive asshole.”

Adam's vitriol made the Challenger throw his head back and guffaw. At the sa ti, Roland cried out, "Adam! Adam! Are you all right? What has he done to you?”

“I have returned him his sanity and held the worst of his Awareness at bay. What a hefty skill. Quite the evolution. I see your adventures in the Fairwoods have been rather rewarding.” The Challenger winked at the eldritch egg leftover from Longinus. “And you have purged my Divinity from within the sa way—”

Through it all, Roland never stopped firing his arrows. The blasts kept coming and—Shiv saw past the Challenger and noticed how Roland's insides were inflad. Shiv could still sense the Town Lord's core, his and everyone else's, and they were all festering with unbridled rage. It was like he was raw with blind anger—and Shiv felt the sa. Uva too. None of us is thinking. His godsdamned Domain or whatever is driving people to keep attacking. Him just being here feels like an orc skill is crawling back into .

The Challenger wasn’t just war incarnate; he was also a magnet for violence and aggression. "And the only reason we have noticed at all…" the Harbinger whispered weakly, "is that sothing of still remains."

And Shiv was infinitely thankful for that.

A buzzing crown ford around Adam's head, diluting the natural light that erged from his nascent Divinity—a circlet bestowed by the Challenger, empowered with Psychomancy, but sculpted from a string of maggots and dead flies lted together through fla and infectious rot. Adam twisted and turned, tried to dislodge the wretched icon forming around his forehead, but though his Divinity burned true, it was but a dim ember before the Challenger.

Just like with the Composer, as such with the Starhawk, there was no question who was the greater god.

“There, there. Now you are spared the miseries of premature Legendary Skill. Now we can speak as god and godling.” The Challenger cocked his head, and it felt like the entirety of the Tutorial bent to fulfill his design. Courtney squealed as a portion of her was folded and broken. The Starhawk and everyone on the other side of the obliterated quarters were flung in the direction of the Challenger and further stained by his presence. It wasn’t just Adam who suffered the indignity of being wreathed in maggots and flies. The sa circlet ford over Uva, and Shiv, and everyone who dared attempt violence.

"For violence is the Challenger," the Harbinger wheezed, comprehending what Shiv almost missed. "And how could soone defeat a concept by feeding it? By performing it? You cannot slay an ocean by filling it with more water…"

A chorus of screams rose; each took on a feral quality. Uva’s howls were unlike her: uncontrolled, animalistic, with no hint of intellect behind her colorful eyes. Jessica, Valor, and Can Hu all ca back to life as a twisted weave of decay spilled over them. The maggots bit them, injecting power into their bodies and souls. Each of them combusted with the fla of divine mana—a befouled fla that reeked of war and death.

Worst of all was the Starhawk—for few others could express the calamity that was the Challenger’s power. Instead of seeing his brow seized by a single concentric thread, an entire crown was forged for the only other true god present. Perhaps not an equal god, but a god nonetheless. It weighed upon the Starhawk as if he was carrying the burden of a mountain upon his neck, and Roland fared no better. He was driven down to both knees, blood in his body spilling out in tumbling tides. He should have bled out in a mont, but he didn't—he just kept bleeding, kept firing, his power flared brighter, arrows ca faster, becoming a constant stream.

But while Roland’s wrathful onslaught beca unending, though he seed barred from the embrace of death, his eyes turned that horrid orcish yellow, and his words no longer held any coherent sense. The only things Shiv could make out anymore were him crying for Adam to be released. And the Starhawk couldn’t save him, for the sa elental fervor had him.

“Carrion feeder!” the Ascendant snarled. “Fiend! Butcher! Slayer! I will strike you down for the Republic! I will strike you down for that which is just!” Growths erupted out from the Starhawk’s missing arms, but they were lengths of rippling muscle, gangrenous tissue festooned with shrapnel and weaponry. A new halberd was born of his infectious flesh—a massive polearm shaped from war itself. It was not of material make, but rather a collection of dying worlds fused along a narrow length and contained of all the devastation they suffered. Looking upon it threatened to unravel what remained of Shiv’s regained sanity, and with a desperate flex of his will, he tore himself away.

But that left him with another tornt: Uva howled and bit at the Challenger in the throes of madness. There was little left of her personality. Her flesh beca one with her feral mind, and both shifted into a ss of twisting fractals. Before, when she indulged in her Eldritch Physiology, she beca an amalgam of the Hatchling and a Fingerling. Now, the spider she always yearned to be took hold—and no semblance of the Umbral she was remained. Her limbs lashed out and tore at the fabric between worlds. Not deep enough to rupture the vitality, but gaps were made between the Outside and the world that was to cause another flood of madness to spill in.

“Shut.”

