Crimson Ascension

Morph willed the runic circuit in their astra to ignite. Fourfold Amplification, he snarled as Aiden would. The man in front of him was a dangerous hunter, without equal. He had bested Morph once, but this time would be different. Not when the mysterious power of runes coursed through his veins, at his command.

After his core collapsed, Aiden had forged a new one out of the remnants of their combined power. What had once been two became one, soul and spirit, power and will. Morph could see the symbols now, runes as Aiden called them—ugly scratches that followed no rhyme or reason.

Morph, don't Emit hexion, Aiden whispered inside his head. I need to focus everything we have on this gamble.

It was a gamble. Morph disagreed with Aiden's choice of trusting a vague lesson Helvan once spoke in passing, but he knew it was impossible to change his mind. Aiden was like coal, dry, cold, harmless, but when a spark ignited the rage inside of him… Even Morph feared what he could do.

Morph pushes against the ground, infusing his body with berserk hexion. The stone exploded, the barricading spikes around him crumbling from the sheer force of his body. He sprinted, not holding back one ounce of strength. The Perfected pounced forward, a lusterless frown on his silver skin.

The Perfected launched a straight punch. Morph met it with a bestial snarl. The crimson armour around his fist shattered. His bones broke under the silver man's attack. The flesh on his arm tore to ribbons, but reformed in the blink of an eye. A small amount of hexion vanished from his astra, but Morph didn't fret—Aiden could always imbue more.

His task was to buy time. But he meant to hunt.

Ducking under an open-handed chop aimed for his neck, Morph pivoted his body, the claws on his reforming armour glistening with deadly light. He slashed them against the chest of the Perfected, but didn't stop. He couldn't stop. Staying still meant death. The claws scraped at the man's chest, screeching as if they brushed against cold steel.

Not one drop of blood. Not a scratch on the Perfected's silver skin.

Morph took a step back, surprise sinking in his stomach like a rockl. He knew the silver man was strong—the last time they fought hadn't even been a dispute—but to think the gap between them so large was disheartening. Were he alone, Morph would have turned tail and ran. But he was not alone.

Helvan circled the silver man like a blur—one blink and Morph couldn't even tell he was there. Terrifying. His green-edged sword battered against the Perfected's skin, leaving no mark. The runes glowing softly on his skin wavered, their light flickering with each ring of metal striking metal, yet the silver man ignored the pestering attacks as he would a fly.

You're better at the Art of Ruling than me. Well, now is the time to show it, Aiden's voice spoke to him. Morph's eyes widened as his blood turned to fire, as his bones shattered into a million pieces that were put together by the molten hands of a torturer. His body froze for a split second.

Damn you, Aiden! You assign the attributes now? Morph yelped as the Perfected kicked low, taking his feet off the ground. He immersed his body with will and took hold of it, ruling his blood, ordering it to move even as his muscles disobeyed. A silver fist filled his vision, but Morph moved awkwardly, like a marionette, and took it in the shoulder instead.

Morph had expected his bones to resist the assault—Abyss, Aiden had just assigned twenty points into Durability—but they shattered still. The flesh on his shoulder, however, held a little better than before, breaking and tearing from the sheer force but not outright pulverized.

It had been worth a try. Morph mended the damages as an afterthought. "You're not as strong as before, silver man." He had to buy time. Perhaps a provocation would do it.

The Perfected raised an eyebrow, stopping his assault. "Oh?" he whispered before vanishing.

An insurmountable weight slammed against Morph's chest, knocking the wind out of his bursting lungs. His heart exploded. His body was shattered. Limbs burst from his torso as if eager to run on their own. The city passed in a blur on the sides of his vision. What's going on? Morph looked down and was surprised to see the ground so far below. The awe lasted only a second before he struck stone, caving it, bursting through it like an arrow through armor.

"Abyss…" Morph coughed, hexion already mending the damages. He picked himself from the rubble and reformed the Hemomorph's Mantle around his flesh.

Broken chairs, what remained of furniture, lay destroyed all around him. He walked to the breach in the stone, to the light that shone through it. He saw the entrance to Old World from where he stood, but it was distant—at least a few hundred paces. Ah, Morph thought, one of the spires.

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The Perfected's silver skin shone in the distance. Morph could have sworn that monster was smiling at him, ridiculing him. How dare he? Green light exploded a few dozen paces from the silver man, but when the brilliance faded, nothing but the corpse of a man dressed in bright armour remained.

Morph infused his body with hexion and jumped. The air brushed against his skin as he soared in the air, crossing the distance between the silver man and himself in mere moments. His bones cracked from the impact but didn't break. His flesh quivered with the shock, and a few veins burst under the skin, but the pain was muffled.

