Path of the Deathless (Book 2 Completed)

168 (II)

Legend

"You motherfucker!" Shiv roared. He blasted through the air, and all semblance of calm or rationality was lost in him. Waves of force rushed out from him in uncontrolled tides. The air combusted in an instant. His Berserk Skill triggered, his muscles tightened, and the amount of force rippling through him was amplified fivefold. His Vitae golem followed just behind, and the clone laughed with glee as he held his arms open, embracing Shiv before their inevitable clash.

Berserk 18 > 21

A second before Shiv got close, the clone's body flashed with gold. Shiv stopped time as well, but as a temporal shell emerged over the Deathless, the clone cast himself back in time and vanished from Shiv's sight. And that brought him to new heights of anger. Between what the Ascendants had done, with how they kidnapped him, taking him away from those who needed him at the direst moment, and the clone's words, whatever self-control Shiv had was broken. The noises that escaped him were more like a wild dog than a person.

He blasted high in the air, caring nothing for destruction, caring nothing for subtlety. He followed his instincts and used his Vitamancy to track the clone down. Shiv found the enemy in seconds. A patch of blackness was spilling down through the bottom of the stratosphere, and there was a single red-gleaming dot amidst the impenetrable miasma.

Shiv's Psycho-Cartography was trying to get him to stop, but he couldn't. He refused. He needed to kill his clone. He needed to find whatever satisfaction he could. Shiv screamed across the sky like a missile, and his Vitae golem followed a moment thereafter. As he plunged into the Creeping Void, he zeroed in on the small presence of life force in a second and slammed an open palm against the target's head. His blow inflicted no damage. His force left him as a splash of rippling waves that outlined the clone's arm in cascading vectors.

A humanoid form stared back at him, taunting him with an open-armed gesture. He snarled as he tackled his clone through the air. As he pushed, his clone cycled his force and slammed it back into Shiv. So, consumed by rage, Shiv didn't even bother converting the force back. He just took it dead-on against his pillar, and it cracked. The amount of energy discharged by this Legendary Skill was obscene. It simply didn't seem so, considering how controlled and contained it was.

It was focused damage, focused strength, targeted on a specific entity that the user wished to break. At that moment, the entity in question was Shiv. His chest collapsed inward, but he responded with a feral cry. He consumed his wounds using his Aegis, and he slammed his Biomancy against his adversary.

The clone expended some of the overflow-tides he'd stolen from Shiv to blunt the Deathless's magic. Then he started twisting Shiv's mana hydra. He reached out and seized it by the heads, and he began to rip. A strain built within Shiv's Biomancy. He caught the clone by the wrist and drove his own force against his. Twin tides clashed against each other, but the clone still had a bit of overflow reserve left.

Even with Shiv's Berserk state, that was enough to tip the balance.

Shiv found himself swatted across the sky. His Orichalcum pillar fractured along the middle, and blood filled Shiv's mouth, but he flung himself back at his enemy, back to continue the fight. He wouldn't stop until—

A deafening noise drew his attention downward.

The clone didn't attack him, didn't use that opportunity to finish Shiv off. Instead, he simply pointed a finger down, and the Creeping Void parted.

Shiv found himself staring, not at a clone, but at his Vitae Golem. Another thunderous sound followed, and Shiv's anger gave way to confusion, which in turn gave way to disgrace and incredulity.

Pulsing waves of force spread through Blackedge, pulsing waves that pulled in different directions. Sections of the town collapsed inward, buildings were flattened, and its very foundations fractured. The town was cloven asunder, ripped in half in a final burst of force, and it fell from the sky. It fell as a single entity remained, hovering there, dangling as if on a string.

As Shiv's focus snapped back to his clone, he bowed deeply toward Shiv with a flourish of his arms.

And Shiv knew he'd failed again, knew he had lost, that he needed to repeat this entire process once more. Knew that he'd lost because he had been bested emotionally and psychologically by a fucking clone of himself dreamed up by the System.