The spill barely lasted a trickle as the Challenger’s command compelled the System to close itself. Only a single feathered tongue slipped through before the wounds Uva made were clamped shut. She lashed at the Challenger in a frenzy, her threads whipping her corruptive mana into his divinity. Such bade the Challenger to smirk. He caught one such thread of corruption with his mouth and slurped it up entirely before smacking his lips. “Ah. You are compromising my attunents and concepts. It consus slowly, like a cancer. And I can do little but tear those strips away. It is not being boiled by the endless warring worlds resting inside . It is only spreading. What a delectable little plague. A Unique Skill as well.” He turned and regarded one of the few who weren’t affected by his rageful aura. “I see why you chose this one, Hymn.”

“Right, yes,” Hymn called out from behind his eldritch barricade. “I do beg for your rcy, Challenger, so is there any chance you might be able to spare that one? I have need of her for the future. I promise a great deal more bloodshed will co with her continued survival—but if you make her into an orc, all that potential could be lost—”

“Oh, this I know. This I have no intention of doing.” The Challenger looked down at the spider-shaped Uva, who hissed and lashed at him, much like Roland. Much like everyone else who was tearing into the Challenger in a brutal attempt to cut him down. And he was only growing brighter. All attempts to strike him down were tantamount to worship. “Do not worry, Hymn. I like the Seeker just the way she is.”

Unlawfully taken from , this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

His voice turned positively grandfatherly, and his eyes twinkled like distant fires flickering out as he regarded Shiv. “I see why you crave her. And why she you. Romance. Many accuse of being unable to understand love. How wrong. I am a romantic god as well, for how many worlds have been burned for love? How many families slaughtered over elopents or to avenge a beloved father or child? Without love, it is hard to hate so deeply. Sothing must be had for the pain of loss to exist.”

Shiv caught the hidden threat in the Challenger’s voice. “If you do anything to her—”

“Sothing inevitably will happen to her. And likely sooner than sothing will happen to you. Until then, she will deliver seas of blood and destruction unto . And you two might even be happy for a ti. But when that inevitable end cos for her…” The Challenger let out a euphoric sigh. “Think of how it will twist you. Think of the wretchedness that will take you. Think of the endless ocean of hate you will beco. How many worlds will you give . Just how much will you worship when that ti cos, Deathless?”

Shiv refused to answer that question—but it was the potential truth he refused to acknowl—

A scream tore out from him and the Harbinger. Both of them broke in ways they couldn’t afford. They would have unraveled and faded from existence altogether in that very instant if a higher power wasn't keeping them together for his amusent.

"We cannot deny! We must face! We must face!" the Harbinger scread in delirium.

Shiv remained incapable of forming words. His mind was hollow for a second—and then everything that constituted his personality was slamd back together as the Challenger reforged him. A second shout of pain left Shiv, but the orc god kept working.

“Hm. Your soul is in ruins, and I most decidedly did not strike you. But your denial… your mind and emotions and body… All that connected. Oh. You have it. You evolved it. I had such faith in you, Insul, and you feed the flas of my investnt each and every ti. Harbinger. A restricted skill coveted by saboteurs, traitors, heart-healers, and diplomats alike. Yet, so few of them ever even achieve the dream of possessing it. Because they are so flawed—and bound to be more flawed. Not you, though. So much promise. Udraal always impresses as much as he offends…”

And then the Challenger started piecing Shiv back together. He felt the god’s aura seize him—and slowly slide each broken skill back together, fragnt by fragnt, heedless of pain. The process was as much a nding as if was excruciating torture. He would have regenerated after a ti, but forcing all his inner wounds back together was like turning him into a vessel of pure agony.

And, just as fast as the Challenger restored Shiv’s mind, he broke it at a whim. Shiv didn’t even manage to scream before he was drowned in a sea of his own tornt.

Then, one after another, his skills started coming back, and his skill levels ca crashing in.

Harbinger of Tripartite Ruin 255 > 281

***

“Shiv!” Adam cried out, but his friend was completely slack. He'd heard Shiv scream many tis before. But never did he see him crumble like a puppet. It was like the life inside him went out. And Uva was in no better condition. Her personhood seed gone—she was but an animal now. Mad, like a weaver afflicted with the First Blood’s plague.

The others fared no better. Jessica was a blur of ever-moving slashes. Valor struck and stabbed—appearing and vanishing randomly—in a visual sar of spell and steel. Can Hu was firing constantly, its body changing into a substance Adam couldn’t recognize, but at its feet were mounds of brass from all the ammunition being expended. Worst of all was Adam’s father. The man was consud. Roland was a warrior, but he was always a master of himself. He felt strongly for his town and people, but he never betrayed himself.

Not like this.

