Unbound-Chapter Eight Hundred And Fifty – 850

Gabby sent her awareness questing down into her core space and was inundated with golden splendor.

Within her center, light blossomed. A massive ring of golden light chased by silver was at the heart of her, and each rotating it released waves of illumination. While the Pathless was dead and his influence over her ended, it did not change the past. Gabby had become attuned to light while acting as his Vessel, and it filled every inch of her core space—save for the blades. Massive and forged of silver metal, they were sheathed in crystalline gold, set at angles all around her [Brightblade Core]. Each represented a Skill, or rather, the jewels set into the sword’s pommels did—those varied in shape and size, their facets reflecting back the endless sea of light even as new sparks gathered within.

Gabby hovered there, her visualized toes just barely outside the ceaseless ripples of radiance. I wish it weren’t so beautiful…almost as much as I wish THAT wasn’t there.

In the middle of the angled swords and waves of light was her [Brightblade Core], a Named core she’d long ago forged into a ring. It spun around an immense weapon forged of bright silver…and which changed with every beat of her heart. Now a greatsword, it morphed into an axe, and then a bow, each emanating a sense of immutable rage. All of it had been visualized by Gabby at one point or another. What wasn’t hers, though, was the cage that surrounded it all.

An orb of thorned bars was clamped around her Named core. It tightened and loosened with each revolution of the inner ring, looking like metal but acting like a beating heart. Its cruel design echoed its creators and the bargain they’d pushed her into. It trembled now, like a tensioned string beneath the faintest of touches.

Gabby pressed closer.

She listened.

As she had done before, she was pulled inward along the thorned cage toward a place beyond herself, where a dark waterfall roared into a blackened world.

A familiar blasted plane spread out before her and past them were mountains that dwarfed Everest by an order of magnitude. Panic gripped her heart—this was a world where some of her worst memories had been made—but Gabby held herself tight.

The gods had gathered.

They were huge—beings of immense power, puncturing the world with their presences. Even as her eyes could not make sense of them. They were composed of shapes too large to be bodies, too small to be continents, and colors that had no real name. Yet like the gods themselves, they were relentlessly, distrubingly extant.

Gabby hid immediately, scrambling behind a dark ridge of upthrust stones larger than any skyscraper. In turn, they were dwarfed by the mountains and the assembled Divine. They jostled amongst themselves, pressing jagged limbs into angular necks as eyes blossomed and withered across the dark firmament. Their voices interlaced among themselves, becoming little more than thunder to Gabby's ears until she centered herself, all of her Affinity honed into this moment.

Noctis was a dark moon, punctured by a vast crater that had no end. Bloody lightning burned around her in a halo, staining the black clouds even as it struck and scoured the endless shattered plains below.

The Boy Has Not Only Consumed Our Sister, But Now He Has Claimed Empire.

Empire, scoffed a bronze being. Thick, virulent liquid dripped across the plains of its form, rising up against the pull of gravity and twitching membranes that slid over too many slick appendages. He Has No Concept Of What That Means.

I Would Not Be So Sure. Noctis' voice was cold enough that it sent shivers across Gabby's projection. Can You Not Feel It? Already His Will Spreads Across Eight Territories. Already, the System Aids Him.

…Danger…

The word was a whisper among the Divine's bellowing storm, but it cut through their noise without effort. Yyero and the Twins stilled, their inchoate forms focused on the bloody light that pulsated around Noctis.

My Love Knows Well The Danger The Boy Poses, the dark goddess said. He Must Be Eradicated. He Has Learned Too Well From The Nym.

The Twins stirred, their conjoined bodies all angles and sharp planes. It was the male Twin that spoke, however. I’ll Raze This World To Ash Before I See The Return Of The Chthonic Host.

The Ruin’s Advent Will End All Threats To Our Reign. The female Twin's voice was gentle, but no less pointed.

Unless The Boy Undoes Our Efforts. Yyero burned across the sky like a festering wound. He Is A Threat Left Idle Too Long.

And We Cannot Move Against Him. The Twins clamped their metallic blue across the putrescent flames, extinguishing them. Not Without Vessels.

Then Claim The Unbound! I’ll Find The Lizard Myself.

You Know We Cannot, Yyero, Noctis hissed, and a storm of bloody rain lashed across the landscape. Significance Binds Us Until The Compact Is Voided.

Fah! He Consumed Siva. Her Divinity Is Gone! He Will Come For Us.

No. The Twins held out a hand that wasn't. It had nothing close to the same anatomy as a human appendage, but Gabby could only parse it as a clenched fist. Not All Of It.