That sent his fury to the stratosphere. An animalistic cry left Shiv. He launched himself at the clone, determined to punish him before this whole scenario was reset. The Delve shuddered as he was a hand's breadth away from his throat, and Shiv was falling from the sky alone. As he fell, he screamed, he screamed with such anger that blood vessels in his eyes burst and his vocal cords tore.

His Psycho-Cartography tried to get him to stop, but Shiv ignored it. Every thought he had was of violence and destruction. He wanted to batter the clone's defenses aside. He wanted to break him. He wanted to become an overwhelming force. He wanted to become unstoppable.

Initializing Unconfirmed Legendary Skill Evolution: Nexus of Implacable Destruction

The following encounters turned into a haze. Rather than being able to convert external types of force into overflowing waves, Shiv simply became a battery. A battery of pure and unfettered destruction. Things broke around him. He constantly got stronger with every feat of strength he performed. And his strength fell when he stopped straining himself. But that was fine with him. He was mad now. Madder than the clone was. And that would be his edge. He would use his Berserk and his Master of Rage feat to overwhelm the clone, to tear him in half. Using this new skill, he could do it. The last one was too complicated anyway.

His Psycho-Cartography cried out to him once more, but Shiv ignored it as before. He obliterated the elemental golem. Tore the Jealousy in half. And ripped every single finger the Recollector had off before draining it of all life force.

When the clone returned, Shiv went for him immediately. He didn't even remember to make a Vitae golem this time. He slammed against the clone and found him smirking.

The clone didn't try any tricks this time. He simply grappled with Shiv and was pushed back. The amount of force he generated per struggle was far inferior to an enraged Shiv's. He'd used his Feat, but the rage had roared back to life immediately. And soon the clone would die. He would wet Shiv's skin with his blood and viscera.

"I do wonder," the clone said through gritted teeth, "what they'd think if any of them saw you. If they could see you now, they might understand why the people of Blackedge hated you so much."

Shiv didn't have a proper reply. He tried biting the clone's nose off. But before he could ever get close, something hit him in the midsection. And then a Vitae Golem, made by the clone, grasped Shiv. And the two of them drained the Deathless at once. For the first time, Shiv was overwhelmed utterly and completely. He was stronger than the clone, but he wasn't that much stronger. Not enough to instantly win. And so, as Shiv tried to counter-drain, as he tried to stay alive, he found himself fighting a hopeless battle.

As every last bit of him was reduced to streams of hissing red, he experienced something truly new, vanishing into nonexistence with a final touch of harrowing coldness.

And then he was falling again, and Shiv exploded in a haze of rage. He lost track of time then, as he lost track of himself. Instead of even attempting the encounters, he just slammed down on Blackedge with his fists, shattering it in a cataclysmic impact. He discharged his inertia, and he killed everyone he could see.

The Delve reset over and over and over again.

When he calmed, he tried the encounters once more. He got to the clone, and all it took was seeing his contemptuous sneer to set him off again.

Feral with rage, he went after his doppelganger once more, and by the time he got to him, he lost the encounter. A Vitae Golem detonated itself at the center of Blackedge, and the town was shattered into pieces.

The Delve reset, and Shiv felt something in his mind give.

He was physically shaking from sheer frustration and fury. He was so angry that he didn't even react when he smashed the battlements, when he crushed some child or another underfoot.

The Delve reset.

Shiv continued his breakdown in a blur of aimless violence and destruction.

He didn't know how many cycles passed before he finally regained some control of himself. But when he came back to his senses, he was lying on the soft lawn behind Starhawk's Perch, where he'd died his first death and gained his Path on the day of the eclipse. He was lying there, shaking, shuddering, trying to control his rapid breathing.

"Are you calm now?" he whispered to himself. He blinked. He didn't know why he said that. "Are you calm now?" he repeated.

Psycho-Cartography: Are you calm now? Are you finally spent of anger?

It took a moment for Shiv to respond. He had used his Master of Rage Feat over and over again. But with everything that had happened, his rage was practically boundless, constantly surging back to its apex, no matter how often he used it up. And there was more than just rage in him by now, things the Feat could not digest. Every time he faced the clone, the other version of him knew just what to say to make things hurt.

