Crimson Ascension

Draven emerged from his astra to find a silver hand crushing the life out of him, purple lightning burrowing into flesh and changing it to the whims of the Perfected's foreign art. The panic Morph had feeling was gone; only the animalistic thrill of a hunt remained, for he knew Draven had succeeded.

The power of Early Ascendance coursed through his veins. With a grunt, he joined his will with Morph, not assuming control of his body but jointly commanding it alongside his companion. Hexion flowed into the Hemomorph's Mantle, strengthening it, empowering the armor with a force Draven himself didn't fully comprehend.

He grabbed the arm of the Perfected, gripping it with the strength of a body that no longer had any closed meridians. The claws of the mantle pierced the Perfected's skin, drawing blood. Surprise shone through the silver man's calm facade.

Draven didn't waste time.

He yanked the arm away from his throat, throwing a punch straight at the Perfected's jaw. His fist hurt, as the force of the blow threw the Perfected off balance, but that only made him—them—smile even more. Pain was fuel, and the embers of his rage would become a pyre. Dyad Vessel reached out, almost on its own, guided by the instinct driven by repetition, and delivered the stored pain as if it were a bloody gift.

The Perfected roared in pain, stumbling back as countless wounds tore open on his skin. Cuts. Bruises. It was as if myriad attacks had hit the silver-skinned man in a single moment, though his wounds were not as severe as Draven had once incurred. His eyes widened, blood dripping down the corners of his mouth.

"The Az'Tenri Circlet." A predatory, bloodstained smile parted the Perfected's lips. "That rat Korvax stole it after all." His eyes became serious as the words left his lips in a snarl.

The Perfected moved, shards of stone bursting from the ground from where he had just stood. He arrived at Draven before the fragments could even touch the ground, purple lightning crackling around his fist. Draven reacted, two minds guiding his body and hexion simultaneously. Chains woven of blood and hexion wrapped around the Perfected's limbs, slowing him down, while Draven side-stepped the attack to deliver an elbow to his exposed chest.

Dyad Vessel reflected the impact. Draven didn't think. Morph didn't think. They acted in unison—two minds becoming one.

Stone grabbed hold of his ankles. The stone ground around him turned into liquid. The impact of the battle sent ripples spreading through stone, and spikes burst from it, much resembling those that had encircled the fissure before. Draven broke one with a punch, his tail cleaving a dozen that threatened to impale his back, while Morph willed blood to tear through the restraints around his feet.

Draven spun, tail whipping against spikes of stone, blood spheres congealing and shooting from his body to destroy the manifestations of the Perfected's Arts. He ducked under a punch, taking a knee to the face. His nose broke, but was reformed. Blood trickled from the Perfected's nostril as Dyad Vessel sent retribution.

The ground exploded under his feet, prompting him to jump backwards. Draven soared in the air, eyes widening as the erupting stone turned into steel—dark, glistening metal that hardened as purple energy crawled from the Perfected's skin and into the surroundings. A terrifyingly vast Presence spread from the silver-skinned man, and Draven could feel as air itself had become an extension, a medium through which the Chaos Arts could travel.

Fine, no more brawling. Draven unfolded his Presence, stretching the tendrils of his influence to his surroundings, fighting for supremacy. Presence clashed against presence, purple lightning against tendrils of blood, and Draven was surprised to find himself almost a match for the Perfected.

The Perfected jumped, the metal near his feet cracking as he soared into the air. From one tendril that stretched under the ground, behind where the Perfected had just been, Draven congealed a rope that tied around his body and pulled. He accelerated mid-air, almost as if his jump had been reversed, and crashed into the perfected feet first.

Lightning melted the armour on his leg, searing his flesh and turning it into ash. Draven mended the damage, trying to fight off the foreign influence that wanted to reduce his limbs to nothingness, but that minute difference in their Presences put him into a losing struggle.

Morph snarled, igniting Heart Flame. His tail snapped deceptively, arching to the right before snapping to the left and impaling the Perfected in the shoulder. The silver man had attempted to rule his body—his blood. How dare he? Morph had been born and reborn in blood; the Blood Arts were not something he could learn. They were a part of him.

A metal spike took Draven in the gut, pushing him away from the Perfected. Morph's tail was yanked away, but the spilled blood staining the silver skin shone with light. It beat, like a heart, like the tune of all living things. It whispered, wishing only that someone—anyone—would listen.

