The containment facility is only about thirty feet wide, so my skills are strong enough to rock the very foundation of this place. I have half a mind to take this fight outside, away from the still-prone Sierra, but I’m running out of time and magic and my opponents are picking themselves up quickly.
I dive towards Rin first. I don’t know Simon’s capabilities, but I know Rin’s, and she’s mobile. I can’t let her get active. Siphon has a limited number of uses, and these two are durable. I’ve drawn blood, but neither of them are anywhere close to dead yet.
My Soulshard Rifle is out of charges, and I briefly regret not killing more people outside. I shouldn’t have wasted shots on level 20s, either—at level 17, with the array of skill I have, I’m definitely stronger.
Oh well. I still have a lot more in my arsenal, and there’s nothing like a good life or death situation to advance my skills.
The rage has largely faded, my head clearing enough for me to take a second to think about my next steps.
With the usage of Siphon, I now have nearly two-thirds of my magic remaining after using two devastating skills.
I dive towards Rin, taking advantage of the opportunity I’ve created for myself. With the amount of magic I have, I’m able to cast Blood Echo, Soulknife, and Phantom Shape at the same time. I’ve kept the mundane pistols I looted from the lab on the sixty-second floor, and now is the perfect time to use them.
Firearms advanced to level 2!
The crack-crack of the pistols is accompanied by the system whispering a notification into my ear. One of my shots go wide, thanks in large part due to the awkward position from which I fire the gun, but the other strikes true.
Blood spurts from the wound I create, but I’ve grown acclimated enough to the sight to know that the amount I draw is not enough.
The bullet hit her in the unarmored neck, right next to an artery. It should’ve drawn a ton of blood, but only a trickle comes, as if I’ve given her a particularly nasty papercut.
She’s skilled. Rin is bleeding more heavily from the gut where my Soulshard RIfle struck, but it’s not fatal. Not yet.
I need to make it lethal.
My blood-copy dashes towards Simon, wielding a crimson fake of my Soulknife, and I do the same with my real body. I fire twice more. One shot for Simon, one for Rin.
This time, Rin’s shot misses. The one intended for Simon does hit, but it clinks off something metallic. Armor?
They’re both wearing the same bodysuits as they were when they ambushed me, so I guess there was some actual defensive value in those after all.
Soulknife will pierce past them. Voidtouched will make that doubly true. It looks like the trait only applies to my melee attacks and skills, because the bullets aren’t granted the same empowerment.
I bring my blade down in what should be a lethal blow, aiming straight for her heart, and she moves.
It’s not the same as her teleport. I can feel that skill before it forms, so potent is the energy required to create it. Rin is just insanely fast, even with her face half burnt off by Smite.
Simon starts to get to his feet.
Before anyone makes their next move, Sierra screams.
With the containing wall shattered, the sound is ear-piercingly loud. I couldn’t even hear the Soundspawn’s infected noise from its cage, but I could hear Sierra’s voice.
Now, the shrill shriek practically splits the air apart. Rather impressive, given the fact that she isn’t magically enhancing it at all. I feel a sympathetic pulse of pain—that nightmare-black pattern looks like it hurts, and she doesn’t have anywhere close to my level of Pain Resistance.
I’ll deal with it later.
Adrian flinches. So does Simon.
Rin does not.
She’s behind me in a flash, her magic building up and activating before I can even react. Not her teleport skill—she’s got another skill that allows her to travel short distances at absurd speeds.
This time, though, I have Locate Person running, and I’m not as off guard as I was last time. I activate Soulrend even as she swings a sword gleaming with magical energy at my neck.
The combination of Abyssal Echo and Soulrend must be enough to bypass her defenses, because she stumbles.
That crucial moment of hesitation is enough for me to press a pistol up to her eye with a Phantom Shaped limb.
I squeeze the trigger—and then Rin warps, her body simply vanishing from her location behind me. She reappears back next to Simon, stumbling. The damage I inflicted onto her from Smite and the Soulshard Rifle is gone.