"No," Shiv admitted. "No, I'm not calm, and I'm not fucking fine." He seethed, wiping at his face. There was one thing more pathetic than being this mad. It was being bullied until tears of anger and frustration spilled out from his eyes.

This hadn't happened since he was five.

Stop. Stop that.

"I'm fucking trying!" Shiv snarled. A beam cut into the air, and screams sounded. Shiv realized the first encounter had begun, but he ignored the golem. He needed a moment. He rubbed at his eyes hard and tried to suppress all the bitterness, all the desperation, all the fear swelling inside him.

Psycho-Cartography: Take a moment and compose yourself.

"Stop doing that! I'm trying!" Shiv shouted. "I'm trying. I'm godsdamn trying…" He slammed his fist against the ground, and a massive crater formed. Blackedge tipped slightly. Shiv was surprised by the overwhelming power, but he realized his Legendary Skill had changed, not for the better. Waves of rippling devastation pulsed out from him with every heartbeat. With each second, the soil around him was rent asunder, and he sank down, down, down.

I'm not telling you to stop being angry. I'm not telling you to stop crying. I'm saying, stop being rough with yourself. You can't do that anymore. There should be a lesson for you.

Shiv paused. "A lesson?" he choked out. "What kind of lesson?"

The lesson that you're mentally vulnerable and easy to provoke if your enemy knows your mind, Psycho-Cartography declared, speaking directly into his mind, barely different from his own internal monologue. That's fine. Everyone's a little messed up. Some, a lot worse than this. But you need to get a handle on your problems right now, because the clone is going to use it against you over and over again. Of course, he knows how to. He is you. He knows what hurts. And you have to know what hurts better than he does.

Shiv nodded as he let out a shuddering breath. "Okay. Okay, yeah. I understand."

Do you? Psycho-Cartography replied. Because from how you are right now, you're just trying to get through this, and get back to fighting the clone, so that he can mentally torture you into another breakdown, and we can waste another encounter.

"And what the hells am I supposed to do?"

The skill stayed silent.

"What do I have that I can use against him? I have nothing!" Shiv shouted. He immediately regretted his final words. He'd always been his own pillar, but right now, he didn't feel like any kind of pillar at all. He felt… He felt…

He didn't want to say that he was broken. He wouldn't admit it, even if he was. But he felt tired. Like it was all too much. He was alone. He didn't know if his friends were alive or dead. The System was trying to kill him. Everything was crashing down on him at once. And he had to process it all at the same time, without even a moment of rest.

And that's a mistake, Psycho-Cartography said. You didn't deal with some of these problems beforehand, and so you're going to need to deal with them all at once.

"I never had to deal with this before," Shiv said, trying not to hiccup.

Because you've always avoided it before. You were probably going to be mentally tough enough forever. We're going to regenerate from this. It's not truly going to leave any marks; our fucked up mind will make sure of that. But right now, the clone knows the exact right combination of words to send you into a rage.

"And what am I supposed to do about that?" Shiv whispered.

Well, you can start by reverting your Legendary Skill to the original, because this one is for dumb brutes. We're done with that. Another wave of devastation pulsed out from him. Blackedge was coming apart around him. That's not what you need.

"It's more powerful," Shiv said. "I don't need to think about anything when I use it. It's always building in the background. When I strain myself…"

When you strain yourself, you turn into a bomb, Psycho-Cartography interrupted him. And it isn't more powerful. It works differently. It's easier. You don't need to think or focus on it, so it can just build up in the background. But you want to know what else it does? It detonates outside of you. It's like a discharge every other second. And it amplifies the damage you do. You're going to kill more people than the clone if you keep operating on this. And how are you going to fight near Adam or Uva?

"I don't even know if they're alive," Shiv choked out.

The skill paused, letting Shiv's words linger. And what if they're dead? it finally asked.

Shiv flinched at that. He didn't want to think about that. He never even wanted to consider it.

But you need to. You need to face the pain. You can survive it. You know you can.

