Chapter Two Hundred and Six – 206
The screaming escalated, accompanied by the sickening tang of Primordial fury. The chorister was already moving, running full tilt for one of the nearby tunnels. Felix's senses shifted into high alert, and he didn't wait.
Sovereign of Flesh!
Unfettered Volition!
Felix hurled himself over the ranks and landed with a graceless lurch amid the leadership. "I'm going!" He shouted in passing, moving too fast to stop. The Chorister of Siva was ahead of the column, which is why she made it into the tunnel before him, but Felix was right behind her as were the woman's Bronze Rank guards. Felix knew them by name thanks to his Voracious Eye, but hadn't spoken to many. But as the screams increased in volume, they didn't need to speak. All of them just ran.
Aslei's burst of speed was, frankly, insane. The woman was walking wounded in a way Felix had rarely seen from someone with so many advancements under her belt. Yet still, she zipped ahead of all of them down the winding tunnel. Her Spirit was filled with a terrible panic.
Felix wasn't about to let that woman out of his sight, because there was something else in the air. He flared his Manasight as he ran, spotting thick clouds of crimson miasma boiling through the tunnel. He tasted desperation and...anticipation. Cal shouted behind them and the muffled sound of jangling harnesses and chainmail filled the tunnel. They were following.
The path was only big enough for three people abreast with some room to spare for maneuvering. The ground, whipping beneath his legs, was covered in drag marks and blood. The selfsame claw marks he saw on the bridge were everywhere. Less than minute later, the tunnel opened up into a larger antechamber with a massive stone door. It was clearly once hidden, rough and uneven on the outside, but what caught Felix's eye was that it had been broken open completely by something very big. The Ghoul, he assumed.
The screaming had petered off, but it was replaced by the strangled howl of a familiar enemy. Felix didn't stop at the doors and rushed through, forcing his Perception to its limits to catch what might be ahead. The room opened up into an ornately carved chamber lined with weird, triangular pillars that paraded down the length of it. They held up an arched ceiling laid with triangular tiles he could just make out in the gloom. There were no windows, not so far beneath the earth.
Exploration is level 36!
Instead, Felix saw by the light of a hazy, red glow. Even without Manasight active it was clear, the Primordial miasma was thicker than ever, a carmine illumination that only highlighted the blood that smeared the room. Bodies were scattered about, or rather, pieces of them. In the center of the room, already grabbing at a weakly struggling Aslei, were ten Revenants.
"Hey! Over here!" Felix shouted.
Wrack and Ruin!
Wrack and Ruin!
Twin cannonballs of dark acid formed and shot off through the air, tearing through three of the monsters in quick succession. A wild, wordless howl followed and the remaining seven charged Felix heedlessly.
"Pit?"
"Screeeaah!"
A flash of light filled the dim room, and the monsters were faced with a horse-sized tenku. They didn't stop running, but three of them pivoted cleanly to attack the chimera while the rest kept on toward Felix. The battle was quick and painless; Felix had faced too many of their kind to even break a sweat on only four of them.
You Have Killed Manawarped Revenants (x4)!
XP Earned!
Territorial Quest Alert!
You Have Gained Contribution!
Pit's foes died only seconds after Felix's own, their bodies riddled with slashes and jagged spears of ice. By that point the Bronze guards had caught up and rushed into the room. Carefully, they surrounded the chorister; as much to protect her as to guard her. The woman herself was barely standing, having suffered a few grievous wounds across her chest. She coughed up blood that looked more black than red.
"Sa-save them," she whispered and gestured across the room.
Felix looked up. Along the far wall was a wide open darkness, a tunnel that lead into mystery. A massive round thing was lodged in the ground before it. The object was twice the size of a man and rust-red in color and it practically breathed out red vapor.
Voracious Eye!
Name: Scale of the Ravager King
Type: Artifact
Lore: Fallen from the Body of the Ravager King, this piece of his flesh is packed with Primordial Essence.
Felix snarled and was about to race for it, when the entire room shook.
"Didwhat was that?" Atar said, looking up nervously. Dust rained down from above and the ground shook again.
"Shh! You hear that?" Cal said.
Stilted cries and stifled moans were on the air. Portia and Cal rushed to the side, but Felix already knew what they'd find. He felt an emotional turbulence like a bonfire he couldn't see, but the heat of it burned at him.