Rin is breathing hard, though, and I take that as the indication of magical exhaustion that it is. Adrian finally gets his act together, evidenced by the sudden flood that twirls around Simon and Rin’s feet.
I’m correct about Rin, it appears, because while Simon is able to break out of the effect with ease, Rin falls into the water.
Simon grunts, reaching into an extradimensional space.
I Siphon it, using the influx of magic power to amp up my Soulrend.
Using my fake limbs, I fire my pistols until I’m out of ammunition. It gets my Firearms skill up to level 5, and I manage to get a couple of actual hits off on Rin. Whatever skill she was using to minimize damage isn’t operating at full capacity anymore. Blood trickles down her bodysuit where I’ve hit her. Six shots, none of them fatal. They add up.
Sierra screams again, and the floodwaters briefly loosen up as Adrian gasps, losing concentration on his skill to get to Sierra’s side.
Simon, on the other hand, has acclimated. His eyes flash a dark purple, and I get the sense that something is watching me. A weight heavier than anything I’ve ever lifted crushes down on me, and bloody lines carve themself into my body.
Trying to cut me apart, is he? I don’t recognize the skill, but the effects look dangerous.
No matter how much he cuts me in my blood-form, I won’t die. Too bad for him.
I enter Bloodpath and exit it by casting Misty Mirage and Blood Echo at the same time. I’m running low on magic, but I’ve kept these two on the back foot this entire time.
Simon reaches a hand out as if to activate another skill, and his eyes widen.
As he searches for something that can actually harm me, my twin skills sink into Rin’s back. That trick of hers takes a lot out of her, doesn’t it? Too much.
“Uncloak!” Simon shouts, trying and failing to hide his panic. “Uncloak!”
As I slither towards him in my blood-form, I finally Appraise the two of them.
Rin’s… level 49. Simon is level 43.
Over double my level, but the only thought I have is that they’re still Category 0. Just like me.
If their hidden classes are as proportionally powerful to their uncloaked ones as Sierra’s and Adrians were, this’ll be a problem.
Of course, it’s a non-issue if I kill Rin first.
I apply a Smite to my Blood Echo’s strike, and the level 49 woman and Sierra scream in pain simultaneously.
I almost feel bad, but they did try to kill me first.
When I remanifest myself in front of Simon with a Soulknife in hand, pushing my Abyssal Echo to its limits, true fear spreads across his face. I take a precious moment to admire his terror and relish in turning the tables on these fuckers—and then power practically explodes from him.
I stab forward, and his entire form glows purple. Once again, bloody lines criss-cross over my vision, but this time it’s so dense that I can’t see through it. Bloodpath protects me from the effects of the skill, and a wave of water crashes into him shortly after.
Simon rushes to his ally’s side, ignoring me and Adrian both, and I reappear right behind him.
“Fuck!” he exclaims with feeling, kneeling down at his partner’s side.
Appraise fails on his second class, but my Soulknife doesn’t.
He turns just in time to see my descending blade, and he meets it with a raised hand.
My enemy’s eyes open wide in surprise as the combination of Soulknife and Voidtouched blast straight through the forcefield he erects around his arm. I feel my knife cut into flesh, muscle, bone—air.
Belatedly, a crack of thunder sounds from the empty space where Simon and Rin were, air rushing to fill in the empty space.
I glance at the still-flooded space, watching as the pure, clean water dirties with blood.
An arm drops into the water, sending ripples spiraling outwards. I pick it up, confused for half a second before I realize that I managed to land real damage on someone associated with Sapphire for the first time.
Sierra screams again. With the fight over for now, the other side having run away like the fucking cowards they are, I make my way to my fallen ally, cradling Simon’s severed arm in mine.
I start Devouring the piece of him as I tread through quickly-draining water. He’s not actually dead, so it’s less effective than it would be normally, but he was uncloaked when I took his arm. There have to be a lot of levels in here.
As I’m consuming it, using the ranged Devour so as to not disgust the other two too much, I kneel down next to Sierra where she still writhes on the ground. Adrian wipes away broken glass, keeping her from lacerating herself more.
“What’s happening?” I ask Adrian.
