Path of the Deathless (Book 2 Completed)

211 (III)

Campus [II]

***

"We should go out now!" Urri spat. "We should find him, tear him apart. If you don't think you're mighty enough, then Urri will—"

"Be silent," the Jotun snarled back. The Vulteg's resilience was awesome, and it was practically the only reason why Andra hadn't killed the High Marshal yet. Threads of Divination mana expended out from her like the branches of a tree, an apt representation of her Divination skill.

For through the branches and trunk of the System, everything was connected. The Deathless had managed to break free of her Divination twice before, and she wasn't sure how. Her heart was in turmoil, for though he was an enticing prize, her battle-honed instincts told her that she faced a truly dangerous threat. Now he was impossibly missing.

She had found him seconds earlier. It was one of the easiest traces she had ever performed. System-favored burned bright when gazed upon with Divination. They were like bonfires in the middle of dark forests. But this Deathless, he was practically the sun itself, and he bled so much conflict that it clung to those around him. It was already clinging to her as well. She was burning too, slowly catching fire from this single interaction alone. Someone like that didn't just go missing. Earlier, he'd failed to even react to her Divination-based attack in time.

The System told her he lacked the magical means to fight back. That meant he didn't have any Divination mana. He relied on Foreshadowing or something like that. Could it be Exposition? No, she couldn't remember anyone using Exposition to fight back against her. With her power, any messages they intended to inflict were easily swatted aside. It wasn't the same with the Deathless. He simply broke free. He was there, then he was gone.

A Unique Skill, then, she concluded, one that briefly allows him to tread between worlds. Her mother had possessed such a skill, the reason it proved so difficult for Andra to slay her.

Deductive Reasoning 48 > 49

"Jotun. I will not wait here. I will not! Urri will not wait. Urri will strike down the ape-dogs of this land and crush their feeble machines. And you—"

"I am the only reason we broke free of that perimeter!" Andra shot back at the raging Vulteg. She turned her glare at the simple creature. How this one had made it to High Marshal was beyond her. His god must have promoted him like certain tyrants promoted their personal pets. The Storm Lord had a century-old turtle that could barely speak or count to ten, even as a Heroic-Tier monster. And it was still significantly more charming than this Fingerling.

"It's not that I don't want to take his life, Urri," she said slowly, as if a master speaking to a soft acolyte. "It's that I don't know where he is. I need to consider our steps. You can fight bravely and end up back in another cage. Is that what you want? To fail Lord Scorn? To see this Adam of yours slip through your fingers again?"

With the invocation of Lord Scorn's name, Urri turned away, ashamed and cowed.

A pet, indeed, Andra thought. "No," she said softly, "we do this carefully. Right now, we are safe. The Ascendants don't know where we are. But this anchor, it is hidden for a reason. It still functions for a reason." Andra licked her lips and considered how rusted it was. "I think this is a smuggling anchor. Which means the Neath is operational here." And that filled her old stone heart with joy. The Neath. She could do business with the Dragon Brokers. She had a few favors to cash in and coin to burn. "We wait," she said again, more certain than ever. "We wait until one of their operatives jumps in."

"And how long will that take?" Urri grumbled. "A week? A month? A year?"

"It means nothing to us. You have that resolve, don't you, Urri?"

"I don't," Divider crackled from its place on the ground. "Listen, you guys can go a long while without eating, but I practically spent my entire charge getting us out of there. If you don't find a way to boost up my core, I think I'm going to go to... to… I got one more jump charted. One more spot left in me if this goes south. But that's it. I'll be spent for real real."

The automaton's stuttering told Andra that it wasn't lying. She did her best to hide the scowl of judgment threatening to creep across her face. These machine-beings were remarkable in certain ways, but often they were more trouble than they were worth.

"Breeze," Andra said, feeling the hidden Pathbearer glide around her body. "I will be in need of your skills. I wish to know the layout of the campus, and I wish to know what its security looks like, the forces at its disposal, the strongest Pathbearer on these grounds, and potential weaknesses we can exploit."

"That'll take a while," Breeze whistled. "I'll have to move carefully. The Yellowstone Republic has a lot of resources vested in this place."

A cruel smile developed on the Jotun's face. "Good. Then perhaps I might be able to strike a blow for Court and Kith before this travesty is through."