While trapped in the depths of his Haunting Omniscience, Adam was distant but present at the sa ti; he was still battered by sensations that never stopped coming. It was like he was pinned beneath a collapsed building, but the weight just kept building, and rather than rubble, it was just more information he had to process—more and more and more…

Then, he was pulled out of his unconsciousness. There, he had at least a slight asure of peace. The quiet was his shield, and thoughtlessness spared him the extres of ntal damage. When the Challenger ripped him out from that protective suffocation, it all slamd down on him. The rubble that buried him beca a flood that poured into him. His consciousness threatened to tear. For a mont, it did, but the Challenger forced him back together—and even healed him.

The orc god’s influence was like a dam crashing down in place of the oncoming tsunamis. The Haunting Omniscience wasn’t halted, but diverted and held at bay. Where the Culturist struggled to bear the skill for over-long, the Challenger took on Adam’s burdens like it was a pebble. Perhaps even less.

And now the Challenger was looking upon him with intense focus, as everyone else was consud by savagery. Adam had seen sothing like that in Isabella’s eyes, but now that it was the Challenger who was studying him with that expression, Adam felt a wild desire to be anywhere else in existence but here. Well, almost anywhere else. Broken…felling Moon. We just escaped the damned Fairwoods. Always out of the fire, and into an even worse fire.

“Well, little Godling, it seems like it is only just for now.” The Challenger’s lips curved up so deliberately that Adam was sure the orc had practiced the expression untold thousands of tis. At least. “Of the Insul’s preferred kindred, you were the one I cared about the least. Sothing about you felt too… soft. Fragility offends . Especially when the fragility possesses such potential. You and your father enrage so much.” The Challenger turned to glare at the Starhawk, who was currently trying to jam his war-shaped halberd through the back of the Challenger’s head while his upper arms were firing arrows that burst like dying stars. But every attack splashed into the Challenger, rging with him as if it had always been a part of him. “Your martial potential is a gift. A gift wrapped in a vulnerable ego. Betrayed by an unwillingness to give yourself to what you are completely. And so you pull in two directions. So you tear.”

“I would say I’m sorry that I’m not psychotic enough for you, but…” Adam shrugged, trying to keep his nerve intact. “I’m not quite sure I want to be half as ugly as you. Inside or out.”

The Challenger nodded. “Small defiance. I like it. But that is not why you now have my interest. No. It’s this.” He angled his face and showed the spreading blisters lining his flesh. Where Adam’s glow graced the Challenger, a searing ensued. “Yours is a weak Divinity. I have faced many gods. I have eaten many gods. I have broken many gods. Across countless dinsions and worlds, I have studied and learned and shattered faiths from within. I have devoured every follower of rival Gods of War and boiled them inside until all that remained was . But you are different. You burn . And it hurts.”

Adam grimaced. “Clearly doesn’t burn you enough if you’re still holding like I’m a kitten.”

“Contrarily, it is the only reason why I bother with you at all. Do you know how many Domains co second to War? I would argue all, but the System clearly disagrees. So what is it? What do you have within you that offends that which lurks inside ?”

Adam looked at the Challenger—and gazed deep. Beyond the Avatar, there was so much else about the orc that made Adam recoil. The armor he wore, the stenches he reeked of, and the very way he twisted people—the world around him—to feed that eternal apocalypse he represented.

But there was one thing the Challenger was without. “You say you’re all aspects of war, but where is the Heroism?”

The Challenger looked imbibed Adam’s words and humd. “Heroism. Is that what you are the Godling of?”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Adam spat.

“Nor am I compelled to… Or I wasn’t. I do possess virtuous Domains: Revenge, Atonent, Grief, Unity. I am even a God of Hope. But have always considered Heroism such a slight thing. Why should I have it when I already have Justice and Honor, when I already have so many others adjacent and more aningful? What need do I have for such a desperate little niche? Hopeless, impotent fools giving their lives away, fighting battles they could never win feed better than most as well. For the lives they give and the desperation in their struggles will fuel the fires of war.”

“Well, this impotent fool is giving you a sunburn right now,” Adam sneered. “And frankly, between us, I suspect you would be the greater fool.”

“Oh, and how is that? Do I not have you at my rcy? Do I not have all your ntors and comrades enslaved?”

“I said 'greater fool,' not 'bigger idiot.'”

The Challenger inclined his head. “That you did. Please elaborate. Do so at my volition.”

Adam sucked in a desperate breath and tried to keep the thing hamring within his chest from bursting. “Before sothing happens, before a thing can beco true, there has to be a will, there has to be a want. Even if sothing seems hopeless, that doesn't an it shouldn't be done. Most often, things are hopeless because too many people are weak. Weak in virtue. You claim to be war, but there is humanity in war. There are those who die selflessly in war. You are not war, Challenger. You are bloodshed and cruelty and destruction, but there is more to war than you have exhibited.” Adam's lips pulled back in an expression of pure disdain. “I think you are a liar, Challenger. I think you are a deceiver, not only of , but of yourself. You clearly have so virtue, so honor, if you haven't crushed us imdiately for offending you. So I can't call you a coward, but I do think that you despise weakness—and you think heroism to be a vulnerability, don't you? Is that why you never claid my Domain?”

