Path of the Deathless (Book 2 Completed)

World Quests are insidious things. When they appear, it usually means an entire planet or dimension is at stake. This could be the result of an incursion, an impending ecological collapse, a cascading mana storm that has gotten out of hand, another planetary body set to impact said threatened world, or, if you are extremely unfortunate, a Tarrasque that has gotten loose and seeks to butcher and destroy everything in its path.

When the World Quest triggers, every living inhabitant in the world or dimension will receive a notification. The Quest details and rewards will be dispatched immediately, but World Quests do not usually come with varied failure conditions, for the failure condition is self-evident. You lose the place you live in.

Yet, this does not mean that the different factions of a world will band together, for a World Quest is also another means of the System to further its agenda of strife. There are a limited number of recipients that can receive the boons offered by Quest, and thus the struggle becomes twofold.

First, against the threat itself, and then against those who are trying to slay or resolve the danger first. For should you survive, you will still have to face your local adversaries thereafter, and World Quests offer very bountiful rewards. One way or another, even if your world is saved, perhaps your own survival may be in question…

-The Insidious Apocalypse: A Guide to Facing and Surviving World Quests

156 (I)

Orichalcum

World Quest Gained: Slay the Undying Tarrasque.

Success: Evolve 3 [Existing Skills] to Master-Tier; Evolve 2 [Existing Skills] to Heroic-Tier (Only 100 Pathbearers may receive this reward); Gain 15 Levels for a Selected Skill; Gain a Legendary-Tier [Equipment]

Failure: Integrated Earth is destroyed and the Undying Tarrasque evolves after absorbing the vitality of the planet.

The notification flashed across Shiv's vision as chaos erupted around him. The orcs' assault was brutal, sudden, and spontaneously coordinated. They came from all sides, tearing through the Necrotechs in a blitz of violence.

Concurrently, a dark shape rose up into the air behind the Tarrasque, and it held a greataxe high into the air. A ball of radiant flame combusted into existence at the edge of the weapon, and it was like the swelling of a brand-new dawn. Hovering in the sky was Sir Marikos, the Fortress that Soars. Where flames spilled free from his right arm, a colossal shield made from dense obsidian manifested over his left. And it was he that the Tarrasque turned to greet before anyone else.

"Enough of this folly! Enough of this madness and travesty!" Marikos thrust his axe out at the Tarrasque, and a rippling wave of brightness across the body of the beast, igniting a few hundred Necrotechs and orcs like they were nothing more than candle wicks. "Surrender. Give yourself unto my custody, and I will see you granted a proper trial before the council. Stay your path, and face your destiny! Or face my wrath!"

Several orcs blasted through the Necrotech lines. They landed atop the Tarrasque before planting several objects on the massive monster's body and teleporting away. Shiv tore himself free from his stupor and spiked himself at the Tarrasque. A Necrotech Deathstalker moved to intercept him—but vanished from existence as large, gray hands pulled them into a dimensional sphere. Necromancy spells slashed through the air to claim Shiv, but wards of corrosive energy manifested around him—just as he slipped out of context once more.

As he splashed back into his Vitae, he halted time and shot up into the air. Valor and Georges had been grabbed by the Tarrasque's tentacles and now dangled from their necks. Uva was still clenched between the great beast's claws as well. Shiv knew he couldn't do any damage to the Tarrasque, but he could absolutely protect the ones he cared for.

He discharged before he got to Georges, and he immediately started prying at the Tarrasque's grip, trying to free his mentor. Shiv knew Georges was a Heroic-Tier Pathbearer, but the man was also a non-martial, so he proceeded with caution. The Deathless grunted with effort as he used his field to pull open the Tarrasque's tentacle, loosening it just enough for Georges to slip free. The action took long enough that he was forced to leave his outside context state, and he immediately tossed Georges into his cape without a word.

As he tried to go for Valor, the very tentacle he'd just pried loose snaked out and ripped an entire rib free from his body. Shiv snarled and spiked himself forward. Next was Valor, then Uva and—

He was too late.

The Tarrasque shifted its body. The air around it combusted—and it was Adam who got to Valor and Uva first. Two Veilpiercers struck the Umbral and the shattered Legend in their shoulders. Pockets of Dimensionality swallowed them a second later, and Vicar Sullain let out a frustrated cry. "DAMNATION! ARROW! I WILL HAVE YOUR SOUL FLAYED FOR THIS!"

The Tarrasque moved, only for a chain of Dynamancy bombs to explode along the top of its body. A hammer of gravitational force yanked the monster downward. It didn't slow the Tarrasque much—just long enough to save Blackedge.

The air came afire as the Undying Tarrasque accelerated toward Shiv—and the rest of Blackedge behind him. Fire, force, and utter devastation billowed over his body, but the Deathless just scowled in the face of another ugly death.

But it was a death that never came.