Morph and Draven did. Their wills combined, congealing into the mental image of a nightmarish scene Draven had witnessed on the very day his journey had begun, the day he saw Helvan being attacked by his blood. That scene had disgusted, terrified him at the time. Not anymore. Blood could not scare him; it obeyed him.

Five blood serpents burst from the Perfected's shoulder, biting at his face, strangling his neck. One lunged, guided Morph's unseen hand, and aimed to take the man's eye. The Perfected grunted, battling two away, turning them to dust with a crackle of purple energy. He roared, and a pulse of amethyst brilliance reduced all his surroundings to nothingness.

Draven crashed into the ground, painting. In front of him, the Perfected crushed the last blood serpent with a blood-stained hand. Numerous wounds marred his once pristine skin. Sweat poured from his bald head, and a frown carved deep ridges on his forehead. Draven felt the heartbeats surrounding them, how they lurched with shock. On the corners of his vision, he saw people watching their battle—many of whom were Empyreans on their own.

Shock. Fear. Reverence.

The citizens of Varn'Kess watched as Draven did something which none had dared: to challenge a Perfected, one of the hounds of the Maker, to a battle. Worst of all, he was holding his own. Murmurs spread throughout the city, low at first, growing in intensity with each passing second.

"It was true, the rumors." He heard murmurs to his right.

"Maybe the Maker really is dying."

"Blasphemy!" Someone else shouted in a zealous tone. "Get your heretic ass out from my shop—"

"The Perfected is… struggling? What in the Abyss is going on…"

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"Are you blind? He's losing!"

Draven gritted his teeth. Losing? What a joke. He looked at the Perfected, at the collected grace exuding from his body. It permeated the air, changed it, remade it with the ease one might display at breathing. He hasn't used his domain at all. He's bleeding, but all his wounds are shallow. No wonder others hadn't dared challenge a Perfected. A creature that was immune to Evokers, resistant to physical damage to a degree that defied common sense, and a master of their path.

It was madness. Defying one of them was courting death. Every exchange, every punch Draven took cost him a monumental amount of hexion to mend. Had he possessed his old astra, he'd have long since run out of the means to stave off the Perfected's transmutations. Now, however, he could imbue with more with each breath he took, much more. That still wasn't enough. He had lost over half of his reserve, and all he had to show for it were superficial wounds marring his foe's silver skin.

A monster. A Perfected.

"It seems I was mistaken, Draven von Astrais. You are an Archon, the most dangerous one yet. To advance into Ascendance while you fight me? It defies all common sense and wisdom I have learned throughout my life. Yet you did it nonetheless." He touched his shoulder, silver hand coming out bloody. Not one hint of a smile shone on his face. "If this battle had occurred years from now, it would have spelled my oblivion."

The Perfected's heartbeat sped up, the purple lightning that crawled on his silver skin becoming more erratic. Draven paled, for he knew what was coming. With all the augmented strength from his amplified, hexion-enhanced body, he jumped backwards, soaring dozens of paces from the ground.

A pulse of amethyst light exploded from the Perfected as he unfolded his domain. The sky turned purple, and the air grew violent. Draven manifested a shield around his body, with Morph aiding in its creation. He wove another one, reinforcing his protection with another layer. Again. Again.

Purple eyes snapped in his direction, and Draven froze in the air. The Perfected opened his arms wide, extending them to the side as if awaiting an embrace. His feet left the floor, though he didn't jump. His body soared in the air, though no pillar of transmuted stone pushed him into the sky. The Perfected, defying all legends and myths Draven had heard, began to fly.

He… Draven thought, frozen in the air under multiple layers of crimson shields. Can fly, Morph exhaled, dumbfounded.

"Let my master welcome you in the Abyss, Draven von Astrais." The Perfected approached, hovering in the air as if carried by gentle currents of wind. "Let you be reborn as one of us to eternally protect the last bastion of humanity!" He extended his open hand forward and clenched his fist.

The outermost layer of Draven's shield burst apart. That's a fivefold amplified shield, dammit! His constructs had become stronger after reaching Ascendance, yet the man in front of him still shattered them. It wasn't effortless, but the constructs that stood between him and death still crumbled as the Perfected closed his fist.

The air pressed against the shields, breaking them, one by one. Draven poured his will into the constructs, congealing more layers even as the old ones broke. He had to buy some time. Where in the abyss is Helvan? Finn. Elevalein. Draven looked around, desperate for a way out. He found none.