"I don't want to," Shiv said through gritted teeth. His breathing was speeding up again, and he gripped his chest. "I don't want to." And something inside him ached. It hurt so bad that he would rather be tortured by the Recollector again than feel this pain.

Yeah, that's called emotional agony, Psycho-Cartography said. No one deals with it very well. Tell yourself why it hurts.

"Because I'll be alone again," Shiv admitted. "Because I'll lose the only people who've ever cared about me." He covered his face as he let out a shuddering breath.

"I don't want to go back," he whispered. "I don't want to go back to being who I was on Blackedge. Every day, every single day, they treated me like I was less than human. Every day, I pretended I didn't care. I dealt with it. Every day, for all my life."

And they were pieces of shit for doing so, Psycho-Cartography said gently. Fuck Roland Arrow, and fuck the people of Blackedge.

Shiv nodded, and he swallowed and swallowed again. He got his breathing fully under control and slowly drew his hands away from his face. The cool air washed against him, and he was beyond the soil now. The constant blast of force had cut so deep that he found himself sitting in a trench. His ass was pressing against stone.

"You know what, you're probably right," Shiv said. "The last skill was better."

I know. And you would have known that too if you weren't so consumed by anger.

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"Well, what the hell am I going to do?" Shiv asked again, more calm this time. "Every time I run into the clone, I just…" His hands shook. "Even if I get the old skill back, I'm not… It's not strength that's the problem anymore. It's not the skill, it's…"

You?

"Yeah," Shiv said, "it's me. It's me and all the shit I didn't deal with so far. You're right."

A sigh came from the skill. Look, knock that off. I'm going to give you this opportunity and not press you on it because you're emotionally compromised. But we're not a child. You think I'm not helping because I am, you dumbass. I want you to get better. I want you to get through this so that we can stop being trapped here and deal with our next nightmare problem: the Ascendants and their prison. But this is important. This is an opportunity. Because if we can handle our weaknesses here, then we'll be better prepared for the outside.

Shiv wasn't sure if that was just his psychology coping with him being trapped in the Delve for so long. But he let it go. He wanted to cope anyway. He wanted to get out.

You won't get out unless you do this well. Unless you finally figure out how to overcome jackass you, Psycho-Cartography said. And you know what I'm thinking? I think you already have the tools.

Shiv was surprised at that. But as he slowed down to think about every line of dialogue he'd exchanged with his clone, he suspected the skill was right. The clone wasn't exactly calm in the encounter, either. He was mocking. He was vicious in his sneering. He hit every single sore spot inside Shiv by the end of their earlier encounter. But the clone also raged. He was upset. Upset that he was just that. A clone. Upset that he was generated specifically for this Delve to be used as a challenge for Shiv. Nothing more.

That's right. He hates that. Because we would hate that. We would hate that more than anything else in the world. You were wondering why he's a jackass. Well, that's why: Imagine yourself being generated by the System to serve as nothing more than a temporary challenge for another, realer version of you. After that, you go back to the darkness, never having existed, never being real.

A faint shudder ran through Shiv as he considered that line of thought. The cold tendrils of existential horror gripped him. "You really think he's self-aware?"

He certainly believes it. We don't know because we can't glance into his mind without overpowering him. But I suspect that the truth is about as ugly as we guess. It's the System we're dealing with here, after all. The System is a fucker. And it never fucks halfway. But don't consider that for now. Consider what you might say to yourself. And before you're doing that, just breathe. Take a minute off. Take a few minutes off. Hell, take an hour.

"But the others…" Shiv choked out, his nose clogging up again.

They're Pathbearers too, the skill said, voice stern but gentle. Remember what Valor told you. You're going to take wounds at some point. But, at the same time, I don't think Adam's that easy to kill. And neither is Uva. Have a little faith in them. And if you're wrong, you will have time to mourn, and you will have retribution to inflict. But that's a problem you have to deal with seriously as well. Right now, you are not dealing with it seriously. You're just using it to self-mutilate.

"I know," Shiv whispered. "I know. But it's hard."