It opened, revealing a fallen star that blazed against the blackened sky. Auroras of every color manifested in ribbons around it, rippling and bursting into new configurations with every heartbeat. A halo of prismatic glory.

Strangest of all, however, were the answering glows within each of the gods. Points of brilliance in their convoluted flesh washed outward in riotous gales, lighting up veins through impossible limbs. It spread down like the shockwave of a bomb, blasting into the mountains at their feet where rock and root were thrown up into mile high clouds of dust. They swept outward, down the mountains and across the plains toward Gabby, as furious as anything she’d ever seen.

She slammed her fists into the earth, anchoring herself behind the monoliths just as the shockwave hit. Wind and ephemeral power tried to rip her from the ground, wrenching her already strained shoulders and squeezing a meager gasp of agony from her lips.

Then it passed, and she fell to the earth with a muffled thud.

We Hold The Power Here, the Twins continued, before closing their hand around that blazing light. It faded, as did their answering glows, but Gabby could not forget it. We Have Held It Since We Rectified Creation’s First Mistake. The Cardinals Cannot Return. The Boy Cannot Stand Against The Hierophant.

Even If He Does, The Titan Has Bound Herself To Our Law. To The System Itself. Coiled bands of angular blue sprouted from half of their shoulders like twisted wings. The Twins tilted their heads in unison. She Will Be His Undoing.

A pit opened up in Gabby's stomach, and it felt like she was falling, even as she laced her hands into the dust beneath her feet. Undoing?

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That Is Not Enough! I Can Smell Its Stink. How Can You Not? Dissonance Has Woven Through The Harmonics, And Its Source Is Nevarre!

Gabby flinched before she understood what happened. Yyero had moved far too fast for a creature bigger than mountains. The horizon cracked, and pillars of rotted flesh tore into it like a ripe fruit. More light bloomed in the dark, only to be swallowed by the charred skies, leaving only his wheezing howl.

Your Rage Is Useless. The Twins’ voices were flat, and the weight of them pressed out the chaos of Yyero’s emotion. He fell back, his oozing flesh congealing against the vault of the heavens.

My Rage Serves Us. We Must—

The Chains Of Our Complacency Bind Us, the Twins said, and Gabby couldn’t help but cower at the flat anger in its Spirit. It crushed her to the earth from miles away, and even Yyero flinched. We Must Shatter Them First. Nothing Else Matters.

The Ritual Must Be Completed.

Noctis loomed closer, empty and ever watchful. What Would You Have Us Do?

The Twins gleamed, the facets of their impossible anatomy stretching up into the sky. Fortify The City. Your Shadowbeasts, Your Vile Growths—Let Them Swell Across The Shining Palace. Protect The Nymean Weapon By Whatever Means Necessary.

The Twins bled into the horizon, merging with it until the charred skies scintillated with metallic blue. The land shook, peeling away into strips miles wide that exposed an unremitting, blinding white. It spread, splitting across the plains until it sundered the world beneath Gabby’s feet.

She fell, surrounded by nothing except the words of the Twins.

Felix Nevarre Must Be Kept At Bay.

Gabby gasped, her awareness snapping back to her Body. She opened her eyes,

She Will Be His Undoing.

The words echoed in her ears, louder than the rush of distant drains or the gurgle of her own empty stomach.

Gabby had made her bargain under duress, with the Pathless’ corpse still cooling on the ground in that blasted wasteland the gods called home. They’d dug into her soul and pulled out a promise…but what choice did she have?

They’d layered it with honeyed words and sweet concessions that were anything but—temptations from literal devils. Gabby ground her teeth at the memory. To serve them, they’d offered her Titles, Temperings, and even artifacts from Ages long Lost—power in all its forms. Enough to elevate her to Paragon, they’d claimed.

She’d wanted none of it.

Gabby leaned back against the hard stone tunnel and closed her eyes. She could still remember the agony after refusing their first bargain…and their second. Until all she could do was babble about the only thing she really wanted: to go home.

Their refusal had been swift and absolute.

Why was never clear, but every single god refused to send them away. Gabby couldn't understand it. It was an elegant solution to their problems. Without her brother, who was capable of defying the gods?

Instead, they'd offer her a new bargain entirely.

She could still remember the Twins as they spoke in their eerie, conjoined voices. Enter Into Our Compact And You Shall See Glory Beyond Mortality. You Will Be Elevated Above All Others On The Continent.

We Will Make You A God.

It wasn't that she had no choice, but the gods made it clear that it was either the bargain or death. Gabby had chosen to live.

Perhaps then she could shift the tide.