The room shook again, more than before. What was that?
"What are you talking about? What's shaking the ground?" Felix asked.
"Pride," the chorister laughed breathlessly. "A Blight runs beneath us. And a stamp in the sky, in you." Without warning, her hand snapped to his sleeve, gripping it with more strength than Felix would have expected. "The Bloodmoon is coming, Fiend. Find them all."
"BloodFind what?"
The chorister's eyes met Felix's, and despite his Perception and Manasight, he couldn't make out their color. "You know." Her hand dropped from his sleeve and she slumped backward, eyes drifting away.
"I know? Explain, please," Felix asked, but the chorister wouldn't meet his gaze or say anything. "Shit."
Right. Almost forgot Choristers of Vellus go insane, Felix huffed as he leaned away from the woman. Near to him, Atar leaned against one of those triangular columns and wiped sweat from his brow. He was looking more and more pale. "Are you okay, dude?"
"I'mNo. I'm not. The heat in here burns me, worse than the scorching sands of my home," he practically panted. "It feels...It's like being back in the Domain."
Felix clenched his jaw. Atar was likely more sensitive to the feeling than others, but he could see sweat beading on the skin of all the Tin Ranks and quite a few of the Iron Ranks too. They didn't have much time.
"I have to take care of that," Felix said loudly, pointing at the Scale. Cal and the Elders pivoted to him, and he saw Regis flinch at the sight of his scales and bright blue eyes. Holt's look was far more calculating. "Everyone's gonna start feeling it's effects soon."
"Do it," Cal ordered. "Harn help him."
"What? No, you cannot," Regis protested. "I don't know what the boy did before, but if he tries it against the Scale he'll shatter his foundation oror worse"
"He'll be fine," Cal insisted, but even her eyes looked worried. Felix didn't have time to reassure her.
"Harn, let's go."
"Aye." Harn and Felix started at the Scale, but the room shook again, and more dust tumbled from above. A few tiles, triangular, fell from the ceiling and pinged onto the ground. The area was scattered with them. Felix picked it up. It was a triangle, but etched on its surface were tiny, nearly invisible sigils that Felix couldn't quite parse. And in the center was a three pointed star.
"You gotta be kidding me," Felix muttered and held up the star for Harn to see. That was a Nym star, only found in structures the Nym has made. "Is this a Nymean ruin?"
The ground trembled again, then again, faster than before. Again, and again.
"He's returning," Elder Regis moaned. "I didn't thinkthere's nothing left here for him!"
"Who?" Cal shouted, behind her Bodie mobilized the Ranks, getting them into defensive positions. "Who's coming?"
"The Chorister of Yyero," giggled the Chorister of Vellus. Her giggle became a full-throated laugh that was as mad as Felix remembered her to be. "Careful careful careful! The Pride of Blight returns!"
From the darkness emerged a hulking form, a creature nearly as big as a Ghoul and only tangentially Human. Felix recalled the chorister and recognized his facial features...somewhat; the rest of him was warped and ballooned outward by the muscle and glistening scales that coated his malformed Body. Two tree trunk legs thumped into the room, barely covered by the brown robe of his order, and a pair of thick, muscled arms leaned onto the ground. A second, thinner pair of arms extended from beneath the larger, their skeletal fingers tipped with vicious talons. The creature sniffed the air and flashed teeth far too large for a human's mouth.
Voracious Eye!
Name: Pride of Blight
Type: Primordial-Spawn
Level: 62
--$(#
ERROR!
For the first time in a while, Felix's Eye couldn't see the details of a Primordial-Spawn. But the specifics didn't matter, not even the man'screature'slevel. More important was the advancement Felix had felt...which was pushing damn close to Master Tier. The red miasma began to swirl in the air, thickening into a hurricane of shimmering power.
"High Adept," Reed called out. The ring of steel was sharp in the silence, and the Hand walked forward through the company. "Do not take this thing lightly."
"I'll keep that in mind," Harn grunted and his axes burst into silver flame.
Behind them sounded a keening roar. The hurricane of miasma struck from above, smashing into their people and scattering them in all directions as it poured onto a single person. The Chorister of Siva buckled and warped, her flesh ripping as something scaled and toothy tore from her pale skin. The miasma poured into the rents in her skin, healing it as she grew to the same impossible dimensions as the Blight before them.
"I fucking knew it," Felix growled.
