Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Nine – 809

Flesh of the Wakened Earth is level 90!

...

Flesh of the Wakened Earth is level 96!

Starsteel’s Descent is level 94!

...

Starsteel’s Descent is level 98!

Harn picked up his axes, his Skills singing within him like a damn chorus. It was good, but it was distracting—he needed to focus on the tower.

"Watch for movement," he said to the Legion as they spread out.

"Ow,” Archie groaned, holding his skull. “What the fuck did that accomplish? Other than give me the worst headache of all time."

He was bent over and bleeding, sitting on a piece of stone that had impaled itself halfway into the mud. He wasn't the only one. Harn clocked more than a few of them, holding tight to their heads or clutching at minor wounds. The Overlord's Spirit had affected all of them, but his final attack had been something else.

The Kobolds were a little out of it, too. Apparently, their combination form could only take so much damage, because once the smoke had cleared, the two separated with a surprisingly resonant pop.

"Need a hand?" Harn turned to see Beef stepping out of the crowd. He helped the Kobolds back to their feet with a crystal-armor hand that was cracked in a dozen places.

"You look seven shades of shit, kid. How'd it go?"

Beef grinned, blood marring his teeth. "We won. How about you?"

"We won, too," Kevin echoed, rubbing his chest. "That dumb Skill still hurts, though."

"That dumb Skill is the only reason we're alive," Shadow pointed out.

"Yeah, what was that?" Beef looked between the two of them. "When Hallow and I got here, it looked like you were all..." He gestured with his hands, mushed together.

"Unique Skill," Kevin explained, checking himself over for wounds. "Song of the Dragomir. We can combine our aspects together. We get a whole new set of Skills and everything."

"Whoa, that's peak. How'd you manage to get that?"

Kevin sat against a chunk of masonry and laughed. "By accident. We were trying to figure out new combo attacks by layering our Skills real fast and ended up blending them into a whole new thing.”

“Helps that we're twins, apparently," Shadow added. "That was a prerequisite for the Skill."

"Dang, I've never been so disappointed to be an only child.”

“Bet your Christmases were better."

"Enough chatter," Harn said, raising his voice to capture the attention of the Legion as well. "Squads, form up. Final sweep for survivors. End the enemy, save the prisoners, then get back across the Poison Fields. I don't want to breathe this shit any longer than I have to." ȑ

"Aye, sir!" Everyone within earshot saluted and got to work. Soldiers grouped up before spreading out over the rocky island, though they gave the newly collapsed tower a wide berth. There were other parts to investigate, places that hadn’t exploded where enemies could be hiding in ambush. Harn flared his Perception across the inner area, peering through the clouds of settling debris and fingering the haft of his axes. His Health was almost at half, and those Legionnaires that survived were worse off. He didn’t want to leave an enemy at their backs when they left that gods-infested place.

“You killed all the Adamants?”

Beef nodded. “Yeah. Hallow and Fafnir helped me clean them up just about the time this place exploded. What happened here?”

“The Overlord attempted to channel more of the Divine’s power than he could handle,” Mauvim said, stamping out of the dust to peer at the chunks of fallen masonry. “It burned him up from the inside out.”

Beef swallowed. “And they wanna do that to us?”

“Unbound are different. You are not beholden to the same laws as we natives.” Mauvim twisted her gnarled cane. “An Unbound Vessel would be a fearsome foe. You’ve seen the result.”

Harn remembered all too well, and from the look on Beef’s face, he did, too. Imara. Gabby. Whatever. If I don’t see another zealot for my entire life, it’ll be too soon—

He stopped moving, flaring his nostrils. The fields smelled like burning trash, but this was clean, like quenched metal. Harn pulled his axes free.

Beef lifted Bedlam and looked around. "What is it?"

Harn glanced up. Ahead, a segment of the earth rippled into silent, silvered shadows, and a figure strode out.

"Titan!" Archie yelped in fear, falling back over himself.

Could I do it?

A frost giant cried out, falling to his knees as his hubcap-sized fist was caught by glowing gauntlets.

He'd been so afraid for so long. Afraid of death. Of her.

Archie was good at two things: running his mouth and running away.

It’s time to stop being afraid.

He couldn't defend for shit; that was Beef’s deal. He was the shield.

Archie was a knife.

“Primeval Drift.”

He shot down into the dark, blind to all but the vibrations from above. He tracked them, passing beneath the brave Legionnaires until he rose on the other side of the Titan. His ascent was silent and rapid, a shadow swimming beyond the limits of stone and up into the air, slipping through the barriers of metallic blue force that gilded the woman as if they were nothing.

Blindsense is level 80!

Primeval Drift is level 85!

...

Primeval Drift is level 96!

Sorry, Felix. It's her or us. He drove his molten daggers toward her neck—

“Die, godslave!”

The Kobolds, combined once more, crashed into the Titan, their dark sickle clutched with two hands. They caught her on the shoulder, the hooked blade jerking the woman to the left and just beyond the path of Archie's attack. He missed.

Idiots!

The Titan pivoted, turning with the sickle strike, and drove her fist into the Dragomir's gut. With a loud pop, the Kobolds split apart, eyes bulging in surprised agony. They didn't even get a chance to fall before she caught them both by the necks.

"Weak," she muttered. "How have you managed to survive ‘til now—?”

“Fanblade!"

Fanblade is level 87!

...

Fanblade is level 96!

Archie stabbed at her, whirling daggers carving a deep furrow across her armored side. The Titan jerked aside, armor splitting as blood sprayed from the wound. Archie was pleased to see her genuinely surprised.

"You!”

“Primeval Drif—" His words cut off, bitten through when the Titan's backhand drove his chin upward. Blood gushed in his mouth, and his head rang louder than any bell—Archie didn't even feel movement. There was only her fist...and then the chitin wall.

He cratered it.

“Archie!” Beef yelled.

Agony spiked down his spine. Water spat through the wall above. As it broke, pressurized streams scored deep lines in the stone.

Streams that swiftly expanded.

"Thank you, Archie." The words were faint through the deafening groan of cracking chitin, but he knew the Titan’s voice too well. “That made this easier.”

Something beyond sight flexed the world, and she vanished into silver shadow.

Taking the Kobolds along with her.

Above, the poison water roared as the chitin wall collapsed.