Silence followed for a moment. Then, Psycho-Cartography spoke once more. I know it's hard. I'm sorry that it's hard. You deserved better. We deserved better. We have to be honest with ourselves right now. Our life has mostly been a bitter horror show. It wasn't the worst life in existence. You've seen the slaves out there, you know how their lives were. But no one enjoys coming in second place in this shit-sucking competition that is life. Because we are all still sucking shit in the end.

Shiv managed a humorless laugh. "Thanks, skill."

Thank yourself, and be softer with yourself. Maybe not when you're fighting, maybe not when you're training, but right now. Right now, deal with your problems. This, too, is a Skill Evolution. It might not feel like it, but you're dealing with something. You're building your health up. Stop breaking yourself. Start building. Treat yourself like… The skill paused. Like a meal. Like a dish. You can be your own masterpiece.

Psycho-Cartography 53 > 61

And that opened something in Shiv's mind. Suddenly, the world didn't feel quite so miserable anymore. A rush of energy filled him.

"Make myself into my own masterpiece," Shiv said. "Because who else is going to do it, right?"

Yes, Psycho-Cartography replied. Who else is going to do it?

Shiv nodded, and he spent a few minutes just waiting. Waiting for his mind to calm down. And when he was done, he reverted the simulation by walking up to a slave. They disintegrated into a bloody smear. The Delve reset. And as it did, Shiv demanded his previous Legendary Skill back.

Initializing Unconfirmed Legendary Skill Evolution: Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides

When it was returned, Shiv began running the gauntlet once more. Instead of lashing out recklessly and brutally, he took his time learning more about the nuances of his Legendary Skill. Previously, the Jealousy claimed that this was a Void Leviathan skill. Shiv didn't know much about the void, but he did know there were creatures up there. He'd even seen some when the Tarrasque teleported him up into space a few hours ago; the strange, dancing beings moving west.

Based on how his Legendary Skill worked, Shiv suspected that the creature the Greater Demon had mentioned wasn't just overwhelmingly powerful. It was likely very intelligent as well, and probably highly competent in the use of physics.

Right now, he could convert any physical force used on him and have it serve his own means. Or he could continue cycling his generated pulses to build up his force reserve. Yet, that was only scratching the surface. He'd seen how his clone had managed to tear Blackedge apart using the skill. Clearly, he'd built up quite a surplus of force before he did.

But the main part there was grappling. He was a grappler. He needed to fight like a grappler using the skill. It meant less striking, less reckless blows, less violent discharges, and more channels, more control, more crushing, snapping, twisting. And that was ultimately the word, control. The skill was all about concentration and control.

The other Legendary Skill he'd adjusted to was simple. It was something he didn't even need to think about. If he had to guess, it was a Tarrasque skill, because all it did was break the world around him. But if someone with that skill fought him right now, he liked his odds. He liked his odds because he was a shaper of forces, instead of just being a hammer or a bomb that constantly set itself off.

And it was in pursuing this line of thought that he came up with a new plan to deal with his clone. A plan that replicated what the clone did to him earlier. I need him to be mad, Shiv thought. So mad he loses control and comes right at me. I can't beat him on the defensive, and I can't outplot him; he has too much room to operate compared to me. And he moves too fast with this skill and with a golem of his own. He can attack Blackedge in any number of ways. So I need him to focus on me and only me.

And he would do that by attacking the only thing the clone really cared about. His sense of self.

***

"What do you think of many?" Shiv asked the Recollector. The eldritch entity answered by screaming as Shiv unleashed his full might. Every overflowing tide and innately generated pulse of physical power surged out from Shiv's hand into the Recollector's body and spiked in five directions at the same time.

The abomination didn't even get to scream as it was ripped apart. It was strong, it was fast, it was tough. But now, it was just a victim to Shiv. And when he next faced an eldritch enemy, he might fall again, but it wouldn't be for a lack of might.

As soon as the Recollector died, Shiv let out a breath. He acknowledged that the clone made him unnerved. That he even felt a little sympathetic toward him now. But he also focused on the fact that the clone was just that. A clone, nothing more. He would never be real. He would never be the actual Shiv. And that bothered him. So, Shiv decided to do something drastically different when he made his golem this time.