“Fuck me, it wasn’t this bad last time,” he replies, hand twitching at his side. “It’s backlash.”
“Backlash?”
“I’m not the one who should—“ Adrian starts, pausing as Sierra shrieks again. “Fuck. Sierra’s the one who’s actually good at this shit, I’m just—I’m just a student.”
“Sa—Someone is coming,” I say, eyeing my objective. Thirty miles until Sapphire gets here. “Not an ally. If you can help the situation along, we could really use it.”
I still haven’t killed any of the researchers who created me yet. I know their names and faces, but that alone isn’t enough for me to find them.
More importantly, we need to get out of here before Sapphire arrives. This situation was her doing. I’m sure of it. She’s been the driving force behind just about everything wrong in my short life.
The girl suffers from her power.
The sudden line from my passenger startles me. I almost forgot it was there.
“Backlash is common,” Adrian explains, having not heard that sentence. “I dunno the actual magical reasoning behind it, but there’s something to do with, uh, significance, and… weights? A region has a magical average or something, and going too far off that average gets noticed. Your magic acts up, and there’s something to do with dead gods? Fuck, it’s been a while since I got the explanation.”
From her power. Is Sierra that much stronger than everyone in the Crowned Islands? Is that why? Is it because her Red Mage class is absurdly higher-leveled?
“Simon didn’t seem too reticent about uncloaking,” I say.
“Normally, it harms you magically, stunts you for a bit,” Adrian says. “Not a problem for most. But Sierra has this magic item that Marie gave her. It converts it into, like, a magic plague? They didn’t tell me the godsdamn details. They never do. It does something for the Jade family, and I have no fucking clue what that is.”
“How long?” I ask. “I know she’s been having problems at night. How long is this effect going to last?”
“I don’t know,” Adrian says. “They were trying to put us both into the cell, but then… shit, I don’t know. This has never happened like this before.”
Sapphire is twenty-four miles away. Is she getting faster?
“Fuck,” I say. “Alright. Can you climb?”
The Warrior-Hydrokinetic stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Climb?”
As Devour continues streaming energy from Simon’s arm to me, his body part proving to be surprisingly tough, I gather Sierra in my arms. She bucks and thrashes, but it’s aimless and my Body (Strength) stat is much higher than it once was. With the help of Phantom Shape, I’m able to keep her from accidentally kicking her way out of my grip.
She does punch me in the face once, but she’s not invested in strength, and it shows. The strike barely hurts.
Behind me, the red-and-black magic of my Devour finally starts to strip skin from bone.
Devour advanced to level 3!
Really? It took so long to get it to level 2, and all it took to level it again was consuming one person’s arm? How tough is this guy?
Devour granted +4771 XP!
Oh. That tough.
You have advanced to level 18!
You have advanced to level 19!
You have advanced to level 20!
You have gained 9 stat points.
All attributes increased by 3.
General Affinity advanced to level 2!
Stealth (Bronze) has advanced to Stealth (Silver)!
Acting (Bronze) has advanced to Acting (Silver) and Imitation (Silver)!
Locate Person (Bronze) has advanced to Locate Person (Silver)!
Phantom Shape (Bronze) has advanced to Phantom Shape (Silver)!
Blood Affinity advanced to level 3!
Shape Blood (Bronze) has advanced to Blood Magic - Hemokinesis (Silver)!
Woundshape (Bronze) has advanced to Blood Magic - Woundweave (Silver)!
Shape Self (Bronze) and Disguise Self (Bronze) have advanced to Blood Magic - Shapeshift (Silver)!
Blood Echo (Silver) has become Blood Magic - Blood Echo (Silver).
Bloodpath (Silver) has become Blood Magic - Bloodpath (Silver).
Soulknife (Bronze) has advanced to Soulknife (Silver)!
The deluge of notifications scrolls across my vision. There’s so many of them that the text almost takes up the entirety of my field of view before I toss it aside.
That’s a lot of advancement, but Sapphire is still getting closer. Interestingly enough, I think some of the upgrades there are upgrades I would’ve gotten had I picked Blood Mage or Assassin over Relentless Demon during my first class evolution.