Just then, she felt her Divination twitch. The branches of the violet tree coiled in on themselves violently. She felt him. The Deathless. He was near, very close. But she didn't know where, couldn't see him yet. He radiated with power. She could taste the tension in the air, that residue of strife, and it choked her. He was getting even closer now. Her breath came fast.

"What is wrong, giantess?" Urri said. For once, he seemed unnerved as well.

"It's... it's him. I can feel him. He's close. I can feel his heat radiating through the walls, filling this anchor. He's—" and just then, every branch on her tree speared down and pierced through her. As it did, she realized, a moment too late, that the Deathless was in the teleportation anchor among them.

She spun, summoning a wicked scythe of frost. Her blow split the air, but the winds didn't scream. They didn't even move. All halted before her. Wind, energy, magic, soulstuff, thought. Everything was frozen. But not the Deathless. No, he wasn't there. He felt altogether absent for a moment, and then he was back again.

The tree rattled with intense ferocity, collapsing around her, sinking like a puddle at her very feet. A groan escaped from Andra. For the first time, she felt the full embrace of his residual strife, and it was like being swallowed by a star going supernova. It took a great deal to make a Jotun sweat, and when that happened, heart palpitations followed. A feverish weakness crept through her.

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"He's inside!" Andra hissed. "He's with us!"

"What?" Urri cried aloud. "Where?" He stomped, whipping his head left and right. The large tentacles connected to his skull crackled about, leaving sonic booms in the air.

"I can't sense him," Divider choked out. "Where is he? Where?"

Breeze didn't say anything. Instead, she began circulating through the air, sweeping the chamber. Between the lot of them, Andra had the highest awareness, and it was Heroic. It didn't do anything for her. She couldn't feel any aberrant vibrations in the air, any shifts in the temperature, any...

She let out a sudden hiss of pain as something sank into her lower back. It glided up, and she felt a cut travel through her body. Things inside her tore. Blood filled her mouth. But the Jotun didn't double over. She tried to move, but a crushing strength flooded through the wound in her back and clutched her spine, and this time, Andra did let out a piercing cry. This pain was unlike any she'd ever experienced.

"Jotun!" Urri cried aloud, his voice a snarl of pure rage. "Where is he? Where?" But as he stepped forward, Andra felt herself get wrenched up to the side, used as a meat shield to block the Vulteg's advance.

"Yeah, none of that. You come close to me, and I'll crack her spine." The voice was deep and vicious. She felt the Deathless manifest briefly behind her, only to vanish a second right after. He left this realm again, she realized.

What a Unique Skill… I must have it… Andra sucked in a ragged gasp of air and focused herself. This was a humiliation. But how? She felt the presence of his soul, of his narrative significance. But where was he, actually? Even now, she was having a hard time pinpointing his location, like he was spread across multiple places at once. Just then, she felt a presence materialize behind her.

There was a flash of white and red, and a puff of vitality curled around the corner of her vision. As she looked over her shoulder, there stood the Deathless. He had taken his false semblance off. Instead of looking like a feeble boy, he was the size of a juvenile giant, a colossus of a man. His armor was a mix of skeletal and insectoid, and over his skull sockets were compound eyes, reminding Andra of a dragonfly's.

With a sudden movement, he withdrew something sharp from her back. Andra grunted in pain as a spray of blood flew through the air. To her disbelief, what he held wasn't a blade or even a club. No, it seemed like a frying pan with wicked Orichalcum saws along the edges.

Shaking off her surprise, she began to wield her Cryomancy subtly. She condensed a flow of cold air nearby and started shaping it into the outline of her person. The Deathless had surprised her with his tricks, but she wasn't without her own.

As the winds within the anchor grew more intense, the Deathless tilted his head and barked a command. "Hey, knock that shit off. I know you're there. I can see your vitality. You try anything, and I put her down."

Breeze stilled, but didn't stop flowing.

"Then you will die," Urri said. "Her life is the only thing sparing you from my hands."

The Deathless scoffed. "Yeah, that, the fact you can't grapple worth a godsdamn, and that you're dumb as a pile of broken bricks that had a lobotomized dog bleed over them, which is not unexpected for one of Lord Scorn's special dipshits."