Shiv gave the golem Psycho-Cartography.

"Time for a little psychological offensive," Shiv said to himself.

The clone descended once more. He yawned, his arms folded. He looked down at Shiv with a hint of derision in his eyes. "Oh, so you're finally done throwing fits. Gotta say, that was pretty pathetic. In the last few attempts, you weren't even trying. Hells, you broke Blackedge yourself half the time. I just needed to sit by and watch."

"Yeah," Shiv admitted, swallowing the shame. "Not my best moment, but at least I'll get to live with it."

The clone went still. He cocked his head. "'You'll get to live with it.' Is that what you're telling yourself now?"

"That's what I'm telling myself," Shiv said, nodding. "Because, well, you know, there's no point in telling you. You're not real."

"You're not real," the Vitae golem suddenly said.

Shiv's Farsight was concentrated on the clone's face. And for a moment, there was no expression. No expression until Shiv noticed the tightening of tendons in the clone's neck and the soft snarl that passed from his lips.

"Okay," the clone breathed, nodding, "I see what this is."

"It doesn't matter what you see," the Vitae Golem continued.

"It doesn't matter what you think," Shiv added. "You're not real, you're never going to be real. You think just because you have a Psycho-Cartography skill, or you have any of my skills, that you're going to, what, break out of this prison? Escape the Delve that created you?"

The clone was silent, but the way he was glaring at Shiv told the Deathless his hit was working. "So, how long do you think you can make this last? Another hour? Another day? You know, I just need to win once, right?"

"You're not going to win once," the clone said with a slight hiss. "I won't let you."

"And now who's lying to themselves?" Shiv pressed. "Now, who's the drunk? I'm going to inevitably win once. You know that. You are me. Well, a pale shadow of me. Maybe just a simulated interpretation of me, but still. You are me enough to know that I won't give up. And you're going to screw up once. You're going to get unlucky once. And after that…" Shiv shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll leave. And I guess you won't exist anymore. I'll try to think of you sometimes, but… I suspect there will be other versions of you, in other Delves I'll have to deal with later. I'm guessing that whatever the Psychology Delve will throw at me will be a lot more painful for me than you are. Maybe I should view you as a warm-up for the actual challenge. But that would probably be giving you too much weight. There's no point in getting mad at a fucking mannequin, after all."

The clone wasn't moving at all, but his mana hydras were coiling tighter and tighter around his body.

"Adam and Uva were never your friends," the Vitae golem said to the clone. "They will never be your friends. You will never meet them. They don't know you. And even if they die screaming our names, they will always be calling for us, not you."

"Your jealousy has been noticed," Shiv said, clicking his tongue

"And," the Vitae golem gestured to Shiv, "he got to meet the girl. He got to have friends. He got to be loved, feared, and respected. You… It's such a pity you'll never get any of this."

A loud snarl escaped from the clone as he blasted toward Shiv and the golem. The clone's own golem punched down from the sky, aiming for Blackedge. Focus took hold inside Shiv. He activated both his Blessings as he went into battle against a darker version of himself.

"Go get the other golem," Shiv told his own. It responded by casting itself back in time. The other golem predictably pivoted and went for Shiv.

Four bodies came together in the skies above Blackedge, but there were no shockwaves. There was no destruction. Instead, Shiv greeted his clone with a massive amount of kinetic energy stored. But he didn't unleash it on the clone directly. Instead, he counter-grappled against his other self.

The clone pushed his tides against Shiv, and Shiv sent tides back. They fought to control wrists, to hook their arms underneath the other's armpits to maintain a dominant hold. With every passing second of struggle, the clone grew larger, his muscles grew tenser, the force he generated exceeding Shiv's fivefold. He was growing with Berserk, but he didn't quite have Shiv's surplus, and that proved to be his mistake. He wasn't thinking. The clone had the same faults as Shiv.