The sword, Aiden. We have to use it, Morph murmured, voice strained.

We can't, Morph. You know it damn well, Draven snarled as new layers of shield kept bursting under the immense pressure of the Perfected's domain. If we do, then we fail. If we do, then all we fought for was for nothing. They will all die, and we won't be here to stop the Sha'Vitri.

The Perfected glared at him, annoyed at the resistance. With a grunt, he closed his fist, shattering all the shielding holding his domain at bay. The air compressed against Draven's body, breaking the Hemomorph's Mantle, shattering his bones. Dyad Vessel drank the pain, but the perfected was beyond the reach of its retribution.

Air burst out from Draven's lungs. He was going to die. Was Morph right? Did they need to use the Malediction? No! Draven told himself, unwilling to admit defeat, bitter at being oppressed by a higher power once again. All his training, all the years he spent secluded in the Sixfold Corridor, had been for nothing.

He still lost. Abyss take him, he still lost.

Purple lighting pierced his flesh, changing it, reducing it to ashes. His astra mended the damage, fighting off the purple lightning that shot under his skin, but his reserves dwindled at a tremendous pace—fast enough to outpace his ability to refine more from beyond the rift.

His astra… Draven glanced inside his soul. Like a ray of hope bursting through the darkness, he saw a way out. He saw something which he hadn't accounted for. Morph had begun fighting against the perfected minutes ago, all the while his runic circuit ran at Fivefold Amplification. Yet his astra wasn't taxed. It wasn't on the brink of collapse like it had been in his battle against the Ruler of Shadow.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Draven snarled. Sixfold Amplification! The pain subsided, though the energy of Chaos still reduced his flesh to ashes at an astounding pace. Sevenfold Amplification! His hexion roared, becoming more violent, efficient, and berserk. Whereas he had been losing the battle against the Chaos Arts, now he brought the battle to a stalemate.

Not yet. Not enough. Abyss take him, he would do whatever it took. Eightfold Amplification! Draven spread out his arms, sweat and blood pouring out of his pores as the air tried to crush him into nothingness.

The Perfected frowned, a savage snarl overtaking his serenity. He pushed both hands forward, clenching his fists. The pressure increased once more. Ninefold Amplification! Dyad Vessel grew, evolving as his will pushed the runic circuit further. It was time to bet it all. He had to do it before the Perfected had time to recover from it.

Blood ran like fire under his veins. His skin cracked, vapor rising and hissing as if trying to escape the torment. Draven didn't feel the pain. He was the pain. All around Varn'Kess, he felt the blood gushing inside the veins of its citizens, warm, alive—the source of life as he knew it. The crimson tendrils carried his will, his authority, his birthright.

When Draven spoke, all Sovrans setting foot in Varn'Kess heard it. "To me!" One tenth of their blood left their body, flowing into the air, carried by the will of the Archon of Blood, of the beast who had lived under the red sun, The Hemomorph. The blue faded from the sky as blood gathered above Draven in a hurricane of unrestrained power and will.

He reached his hand forward as if to grasp the Perfected. Every muscle in his body burned, every drop of blood running inside his veins trembled, for they knew what he was about to do. Tenfold Amplification! Draven's astra cracked under the sheer strength of the berserker hexion.

Draven met the Perfected glare with one of his own. "You reap lives as if they mean nothing. You oppress those who wish only to live their lives without a second thought. Tell your master that it ends today. Tell your master I'll be the one coming for him!"

He clenched his fist. The hurricane of blood and berserk hexion shot toward the Perfected, consuming him in an instant. Purple lighting burst through the mess, but soon the only hue in the sky was crimson. The air lost its hold over him, and the ground claimed its pull once again.

The ground embraced him, shattering stone, transmuting metal, and bone. Drops of rain fell on his tired shoulders, but they were warm rather than cold. Blood. He looked up to see a rain made of the blood of the citizens of Varn'Kess. He raised his head to hear the terrified murmurs of those who watched the fight—of those whose blood was his to command.

Draven looked up at the sky, red with remnants of his power. Slowly, his fading strength and devoid of hexion, he stood. His shoulders were heavy with the weight of the entire Haven. He had taken a step onto a path of no return.

A Perfected had been slain. The others would come for him. He would be waiting.