It was the last insult that affected Urri. His single eye turned bloodshot. "You dare speak ill of Lord Scorn's name?"

"I dare to do a lot of things," the Deathless deadpanned. "Right now, I'm daring to discuss terms."

"Terms?" Andra repeated. The Deathless was audacious. He hadn't killed her immediately. It would be his folly, but for now, she wanted to play along. This one was intriguing.

"Well, I guess there's a reason why you haven't just burst out from the anchor and started massacring people." He chuckled humorlessly. "Not keen on going back to jail, are we?"

"Not even a little," Divider crackled from the ground. It groaned. "I don't know, guys. Maybe let's be reasonable. Let's hear the guy out. Give hope and peace a chance. Mainly because if you make me jump again, I'm gonna be taking a nap—and that might end up being real final for me."

The Deathless inclined his head. "Yeah, so, I get that. In fact, we're in the same boat there. I'm no big fan of the Ascendants, either. Frankly, I'm a bit sour on this whole Republic thing in general. Hasn't been that great of an experience so far."

"Oh," Andra said. "And so, the enemy of your enemy is…"

"Not your friend at all," the Deathless cut her off. She felt him tighten his grip, and she bit back a rasp of pain.

"How did you do that?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"How did I do what? Survive you stabbing me through the throat? Cute skill, by the way. Divination? Throwing Proficiency?" She didn't say anything. You didn't give information to intriguing adversaries.

"Alright, I'm gonna go with that for now," the Deathless assumed. "Well, you got cute tricks, and I got cute tricks, too. We can both play at being mysterious."

She updated him from being merely intriguing to quite annoying. She would delight in torturing information out of him. Andra had finally finished shaping her simulacrum. Now, all she needed to do was fill its insides with circulating Cryomantic mana. She worked carefully, slowly, and to her delight, she realized her enemy didn't have a very high Awareness Skill either. What an ironic weakness they both shared…

"Whatever the case, I think I know why you're all here. You're waiting for some dork from the Neath to drop by, huh? You probably know that this is one of their drop-off points, don't you?"

"I do," Andra boasted openly. "And it seems you do as well. Have you business with them?"

"Yeah, unwilling business," the man admitted, "but maybe business that could benefit us all. I don't got a lot of time. We have around two minutes before this nice and calm conversation turns into a flood of angry Pathbearers ripping through the outside of this anchor to put you guys down."

That changed things immediately. "You told them where we are?"

"Oh, I'm not the one telling them. But my associate is waiting outside. He gave me a bit, so a bit's gonna have to do. We got around two minutes left, and if things go wrong in that time, then we're all bound for the cells again. Not really the way I want it, but sometimes we don't have good choices to make. In summary, I'm desperate, which means you're desperate, which means I want a few reassurances."

Andra clenched her teeth. She had no idea if he was telling the truth or not, but assumptions killed. She briefly stopped tracing her simulacrum. "What kind of assurances?"

"The kind that makes sure you guys don't go apeshit and kill a bunch of students. That's enough."

She didn't know how long until his reinforcements arrived, but she wasn't going to risk it. He was trying to force her into betraying herself; into accepting bondage. This was an offense to her dignity and honor—one already tarnished through capture. Worse, his tongue wiggled and lashed at her mind in strange ways; she was not going to wait for him to use his Social witchery on her. Such dishonorable skills were greeted with brutal retribution: a sudden strike.

Andra gave Urri a nod and hissed at Breeze. The air went still. Divider sighed. The Vulteg loudly asked her if her neck was hurt because he was dumber than warg dung.

The Jotun acted.

She finished shaping her simulacrum and burst into motion. A blade of pure frost whipped through the air, and the Deathless only managed a partial turn of his head before a clean stroke slid through his neck. His body shuddered briefly, and he tumbled to the ground, legs bowing inward. As he went down, black-red ichor spilled over Andra's back, and it turned into a coiling mess of red and white right after.

Strange blood you have, Deathless. But how disappointing. I expected more resilience.

"Divider—" she began.

Then, another blow struck the back of her skull, and this time she felt a cut glide through bone and split her brain asunder.

And with that, Andra let out something between a snarl and a choked gasp as she went down as well.