Something blurred into shape just before Shiv. Something monstrous. Yet, cast against the enormous backdrop that was the charging Tarrasque, even a dragon seemed an insect. However, the thing about Legendary insects was that they were more than a match for any man, and Sir Marikos Valdemar of the Descenders Union was no insect at all. And he made that known by stopping the Tarrasque dead in its tracks.

Shiv's heart skipped a beat. Every bit of force, of plasma, of fire, and impending destruction jerked to a brutal halt in midair. A rush of force flowed into Marikos's shield, while the plasma and flame were inhaled into his open jaws. The Tarrasque, capable of shattering cities on a whim, capable of obliterating Shiv with the lightest of strikes, found itself struggling to push forward.

A loud roar of effort came from Marikos as well, but the sheer feat of strength the dragon achieved brought another lull to combat. The Tarrasque was five kilometers across and twice again as long. Marikos was practically a newborn comparatively. But he stopped the juggernaut dead. He stood his ground, sliding back by mere meters as the seconds passed. It was like watching a man stand before a storm and win. It was the summit of what a Pathbearer was meant to be: to hold their ground against a cataclysmic nightmare—and prevail.

Prevail not moralistically, philosophically, or intellectually. Prevail literally. To tell the impossible to go fuck itself and stand above the world's will.

I must become a Legend. The urge blossomed in Shiv's chest and turned into a roaring inferno. It was more than a want; it was a need. I must.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Sullain," Marikos said with a brutal growl, "I have given you more than clemency enough. Twice I have stayed my hand from violence out of understanding and clemency for what we have lost, twice—"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF LOSS!" Sullain screamed with primal fury. The Tarrasque reached out with a hand and pulled. The force of a singularity manifested between its fingers. Shiv cried out as he felt himself get ripped toward the collapsing pocket of darkness. Then, something smashed into him from behind, and Shiv realized he was pressed against Blackedge.

The Deathless blinked in disbelief and forced his neck up. The Tarrasque was tugging all of Blackedge toward itself, trying to use the town as a blunt weapon against Marikos. The crushed bodies of Necrotechs shot past the singularity's event horizon. A good two hundred orcs followed thereafter, roaring with glee even as they met their ends. Shiv spiked himself away from the gravitational waves over and over, but found himself with nowhere to go. People were being ripped free from Blackedge, their dot-like forms screaming through the air as helpless rage exploded inside Shiv.

"YOU WILL ALL PAY FOR—"

"Enough!" Marikos growled as he struck the back of his shield with the butt of his titanic greataxe, and a pulse of force rippled out from the obsidian shield. Time itself stuttered as a column of force smashed into the Tarrasque's face. The manifesting singularity died in an instant. For the first time, the Tarrasque was driven back as the Legendary Dragon-Knight returned every bit of force absorbed earlier directly into the world-ending scourge.

But the Tarrasque's body exploded with the power of a collapsing star, and it started pushing back against Marikos. The force Marikos unleashed left him in a cone. It spared everyone behind him—everything he was turned away from. But the clouds in the skies above were shorn clean, and the true sun revealed itself for the first time. Marikos's body was set ablaze with an ethereal fire. Shiv saw wounded Necrotechs disintegrate outright in the corner of his vision.

The Tarrasque, comparatively, was unburdened.

What was a stalemate turned in the great beast's favor as it ground across the sky toward Marikos. "Why do you stand against me now, knight? What right do you have? What worth are your vows if you cannot defend our home?"

"Everything!" Marikos shouted back as his body trembled under the effects of the Abyssal Curse. "My vows are worth everything, for I will spare the Abyss another war against the surface!"

Shiv activated his Creeping Void, hoping it would blunt some of the sun's effects. Marikos glanced at him only briefly, but Shiv saw a glint of gratitude in the dragon's eyes—even when the skill failed to do what the Deathless had hoped. At the same time, Shiv pressed against the still-moving Blackedge, roaring with effort as he tried to slow its ascent, trying to stop it from smashing into the back of the struggling Dragon-Knight.

Gravitic Wrestler 164 > 165

The Creeping Void 114 > 115

The Tarrasque pressed harder. It shot closer by a hundred meters. "THEY ARE COMING FOR OUR LIVES! THEY CAME FOR MY HOME! AND NOW—"

A deafening, metallic impact sounded as something truly huge struck the Tarrasque from below. A shockwave spread out from the Tarrasque, splashing over Marikos, Shiv, and Blackedge as what looked to be a tower of metal rose into view.

Shiv's eyes widened as the colossal Tarrasque was suddenly blasted skyward, shooting through the clouds like a ball struck by a bat. All the while, a metal mountain continued to rise, its flat sides lined with Dimensionality.

Shiv's guts plunged.