And so, as the Deathless began to batter him using his mana hydras, the clone was taken by surprise. He spent his strength fighting off Shiv's magical skill. As he went to rip the head off a hydra, Shiv seized him by the arm and slammed a pulse of force against him. He had to spend strength to shrug off Shiv's grasp, but then came two more mana hydras. Both collided with the clone's body. Both were flung back in desperation as the clone channeled surging vectors of force against them. The clone's body was alight with solid stripes of red mana, but the stripes were constantly being spent to keep Shiv's own strength and Biomancy at bay.

The clone was fighting a defensive struggle. And you couldn't defend forever, though you could technically attempt to spend forever trying to smash through a foe that had a proper surplus—and kept building on it.

Meanwhile, Shiv kept building up, kept gathering more force, while he alternated between his mana hydras and his brute force. By the time the clone responded using his own magic, he was running so much of a strength deficit that he barely kept Shiv off of him, and so he failed to protect his Biomancy field. Shiv slammed one of his hydras against his clone's, and as the two magical serpents wrestled with each other, he reached out, seized the clone's mana hydra, and ripped it in half.

A scream of pain came out from the clone, but as he was like Shiv, he didn't let that stop him. While the clone's Biomancy mana bled into the world, he fought on, swinging haymakers with brutal force, trying to overwhelm the Deathless. Shiv intercepted a blow and locked his foe's shoulder. With a sudden twist, Shiv dislocated his arm. The clone snarled. Shiv held him in place and kept channeling waves of force into him.

The clone regressed, becoming feral and sloppy. He slammed awkward hooks against Shiv's abdomen, but those punches just circulated within Shiv, and he returned the kinetic energy. But not against the clone's body. Instead, he targeted the clone's mana fields.

Shiv knew his weaknesses now, could think about them. While the clone was consumed with the urge to rip Shiv limb from limb, Shiv wrapped his hydras around the clone and forced the clone to waste another innately generated tide of force. While the clone struggled to push Shiv's hydras back, he drove his fingers into the clone's chest, and he tore, not at the clone's Biomancy, but his Psychomancy. The clone screamed. Shiv twisted again—and deboned the clone's right arm. Then, he shredded the clone's Pyromancy as well. His Hydromancy followed suit a moment after.

As the clone doubled over, Shiv wrapped an arm around his neck, and he suddenly plunged down. He didn't plunge down just with his Shapeless Tides. He used his Biomancy as well, and it was that coordination, that combined synergy of skills that finally overwhelmed the clone.

The clone spent what remained of his strength to counter Shiv's just to make sure his neck wasn't broken, but then the hydras were inside him, and his Biomancy was already shredded. At once, Shiv burst the clone's heart and lacerated his brain.

The clone let out a violent gasp, and with a ragged jerk, a final exhale escaped from him.

But as the clone dangled there, Shiv didn't mutilate him further, didn't break his body or crush his skull. Instead, Shiv pulled the clone tight against himself, offering him a proper embrace. He brought the clone's left ear close, not sure if he could somehow hear him, not sure if he was ever real. If he was, however, if he was more than just a simulation...

"I'm sorry," Shiv whispered. "We deserved better. We… we deserved more than being treated like shit, being used and hurt over and over again."

The clone didn't say anything. He was dead. Dead in Shiv's grasp. This fight was over. This Delve was over. But instead of feeling relief, Shiv enjoyed a subtle triumph and a feeling of bittersweet understanding.

Slowly, awkwardly, Shiv patted the clone on the side of the head. "I'll try to do right by you. I'll try to make it all worth it. I'll get better. I'll be better. I'll become a real Pathbearer. One that no clone will ever stop. One that you might be able to be proud of. One that's better than all the godsdamned cowards, hypocrites, and assholes we had to deal with all our life."

He sighed. "We live in a pretty pathetic fucking world, man. But I'm not going to add to that. I'm gonna stand. I'm gonna stand."

Maybe the clone couldn't hear, but the words felt like a balm for Shiv himself. And as he bit his lip, he felt a sense of peace replace some of the latent rage that always resided deep inside himself. A sense of peace that came from knowing he was more than just his own pillar. He was his own friend. He knew he could push himself to incredible heights. He knew he could drive himself to the very limits and beyond, to the point where most would break.