Your affinities are advancing quickly.
Yeah, no thanks to you. I still don’t know if my passenger can detect my thoughts, but I get the impression that it’s amused.
“Come on,” I say. With my enhanced Phantom Shape, it’s much easier to carry Sierra. I hold her in physical and ghostly hands alike, and the increase in my Magic (Meta) stat means that I might be able to take her with me onto the Bloodpath.
“Right,” Adrian says, following me as I start carving a hole in the ceiling for lack of a visible entrance. “Where are we going, exactly?”
“Up,” I tell him, clambering through the hole. Above me, the city continues stretching on. Nobody seems to have noticed what’s just occurred here. “Out of the city. Anywhere but here.”
“Why?” he asks, following.
“Saph—Marie’s associate is coming after us,” I say. “Trust me.”
Adrian eyes me warily. Evidently, he’s a lot more hesitant to believe me than Sierra is. Our relationship has never been good. To be fair, I did only meet him a week or two ago, and my first interaction with him involved threatening his life multiple times.
“I dunno,” he says. “How do you know that? Sounds weird to—“
“I’m going,” I tell him. “You’re free to lie around the facility, if you’d like.”
“Oh, yep, alright, I’m coming,” Adrian says, changing his tune in a hurry. “Can’t hurt to relocate, I guess.”
There’s no true bridge linking the facility to any other location, but there’s six separate iron bars, each of them slick steel with no visible handholds on them.
I grab onto them all the same, using Phantom Shape to cling onto it. Adrian surprises me with his competence, though I suppose I shouldn’t be, given that I’ve seen the skill before. Jets of water propel him upwards. It drips away under him, trickling down into the abyss below. He really doesn’t care about being seen, does he?
If he doesn’t care, I won’t either. Unless something goes wrong, I don’t want to be in this city for any longer than necessary.
Entering the Bloodpath feels different now that it’s a subset of Blood Magic. More fluid, somehow, and my heightened Magic (Meta) skill means that not my entire body needs to enter it. As such, I keep Sierra material for the time being. I don’t know how this backlash interfaces with the skill, but I really don’t want to hurt her.
We advance upwards, Adrian with his hydrokinesis and me with my Bloodstep. As we continue further upwards, the area starts to get nicer and nicer. Windows are cleaner, there are fewer sketchy groups hanging around the bridges, and technology increases in frequency. The density of towers increases, and most of the bridges actually have railings on them now.
By the time we’re at the two hundredth level, we start finding elevators. Around then is also when we start getting weird looks from people walking around the towers. They seem less on edge here than they did further down, which is kind of a shame. Nobody offers themself up as a free target.
Adrian and I step into an unused elevator, hiding ourself away from our surroundings, and he breathes a sigh of relief.
“Man, I hate this,” he says.
I do too. At least Sierra’s stopped screaming as much.
Still, carrying her is slowing us down a lot. There’s nothing I can really do about it, but it’s irritating.
Sapphire is only nine miles away. There’s no telling what she’s here for, and I don’t know who’s with her.
I can’t fight her. Not right now. I’m nowhere near powerful enough. Even Marie drastically overpowered me me, and I know Sapphire outclasses Marie. Any of Sapphire’s associates are likely to be stronger than me.
As the elevator takes us higher, I sigh.
My complaint comes out as a whisper. “I need to get stronger…”
Adrian hears me and lets out a sympathetic grunt. He fishes around in his pockets, retrieving and lighting a cigarette.
You need more power. I will assist you.
My passenger’s sentence is accompanied by the sensation of something twisting in my system. It’s not exactly soul damage, but something there is changing.
Skill creation requested.
Affinity requirements met.
Experience requirements not met.
Divine intervention enabled.
Experience requirements annulled.
Action requirements exceeded.
Special skill created: Carnelian Domain
Hidden Objective: One of a kind [COMPLETE]
You have acquired a Unique skill.
Come. Receive a taste of divinity.
Suddenly, the situation seems much more manageable.