"Well, he's a real talker, isn't he?" Jessica Hawgrave sneered as she stomped across the ruins of Lost Angeles. Shiv could hear her feet crushing entire blocks and punting through what few skyscrapers remained with each step. Her full-plated Inertium helmet had to reach beyond the lower limits of the stratosphere. Her hand shot out—her Reflexes beyond terrifying for a twenty-kilometer-tall titan of a woman—and she caught the entire town of Blackedge in her hand like it was a bowl.

Screaming people toppled off the town. She adjusted the size of her blade in an instant, making it broad rather than long, and swiping it through the people. All of them splashed into the dimensional mana lighting its length.

Suddenly, the Tarrasque didn't seem so big anymore.

As Hawgrave righted the town, Shiv bounced against the pavement and pawed at his wounds. Most of his stomach had prolapsed out of his abdomen, but he couldn't feel much pain anymore. That usually indicated that death would be coming soon. "Marikos!" he cried. The Dragon-Knight turned his sinuous neck to regard Shiv. "Stop her! She's part of the Inquisition! She's here to start a new war, not end it!"

The Dragon-Knight glared up at the enormous surfacer Pathbearer. Ghostly fires rose from his burning soul as he spoke: "I know who she is. I suspect I know why she is here as well. Hawgrave. Still an enforcer for your Inquisition? A Legend that acts as a dog on a leash?"

"Hi, Fortress," Hawgrave said coldly. Her hand was still as a statue, but Shiv could feel the vibrations passing from her Inertium armor into Blackedge. It manifested as a constant, small-scale earthquake. "And be nice when you're talking to me. Call me by my preferred title: the Shortest Bitch with the Biggest Sword. Been a while, huh?"

"Since the war." Marikos flapped his wings as he shifted into a stance. He moved his shield in front of him, and he held his greataxe high in a ready posture. The ball of fire at its tip splashed over the weapon itself, engulfing it in white-hot Pyromancy mana.

Silence followed between them, but the sounds of battle and slaughter became the ambiance. High up in the air, Shiv noticed a burning dot plunging from the sky at an angle. The Tarrasque was coming back, and there was no Roland Arrow to stop it this time—no wards to spare Blackedge for certain destruction.

"Perfect," Shiv groaned. He pushed against the ground, trying to get up—only to be helped to his feet by a large, gray hand that wrapped around his torso. At the same time, a rush of Biomancy began to fuse his broken flesh together as well.

Shiv raised his head, meeting Helix's eyes. Whisper, Mortar, and Tequila stood beside him, as well as another dozen orcs.

"Insul, do you have any idea about your odds of success as a Low Hero against a Tarrasque or a Legend?" Helix asked, frowning at Shiv's vanishing wounds.

"Pretty shit?" Shiv guessed.

"Nonexistent, aside from extreme statistical anomalies," Helix confirmed. "As such, I suggest that we depart."

"You depart, four-eyes," Mortar said, licking his lips as he eyed the approaching Tarrasque-meteor. It still looked a bit like a dot, but there was a lot of fire trailing behind the monster. Shiv guessed they might have a minute or so. Likely less. "Some of us got a World Quest to complete."

"That's not for you to finish, you idiot," Helix said. He sneered at Mortar's cannon. "What do you even have that can hurt that thing?"

"Mana bombs," Mortar said. "And who said I'd be fighting it? I'm waiting for one of the Legends to pop its body open and expose its heart. Then, I'm going to bomb its nucleus."

"Not gonna be enough," Shiv said. "It resurrects. A bit like me. Until we make it spend all its vitality, it's not going down."

"Everything's always a bit more exciting when you're involved, isn't it?" Whisper commented with a chuckle.

"Yeah. I guess so." Shiv rolled his shoulder as he regarded Marikos and Hawgrave staring each other down. They didn't even seem aware of the Tarrrasque anymore.

"Oi! What bloody fuck is felling fucking happening out there?" Georges's voice echoed out from Shiv's cape. The orcs turned to regard him, and Shiv grunted in response.

"I'll explain everything in a minute, Georges," Shiv coughed. "If we're still alive by then."

A pause followed. "Shiv? Is that you, boy?"

Shiv recalled Georges walking down the avenue with blade in hand. He had no hope of stopping the Tarrasque or saving Shiv. But he came regardless. He always came through for Shiv. The Deathless swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

"Broken Felling Moon. I saw—I saw you die. Again."

"Yeah," Shiv replied. "It's kind of my thing now." He looked up at the approaching Tarrasque and felt his insides tighten. Valor and Uva were with Adam, and Shiv had no idea how they were doing. But the Tarrasque knew about Shiv's cape. If he had to guess, it would target that enchantment by some point. He couldn't keep Georges there when he got back into the fight.

So. Time to make an ugly choice. But also, maybe a fun one too…

Shiv shifted the contents inside his cape and pulled Georges out. As the chef stumbled into the light, he blinked. Vomit stains ran down the front of his clothes, and Shiv winced. Georges shook his head—and froze as he found himself getting stared down by a pack of orcs.