"The growth in your strength is unsurprising, Draven von Astrais." The Perfected walked unconcerned, the runes on his skin radiating power. People looked at him, at them, through windows with terrified eyes filled with morbid curiosity. "Yet it changes nothing. You are weak, nothing but a Lesser Eminence. I need not use hexion to subdue you."

Morph gulped, realizing something that should have been obvious from the start. The Perfected had not been using any sort of Arts, just simple attacks. He relied solely on the strength of his unnatural physique to deliver devastating damage. Abyss below. Morph trod the trenched and broken spikes with newfound care.

"Subdue?" Morph burst into exaggerated laughter. He had to buy time. Aiden, curse you! How long will it take? The air turned frigid as the Perfected glared at him, yet Morph kept talking. "Your punches tickle, silver man. Ha! You could throw them all day, and it wouldn't serve as a half-assed massage."

Just a little longer, Morph. Aiden's voice was strained. You have to hold. I'm gonna break all of them at once.

The Perfected's eyes glowed with purple lightning. "Perhaps you are right, child. Perhaps you are not. Allow me to see how well your bravado lasts against my Arts."

Dammit! Why did I say that—

Stone grabbed hold of Morph's feet, enveloping the armour as if it had gained a life of its own. The Perfected stepped forward, a single, simple stride, yet the ground under his feet pushed farther than what was possible. With a single step, he crossed ten paces and planted a simple open-palmed strike on Morph's chest. The impact, rather than tearing his flesh, melted it like ice thrown over a pyre.

Skin peeled off from bone. Muscle dripped on the floor like drops of rain. Morph roared, urging hexion to meld the whatever the silver man had done. His flesh reformed, the Perfected's influence and will purged from his body in an instant.

Uttering a roar, Morph broke the stone that bound his feet, taking a kick that severed his right leg as a sword would. The tail snapped as he pivoted his body to duck under a punch—even as his leg reformed—and wrapped itself around the Perfected's torso to throw him far away.

The Perfected didn't budge.

"I am the Archon of Chaos, the one who heralds change. Your petty tricks are beneath my attention; I had expected more resistance from one who holds a Fragment of Eternity as I once did." He gripped the crimson tail before shattering it. "Change is the only concept that remains true in this world. Fight it, as humans do, yet its tides are unrelenting. Even now, the very forces of the Beyond encroach upon us, attempting to expedite the Haven's demise. It is change, as always, yet one we must fight against."

What is he babbling about? Morph took a step back. He felt crippled. Without emitting hexion, what else could he do but throw attacks that wouldn't even scratch the silver man's skin? Dyad Vessel could work, but if he lacked the Empyrean Arts to take advantage of the opening it was bound to create, what was the point of using it? A hunter without fangs, that was how he felt.

"No matter." The Perfected sighed. "Your willingness to assist is unnecessary. Soon, you will become one of us—a Perfected." His eyes flashed purple again, and he grabbed Morph by the neck with a speed only hexion-infused flesh could grant.

Abyss burn to ashes! He wasn't even infusing. Morph cursed as the silver man crushed his neck with a force impossible to resist. Hexion entered his body, destroying him from the inside—changing him into something solid. Morph looked at his hand and was terrified to find the skin starting to become gray, like metal.

Aiden. Morph screamed, yet there was no reply. Damn to the abyss, Aiden, he's going to kill us!

"Farewell, lost brother. When you awaken, it will be as one of us!" The Perfected's lips parted into a peaceful, contented smile. "May he rule for a thousand years more. May the will of the Maker forge a shield against change."

Morph's vision became black. He could no longer hear. He couldn't smell. Hexion flooded his veins, trying to mend the change heralded by the Perfected's touch, but it wasn't enough. For every inch he mended, the Perfected changed three more. Death. He was going to die, there was no mending it.

Pain exploded from three distinct parts of Morph's body, threatening to expedite his doom. He wouldn't let it. He had to resist, even for one more second. He had to! He would fight to the very end, to the last second, if he had to.

Protection. Aiden's voice was fire. Destruction. His words drained the pain. Death. Wrath ran crimson in his veins. Open! His will heralded the rage beating with his heart. As the Archon commanded, all meridians in his body opened.

The despair that had been about to drown Morph vanished, alongside the weakness. His flesh became stronger, more durable. The hexion raging inside his astra congealed, becoming denser with each passing second. It shone with a deadly light that wasn't present before.

Morph looked at the silver man in the eye and grinned. No more shackles. No more restrictions. The real fight was about to begin.