The containment facility is only about thirty feet wide, so my skills are strong enough to rock the very foundation of this place. I have half a mind to take this fight outside, away from the still-prone Sierra, but I’m running out of time and magic and my opponents are picking themselves up quickly.
I dive towards Rin first. I don’t know Simon’s capabilities, but I know Rin’s, and she’s mobile. I can’t let her get active. Siphon has a limited number of uses, and these two are durable. I’ve drawn blood, but neither of them are anywhere close to dead yet.
My Soulshard Rifle is out of charges, and I briefly regret not killing more people outside. I shouldn’t have wasted shots on level 20s, either—at level 17, with the array of skill I have, I’m definitely stronger.
Oh well. I still have a lot more in my arsenal, and there’s nothing like a good life or death situation to advance my skills.
The rage has largely faded, my head clearing enough for me to take a second to think about my next steps.
With the usage of Siphon, I now have nearly two-thirds of my magic remaining after using two devastating skills.
I dive towards Rin, taking advantage of the opportunity I’ve created for myself. With the amount of magic I have, I’m able to cast Blood Echo, Soulknife, and Phantom Shape at the same time. I’ve kept the mundane pistols I looted from the lab on the sixty-second floor, and now is the perfect time to use them.
Firearms advanced to level 2!
The crack-crack of the pistols is accompanied by the system whispering a notification into my ear. One of my shots go wide, thanks in large part due to the awkward position from which I fire the gun, but the other strikes true.
Blood spurts from the wound I create, but I’ve grown acclimated enough to the sight to know that the amount I draw is not enough.
The bullet hit her in the unarmored neck, right next to an artery. It should’ve drawn a ton of blood, but only a trickle comes, as if I’ve given her a particularly nasty papercut.
She’s skilled. Rin is bleeding more heavily from the gut where my Soulshard RIfle struck, but it’s not fatal. Not yet.
I need to make it lethal.
My blood-copy dashes towards Simon, wielding a crimson fake of my Soulknife, and I do the same with my real body. I fire twice more. One shot for Simon, one for Rin.
This time, Rin’s shot misses. The one intended for Simon does hit, but it clinks off something metallic. Armor?
They’re both wearing the same bodysuits as they were when they ambushed me, so I guess there was some actual defensive value in those after all.
Soulknife will pierce past them. Voidtouched will make that doubly true. It looks like the trait only applies to my melee attacks and skills, because the bullets aren’t granted the same empowerment.
I bring my blade down in what should be a lethal blow, aiming straight for her heart, and she moves.
It’s not the same as her teleport. I can feel that skill before it forms, so potent is the energy required to create it. Rin is just insanely fast, even with her face half burnt off by Smite.
Simon starts to get to his feet.
Before anyone makes their next move, Sierra screams.
With the containing wall shattered, the sound is ear-piercingly loud. I couldn’t even hear the Soundspawn’s infected noise from its cage, but I could hear Sierra’s voice.
Now, the shrill shriek practically splits the air apart. Rather impressive, given the fact that she isn’t magically enhancing it at all. I feel a sympathetic pulse of pain—that nightmare-black pattern looks like it hurts, and she doesn’t have anywhere close to my level of Pain Resistance.
I’ll deal with it later.
Adrian flinches. So does Simon.
Rin does not.
She’s behind me in a flash, her magic building up and activating before I can even react. Not her teleport skill—she’s got another skill that allows her to travel short distances at absurd speeds.
This time, though, I have Locate Person running, and I’m not as off guard as I was last time. I activate Soulrend even as she swings a sword gleaming with magical energy at my neck.
The combination of Abyssal Echo and Soulrend must be enough to bypass her defenses, because she stumbles.
That crucial moment of hesitation is enough for me to press a pistol up to her eye with a Phantom Shaped limb.
I squeeze the trigger—and then Rin warps, her body simply vanishing from her location behind me. She reappears back next to Simon, stumbling. The damage I inflicted onto her from Smite and the Soulshard Rifle is gone.