And now, he knew he had kindness to offer as well. Kindness, love, and decency.

He was becoming a full person.

Imagine that, Shiv thought to himself.

Encounter Complete (5/5)

All encounters complete

Do you wish to evolve to your current Legendary Skill?

After everything Shiv experienced, he had no doubt. The first choice was the right one. "Yeah."

Skill Evolution: Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides 500 (Legendary)

Feats (3/4)

As the Delve Quest came to a close, Shiv felt the Legendary Skill cement inside him. Power flooded him. Power washed over him with every heartbeat. And power kissed his flesh as the wind brushed him, as force itself became his clay.

Shiv let out a breath of relief. Psycho-Cartography, thank you. You really saved my ass.

Psycho-Cartography: You saved your own ass. Now, learn to use your Shapeless Tides Skill a whole lot better. Considering how the brute force version of you is such a social nightmare, I hope you get really good at fighting, because you're probably going to need to beat your Legendary Psychology clone to death with your fists.

Shiv let out a muted laugh. "Yeah, I suspect that's the case. Well, I think we'll have a little time until then. Enough for us to get healthier. Enough for us to get better."

You know that will make the clone better too, right? Psycho-Cartography replied.

Shiv snorted. "Then he just becomes very good practice."

And for the first time, Shiv thought he heard the skill laugh.

Finally, the clone disappeared. The Delve collapsed. But this time it didn't restart. He got a final chance to look down at Blackedge, and a rush of pride went through him as he saw it as pristine as it was at the start of the battle. Not a single blade of grass was out of place.

This was the true flavor of victory.

Shiv felt himself ascend. Felt himself ascend and felt light and color return to his senses. His vision was blurred. The sounds around him were muted. But as he tried to move, he heard the jingling of chains and felt the cold touch of metal press against his bare skin. Shiv blinked. He looked down and realized he was utterly undressed.

And as he looked up, he found a badly damaged automaton kneeling before him. The ground was slick with blood, and the automaton was knee-deep in the gore, meditating. Shiv guessed that was where the Animancers used to be. No Animancers now. Just one jacked-up Avatar.

A flare of rage passed through the Deathless, but he controlled himself. He kept it contained until he needed it.

He learned more than one lesson in his Delve.

"So," Shiv began, "where are my clothes? If you touched my ass or cock while I was out, I'm going to do things to you."

Slowly, the automaton lifted its head. Lines of color ignited upon its triangular skull, and it offered Shiv a slight nod. "You return. You are a Legend now."

That was Cripple's voice. Shiv couldn't hear the Avatar at all.

Shiv shrugged. "Took a while. I could've done better."

The Ascendant let out a low drone of discomfort. "Have you Delved before?"

"Nah," Shiv said. Part of him wanted to lie. But he didn't see the point, and he wanted to know how good other people usually did. "First time."

Cripple looked down and nodded. "You are a martial talent, then. Many spend weeks to months trapped inside themselves, struggling against their inner Quest, falling to their own shadow time and time again."

Shiv frowned. "How long was I in there?"

"A day and no more." The automaton rose and stared Shiv straight in the eye.

The Deathless clenched his jaw and flexed his fingers, ripples of force splashing across his body. Shiv began to circulate the force he generated. He started building up an overflow. "You gonna ask what my Legendary Skill does now?" Shiv asked, trying to provoke a response from the automaton.

"I know what it does," Cripple answered. "I have faced a pod of Void Leviathans and suffered defeat at their hands. As a god." The Ascendant's admission caught Shiv off guard. "And so, I must ask… How did you attain such an evolution? It is not for Individual Pathbearers. How is this possible?"

The Deathless leaned back and looked the Ascendant up and down. And an idea tickled his mind. "How about a question for a question. I'll tell you something. You tell me something."

The automaton considered his request and nodded. "Acceptable. What do you wish to know?"

Shiv clenched his fists and started letting his shapeless tides flow along the Orichalcum chains holding him in place. "Blackedge and its survivors. Where are they right now? What is their condition?"