“I would agree, except no Domain of Heroism has burned before. You are sothing else. You have proven yourself to be sothing special. It was a good little speech, though. Quite respectable. But I have a simple rebuttal: Even with the will to do it, it is not done if you do not succeed. To fail, to ruin, that is not Heroism; that is just a tragedy. More often than not, heroes feed not their own Domain but those of Grief, Sorrow, Defeat, Hopelessness, Despair, and above all, in my wholeness. No, no, I think you do not understand yourself yet. I think you are such a newborn Godling that you don't fully comprehend what you possess, and it hasn't gotten a chance to flourish. And so it must. For I want to see what becos of you, O Godling that has burned when the Starhawk could not.”

“You used as a shield!” Adam cried aloud. “If you didn't use to block that shot—”

“Evasion would have been necessary. For there is a great deal just about a father's urge to protect his boy, and that I wouldn't have been able to ignore. That was purer than war. If only for a mont, but then the Starhawk, stained with so much bloodshed, and your father, bearing the sa gri, were claid. And they folded unto my will. Once more, justice rendered tragedy beneath war. But you are not the sa. Why won't my rage sink into you? Why won't my Curses and Blessings touch you? Why do they just peel around you, evaporate upon you? What have the Fairwoods made of you, little Arrow?”

Even if Adam had an answer, he wouldn't give it to the Challenger. But then he saw the dark, glowy building on the orc’s face, and his pulse sped up even more. “No matter. I think we will have the rest of eternity to figure such a thing out. Before, I thought you the first of my Insul’s companions to fall. Now, I suspect this might beco a most illustrious rivalry. And so let give you an incentive to hate, to betray your own Domain. You've taken one of my most promising and vexing sons from . Perhaps not of your own accord or awareness, but you have purged my influence from him. Now, I can push my power into this soul once more to make him a proper orc, filled with the primacy of my Domains. But in truth, I've grown tired of his petulant complaining and incessant struggles. I am weary of him as he is of . If he wishes to experience life as one of you, you uninitiated, you weak and whimpering mortals, so be it! Let him have his delight, and I will have mine.”

“What do you want?” Adam failed to keep a quaver out of his voice. “And why don't you just take? You said we were all at your rcy. If that's so, then why don't you just take from us?”

“Because that won't be enough to scar your soul and have you betray your own faith. You took one of my orcs from , Adam Arrow, and so I demand sothing back from you.”

The Challenger's voice dropped lower, but the cruelty in his eyes shone bright. “I want you to choose your mother, your father, your beloved Isabella, or anyone from your town to invest with an Orcish Skill. Choose, and I will handle the rest. I will not inflict any more injury on you and the others. I will even see you all empowered. But first, you must choose. Of this, you have no choice. Choose, choose, choose! Choose who you condemn for your act of Heroism! Who do you trade in exchange for the Culturist? Who do you give unto the altar of war, in mutilation of your Heroism?”

“None,” Adam seethed through clenched teeth. “I choose no one.” His divine aura burned brighter, and for a mont, he pushed back against the Challenger—even managed to drown the room in his glory. For a mont—a hopeful mont—the fighting stopped. Valor halted mid-stab. Jessica did the sa. A series of clinks sounded from Can Hu as the Penitent found itself firing toward no effect. Even the Starhawk and Roland sobered.

“A-Adam,” Uva called out, sounding more drunk and wild. “What—”

But then the Challenger crushed hope. He exerted his will once more, and Adam felt his power driven back—felt the orc god clamp his Divinity around Adam. His bones fractured under the strain, and a choked cry was squeezed out from him. But the Challenger clenched no tighter. He wanted Adam to know his strength and taste the hopeless struggle, but he didn’t want him to die. “Choose. You cannot defy on this. No more than I can kill anyone here. For war to butcher his finest practitioners is his form of self-mutilation.”

“I refuse!” Adam cried out. “You can’t make—”

“Your father, then.” The Challenger sighed, sounding disappointed. “I suppose it will be pleasing to take sothing from the Starhawk. And Sister ttabon has already served as an Avatar. She can reclaim that position. No great loss.”

A pit of absolute horror opened up inside Adam. “I—no, please—”

“Heroes shouldn’t beg. No more words. Choose. Do it now.” And the Challenger lifted Adam high so he could better see his father’s face, twisted by bloodlust. The man was all but unrecognizable. “Not so far off from my grasp, anyway. Him. Or soone else. Your mother could use my power. And that girl in the bed. The one you were set to wed. She will perish soon from Sullain’s wicked little sickness. But I can change her fate. You simply need to decide on her behalf. CHOOSE.”