Rin is breathing hard, though, and I take that as the indication of magical exhaustion that it is. Adrian finally gets his act together, evidenced by the sudden flood that twirls around Simon and Rin’s feet.
I’m correct about Rin, it appears, because while Simon is able to break out of the effect with ease, Rin falls into the water.
Simon grunts, reaching into an extradimensional space.
I Siphon it, using the influx of magic power to amp up my Soulrend.
Using my fake limbs, I fire my pistols until I’m out of ammunition. It gets my Firearms skill up to level 5, and I manage to get a couple of actual hits off on Rin. Whatever skill she was using to minimize damage isn’t operating at full capacity anymore. Blood trickles down her bodysuit where I’ve hit her. Six shots, none of them fatal. They add up.
Sierra screams again, and the floodwaters briefly loosen up as Adrian gasps, losing concentration on his skill to get to Sierra’s side.
Simon, on the other hand, has acclimated. His eyes flash a dark purple, and I get the sense that something is watching me. A weight heavier than anything I’ve ever lifted crushes down on me, and bloody lines carve themself into my body.
Trying to cut me apart, is he? I don’t recognize the skill, but the effects look dangerous.
No matter how much he cuts me in my blood-form, I won’t die. Too bad for him.
I enter Bloodpath and exit it by casting Misty Mirage and Blood Echo at the same time. I’m running low on magic, but I’ve kept these two on the back foot this entire time.
Simon reaches a hand out as if to activate another skill, and his eyes widen.
As he searches for something that can actually harm me, my twin skills sink into Rin’s back. That trick of hers takes a lot out of her, doesn’t it? Too much.
“Uncloak!” Simon shouts, trying and failing to hide his panic. “Uncloak!”
As I slither towards him in my blood-form, I finally Appraise the two of them.
Rin’s… level 49. Simon is level 43.
Over double my level, but the only thought I have is that they’re still Category 0. Just like me.
If their hidden classes are as proportionally powerful to their uncloaked ones as Sierra’s and Adrians were, this’ll be a problem.
Of course, it’s a non-issue if I kill Rin first.
I apply a Smite to my Blood Echo’s strike, and the level 49 woman and Sierra scream in pain simultaneously.
I almost feel bad, but they did try to kill me first.
When I remanifest myself in front of Simon with a Soulknife in hand, pushing my Abyssal Echo to its limits, true fear spreads across his face. I take a precious moment to admire his terror and relish in turning the tables on these fuckers—and then power practically explodes from him.
I stab forward, and his entire form glows purple. Once again, bloody lines criss-cross over my vision, but this time it’s so dense that I can’t see through it. Bloodpath protects me from the effects of the skill, and a wave of water crashes into him shortly after.
Simon rushes to his ally’s side, ignoring me and Adrian both, and I reappear right behind him.
“Fuck!” he exclaims with feeling, kneeling down at his partner’s side.
Appraise fails on his second class, but my Soulknife doesn’t.
He turns just in time to see my descending blade, and he meets it with a raised hand.
My enemy’s eyes open wide in surprise as the combination of Soulknife and Voidtouched blast straight through the forcefield he erects around his arm. I feel my knife cut into flesh, muscle, bone—air.
Belatedly, a crack of thunder sounds from the empty space where Simon and Rin were, air rushing to fill in the empty space.
I glance at the still-flooded space, watching as the pure, clean water dirties with blood.
An arm drops into the water, sending ripples spiraling outwards. I pick it up, confused for half a second before I realize that I managed to land real damage on someone associated with Sapphire for the first time.
Sierra screams again. With the fight over for now, the other side having run away like the fucking cowards they are, I make my way to my fallen ally, cradling Simon’s severed arm in mine.
I start Devouring the piece of him as I tread through quickly-draining water. He’s not actually dead, so it’s less effective than it would be normally, but he was uncloaked when I took his arm. There have to be a lot of levels in here.
As I’m consuming it, using the ranged Devour so as to not disgust the other two too much, I kneel down next to Sierra where she still writhes on the ground. Adrian wipes away broken glass, keeping her from lacerating herself more.
“What’s happening?” I ask Adrian.