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Focus. What have you learned today? She ran through the words of the gods, sifting them for meaning. They're protecting Amaranth, but I already knew that. They're afraid of Felix. Why, though? Because he's an emperor? And that means something significant, clearly.

She also recalled them using the term Chthonic Host. And it had been one of the few times she'd ever heard the Twins speak out of unison. Not to mention with something approaching the rage all of the other gods indulged. Still, she had no reference for what it might mean. It sounded vaguely Greek, but other than that, Gabby had never heard the term either on the Continent or Earth. She filed those details away, perhaps for when they might be useful.

What commanded her attention far more was the reveal that Felix hadn't devoured all of Siva. There was a piece the gods still had in their possession, and it resonated with their own cores. The same as the core she’d witnessed the Divine devour when the Pathless fell. Cores that belonged to something else.

What the hell is a Cardinal?

Stone scratched in the dark, loud enough that Gabby instantly knew it wasn’t a mistake. She cursed as she opened her eyes and her Perception twigged upon creatures just beyond the darkness of her short tunnel. A great many of them.

Plaguerats.

How had they snuck up on her? She hadn't felt them at all until they were nearly upon her, clogging the nearby sewers with their obvious stench.

“Brightblade.”

She stood as light welled from her palms before manifesting into a shaft and blade of golden crystal. A heavy spear. It could be any weapon she wished, but in these tunnels a spear was her best option.

Keep them at a distance. Training that had been drilled into her bones came to the fore, as it did whenever battle loomed. She let another Skill kindle in her center, and fire roared just out of reach. Flood the tunnel.

"Stay your hand…” croaked a voice, as if coming from a mouth that should not be capable of speech.

It slipped from the dark, and Gabby forced herself to hold her ground, spear at the ready. The thing was huge, easily the match of a grizzly bear. It was definitely a rat, despite its size, with the same long face, sharp oversized teeth, and writhing naked tail. The difference, really, was that the Plaguerat was slick with pus and slime, oozing from open wounds. Spurs of bone arose up from its back, hooking out of its gristle, same as the pale claws that stuck from its long fingers. Eyes of yellow on black sclera looked at her with too much Intelligence for a simple beast.

"Titan.”

“Rat.”

“Scathers be my name, and I am sent by the Glorious Affliction.”

“Yyero," Gabby translated. "Why?"

Scathers snickered before he spoke in a sing-song voice. "You were seeeen."

Her face fell. The gods had noticed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do not play coy, Titan. The Glorious Affliction saw you, cowering beneath stone. But He assures us the others were ignorant of your presence.” Skathers giggled, a high pitched noise that was disturbing to hear from its oozing bulk. “He applauds you. You are far more circumspect than He expected."

Gabby wasn't sure what to say to that, so she settled for a noncommittal grunt. "What do you want?"

The monster lifted its bony hand and pointed at her. "Yyero wants the Lizard, and He tires of the games of the Divine. He offers us—His Plague—to hunt with you."

Gabby narrowed her eyes. She wasn't sure what benefits the rats would offer her, save perhaps no longer being in her way. "I assume, if I do not agree to this partnership, you’ll oppose us?"

"No. But we will seek out our own ends regardless of what or who stands in our way."

Of course. Noctis had said that Yyero had a purpose in the sewers that was “Divine business.” After listening to the gods' bicker over the Unbound, she still hadn't a clue what that could be. What else were these rats after, and did she want to help them achieve it? To bring them close where they could betray her? Did it matter? She already endured the questionable loyalty of the Orders. What was one more foe in her midst?

"How many are you?" she asked the thing.

"We number seven hundred, all of us strong enough to best your little men," Scathers sneered in the direction of her sleeping Paladins and Inquisitors, none of which had woken or even sounded an alarm.

"That gives us nearly two thousand, but this Unbound is trickier than we've expected. What can you do other than stink?"

Scathers hissed. "We are rot, Titan. We are pestilence. Wherever decay resides, that be where our power grows, and our senses along with it. We can sniff out the Lizard, no matter where he hides."

"Useful. Why haven't you found him yourself?"

"We have died countless times," Scathers said, shaking his body. Pieces of himself spattered against the walls. "The Lizard has killed us all again and again. Too many times. We hunger for retribution, Titan, and we will have it."

Gabby could believe that. She had barely seen the Unbound in their three encounters. He moved too fast, and those swords of his were brutal. She'd easily lost a hundred soldiers in her time under the earth, but the Lizard was always fleeing. If she did this right, if she could corner him, perhaps she could take care of two pests with one stone.

"Alright, rat.” She lowered her spear, but refused to banish it entirely. “Let's go find the Lizard."