“Fuck me, it wasn’t this bad last time,” he replies, hand twitching at his side. “It’s backlash.”
“Backlash?”
“I’m not the one who should—“ Adrian starts, pausing as Sierra shrieks again. “Fuck. Sierra’s the one who’s actually good at this shit, I’m just—I’m just a student.”
“Sa—Someone is coming,” I say, eyeing my objective. Thirty miles until Sapphire gets here. “Not an ally. If you can help the situation along, we could really use it.”
I still haven’t killed any of the researchers who created me yet. I know their names and faces, but that alone isn’t enough for me to find them.
More importantly, we need to get out of here before Sapphire arrives. This situation was her doing. I’m sure of it. She’s been the driving force behind just about everything wrong in my short life.
The girl suffers from her power.
The sudden line from my passenger startles me. I almost forgot it was there.
“Backlash is common,” Adrian explains, having not heard that sentence. “I dunno the actual magical reasoning behind it, but there’s something to do with, uh, significance, and… weights? A region has a magical average or something, and going too far off that average gets noticed. Your magic acts up, and there’s something to do with dead gods? Fuck, it’s been a while since I got the explanation.”
From her power. Is Sierra that much stronger than everyone in the Crowned Islands? Is that why? Is it because her Red Mage class is absurdly higher-leveled?
“Simon didn’t seem too reticent about uncloaking,” I say.
“Normally, it harms you magically, stunts you for a bit,” Adrian says. “Not a problem for most. But Sierra has this magic item that Marie gave her. It converts it into, like, a magic plague? They didn’t tell me the godsdamn details. They never do. It does something for the Jade family, and I have no fucking clue what that is.”
“How long?” I ask. “I know she’s been having problems at night. How long is this effect going to last?”
“I don’t know,” Adrian says. “They were trying to put us both into the cell, but then… shit, I don’t know. This has never happened like this before.”
Sapphire is twenty-four miles away. Is she getting faster?
“Fuck,” I say. “Alright. Can you climb?”
The Warrior-Hydrokinetic stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Climb?”
As Devour continues streaming energy from Simon’s arm to me, his body part proving to be surprisingly tough, I gather Sierra in my arms. She bucks and thrashes, but it’s aimless and my Body (Strength) stat is much higher than it once was. With the help of Phantom Shape, I’m able to keep her from accidentally kicking her way out of my grip.
She does punch me in the face once, but she’s not invested in strength, and it shows. The strike barely hurts.
Behind me, the red-and-black magic of my Devour finally starts to strip skin from bone.
Devour advanced to level 3!
Really? It took so long to get it to level 2, and all it took to level it again was consuming one person’s arm? How tough is this guy?
Devour granted +4771 XP!
Oh. That tough.
You have advanced to level 18!
You have advanced to level 19!
You have advanced to level 20!
You have gained 9 stat points.
All attributes increased by 3.
General Affinity advanced to level 2!
Stealth (Bronze) has advanced to Stealth (Silver)!
Acting (Bronze) has advanced to Acting (Silver) and Imitation (Silver)!
Locate Person (Bronze) has advanced to Locate Person (Silver)!
Phantom Shape (Bronze) has advanced to Phantom Shape (Silver)!
Blood Affinity advanced to level 3!
Shape Blood (Bronze) has advanced to Blood Magic - Hemokinesis (Silver)!
Woundshape (Bronze) has advanced to Blood Magic - Woundweave (Silver)!
Shape Self (Bronze) and Disguise Self (Bronze) have advanced to Blood Magic - Shapeshift (Silver)!
Blood Echo (Silver) has become Blood Magic - Blood Echo (Silver).
Bloodpath (Silver) has become Blood Magic - Bloodpath (Silver).
Soulknife (Bronze) has advanced to Soulknife (Silver)!
The deluge of notifications scrolls across my vision. There’s so many of them that the text almost takes up the entirety of my field of view before I toss it aside.
That’s a lot of advancement, but Sapphire is still getting closer. Interestingly enough, I think some of the upgrades there are upgrades I would’ve gotten had I picked Blood Mage or Assassin over Relentless Demon during my first class evolution.
Your affinities are advancing quickly.
Yeah, no thanks to you. I still don’t know if my passenger can detect my thoughts, but I get the impression that it’s amused.
“Come on,” I say. With my enhanced Phantom Shape, it’s much easier to carry Sierra. I hold her in physical and ghostly hands alike, and the increase in my Magic (Meta) stat means that I might be able to take her with me onto the Bloodpath.
“Right,” Adrian says, following me as I start carving a hole in the ceiling for lack of a visible entrance. “Where are we going, exactly?”
“Up,” I tell him, clambering through the hole. Above me, the city continues stretching on. Nobody seems to have noticed what’s just occurred here. “Out of the city. Anywhere but here.”
“Why?” he asks, following.
“Saph—Marie’s associate is coming after us,” I say. “Trust me.”
Adrian eyes me warily. Evidently, he’s a lot more hesitant to believe me than Sierra is. Our relationship has never been good. To be fair, I did only meet him a week or two ago, and my first interaction with him involved threatening his life multiple times.
“I dunno,” he says. “How do you know that? Sounds weird to—“
“I’m going,” I tell him. “You’re free to lie around the facility, if you’d like.”
“Oh, yep, alright, I’m coming,” Adrian says, changing his tune in a hurry. “Can’t hurt to relocate, I guess.”
There’s no true bridge linking the facility to any other location, but there’s six separate iron bars, each of them slick steel with no visible handholds on them.
I grab onto them all the same, using Phantom Shape to cling onto it. Adrian surprises me with his competence, though I suppose I shouldn’t be, given that I’ve seen the skill before. Jets of water propel him upwards. It drips away under him, trickling down into the abyss below. He really doesn’t care about being seen, does he?
If he doesn’t care, I won’t either. Unless something goes wrong, I don’t want to be in this city for any longer than necessary.
Entering the Bloodpath feels different now that it’s a subset of Blood Magic. More fluid, somehow, and my heightened Magic (Meta) skill means that not my entire body needs to enter it. As such, I keep Sierra material for the time being. I don’t know how this backlash interfaces with the skill, but I really don’t want to hurt her.
We advance upwards, Adrian with his hydrokinesis and me with my Bloodstep. As we continue further upwards, the area starts to get nicer and nicer. Windows are cleaner, there are fewer sketchy groups hanging around the bridges, and technology increases in frequency. The density of towers increases, and most of the bridges actually have railings on them now.
By the time we’re at the two hundredth level, we start finding elevators. Around then is also when we start getting weird looks from people walking around the towers. They seem less on edge here than they did further down, which is kind of a shame. Nobody offers themself up as a free target.
Adrian and I step into an unused elevator, hiding ourself away from our surroundings, and he breathes a sigh of relief.
“Man, I hate this,” he says.
I do too. At least Sierra’s stopped screaming as much.
Still, carrying her is slowing us down a lot. There’s nothing I can really do about it, but it’s irritating.
Sapphire is only nine miles away. There’s no telling what she’s here for, and I don’t know who’s with her.
I can’t fight her. Not right now. I’m nowhere near powerful enough. Even Marie drastically overpowered me me, and I know Sapphire outclasses Marie. Any of Sapphire’s associates are likely to be stronger than me.
As the elevator takes us higher, I sigh.
My complaint comes out as a whisper. “I need to get stronger…”
Adrian hears me and lets out a sympathetic grunt. He fishes around in his pockets, retrieving and lighting a cigarette.
You need more power. I will assist you.
My passenger’s sentence is accompanied by the sensation of something twisting in my system. It’s not exactly soul damage, but something there is changing.
Skill creation requested.
Affinity requirements met.
Experience requirements not met.
Divine intervention enabled.
Experience requirements annulled.
Action requirements exceeded.
Special skill created: Carnelian Domain
Hidden Objective: One of a kind [COMPLETE]
You have acquired a Unique skill.
Come. Receive a taste of divinity.
Suddenly, the situation seems much more manageable.
